Chapter Text
Rin hadn’t been able to make it back to the library for a week, not between exams, his brother’s constant nagging, and helping with chores at the church. When he did make it back it was to a note linking him to another document posted online.
The second brother
The second brother was born to a noble family, living in a white and gold manor in the Goa Kingdom. Living a life, unlike the first and third, with a full belly each night, in the warmth of the finest blankets, never wanting for a toy or anything. He grew up with the finest tutors the kingdom had to offer- set to marry the princess before his second birthday.
The second brother had the world at his fingertips.
But even with all his wants and desires fulfilled- well almost everything.
For you see, what the second brother wanted more then anything was to see what was behind the massive walls that kept the clean noble kingdom away from… well everything else. He wanted to see what was beyond the walls and climb to the very top of the trees he could see. He waned to know what was in the mountain range and if there were more people on the other side. More then that, he would realize later, he wanted to be able to climb and explore and get mud on his long blue waist coat. He wanted scruffy shoes, playmates, and fun. Toys after all, grew cold and were lifeless.
At three, when he brought this up to his father, the esteemed Outlook III, he was locked away in the library with a tutor. He was taught how to read and write, about numbers and the history of the kingdom, the tutor taught him maths and business and the role that would be his as king of the kingdom. In the wee hours of the morning he’d find himself in the manor’s library, thrifting through books about far away kingdoms like the desert kingdom or the kingdom of eternal snow. And oh, how his heart ached, wondering what sand felt like or if snow was as cold as the ice in the drinks his mother likes.
So, one day in the middle of the summer with the heat beating down on the small island he snuck out.
Beyond the great walls of the Goa Kingdom was an enormous trash heap, mountains of trash piled as high as the trees and inside the trash were people. Dirty, skinny, cheek sunken people, living inside the trash and in small huts made of discarded metals and wooden planks. And it was there, among the trash that the second brother… met the first.
Ace stared at the document till his eyes teared unable to blink for a moment just in case the words would bleed off the screen and it was only a wishful dream. Reaching forward he let his fingers skim over the words, feeling the ache build in his chest.
His younger brother-
The smart brother-
His best friend-
His failure. The brother he couldn’t protect. Ace felt a tear slide down his cheek and his chest seize like –
Like when the bandit had given them the news, like when he read that damned letter, like when he and Luffy had sailed out to the wreck and fished out his pirate flag, like the burning need to breath when the made the grave on the cliff side.
“Blue sake cup, the left-over bottle, and pirate flag-” He whispered to himself, and suddenly he wasn’t in the library.
The smell of the sea breeze was still fresh in his head, the feeling of grass under his knees and mud under his nails. The dirt and sand grains dug into his palms as he desperately dug deeper and deeper into the side of their favorite cliff- the one on the north side of the island and had the best view of the east blue sea. Luffy knelt close by, his small fingers clean of the muddied earth as he clenched them around the black flag, small fingers tracing the blue S the took up the middle, the blue S that meant so much to them. Ace dug and dug and dug, hypnotically and absentmindedly into the night, until dawn broke overhead and he thought the hole was deep enough.
“C’me here.” He had called out gruffly, beckoning Luffy’s shivering frame forward.
With a gentleness he wasn’t known for, he took the flag out of Luffy’s hand’s and reached down to lay it flat in the dirt. His gray eyes glancing up to watch his little brother use his arm to wipe a running nose before he reached into the hole and place the blue sake cup on the flag. In response Ace put in the journal he had found before all of this started, it was beat up and had pages missing but most of it was untouched, he had planned to give it the blond for his eleventh birthday- a birthday he would now never have. Luffy gave a low keen before putting the last item in- Sabo’s pipe., carefully leaning it so the top would still stick out and mark his grave even when they filled the hole in.
Luffy let out a loud wail once the grave was filled in, snot and tears streaming down his chubby and while Ace knew his face was probably just as red and gross the words of the letter- safely tucked away in his things- echoed in his head. Swallowing thickly, he reached forward and tugged him close, pulling his shirt up to use the end to wipe the snot off his brother’s face.
“He’s always going to be our brother, he’ll just be here waiting and watching us okay?”
Rin stared for a long moment, before he brought his hands back towards the keyboard. He didn’t remember the details like Sabo surely did, but he remembered the feeling of meeting him. of holding out his hand and having his first friend- his first family.
After he clicked send, he sat back, wondering if his golden-haired brother was still golden, if he still favored blue and quick wit over anything else. He sat and picture Sabo as a brother maybe with a little sister, or being tall and wearing still wearing that stupid coat and top hat. Most of all he wondered if he could see him soon.
Rin smiled shakily at Yukio, laughing at the priest stupid jokes, and danced away from their father’s teasing hair ruffles. Dead set on ignoring the ache of homesickness that had settled in his chest just as fiercely as he ignored the spark of hope that burned like fire that brightly beside it. Hoping, praying, and imagining how this life- now that he knew his brothers and sisters… all of them, were out there- would be so much better then the last.