A/N: Fixed the mistake of the same paragraph twice so it should be fine now.

Chapter 3

The night passed peacefully, the subtle rocking of the ship helping to lull them to sleep. When Nowaki woke up, he was beside Hiroki on the bed. He didn't really want to get up yet, so he just pressed closer and buried his face in Hiroki's hair.

Hiroki moved slightly in his sleep as he slowly woke up to Nowaki moving on top of him. He felt his breath tickling his neck, his body pressing him onto the bed as well as providing him with so much warmth. Not feeling the urge to move, Hiroki just laid there.

He murmured. "What time is it?"

"Morning...I think." Nowaki responded in a tired tone. He opened his eyes just a bit to see his lover's sleepy face. It was really cute.

Hiroki heard some slamming outside in the hall as his eyebrows scrunched up. "What the hell...is going on outside?"

Nowaki jumped at the sounds and he peered back at the closed door.

"I don't know... Maybe a morning activity?" He didn't move from his spot; partly because he was too comfortable, and partly because he was too scared to check.

Hiroki managed to sit up with Nowaki on his chest as he rubbed his eyes. "Whatever, it's not like they are going to come inside."

Out of nowhere, Hiroki jumped when someone started screaming and thought he heard some giggling in the bathroom. He dismissed it from the ringing in his ears and he didn't feel like getting involved in someone's private business. Although, the fact that someone ran down the hall made it even worse.

"Should we go check?" He only asked because he knew Nowaki wasn't eager to get out to check what was going on.

The extra noises just made Nowaki more tense. He let out a small groan at Hiroki's question,

"Fine, but you're going first." Nowaki sat up properly on the bed and took a moment to stretch before finding his clothes and handing Hiroki his.

Hiroki grabbed his towel and his clothes when he said. "Fine but let me take a quick rinse in the bathroom first, Nowaki. " He stood up and went inside of the bathroom and shut the door, leaving Nowaki by himself inside of the room.

Nowaki nodded and went to putting on his boxers, when the sounds resumed. The giggling seemed to be coming from the other side of the wall. Nowaki tried his best to ignore it as he pulled his pants on. Suddenly, the loud banging seemed to go off on the wall right beside Nowaki, causing the male to jump and hide under the blanket in a trembling mess.

Hiroki shivered as the cold water hit his body when he started scrubbing his body. He hurried up cleaning the mess from their activities last night and was careful not to wet his hair. This took him a few minutes, then he turned off the faucet and got out of the shower.

The banging grew louder as Hiroki rolled his eyes, it was probably the teenagers he saw yesterday who were making so much noise. He dried himself quickly and put on his clothes as he opened the door and saw Nowaki hiding under the sheets. Hiroki leaned against the door when he saw the child from yesterday standing right beside their bed.

"Hey kid!" Hiroki bellowed as the girl turned to him with a smile on her face, she didn't look scared at all from the volume of his voice. "How the hell did you get in here? I know we locked the door before we went to sleep yesterday. Go back to your mother, we don't want any problems if you are caught in here."

Nowaki peeked out, not sure what the other was yelling about, and then he saw the girl and immediately screamed before cowering back under the covers, "It's a ghost!" He cries out, sound slightly muffled from under the blanket.

Hiroki rolled his eyes as he stalked to the bed. "There is no way this brat is a-" He reached out to touch the child when his hand fazed through her arm. "Ghost."

His eyes widened when the child smiled before she disappeared right in front of him. He stood there in disbelief as he tried to make sense of what he just saw.

"That girl just disappeared, didn't she?" Nowaki could detect the shock in Hiroki's tone, and it did nothing to ease his worry. Suddenly, he threw the covers off himself, "We're getting off the ship this instant."

Hiroki turned to him when he said. "Nowaki, we are in the middle of the ocean! How the hell are we supposed to leave?"

Nowaki quickly slipped on his shirt and got off the bed, "We-I can swim. Let's go." He didn't give the other time to protest as he was soon dragging Hiroki out of the room and towards the side of the ship.

Hiroki tried pulling Nowaki back toward their room when he said. "I am not going to be eaten by sharks because you decided swimming was the best option! Let's go back to our room and forget about this!"

"What if they come back and possess us? I can't risk that!" Nowaki was already putting one foot on the railing while keeping his grip on Hiroki's arm. All the ruckus resulted in the manager and some staff running over.

"What's going on here?" The man with the shaggy beard asked while staring at them with wide eyes.

Hiroki turned to them as he exclaimed. "Your ridiculous ghost child scared the living shit out of Nowaki." He tried to pull Nowaki back from the railing with no success. "Damn it Nowaki jumping off of the ship is not going to help us at all! At least wait until we make it back to land! Nowaki!"

One of the staff turned to the captain when he said. "You told us we were not going to feature any sort of ghosts in this horror cruise..."

A female staffer's face turned white as she went to the captain. "Okay captain, lay off the jokes and tell the guy this is a joke! We didn't expect this twist and look what happened. This is worse than the woman who hit Kiku with a wine bottle in the last cruise!"

The other passengers looked around to see if they could spot anything out of the ordinary. A portion of them already knew that this was a joke cruise meant to scare people and were expecting all of the creepy things to occur to them on their stay there. The rest of them were actually chattering among themselves about this so called 'ghost child', they had not heard any children on this cruise so far.

Hiroki kept trying to prevent Nowaki from moving any further and barely held on when Nowaki pulled him close to his chest. He hit his chest as he looked back to the staff who were trying so hard to convince Nowaki not to jump into the ocean. Hiroki knew their pleas went to deaf ears since he saw Nowaki getting ready to jump.

It didn't hurt for him to tell him again. "Nowaki! Listen to what they are saying! This is all a joke! That brat was probably a hologram or some shit!"

"Yeah but even the passengers aren't so sure if everything is just fake at this point, which means we're leaving. Thanks for the hospitality!" With that, Nowaki threw himself over the side of the boat with Hiroki in his arms. The staff tried to stop them, but missed and began to panic.

"Shouldn't we get them a life saver or boat?" One of them asked the captain. The captain merely scratched his beard,

"Wait..."

Nowaki wasn't kidding when he said he could swim. After his body made contact with the cold waters, Nowaki pushed himself back up, never letting go of Hiroki all the while. He hauled the older male onto his back and started to swim away from the boat, ignoring all the shouts of protests coming from above.

"You alright, Hiro-san?" Nowaki asked while glancing back.

Hiroki glared at him as he moved his wet bangs from his face while holding onto Nowaki. "You...You are a complete moron! Do you realize what you had just done! We could have gotten a ride back to shore and there is no land for miles! You will tire yourself out at this rate! We are never taking another cruise for as long as I live! I don't care if it is free like this one!"

The female staffer heard Hiroki screaming at Nowaki as she sighed. "I'll go get the life raft..." A few other crew members followed after her, already grabbing some towels to give to the overboard duo.

A couple kept their eyes on Nowaki swimming away with Hiroki when they heard a little girl say. "Aw...but I wanted to play with them a while longer that's no fair." They turned and saw the ghost as they screamed, taking in the realization that the man wasn't lying about the ghost child.

The other passengers turned around and saw the girl waving at them as if she did nothing wrong. They all scrambled when she took a step to their direction as she pouted, it only lasted a few seconds when she went chasing after them.

Nowaki opened his mouth, but was cut off by screaming coming from the boat.

"See? I told you there was a ghost. I just saved our lives, ya know?" Nowaki stated as if this was all obvious. He slowed down his strokes when he heard a splashing from nearby, and the crew members calling for him to hold on. At this rate, he was willing to dive under if they tried to bring them back.

"Nowaki the ghost is a child! How the hell can a child hurt us in any shape or form?!" Hiroki looked back and saw a life raft as he let out a sigh. "At least get on the safety boat Nowaki, I am not going to stay in this water all day because you think you can swim all the way back."

"So you do admit that we saw a ghost! And who said I can't swim back?" Nowaki peered back and pouted at the lifeboat before swimming over to it and letting Hiroki get in first. Nowaki then climbed in himself, making sure to keep the weight balanced so the boat doesn't tip over. When he got inside, or more like fell inside, Nowaki grabbed one of the oars and told Hiroki to start paddling.

Hiroki crossed his arms across his chest when he said. "Nowaki, calm down. We are already off of that ship, we are on this life raft and it seems that ghost is connected to that ship. If we don't step foot in it, nothing will happen."

"Really?" Nowaki peered at him, as if he didn't quite believed the other. But he realized that it was only logical, so he stopped paddling and put the oar back into the raft.

"At least we're completely safe now." Nowaki said with a stupid smile on his face.

Hiroki sighed. "Well at least you took me along with you and didn't leave me on the ship with the rest of them."

"Of course I would never leave you!" Nowaki exclaimed while staring at Hiroki like he can't believe the other asked such a thing.

"Even if I did, I'd definitely come back to get you." Nowaki shifted closer and hugged Hiroki by the waist, resting his cheek on the other's damp shoulder.

"You better have." Hiroki rolled his eyes while he looked back at the ship.

It suddenly grew eerily quiet and he didn't see anyone else from his distance coming close to the railing. Out of nowhere, people started jumping off of the ship as the staff tried in vain to stop them from jumping. Hiroki started at them in surprised as he saw some of them swimming to their raft.

Nowaki stared as the people began piling in, and noticed they were pushing the raft down with them.

"H-Hey, you can't all come in here!" Nowaki felt rude when he had to push a male off the raft to keep the entire thing from tipping over.

Hiroki glared at these people as he crossed his arms across his chest. "You people do know that you will tip this thing over if you keep coming on here! Don't you dare get on this thing!" His outburst stopped a couple of them from getting inside of the boat but kept their hands on the edge.

"What do we do Hiro-san? Even I can't carry that many people on my back." Nowaki pouted as he stared at the crowd gathered around them. At this rate, they won't be able to get anywhere.

"You better not even think of doing that with this many people." He grabbed an oar and handed it to Nowaki. "We are paddling back if we have to."

Hiroki turned and saw the cruise ship going to their direction as well as the staff pushing down a rope ladder on the side of the ship. He saw some of the people in the water risking seeing the ghost again by swimming to the ropes but a majority stayed on the small life raft.

Nowaki took the oar from Hiroki and had to ask some of the passengers to move aside in order for him to place the oar properly in the water, and begin paddling. The progress was slow and subtle, but it was there.

Hiroki put the oar on his lap when he told Nowaki. "Nowaki, we should just get on the ship. I'm sure the ghost is harmless."

The young woman on the boat nodded her head. "Now that I think about...she was harmless..."

Hiroki said. "See? Nothing to worry about and you like kids, Nowaki."

"Yeah but I like kids who are alive..." Nowaki shivered at the thought of going back to the ship. He put his oar back down in the raft and tugged at Hiroki's sleeve, "Do we really have to go back there?" He asked with a pout.

Hiroki leaned close and whispered in Nowaki's ear with a slight blush on his cheeks. "You can hold onto me the whole time we are back on the ship, hold my hand, you know anything I usually won't do...if you want."

Nowaki blinked for a moment, then looked to Hiroki with wide eyes, before a large smile broke across his face.

"Hiro-san!" He threw his arms around Hiroki and buried his face in the other's shoulder, completely beaming. He was so lucky to have such a caring boyfriend.

Hiroki's face turned an even darker red as he patted Nowaki's back. Having Nowaki at ease and happy was better than having him afraid that was for sure. He already said he would endure some hand holding and hugs so he couldn't say anything. Besides, it wasn't like he was going to see these people again in his life.

After Hiroki said that, Nowaki never let go of the other even for a minute. The crew members of the ship came to rescue them back up, and when Nowaki was back on the ship, he glanced around hesitantly, pressing closer against Hiroki's back.

Hiroki noticed all of the other people that were on the life raft would stay more than a few feet from him. At least they were not clinging to him like Nowaki, only Nowaki was allowed to do that. Minutes passed and nothing else happened but saw the crew members running around like crazy. Maybe it was to set the course back to Japan since almost everyone was terrified over their wits.

Hiroki patted Nowaki's hand as he muttered to him. "Feeling better?"

Nowaki gave a small smile and nodded. He wasn't scared when Hiroki was beside him.

When he managed to settle down, Nowaki frowned, "I'm sorry I ruined our trip with this whole...Incident."

Hiroki tried not to laugh as he assured Nowaki. "If it wasn't that, something else would've ruined this vacation. Besides, half the ship is scared shirtless so you're not alone."

"Yeah but still..." Nowaki bit his lower lip then shook his head and leaned against Hiroki,

"I'll make up for it when we get back to Japan." He whispered in the other's ear.

Hiroki turned to Nowaki as he muttered to him. "We are just going to have a quiet vacation home if that's all right with you."

Nowaki smiled and nuzzled his face against Hiroki's ear, "Of course it's okay." He was thinking of that anyways. They didn't have any ghosts at home, and they could make a romantic dinner for themselves if they ever wanted to.

Hiroki relaxed in Nowaki's arms as he smiled lightly. The staff came back and talked to them, almost trying to conceal the fact that there was a real ghost on board. A majority of the people were relieved and laughed at them playing a real great joke on them. Hiroki wasn't at all convinced, he knew the ghost kid was real and these people were only covering their asses from being told to get a refund for their misinformation on this so called twist.

Nowaki didn't believe them of course, and only listened half-heartedly before pulling Hiroki away to another part of the ship for some peace and quiet. When they got to the opposite side of the deck, Nowaki leaned against the railing and stared down at the rushing water beneath them in awe. This was the first time he was able to look outside of the ship properly; every other time the fog was blocking everything.

Hiroki felt Nowaki hold onto him even tighter and he didn't fight it. For someone so tall, Nowaki was more of a scaredy cat than he expected. Although, it made him fell like he was being helpful when Nowaki ran to him for comfort and not someone else. He stared right at the sea as he placed his hands on the railing so he wouldn't move to the side.

Nowaki breathed in the fresh ocean air, so glad the fog had cleared. Everything seemed so less scary now that he knew he wasn't the only one who saw them. Nowaki moved behind Hiroki and wrapped his arms around the other warmly, resting his chin on his head.

Hiroki asked Nowaki. "Do you want me to get our things from our room when we dock?"

Nowaki shook his head and tightened his hold around the other,

"We'll go together." He didn't want to be separated from Hiroki at the moment.

Hiroki nodded his head. "Alright, if it helps just hold onto my arm. I can't walk around with you holding onto me from behind."

Nowaki laughed and let go of Hiroki in order to link his arm with his. They went back to their room, ignoring the frantic crew members and passengers on the way there.

Hiroki opened the door as they walked inside and grabbed their things. They managed to pack what they had out by helping each other since Nowaki held onto his arm tightly.

The packing took them a while since Nowaki kept goofing off and distracting his lover from the work. Eventually, they managed to get everything inside the luggage and zipped up.

The sound of the boat horn signaled their arrival, and Nowaki helped carry most of the stuff across the ship as they headed to the exit.

Hiroki walked right beside Nowaki as they hurried down the people were rushing inside of their rooms to gather their things. He rubbed his forehead, this whole trip was just so tiring. When he made it back home, he was going to bathe and then take a long nap to forget all about this.

Nowaki noticed the other's distressing look, and it worried him. "You alright?" Nowaki asked while pressing closer against Hiroki's side.

"I'm just so tired..and I need a real warm bath." Hiroki told him as he hid a teasing smile. "Because a certain someone got me wet with disgusting sea water and I feel gross."

Nowaki faked a gasp and placed a hand on his chest,

"Excuse me? Are you forgetting that I saved our lives?" He knocked the other playfully with his hip as they were walking.

"Oh yes, how can I forget that you saved us from a little girl." Hiroki said as he gently nudged Nowaki's chest with his elbow.

Nowaki laughed in response and linked his arm back with Hiroki's as they headed down the stairs of the boat, and back onto dry land. Many people were still murmuring about the ghost incident, but it didn't seem to bug Nowaki as much anymore.

Hiroki looked back t the ship and saw someone waving at him. The ghost girl smiled big when Hiroki caught and waved faster. Hiroki lifted his arm and waved back without a problem on his end, the kid didn't scare him so it would be rude of him to be impolite.

Nowaki noticed Hiroki waving, and he glanced back just in time to see the little girl disappear. His eyes widened, and he looked to Hiroki, "She's not going to follow us back, is she?"

Hiroki told him. "I don't think so, it seems she's connected to that vessel for some reason so she won't come bother us."

Nowaki was surprised by the other's knowledge of this. Hiroki must read a lot of supernatural books...

"Remind me not to ask you for book suggestions, ever." He shivered; this event was going to stay with him for a long time. Nowaki probably wouldn't even be able to look at kids the same way in that time.

Hiroki laughed as he patted Nowaki on the back. "I'm going to have to hide the books on the supernatural from you then."

"So you do have them!" Nowaki pouted and leaned against Hiroki as they walked, "I thought you told me ghosts weren't real? You liar."

"I only have them because I got curious about them and they have some interesting facts." Hiroki held Nowaki's hand when he said. "Well I didn't think I would even see one in the first place, ghosts just don't show up in front of you every single day. And I know you get scared about horror type things so I didn't want you to be nervous about it."

Nowaki pouted at this, "Which means you still lied to me." Even though he never really believed the theory of ghosts being non existent. "I'll have to punish you for that when we get home." Nowaki said while nuzzling his face against the softness of Hiroki's hair. As usual, his speech was dripping with innuendos.

"I did not lie, I held things from you, there's a difference." Hiroki said as he poked Nowaki's chest. "If by punish you mean giving me a massage after my bath, then thank you for offering."

"That doesn't even count as a punishment." Nowaki retorted, but smiled and nodded.

"Fine. I owe you one after all." Hiroki had dealt with the bad service on the ship, as well as his trip under the sea, so it would only be fair.

Hiroki nodded his head. "Good, bring out the nice massage oil too when we get home."

"Anything else, your highness?" Nowaki asked in a joking matter as he intertwined their fingers.

Hiroki jokingly said. "Alright then, how about you in an apron while giving me the massage."

Nowaki looked shocked for a moment, but relaxed when he realized it was a joke. Hiroki really liked to play him like this, huh?

"Hiro-saaannn..." Nowaki whined the entire way back that day.

THE END.