🌹Emerald Rose🌹

Chapter Five

"Are you sure this is alright?" Alfred asked.

"Hai. A small break will not do any harm." Kiku answered, carefully and gently looking around in the cupboards.
They were in the kitchen, Kiku having invited him in after lunch. Somehow, the Japanse man had noticed how distracted Alfred had been acting for the past few days.

The truth was that he had been. His could he not? He had been trying to just let himself focus on his daily chores because Richard was already starting to get a little annoyed and he had already been assigned the punishment of nightly watch duty twice and already hated it. Having no sleep during a night utterly sucked for him.

For some reason, his thoughts wandered often to Arthur more than they should. Alfred didn't know whether to be terrified or utterly smitten.

"It is fine. Would you mind if I made you a cup of tea?" Kiku asked. Alfred hesitated. Normally, he didn't like tea. Not unless it had a bunch of sugar in it. He preferred other beverages over it. He was normally bit picky when it came to what he drank. However, just the word tea made him think about Arthur again and now he wanted to slap himself.

"Yeah. Whatever." Alfred blurted out. He winced at the outtake. To think one night with Kirkland would leave him like this days after the fact. So pathetic. He felt like one of the teenage girls swooning over visiting ship captains in his hometown. The difference was he was stuck with his.

"You seem quite distracted. Do you wish to talk about it? You will feel better." Kiku offered. There it was. How did he know so quickly? And more importantly, did he really want to talk about.....that with Kiku? He liked him and certainly wanted to call him a friend, but he only had two weeks of trust to go on. He suddenly wished he had Matthew to talk to. It was still so hard to try to not miss him all the time.

"Umm.....it's complicated," Alfred said quietly. That felt like an understatement. It was more like he was confused about why he was stuck with a captain that looked like Mr sex on legs. And why he felt so smitten by him when said captain had threatened him with death and torture more than once in less than a month.

"Hai, but it helps when you talk to someone. Perhaps I could help you." Kiku said politely. There were sounds of a kettle being put in the heat, and then a pause. "Do you want me to put sugar or milk in yours?"

"Three spoonfuls or something please," Alfred said absentmindedly. Kiku's tendencies to say a word in his home language really threw him off. Not to mention how kind Kiku was being. He was patient with him.
"Thanks, but I don't....really wanna talk about it."

"I apologize, I will not intrude." Kiku said, once again causing Alfred to glance in confusion. Why did he always apologize for everything? There was a sound of a kettle heating up.

There was silence. Alfred nervously fiddled with his hands. It wasn't like he didn't want to trust Kiku, it was just what he was being asked to talk about. Even being vague about it would be really uncomfortable for him.

"Do ya know which port we're gonna stop at next then?" Alfred asked, trying to break the silence. To be fair, he did want to know. People would compare him to a bird, acting quite restless when bound to one place. In a way, Alfred would admit they were right. Life at sea was fun, and Alfred was not going to complain (even now) but he would begin to get bored and look forward to the next time his feet could touch land.