What's up :D It may be hard to believe but I am still alive XD This was supposed to be published on the fifth but I had internet problems... :'(
This chapter was brought to you by shockandlock, who was kind enough to read this on very short notice.
Song of the chapter: Don't You Need Somebody by Red One feat. Enrique Iglesias, R. City, Serayah & Shaggy.
Saturdays were Ace's favourite day of the week by far. The only thing he had to do was go to practice and then he was free to do whatever the hell he wanted. He even got half a sleep in since the training started at 11 and he had to wake up at 9. Still, this was much better than the usual day of the week where he had to get up around six. This Saturday, however, was hopelessly destroyed before it had a chance to start. Who wouldn't think that when their bed suddenly got turned over while they were still sleeping on it? And of course, that had to be accompanied by:
"WAKE UP, YOU SHITTY BRAT!"
There were only a handful times in his life that Ace woke up so quickly, and all of them (besides the Wednesday incident) had been caused by the same person. That very person had a bone to pick with him about his behaviour in school on Monday (namely lashing out on the teacher). Just in case he pretended to be dead but it never really worked on this particular individual.
"Get up, you good for nothing grandson! A strong marine does not play dead in the face of a good ass kicking!" Garp yelled right in Ace's face after picking him up by his arm; with the corner of his eye Ace could see Luffy sneaking past his room towards the stairs. While most of the time he tried to be the best big brother possible, it was hard to do that while wearing nothing but underwear. Garp noticed his gaze and switched to a different target. "LUFFY! DON'T YOU DARE TAKE ANOTHER STEP!"
Ace was promptly dropped in favour of educating another grandson. In such a situation, Ace rarely questioned his luck, opting for a quick run towards his wardrobe, bolting to his bathroom, and locking the door behind him. While Garp never had any reservations about breaking down doors (or walls, for that matter), he restrained himself when he visited the brothers in their home after one of the neighbours called the police on him. That had been one of the best days of Ace's life as he watched his gramps trying to explain the ruckus to a couple of concerned officers with him and Luffy snickering behind Garp's back. Of course, they got their asses handed to them afterwards, but in a much more controlled manner.
Since locking himself in the bathroom earned Ace a quick respite, he chose to make the best of it by quickly going through his morning routine. He did that while listening to Garp's infamous 'proper marine conduct' speech given to Luffy. After so many renditions of it, Ace knew the speech by heart. While he brushed his teeth, he made all kinds of faces at himself in the mirror, mimicking Garp's behaviour during his speeches.
Fortunately, both he and his gramps were oh so rudely interrupted by Ace's alarm. He rarely got to hear it (since he always slept through it) but whenever he did, he was always impressed by how he managed to sleep through it. Apparently, Luffy decided to use the commotion to make a break for it, soon followed by a yelling Garp. Since Luffy was steadily getting better at avoiding Garp with every chase, Ace now had up to fifteen minutes of peace while his grandfather chased his brother all around the house using parkour movements impressive for his age. That had been enough time to come up with his own escape plan since a quick peak out the window confirmed his suspicions – the house was surrounded by multiple marines.
Firstly, though, he had to turn off the alarm – listening to a nuclear alarm siren for longer periods of time made him stressed. After silencing the alarm, Ace stared at his phone with uncertainty. Any of his friends would tell him to stick it if he asked them to rescue him from Garp. There was, however, one person who wasn't fully aware of Garp's ferociousness. With an evil smirk Ace quickly sent 'SAVE ME NOW!' to a certain sempai. With that out of the way, he started packing his training bag with everything he would need to survive until Garp went back to his base in the evening. After that was done, he opened the window and threw the bag out on the lawn.
Next up was breakfast. Even Garp agreed that a marine needed to eat a lot – that's why Ace completely ignored the dangerous old man. He made himself three big sandwiches, expertly wrapping them, and poured already made coffee into a thermos mug. With that, he went to get his shoes, ducking when he was almost hit by a pillow that Luffy aimed at Garp. The projectile didn't catch him off guard, considering that last time Ace was hit by a heavy encyclopaedia. Frankly, he was lucky it was a pillow and not a coffee table.
With his shoes and his breakfast in his hands, he went back to his room, narrowly avoiding Garp who was still chasing Luffy. He wasn't too worried whether or not he'd be rescued by Marco since he would still be allowed to leave half an hour before practice. Ace would just prefer not to spend too much time with Garp and, knowing the old man, he'd be staying until nine in the evening at the very least. He just had to find a place to hide for the rest of the day.
In his room, Ace quickly found and checked his phone but there was no answer from Marco yet. He shrugged and put his shoes on – there was only one safe place from Garp in this house and it wasn't inside.
v(^-^)v
Sometimes Marco hated his optimistic nature when it came to going to bed late and waking up before noon. Being the undisputed monopoly champion of this household came with late nights in tow. He spent half the night proving that he indeed was the undisputed champion, so he went to bed at around four after finally bankrupting Jozu. He then spent approximately an hour replaying Friday in his mind. It didn't matter how much he tossed and turned – Ace was stuck in his mind and absolutely refused to leave. If this continued for much longer, he'd have to talk to Robin as an alternative to psychological counselling.
He couldn't have been sleeping for a long when he was woken up by his phone ringing loudly. At first, Marco's groggy mind thought this was his alarm, so he pressed the snooze button. When that didn't shut his phone up, he actually opened his eyes and looked at it. He couldn't make out who was calling him because his eyes refused to focus, so he just swiped the green button and turned to lie on his back.
"Mmhm?" He said, not caring that it almost sounded like 'moo'.
"Mr Phoenix?"
"Yes, who's this?" Marco sighed, rubbing his eyes.
"It's Mr Albareda..."
"Crap!" The blond flew off his bed, awake and panicking. "I'm sorry, coach, I overslept! Give me half an hour!"
"What? No no no, it's half past nine, calm down!"
"Oh..." Marco froze with one leg in his jeans (wrong leg too, he noticed).
"I need you to take today's practice – there's been a family emergency so I can't make it."
"Oh..." He started to connect the dots – the other coach, Miss Moore, went on maternity leave last week and her replacement would only come in three weeks. That made him the default back-up coach. "Yeah, sure. I'll come up with something to do."
"Thanks, I knew I could count on you."
"No problem."
"What am I going to do after you graduate?"
"Disband the club?"
"Probably," the coach laughed. "Thanks again. Just don't torture them too much."
"I make no promises."
"Alright, have fun."
"Good bye."
Marco hung up the phone and sat down on his bed, finally noticing the time. To his surprise, he already had a message that made him doubt his eyes – apparently Ace sent this message half an hour before he woke up. Something wasn't right in the universe if Ace was up before him. The message had confirmed his suspicions – either there definitely was something wrong or his kouhai had face-dialled 'SAVE ME NOW!'. Figuring that it was way too coherent to be written by a random body part, the blond texted back 'What's wrong?'
The response came ten minutes later after Marco already gone through most of his morning routine. He had to read it three times and he still wasn't sure if Ace was joking or not.
'I'm eating breakfast on the roof, my house is surrounded and there's a maniac inside the house chasing Luffy – take your pick.' After some thinking the blond finally responded with the most confused looking sticker he could find.
The blond was half way down the stairs on his way to eat breakfast when he got an answer:
'Could you pick me up for some super important training related stuff as soon as possible?'
'If I can find your house I can probably be there in forty minutes – just need to eat first.'
'It will be the one surrounded by scary looking dudes in military uniform :|'
Marco stared at the message with a frown. Was this a continuation of the previous joke or was Ace being serious the entire time?
'I can't tell if you're joking or not' he finally wrote.
'I guess you'll find out soon enough :P'
To be honest, Marco really thought Ace was joking until he found himself facing the aforementioned 'scary looking dudes in military uniform'. And on the roof, with a mug in his hands and staring in the distance with a melancholic look on his face, sat Ace. While the blond was standing there, wondering whether or not he'd be able to force his way in past the military, Ace noticed him and waved his hand.
"What took you so long?" His kouhai asked as he got up and walked to the side of the house.
"What is this? Why is your house surrounded?" Marco asked instead of answering.
"These are my gramps' flunkies – they make sure Luffy and I don't escape before gramps had a chance to lecture us," Ace responded, standing on the edge of the roof. Then, before the blond could say or do anything, he put the handle of the mug between his teeth and climbed down to hang on the edge of the roof. He then released the roof and dropped down, grabbing the windowsill of the second floor window. Ace then pushed off of the wall, landed on his feet, immediately did a backward tumble, stood up and got smacked on the head by Marco, who jumped the fence as soon as Ace let go of the roof.
"Ouch! What was that for?" Ace cried indignantly, dropping the mug. That earned him another smack for good measure.
"That's dangerous, you idiot!"
"This is not the first time I did it – I know what I'm doing!"
"Like I care!" Marco argued angrily, this time smacking Ace on his shoulder. "This is for thinking that it was ok to do in the first place."
His kouhai childishly stuck out his tongue, moving to get his gym bag. The blond aimed a kick at him, without any real intention behind it, which Ace easily dodged, sticking his tongue out again. Marco rolled his eyes with a smile, only to meet the gaze of an old man leaning out the first floor window. The old man was very recognisable – after all he did almost ran Marco over on Monday.
"And who the hell are you to raise a hand at my grandson?" Garp asked threateningly, glaring Marco down.
"This is Marco-sempai – he's my judo captain," Ace intervened before Marco could say something really stupid.
"Are you any good at it?" The old man asked, continuing to glare at the blond.
"Of course he is! He wouldn't be captain if he wasn't!"
"Shut up, you good-for-nothing grandson! Let the brat speak for himself. Are you any good?"
"I like to think that I'm good enough," Marco said defiantly, raising his chin and staring back at the old man.
"Wahahahaha! I like you, brat! I think you'll make a nice marine!"
"No, he won't!" Ace intervened again, this time though he sounded almost panicky.
Garp looked at his grandson with confusion.
"Why is that?"
"That's... um... because... he has terrible eyesight!" Ace blurted out quickly.
"I do?" Marco frowned. So far, his eyesight was good. Then his kouhai stepped on his foot forcefully, making him wince. "I mean, I do! I have terrible eyesight. I have to wear contact lenses all the time."
"He also has diabetes so he needs those injections all the time!" Ace quickly added, pressing down harder on Marco's foot.
"It's terribly inconvenient." The blond nodded with enthusiasm and the fakest sincere face possible.
"And we need to go now because we have to get to practice early today."
"Right! I'm in charge of the practice today so I hope Ace can help me come up with something fun to do."
"You are?"
"I am – coach called me this morning. He said he had some sort of family emergency."
"Right! So we need to go now! Put this," Ace picked up his mug from the ground and tossed it to Garp, "in the dishwasher. And don't torture Luffy too much! Bye!"
"Good bye! It was nice meeting you," Marco said as he was dragged away from the house by his kouhai.
v(^-^)v
This whole meeting with Garp could have gone a lot worse, Ace realised as he and Marco waited for the bus to school. The old man could have easily jumped out the window and to test sempai the only way he knew how: by brutal hand to hand combat. While it could have been fun to watch, Ace was pretty sure that the blond would not have realised how dangerous the old man was until he would have been sent flying. That most likely would have resulted in a trip to emergency and Ace would have lost whatever chance to change his situation he still had.
"So, you have any ideas?" His train of though was interrupted by the blond.
"Ideas?"
"About the training? Something fun to do?"
"Oh, right, the training..." Ace already forgot about that. There went his chance to show off whatever good qualities he had. "What about you? You have any ideas to bounce off of me?"
"Not yet. I had one, but it's no good," Marco frowned.
"Why not? What's the idea?" Ace asked curiously. Maybe he could at least help with something minor if he had no ideas himself.
"Well, I thought to do sort of a tournament, but that won't work – half the club would be eliminated in the first round and then what? We need something that the whole club could do for the duration of the training," sempai said, checking the number of the approaching bus. "Can we take this one?"
"Yeah, it stops by the school," Ace nodded after glancing at the bus. "Hey, I may or may not have an idea. I'll tell you on the bus," he said as the bus rolled up to the stop. It wasn't very crowded so they could take a seat in the back with less people around them. "So, the idea. I'm thinking obstacle course."
"Obstacle course?" Marco raised his eyebrows at Ace.
"Yup. We start by sending them out for a couple of laps – means they won't be crowding the stations. When they get back they do five or so stations with different exercises – sit-ups, push-ups, whatever. Then they fight me one on one and if they win they do another five stations and then they fight you. If they win they get to go early," Ace explained with enthusiasm and lots of hand-gesturing.
For a moment the blond just sat there, staring at him. Ace was about to start berating himself for opening his mouth when Marco finally spoke:
"Won't you get exhausted with everyone fighting you?"
"Have you just met me?"
"Point taken."
The rest of the ride was spent discussing the details. Neither was sure if the dojo was big enough for the number of stations they wanted to do or if they had enough equipment. They were a little pressed for time but they managed to get to school and change with twenty minutes left for construction. On either side of the dojo they, marked two sparring areas and then between them they made a zigzag line with total of eight stations. By the time they were finished, everyone was already there. Thankfully, Marco had the key to lock the doors to the changing rooms so that no one could get into the dojo.
Everyone gladly accepted the fact that today won't be usual practice, but something fun instead. Marco went through the stations one by one with Ace, demonstrating what it was they wanted the club to do. With that, the students were sent off to do three laps around the school and Marco and Ace went to the opposite sides of the dojo, waiting.
Soon enough people started trickling in and working the stations. Ace was happy he was released into the mixed martial arts territory instead of being confined to judo – that would have been more tiring for him. His clubmates were told what to expect, so the only thing Ace had to worry about was to hold back and staying inside the sparring area. The first one on his chopping board was a first year, who he defeated without breaking a sweat. She was sent to do another three laps around school and Ace switched his attention to the next opponent.
He felt slightly evil when he didn't pass anyone on the first try, going as far as to cackle evilly after failing his classmate the second time. He wasn't going to be too evil though – right after that, he passed one of his sempais, failing a kouhai instead. After a few more matches, the sempai returned, looking very uncertain.
"Ace?"
"Yeah?" He answered, gesturing for his next opponent to wait and taking a swig from his water bottle.
"Could you come with me, please?" she asked tentatively.
"Sure?" Ace shrugged, taking the bottle with him.
She took him to the other sparring area where she was supposed to fight Marco. The blond was there, sitting with his knees drawn up, his arms resting on his knees and his head low. Ace walked towards him and crouched nearby. He could see that Marco's eyes were closed so Ace hesitantly called:
"Sempai...? Marco...?" When that resulted in nothing he carefully shook Marco's shoulder. In response, he got a sleepy noise of protest from sempai, but it didn't wake him. Ace sat there for a moment, thinking what to do. Marco looked tired when he came to pick him up, so why not let him sleep? With that decided, Ace got up and turned to his other sempai. "I tried. How about you do another three laps, stretch and leave early?"
"But what about him?" She pointed towards the sleeping blond.
"I'll deal with him when he wakes up," Ace waved his hand, unconcerned. "Shoo! Have a nice weekend!"
"They should make you the captain after he graduates," she said with a smile. "You too, have a good weekend."
Ace waved his hand again, shuddering at the thought of being made captain – too much responsibility, no thank you. However, after quickly checking all the second-years, he came to a dreadful conclusion that he'd probably be made captain because no one else was good enough. Now pissed, he vented his frustrations on the next ten people, failing them one after another. He then passed some people, realising that if he kicked everybody's asses, they'd be here until the evening. Still, before he could pass everybody, his kouhai pointed out that he training was over.
He smartly made the remaining students clean the dojo up and put the stuff back from where Marco and Ace took it. He then joined them in the changing room, deciding to clean up before he'd try to wake the blond up. Ace took his time showering and changing slowly, making sure he was the last one there. He went as far as to check the other changing rooms on the pretence of making sure the rooms were clean and no one forgot anything. After that, he locked the empty changing rooms and returned to the one he had his stuff in. Ace checked it as well, just in case, and then he went back to the dojo. There, he sat down crossed legged in front of sleeping a Marco, considering his next move.
"Meat? Swordsman? Pretty lady? Money?" Ace tried to get a reaction out of sempai by trying out some trigger words he knew worked on other people. "No? Fine, don't blame me."
With a mischievous smile Ace poked the blond in the cheek. He kept on poking, ignoring annoyed grunts until Marco finally swiped his hand away and opened his eyes to glare at the annoying person. Ace met him with a huge smile.
"I have narcolepsy, what's your excuse?"
"What?" The blond glared at him at first, but then noticed his surroundings. Marco's face went from annoyed to shocked to 'oh crap' in a second. "Where's everybody?"
Ace pointed at the clock, which showed quarter past two.
"We tried to wake you but you wouldn't budge," he said, trying to keep a straight face.
"Crap... Damn... I owe you big time! Anything, just name it!" Marco exclaimed, looking a bit shell shocked.
"Aw, now that you mentioned it, I do need something," Ace said, a grin forming on his face.
"Anything!"
"You see, I am in dire need of shelter until around eight in the evening... Also, I'm hungry. And I need coffee."
"I'm serious here."
"So am I – I need three things: food, coffee and shelter, not necessarily in that order," Ace counted his demands on his fingers.
"We can go to my place – there's food and coffee there. Though there are many annoying siblings there, now that it's weekend..."
"Are they anything like mine?"
"They are a different type of crazy..."
"Perfect," Ace didn't let Marco finish, swiftly moving into his space and kissing him. The blond definitely didn't expect that, but nonetheless, attempted to respond with enthusiasm. Attempted being the key word since as soon as he tried to use his tongue, Ace withdrew a little. It wasn't enough to break the kiss but enough to make Marco pause.
"Hm?" The blond made a questioning noise and tried again with the same result.
"Nu-uh," Ace muttered with a smile, moving away again.
Marco made an annoyed sound, capturing Ace's jaw with his hand to keep him in place and kissing him again. This time he stayed exactly where Ace wanted him. As it turned out, he wasn't really where Marco wanted him – he felt a tug on his t-shirt, prompting him to move closer. Ace obliged by moving a little closer without breaking their increasingly enthusiastic kiss. Apparently it wasn't enough since the tugging persisted until he was fully seated in the blond's lap. He was content with staying like that but, unfortunately, his stomach wasn't – it growled loudly and angrily. Ace decided to ignore it in favour of spending the afternoon kissing Marco. As soon as he picked the blond over food his stomach growled even louder, making Marco chuckle.
"I get it, I get it – food, coffee, and refuge," sempai laughed softly, breaking the kiss and pushing Ace off his lap. "In that particular order."
There was one thing I realised recently - I don't think I ever explained the school system here. All in all it's a mix between Swedish high school (that I got to experience) and Japanese high schools (that I gathered from manga, anime and a japanese friend). Both of them are three years, though people are older in the Swedish one - you start at 16 and leave at 19. The bell comes from Japanese high schools since Swedish one does not use bells and their class time, as well as break time, is very random. Clubs, of course, come from Japanese as well as the idea of ranking (because Swedes don't do that). The reason Marco and Ace have a lot of hard subjects like math, chemistry, physics and biology is because they are in the natural sciences programme (taken from Swedes and also because I attended it).
I hope that made some things clearer :)
I also hope to see you guys soon but if that doesn't work out I'll see you guys on the 16th of March at our three years anniversary (I'm slow, I know that).
Thanks for all the reviews, favs and follows!
Cya,
~Rhe.