Barlow stood half a step behind Damian, his hands in his pockets, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He watched the two wrestling on the ground with no change in expression; he had seen this scene far too many times before.
One night, the two of them fought all night in the living room of the main house on White Wax Island. They rolled from the sofa to the floor, from the living room to the kitchen. When they were tired, they fell asleep head to head, with Mila's hand still clutching Roy's sleeve and Roy's leg still on top of Mila's leg.
The next morning, Gwen came downstairs and saw this scene. She didn't say anything, but went around to cover each of them with a blanket, and then went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
"They did the same thing in the office last time."
Barlow's voice was very soft, as if he were talking to himself, or as if he were providing Damian with background information.
"Mila said Roy messed up her reports, and Roy said the pile of stuff was already a mess, like a nautical chart, and it turned out the air conditioner was the real culprit."
Damian didn't answer; he was still watching the two men wrestling on the ground.
The sound of the iron gate closing completely echoed softly in the underground space, producing a dull thud.
Roy and Mila stopped moving at the same time, as if they were tied together by the same thread.
They remained in a wrestling position, raising their heads with all four eyes looking towards the doorway.
Damian stood there, with Barlow standing behind him, the two men staring at the two men lying on the ground.
Time began to flow again.
Mila moved first; her reactions were never slower than anyone else's. When it came to agility, Roy was never in the same league as her.
She released her grip on Roy's collar, removed her knee from Roy's stomach, and sprang up from the ground in an instant, her toes pushing off the floor as she hurtled towards Damian at a speed that left only a blur.
Damian had already opened his arms and leaned slightly forward, ready to receive someone.
Mila clung directly to him.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, crossed her hands behind his neck, buried her face in his right shoulder, and Damian supported her back with one hand and placed the other on the top of her head.
Mila's hair was still so short, the ends sticking up to her wrists, which felt a little prickly.
"Big brother." Mila's voice was very low, only Damian could hear it; her voice was muffled by the fabric of her shirt.
"Um."
Roy stood there, looking at Mila clinging to Damian, his mouth opening and closing.
Roy stood sullenly to the side, arms crossed, mouth slightly open, waiting for the right moment to interject.
Damian, supporting Mila, looked up at Roy.
Roy was wearing a dark short-sleeved T-shirt, the sleeves stretched taut over his arms, and his shoulders looked even broader than when they last met.
His hair was cut short, his sideburns were neatly trimmed, and there was a new little scar on his chin. His expression hadn't changed at all; he still had that boyish air about him. The way his eyebrows drooped and his lips pursed after Mila beat him to it was exactly the same as when he was a teenager.
"Roy." Damian's voice came through Mila's hair.
"Big brother." Roy's tone suddenly dropped from the high pitch of the argument, his voice lowered, but his eyes lit up.
Damian greeted his underlings earnestly, then lowered his head to listen to Mila's whispers.
Mila's voice was extremely low, her lips barely moving, and the airflow passing between her teeth could only be heard if you put it close to your ear.
Roy stood three steps away, arms crossed, watching Mila cling to his older brother and whisper secrets, but he couldn't hear a single syllable from his position.
His eyebrows dropped two millimeters, and he exhaled softly through his nose.
He turned to look at Barlow.
Barlow, seemingly to deliberately provoke Roy, walked behind Mila.
He reached out and supported Mila's back, as if to help Damian share some of the weight and make Mila hang more steadily.
The current formation is Damian and Barlow sandwiching Mila, with Roy standing alone on one side.
Roy frowned, while Barlow's lips curled into a slight, mocking smile—a provocation that was only effective against Roy.
Roy panicked.
He rushed forward, taking three steps at a time, and reached his hands between Damian and Mila, spreading them to the sides.
Hey! You have a younger brother too!
Damian was pushed back half a step by him. Mila released her arms from her older brother's neck, landed steadily on the ground, and glared at Roy.
Barlow quietly withdrew his hand from Mila's back and casually put it back in his pocket.
Roy stood in the middle of the four men, his arms still outstretched, panting even more heavily than during the fight.
"There's one more! Me!"
After he said that, the underground space was silent for a moment.
Damian tilted his head back and chuckled softly, the sound echoing in the quiet underground space.
--
Barlow sat at the left end of the circular sofa, a document that Roy couldn't understand spread out on his lap, with annotations written in the margins with Fountain Pen.
Mila took off her high heels, stepping barefoot onto the floor. She curled her legs up in the corner of the sofa, holding a glass of red wine in her hand. The rim of the glass lingered at her lips for a long time, but she didn't take many sips.
Roy was rummaging through the liquor cabinet behind the bar, looking for a bottle of whiskey that he hadn't labeled after he finished it last time.
Damian did nothing.
He leaned back against the center of the sofa, his arms resting on the highest point of the backrest, completely relaxed in a posture he never showed to outsiders, like a cat that had finally found a safe branch and was no longer tense.
Four influential figures in the East Blue and even the Grand Line: one was reviewing accounts, one was twirling his high heels with his toes, one was wandering around the liquor cabinet, and one was sprawled in the middle of the sofa, too lazy to even speak.
Outside the door stands the underground queen, the president of the Uchiha Trading Company, the Uchiha's strongest fighter, and Marine Vice Admiral.
Once the door closed, the four people turned back into four ordinary people, or rather, back into four children who never truly grew up.
Later, someone brought up White Wax Island first, but it's unclear who did it.
It was probably Roy, while talking about the new recruits in the patrol, suddenly changed the subject. "There was this kid among the recruits named Thomas Tyron who always raised his right shoulder too high when practicing swordsmanship. I told him so many times, but he just couldn't correct it. Later, I asked him why, and he said his father taught him that. When I heard that, I didn't say anything more."
"Why?" Mila paused, her hand holding the wine glass still.
"Because his father was a pirate in the West Blue." Roy pinned the last dart to the dartboard without aiming.
"I told him that the move his father taught him was enough to work in the West Blue pirate circle, but if you want to join the Uchiha Patrol, the standards are different. He later changed his routine, practicing two extra hours every day until his right shoulder was lower than his left shoulder." Roy turned to look at Damian.
"I thought of my Pops then. Pops taught my older brother carpentry, and he said, 'After I finish teaching you, you'll have to learn and grow on your own, finding stronger role models.'"
"This kid is luckier than me; he ran into me."
The words fell into silence.
Barlow tightened the Fountain Pen cap, set aside the documents on his lap, and reached for his teacup.
"Then you kept him, even though he should have been eliminated in the first round, with the extremely weak reason: 'His swordsmanship isn't clean, but he's malleable.'"
How do you know everything?
Roy rolled his eyes.
"Because his equipment purchase order has a special note signed by you: this person's knife blade needs to be lengthened by two centimeters. This specification is not on the patrol team's standardized equipment list; it was specially approved by me."
Barlow finished the last sip of tea and placed the teacup back on the coffee table. "Do you think I would forget?"
Roy opened his mouth, but couldn't find a suitable angle to refute it, so he finally chose to sit on the sofa, leaning half of his body against Mila.
Mila almost lost her balance when Roy leaned against her, but surprisingly, she didn't push Roy away.
She pulled her toes out of her high heels and placed them on the sofa, the thin gold chain on her ankle dangling in the light.
Damian leaned back in the center of the sofa, looking at his three younger siblings.
Roy was fiddling with the thin gold chain on Mila's ankle.
Mila used red wine to shut Roy up before he could complain.
Barlow finally closed the file completely, interlaced his fingers on his knees, lowered his head, and closed his eyes.
The grand piano in the music pit stood quietly, its lid open, a thin layer of dust on the keys.
This piano probably hasn't been played in a long time, but just having it there gives you a sense of peace.
This underground space has no naval ranks, no chamber of commerce positions, no patrol numbers, and no rules of the Underworld.
There were only four people with the surname Uchiha, and a night when he closed the door and didn't want anyone to disturb him.