Note: (Not worth calling a warning, really…) This chapter contains a little fairly crude humour. I sincerely doubt it, but if this offends you, please don't complain. What we encounter there is, after all, a fact of life.

Bakura and Yami both sat in a sullen silence that evening when the group convened round the campfire for their usual evening meal. Tonight was Ryou's turn to cook, and he was desperately trying to think of something that might cheer the yamis up a bit. As pleasant as having a bit of peace was, he didn't want it to be at the expense of the group's enjoyment.

"Ah!" he cried out suddenly, hopping off his log and making his way into his tent. "Let's see… did I bring it…?"

There came no further sounds from Ryou, save for packets being shuffled about, and Bakura could feel the curiosity beginning to gnaw at him. His hikari was evidently planning something, but he had no idea what. When he tried to find out over their mind link, he came across something he didn't recognise. So whatever it was, it was something completely new.

Eventually, his already thin temper got the better of him. "Ryou, what on earth are you looking for?" he snapped, turning to glare at the tent his hikari was in.

"I heard about this stuff they eat in England called 'curry'," the boy called through the door of his tent. "I thought maybe we could give it a try while we're out here."

"Curry?" Bakura asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. "What's that?"

Ryou finally emerged from the tent, carrying various packets and pots. "It's a general name for this food that originally came from India," he explained, kneeling down and setting the gas stove up. "Depending on which one you make, it can be anything from mild and flavoury to mind-blowingly spicy."

"Like, chilli-spicy?" Yugi enquired curiously, standing and walking across to Ryou and leaning over his shoulder to look at some of the ingredients. "Or really hot chilli-spicy?"

"I'm not sure…" Ryou admitted. "I found one called 'Vindaloo' that seems to be really popular, but there's no mention of how hot it is. It's like it's a national secret or something."

"Or a national joke," Yami added, glad to bring himself into the conversation. "Maybe it's blindingly hot, and they don't actually eat it."

"Don't be daft, Yami," Malik interjected. "The English aren't that cruel to the world."

"Yeah," Bakura snorted, sarcasm evident in his voice. "They only invented concentration camps and the Spice Girls."

The group visibly shuddered as one at the mention of the latter.

"Ne, Ryou…" Yugi eventually ventured, not wanting to let the conversation die for fear of certain songs coming to mind again, "What are half of these ingredients anyway?" The boy leaned down and picked up a jar, eyeing the label curiously. "I mean… 'Mango Chutney'… what's that?"

"It's a sweet pickle, I think," Ryou offered. "You use it in the gentler dishes, or you can use it as a dip for your poppadums."

"…poppadums?" Yami repeated, blinking in confusion.

Ryou picked up a packet, which contained five large, thin, disc-shaped objects. "I don't know what these are made of," he conceded. "But they taste a bit like tortillas, only they're far crispier. They're like a first course, if you just have them with dips, or you can use them with the main course of your curry. Naan Bread is better for that, though…"

"Naan bread?" Malik asked.

Ryou was beginning to look a bit flustered by this point. "It's a type of Indian bread, that comes in different flavours. You can get plain, fruity, clove or garlic, for example."

"And what about the dips?"

"Uhm…" Ryou began weakly. "…well, you can have chutney, mint and yoghurt, coconut, hot lime, salad, chilli, massala, korma, bhuna…"

"So let me get this straight," Bakura interrupted. "You're going to give us a dish we know nothing about, that you have no idea what to expect of, and we're going to eat it with some unknown crispy things that are normally used for a load of dips we've basically never encountered?"

Ryou suddenly saw the major weakness in his plan, but nodded sheepishly anyway. "Well… yes…"

Bakura paused for a moment. "…Is it filling?"

"I'd think so," Yugi answered for Ryou, holding up a large bag of rice. "This is always a fair sign."

Bakura remained silent for a moment, his gaze flitting between the bag of rice, the pots, the ingredients and Ryou. "Make sure there's plenty of it," he finally stated, nodding his approval.

Ryou gave a sigh of relief as Yami agreed with Bakura, and set about beginning to cook it. "Ideally, you want the chicken to marinade for about a week beforehand," he explained as he fired up the stove. "But I think we can make do as it is…"

A while later, Ryou announced that the meal was ready, this declaration being greeted by a chorus of approval from four very hungry boys. Ryou couldn't help giggling slightly as he saw Yugi sniffing at the air, enchanted by the delicious aroma that came from the pot. Picking up and filling one of the bowls, Ryou offered it to the group in general. "Who wants to test it first?" he asked, looking round hopefully.

"Why won't you?" Bakura immediately countered, his eyes narrowing suspiciously again.

"I'm not too good with spicy food," Ryou admitted, looking almost ashamed of this. "If it's too hot…"

"I'll have it," Malik stated, saving Ryou from Bakura's scrutiny. The poor white-haired boy would doubtless have been forced to try it himself otherwise. Holding his hand out for the bowl, Malik grabbed a spoon from his sleeping bag and scooped up a mouthful, placing it in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully, evidently testing the flavour fully.

"…well?" Yami asked, impatient. His stomach's loud grumble backed up his question.

"It's good," Malik nodded, taking another spoonful. "Got a bit of a kick to it, but we'll manage."

The other boys were visibly relieved by this review, and Ryou set about dishing the food out to the others before taking a bowl for himself. He eyed the contents for a moment, still a little doubtful in case it was too spicy for him, before taking up a small spoonful and popping it in his mouth.

"Wow..." Yugi gasped, choking a little on his mouthful. "That really is a bit of a kick it's got." Fanning his mouth, eyes watering slightly, he darted into his tent to grab a can of drink.

"Don't worry," Malik stated, calmly having another mouthful. "It gets easier as you get used to it."

Ryou gave a small gasp as the spicy concoction landed on his tongue. "I hope so!" he panted, suddenly breathless, following Yugi's lead and grabbing a can of drink from his own tent. "That's the first time I've made a dish that bites back!"

The flames in his mouth doused, Yugi sat down beside Malik again, picking his bowl up and gingerly taking a second, smaller morsel. "Nnnn..." he grimaced slightly, fanning his mouth again as the heat came rushing back. "You're right, it does get easier, but I really hope it hurries up so I can actually eat it..."

"I think..." Ryou announced, also fanning his mouth as he gestured to the vindaloo with his spoon. "That this is what wine tasters mean when they say 'it has a robustness that demands a certain kind of attention'."

Yugi opened his mouth to reply, when he heard a soft, strangled bleat from the other side of the campfire. Glancing across, his eyes widened as he saw the two yamis rolling round on the ground, clutching at their throats and gasping. Apparently the two had launched into another eating contest without considering what they were eating.

Malik was the one to voice Yugi's thoughts. "Apparently medical..."

As anyone who's ever had a truly spicy curry can tell you, the real testament isn't in the heat of the curry as you eat it, but in the state of your stomach the morning after. And the following morning, it was Bakura whose gut was unfortunate enough to bear witness to Ryou's first ever effort at that particular type of dish.

"Gods, Bakura!" Yami cried in disgust as there came the sound of a particularly loud eruption. "Keep it down or get further away, will you?"

An indignant yell came from the bushes Bakura had retired to, having been barred from relieving himself within ten metres of the tents for the sake of the group's safety. "Come here and make me!" he bellowed in return. "That, or just shut the fuck up!"

Yami turned to face the others, making a nauseous face as though the very idea made him ill. This earned him a laugh from Malik, at least, and he turned his attention back to his rival. "Just make sure you leave some toilet paper for us!" Yami called back. "We do have to limit how much we use, just in case!"

There came a lengthy silence, before Bakura's voice piped up once more, a lot more polite than earlier. "Ryou...? You couldn't do me a favour, could you...?"

Yugi and Ryou both groaned as one, Ryou slapping his palm against his forehead in disbelief. "He forgot it, didn't he?"

At the nods from the others, Ryou sighed, standing and wandering across to his tent, taking out an unopened roll of toilet paper. "Coming…" he groaned, grimacing as there came another loud eruption from the bushes. Ryou paused for a moment, bracing himself, before taking a deep breath and running across to the bushes Bakura was in, setting the roll down just outside them and darting back again, exhaling and gasping loudly as he reached the sanctity of their tents.

"Ugh…" Ryou shuddered, sitting down as far from the bushes as he could without being antisocial. "Not nice…"

Yugi nodded understandingly at this remark, watching as Bakura's hand snaked out of the bushes, lifted the roll from the floor delicately and quickly withdrew again. "You have my pity…" he admitted. "I'd hate to have to do that if it was Yami in there…"

"Hey, that's a point!" Malik cried out, sitting up. "Why doesn't Yami have the same problem with curry as Bakura?"

"He didn't eat all of it," Yugi explained. "He said it was too hot for him, and it looks like he got off lucky."

"HA!" came the triumphant exclamation from the bushes. "I beat you! I win! You couldn't handle it!"

Yami rolled his eyes at this remark, crinkling his nose in disgust as another vile sound was issued. "Yeah, you beat me," he returned, sarcasm practically dripping from his words. "I'm sure you're very proud of yourself right now, stuck in those bushes with a bad case of the sh-"

"HA!" Bakura crowed again, cutting Yami off. "See? You admit it! I'm the winner! I'm the-"

Bakura stopped mid-sentence, groaning loudly as he felt his stomach shift again. Gods, this wasn't fun at all…

Much of the rest of the day surprisingly – and somewhat unbelievably – passed without incident. That evening, though, just as the hikaris had been counting their blessings, Yami reminded Yugi of a promise he'd made before they'd left.

"Are you sure you want to let him do this, Yugi?"

"It's that, or risk letting him blow the kitchen up at home…"

"Touché…" Ryou returned, dubiously watching Yami playing with his precious gas stove. "I'm just not sure we want to risk letting him blow up our sole method for cooking food."

"I can cook using the fire," Yugi assured his rather worried white-haired companion. "You don't need a steady heat for most of the things I do."

Ryou nodded at this, but still couldn't help shrieking as a worryingly large volume of gas ignited before his eyes. "Yami!"

"The match wouldn't light!" the former Pharaoh protested. "It took ages, so loads of gas got out of the canister."

"Yami!" Ryou shrieked again. "You don't open the gas 'til after you've got a flame ready!"

"Oh…" was all Yami could manage in response. "…I guess that makes sense…"

Ryou turned pleading eyes onto Yugi, ready to beg that the boy spare his stove at least until he'd cooked their last meal on the last day. Unfortunately for Ryou, Yugi had anticipated this and was already prepared with his own puppy- eyes, which were even beginning to tear up for added effect. "Ryou… think of the kitchen…" he whimpered softly. "Don't do this to me… please?"

Ryou groaned at this, pouting slightly. "But Yugi…" he whined.

A hand on each boy's shoulder interrupted the pair. "If you two lovebirds are quite finished making eyes at each other…" Bakura remarked with a large smirk on his face. "You might care to notice that the baka Pharaoh has left the spare canister of gas right beside our fire. I think in about thirty seconds, that'll have heated up enough to blow up."

"YAMI!"Yugi shrieked, darting under Bakura's arm and diving for the canister, narrowly missing knocking Yami into the stove. "For God's sake, think about what you're doing!"

Bakura laughed out loud as Yugi began to lecture Yami, striding past Ryou and heading for his own tent. "Honestly, what would you do without me?"

Ryou – rather wisely – chose not to voice the comment that immediately came to mind, instead settling for a quick eye-roll and a sigh. "Thank you for pointing that out, Bakura," he forced out, not entirely sure Yami was solely at fault for that incident. In fact, he'd be very surprised if Bakura hadn't had anything to do with it.

"Why, you're perfectly welcome, my hikari," Bakura replied as he left his tent again. "Very welcome indeed."

Somehow, Ryou immediately knew Bakura was up to something. It wasn't so much that he could sense it, or even that an alarm bell was ringing. It was more like a full-blown klaxon siren whirring in his head, complete with the air raid warden wandering round yelling at everyone to turn out their lights and get in their bunkers. "Bakura…?" Ryou began suspiciously. "What're you plan?"

Ryou was cut off as another 'whumf' sound came from behind him, indicating another mass of gas had been ignited. Spinning round, he flailed at the sight before him. "Yami! Don't turn the flame up that high!"

Bakura laughed again as this time Ryou berated his rival, removing the bottle of vodka from behind his back and casually sitting down beside Malik.

He intended to have fun tonight.