The big reason why I like projects of this persuasion is because it gives me time and space to explore character development. That's pretty much the most important part of any fandom work, for me. I don't know if the masses at large agree with me, there, but that's where my heart's at.
Ryo and Noa have both surprised me quite a lot through this series.
With little things and big things both.
.
Of the two of them, it would have been easy to assume that Noa was the one who had an elaborate nighttime ritual involving obscenely comfortable nightclothes; he'd grown up in the lap of luxury, after all, and was quite obscenely sensitive to textures; but it was Ryo. Noa, for all his old scars and that classic Kaiba arrogance, cared little for what he slept in. He rarely cared where he slept, either, and was often found snoozing at his desk, or in a random hall closet, or the front porch, or even in a tree, depending on circumstance and opportunity.
Ryo, however, was incredibly particular about where, when, and in what he slept.
He was partial to flannel, he had very specific tastes when it came to color, and he always had a mug of hot chocolate two hours before bedtime.
"I would have figured you for a tea man," Noa noted, one evening while they watched a Mortal Kombat livestream. "Mellow sleepy-time stuff. Herbs and spices or whatever."
"I do like tea," Ryo said, blowing lightly at the foam atop his mug, "but I'm sensitive to caffeine. This is better for the evening." He was dressed in opal green checkerboard pajama pants and a loose black t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a deathcore band that Noa didn't even pretend he could read. It looked like an angry tumbleweed. As he sat, Ryo reached back and adjusted his hair, pulling it up into a high tail with one hand while he held his drink with the other.
Noa, who still wore the suit he'd picked out that morning for Seto's latest Kaiba-Con conference, and who would still be wearing that suit the next morning, leaned back in his seat and hummed thoughtfully. "Sleep," he said lightly, apropos of nothing. "you know, I think that's one of the wildest things about . . . this," he gestured to himself, "that I still haven't quite wrapped my head around."
"What do you mean?" Ryo asked.
"I mean . . . I don't know what you'd call me. Cyborg, android, human? Hybrid? But I do know that I have vivid dreams. And that just feels like something technology shouldn't be able to do, doesn't it? Like, how does that even work?"
Ryo started to answer, then stopped himself. Set his mug down on the table.
He turned toward Noa, fully attentive now.
"See?" Noa prompted, after the silence went on for just a bit too long. "It doesn't make sense, does it?"
"You know, I . . . don't know if it makes sense."
"Aniki has me keeping a dream journal," Noa said. "For research purposes, I think. Just to see what goes on up here." He tapped his temple. "You know, when I'm not at the helm."
"Did you sleep when you were . . . you know, in that machine?"
Noa frowned. "You know, I can't remember. Actually. I feel like I can't have, but there's another part of me that insists I must have. What else was I going to do with all that time? Like, I didn't need to sleep, and that probably helped me with a lot of things. Or, well, maybe it didn't, in the long run. I don't know. But also, like, taking a nap is one of the best things to do if you're bored, and after a while I was pretty much always bored."
"That sounds . . . like depression," Ryo said.
"Aniki says the same thing."
"Does that concern you?"
Noa shrugged. "I think what would concern me more is if I wasn't depressed."