One Piece Film Youth

Chapter 3, The Rest of the Family

(Ace)

Marco was beginning to worry about Ace. In fact, everyone on the crew was worrying about their little brother. It wasn't that unusual that the younger boy would experience mood swings, although he'd gotten better at controlling his temper recently- especially compared to his first few weeks, but he was still an anxious spitfire. The thing is, for the past few days, Ace has started acting quite concerningly. For starters, he didn't seem to be eating- at most, during the family dinners, he'd grab a few fruits and vanish into his room. He was also no longer proudly showing off his tattoo on his bare back, now he was wearing an oddly nice black shirt covered in yellow flowers that Marco doesn't remember seeing at any point up until then. Probably the most concerning, though, was his lack of sleep. His eye bags were getting quite frightening.

After Ace flat out refused to leave his room at all yesterday, not even cracking the door open when Thatch basically begged him to, Marco decided it was time to put his foot down. He of course went to Pops first in hopes of gaining some useful insight, but even the mighty captain seemed at a loss. His first few knocks on Ace's door went unanswered, and Marco knew the freckled boy was in there- so that meant he was being blatantly ignored. That, or Ace was finally sleeping- which Marco sadly doubted. Apparently, whenever someone has tried talking to Ace as of late, he has gotten into the habit of refusing to acknowledge their existence.

"Fine, have it your way." Marco mumbled as he lifted his leg much like a crane before promptly knocking the door straight off its hinges. The sound startled a few of the people meandering nearby, and they took that as their sign to get away before they get caught in whatever conflict would likely arise.

Inside the cabin was not the mess Marco expected, instead everything so neat that the room nearly looked abandoned. In the middle of the small room sat Ace, sitting on his knees with his head slightly bowed, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped- lying gently on the floor in front of him. Marco suddenly felt he was interrupting something quite important, and he felt embarrassment creep up on him. Before he could backtrack, though, Ace turned to look at him.

"Well good mornin to you too." Ace said with the most unimpressed tone Marco had ever heard from him. "I get that you're worried and all, but that wasn't really cool of you, ya know?" With a sigh, Ace bowed once before standing and walking over to Marco in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Marco had to take a step back just to make sure his personal space wasn't too invaded. "Sorry-yoi. Everyone's kind of getting freaked out, just wanted to check on ya..." Marco looked down at the remnants of the door, "and you weren't answering."

Ace looked somewhat apologetic, but also kind of annoyed- which is to be expected, Marco has to admit. "Today's just a tough time, and there's a whole bunch of 'respectful practices' this time of year. I'll be back to normal the day after tomorrow. Technically, I'm supposed to be trying to have fun and stuff right now, but I'm not in the mood to play games."

Well, that didn't really help Marco understand anything. It's good that Ace will start acting normal again shortly, but still... "Ya mind telling me what's so bad about November first? If it's some kind of event from your hometown and it has certain proceedings, you could always tell Pops so he can make sure you have everything you need-yoi."

In response, Ace just shakes his head with a kind of solemn fondness. "Nah, there's not much to do. I don't even really remember all the things I'm supposed to do other than a few things like have chrysanthemums and burn incense," at this he gestures to his shirt, specifically the golden chrysanthemum design, and then the stick of incense Marco somehow missed seeing which was sticking out of a small dish in front of where Ace had been sitting. Ace smirked when Marco's eyes returned to him, "Unless, of course, you have cards for Hwatu." He said it with the confidence of someone who thinks they're the only one that knows about something, but Marco couldn't bring himself to care about the cockiness. Especially not when he just mentioned a card game from the homeland of one of their old brothers.