A Different Kind of Treasure (part 4)
A/N: This is getting longer and longer but~ oh well :3
Band: Arashi
Rating: G (for now :3)
Synopsis: For a competition on saigo_no_lady Junba fic with prompt - 'a super exciting pirate/etc. AU where they fall in love and there are battles and they are both very dashing and maybe the rest of Arashi shows up'
Part 4: A Stowaways ticket
“What did you say?” Nino pushed open the door to their cabin, not even caring as it hit the wall and bounced back, Sho catching it behind him. “You actually remembered?” He sat down next to Aiba on the bed, waiting for him to continue.
“I think so.” Aiba nodded. “I met a boy on my first trip to port, a stowaway…”
“Not to destroy the mood but, this was years ago, right? Can you be sure it’s the same person?” Sho shrugged at the look Nino gave him before shuffling into the room, closing the door behind him. “What? I’m just being realistic.”
“He had the same expression.” Aiba smiled, looking into the middle distance as if he could see something the others couldn’t. “A little kid with that steely expression that dared you to do something, like he didn’t care about anything when he should have been scared.”
“Why should he have been scared, Masaki?” Sho crouched down in front of him, playing with his shirt slightly distracted by the bloodstains he’d got from cleaning.
“Weren’t you listening?” Aiba whined, giving him a nudge. “He was a stowaway, hiding amongst the cargo. He thought I was going to tell on him but he seemed more mistrustful than scared of me.”
“And let me guess? You tried to befriend him.” Nino rolled his eyes at Aiba’s quick smile. “Well it looks like you left quite an impression on him.”
“Yeah, well you woke me up before the memory finished.” Aiba huffed, playfully. “But I think I was trying to feed him, he was tinier than you Nino but at least he was easier to befriend.”
“Yeah well he was stuck on a boat with you so there was less chance to run away from you.”
“But you were tiny when I met you both.” Sho found it hard to believe anyone could have been smaller than Nino from all those years ago, that was until Sho had taken one good look at him and pushed him into a seat with some food for him, his motherly instinct rising up quicker than it had usually done.
“Yeah, well it happens. If he was a stowaway it’s highly likely that he was in a bad situation too. It’s not like I was a pickpocket for nothing.” Nino shrugged. “But then luckily enough I met Aiba-“
“Not that you’d let me help you to begin with.” Aiba interrupted.
“Yeah, alright, I get it. But I met you and you kept me in check or tried to, like sneaking me into your house when you were worried about me.” Nino ruffled Aiba’s hair, getting a smile in return. “And then…how long was it til we met Sho?”
“It must have been a few years later.” Aiba frowned, thinking it through.
“You were some of my first customers.” Sho pointed out, still remembering it easily. “I’d just got the money to buy out the previous owner of the tavern and had Satoshi help me paint the place. But then I hadn’t thought about needing help to get the barrels into the cellar.”
“Oh yeah! We found you trying to stop a barrel rolling away from you.” Aiba chuckled loudly, remembering Sho’s panic-stricken face.
“Yeah, well, once we met Sho I suddenly got a mother who scolded me for pickpocketing and tried to get me to earn an honest wage by busking in the inn. You kept me from ‘forgetting’ to eat and made sure I didn’t sleep in some random alley when money got tight.” Nino’s mouth quirked up into a smile as Sho looked away bashfully, though his expression soon turned serious. “I wonder what happened to him once he got to port. Once you two must have split up. I mean I had you two to keep me in check but what did he find when he got there?”
“If Masaki left that much of an impression on him that he can still recognise him, I’d assume he didn’t find much.” Sho sighed sadly, looking up at Aiba from his crouched position still. “Do you remember what happened? Why did you split up?”
Aiba yawned, shaking his head. “I don’t know yet. I remember running around looking for him, Nino said that I was looking for someone when he pickpocketed me.” He blinked as Nino laughed and stood up. “What?”
“Well, it looks like you’ve been chasing after your pirate…girl for longer than any of us realised.” Nino pulled Sho to his feet. “Come on you’ve still got some scrubbing to do and Masaki needs to go back to sleep and have sweet dreams about this Jun.”
Sho grimaced, remembering the mess that still awaited him upstairs. “Fine, but we’ll come back and check on you soon, right?” He chuckled at Aiba’s blush as he settled back down in his bunk.
“Nino? There’s something I realised too.” Aiba smiled sweetly as Nino turned back to him with a confused look. “Sho doesn’t act like a mother around you…more a concerned wifey.” He grinned at the spluttering mess Sho was reduced to at his comment, accentuating Ohno’s early words about the pair of them.
“Yeah well…” Nino coughed, trying to think up a retort. “Your Jun may run a mile when Sho starts fussing over him. He may have grown taller than me but he’s definitely still skinny enough for Sho to try and feed up.” He smirked. “And he’ll have to put up with me of course.”
“Don’t you dare scare him away after all this.” Aiba sat up as the door slammed shut. “Oi! Nino!”
~~~~
“Jun?” Aiba beamed brightly at the other boy, excited that he’d told him. “Well, Jun, I’ll go get us some food and then we can talk some more, OK?”
“I-if you say so.” Jun nodded, still somewhat suspicious of Aiba.
Aiba grinned again before darting off, quickly and without trouble getting some snacks from some of the crew (who he’d already made friends with earlier in the trip but they were nowhere near as fun as having someone his own age to play with). He took the steps two at a time as he went back into the cargo hold, shuffling through the boxes, his smile dimming when he got to the point he’d been before and there was no one there to be seen. “Hey, where’d you go?” He pouted, looking around again before realising that if the other boy was still wary of him then it was only natural that he’d hide and see what happened instead of waiting around to get caught. “I brought a treat.” He stood up, shuffling further into the hold, his voice quieter but still carrying through the dark space. “No one’s with me, Jun.”
“Well if you don’t stay quiet someone will be soon enough, right?”
Aiba smiled again, turning around happily to locate the other boy’s voice. “Sorry, I just wondered where you’d gone.”
“Sorry…” Jun shuffled forwards, sitting down against a crate. “I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you were lying.”
“I don’t mind as long as you’re ok to be friends now.” Aiba sat down in front of him, glad when he got a nod in return and a small smile. “Here.” He held out the food he’d managed to get without alerting suspicion, proud when the boy took it nervously. That was as far as he got that day but he was happy to carry on trying, it gave him something to do for the trip. The acceptance from Jun came quickly once he came back the next day like he promised.
“So, is this just because there’s no other kids our age to make friends with?” Jun raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly sceptical though he was trying to hide a smile.
Aiba shrugged. “I like making friends. Is that a bad thing?”
“No, I guess not.” Jun chuckled at Aiba’s one track mind. “So, what is it you want exactly?”
“Want?” Aiba tilted his head as if thinking. “I don’t want anything. But I’d like to know why you’re stowing away here.”
“There’s no other way to get to where I want to go.” Jun shrugged as if it was obvious. “I couldn’t get there officially without stealing the money for a ticket and last time I tried that people got too suspicious of me to let me on the ship.”
“Huh, that’s kind of mean of people. Though I guess if you did steal the money then they had every right to not trust you.” Aiba bit his lip, humming as he thought it through.
“Truthfully? Even if I’d got the money honestly, you think they’d believe me?” He looked himself up and down, looking in disgust at his own attire. “One day I’ll…”
“You’ll?”
“Never mind, you’ll think it’s stupid.” Jun huffed, peeking up at Aiba through his hair when he didn’t say anything to find him just watching and waiting for him to continue. He gave a sigh before continuing. “I want to be a pirate.”
“A pirate?” Aiba chuckled at Jun’s face. “What? I don’t understand why but I don’t think it’s stupid.”
“Huh, you’re weird.” Jun stuck his tongue out at him playfully. “I don’t want to be just any old pirate…I used to be told all kinds of stories. Like how they stole from naval ships a-and helped people.” He flushed at his own words, scratching his chin. “Anyway, if I became a pirate I could go wherever I wanted! And I wouldn’t have to hide away like this or wear such disgusting stuff.” He prodded his clothing again, sighing.
“Would you steal from ships like this one?” Aiba asked, curious about the answer.
“No…I don’t think so.” Jun frowned, thinking. “I’d only want to do it from bad people, right?”
“Right.” Aiba grinned, standing up. “You should show me your skills then.”
“What?” Jun stared up at him in confusion before being pulled to his feet.
“Let’s play pirates.” Aiba smiled. “I want to see what you’ll be like when you’re older.”
Jun blinked for a second longer before giving Aiba the best smile he’d seen so far. “OK then but I’d never steal from Masa. He’s too nice.”
“Masa?”
“You don’t like it?” Jun hung his head, looking at his feet.
“No! I do, I just wasn’t expecting it.” Aiba bounced around the hold. “Come on, let’s go.”
They played until the sun went down and Aiba heard someone calling his name.
“So, will you join my crew tomorrow?” Jun smiled hopefully as Aiba paused from leaving. He pretended to be haughty. “But I only take on people I can trust into my crew, Masa. Can I trust you?”
“Of course you can.” Aiba pouted, putting his hands on his hips before smiling and running up the stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow! And I’ll have a present for you.”
The next day Aiba shuffled down the stairs, frowning at the whispers going on behind him but not really taking any notice of them as he went to find his friend. “Jun? Are you there?”
“Where else would I be?”
Aiba laughed as his friend came into sight. “Here, a gift, it might be a bit big though…” He held out a shirt of his, hoping that the other boy would take it. “You looked so sad yesterday that I couldn’t resist.”
Before Jun could voice any objections the creak of floorboards made them both freeze.
“What have we got down here then?”
Jun tried to scarper back into his hiding place but it was too late, a hand grabbed the collar of his shirt quickly, pulling him back onto the deck.
“W-wait!” Aiba tugged on the crewman’s trousers, hoping to get a response but the man ignored him, so he ran after him onto the deck. “What are you doing with Jun?!”
“He’s a stowaway and he needs to be dealt with.”
“No…” Aiba bit his lip as Jun looked at him, caught between wanting help and wanting him to stay out of it. “Jun’s with me.” He looked up at the man defiantly. “He’s been with us since we got on the ship so why are you saying that now?”
“Your parents didn’t pay for four people. And why were you in the cargo hold?”
“We were playing, that’s why. And they didn’t?” Aiba tried to look stunned. “That’s not right! I’ll go check.” He gave the man a small cross look. “Don’t do anything until I get back, k?” He ran off, quickly telling his mum what had happened, or the garbled version that he could actually say while his friend was caught but she seemed to get the gist of it and came out with him to see what the problem was.
Jun looked at Aiba asking him what was going on because he didn’t think this would work but soon he was being put down again and being apologised to as if it was someone else’s fault that he had been stowing away on board. He watched as the man walked away highly confused. “Why did you do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“But…” Jun looked up at Aiba’s mother not really understanding her until she gave an almost identical smile to the one Aiba was wearing. “Is this OK?”
“Of course it is!” Aiba grabbed his arm, tugging him along. “Now you don’t have to sneak around and you can sleep in my cabin with me and...and do lots of things together.” He carried on rambling as he dragged Jun around, not even noticing that his friend had gone quiet.
“Do your parents have a lot of money then?”
“Hmm?” Aiba looked around at his friend. “I guess so; they don’t ever really worry about it. My dad’s a merchant.”
“Oh.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing I guess. Just…” Jun shook his head before smiling, as if he felt guilty for second guessing Aiba. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I should be thanking you after all. You got me out of a very bad situation there.”
“That’s what friends are for, silly.” Aiba laughed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Anyway, now that you’re up here, why don’t you try on some of my stuff and see what fits?”
Their friendship carried on over the next few days but Aiba began to realise that the closer they got to their destination the more his friend seemed to slip of into his own thoughts but whenever he tried to ask the boy would just smile back at him sadly before subtly side-tracking the conversation. Aiba wasn’t even aware that something was really wrong with his friend until they made port in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep and when he awoke his friend was no longer by his side. Running around the port searching for him that day only got him lost and very confused as to why his friend had left him in the first place.
“You lost?”
“No, I’m looking for someone.” Aiba looked over at the small boy, smirking at him while his hands flicked through a stack of cards. He took a second to look around and realise he had no idea where he was. “I just don’t know where he is…or where I am for that matter.”
“How can you look for someone when you don’t know where you are?”
~~~~
Aiba blinked awake, slowly, smiling at the memories as his friend shuffled as quietly as possible around their cabin. “You’ve never lost that smirk of yours, have you?”
Nino turned around, smiling apologetically. “Did I wake you again?”
“No.” Aiba sat up before telling him the rest of his memory, not entirely surprised when Ohno and Sho came to check up on them and he had to tell them the rest of it too.
“Well, I guess if Masaki trusts him, we can give him a chance, right?” Ohno nodded to himself before standing up again. “I’ve been doing some digging of my own and I think we’re going to have to get this friend of yours a lot quicker than I’d planned.”
“Why?” Aiba stumbled out of bed quickly, not liking Ohno’s tone.
Ohno sighed, a deep frown on his face. “Looks like he’s been getting himself in a lot of trouble since he left you from what I’ve found out.”
A/N: End of flashbacks I think...though chibi Jun and Aiba are adorable to write XD oh and I'm imagining baby Jun as being naive here about pirates if anyone wondered ♥