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"Thatch help me! Marco has been acting weird lately. Like really really weird." Thatch looked up from the food he was preparing.
"What makes you say that?" Thatch asked.
"You want to know? I got a whole fucking list. Marco is broken or something. Thatch you gotta help!"
Thatch raised an eyebrow. "And this is important why? I'm making dinner if you can't see. Why don't you go to the nurses for this?"
Ace jumped on Thatched back, making him stumble for a bit, and gave him the best puppy eyes he could come up with. "It's not an injury but kinda mental? Please help."
Thatch sighed and caved in. "Fine, tell me about it."
"It started with singing all kinds of songs whenever I was there with him. And I did confirm. They were songs from all over, but most songs originally come from the east blue, the place were I was raised. The weird thing was that I know that Marco is doing it for me. He looks at me all the time when he is singing. And by that I am forced to look back. You know, to not hurt is feelings or something. The moment I break eye contact is the moment Marco switches songs to get my attention back. I never told him to stop, but it's just so weird."
Ace looked at Thatch to see if he was still listening to his explanation, before he continued. "The second thing is the dancing. He comes up to me randomly and starts to dance. Just out of the blue. I don't even know how to! This sometimes goes along with the singing. It's like he wants me to dance with him."
Thatch nodded. "Go on."
"At number three we have the touching. He always gave me some hair shuffles and stuff but now it feels like he is all over me. Literally! One day I was napping on deck." Ace swore he heard Thatch chuckle when he said that.
"I swear. Okay I may had an narcolepsy attack, but I was already planning on taking a nap. The important thing is that Marco was there when I woke up. My head was on his lap and he was running his fingers through my hair. And this is one of many. What I'm trying to say is that Marco is being overly touchy."
Thatch knew what was happening. He wanted to laugh it all out but couldn't. He couldn't make Ace suspicious that he knew. This was just pure gold. It was his fist year on the ship and nobody had told the poor boy about mating season. It looked like Marco had Ace in his sights. He would love to see where this was going. "Okay. That is strange. What else?" Thatch almost felt bad for asking and acting clueless. Almost.
"He has been showing me all these things he is doing. Did some doctory stuff? Tell Ace. Did some buttkicking? Tell Ace. Did his bed? Tell Ace. Anything's else. Tell Ace. Why tell me all these things? Yeah I'm proud of him that he's done all these things, but why tell me? And why all the little things too? If he wants recognition than he should show Oyaji this, not me!"
Thatch couldn't look Ace in the eyes. A snort escaped his mouth, luckily unnoticed. "Yeah, you got more?"
"Absolutely! I don't really mind this one though. When I'm eating and want to get seconds Marco will shove his plate to me saying that he's not hungry and then proceeds to grab a plate for himself to eat. He just gave me his plate! Like, what are you doing? Don't give me your plate if you're hungry. I'm not that incapable. I can get my own plate." Ace stopped for a while to think. "I think that this is all of it for now at least, but who knows!"
Thatch bursted our laughing. "Ace! Don't you see it?" Ace shook his head negative. "Aww, you precious little bean." Thatch ruffled his hair, before walking out of the room, leaving Ace in the dark.
It didn't take long for Ace to come running after him.