Title: Innocence
Theme: 3. Destiny
Rating: PG for Mild suggestive content.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything and no money was made from this.

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"30 eggs, 500g of solara seed…" Jim checked through the things-to-get note Silver gave him, as he walked through the wet market. "…Kalepsian sugarcanes, of all things. What the heck does he need them for?" With a little frown on his face, he looked around the very crowded market, and spotted one small stall packed with various fresh fruits.

A few hours ago, the Legacy made a quick stop at this planet for restoring supplies. The voyage had been quite rough recently, and they ran out of supplies faster than Silver had expected. Since the present voyage wasn't as urgent as Captain Amelia's past ones, she was fine with bringing her ship to a brief halt, although she didn't miss making a few sarcastic remarks upon the cook's unreliable forecast and clumsy risk-management.

Jim came up to the stall to look for the sugarcanes. They were there in a corner of the shop, next to a pile of the star-shaped, bright yellow fruit. Jim had never seen such a weird fruit before. They looked like the stars pictured in the read-along books for children.

A cat-like shop assistant flashed a commercial smile as she noticed Jim looking curiously at the peculiar fruit. "They're Paopu Fruits, mister! Highly reputed for their extra sweetness and exotic aroma. Besides that, what makes them special is the legend! A lot of couples buy Paopu fruit for their special day!!"

Though the shopgirl's fluent salestalk mildly annoyed him, Jim's attention was drawn into the fruit further. "…Couples?"

The shopgirl's grin grew wider. "Yes, mister. Paopu Fruit is said to bind together the destinies of any two people who share one. Romantic, isn't it? I'm pretty sure that a fine looking man like you can use it…"

The feline's suggestive tone made him feel a bit awkward. He actually had someone in his mind, but he bet that "someone" is far from her assumption. Jim glanced at the price tag in front of the fruit. The price printed there was ridiculous; he nearly believed that the shopgirl had added an extra digit by mistake. It was almost ten times more expensive than the sugarcanes. For a fruit approximately the same size as a starfish, pricing was completely unreasonable.

Before he could protest against the potential rip-off, the shopgirl started another of her winning salestalks. "Paopu Fruit is very precious, mister. They only grow in a small island called Destiny Island, on the outskirts of galaxy. Despite the difficulty to import them fresh, we still go through all the troubles to sell them in here, simply because a lot of loving couples need them."

With his arms folded, Jim contemplated the validity of the pricing for a while. In fact, money wasn't really a big deal. He received a monthly wage from the canine financier. There hadn't been many stopovers, so he saved up most of his money. One Paopu Fruit wouldn't hurt, even though it's ridiculously priced.

"Okay, I'll take one. And a bundle of that sugarcanes, please."

The shopgirl beamed triumphantly. "Thank you very much, mister! I wish you and your precious one well."

Jim paid for the sugarcane with the money he was given by Silver, while he bought the strange star-shaped fruit at his own expense.

--

When he went back to the Legacy, Silver, who had been in charge of getting heavier stuff like flours and chunks of meat, was already back in the galley preparing some vegetables for cooking dinner. "Ye got all the stuff, Jimbo?"

"Perfectly." Jim quickly put the Paopu fruit aside on the table behind him, and started stowing the rest of the items into the designated shelves respectively.

"A Paopu Fruit? It wasn't on me list!"

Jim winced as Silver's sharp eye caught the presence of the odd fruit. There was an accusing tone in his voice; obviously he knew how much the fruit cost. "Oh…well, I got it for myself…paid out of my pocket. The shopgirl said it's nice, and I was, um, sort of hungry, so…" Jim faltered out, hoping that Silver didn't know about the legend. "They're highly reputed for their extra sweetness and exotic aroma, according to her. Have you ever tried it before?"

"I'd rather buy 20 purps. That blasted fruit cost daftly!"

The cabin boy was relieved to hear that the destiny of his crush wasn't bound together with anybody yet. He showed an irresistibly sweet smile that had gotten him away with many troubles in the past. (It didn't work for the inorganic robot cops, though.) "Why don't we share it then? For once, we gotta eat some fruits other than the purps!"

Silver raised his eyebrows skeptically at Jim's somewhat unnatural cheerfulness. The protégé cringed a bit and shrugged casually. "Well, only if you want to. If you don't like it, that's fine--I'm pretty sure it'll be nice, though. The shop people found them worth going through all the troubles to--"

Before he could finish his words, he saw Silver shifting gears in his arm and his intricate mechanical hand was shifted to the practical kitchen knife. The star-shaped fruit was peeled in an instant by the cook's skillful knife, and then neatly cut into half.

"Here, lad."

Jim blinked a few times as Silver offered him his cut, then brightened up at once. "Thanks! Now, let's try this..." He took a bite of the fruit while peeked at Silver, who swallowed a mouthful of it. The smallish fruit was soon finished, shared by two of them.

"Well…it wasn't too bad, but I still think yer ripped off, Jimbo." Licking the juice off of his thumb, Silver said nonchalantly.

A warm fuzziness welled up in Jim's slender body, and he couldn't hold his urge to attack Silver with a big hug. "It's worth it. Believe me."

The cyborg was taken aback by the boy's suddenly evident affection, but eventually chuckled and patted his shoulder.

Fin.

A/N: Paopu Fruit is from the RPG "Kingdom Hearts". TP wasn't in there, though. I was pretty disappointed :-(