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"Well," Luffy says, staring at another boy near him, who's evidently grinning like this is the funniest thing he had ever seen. "This is weird."
The guy the sentence was directed at snorts, and then has the audacity to laugh at the situation at hand, swinging back and forth on the lampstand, rubber limbs making cartoony sound every time they lengthen and snap back in place. It's rather surrealistic, and Luffy half-expects to be dreaming, but the throbbing red patch of skin, that he made by slapping himself as hard as he could, begs to differ. The laughing all sounds like a taunt, but he is, honestly, far too away from the whole situation, that it doesn't even register as anything — much less a sound. Luffy has an urge to poke the intruder, — or, well, hit the dude too, or throw him outside through the open window of his room and forget he exists, completely, — just to make sure that roughly two and a half inch man here is, in fact, real.
How did he even get here?
Actually, Luffy knows how — he saw it play before his own two eyes. The thing is, he still has no fucking idea how that happened.
Maybe he really, really should've checked the weird mangas he bought last week, not just grab-and-go, but to be fair, no one sane enough would anticipate a whole-ass mini-person to crawl out of the pages of a perfectly unassuming comic. The rustling of paper, now scattered around the desk, is still ringing in his ears, and the sheer awe of seeing a small hand ripping itself from the random frame of one of the accidentally opened latest chapters still stays perfectly clear in his memory. The picture gaining a resemblance of color as in powers through the barrier of ink and whatever kept it in is not something he is going to forget, that's for sure.
And now there's a weird shit going on right in front of his eyes and it's just-
He's just- just-
Luffy grabs the man, snatching the propelled body mid-air.
A squawk of protest, once again, hammers the idea of it all being as real as his life was to this point flat into his head. It takes a second to accept that, though, and when it truly hits, all he can think of is:
Oh dear god, this is real.
The skin feels like rubber under his fingers, which is, considering, should not be all that surprising, besides the point that this is fucking skin and it has texture to prove that. Luffy can tell the scars, the rough edges of the X-shaped crust, the cotton, — or whatever it really is, — of the open vest, and it's all just over-the-top for the thing to be his imagination. As much as it can run wild sometimes, maybe even most of the time, he's not a patient man, especially for details. He feels the boy in his palm breathe, not-exactly fighting not-exactly tight hold, and it's very evident in the way his chest leans into his hand harder or lighter from time-to-time.
He doesn't have a long enough attention span to make his imaginable little guy feel like fucking rubber, let alone breathe like any human would. So it's definitely not his doing.
Another laugh, that sounds eerily similar to his own, rings in Luffy's ears. The lengthening hands inlace once, twice, perhaps even thrice around his fingers, and he feels the running heat from the tight squeeze. He uncrules his fist almost completely, watching with rapt attention and underlined fascination as the miniature man weasels through flesh obstacles like some very lively worm on a string. His hand might as well become a jungle gym, fingers twirling and forcing yet another fit of giggles from the sudden guest, and Luffy can no longer contain his own amusement, a shishishi leaving his mouth before he could swallow it.
The stanger's head snaps to look him in the eyes, and suddenly Luffy feels like he stepped somewhere he shouldn't have.
"What are you?" He asks, because Luffy was a person of many talents, and neither having tact nor fear was included in that list.
The boy blinked up at him, the strange, flowing colors of his irises hypnotic. Luffy thought the blink had a note of confusion in it, from the way the stranger's brow seemed to furrow in thought. He could almost see the cogs in that little brain spin, and, quite suddenly, he thought if this is how he looked to the outside world, head cocked to the side with bemusement lighting his features when he didn't understand the word pattern or a statement.
His eyes continued to drift over other features while the boy pondered over something in his arm, from freckled face to weirdly bleached clothes, until he spotted-
"Huh." Luffy starts again too soft to be heard, blinking at the interestingly-familiar hat on the guy's head. He notes the running stitches, three of them, on the top, takes in the red ribbon on the base with some sort of paper tucked behind it, and concludes that he's seen it before, somewhere. It's not immediately recognisable, which might mean he saw it passing, but the tug of some kind of intrusive instinct told him it can't be it.
Then, something lights up in his head and Luffy snaps his attention towards the door of his room — or, rather, to the hat that hangs innocently near it. Faded red ribbon looks all the more vibrant the faster he switches his gaze between the big version and the little one, the sticky paper-reminder that he took behind it all the more white. Straw is not the most desired material in the modern world, but this one was special, this one was a gift, and he-
He…
Luffy might be holding in his hand someone more than a simple trespasser, as if it wasn't obvious from the size alone.
"This is so weird." He whispers, awestruck.
And so unbelievably cool, he thinks afterwards, giddily.
The man in his hand begins to move again, albeit slower than before. Luffy eyes him for a moment longer before unceremoniously deposing him back on the desk.
The stranger(?)'s gaze bore into him, as if trying to drill a couple of holes into his body. Luffy would've been unnerved by this, or perhaps he should've been unnerved, but the same batshit weird understanding sparks between them and he just- knows that the attention is not yet in the point of being a threat. Assertion, maybe, calculation on the odds and upper-hands. He almost sees the exact moment the other's eyes land on the same straw hat behind him, quickly scanning his face back, brows furrowing as if he's poking something with a stick; almost sees the exact moment his face lights up in realization.
The scar, — oddly light and shining, seeping gold, — still holds a familiar shape of receding moon, exactly two stitches holding the skin in place.
Luffy pokes the stranger (but is he a stranger, really?) again.
"Who are you?"
And that seems to snap the needed switch.
"I'm Monkey D. Luffy." He intones almost automatically, but then brightens the grin impossibly wide and maybe a little bit unhinged. "And I'm going to become the King of Pirates!"
Luffy's own smile stretches his features.
"Tell me more."