Lax Justice

The next day, Yaen woke up with a splitting headache. When he opened his eyes, he found the room in complete disarray.

Then Yaen rubbed his head, trying hard to recall what had happened the previous day, when he suddenly realized that there was... someone beside him.

Yaen whipped his head around, and Kuzan's large, dark face came into view.

"Kuzan??!!"

Then Yaen carefully lifted a corner of the blanket covering Kuzan and took a peek underneath. He could not help letting out a long sigh of relief before murmuring,

"Thank goodness, thank goodness. His clothes are still neat, so it looks like nothing special happened."

Just then, Kuzan's voice suddenly rang out as he asked, "What do you mean by 'something special'?"

Yaen.

"I can't take it anymore. I feel like throwing up. I'm seasick..."

Yaen pressed a hand to his forehead and immediately planned to fake an illness and escape.

However, after getting to know Yaen thoroughly over the course of the night, Kuzan had become much more familiar with him and exposed him outright.

"Stop pretending. You told me all about this little trick of yours last night."

Yaen's body stiffened in mid-motion as he was about to get out of bed. His eyebrows twitched slightly, and he recalled some of what had happened the previous night.

It seemed... he really had told Kuzan quite a few things...

For a moment, Yaen's expression completely fell.

Alcohol really does cause trouble. How could I have been so careless?

Don't drink and drive, and don't drive after drinking!

How could I have made such a low-level mistake?

Then Yaen walked out of the room with a thoroughly dejected expression.

"Yaen, what are you doing?" Kuzan asked.

"Don't talk. I want some peace and quiet."

Yaen answered without turning his head and walked straight out of the room.

There was nothing he could do. He had too many secrets!

Yaen had no idea how much Kuzan had learned about him, or how much he had inadvertently revealed the previous night.

So right now, Yaen only wanted some peace and quiet, to reflect properly and recall all the details of the previous night before anything else.

Still, judging by Kuzan's reaction, Yaen estimated that the problem was not particularly serious.

Otherwise, when he woke up the next day, he would not have found himself waking up in bed with Kuzan. He should have been hanging there with Seastone chains wrapped all over him.

Half a day later, on the deck of Kuzan's warship.

Amid the baffled and confused gazes of a large number of Marine Soldiers, two parasols were opened at the front of the deck. Two chairs and a small table covered with fruit and pastries were placed beneath them.

The Vice Admiral Kuzan, renowned throughout the sea as the embodiment of "Passionate Justice," and Yaen were both lying there in utter laziness, occasionally eating and chatting intermittently.

"Vice Admiral Kuzan, isn't this a little inappropriate?" Yaen asked after putting on his sunglasses again.

Kuzan, wearing an eye covering, yawned and asked, "Don't you like it?"

"It's not that..."

Yaen denied it, then continued,

"It just feels like this Marine life is far too decadent. Sigh... My conscience is uneasy! Oh, what kind of fruit is this? It's quite plump and juicy."

"Who knows? But I don't seem to sense your conscience being uneasy," Kuzan answered casually.

Hearing this, Yaen could no longer suppress his amusement and replied,

"Ahahaha, who said that? My conscience is very uneasy right now. After all, Old Man went to so much trouble to arrange this merit-earning trip, yet this is what I'm doing. Sigh... delicious..."

After a pause, Yaen continued, "Just thinking about Old Man working diligently at his desk in his office in Marineford right now makes my conscience ache."

Kuzan could not help glancing at Yaen, whose mouth was constantly producing "tears," and said, "That really must be hard on you, Yaen."

"It's no trouble, no trouble. I'm serving the Marines and the sea." After a pause, Yaen added,

"But what concerns me more is whether Old Man and those members of the Navy High Command can accept your changes so soon."

"Oh, is that so?"

Kuzan responded indifferently, then lazily continued,

"Justice changes with circumstances, and a shift in one's position is perfectly normal. From now on, I plan to serve as a Marine under the banner of an ideal called 'Lax Justice.'"

Yaen's expression shifted slightly. He glanced at Kuzan and said, "That sounds like a pretty good form of justice, Vice Admiral Kuzan."

A faint smile appeared at the corners of Kuzan's mouth. Then his tone changed as he said,

"Speaking of which, Yaen, last night you kept calling me 'Big Brother Kuzan' and shouting, 'After this cup, there are still three more.' Why are you being so formal now?"

When the embarrassing matter of his drunken behavior was brought up, Yaen's expression instantly stiffened.

By the standards of his previous life, Yaen's alcohol tolerance was absolutely at the level of "I won't fall while Snow Beer remains standing, and I won't fall while Tsingtao remains standing." But when it came to the fine liquor of this world, it was an entirely different matter.

Especially since Yaen's physique was already on the frail side. Compared to a monster like Kuzan, he was even more prone to getting drunk quickly.

"Don't bring up what happened last night again. From now on, I definitely won't drink anymore," Yaen said through gritted teeth.

After this incident, Yaen now clearly understood his standing in the world of alcohol. Forget a monster like Kuzan—he most likely could not even outdrink a woman.

This time, he had been lucky. After thinking it over, Yaen realized that what he had said while drunk was barely within an acceptable range.

But what if he had not been lucky?

What if he had said something he should not have?

Or what if the person who woke up in bed with him the next day had not been a straight man like Kuzan, but instead...?

Danger!

In short, he had to stay far away from danger!

"Is that so? What a pity. Last night, we had originally agreed to get thoroughly drunk again after returning to Marineford and properly let loose," Kuzan said teasingly.

Yaen hurriedly said, "Big Brother Kuzan, stop teasing me."

Then Yaen quickly changed the subject and asked,

"Big Brother Kuzan, so our next course of action is simply to 'patrol' the West Blue, stabilize the peace, and then return to Marineford?"

"More or less..."

Kuzan answered after putting his eye covering back on.

"However, when we applied to Marineford earlier, we used the rampant underground forces in the West Blue as our reason. So we still have to arrest a few members of the Mafia and take them back to report our results."

At this, Yaen could not help mourning and apologizing to the Mafia members of the West Blue.

It was all his fault. He had inadvertently used "Mafia" as an excuse, which had brought Vice Admiral Kuzan down on them.

"I wonder which lucky one will get picked by Big Brother Kuzan," Yaen said sympathetically.

Kuzan answered somewhat vaguely, "I already have a target. There happens to be a fairly famous Mafia family somewhere near these waters."