Ryo has a sick day.
Prompt request from NinjaWolf101: "One of them getting sick".
Alice was far from sickly, but of course was not immortal, occasionally having the flu and sniffles. When she was sick, the task of taking care of her always fell to Ryo. He took care of her food, of reminding her to take medicine, making sure she was neither too cold nor too warm. He had always taken good care of her, and Alice had learned to rely on him. Maybe a little too much.
So Alice was at a complete loss that morning, after barging into Ryo's room, seeing him huddled under his blankets and drenched in sweat. He was late for breakfast-which was not normal. Ryo was an early riser. She was just about ready to chew him out when, for some reason, she decided to touch his forehead.
He was burning.
"...Oh. Miss Alice." The slight skin contact was enough to stir him. "...What time is it?" He did his best to lift his head and look up at her, finding her already dressed in her uniform. "...You're early."
"Oh no, Ryo! You're simply late," she pouted, pointing at the clock on his bedside. "And sick."
As if on cue, Ryo suddenly felt the pang of a throbbing headache. He tried to get up, but his body felt heavy, as if someone had just beat him up with a baseball bat the night prior. "...Yeah. I guess I am. Give me ten minutes, Miss Alice."
He motioned as if to get up, but Alice stopped him, pushing him back down to bed. "Where do you think you're going? You're sick."
He groaned softly. "It's just a fever, miss."
"Oh no it isn't! You know, if you push yourself too hard, it might get worse than that. Now, stay in bed. I'm going to get you some medicine."
"...You're going to be late for school," Ryo tried to tell her, but there was no response. She had already gone off.
But the truth was, Alice Nakiri knew nothing about taking care of someone who was sick.
All she knew to do was what Ryo did for her when she was sick-dutifully staying by her side and seeing to her every need and demand. There wasn't much, though, as Alice tended to just doze off most illnesses. At the very least, she knew to supply him with medicine and food.
Medicine, and food. Alice made a dash around the Nakiri Mansion, catching Hisako just in time as she was about to get in the car with her mistress Erina. "Hishokooo!" Alice yelled, knowing that she had no time to waste. "What do I cook for someone who's sick?"
Hisako was alerted by the sudden exclamation, from Alice who was right by the front door. In the car, Erina poked her head out, wondering what the ruckus was. They were going to run late for school if this hold-up took a lot longer. Hisako got in the car, and rolled down the windows, and simply yelled:
"Soup!"
"Eh? What sort of soup?" Alice yelled back, but the car had already driven off.
Soup, Alice thought. She stood idly at one of the kitchens at the western wing of the Nakiri Mansion. The Nakiri Mansion was, of course, outfitted with multiple kitchens. This onehad been claimed by Alice and Ryo, with their equipment on the shelves and their ingredients in the fridges.
Alice looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost lunch now, so she couldn't spend so much time pondering on or researching this dish. She flung open her fridge, looking at her ingredients. It was unfortunate that she didn't have any soup stock in hers, but upon opening Ryo's, she found that he had some leftover fish stock, from a dish he'd been testing the night prior.
Well, he does like seafood. She pulled the fish stock out, and looked at what else Ryo kept in his fridge. It only made sense for him to stock on ingredients he actually liked.
A dish quickly formed together in her head, as she looked up and down what was in Ryo's fridge.
"Alice," a deep voice suddenly interrupted the silence in the kitchen, but Alice didn't dare take her eyes off her dish. "Something smells good, my dear."
Finally, Alice looked up from the simmering pot. "Oh, Grandfather!" she said, looking a little surprised. "What brings you here?"
"What brings you here, my dear?" Senzaemon simply turned the question back at her. "It seems to me like you're skipping school."
"Oh!" Alice was startled, as if only just realizing that. She'd forgotten about school entirely, or that she was still in her uniform. "I guess it slipped my mind. I got occupied making this soup."
Senzaemon laughed a little, at how unapologetic Alice was for skipping class, unintentional or not. "What is this soup then?"
"Fiskesuppe," Alice replied, taking off the lid from the pot she'd been focusing on. The smell of fragrant fish stock immediately permeated the air.
Senzaemon nodded in understanding. Alice was making a dish close to home-a Norwegian seafood and root vegetable chowder. It was traditionally made with cod, just as how Alice did today. Senzaemon watched curiously as Alice added the finishing touches-some salt and pepper, and lemon juice.
Seafood was not Alice's realm. She would usually leave a dish like this to her aide, Kurokiba. "Why are you making soup at this hour, Alice?"
Alice frowned a little, as she put away the pot from the flame. "Well, Ryo is sick, grandfather. I can't believe it! He hasn't been sick since we were kids! I was beginning to think he was immortal." She then rummaged around in the pantry for a batch of flatbread that Ryo made a few days ago, taking a few pieces to serve with the soup. "Now, I can't get anything done if my own aide is sick, so I suppose it falls to me to take care of him, right?"
"I suppose it does." Senzaemon watched Alice proceed to plating the soup into a bowl, with an incredibly steady hand and the finesse of an artisan. She lightly sprinkled some herbs on top, and placed the flatbread at the side. Despite serving a humble soup, she managed to make the dish look pretty. Food presentation was always something she excelled at, and it seemed to come naturally to her.
She put the dish onto a breakfast tray, and almost picked it up, but then paused, as if remembering something.
"Oh, how rude of me!" she said. "Would you like some, grandfather? It's a bit thrown-together, but I did take the fish and the stock from Ryo's fridge, so it should be good enough."
She had absolute confidence in Kurokiba's eye for seafood, Senzaemon noted. She moved as if to take another serving, but Senzaemon stopped her. "I'll help myself, Alice. You should go ahead and bring that over to young Kurokiba before it gets cold."
"Alright, grandfather!" Alice gave the old man a smile, and a quick, affectionate hug. Alice had always been an affectionate and caring young girl. It baffled Senzaemon for many years of why that was never able to translate into her cooking. She took the tray of food, and went on her way.
"Ryooo... Psst! Wake up!"
Ryo groaned, immediately woken by Alice's voice. Even while sick with fever, his body had been too used to responding to Alice's call, rousing him from even the deepest of sleeps. He was greeted by the sight of Alice sitting on his bedside, smiling down at him with a tinge of worry on her face.
"C'mon now, Ryo," she said. "You haven't had breakfast yet. That's no way to fight off a fever. Eat up." Ryo noticed the tray at his bedside table. He focused for a moment and realized what it was. Fiskesuppe.
"Are you going to go and eat, or do I have to feed you, hm, Ryo?"
Ryo shook his head, groaning at her patronizing tone. "I can do it," he said. "But you shouldn't have bothered." He propped himself up, and Alice took the breakfast tray and set it up before him in bed.
The fever had blocked off Ryo's sense of smell, but the flavor of the soup was enough to stimulate his appetite. He recognized the use of the fish stock he had leftover from the night prior, and the cod he bought from yesterday's fish market.
"You just raided my fridge, didn't you?" He asked, with a little smirk.
"Well, I didn't have any soup stock in-wait, you can tell I made it?" Alice asked, shocked. This dish had nothing of her signature style.
Ryo nodded. He wasn't sure if the fever was making him delusional, but eating it gave him a vision of coming home to Alice after a long, cold day at work. She was smiling softly at him, serving him this very soup.
"...It tastes like home," Ryo said. "Takes me back to Scandinavia."
Alice just sat there, a little perplexed. She wasn't sure if "home-y" was exactly a compliment, as her food wasn't usually like that. Maybe because it was a Scandinavian dish?
Ryo ate some more, somehow making the visions stronger. Alice now, somehow, had a wedding ring. She had a cute little apron on and looked like such an adorable housewife. There was a little toddler clinging to her leg, suspiciously black-haired and ruby-eyed. Alice carried the child in her arms, and proceeded to lecture the kid on how to sous-vide.
Ryo blinked, and snapped out of it. He eyed the soup suspiciously. "...Did you drug this thing?"
"What?" Alice was shocked. "Excuse me? What do you mean by that?"
Alice's reaction was a sufficient answer for Ryo. Obviously, she had nothing to gain by drugging him with hallucinogens or weird mushrooms. Maybe it was the fever, Ryo thought. Or maybe he'd been way too close to the Nakiris, and he was starting to get weird and graphic reactions to food just as they did.
There were now a couple more toddlers calling him 'dad'. Ryo looked down at them in disbelief. He looked down at his hand, seeing he too had a wedding ring. In front of him was Alice, with a hand on her hip, telling him to eat the damn soup before it got cold.
"Ryo! Eat it before it gets cold!" Alice-the real Alice-said, snapping him out of the bizarre daydream. "Really, now! After all that trouble I went through to cook for you, you're gonna accuse me of attempting to drug you?! I don't believe it."
"Sorry," Ryo apologized. "It's just too good, it made me space out a bit. ...Alice. Thanks a lot."
Alice accepted that explanation. She stretched her arms out while stifling a yawn. Working so hard so early in the morning was exhausting. "Mmm, you'd better tell everyone I'm totally the best mistress now!"
Suddenly, her belly grumbled. She had completely forgotten that she skipped breakfast, too.
Ryo narrowed his eyes at her. "Miss. You skipped breakfast, huh?"
"Silly me," Alice said. "I got so occupied cooking for you that I totally forgot!"
"You idiot," Ryo reprimanded her. "If we both get sick, no one's going to take care of you." He pushed his bedcover aside, as if to get up.
"Hey now! Where are you going?"
"I'm going to get you a serving."
"You idiot!" It was Alice's turn to scold him. "Stay in bed! I can get one for myself, okay?"
Alice got up and left, leaving Ryo by himself. He continued eating the soup. Alice's old man and grandfather often critiqued her food for being cold and lacking heart, Ryo thought. That was her own undoing, the double edged effect of her obsession with method and technique. But when she cooked dishes like this, when she wasn't too in her head and overplanning things...
It tastes like home, Ryo thought.
Home wasn't always a place, or a country. It could just be someone who cared for you and loved you.
Senzaemon scooped out a modest serving of the fiskesuppe for himself, and let the aroma linger in his nostrils for a moment before taking a bite to eat.
"Mmm." Alice's confidence in Ryo's skill for seafood was not baseless. The fish stock, which was the base of the soup, had an amazing clarity in flavor, lending itself well to the cream and vegetables. The cod had a superior texture, clearly among the best catch of that day.
Alice was present in her meticulous knifework for the fish and the vegetables, and the delicate flavor of this soup, the balance of richness from the cream cut down perfectly by the tang of lemon juice.
Senzaemon took the flatbread Alice had left on the countertop, and found himself dipping it into the soup. She had mentioned that Kurokiba made it, but upon biting, Senzaemon tasted a familiarity to it. Ah. It was almost as if it was his eldest son who made it. He could somehow picture a winter night in Denmark, gathering with Soe, Leonora, Alice, and Kurokiba by the fireplace, eating this soup.
Alice had said that this was a dish that was "thrown-together"... But Senzaemon felt as if it was anything but that. The choice of dish, the choice of ingredients, even the choice to forego all of the molecular gastronomy tricks that Alice was accustomed to. The old man could easily picture Alice making those choices with the goal of making Kurokiba feel better in mind.
The simple fish soup had been teeming with care and affection, and a comforting reminder of home.
