Chapter Text
His mother left him at the age of two, leaving him nothing but a vague collection of colors.
From then on, he lived with his uncle. He remembered crying all day when he was torn off the arm of the only blood relative his infant mind had just started to memorize, not understanding the words around him but understanding enough that they weren't friendly which just made him cry louder, because eventually his mother must hear, if he was just a little louder. She couldn't ignore him.
But she didn't come back.
When he was old enough that his body grew into his head and he was able to balance himself up and down stairs with little help, his aunt stuck a rag in his soft hands and instructed him to scrub the floors. He didn't understand, and so his eyes welled up, his toddler face scrunched, and he wailed a discordant song of discontent that was interrupted with a slap that rattled his head into silence.
“If you have time to cry, then you have time to work!” she said.
His message was not heard, or perhaps it was ignored, and he quickly realized that he would have to hang up this childish communication, bury it deep and let it rot.
So he learned to scrub.
And he learned to wash dishes. And he learned to sweep. And he learned to do laundry, to cook, to sow. He learned the words: lazy girl, stupid girl, leech, good-for-nothing; swirly eyebrows, funny eyebrows, abandoned, unwanted; your mother left you because of those eyebrows, those weird eyebrows, unnatural eyebrows. He learned how to fight. He learned the pain of broken knuckles, the sound of a scream that accompanied a cracked rib, the taste of dirt, of sweat, of blood, learned that hair was easy to grab, that eyes were easy to blind. And he learned another name: beastly girl.
“Look at your dress! Never in my life have I ever seen anybody in such a state! Do you understand that your cousin never got into fights?! Did you do this to try to force me to buy you new clothes?! What a selfish girl, trying to waste our money! You'll still have to wait until Gloria grows out of her clothes, understand?! Go wash yourself up before the neighbors see you!”
He pressed his cut lips together and glared with words that he didn't know yet. He could see his uncle standing behind his aunt and glared at him too, hated him almost as much as he did his aunt, hated the way his eyes shone with concern but his feet remained cemented to the floor, and so he marched with his sole, tattered apparel like it was a uniform, even if he understood that it was just one more name waiting to happen.
He could count the hours by the number of cuts and scrapes and bruises he had, by the number of times he was dragged home by the scruff of his neck and was shoved inside, leaving a sea of apologies on behalf of him until the door was shut and he could freely be called embarrassment, shameful, animal. His uncle disinfected and dressed his wounds until he was more bandage than child, and he counted those as well as they crisscrossed over his body. He counted the sweeps of the broom, the circles he made with the sponge, the bubbles of soap in the sink, and he thought, ah, so this is life.
It was on his fifth birthday that he collapsed from a fever, one of his cuts oozing something dangerous and yellow.
The doctor said he was to be confined to bed, that his temperature was severe enough to be life-threatening. His aunt complained bitterly that there was no one to do the housework now, like it was his fault, and his uncle shushed her, told her not to say this sort of thing in this sort of situation. As he lay there, staring but not really seeing, his body feeling too loud, he wondered if he would die. And his aunt stood over him and said, “This wouldn't happen if you would be a good girl.”
And what did that mean? What was 'good?' What was 'girl?' He didn't know how to be either, or perhaps he couldn't be. He saw the way his cousin was treated, the model of perfection, the way that his aunt cooed over her hair and her dress, indulged in her play, bonded with her over thoughts of the future and of boys, none of which sat right with him. He sometimes saw them laugh together and he couldn't help but think, how frivolous, but someone in his mind reminded him that he had nothing to laugh about, nobody to laugh with, his only occupation the care of the house and his only recreation the bloodying of his hands.
The good thing would be to stop with his beastly ways, let himself be tamed. Stop fighting. Stop talking back. Obey.
But that route was closed off now, wasn't it. He couldn't even if he tried, could he. He was too angry, too spiteful, too bad to ever be good, he was a child of bile and hate and he loved to fight, to curse, to shout and kick and spit, he loved it all, otherwise why would he do it so much?
And on that bed, even though he told himself three years ago that he wouldn't again, he cried with a silent intensity that burned his eyes and flooded his ears.
Seven years old, and he barged into the largest building (and tree) in town, covering his bleeding nose and being chased by of a swarm of insulted children. They pounded their way about, weaving around the furnishings of the inside with no heed to what they were, until someone large and adult appeared with a self-righteous air and bellowed, “GET OUT, GET OUT! THIS IS NO PLACE FOR HOOLIGANS!”
The combination of his imposing height and his really weird beard managed to drive off the rampaging kids, who shouted back irreverent remarks nevertheless. The man huffed at their childish audacity before turning back into the library and saying, “You too.”
The remaining delinquent stiffened and kept still out of the rather unreasonable hope that he meant some other kid that was also hiding behind a bookcase to avoid getting chased out.
No such luck.
The old man had a grasp that was rather firm for his age, and it snaked out and snatched the child's arm with the speed of a cobra. He yelped as he was tugged out into view, which at least seemed to invoke a sympathetic release of his arm. He took the chance to back away but proceeded no further – the only thing waiting outside would be more fights, after all. This place seemed more populated by objects, a sense of the ancient divine that could not be touched by human violence. It was calming, in a way that nothing else ever was.
The man knelt down so that he could better see his face. It struck him with such an inescapable image that he couldn't help but blurt out, “Clover.”
The clover-shaped face laughed at his embarrassed efforts to swallow back his word. “Well, that is my name,” and he was struck dumb at what must have been the most serendipitous choice of nomenclature in all of recorded history. Either that, or the geezer decided to model himself after his namesake. As he considered whether to boggle or laugh, Clover asked for his name as well and he automatically murmured, “Synnøve.”
Clover appraised his appearance with a morose look that contradicted his initial introduction. “My, what a sad look for a young girl...why don't we clean you up? I have enough medical knowledge to at least bandage those nasty wounds...”
He beckoned Synnøve to follow, and it was easy to do so, when it seemed his reputation hadn't followed him in this taciturn place. The two of them walked to the far wall, past shelves and shelves of books. Spines of all color stretched on to either side, almost blending together in their sheer number. Synnøve found that he couldn't even begin to count them all.
“Why's your house only got books in it, old man?” he said, the first sentence he could remember being borne out of a natural curiosity.
“Please, call me professor,” Clover replied with a mild chuckle. “And this isn't my house, though I suppose that I spend much of my life in here. This is a library. These books belong to everybody.”
Synnøve gave a suspicious look in return. “I don't own books.”
“Perhaps not, but these books belong to you regardless. You may come in here and borrow these books to read as you please.”
“Dunno how to read,” Synnøve said with a little bit of defiance, as though challenging the professor to say anything about that, see what happens, punk.
“Well, that's a shame,” was the only answer.
They entered a much smaller room in the back, which felt something like a secret, though definitely more mundane compared to the endless expanse of books. There was a table with a few errant chairs, a counter, a sink, and a fridge. Clover knelt down to heft Synnøve up on the table but after being rebuked, let Synnøve crawl up himself. The two settled in a silence created by the gap in their ages as the elder began tending to the cuts on the younger, who refused to hiss whenever disinfectant touched his gaping skin.
There were quite a lot of cuts to clean, and so the silence drew out until Clover's hands trailed up to the mark left on Synnøve's cheek and offhandedly remarked, “Your eyebrow certainly reminds me of your mother...”
“You know my mom?!” Synnøve shot out, dropping all apathetic pretenses and almost falling off the table in his eagerness. A benevolently cross look from Clover was all it took for him to settle down apologetically, though his face shone with an intense determination.
“Yes, well...she did not stay with us for long, but I certainly knew her – “
“Why'd she leave?” Synnøve blurted out, not someone who could appreciate Clover's languid storytelling style.
Clover fell silent again for a moment, brushing back Synnøve's hair to dab at a cut on his scalp. “The hard question first, eh? Well...she's being chased by….some powerful people. I'm certain she didn't want her only daughter involved in that sort of life.”
He almost collapsed with the answer of a five-year-old question, an answer that contradicted all the other answers he had gotten throughout his life, and he wondered if it was so strong because it was true, or simply because he wanted to believe it.
“So she couldn't help it,” he said, without realizing. His head bowed under the weight of Clover's hand and he smiled, or did something akin to that, clutched that answer close like a blanket, a ward, a shield, something new to stave off the other answers that were shouted at him in taunting sing-song.
Clover taped the last bandage and gave a lingering rustle of his hair. “You have her eyebrows, too,” he said, and Synnøve could hear something behind that one statement, something that sounded like regret.
The library wasn't as void as people as Synnøve had initially thought. Every day, there was an abundance of adults going in and out, people called 'scholars,' who called Clover by name rather than by title. People who didn't lurch back at his presence, but leaned down and gave a solid pat on his shoulder and congratulated whatever progress he's made in reading. They patiently gave him definitions of words longer than five letters. Took the time to read to him. Learning that he had never had a birthday party in his life, they threw together seven in quick succession, and he gorged on so much cake that he barfed – and though the scholars practically tore themselves apart, because of course eating seven cakes in one day was a bad idea they were so stupid, he felt so happy, because it was the first time he had too much to eat. They even bought him trousers like he asked, didn't question when he insisted on absolutely no dresses.
And he read. Kept reading, practically devoured the words in front of him, and when he ran out of books in the common tongue he simply learned other languages just so he could read more, learn more, about adventure and love and the sky and the sea and history and freedom.
In this way, the beast was tamed.
As bright as the day started, it became a perfectly miserable one, battering the library with the sort of rain that soaked the body with chills and made even the puddles more of a trial than a playground. It was bad enough that the scholars refused to let him walk home, insisted he stay until it let up, at least until one (or all) of them could walk him home, and that's what made it so perfect.
Everybody had, as usual, congregated in the oh-so mysterious basement when Synnøve hollered through the door that it was dinner already, come up and eat you stupid adults, and the literary crowd stumbled their way up above the ground blinking like moles and meandering contently towards the kitchen that their collectively-adopted child had commandeered a long time ago. The tiny general stamped his foot twice, one arm akimbo, as he saw to attendance and the distribution of food.
“Geez! You'd all just starve away down there without even noticing if it weren't for me!” he said, and the lucky first-in-line managed to look convincingly ashamed even in the face of his adorably annoyed expression.
“Ahh~ Synnøve-chan, sorry, we all just get so wrapped up in our work...” But the cook was already off, counting, counting again, before scampering back down the stairs and returning with the stray Clover in tow, dragging him by the arm in the manner of dragging him by the ear. He looked nothing like a distinguished professor, the way he was being tugged along by such a small child, and everybody chuckled in amusement despite their familiarity with the scene; until Synnøve's righteous glare cowed them back into silence, and then dinner properly started.
There may have been a couple of armchairs, placed strategically around the bookshelves, but everybody sat on the floor together, chatting lightly about things decidedly not intellectual, jokes and gossip and life and food. Synnøve surveyed it all with the air of a satisfied parent, until someone pointed out that he wasn't eating and he was compelled to join the masses himself just so that he wouldn't be a hypocrite.
“I never stop being surprised about how good your cooking is,” said a gourd-shaped woman next to him. Her brown hair bristled with curls that seemed to twist with pleasure whenever she took a bite.
“I had loads of practice,” Synnøve said, keeping his voice modest as his knees bounced with a different sort of pleasure, and it was so strange, for something that used to be bitter to turn into a badge of pride whenever he was here, with these people.
“Hm? Synnøve, what's that you got under your arm?”
He paused to check, paused again to remember. “Oh yeah! Um, there was this part, in here? I wanted to ask, on this page, 'cause I thought maybe it said something about All Blue but I wasn't sure – here, look.” There was a bit of juggling of bowls and book as the immediate vicinity tried to figure out a way to eat without marring the pages with fragrant foodstuff. Finally, a long-legged scholar held the book up and peered at the page.
“Let's see…'an isolated sea that is separate from all other seas, yet contains all other seas...'”
“Yeah! Yeah! That's All Blue, right? That's what they're talking about?”
“It seems so, but...this is written in an old North Blue language. Synnøve, you can read this?”
He hastily ducked his head, looking into his soup with a flush. “Um, not really...only some words. There's just so many books here, and, and, not all of it's in Common, but I wanna read 'em all, but learning different words for words is hard...”
But the adults laughed and took turns setting their wide hands on his head and scruffling up his hair until he pulled away with a face that made them laugh again. “Such a smart kid! Not everybody can pick up a language like that!”
“You'd make a diligent researcher, Sy!”
“Y'know, if you compiled everything you can find on All Blue and write about it, you could be famous with all the scholars.”
“No way!” Synnøve shot back, smacking all the reaching hands away. “I don't wanna write about it, I wanna go there! If nobody ever found it, that means there's no Aunties there, and no stupid kids with rocks, and I'll make a house there and anybody who was mean would have to go away because it's my house.”
The group listening in said nothing to that, exchanging glances that he recognized on his uncle, glances that were too troubled to move their mouths and say what they meant. It didn't suit them, if only because none of them were his uncle and this wasn't his house, so he said, “I'll take you guys too! Whenever you're all ready, I'll take you on my boat and we can live together. I can make my house a library, and you can stay there. If I didn't have any friends, I woulda run away, but now I do! So I can't leave without everybody.”
His beam was met by various smiles that still had his uncle's look hanging over them. One of them chuckled weakly. “That sounds lovely.”
“You should just leave without us. We can't go anywhere any time soon.”
“Pegg! Don't encourage her to run away!”
“What? People should have the right to go where they want if they're not happy where they are.”
“She's not even ten!”
“You can't leave 'cause of that big rock, right?”
Everybody stopped. Even the ones who hadn't been listening stopped. The silence, which should have suited the library, was much too choking to be comfortable. Synnøve hesitated, but repeated, in case nobody understood the question, “You can't go right now...'cause, um, the big rock, in the basement? Right?”
As one, the scholars seem to all fall over, with a collective shout of, “SHE FOUND OUT!”
“How'd she know about the Poneglyph!?”
“Idiot, don't say what it is!”
“B-but she's seen it! She must've seen it, right?! She's already in big trouble!”
Only Clover seemed to remain upright, and had actually went the opposite direction, onto his feet, and he hopscotched over plates and bowls and overturned colleagues on a straight path towards Synnøve, who had also jumped up, realizing that this might be one of those situations to run away from, but Clover grabbed his arm and leaned down with straining eyes and a burning red brow, and he said, “I told you! Never! To go into the basement!”
Synnøve tugged fruitlessly. “I didn't! I just peeked! It's just a rock with stuff on it, what's the big deal!”
“Synnøve,” Clover barked, stilling everybody in the library once more, even as his voice grew low and somber, like a funeral. “What we are doing here is very dangerous. If we are found out by the World Government, we would...we would be known as criminals. Do you understand?”
Synnøve looked around and only saw equally somber faces, sometimes hard, sometimes sorrowful, none of them contradicting the reality of Clover's words or the possibility of their deaths. It hit him, right in the ribs, and if Clover wasn't still holding him he might have run.
“Do not speak of the Poneglyph. Not in town. Not here. Do not even hint that there is anything in the basement. Your knowledge of its existence may even implicate you as an accomplice, and I could never forgive myself if we involved you.”
He wasn't crying, not now, but his voice quavered just a little when he blurted out, “Let's go. W-we could get away from here, and, and, nobody would find us, 'cause – “
Clover smiled, then, but it wasn't a happy smile, no, not at all, and he said, “We can't. The Poneglyph is too heavy to move.”
“Forget it, then! Who cares about that rock?! What if someone finds out?! Just leave it behind!”
He let go of his arm and instead brushed a finger against his cheek, gently. “I cannot explain it to you. But, you see...it's our All Blue.”
Synnøve stayed away from the library for a few days, curling up on his bed whenever he had nothing to do. He tried to sift and parse out his emotions, but they kept whirling in an ouroboros of thought so that he couldn't tell if he felt betrayed or scared or sad or empathetic. His aunt stomped around him, breathing out the names he knew well, but he couldn't care about trifling things like chores. That damn rock seemed to tower over everything else, casting any other concern into obscurity, overshadowing his friends with something too heavy for them to hold. He hated the rock for what it was doing, pushing the only people he loved to the brink of something...something that was much larger than the town, much larger than the island, even. And yet.
Synnøve cracked first, and he consoled himself with the idea that, as long as he said nothing, pretended he never even met eyes with that cursed rock, then nothing bad would ever happen.
White sails were spotted cresting the horizon, though he wasn't there to see it. The entire house needed to be scrubbed, the laundry put out, the comforters beaten, the fireplace cleaned, on and on and on, until he took a break just to get some feeling back in his arms besides 'throbbing ache' and, only then did he notice the crescendo of conversation outside.
The doorknob refused to turn at his pathetic pawing, so he scooted a chair to one of the windows and peeped out above the crowd of heads.
There, among the sea of hair, was a marching, bobbing line of marine-white hats.
He scrabbled at the door a little harder, too long, much too long, until with a final, painful wrench, he managed to stumble out and into the back of the crowd. The adult he ran into turned to tell him off, but he quickly asked, “What's going on?”
The novelty of the event was enough to overturn his pariah state and so he was told, “The marines are here...”
The forest of legs surrounding him shifted slightly, circling around the other adult. “They just said the scholars are criminals, right? I wasn't hearing things?”
“It's unbelievable, isn't it?” he heard someone say, as blasé as talking of disappointing weather. He couldn't see the marines anymore. They were going to the library. They were going to…
The thoughts in his head got drowned out by the pounding of his feet, or his heart, or something. Think, think.
The library loomed above the center of the island. All roads led to it. Straight lines. But he ran, as though if he tried hard enough, he could just make a shortcut, warp space around him so he could beat the marines, please beat the marines, if there was one thing in life he deserved (though maybe he had never deserved anything to begin with, and didn't that make sense?), if he was allowed one bit of selfishness –
The library was being emptied of scholars when he arrived, with marines lined up all around, gesturing with guns and faces infuriatingly unsympathetic. The scholars stood as straight as the military and looked much more stately even without a uniform, but that soon changed when he burst into the clearing with burning lungs and a hotter disappointment.
“Synnøve!” Clover roared, striding forward despite the situation. A marine snapped a gun in his direction and he was aware enough to stop, but he shouldn't have to, there shouldn't even be guns pointing at him, threatening with high-speed lead.
A marine approached. “Hey, little girl, you shouldn't be here. Why don't you go find your parents on the refugee – “
He punched the piece of shit straight in the bits, dodging around his collapsing form and running for the scholars again; but in the end, even if he had years of fighting and kicking and biting behind him, they were adults. Adults that could pick him up easily, pin his arms, push him against the ground, until he was just an ineffectual, weak child and all he could do was just scream.
“Now gentleman,” slithered a voice from the library door. “Is this the way the world's heroes ought to treat children?”
“Sir, she's intent on attacking us.”
“Are you saying you can't even deal with a child?”
“Sir, please, I suggest you don't approach – “
A face slid into view. There was a man, not in uniform but in a black suit, and somehow he was just immediately detestable in a way that couldn't be explained. It wasn't just his hair or his sneer or his voice, but something in his very essence that felt repulsive. It all focused on Synnøve, and he said, “You ought to be a good girl and – “
Synnøve's teeth sank into his leg.
The next second, his head rang with the rebounding of his brain in his skull. It took him a little while to realize that he tasted blood. Around him, sounds blazed about, wavering in and out of his comprehension.
“Sir!”
“What?! You saw...! What...supposed to do?! Damn kid...hm…?”
A dark shape shadowed his view.
“Hang on...this kid...one of...asked about someone like her, right? ...weird eyebrows can't be a coincidence...”
“Yes, Chief Spandine. ...the description of...girl, unique eyebrows...”
He seemed to black out. Or at least, he stopped listening to the words. There was the sensation of being picked up, too fast, his head spun anew and he might have moaned.
The familiar sounds of Clover's voice...still so authoritative, even now, though what he was lecturing on was lost.
And then, two words that were chillingly ominous enough to stir his brain to something similar to consciousness:
“Buster Call.”
He looked around. He was on another suited man's shoulder, nose pressed against his back. There was a flickering light that made him nauseous. He looked to the left.
Oh. The library was on fire.
The tree seemed to writhe in the flames, shaking out debris that he realized were books. The scholars were in there, tossing tomes out into the lake below, saving what they could. The scholars were also still standing outside. He heard them there, felt their stares boring into – well, not him, but the one holding him.
“Where are you taking her,” Clover said, his voice the lowest and darkest he had ever heard.
The despicable man waved dismissively. “Just join your friends in the fire, gramps. She'll be alive, better off than you. You should be glad. She'll be with her father.”
He could hear the shuddering in Clover's voice when he replied, “She was not left here just to go back! If you're a father, then – “
“Then what? I should leave her here on a doomed island?”
An explosion rocked the ground and rained dirt and bits of tree on them, as though trying to back up the despicable man. The person carrying Synnøve stumbled and it was like something in his brain flipped a switch – this was his chance, this was his chance – to do what? But he was already pushing with his hands, wriggling his legs, until he just slid out of the grasp and rolled on the ground.
He shook his head. Stopped, when the world spun again. He heard, “Shit! Pick her up and let's go, before the damn Buster Call kills us!”
“No!”
And then:
A gunshot.
He whirled around. His eyes blurred from the sudden movement and from the excess of smoke, but he could still see Clover, see him reel back, see a hole in him that shouldn't be there.
But he didn't fall. He took a steadying step, and then, with a speed that surprised everybody, tackled the man closest to Synnøve.
Everybody seemed to pause to understand this turn of events, even the man who was currently being grappled, but then everything started again, much too soon. Marines started raising their guns, but hesitated to shoot at risk of friendly fire. The detestable man growled with rage and started to shout incomprehensible orders. Other men advanced on Clover, and on him.
“Synnøve, run,” Clover said, sounding not like a professor, and he stared up, not ready to figure out what he was feeling but tearing up anyways, and he could only stand there, even when there was someone else approaching, to hurt Clover, to take him.
There was another blur, frantic firing of guns, and suddenly more of the suited men were met by bodies made immovable despite their lack of physical training. “Synnøve, run!” a scholar repeated. “Run, already! Get off the island any way you can!”
All around, scholars wrestled with marine rifles. Charged forward with nothing but their own bodies and determination. Blood was starting to pool in places on the ground, and Synnøve watched, his breathing getting harder even before he turned and ran, ran faster than ever, and in the end, it wasn't because he was obeying his only family, it was because he was afraid of what he would eventually see.
He felt something rotting inside, eating its way out, but kept running, long past the voices that bellowed behind him. Every time the earth shook with a not-so-distant explosion, his heart leapt into his throat – but he didn't, couldn't, stumble. Just keep running. Don't think about what's behind, don't think about what's coming from above, don't,
The shore.
The refugee ship already left it. He stood there, gulping down air that was starting to get tainted with ash, watched it go. Felt something welling up in his chest again, let it out in the form of a wet cough –
The ship fell apart like the island it left behind.
Bits of sail and wood plopped into the sea. It had been so completely and thoroughly blasted that Synnøve couldn't even see bodies, just an object that couldn't be identified anymore. Nothing big enough to be called flotsam, nothing usable left, nothing that would wash up on a distant shore and hint at a larger story. It simply added to the building smoke in the air.
Navy warships surrounded the island, so unbelievably huge, almost as big as the library, and he could clearly see the World Government's mark on the sails, the flags. The cross that represented the world, the entity that tied all the oceans together under one rule.
He turned back. Ran further into the forest, dodging falling branches as much as he could, scratching his arms against foliage. He started feeling a stabbing pain up his feet – oh, yes, he forgot his shoes. Just one of many things he was leaving behind today, wasn't he.
His feet led the way to a lump hidden under a shoddy camouflage, which he tore off to reveal an equally shoddy boat. A project built off of a daydream that had grown to involve other people – and yet here he was, alone.
The boat, or maybe it was more accurate to call it a raft, didn't sink, which was the most he could hope for. He waded out after it in the choppy water, crawled on, and started to paddle.
He wasn't sure what direction he was supposed to go in. Just 'away.' And he could do nothing but stare at the place where he was getting away from, because rowing required him to, and he took in the red sky, the uninhabitable island, the occasional barrage of the lingering attack. The water seemed to flicker as harshly as the fire. He kept thinking he saw people down below the waves, grasping, staring, before sinking down, down…
His escape wasn't quite so fast-paced anymore, and so his brain was forced to slow, had the ability to reflect, play back what had just happened, as much as he didn't want it to. His ribs seemed to collapse and he stopped to curl up and try to control his breathing. He coughed instead. His eyelids couldn't keep out the light of the wreckage. He still heard the booming of something he wished he could pretend was just thunder. His amateur raft kept bobbing, reminding him just where he was.
They should've gone with him. They should've listened, left this island behind long ago, with him, gone to a place where something like this…
The act of blaming them made him feel even sicker.
If only. If only they could have been untouchable. Some place out of reach from the World Government, from laws that, that just…did things like this.
All Blue...an undiscovered sea. Not on maps. Not on flags, or sails, or anything. There couldn't be any freer place.
If only...we had…
The mustached man had a ridiculous hat that clearly indicated him as the boss of this place. He had eyes with too many wrinkles, a face that sagged in ways that seemed something more than just age. Those eyes were scrutinizing him now, up and down. They didn't need to cover that much distance.
“This ain't a place for brats. Go home, kid.”
He stood there and scrutinized right back, down and up, up, up. He had gotten used to the lightness of his hair now, the way the back of his neck was now exposed. There was nothing he could do about the eyebrows. “I've been cooking all my life.”
“All three years?”
He kept staring, refusing to answer. The chef with the ridiculous hat eyed him some more, rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Look, I'm not running a house for snotty runaways here. This is a business. I employ adults. With skill.”
Well, the old man was right. He was a runaway. He had just ran away from a merchant ship. But he wasn't here to list his bloodied tracks that led him here.
“People liked my cooking,” he maintained. “You should let me try before kicking me out. I'll be your best chef.”
At this, the man could help but bark out a laugh, something too harsh to be amused. Disbelief, perhaps. “You don't even have your pubic hair and you think you're better than my men?”
He didn't know what pubic hair was, but he tried to look affronted anyways.
“You're only staying until your parents – “
“Have none.”
“ – whoever, grabs you and dump you back on the ship you came from – “
“Snuck on the ship.” He grinned, then, teeth crooked and snaggled from years of fist fights and from that one night. “Nobody's here that'll miss me. Nobody's gonna come pick me up. You're stuck with me, old shit.”
“I'm calling the marines.”
“What, no – “
He slapped his hands over his mouth but wasn't fast enough to beat the speed of sound. The old shit swiveled back around on his peg leg, eyebrows touching each other, and he looked him up and down again. What now? Did he think he was a criminal? Was he thinking of the best way to restrain him until a Navy ship could come? They couldn't have much more than ropes or something, easy stuff to get out of if he got caught, not that he was going to, his legs were already braced and he was a much better runner than when – than before. There were patrons, though, he could get easily surrounded, and there was nothing but sea around, no good escape route and why did he think this was a good idea, so stupid –
“You any good at being a waiter?”
His brain skidded to a halt, but he had learned to be enough of a liar to nod and say, “Yeah, 'course.” His legs kept themselves braced. What's his angle? Was this just a distraction, to lure him in and keep him here willingly while he went around back and called the marines? But that was too obvious wasn't it, unless he knew it was too obvious, and was counting in him to think it was too obvious –
“My men are good cooks, but they're shit at being hospitable. You're gonna have to seat customers, take orders and deliver their food, pretend that you don't hate their guts. Unless they're too uppity. Then you can call someone to beat the shit outta them and toss them out.”
He blinked, his mind derailing again. “Uh. Yeah. I'm good at pretending.”
The man nodded, though what could he be approving? He gestured to follow him around back, but stopped and turned his head, remembering something.
“What's your name?”
His mind whirred, spinning through aliases he had already used and discarding them, eyes glancing around for any bolt of information – tables; patrons; food; fish; sea; clock –
“Sanji,” he decided.