— closed.

[morns]

🧙 WHO: Kate & Izō
⚔️️ WHAT: Not!Friends go drinking, get arrested (probably).
🕒 WHEN: rtfn.
🗺️ WHERE: Choose your hole in the wall tavern
⚠️ WARNINGS: they're idiots your honour.


( drinking is easy, familiar, and better done in the company of others, which is how Kate comes to be sat in a dump of a bar (the drinks are cheap and strong, which is the most important thing) with Izō, a bartender sliding two glasses of something that could probably strip paint by smell alone in front of them. )

How've you been?

( it's a reflexive, small talk type question, meaningless but as good a way as any to start off a night, right? )

Comments

[hitokiri]

[ izō is glad for the recommendation given that cheap and strong is exactly what he needs right now. kate's company isn't unwelcome despite his avoidance of others for most of the day because she's the only person he hasn't completely embarrassed himself in front of lately. whatever else she's privy to she's not brought it up... much appreciated. ]

Figure I'm gonna wake up tomorrow somewhere and not know how I got there, so what d'you think?

[ still a good time though, regardless. ]

[morns]

( the days have been kind to her for a while now, but the drinking hasn't slowed down. there's always a tinge of guilt if she's allowed to still for too long, to think too much about the reason she's here and how she's wasting her time setting up businesses and making friends. time she could use to help save her brother. to help save her best friend. )

Think that sounds perfect.

( even at her birthday she didn't get that bad. there was a hangover and regret, sure, but she spent too much of the night making sure other people were having fun to let herself get as fucked up as she might have otherwise. )

[hitokiri]

Yeah? What's yer excuse?

[ he has good reasons to want to intentionally get blindingly drunk right now. or maybe just one big reason. sure, he can — and has — gotten there recreationally too, but that sort of just... happens, assuming he has money (and someone will keep serving). ]

[morns]

I like alcohol.

( that's answered a bit too quickly, with a bit too much snap and force behind the words to be entirely honest. but she's too sober to talk about guilt and the ever present knot in her stomach yet.

so.

booze. booze that smells awful and tastes no better, but at least burns nicely enough that it breaks up that cloud of thought for a moment. )

[hitokiri]

[ he's surprised at how quickly the answer comes and apparently finds it funny, as he laughs. occasionally he can actually recognise their similarities. ]

Heh, fair enough. But I bet ya only ever had this bottled shit, yeah? People say things got better in the future, but a lot of things got worse.

[ sake used to come in barrels and no one ever had a hard time getting any that was fairly decent. doesn't take much to get sentimental about that in particular. ]

[morns]

( their similarities are what makes this night out a good idea. there's nothing worse than wanting to drown your thoughts around someone who insists on dragging them up and talking about it. Ainsworth got that through his thick head eventually and stopped asking, stopped trying to do anything more than offer loud and boisterous birthday nights.

the booze burns on her tongue, down her throat, as Izō speaks, and she swears with each passing year of life, her tastebuds become more sensitive to the swill places like this peddle, not less.

it'll be fine. a few drinks will kill any thoughts like that. )

This is shit in any era.

( sorry, bartender. (though, given that he just works here, he doesn't seem all that offended by her comment.) you can find better than this back home. and here, honestly.

one more drink and, nope, still tastes like crap and she's still too sober to think otherwise. )

You come from some booze paradise or summat?