Gwen (1)

When Damian pushed open the door, Mila was being held around the waist from behind by Roy, her legs kicking wildly in the air.

One of her shoes had flown off and landed on Barlow's chart table, perfectly pinning down the intersection of three branching routes.

Barlow stood beside the table. He glanced down at the shoe, then at the gray scuff it had left on the chart table, and reached over to place the shoe at the corner of the table.

"Roy, big brother's here," Mila said, her voice broken up by the jostling.

Roy tightened his hold. Mila drove her elbow backward twice, and Roy let out a muffled grunt, his arms loosening for half a second.

In that half-second, Mila slipped out from under his arm like a fish darting through a hole in a net, one bare foot landing on the floor.

Damian stood in the doorway and watched the entire scene from beginning to end.

He neither stepped forward to break them up nor said anything like, "Aren't you two too old for this?"

He sat down on the long sofa in the room, folded his hands over his stomach, crossed one leg over the other, leaned the back of his head against the sofa, and smiled.

That smile was nothing like Barlow's.

Fine lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes, and even his shoulders shook slightly.

This was the eldest brother who had cut down more than a dozen men at Orange Town's docks and decided the new mayor's appointment with a single sentence at town hall.

Yet as he watched his younger brother and sister tussle in this office, he carried none of the weight of the Uchiha Clan's eldest son. He only had a strange ease about him, like a lion lying in the shade while its cubs climbed all over it.

Barlow walked over from the desk to Damian's side, Mila's kicked-off shoe in hand.

Instead of sitting on the sofa, he leaned against its armrest, half his backside perched on its edge, with the shoe resting on his knee.

"How's Dad doing?" he asked.

Damian turned his head, his smile fading a little though it still lingered at the corners of his mouth. "Pretty good. Every day after work, he goes to Old Tom's tavern for a couple drinks. That old man treats him like a living advertisement, boasting to everyone he meets that White Wax Island produced the Uchiha Clan."

"Does he brag about it himself?" Barlow asked.

"No."

"But when Old Tom brags, he doesn't stop him. He just sits in the corner drinking his dark ale, with the corners of his mouth lifting a little."

The corners of Barlow's mouth lifted as well.

"The branch on White Wax Island is nearly finished," Damian continued.

"It's located beside the old shipyard east of the docks. Dad personally revised the plans, expanding the old warehouse by two rooms. We brought in a batch of bluestone from the Konomi Archipelago, the same kind of stone used here."

He reached out and tapped the blue-gray stone wall beside the sofa, his knuckles making two dull knocks against its surface.

"When the time comes, we won't even need to organize it ourselves. Once the dock expansion is complete, plenty of merchants will come open shops on their own. The front street and back alleys will naturally connect into a commercial district. A timber merchant has already sent people to inspect the storefronts."

Barlow nodded.

He transferred Mila's shoe to his other hand, his gaze passing over the sofa to settle on the East Blue chart across the room.

His eyes swept across the Konomi Archipelago, the Goa Kingdom, and the Wind Organ Archipelago before finally stopping at the blank space in the upper-right corner. No island was marked there, only a dotted line whose end bore the words "Loguetown."

"When the time comes..." He left the sentence unfinished, paused, and changed direction.

"If Orange Town's docks are expanded a third time, they'll be able to handle direct shipping from Loguetown. The Konomi Archipelago's supply sources are stable, and Orange Town's fruit ships have already signed quarterly contracts. The next target..."

"The High District of the Goa Kingdom," Damian finished for him.

"Right," Barlow said, as calmly as if he were reporting something already accomplished rather than something not yet begun.

"The nobles of Goa have demand. They can't get used to East Blue local wine; they want West Blue wine, but they can't buy it at the source."

Damian glanced at him. "Getting to the West Blue means passing through the Grand Line or Reverse Mountain. We'll have to deal with those sooner or later."

"No rush."

At that moment, Mila finally broke completely free from Roy's entanglement.

Her bare foot took three steps across the floor. On the fourth, she stepped onto the sofa cushion, flipped over the backrest, and dove headfirst into Damian's arms.

Roy chased after her from the other end of the sofa, reaching out to drag her back.

Damian raised one hand and stopped Roy at the shoulder.

"Take a break," he said with a smile in his voice.

"Let her rest for a while."

Mila poked half her face out of his arms and narrowed her eyes in Roy's direction.

Roy stood beside the sofa, breathing a little hard, his hair a mess that covered his entire forehead.

He looked at Mila curled up in Damian's arms and suddenly smiled, clearly holding back something mischievous.

"Mila."

Roy was still panting, but his tone had already turned teasing.

"Big brother's getting married. You can't keep acting like this afterward."

Mila froze.

She lifted her head from Damian's arms, looked at Roy first, then turned to look at Barlow.

Barlow's expression did not change. He was still fiddling with Mila's shoe.

"What does getting married have to do with anything?"

She buried her face back into Damian's coat. Though her voice was muffled by the fabric, it remained perfectly clear.

"Even after he gets married, he'll be my big brother before he's that woman's husband."

Damian's hand landed atop her head and gave it a gentle pat.

Mila rubbed against him in response, like a cat settling comfortably into its nest and refusing to move.

"How are things going with Gwen?" Barlow asked.

Damian lowered his head to look at Mila in his arms, then raised his gaze to Barlow.

He did not wear the foolish grin or blush commonly seen on men in love. He was very calm.

"Pretty well. Dad has met her. I took her back to White Wax Island once. Dad told her, 'Come with me,' then took her around the old shipyard and showed her the spot where I got hurt falling while carrying cargo when I was seven. She listened very seriously the whole time. Halfway through, she even told him, 'Damian has told me the story you're telling too.'"

"And then?" Roy had already sat down on the floor, his legs crossed, elbows resting on his knees and chin propped on his hands. He had completely forgotten that he had been chasing Mila moments ago.

"Then Dad laughed and said, 'That kid actually knows how to tell stories?' Then he looked at me. It was the same look as before, you know—the kind that says, 'You're better than your father.'"

The office fell quiet for two seconds.

"Next month. The exact date hasn't been decided yet. She said we could pick one ourselves."

Mila lifted her head from Damian's arms and looked up at him.

From this angle, the tip of her nose pointed at his chin, and she had to roll her eyes upward to see his face.

"Are you really going to marry that woman of unknown origins?" she asked.

Damian moved his hand from the top of her head to her forehead, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and lightly tapped her once.

"What do you mean, a woman of unknown origins? You'll have to call her sister-in-law from now on."

Mila pursed her lips and turned her face away, refusing to look at him. But she had no intention of getting out of Damian's arms, her fingers tugging at a button on his coat and circling it over and over.