Hello everybody. Hope you all enjoyed the nice little ominous feeling I left you all with in the last chapter. Boy, Mephiles sure starts out as an interesting character here, isn't he? His answers sure hold a lot of contradictions inside Shadow's line of thought, and he even lied about meeting the black furred teen earlier in front of his door. Now why would he even do all this, especially with eyes that reflect close to no emotion and only unreadable ones whenever they do shine with emotion?
I think I'll leave you all in the dark on this accord until the time comes. However, you might only get a part of the answer, being that I'm planning to raise a few more questions for you all. I'm trying to incorporate a little bit of a mysterious feel to this story along with the Titanic feel. No, this was not the genre I was thinking of adding that I talked about some chapters ago, although the genre I'm split about will make it's first debut in this chapter.
Anyway, please don't forget to leave a review about this chapter once you're done reading. Although I do like my only two reviewers giving me good insight on what they think and encouragement to keep writing, I would like a few more insights from other people. I'm not sure what everybody else thinks about the story, and I'm already clear on how the two reviewers think of it. So please leave a review of what you think of the story after you read. Until the next update everybody!
Chapter 7: Finding Refuge in an Old Friend
Stirring up a few curious glances, Shadow made his way through the tables of fellow first classmen and towards the diner door with footsteps that could have probably pierced through the floor if they were made of weak and simple wood. His mind was currently in such a high state of anger; steam would have been escaping through his ears like car exhaust pipe if that were humanly possible. Some of the diners he passed by had the decently to avert their eyes away from his figure as he passed by when they sensed his body radiating an aura dangerous enough to kill one if it were able to.
What the hell was my father thinking when he came up with that proposal? The black with red streaked fur hedgehog thought angrily with an angry scowl planted on his face as he finally made it to the double doors and stormed right through them and into the ship's main foyer, turning a couple more heads towards his direction from the area along with their startled gazes. Does he really think that I would need to be constantly babied while in such a confined space like this? I can take care of myself better than he thinks I can; he just seems to refuse to believe that for whatever reason that's dominating that head of his. You'd think that he's stop with this nonsense after kicking me out to the Robotropolis academy and forcing me to live there for the past six years. It's a bit late for him to be starting to baby me around now.
Without stopping to think about where he wanted to go, his feet took him up the stairs that led to the outside of the ship on the deck. His mind was too busy grumbling about the things he heard and comparing them with things of the past to notice his ascent or the people he passed by and accidentally bumped into. He did hear the angry outbursts and such being vocalized at him, but he paid it no mind and continued to go wherever his feet led him. And it was not until he felt his hands resting upon a doorknob and the coolness of the sea breeze hitting his face did he seem to snap out of his trance.
Hmm, who'd thought that I would end up bringing myself out here, of all places? the ebon hedgehog thought with a sigh as he let go of the door and allowed it to shut silently behind him. He then added in a joking manner with a weak attempt at a smile, Guess my feet knew where I should go to cool down.
Without any hesitation, he moved over towards the railing and leaned his body against it, taking in a deep whiff of the fresh sea air and its saltiness. He slowly let his held breath out, watching it as it formed a sort of mist before dissipating into the night air as a sightless gas. This showed that it was colder than he first thought tonight. Despite this, it was a cloudless night with the full moon shining down on him and giving slight illumination to the sea in all directions away from the well-lit ship.
It's times like this when I wish that I was never introduced to him all those years ago, he thought bitterly as he continued to stare at the ocean's surface and the reflection of the moon against it. If he had not shown an interest in my academics, I might be able to live a life better than the one I have with him now. I might even be able to pursue my life's passion without having to be held back by him telling me that academics are more important than exercising my imagination. Hasn't he ever figured that people with no imagination like him are better off living life as a mindless robot, always having to listen to what others have to say? Yeah, I do that right now with him, but I still keep my imagination alive.
"I hope you're not thinking on doing what you said you were going to do back in the dining hall," a voice suddenly said from behind him in a stern tone, violently snapping the teen back into reality with its unfamiliarity that also stirred up a tinge of familiarity within his heart. The person then said in a joking manner, "I would hate to get my good set of clothes sopping wet, but you know that I'll do it if I have to, right?"
Feeling as though he recognized who the owner of the voice was after recovering from the shock, Shadow turned around on the balls of his feet in order to see who the person that approached him was. Upon laying his eyes on the other, he saw that it was a hedgehog with silver fur and quills that seemed to shine against the moonlit sky and give off a pleasantly calming aura. That and his personal aura seemed to radiate that same calming effect that could relax even the most wound up and tense of men. His eyes were an unusual bright golden yellow, one that could possibly rival those of Shadow's ruby reds in terms of radiance and the never dying fire that lived beyond them. And like the ebon furred teen, the other hedgehog had a black bowtie situated on his neck just on top of a tuft of silver fur on his chest to show off his social standing as a first class person.
"Come on Shadow, wipe that stupid dopey look off your face and go back to being all stoic-like and brooding," the silver hedgehog replied with a smile as he approached the ebon hedgehog and placed a white gloved hand held in place at the wrist by a golden cuff with a thin line of jade running across the center on his shoulder. "What you look like right now is definitely not like the Shadow I remember seeing back at the academy. What happened to the hedgehog that would use to only show his true happy self to me and a few other choice guys back during our school days without giving it a second thought?"
"...Silver...?" Shadow spoke out in a voice that was barely above a whisper and disappeared just as his foggy breath did against the wind that the other had to guess what it was that he had just said. Thanks to his slightly heightened animalistic hearing, he did not have to strain too much on that accord. "Is that really you?"
"Well, I doubt that there's another hedgehog walking around on this planet with the same fur and eye color as me," the now christened Silver responded with an amused shake of his head and a smile, his white boots now soundless when he stopped moving. "If there is one around here though, then I'd really doubt that he'd be as good of a joker as me while knowing when to be serious. He probably wouldn't have you to call as one of his best friends."
"No, I meant that I never expected to run into you aboard this ship, of all places," the black hedgehog clarified with a clearing of his throat as he tried to regain his composure back from shocked to his relatively stoic and uncaring nature. Only his friends know that he was not really acting stoic or uncaring; he was just brooding on the things he says and hears during conversation without showing any outward emotion, and Silver could clearly see this happening right now in front of him. "I'm sure you kind of know it already since you're seeing me here, but I left pretty abruptly without so much as being able to give proper goodbyes to you or my other friends back home."
"Let me guess; your father forced you on this ship move across the sea to live in Mobius with him. He can't bear the thought of losing all of his wealth and fortune over an economy that has seen rock bottom and continues to dig itself into a deeper hole and leaving you behind to pick up the remnant pieces. I'm not surprised that he did that, but I am on the fact that he decided to drag you along for the ride. What happened there? I thought you never did get along well with him."
"As if I would even know what's going on in that old man's head," the ebon hedgehog said, referring to his father as something else for the first time since he boarded the ship and actually had the time to engage in casual conversation with a familiar face. "I would think that he's planning on having me be the source of his recovery in terms of wealth once we manage to settle down on Mobius. Apparently, I'm better to him as a source of income than I am as a rebellious son."
"Judging from the rumors of how he likes his money more than you in combination with what you told me, I suppose that's not too far from the truth," Silver said in a sad tone as he leaned against the railing, the other soon following suit with the action. "If you don't mind me asking, how is it that he's planning to make his grand recovery in the social world after his fall from the stock market business?"
"He's planning on marrying me off to some thirty year old woman that he had good connections with through his now decimated stock business. Apparently, she once owned half of this business that sold designer brand clothing and furs to mainly the rich. She said that she pulled out of her end of the partnership on a hunch about the economy before it became the way it is today. I barely even know anything about the woman apart from what I just told you, but I guess that all he needs to know is that she's trustworthy and has a lot of money for him to inherit once our coronation has come to pass."
"Jeez, it sounds like you got some serious bad luck that loves to hang out with you these past couple of months. Either that or someone's actually managed to successfully pull some kind of stupid voodoo crap on you from somewhere and make it work," he added in a joking tone and a light playful chuckle, earning him a glare from the ebon furred hedgehog that was anything but threatening. "I'm pretty sure that I already know the answer to my next question, but I just have to ask you it. What did you do to try and get yourself out of that mess?"
"Everything that you remember seeing try to do to get out of some class work plus a little bit more. I tried to give off the silent treatment whenever my dad would talk to me about money and marriage in the same sentence. I tried talking to him in a calm way in hopes that he'll get the message and stop pressuring me into something that I don't want to do. I tried just about every single thing that I knew how to do without resorting to any pranks I had given up four years ago in order to get him to lay off on me about it, but he just doesn't seem to get it. Either that or he just plain closes his ears off on anything that I say about this just because I'm still too young in his eyes to understand any of it."
"Boy, it sounds like you really did try everything that you could do in order to get out of this messy marriage problem," the silver furred hedgehog replied with a low whistle as he saw Shadow lean against the railing with him. He then added in a lower tone so as to not attract any unwanted attention from nearby people who might have been listening in on them, "Don't you think now's the time to tell him your darkest secret that you saw fit to tell me so long ago so that you can really get out of this? I can't think of any better way out of getting married to a woman you don't even know than that."
"Uh, I would prefer to stay alive and regrettably married to someone I barely know instead of being six feet under with a ton of dirt piled on top of me," the ebon teen responded as he shot Silver a strange look that only his friends knew how to decode as "why don't you give it a try smartass". "I don't think you need me to tell you how my dad feels about these things. He prides himself in being a traditional man and would easily fire his workers and even disown me for as he so puts it, 'wandering off from the road of tradition'. The last thing I need now is a vengeful parent who's out to get me because of a revelation I made to him that he emphatically chooses to not believe or accept."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right on that. He is infamously known as the traditionalist of all traditional businessmen amongst us. Some of us, myself included, even think that he won't be able to handle the new era of business people about to flood the world if he can't learn how to move on with the times and that he should just retire. Hope you don't mind us thinking like that about him."
"Hey, you're talking to a hedgehog who just so happens to be on the same thought boat as you are," the other responded in a humorous tone accompanied with a goofy smile that he had not used in so long. "And while we're on the topic of businesses, how have things been holding up on your end of things ever since we graduated from the academy? The last time I talked to you, you were dating this pretty girl you met at the academy named Blaze."
"Well, we're still under the dating status," Silver explained with a small sigh that was far from being depressing or anything like that. Rather, it was more of a sigh of contentment at what he had. "I would like to take it further than that, but her parents are very adamant on waiting until we're both eighteen. I can't say that I didn't win points with them, though. They like me so much; they actually went so far as to trust me to become a key player in their business expansion deals from potential buyers."
"Wow, are you being serious with me Silver? I knew you were always on top of your game when it came to school work, but I never thought that you would have been able to play such a key role in any business right now. You're only seventeen years old like me, for heaven's sake! Don't you think you're moving up the ladder just a little bit too quickly for your own good here? And besides, isn't their company supposed to be solely family-run in terms of expansion and all that other stuff?"
"You know better than anyone that I can more than handle my own on this so long as I make sure not to take on too much at one time and ask for help when I know I need it. And don't tell me you managed to forget about Blaze's father being taken to the hospital and diagnosed with pulmonary heart disease? It made the front page news since the company continued to thrive during the beginnings of the economic meltdown. Since then, he trusted her with most of the company dealings with her mom working as her advisor and taking care of more complicated matters. Because of her now being the president of the company, they had since changed the name to Blaze Inc. to accommodate her."
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that. Then again, that was around the time I was stuck with this whole marriage crap. Never really did feel like paying attention to anything then. How is her father doing, anyhow? I haven't had much chance to keep up with his condition."
"Thankfully, they managed to find a few suitable donors that would have great chances of accommodating with his body, so there's no immediate threat to his life. However, the procedure still holds a lot of risks, so he gave Blaze temporary presidential authority of the company that will turn permanent should the unfortunate occur."
"I'll bet everybody's on pins and needles about all this. However, that still doesn't really answer the question as to how you were able to get yourself to work on something within the company that's only reserved for immediately family members?"
"Oh, you never were the one to forget about something that easily," Silver responded with a shake of his head at the other's sudden change in topics. "If you're really that curious about the whole thing, Blaze asked her father during one of his lucid moments that she might need someone to deal with business deals and expansions while he was recuperating. I was there when she recommended me, much to my surprise, and he actually accepted her proposal, an even bigger shocker to me that I think I actually fainted."
"I can so imagine you doing that right now," Shadow said as he allowed a full on laugh leave his lips at the other's confession, earning him an annoyed scowl. "You always were the one who easily gotten himself so excited to the point where you could potentially faint. Now that I think about it, I think this is the first time I even heard of you fainting after suffering from a strong emotional spike."
"And hopefully it'll be the only time," the silver furred hedgehog semi growled as he absentmindedly rubbed at one of his glove cuffs. "Anyway, that's how I managed to snag myself a job normally reserved for those who have ties with the family. Upon giving his reasoning as to why he accepted so quickly and easily, he said that he already considered me as a part of the family. He also gave us his blessings if we were to marry after he passed away. He sure got an earful from Blaze when he made that comment."
"I half-expected that to be the case when you said that," the ebon hedgehog responded with a small chuckle leaving his lips when he heard this and tried to imagine it happening inside his head. "From what I remember of the girl, she never really liked any kind of negative talk before the talked about event even happened. I think she was more of a positive and optimistic thinker when it came to problems some might bite off their fingers with worry over. That and she believed in jinxes and a few of those other crap business."
"Well, everybody has their quirks that make them into who they are. I guess her believing in bad karma and stuff is what makes her unique, even if it does kind of make her out into some weird woman. And please don't tell her I said that if you run into her."
"Trust me; I wouldn't tell her your darkest secret if the world was burning all around me. However, if you do manage to somehow piss me off beyond belief during our long stay here on this trap floating across the ocean, I might accidentally let slip some information about our personal adventures from inside our living quarters when we were living bunking together as roommates at the academy."
"Why do I feel you would really do that if I somehow end up making you that angry?" Silver questioned with a small groan as his cheeks gained a small tinge of pink that could easily have been read as a reaction to the chilled air by anyone passing by. "And besides, you're making sound like you're going to tell her everything we did and then some more. We only participated in some nice innocent fun that any hormonal and sane teenager would probably do in this day and age. What we do is what I like to call 'personal bodily exploration without going crossing the line'."
"Do you really have to act so uptight about the whole entire thing?" Shadow questioned with a small snicker emanating from the back of his throat. "The way you make it sound like, it's almost as if the entire world had the opportunity to discover us fooling around then. And like you just said, it isn't as though we did anything hardcore that we might end up regretting anytime soon. Is the stress finally starting to get to you, my good friend? Do you want us to have a repeat of one of our casual weekend nights that we used to have in order to help you unwind? It helped you before, and I'm sure it'll help you now."
"Oh, would you please stop with your seductive talk that's starting to border on creepy right now?" the silver furred hedgehog asked in a tone that was half playful and half serious. "You know I go one way and one way only, so stop trying to seduce me. No offense here, but I'm not the one who discovered he preferred guys over girls after having a little bit of adult fun with his best friend a couple of times. And besides, I'm going to have a meeting soon with another man on board who has ties with Blaze Inc., so I couldn't go messing around with you tonight even if I wanted to."
"No offense taken there buddy. All I was really doing there was to help you unwind a bit by making you uncomfortable, and I think I managed to succeed in doing so. It's not like I was trying to get to you purposefully or anything like that. You know I wouldn't do anything like that. If you offered me the chance to do so though, then we'd be talking about a completely different story altogether."
"Alright, let's go ahead and move onto a different topic before you weird me out for life here. Have you managed to find someone special to your heart like I did? You know, someone other than me who you could tell your secrets to and spend the rest of your life with in eternal happiness?"
"Don't you remember that that part of my life has already been decided for me by both my dad and his partner in crime, my fiancée? Honestly Silver, I may not spend my life with her in eternal happiness or tell her my most precious secrets, but I'll be caught dead before I go around with anyone else. I might as well be dead if dad catches me professing my love to someone other than Rouge. He gets something in his mind and there's no stopping him from going ahead with it."
"Well, I guess going behind her back and cheating is out of the question then. It looks like the only way out of this for you is to go ahead and kill yourself. It's been nice hanging out with you while it lasted buddy."
"And since when did you start giving out morbid advice like that?" Shadow asked with a half scowl directed at Silver. "I thought you were always the guy who likes to steer potential arguments and problems away from actually taking place."
"You didn't even hear what I really had in mind here," Silver responded with an amused smirk on his face as he turned to look at the ebon hedgehog right in the eyes, their brilliant irises clashing with each other. "Don't even start on saying that I'm actually suggesting that you really kill yourself here. What I was thinking was that you could fake your death, and no one would be none the wiser except myself."
"...Are you being serious here?" the red streaked hedgehog questioned with a raised eyebrow and a "what the heck?" look written all over his face. "You want me to fake my death so that I'll be able to get out of marrying Rouge and stop my dad from driving me nuts? Don't you think I've already considered it at least once before I even got on board this ship? If I couldn't find a time or place to do that on land, how the hell am I going to be able to pull this off on a ship with only so many places to hide out in? That and I'd have to be in hiding for the whole month and a half while we're out here at sea."
"Oh yeah, I kind of forgotten about that little detail," the silver hedgehog admitted somewhat sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. "There really isn't that many places to hide out from everybody that'll be looking everywhere for you. That and getting off the ship once we dock would be even harder with everyone probably already thinking that you're as dead as you could be."
"Eh, I guess I got to give you a couple of points for trying there. And besides, even if we could get that crazy plan of yours to work, where could we possibly find someone who would actually agree to go along with the act of pretending to kill me? I don't want you getting into trouble if the plan backfires, and other people would probably think I'm crazy before they would even consider doing that for me."
"Do you always have to make it a habit to point out every single flaw in my ideas? You've always done that since the day we first met. Hell, you even did that when we first met in class when I gave out a flawed answer. You honestly have no idea how much that bugs me, especially when it's coming from you."
"And when are you going to stop letting these things get to you? It doesn't do you any good to get frustrated over something as small as this. Besides, I thought my way of pointing out mistakes was what made you consider becoming my friend. Or was it because you discovered how lonely I was every day and decided to give me some company?"
"I'd say that it was a combination of the two, although it was more the fact that you seemed a lot nicer than what I had you pegged for when I first saw you as my classmate. I guess this goes to show that you just can't judge a book by its cover before giving it a good read first. That was one of those rare times I was happy to be proven wrong. It ended up netting me one of the greatest friends I could've asked for.
"Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go ahead and make my way back inside the ship," Silver said as he gave off a slight visible shiver, his glove cuff clanging on the railing a bit from the sudden movement. "My fur's starting to freeze over a bit here, and a few bits of salt are starting to get themselves stuck on me. You coming with me Shadow, or are you going to try and freeze off some of those fat pockets around your stomach while raising your cholesterol at the same time?"
"Nah, I think I'll stay out here for a little while longer and enjoy the sea air," Shadow responded with a smirk and a small shake of his head as he watched Silver back away from the railing a bit while shaking off some white grains of salt off of his fur. "I still got a few things on my mind, and I still need to cool down a bit here."
"Alright, just make sure that you don't try anything funny or crazy out here," the silver hedgehog said as he walked towards the door that would lead him to the main foyer before turning around and flashing a quick smile. "I don't want all my wasted effort in keeping you from really killing yourself to be for naught."
"Oh, hurry up and get out of here before I end up killing you for always bringing that up," the ebon hedgehog threatened playfully as he made a small advance to the silver hedgehog. The other backed up accordingly in an equally playful fashion towards the door until it was at his back. The people that happened to walk by them continued on their way without so much as a second glance; some of them even gave off the smallest hints of a smile at the sight of them being so playful.
"See you later my big and black furry friend," the other responded with a smile before turning around and opening the door. It soon closed with a slight clicking sound and Shadow was once again as alone as he was when he first came above deck.
Never in a million years did I thought that I would run into Silver on this ship, Shadow thought with a rather dopey smile on his face as he continued to lean against the ship's railing. And to think, he's actually now running a key part of a business with his girlfriend's father's permission. I always knew he would be able to shoot for something big after we graduated from the academy; I never thought that it'd happen this soon. Oh well, guess this goes to show that anything can happen when given the right time and situation.
With a small sigh leaving his lips, the ebon hedgehog decided to make his way to the back of the Titanic, remembering that there were a couple of benches there along with the soft splashing sounds of the ship's propellers hitting and churning the waters. This unexpected visit from an old schoolmate was just what he needed to unwind from the frustrating dinner service he had been a part of some time ago, yet he still felt the need to further relax with the subtle sounds of the ocean churning away reaching his ears. And with that in his mind, he breathed in the cool salty sea air and continued walking.