"The Lower Decks", Chapter Five
Title: The Lower Decks
Chapter: 5/??
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): Nagase/the ladies
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sexual humor
Summary: There's jobs in unfortunate places, jobs with unfortunate people, and jobs that are just plain unfortunate: then there is the Floating Sakura, which seems to be all of the above.
Sho pressed rewind one more time, watching Aiba set down the t-shirt with the strap inside on the counter. His eyes were ready to declare themselves independent and launch themselves from his skull in a spectacularly gory display.
No matter how many times he watched the blurry security footage, Masaki still set the thing down and cocked his head as if hearing some voice, probably the one in his head that told him to do stupid things. He perked up, clapped his hands and left the purser’s office, presumably for curry night.
“Why would you leave?” Sho grumbled, seeing the t-shirt sitting abandoned on the desk. The camera in the room rotated, watching the door and then back to the desk, then back to the door. But the door never opened that Sho could see - the t-shirt was on the counter for one pass of the camera and then gone when the camera came back.
It was almost as though it had vanished into thin air, but Sho didn’t believe in things like that. If only the tape was a little clearer. Everything was in a black and white haze, and it was putting Sho to sleep. Three hours of watching the same twenty minutes of footage wasn’t helping.
He rewound. Aiba put the shirt down and left. The shirt was there. The shirt was there. The shirt was there. The shirt was gone. It took less than ten seconds. He paused the tape angrily, tossing the remote back up on the counter. “Where the hell did it go?”
The door opened, and he jumped to his feet, nearly crashing into the counter when he saw Jun’s grouchy (but still relatively handsome) face.
“Jun.”
“You watching the security tape?” His voice was more displeased than Sho had ever heard it, and considering that Jun had to regularly carry around sticky bowls of ice cream kids left behind, this was pretty significant.
“Yes,” he replied quickly, grabbing the remote control back. Angry Jun kind of excited him as much as mildly annoyed Jun did. He pressed his thumb over the battery cover, flicking it off and back on to keep his hands busy.
Jun invited himself behind the counter before Sho could protest, sitting down with an indignant huff in the chair Sho had just vacated. “Rewind it.”
Sho gulped, wheeling over another chair to sit beside the very unhappy individual. “Okay. I haven’t seen anything.” He pressed rewind, glancing over at Jun every few seconds, wondering if he was going to break something or explain why he looked ready to commit homicide. “Rough night?”
Jun said nothing, just gripping the armrests.
“Okay,” Sho responded, pressing play. They watched it through in silence, Jun leaning forward with his elbow on his knee and hand to his chin. Aiba left Sadie and departed, time passed, the t-shirt was there, the t-shirt was gone, and then Aiba came back in patting his belly happily before panicking at the absence of what he’d left behind.
“It just disappears,” Jun murmured, squinting at the blurry screen.
“Yep.” He was sweating, having Jun sitting so close, radiating body heat and anger and all sorts of things that would probably annoy Sho if it was anyone else. Jun grabbed his hand suddenly, and Sho yelped.
“Sorry,” Jun said, taking the remote control away. “Wow, you’re really sweating.”
“It’s hot in here.”
“It’s climate controlled,” Jun shot back.
“I get hot easily.” He could feel a bead of nervous sweat at the tip of his nose. “Aren’t you hot?”
“I was chopping scallions,” Jun lamented, hitting the button with his thumb. “Helping in the kitchen. You know, until there was barf to clean.”
“Oh.”
Jun frowned, pausing the tape. “This whole thing has no timestamp on it? How cheap is this security system?”
“Pretty damn cheap,” Sho admitted. “I think they put more money into the onboard attractions than the nuts and bolts of the place.”
Jun rewound a little further to see Aiba leaving. “Wait.”
“Wait?” Sho squeaked.
He watched Jun lean forward to tap the tiny security screen with his finger. “There’s the clock by the door. That’s our timestamp.”
Sho was kind of embarrassed. He’d been watching the footage for three hours, and he hadn’t even thought of something so simple. And he was Mr. Kusanagi’s most trusted employee? “Okay, Aiba leaves at 6:13 PM.”
They played through the tape again, watching the camera scroll back and forth. As the seconds ticked by, he found himself leaning closer and closer to the screen, and Jun did the same until their shoulders were touching. But there was little time for Sho to agonize and overanalyze what that could mean because he was glued to the black and white footage.
The clock read 6:21, then the camera panned to the counter. “Wait wait wait,” Jun was whispering, hand absentmindedly drifting to Sho’s knee and squeezing. At least Sho thought it was absentmindedly. “There!” Jun cried, slapping Sho hard on the leg.
“Ow, what?” he winced. Jun really hit hard.
“There,” Jun said, pointing at the clock. “6:23!”
Sho blinked, fumbling to grab the remote back from Jun. “6:23…but…but…”
“But it only takes a few seconds for the camera to go from the door to the counter and back…”
“…so if it’s 6:21 there…” Sho said, realization knocking him on the head harder than Jun was squeezing his leg. Wait, Jun was still squeezing his leg?
“…and it’s 6:23 when the camera comes back…”
Sho pressed rewind. “Maybe we’re reading it wrong. It’s blurry. It might have been 6:21 turning to 6:22…”
He jerked and the remote clattered to the floor when Jun suddenly grabbed for him, holding Sho’s face between his hands. His hands smelled a bit like antibacterial gel.
“Sho. Seriously. There’s a gap in the tape.”
“Uh.” Jun was squishing his cheeks so close together, Sho probably had fish lips.
“There’s a gap in the tape! Sadie didn’t disappear - she was kidnapped!”
“Uhhhh.”
“What?” Jun finally seemed to realize that not only was he holding Sho’s face like he was about to shove his tongue down his throat, but they were in a not so private place and anyone could walk in. Jun let him go. “We have to…”
Sho was still a little shell-shocked from Jun’s proximity. “Antibacterial...”
“…tell someone about this.”
“…gel.”
Jun backed up, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Nino.”
--
"This had better be good," Nino said crossly, ducking into the room to avoid being seen by Eduardo the lifeguard (who always leered at him in very bile-inducing manners). "I gave Nagase the excuse that I needed to go and track down the number of the casino working red-head he saw last night, and I'm already going to have to go back empty-handed."
"This is important!" Sho blustered, puffing up his cheeks a bit. He looked- well, kind of odd. Kind of like he'd been sweating a lot or something and had attempted to dry off with one of the sauna towels. "We reviewed the tape-"
"-and you will not believe this," Jun cut in. His eyes were wide. "Somebody definitely stole Sadie."
Sho waved his hands in the air. "Well, okay, we don't know that for certain, all we know is that somebody messed with the tape."
Nino sat down hard and almost missed the corner of the chair. To his left, Ohno was chewing absent-mindedly on a few pieces of celery from the Bloody Mary mixings, and to his right, Aiba was chewing on his fingernails in a verklempt manner. Nino almost felt bad.
Almost.
"Slow down," he instructed sternly, because Sho was looking dangerously short of breath and Jun was almost falling off the front of his chair in anticipation. "Sho- what?"
Sho looked kind of light-headed. "We reviewed the security tape from the office, and we saw that-"
"-no, I saw," Jun interjected, with a sharp glance in Sho's direction. Sho swallowed hard, paling visibly, and continued.
"Jun saw that the clock on the wall was suddenly 2 minutes ahead, right when Sadie disappeared."
Nino stared at him for a very long moment, and then to the security tape sitting on top of the crappy black and white television set pushed into the corner. He closed his eyes, holding up both hands for silence. When had his massive headache come around?
"Okay," he said slowly. "Someone stole the guitar strap."
"Who would do that?" Aiba moaned. "Who would want it? It was wrapped in a Led Zeppelin shirt!"
Ohno shrugged. "Maybe someone who really likes 'Stairway to Heaven'?"
"The point is that someone stole it," Nino said, louder. "We can stop looking for places it might have been misplaced, and start looking for people who might have taken it."
Aiba's eyes were very wide and looked as if they were starting to fill with tears. Nino did feel bad then; almost bad enough to reach over and grab the other man's hand. He didn't really want to do that for a whole myriad of reasons he really, really didn't want to get into, so he settled for sort of awkwardly patting Aiba on the arm.
"If the tape was messed up, it's most likely an employee," Sho pointed out. "Because they knew the security tape was back here, and did it purposefully."
Jun blinked. "I hadn't thought of that. Smart."
"Really?" Sho asked, looking very hopeful and very disgusting. Nino threw the TV remote at him.
"Pay attention!" Nino snapped.
Ohno had finished his celery sticks, and had moved onto small pieces of pineapple from the Pina Coladas. "Should we make a suspect list?"
Jun stretched back across the folding chair with an annoyed sounding sigh, arms held high over his head as he popped his back. It made the hem of his shirt ride up, exposing a bit of bare flesh above his regulation slacks, and Sho turned a funny shade of red.
Nino threw the keys at him that time.
"Who would even know about the strap, though?" Jun said towards the ceiling.
"Maybe someone grabbed it without knowing what it was," Nino suggested. He stared down at his fingers, holding them up as he spoke. "Maybe- maybe they just saw that it was lying there. Or maybe they'd been watching Aiba the whole time."
Aiba sniffed, and Nino moved to awkwardly patting his knee instead.
"Does anyone have a vendetta against Nagase?" Ohno asked.
"It's a cruise!" Sho sputtered. "How would anyone have anything against him?"
Nino pulled out a piece of paper and started jotting down things with the blue ballpoint pen lying nearby. When his memory failed, he chewed on the cap a bit before finishing, and then handed the list to Ohno, who just sort of stared at it. "What is this?"
"A list of all the women he's already had sex with," Nino said.
Aiba stared at the paper, and both Sho and Jun moved closer to see it.
"There are 27 names here," Ohno stated, raising one eyebrow in Nino's direction.
"Yes."
Jun grabbed for the list. "How on earth has he slept with this many women already?!"
"You sure do pay attention," Aiba said, and he didn't sound quite so sad since he seemed more impressed, and Nino found that he liked that much better than the teary-eyes.
"Keep your enemies close," Nino replied.
"Some of these are staff," Jun commented, scanning down the list of names with his index finger. "We can start with them?"
Sho sighed. "Split up and have bleach-inducing conversations with them, no doubt."
"Alright," Nino started, pointing at Jun and Sho, "you two start with them. Hit anyone on the list who works for the Floating Sakura. Ohno, you try talking to any of the bartenders to see if anyone's mentioned anything- people talk when they drink."
Aiba perked a bit. "What about me?"
"You need to figure out who would know about the security tape in here, and how to stop it."
"And what about you?" Jun asked a bit nastily, which really wasn't necessary considering how Nino already had to deal with the brunt of the problem in the first place.
He shot the man a glare as he rose to his feet. "I'm going to attempt to not off myself with Nagase's illegal machete and find a random number to give him in hopes that he's too stupid to figure out it's not actually the red-head's."
He stomped out the door, resigning himself to at least several more hours of his fate before Nagase's bed time rolled around.
--
After two articles about RVs that cost more than Nino's failed college education had and three choruses of "Nappy Nappy Time Time", Nagase had finally fallen asleep, and Nino trudged down the staff hallways to his room, hoping to god that Jun was either still cleaning up puke or sleeping already because he really, really didn't want to have to deal with anyone.
Jun wasn't there when he opened the door, and he didn't even bother to flip the lights on. He knew where his cot was, anyway. He collapsed on top of it face-first into the pillow.
It took a couple of seconds to realize something had crunched beneath his chest. Something that sounded suspiciously like paper. He grabbed for it, annoyed that Jun had deemed his bed the best place to put the list of Nagase's conquests, and his fingers closed around an envelope.
The list hadn't been in an envelope.
Nino bolted upright and scrambled for the light, missing it three times before his palm smacked against it. The envelope was plain and white and said nothing on the outside at all, which was maddeningly unhelpful because he didn't even have handwriting to go off of. He slowly opened it and pulled out a torn, cut scrap of fabric.
He stared at it in confusion, fingering the material. It was black and the back didn't look like anything much, but even as he turned it over, several things were registering in his mind.
One: it was cotton.
T-shirts were made of cotton.
Two: it was on his bed, which meant someone either had a key to his quarters, or knew someone who did.
It was not a good realization.
Nino knew what he was going to see before he even had the fabric flipped. Worn-away print half cut from the shredding, and the easily distinguishable letters "in".
Zeppelin.
They were being baited. And the thief wasn't pulling any punches.
--
To Ohno, it seemed like the joke was on all of them. There was no really subtle way to ask his fellow bartending staff members if they’d heard about a stolen t-shirt. Because that inevitably led to more questions. Is it your t-shirt? Where did you lose it? Why do you care so much about a shirt? He wasn’t a really good liar, and the last thing he needed was someone finding out what was going on. It would get Masaki in a whole lot of trouble.
He had to be sneakier about it. “Hear anything good lately?” he tried asking Inagaki, the lead wine steward the following night before the dinner rush.
“What do you mean good?” Inagaki asked curiously, examining the labels and vintages. “Grab me another Chardonnay, would you?”
He did so, frowning. “Oh, you know,” he said. “Gossip, rumors, stuff.”
“Satoshi, do you know something I don’t?” Goro wondered, setting the bottle down on the bar with a decisive thump.
“Uh no. No, Goro, that’s why I’m asking you.” He was really bad at this stuff. See, this was why he did a lot more listening than talking.
Inagaki was still suspicious. “Well, hmm. There was this one guy the other night who kept claiming he was Spiderman once he’d gone through three bottles of Merlot.”
“Spiderman?”
“Yep, Spiderman!” Goro flicked his wrists emphatically. “Spider, spider!”
“I’ll be on the lookout for him.”
Goro nodded and grabbed a few more bottles to wheel to the dining rooms. “Not much else aside from that Nagase guy.”
Ohno dropped the bottle of orange juice he was refilling. “Oh?”
“It’s the strangest thing.” Ohno was listening far more attentively now, even with sticky orange juice soaking through his slacks. “He kept asking for the smelly. Nobody in Paradise knew what he was asking for. What’s a smelly, right?”
“Right.”
“Turns out he was asking for me,” Goro said, looking a little proud as he continued arranging the bottles on his cart. “Sommelier!”
“Ah.” Ohno didn’t know what that meant either. For once, Nagase’s mistake wasn’t all that far-fetched, was it?
“So I went to his table, and I saw he had a steak about the size of a hubcap, so I figured he was looking for a nice red to pair with it,” Goro continued. “But he just grabbed the first one I showed him. He didn’t even smell it. The guy had a red plastic cup that he brought himself.”
“Why?”
“Well, he told me that he was convinced someone would try to poison him so he wouldn’t use our glasses. And I assured him that the bottle was still corked, but he said that the French were after him for some reason or another, and that they’d, quote, ‘find a way, they always do.’ But I said it was from Napa, and I showed him the bottle. He didn’t know where Napa was!”
“Oh?”
Goro was getting a little incensed at the memory, and he was usually so easy going! “So he changed his mind and turned the wine away and had me bring him a Jack and coke.”
“But…he said they were trying to poison him?”
Inagaki was gripping the neck of the wine bottle like it was Nagase’s, he imagined. “Well, he apparently thinks the French are only poisoning his wine. Hard liquor is no problem.”
“Weird guy.”
“You’re telling me. Anyhow, I better head off. You take care now,” Goro said, pushing the cart off with a huff. He didn’t take well to someone declining his recommendations, it seemed.
Well, he had sticky slacks that smelled like a Florida orange grove, and a shift until 3 AM. And no information that would help, other than more proof that Tomoya Nagase was a really strange dude. At least Nagase hadn’t asked about his guitar strap again. And it was probably unlikely that Goro was involved - the guy was too busy doing his wine stuff to be stealing stuff from the purser’s office.
So where did that leave him? It left him at work and…speaking of the purser’s office, Sho and Masaki’s boss had just sat down at the end of the bar. At least this meant he was here and not in the office, potentially reviewing security tapes.
“Hey Mr. Kusanagi,” Ohno said as cheerfully as he could manage with juice-soaked pants on. “What can I get for you tonight?”
Kusanagi was serious about work, that much Sho had related, but off the clock, he tended to be pretty…goofy. Right now, he smelled like he’d come from another bar on a different deck, and he was smiling wide.
“Hey! Sakurai’s pal! Screwdriver if you please!”
Well, he had a decent enough memory. And since he was wasted already, he probably wouldn’t mind Ohno grabbing the cheapest vodka they had available. Seeing Kusanagi just reminded him about those early days with Sho - sneaking into the purser’s office and leaving little doodles on the counter for him to find, the way Sho’s face would burn red in embarrassment.
Apparently it was scandalous for a prude like Sho to look at a naughty drawing on work time, which was why Ohno usually got scolded. Sho was just…very particular. Most people Ohno slept with seemed to be charmed by his drawings - Sho didn’t really like seeing cartoon boobs when his boss could walk in at any second. It was just one of the many reasons that he and Sho were better off as friends.
He poured in a healthy amount of vodka for Kusanagi, added some of the orange juice he hadn’t managed to spill and stirred it quickly. “Here you are!”
Kusanagi took a sip and smiled. “You…you are a good bartender!”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Is it…” Kusanagi downed the drink in a gulp, ignoring the straw. “Is it hot in here?”
Ohno blinked as the glass slammed down on the bar top, and Kusanagi started undoing the first few buttons of his shirt. “Um. I don’t think so?”
“I think it’s hot!” One of the buttons popped off, scattering down to where some passengers had just taken a seat. “Can you make me a Long Island iced tea, double up on the tequila? Man, it’s hot.”
“I’ll…I’ll be right back, sir.” He scooted down the bar and quickly took the passengers’ drink orders. He made Kusanagi’s with one hand and got his phone out of his pocket with the other. Since Kusanagi was already unbuckling his belt, he definitely didn’t need to be here doing anything he’d regret. Sho and Masaki had enough problems - they didn’t need to be doing their boss’ job too if he got confined to his cabin by the captain or something.
“Sho Sho Sho,” he mumbled to himself as he clicked down through his contacts. “Come on.”
“Heeeeey, can you put some more vodka too?” Ohno gave up on the text message entirely and just hit send for Sho’s number. “Barkeep! Some ale as well!”
“What?” he heard Sho’s grouchy voice. He’d probably been asleep after his hours reviewing tapes with Jun.
“Get to my bar right now. Your boss is getting frisky, and there are passengers…”
“Shingo!” Kusanagi cried, pounding his fist against the counter. “Shingo, where are you?”
Sho gasped. “The hell?”
“Who the hell’s Shingo?” one of the passengers said, getting up and walking off with their drink in annoyance.
Ohno hurried back, hanging up on Sho and shoving his phone back in his pocket. Kusanagi was already shirtless. “Damn it,” he grumbled, sticking his foot on the counter. Ohno made a flying leap over the bar to catch the garment and try to cover the guy up. It probably looked rather impressive, but Ohno didn't have time to gloat over his athleticism.
By now, a small crowd was gathering, pointing and whispering as Kusanagi kept calling for Shingo, whoever Shingo was. “It’s so hot! Maybe I should go back to the office…I need to review all the safes and stuff…”
The safes? Like, the safe where Aiba SHOULD have put the guitar strap? Oh crap! He reached for one of Kusanagi’s flailing arms, trying to shove it back into the shirt sleeve. “Just…just put your clothes back on, sir!”
Where was Sho?
--
Aiba woke to Sho shaking him awake, hands clenched hard around his shoulders.
"Aiba! Aiba, get up- I need your help! Aiba!"
It startled Aiba enough that he sort of half-tumbled out of bed, glaring blearily up at his roommate who interrupted a particularly pleasant dream about drinks in coconuts with tiny straw hats. Sho looked haggard, half of his hair sticking up at odd angles like he'd been sleeping particularly hard on his side. He also looked somewhat panicked, the emotion obvious on his face.
"Wha?" Aiba yawned.
Sho didn't even waste any time- he grabbed for Aiba's arm and dragged him out into the hallway, not even giving him enough time to grab his sandals. "We have to go, we have to go, Mr. Kusanagi is-"
"What?!" Aiba was suddenly wide awake. His heart clenched uncomfortably in his chest; did Kusanagi know? Oh, god, if Sho had come for him, then Mr. Kusanagi had probably asked for him specifically. Was he going to get fired? Had he just woke up from his last nap aboard the Floating Sakura?
He blinked back the furious sting of hot tears, trying to calm his racing heart, and allowed Sho to pull him down the corridor and onto the staircase. "Wait, Sho, this- this isn't the way to the Purser's Office!"
"We aren't going to the Purser's Office," Sho ground out between clenched teeth. Aiba quickly found himself tumbling onto the outer walk space of the Lido deck, slipping over a slick patch of wet linoleum.
Aiba sputtered and scrambled to keep himself from sliding right into the railing, hands gripping the metal bars tightly.
"Sho, what-"
Sho never got a chance to answer Aiba's question; he didn't need to. From behind them came a blur of flesh-colored, quickly moving skin, streaming by them with hands sort of sticking out in front of the figure.
"Shingo!" came the bizarre, half-warbled battle cry, and Sho's eyes went very, very wide.
"Mr. Kusanagi!" Sho called out, and immediately took off after the very naked man who was currently streaking down the side of the Lido deck. "Mr. Kusanagi, please wait and put some clothes on!"
Sho was quick when panicked, but Aiba had run track in high school and one year of college, and he caught up without much trouble. Mr. Kusanagi, however, was much faster for an old guy than Aiba had given him credit for. The man was weaving in and out of deck chairs like he was skiing the slopes, jumping over a plastic table sitting between two of the sun-chairs. There weren't many people out in the darkness, but the lights of the Lido deck stayed on 24/7, bathing the entirety of it in bright, fluorescent light. It wasn't helping them hide the fact that their boss was currently screaming and dashing naked across the ship.
"Mr. Kusanagi!" Sho kept trying, like the repetition of the man's name would bring him crashing back to reality.
Aiba wondered how many shots he'd taken.
"It's so hot!" was the only response they got from the nude figure still a few yards in front of them, slipping a bit on a wet towel that the pool boy had failed to pick up from the floor.
Aiba saw the towel but Sho didn't seem to; the other man skidded on it and nearly fell, arms flailing wildly even as he continued screaming at their superior. "Mr. Kusanagi, it's the Caribbean! Of course it's hot! Please stop running!"
Aiba helped Sho back to his feet, and the other man was breathing hard, gesturing wildly towards Kusanagi. "Ignore him, just get him! We can't let the guests see him like this!"
That was true enough- and maybe Aiba could prove himself again if he got the situation under control without any major incidents. Mr. Kusanagi had edged out a bit of a lead since Sho had stumbled, but Aiba drew on his reserve energy. He'd eaten three Snickers bars that day; surely there was some sugar in his body he could call upon when he needed it. He dug in deep like he had when running the 100 meter relay.
The alcohol wasn't really helping Kusanagi's coordination. He tried jumping over another chair, but sort of missed and tripped a bit. It gave Aiba enough time to catch back up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a few guests in Tommy Bahama swim trunks- late night bachelor party headed to the hot tub. It was too late to keep anyone from knowing, but if he could just minimize the damage...
Kusanagi rounded the front corner of the Adults Only sunbathing nook and Sho was there with one of the blue plastic pool tarps in his hands. Kusanagi let out a surprised yelp when Sho took him down, wrapping the tarp around him as best he could as he tackled him to the deck.
Aiba stopped with his hands on his knees, breathing quickly. "What on earth...?"
"Masaki, help me!" Sho hissed, because Kusanagi was struggling madly and violently against the restraint on his person.
"Shingo! Shingo, the ninjas have found me!" he yelled.
Aiba was a little bit impressed that his boss thought he was a ninja. He hoped he was some kind of bad-ass ninja assassin, hell-bent on taking the ship down.
"Mr. Kusanagi, please stop thrashing!" Sho pleaded, and Aiba knelt down beside him to help throw his arms around the wriggling figure under the cerulean plastic. "Please, just calm down and-"
"What's going on here, boys?" came a voice from behind Sho, from the shadows. Aiba hadn't seen the new figure coming and he jolted in surprise; one of his elbows caught Kusanagi in the chest or something, because the man gave a muffled 'oof!' beneath the protective cover.
Sho looked incredibly flustered, struggling to his feet. "Captain Kimura! Sir, oh, this-"
"It's nothing, sir!" Aiba said, to help. Captain Kimura was a tall man with a crisp white uniform that draped over his shoulders in ways that seemed Very Important. He demanded respect just by standing there with his hands behind his back. And then he raised one eyebrow at Aiba, and Aiba felt just a bit of his confidence dissolve away- just a bit. "Er, I mean-"
"Mr. Kusanagi is our superior," Sho said, "and I think he's just had a bit too much to drink..."
"Ninjas!" Kusanagi piped in from beneath the tarp. "Ninjas, Shingo!"
Captain Kimura was silent for a very long moment, studying the tarp that had gone miraculously still. Aiba tried glancing over at Sho, because he was a little worried- were they going to get in trouble for this? Was Mr. Kusanagi their responsibility? He didn't want to get fired because his boss went streaking across the Lido deck where the guests could see him.
"I see," was all Kimura said, and Aiba could read nothing in his tone.
Finally, the captain reached forward and grabbed for the tarp, hauling Kusanagi up to his feet. Aiba could see the man's bare ankles beneath the covering of the plastic.
"Well, I'll take care of this for the time being," Captain Kimura told them. He didn't look mad, and he didn't seem mad, but he still sounded very stern- and Aiba was inclined to do exactly as the man said.
"You caught me!" Kusanagi cried. The tarp moved a bit, like he was trying to glance back and forth at what was holding him captive. "You caught the tater!"
Sho shifted nervously between the soles of his feet. "Er, Captain Kimura, sir, what do you want us to do?"
"Nothing," Kimura said. "Go back to the Purser's Office and work your shifts. I'm going to put all of the dealings there in your control. Do you think you can handle that?"
Aiba gulped nervously. Oh, god, he'd already screwed up once and he hadn't even been without supervision when he'd lost Sadie. He felt a sudden flash of shame sweep through his form, and he stared down at his sandal-less feet. "Yes, sir."
Next to him, Sho muttered an echo.
Captain Kimura hauled the still tarp-covered Kusanagi away and into the less conspicuous employee stairwell just past the women's restroom, leaving Sho and Aiba alone on the deck.
"Crap," Sho moaned, dejectedly. "Do you know what this means?"
"We don't have to worry about taking extra long breaks?" Aiba tried.
Sho groaned. "It means anything that happens at the office now is all our fault. All our fault! We will be taking full and complete responsibility for this Sadie mess no matter what. Oh, this is just awful."
Aiba stared forlornly down at his toes, pale against the brightness of the deck beneath his feet, and just sighed.
Chapter: 5/??
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): Nagase/the ladies
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sexual humor
Summary: There's jobs in unfortunate places, jobs with unfortunate people, and jobs that are just plain unfortunate: then there is the Floating Sakura, which seems to be all of the above.
Sho pressed rewind one more time, watching Aiba set down the t-shirt with the strap inside on the counter. His eyes were ready to declare themselves independent and launch themselves from his skull in a spectacularly gory display.
No matter how many times he watched the blurry security footage, Masaki still set the thing down and cocked his head as if hearing some voice, probably the one in his head that told him to do stupid things. He perked up, clapped his hands and left the purser’s office, presumably for curry night.
“Why would you leave?” Sho grumbled, seeing the t-shirt sitting abandoned on the desk. The camera in the room rotated, watching the door and then back to the desk, then back to the door. But the door never opened that Sho could see - the t-shirt was on the counter for one pass of the camera and then gone when the camera came back.
It was almost as though it had vanished into thin air, but Sho didn’t believe in things like that. If only the tape was a little clearer. Everything was in a black and white haze, and it was putting Sho to sleep. Three hours of watching the same twenty minutes of footage wasn’t helping.
He rewound. Aiba put the shirt down and left. The shirt was there. The shirt was there. The shirt was there. The shirt was gone. It took less than ten seconds. He paused the tape angrily, tossing the remote back up on the counter. “Where the hell did it go?”
The door opened, and he jumped to his feet, nearly crashing into the counter when he saw Jun’s grouchy (but still relatively handsome) face.
“Jun.”
“You watching the security tape?” His voice was more displeased than Sho had ever heard it, and considering that Jun had to regularly carry around sticky bowls of ice cream kids left behind, this was pretty significant.
“Yes,” he replied quickly, grabbing the remote control back. Angry Jun kind of excited him as much as mildly annoyed Jun did. He pressed his thumb over the battery cover, flicking it off and back on to keep his hands busy.
Jun invited himself behind the counter before Sho could protest, sitting down with an indignant huff in the chair Sho had just vacated. “Rewind it.”
Sho gulped, wheeling over another chair to sit beside the very unhappy individual. “Okay. I haven’t seen anything.” He pressed rewind, glancing over at Jun every few seconds, wondering if he was going to break something or explain why he looked ready to commit homicide. “Rough night?”
Jun said nothing, just gripping the armrests.
“Okay,” Sho responded, pressing play. They watched it through in silence, Jun leaning forward with his elbow on his knee and hand to his chin. Aiba left Sadie and departed, time passed, the t-shirt was there, the t-shirt was gone, and then Aiba came back in patting his belly happily before panicking at the absence of what he’d left behind.
“It just disappears,” Jun murmured, squinting at the blurry screen.
“Yep.” He was sweating, having Jun sitting so close, radiating body heat and anger and all sorts of things that would probably annoy Sho if it was anyone else. Jun grabbed his hand suddenly, and Sho yelped.
“Sorry,” Jun said, taking the remote control away. “Wow, you’re really sweating.”
“It’s hot in here.”
“It’s climate controlled,” Jun shot back.
“I get hot easily.” He could feel a bead of nervous sweat at the tip of his nose. “Aren’t you hot?”
“I was chopping scallions,” Jun lamented, hitting the button with his thumb. “Helping in the kitchen. You know, until there was barf to clean.”
“Oh.”
Jun frowned, pausing the tape. “This whole thing has no timestamp on it? How cheap is this security system?”
“Pretty damn cheap,” Sho admitted. “I think they put more money into the onboard attractions than the nuts and bolts of the place.”
Jun rewound a little further to see Aiba leaving. “Wait.”
“Wait?” Sho squeaked.
He watched Jun lean forward to tap the tiny security screen with his finger. “There’s the clock by the door. That’s our timestamp.”
Sho was kind of embarrassed. He’d been watching the footage for three hours, and he hadn’t even thought of something so simple. And he was Mr. Kusanagi’s most trusted employee? “Okay, Aiba leaves at 6:13 PM.”
They played through the tape again, watching the camera scroll back and forth. As the seconds ticked by, he found himself leaning closer and closer to the screen, and Jun did the same until their shoulders were touching. But there was little time for Sho to agonize and overanalyze what that could mean because he was glued to the black and white footage.
The clock read 6:21, then the camera panned to the counter. “Wait wait wait,” Jun was whispering, hand absentmindedly drifting to Sho’s knee and squeezing. At least Sho thought it was absentmindedly. “There!” Jun cried, slapping Sho hard on the leg.
“Ow, what?” he winced. Jun really hit hard.
“There,” Jun said, pointing at the clock. “6:23!”
Sho blinked, fumbling to grab the remote back from Jun. “6:23…but…but…”
“But it only takes a few seconds for the camera to go from the door to the counter and back…”
“…so if it’s 6:21 there…” Sho said, realization knocking him on the head harder than Jun was squeezing his leg. Wait, Jun was still squeezing his leg?
“…and it’s 6:23 when the camera comes back…”
Sho pressed rewind. “Maybe we’re reading it wrong. It’s blurry. It might have been 6:21 turning to 6:22…”
He jerked and the remote clattered to the floor when Jun suddenly grabbed for him, holding Sho’s face between his hands. His hands smelled a bit like antibacterial gel.
“Sho. Seriously. There’s a gap in the tape.”
“Uh.” Jun was squishing his cheeks so close together, Sho probably had fish lips.
“There’s a gap in the tape! Sadie didn’t disappear - she was kidnapped!”
“Uhhhh.”
“What?” Jun finally seemed to realize that not only was he holding Sho’s face like he was about to shove his tongue down his throat, but they were in a not so private place and anyone could walk in. Jun let him go. “We have to…”
Sho was still a little shell-shocked from Jun’s proximity. “Antibacterial...”
“…tell someone about this.”
“…gel.”
Jun backed up, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Nino.”
--
"This had better be good," Nino said crossly, ducking into the room to avoid being seen by Eduardo the lifeguard (who always leered at him in very bile-inducing manners). "I gave Nagase the excuse that I needed to go and track down the number of the casino working red-head he saw last night, and I'm already going to have to go back empty-handed."
"This is important!" Sho blustered, puffing up his cheeks a bit. He looked- well, kind of odd. Kind of like he'd been sweating a lot or something and had attempted to dry off with one of the sauna towels. "We reviewed the tape-"
"-and you will not believe this," Jun cut in. His eyes were wide. "Somebody definitely stole Sadie."
Sho waved his hands in the air. "Well, okay, we don't know that for certain, all we know is that somebody messed with the tape."
Nino sat down hard and almost missed the corner of the chair. To his left, Ohno was chewing absent-mindedly on a few pieces of celery from the Bloody Mary mixings, and to his right, Aiba was chewing on his fingernails in a verklempt manner. Nino almost felt bad.
Almost.
"Slow down," he instructed sternly, because Sho was looking dangerously short of breath and Jun was almost falling off the front of his chair in anticipation. "Sho- what?"
Sho looked kind of light-headed. "We reviewed the security tape from the office, and we saw that-"
"-no, I saw," Jun interjected, with a sharp glance in Sho's direction. Sho swallowed hard, paling visibly, and continued.
"Jun saw that the clock on the wall was suddenly 2 minutes ahead, right when Sadie disappeared."
Nino stared at him for a very long moment, and then to the security tape sitting on top of the crappy black and white television set pushed into the corner. He closed his eyes, holding up both hands for silence. When had his massive headache come around?
"Okay," he said slowly. "Someone stole the guitar strap."
"Who would do that?" Aiba moaned. "Who would want it? It was wrapped in a Led Zeppelin shirt!"
Ohno shrugged. "Maybe someone who really likes 'Stairway to Heaven'?"
"The point is that someone stole it," Nino said, louder. "We can stop looking for places it might have been misplaced, and start looking for people who might have taken it."
Aiba's eyes were very wide and looked as if they were starting to fill with tears. Nino did feel bad then; almost bad enough to reach over and grab the other man's hand. He didn't really want to do that for a whole myriad of reasons he really, really didn't want to get into, so he settled for sort of awkwardly patting Aiba on the arm.
"If the tape was messed up, it's most likely an employee," Sho pointed out. "Because they knew the security tape was back here, and did it purposefully."
Jun blinked. "I hadn't thought of that. Smart."
"Really?" Sho asked, looking very hopeful and very disgusting. Nino threw the TV remote at him.
"Pay attention!" Nino snapped.
Ohno had finished his celery sticks, and had moved onto small pieces of pineapple from the Pina Coladas. "Should we make a suspect list?"
Jun stretched back across the folding chair with an annoyed sounding sigh, arms held high over his head as he popped his back. It made the hem of his shirt ride up, exposing a bit of bare flesh above his regulation slacks, and Sho turned a funny shade of red.
Nino threw the keys at him that time.
"Who would even know about the strap, though?" Jun said towards the ceiling.
"Maybe someone grabbed it without knowing what it was," Nino suggested. He stared down at his fingers, holding them up as he spoke. "Maybe- maybe they just saw that it was lying there. Or maybe they'd been watching Aiba the whole time."
Aiba sniffed, and Nino moved to awkwardly patting his knee instead.
"Does anyone have a vendetta against Nagase?" Ohno asked.
"It's a cruise!" Sho sputtered. "How would anyone have anything against him?"
Nino pulled out a piece of paper and started jotting down things with the blue ballpoint pen lying nearby. When his memory failed, he chewed on the cap a bit before finishing, and then handed the list to Ohno, who just sort of stared at it. "What is this?"
"A list of all the women he's already had sex with," Nino said.
Aiba stared at the paper, and both Sho and Jun moved closer to see it.
"There are 27 names here," Ohno stated, raising one eyebrow in Nino's direction.
"Yes."
Jun grabbed for the list. "How on earth has he slept with this many women already?!"
"You sure do pay attention," Aiba said, and he didn't sound quite so sad since he seemed more impressed, and Nino found that he liked that much better than the teary-eyes.
"Keep your enemies close," Nino replied.
"Some of these are staff," Jun commented, scanning down the list of names with his index finger. "We can start with them?"
Sho sighed. "Split up and have bleach-inducing conversations with them, no doubt."
"Alright," Nino started, pointing at Jun and Sho, "you two start with them. Hit anyone on the list who works for the Floating Sakura. Ohno, you try talking to any of the bartenders to see if anyone's mentioned anything- people talk when they drink."
Aiba perked a bit. "What about me?"
"You need to figure out who would know about the security tape in here, and how to stop it."
"And what about you?" Jun asked a bit nastily, which really wasn't necessary considering how Nino already had to deal with the brunt of the problem in the first place.
He shot the man a glare as he rose to his feet. "I'm going to attempt to not off myself with Nagase's illegal machete and find a random number to give him in hopes that he's too stupid to figure out it's not actually the red-head's."
He stomped out the door, resigning himself to at least several more hours of his fate before Nagase's bed time rolled around.
--
After two articles about RVs that cost more than Nino's failed college education had and three choruses of "Nappy Nappy Time Time", Nagase had finally fallen asleep, and Nino trudged down the staff hallways to his room, hoping to god that Jun was either still cleaning up puke or sleeping already because he really, really didn't want to have to deal with anyone.
Jun wasn't there when he opened the door, and he didn't even bother to flip the lights on. He knew where his cot was, anyway. He collapsed on top of it face-first into the pillow.
It took a couple of seconds to realize something had crunched beneath his chest. Something that sounded suspiciously like paper. He grabbed for it, annoyed that Jun had deemed his bed the best place to put the list of Nagase's conquests, and his fingers closed around an envelope.
The list hadn't been in an envelope.
Nino bolted upright and scrambled for the light, missing it three times before his palm smacked against it. The envelope was plain and white and said nothing on the outside at all, which was maddeningly unhelpful because he didn't even have handwriting to go off of. He slowly opened it and pulled out a torn, cut scrap of fabric.
He stared at it in confusion, fingering the material. It was black and the back didn't look like anything much, but even as he turned it over, several things were registering in his mind.
One: it was cotton.
T-shirts were made of cotton.
Two: it was on his bed, which meant someone either had a key to his quarters, or knew someone who did.
It was not a good realization.
Nino knew what he was going to see before he even had the fabric flipped. Worn-away print half cut from the shredding, and the easily distinguishable letters "in".
Zeppelin.
They were being baited. And the thief wasn't pulling any punches.
--
To Ohno, it seemed like the joke was on all of them. There was no really subtle way to ask his fellow bartending staff members if they’d heard about a stolen t-shirt. Because that inevitably led to more questions. Is it your t-shirt? Where did you lose it? Why do you care so much about a shirt? He wasn’t a really good liar, and the last thing he needed was someone finding out what was going on. It would get Masaki in a whole lot of trouble.
He had to be sneakier about it. “Hear anything good lately?” he tried asking Inagaki, the lead wine steward the following night before the dinner rush.
“What do you mean good?” Inagaki asked curiously, examining the labels and vintages. “Grab me another Chardonnay, would you?”
He did so, frowning. “Oh, you know,” he said. “Gossip, rumors, stuff.”
“Satoshi, do you know something I don’t?” Goro wondered, setting the bottle down on the bar with a decisive thump.
“Uh no. No, Goro, that’s why I’m asking you.” He was really bad at this stuff. See, this was why he did a lot more listening than talking.
Inagaki was still suspicious. “Well, hmm. There was this one guy the other night who kept claiming he was Spiderman once he’d gone through three bottles of Merlot.”
“Spiderman?”
“Yep, Spiderman!” Goro flicked his wrists emphatically. “Spider, spider!”
“I’ll be on the lookout for him.”
Goro nodded and grabbed a few more bottles to wheel to the dining rooms. “Not much else aside from that Nagase guy.”
Ohno dropped the bottle of orange juice he was refilling. “Oh?”
“It’s the strangest thing.” Ohno was listening far more attentively now, even with sticky orange juice soaking through his slacks. “He kept asking for the smelly. Nobody in Paradise knew what he was asking for. What’s a smelly, right?”
“Right.”
“Turns out he was asking for me,” Goro said, looking a little proud as he continued arranging the bottles on his cart. “Sommelier!”
“Ah.” Ohno didn’t know what that meant either. For once, Nagase’s mistake wasn’t all that far-fetched, was it?
“So I went to his table, and I saw he had a steak about the size of a hubcap, so I figured he was looking for a nice red to pair with it,” Goro continued. “But he just grabbed the first one I showed him. He didn’t even smell it. The guy had a red plastic cup that he brought himself.”
“Why?”
“Well, he told me that he was convinced someone would try to poison him so he wouldn’t use our glasses. And I assured him that the bottle was still corked, but he said that the French were after him for some reason or another, and that they’d, quote, ‘find a way, they always do.’ But I said it was from Napa, and I showed him the bottle. He didn’t know where Napa was!”
“Oh?”
Goro was getting a little incensed at the memory, and he was usually so easy going! “So he changed his mind and turned the wine away and had me bring him a Jack and coke.”
“But…he said they were trying to poison him?”
Inagaki was gripping the neck of the wine bottle like it was Nagase’s, he imagined. “Well, he apparently thinks the French are only poisoning his wine. Hard liquor is no problem.”
“Weird guy.”
“You’re telling me. Anyhow, I better head off. You take care now,” Goro said, pushing the cart off with a huff. He didn’t take well to someone declining his recommendations, it seemed.
Well, he had sticky slacks that smelled like a Florida orange grove, and a shift until 3 AM. And no information that would help, other than more proof that Tomoya Nagase was a really strange dude. At least Nagase hadn’t asked about his guitar strap again. And it was probably unlikely that Goro was involved - the guy was too busy doing his wine stuff to be stealing stuff from the purser’s office.
So where did that leave him? It left him at work and…speaking of the purser’s office, Sho and Masaki’s boss had just sat down at the end of the bar. At least this meant he was here and not in the office, potentially reviewing security tapes.
“Hey Mr. Kusanagi,” Ohno said as cheerfully as he could manage with juice-soaked pants on. “What can I get for you tonight?”
Kusanagi was serious about work, that much Sho had related, but off the clock, he tended to be pretty…goofy. Right now, he smelled like he’d come from another bar on a different deck, and he was smiling wide.
“Hey! Sakurai’s pal! Screwdriver if you please!”
Well, he had a decent enough memory. And since he was wasted already, he probably wouldn’t mind Ohno grabbing the cheapest vodka they had available. Seeing Kusanagi just reminded him about those early days with Sho - sneaking into the purser’s office and leaving little doodles on the counter for him to find, the way Sho’s face would burn red in embarrassment.
Apparently it was scandalous for a prude like Sho to look at a naughty drawing on work time, which was why Ohno usually got scolded. Sho was just…very particular. Most people Ohno slept with seemed to be charmed by his drawings - Sho didn’t really like seeing cartoon boobs when his boss could walk in at any second. It was just one of the many reasons that he and Sho were better off as friends.
He poured in a healthy amount of vodka for Kusanagi, added some of the orange juice he hadn’t managed to spill and stirred it quickly. “Here you are!”
Kusanagi took a sip and smiled. “You…you are a good bartender!”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Is it…” Kusanagi downed the drink in a gulp, ignoring the straw. “Is it hot in here?”
Ohno blinked as the glass slammed down on the bar top, and Kusanagi started undoing the first few buttons of his shirt. “Um. I don’t think so?”
“I think it’s hot!” One of the buttons popped off, scattering down to where some passengers had just taken a seat. “Can you make me a Long Island iced tea, double up on the tequila? Man, it’s hot.”
“I’ll…I’ll be right back, sir.” He scooted down the bar and quickly took the passengers’ drink orders. He made Kusanagi’s with one hand and got his phone out of his pocket with the other. Since Kusanagi was already unbuckling his belt, he definitely didn’t need to be here doing anything he’d regret. Sho and Masaki had enough problems - they didn’t need to be doing their boss’ job too if he got confined to his cabin by the captain or something.
“Sho Sho Sho,” he mumbled to himself as he clicked down through his contacts. “Come on.”
“Heeeeey, can you put some more vodka too?” Ohno gave up on the text message entirely and just hit send for Sho’s number. “Barkeep! Some ale as well!”
“What?” he heard Sho’s grouchy voice. He’d probably been asleep after his hours reviewing tapes with Jun.
“Get to my bar right now. Your boss is getting frisky, and there are passengers…”
“Shingo!” Kusanagi cried, pounding his fist against the counter. “Shingo, where are you?”
Sho gasped. “The hell?”
“Who the hell’s Shingo?” one of the passengers said, getting up and walking off with their drink in annoyance.
Ohno hurried back, hanging up on Sho and shoving his phone back in his pocket. Kusanagi was already shirtless. “Damn it,” he grumbled, sticking his foot on the counter. Ohno made a flying leap over the bar to catch the garment and try to cover the guy up. It probably looked rather impressive, but Ohno didn't have time to gloat over his athleticism.
By now, a small crowd was gathering, pointing and whispering as Kusanagi kept calling for Shingo, whoever Shingo was. “It’s so hot! Maybe I should go back to the office…I need to review all the safes and stuff…”
The safes? Like, the safe where Aiba SHOULD have put the guitar strap? Oh crap! He reached for one of Kusanagi’s flailing arms, trying to shove it back into the shirt sleeve. “Just…just put your clothes back on, sir!”
Where was Sho?
--
Aiba woke to Sho shaking him awake, hands clenched hard around his shoulders.
"Aiba! Aiba, get up- I need your help! Aiba!"
It startled Aiba enough that he sort of half-tumbled out of bed, glaring blearily up at his roommate who interrupted a particularly pleasant dream about drinks in coconuts with tiny straw hats. Sho looked haggard, half of his hair sticking up at odd angles like he'd been sleeping particularly hard on his side. He also looked somewhat panicked, the emotion obvious on his face.
"Wha?" Aiba yawned.
Sho didn't even waste any time- he grabbed for Aiba's arm and dragged him out into the hallway, not even giving him enough time to grab his sandals. "We have to go, we have to go, Mr. Kusanagi is-"
"What?!" Aiba was suddenly wide awake. His heart clenched uncomfortably in his chest; did Kusanagi know? Oh, god, if Sho had come for him, then Mr. Kusanagi had probably asked for him specifically. Was he going to get fired? Had he just woke up from his last nap aboard the Floating Sakura?
He blinked back the furious sting of hot tears, trying to calm his racing heart, and allowed Sho to pull him down the corridor and onto the staircase. "Wait, Sho, this- this isn't the way to the Purser's Office!"
"We aren't going to the Purser's Office," Sho ground out between clenched teeth. Aiba quickly found himself tumbling onto the outer walk space of the Lido deck, slipping over a slick patch of wet linoleum.
Aiba sputtered and scrambled to keep himself from sliding right into the railing, hands gripping the metal bars tightly.
"Sho, what-"
Sho never got a chance to answer Aiba's question; he didn't need to. From behind them came a blur of flesh-colored, quickly moving skin, streaming by them with hands sort of sticking out in front of the figure.
"Shingo!" came the bizarre, half-warbled battle cry, and Sho's eyes went very, very wide.
"Mr. Kusanagi!" Sho called out, and immediately took off after the very naked man who was currently streaking down the side of the Lido deck. "Mr. Kusanagi, please wait and put some clothes on!"
Sho was quick when panicked, but Aiba had run track in high school and one year of college, and he caught up without much trouble. Mr. Kusanagi, however, was much faster for an old guy than Aiba had given him credit for. The man was weaving in and out of deck chairs like he was skiing the slopes, jumping over a plastic table sitting between two of the sun-chairs. There weren't many people out in the darkness, but the lights of the Lido deck stayed on 24/7, bathing the entirety of it in bright, fluorescent light. It wasn't helping them hide the fact that their boss was currently screaming and dashing naked across the ship.
"Mr. Kusanagi!" Sho kept trying, like the repetition of the man's name would bring him crashing back to reality.
Aiba wondered how many shots he'd taken.
"It's so hot!" was the only response they got from the nude figure still a few yards in front of them, slipping a bit on a wet towel that the pool boy had failed to pick up from the floor.
Aiba saw the towel but Sho didn't seem to; the other man skidded on it and nearly fell, arms flailing wildly even as he continued screaming at their superior. "Mr. Kusanagi, it's the Caribbean! Of course it's hot! Please stop running!"
Aiba helped Sho back to his feet, and the other man was breathing hard, gesturing wildly towards Kusanagi. "Ignore him, just get him! We can't let the guests see him like this!"
That was true enough- and maybe Aiba could prove himself again if he got the situation under control without any major incidents. Mr. Kusanagi had edged out a bit of a lead since Sho had stumbled, but Aiba drew on his reserve energy. He'd eaten three Snickers bars that day; surely there was some sugar in his body he could call upon when he needed it. He dug in deep like he had when running the 100 meter relay.
The alcohol wasn't really helping Kusanagi's coordination. He tried jumping over another chair, but sort of missed and tripped a bit. It gave Aiba enough time to catch back up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a few guests in Tommy Bahama swim trunks- late night bachelor party headed to the hot tub. It was too late to keep anyone from knowing, but if he could just minimize the damage...
Kusanagi rounded the front corner of the Adults Only sunbathing nook and Sho was there with one of the blue plastic pool tarps in his hands. Kusanagi let out a surprised yelp when Sho took him down, wrapping the tarp around him as best he could as he tackled him to the deck.
Aiba stopped with his hands on his knees, breathing quickly. "What on earth...?"
"Masaki, help me!" Sho hissed, because Kusanagi was struggling madly and violently against the restraint on his person.
"Shingo! Shingo, the ninjas have found me!" he yelled.
Aiba was a little bit impressed that his boss thought he was a ninja. He hoped he was some kind of bad-ass ninja assassin, hell-bent on taking the ship down.
"Mr. Kusanagi, please stop thrashing!" Sho pleaded, and Aiba knelt down beside him to help throw his arms around the wriggling figure under the cerulean plastic. "Please, just calm down and-"
"What's going on here, boys?" came a voice from behind Sho, from the shadows. Aiba hadn't seen the new figure coming and he jolted in surprise; one of his elbows caught Kusanagi in the chest or something, because the man gave a muffled 'oof!' beneath the protective cover.
Sho looked incredibly flustered, struggling to his feet. "Captain Kimura! Sir, oh, this-"
"It's nothing, sir!" Aiba said, to help. Captain Kimura was a tall man with a crisp white uniform that draped over his shoulders in ways that seemed Very Important. He demanded respect just by standing there with his hands behind his back. And then he raised one eyebrow at Aiba, and Aiba felt just a bit of his confidence dissolve away- just a bit. "Er, I mean-"
"Mr. Kusanagi is our superior," Sho said, "and I think he's just had a bit too much to drink..."
"Ninjas!" Kusanagi piped in from beneath the tarp. "Ninjas, Shingo!"
Captain Kimura was silent for a very long moment, studying the tarp that had gone miraculously still. Aiba tried glancing over at Sho, because he was a little worried- were they going to get in trouble for this? Was Mr. Kusanagi their responsibility? He didn't want to get fired because his boss went streaking across the Lido deck where the guests could see him.
"I see," was all Kimura said, and Aiba could read nothing in his tone.
Finally, the captain reached forward and grabbed for the tarp, hauling Kusanagi up to his feet. Aiba could see the man's bare ankles beneath the covering of the plastic.
"Well, I'll take care of this for the time being," Captain Kimura told them. He didn't look mad, and he didn't seem mad, but he still sounded very stern- and Aiba was inclined to do exactly as the man said.
"You caught me!" Kusanagi cried. The tarp moved a bit, like he was trying to glance back and forth at what was holding him captive. "You caught the tater!"
Sho shifted nervously between the soles of his feet. "Er, Captain Kimura, sir, what do you want us to do?"
"Nothing," Kimura said. "Go back to the Purser's Office and work your shifts. I'm going to put all of the dealings there in your control. Do you think you can handle that?"
Aiba gulped nervously. Oh, god, he'd already screwed up once and he hadn't even been without supervision when he'd lost Sadie. He felt a sudden flash of shame sweep through his form, and he stared down at his sandal-less feet. "Yes, sir."
Next to him, Sho muttered an echo.
Captain Kimura hauled the still tarp-covered Kusanagi away and into the less conspicuous employee stairwell just past the women's restroom, leaving Sho and Aiba alone on the deck.
"Crap," Sho moaned, dejectedly. "Do you know what this means?"
"We don't have to worry about taking extra long breaks?" Aiba tried.
Sho groaned. "It means anything that happens at the office now is all our fault. All our fault! We will be taking full and complete responsibility for this Sadie mess no matter what. Oh, this is just awful."
Aiba stared forlornly down at his toes, pale against the brightness of the deck beneath his feet, and just sighed.