week three | dates

[showhost]

You worked up your courage and asked someone out on a date! Good job!





Now you have to hope the producers are kind re: where they send you.

Comments

[flaweddetective]

[More boats... though less traumatic boats so there's no need to worry about him bailing. Probably.

As for eating... Not that Sanji may have spotted. With the inclusion of paper and pens Akechi is huddled even more in his little space and writing mostly. Not at all hours but he is very intent in his list making.

But once again he is being forced to socialize. This current thing is something he thinks he can do. He knows he has the upper arm strength to row but he can't say he's ever done it before.]

From the bits and pieces I've heard about you... This should be somewhat familiar, right?

[hgeegh]

[Please eat, Akechi.

Sanji steps over to a kayak and crouches down to study it.]

Yeah. I've lived my whole life out at sea, so stuff like this isn't totally new. [He glances up at Akechi.] You?

[flaweddetective]

[He does eat... a little!]

I know how to swim but there wasn't much time or reason to do things like this. And as far as ships go... I'm not a fan. They put me on one with Kat and we jumped off the side.

[He says that with a touch of fondness. The lightest smallest amount that no one should read into. It's just a gesture he appreciated.]

[hgeegh]

You sure are soft on her. Well, not that I blame you . . . Kat's a lovely lady with a heart as golden as her hair.

[He gives the kayak an audible pat.]

This one's more of a boat than a ship. Still gonna try and jump out of it?

[flaweddetective]

I'm not soft on anyone.

[He's a little soft on her.]

And no... You're more liable to tip the whole thing over if you try. I'm not feeling any jolts of PTSD so we're fine.

[hgeegh]

[Bastard, be soft on Kat or suffer the consequences.]

PTSD? Did you get into an accident in the past?

[flaweddetective]

[I pray every day that Akechi doesn't lash out at Kat. I pray........]

I died.

[He's over not talking about it. It doesn't matter. Nothing really matters.]

In the engine room of my father's ship he had me killed. I should have seen it coming but I didn't.

[Akechi steps carefully onto these tiny boats it rocks but he manages to keep his balance.]

If he hadn't killed me I was going to kill him, make no mistake... That I didn't see his betrayal coming is my own shortcoming.

[hgeegh]

[A childhood accident, maybe—that's what he'd thought it might have been. But no, it's something much graver than that, so much so that Sanji gives it the moment of silence it's due before he straightens with a sigh.]

What a bastard.

. . . But you know, [he starts as he follows Akechi's example by stepping into his own boat,] not expecting your father to betray you . . . That's just human.

[flaweddetective]

[Bastard is putting it so very lightly.]

No, I did know better. He's betrayed everyone he's ever come across. My mother too. I would be no different and I was foolish to ever think otherwise.

[And he was. No matter how useful he made himself. How he gave Shido the crown on a silver matter... It wouldn't matter. And he paid for it.]

Anyway, it doesn't matter now. So is what I've been hearing true? You're a pirate?

[He settles in his boat as he asks his questions.]

[hgeegh]

[It's not foolish, he wants to say, but he knows better than to push and pry. Akechi's like a raw nerve, and some things will always be too fresh. Sanji files away the detail of the mother and focuses instead on getting comfortably seated.

He grins at the question.]

Yeah, I'm a bonafide pirate with a bounty on my head.

[flaweddetective]

[Quite a bout of criminals they have here in this little house.]

How much?

[Asking the important questions.]

[hgeegh]

77 million.

[It'll be higher with a better picture someday, once the marines finally take him seriously (wishful thinking).]

[flaweddetective]

[In DOLLARS???? YEN??? Gold pieces???]

What have you done to have a bounty that high?

[hgeegh]

[None of the above.]

My crew launched an attack on the World Government's judicial island to rescue a dear crewmate. If we hadn't gone, she would've been killed.

[flaweddetective]

[Huh.]

The World Government on judicial island. [That's... something alright.] So you have a seventy-seven million dollar bounty on your head because you attacked the World Government?

[That... He has some questions.]

Are there a lot of pirates where you're from or is it just you guys?

[hgeegh]

Berries, not dollars.

[Not that he knows the conversion rate on that, so he neglects to elaborate as he positions his paddle.]

The age of pirates has been revitalized for years now. There are pirates from all over the world.

[flaweddetective]

[Well. He's decided this is a baffling world. And he will contently assume that this is 77 million berries, aka fruit. It's just more amusing to think of it that way.]

Do you... If this is the age of pirates is your bounty even that much or are there higher ones?

[hgeegh]

Of course there are higher ones. The captain's head is worth more than any of ours on our crew.

[Alongside a certain swordsman, but whatever. That'll change!]

The highest bounty in the East Blue around the time we left was 30 million, and that was the captain's. He's valued at 300 million now. [Sanji propels himself into the water proper with a single stroke of the paddle.] I'll get there someday myself.

[flaweddetective]

[Akechi follows suit and pushes off into deeper waters and adjusts his ores. Shinji's world sounds rather... ridiculous. But color him intrigued.]

Why are you a pirate and not a chef somewhere?

[That seems to be his passion, after all. He could probably make more of himself by doing that and not whatever being a pirate where he's from entails.]

[hgeegh]

I was a sous chef before a pirate, but I left to find the All Blue.

[With his eyes still on the water around him, he breaks into a wide grin. This is a dear dream, and he never fails to light up when he talks about it.]

It's a legendary ocean where you can find all the fish in the world. [He does an enthused forward stroke, sending himself farther along the waters.] Because the four seas intersect there.