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The thing is, Anna is tough on Yoh. She can make him run miles with the incentive of a very sharp knife. She forces him to do the electric chair for hours if she thinks it’s necessary. Now that the Shaman Fight is over, she still insists he train every day. She’s got loads of ideas and plenty of time. At this point, Yoh has gotten used to it.
But this — looking at the plate of whatever that is while Anna stands expectantly next to him — this is the worst one yet.
“So?” Anna asks expectantly. “What do you think?”
Yoh stares at the visceral lump placed in front of him and desperately tamps down his gag reflex.
And he thinks Faust’s latest dissection and Manta’s organs and Lee Bailong that one time Ren’s dad cut him up.
Because he can’t call the atrocity in front of him food. It would be the most damning insult to every cuisine known to man.
Except Yoh won’t say any of these things, because Anna tried and she’s insecure enough to sulk for days if he isn’t careful with his words.
“It looks great,” he smiles and lies through his teeth. Is his eye twitching? He really hopes it isn’t twitching. He is suddenly extremely grateful that she can no longer read minds.
Anna narrows her eyes and a voice screams ABORT in the back of Yoh’s head. Amidamaru has wisely chosen to stay in his memorial tablet.
“You don’t have to eat it,” Anna says, shrugging like it doesn’t matter, as if the petulance and hurt isn’t bleeding into her voice. She moves to take the plate away and before Yoh can register it, he’s snatched it back.
“ No! ” He shouts a little too forcefully.
Anna scowls. “You’re going to annoy the neighbours,” she scolds, but they don’t have neighbours, and Yoh knows it’s to cover the pleased smile growing on her face.
Have mercy, Yoh thinks as he picks up his chopsticks and tentatively takes a piece. It looks gooey but the sound it makes is nothing short of a crackle. Yoh prays to the great spirit that he doesn’t die. He can’t ask Hao to bring him back to life again .
He smiles at Anna nervously, wishing she would look away, but unfortunately she just keeps looking as Yoh takes a bite.
A million feelings wash over him at once. The voice in his head is screaming at him to spit it out , or even better: cut off your tongue.
The sheer amount of willpower it takes for him to keep a straight face is humanly impossible. If this doesn’t make his furyoku level go up, he thinks miserably, he doesn’t know what will.
Yoh chews.
It tastes sweet and very very salty, and sometimes it crunches and sometimes it sticks to his teeth, and throughout it all his throat burns .
But Anna is still waiting next to him, looking almost nervous, and Yoh will be damned if he says a single bad thing about it.
He swallows and sees colors he’s never seen before.
“It’s good,” he says, hoping Anna doesn’t detect the pained strain in his voice.
“Really?” She asks suspiciously.
It feels like a cardinal sin to say ‘yes’ but he does anyway.
It’s almost worth it when Anna’s shoulders relax and she smiles. Almost. Yoh thinks it’s over. Yoh is very very wrong.
“Great. There’s an entire pot,” she tells him.
He swears he can hear Amidamaru weeping for him in the background.
Maybe he should have told her he didn’t like it, Yoh thinks a week later.
Anna has insisted on cooking a meal at least once a day, and Yoh bowel movements have gone up the wall. He’d tried pulling the pregnancy card, telling her he could handle it and she should be resting, but she’d fixed him with a sharp look and Yoh hadn’t brought it up again.
“Lord Yoh,” Amidamaru says, “there must be some way to save you.” They’re sitting in a separate room as Anna works her latest nightmare in the kitchen.
“It’s okay Amidamaru,” Yoh tells him. “It’s not that bad.” Maybe if he keeps telling himself that his taste buds will believe it.
He wishes he was a ghost. He wishes his wife could cook. He wishes he didn’t love her so much so he could tell her she’s terrible at it.
Yoh lies face down on the floor, steeling himself for the obstacles to come.
“Dinner’s ready!” Anna calls from downstairs.
Yoh weeps.
Of course Anna doesn’t eat any of it because she’s seven months pregnant and she’s super picky about what she eats. (Hello Kitty mochi. Uncooked celery dipped in soy sauce.) Yoh figures her diet might be worse than his.
Yoh thinks maybe she’ll stop cooking if she tastes it herself, but he would also never subject his unborn child to such suffering. They’re going to be miserable enough when they enter the world, Yoh doesn’t have to start the cycle before they’re even born.
Which is why he needs to come up with a solution. One where he doesn’t lose taste buds daily and Anna is happy.
Splitting the shares between multiple people seems like a good idea, and luckily, Horohoro shows up to visit. Horohoro isn’t very perceptive, so Yoh hopes he won’t see through his obvious ploy to get him to stay for dinner.
“Hey, why don’t you stay a while longer?” Yoh asks nonchalantly. He figures he needs to approach this carefully. It’s approaching dinnertime, and it’s now or never.
Horohoro grins. “Sure dude.”
Yoh plans to phrase this as harmlessly as possible. Anna’s cooking dinner sounds innocent enough.
It turns out to be a bust, because Horohoro is out the door before Yoh can even say the word ‘dinner’.
“Where’d Horohoro go?” Anna asks as Yoh sets the table.
Somewhere safe, Yoh thinks as he stares at the bubbling bowl of green and red Anna brings to the table.
He decides to call Ren. He doesn’t know why he calls Ren because Ren is scared of Anna and definitely has no idea what to do in this situation. Still, Yoh calls Ren.
“What?” Ren snaps after the fourth ring.
Yoh hadn’t planned on begging, but he gets a whiff of whatever dish Anna is making and it breaks any will he has left.
“Please help me,” he whispers urgently into the receiver.
“With what?” Ren asks, voice instantly sharp with alert.
“I’m in danger. Anna recently started to cook and—“
Ren hangs up.
He should contact Ryu, except Ryu has done so much for them and now that he’s finally on vacation, Yoh doesn’t want to bother him.
Maybe he should ask Lyserg what to do. He thinks better of it because Lyserg would probably suggest something absurd like finding the root of the problem and solving it from the inside out. He’s studying to be a detective but sometimes he acts more like a psychologist.
Joco is busy on a training retreat with Pascal, and he would have to ask Anna to summon Faust.
He gazes listlessly out the window, on the brink of admitting defeat.
“Yoh?” Anna calls from downstairs.
It’s close to dinnertime and he heads downstairs with a heavy heart. “Here,” he says before he freezes.
Amidamaru is sitting next to Anna at the living room table, looking very guilty and very miserable.
Anna has her arms crossed, face expressionless. “Sit,” she orders and Yoh wordlessly obeys.
The silence stretches. Yoh feels sweat beading on his temple.
“Do you have anything you want to say?” She asks.
Yoh helplessly looks at Amidamaru. The fact that he’s crying is not comforting. “...No?” He says tentatively.
“Try again,” Anna says.
“...Yes?”
“What,” she demands.
Yoh has no idea. “I have no idea,” he says. He thinks there’s no way Anna isn’t going to kill him, so he might as well go all in.
“You don’t like my cooking,” she supplies, and the temperature in the room drops twenty degrees.
Amidamaru now has a steady stream of tears pouring down his face.
“What? No.” He’s trying to sound convincing, but the almost hysterical shrill of his voice definitely isn’t helping. “Your cooking is unique and, uh, creative—“
“You don’t like it,” Anna repeats, not a question but a definitive statement.
Yoh attempts to salvage the situation. “I—“ he starts, but then he sees the look on Anna’s face and gives up. “Yeah.”
She’s silent for a minute, before she shifts and leans backwards. The look on her face is indecipherable and Yoh silently prays for the Great Spirit to be merciful.
But then she bursts out laughing.
“You’re such an idiot,” she says between her giggles. (Anna giggling , Yoh thinks) “You think I don’t know I’m a bad cook?”
Yoh stares. “You knew?”
Lord Yoh, Amidamaru mouths to him, she is behaving strangely.
“Yeah I knew . I just didn’t think you would actually eat anything I made,” Anna’s expression sobers very quickly, and Yoh just keeps staring. “I also didn’t expect you to put up with it for so long. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Yoh sags to the floor, completely drained. This entire exchange has been very surreal. “Because I thought you thought you were a good cook.”
“No, I just won’t settle for a husband who doesn’t have a stomach of steel.” She’s smiling, and Yoh feels a little faint but also very relieved. He stiffens when her face goes impassive. “Now go make dinner.”
With an affectionate sigh, Yoh does.