Chapter 3

"You didn't seriously think I would readily share in the business of someone else doing business with us, did you?" the marine in charge of the front desk at the local base said, grinning as he crossed his arms after adjusting his cap on his head, proudly displaying the Marines' logo.

Lee shrugged. "It was worth a shot," he said, grinning, then he pulled the document he needed signed, to complete the transaction and actually receive a reward for the work done in ridding the blue oceans from the trash that polluted it. "Here, the quartermaster over at the docks said that I need this signed to get paid."

The clerk took it, almost snatching it off Lee's hand, whistling. "The Marrowbite pirates, huh?" he said, nodding appreciatively. "Not much in the way of power but they've definitely got the intimidation aspect down. Just between us, are the rumors of cannibalism true?"

Kuina huffed. "I'm pretty sure their captain threatened to eat us, but who knows?" she said. "Their ship looked pretty normal when we went through it, all things considered."

"Ah, figured it was just a rumor, probably spread by themselves trying to make their crew look more intimidating, nobody wants to go up against the psychos that eat people," the guy said, humming.

"I didn't know the Marines were willing to work with Pirates," Kuina spoke, frowning.

"We don't, officially," the man said. "You're confessing to something? I don't see no pirates, I see concerned folks just doing their part," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Clever," Lee said, "and if the trash happens to take out other trash…"

"Fights between pirates are no business of the Marine Garrison," the man said, shrugging once more. "So… it's not much, but take it with our compliments," he finished, slamming a seal on a yellowed piece of paper as well as on the sheet that Lee had passed him. "As long as you don't cause any trouble and keep your heads down, nobody will look twice at you here, we're all just grunts and we're just trying to feed our families, yeah?"

"Gotcha," Lee said. "No way I can convince you to share on Red Hair, huh?"

The man grinned, raised two fingers and rubbed them together.

"Not THAT curious," Lee said, waving his hand. "Anyway, anything else?"

"Right, with this you can get your reward; if you want my recommendation? Take the supplies, it's actually more value than the Berry on their own," he explained.

Lee hummed. "Yeah… speaking about supplies, we do need someone to handle that sort of stuff. You've got an idea of where I can recruit someone for that?"

The man hummed. "For your sort?" he said, "I'd recommend against the usual nonsense of checking a tavern for drunks, that's a good way to get someone who's both useless and unmotivated," he said, waving his hand, "there's a pub by the docks, visited by all sorts of folks, but mostly seafarers, it's called Voyagers' Compass. You can usually find people looking for work there, good folks, willing to work hard, some are down on their luck… Be nice if you'd take some of the good lads off the street and give them something to do."

"I'll keep that in mind. See you later then," Lee said.

"Thank you for the advice, later!" Kuina added, nodding.

Together, Lee and Kuina concluded their business at the Marine outpost and left it, though it didn't take long to find something else to do thanks to the fact that both of them agreed, looking at each other not a moment after leaving and nodding simultaneously, they absolutely wanted to go see what was going on with Drake and Shanks.

Fortunately, tracking them didn't take long. Though they had not stayed in the area very long, people were following their trail of destruction through the pubs and bars. Unsurprisingly, a small island only developed to serve as a temporary stop for trading ships and Marines on official business had grown mostly around optimizing its ability to squeeze every last Berry from those passing by.

And that meant people here were used to gawking at public spectacles, which indeed included the sight of the bodacious babe that was Francis Drake, and the well-known and cheerful captain of the Red Hair Pirates, Shanks, drunk off their asses, crawling through every place that served alcohol in the tiny island.

Shanks' cape was thrown over the signpost of a tavern, his hat was hooked on the chair behind him, and he was holding the end of a hose that went into his mouth, and up into a funnel, upon which an entire keg was being emptied.

Opposite him, Drake's tricorne and coat were on the chair behind her, while she herself was holding the keg she was pouring into her own funnel, which was being held in place by an extraordinarily large, overweight man in a striped green shirt.

All around them, a crowd of people had circled them, shouting "DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!" at the pair of idiots as they continued to put humanity to its very limits, drinking more poison in one go than any living human being should ever do.

"You know, seeing them like this, kind of takes the mystique and coolness away, doesn't it?" Kuina asked, looking… more than a bit disgusted at the display, as the two monstrously powerful pirates behaved like alcoholic fools.

Lee shrugged. "Goes to show, when you're strong enough, you can do whatever you want, and nobody can stop you," he explained, as the two made their way through the crowd. "Oi! Drake! We're finished on our end!"

The woman who shot down the sun acknowledged him with a glance, though she didn't stop drinking.

"Don't think we're getting much of use out of this," Lee said, rolling his eyes, "just get back to the ship before we depart!"

Drake acknowledged with the slightest nod.

"Right, we'll leave her to that," Kuina said, "I'm sure you can find us easy anyway. Come on, Lee, I want to go see if I can buy some cheap Katanas," she said.

"What for?" Lee asked, as he stretched his arms and turned to leave, ignoring the cheering from people as the kegs were emptied, and had to be replaced, leaving the crowded bar and getting back to fresh, salty air.

"I don't want to risk Roronoa on an untested technique," Kuina said. "If I'm going to be able to cut steel, doing it with a crap weapon is better for practice anyway, right? If I can do it with a piece of trash, I'll surely be able to do it with something better."

"You named it Roronoa?" Lee asked, frowning. "I guess Zoro did gift it to you. Makes sense."

"It's also embarrassing for him," Kuina said, grinning. Lee hummed. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, and in so many ways, Kuina and Zoro were more of a family than many pairs of 'true' siblings. "You think I can do it?"

"Cutting steel?"

Lee tried to remember… Zoro being able to do it was… at least at the time, a major moment for him. But Kuina had always been his superior, in talent and skill… "I've got no doubt," Lee said, raising a fist and clenching it.

"Good. I can't imagine how much stronger we're going to need to get. He wasn't even being aggressive and I still can't shake the feeling of meeting Red Hair himself," Kuina said, frowning, as the two of them rounded a corner and headed into the docks sector, looking for the pub that had been described. While there were a handful, they all had signs, and- right there, on the other end, was the one the clerk had suggested.

"Are we really going to go along with what a Marine suggested?" Kuina asked.

"Didn't seem like so bad a guy," Lee said. "Rank and file are probably more concerned with making it back home to feed their families than pleasing the world nobles," he explained, dodging around a man carrying cargo on his shoulders to the right, while Kuina dodged to the left. "Besides, it's sound advice. We can probably recruit a drunkard easily, but do we actually want that?"

Kuina nodded. "Good point," she said. "Hey… did you hear that?"

Lee's ear twitched and he applied his chi control to his body, enhancing his senses in the way that he'd trained to do for years now. Filtering sound was in no way easy, but it was actually the basis of many a sensorial technique, and thus, Lee had practiced it quite a bit… it was, after all, vital to getting orders correctly in a crowded restaurant where everyone was being loud.

There was a sound, of slightly high pitched, somewhat girlish cries, though more along the lines of a young boy or girl than a woman, accompanied by what sounded like cracks of skin on skin, and things falling.

And it came from close by. "That way," Lee said, gesturing with his hand towards a nearby alley. "Want to check it out?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Kuina. Heroes, they were not, but…

"We'll just check it out. If it's just a fight, doesn't matter, but…" Kuina frowned.

Didn't sound like it. Nodding at each other, they headed into the alley that the sounds were coming for, almost swimming through the crowds, and as soon as they cleared the mouth of the alley and slipped past the crowd, past the blazing sun, and into the darkness of the alley between buildings, the source of the sound was almost painfully obvious.

"-king brat!"

A hairy man with uneven teeth and a bandana covering stiff hair that seemed to be bunching up into dreadlocks from how dirty it was holding a young kid, a teen at most, by the shoulder and had clearly just backhanded them by the face.

Lee's nose twitched. There was a box of goods, shattered, with several broken bottles and tons of unidentifiable liquid spilled.

The man was covered in stains and dripping, likely, some of what had broken had splashed on him. The boy, for his part, was bleeding from the nose and lip, and clearly was not having a good time, sniffling and crying.

It was almost staggering how much a cliché it was. A pretty girl, even having the requisite light blue hair, caught being abused by an unattractive, fat bastard. A setup as old as time.

Lee snorted at thinking how ridiculous it all was. If he didn't know any better, he would imagine this was staged to draw him in. Kuina's hand went to grab at her katana, but Lee put a hand on her wrist.

"Are you just going to-" she began, scandalized.

Lee approached the developing situation, as the large man raised his hand again. "I'll teach you to fuck up you little shit, you're going to understand-"

Lee's hand looked very stark against the almost unhealthy pale skin of the wrist he had grabbed, so fat and big, but it didn't stay white for long, quickly turning red as he applied pressure.

"Gah, fuck- what the shit!" the man roared, throwing the boy away and swinging a big, meaty hand at Lee, though he couldn't bend around enough to hit someone who was behind him fast enough to really do anything, as Lee simply followed his movement, watching him swing at nothing, then kicked the back of his knees, dropping him on said knees, with a screech from the fat guy.

"Well then, not so mighty when you're not hitting someone that can't defend themselves aren't we?" Lee asked, grinning down at the pathetic asshole, pulling his arm behind him and making him scream. "Fuck off, if I see you again I'll knock off what few teeth you've got left!" he said, letting go of the guy's wrist and then kicking him in the back, sending him away, rolling on the ground.

As the guy got up, he seemed to gather his courage to try violence, but Kuina stepped beside Lee, a hand on the sheath of her katana. "Please. Get up. Make it self-defense. Please," she said, sending a terrifying grin his way.

"A-aaah, you'll regret this! I'll get you for thiiiiis!"

The asshole turned tail and ran, going into the darkness at the other end of the alley and getting lost in it.

Lee laughed. "Probably won't see that guy again… then again," he put his fists on his hips, nodding, "yeah, no way he comes back later. Anyway," he said, turning around and facing the sniffling… "You're… a boy right?" he said.

The boy was covered in fluid, he wore only a thin white shirt, shorts, and a single sandal. It was very hard to tell, he had a very cute face, and his hair was cut too unevenly to really be able to tell if it was intentionally short, or just the product of chopping it off for convenience.

"I- I," the sniffling boy swallowed, wiping at his nose and eyes with the back of his arm. "Y-Yes!" he finally said.

"Aww, man, I thought he was a girl… good thing we didn't bet on this," Kuina said. "Hi! My name's Kuina, and this guy that's trying way too hard to be cool is Lee."

The boy nodded. "I'm- I," he then stopped. "I'm Sura," he said, his voice trembling a little. "I- er-"

"Was that your ship's captain?" Lee asked, frowning.

The boy shook his head rapidly. "N-no, that was First Mate Barrel," he said. "Aww… I messed up so bad, I ruined the expensive wine…" he said.

Lee's nose twitched. "That's expensive wine? It smells like shit in here."

Kuina coughed, and subtly gestured to the actual pile of shit not too far from where they were standing.

"Ah… nevermind that," Lee said, waving his hand. "Yo. You okay?"

The boy frowned, rubbing at his lip. "Y-Yeah, I guess," he said. "But… but," he hung his head.

"Right, so why don't you tell me what happened?" Kuina asked.

"N-Nobody's gonna believe me, I was just… carrying the goods and then… and then…" they boy's face turned red. "Then the First Mate grabbed my butt and- and-" he hung his neck. "I kind of dropped everything on him…"

"Harsh," Kuina said. "But that's his fault, right? He caused it."

"Not gonna matter. That's the first mate, he's gonna spin the story to blame someone else for his screw up," Lee said, shrugging. "Best case scenario, your employment with that crew's terminated. Most likely, if the stuff was expensive, they're gonna want to do something drastic to get it back. And with a boy this cute? I can think of a few ways."

The boy turned pale, shaking in place. "I- I, noooo! I don't wanna!" he said, shaking in place furiously, "the captain's uglyyyy!"

"Lee! Seriously, you're scaring the boy!" Kuina chastised. "Oh, I have an idea, we could-" then she turned to Lee. "We're looking for someone to handle the grunt work, right? Plus we're gonna get the supplies and need someone to load them… you think you can handle that Sura?"

"I- I, yes, that's what I do!" Sura said. "B-But, but I just- you met me after I screwed up, are you sure-"

Lee nodded, placing a hand on his shoulder, then looking directly into his eyes, crouching down so they met face to face. "I will warn you right now. Nobody gets on my ship without the hunger to make it big," he said. "If you come with us, then you agree to not just be a simple ship hand, but to be the greatest ship hand this world has ever seen. We'll give you the training and support, but it has to come from you, from here," he said, poking the boy in his chest, "to train and perfect yourself and become the greatest cargo carrier and courier the world has ever seen, to organize and meticulously reorganize with precision the likes of which these salty blue oceans have never seen…"

The boy's eyes sparkled. "T-Then, I- I will! I absolutely will! I, Sura, promise that I'll be the greatest ship hand you'll ever see, I absolutely won't disappoint you, captain!"

"Good. Then you're welcome aboard," Lee said, grinning down at him. "Kuina, let's go get this boy a cute dress!"

"A-A- what? A dress!?" Sura shouted.

Kuina nodded, and gave Lee a thumbs up. "Absolutely!.. if they even sell cute dresses his size here! You know this place better than us, Sura, where could we get you a dress?"

"Well there's the Boutique from Madam Moisty, but- Wait, no- I- you guys, I'm a boy! A boy! I have a- I have a penis and everything!"

"Gender doesn't matter!" Lee said, clenching his fist, and nodding seriously, closing his eyes. "Cute is the only thing that matters!" he declared, then pointed a finger at Sura, "and you are cute!"

"Please don't touch my butt," Sura said, sounding dubious.

"We don't do that here, consent is strictly enforced!" Lee said, giving him a double thumbs up. "Unless it's in training, in which case, your butt may be kicked, not necessarily literally."

"W-What… what am I getting myself into..?" Sura wondered.

"A dress," Kuina supplied.

"My my, I take my eyes off of you for just a second, and here you are, scaring a boy half to death…"

"Cologne?" Lee said, crossing his arms and looking at his teacher.

A coin struck him in the forehead, and he yowled in pain, rubbing at the injury.

"Master!" he shouted, rolling his eyes.

"Better, husband," she said, nodding. "Have you gotten our rewards yet?" she asked, a grin on her face.

"Yeah, yeah," Lee said, grabbing at the paper he needed to take to the quartermaster and presenting it to Cologne. "Just about got done finding someone to help us actually put the stuff in the hold in the first place."

"Oh?" Cologne tilted her head.

"Turns out reward can be either cash or supplies, the list's there, I did some quick mental math and I'm pretty sure it turns out to better value."

"Depending on the quality of the supplies," Cologne hummed. "I'll handle that. And getting this boy a dress."

"W-What? Why does everyone want to put me in a dress!?" Sura cried.

"Just resign to it Sura, that's your lot in life now!" Kuina said, giving him a smile. "Look at it this way, this is just part of your training, keeping everyone's morale up with your cuteness is part of your job!"

Lee laughed, shaking his head.

Not much more of note would happen. The ship didn't need too large a crew, and with Cologne along, the supplies' collection and handling was fairly quick. Sura was, in short order, introduced to Cologne and told about Anne & Mary, who were in the ship, as well as what to look out for when it came to Drake.

"Y-You mean… no, you can't mean, not her, not THAT Drake, must be a coincidence!"

Lee frowned. "I'm… curious. Francis Drake," he said. "To be honest I've never paid much attention since someone," he said, sending a glance at Cologne, who was haggling the price of a bag of rice with the quartermaster, "kept me very busy. What sort of name has she made for herself?"

Sura frowned. "You… oh man… I was- okay, you don't even know of the Golden Hind Pirates?" he asked.

"So she named them after her ship? Well there goes one idea…" Lee mused, rubbing his chin.

"R-Right, so- they've been going all over the East Blue, it's said that they're lead by- by their captain, Francis Drake, who calls herself a Pirate among Pirates. Some said she even rivals the Pirate King himself, with her ability to grab seemingly run of the mill pirates and lead them to incredible heists and even more incredible victories!"

"So much for keeping low profile," Kuina said, laughing. "Sounds like Drake alright. Must've been all the bounty hunting she went around doing."

"Low profile is for chumps," Lee said, clenching his fist and grinning. "Not for people like us!"

"Hey, there's a weapons shop," Kuina said, pointing at the sign, a pair of swords over a Marines themed shield. "Can we go see if I can find some cheap trash that I can break without guilt?"

"We've got time and cash… Oi, Cologne, we're-"

"I'm listening," she said. "Keep costs down, but at least make sure they're similar to your own sword," Cologne explained, looking at Kuina. "You," she said, tapping Sura's chest with a finger. "Follow me, we shall leave my husband and his future wife to their date."

"W-W-Waaaa-"

Sura shouted as he was dragged away by Cologne.

"What she said was weird, was it weird? I feel like she said something weird," Kuina spoke, haltingly, face going redder as she swung her hands around as if demonstrating the weirdness of what Cologne had just said. "That- there's that and there's not, and- and- We're not- Look, I- I'm, you've-"

Lee placed a hand on her shoulder. "We'll sail that ship when you're ready, swords for now," he said.

"Right, right! Katana, I need- more!" she said, nodding rapidly and rushing into the shop.

Lee followed shortly after, before the door even closed, the bell on it ringing once more as he walked into the shop, a rather simple looking place, with racks of weapons distributed around the store, two big ones in the center of the store, several on its walls, and multiple large open barrels set up with dozens of cheap weapons.

Kuina looked around quickly, then made a beeline for the bucket with Katanas, beginning to look through it. Fortunately for her, they were a popular, common weapon, so low value, low cost, low quality ones that she could use for training purposes.

You were approached by a thin, weedy looking guy, with the build of a stick bug and a thin, long mustache that went down nearly to his elbows, from his face, and no other hair on his head. "Welcome, sir and madam, may I interest you in-"

Kuina gasped, grabbing one of the Katanas from the pile. "Lee, this is..!" she said, her face a mask of shock and awe, as she held up a simple, normal looking Katana. "This is incredible! I never thought I could find something like this in some nowhere shop."

The man's eyes widened. "Ah, young miss, it appears you have an eye for quality, yes, indeed, that sword was created by the great-"

"It might very well be the single most poorly made Katana I've ever seen in my life!" Kuina said, eyes sparkling in triumph and joy as she found exactly what she was looking for. "The balance is off, the edge is dull and the blade is brittle, I'm not even sure if it's even made of steel or just painted to look like it!" she said, "I think you could seriously break this with your teeth!"

Lee frowned. "I'm not gonna test it," he said. "I don't think that's good enough to practice with if it's that bad. You need something that's at least decently balanced or it's gonna throw you off."

"Yeah, right," she agreed. "Still want to keep it though, I think I could make a swordsmith cry if I just show it to them," she said, nodding. "I'll take it off your hands," she said, "the ones in that bucket are all 30000 berries right?"

The man nodded, though he blinked.

"Make it twenty and I'll forget the fact that you tried to swindle us," Lee said, "don't think I didn't notice you trying to launch into a sales pitch that was total bullshit."

"I, I-" the man hunched down, and sighed in defeat. "I'll lower the price for the low quality stock if you're willing to take it."

"Excellent," Lee said, nodding. "Get as many as your budget allows, Kuina," he said.

She nodded. "Planning on it," she said, grabbing a few of the other useless weapons for the purpose of training alone. "I guess it would've been too much good luck to stumble into a named blade in the middle of nowhere, much less a salesman willing to part with it for a reasonable price."

The salesman waved his hand. "Even the low grade named weapons go for hundreds of thousands of Berries, girl, nobody in their sane mind would just gift you one unless they're looking to run themselves out of business."

Kuina huffed.

"This wouldn't be such an issue if you hadn't given Zoro Wado Ichimonji," Lee remarked.

"It was an exchange of swords! And a promise!" she said, turning around, glaring and pointing at him, "and besid- oh… talk about lucky, huh?" she said, looking at a wall and walking towards it. A simple, undecorated Katana sat on the wall rack. "This is perfect for regular use," she said, running a finger along the length of the blade. "It's nothing special, but that's exactly what I need, not every opponent deserves Roronoa after all!"

Lee shrugged. "So take it."

"How much?" Kuina asked, turning to the shopkeep.

"Sixty," he said, then both Lee and Kuina glared at him. "Fifty five..?"

There was another moment's pause, the two pirates looked at each other, then back at the shopkeep.

"Fine, fifty," he said, sighing. "You guys drive a hard bargain, did you know that?"

"We do," Lee said.

After all was said and done, the katanas were bundled up for ease of carry, and payment was rendered, letting Lee and Kuina leave the store and head out to continue doing the final bits of resupplying, resting and getting ready to set off again.

As they went about it, Kuina adjusted the sword bundle on her back and turned to Lee. "Hey… where are we going next? We sort of got off course, but… you said something about checking up on a friend, never really told me where we're going."

Lee shrugged. "I hadn't entirely decided yet, but I guess no reason not to go there now… Let's stop by a post office," he said.

When the two did, once again, visit a Marines facility, Lee sent off a private message of his own, which would hopefully be delivered in time.

"What was that about?" Kuina asked, when he came back out. "You worried about the restaurant at home?"

"That's Cologne's problem, not mine," Lee said, waving his hand. "Just making sure that everything is in place for when we do arrive at our destination."

"Which you still haven't told me about," Kuina pointed out, as the two resumed their walk, going back to the docked ship.

"Yeah, right," Lee agreed. "We're going to pay a visit to Sanji over at the Baratie. It's in the Sambas Region, close to the entrance of the Grand Line," he explained. "At least, it should be, assuming something doesn't break their course anyway. What with being a boat and all."

"Oooh, the famous ocean restaurant," Kuina said, nodding. "Sanji… Sanji… ah, right, blond kid, kinda cute, kept trying to hit on me, Anne, Cologne and Drake?" Kuina asked. "Kids are so precocious!"

Lee laughed a little. "He'd hate to hear you saying that," he said, "but yeah, that guy. I figure I owe him a visit."

Kuina hummed. "So he's over at the Baratie? Moving up in the world huh," she said.

"Oh, right, you didn't know – he works for the Baratie's head chef as a Sous Chef now," Lee explained, dodging a bird shit that was coming down from the sky, almost crashing into a running courier, but managing to nimbly dodge past him as well. Kuina, meanwhile, had barely needed to alter course at all, to keep pace.

"Oh! Wait, how do you know this?" she asked. "And how did he go from being a prep cook at the Nekohanten to being a sous chef at such a prestigious place?"

"Chef Zeff sent him to the Nekohanten, to Cologne specifically, for training in the first place. He was always from the Baratie to begin with," Lee said. "Think of it like a rival school sending a promising young star to train to Shimotsuki… but with cooking."

"Ah… I see, that actually makes a lot of sense. But why are we going to visit him? I thought you and him didn't get along… He always kept calling you names."

Lee grinned. "Well, that's because I kept hitting on his sister," he said.

"Oh, yeah, that!" Kuina said, glaring at him. "I remember that. Pink hair, long legs, yeah, I remember her alright! She thought that just because she was pretty and could wrap all the men around her fingers… she thought that meant she was something special!"

Lee snorted, then burst out laughing. "That what you think?" he asked.

"Yeah, e-even you-" Kuina shook her head. "Well, at least for a little."

"Look I'm not gonna deny that I wouldn't mind teaching her how to wrestle, if you know what I mean," Lee said, waving his hand. "But you're misunderstanding. It's not that complicated."

"Not that complicated? I couldn't get you to even spare a word for me when she was around!" Kuina complained.

"Well, yes, but she literally visited for a week every six months," Lee explained. "We spend time together literally every day," he continued. "So it's really not that hard, we just squeezed in some time together when we could."

Kuina huffed. "You keep defending her too… even though I'm right here, what's she got that I don't?" she asked.

"Pink hair?" Lee suggested. "You should really stop getting jealous over nothing. I'm here with you, aren't I?"

She frowned. "I'm not jealous that you spent time with her," she spoke, pouting and turning aside.

Lee shook his head, sighing. "I told you how this would work… I told you what it was gonna be like."

"I know, I get it, okay? It's hard, it's- it's hard when- look, Anne, Mary, Cologne, Drake? All of them… I don't know, it feels like a family, like… I just don't mind, but her… she just makes my blood boil when you-"

The duo set sights on their boat.

She stopped. "No, nevermind, I'm just being silly."

"Yes," Lee said, no qualms or hesitation, patting her back. "Just take your time, relax and focus on yourself… we'll deal with the rest later."

Nodding, Kuina sighed. "So… are you going to recruit her for the crew too?"

"I'm damn well going to try," Lee said, shrugging with his shoulders. "She's got circumstances… might make it complicated."

Kuina nodded. "Is it bad that I'm almost hoping we fail?" she asked. "It's bad isn't it?"

"Nah. It's normal," Lee said. "Nice ego boost, you telling me you want to monopolize my attention."

"Y-You- You asshole!" Kuina shouted, pouting and then walking towards the ship even faster. Lee grinned, watching her walk away.

She turned to face him, glaring… but as she turned back, a small smile grew on her face.

Lee nodded, adjusted his clothes and then chased after her, hugging her with one arm and then walking towards the ship, to be greeted by every member of his crew, as they prepared to depart.