Hinata didn't know where here was. He ached and he hurt and his head was still spinning and his stomach was still churning and he was almost completely certain that he was about to throw up all over himself and anyone who happened to be near. But where was he? Why was the room moving? Why did he smell salt and hear gulls crying?

"Where...where am I?" a young voice asked, faint and broken. Hinata turned his head. The voice could have been his—the question certainly was—but it was not him. It was another boy, probably about Hinata's age. They were so close to each other that Hinata could smell his breath, as sour and unpleasant as his own probably was.

With a great effort, Hinata forced his eyes open. He could see the other boy's face very near his own, the boy lying still with his limbs in disarray, as if he'd been dumped in a pile on the wooden floor and hadn't had the energy to sort himself out. His face was round and timid, his eyes wide with distress, and freckles dusted the pale skin of his cheeks. Light trailed down from the ceiling through a grate, shifting as the room shifted and making bars of yellow move over the boy's face. A hammock against the opposite wall swayed and bumped against the rough wooden planking, and Hinata fixated on that, trying to understand what was going on.

"The...the house is moving," Hinata said quietly. If it didn't stop soon, he was going to throw up. He gulped against his nausea, then shut his lips tight to keep it in.

The other boy's eyes widened even more. He tried to push himself along the floor away from Hinata, but didn't have the strength to move himself more than a hand-length or so. "I don't think we're in a house," he whispered, as much to himself as to Hinata.

Rather than open his mouth and risk losing everything he had drunk and eaten for the last fortnight, Hinata just stared at the other boy, trying to question him with his eyes. The boy seemed to understand—he pushed himself up on one elbow and looked around the room, shaking with effort, his face turning even more pale under the tiny brown speckles that painted it. After taking in their surroundings silently for a moment, he nodded in resignation.

"We're on a ship," he informed Hinata, despair in his voice, and then he flopped back down onto the deck.

For yes, it was a deck. Hinata stared around, still trying to force his sluggish brain to catch up. He'd never been on a ship before. But this couldn't be anything else, not with the swaying room, the grate in the ceiling, the hammocks swinging loose against the wall. Plus what was reaching them from outside the room—the smell of salt, the cries of seabirds, the shouts of sailors and officers. The ship was already on the open waves, unmoored from any dock. Hinata knew enough stories of the sea to recognize that much, at least.

Strangely, once he understood what was going on, Hinata's nausea reduced a bit. Sickness still swirled in his stomach and made his head reel, but he no longer felt like he would vomit the instant he parted his lips. He was on a ship, yes. That made sense. Now he understood why everything was moving, why his body and mind were so discombobulated. He just needed to figure out what was going on, and then he could get out and go home.

Hinata found the strength to push himself up onto his hands, and he found his back against a wall where he slumped, sweating and breathing heavily. The boy lying next to him had closed his eyes, his fists clenched as he tried to breathe through what looked like a panic attack. Hinata nudged him with a foot in an attempt at friendliness and support, but could offer nothing else.

They were not the only people in the room. Four or five others also lay on the floor in various positions of unconsciousness or slow recovery. A few were groaning, clutching their stomachs or their heads. One was so still that Hinata couldn't stand to look at him, his eyes slipping away. Hinata couldn't see any sign of the man breathing, and the idea of being in the same room as a dead body was so unnerving as to be unbearable.

The rest of the men in the room were older than Hinata and the boy who lay next to him. They looked like they might be sailors, or at least laborers, their muscles well-developed, their necks thick and faces weathered. The stink of unwashed bodies in the room, of beer and piss and heavy sweat, might have bothered Hinata if he wasn't accustomed to it, having grown up in a poor neighborhood of a working town.

There were still some things Hinata didn't understand, though. A lot of things, actually. Hinata looked at the boy nearby, whom he already considered to be his ally in this strange situation. The boy's eyes were open again, staring at the ceiling and the slanting bars of yellow light coming through the grate. Though his hands were still curled loosely over his stomach, he was no longer pale with terror, and his breath had evened.

"Oi, do you know what's going on?" Hinata asked. He tried to sound casual, tried to keep his own fear from showing. The other boy clearly had enough to deal with. But he'd figured out quicker than Hinata that they were on a ship, so maybe he had an idea of what they'd gotten themselves into.

The boy sluggishly turned his head to look at Hinata. His dark eyes were still wide, but his face was blank. It was as if some part of his mind had shut down, this new reality having overwhelmed him for the moment. "I think we've been conscripted," he said dully. "I heard the Swan was in port, but I never dreamed... I didn't think I would be in danger just walking home from Tsukki's house... They must be, they must be desperate for sailors."

Hinata stared at him. He'd heard of conscription, of course, but like his new ally, he'd never dreamed that he would ever fall victim to it. "Why would they even want us?" he asked. "They usually press merchant sailors, not landsmen with no experience at sea. And aren't we too young?"

The other boy blinked, long and slow. "That's what I thought, but... They'll probably have us work as ship's boys. We'll be the lowest of the low, doing all the jobs that are too dirty or dangerous for more valuable sailors. Like scraping barnacles while the ship is underway, or pumping the bilges. Swabbing the decks, most definitely. And running powder during battles."

Hinata leaned his head back against the wall behind him, considering. That all sounded awful. That was the kind of stuff that usually had him slipping out the back door of his family's flat so he could run the street with his friends. His mother scolded him when he finally came home and usually refused him dinner for being a disobedient, ungrateful brat, but who cared for that? He and his friends found plenty of provender on their own.

The idea of running powder during battles, though... The thought set Hinata's mind aflame with excitement. A real battle! The thunder of guns, the shouts of men, blood and guts and true courage! A pirate flag flying high above an enemy ship, or better yet, a great blue dragon weaving in the sea!

Sure, running gunpowder was dangerous work and nowhere near as fun or as glamorous as actually firing the cannons or fighting with sword and pistol. But he would be an actor in a true battle, a contest of men against men or men against monsters. And Hinata knew he would be good at it. He'd won every footrace he'd ever been in for the past four years, and his gang always won when they started rock fights with other gangs—or if other gangs started them first, either way, it didn't matter.

The other boy looked sick at the prospect, though. He'd turned pale again, his lips pressed thin against each other. Hinata felt sorry for him. Didn't he understand how exciting it would be? How wonderful and vibrant and alive they would feel while carrying out such a task?

"There, there," Hinata said. He scooted closer to the other boy and reached out to pat his shoulder. "Don't look so poorly. It will be all right. I'll be with you! What's your name?"

"I'm Yamaguchi Tadashi," the boy said, almost stumbling over the syllables of his own name. He still looked sick, but he tried to focus on Hinata.

"My name is Hinata Shouyou," Hinata said. "You can call me Hinata, and I'll call you Yamaguchi, aye? We'll be friends."

"Aye." Yamaguchi nodded.

Something lit in his eyes, some spark of resolve, and he finally started to lift himself up again. He got his elbows underneath his body, and Hinata grabbed his shoulders and helped him up the rest of the way. Finally, they were both sitting up, staring around the little room.

"So we're on a ship," Hinata said. "And we've been conscripted. What d'you think will happen next?"

Yamaguchi eyed the men who shared the space with them doubtfully. None of the others had tried to get up yet. "They'll probably give us some time to recover," he said. "Looks like you and I got up the fastest, might be because we're young and all, but I truly hope they don't put us to work at once. I'll probably pitch right over the railing if they put me on deck now."

"Aye." Hinata nodded. He was pressing his hands against his stomach, he realized. He couldn't remember when he'd started doing that. "There's something called 'sea legs,' and it takes you a while to get them. Where do they come from?"

Yamaguchi blinked. "Um. That's a metaphor."

"A what?"

"A...a phrase to describe something. 'Sea legs' means your body getting used to the ocean and all so you don't get seasick anymore and you can walk on the deck without falling over. Eventually it becomes a habit. Did you never notice how sailors on shore always walk with their legs spread apart, like they expect the world to pitch and yaw at any moment? We haven't spent any time on a ship, so our bodies won't be used to it."

Hinata tilted his head, staring at the other boy in astonishment. Yamaguchi just might be the smartest person he'd ever met.

Yamaguchi passed a hand over his sweating forehead. "Plus I bet we're all feeling sick from whatever they did to us."

"What they did to us? What do you mean?"

Yamaguchi stared at him. "You didn't notice? I...I thought... That is, I guess I assumed..."

Hinata raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"It's called...conscription. The press." Yamaguchi rubbed his hands nervously over his stomach. "It's not voluntary." He nodded toward the other men passed out on the floor. "I'll bet some of them were knocked in the head, or a drug was slipped into their drink at the tavern."

Yamaguchi stared at his lap, unable to meet Hinata's eyes. His words came slowly but steadily. "Me, I was walking down a dark street, and someone put a cloth over my face. It smelled...really bad. And I knew... I knew it was ether or something like that. But it happened so fast I couldn't get away before it was already smothering me. Someone grabbed my arms and held me. I tried to fight, but they held me down, and that awful smell overwhelmed me. Eventually everything went away. The next I knew, I was here."

Hinata covered his mouth with his hand, trying to take in this awful story. He could see Yamaguchi shaking in the grip of the memory. After a moment, he reached out and patted his shoulder again. It seemed like the only thing to do.

Yamaguchi shook his head from side to side, dismissing it all, and looked up into Hinata's face. His eyes were round and calm once more. "What happened to you? What's the last thing you remember before you woke up here?"

"Well..." Hinata rubbed a hand over his chin. He didn't really want to admit to a near-stranger that he'd been messing around in a place he shouldn't have messing and apparently paid the proper price for it. But Yamaguchi had shared his own story, so it only seemed fair.

Hinata drew in a breath. "I went to a tavern down by the docks. I live in Yukigaoka. Or I did. You too, right? We both got picked up in the same place, didn't we?"

Yamaguchi shook his head. "I'm from Karasuno. That's just one town over, though. They must have sent conscripters all around the area when the Swan's captain decided they needed more sailors."

Hinata nodded in acceptance. Something occurred to him, though. "Oi, what makes you so sure that we're on the Swan?"

"It's the only navy ship that was in port anywhere nearby, last I heard," Yamaguchi said. "Conscription is only legal for the navy. Otherwise this would be kidnapping."

"But we still coulda been kidnapped, not conscripted," Hinata felt obligated to point out. "In which case we'd be justified in trying to escape."

But Yamaguchi's eyes darkened with terror at that idea, and the low-level shivering that had possessed his body for this entire time increased by several degrees. "I th-think I'd rather believe we've been c-conscripted," he said. "If—if we've been kidnapped, there's no telling what could happen to us. We could be sold as s-slaves. Or worse."

Hinata's eyes widened. He didn't even want to ask what the "or worse" could be. He wasn't sure he wanted Yamaguchi to tell him. "Oh. Aye. I'm sure we've been conscripted by the Swan. It makes the most sense, doncha think?"

Yamaguchi nodded frantically. He waved a hand in Hinata's direction. "A-anyway, you were telling me what happened to you."

"Aye, aye." Hinata's shoulders fell down from around his ears. "S-so I went to a tavern down by the docks, and... I had some ale."

Yamaguchi nodded. When Hinata did not immediately continue, he gestured with one hand, urging him on. "You had some ale, and...?"

"And I had some more ale." Hinata was mumbling now. He could feel himself blushing and he hated it. "I had a great deal of ale, you understand?"

"Did someone put something in your drink?"

Hinata frowned. "I don't think so. I think I woulda noticed."

"Aye, aye. Was there anyone supplying you with ale, then? Keeping your tankard full?"

Hinata halted for a moment, considering. It was all a blur. He was pretty sure several people had been keeping his tankard full, though he could no longer remember why. Because something about him had amused them, perhaps? Simply because they had the money to spend and he was willing to accept it? He didn't know.

"There was...there was one sailor..." he said, sifting through his memories of that tumultuous night. "A youngish lad, though older than you and me. His name was Terushima, and he had a very fine voice. I think he took a liking to me for some reason. Anyway, he sat by me, and indeed my tankard was never empty for long."

"I've heard stories like that." Yamaguchi's eyes were round. "Of innocent folks like you being taken in by charming strangers and fooled into letting their guard down."

"I'm not that innocent!" Hinata said.

Yamaguchi shook his head. "But still and all. It could have been so. He could have been fooling you."

Hinata scowled down at the deck. He didn't want to believe it. He had liked Terushima. The older youth had filled his mind with unknown dreams and images, and Hinata had very much enjoyed listening to him sing.

"Now, now," Yamaguchi said, patting the air between them. "Don't look so downhearted, Hinata. It might not be true. It might have been that you just drank too much ale, as you said, and someone else saw a chance to take advantage of your state."

"Aye." Hinata looked up, his heart lightening again. "It might have been that way."

"In any case, when they let us out of here and we meet the rest of the crew, you'll know then. If Terushima is on this ship, you'll know for certain and sure that he was sent as a conscripter. If he's not here, it might have been just bad luck and all."

Hinata nodded thoughtfully, remembering the young sailor's outlandish appearance, his fancy hat and his many piercings. "He surely didn't look much like a navyman. If anything, he seemed like a pirate in all his ragged finery."

Yamaguchi did not look convinced by this. "If he was on shore, though, he might have been dressing in his civvies. Plenty of navymen wear roguish outfits when ashore."

Hinata looked at him with interest. "Did you see a lot of navymen in Karasuno, then? We rarely saw such in Yukigaoka. Most of the ships in our harbor were whalers and merchant vessels. It surely was a great thing to have the Swan in our port for a time. That's why Izumi and Kouji and I went down to the dockside, and then we saw that tavern."

Yamaguchi managed a smile, soft and far-away, as if he was viewing pleasant memories in the lens of his mind. "We saw a fair number of navymen, aye. Tsukki and I used to sit on the wharf and watch the ships come in and the sailors descend on the shore like flocks of hungry gulls. He enjoyed mocking them for their frippery, and I enjoyed listening to his japes. He was rarely so talkative. It was fun to listen to him."

At this Yamaguchi sighed, deep and longing. He pressed a hand to his chest as if it pained him, and he stared down at the floor.

Hinata ached, too, watching his new friend. He reached out and patted Yamaguchi's bent head. "You miss your comrade, aye, 'tis plain to see. But think how wonderful it will be to return to shore and tell him about your adventures! We're crewmen on a navy ship now—we're going to do a thousand deeds and see a thousand sights! Your family and your friends will all eat their hearts out with envy to listen to your tales."

Yamaguchi looked up at Hinata, his eyes lighting deep within. And he smiled again, soft once more, but present, for Hinata and not for his vanished companion. "You're a kind lad, Hinata Shouyou. If I had to be conscripted on a navy vessel and taken far from my home and all, I'm glad at least for the chance to be your shipmate."

Hinata grinned at this, a wide and uncomplicated grin that showed for nothing but pure joy. "I feel the same about you, Yamaguchi. We're going to be grand friends, I'm sure of it."

Terushima's song had spoken of shipmates and the bonds between companions at sea. It was one of the lines that had tugged at Hinata's heart and filled his mind with images of treasures unsought for, untasted. Though he had never dreamed of going to sea before last night, now that he found himself there, he was not finding it to be unpleasant. Indeed, though a corner of his being ached with loss at being torn from his home and family and friends so swiftly and irrevocably, a much larger portion of his spirit was filled with only excitement and optimism, viewing the days ahead with nothing but eagerness to experience them all.

Hinata pressed his hands over his stomach, feeling his abdomen tenderly. "I don't feel quite so sick anymore," he said thoughtfully. "I think I could stand, if I tried."

Yamaguchi stared at him. "Don't push yourself too hard."

"No, I really do think I'm better."

Hinata pressed his back to the wall behind him and levered himself up onto his unsteady pegs. Once standing, he swayed, blinking and staring about the close, stifling room as his head swooped and his eyes struggled to focus. Standing, the horrendous vertigo was even worse, more pressing and sickening.

After a few moments to find his balance, though, Hinata's world began to steady. He still felt queasy and wobbly, but he no longer believed with utter certainty that he would vomit all over the deck if he took a step. Despite Yamaguchi's protests and waving hands and insistence that he sit down again, he took one step forward, then another. Hinata was immensely pleased when he neither fell on his face nor upchucked his last twenty meals.

Instead, he turned to Yamaguchi with a bright, encouraging grin. "It's all right! My stomach is still heaving like a sick dog, but I can stand and walk. Come along now, you should try too!"

Yamaguchi's skin became even more pale under his freckles, and he shook his head in frantic negation. Hinata refused to be gainsaid, however. He reached down for Yamaguchi's hand and seized it in both of his, then began to pull, bending his knees and leaning backward with all his strength as if playing tug-o-war in the street with his gang.

"Get along, Yamaguchi! Up with you! We must see what's on deck, doncha think? I'd much rather be out in the sun then shut down here for even a moment longer. We'll be able to see the gulls, and you can mock the sailors for their finery!"

"That was Tsukki," Yamaguchi said, his voice high-pitched with anxiety. "And we're at sea now, they're not going to be wearing any finery while they tend the sails."

"Up with you!" Hinata cried, ignoring this. "Up with you, Yamaguchi, and face the new day and the new life we've landed in!"

Half-bullying, half-cajoling, Hinata finally chivvied Yamaguchi to his feet. Once standing, Yamaguchi swayed. He clutched at Hinata's shoulders, fingers clenching tight in the threadbare fabric of his shirt, and what little color he'd had in his face quickly drained away. Hinata held onto his elbows and almost started to question whether or not he should have dragged Yamaguchi to his feet after all.

After a little while, though, Yamaguchi found his balance. A tinge of pink came back to his cheeks, and he opened his eyes and loosened his grip on Hinata's shirt, one finger at a time. Hinata had a moment to notice that Yamaguchi was actually quite tall, almost an entire head taller than Hinata. But Yamaguchi comported himself with such gentle shyness and slump-shouldered uncertainty that Hinata wasn't jealous of his height at all. If anything, he felt himself to be quite definitely the larger and the stronger of the two of them.

This did not make him despise Yamaguchi or look down on him for his weakness. Instead, though he was not sure of the age difference between them and Yamaguchi could have been older for all he knew, Hinata felt that he had gained a little brother, not just a friend. And so he gave Yamaguchi his biggest and brightest smile and squeezed his arms in protective support.

"All right now?" he asked. "Sea legs starting to come in?"

Yamaguchi smiled back, thin but genuine. It made his soft, honest face seem to glow. "All right now," he echoed. "Thank you."

Hinata let go of him with one hand, though he kept the other wrapped around Yamaguchi's arm, and pivoted on his foot to look around the room. "Aye, then...what's next?"

Yamaguchi looked, too, a sharp light of intelligence brightening his eye. Hinata was glad to see it. Yamaguchi looked at the door, narrowing his eyes, then looked to Hinata again. "Want to break down a door?"

Hinata grinned. "Aye! That will be our first adventure!"

Walking was not as easy as standing had been. The two boys stumbled drunkenly to the door over the tilting deck, clutching each other to remain upright. When they reached the door, Hinata and Yamaguchi eyes it doubtfully, uncertain how they were going to even hit it with their hands, much less try to kick it to break it down.

Before they could try, though, the door swung open. A young man with a sun-browned face stood on the other side, grinning a fierce, sharp-toothed grin. He wore a navy cap at an angle over his close-shorn hair, and his bare chest and stomach showed through the opening of his uniform shirt, off-white and stained in places. His stance was wide on the deck, almost aggressive, and Hinata knew immediately that here was a sailor who already had his sea legs.

"Hello, little shipmates! Welcome to the Swan!" he bellowed in cheerful greeting. "I see you've stirred your pegs much earlier than those layabouts who came in with ya!" He waved a hand dismissively at the men still lying on the floor behind Hinata and Yamaguchi.

The lads glanced back at the "layabouts," but the men barely reacted to the insult. One only twitched unhappily, while another pressed his hand over his eyes to block out the light. Hinata and Yamaguchi looked back to the sailor in the hallway.

"Hello, shipmate," Hinata replied, bold as brass, staring at the stranger with wide eyes.

"Wahahaha!" The sailor threw back his head and laughed at the ceiling so loudly that Yamaguchi flinched and tried to hide behind Hinata, hunching his shoulders in alarm. Hinata just stared at the sailor, transfixed.

"You're a brave one!" the sailor said, looking back at Hinata and wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. His grin was as broad and fierce as ever. "You can call me Tanaka-senpai, little shipmate, and I swear that I will protect ya and guide ya as a good senpai should."

Hinata blinked. And then he grinned, whipping his head around to beam at Yamaguchi in excitement. Yamaguchi stared back, pale and wan, and Hinata returned his gaze to the young sailor. "Tanaka-senpai!" he cried. "Please take care of us! Teach your kouhai, Hinata Shouyou and Yamaguchi Tadashi, the best way to live at sea!"

"And so I will, Hinata and Yamaguchi!" Tanaka reached into the room and laid a hand, warm and strong, on each of their shoulders. He ushered them out of the suffocating, foul-smelling room and into the better air of the hallway. "Come with me, my dear kouhai! I'll give ya a tour of your new home."