Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The swashing of the ocean against the hull of their warship was not its usual calming balm to Smoker’s senses. Their soldiers milling about below on the dock and on the deck, chattering and playing poker and generally being small menaces irked Smoker more than they normally would have too. The papers splattered across his desk, maps and crew rotations and supply lists overflowing their file cabinet were not just a small inconvenient fact of life, no, in fact, today they particularly annoyed him with their whisper of to-do bullshit. 

But, none of that held a single candle to the absolute fury he felt when looking down at his palm. Which he kept doing, in hopes that what he saw there was not real. It seemed so innocent, the little number there, just a simple line. He’d written this stupid number an uncountable amount in his lifetime, hell, wasn’t this the lucky number? Hit three of this on a slot machine at a casino and kaching! Retirement for a normal person who didn’t have an incurable need to fix the stupid problems certain shitty individuals liked to menace upon society.

So not him. So much for luck. 

Movement distracted Smoker from gazing at the stupid fucking seven on his palm, his eyes zeroing in on his office couch. It was the first time she’d moved in about an hour, equally as absorbed with her own stupid number on her own fucking palm. Tashigi fidgeted, straightening her glasses, tucking a lock of hair behind an ear, adjusting the length of her jacket sleeves, drew her shoulders back and resettled herself nigh imperceptibly on the mismatched couch cushion. She was sitting on the one with the coffee stains from her very first day under his command. 

“Sir, I’m so sorry Sir, I’ll take accountability! ” she’d yelped under his glare, hot coffee all over his pants, the floor, the couch in Loguetown. A ditz. The ditziest girl he’d ever met, somehow meant to assist him with catching pirates twice her damn size. 

And yet, when he’d come to G5, he’d brought 2 things. The couch, and Tashigi. 

Like a portal through time, Tashigi finally turned towards him and bowed her head. “Sir, I’m so sorry, Sir. I’ll take accountability!” her bottom lip wobbled, but still, she was putting on a brave face.

Smoker pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache forming behind his eyes. This wasn't a simple matter of spilled coffee. 

No, this was not simple at all in fact. And, unlike the spilled coffee, this was not entirely Tashigi’s fault. 

She may have been at fault for tripping, but she couldn't have predicted her damn sword flying out of her hand to cut the cord holding that chandelier up, and what is up must come down. In this case, on their target, killing them. Any other time, this could be a job well done. One less bastard pirate in the world. Except, of course, right before that…

Said pirate, one Agate Encanta, decided to use her devil fruit for evil one last time. And he, Smoker, hadn't been able to stop her, because he'd been distracted. By a haki infused kick to the jewels (absolutely humiliating, Smoker hated pirates), which made Tashigi rush in to his rescue like a fool and the rest is history. 

“That should be my line,” Smoker finally responded. Tashigi opened her mouth to argue, but seemed to think better of it. Perhaps it was the act of him lighting a third cigar, but the times were dire. 

After all, it wasn't everyday one was cursed to fall in love in one week or die. 

Smoker despised pirates.

An hour was a long time. Also a short time. Or maybe it was just her unusual awareness around time that made Tashigi particularly sensitive, due to the whole… dying thing. 

The Fall in Love or Die thing. Three hours since Smoker-sa– ahem, Vice Admiral Smoker, her superior officer, her mentor, her comrade in arms, her fellow marine, her… she was running out of ways to describe him that maintained the distance between them at a professional level. 

Tashigi made a pitiful noise in the back of her throat. 

Three hours since sitting awkwardly in his office, claiming to take accountability with absolutely no clue on how to do… that. Three hours since he'd dismissed her, three hours since she'd climbed up to the crows nest to hide contemplate her options. 

“We’re really in it this time, Shigure,” she mumbled, not for the first time, to her sword. The clear sky overhead was turning a beautiful deep purple, the city of Ciego on Benediction Isle a near fairytale backdrop. Warm lanterns lined the streets, trees glowing with tealights, bonfires on the beach, violin drifting on the slight breeze. 

And above, the twinkling stars just coming out like fireflies. Almost lovely enough to distract her from the… dying. Because how in the world was she supposed to fall in love in a week? 

With him of all people?

“Called HQ.” 

Tashigi nearly jumped out of her skin, yelp squeaking into the air, half swallowed in embarrassment. She turned, saluting so fast she knocked her glasses askew, something she hadn't done in years. You know what? 7 days was too long, death could come get her now. 

Vice Admiral Smoker ignored her, body becoming human from smoke, and leaned on the railing. Her eyes landed on the kanji for justice on the back of his jacket. 

“Way I see it,” he said after a pause. Perhaps he had been expecting her to respond. Oh god, he probably had, instead she'd just stood there like an idiot, staring. She could have said something intelligent like “What did they say at HQ?” Or “Can they help us?” Or “Good idea Sir, I haven't been doing anything useful for three hours in comparison, sorry I let you down.”

On second thought, staying silent was actually a genius move. 

“...Try or give up.” Oh he’d been speaking. And she hasn't been listening. Tashigi wondered if the fall from the crows nest could kill her. 

Smoker was looking at her, and she had an inkling that he knew she hadn't been listening because there went the corner of his eye. Twitching. 

“Uhm…” Tashigi bit her lip. He rolled his eyes and looked away, back out towards Ciego. A drunk man was wandering down the dock, singing something bawdy at the top of his lungs. 

“I said we have two options. Try, or lay down and die.”

Try…?

“Try to fall in love?” the words fell out of her mouth tactlessly and they both winced. 

“Yeah, that.” 

A long but not long enough moment of silence passed between them. Tashigi wasn't sure what to say. About a million questions crossed her mind. How does one “fall in love”? In a week at that? How would they measure progress? How–

“So what do you want to do?” Smoker was looking at her, eyes meeting hers. 

“W-what?” Her brain jammed, derailed by the question. 

“It's your choice.” 

“...My choice?” Tashigi swallowed. This was not her area of expertise. Swords? Swords she could do. Order their men to task? Got it. Follow Smoker-san’s instincts to hunt the Straw Hats? Easy. 

Decide to fall in love? 

She joined him at the railing hesitantly. “Why is it my choice?” She asked after taking a deep breath. She took another one and squared her shoulders, trying to quiet her mind. 

Perhaps she needed to tackle this like she would mastering a new technique. Focus, move slowly with purpose, and most of all, stay calm. 

“You can't force love, idiot.” Smoker sent a glare her way. Hearing the word love come out of his mouth was almost comical. Tashigi had heard a lot of words from her commander, but never that one before. A smile turned up the corner of her lips as he looked away again, but this time with an unfamiliar hunch to his shoulders. 

Understanding struck her like lightning. He was just as uncertain as she was, just as lost, just as bewildered and confused. He just hid it better. 

And somehow, that made the answer easy. 

“Then we try, Smoker-san.” Tashigi nodded, hoping that she was giving off an air of confidence, or conviction and not the actual anxiety that buzzed under her skin. 

He nodded slowly back and she took that moment to take charge. Sort of. 

“The question is… er, how?”

Chapter Text

Okay, that should be it… Tashigi stepped back from her work, wiping sweat from her head. On Smoker’s office wall was The Plan. Her eyes roved over it. Top left, the central questions that needed to be answered. One, how to fall in love? Two, what is love? Three, how to measure if love is occurring. The whole rest of the corkboard, which was normally covered in maps and pirate hunting information, was now dedicated to answering those questions. She’d drawn from memory everything she could, then made her list of additional items to research. Like dates. She’d been on dates. Get a drink, talk about swords, which sometimes culminated in bringing her date home to show them her sword collection, and if she was really lucky, they would be willing to do it again. 

Problem: they were nowhere near her apartment on base, and that Smoker-san already knew all about her sword collection. Probably more than anyone else did, actually. So… Tashigi grimaced and mentally kicked herself back to square one. 

The door opened behind her, heavy boots stepping into the office bringing with them a smell. A heavenly smell. Rich and bright with possibility, warm with promise. A smell that said hope, purpose, the power to seize the future. 

Coffee~ 

“What the hell.” Smoker stared at the wall, frozen in his tracks in the doorway. 

Tashigi turned around, zeroing in on the steaming hot pot of coffee in his hand. “Good morning Sir!” She hurried to grab a mug off the coffee table, the one she always used in his office. An early beam of sunlight was shining through the porthole window, the sky turning a pretty lavender. 

She stared at him expectantly, a frown rising slowly as instead of bringing the coffee pot over, he walked toward the board wearing an expression not unlike the one he normally saved for when a pirate did something unexpected. 

“Tashigi.”

“Yes, Sir?” She offered him a bright smile as he turned to look at her. He looked back at the board, then at her, then back at the board, then back to her. Her commander was just full of odd expressions this morning. At last, with a long sigh, he walked the short distance to the couch and dropped onto it, surrendering the coffee pot. 

With glee, she seized it, pouring it into her mug and bringing it to her nose to inhale that wonderful, glorious scent. Oh coffee. If only it was as easy to feel the way she felt about coffee with someone else. Anyone else. The fact that she would be attempting to do just that with the man sitting a foot away from her was a thought Tashigi immediately banished to the back of her mind with an amazing bitter burning sip of her beloved breakfast beverage. 

“Did you sleep at all?” came Smoker-san’s voice, stopping her internal litany of praise for coffee. 

“No, Sir.” 

Smoker sighed.

Unlike Tashigi, Smoker had slept. Sleeping on a problem was often a good way to solve it, Kuzan had taught him that, though that idiot often took it too far. Unfortunately, he’d need probably an endless amount of sleep to solve this one. 

Smoker watched a few of his soldiers try to entice Tashigi to go out for drinks with them, their spirits high from unexpected shore leave. Their “Wow, Smo-yan, finally learning to live a little!” and “Knew Smo-yan had it in him to relax!” had made him want to throw them all in the ocean, but the truth was, there was no way he could run a warship and do his job while trying to find a way to break this stupid curse at the same time. 

So, like Tashigi with her… psycho board, he was prioritizing. 

As their efforts failed, leaving just the two of them left on deck, Tashigi wandered over to him. She had that coffee addled sheen to her brown eyes. He knew that look, she wore it every month the day after her sword magazine came in. She needed food or she would enter a dangerous phase of being that he referred to as Dork Ascension. Internally, of course. He wouldn’t be caught dead saying those words out loud. 

She was fiddling with her jacket sleeves, standing at a slightly wider distance from him than he figured was necessary. “So um… Sir, what now?”

“We get a drink.” 

Smoker had only ever been to Benediction Isle once before, and not to their capital port city of Ciego. No, he’d been run ragged on the other side of the island for a training exercise and most of what he remembered was laying in the dirt trying to get air into his lungs while Kuzan ineffectually hit on Doll. 

He would have preferred the training exercise. Instead, he pushed the door open to a little cafe with a striped awning and hand painted images of food on the windows. It reminded him a little bit of Loguetown, but without the Pirate King execution theming. 

Tashigi followed behind him, a clipboard with a notebook cradled in her arms. The place wasn’t too packed, the smell of baking in the air. According to a massive sign over the ordering bar, they made “The number 3 voted pastries in Ciego!”. 

The cashier smiled at them, a reedy looking thing with a pencil mustache and a short chef’s hat. In fact, all the staff had the mustache and hat combo. Some of them clearly having the mustache taped on. Tourist theming was a special hell no matter where you went. 

He placed an order for their breakfast platter and a beer. It was only nine in the morning, but who could blame him for needing a drink after seeing Tashigi’s how to fall in love board? He surveyed the tables, looking for one that wasn’t surrounded by tourists or worse, people on their honeymoon. “And for you, Miss?” the cashier asked.

“Um, uh, um, Smoker-san?” Tashigi’s voice was slightly higher than usual. 

“What?” he responded as his eyes fell on a table away from the windows and close to the bathroom, which was probably why it hadn’t been nabbed yet. 

“Are… are you p-paying or me?” 

He turned back around to look at her, eyebrows furrowed. The fuck was she on about? The cashier was looking between them quickly, stupid hat swaying. Tashigi adjusted her glasses and took a deep breath, face taking on a serious demeanor like she was above to deliver one of her stern lectures to their men about proper etiquette. “Well, traditionally on a date, the man pays, but that’s outdated and silly, but I also don’t want to offend you because that would–”

“Date?” he blinked. There was no fucking way he’d heard that right. 

She blinked. “Is… isn’t that what this is?” The cashier began sweating, their mustache drooping. 

“No this isn’t a date, idiot!” he barked, a hot flush creeping up the back of his neck. A collective gasp from the people waiting in line behind them, one older woman shaking her head at him admonishingly. Worse, the look on Tashigi’s face was some weird mix of hurt and relief and embarrassment. 

“Just double the fucking order, and an extra water,” Smoker growled at the cashier who withered under his gaze as he slammed down a wad of beri and dragged Tashigi away to the table in the back. 

They sat in awkward silence waiting for their food to arrive, Tashigi opening her notebook and writing something down, not meeting his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Alright, time to get this back on track. 

“I was thinking,” he started, Tashigi looking up at him, giving him her full attention, which had never been awkward before but now left him feeling slightly off kilter. Not something he liked. 

“Yes, Sir?” Over her head, he could see a couple of honey mooners holding hands and gazing at each other with enough affection in their eyes to make him spit.

“What do you know about curses?” He groused, refocusing on her face. 

Tashigi pushed her glasses up then tapped her bottom lip. “Well, they don’t tend to end well unless they are, um, broken, Sir.” Smoker rolled his eyes. No shit. 

“What else?” 

She tilted her head in thought as their food arrived. He picked up syrup for his stack of pancakes. At least they didn’t skimp on the serving size, something Loguetown restaurants were famous for. 

“I suppose, they tend to be very specific.” Tashigi said after poking at her pile of scrambled eggs with a little bit of trepidation. He didn’t know what for. Whatever she didn’t eat tended to go to him anyway. 

She was, however, on the right track. “And I guess they are as much about intention as they are specifics…” she added and Smoker shot her a toothy grin. That’s why he kept her around, she had a sharp mind in there under the clumsiness. 

“Do you remember exactly what Encanta said?” he asked, cracking open his beer. His mood was improving with the addition. 

“Curse be upon ye, curse be upon thee, love in a week or you’ll be gone, hee hee!” Tashigi said verbatim, dead pan in her delivery and complete with pointing at herself and Smoker. He nodded, making a face at the memory. Fucking pirate.

“So, what are the specifics and intention of this curse?” Smoker pushed on. Tashigi’s eyebrows furrowed as she took a bite out of her blueberry scone. She looked at it in surprise delight, taking another, larger bite, before refocusing on him. 

“Well, it’s about us,” she held up her palm, the number seven now changed to a six. “And we clearly have a time limit.” Tashigi stopped chewing as she thought about the rest of it, no doubt coming to the same conclusion as him. “It’s less clear what the “love in a week or you’ll be gone” part means exactly.”

“Yep, which means we need more information.” He tore into his hashbrowns. “And I bet there’s some stupid loophole, there always is, especially with pirates.” Pirates rarely had honor, trickery was more their deal. “So all we need to do is find the loophole and we can get done with this farce.” 

Tashigi nodded slowly, far less enthusiastically than what he’d been expecting. She had that look in her eye, the one that said she had thoughts she wasn’t sure how to voice. 

“What?” he growled. She bit her lip, pushing her half eaten plate toward him absentmindedly. 

“It’s not that I think you’re incorrect, Sir but…” she fidgeted with the hem of her jacket. 

“Spit it out.” He tore into the last scone, only then regretting that he’d let her eat the rest of them. It was pretty good. 

“Well… what if you’re wrong? What if there isn’t a loophole?” she took a nervous drink of her beer, immediately making a face then pushing it towards him to drink the glass of water instead. He grimaced, leaning back in his chair. Truthfully, he hadn’t wanted to pay much attention to that thought. His gut was telling him to find the loophole, and he didn’t like to ignore his gut. On the other hand, Encanta had been notoriously tricky and making him hunt for a loophole and ignore the obvious solution was equally likely. 

But that was the much, much harder path. He did not have a great track record of falling in love, and more than that… what came after breaking the curse? Thinking that far ahead was like seeing a rogue wave on the horizon, so he shoved the thought away. 

“What if…” Tashigi started, then stopped, looking nervous again. He watched a bunch of different small expressions cross her face, before she met his questioning gaze, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. “What if we try both?” 

“Both,” Smoker said slowly. She nodded. 

“We look for the loophole, but also… try to figure out the um, the uh… The l-love t-thing.” They both looked away from each other, his gaze landing on her donated beer. He picked it up to finish it. Two light beers was not enough for this conversation. 

“And how do you propose we do that?” he finally asked, dreading the answer as he recalled her corkboard hanging in his office. 

“To be honest, I’m not exactly sure Sir, but…” Tashigi sucked in a breath, “But I suppose we could do what normally people do and um, do, uh, things.” He stared at her as her face turned a darker shade of pink. “Together. I mean, do things together. Like dates and not like uh, other things!” Her face was redder than the bottle of ketchup on the table. 

He had no fucking clue what she meant by other things though, too preoccupied with the concept of dates. Dates, plural. With Tashigi. He knew how to date. Get a drink, talk about pirates or justice, end up back at his apartment, and then never see them again because he shipped out to some other island. 

“Right,” he muttered. “Dates.” She fiddled with her jacket sleeve and he lit up a cigar. A long moment of quiet passed by until he knew one of them had to speak. And because he was her commanding officer, it had to be him. Rank was so much bullshit. “Then we’ll start with the research, because we can’t do either without that.” 

Tashigi beamed at him. 

His office looked like a bomb had gone off. Case files and books from the local bookstore covered every available surface, a second corkboard up next to Tashigi’s Love? one. This one was dedicated to Encanta and what they knew about her exploits, and of course, the Curse Curse Fruit. 

Smoker took a long drag of a cigar as he got off the den den with HQ. They would be digging through the archives to find more information on the Curse Curse fruit and successful attempts at thwarting it. That would unfortunately take a while, but his rank came in handy to speed things up. He hoped. Otherwise he would have to take drastic measures… like call Hina. 

And he really did not want to call Hina. 

Tashigi was poking through an ornate and fat book, which the bookstore clerk had recommended as a comprehensive collection of fairy tales from the four blues. What a crock of shit this whole situation was. Combing fairy tales to see how people broke fictional curses. But Tashigi had looked him in the eye in the damn shop and said “Fiction is often based on reality.” which he couldn’t really argue with.

Especially because it meant she was trying to help him with the loophole instead of focusing on the other strategy. He got up from his desk to pick up one of the other books and help her with the search on the couch. 

She turned a page as he sat down, her finger sliding across the paragraphs, her lips curling in disgust. “That good, huh?” Smoker asked, grabbing a tome titled “The Princess and the Knight”. 

“This one has a curse but it doesn’t end well… they get turned into frogs and boiled in a pot.” Tashigi turned another few pages. Smoker grimaced. They still didn't know what “You’ll be gone” meant, and he certainly hoped it wasn’t that outcome. 

He opened his own book, skimming it. Pretty typical fare, a princess is cursed by a witch, her guard captain taking the role of her savior. 

Tashigi closed her book with a snap a few minutes later. Her eyes had lost the caffeine shine, and now looked tired. And worried. “I was thinking about…” she looked over at the board wall, his eyes following her gaze to the Love? board. 

“And a lot of these tales… they never really do things like go out to dinner or um, stuff that people really do, but they always fall in love or something anyway,” she continued. 

“Real life is boring,” Smoker shrugged. A disappointed pout shaped on her lips, followed by a sigh. 

“But… real people never seem bored doing those things. Love isn’t… boring, is it?” Smoker wasn’t sure if she was asking him or thinking out loud. “My mother and father never seemed bored, even when it was just doing dishes… or, being in the same room.” A strange look crossed her eyes. Smoker frowned slightly. He had no idea about that. His father certainly seemed pretty bored with his mother, which is why he was always running off. But then again, he always came back. 

He looked down at the book again. It was illustrated, a witch dressed in a black cloak cursing the princess, who didn’t want to fall in love with anyone, to fall in love. A stylized speech bubble said “Love love, it’s for you though you don’t want it boo hoo hoo! Kiss by midnight or thee be dead, off off rolls your head! Hee Hee!” 

“So I was thinking, would you… would you spend some time, with me, tomorrow?” Tashigi asked softly. Smoker looked up from the book to find her looking at him hesitantly. They were already going to be spending time together researching tomorrow, but he had a feeling that wasn’t what she meant. He swallowed. 

After a long moment, he nodded. Once. Solidly, like agreeing to a shift rotation. She nodded back, once, like she too was agreeing to a shift rotation. They both returned to their research, the hours stretching until it was night once again. 

He breathed out a sigh, once again reading about a witch cursing a kingdom. This one turned all their horses into fish, which seemed more helpful than not since the kingdom was surrounded by the ocean, when he felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder. 

He glanced over and stiffened. All the caffeine had finally left Tashigi, the crash coming in. In this case, leaving her to fall asleep in the middle of looking through another fairytale, gravity pulling her over to lean against him. 

There were dark circles forming under her eyes. Smoker shifted slowly, taking the book from her lap and placing her glasses on the table. He would wake her up, but he knew from experience that waking her during the crash would force her into a second wind, and then a much bigger crash. Useful during emergencies, but not right now. 

He grabbed his coat and draped it over her before continuing the search. His turn to pull an all-nighter. 

Chapter Text

It was a dark and stormy night, and she was standing at the top of a tower on a castle overlooking the ocean. She was wearing her uniform but Shigure wasn’t attached to her hip. She frowned, where was her sword? She needed Shigure! 

“Hee hee!” a woman in all black cackled evilly! Shigure was in her hand and she waved her around most unprofessionally! 

“Hey that’s not how you use a sword!” she yelled, moving forward but the rain made the ground slippery and she tripped. 

“Hee hee!” Suddenly, Tashigi was standing again, the woman in black pointing at her with Shigure, but Tashigi’s hands were occupied. She looked down to see she was holding the hands of a large toad in a suit, looking at her with eyes bulging. The witch kept laughing and pointing at them. She was being pulled towards the frog for a kiss! She tried to pull away, she didn’t want to kiss a gross frog! Somehow Tashigi knew if she did, she’d turn into a frog too! 

Closer and closer but then out of the corner of her eye, she spotted him. Smoker-san! She called out to him desperately, but he didn’t seem to notice her. Why wasn’t he coming to help her? Why couldn’t he see her?! She was right there!

“Hee hee!”

With a gasp, Tashigi awoke, bolting upright. Gone was the rain and wind and frog, replaced with smoke hazy against the ceiling, seagulls squawking outside in the crack of dawn light, and Smoker snoring with his feet up on his desk. A tower of books was teetering near the edge of the desk, another on his face. He must have fallen asleep researching. Smoke was drifting off his shoulders, floating around the room. 

A wisp curled around her wrist as she reached for her glasses on the coffee table. It was then that she noticed his coat twisted around her. She must have been thrashing in her sleep. And who wouldn’t?! She didn’t want to marry a toad, much less become one. Tashigi glared down at the number on her palm. Five. Five days to break the curse, and she felt no closer to doing so. All this curse research only made her feel… bad. Weren’t fairy tales supposed to be uplifting, or hopeful, or impart important lessons like “don’t forget to write your mother” or “eat your vegetables”? 

She looked back at Smoker, her fingers touching his jacket on her lap. Slowly, carefully, she got off the couch and approached him. Sleeping like that in his desk chair couldn’t be all that comfortable, but she could make it a little less miserable when he woke up. She took the book off his face, a princess and a knight and a too familiar looking witch on the cover, setting it on the pile. It wobbled ominously, but she was too preoccupied with looking at the intense frown that pulled his eyebrows into nearly a V shape. A roil of smoke shot up towards the ceiling to match. 

He had the characteristic look that he donned from all nighters, normally slicked back hair taking on a shaggy shape, like it had when she first met him. She needed to trim it again, the sides were getting shaggy. She followed the shape of his jaw, five o’clock shadow much darker. He was going to be a grouch today because of the angle his neck had been at for hours. Another bubble of grumpy smoke swirled upward. 

At least she wasn’t alone in having crappy dreams. Five days. Just five days. Tashigi took a deep breath. Well, time was a wasting, back to the grind! In this case, the coffee grind. And maybe breakfast too. Smoker would be less grumpy if she could find a good breakfast sandwich. 

Tashigi leaned against the counter of the three best pastry diner in Ciego. The cashier was the same as yesterday, though this time they had more securely attached their mustache. And had their hat also had a mustache? She sipped her to-go coffee, the glorious heat of it sparkling in her mouth.

Truly, coffee was life. If only she could somehow combine it with a sword. A sword that shoots coffee, or maybe a coffee that can turn into a sword! That’s what Vegapunk should really have been working on. Her eyes roved the diner, glasses pushed up onto her head to avoid steaming up. 

It was less crowded at this hour, only little old folks and a guy with nine dogs hurriedly eating bacon, the dogs staring at him with hope in their eyes that he would share. What a peaceful existence it must be to not have to worry about turning into a frog and being boiled in five days. 

The coffee tasted a little more bitter in her mouth and Tashigi pursed her lips. They needed to make headway today, but how? She really didn’t want to look over more of the story books, she needed a break from all the… “true love means you cut your hair” or “your dog is actually a prince” or “if you make the king mad he’ll cut off your feet” stuff. Granted, the whole king one was a little more based in reality than she cared to ponder right this minute. 

Which meant she should probably tackle the other half of the strategy, which led her back to the questions on her Love? board and around and around. How did people fall in love?! What did they even DO? Her eyes fell on an elderly couple sitting at a small table under a window. Matching gray hair and wrinkles, a chunky purse on the floor by the old woman’s feet, a cane leaning against the table by her husband’s arm. The glint of wedding bands on their fingers, their palms intertwined, tea cups steaming. How did they get there? Her eyes narrowed, the coffee giving her brain a spark. Why just stand there and look… when she could ask? 

The mere idea of taking action moved Tashigi’s legs forward, and she marched over to their table and all in one breath said “Hello, excuse me, can I ask you something? How did you fall in love? How many dates did you go on? How long did it take? If you had only five days to fall in love, what would you do?” 

Both of them stared at her, eyes wide. The man with the dogs at the neighboring table stopped eating his bacon, staring at her too. The dogs took the opportunity to filch the remaining bacon. “Err…” Tashigi said after a full thirty seconds had passed of the elderly couple still staring at her. “Asking for a friend.” 

Finally, as if moving through molasses, the little old man blinked. “What did you say, Missy?” 

“She asked us a question about love, Harold,” his wife responded quickly and Tashigi got the feeling that she was used to this, the routine snapping her out of her shock. 

“Love? What about it?” he asked bewildered, looking at his wife instead of Tashigi. 

“How to fall out of it, I think, Harold.” 

“No! How to fall in it!” Tashigi piped up quickly. 

“Huh?” 

“She wants to know how to fall in love, Harold.” 

“Oh. Beats me, ask Maude.” He gestured at his wife, going back to the biscuits and gravy on the plate in front of him. Tashigi closed her eyes and counted to three before reopening them to give Maude a hopeful smile and not one that conveyed the desperation she was actually feeling. 

Maude looked at her, curly gray hair bunching up around her neck scarf. “You’d like to know how Harold and I fell in love?”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Tashigi almost saluted before remembering that she was one, off duty, and two, these were civilians. Hope bubbled in her chest. Clearly this woman had wisdom to impart, perhaps even the answer to the curse! 

“Good sex,” Maude shrugged. 

Tashigi walked away quickly, vowing never to speak with elderly people again.

Tashigi opened the door to Smoker’s office, bag of breakfast food in one hand, pot of coffee in the other, halting in the doorway to stare. Her commander’s back was to her as he stood before the two boards, a newly tied red string linking the two of them. 

“There’s a link,” Smoker said without turning around. He pointed to her second question on the Love? board: what is love? And then pointed to the Loop? Board: Encanta intention? question. “What did love mean to Encanta? If we can figure that out, then we can break this fucking thing.” 

Oh. Yeah, that made some sense. Tashigi left the doorway to sit on the couch, noting that Smoker had yet to take his jacket back. Or shower. Or shave. She opened the breakfast bag, pulling out bagel sandwiches. “I brought breakfast.” He dropped down beside her, grabbing a sandwich and tearing into it. He had that look in his eye that said he was mulling over something vital in his mind. 

She grabbed for their two mugs, filling them to the brim with coffee. “What do we know about Encanta?” he asked around a massive bite of his breakfast chicken bagel sandwich. 

Tashigi bit her lip running through the pirate woman’s profile in her head. From the West Blue, known for kidnapping wealthy people for ransom, burglary, cursing people… “She’d been on three different pirate crews, and had no trouble selling out her last one to escape Impel Down,” Tashigi answered. 

“Family, marriage status?” Smoker asked. Tashigi shook her head. It wasn’t in the file. 

“Damn, gonna have to call HQ then.” He glowered, Tashigi patting him on the shoulder in sympathy. That meant he was going to have to speak with Brannew, who had had a grudge against him since she’d beat him in the Navy cookie contest last year. 

A chilling thought occurred to her then. “What if she didn’t have any family, or loved ones? I mean, it appears she spent all her exploits on well… the high life.” The best clothing, the best food, wine, resorts, hair products, shoes. Not a cheap lifestyle by any means. What could love mean to a person like that?

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” Smoker grunted. Tashigi nodded slowly, doubt building in her mind. She was beginning to feel that finding a loophole was a losing endeavor. 

“Smoker-san.” He turned a page of Encanta’s case file. The last three pirate crews she’d been on had been known for gambling, trafficking, smuggling. High roller kind of crews, with high turnover. Nothing particularly noticeable about her time with them either. More heists, robberies, cursing a navy crew who attempted to intercept them once with dancing until they collapsed. Stupid shit just like his fucking curse. He rubbed his neck, the muscle sore from sleeping badly.

“Smoker-san.” If the case files didn’t have anything, then he was back to going through the damn fables. There was something there. The curse curse fruit had been around at least long enough to make it into the devil fruit encyclopedia. That meant there had been previous users who’d left an impact enough to get noticed. 

“Smoker-san!” He blinked as Tashigi’s voice pitched upward into his brain. She stood in front of his desk, glasses pushed up into her hair messily. They were going to fall that way. As usual. 

“What?” 

“I had a thought.”

“I assumed.” 

She barely refrained from rolling her eyes at him, some dumb respect for his rank preventing her from doing so. One day she’d get over that, and when that day came, Smoker was sure he’d be in a world of pain. If they lived long enough that was. He gestured for her to continue.

“Well, about the um, falling in love part…” she tugged on the hem of her shirt, a simple navy blue tanktop. It was warmer today, the heat even permeating the deck and through the porthole window. “I… I don’t know how to fall in love, Sir.” 

He didn’t either. Not something he spent a lot of time thinking about. He had pirates to catch. 

“But, other people do,” Tashigi said, seeming to regain her equilibrium. “And well, maybe if we see what other people are doing, then that will give us a clue! All these story books don’t tell us how people actually fall in love, and I doubt Encanta was thinking that love was…” Tashigi reached down to grab one of the books spilled on the floor by the feet of his desk. “For example, churning butter into diamonds.” She pointed to a picture of a woman churning butter aggressively. 

“Dunno, diamonds may have been her thing,” he muttered. 

“Where would we get a diamond to test it?” 

“What?”

“We have been doing all this research, but not trying anything. Maybe if we know what won’t work, we’ll get closer to finding what will work!” she pointed at the third question on her Love? board. 

He had to admit she had a point. “Alright, what did you have in mind?”

The sun was gradually making its way towards the horizon, the sky a cerulean so intense it hurt to look at. White sandy beaches ringed Ciego, idyllic palm trees and gentle ocean waves making it a tourist destination of epic proportions. 

That was the one thing Loguetown hadn’t really had, beaches that advertisers dreamed of. They stood on the boardwalk, people all over the sands. Children building sandcastles, dogs launching themselves into the waves to chase thrown sticks, women sun tanning, volleyball being played by men clearly trying too hard to impress the sunbathing women. 

Smoker watched a child get hit in the face with a thrown frisbee as Tashigi shielded her eyes from the sun, searching for what she was calling “the ideal observation spot.” Sweat beaded down the back of his neck. 

“There!” she set off, eating sand first, before bouncing back up to tramp over to a spot under a fat palm tree. Smoker could immediately see why no one else had taken such a spot, despite the highly coveted shade. The tree was practically overburdened with coconuts waiting to strike. Still, he followed Tashigi as she settled, whipping out her notebook. 

“Okay, I’ve made a small list of things off the top of my head that I’ve seen couples do. Help me add to it.” He looked over her shoulder at the list of neatly bulleted items. The first one was Date with three question marks. The second was Get Married. There was no third. Smoker sighed. 

He’d never seen Tashigi go out on a date, or be particularly interested in anyone. Granted, he could say the same for himself. They had pirates to catch.

“Look!” She pointed excitedly at a couple who just stepped onto the sand from the boardwalk. They had matching swimsuits, the woman clearly pregnant. Her partner dragged a cooler behind them, skin a tan that said he didn’t use nearly enough sunscreen. The woman was carrying an umbrella. 

Tashigi marked down umbrella, which Smoker could not for the life of him figure out. 

And so passed an hour, Tashigi pointing out various people that she assumed were in some sort of romantic relationship and writing things down. He let her approach it in her own Tashigi way. He, on the other hand, decided to use this time to ponder what action Encanta would consider representative of love. 

A coconut dropped from a branch above, Smoker knocking it out the way from whacking Tashigi on the head without thought. What did a woman like her think love was? Jewels? Money? A round trip vacation to Gran Tesoro? Did she even believe in love? A cold feeling spread across his chest as he leaned back on his hands, fingers digging into the sand. It would be just like a shitty pirate to curse them with something she didn’t even believe in herself. If she didn’t believe in love, the curse would be unbreakable. And in five days, that was it. Five days spent combing through fucking story books and calling Brannew. 

“Okay, I think I have enough things to try…” came Tashigi’s voice, pulling him out of his thoughts. She turned to look at him, face set in an expression of seriousness. She took a deep breath, then leaned closer to him. 

He froze, all thoughts leaving his head. The fuck was she doing? Why was she getting so close? He knew what people did when they liked each other, had done a fair amount of it himself but doing THAT with Tashigi? Tashigi who got hyper from a cup and half of coffee? Who couldn’t finish a lite beer? Who wrote down umbrella in a list of things people in love did?! 

Her hand came down on top of the back of his. A seagull flew by, stealing a bag of chips from a sunburnt man, his yelling making a nearby child drop their ice cream. Tashigi was staring at their hands intently. A second passed. Then another. And another. Okay, he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Tashigi what the fuck are you doing?” 

She looked at her other palm, then withdrew her hand, looking dejected. She crossed something off in the notebook. “Looks like holding hands isn’t the answer.” 

“Holding hands isn’t like that!” he barked, eyebrow twitching in irritation. Putting her hand on top of his like some kind of fucking team huddle exercise wasn’t how you hold hands! Here he was thinking she was leaning in to do something insane like kiss him and instead she did that! 

“It’s…not?” she looked at him in confusion. 

“No idiot, you do it like this.” He grabbed her hand, their bare palms touching. Her hand was smaller than his, callouses in slightly different places than his own from using a sword. Her palm was a little gritty from the sand, her fingers going limp from shock. She stared at him eyes wide, pink rising in her cheeks, quickly going from a little too much sun to chili pepper in a matter of milliseconds. 

Which was enough time for his brain to catch up to his actions. Which was holding her hand. He was holding her hand. Smoker let go quickly and looked away, eye twitching. He yanked a cigar out of his pocket. If he’d ever needed nicotine, it was now. It was just holding her hand, nothing to be this fucking ruffled by. He’d held lots of hands, he was a grown ass man. Just because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held someone’s hand like that was just a coincidence! He ignored the way he could still feel the warmth of her palm on his. 

“Well, that didn’t work either. Okay, next thing…” Tashigi said in a high-pitched tiny voice a few minutes later. 

Smoker did not want to try other things, he wanted to go back to the office and keep hunting through the books, because it was less aggravating than this. He took a long long loooong drag on his cigar, letting the smoke build up in his lungs. Another coconut decided to attack and he launched it across the beach. 

Tashigi was staring at her notebook, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, apparently deep in thought. “Smoker-san… can I ask you something?” He almost wanted to answer no. No, she couldn’t ask him anything, especially not about the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about the way her hand had been so small in his. And warm. And soft with strength just under the surface. 

“What?” he growled instead. 

She was looking out at the water, and if he had to describe her expression, it would be shy. Nervous. “Remember what you said about intention? Well, there’s Encanta’s intention, sure, but a lot of the fairy tales… the curse gets broken by the cursee’s intention too…” she trailed off, eyes darting to the sand, fingers now fiddling with the hem of her shorts. “So… what does love mean to you?” 

A young woman was picking up shells with her tiny daughter on the beach. The little girl was holding up a sand dollar excitedly, her mother smiling and then pointing at a man on the beach. The little girl rushed over to him, leaping on top of him in her haste to show him her find. The adults looked at one another and smiled. The kind of smile Smoker had never shared with anyone. Something special, something secret, a kind of joy and faith and certainty that set them into their own little world. 

“What’s it mean to you?” he shot back at Tashigi. Her shoulders hunched like he’d yelled at her. He kicked himself. She hadn’t meant anything by it. It just wasn’t a good question to ask him. He was too busy for love. He had pirates to hunt, and so did she. People like them didn’t have time when there were idiots like Mugiwara out there accidentally toppling governments (whether that was a good or bad thing didn’t matter, instability was dangerous either way). 

Therefore he was surprised when she decided to answer. 

“I guess… I guess being there. That’s part of it. I don’t know. People say you’ll know it when you feel it, and I always thought it must be like how I feel when using a sword, but… but that took a long time to feel that way. And… and we don’t have a lot of time.” She laughed an anxious little laugh at the end. 

Smoker watched the waves roll in, not sure how to answer her.

Tashigi sighed from her bed. Her tiny quarters on deck was dark, the sound of the ocean normally a comfort, but not this time. Her blanket was too warm, her mind too busy. Another day with more questions than answers. Worse, she felt like she’d angered Smoker. Worst, she was pretty sure she’d opened up a whole can of worms for herself. Opened Pandora’s Box. Because what did love mean to her? And how could she know to act on it? And… what if she did know what it felt like, but only she felt it? 

She rolled over, glaring at the wall. She wanted to be out on the open seas, hunting pirates and taking their swords. She wanted to be looking over crew rosters with Smoker, listen to him yell at their men when they inevitably did something absurd. She wanted to stop thinking about love, and to stop feeling like the void was getting closer and closer. Because the idea of not existing was terrifying yes, but that the world wouldn’t have Smoker in it too made her want to throw something. 

The world needed him, their men needed him. She looked at her hand in the dark, remembering the way his hand had dwarfed hers, callouses rough, fingers strong. 

It was going to be another sleepless night.

Smoker glared at the ceiling of his too large quarters, floating in smoke form instead of being human. It was too damn hot to be a human at the moment. He drifted on the mostly still air, thinking about the day. Another damn day of semi-dead ends. He needed more information, he needed to find the loophole. And yet, instead of thinking about Encanta’s profile and case folder, or about the story books with all their gruesome tales, he kept going back to the beach. 

Sitting under that dumb palm tree and Tashigi asking him what he thought love was. As if he knew. What had Hina called him all those years ago? Emotionally unavailable. Distant. Some other words that basically described him as he was. A wild dog. Not domesticatable. Granted, Hina had also said she wasn’t into women, and now she’d be going on nearly a decade with Doll. 

He swirled irritably over the doorway. Regardless of how he felt about love, how was someone else supposed to love him back? And achieve any of this crap in five days? Less than that. Tomorrow would be four days. This was not how he wanted to fucking go. He’d always hoped if he was going to go out via pirate, it would be a worthwhile battle! Worse, Tashigi would be taken down with him. She was under his command, he was supposed to protect her. She was supposed to grow fully into her own, take swords from assholes like Roronoa, and that fucking prick Mihawk. All while smiling that warm smile at the people they were meant to protect. 

The world needed that. Needed kindness, and understanding. The smoke that would be his hand swirled into a little whirlpool as he recalled the way she’d blushed when he’d taken her hand. 

It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

The sun rises early and the soldier with it, as they say. Well jokes on the sun, Tashigi has been up for hours already. She sighs as she watches it rise slowly from the topside deck, illuminating Ciego’s terracotta rooftops and clean cobblestone streets. Fishermen are loading up their boats, an early running group meeting on the sands. The boardwalk is quiet still, the port with its many ships still sleepy. 

An ideal time to train, especially to get rid of the anxious energy humming under her skin when she so much as looked at her palm. Four days. Four days to live. And Tashigi was determined to spend at least some of it with Shigure. 

Besides, what better way to learn about love than by doing something she loved? 

She stepped away from the railing, stretching her arms above her head, then switching to a light jog. It was strange to see their ship so deserted. While they had mandatory shoreleave, Smoker-san never took breaks, and neither did she. How could she get stronger if she was goofing off, after all? Very different from Loguetown. Smoker-san didn’t have to work so hard there, but she couldn’t say he was happy then. Despite the situations they got into on the Grand Line, he seemed much happier, or at least focused. Like her, he was happiest when solving problems. 

Except for their current problem. Tashigi glowered at the deck as she eased into her first kata. Shigure gleamed in the gray light of the early hour. Her hilt felt strong under her hands, familiar, like the way she knew her mother’s face. Though, she hadn’t seen her mother in a handful of years, so perhaps she needed a new metaphor. 

Maybe that’s what love was. Knowing something, or someone so well that they felt a part of yourself. In Shigure’s case, an extension of herself. She jabbed forward, bringing her blade down in a clean slice. Smooth, neat, her form ideal for moving quickly into a counter.

Is that what people who were married felt like? That their partner was an extension of themselves? But how did one even get to that point? Irritation made her next strike sloppy. There was that thought again. The one she’d been having for four entire ridiculous, absurd, and stressful days! 

How to fall in love! Tashigi grit her teeth, flinging Shigure outward with more force than necessary. A tremor went up her arm from over extension as she moved forward, almost tripping over her own feet. Something she hadn’t done during training practice in literally years. Not with a sword anyway. 

She came to a dead stop, panting. This was so… so frustrating! Falling in love felt like a hopeless endeavor at the best of times! She didn’t have time for love! She had pirates to capture, swords to save, justice to serve! She was Autumn Rain Tashigi, Captain of the G-5, the most vicious group of Naval soldiers on the seas! 

And yet, wasn’t she the one who tripped and caused this whole mess? If she hadn’t been so darn clumsy! Tashigi’s hand tightened on Shigure’s hilt. She was still such a burden. How could anyone love that? 

A lone seabird glided overhead, Tashigi’s heart beating hard in her chest. It was a train of thought she didn’t want to follow, but like a forbidden dessert, she was powerless to resist. She may have been Autumn Rain Tashigi, but… she was clumsy, overbearing, sword obsessed and… weak. Even after all her training, she still struggled constantly, putting them in situations just like this one. How was someone supposed to love her, to even want to be with her? 

And Vice Admiral Smoker at that? 

Her lips trembled. He was strong, self assured, smart. He could drink beer like it was water, smoke cigars the way people should eat vegetables. Their men looked up to him, just like she did. Unafraid to speak his mind, he never tripped over his own feet. And he was always there to back her up, supporting her in his own gruff way. Smoker always listened, even if he didn’t like what he heard. 

And somehow, someone like that was supposed to fall in love with her in a week? Even the threat of death couldn’t make that happen! 

Her eyes stung. They were going to die and it was going to be all her fault! Her hand clenched around Shigure’s hilt and with a yell, Tashigi swung her again and again and again, as the sun rose in the sky. 

Cigar smoke puffed from Smoker’s mouth, drifting behind him as he walked down the main market street. Shops of all shapes and sizes, hawking as many things as they could convince tourists to buy. Loguetown had streets just like this. Ciego, however, did one thing that Loguetown couldn’t really pull off if it tried. 

Roses decorated the signs, hanging from rooftops and windowsills. Most shops had warm colored facades, reds and oranges and pinks. Plush fabrics hung overhead, more baskets of flowers and those teeny little lights that kids imagined were fairies hiding in the bushes. No, Loguetown couldn’t have pulled off a fucking street literally named Romantica Boulevard. 

They had Execution Way though. He’d busted more dumb teens smoking cigarettes there than anything else. He imagined that the local militia probably busted couples getting too handsy more than anything else here. 

The whole place felt like it was mocking him. Here he was, cursed to fall in love in a city themed around being a fucking honeymoon destination. Absolutely ridiculous. But, the fact it was themed like this had given him a thought at the crack of dawn. As he watched Tashigi throw herself into sword shit from his preferred chair on deck, he was more convinced than ever that the loophole was the way to go. 

For the simple reason that Encanta had come to this stupid island for a reason. What had she wanted here? Diamonds, a fancy spa, some other fancy crap he never bothered to think about? Hina would probably have been able to help him narrow down the possibilities but not even four days left to live was worth that conversation. 

The more he’d mulled over it through the late hours of the night and into the morning, the more Smoker was positive that if that pirate loved anything, it was some kind of expensive physical object. And so, today he was going to play tourist and see what the damn city had on offer. And buy things with the G-5 budget. He’d deal with the consequences later. If there was a later. If not, then it would be a mess Hina wouldn’t mind cleaning up as much as usual. 

Rows of clothing shops, dresses of shimmery fabric with skimpy strips supposed to pass as straps. Heels that Smoker couldn’t picture anyone walking in without tempting gravity. Rhinestone covered bags, furs, leathers, feathers. What the hell had Encanta been wearing when the damn chandelier squashed her? A fur coat, red heels, one of those huge hats with the feathers. Oh, and a glittering gemstone bikini. He remembered because the stupid thing had shined light in his eyes which gave Encanta the goddamned opening for a fucking nut shot! 

Irritation arced through him. He should have been more careful, more cautious in engaging. The woman had been causing trouble in The New World, not the fucking East Blue! Stupid and irresponsible, not befitting of a Vice Admiral. Worse, he’d gotten Tashigi caught up in it. 

A woman emerged from a store in front of him, dressed in silks and wearing enough perfume to kill a horse, took one look at his face and shrieked, running off. He ignored her, instead looking at the store she’d emerged from. She’d had the same gaudy taste as Encanta, so this seemed like a good enough place to start. 

He pushed the shop door open and was greeted by glittering glass cases full of jewelry. Rings, earrings, necklaces, broaches and a bunch of other things he couldn’t name. The shopkeep was wearing a black tuxedo that reminded Smoker of Cipher Pol. They took in his face with trepidation and Smoker had a thought that maybe he should have worn his navy cloak. 

“Welcome to Reitarc, the premiere destination for all your jewelry needs this side of the New World, can I help you?”

Smoker ignored him, instead perusing the cases, eyeing the rubies and emeralds and opals and topazes. Shiny silver and gold pieces inlaid with other precious stones and ivory and amber. The kind of thing that Encanta would salivate over and probably curse the shopkeep into giving them to her–

Actually. Smoker turned to the shopkeep. “Hey, you happen to have a woman in here a few days ago? Big dumb feathered hat?” 

“Sir, that describes most of my clientele. Are you looking for something for this lucky lady?” The man smiled politely but clearly didn’t think Smoker belonged in the store. Well, Smoker didn’t either, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

“Rhinestone bikini ring a bell?” 

The man’s eyes widened. “Oh! Yes, in fact. She had quite the custom chainmail lingerie. Purchased it from Coffiny & Tiff in the West Blue. Quite the rare sight.” He sighed dreamily and Smoker made a face. Everyone had their hobbies. At least Tashigi’s was practical and useful. 

“She buy anything?” Smoker pried. They hadn’t figured out where Encanta had been staying, or where her loot stash was. If she had one. She had seemed the type to live high and burn fast. 

“No, but perhaps that’s where you come in,” the man suddenly looked at Smoker with a newfound interest. “It’s not uncommon for the well-to-do to pick out something in the hopes that their special someone will take the initiative as they say…” He looked Smoker up and down in a way that Smoker decided he never wanted to be looked at again. 

“Show me.” The idea of being Encanta’s special someone was enough to make him want to retch, but this was the first lead he’d had in days. And he didn’t have many more days to keep floundering. Tashigi was counting on him. 

The man gestured for him to follow and to Smoker’s interest, lead him to the back room. This was the truly impressive and pricey pieces dwelled inside state of the art displays and safes. It took them twenty minutes just to unlock one cabinet to reveal the ugliest, most gaudy, flashy, ostentatious, pretentious, tawdry ring Smoker had ever laid eyes on. Tiny diamonds coated the thing, gold inlay in diamond patterns made up the metal, a bunch of rubies along the whole band, and of course a diamond in the shape of a diamond as big as his thumb smack dab in the middle. 

“This is the “Dimond de Egoista”, our most exquisite piece,” sighed the shopkeep, fingers caressing the foot thick safety glass. Oh yeah, this was exactly Encanta’s thing. In fact, Smoker had no doubt that this had been Encanta’s target before he and Tashigi had cornered her. 

Which meant that this ugly and obscene piece of jewelry might just be the thing to break the curse. 

“I’ll take it.” Smoker didn’t need to think twice, after all, the Navy was paying for it.

Smoker sat down on a bench in the shade outside a little sandwich place. It was past noon, the heat of the day making people seek reprieves in the form of the beach and ice cream. He wiped sweat from his forehead. Who knew shopping could be so exhausting. He eyed his haul. Clothing, “art pieces”, perfume, and a bunch of other very expensive items. Whomever was in the Budgets office was going to have a heart attack. The shopkeepers more so when Smoker returned whatever items didn’t break the curse. He couldn’t be sure the ring was the right thing, so he’d grabbed as many other options as possible.

The ring itself was wrapped carefully in a little velvet box and shoved unceremoniously inside his inner jacket pocket, which had made the shopkeep nearly faint. He patted his pocket, feeling the little box there. He hoped this thing fucking worked, he wanted off this island with its roses and swooning women and street violinists. Back to G-5, with its shitty beer and non-existent beaches.

Back to normal with Tashigi dropping paperwork on his desk and questionable giggling as she read her latest Sword magazine. He glanced at the pile of crap he’d bought. Not one bit of it was anything like his second-in-command. He’d never seen Tashigi so much as glance at a piece of jewelry. If he’d been buying for her instead, he’d just have found her a good pair of boots, or gloves, whetstone for her sword. 

And if he really wanted a challenge, one of those rare bags of coffee beans. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. As long as one of these god damn items broke the curse, he’d do just that. An apology for getting their asses into this fucking mess. Should have known it was trouble when Hina called in a favor to have him hunt Encanta instead of her. 

He refused to consider the idea that none of these items would break the curse. If they didn’t, then the only other option was… not an option. Falling in love with him was not possible. He didn’t have the right qualities. He was too brash, too blunt, too focused on his duty. Women wanted someone who would come home for dinner with flowers, wear matching outfits to family functions, not yell at them that they weren’t on a date in the middle of a fucking restaurant. 

He didn’t have tact, he was bull headed and once he had his teeth in something, couldn’t let go for the goddamn life of him. Qualities good for someone who dealt with pirates on a daily basis, not so much for love. No woman in her right mind would want to get saddled with that.  

Especially not Tashigi. Tashigi who never gave up even though she failed often. He had no idea how she managed to quite literally fall flat on her face and get up again every time with a smile and more determination than ever. She rarely swore, drank water and ate her vegetables, and knew more about swords than most swordsmiths. Tashigi with her kind smile that lit up a room, made children feel safe, and inspired even the shittiest of their men to be better people. 

Made him try to be a better person. 

Someone like that was supposed to fall in love with him in a week? He was more likely to quit being a marine and open a flower shop. 

Movement caught his eye, a woman in one of those white gi things used for training was trying to hand out flyers to passersbys. She didn’t look like the rest of the people trying to get tourist beri. Out of curiosity, he approached. 

“Oh, hello, would you like a flyer? My dojo is having tours tomorrow. The great Red Rondo Vista trained with us!” she smiled hopefully at him. 

“The Whitebeard's swordsman?” Smoker raised an eyebrow. The woman nodded, and smiled when he took a flyer. Maybe he wouldn’t need those coffee beans after all. 

Tashigi sighed, once again back in the office as sunset arrived. She really didn’t want to peruse the fables any more. She didn’t need more nightmares. But she owed it to Smoker-san to try, after all, she did say she would take accountability. 

And so, she grabbed one of the books she had yet to look through and began flipping through the pages. Here was one. A witch cursed a man who loved his hat more than his wife by turning his wife into a hat and making him guess which hat was his wife or she’d die and he’d be a widow. Tashigi blanched, the ending gruesome. Apparently the wife tried her best to be everything he could possibly want in a hat, and still he chose wrong. 

She glared, flipping through some more pages. Oh look, another witch with another curse. This one starred a Queen being cursed to think her only child was a duck, and so the kingdom fell to ruin because the Prince failed to bring the Witch the kingdom’s largest diamond to break the curse. Tashigi rolled her eyes, what was even the lesson there? Always give in to extortionists? 

She skipped ahead to the last tale in the book. She was in luck, another curse story. A woman who loved books more than the people around her was cursed by a witch after the witch pretended to be someone in need of one of the woman’s books. When the woman wouldn’t give it to her, she was turned into a book herself and would only find her freedom if someone fell in love with her. As a book. 

Tashigi let out a loud groan and dropped her head onto the back of the couch. Why were all these curses so insane? Why couldn’t one of them be something like “Get me an egg by 3pm or you’ll have a stuffy nose for a day!”? With a sigh, she returned to the tale. The book-woman sat on a shelf in a library for years, waiting for someone to open her. She tried everything, making her binding brightly colored, her pages spellbinding, her title fascinating. She changed the story she contained within to have adventure, romance, even pirates. Still, nobody seemed interested. At last, the woman gave up, letting her plain binding and simple title show.

And then someone showed up. A man perused the shelves. He was not a great beauty, but he liked knowledge, and he liked the quiet of the library. And one day, he picked up the book-woman. And read her cover to cover. 

“I think this book I’ll take for myself, for it speaks to me more than any other. Her binding may be plain, but her words within are true to the heart. True to my heart, who is also simple and plain and yearns the same.” Tashigi stared at the speech bubble, irritation forgotten as she got swept up in the tale. She wanted the book-woman to find joy. Her only crime was not letting some random person have one of her beloved books. She turned the page–

And a smile appeared on her face. A full page illustration of the book-woman turning back into a human, and kissing the man who’d fallen for her. A happy ending with the curse being broken. A tear drop fell onto the page. 

That’s what Tashigi wanted. To break the curse and have a happy ending. 

The door to the office opened and she looked up, hastily wiping her face. A tower of boxes entered first, her brows knitting together in confusion. “Good, you’re here,” came Smoker-san’s voice behind them. “Help me with this shit.” 

She got up off the couch and began placing the boxes on top of the book piles and case folders scattered around. “What is all this, Smoker-san?” Tashigi asked when at last he was free of his packages. He leaned against his desk, lighting up his customary two cigars. 

“Something that’ll break the curse hopefully.”

Tashigi eyed all the boxes and strange items skeptically. Her eyes fell on a large feathered hat. How was that supposed to break the curse for instance? Granted, there was that fairy tale about the hat. Maybe Smoker-san was on to something. “So… now what?”

Her commander took a long drag, smoke swirling up to the ceiling. At least he didn’t seem mad at her like he had this morning when he left the ship without a word to her. “I’ll pass you shit, and hopefully that’ll do the trick.” He grabbed a box, passing it to her. Tashigi opened the lid, a pair of sparkly red heels inside. They looked expensive, and terrifying. Trying to walk in those would kill her, heck just putting them on might. 

Smoker looked at his palm. She looked at hers. Four days still. 

Tashigi put the box aside for the next one. This one was perfume in a crystal bottle. It smelled like a flower garden had exploded, complete with fire. Their palms still read four. Next. He passed her the hat, dropping it on her head. It was too large and made her itchy. Still four. 

And so on and so forth until there was only one box left. She opened it with no hope, looking inside to find a glittery blue silk dress. Unlike everything else, she liked the color of this one. Until she lifted it out of the box. It was embroidered with flowers in silver and was extremely short. More a long t-shirt than a dress! And the chest! A V so deep one might as well be wearing a jacket that couldn’t close! 

She looked at Smoker, who was wearing an expression that said he was thinking something. “So passing between us isn’t working. Try putting it on. See if that has an effect.” 

Tashigi blanched, “This? You want me to put on this?”

He nodded. 

“No way! It’s… it’s too revealing!” 

Now he gave her a look. The look that said he was remembering Punk Hazard which they had both agreed NOT to ever ever ever talk about again. She made a wilted little noise in resignation. “Turn around then please.” 

He rolled his eyes but did as she asked. With some level of difficulty, she pulled on the blue dress. The straps to hold it up were confusing, they crossed in the back, and then they were so thin and fiddly. Finally though, the dress was on. 

“Any change?” Smoker asked. She looked at her palm. Still four. 

“No, Sir.” 

He cursed and turned around, Tashigi squeaking in protest. She hadn’t changed back yet! Smoker stared at her and her cheeks turned bright red and she grabbed a box to hold in front of herself. 

“Put on the rest, see if any of them work that way,” he grunted. She gave him a miserable look, but dutifully began putting on the other items. The hat, necklaces, bracelets, a scarf, the stinky perfume. She sat down to put on the heels, feeling like a particularly gaudy parrot. 

He looked at her palm, still four. His eye twitched in irritation while she sighed. “Can I take these off now?” He wasn’t looking at her though, instead he was pulling something small out of his jacket pocket. 

“Encanta was nosing around a high end jewelry store, probably aiming for this,” he grunted, holding out his palm towards her. A little velvet box sat there. Now Tashigi didn’t know much about jewelry, but she knew what a ring box looked like. Something twisted in her chest. 

“If that pirate loved anything, this is it,” Smoker stated, waiting for her to take the box. She reached a hand out slowly, the weird feeling in her chest intensifying. Her fingers closed around it, biting her lip nervously as she opened it. Inside was a ring, the most ridiculous thing Tashigi had ever seen. And by ridiculous, she meant RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE.

“Smoker-san, how did you get this?” She looked at him, eyes wide. 

“Expensed it to HQ.” 

“Smoker-san!” Tashigi gasped. He shrugged. 

“Put it on,” he ordered. Tashigi looked at the ring again. She didn’t even want to touch it. What if she dropped it?! What if it got stuck?! Her hands started sweating and she looked up at him from the couch helplessly. 

“What?” he barked around a newly lit cigar. 

“I… what if I break it? I mean, remember that time I spilled coffee on Admiral Borsalino? Or that time I touched that glass cabinet in Tsuru’s office? Or what about that time when–”

“Oh for fucks sake.” He rolled his eyes and dropped down to the floor, eye level with her on the couch. He grabbed her hand and the ring and slid it on her finger. She didn’t dare breathe. Nothing appeared to happen. No bright flash of light, no sparkly glittery transformation sequence. The fairy tales all had those. Her eyes met his, neither of them yet looking at their palms. It was then that she registered that he was practically on one knee, still holding her hand. On which he’d just placed a ring. 

Her heart twisted again, worse than before. The stupid hat slid down in front of her eyes, breaking their eye contact for her. He dropped her hand to look at his palm and went deadly silent. She pushed the hat back up out of her eyes. 

The number four still sat on his palm. 

“Goddamn that pirate!” he snarled, getting to his feet to pace. Smoker never paced. He tended to smoke more cigars, flip a coin, stack rocks, take a nap. Not pace. The last time she’d seen him pace was the night after the Paramount War. 

“Take that shit off, we’re back at square one!” He kicked his desk, a stack of books toppling to the floor. “We’re missing something! There’s a fucking trick to this and I’ll be damned if I let that pirate pull one over on us!” 

Tashigi stared at him, taking the hat off slowly. The ring was heavy on her hand. The number on the other heavier still. “Fall in love or you’ll be gone hee hee!” rang in her head. She looked down at herself in a ridiculous dress and heels and jewelry, the gross perfume giving her a headache. 

Slowly, she began removing the items, feeling like a zombie. They’d wasted three days of research on this, this loophole hunt. She tugged the heels off, and pulled her jeans on under the dress. He’d been on his knees, handing her a ring. Fall in love. Something that he’d never really do. 

Her heart wrenched, and her lip trembled. She yanked the dress over her head, tugging on her plain navy issue tanktop, the ring catching on the fabric. This big ugly ring, more expensive than anything she’d ever touched and yet not worth a beri in comparison to Shigure! This hideous gaudy ring meant to be a promise to someone else, but to her, just a farce!

Tashigi tugged it off, dropping it onto the coffee table as she got to her feet. She felt off kilter, almost ill.

“I’m going to bed.”

“I’m going to bed.” 

Smoker looked up from the bullshit pile of paper on his desk. Tashigi was walking towards the door, nearly tripping over the boxes and books scattered at her feet, not looking his way. He’d wasted fucking hours wandering Romantica Boulevard for all this fucking bullshit! They didn’t have time to waste and he needed her goddamn help! 

“We’ve wasted too much time for that, sit your ass back down.” He glared. She stiffened, back to him. Slowly, she turned around to look at him, an off expression on her face. Normally, Tashigi was an open book, she wore her heart on her sleeve, couldn’t lie to save her life. He’d beaten her in enough poker games to know. 

But the look on her face now was something else. “You’re right. We have wasted time. We’ve been looking for a loophole. Well, Sir. I don’t think there is one.” Tashigi’s fists clenched at her sides. “All the fairy tales with happy endings are either because the trickster got tricked back, or because through trials and hard work. And you know what?” her voice had begun to raise. 

“There is no trickster to trick!” Her eyes took on a bright sheen. “There is no loophole, we could spend the rest of our lives, all three days of it quibbling over that witch’s intentions and never find the answer! We don’t know what love meant to her! WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT LOVE MEANS TO OURSELVES!" Tashigi shouted as her eyes overflowed, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks. 

Smoker stared, at a loss for words. 

“So you know what I’m going to do?! I’m going to go to bed and polish Shigure, because at least I know that’s something I damned sure do love!” With that, Tashigi turned on her heel and left his office, slamming the door behind her.

Chapter Text

A man gazed at him through dark rimmed eyes, frown lines in the corners. His hair was shaggy and oily, and his facial hair is begging for a razor. Smoker glared at the man, and the man glared back. That wasn’t the face of White Hunter Smoker, Vice Admiral of the Navy. No, that was the face of Smoker Who Makes Tashigi Cry. 

Not for fucking long. He picked up his razor. 

An hour and a shower later, the man in the mirror still has dark circles under his eyes, but his white hair is neat (he needed to trim down the sides again damn) and his cheeks are smooth. He looked again like Smoker the White Hunter. 

Now to fix the rest of it. 

The sun had been up long enough for brunch crowds to descend upon the boardwalk. Tashigi was not on deck training like she’d been yesterday. A beach tour group was oohing and aahing and pointing at their massive warship. Smoker stared at them from the railing, forgetting that for some people, seeing a warship was a novel experience. For the people down below, his life was as distant a concept as his was of theirs. 

It had been a long time since Smoker was a civilian. 

He turned away and entered below deck, making his way to his office. It wasn’t a space he wanted to be in right now, regardless of the number three sitting pretty as a rotten peach on his palm. The door was slightly ajar as he reached it, the sounds of rustling paper and gentle steps coming from inside. He stood there, on the precipice for a second, preparing himself.

Then he pushed it open and stepped within. The pile of useless crap he’d bought yesterday were neatly arranged in the corner, the research books sorted and set up neatly in alphabetical piles around the coffee table, and there was Tashigi with her back to him, arranging folders on his desk. 

He watched her for a long moment, then cleared his throat. She jumped, turning to look at him. Her eyes were swollen from crying, had that red strained look that he didn’t like to see on her. She cried too much around him, even when it wasn’t his fault. It was just worse when it was. 

“Um…” she opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “G-good morning Smoker-san,” she tugged on the hem of her jacket. “I cleaned up your office. I–” Tashigi took a deep breath. “I should not have yelled at you last night. I was out of line–”

“No you weren’t,” Smoker leaned against the door frame, taking a cigar from his coat and lighting it as Tashigi looked at him flummoxed. “You were right, Tashigi. And that’s why we’re doing something different today.” 

“We– we are?” 

“Yep. C’mon, we’re getting out of here.” He gestured for her to follow after him. And she did, like always. 

The forest was alive with birdsong and the buzzing of cicadas and bees. Sunlight streamed through the canopy leaving the floor dappled with light and giving everything a warm green tinge. An almost jungle, without the intense humidity. Benediction Isle was named that for a reason. 

Smoker took in a breath, jacket tossed over his shoulder, hands in his pockets as he followed the path on the map from the only useful thing he’d gotten yesterday. That little pamphlet that he’d been given for free. It was currently in Tashigi’s hands, her eyes boring holes into it like they had for the last hour. 

So deeply engrossed in it, she was paying even less attention to her feet than usual. She hadn’t noticed the tree root, or the rock, or the squirrel, or the other slightly larger rock that had been in her path, but he had. It made for good reflexes training, knocking objects out of her way. 

“Smoker-san, it says here that they have a Supreme Grade sword on display!” Tashigi turned his way, her eyes wide and sparkling. She’d told him as much three times. He knocked another rock out of her way. She looked back down at the pamphlet again and let out a dreamy little sigh. 

“I’ve never been to a proper dojo. I can’t believe I didn’t know there was even one here! Most of them are pretty secretive but there’s always mentions and hints in Katana Quarterly…” she beamed at him again, making him feel…weird. Like his pulse rushed a little faster. Annoying. 

“You’ve never been to a dojo?” He raised an eyebrow. A swordswoman without a dojo was odd. Plenty of marines used swords, but most of them weren’t specialists. All the ones that were joined up with training beforehand, as far as he knew. 

Tashigi pursed her lips. “The dojo where I grew up didn’t allow girls,” her hand dropped to Shigure’s hilt. “My uncle was the swordsman in the family, but he passed without any heirs, so my father decided that he would train me, though he was no master himself and I’m a woman. I used to hide in the bushes when the students would do drills and watch.” A small smile appeared on her face, fond with remembrance. 

“That’s something I don’t miss much about the East Blue,” Smoker muttered. Tashigi looked at him questioningly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “The sexism. Miss out on a lot of quality soldiers with that crap.” Tashigi smiled gently and there went his pulse again. 

It was a bit of a trek out to the dojo, located in the green hillsides outside Ciego, and the path reminded Smoker of his time training here years prior. The higher they climbed into the hills and the farther away from the city they got, the more Smoker felt like he could breathe. Away from his office with books full of bad news, and his case files full of missing information. Out here, in among all the green and nature, he nearly forgot that he only had three days left to live. 

They took a brief break on an old stone bench, Tashigi taking a sip from her canteen. “Smoker-san.” She said after a moment. He glanced at her. Her hands were clasped in her lap. “Are… are you sure that this is alright?” There was a hitch to her voice. Guilt. He stayed quiet, listening to the cicadas. 

“I mean… you weren’t wrong either. Last night. We don’t have a lot of time–”

“When was the last time you did anything as a civilian?” Smoker interrupted. She looked at him, startled. “Last time I can recall was Loguetown, during that beer festival where I put you in charge for the day.”

“Sir, you caught ten pirates that day.” 

“Yeah yeah, but not until after the festival was over.” 

She giggled, his pulse jumping. Man, he did not have time to get ill. “Oh.” She said suddenly. 

“What?” he asked. She was touching her lips, a strange look on her face. 

“I… don’t think I’ve laughed in quite a while, is all.” A slight breeze rustled the canopy overhead, bringing the smell of earth and warmth and flowers. 

“And that’s why this is the right choice,” he murmured. There was no way they could figure out how to break the curse if they were fighting with one another, or too caught up in endless what ifs. The best medicine sometimes was just to relax, go at their own pace. 

“Smoker-san…” He looked her way. She opened her mouth, then shook her head. He raised an eyebrow. “We should get moving again. The pamphlet says they serve lunch on the tour!”

The dojo itself was nestled nestled next to a stream, a waterfall falling gently behind it. The buildings were old, terracotta roof tiles and granite facades. Flowers bloomed in the full sun on the grounds. 

And Tashigi was like a puppy in a ball pit. Smoker followed her from building to building, their tour guide, excited to have people actually there for the tour, somehow managed to answer all of Tashigi’s questions. Which were many. How many pupils did they have? What types of swordsmanship did they teach? Was there a blacksmith in residence? Those were just a few of the ones he heard before he let his attention wander. 

There weren’t many other people visiting and their footfalls echoed against the ceramic tile mosaic floors, or were muffled by the grass outside. It was peaceful here, nothing like Loguetown or the G-5. G-5 was boisterous and aggravating at best, the most common noise the sound of glass breaking and fist fights over poker games. Loguetown was always thrumming with the sound of commerce. 

In fact, the last time he’d been someplace this quiet on land might have been Alabasta. The endless sand and wind for leagues until suddenly like a mirage, a town or city appeared. He glanced at Tashigi as she spoke animatedly with the tour guide. She’d changed a lot since then. Grown more into herself, more confident. She ordered their men around now like calling dogs for dinner. But she was still Tashigi, obsessed with swords and not afraid to speak what was in her heart. 

The expression on her face the night before flashed through his mind, and Smoker clenched his jaw. He’d prefer not to see such a look again. Like something inside her had been gravely wounded. Her words came back to him. They didn’t even know what love meant to themselves. She was right about that too. 

He’d never truly thought about it. Why would he when he knew it was out of the question? Why cause himself strife when he didn’t have to? After all, you can’t miss what you don’t know. 

They walked into a larger hall, tables with fruit and bread and cheese spread out. A number of oil portraits of their former prominent students hung on the walls, including a large wanted portrait of Red Rondo Vista, who Tashigi stared at intensely. Their tour guide seemed only a little alarmed. 

Smoker grabbed an apple and hunk of cheese, dropping onto a bench. Tashigi settled next to him, swinging her feet back and forth. The food was simple, but after the walk and the warmth of the sun, was pretty good. Sunlight drifted into the hall through the windows, the few other people here speaking quietly, their voices almost musical. 

Actually, wait, that wasn’t right. Smoker glanced at Tashigi. A little smile sat there on her lips, and he realized she was humming. Some almost recognizable tune, something he’d heard in a bar somewhere maybe. He couldn’t recall if he’d ever heard her hum before. Or sing. His pulse buzzed under his skin. 

“The tour guide said he’d show me the Meito next, isn’t that cool Smoker-san?” She suddenly beamed at him. It was like getting hit with the sun. He nodded, too dazed to feel bewildered by being dazed. She wiggled in her seat before bouncing up to go examine all the paintings around the hall. 

Smoker watched her go, only knocked back into time and space by realizing he’d dropped his apple on his foot. 

The supreme grade sword sitting pretty in their training hall seemed to have broken Tashigi’s brain. She was speaking with the tour guide so fast, Smoker nearly felt like he owed the guy a tip. To Smoker, it looked like a normal sword, albeit the blade was ridiculously long, and black. That shithead Mihawk had a black blade too. He was no swordsman, but even Smoker could feel the aura the weapon gave off. 

This was also the room with the most people, the small number of other tourists wanting to see the famous blade and appreciate being out of the sun. It was then that Smoker spotted a little girl wearing a training gi. She was peeking into the room from an adjoining chamber. Nothing unusual except the kid was staring at them like the way Tashigi was staring at the supreme mega blade or whatever it was called. 

He raised an eyebrow, leaving Tashigi’s side to figure out the brat’s deal. As he approached, the girl barely seemed to have noticed him. So it wasn’t him she was looking at, it was Tashigi. He leaned against the wall above the kid casually. “Hey, whatcha looking at, kid?” 

She jumped with a squeak, face turning bright red as she noticed him, going mute with shock. He looked over at Tashigi, who was bending so close to the blade her nose was practically touching it. “Her?” Smoker gestured with his thumb. The girl nodded after a second. “She has a sword,” she whispered. 

“Yep, she’s a swordswoman.”

The little girl gripped her gi in her hands, then whispered “I know. I know all about her.” Her brown eyes were large under a green bowlcut cropped short around her ears. 

“Oh?” 

“She’s a Captain in the Marines…and she’s super strong!” the kid barely breathed, eyes once again focused on Tashigi. A smile played with the corners of Smoker’s mouth. 

“She is huh… wanna meet her?” The grin on his face spread wider as the kid looked back at him so fast her almost heard her neck crick. “C’mon.” He took her hand and led her over. 

“So the way the metal is warped here, is that from battle or was that an imperfection in the smithing process?” Tashigi was pointing to something invisible, the tour guide now looking at a loss for words. They were clearly used to more regular tourists and while delighted at first by Tashigi’s interest, were now intimidated. Perfect time to cut in. 

“Oi, Tashigi.” She looked away from the guide at the sound of his voice. 

“Smoker-san! Look at the way the hilt connects just here! Clearly it’s design–”

“Yup, got someone for you to meet,” he cut her off, pushing the kid forward. The little girl was staring up at Tashigi the way Smoker had seen groupies look at rockstars. The tour guide, thin hair pulled back into a ponytail took notice. 

“Oh, hello there Sen,” he smiled down at her. “She’s one of our pupils here.” The little girl, Sen, smiled, suddenly shy. 

Tashigi stared at Sen for a long moment before crouching down. “Hello there, my name is Tashigi. Do you like training here, Sen-chan?” 

Sen beamed, and just like that all her shyness was forgotten. Smoker walked away to go sit in the sunshine outside, letting the two talk a mile a minute. 

Late afternoon was settling in as they hitched a ride on a cart back to town. Tashigi smiled as she watched the trees pass by. What an amazing day. It was no wonder Red Rondo Vista was so powerful, being trained in a place like that. And that blade! Though it hadn’t seen battle in a few decades, even now she could have split a hair with it. Incredible craftsmanship. To wield a sword like that would be truly awesome. 

To think that a place like that was here on this island and she would have totally missed it if it wasn’t for… Tashigi turned away from the trees to glance at her comrade. Smoker was laying on his back on the cart, feet hanging off the end. His eyes were closed, breathing even in sleep. The sun bounced off his white hair, making him look almost blonde. 

She studied his face. He looked more relaxed than she’d seen him in quite some time. Without a frown or furrowed brow, he looked years younger. A gentle smile appeared on her lips. They should take more time off, it would do him good. 

A cloud passed overhead, the sun vanishing for a moment and Tashigi remembered why they were here in the first place. They had less than 3 days left to break the curse. She bit her lip then took a deep breath. There was no point in ruminating on the past, they just needed to figure out the future. Together, on the same page. The sun returned, warm and hopeful just as the cart ran over a rock. 

Before she could think, Tashigi moved, her hand sliding under Smoker’s head so he would whack it from the jolt. 

“Sorry folks, rocks in all sorts of weird spots today!” the driver called over his shoulder. Smoker let out a small snore. Carefully, she shifted her position until she placed his head in her lap. It was good he was asleep because the idea of him witnessing the sheer redness of her face made Tashigi want to crawl in a hole. 

Instead, she leaned back, and once again watched the trees roll by. 

Dinner found them back in his office, the two of them sitting on his couch eating something from one of the street vendors. Lamp kabobs with bread and salad. Pretty good. Smoker felt far better than he had this morning, an afternoon nap giving him a second wind. 

They were going to need it, there wasn’t a lot of time left to fuck around. Tashigi had been quiet for a while, but not the bad kind of quiet. Not the angry at him kind of quiet. More a peaceful silence. Rare from a motor mouth like her. Maybe seeing the dojo had been like satiating an addict. 

“Smoker-san,” she said, suddenly no longer quiet and throwing him slightly. “Thank you. For today.” She turned her chocolate brown eyes on him. The warmth he found there was doing weird things to his pulse again. Weird things to his heart. 

“I was thinking on the way back…” she continued, her hands once again clasped in her lap like they had been on the trail earlier. “If… if this had been a date, then… then it was the nicest date I’ve ever been on.” The words came out of her mouth in a near whisper.

The sound of the waves jostled the side of their ship gently. Heat rose up the back of Smoker’s neck, and he recalled earlier when he’d been thinking about how he couldn’t miss love when he didn’t know what it was. 

But now…now he knew.  

Smoker swallowed, finding himself speechless. Tashigi seemed to take his silence in stride however. “We only have a little over forty-eight hours to break this curse, Sir. And I think our answer is in these books. There’s a lot of tales about love curses, and if there’s an answer to be found,” she clenched her hands into fists. “Then let’s find it. Together.”

Smoker nodded, though he had a feeling now that it was going to be more difficult than ever.

Chapter Text

Tashigi stared at herself in the mirror. So this is what she looked like with two days left to live. She grabbed her comb and carefully pulled it through her dark hair, the cold light of the bathroom reflecting off the strands and making the circles under her eyes raccoon-esque. 

She sighed, poking at them. Despite the wonderful day yesterday, once she was alone in her quarters, sleep just did not want to come. Too many jumbled up thoughts and not enough of them were about the meito blade from yesterday. 

No, instead they were about the way sunlight had played across her commander’s face as he napped in her lap. The last five days had been so different from their normal routine and yet… and yet she wished she had more of them. More time to go to the beach, more time to be tourists, more time to get breakfast, more time. Just. More time. 

Tashigi took a breath and splashed some water on her face. She was going to find a way to break this curse, if not for herself, than for Smoker! Okay, go time. She looked at herself one last time in the mirror, gagged at the eye bags, then left for the Vice Admiral’s office. 

He was already there when she arrived, her eyebrows raising in curiosity as he was speaking with someone on his intranaval snail. Had HQ found something to help them? Tashigi sure hoped so because while she’d talked a big game last night, she wasn’t sure she could back it up. 

“Yep, send it all over. I don’t care that it’s 300 pages. Just send the fucking shit.” 

300 pages? Tashigi’s heart leapt. The answer had to be in there somewhere! 

Tashigi put her head in her hands, slumped over on the couch. The answer, if it was to be found, was not making itself easy. Her half of the papers from HQ was mostly eyewitness testimonies and ancillary evidence of mischief caused by the various curse curse fruit holders of the past, of which there were at least seven recorded within the last hundred years. 

It appeared that the curse curse fruit was quite good at cursing its owner too. 

“Wanna swap?” came Smoker’s voice. She peeked up, her commander leaning back tiredly against the couch. He apparently hadn’t slept very well either, and they were already on their second cup of coffee. If she had a third so soon, Tashigi was afraid for her heart. 

After all, it kept doing weird things, like beating faster right now as she traced the shape of Smoker-san’s jawline, the shape of his lips. He had a very strong jaw, did he know that? More importantly, he had said something to her. 

“What?” she asked most intelligently. Maybe she should get the third cup of coffee, the risk might be worth it.

“Alright, that’s it. We’re taking a break,” Smoker sighed. 

“Huh, but we just started!” Tashigi blinked. 

“We’ve been at this for three hours,” he pointed at the clock then leaned back against the couch like an inversion of her. She was leaned forward over the coffee table, elbows on her knees, hands touching her cheeks. He was leaned back, fingers interlocking behind his head, chest rising with each breath. She followed the way the breath flowed in and travelled through his form, down to his stomach, her eyes fixed on the texture of his jeans and the way they sat just so on his thighs, then back up to his stomach, over the shape of his broad chest (had he always been that broad? Maybe he’d been doing a new weight lifting regime? She should ask for pointers) up to his shoulders and the curve of his adams apple. 

Then to his face, where he was looking at her. They stared at one another for a solid second before Smoker coughed and Tashigi threw her eyes across the room. 

What the heck did she think she just been doing?! Staring at him like… like he was a really pretty blade. Heat crept up the back of her neck. “You’re right, a break. I um, I need some air!” she squeaked, leaping up quickly. 

A bad idea because she was too close to the coffee table so she slammed both her knees into it. It took everything Tashigi had not to drop to the floor and curl up in a ball. She stared straight ahead, back ramrod straight and stiff legged marched out of the room.

Smoker watched Tashigi leave the room and let out the breath he’d been holding. He swept a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath. The papers from HQ were boring as fuck. So far he counted eight times the stupid curse curse fruit users had done some variation of turning a nobleman into a frog and trying to make them fall in love with them. 

How would that even work when the noblefrogs knew who cursed them?! 

If he had been the owner of that stupid fruit instead of the smoke smoke fruit, he would have been using it very differently. Maybe curse people into finding happiness instead of “now frog ye be till you love me hee hee!” 

But the lack of insight from the papers was nothing new. What the real problem was now was that instead of focusing on them, his eyes kept wandering to Tashigi instead. It was like he had never noticed her before, like that time Hina had not worn make-up and he had no idea who the fuck he was looking at. 

But she was Tashigi. 

And it was him who had changed. The curse came back to him again. Fall in love or you’ll be gone. He turned his palm over, the two still sitting there. If what he was feeling was… then it was one-sided. And two days was not going to change that (it had taken him five, which was longer than two obviously). 

So he wasn’t going to think about it. He was going to continue with business as usual, because–

Tashigi stepped back into the office, her hair a little windswept. “It looks like they’re setting up an event on the pier, I don’t know what though,” she stated. He made a noncommittal noise. She nodded and sat back down on the couch, but not in her usual spot next to him in the middle.

They sat in silence, Smoker trying not to focus on why she was sitting farther from him, trying not to focus on the way she combed her hair back into place with her fingers. Trying not to focus on her .

“So, back to it then,” Tashigi said. 

“Yep.”

Tashigi glared at the fat tome of curses before her. She was trying to see if any of them seemed similar to the list of curses she’d written down that were recorded by HQ. She popped her lips, trying to engage with the text before her. But it felt like her mind was numb and all she wanted to do was not look at these books ever again.

All these tales of people getting turned into various objects and animals and then hoping that someone else comes along and saves them were a bummer. Especially the ones where the cursed person was in love but the object of their affection didn’t love them back. Apparently that was the flavor of the day that was bothering her most.

Love was so complicated. It wasn’t like swords. Swords made sense. Ore turned into metal smithed into a blade. Then it was a matter of learning to wield it. But love? Tashigi sighed, looking out the porthole window if only to prevent herself from looking at Smoker, again. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he was off today. They had spent an unusual amount of time not saying much of anything. 

He wasn’t the most talkative man in the world, but they tended to have… a repertoire. Something along the lines of she would say “I love swords!” and he would respond with “I hate pirates.” 

But today, not so much. He was at his desk, glaring at the book in front of him. They had agreed that cross referencing the reports from HQ with the fables was worth a shot. She studied the way his brows were furrowed, lips thin in a frown. She wanted to smooth the frown away, see him like he was yesterday, relaxed, calm. 

Maybe even… happy. Her heart did that weird thing again. She looked back down at her book, skimming. This tale was about a rich man in the north blue who got turned into a frog by a witch who then tried to make him fall in love with her in order to turn back. 

Trying to force love, what a horrible thing to do. Love should be freely given or… or earned. Through practice and care and mutual respect for the other. Perhaps it was not as different from swords as Tashigi had thought. She popped her lips again, stretching her arms above her head. Concentrating was not coming, perhaps it was time for another break. 

And maybe a break would lessen the frown tugging Smoker-san’s eyebrows down. Which meant… time for coffee! Third cup be darned, she needed the pick-me-up! She got to her feet (carefully this time), dodging around the book piles to where they had moved the coffee maker to sit on a file cabinet. 

Once it was started, she turned and leaned against the wall to take in the sights. The sights being papers and books and Smoker-san and the pile of things they still hadn’t returned. If they didn’t break the curse, Tashigi wondered if someone would make it out here fast enough to refund the G-5’s budget. Her eyes landed on the teeny ring box sitting on top of the pile. 

She’d never really worn rings. They got in the way of her grip on Shigure’s hilt, but the idea of one day wearing a wedding band… it wasn’t bad. That someone could love her enough to want to make a bond like that… that seemed like a pipe dream. Clumsy, silly Tashigi. She looked down at the floor. Perhaps that was why she never really considered love. 

Because why think about the impossible?

The coffee maker dinged. Tashigi shook her head. She didn’t have time for thoughts like this, she needed to get her head in the game! She set about pouring coffee into two mugs, then made her way back towards the couch. But first, to deliver Smoker his gift of energy in liquid form. 

He looked up as she approached and she really wished he hadn’t. Because there was a look on his face when he looked at her that made her heart do that thing again which startled her which—

The coffee went flying. Everywhere. All over their research materials, the floor, Smoker’s desk. And Smoker himself. For a solid second, Tashigi wanted to stay on the floor, sink into even, become one with the wood and not be perceived ever again. 

“I am so sorry, so so sorry Sir. I apologize, I’ll clean it up right away!” she squeaked as she scrambled to her feet. It was lucky he had turned to smoke to avoid being hit by it. The same could not be said for everything else. Grabbing rags and napkins from the mess quickly, she returned to Smoker spreading the wet papers out on the coffee table. 

Tashigi immediately began wiping up the mess, carefully patting the books dry, swabbing around the cup full of rocks on his desk, dropping to the floor to soak up her attempt at making her commander’s life easier. The rag in her hand quickly became useless. How much coffee could two mugs hold?! She mumbled darkly under her breath, reaching for the next rag. 

But unexpectedly, Smoker was reaching for it too. Their hands touched and they both froze. 

“Oh, um, sorry. You don’t have to help me, it’s my mess, I’ll c-clean it up,” Tashigi yanked her hand back awkwardly. 

“I know.” He wasn’t looking at her but at his desk instead. He didn’t give her the rag though. She bit her lip as he turned back to the papers on the coffee table and began patting them dry. She watched him for a moment, fingers twisting the hem of her shirt. He didn’t normally help her clean up her messes, which was something Tashigi tended to appreciate. She didn’t like the pity most people gave her in their offers of help. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. 

Smoker stopped abruptly, looking down at one of the pages, left corner wrinkling. “Tashigi.” Even though she’d been watching him, she still jumped. 

“Yes, Sir?” 

“Grab me that book on my desk, the one with the Princess knight or whatever the hell it is,” his eyes were fixed on the page still. She tilted her head and did as he asked, taking care to step carefully over to him. The tome flopped open in his hands, pages flipping by quickly until–

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. He pointed to the page on the table, and to a page in the book. “They’re the same.” 

“They are?!” Tashigi bent closer. The info from HQ was about a user cursing a royal family, the account recorded by the head of the Royal Guard. He had written the curse in its entirety. “Love love, it’s for you though you don’t want it boo hoo hoo! Kiss by midnight or thee be dead, off off rolls your head! Hee Hee!” followed by his account of fighting with the user until they scampered off. The story in the fable was the same, though the witch poofed away with a flourish instead of being chased off by royal soldiers. 

She and Smoker turned to look at each other. Hope bloomed in Tashigi’s chest, the answer was here for sure this time!

Tashigi and Smoker stood in the center of the office, his desk pushed back against the wall, couch and coffee table shift too. And all over the floor were open books and their matching HQ reports. Once they’d begun looking, it appeared that a number of the tales really were based on something that really happened! 

“I think that’s all of them,” Tashigi rubbed her wrists. Flipping through all this paper was more strenuous than she ever would have expected, she had a newfound respect for librarians. It was evening now, streaks of orange from the setting sun painting the floor like… well like the sun was setting. 

Smoker breathed out a relieved sigh and dropped onto the couch, head resting against his office wall. Tashigi stepped in a circle, trying to see if she could spot any similarities already between these stories and their current predicament. 

They should separate out the ones that had curses very different from theirs, then make a list of all the successfully broken curses versus the ones with a bad ending. There had to be a common denominator. She should make a new board! A Love 2.0 board! 

So distracted she was, that of course, what always happens when she’s distracted occurred. 

“From here, I think we can narrow it down by eep–!” Tashigi tripped. And fell. But not onto the floor. Not onto their hard work of books and reports. No. No, Tashigi fell onto the couch, which wouldn’t be the worst place to fall, except Smoker had decided to stretch out across the whole thing while she’d been circling their curse breaking materials. 

Her hands met his chest, catching herself inches from his face. They stared at one another, her brown eyes wide, one of his hands catching her wrist, a lock of her hair dropping onto his cheek. Uselessly, in that breathtaking moment, Tashigi could only think that up close, his eyes were practically the same deep orange color as the sunset. 

Then time caught up again and she threw herself backward onto the floor. “I apologize, I am so clumsy today, you know, I think I’ll um, I’ll air! I’ll get some air!” 

With that, Tashigi practically ran from the room.

An hour later, Tashigi returned with dinner as an apology for her getting air taking so long. The sun had fully vanished over the horizon, and whatever event was happening at the pier was under full swing. 

They could hear it in the office, music and laughter. Yet, within the walls of the ship, the two of them were quiet, sorting through the materials. They worked steadily, perhaps the feeling that they were finally making progress was giving them the focus they needed. Slowly, the discard pile grew, the successes found, the commonalities totaled. 

Until it was late into the night once again. Tashigi really wished she’d had that third cup of coffee, she needed it about now. Her attention wavering, movement drew her eyes. Smoker was pushing his hair out of his eyes. He really was getting shaggy. His hair seemed to agree as it ignored his attempts and got in his way again. He let out an irritated growl and leaned back on the opposite end of the couch. She must have really irritated him today, with all her tripping and falling. 

“It’s about time for a trim, huh?” she mumbled to fill the uncharacteristic silence. He glanced at her. Tashigi offered him a small smile. 

“Have at it,” he said after a moment. Her eyebrows went up. 

“N-now?” she asked. 

“Good a time as any, I need a break,” he shrugged. Feeling the urge to make up for being so troublesome, Tashigi nodded quickly. 

It took a few minutes for her to get the razor and scissors from her quarters, and met him topside. The sky overhead was bright with stars, the pier below their ship crowded with people, but since they were a ways down from the booths and main attractions, it was relatively quiet on deck. 

Smoker sat on his preferred chair, the light from the deck plenty to see by. She placed her tools on the tiny side table that held an ashtray. She longed for their lives to get back to normal, to sit here and read the latest of WENP while he smoked, their men going about their duties. 

Tashigi got to work. Despite her general clumsiness, once a blade was in her hand, she became as steady as a mountain. He smoked quietly while she worked, the smoke drifting above their heads against the slight breeze. She appreciated that he was keeping it out of her face. That was something Tashigi liked, that he respected that she didn’t smoke. When they’d first met, she was so sure that a man who smoked more than one at the same time wouldn’t have given a single care that the smoke made her cough. 

It didn’t so much anymore, like how she wasn’t as clumsy as she used to be. Well. Except for today. 

“Smoker-san, I am sorry about today. With the coffee,” she said softly as she carefully trimmed down the left side of his head, the razor sure as the sea under her fingers. 

“You already apologized,” he responded as she gently angled his head down to get the back. 

“I know, I’m just… I’m surprised you let me do this, with how many times I tripped, or dropped something,” she chuckled awkwardly. 

“You’re not clumsy when it matters,” Smoker stated and Tashigi’s fingers froze. His words rang in her head. It was nice that he could see past that. He may bark and yell and get grumpy, but at the end of the day, here they were, with his head literally in her hands. Trusting her not to mess up and cut him, or worse, make him look bad. It was nice that there was someone out there that could see beyond the klutz. That he could see her . 

Tashigi’s heart thumped hard in her chest as something clicked into place. 

At that moment, a sharp whistle rent the air, both of them freezing as a millisecond later, a boom sounded out over the water. An explosion of color raining down. More followed after. Fireworks. The two of them watched for a few minutes before Tashigi got back to her task. 

“We’re going to break it,” came Smoker’s voice suddenly. “The curse. We’ll break it.” 

“Yes, Sir,” Tashigi answered.

Chapter Text

The clock was ticking down as the sun rose. Tashigi took a deep breath as she entered the office. They had agreed just a scant five hours before to try and get some sleep, because they would need to focus today. It was their last chance after all.

Smoker was already in his office, looking as tired as Tashigi felt. Sleeping had been easier said than done, but she had managed to get some. If the Navy was good for anything, it was training her how to sleep despite very stressful situations. Two warm mugs of coffee were sitting on the coffee table and she shot him a grateful smile before looking away quickly. Staring at him for long was too… too something . Her heart feel too fast and her stomach fluttery. 

“Alright, we’re focusing on the successful curse breaks. There’s likely at least a few that might apply to us,” Smoker grunted, picking up the stack and dividing it between them. Tashigi nodded, sent a quick prayer to the energy bean gods for luck, then dove in.

She glanced through her portion of records. A curse broken by killing a sea king, nope. Curse broken by giving the witch their first born child. Tashigi blanched. Horrifying, and no. Curse broken by jumping in a pool at midnight under a full moon while wearing a hat made of clams. Yeah, no. 

Seriously, what was with these things? Smoker made a noise on the other side of the couch and separated out one page. He looked a little… pink? No, she must be imagining it. Probably the heat from the coffee. Which, speaking of, she took a sip, refocusing. Curse broken by… feeding one another? That gave her pause and she read over it quickly, flipping to the book referenced. 

A witch cursed a nobleman who was hoarding food in a famine to never be full until he found someone who loved him. In order to do so, he had to become a better person and fall in love with his fellow man. The curse was lifted when a local farmer boy broke bread with him and they quite literally fed one another. The circumstances were very different from theirs but the actual wording of the curse was similar enough to give Tashigi an idea. 

There was that saying, that food was a love language. Encanta had lived the high life. Was it possible that to her, sharing in an indulgence was love? It was also something the two of them could actually do. Feed each other. She stared at the little illustration of the nobleman and farmer kissing surrounded by light.

Heat rose up in her cheeks, and she swallowed down a weird little noise of anxiety. They ate meals together all the time! This would be just like that. Totally. Yep. Her face feeling like it was on fire, Tashigi put the page in the possibilities pile. 

“Fucking kidding me,” her commander, fellow marine and definitely not the man who currently occupied all of Tashigi’s thoughts in ways one might describe as “yearning with her girlish heart” muttered. She looked his way and caught his eye. 

“Broke a curse with a frog army.”

“I have one with a hat made of clams.” 

He closed his eyes as if he was in pain and a small laugh escaped her lips. The situation was dire yes, but hey, if she didn’t laugh she might cry. And she was so over crying. Twice in a week was too much! 

“That’s it for my pile. Any luck?” he grumbled, lighting a cigar. 

“Almost done…” Tashigi looked back at her pile. Another curse broken by extortion, another one by tricking the witch into eating haggis, another by making a hundred dresses and wearing them all at once… she shook her head and flipped to the last page. 

This one was an account by a historian, and meticulously written with a lot of ephemera. She raised an eyebrow. Apparently, a witch cursed a woman who always lied to always tell the truth. That didn’t sound that bad to Tashigi until the examples showed up. Telling a nobleman he was ugly, telling a widow her husband had cheated on her, telling a child that they were stupid and would be forever, etc. The only way to break the curse was to fall in love with someone and confess. This was a problem because the woman had never really loved anyone because they always had some flaw that would drive her away. But eventually, she met another woman who didn’t mind that she always spoke her mind. 

The final illustration was of the two women exchanging true words to one another and then embracing. Tashigi tilted her head. This was a curse about falling in love, just like theirs… and perhaps honesty to a woman like Encanta had been important. She lived a life of lies and trickery, which was no foundation for love. So perhaps to her warped point of view, cursing others to be honest about their feelings was nigh unbreakable! 

She tapped her lips. All she would have to do was tell Smoker something true and honest that she liked about him. To his face. No biggie. Her hands began sweating and she almost discarded the whole idea. 

But she didn’t, and moved the page into the options pile. 

“Alright, I have two,” Tashigi said at last. Maybe with any luck, one of these would work. If not… Tashigi and Smoker’s eyes met. No, one of them had to work. They just had to.

A crowd of seagulls flew past the porthole window as Tashigi looked over his possible solution. Smoker stared at the opposite wall, cigars clenched between his teeth, arms crossed tightly. If he could kill that pirate again, he would. This entire thing was a farce, an insult, a humiliation. 

“We… we have to dance?” Came Tashigi’s voice, barely above a whisper. He drummed his fingers on his arm, nodding curtly. He doubted Encanta gave a single shit about dancing but the wording of the curse was nearly fucking identical to theirs. And that couple had broken it by dancing together and by doing so, they had fallen in love. 

Insane. Completely fucking insane. 

“Okay… but um…” Tashigi was pointedly not looking at him. “I don’t know how to dance. Two uh, two left feet as they say…” She was looking at the floor, her face red. 

“We’ll take it slow,” he muttered. She nodded. Neither of them moved. 

“Should, should we get music? There’s a snail in the mess.” He almost wanted to say no. All the local channels this island would have on offer would be opera or… love songs. But the idea of trying to twirl around like morons without music was equally bad. So Smoker nodded and Tashigi jumped to her feet and practically fled from the room. 

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d barely gotten a goddamn lick of sleep last night because he kept replaying in his head the way Tashigi had looked when she nearly fell on him. Her cheeks pink, lips slightly open. Her hand on his chest. He’d been able to wrap his whole hand around her wrist, but he could feel the strength there under her skin. Muscles trained from years of needing to perform precise and fast movements. 

And then… her fingers in his hair, gentle and warm. Her breath on the back of his neck as she carefully turned his head left and right. He must have been insane for letting her cut his hair when he knew full well it would weigh so heavily on his mind like that! But he couldn’t help himself. She was Tashigi, and seeing her smile had been worth it.

And now he was supposed to dance with her. Slowly. Not some disco bullcrap like what Hina’s idiots were into. 

The curse might not be the thing to kill him.

“Got it!” Tashigi said, returning. Her voice was higher than normal and she was tugging at the hem of her shirt, a pink button up with little polka dot flowers. “I guess we should get started, no time to lose right?” She laughed nervously. 

He nodded stiffly, getting to his feet. He was a Vice Admiral. A soldier of the Navy. A little dancing wouldn’t kill him. 

Tashigi fiddled with the snail with far more focus than needed, the mushi beginning to sweat from her intense eye contact. After a few minutes, some slow piano music started playing. She looked over at him for confirmation and he shrugged. It would work. 

Slowly, Tashigi turned around and they stared at one another from across the room. “So… now what?” she asked and Smoker took it back. A little dancing might kill him. He put out his cigars in the ashtray, and held out his hand towards her. 

She bit her lip and slowly took it. All his nerve endings in his palm launched into overdrive. A little clammy, but no sand like the beach, which was a very helpful thought. This time there was nothing to distract themselves from the fact that her hand was warm in his. And that it was just the two of them standing in a room with soft music playing. 

He swallowed. “Put your other hand here,” he murmured and grasped her other wrist to place it on his shoulder. Tashigi was staring straight ahead, her face so red Smoker wondered if it was healthy. “Watch my feet.” the words came out of his mouth like lead, and thus proceeded the most awkward moment of his life up until that point. 

Punk Hazard not withstanding, but now was NOT the time to be remembering her body that way! 

They went through the simple box step, which truthfully was the only dance Smoker knew how to do. Hina had used him as a practice partner when Kujaku hadn’t been available back in basic. Tashigi might as well have been cement, with how stiff she was. And yet, still she managed to step on his feet. 

“S-sorry Smoker-san,” she squeaked. If this was going to work, she needed to move. Dancing only counted as dancing if they were both in sync. Probably. He was just spitballing but the fucking fable had described the dance as “fluid and like their two bodies were one, two halves of a whole, completing each other’s steps without thought.” 

No fucking pressure. 

“Tashigi, relax.” 

“I’m trying,” she whimpered. “It’s just–! It’s…” she suddenly let go of him and stepped back. Her face while pink also looked vaguely anguished, which was a weird expression for her to wear. Was being this close to him really that bad?

“That bad huh?” he muttered. 

That seemed to distract her from whatever thoughts were running around in her head as she blinked. “What? No, I mean yes, I mean no, you’re fine, you’re not fine, I mean you are, but that’s not–!” Tashigi let out a little hissing scream and clamped her mouth shut. 

He had no idea what to make of that entire comment. The snail started playing something sharp and jazzy. Not quite the speed they were looking for. He stepped over to fiddle with it, glaring as he flipped past not one, not two, but FIVE opera channels until he found something a little bit like slow jazz. 

He turned back around, and Tashigi seemed to have gathered herself together. “I’m sorry. About, um, me. I…” she fiddled with her shirt. “I’ve never really danced with anyone before, and if this is the way to break the curse, we have to be, well, um… on the same page and I just… I don’t want to let you down.” The last part came out in a low voice, her eyes looking down at the floor. 

“You won’t,” he stated, calm taking over him. She was one of his men and his job was to lead her on the right path. Everything else aside, that’s what it came down to. “You never do.” He took her hand.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she mumbled, but placed her other hand back on his shoulder. 

“Like dancing?” his other hand slid down to her waist, and slowly they turned. This time she didn’t seem so stiff. Unsure, but better. 

“I guess it’s a little like using a sword,” she spoke up on their second time around. He disagreed, completely. This was nothing like using his jitte, and a jitte wasn’t THAT different from a sword. 

“Too bad the curse can’t be broken with a spar,” he sighed. They would have broken it day one if that was the case. 

“Oh that would have been so easy, I think I would have broken it in the first match!” Her arms relaxed more into their position. Of course she’d relax if she was thinking about swords. That should have been his first move. 

“If it’s supposed to be in sync like this, would have taken a few more bouts than that.” He almost smirked at the way her eyes narrowed. 

“Maybe, but only because you always do something sneaky!”

“Pirates don’t follow the rules in a real fight,” he shrugged as she rolled her eyes. This was an old argument they’d had a thousand times. She complained about him being underhanded, he told her to deal with it and she learned how to toss him on his ass anyway. They spun slowly, Tashigi warming up, her feet sure now, just like in a fight. 

She took the lead now, concentrating on matching him, getting the timing down. It was a simple dance, but that didn’t mean it didn’t require focus. Like sparring, their moves here were connected. She had to step back when he stepped forward, she had to let go of his arm when he moved to twirl her. He had to pivot when she slid forward. 

“Good,” he said as she completed a twirl smoothly. 

“W-what?” she squeaked, missing a step and falling into him. They both froze. She looked up slowly, their eyes meeting, her hand in his, closer to him now than she’d ever been. 

A saxophone bleated loudly from the snail and they sprang apart. The back of his neck burned as he moved to shut the snail up. 

“H-how about we take a break and t-try one of the other ones?” Tashigi squeaked. 

“Yeah.”

It was midday as they sat down on the couch, an array of food on the coffee table. The records hadn’t specified the food besides bread, and it was lunch time, so two birds with one stone right? At least, that had been Tashigi’s reasoning, well half of it. The other half was because she couldn’t imagine just sitting there and shoving a piece of bread into Smoker’s mouth. 

Tashigi eyed the spread of food on the table. They had both agreed that if intention was part of the curse breaking, then Encanta wouldn’t have just gone for the cheap stuff. No simple bread and broccoli. No, instead they had spent an hour on market street, buying expensive fish and meat and chocolates. 

“Okay, so in the tale, they literally, um, p-put food in each other’s mouths and uh, it works.” Tashigi winced as she said it. Smoker was looking at the coffee table spread with an expression she had only seen on his face after the Alabasta fiasco. 

“Guess we should start with the pricey shit,” he muttered. She agreed, then spent a few minutes cutting things into small enough pieces to… well. Put in each other’s mouths. Was it too early for the curse to kill her?

She picked up a piece of expensive tuna with chopsticks, Smoker mirroring her. “So, um, s-same time?” she asked. 

“On three,” He nodded.

Tashigi gulped, willing her hand to stop trembling. The appendage was not listening. God she was going to drop it and then have to grab another, and then what if she dropped that one? Would she have to use her fingers to hold it? Because if she couldn’t use chopsticks, then a fork was out of the picture too and that–

“One.” Tashigi jabbed forward and the tuna squished against Smoker’s lips then plopped into his lap. 

“I said on three ,” her commander barked. 

“Yeah a countdown from three so we go on one!” Her face felt hot enough to roast sashimi on.

“No, a countdown up to three!” He picked up the tuna and plopped it on the table. “Let’s just, do it again. A countdown up to three this time!” 

She picked up a chocolate this time, the tuna had betrayed her. Better to go with a tried and true, like chocolate. It was only as they looked at one another again that her brain helpfully informed her that they would be feeding each other chocolates which was something lovers did. 

So when Smoker said three, she nearly missed it and didn’t open her mouth in time while she poked him in the cheek with hers. They stared at one another before a giggle left her mouth. Then another, and another until she was full on laughing. “This is so ridiculous!” she wheezed. What was even funnier was that they were trying to do this in the first place!

“I can’t believe you missed not once, but twice,” Smoker shook his head and she laughed harder. He rolled his eyes as she tried to get herself under control, and he took that moment to dart forward and put the chocolate in her mouth. 

She froze mid giggle, before quickly darting forward to do the same, except she’d forgotten the chopsticks, the tips of her fingers brushing his lips. They stared at one another, eyes locked as her heart beat pounded in her ears. His thumb brushed along her chin, and the chocolate melted on her tongue. 

Except it was spicy jelly inside. She coughed, Smoker making a face as he chewed his, neither of them looking at one another. 

“Yeah, that’s a bust,” Smoker muttered a few minutes later. Tashigi agreed. Neither of them said a word as they finished lunch.

“So in the fable, they told each other a truth about how they feel about the other,” Tashigi was double checking the book. If this wasn’t it, they would have to go back to the drawing board, and with only six or so hours before they found out what the “gone” part of the curse meant. 

“Any specific topic?” Smoker asked. He was sitting at his desk, feet up as he looked over the scant new bits of information HQ had sent over on Encanta herself. Unfortunately the only new thing they learned was that she appeared to have been the type of woman who had had many rich husbands who mysteriously died right after the wedding. 

Love to a person like that was not really fathomable to either her or Smoker. 

“Hm, not exactly, but something like… like a sincere, from the heart, um, c-compliment, or t-truth. I guess it doesn’t have to be g-good,” Tashigi stuttered out. This seemed less embarrassing than the food debacle, but telling Smoker something so deeply personal that she appreciated about him made her hands sweat. 

“Who the hell falls in love with someone who tells them something fucking awful they think of them?” Smoker shook his head. 

Tashigi bit her lip, then asked the truly hard question. “Who goes first?” 

Neither of them volunteered. 

“You’re the one who found it.” 

Her mouth dropped open to splutter “You’re a higher rank!”

“What’s that got to do with anything?!” There was a pink flush across Smoker’s cheeks that made her mouth go dry. “Just go, the sooner we get this over with, the better.” 

She made a face but couldn’t think of a rational and sane response over the childish “But it’s embarrassing!” whining in her head. 

“Okay… um,” she was off to a strong start. She felt so small and out of her depth at that moment, looking at him sitting at his desk with his nice eyes on her and waiting. Her mind went blank, absolutely and utterly blank. Unexpectedly, Smoker swiveled his chair around, back to her. 

“Thought it might make it easier…” he grumbled in response to the confused sound that came out of her mouth. She blinked, then a soft smile appeared on her lips. That was something she liked. That even though he was tough as nails on the outside, at the end of the day, he was kind and wanted to support her as best he could.

“I… it means a lot that after everything we’ve had thrown at us, even this ,” she gestured at the books, the reports, the entire curse magilla, “That when it seems like, like everything is confusing or strange or scary…” Tashigi stopped, something too hot and tight in her chest. She waited for it to ease before finding her voice again. “You’re always there, with me every step of the way. And I… I don’t really know what I’d do without you.” She swallowed tightly, heart beating hard, like she’d just run from one end of the ship to the other. Tashigi turned around, just the act of looking at the back of him at his desk was too much.

This had better work she fucking swore .

She stiffened, hearing his chair turn around. A moment passed, the sound of a violinist playing on the pier drifting muffled through the window.

“...You make me want to be a better man,” his voice washed over her, like the wind in her hair when she swung Shigure. “The world is not a nice place. If it's not pirates being shit, then it's the government. But either way, you still find a way to be kind and do the right thing.” The floor of the office was turning blurry even though her glasses were on. “Stupid crap like pride doesn’t get in your way. Our men don’t follow me, they follow you. And I would know. Because–” She could hear him sweep his hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh. “I do too…”

A silence descended on them both as she turned around, her eyes watering. His cheeks were pink all the way to the tips of his ears, his arms crossed over his chest like he was expecting a blow. She stepped forward, one step, two, three… until she stood across from him, only the desk between them. 

“Thank you, Smoker-san,” she whispered. Their eyes met. He was getting closer, so was she, the whole world fading but this moment right n–

A seagull screeched at the top of its lungs right outside the window, another seagull fighting it for a bag of chips. 

Tashigi nearly fell backward in her haste to back away from the desk, not looking at him. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt dizzy. It took her a moment to get her composure and as she did, Smoker was looking down at his palm. 

The number 1 sat there still, mocking them. 

Just a half hour left before midnight. Smoker stood in the crows nest, staring at the sea. The stars were bright and twinkling, the waves reflecting them like a mirror. A few ships sailed on in the night, little lights like fireflies. This was it, they had no god damned time left. 

The last six hours had flown by in a flurry of failed attempts from juggling to tossing an entire bag of beri over the side of the ship. All the ways to break a curse in the books that they could try. Nothing. 

He’d even thought about calling Hina. But he’d rather she think he went out heroically than like this. She’d never let him live it down. A breeze ruffled his hair, the smell of salt and flowers and life in the air. Fuck he’d miss this. 

Steps on the ladder, climbing up to join him. Tashigi leaned on the railing next to him, neither of them saying anything, just appreciating the view. “I um, I wrote a letter for Lieutenant Commander Puck with instructions…If, if we don’t…” she trailed off. He nodded. He hadn’t given up yet, but it was smart to be prepared. 

“Smoker-san, I… I’m sorry. Really.” Tashigi whispered, her voice thick. “I really, I really am–” she put her face in her hands. He clenched his hands into fists. He was furious that he couldn’t kill Encanta again. 

“What do you think we’ll turn into?” he asked suddenly. 

“W-what?” Tashigi sniffled. 

“The curse. They always fucking turn into something.” Or die, but hey he could be an optimist, here at the end. 

“Oh no, I hope it’s not a frog,” Tashigi wiped the back of her eyes. 

“What about a horse?” 

“Better, but I think I’d rather be a sword,” she gave him a watery smile. That tracked. The familiarity gave him comfort. She looked pretty despite the tears, her hair blending into the sky, lamplight reflecting in her eyes. “I can’t believe we tried all of that and still…” she bit her lip. 

He nodded. Fairy tales were supposed to have happy endings, at least the ones for kids. Which were the ones that mattered. All those illustrations of frogs turning back into princes after their true love's kiss, or the princess waking up upon her true love's first kiss, or the ones they had tried too. That’s what all the images showed. Two people kissing for their happily ever after.

Something poked at him, like having a word on the tip of his tongue. Encanta and trickery, love and intention. Back to his loophole theory… and Tashigi’s point about hard work and effort. 

“You know something, Smoker-san?” Tashigi said suddenly. He refocused on her. “Out of everything, everything in the whole world, more than the sea, and justice, more even than Shigure…” she smiled at him. “Out of all of it, what I will miss most is that I won’t get to spend more time with you.” 

Fuck it. What did he have to lose?

“Tashigi,” her name left his mouth. And as the clock sped toward midnight, seconds ticking down, Smoker pulled her toward him, cupped her face with his palm and pressed his lips against hers. 

There was a flash of light, a warm sensation then–!

They were still standing in the crows nest, the breeze catching in their hair. Her lips soft if a little chapped on his. He blinked, so did she. They separated, Tashigi still pressed against him to look down at her palm. 

It was clear. No number. Smoker turned his hand over. No number, just his skin. 

“Did… did we just break the curse?” Tashigi breathed. They looked at each other, then with a delighted joyful cry, Tashigi threw herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck, breathless laugh in his ear before she caught his lips with hers again. 

When they broke apart, Tashigi was staring at him in a way that made him feel like if he could just have this moment for the rest of his life, he could kick it happily. Then her eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Wait, does… does this mean we’re… we’re in love?” she stared at him in wonder.

“Dunno for sure,” he answered honestly, thinking about Encanta and intention and the general concept of uncertainty. “But, we have all the time in the world to figure it out.” 

Tashigi smiled, leaned forward and the rest of the world disappeared except for the feeling of her in his arms and his lips on hers.

Epilogue

Puru puru puru

Smoker glanced up from his spot on his couch, where he’d been relaxing. Something he wanted to a lot of after the week he’d had. He drifted his hand over to his desk to pick up the snail.

“Smoker-kun,” came Hina’s voice. He went still. “How did you manage to spend over 80 million beri in a week?” She asked. One, how the hell had she found out? Two, fuck he still had to return all that crap he’d bought. Tashigi appeared in the doorway to his office, giving him a bright smile. 

“Sorry Hina, later. I’ve got a date.” He hung up and got to his feet. The two of them left the office, hand in hand.