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"Oy, I said faster! You heard me, you bunch of spineless landlubbers!"
Kageyama hears the shout from outside the galley and narrows his eyes. He'd know that particular shrill voice anywhere, though in the comparable span of his life, he's been familiar with it for barely a barnacle's weight on a ship's hull. It's just made that much of an impression on him, he supposes.
He looks into the room and, to his non-surprise, spies a certain red-haired stowaway-turned-crewmate standing atop a table, tonight's entertainment for the cooks. They laugh uproariously at his antics and it's soon clear why.
There perched on his head sits Kageyama's captain's hat, and over his shoulders is one of Kageyama's finest silk shirts (taken right off the back of a town governor in a raid). On Shouyou's feet, Kageyama notes, with a surge of irritation, are his high leather boots, that he just polished that very morning.
They're too large for the small village boy, and even from his spot lurking in the doorway, Kageyama can see the dark leather's been scuffed, most likely because Shouyou can't walk straight in them. They extend well past his knees and the feet are too large—he wobbles with every step he takes.
He's started yelling something about scurvy dogs when Kageyama steps fully into the room, and the laughter dies.
"What?" Shouyou asks. "Oooh, does someone here have scurvy?"
"They've realized they're laughing at a dead man," Kageyama growls, and Shouyou shrieks and leaps nearly a foot into the air. Kageyama snatches him around the waist and yanks him off the table, bending him backwards nearly in half over it to look into his terrified eyes and hiss, "And everyone knows dead men tell no tales."
Not a single person moves to help Shouyou when Kageyama drags him from the room.
The captain doesn't speak, not even when they reach the captain's quarters, and then he tosses Shouyou inside the room before slamming the door shut behind them. Still, he stares, silent and stone-faced.
Wordlessly, Shouyou very, very slowly pulls off the three point captain's hat. His hair emerges, wildly mussed, as he nervously twists the hat in his hands, refusing to meet Kageyama's eyes. Eventually he bows his head in defeat and holds the hat out, arms outstretched like he's offering supplication.
He winces when Kageyama snatches it from him.
"I hope," Kageyama says, "for your sake, that everyone enjoyed your little show. It will be the last you give."
"I was just… joking…" Shouyou mumbles.
"You were mocking me in front of half the crew," Kageyama reminds him.
"They know I didn't mean anything by it!"
"Do they?" Kageyama asks, starting to really seethe. "Do they, Hinata, after you disobeyed me directly earlier? After you nearly got yourself killed?"
"That was different!" Shouyou bursts out. "If you'd just given me a chance—"
"At breaking your neck?" Kageyama snapped. Shouyou had tried to climb the Invincible's rigging earlier and lost his balance. Had he fallen off entirely, he almost certainly would have died. Kageyama had been the one to pull him to safety. "Is that what this is about?"
"No!" Shouyou yells.
"You stole my clothes!" Kageyama thunders. "You go out of your way to insult me—"
"You said you were going to leave me!" Shouyou shouts at him, equally enraged.
"What?" Kageyama asks. He'd never told Shouyou that.
"I overheard you talking to the crew," Shouyou says. "You said, next time we made port, you'd wait until I was asleep—and then you'd leave."
Kageyama curses, kicking at the old wooden trunk at the foot of his bed. He hadn't meant for Shouyou to overhear that. Hadn't meant to, because it wasn't true.
"You weren't even going to tell me," Shouyou says, voice thick, and Kageyama is stunned to realize he's crying. The fool thought he'd been serious.
But, he realizes, he has never given Shouyou a reason to believe he wouldn't do a thing like that. After all, he is a pirate. It'd be more merciful than tossing him overboard.
Kageyama stalks over to his desk and pulls out a chair. "Sit," he commands.
Shouyou sniffles. "Why?"
"To prove you can follow orders."
Shouyou wobbles over to the chair in the boots and plops into it like a beached whale, slouched and pouting. Kageyama roots around in his desk, until he finds his bootblacking kit, and comes back around to kneel in front of Shouyou. He sets a low stool in front of him.
"Foot," he says.
Shouyou stares at him, uncomprehending.
"Foot," Kageyama repeats. "Do I have to say everything twice, Hinata?"
Shouyou stomps his foot onto the stool harder than is necessary, and Kageyama starts to shine the boot. It's a bit easier than it is when no one's wearing them, and it reminds him of his childhood before he ran to the high seas, the smell and the kneeling and the polishing.
"What are you doing?" Shouyou asks him.
"Teaching you," Kageyama says, as he carefully applies the polish to the toe and heel, "how to shine my boots."
"Is that my new responsibility?" Shouyou asks sourly.
Faster than the redhead can blink, Kageyama reaches out, grabbing his face in one hand, squeezing his round cheeks painfully. Shouyou stares at him, suddenly very meek.
"While you're on my ship," Kageyama says, voice low, "your responsibility is to follow my orders. Devote yourself to me, or else hope we're near land. Because you will find yourself swimming."
He releases Shouyou's face, and Shouyou nods at him.
"I'm sorry you had to…" Shouyou swallows. "I'm sorry for earlier."
Kageyama sighs. "You could have died, you absolute idiot. You almost—"
"I know!" Shouyou says. "I didn't think and when I did, I realized you—I would have, if you hadn't climbed up to get me down. And then I came to apologize and I heard you saying you'd leave me, and I was so—" His soft face screws up sadly again. "I was mad because all this time I've been trying to prove I can be a part of your crew, and—"
"Quit—blubbering—" Kageyama says.
"I'm not!" Shouyou says, as he wipes his nose with the sleeve of Kageyama's best shirt.
"Are you watching what I'm doing?" Kageyama demands, and Shouyou blinks at him.
"Y-yes," he lies. At least now he focuses on Kageyama.
Kageyama reaches into the boots to yank the legs of Shouyou's trousers out of them, pushing them high up on his legs so he doesn't get shoe polish on them. He sighs. Shouyou has creased the leather by the knees, walking around with them so ill fitting.
He begins to roll his palms over the leather, wanting to get the worst of the creasing out before he applies more polish. Slowly, he rubs his hands over Shouyou's calves, over his knees, to the midpoint of his thighs—the boots are so ridiculously tall on him.
Shouyou sighs, and his posture relaxes, the tiniest fraction. Kageyama looks up at him, meets his eyes.
"I've had these for years," he tells Shouyou. "Since I stopped growing. The man who gave them to me died, actually."
"Oh, I didn't—" Shouyou turns pink. "I'm sorry."
Kageyama shrugs. "It's an easy thing to do."
"What is?" Shouyou asks.
"Die," Kageyama tells him.
"Oh."
Carefully, Kageyama begins to apply the polish to the upper part of the boot. "I'm not asking you to stay out of harm's way forever. There's no sense even having you here in that case." He strokes the polish brush high over the deep brown leather, right out to the tips of the boot, where it stops and meets with Shouyou's pale flesh. "But until you've learned to… navigate a bit better, listen to me, every now and again."
Shouyou nods. "I will. As long as you…"
"What?" Kageyama asks, making sure the polish is even. He grabs a towel and begins to rub down the leather.
"As long as you promise not to treat me like an outsider," Shouyou says. "Treat me like a real pirate, from now on."
Kageyama laughs. "You'll regret saying that."
"I don't care," Shouyou insists, stubborn as ever.
"Why don't we start by my treating you as one of my crew?" Kageyama offers. He runs his finger along the inside of the boot lining, grazing Shouyou's skin, before he pulls the leather back just slightly, to place a kiss on Shouyou's thigh. Shouyou's leg twitches.
"Is this included?" Shouyou asks him.
Kageyama smirks. Now that the boots have been polished, he no longer needs Shouyou to be wearing them, and he slides first one, then the other, off Shouyou's feet.
"No," he says. "This is extra."
"So you're not really treating me like one of your crew," Shouyou protests, very weakly, as Kageyama kisses one of his calves, and the side of his knee, and the lower part of his thigh.
"I'll treat you like something of mine, then," Kageyama amends. Then, somewhat less amorously, "You're already wearing most of my things."
Shouyou blushes. "My mistake."
"You aren't sorry at all."
"No, not really."
Kageyama snorts. "A crew member respects his captain."
"Ah…" Shouyou murmurs, head tipping back, eyes closing. "Maybe I never will be a part of the crew, then."
Kageyama pinches Shouyou's calf, then lifts his foot to kiss the top of it, and then his ankle, thumb brushing gently over all his small, perfect toes.
His feet are still soft, and Kageyama almost doesn't have the heart to think of them one day toughened by sun and ocean water and storms. And yes, by tall boots, once Shouyou gets his own pair.
But they will be, someday, tough like the rest of him, because he'll be an amazing sailor. Kageyama can tell, and he isn't going to hold Shouyou back, not for much longer. But for now, he brushes his lips against the sole of Shouyou's foot, and smiles when he squirms.
"For the record," he says, opening his mouth like he's about to bite down on Shouyou's toes—Shouyou immediately almost kicks out his front teeth, and he rethinks his choices. He settles for a kiss right on the end of Shouyou's big toe, for which he is rewarded by Shouyou turning brilliantly red. "For the record," he says again, "I'd never leave behind a man who called this ship his home."
Shouyou makes a little noise, and then pulls at his shoulders. Kageyama leans up and pushes his knees apart to make room for himself, and Shouyou slides his hands against his cheeks to kiss him.
"For the record," Shouyou teases softly, "that does make me part of your crew."
"Yes," Kageyama concedes. "And I take care of my own."