So I know I promised I wouldn't start anything new until False Light and 3 Years had been completed, but… I just couldn't help it! This idea hit me and I had to write it down!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything involved with Gravitation
-xXx-
"No. Not now, not in a million years!" Shuichi declared, folding his arms in front of his chest and giving his assailant a look that would hopefully clarify the fact that he was quite serious.
"But Shu, sweetie," His mother implored, ignoring Shuichi's adamant refusal, " think of your sister. She needs your help."
"What about me? I'm eighteen years old! I think by this point I should be allowed a normal life. A normal boy's life."
"I agree dear, and I'm sorry to have to ask you to do this, but you've heard the rumors about Lord Jason! Do you really want to allow your sister to go on a date with him?"
"No… I suppose not. But she shouldn't have agreed to it in the first place!"
"I know, I know. How about this, if you do this for your sister I promise neither Maiko nor I will ask you to dress like this again. Ever."
Shuichi sighed, twisting his silver ring – a family heirloom – around his middle finger. That was a promise he had heard many times before – perhaps not pertaining to this exact situation, but he had heard it nonetheless and he knew too well that his mother had no intention of keeping it. Yet as much as Shuichi wanted to reject his mother's proposition once and for all, he knew it would do no good. One way or another his mother would be the victor.
"Alright. Fine. I'll do it."
Shuichi's mother clapped her hands in excitement, "Thank you Shu, you really are a doll!" Shuichi didn't say anything in response and simply stood still as his mother gave him brief hug before running out of the room to tell Maiko the 'good' news.
Three hours later, Shuichi found himself sitting in an ornately carved and decorated carriage listening to his mother ramble on about the terrible deeds of The Black Pirate. He cast an annoyed glance at his mother; there were some things in this world that were morally wrong and making a boy promenade around in women's clothing was most certainly one of them. Yet here he was, dressed once again in one of his sister's many gowns, this time a forest green one with cream colored ribbons and lace. This, combined with the wig of long amber tresses his mother had some how managed to get, ultimately transformed him into an exact duplicate of his beloved sister, Maiko.
As children, Maiko had insisted that Shuichi play dress-up with her. Their mother had found the spectacle so endearing that she often convinced Shuichi to don one of Maiko's dresses simply so she and Maiko could coo over how cute he looked in it. But at least in those situations he wasn't going to be seen by the public. Currently, he was en route to a "date" with one Lord Jason whom Maiko had arranged an outing with and then decided she didn't want to go after all. One would think a simple letter saying "Sorry, I changed my mind." would suffice. But no, this stupid Jason guy was just too important to do something like that to so of course dressing the son in drag was the obvious choice.
"Shuichi stop fiddling with that thing! It's very unbecoming." Shuichi looked up, his mental rant interrupted by his mother's nagging voice.
"Huh?" He asked unintelligently.
"That ring, darling. Stop playing with it. In fact, you should probably just take it off all together."
"What? Why?" Shuichi asked, his irritation at the situation making him behave in a much more difficult manner than usual.
"Shuichi, dear, it's just not feminine enough. You'll be more convincing without it."
"Mother. I look exactly like Maiko. The ring won't make a difference." Shuichi argued, unwilling to remove the ring from his finger.
"Shuichi, he'll notice it! Besides, it's just a ring; we did not go through all this effort for you to ruin things with a silly ring. Now take it off."
Shuichi glared but conceded, "Fine." He slipped the ring off of his finger and dropped it into the handbag that "matched his outfit perfectly" according to Maiko.
Shuichi turned to look out the window, fuming over the loss of his ring. He was rarely, if not ever, without it! One of these days he was just going to disappear, then they would be fucked. Shuichi froze, enthralled by the brilliance of that thought. That was it! He wouldn't run away per say just disappear for a few days. He could probably find a place to stay for a couple nights or something. Shuichi nodded to himself, that seemed like a pretty good plan. Now for the escape…
Shuichi stared intently out the window, searching for the opportune moment. Finally he found it: they had reached the town center, a place full of noise and people, lots of people. In a place like this it would be easy enough to meld into the crowd and escape. Before he could give himself time to reconsider his decision, Shuichi leaned out the window and shouted "Driver, stop the carriage!"
Before the carriage had even come to a complete stop, Shuichi was out and running through the crowd, ignoring the shocked cries of his mother. He darted through the mess of people as quickly as he could, suddenly remembering another reason why he hated this dress-up game his mother and sister insisted on playing; running in skirts was so damn difficult. Yet as wonderful as it would have been to rip off the skirt so he could run faster, Shuichi knew it would be best to maintain the guise of a girl – at least until he found men's clothing.
He rounded a corner and began heading for the backstreets where there would be less people and where his lady-like mother would be hesitant to follow. Shuichi glanced back, looking for any sign of his mother. Finding none he felt a small spark of hope flare inside, perhaps they had lost track of him. Distracted by his victory, Shuichi neglected to notice the man who had stepped right into his path.
"Fuck!" Shuichi cursed as he fell backwards into the dirt and immediately bit his lip in silent reprimand; ladies did not use profanity.
"Pardon me, miss. Please, allow me to assist you." A silky voice from above said and a tanned hand was stretched into his line of vision. Shuichi hesitantly took it and allowed himself to pulled to his feet.
"Thank you, sir." Shuichi said, refusing to make eye contact as that might provoke a conversation; something one should avoid while trying to escape from a possibly psychotic but certainly angry family member.
"It's Eiri, if you don't mind. And you are…?"
"Shu – …Maiko." Shuichi stated shortly. Finally looking up simply so he could give this Eiri guy a 'fuck off' look. He was pleasantly surprised when the sight that greeted his eyes was not a scruffy, dirty looking man but rather a clean-shaven man with striking blonde hair that had clearly been colored so due to hours spent underneath the sun. As far as Shuichi could tell, the rest of Eiri was just as tanned as the hand that had reached out to help him moments before. But the aspect Shuichi found the most interesting aspect, however, was the tattoo that was only partially visible on the upper part of his right collarbone. Shuichi could make out what he thought was the head of dragon; the rest was hidden by the blonde's black, open-chest shirt.
"See something you like sweetheart?" The man asked with a smirk.
Shuichi blushed but gave the man his best glare anyway. "You wish. Now if you'll please excuse me I have somewhere I must be."
"Of course. It was a pleasure to meet you, Maiko." Eiri said, giving Shuichi another smirk and a nod of his head before turning and re-entering the bustling crowd of people that lay beyond the alleyway. Shuichi shook himself out of his awe-struck daze and reached down to his handbag; feeling a sudden urge to have his ring back on his finger again. The bag however was no longer there. And then everything clicked into place.
"Fucking bastard." Shuichi muttered under his breath before taking off in the direction the blonde had headed. Unfortunately fate, it seemed, hated him on this particular day for when he looked out into the crowd there was not a trace of the rather attractive thief. Shuichi gave a groan of dejection; his mother was most certainly going to murder him.
Shuichi stood for a while, staring mindlessly at two men who were apparently doing some sort of negotiation. One of them started waving a hand in a wild and upset gesture. The man's wrist turned in the direction of Shuichi and he could see a tattoo of a dragon on it. Shuichi stepped closer and nearly let out a cry of victory, the head of the dragon was exactly the same as the one he had seen on Eiri. Shuichi melded back into the crowd, keeping careful watch of the tattooed man. After all, this might be his only lead to his family's heirloom.
As soon as the tattooed man started walking away, his deal successfully completed, Shuichi began to follow him.
-xXx-
Eiri made his way up the plank that led to his vessel, feeling quite pleased with how his day had gone. Usually in a city as big and well protected as this one, he was reluctant to leave his ship. Today however, he had been feeling lucky, and what do you know? He had managed to relieve quite a few people of their purses with no detection. Eiri paused, all day he had been thinking about the first girl he had stolen from. The long curly hair and slender figure had refused to leave his mind, not to mention the fiery purple eyes. Judging from her clothes, she was probably fairly wealthy too…
Curiosity piqued, Eiri reached into his pocket and pulled out the green handbag that had belonged to the girl. Weighing it in his hand he frowned; it was lighter than he expected it to be. Nevertheless, he emptied the contents into this hand; six coins and a ring fell out. Eiri quickly returned the rings to the purse but kept the ring out for closer inspection. The band was thick and had small, delicate hammer marks all over it. In the center lay a black stone, an opal from the looks of it. Eiri frowned, the style of the ring was definitively masculine, certainly not something a young girl would have. Flipping it, he examined the other side and nearly dropped the ring in shock when he saw the crest of the Shindou family glaring back at him. If there was one family even he was unwilling to go up against in these godforsaken islands, it was without a doubt the Shindou family. Mr. Shindou was one of the top English strategists and had been sent down to the Caribbean to directly control the armada and indirectly control the colonies. If this girl was of relation to him, it was definitely time to move on.
"Johnny!" Eiri called out to his first mate.
"Aye sir?"
"Let's get out of here!"
"Aye, aye cap'n!"
Eiri nodded once at his first mate and dropped the ring into his pocket before heading below deck to check on the newly acquired, and very much illegal, cargo that was comprised of goods that they would sell at various ports. By the time he had finished checking everything, he and his crew were well out to sea, the girl and ring had completely left his mind, and he found himself very much in need of some rest. Eiri made his way back up to the deck, gave Johnny orders to wake him if anything happened and headed into his chambers. Needless to say he was quite unprepared for the ball of fury that seemingly came from nowhere and tackled him to the ground.
"What the fuck!" Eiri hissed as he wrestled with this unknown person. He quickly managed to over power the person and pinned them to the ground beneath him. Eiri's eyes widened as he recognized the person. He promptly masked his shock and got to his feet, pulling the girl up with him. "What are you doing here?" Eiri asked, keeping his voice low and even.
"Give it back!"
Eiri stared at the girl, Maiko was it? in confusion. What on earth was she going on about? Then he remembered. The ring. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up.
"Is this what you're looking for?"
"Yes! Now give it back!" Shuichi shouted, lunging at the sliver ring held delicately between the blonde's thumb and pointer finger.
"Why? Does it belong to your boyfriend? Do you need to return it? Or was it stolen perhaps?" Eiri taunted, praying that one of his guesses was correct.
"I didn't steal it and it certainly does not belong to my boyfriend, I don't eve have a boyfriend." Shuichi growled. "It belongs to my family, now hand it over."
Eiri swallowed a annoyed sigh and smirked instead. "Well, well. You're part of the Shindou family, then."
"Yes…" Shuichi affirmed slowly, staring at the man with suspicion. "What about it?"
Eiri's smirk grew; perhaps this could work in his favor. "Do you know who I am, Miss Maiko?"
"…Is this a trick question? You already told me your name. It's Eiri."
"People aren't always who they seem, Miss Maiko. Tell me, have you ever heard of a man called The Black Pirate?"
Shuichi started tapping his foot impatiently. "Yes. I have. Who hasn't? He's the most feared man. Now what is your point?"
Eiri didn't say anything, he just sat down in his chair and waited for the young girl to figure it out.
"Oh shit."
-xXx-
So… what did you guys think? I may or may not switch this from Yuki/Shuichi to Draco/Harry (Harry Potter) depending on the feedback but for now it's staying in the realm of Gravitation.
Also to any of you following 3 Years, the next chapter is currently in the revision process and should be posted soon. As for False Light… well... I'm working on it.
