Welcome back on our third aniversary :D How do I know I've been way too slow with updates? Easy - the readers I started with were no where to be found last update XD So welcome to new all the new people :D

Many thanks to shockandlock for reading this on a very short notice again (sorry, but I work best with deadlines close XD)

Song of the chapter: Stuck by Monsta X (yeah... I don't know how I wandered into that territory myself...)

Many horrible things start out when someone thinks they have a great idea that they should see through, and as soon as they got on the bus, Ace started wondering if he was one of those people. The closer they got to the house, the more nervous he got. His biggest problem right now was his empty stomach. No matter how hard he tried, he could never suppress his habit of eating like a pig whenever he was really hungry. That was a problem because he wanted the Marco's siblings to like him and with his lack of table manners, it was practically impossible. Apparently his antsy behaviour was very obvious and easily misinterpreted by sempai:

"There is food where we're headed," Marco said with a chuckle. "You might have to wait a little, though."

Ace shook his head, his fingers anxiously tapping on the bus seat in front of him. "That's not it,"

"You don't have to worry – everyone loves having guests, the more the better."

Ace rolled his eyes, his left foot joining in on the tapping. He tried to use some of the breathing techniques that Zoro once showed him, attempting to reach a mind over matter state. The problem was that he has never ever reached that state before and had no idea what it felt like. So far, Ace supposed it wasn't what he was feeling since he was all but tap dancing in his seat. He could give tap dancing a try once the week was over, if he ever lived to see the end of it.

"Seriously, what is it?" Marco huffed, clearly at the end of his patience.

"I am really, really hungry," Ace growled under his breath, wanting to pull his hair – he couldn't believe he had to explain this to sempai.

"Then maybe we should just go eat at the first place we can find?"

"It's not that!"

"If you're worried about Tuesdays pizza vanishing act, then rest assured that the only person in my family who cares about table manners probably already ate and won't be joining us," the blond said nonchalantly as he pulled out his phone and wrote a quick text.

While Ace sat there, frozen and trying to figure out if sempai was reading minds now too, Marco's phone pinged with the answer text. Marco regarded the phone for a moment, texted a quick reply and sighed.

"Change of plans – we need to do a little shopping before going home," he finally said.

"But there will be food afterwards?" Ace just needed to clarify that one thing.

"That's what we'll be buying."

"Good."

Feeling almost reassured, Ace was almost looking forward to meeting sempai's family... although it could just have been his stomach anticipating the food. Whichever it was, he was feeling a little bit more relaxed now. Soon, they got out of the bus in front of a shopping centre. It looked relatively new as far as Ace saw, checking it out while Marco went to get a cart. The entrance was a wall made of glass panels with a rotating door smack in the middle of it. So far that rotating door didn't seem very useful since it stood still and one of its panels was bent in the middle to allow passage. Ace turned to see if Marco was anywhere near so that he could comment on that (no, he did not dislike rotating doors and don't bring Dadan's meat grinder into this!). The blond was on his way with the cart and Ace happily basketballed his bag into the cart as soon as it was in the shooting distance, making sempai lunge forward in order to catch the bag.

"Nice catch," Ace laughed as Marco glared at him.

The inside of the mall was also new, showing a light and spacious interior. In the middle there was a row of plants, dividing the passage into two and on each side of the passage were shops. Ace would say that that type of layout was pretty standard but also pretty functional, especially when they put cafés in the middle – like the one a bit farther away.

"This seems new," he noted, eyeing the café with interest.

"They built this three years ago, I think," Marco answered, following his gaze. "Do you need your medicine?"

"My what?" Ace stared at his sempai, wondering if he hit his head.

"Coffee?"

"Right... Will I be allowed into the shop with it?"

Marco shrugged. "Probably not, but you can drink it before we enter."

"Is it any good?"

"Not really... I would only suggest it as a last resort."

"Then we move on. For your own sake I hope that coffee at your place is really good."

"It's better than the mud water they sell there."

v(^-^)v

In all honesty Marco didn't think that shopping with Ace was going to be a problem, but his kouhai sure liked proving him wrong. It started in the bread department where he put back every single loaf that Marco picked and replaced it with an identical one. Ace explained it by pointing out the day the bread was baked and Marco conceded, but that wasn't the end. Apparently his kouhai had something against chicken produced in Denmark. He refused to say what it was and the blond decided to leave it at that, allowing Ace to change it for some local meat.

Another item that Ace didn't like, as it turned out, was ham produced in Germany. After the chicken Marco should have suspected that, but it still caught him by surprise. He thought that Germany would be fine since it was famous for its sausage, but Ace didn't seem to care about that. Still, it all paled into comparison to the argument they had over which eggs to buy.

"What is wrong with this?" Marco demanded to know when his kouhai tried to exchange his 15 pack for a 12 pack.

"The value," his kouhai said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"How so? Yours is more expensive! How is the value better?"

"Let me explain - the average size of the eggs in your pack is approximately 46 ml, give or take. The full volume adds up to 690 ml. Now, in this pack," Ace pointed to the one in his hand, "the average size is 65ml which adds up to 790 ml which gives us roughly 17 of your eggs. If you add the two eggs to your 15 the price will be more than the 12 pack." When Marco looked extremely skeptical at that, he elaborated. "I lost two salaries to Nami trying to prove that the egg size was negligible, I'm not making the same mistake again."

"You can't be serious."

"I have to feed Luffy breakfast 365 days a year – you can trust me to know the value of eggs."

"If you say so," he finally said, not really believing Ace, but not wanting to argue about eggs anymore either.

The rest of the shopping tour, Marco kept looking up at Ace every time he was placing something in the cart, unsure which items could be landmines. He didn't get to pick any vegetables or fruits, the spaghetti he picked went right back up on the shelf and, for some unknown reason, the same happened to ground pepper, but other than that the rest of products seemed to have Ace's seal of approval.

"I didn't think that you, out of all people, would be this picky," the blond said with a laugh as they were leaving the shopping centre.

"I am not picky!" his kouhai huffed defensively.

"Tell that to all the tomatoes you turned," Marco smirked, turning to the street that led to his house.

"It's not my fault half of them were bad!"

"And what on earth was wrong with the pepper I picked?"

"Sanji says it's better! If someone who's been cooking since before he could stand says something is good – I listen to them!"

"Alright, alright," he chuckled and, giving in to a sudden impulse, pressed his lips to Ace's cheek. "Next time I'll just read the list out loud."

The reaction to his unexpected action was even better than Marco could have thought: his kouhai became the colour of previously disputed tomatoes and mumbled something barely audible.

"Sorry, didn't catch that," he said teasingly.

"I said Nami is a liar," Ace grumbled, still resembling a distant relative of the tomatoes he was carrying.

"I'll keep that in mind."

The rest of the way to his house Ace refused to look at him, which Marco found extremely amusing. It didn't take very long to get there – just past a small park, a bakery, and a retirement home (the latter was a running gag in their house). While his kouhai was looking up at the house with a slightly open mouth, he managed to dig up his keys from under his barely used uniform.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Marco said as he finally opened the door.

Ace entered warily, as if looking around for something.

"Say, which way is the closest bathroom?" he asked.

"Up the stairs, first door to the right," the blond explained and watched with amusement as his kouhai, barely stopping to kick off his shoes, sprinted up the stairs.

"Who's that?" Thatch emerged from the kitchen just in time to see Ace disappear.

"My boyfriend," Marco answered, taking off his shoes and bringing the shopping bags with him to the kitchen. He would bring their training bags up to his room later. For now they weren't in the way and so he left them by the door.

"Who?" Thatch followed him with a baffled expression on his face. "Wait, you don't bring them here! Like, ever!"

He shrugged, leaving the bags in the middle of the kitchen and plopping down on a chair, letting Thatch take care of the products. "He needed a refuge."

"From what?" His brother dug into the bags enthusiastically.

"An overly enthusiastic guardian."

"What? Don't mind that, why did you buy these?" Thatch asked, holding up the infamous twelve pack of eggs.

"You don't want to know," Marco snickered. "Just accept it as is." Thatch shrugged, but then held up the spaghetti. "Ignore it," he said. Next up for inspection were the chicken and ham at the same time. "Don't ask," he just said with a laugh before his brother had a chance to question the products.

Following a sound of quick footsteps down the stairs, Ace half-fell into the kitchen after stumbling over the bags that Marco thought wouldn't be in the way.

"I haven't seen that much makeup in one place since the sleepover at Koala's!" he exclaimed with an awed expression.

"For your own sake I hope you didn't touch any of it," Thatch commented as he finished emptying the bags.

"I've been taught better than that. Sorry, I didn't see you. I'm Ace."

"Thatch. Go put your bags away and wash your hands while I throw something together." He shooed them from the kitchen, turning to look over the products thoughtfully.

v(^-^)v

So far Ace's introduction to sempai's family was going well. Granted, he only met Thatch (who didn't seem too fond of him, not that he showed it in any way – it was more of a gut feeling) and Mr. Newgate, who kept looking at him with a very concentrated look on his face. Ace didn't pay much attention to it – he was busy admiring the grand moustache and Thatch's pompadour. It almost felt like in order to be part of this family, one had to have a distinct hairstyle (at that point he'd look over at the mohawk, mentally applauding Koala's skills). Between the four of them, Ace definitely had the most plain hair style possible, making him a little self-conscious.

Fortunately for him, Thatch left the kitchen soon after serving them food (which was almost as good as Sanji's) and Ace was so hungry that he emptied his plate before the brother returned with the physically imposing head of the family. Both of them looked at him weirdly (considering that Marco's plate was still rather full) but said nothing. Currently they were drinking coffee with some really tasty muffins and Ace had to do his best not to just throw them into his mouth one at a time.

"Hey, brat, does name Roger say anything to you?" Mr. Newgate finally spoke.

He had to remember not to speak with full mouth, so he took his time to chew properly and swallow. For some reason sempai glared at his father, but the otherwise derogatory name flew right over Ace's head. He was way too used to be called that by practically every adult he ever met to care.

"My father's name was Roger," he answered as soon as he was no longer in danger of choking.

"And your mother would not happen to be named Rouge?" The old man continued his line of question.

"How do you know that? Did you know them?" Ace stared at Mr. Newgate with round eyes.

"Gu ra ra ra ra! I knew your mug looked familiar! Of course I knew Roger – he was my old drinking buddy," he explained.

"Really?"

"Yeah! How is that old dog Rayleigh? Is he treating you alright? I haven't heard anything from him in a long time."

"I guess he's fine – I haven't seen him since New Year. He's busy working."

"You mean you don't live with him? He's not in charge of you?" Mr Newgate frowned.

"He's not my guardian, if that's what you mean," Ace said, a little bit confused; next to him Marco looked just as baffled by this conversation.

"If I'm not in charge of you and neither is Rayleigh, then who is?"

"Do you know Monkey D Garp?" Ace asked uncertainly.

"That idiot left you to Garp of all people?!" The old man seemed shocked to his very core. "He could have left you to anyone and he picked Garp?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?" he answered jokingly.

"Wait, hold up, you seriously knew his father, Pops?" Marco seemed to have shaken himself out of his stupor.

Mr Newgate laughed loudly again, this time at his son. Somehow Ace was sure that if the house was a little less sturdy, it would have crumbled around them – so loud and powerful was old man's laugh.

"Of course I did – I presided over many of his cases. The bullshit people would come up with to sue him... you wouldn't believe half of it. Soon enough he started to bring with him a pillow and a sign 'not guilty' to put up while he slept."

"So this thing is genetic?" Sempai turned to Ace with raised eyebrows.

Before he could answer, Ace was interrupted by a yell from upstairs:

"MARCO, YOU SON OF A BITCH! I'm gonna kill you!"

That was followed by sound of door slamming open and thunderous stomps first in the corridor above and later down the stairs. Then someone burst into the kitchen - Ace didn't have the time to figure out if it was a girl or a pretty boy with long hair, because when that person met his eyes they shrieked and ran back up the stairs.

"What just happened?" Marco asked and his shocked face made Ace feel a lot better – at least he wasn't the only one who was surprised.

"Ah!" Thatch stared at Ace with a look of great epiphany on his face. "I know! I know!"

"You do?" Marco looked confused.

"Yes! He's the fish!"

"He's what?" Mr Newgate turned to Thatch, perplexed.

Ace slumped forward, hitting his head on the table with a loud groan. This was not happening! Just when he thought he was safe.

"Come on, I'll show you!" Thatch exclaimed enthusiastically. When everyone but Ace got up from the table, sempai's brother grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "You're gonna love this!"

Regretting that he opened his mouth today (and on Monday as well- why didn't he just ask Sabo for refuge?), Ace let himself be dragged up the stairs. Thatch was extremely cheerful as he led the way, while Marco and his father seemed curious. He tried to resist with his weight but then sempai started to push him from behind to move faster. Ace just wished he'd die there and then, before they ever got to see whatever Thatch was leading them to since he had a very, very bad feeling about this.

When they finally reached their destination and the door at the end of the corridor opened in front of them, Ace realised that he relaxed way, way too soon. If things turned so much worse on Saturday, then he was so spending his Sunday in his bed with his phone turned off.

So here we are :) I know it's shorter than other chappies but this was the best place to make a break. Hope you liked it anyway :)

Thanks for all the reviews, favs and follows!

I hope to see you here sooner rather than later :)

Cya!

~Rhe.