Sometimes, I had to stretch the whole "prompt" thing in order to suit my skill set. This is one of those times. Still, so long as I learned something about the characters, I considered the prompt a success, and I think I learned quite a bit from this one.
As ridiculous as it is.
.
Noa looked concerned, frightened, and more than a little excited as he took in the cavalcade of bottles on Ryo's counter. "What, exactly, are you making again?" he asked, gesturing with a sweep of his arms. "Do you seriously need all this? I acknowledge, fully and without reservation, that I know nothing about alcohol. Chichiue's favorite drink was a good cigar. But this still seems excessive."
Ryo set an unconscionably large pitcher in front of himself and started grabbing bottles. "This," he declared, "is a variant on the Tropical Storm. My father calls it God's Mistake." He winked. "You see? It's a reference to the Great Flood, and a warning."
Noa raised his eyebrows. ". . . Uh-huh."
Ryo started pouring with no rhyme or reason that Noa could figure out: vodka, grain alcohol, passion fruit rum, some chopped pineapple, and about six other ingredients that Noa didn't recognize. If not for the unshakable confidence with which Ryo was acting, Noa would have been quite sure this was a prank; if it was a prank, then Ryo Bakura had the best poker face Noa had ever seen.
"Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that this is going to kill me?" Noa asked, rhetorically.
"You'll probably be fine."
"Probably. I feel so loved." Noa glared suspiciously. "If someone dared me to guess which member of your little crew had a thing for alcohol, I would have lost so much money on Devlin."
Ryo smiled, winked, and continued his conjury.
He brought to mind nothing so much as a fairy tale witch, working a cauldron; Noa expected some kind of smoking, steaming, something every time his companion added something new into his alchemy. At what point, Noa wondered, would Ryo slice open his palm with a fancy knife and drip his own blood into the pitcher?"
"I can't decide if you should be wearing a black apron or a hooded cloak."
"Cloak," Ryo said immediately. "Definitely cloak." He then proceeded to cackle quietly to himself. "A little wide-brimmed hat, patched with the wrong color." He reached across the counter and grabbed a wooden spoon covered in scorch marks.
"Gotta get those earthy notes," Noa murmured.
"Your father really didn't drink, huh?" Ryo looked incredulous.
"He did not." Noa shook his head. "Chichiue much preferred having other people drink around him, so that he'd be the only sober person in the room. Easier to control a situation that way." He drew in a breath, let it out. "Sometimes, somebody would make a note of the fact that he didn't drink at parties, but that was as far as it ever went. Nobody dared make a thing out of it, because . . . well. It was him."
"Gozaburo Kaiba certainly had a far-reaching reputation," Ryo said softly. "I think my father met him once. But I can't be sure. I've never been good at remembering the names of his . . . associates? Clients? Customers? I never know what to call them. In all honesty, I don't even know what my father does anymore."
"Mm," said Noa. "I think I understand that. Chichiue never really bothered to explain his work to me, either. Out of spite, I think, as a jab against my mother."
"I take it their marriage wasn't happy, then."
Noa laughed. "Chichiue married Hahaue because she was the first woman who ever scared him."