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“Beautiful ship.”
One day, Moniwa Kaname would come to dread any time he would hear those words, but for today, while he was still wide-eyed and hopeful about the world and the intelligence of people outside his crew, he simply turned and smiled brightly. “That she is! Any particular reason you’re complimenting our ship?” People didn’t usually comment on a specific ship unless they wanted something.
The rest of his crew, helping load stuff they’d purchased that day in preparation for their departure probably in a couple of days, slowly started finishing up their tasks and drifting over, curious about the conversation.
“If she’s in your way, we can be out tomorrow if necessary,” Kaname added, hoping to avoid any potential arguments. The port authority told them this dock was available, but that didn’t always account for rich people that thought the berth was theirs without ever actually making an official reservation of it.
Futakuchi looked like he was going to comment on it from where he was carrying another box onboard, but thankfully Obara slapped a hand over his mouth to stop him.
“I was hoping to charter passage to another port,” the guy said politely, smiling. His eyes looked empty though, and something in the back of Kaname’s head was ringing alarm bells.
He was about to agree anyway, since while they had the Dateko they had occasionally taken on passengers, and any time there had been an issue, the combined force of every tall member of his crew had Solved It, but then he remembered they didn’t have the Dateko anymore.
Instead, they had a cursed ship that had apparently decided to adopt them.
They’d tried leaving her at the first port they came across, giving her time to leave and just go back to sailing the oceans herself.
And then she just…hadn’t left. And acted upset when they took too long to come back. So Kaname had caved and now they sailed on a cursed ship. They were still kind of figuring it out. This was only their third port with her. They were still trying to figure out why the crew quarters flooded sometimes.
She had an additional room, which could be for passengers or for a particularly bad tempered crewmember, so in theory they could accept the offer.
However Kaname wasn’t totally sure how she’d react to someone new coming onboard. They hadn’t exactly had anyone else come onboard yet, and Kaname had read that some cursed ships really didn’t like strangers coming onboard. He didn’t think he wanted to risk it.
“We don’t really have room, I’m sorry,” Kaname ended up going with, smiling politely. “She looks big from the outside, but she doesn’t have that much interior space.” She had plenty of interior space, it was just laid out really weirdly. It was just the most air-tight excuse he could think of. If you were out of space on a ship, you were out of space.
Unfortunately, the guy was eyeing Mai skeptically, and looked like he was about to argue about it. “You really don’t have an additional room? Most ships with crews over six have an additional room, and she looks like a twelve crew ship.”
Oh great, he was a self proclaimed expert on sailing ships despite not working on one at any point in time. Maybe a mean assumption, but, well, considering that tone…
“I’m afraid someone is using it,” Kaname said, blatantly lying. They’d occasionally stuck Futakuchi in the one on the Dateko when he was being particularly mean and Kaname wanted to put him in a sort of timeout, but technically it wasn’t occupied right now.
The guy cast a skeptical look over the visible parts of Kaname’s crew, which, knowing them, was all of it, since they had probably all assembled to watch this train wreck.
Oddly, Mai’s rigging was waving a little. As soon as he noticed, there was a scraping noise behind him. When he looked back, he realized the gangplank was now definitely pointing towards him.
…Did Mai want him to come onboard?
Odd, but he supposed she was kind of a weird ship anyway, maybe she didn’t mind strangers. She had picked them all up after all, and then decided not to leave.
“Sure you can’t see what you can do?” The guy said cajolingly. “I’ve just really got to get to that port to meet up with some…associates.”
Kaname glanced between the gangplank that somehow was managing to look inviting, Mai’s cheerfully waving rigging, and the guy in front of him, and slumped a bit. “Maybe. Let’s talk onboard.” He’d better see if Mai would actually tolerate him before agreeing to anything.
Most of the crew hurried to get onboard before they did, possibly to make sure they had a good angle for the show, really, he didn’t know why he put up with them all. At least his darling husband stayed with him, accompanying him up the plank before the guy went to follow them up.
Yasushi noticed it before Kaname did, since he was a little occupied really hoping the guy didn’t somehow slip off the gangplank and force one of them to dive in and rescue him.
Unfortunately, Kaname didn’t notice in time to warn the guy, and apparently no one on his crew saw a problem with what was about to happen, so when Mai’s rigging swooped down the second the guy set foot on the ship, he had no chance.
The crack was probably audible from three ships away.
If there was any positive about the situation, it was that the guy’s death would have been immediate. At least it wasn’t painful. Kaname had seen men dying slowly and painfully, and he didn’t wish that on anyone.
“Mai!” Kaname shouted after the shock had slightly worn off. “No! Bad ship!”
“She’s not a dog,” Yasushi said, immediately being functionally disproven when Mai shook the body like a dog with a toy. “At least it wasn’t slow?”
“I can’t believe she actually killed the guy!” Futakuchi said, and when Kaname glanced back, he was very upset to see a couple of them exchanging money.
“I am not taking the tab for a month,” he told them angrily. “I can’t believe you made bets on that!”
Actually, no, he could, he was just very disappointed. In All of them.
“I’m not letting you into the captain’s quarters for a week, you didn’t warn me,” he added to his husband, who pouted dramatically. He’d live. They all would.
Kaname sighed, looking up at where Mai had put the guy’s body, hanging from the mast. This was going to be an adventure. “One of you is going to be the one convincing Mai to put him down. And Aone, you’re going to help me deal with the port authority. Actually, Sakunami, Obara, you too. I’m going to need all the help I can get. If we’re lucky, we’ll get away with a ban.”
Kaname didn’t have a lot of hope.