Work Text:
Pfff. Pfff. Fffft. Michael watched his best friend slowly inflate the pink bubble of gum. Bigger than a baseball, bigger than a bowling ball, bigger than Michael’s head, bigger than – oh, it popped.
“Gosh golly got-dang-it fuck!” said Hoichael, scraping flecks of gum off of his face, his teeth, his hair.
“Whoa bro, you kiss your mom with that mouth? Language, fucker.” said Michael.
“I kiss your mom with this mouth, loser.” said Hoichael.
“Too far, bro.”
“My bad, bro. Anyway, that’s gotta be a new record, right?”
“Not even close, bro. My bubble last week was bigger than your dumbass head.”
“Well, mine was bigger than your head!” Hoichael said indignantly. “So its a tie, dickwad.”
“Nah cuz ur head way fatter.” stated Michael simply. And it was. Michael 1, Hoichael 0.
“Whatever. Give me some more gum.”
“We’re out.”
“Some money?”
“We’re out.”
The duo sat in silence for a few moments, enjoying the easy silence that forms between friends, where nothing needs to be said out loud because the words have already been spoken in the heart, until–
“Bro this is boring as fuck, we should steal something.”
“For sure, Mike.”
“Like some candy.”
“I feel that, Mike. But y’know I was thinking maybe we should be thinking about rethinking how we’re thinking, uh, I mean how we’re doing things.”
“Word?” said Michael, expecting several.
But none came. Hoichael was silent. He took several deep breaths as his face tried on and abandoned several ill-fitting expressions, like a hermit crab searching for the perfect shell. This was to be an Important Conversation. Hoichael nervously turned to face his friend like he was facing a firing squad.
“Mike, you ever feel like we’re meant for something bigger? Like maybe there’s more we should be doing than petty crime?"
“Uhhh...”
"I mean, Boss Franky’s our guy, right?”
“Natch.”
“And he doesn’t steal candy from the corner store.”
“I mean, no....”
“He’d say there’s nothing SUPER about shoplifting. Shit’s basic as fuck.” Hoichael said. He folded his arms as if to say a point had been made.
“So what you’re saying is we shouldn’t shoplift,” said Michael, still thinking things through, “You’re saying we should be doing bigger, more SUPER things, like robbing the store’s cash register.”
“Yeah, I’m saying we should rob the store’s safe! I’m saying we smash their windows too!”
“Yeah!” said Michael, getting into the spirit of things, “I’m saying we should rob the jewellers on Main Street!”
“I’m saying we rob the banks!”
“I’m saying we should run these streets!”
“I’m saying we burn our names across the rooftops!”
“I’m saying we burn the docks!”
“I’m saying we should kill the mayor!” said Hoicheal, who always took things too far.
“Whoa, you took things too far, bro. Mayor Iceburg? Galley-La Company Iceburg? Dude, he’s nice.” said Michael.
“But remember when he yelled at us for drawing big hairy dongs on that half-built barque in Dry-dock 3B? He should know that Yagara Bull turds wash off. Asshole fuckass mayor. Let’s get him.”
“Can’t argue with that.” said Michael. Michael really couldn’t argue with that, since he was flunking 6th year Everything at Water Seven Back Alley Elementary School and thought “Nuh-uh” was the height of rhetoric. Hitting him with “I know you are, but what am I?” would probably make him cry.
Well, a failure to plan is a plan to fail, so the dastardly duo painstakingly put together their assassination kits: fake moustaches, domino masks, slingshots, weird rocks, Michael’s lucky marble in case the weird rocks missed, Hoichael’s luckier marble (“Fuck you, Hoich, like hell my marble’s gonna miss”), shirts that didn’t say “Hoichael” and “Michael” on them...
Then, they decided on the assassination location.
“I mean, obviously we just walk into the mayor’s office and whack him, right?” said Michael.
“Yeah, that’d work, Galley-La’s front door is always open. My mom took me and my sisters for a visit a few months ago. They have a whole tour and everything. But, um, but...”
“But what, chicken butt?”
“But then Iceburg’s schmexy secretary Miss Kalifa would see us kill him, and then she’d think we’re not cool. And I don’t want that.”
“C’mon Hoichael, she’d think we’re rad. Chicks dig bad guys. Banditos. Pendejos.”
“No Mike, chicks don’t dig guys who assassinate their boss. Trust me.”
Hoichael had once been kissed by a girl (on purpose, probably not a dare) and had once seen a nipple (catastrophic wardrobe malfunction during last winter’s Water Elevator Incident), so he was considered a master of the feminine ways among the boys of Water Seven Back Alley Elementary School. If Hoichael said Miss Kalifa wouldn’t like it, that was that. The in-office assassination was a no-go.
Naturally, the pair agreed, the next-best assassination location was at Galley-La Dock 1. Mayor Iceburg often came down to the docks to inspect the shipwrights’ work. Lots of pirates and foreign sailors came there too, which meant they could easily blend in with the ever-changing crowd of strangers. There were plenty of piles of building materials, half-finished ships, and miscellaneous thingamajigs to hide behind and have plenty of time line up their slingshots. It was perfect.
So, with an assassination destination in mind and their assassination kits messily stuffed into their knapsacks, Michael and Hoichael exited their secret base (a run-down, rotting apartment near the waterfront) through the secret exit (the original apartment door, now with “THIS DOOR FOR LOSERS ONLY” in dark red paint) (“It’s perverse psychology”, Michael had once explained) and hit the mean streets of Water 7.
Immediately, they were confronted by bustling crowds holding frenetic conversations and passing around copies of the Water 7 Gazette.
“Did you boys hear?” said a worried-looking woman, shoving a newspaper into Hoichael’s hands.
“Um, no?” said Hoichael. He and Michael looked down at the paper, and Iceburg the Mayor looked back from centre page.
“Oh, it’s terrible! Just dreadful!” she continued excitedly. “Mayor Iceburg’s been shot! In the gut, in his bedroom, while was sleeping! Blood everywhere! They’re saying it was an assassin! Isn’t that awful?!”
“Wasn’t us!” said Michael automatically.
The woman frowned. “Well, of course it wasn’t. Why would it be?”
She began to walk off, looking for other unaware citizens to gossip at. She turned back briefly to add “You boys stay safe now, alright?” before striding swiftly into the crowd, having spotted a confused face.
“Yes, ma’am.” the boys chorused obediently.
Michael and Hoichael looked at each other.
“Dang.”
With their foolproof plan made uncool by “fucking dorkass fake assassins who don’t know to wait their turn and can’t even shoot right”, the pair of friends instead wandered to one of Water 7’s many bridges, where they spent the morning flinging spitballs at passengers in Yagara Bull carriages down below.
This perfect timeless moment continued until Michael’s aunt found them, and yelled at them, yelling stuff like “Your mothers have been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been?” and “Don’t you know it’s not safe out?” and “Honestly, you two... and with Aqua Laguna coming, too!”, and she dragged them to Michael’s house, and made them peel potatoes, and set the table, and wash up nicely for a combined Michael-Hoichael family dinner.
But after that, Michael and Hoichael lived happily ever after – until 3 days later, when they tried to mug Roronoa Zoro in the backstreets and got their butts kicked.