Here goes another. I really wanted to try one with Kiku and Captain Kirkland. Enjoy!
Oh, and since Kiku's and Arthur's native languages are obviously not the same, I'll italicize whenever English is spoken. But flashbacks will be italicized as well, so don't get confused ^^
Kiku woke up in a dark place, his head throbbing.
"Where…?" He opened his eyes and tried to look around, but he couldn't see a thing. Just darkness. He could smell, though, and what registered in his nose was woody, salty, and damp. There was a faint, inconsistent rocking that made him a bit nauseous, and when he went to steady himself, he heard the distinct metallic clinking of chains. He felt a cold grip around his wrists and ankles, and realized that he had been chained to a wall.
Kiku began to panic. He yanked and yanked at the cuffs around his wrists until they were damp with blood. He started to yell, but thought better of it and silently cursed to himself. "Where am I?" How had he gotten there? This was obviously a ship, but he didn't remember boarding one. His thoughts started to crowd his brain, contrasting with the silence that surrounded him, only broken by an occasional creaking of wood. His head began to throb again, and curling into a ball, he tried to remember what had happened to him.
He had woken up and gone to work, as always, spending the morning moving the morning catch from a number of fishing boats. Somebody had been speaking to him, but he wasn't paying attention. A huge ship that looked like it belonged to some royal navy had been floating just offshore for about an hour now. He'd only ever seen a ship like that once before, during a journey with his older brother, Yao, a few years earlier. But that had been in Britain. This was a fishing village on the small island country of Japan. Since this place was unknown to most of the world, Kiku thought it strange that this ship was slowly making its way to the harbor.
"Oi! Kiku!" His co-worker, Tanaka-san, was yelling at Kiku.
"Excuse me. Yes?" Kiku replied, still watching the ship. "What is it, Tanaka-san?"
"I said it's time for lunch. Let's go," the gruff-looking man slapped Kiku on the back with a large, calloused hand.
Ignoring the almost painful gesture and not tearing his gaze away from the nearing ship, Kiku answered Tanaka-san. " Hai…Ne, Tanaka-san? Do you see that ship over there?"
The man followed Kiku's gaze. "Of course, but I've never seen anything like that before."
"What's it doing here?" Kiku wondered if he was the only one who was bothered by the presence of this ship. "What could it possibly be here for?"
"Dunno." Tanaka-san shrugged and went off to lunch. How he could be so unconcerned by this type of thing, Kiku didn't know.
"This feels ominous," He said to himself. "Maybe I'll go find my boss and ask if he was expecting this today." He went off to find his boss, but after asking around he found out he was home with his wife who had been ill. Kiku didn't want to bother him, so he decided to just go back to work. He wasn't hungry anyway. All of his co-workers liked to hang out somewhere farther into town during lunch time, so he figured he had about 45 minutes without having to talk to anybody. He really preferred being alone to anything else, since most other things involved a large amount of noise, which gave him fierce headaches.
As he neared the boats, he heard someone speaking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the ship had gotten as close to the shore as possible without getting stuck, and that there was a small rowboat where the sand and the ocean met. He followed the voice until he saw a group of rough-looking men standing in a circle. They were wearing a strange assortment of clothing. What they had on looked like the clothes European aristocrats wore, but they had holes in them and were covered in stains that could be anything from beer to blood. As he watched, he saw a man rise up from where he must have been kneeling in the middle of the circle.
The man saw him. Kiku was frightened, but he couldn't move. The man was blond and had green eyes. The fact that his hair was yellow and his eyes were green wasn't a surprise to Kiku, as he'd seen plenty of people with these features before in Europe. But this man's eyes had something within them. Even though they had to be at least twenty feet apart, he could see that the irises were strangely dull and impossibly brilliant at the same time. They flashed, and the man uttered something that Kiku couldn't make out. Before he knew it, three of the rough-looking men had run up to him, and before Kiku could escape, there was a pain in his head followed by an abysmal darkness.
After replaying the scene in his mind, Kiku's head began to throb a third time. Wincing, he rubbed the back of his head, feeling a knot where he must have been hit. He could faintly hear voices and things being thrown around, and realized again where he was. He searched for possible cracks of light between the planks of wood that made up the ship, but there were none. He closed his eyes, opened them, and the sight behind his eyelids was the same as the one in front of them. He sat up and sighed, and wondered how long he would be trapped within this darkness.
Suddenly, as if answering Kiku's silent question, a wave of light washed over him. He squinted, trying to make out what was beyond the illumination. There was a dark figure with an odd shape or a head. The silhouette slowly but deliberately descended the stairs, and the sound of water and men shouting spilled in from the opening. Now Kiku knew for sure that he was on a ship.
The figure had made it down the stairs, and was walking toward Kiku. He, in turn, backed up until he hit the wall that he was chained to.
"Who are you?" Kiku demanded. He couldn't show fear, in case this person planned on hurting him. He knew from experience that showing fear made them hurt you more.
The figure just laughed, looked up to the opening and shouted something, and along with a thud came darkness.
"What do you want with me?" Kiku asked, squinting. It was dark again, and he didn't know where to look.
A few shuffling sounds and the sound of a match being lit. The match was then thrown into a kerosene lantern, and the figure was illuminated again, but this time from the front.
Kiku immediately recognized the man as the one who had sent those men to incapacitate and capture him. Those green eyes flashed again, and now that he was closer, Kiku was able to see a ring of yellow around the pupils and specks of brown scattered throughout the irises. These eyes were extraordinary, and Kiku's own dark mahogany-colored ones paled in comparison.
What Kiku surprisingly hadn't noticed on the shore was the man's thick, brown eyebrows. He seriously had enough eyebrows for three men, but for some reason they fit his face perfectly. Kiku marveled at the man's strange yet beautiful face, and didn't realize that he was blushing until the man chuckled again.
The man was wearing the outfit of a naval captain, a long, blue jacket trimmed with gold buttons and designs on the cuffs. Underneath he wore a vest that was a silky crimson color that complemented his green eyes. Underneath that was a white ruffled button-up shirt, but it revealed most of the upper half of the man's torso, which was impossibly tan. His hat was black and had a white feather sticking out of the rim of it, which accounted for the strange shape that topped the figure that walked down the stairs. His simple brown trousers and black naval boots completed the outfit, and the man emitted an air of sophisticated ruggedness.
However, the man's pierced ears, roughly sensual voice, and the overall wild look in his eyes told Kiku that this wasn't the distinguished captain of a royal navy ship. He glared at him.
"Calm down, love. I'm not going to eat you." English. Kiku knew the language, and spoke it fluently. But he just glared and said nothing. "It sure is nippy down here, isn't it? Seeing what you have on, I can tell you're freezing." Kiku looked down. He was naked from the waist up, and some raggedy piece of fabric was covering his nether regions. He was positively freezing; his hardened nipples were evidence of that.
"Ah, so you do understand me. I was beginning to think that I'd caught the wrong lad." Kiku hadn't really considered the fact that looking down would have revealed to the man that he understood English.
The man stepped closer and knelt down before Kiku. His scent wafted over Kiku, and he smelled of salt, rum, and something spicy that might have been ginger. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Arthur Kirkland, captain of this magnificent ship." He spoke English the way people from Britain did, but there was a bit of a hitch at the end of some of his words, indicating that he definitely wasn't a noble.
Kiku stopped pretending he didn't understand Arthur's language. "You are a pirate, are you not?" His glare intensified. He had not one ounce of respect for thieves. "You stole this ship, did you not?"
Arthur blinked. "I like to think I acquired it, fair and square."
"Killing people and taking their things is not fair." Kiku was nearly irate now.
"Yes it is," Arthur retorted matter-of-factly. "If you're not strong enough to beat me, then you forfeit your possessions, and your life." The plainness with which Arthur spoke these words sent a dreadful chill down Kiku's spine. Not only had he been captured and taken away from his homeland, but his captor was also most likely deranged.
"Well, I am poor, so what could I possibly have that a pirate would want?" Kiku had no clue why he was here, and that was unnerving him.
"You have you, love. Just give me that and you'll live, I promise." He said this in Japanese, and flashed a grin full of teeth that were brilliantly white for those of a pirate. Actually, they were whiter than anyone's.
"How would I do that?" Kiku replied in Japanese, more comfortable with his native tongue, but still wary of this man who clearly meant him some sort of harm.
"Easily, if you know how to use your body." Kiku shrank closer to the wall, terrified at what Arthur might have been getting at. Arthur leaned right up to Kiku's ear and breathed, "Crudely put, love, I am going to fuck you." He finished his proposition with a flick of his tongue on Kiku's ear. Harsh realization came to Kiku in the form of a cold sweat.
"Wh-what? How?" Kiku wasn't dumb, he knew how, and he also knew that from the look of things, he would definitely be the one taking this person in. He tried to sound firm. "N-no. I cannot let you. I won't."
Arthur pulled back and frowned at him. "I don't want to force you," he pulled a small dagger from its hilt on his belt, "but I will."
You're going to have to force me, then, Kiku thought. "No." He could already feel the humiliation of what was coming, and now could barely sound resolute.
Arthur sighed, his eyes flashing again. "Very well, then." He promptly plunged part of the dagger into the inside of Kiku's left thigh, sending a burning pain throughout his small body. He gasped at the sudden sting, but then said, "You're going to have to do better than that, pirate." Kiku spat out the last word like poison. There was no reason for him to be polite if he was just going to be violated anyway.
Arthur looked disappointed and sighed. "I didn't think I would have to do this, but…Smith!"
A second later, the door opened, and down came a man with a bag slung over his shoulder. "Show him, Smith." Arthur said this in English while staring into Kiku's eyes.
"Aye, cap'n." The man promptly turned the bag upside down and out tumbled a small girl. She was six or seven, maybe, and she had long, straight black hair that framed a face with brown, almond-shaped eyes. She was Asian, like Kiku, but he was sure that she wasn't Japanese. She trembled, drawing her knees up against her chest, and hugged them, looking like she was about to cry.
"Look at this girl," the pirate said. "So small and vulnerable. Innocent, since even I don't believe in defiling children…"
"You filthy bastard," Kiku interrupted with a growl.
"…However, I will not hesitate to kill this girl, as she is of no importance to me."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me, love." He took the dagger from Kiku's thigh, earning him a pained hiss, and pointed it toward the girl's throat. Kiku's blood dripped from the blade and landed on the girl's knee. Her eyes widened and she promptly began to wail.
Who did this brute think he was, threatening innocent children? Kiku could handle the torture, but no child should have to endure having their life threatened. The girl's cries revived Kiku's headache and he cringed. She probably had been taken from her family, and had no clue where she was or what she had done to deserve death. Surely Kiku could endure some pain and humiliation in order to save this girl. "Don't," he said, sounding defeated. "I'll do it. Just don't…don't hurt that girl."
With a satisfied grin, Arthur retracted the dagger and nodded to Smith, who gently picked up the girl and carried her up the stairs. The door closed. "Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
If looks could kill, Kiku's glare would have incinerated Arthur by now. The amount of hate he was developing for this one man exceeded all negative feelings he'd ever had for anyone, ever. He was not going into this without some sort of trump card. "First, you promise not to hurt the girl."
Arthur blinked, then smiled and put his hand across his heart. "On my honor as a captain—"
"On your life," Kiku intoned, brown eyes flashing. There was no way he'd let the pirate get off scot-free. "You break your promise; I swear on my life that I'll kill you myself."
Arthur looked surprised for a second, and then nodded. "All right, then. I swear on my life that this girl will receive no harm at my hands. May the Almighty Lord Above strike me down this very second if I don't speak the truth."
Kiku finally broke his gaze. "Fine. Let's get this over with."
Ooh, the plot thickens…Haha not really since I have no writing abilities. Anyway, sorry for abusing poor Kiku, but we wouldn't have a story if he didn't get hurt, and I'll make up for it in the next chapter…See you soon!