Natural Enemy 2-2

I thought we already got this over with.

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

Kai adjusted his bucket hat, the frayed black cap almost falling off his head as Auntie Loa womanhandled his face again with all the love and care she could put into hands that could probably knock a grown man clean out. He knew she meant well but the way she was kneading his cheeks, it felt like she thought he was hiding money in there or something. “You eat, you hear?” 

Eyes that were the furthest thing from dry stared down at him as Auntie Loa asked him what was supposedly a question, but Kai could hear the command in it. Anyone who had at least one working ear probably could. “You don’t skip meals, yeah?”

“I won’t, Auntie.” Voice muffled by her grip, he was doing his very best to say whatever was necessary to get free. “I promif-!”

Another too-tight hug in a chest designed to kill stronger men than him took what little air that Auntie could squeeze out of him. Emergency! E-mer-gen-cy!

Auntie Loa finally let go, stepping back enough for Kai to suck down as much god-given air as he could, the black spots in his vision slowly fading. How does Uncle Haku live like this?

The teenager stumbled back to the water’s edge, the only thing keeping him from falling over was the skiff sitting in the shallows right at his back, bobbing in the tide like a dog eager for a walk. Thanks, buddy.

As soon as Kai stood back up with all the air he needed in his lungs, another too-big hand dropped on him again. Where Auntie’s hands were scented with pork and taro, her “little” brother’s were a heavy weight that smelled like coconut.

“Be safe, son.”

“I will.” Kai nodded back at Milo’s boom. He didn’t know if it was true, but it felt like the right thing to say anyway.

“You sure?”

Kai blinked down as the third member of the family finally looked his way even as she stood closer than her aunt and dad both. Well, she was looking at his feet, black sandals submerged in the sand. 

Then she looked at the boat. 

Then at the horizon, where the blue sky met the blue water in a seamless line.

Finally, still without looking at his face, she reached out and pressed something small into his hand.

Kai looked down, blue eyes blinking at a carved white shell, the thing polished till it shone like a pearl; the exact same color as the pooka necklace he hadn’t removed once in a whole year. It was smooth too, the shell cool against his palm and shaped like a perfect little wave curling over itselfl.

“For good luck.” Lani’s whisper didn’t come with tears.

He was glad for that as he pocketed the shell, feeling its hard shape through the thin fabric of his shorts. “Thank you, Lani.” 

And he didn’t mean just for the shell, either. 

He didn’t think he could handle tears right now. That kind of thing was a heaviness he didn’t need out on the water. While tears didn’t seem like they’d be on the table, it seemed like words still were.

“You’re really gonna go?” Her voice was so quiet he could barely hear it over the sound of the surf. 

C’mon… Kai nodded, breathing out a puff of air that was in no way a sigh. What kind of question is that now, Lani? Seriously? He looked down at the sand between his toes, watching a tiny crab scuttle into a hole. “Yeah. I think… I think I gotta.”

Now, he was the one who couldn’t look at her.

Avoiding Lani… it hadn’t been something he meant to do.

It just started when he got embarrassed looking at her one day and he kept it going, mostly because he knew that… well, eventually, for whatever reason, he was gonna have to leave the island.

Whether by choice or… or not.  

And even back then, he’d known that Lani might have given him a reason to stay, might have been the reason to stay. 

He might see the safe, chill life he’d been pretending to live for the last couple years, that life of coconuts and surfing and bonfires. I can’t… I can’t Lani. Kai wasn’t the same kid she’d hung out with in the cove, catching crabs and making water-turtles that looked like potatoes no matter how hard he tried. 

They both knew it.

The red water had washed that kid away.

“You’ll come back, right?” She leaned in, voice a whisper in his ear. “To visit?”

Kai finally looked up as she leaned back, big brown eyes looking back at him with water he could see and feel trailing down her face.

C’mon, Lani… He almost closed his eyes, fingers tight around the straps of his backpack as he  wished he had kept looking away. “Yeah, yeah, I will.”

“Promise?”

He managed a small, wobbly smile that felt too tight on his face, a mask sliding over everything else. “Promise.”

It wasn’t a lie but the word still scratched at his throat like sandpaper. “Gotta come back for Auntie Loa’s pork. I’d starve out there without it. Also, can’t miss out on the Great Wave forever, y’know?” One hand rubbed at the beck of his neck. “I still gotta beat Mako. Can’t let him keep that trophy forever. Dummy’s head already too big.”

She smiled back, nodding her head even as the tears kept flowing. “Okay. Okay, Kai.”

With nothing else to say that hadn’t already been said, Kai turned around and pushed the Naruto into the surf. It slid into the water, the sand barely even holding it back a bit. In a few seconds, the koa hull had cut right through the small waves like they weren’t even there.

Alright… He hopped into the skiff, the wood solid and warm under his bare feet.

Dropping into the seat, Kai blinked as he confirmed something he’d already thought about for days since he got the skiff. Yeah, still fits perfect.

Almost too perfect. 

The woven mat cushion molded to his… well, his “pork-fed butt”, as Mako would say, the thing almost like it had been shaped just for him. Hell, the pedals were even exactly the right distance for his legs.

Kai let his eyes roam around the cockpit, the hollowed-out log full of little storage compartments carved into the sides, each one covered with wood and lined with leather treated to be waterproof. 

He’d already opened all of them, getting well-acquanted with evey part of the boat. Each one of them was empty; empty, but deep. Solid choice for snacks if he ever needed to stock them; dried mango, maybe, or jerky too.

Or whatever it was bounty hunters carried. Handcuffs? 

Wait, did he need handcuffs?

Probably. Kai’s mouth turned down in a frown. Do they sell those at the general store? Shaking his head, Kai checked the other side, fingers grasping for the watertight box bolted just beneath the steering panel. 

With a simple twist of a knob, he opened it and something fell out.

A thick leather wallet sat in his palm. Chief Milo had given it to him the same day Kai got the bout, the pouch heavy and bulging at the seams like it had eaten too much dinner.

Kai knew what was in it already considering he’d already opened it. Beri.

Bills, of the old and wrinkled type as well as the crisp and new, sat on top of clinking coins of heavy gold, silver, and bronze. Two hundred thousand.

That’s what Chief Milo said as Kai thumbed through the bills that night. It had felt weird between his fingers, almost like Monopoly money. After two years of never touching anything close to cash, it was something he was gonna have to get used to.

Two hundred thousand, though. The chief said it was enough to live on for months, maybe half a year if he really stretched it. That’s crazy.

First of all, the exchange rate in this place had to be insane, for two hundred thousand of anything to only last you a few months. But more than that, why give a kid this much cash? Was it payment for saving the island? Whatever. Don’t overthink it. It’s lunch money. Just take it.

He tucked the wallet back into the box and snapped the latch shut. Yeah, just take it.

Clicking his tongue, Kai’s eyes slid over to the hole next to where his right hand would be; the smooth rounded port carved into the side, lined with something that looked like sea glass. This thing…

He took a deep breath. Okay. Let’s see what this baby can do.

Without wasting a moment, Kai shoved his hand inside the port; the fit was snug, five fingers forming a fist inside the hollow space.

There was water sitting in the tank right above his fist, cycling in through another intake in the boat’s hull. He could feel it, the water swirling in the boat. As long as he was out on the open water, it was always gonna be full.

Thing is, though, that was a real odd thing to add to a boat, unless…

Kai shook his head slow, resisting the urge to look back at the Chief. Yeah, if this was the prize for the competition, I’m a size extra-small.

There was no frickin’ way that was the case, unless somehow all the competition entrants were named Kai Douglas Wade. The Chief had announced to the whole village that he had the skiff “custom-made” weeks before the Great Wave, and Kai never doubted him or even questioned it because… well, because he was the Chief.

But maybe he should have.

At least a little. Sneaky old man.

Whatever the reason for it was, Kai knew for sure as he clenched his fist inside the control port that this skiff was definitely made for him and him alone. Okay, let’s do this.

He could feel the power of the ocean under him. Not just the waves rocking the hull, but the deep, heavy pressure of the water itself as a familiar humming buzz vibrated in his bones.

He focused, reaching out for that power as he pulled tight at the static under his skin, that beat that lived in his blood.

And… pushed.

“Eep!” A jet of water erupted out  from the back end of the skiff, a spray like a rocket just below the waterline. The sound that left his lips, a high uncool yelp, was shoved back down his throat with Kai’s head whipped back, his back pushed into the seat as the Naruto shot forward.

Forget an acceleration, it was more a launch than anything else, his stomach feeling like someone had kicked him back as the thin skiff zoomed off.

Flying out over the water, the orange and blue streak carved a clean, white scar in the endless blue of the ocean. The nose lifted, planing over the chop, pointing right toward the horizon.

Toward the place on the map where the nearest bounty was last seen.

Toward his first hunt.

“Bye Kai!”

The shout was faint over the roar of the water jet.

He looked back.

“Be safe, Kai-boyo!”

The whole island was waving at him. A sea of arms barely just colorful dots on the white sand.

“See ya, water-brah!”

Kai blinked, eyes wide as his head snapped to his right. “Mako!”

His rival caught a wave as he waved back, their paths in entirely opposite directions. Bye, Mako.

Kai only looked back once again.

By that time, the villagewas a small, colorful smear on the white sand, Mako cutting free of the water on his black Razor and everyone else just specks. 

Even still, he could feel their eyes on him. 

All of them. 

With a sigh, Kai turned back to the open sea.

The wind whipped at his bucket hat, threatening to steal the black cap, so he jammed it down tighter with one free hand. Chill life.

The words were a bitter joke now, more a punchline that didn’t even feel funny by this point.

Here we go.