Chapter Five: Brown

Although it was sunny outside, the captain's quarter required light bulbs to make the interior visible. There was not a single window in the room, and the doors were always shut when not used. Something about the captain wanting this room to be totally sealed from the world outside. And one didn't need much thought to notice that he took that very seriously.

The furniture all looked old and ancient, carpets hadn't been changed in years and the bookshelves were full of books that were published decades ago. Like the room was not of this era but of one that already passed. Everyone in the ship said that the captain had an old-man-taste in stuff. It was clear why they would say that. This room looked very old compared to the rest of the ship. Older than Genma's room, and even he is in his late forties. There wasn't anyone older than him on the ship unless you count the old man I almost stabbed to death by accident earlier.

I was sitting on the same chair I sat on yesterday, to my right was Mr. Thomas, he too on the same chair as yesterday, and the captain was also on the chair, the same one as yesterday. But we were this time joined by Mr. Gates who was sitting on a chair to my left that wasn't there yesterday. And there weren't any other chair in the room back then other than the ones we three were on, and the fourth chair didn't look out of place either. Same design and just as old. Was Captain's room like this too?

"Focus, Brown," the captain said and I stopped thinking about the room and the chairs. "Now, what you did today was nowhere as good as I hoped you would do. Honestly, I was hoping you would land a blow but fail to kill, and then I would intervene and everything would be okay. But you weren't even successful in doing so. Anything you want to say on that, Brown?" All three of them were looking at me, waiting for my excuses, and the embarrassment it caused made me want to disappear.

"Stop trying to hide, Kid," Mr. Thomas said. I had activated my powers unconsciously again.

"I-I can't control it properly, sorry!" I said, "And I couldn't control it earlier too."

"Boy, that's not to the problem here," Mr. Gates said, calmly. "It wasn't really about whether you could control your fruit or couldn't. It was about how you were gonna handle the situation in front of you. And boy I tell you I'm disappointed by seeing how you handled your situation out there." Mr. Gates was the crew manager and was somewhere in his late thirties. He kept an eye on everything that happened on the ship and kept things in check. He was tall, muscular, and kept his hair short. He always wore simple clothes and never something fancy, did what he had to, and made others do what they had to. Everybody in the crew respected him, including the captain. He was basically the second in command of the ship.

I said nothing and waited for them to explain further. I looked at the captain and he just said, "What Mr. Gates said."

Mr. Gates continued, "Now tell us what everything you did, step by step."

I did as he said and told them what I did earlier. How as soon as I activated my powers I passed through the pirates and after passing most of them, took a moment to think about what to do next. At this point, I had realized what I SHOULD have don't but still continued with the story. I told them why I decided to go for the heart and it told them about how my power deactivated on its own and how I was hit with the old man.

After telling everything, I asked the captain how the old man was to which he assured me that he was okay and our doctor was taking care of him as we speak. That was a relief.

"So, now tell us what you should have done, instead of the disaster you did then," Mr. Gates said.

"Uh-well, I shouldn't hav-"

"I said, what you SHOULD have done, Not SHOULDN'T!" Mr. Gates interrupted.

"I-I should have," my word stumbled," I should have acted earlier when I had the chance. Uh-I-I should have planned my attack even before making any move and not stop to analyze after making my move." looked at all three of them, their expression wasn't different from what they were before. My palm was getting all sweaty from the anxiety I was feeling right now.

"Hey look! You aren't as dumb as I thought you were, but still pretty dumb though." Mr. Thomas slapped my back. It felt like I was hit by a brick of iron.

I was about to ask 'why' but the captain stopped me by blocking my mouth with the end of his sword's scabbard. He wasn't very gentle so that hurt pretty bad too. He then said," Do refrain from asking Thomas any question without him giving you his permission to do so. And don't ask me why."

I wasn't gonna ask the captain 'why?' anyway, because I was busy thinking how could one ask for his permission to ask a question when one was not even allowed to ask for it. 'May I ask you a question?' wasn't gonna work.

"Is that all?" Mr. Gates asked, "Is that all you think you SHOULD have done in order to have succeeded?"

"Yes!"

"Not bad! But still missing something."

I waited for him to say more.

"Knowing full well you don't have total control over you devil fruit you still decided to face your target head-on. Why is that?" he asked, "Were you confident in your strength? Or was it your moral? Or did you just not think about it? I sure it's not confidence and it's not really about your morals either. I can tell you simply hadn't thought about it. You never really thought about how you could utilize your fruit for combat did you?"

I hadn't. I really hadn't thought about using this devil fruit for combat. It had almost been a year since I ate this fruit and I had hardly even scratched it surfaced regarding its potential. Captain tried to teach me how to, but this fruit didn't belong to him so he wasn't much help regarding it no matter how much he tried. And I was still getting used to the outside world to fully focus on mastering it. So, "No," I answered.

"Well, you might think your fruit's potential might be limited to assassination and sneaking around- which I don't know why you didn't attempt earlier, - but your fruit has a lot more potential than just making your presence minimal," the captain said this time, "But try getting the basics first, then we'll dive into more complicated parts." After that, he told me I needed more training- which I did need, then he reminded me to distribute the money we got from the Brown Haired pirates bounty to the crew.

They then talked about what they were gonna do about the pirates, what they found in their ship, and other miscellaneous stuff, then when the conversation started to drift towards the more serious topic, the captain asked me to leave. All I could catch before leaving was that this evening captain was gonna meet up with some people and I somehow was involved in this. Captain didn't say how.

After leaving the captain's quarter and traveling back to the present from the past, I went to my room to get the money that the captain handed me yesterday. Taking the money I went to the main deck and after minutes of me standing there, people started to gather around. Everyone knew what, me carrying a bag of money and standing in the middle of the deck meant.

"Hey, Brown, how much is it this time around?" Sally asked.

"A hundred and twenty-four," I said," Sound enough?"

"Nah, won't even last two days on dry land!"

"What are you gonna spend it on? Chocolate?" I asked, knowing what he would say next and what would follow soon after.

"You know what I'm gonna spent it on," he said, brimming with enthusiasm, unaware of what awaited him," STRIP CLUBS!" as soon as he said that he was picked up from the ground by his ear. "Ouch! What the hel-"

"Do say it again what you were gonna spent your money on, my good son," Miss Yalta asked, She was smiling and not smiling at the same time. Seeing it gave chills to everyone on the deck, one could only imagine what Sally must be feeling as he was the person the smile was directed towards.

I apologized to Sally silently, but he had it coming. Apparently, he heard from someone that the strip clubs in South Blue are the best in the entire world. And the kid's been talking about wanting to go to a strip club every night before bed since then. He was just nine but looked and acted like a fourteen-year-old. I wondered if all fishmen matured early.

"MOM!" One could see the fear in his eye. He looked as if he was facing death, which he might be considering it's Miss Yalta we're talking about.

"Son!"

"Mom!"

"Be back soon," and she threw Sally so fast and hard that he was most likely sent a kilometer from the ship, flying.

It took Sally around three minutes to get back. Nobody talked from when Sally was thrown till he got back because nobody wanted to be the next one to be thrown. She did that sometimes, where she would throw someone over bored if they annoyed her for some reason, and it didn't take much to annoy her. But thankfully she didn't throw humans as far as she threw Sally.

Once Sally got back, she told him to do to her office and wait for her there. She said they would have a small chat. Everybody knew what that meant for him. I apologized to Sally once again, silently.

With things back to normal, or at least as normal as it could get, everyone made a semicircle in front of me, as it was time for distribution.

So, in the crew, rewards collected from bounties as distributed in different ways from how their salary is distributed. Salary is monthly and fixed. But reward from bounty was a different matter. It was distributed according to Portions. Once a member of the crew, you get a Portion, everyone, chore boy, janitor and even the captain has that first Portion, then when you join in something, like cooking, Sailing, shipwright, gun and other job units, you get another Portion, and if you are the officer of one unit another two Portion. For example, Miss Yalta is a member of the Crew, so that gives her a Portion, she is a navigator, and that gives her another portion, He is the officer of the Navigation unit, which gives her another two Portion, and in total, she has Four Portions.

So how the money is distributed is that the money is divided by the total number of Portions and everyone gets their money according to that.

After distributing the money I went to the infirmary to check on the old man. He was still unconscious so Dr. May told me to be back after a couple of hours. So after that, I went to the top deck to train and this time Sally was there with me. He looked like he had gone through hell. His face was all swollen and his head was covered in a band-aid. We didn't talk for the most part of the duration.

After two hours, I went back to the infirmary. I opened the door and inside was the old man I stabbed and Dr. May. The old man was laying on the bed and Dr. May was sitting on a chair beside his bed talking to him. She acknowledged my presence with a slight nod and then continued with the conversation.

From the conversation I learned, the old man's name was Demille and he was apparently a famous helmsman. His ship, which was a merchant ship was raided by those pirates months ago and after the pirate captain recognized him, he abducted him and then forced him to work for the pirates. After enough begging the pirate captain agreed to let him go but only after he gets them ten ships with extremely valuable cargo. And he was doing fine until he found this ship. After the conversation was done Dr. May walked out of the infirmary with me and asked," Are you really gonna talk to him? I don't think you should."

"I should apologize. I'm the one who stabbed him," I said. I still felt very terrible about what had happened.

"I don't know, maybe you should talk to him after few days," she said," you know, to let things cool down a bit. And he's on drugs right now, so he might be getting emotional, you know all that stuff."

I assured her I would be okay, then she left to report whatever she learned to the captain.

I then approached the old man, he still hadn't seen me there. He had his eyes shut but there was too little time for him to fall asleep. " I AM TRULY SORRY FOR WHAT HAPPENED EARLIER!" I must have shouted that, as he nearly jumped off the bed after hearing me.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU KID, "He yelled, then calmed down a bit, "were you trying to kill this old man?

"I am so sorry! I just wanted to apologize," I said, as I bowed.

"Apologized? For what?" he asked. Was he unaware that it was I who stabbed him?

"For earlier," I said," it was I who stabbed you but it wasn't intentional, it was the man holding you whom I wanted to stab." I waited for his response. Still bowing my head to him. He said nothing.

"So it was you," he said, his voice extremely calm. He didn't sound angry, not scared.

"Yes!"

"Come closer kid," he said. I went close.

"Thank you!" he said, "FOR COMING TO ME BY YOURSELF!" he roared suddenly. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer." WHAT THE F**K DID I EVER DO TO YOU FOR YOU TO STAB ME LIKE THAT KID? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS? He shook me back and forth. Then he tried to bite me. To avoid that I pulled myself back as hard as I could. And in turn, he pulled as hard as his injured body could. The strain must have reopened his wounds because the white band-aid on his stomach was turning red with blood. But he still didn't stop pulling and shaking me. "I SERIOUSLY THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE LIKE THAT! WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO MY KIDS IF I DIED NOW YOU-"he coughed blood. Then fainted.

As soon as I was freed from his grip, I ran up the deck to call Dr. May. I didn't go back to the infirmary after that. I went straight to my quarter and straight to bed.

This day had been weird enough. I didn't want any more of it.