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When Garp first comes to you, you consider throwing the pot of soup in his face and running away before he can catch you. He’s only one man. You can probably run fast enough. Right?
But before you can shove him out of the way and start running, the inconsiderate bastard steps aside and shows you the kid. You can’t help but let your shock freeze you in the doorframe.
The boy has bruised knuckles and a black eye, freckles hidden under a messy curtain of black hair. He has his arms crossed tightly, sandals kicking at the dirt road, and a stiff posture that screams “don’t touch me.” Something almost like sympathy curls in the pit of your stomach before you crush it down. You aren’t a charity, and you don’t want to have anything to do with him. This place isn’t for kids, and you tell Garp as much.
Of course he doesn’t listen, the bastard, and so when he leaves with a shit eating grin, leaving you completely dumbfounded, you turn to the boy and attempt to set The Rules.
He barely makes eye contact, only glares belligerently ahead before stalking off with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. He kicks a stray rock in his path into the trees, and you can see that he has his hands clenched into fists. You scoff at the ingrate and leave him to fend for himself.
The days continue where you barely speak to him, nor him you, but you discreetly make sure that you see him at least once everyday.
Garp would probably kill you otherwise.
But he seems like an independent kid, and so you leave him to his own devices even when bags form under his eyes, making his glare all the more darker.
He’s not your kid, after all. Why should you care?
But then, one day, he brings back another boy. The newcomer is dressed in an expensive coat that has been torn and frayed at the edges with remnants of mud and dust caked onto the rolled up sleeves. He has a frumpy top hat with a pair of scratched goggles sitting on the satiny rim in place of a ribbon. You’re wondering if he’s stolen them from the inner city when he gives you a short bow and a grin somehow made toothier by his missing front tooth.
You wonder if you’re cursed. But the two boys are already inseparable, and they go off into the forest after stealing all the food. Ingrates. You start getting the gang to collect more resources before you end up starving.
Sometimes the boys come back scraped and bruised and covered in dirt, and you find yourself worrying even when they give each other beaming grins, showing off their treasure load that they’ve no doubt stolen.
You’re strangely proud that you house such fine thieves.
You yell at them to clean up quickly, damned kids, or else there won’t be any meat left. As they scramble towards to the baths, you realize that you’re almost smiling at them fondly. The realization makes you horrified and you turn away with a scoff and an extra hard scowl to make up for your slip in character.
When Garp shows up again (what is wrong with that man?) you find yourself frozen in the doorframe again because there’s. Another. Kid. And unlike the other two boys, he’s, god forbid, loud and energetic and he can’t seem to focus on one thing or stay still for more than 10 seconds. You give the boy the stink eye that goes completely ignored as his entire attention capacity has zeroed in on the contents of his nose.
And of course Garp leaves again with an evil chuckle, and you’re left with the third brat that, you’re sure, will be the death of you. He’s grinning at you unabashedly even with his disgusting pinky finger thrust up his nose, and you figure it’s time to lay down The Rules.
But then he gets distracted by Ace and you know that all is lost.
You are definitely cursed.
They’re tiny devils is what they are. Maybe even worse because there’s three of them and they’re just as bad as the next. Meal times are a battle you never thought you’d need to fight, and you watch in horror as the savages eat more than the rest of the band of thieves combined.
But you see that the older boys have become more open, more prone to laughing and grinning with each other and the people around them. You see how they act more like kids and less like tiny prisoners haunted by things they can’t help. You watch Luffy scamper after them, and how they subconsciously make sure that he’s always between them.
You find yourself patching up their rumpled clothes after every death defying misadventure that shouldn’t be allowed to exist, and you worry when, one day, they don’t show up for dinner. You end up smoking three packs of cigarettes while you sit by the window overlooking the road home. You are definitely not waiting. You just don’t want to clog up the main house with cigarette smoke. Before long you’ve smoked through your entire stash of cigarettes, ashes piled high on the floor at your feet and staining your shoes. What a sorry display you must make. Your grimace is as bitter as the smoke that curls in your lungs. You don’t know what you’re trying to do.
They’re not your boys after all.
It’s past midnight when you decide to go to bed, and your bones feel like they’ve rusted in place, creaking and groaning like you’ve suddenly aged thirty years.
You don’t sleep for another three hours.
The next morning, you see that they’ve tracked mud (again) all over the floors that you just cleaned the other day, and you just want to curse Garp to hell and back for every misfortune that has plagued you since those three demons stepped foot in your home. But then you see that the mud tracks lead to the window where a bunch of crumpled flowers and dandelions (to which you are allergic) have been clumsily arranged in a broken glass jar, smudges of oil and dust smearing across the surface, and you find that you’ve forgiven them almost instantly.
There’s a handwritten note with your name scrawled neatly on the front in Makino’s familiar writing. With trepidation, you slowly open the note, convinced that it will somehow explode in your face. But all it says is “Thank you” with the crude initials “ASL” written in blocky uneven strokes at the bottom, each letter with a unique flourish that identifies each boy; The A has sharp edges all in red. Probably Ace’s attempts at drawing flames; The S is in blue ink, strangely neat as if he was used to writing with a proper nib, but still crooked and smudged like he was in the process of elbowing someone out of the way while trying to write; The L is the largest, all black ink and wide strokes streaking across half the page. There are ink splatters in the corner and seeping through the paper, fingerprints pinching the edges of the folded note.
It’s the best surprise you have ever received.
Your allergies start acting up, tears pooling at the corner of your eyes and clogging up your nose.
Damned dandelions.
You pick up the jar of flowers and set them on your bedside table. It does have a certain charm, and you say as much to anyone who bothers to listen.
The next morning you find that they’ve ransacked the house for supplies to build their fort, leaving a wave of broken tools and scraped floors in their wake.
Your eye twitches.
You yell at them for hours even though you know it’s useless. But you find that you don’t really mind that they’ve never followed The Rules, or that they’ve caused permanent wrinkles to set in your face.
While they’re outside terrorizing the world, you press the half dead flowers in a book and set the broken glass jar on your window sill, the note tucked securely inside. And each morning before they wake up you make sure that they’re safe and warm in their shack of a fort even though you don’t manage to avoid all of their traps.
Damned kids.
It’s a strange relationship for sure, but you wouldn’t trade it for the world.
They are your boys, after all.