Motley (#Wattys2016)

7: The Noble Boatmaster Fujimoto

TWO YEARS AGO

Satoru and Nori were sitting awkwardly in an office. It was a rather simple shopping venture in Colla Voce; they needed to pick up more food for the boat. Satoru had insisted upon stopping to repair the ship. There was a boy behind the desk in front of them. Behind his back, there was a window with a view of the ocean. Besides that, the office was quite plain.

The boy looked bored. He was sharpening a dagger absentmindedly, his feet up on the desk, not looking at his customers. Satoru coughed significantly, and the boy looked up. "Hey."

"Hi, we're here to see how much it would cost to have our ship repaired," Nori said.

"Good for you," said the boy, going back to sharpening the knife.

"We were told we should come to see you, Mr. Fujimoto," she told him loudly, trying to command his attention.

The boy tensed up and put down his sharpening tools. "You mean you want to see my father."

"I suppose...? I don't know. We just need somebody to fix our ship."

He swung his feet off the desk quickly, making Satoru and Nori jump with surprise. "Fine, I'll help you," he told them tersely.

"If you don't want to repair the ship, nobody's forcing you," said Nori in irritation.

"Yeah? Well, I'm not forcing you to stay here or anything. Leave if you want," he said with a sneer. "And I won't stop you."

"You wanna fight?" Nori said, standing up, ready to reach for her sword. The boy stood up and inched his hand towards his knife on the desk. Something about him made her annoyed, and it was clear he felt the same way. Satoru pulled Nori back down.

"Captain," he warned.

"Captain?" the boy said.

"Never you mind," Nori said. "Just name a price and fix our boat."

The boy glared at Satoru and Nori menacingly, then finally said, "sure. Name's Ryota Fujimoto. How about you?"

"How much would it take to mend two small holes and replace our deck?" Satoru said, ignoring Ryota's first question.

Ryota slowly took out a piece of paper and did some sums. "About 160 pastil."

"Great, we'll pay it. How long will the repairs take?" Satoru asked, rummaging in his bag for money.

"Tell you what; I'll contact you once I'm finished with your ship. Do you know magic, captain?" Ryota shot at Nori, almost challenging her.

"Yes I do," Nori said matter-of-factly.

"Good. Then get out." Ryota put his feet back on the desk and resumed his knife-sharpening. Satoru and Nori left hurriedly. As soon as they were outside, Nori spoke.

"What's his problem?" Nori burst out.

"I think the feeling was mutual, captain. Don't let him bother you."

"I mean, can anybody be so stuck up? I don't want to see that snot-nosed brat ever again!"

Satoru put a hand on Nori's shoulder. "You're overthinking this, and overreacting to Ryota. He isn't that bad. Besides, we'll be out of Colla Voce once the Oxblood is repaired."

Nori wilted with shame. "Okay... I'm sorry... "

Suddenly, a crow flew out of nowhere and into Nori's face. She screeched like a wet cat and slapped it away. It moved to about a foot away from her, cawing loudly. Nori squinted at it and noticed a piece of paper tied to its foot. She carefully grabbed its scaly foot and pulled the paper away. Once the paper was loose, the bird disappeared, leaving behind only a couple of black feathers.

"I wonder if this is from Ryota. He said he'd send us a message when he was finished with the ship," Nori wondered out loud.

"Open it!" Satoru urged her. Nori obliged and unfolded the paper. She scanned it quickly.

"He says we're supposed to go to the blue dock and meet him there. Wow, that was fast!" Nori exclaimed. "That seems very strange."

"I agree. I'm not sure if Ryota fixed it at all," Satoru said thoughtfully. "Once we get there, I'll check the ship and see if he did a good job."

"Unbelievable! How could he con us out of his money?" Nori said through gritted teeth. "I wanna kill that guy!"

"Patience, captain, patience. Save your killing until we know he didn't give us our money's worth," Satoru told her.

They went to the blue dock on the marina and found the Oxblood tied up. Ryota was on board. "Hey! What's the deal?" Nori roared immediately.

"I fixed your boat," Ryota said calmly.

"Damn right you did! Did you expect us to believe you could fix our ship in ten minutes?"

"Yeah."

Nori hopped on board, Satoru hurrying close behind. She looked at the spot on the deck where the planks had rotted through earlier; they were replaced and laid neatly. Nori ran downstairs to the bottom of the boat to check the holes in the boat; she couldn't see them anymore. Slowly she went back upstairs. "How did you do that?" she said. "How did you do that so fast?"

"You forgot, captain," Ryota said. He looked at a hammer lying on the deck, stretched out his arm and the hammer flew into his palm. "I know magic. It's handy for repairing customer's boats." Now Nori finally noticed the swirling green tattoos covering his arms.

"Where did you learn this magic?" Nori asked in amazement.

"Taught myself in secret. I found this old bookstore that had tons of black magic books, and I practiced without my parents knowing." 

"Impressive," Nori said out loud.

"Yeah. Once I know enough, I can get out of Colla Voce and see the world. I'm sick of being my dad's lapdog; once I'm out, I can explore and live how I want to live, not how my parents want me to live."

Nori was shocked that Ryota opened up so quickly, and was so passionate about seeing the world. He reminded her a bit of of... Her.

"Say, Ryota," she said slowly, "how would you like to leave Colla Voce now? You can stay on our ship and keep her from falling to pieces."

His eyes lit up immediately. "You mean it?"

"Sure! We need somebody to help us. See, we're pirates. But it's hard attacking people with just two crew members. So what do you say?" Satoru said eagerly.

Ryota grinned broadly. "I'm in. Let's get out of here!"

*x's song: Nine in the Afternoon by Panic! At the Disco*
*fanart by TastyWords16 *