Wax

Fifty One

A/N: UWU Thank you for waiting!!!! I'm so sorry, I wasn't satisfied where I would've ended the chapter if I'd uploaded this last week so I wrote a little more and got it out this week instead ;-; thank you for being patient!

I've written the skeleton for the Hitman!AU and am contemplating writing that next week instead of Chapter 52 but I'd ALSO just missed the Halloween festive period because wow my schedule is a mess HAHAHAHA but at the same time am hoping bits of the spooooki spirit would remain so that everyone would still be in the mood to read some spicy adult tension LOL. 

Enjoy!

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[Vanilla]

"What's going on?" "She pulled a muscle." "Where?" "Right calf. It's the flippers." "Medic?" "On the way." "You holding up?" "Cox, take her to one of the loungers in the back. Everyone else move out of the way."

I was greeted by a horde of fishermen gathered outside the salon looking out onto the deck, visible concern in their eyes. It took me a minute to gather bits and pieces of the current situation unfolding before me; panicked voices calling across the deck and nervous whispers all around. The honorary emergency medic had picked Layla up in one seemingly effortless motion before carefully lowering her onto an outdoor lounge chair. Her eyes were scrunched shut in pain and she was all curled up—pale hands refusing to leave part of her upper calf. Chef Garland looked equally distraught. Cameras followed.

It would've been a silly move to approach Layla and the experts tending to her at a time like this. The last thing they needed was a bunch of questions breathing down their necks adding stress on top of the situation.

I spotted a lone fisherman stepping out of his speedboat docked right by the superyacht heading up the stairs to the deck with a bucket in hand. I recognized him as the villager who'd set off with Leroy and Chef Saito earlier this morning for fish.

"Hi. Hello," I approached him on impulse, forgetting to consult an interpreter and realizing mid-sentence. "I... um. Sorry, but, do you know what happened?" I gestured at the chairs and the people who'd gathered around Layla, including the yacht's official crew medic who'd finally arrived on the scene.

The fisherman proceeded to respond in Bahasa but with an equal amount of hand gestures that sufficiently depicted a rough order of events. Leroy and Chef Saito had agreed to split up at the shallow reef, with the former agreeing to hunt at a location somewhat close by the red team. He'd noticed Layla writhing in the waters with a missing flipper and had helped her get to the surface and back onto the boat. Seconds more and he could've been far too late.

"He fish."

I was about to thank the villager for his quick rundown of things when he lifted the bucket in his hands and prompted me to take a closer look. I peered in.

It was an adult-sized seabass. And relatively large too. "Leroy caught this?" Already?

With one man officially down and half the team breaking up in disagreements, the red team was nowhere fit to compete against the blue team. Director Stan had finally emerged from the indoor arena to break up the commotion and send everyone 'back to work' at their designated posts. Chef Garland and Leroy were pulled aside for a word with the production team. The fishermen and crew members who'd lingered to watch soon dispersed when a stretcher came wheeling out onto the deck.