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Usopp realizes he likes Luffy at half past seven on a Tuesday morning. And not just that he likes Luffy, which is already easy enough to do, but like- likes him.
He knows the exact day and time and moment it happens. He knows because breakfast on Tuesdays is always French toast, and because since he woke up, he’s been fiddling with a watch he found in a junk shop on the last island they visited. The watch itself is a bit old and a bit battered, but beneath the layers of tarnish it still gleams a soft gold. Sanji’s hollering at Luffy for swallowing the entire bag of powdered sugar, plastic and all, and Zoro’s in the middle of showing Nami a knife trick, so no one bothers Usopp all that much as he taps at the cogs gently with the tip of his screwdriver. The little hand’s stuck on the seven and the big hand is motionless, about to strike the half hour.
“Whatcha doing?” Luffy peers over his shoulder, mouth rimmed chalky white with sugar. He doesn’t wait for the answer and clambers onto the bench next to Usopp, their hips knocking together, his arm settling around Usopp’s waist like it belongs there. Luffy leans in even closer, studying the watch. “It’s shiny!” he says after a moment. “Are you gonna wear it when you’re done?”
“I was thinking of giving it to Sanji-kun. It’s more his style. I don’t think I could pull something like this off… And anyway, I just like figuring out how this stuff works.”
Luffy grins. “Usopp’s so smart.”
Usopp grins too. “It’s not that special.”
“Well I think it is,” Luffy says, abruptly stubborn.
Usopp considers arguing with him but not unlike getting his sea legs, he’s learning that it can be easier to shift and move with Luffy’s moods as they crash from one into the next. And because secretly, he likes it when Luffy calls him cool. Nobody else ever really does. “Okay, okay,” Usopp says, surrendering. “You’re the captain.”
“I am,” Luffy says, smug. “And I think it’s awesome.” He’s no longer looking at the watch, but they’re still sitting very close to one another. Usopp twitches in surprise as lips, sticky with sugar, press against his cheek. The arm around his waist tightens. “I think Usopp’s awesome too,” Luffy murmurs.
“Oh,” Usopp says faintly.
Luffy finally pulls back. His arm leaves Usopp’s waist, and he plays with a strand of Usopp’s hair that’s come loose from his bandana. “Hey! Let’s fish together later,” Luffy says, and then gets up and goes right back to pestering Sanji for more French toast.
Usopp stares down at his hands. They seem very far away — almost detached from the rest of him. Around him the kitchen bustles, and nobody says anything, nobody cracks a joke or gives him a second glance, but his cheek is still sticky-warm where Luffy’s lips were. Usopp gives his screwdriver a thoughtless twist and there’s a small click, as something slides into place and the watch begins to tick.
It’s half past seven on a Tuesday morning.
Oh, Usopp thinks. Oh crap.
He’s jumping to conclusions. He does this to himself a lot, where he makes up scenarios in his head for fun and then ends up getting lost in them. Never with the elaborate stories he tells to impress or entertain his friends — he’s not stupid. Just simpler stuff: the stories that he tells only to himself at night as he’s waiting to fall asleep. In those stories, he strikes the victory blow at the end of a tough fight and Zoro slaps him approvingly on the back; he wins every argument he’s ever had with Nami. And a couple times — maybe more than a couple times — he kisses Luffy, only because he can’t stop thinking about what rubber lips might feel like. Or sometimes he holds Luffy’s hand, only because Usopp’s never held hands with anyone except his mom before. Or sometimes, on the nights when he feels kind of strange and lonely, he imagines Luffy in the hammock beside him and they curl up into each other—
Usopp cuts himself off because he knows he’s starting to ramble. “None of that means anything, though, does it?” he asks and finally risks a glance at Nami.
She’s smirking.
“Oh crap,” Usopp says.
“Oh crap, indeed.”
“What do I do?”
Nami shrugs and returns to the map spread out between them. They’re sitting together on the floor of the women’s quarters. Well, Nami’s sitting. Usopp keeps trying to sit down and talk it through, and then keeps needing to get up and pace because there’s so much nervous energy rattling around in his head. His chest feels very tight, but for once it’s not in a bad way. It sort of feels like it’s swelling with anticipation, like a balloon about to take flight.
“You should tell him how you feel,” Nami says, beginning to sketch out a new island.
“ Tell him?” Usopp demands. Only he doesn’t really demand — more like he yelps the question out all strangled. Nami twitches violently with surprise; her new island disappears into a sudden sea of ink. “I can’t just tell him.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Usopp says.
It’s all well and good, imagining how things might be. He can imagine telling Luffy the truth, can imagine being with him as something more than a crew member. Luffy’s really cool and funny. He listens to all of Usopp’s stories instead of just walking away halfway through like everyone else does. And they like lots of the same stuff: games and bugs and pranking Zoro and they spend almost all their time together. But Usopp’s also not an idiot. He knows that even when he falls asleep into one of his quiet little fantasies, he still wakes up the next morning to the sun in his face, to his same old, boring self.
“Because,” Usopp says again. “I need to play it cool.”
Nami looks decidedly unimpressed. “That’s what you said about Kaya.”
“Listen. Kaya was a passionate, epic romance. I was playing the long game.”
“Trying to confess to Kaya took you nine million years and got you nowhere. And Luffy’s not a patient guy.”
Usopp shoves his hands into his pockets. It’s easy for Nami. She’s pretty and she’s smart and when she walks into a room, people pay attention to her. They don’t laugh. Not that he necessarily thinks Luffy’s going to laugh at him. “I don’t know what I’d say,” Usopp mumbles.
“I think you’ll figure it out,” Nami counters. Her voice has softened somewhat. “I think whatever you decide to do, Luffy will like it.”
“Really?”
“Really. And you know me,” Nami adds, dipping her quill into its inkpot. “I’m not about to lie just to make someone feel better.”
Usopp manages a watery smile. “Thanks, Nami.”
“You’re welcome.” Nami holds out her hand. “That’ll be a hundred beri for my time, please.”
“Last time you gave Zoro advice it was almost a thousand,” Usopp points out, even as he forks over the cash. “I think you’re undercharging me.”
“Am I?” Nami asks, her attention back on her map already. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Nami’s probably right. She usually is about most things. He should just go ahead and tell Luffy how he feels and see what happens from there. It’s better to go ahead and do the thing you’re worried about because then, no matter what the outcome is, at least it’s done and it’s over — like pulling off a Band-Aid. That’s the advice his mom always gave him. Except it was more about removing an actual Band-Aid, and this thing with Luffy is a pretty huge Band-Aid and Usopp really, really doesn’t want it to hurt. But even still: It’s good advice.
He doesn’t have a plan, but he makes himself practice all the things he wants to say in the mirror and then writes it down on his hand afterwards just in case he forgets. He doesn’t have anything fancy to wear for the occasion but Nami has a vase of cut flowers on her desk. He picks out the gently drooping poppy, the same bright color as Luffy’s shirt, and tucks it into the right lapel of his overalls.
It’s late when he emerges above deck, and the afternoon’s drowsy with heat. The sun’s just beginning to set. Maybe he’ll ask Luffy to hang out with him during target practice. And then right as the sun hits the edge of the horizon and the sky goes all pretty and colorful, Usopp will nail a particularly difficult shot. Luffy, awed, will ask him, “How do you always hit the target?” And then Usopp will say, in a deep, cool voice, “I’m the world’s greatest marksman. I always get my mark — or my man.” And Luffy will…well, probably laugh, but it’ll be the good kind of laugh because he always laughs at Usopp’s jokes, even the bad ones. And then Luffy will hold his hand, the one with all of the notes scribbled on it. Except it won’t matter, because Usopp won’t need his notes after all, because they’ll just sit together and talk for a long time like they always do.
He finds Luffy by the stern, sprawled across Zoro’s lap. They’re both asleep and kind of sweaty. They’ve probably just got done brawling. They do crazy stuff like that all the time: sparring for fun or diving off twenty-foot sea cliffs — stuff that Usopp definitely can’t do. They make a lot of sense together. People say that all the time, as the two of them charge side by side into a fight. Usopp knows that people say it all the time because he’s heard them talk, as he’s stumbled along in Luffy and Zoro’s wake, trying to keep up. Or he’s heard them while he’s stood on the sidelines, trying his best not to get in Luffy and Zoro’s way.
Luffy murmurs something in his sleep and turns over, tucking his face into the front of Zoro’s haramaki.
Usopp looks down at his hand. The ink’s smudged because his palms won’t stop sweating and he can’t even remember what he was going to say anymore. He wonders if Zoro ever gets nervous enough that his palms sweat. Probably not.
He takes the flower out of his lapel and tosses it overboard. He goes back downstairs to the men’s quarters and scrubs his hands in the sink until the water runs clear with the last of the ink.
They’re setting up camp for the evening on a secluded little beach. Or they’re supposed to be setting up camp. Zoro’s asleep and Nami’s painting her nails. Usopp’s been trying to hammer tent poles into the sand and tie ropes in place, but Luffy won’t stop poking him in the sides and sending him into fits of laughter. Then he stops poking Usopp and instead snatches his bandana right off his head, waving it around like a flag so that Usopp has no choice but to try and snatch it back. He tackles Luffy and they go tumbling across the sand. There’s grit in his mouth and sliding down the back of his overalls. He smacks his nose on the ground and Luffy’s grip is a little too tight where he pins Usopp by his shoulders. But if it hurts, Usopp hasn’t noticed. Luffy’s laughing so hard his cheeks and the tips of his ears are pink and his hair all messy and soft-looking and Usopp’s stomach won’t stop doing nervous little flips.
“Hey,” Luffy says, after he clumsily sticks Usopp’s bandana back on his head, “let’s go exploring.”
“We should be helping everyone else,” Usopp says, but he doesn’t sound super convincing, even to himself.
“Aw, c’mon. I bet there are frogs.”
“I love frogs,” Usopp says.
Luffy grins. “I know you do,” he says.
Usopp’s stomach does a particularly hard flip. “Let’s go,” he agrees.
“What the actual fuck ,” Sanji hisses from where he’s been eavesdropping. Usopp flushes, partly out of guilt, partly because he’s not sure what Sanji heard. “You are not gonna ditch me with all of this work. I won’t let—”
“Sanji-kun?” Nami calls out, voice wobbling. “I think I broke a nail trying to put up my tent. It really hurts.”
Sanji spins on his heel toward her. Luffy links his arm with Usopp’s at once and makes a break for the woods, Usopp stumbling after him. Just before they reach the tree line, Usopp risks a final glance over his shoulder. Sanji flutters anxiously about, Nami’s hand cradled in his. Nami isn’t looking at Sanji. She’s looking at Usopp and when their eyes meet, she offers him a sly wink. Usopp’s face flushes again, then flushes hotter still because Luffy’s laughter is warm and right in his ear. “C’mon, Usopp,” Luffy whispers, and pulls him into the trees.
It’s not quite dusk, but the forest is already dark. The trees grow in a thick canopy, blotting out the sun. Luffy lets go of Usopp’s arm to peel cicada shells off the bark of various trees. He tells Usopp about the time Ace made him eat one on a dare and how it turned out to be alive still and started buzzing angrily when Luffy began to swallow it. In turn, Usopp tells him about the time the Usopp Pirates had a picnic in the woods only a particularly stubborn squirrel tried to run off with Usopp’s sandwich and he ended up playing tug-of-war with it, and Luffy laughs so hard he starts to cry.
“After you become pirate king, can we still play in the woods?” Usopp asks, plucking off a cicada shell for himself.
“The pirate king can do whatever he wants,” Luffy says. “And I wanna hang out with Usopp. So yeah. Duh.”
“Good,” Usopp says. “I like hanging out with you.” Was that a weird thing for him to say? Maybe it was a little weird. He’s really not trying to make it weird.
Luffy reaches up, grabs hold of a branch, and rockets himself up into the treetops. Usopp stands below, in a shower of leaves and twigs.
“Come up!” Luffy calls. His legs tumble to the ground like coils of rope. “Tie my ankles together,” Luffy says. Usopp, bemused and just a little wary, does as he’s told. “Now sit on ‘em,” Luffy orders and then lifts Usopp into the air, his knotted ankles serving as a makeshift swing. Usopp grips Luffy’s calves for balance. His skin is weirdly soft; Usopp’s fingertips leave dents in the rubber.
“You’re so weird,” Usopp says, pumping his legs back and forth as Luffy rocks him.
“Yeah.” Usopp can’t see Luffy’s face but he can hear the grin in his voice. “We should do this every island. Nami and Sanji can be in charge of camp and everything and then I’ll just hang out with you.”
“Every island?” Usopp asks sheepishly. “It’d probably get boring.”
“Why? I ain’t bored. Are you?”
Usopp laughs. “Nah. I’m not bored.”
“Usopp’s way too fun for me to be bored.”
“I’m all right.”
“You’re the best.”
Usopp’s stomach does another flip again. It doesn’t feel like quite like before, though. It feels like there’s something sitting heavy in the very pit of his stomach. “Can I get down now?” he mumbles.
Luffy drops him. Usopp stumbles, tries to keep his balance, and lands on his butt anyway. Luffy collapses next to him in a loose tangle of limbs.
“Usopp’s really great,” Luffy says again, as Usopp carefully undoes the knot in his ankles and avoids Luffy’s gaze.
“I think I’m…all right.”
“More than all right. You’re like the best Usopp I know.”
“I’m the only Usopp you know.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
He’s so nice and it just makes Usopp feel dumber. He focuses, finishes untangling the knot of Luffy’s legs.
Luffy snorts. “You’re tickling me.”
“How can rubber be ticklish?” Usopp replies, skeptical, but he trails his fingers up along the inside of Luffy’s leg, grinning at the twitch and the short giggle it gets him. He does it again and Luffy squawks in protest and tries to kick free. Usopp grins, pins him at the knee, cutting off his escape.
Luffy’s skin is strange. It’s slippery beneath his hands and soft, and surprisingly hot, like he might start letting off steam at any moment. He never noticed before. He’s never touched Luffy like this before.
Usopp yanks his hands away at once. He sits back on his heels.
Their crew is waiting for them. Sanji will be furious. There’s dinner to help prepare and tents to still set up, plenty left with which to make himself useful because he’s always trying to prove that he’s useful.
Luffy leans in, closing the distance between them once more. His head is tilted a little to one side and he’s smiling expectantly, but Usopp doesn’t know why. He can’t hear the drone of the cicadas or the chitter of bats at dusk: only his own heart racing, far faster than he’s ever been able to.
“Usopp,” Luffy says quietly.
“I’m…I’m,” Usopp flounders. He’s suddenly more scared than he’s ever been in his entire life. “I’m gonna go find more cicada shells,” he says at last.
“Oh,” Luffy says. “Okay.”
He leans back and Usopp tells himself that the heavy feeling in his gut is relief. He almost looked like a huge idiot just now. “First one back to camp with the most cicada shells has to smell Zoro’s boots,” he blurts out, and his relief doubles as Luffy laughs.
“You’re on.”
They dart off in opposite directions through the woods. He’s still bristling all over with nervous energy but the running helps: it lets him catch up with his own pounding heart, forces his breath to even out. His hands are shaking as he plucks cicada shells and tucks them into his pockets.
He finds a Hercules beetle clinging black and shiny and solitary to the trunk of an old maple. Usopp carefully tugs it free and grips it with both hands, in case it tries to fly off. Maybe later tonight, Usopp thinks, because it’s so much easier to think straight when he’s face to face with a beetle and not Luffy. Maybe he could confess tonight. He could give Luffy the beetle, and Luffy’s whole face would light up, and then Usopp would tell him how he feels. It’ll be weird. Nami will be grossed out. Sanji will probably make fun of them. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s weird but it’s also just right for him and Luffy. Like their walks in the woods, like when they sit along Merry’s side for hours at a time, fishing and sharing the space: it’s theirs, and theirs alone.
Usopp follows the column of smoke rising from the bonfire on the beach, all the way back to their camp. As he reaches the edge of the woods, he spots Luffy. Sanji’s with him, hands on his hips, glaring as Luffy prattles off some cheerful excuse about ditching them earlier. Luffy isn’t holding any cicada shells, and Sanji’s glare is one of fond exasperation as he picks stray leaves from Luffy’s hair.
Usopp stops short. He should wait. He doesn’t really want to have this conversation with Sanji standing right there, and it’s rude to interrupt anyway.
Sanji reaches out and runs his thumb along Luffy’s cheek, wiping away a smudge of dirt. He says something that makes Luffy burst out laughing — because it’s easy to make Luffy laugh, because Usopp’s not that special.
Usopp steps back into the woods. He crouches down behind a cluster of ferns and places the beetle on the ground. It scuttles around for a moment, uncertain. “It’s okay,” he tells it. “You should go. It’s better for you.”
The beetle hurries off into the dark. Usopp waits until he can make himself smile again, and then he straightens up again, turns around, and returns to camp.
When he was a kid, every story his mom told him about his dad started the exact same way: “Your dad loved you so much.”
He didn’t remember much about his father, even when he was young. He didn’t know his dad’s face, or the sound of his voice. What he knew about his dad was that he loved Usopp very much, and that he was sailing the Grand Line with a famous pirate captain and having all kinds of amazing adventures. Sometimes Usopp would lie awake at night and try to imagine what his dad was doing at that very moment: taming wild beasts perhaps, or visiting far off kings, or fighting off hordes of enemy bandits. All of this, while Usopp was tucked into bed, pretending to be asleep and listening through the thin walls of their small house as his mom finished washing up from dinner.
He knew, from the occasional letter that made its way to Syrup Village and the strange little treasures that appeared at their door in clumsily wrapped packages, that his dad still loved him and still thought about him. But his dad was busy with things that were far bigger and more important than anything that ever happened in Syrup Village; far more interesting than anything Usopp was doing or thinking or feeling.
It was okay, Usopp thought. It made sense. He wouldn’t have wanted his dad to miss out on something truly special.
Luffy drops in on him, right in the middle of target practice. The sun’s getting low on the horizon and the water’s gone a pretty, burnt orange in the fading glow. It’s just like Usopp had pictured it once. But this time, instead, he keeps his grip tight on the band of his slingshot and his gaze trained on a small pointy rock about a mile out.
“You almost done?” Luffy asks, poking him in the shoulder.
“I just started,” Usopp lies, taking aim.
“Well, you wanna do something else? What about tag? Do you wanna play tag?”
“Not right now,” Usopp says, and releases the band of his slingshot. He misses the rock by a good six feet.
“What about hide and seek? I promise I won’t peek this time.”
“I dunno,” Usopp mumbles. He takes a second shot and it goes soaring past the rock too. He’s getting worse at this. Even though he’s been making himself practice every day, he just keeps getting worse. His stomach clenches and he thinks he might be sick all down Merry’s side.
“You kinda suck today,” Luffy says after Usopp misses for a third time.
Usopp’s face feels hot and his eyes are itchy and tired from squinting into the distance. “You don’t have to hang out with me if you don’t want to,” he says before he can stop himself, and the raw edge in his voice is unfamiliar. He and Luffy look at one another in surprise.
“I know that,” Luffy says at last, brow furrowed. “But I wanna. Even if it’s boring.”
“I’m sorry I’m boring,” Usopp says, and now he wishes he’d kept the edge from before, if only because he can hear his voice starting to disintegrate into something watery and miserable.
“ You ain’t boring.”
“But…but I kind of am,” Usopp says. He tries to laugh and chokes on it. “I’m not that great. Not like Zoro or Sanji.”
“Who says?”
“They’re stronger than me. They’re cooler. They’re special—”
“That’s what makes you guys great. You’re all special,” Luffy says but his smile is bewildered.
“I don’t want to be like everyone else,” Usopp admits weakly. “I wanna be—” He’s tripping on his words. I want to be special to you, Usopp wants to say, but it sounds pathetic. “I just wanna be good enough,” he says instead.
“You are! You’re Captain Usopp.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Usopp,” Luffy says, a slight whine creeping into his voice. “Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not,” Usopp says and realizes he’s going to cry. He doesn’t want to cry, and he doesn’t want Luffy to see him cry. He puts his slingshot down and puts his face in his hands and waits until his eyes stop running and the snot has bricked up in his nose. He swallows around the ache lodged in his throat. He did this all the time when he was a kid: He shut himself down and away from the world and imagined that he was somebody, anybody else, until everything hurt a little bit less.
Only he opens his eyes and he’s still aboard Merry and Luffy is still there. He’s kneeling in front of Usopp, looking panicked. “Don’t cry,” Luffy says softly.
“I’m sorry,” Usopp says. “I’m trying to stop.”
Luffy begins to wipe the tears from Usopp’s face. He dries his hands on his shorts and then comes back again, wiping away more tears until Usopp snorts with miserable laughter. He’s no longer crying though.
Luffy peers at him. “Sorry, Usopp. I didn’t mean to say nothing dumb.”
“It’s okay,” Usopp mumbles. “Sometimes I just get nervous.”
“And it makes you cry?”
“Yeah. Sometimes my chest gets really tight and I can’t think or breathe, so I just try to make…me, everything, stop. Because I’m dumb.”
Luffy frowns, then grabs his hat and plops it on top of Usopp’s head. Usopp peers out from under the wide brim in surprise; Luffy shuffles in closer. Their legs get tangled together and Luffy’s forehead bumps gently against his. “I used to cry a bunch as a kid. But then Ace made fun of me so I stopped.” Luffy studies him. “I don’t wanna make fun of Usopp. How come you’re so nervous? Is it me?”
Usopp hesitates. “It’s because I really like you. And I wanted to tell you. But I didn’t think you’d like me back.”
“Of course I like you,” Luffy says, stricken. “Why wouldn’t I like you?”
“No,” Usopp says, and feels even dumber. “I like you. I like you.”
Luffy’s quiet, and then his hand finds Usopp’s. When he touched Luffy’s ankles, his skin was soft and ran hot. But his hands are cool and strong and rough. It’s not at all what he was expecting. It’s not at all like he imagined. Usopp likes it. He likes the feeling of being held by them. “I like you too,” Luffy says. “A lot. A whole lot.”
Usopp smiles, even though his throat still feels swollen and his eyes sting. “Yeah. I think…I think I knew that all along.”
“Then why’re you still crying?”
“Because…sometimes I just think too much. I dunno if I’m right or if I’m just making it up and then I get worried. And then my brain’s mean to me.”
“Your brain?”
“It tells me bad things and then I don’t…I can’t think. I can’t do anything.”
Luffy pulls back and presses his lips to Usopp’s forehead. “Stop being mean to my friend,” Luffy whispers.
When he pulls away, Usopp follows. It takes him a second to figure out which way to tilt his head because his nose is in the way, but then he finds just the right angle and then his mouth is against Luffy’s. Luffy’s lips are chapped; he can feel the curl of Luffy’s smile against his own mouth.
“I’m sorry about my nose,” Usopp mutters when they break apart. He’s always liked his nose, because it made him look more like his mom. But enough people have told him that it’s silly so they must be right.
Luffy only grins wider and kisses the very tip of Usopp’s nose. “I like it,” Luffy says. “I like everything about Usopp.”
This is the part where Usopp should say something cool. This is the part where he sweeps Luffy off his feet, all romantic like. But Luffy already said something cool, and Usopp can’t move well, with Luffy’s arms and legs encircling Usopp like vines. Pressed close to him, Luffy is solid and safe. Usopp sniffles and wipes his face one last time on the worn fabric of his armband. “Can we kiss some more?” he asks.
And Luffy laughs. And then they do just that.
They’re late to dinner. Sanji is not happy. Usopp knows, because unless they get caught in the middle of a storm or they’re under siege, dinner is always at 6, and because when he and Luffy eventually shuffle into the kitchen, Nami and Zoro are smirking at one another and Sanji is glaring down at the watch that Usopp fixed for him, aggressively tapping his finger against the little glass face.
“I joined this crew so I wouldn’t have to work as a damn waiter anymore,” Sanji snaps, ladling them both enormous bowls of stew. “You think I’m just hanging around all day, waiting to serve you?” he adds waspishly, shoving a dinner roll at Usopp and an entire loaf of bread at Luffy.
“What else are you good for?” Zoro asks and then ducks to avoid the hammer kick aimed at his head.
“Where were you guys?” Nami asks. Her voice is a little too high, a little too casual.
“Target practice,” Usopp says. “Right, Luffy?”
“Yeah.” Luffy’s face is pinched with effort and his gaze has slid awkwardly to the floor. “Target practice. Usopp shot a rock and an alligator and a big fish.”
Zoro raises an eyebrow and Sanji’s staring down the pair of them. As he takes his place at the table, Usopp belatedly realizes that Luffy’s hat is still dangling from his neck, that he forgot his slingshot on the deck, that he has no big fish to back up Luffy’s side of the story. His face is getting hot. His throat clenches weakly.
He waits, bracing himself. But nobody laughs at them. Nobody asks him any probing questions or cracks a joke about him and Luffy. Zoro starts in on his bowl of stew. Sanji goes back to washing dishes. Nami winks at Usopp from across the table. The moment passes, along with the tightness in his chest and his throat. He takes a sip of Sanji’s stew, which is delicious, and then another. He lets himself be grounded: by Zoro and Sanji’s familiar bickering; by Nami as she reads the map aloud to them as they creep ever closer to the entrance of the Grand Line; by Luffy’s hand as it finds his under the table, as their fingers lace together. He doesn’t know what happens now, only that Luffy will hold him through this, and then whatever comes next.