Chapter Text
Adulthood is just grieving in secret. This is something Luffy has only recently begun to come to terms with. It's something he suspects Law came to terms with long before he was an adult in the eyes of the World Government. It's something Luffy thinks the Straw Hats crew now knows all too well.
Adulthood is grieving the little things; lost friendships, family growing older, the person you thought you'd grow into and the person you grew out of. It's the person you thought your loved one would eventually become but never grew old enough for you to meet. It's grieving the islands left behind, the meals eaten so quickly that you don't appreciate them as they should be appreciated (it's not just the food that wasn't appreciated as deserved).
It's grieving the sun that has just sunk below the horizon, the day that has just been lived that can never be redone, the week that has just passed that you cannot remember what happened at the start, the month that flew by and you are certain you have missed someone's birthday back home (home, could Foosha be considered home anymore? Perhaps Luffy is also grieving the truth that the Sunny is now more home that Foosha ever was), the years that have passed where you have managed to make oh, so many new friends that you have managed to create a new family from them but you have also discovered how awful the world can truly be. You suppose that you are also grieving that lost naivety, the childlike innocence that everyone has the ability to be good and kind in this world. That seasoned pirates could all be as parental as Shanks and not selfish and cruel like Teach.
It's greiving the bigger things. It's Ace's birthday. Would he be proud of the man you grew into? It's soon Law's birthday, now older than his Cora-san ever got to be. Would he be happy with how Law chose to use his gift of freedom?
The grief mounts as the years go by; the smaller greivences make mountains out molehills, towering far taller than you would ever grow, even with your rubber limbs; the larger ones leaving a gaping hole in your heart that will never fill. You find free time to mourn as you lie awake, bottling up the negative emotions as to not burden your crewmates, your friends, your family. They all have their own grief to work through and as a captain, you cannot add to that with your own but can help lessen their pain. You learn that to be an adult, you grieve in secret, in the security of your hammock long after the ship falls into a peaceful slumber.