Yia sou! If you haven't already guessed, that's Greek for hello!

Sorry I haven't been updating! Like I may have said before, blame the school work! I have a lot of coursework lately so writing is coming along slowly. I'm also going to start my first piece of French coursework- but not only that, I'm getting a Frenpal! (French Penpal. No-one? Not funny? Okay...)

In case you can't tell, I'm very happy today because I found out that I got a second A* in GCSE English! I'm so happy! Guess I am a little smart! (Not really...)

Tanoshimi!

Chapter 11: Dearest brother

Filled with unexpected surprises

"Ve~! All done! Be careful it's not too hot!" Feliciano beamed.

"Merci Feliciano." Francis nodded.

"Just Feli's fine!"

There was something about Feliciano that was just so likeable. Something about his attitude, perhaps his personality, or maybe it was just his sweet innocent face. Whatever it was, many people found it extremely difficult to hate him. In a similar way, Feliciano couldn't bring himself to hate anyone either- he was simply too nice of a person.

"Vat is Feliciano doing?" Ludwig frowned as he watched from the doorway.

"It would seem that he is getting on with the prisoner." Kiku stated.

"I know zat, but vhy? I told him not to get too attached. Captain Kirkland might not come anyvay." Ludwig sighed.

"He is rike rittle child when stray animal is found." Kiku nodded.

"Ja, but how many stray animals do you use as bait to lure an even better stray animal so zat you can kill both animals and claim victory?" Ludwig asked.

"...I think you went a rittle too far with my metaphor." Kiku muttered.

He had indeed, but only Kiku and Ludwig noticed this. In fact this whole conversation went unnoticed by Feliciano and his 'stray animal'. Neither of them had any idea what was in store for Francis, but none of them had any idea what was going to happen next.

Meanwhile...

"Ai ya, we're here." Yao whispered.

"Good. Are you sure that they haven't seen us?" Arthur asked.

"I'm fairly certain-aru." Yao nodded.

"You better be. I'd rather get through this with no bloodshed. Save that for another day. Today I just need to get Francis back." Arthur explained.

It was silent for a few moments between the two. The sea air was fresh and relaxing and the seagulls were soaring overhead, crying out happily. The small boat they were in was just rocking slowly with the waves alongside Captain Ludwig's ship and the sound of the ocean was filling the silence between them.

"...Opium?" Yao asked.

"Excuse me?" Arthur frowned.

"I called you Opium. What is your relationship with Francis-aru?" Yao questioned.

"Why are you...?" Arthur began.

"Don't dodge the question-aru." Yao snapped.

"Francis... Well..." Arthur began.

It was a good question. In fact, Arthur had never really thought about it before. Francis annoyed him a lot of the time, but when Arthur thought about it- he really wasn't all that bad. Perhaps he was just Arthur's First Mate? But if Arthur trusted him enough to be his First Mate, then surely he was more than just an acquaintance?

"He's... He's my..."

Captain Arthur Kirkland's ship...

"Dude, I'm bored."

Alfred said this rather loudly, but no-one was around to hear. Only a day had passed since Arthur's sudden departure but truth be told, he was now a little bored.

After all it was hard to find people to hang out with other than Arthur and Yao. Matthew had been busy running the ship in Arthur's absence, Toris had proven to be very difficult to find with all of his chores and Ivan... Well, Ivan was Ivan and that meant he was definitely off the list of people to hang out with.

Now Alfred had tried to speak to Matthew, after all he seemed like the best person to hang out with in the absence of the other two. But every time Alfred got close, Matthew would be busy with crew work, or Matthew would send him off on another errand. He seemed to take his new job very seriously... At least Alfred assumed that was the case.

"So bored..." Alfred sighed, collapsing onto the bottom bunk of his bed- not even caring that it was Matthew's bunk.

His eyes slowly drifted from object to object around the small room, searching for a source of entertainment. However, nearly everything he saw was Matthew's since it had originally been Matthew's room and Alfred hadn't actually had anything with him when he joined the crew. In fact, the only things that Alfred actually owned were his original tattered clothes, which he kept under his pillow at all times. The clothes he was wearing currently were given to him by Toris, who had delivered them on Arthur's behalf.

Arthur... I hope he's okay... I mean, he's done a lot for me so it's natural I'd be a little concerned right? He gave me a room, he never asked for my name, he gave me these clothes... I mean, if you think about it, he's the first person that-

But Alfred's thoughts trailed off. As his eyes had drifted around the room, searching for nothing in particular, his eyes had fallen upon an intriguing object: it was the chest that Alfred had seen before, the one that he had originally planned to ask Matthew about.

And almost as suddenly as he had laid eyes upon it, Alfred found himself actually approaching the chest, curious to discover what was inside and not caring one bit about the consequences that could come from this. After all, Alfred had always been a 'do first, questions later' type of guy as he had shown back in the harbour when he had protected Yao.

So, without another thought about Matthew's privacy, he grabbed the lid and pulled open...

But the chest wouldn't open because it was clearly locked. Alfred had decided so suddenly about opening this chest that he hadn't noticed the keyhole.

Dammit! That totally ruined my fun! Come on man... If you were Matthew, where would you keep your key?

Now that was a good question. Perhaps there was a hidden area in the room somewhere that Matthew used to hide the key, or maybe he cleverly hid it under the floorboards? What if the key was hung up somewhere high and Alfred had to try and reach for it to obtain it?

But for some reason, Alfred didn't feel the need to look up somewhere high for the key. In fact he didn't look down low either. For some reason, Alfred felt his eyes being drawn to the head of Matthew's bed... After all, that was where his pillow was...

"Right. Let's go." Arthur muttered.

"Ai ya..." Yao whispered.

Quickly and quietly, Yao and Arthur began their infiltration of Captain Ludwig's ship. One way or another, they were going to find Francis and bring him back. He was somewhere on the ship and it was their mission to locate him. Failure was not an option.

"You go that way." Arthur commanded.

Yao responded with only a single nod and in the next moment, Arthur was off. So Yao continued in the direction he had been shown, sneaking in a sleek cat-like way in pursuit of Francis.

But suddenly he came to a stop as he saw a very inviting image: a room with the door ever so slightly open stood there in front of him. He was fairly certain that there was no-one inside so, taking a quick sneak-peek first, he walked straight on in.

It was as he had thought: there was no-one in this room. It all looked so humble and quaint in this particular room that it gave off a certain homey kind of feel. From what Yao had heard, Captain Ludwig was an excellent craftsman but Yao saw no bed in this room- just a pile of neat, comfy sheets on the floor, accompanied by a plump pillow at the head. Yao did however see a well made wooden folding screen at the other end of the room which was unmistakably Ludwig's handiwork.

It was obvious that Francis was not in this room however it was also just as obvious that this room belonged to Kiku. There was even a low table in the middle of the room along with a rolled out sheet of parchment on top to show for it. Admittedly this didn't really seem like evidence, but drawn onto the parchment were clearly the detailed sketches of Kiku's beautiful drawing style.

And although Yao was Kiku's sworn nemesis and it was no secret that he wanted to kill Yao, the Chinese man couldn't help but admire Kiku's beautiful drawings... Even if Yao wasn't quite sure what they were meant to be.

Well, he could make out vague images at least. It seemed to be a tropical beach beside a sparkling ocean somewhere. The picture seemed well shaded, showing that it was night time and just a short distance away from the overlapping waves was a reasonably sized cliff which seemed to lead to a forest- and a very exotic one at that.

"What a strange painting-aru." Yao frowned. "But then again, it's as expected of-"

Yao's eyes suddenly jolted wide open and his mouth was open with shock. Before he could finish his sentence, a sudden rush of voices flowed into his head:

"Zey're back again."

"Hai, I agree."

"Say whaaat?"

Who did these voices belong to? Why were they suddenly rushing to his head? Yao shut his eyes tight and clutched his head in pain, inwardly begging for the pain in his head to cease.

"Great, we caught 'em all!"

"Stop walking! White flag, see? White flag! White flag!"

"Listen as I tell you what heaven would be~..."

"Ai ya!" Yao hissed quietly.

Then, almost as suddenly as they came, the voices stopped as Yao cried out in pain. Finally he was alone again in the empty room, his brain at peace one more. But those voices... Who were they?

The first was obviously Captain Ludwig. The one soon after was definitely Kiku. But the third... Yao was certain that he'd never heard it before. But he could definitely tell that whoever it was seemed to be a bit of a coward. After all, it was the same voice that had made the white flag comment later.

But as for the last two voices, Yao certainly didn't know who the very last voice was but he could take a very educated guess at who the other was. That voice... That accent...

...Hero?

Meanwhile...

Now that is just one heck of a spooky coincidence.

Alfred was completely right of course because Matthew had hidden the key in his pillowcase- exactly the same spot where Alfred kept his precious things. It was definitely the key that he was looking for too, how many other keyholes could it belong to? So without any further holdup, Alfred resumed what he started earlier and began to open the chest...

A small click was the signal that Alfred needed to realise that the chest was open and so he slowly lifted the lid, unveiling its contents to him.

But it was nothing that Alfred had expected. It wasn't treasure, or special clothing- it wasn't even some sort of secret stash of food or anything like that. They were letters. Letters that were old and torn in some places but despite their damaged surface and frayed edges, Alfred could still make out the untidy scrawl upon them. Seemingly, these letters were all from the same person.

Alfred frowned, but still he picked up one of the many letters from the box. The one he had chosen had been random, so obviously it would make no sense whatsoever, but still Alfred's eyes found themselves being drawn to the top of the page.

But what he found and what he had been hoping for were two very different things. Alfred had expected letters from a lost love, maybe even letters from Matthew himself that he had never been able to send.

But it was nothing like that. Nothing at all.

Dearest brother Mattie...

Cliffhanger! Sorry about that. I'll try and get another chapter out soon. The next chapter has been written by the way. In fact this one has been written for a while. It's just editing. I tend to take a long time with my editing. Again, sorry about that.

Thanks to Lord Kharl and Myjen123 for reviewing!

Sayounara minna-san!

~Neko