Chapter Text
There are many places Kiyoomi wants to be right now. His room, for one, sat behind his desk with a plate of pickled plums and a good book. Outside in the courtyard with his rapier for another, sparring with his brother or his cousin until his arms are aching and his hands are chafing beneath his gloves. Despite the fact that he and his horse mutually despise each other, he’d even take an unsatisfactory ride around the grounds over where he is now, because the very last place on earth that he wants to be is on this godforsaken ship.
It nauseates him; the terrible swaying, the stench of sea water and the permanent lack of light. It must be what being buried alive feels like, he surmises, because he has not been able to take his handkerchief from his mouth and nose long enough to get a decent lungful of air in three whole days. The only reason he is enduring this torture at all – because there is no question that is what it is – is because it is the only alternative to attending his grandmother’s fortnight-long birthday celebration.
Either he puts on a suit and gets passed around social function after social function, answering impossible questions about his future and the prospects of courtship until he feels the need to drown himself in the garden fountain, or he travels across the country to attend a mind-numbingly boring science lecture for two weeks.
Ultimately, Kiyoomi chooses the least dramatic of the two evils because it means he’s able to lock himself away from the crew in a room below deck and encounter minimal disturbance. The room is large enough to fit a bed, a desk, and his suitcase, but not much else. He can barely even stretch his arms wide without his fingers threatening to touch the wooden planks of a wall. It’s nothing like his room at home, with its king-sized bed and open windows; he’d give anything to stretch out across the silk sheets and nap right now.
Twice a day the crew bring him trays of bland food. They knock on his door and leave it in the walkway outside, well accustomed to Kiyoomi’s fastidious habits after the last few times they’ve travelled together – the chef even makes Kiyoomi’s separately, wearing gloves and using ingredients his father procured especially for the occasion.
The only member of the crew he talks to is the captain; he stops by in the evenings with a glass of wine and informs Kiyoomi of how well the journey is going, what the weather is like above deck, and how many more days it’ll be before they finally dock in the city port. It’ll be a few more, the captain tells him, but they’re due to stop in the port of a nearby town to restock some supplies and for the crew to run a few of Kiyoomi’s father’s errands.
To distract himself until the moment his feet can touch solid ground, Kiyoomi plugs his ears to block the shouts of sailors and reads the days away. The book he’s flicking through now is one he’s read before, detailing various poisons and venoms and their natural antidotes. A section of the lecture he’s due to attend will be about something similar – according to his father, the professor speaking has recently returned from an expedition and has revolutionary updates to regale the community with. Kiyoomi doesn’t really care. He’s never really been interested in science – he’s far more interested in the art of the sword - but his family have always favoured the academics over all else, and Kiyoomi would rather die than embarrass himself by being unlearned.
When the ship docks early in the afternoon on the fourth day, Kiyoomi is more than glad to seize the opportunity to stretch his legs and get some fresh air without the ground swaying beneath him. The town they’ve docked in is one Kiyoomi is unfamiliar with; the harbour is lined with stalls and taverns, and the streets beyond are cobbled and caged by tall brick buildings.
It is nothing like what he is used to. It stinks so badly of rotting fish and stagnant water that he has to hold his handkerchief to his mouth again just to peruse the stalls, but even that is insufficient in abating his nausea.
There are vendors shouting, horns blaring, and children screeching in a cacophony of noise. Kiyoomi wants to go back to the ship to prevent the headache creeping any further behind his eyes, turns on his heel to do so, but then a member of the crew he doesn’t remember the name of clears his throat behind him and says, “I heard there’s a bladesmith that way, Sakusa-san.”
He’s small and ferrety-looking, with large, round eyes that always seem to be nervously searching Kiyoomi for something he can’t quite work out. Kiyoomi vaguely recognises his voice as the one that brings him dinner most mornings and evenings, but that is the extent of what he knows of him.
“I, uh,”—he clears his throat and rubs at the back of his neck— “I can show you the way if you’d like, sir.”
Kiyoomi frowns. Visiting the bladesmith sounds like a good idea; it’ll most likely be quieter than the marketplace and he’s been meaning to purchase new whetstone for a while, but he cannot think of a single conceivable reason as to why this man should go with him. He doesn’t look like he knows the next thing about swords; the red flush to his face makes him look more like he might be coming down with something.
“I can find it myself,” Kiyoomi tells him, taking what he hopes is a subtle step backward.
“O-of course, sir! But, I mean, company would be nice, right?”
Kiyoomi makes a face. “No.”
The man’s shoulders drop and his watery smile falters. “Oh, OK. Then I’ll, uh—I guess I’ll see you at the inn later?”
“No,” Kiyoomi says again. “I’ll be staying on the boat.”
The man nods weakly and gives up after that. He weaves back through the crowd and shuffles over to his friends on the crew drinking at benches outside a tavern. Kiyoomi watches in confusion as they pat his back and laugh at him pitifully. It’s then Kiyoomi realises, he was probably partaking in some form of joke, a dare that might have bagged him a free drink if he could get Kiyoomi to do something ridiculous like smile or say more than ten words.
It wouldn’t be the first time something that pathetic has ever transpired. As a teenager, boys and girls alike would pinch their cheeks into blushes and take turns asking Kiyoomi to dance at parties all the time. They’d badger him with vague chatter and stumble over their own words until Kiyoomi told them to leave him alone and his mother had to lecture him about manners.
Without looking back, he sets off for the bladesmith alone with a tight hand around his coin purse and a keen eye on his surroundings. The streets are narrow here, and he must watch that he doesn’t get pickpocketed or bump into other people as they barrel around boisterously drunk despite it being relatively early in the afternoon. At least, he sighs in relief, the stench of ale and sweat is marginally more tolerable than that of salty rot.
Ten minutes of aimless wandering later, however, Kiyoomi realises he is hopelessly lost.
It turns out that the vague direction of ‘that way’ is much more difficult to follow than he’d thought it would be when the streets all seem to look the same and twist puzzlingly around each other like a cobbled maze.
Kiyoomi has passed multiple shops – a hattery, a butcher, a sweet shop – none of which are the bladesmith, and none of which interest him in the slightest. He could ask someone for directions, sure, but every shop he peers into is packed with a crowd too large for him to feel comfortable entering, and the faces he passes on the street feel as unapproachable as his own.
He is standing at a fork in the street, debating which direction to try next, when a man stumbles loudly out of the door to his left and falls into the wall. Narrowly, Kiyoomi manages to dodge the man’s attempt to steady himself using the sleeve of his expensive coat, and he watches on unhelpfully as he struggles grasping at brick instead.
When the man looks up, his eyes spell anger; his mouth looks as though it’s about to spill curses after being left rudely in the lurch, but the moment his eye meets Kiyoomi’s, they soften inexplicably. His mouth stretches into a lopsided grin, and he says, “What’s a handsome place like you doin’ comin’ here often in a guy like this?”
The man is shorter than he is, not by much, but without the heeled boots, Kiyoomi wagers he’d probably claim the advantage if it came down to a fight. The shirt he’s wearing looks expensive; it’s constructed of fine, red-patterned silk, but only the bottom two buttons are fastened and tucked into a tight pair of breeches. Kiyoomi’s gaze flickers passed the glint of a medallion hanging at his chest and the exposed planes of his tanned torso, to the pistol and scimitar hanging on belts at his waist.
He’s a pirate, Kiyoomi’s brain supplies, most likely one dangerous enough that Kiyoomi should be thinking about how to slip away without inviting the barrel of this man’s gun to his head. His father has warned him about pirates, how ruthless and unreasonable they can be, especially towards nobles. It’s just Kiyoomi’s luck, he laments, that the first time he ventures outside of his comfort zone without his sword the worst should happen. Next time he sails, he’ll lock himself in his room and refuse to leave until the journey is done.
Kiyoomi knows he should be careful not to provoke this man, he’s very obviously drunk if the distinct waft of ale is any indication, but instead of acting with sense, Kiyoomi finds himself asking, “What?” Because between the heavy accent and the slurred words, he’s read thousand-page essays that are not nearly as confusing as whatever has just come out of that man’s mouth.
He runs a ring-adorned hand through unkempt blonde hair and continues confidently, “I said, d’ya often place here like you”—he frowns and puts a finger to his lips to stop the words before starting again—“What’re ya handsome place doin’ here on a—Why’re ya handsome on a guy like—fuck I’m drunk.” He sways slightly on his feet and points a finger in the shape of a gun at Kiyoomi accompanied by a wink that is actually just a blink. “Yer hot,” he clarifies more simply.
Ah.
Any curiosity that might have piqued in this strange man suddenly evaporates into thin air.
Kiyoomi grimaces at him and turns on his heel without another word. He hears some cursing and shuffling behind him as he walks away, and then yelling and the colliding of bodies as the man runs to catch up with him.
“Hey, wait! Where’ya goin’? I didn’t even get to ask yer name!”
Kiyoomi doubts his drunken mind even cares for such pointless details. “I don’t have one,” he calls over his shoulder dismissively.
“Shit. Really?” the man calls back “Then what do I call ya?”
Kiyoomi reaches another fork in the street. “You don’t call me anything,” he says as he weighs up the options of left or right. “You stop bothering me and return to whichever hovel you crawled out of.”
He takes a sharp left, hoping that it might shake the drunk pirate off, but it’s a grave mistake, because once he reaches the end of the road, he realises he’s chosen a dead end and that he has no choice but to double back.
Not for the first time that day Kiyoomi finds himself wishing he’d just stayed on the damn boat. No amount of fresh air is worth all of this frustration; his feet are starting to blister in his uncomfortable dress shoes.
When he does reluctantly turn after spending a few minutes pretending to peer into the bakery window, the man is already waiting, leaning against the wall of a house with one hand, and waggling his fingers in a wave with the other.
“Yer not from ‘round here, huh?” he asks with a smile that makes Kiyoomi feel as though he’s being laughed at. It also makes Kiyoomi want to knock the guy’s teeth out from his skull. “Can I help show you some place, Mr No Name?”
“I doubt you could show me to the end of the street,” Kiyoomi notes tersely, watching the way the man’s eyes keep glazing over and the way he keeps tipping ominously forwards.
Kiyoomi could probably shoulder past him easily and he’d fall, but, despite the fact the man has not reached for them, Kiyoomi is still weary of the weapons at his waist. Untold amounts of devastation could occur should his alcohol-addled brain attempt to fire his pistol.
He’ll just have to wait for a chance to occur, for the man to fall unconscious, or for someone else to finally walk down this street so Kiyoomi can pretend he knows them.
“I totally could,” the man says, doing a bad job of stifling a hiccup. “I could show you my—I could show you the, uh… all sorts of great places. My room at the inn is nice. Has a pillow and a, uh, a blanket, and this paintin’ of the sea on the wall. Or maybe it was a forest?” He frowns again, like he’s annoyed at himself for not being able to remember clearly. “Both, I think. Probably. I don’t fuckin’ care. Point is, you should come see it.”
“I’m not interested.”
“In me or my room?”
“You. The room sounds nice.”
The man pulls a face like he’s just eaten something sour. “Why not?” he asks and then gestures to himself. “You got problems seein’ clear or somethin’?”
Unfortunately, Kiyoomi can see how attractive he is frustratingly well. There’s danger glittering in his eyes and something undeniably charming in the tilt of his smile. It’s probably why Kiyoomi hasn’t just bolted despite the risk: it’s almost amusing to watch a man this good-looking fumbling around like he’s a form of street entertainment Kiyoomi should be throwing coins at.
“No,” Kiyoomi tells him with a pointed once over. “I do, however, possess standards higher than rock bottom.”
The man blinks slowly at him, like it’s taking him a while to process what Kiyoomi has just said. Or perhaps, more realistically, his head is completely devoid of thought and Kiyoomi is waiting for a response that simply won’t come.
“So yer not an actor then,” he says eventually, nodding at Kiyoomi’s ruffled shirt and expertly tailored tailcoat. “Yer one of them real fancy boys. The ones who give a damn about grace and decornium and all that useless horseshi—”
“Decorum,” Kiyoomi interrupts.
“Decronum,” he repeats incorrectly. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“That is definitely not what you—"
“Hey, don’t worry yer pretty head ‘bout it. I can be real polite when I wanna be. I know how to say ‘please’ lotsa differenterestin’ ways.” He winks (blinks) again and dips into a bow so low and so blatantly incorrect in terms of etiquette that Kiyoomi’s mother would probably cry if she saw it. “Allow me to give ya the grand tour, milord.”
Kiyoomi opens his mouth to say something mean-spirited again, but gravity does his job for him. The man stumbles over…air? And lands in an unresponsive heap at Kiyoomi’s feet. He makes no immediate attempts to move, so Kiyoomi kicks at his motionless body with the toe of his shoe to check that he’s alive and earns a pained groan in return.
“Maybe next time,” Kiyoomi mocks him with a shrug, knowing very well that he’ll never set foot in this town or see this man ever again come the morning. Though, he doesn’t suppose the oncoming hangover will let the man remember much either.
He’s about to step over him and leave, when two more men round the corner and skid to a halt before the puddle of red silk. “Tsumu!” one says. He’s wearing a similar shirt of black silk – though his is buttoned tastefully – and an identical face to the man on the floor. “The fuck are ya doin’? Why’d ya run off like that? You coulda gotten—Oh. Hey.” He stops shouting when he notices Kiyoomi, looks him up and down and then turns back to his (likely) twin. “‘Spose that makes sense for you.”
Kiyoomi ignores that. He nods to the half-conscious form and asks, “Is that thing yours?”
“Un-fuckin’-fortunately,” black shirt says. He also looks slightly drunk; his words are heavy and take an obvious toll on his brain to form. “You knock him down or did he do that to himself?”
“He fell. Somehow.”
“Shame,” the other man says. He’s considerably more sober than the other two, or perhaps the bored tone to his voice just makes it appear that way. He grabs red shirt’s arm and helps hoist him to his feet with a grunt that suggests he’s doing most of the work. “He deserves a good slugging.”
Kiyoomi’s only known him for a cumulative five minutes and thinks that’s probably a fair thing to say. He looks the sort to be just as loud sober as he is drunk; much like Kiyoomi’s brother during New Year celebrations.
“Suna,” red shirt whines into his friend’s shoulder. “Look how pretty he is. Don’t he look like a prince? Like the one from that story Aran used to tell about the knight? I’m not jokin’ this time boys, I think I’m in lo—mmph!”
The one known as Suna cringes visibly, and the twin winces and slaps a hand over his brother’s mouth to shut him up.
“We’ll be goin’ now,” black shirt says, fighting to keep his hand over his twin’s mouth despite his muffled struggles. “Unless he said somethin’ really stupid and yer gonna be difficult ‘bout it and get the guards involved.”
Suna’s fingers trace a pattern over the pistol at his waist, and Kiyoomi knows a threat when he sees one. He shakes his head. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about any of you. Do you know where the bladesmith is?”
“That way,” is all Suna says with a vague wave of his free hand in the opposite direction.
They shuffle away, spitting curses and threats at the drunkard in the middle who won’t keep quiet, and as Kiyoomi watches them leave he decides for the first time in his life to cut his losses and call it a day.
The captain escorts Kiyoomi back onto the ship when he returns to the dock. Like Kiyoomi’s a clueless child, he runs through the safety protocol of staying on the docked ship overnight, tells Kiyoomi that a meal has been prepared for him already in the kitchen, and hands him a ring of keys that unlock all doors, including the captain’s quarters.
The crew stick around as they load up the orlop with supplies they procured at the market and whatever Kiyoomi’s father requested, but they leave as soon as they are done, to spend one comfortable night at an inn before they are due to get back on the water.
Now that he’s alone, Kiyoomi takes a walk around the deck, studies the sails and the helm and the cannons, and matches up their functions with what he can remember reading about them in his books. As his shoes knock a steady rhythm into the wood, he puts names to the knots that comprise the rigging, and labels each of the masts. It’s a shame that it’s so overly crowded during the day. It would be interesting, he thinks, to see how it all works in practice rather than theory without the thirty-strong crew of strangers bustling around him, stealing his oxygen.
To his left and right, more ships are docked, some much larger and more imposing than the one he stands on, built for longer and more treacherous journeys. He wonders which of them – if any - belongs to the pirates he encountered earlier in the day, and if theirs boasts cannons, or perhaps an ominous-looking flag.
When the wind picks up and turns cold, Kiyoomi ventures below deck and looks around. He finds his promised food in the kitchen and picks at it as he inspects the sleeping quarters and rifles through what the captain picked up for his father and stored in the orlop. It’s nothing much, mostly books and imported delicacies, but Kiyoomi also finds some artwork, fine silks and fabrics, and an ornate-looking rug that’ll most likely replace the one in the study once he gets home.
Home. Part of him wishes he’d never left, feigned an illness instead of travelling halfway across the country to avoid a party. He wants his bed, his clean clothes, and to breathe air that doesn’t make him want to vomit. He wants to bathe properly, wants to scrub days’ worth of grime from his skin and eat food that doesn’t taste like watery paper.
He unlocks the captain’s quarters and sits at his desk. It’s a room far bigger than Kiyoomi’s, and he tries not to be too jealous of the fact that the captain has a wardrobe, a rug spread out across the floor, and a window that lets a considerable amount of light in. He turns his attention to the tabletop instead, that’s covered completely in a map of extraordinary detail. Four weights hold it down, and small figures of boats are placed upon precise locations within the sea. Kiyoomi picks up the one placed near a border of land and inspects it; it looks exactly like the ship he’s on now, down to the colour of the hull and the tiny flags flying at the masts. As he brings it closer to his face to see the details of the deck, he fumbles it and hears it thump against the carpet. He bends down to retrieve it, and then he spots the inconspicuous bottle of whiskey hidden in a compartment carved into the desk’s wall and smiles.
Kiyoomi doesn’t care that it belongs to the captain, he picks up the bottle, pops the cork and pours some – not too much - into his mouth from a distance so that his lips don’t touch the rim. Immediately, the warm thrum of alcohol soothes him from the inside out. The burn as it eases down his throat settles some of his perpetual nerves and he imagines it washing away whatever germs have collected in his chest throughout the day like he’s cleansing a wound.
Kiyoomi feels somewhat lighter when he stashes it back away and he sits for a while, enjoying watching the sun set and bruise the sky purple. When the alcohol starts to hit and make his eyes feel heavy, he trudges back to his room and locks the door behind him. Lethargically, he shrugs out of his coat, hangs it neatly over his desk, and changes out of his ruffled shirt and into a looser fitting undershirt to sleep in.
Kiyoomi doesn’t bother with his routine of lighting the lantern and reading himself to sleep that night. He crawls straight under the covers and is asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
Kiyoomi is dreaming of unfamiliar brown eyes and golden hair just before he wakes. He has no idea what time it is, only that he’s feeling more pissed off than usual for some unexplainable reason, and that it’s still too cold to be the morning.
Then he realises what has woken him isn’t the usual rowdy shouting of sailors, but the creaking of wood and the heavy foot falls of boots above his head. He sits up immediately, listening tentatively in the darkness for a clue as to what is happening.
The crew aren’t meant to be back until morning; the ship is supposed to be empty. But Kiyoomi can feel the subtle sway, the nausea in the pit of his stomach that means they’re definitely moving.
There are a few possibilities as to why, Kiyoomi rationalises with himself.
One: it is, in fact, morning, and the whiskey that Kiyoomi drank has simply clouded his good judgement.
Two: he is not actually awake. This is just another strange dream within a dream, because when you spend every waking moment on a boat, your subconscious is bound to start taking notes.
Three: the ship has been boarded by thieves, and Kiyoomi is probably about to be—
Click.
Kiyoomi’s head snaps towards the sound. It’s coming from where he knows the door is; a scraping, a clicking of metal, the rattling of the door handle.
He realises he has nothing to defend himself with other than the book discarded beside his bed and grabs it as a last resort. It’s a hard cover, at least. It’ll do some considerable damage if he hits hard enough using the corners. Even if he had his sword, he feels so disoriented he’s not so sure he’d know how to use it; his hands feel boneless and his breaths are short in his chest.
The door clicks one final time and then it swings open.
Light floods the room, from a lantern in the hands of the person who’s just broken in. Kiyoomi winces as his eyes adjust from the darkness, and then he makes immediate, prolonged eye contact with a man in the doorway.
He’s short, with wild orange hair and a young-looking face. Kiyoomi can’t quite work out the colour of his eyes from their distance, but they widen when he spots Kiyoomi brandishing his book and his hand tightens around the handle of his lantern.
“Oh, shit,” he says after what feels like a lifetime.
Kiyoomi wastes no time. He throws the book at the door and the intruder yelps as it narrowly misses hitting him. The assailant bolts, and Kiyoomi stumbles out of bed after him because he looks small enough that Kiyoomi might be able to take him in a fight and use him as leverage against whoever has boarded this ship. He remembers to pick up the book before he leaves, feeling safer with the weight of a weapon in his hands.
The light of the lantern gives away the intruder’s position; Kiyoomi follows it as it winds around the lower decks but the man’s fast. Too fast for Kiyoomi to keep up with for long, especially whilst the boat is moving and throwing him into the walls.
When he loses both the light and the intruder, he dips behind a barrel and hides while he catches his breath.
Strangely enough, though he spends every waking moment of his life catastrophising the smallest of interactions, though he finds the tiniest and most insignificant of things to be anxious about, right now he feels an odd sense of calm wash over him. I suppose, he thinks, this is what my brain has been training me for all this time. He’s spent so long rehearsing for the worst, that now he feels prepared.
Hiding forever isn’t exactly an option now that someone knows he’s here, and he can hear a lot of footsteps above that suggest he’s far too outnumbered to fight his way free. He’s heard the stories of what happens to the crews of merchant ships, of noblemen and fishermen when criminals board their vessels. The decks are stained with blood and the bodies are left for the sharks.
As of right now Kiyoomi has two choices:
Either he lets the criminals kill him, or he throws himself overboard and takes his chances with nature.
“I’m not kidding! There was someone here, I swear! He threw a book at me.”
It’s the voice of the intruder; Kiyoomi recognises the same upbeat lilt. The voice is coming from his left, the same direction he disappeared in, and now there is another set of footsteps accompanying his, heavier and clunkier.
He must have run to fetch help.
Kiyoomi decides then that he, and the ship, are completely fucked. He should definitely just hand himself over to be gutted now and save everyone the hassle of searching for him. Or perhaps it would be better simply to torch the whole vessel and take everyone down with him. He hopes his grandmother won’t be too displeased that his dramatic and untimely demise at the hand of bandits will plummet the mood of her birthday celebrations.
Who is Kiyoomi kidding? Of course she will.
“There can’t be anyone here, dumbass,” comes the other voice. It’s petulant and grumpy sounding, like the whole world is challenging him rather than just one guy. “The crew said everyone was staying at the inn.”
Kiyoomi holds his breath and remains very still as he listens. If he does somehow manage to get out of this alive, he’s personally going to strangle the life from every member of the crew for handing the entire local crime syndicate the opportunity to rob this ship on a silver platter.
“Well they lied. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” the grumpy one mocks in a childish tone as he starts checking the rooms along the hallway. Kiyoomi can hear the bangs as he kicks the doors open, and the slams as he closes them again. “OK, smartass, why don’t you—”
“Am I a dumbass or a smartass? You should pick one and stick to it, Stupid-yama.”
“Easy. I pick dumbass. So just shut up and tell me what he looked like.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t understand how a description will help them find him in the slightest – he’s now the only stranger on this boat and nobody outside of his family and the crew would ever recognise him by face. Still, the other seems happy enough to oblige.
“Hmm, it was kinda dark, but he definitely had pale skin, dark eyes and dark hair. I think he was wearing a white shirt. You know, those loose flowy ones that vampires wear.”
Kiyoomi looks down at his undershirt and wonders what about it screams vampire. It’s just an undershirt, there’s nothing inherently—
“Sounds like the Phantom Scholar.”
There’s a pause and the banging stops. The bright sounding one’s voice loses its optimistic edge. “The what?”
“The Phantom Scholar,” the grumpy one repeats. “You know, the ghost that haunts noblemen’s ships and kills pirates with books and quill pens. Once he makes eye contact with you, he follows you around for years, watching, waiting for you to feel safe, until he finally kills you. Weren’t you listening when Hoshiumi-san told that story?”
“O-of course I was listening! It’s not the Phantom Scholar!”
“Sounds like it to me. You said he threw a book at you. That’s how it starts.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Yes it does.”
“Doesn’t.”
“Does. Have fun dying. If you’re lucky, Ushiwaka-san will take pity on you and throw you overboard before the ghost finishes you off.”
Kiyoomi’s had just about as much as he can take. He steps out from behind the barrel, ready to hand himself over, but when the two idiots spot him standing at the end of the hallway, white vampire shirt billowing slightly beneath the draft, book clutched in his hand, the short one screams, the tall one blanches, and they both curse and scramble over each other to run away.
“I’m too young to die!” Kiyoomi hears the short one shriek as he pulls at the tall one’s coat and yanks him backward down the stairs.
The lantern rattles around and casts chaotic shadows along the hallway as the tall one retaliates by pushing the other’s face into the wall. “You’re already fucked! Stop trying to drag me down with you!”
“You made eye contact with it too! You’re just as fucked as I am!”
“No I’m not! I blinked, dumbass.”
“Liar! It saw us both! I hope you know how to swim, Stupid-yama!”
“I’m the best swimmer on this crew! You should worry about yourself. Sharks prefer eating short people.”
“That’s not true. Sharks don’t understand the metric system!”
“Excuse me,” Kiyoomi tries to interrupt. “I’m not the—"
They both scream this time and the lantern drops with a clangourous thud. Thankfully – or not – it doesn’t smash and engulf the ship in flames, but the light does go out and bury them all in darkness again. The pair seem to give up on ascending the stairs after that, and Kiyoomi can see their outlines backlit by the moon, hugging each other in fear as they search the darkness for signs of the ‘ghost’.
“What the hell is going on down there?”
“Hoshiumi-san! Don’t come over here! It’s the Phantom Scholar!”
“Hah? What are you idiots talking about?” The voice sounds far away at first, but it gets louder as footsteps bring it closer to the staircase. “I made that up to give you nightmares. Can't believe it actually worked. You guys are so stupid.”
“Don’t say that,” the grumpy one says very seriously. “He’s real and you’re going to make him mad.”
Kiyoomi sighs and approaches the stairs. He shoulders past the two cowering in fear, ignores their screaming, and climbs up to the deck where a third man (Hoshiumi?) is waiting.
Hoshiumi cocks his head strangely at Kiyoomi when he spots him, then his large eyes widen and flicker down to the book in his hand and Kiyoomi knows he’s thinking the same damn thing about this ridiculous Phantom Scholar.
Of all the crews to be boarded by, Kiyoomi gets the one comprised of morons. He can’t even just get murdered swiftly and painlessly by competent criminals, he’ll be forced to wallow in stupidity and die slowly and painfully as they try to work out whether he’s a fucking supernatural entity or not.
He’s lamenting his atrocious luck again when an idea springs forth. A way for him to perhaps secure his life at least until the boat next docks and he can safely run away.
Kiyoomi is no genius, but to a crew full of idiots, his education might seem otherworldly. He can decipher maps, write well, and he’s read a fair amount about health and science to be a passable medic. If he can talk to the captain, he’s sure he can work something out, come to some kind of agreement to prove his worth.
“W-Who are you?” Hoshiumi asks. Kiyoomi ignores him and continues on his way. “Hey! Wait! Where are you going?”
“To hand myself over to your captain,” Kiyoomi replies. “Since none of you seem competent enough to do it yourselves.”
The ship has definitely been boarded by pirates, Kiyoomi confirms as he looks around. Not just bandits, or common thieves, but pirates that have already gotten the ship so far away from the dock that Kiyoomi can barely make out the lights of the town in the distance.
He can see a few members of the crew. Aside from the ones now arguing behind him, there are two racing up the rigging, one cheering them on, and two more talking beside the ship’s helm.
Of them all, Kiyoomi takes his chances with the captain being the one wearing an elaborate hat and long coat of purple and gold brocade at the helm. Kiyoomi starts towards him, but then hands grab at his arms and force them behind his back. Kiyoomi fights it at first, losing his grip on his book and hating the sensation of being touched, but then he resigns himself to the fact that the less resistance he puts up, the more favourable he might seem.
“We’ve got you now, Phantom Scholar,” the short one says. His grip is surprisingly strong around Kiyoomi’s wrists as he pushes him in the direction he was already voluntarily going in. “We’re going to take you to face the wrath of our captain.”
“It’s about time,” Kiyoomi drawls. He has to clench his teeth together after that to stop them chattering, and wishes he’d had the good sense to grab his coat instead of the book.
Hoshiumi pulls a knife to Kiyoomi’s throat and says, “You won’t be saying that when he’s through with you.”
Kiyoomi gives him a look. Even brandishing a knife, Hoshiumi doesn’t exactly strike fear into Kiyoomi’s heart, especially since he’s still eyeing Kiyoomi warily like he might evaporate into a cloud of ghostly smoke. The only mildly concerning thing about him is the pair of pistols at his waist.
When Hoshiumi’s stare lingers on him an uncomfortable second too long, Kiyoomi decides to have a little fun. He jerks his body to the side and snaps, “Boo.”
All three yelp again and Kiyoomi laughs as he feels the grip on his wrists loosen.
Hoshiumi narrows his eyes at him and must finally come to the conclusion that Kiyoomi is not, in fact, a ghost, because he cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, “We’ve found a stowaway! Everyone gather!”
“I’m not a stowaway,” Kiyoomi scoffs. “This is my damn ship.”
“Not anymore,” says the grumpy one. “It’s ours now.”