Chapter Text
“How many times do I have to say it? No.”
Only three people sat in that room; no weapons drawn, no stances taken, not even a declaration of violence. Just two sides on opposite ends of the spectrum, opposite ends of a table, opposite ends of a piece of parchment paper that held everything. Yet that compartment of white marble, lined with the golden-framed photographs of men and women purported to be the heroes of yesteryear — it was just as intense as warzones.
…Even if the most important person in the room was snoring his rubber ass off while seated in a deep slumber.
Really, Nami knew how this would go from the start. Yeah, he was King of the Pirates now. But in possibly the history of the entire world, even the parts that had at last been uncovered, there wasn’t a single person less equipped to negotiate a ceasefire than the man sitting to her left, one Monkey D. Luffy.
Especially when the guy at the other side, according to Luffy himself, used to tie him in air balloons and leave him to figure out how to escape when he was just a child.
Trying to talk sense into one Monkey D. was enough of a full-time job. The grandpa? A brick wall coated in armament Haki.
Monkey D. Garp, whom Nami increasingly realized looked exactly how she’d imagine Luffy would in 40 years, rubbed his temple for approximately the tenth time since she barged into the room to end the shouting match that spanned threats up to and including, “I will shove you back into Dragon’s balls.”
“...And how many times do I have to say that what you’re asking for is basically lawlessness?”
Nami folded her arms with an equal amount of exasperation. Her eyes stiffened into firm folds, her own equivalent of Conqueror’s Haki attempting to take control of the room. “It’s not lawlessness, it’s keeping your trained monkeys in check.”
“Pirate Justice,” Garp scoffed with a sardonic smirk. “This is where we’re at, huh?”
The navigator took note of his tone. Her occupation required her to look deep beyond the surface; what she spotted underneath Garp’s dismissive tone, was resignation. An admiring resignation, even.
She was close.
“Monkey D. Garp,” Nami began, emphasizing every last syllable of his surname and middle initial. “You are one of the few people in this world that knows this idiot,” she pointed at the King, “Better than me. If he gets even the slightest idea that your folks are getting overzealous, or that anybody’s freedom is getting stomped on — pirate or otherwise — then he will burn this bitch to the ground. You saw what he did to that Aka-Saka-whatever asshole.”
Garp’s laughter grew genuine. “Heh, greatest day of my life, right there…” He pulled himself out of the wistful haze and looked Nami right in the eye, observing her with an intrigue that made her hum in confusion. “And I’m not sure I do know him better than you.”
Though caught off-guard, Nami tried to stay firm in case this was his way of pulling down her own defenses. But she couldn’t stop her sight from drifting towards the snoring, lanky man in the corner, allegedly the most fearsome in the entire world.
“You sure as hell do a better job gettin’ this brat to listen than I ever could.” He focused back on Nami, with a knowing smirk. “I guess every king just needs that queen that can crack their hard head.”
Nami jerked her head back, suddenly flushed with red in her face that she tried to shake off; she had to remind herself that Garp wasn’t just a general looking for a signature to finally put a stop to centuries of madness, but a man probably eager for some great-grandchildren to boss around in his twilight years.
“Uh, well, um…” The cat burglar found herself at a rare loss for words.
The admiral, once the strongest of his day, folded his arms and laughed a nostalgic laugh. “As long as he doesn’t stop, you or those eight other folks waiting outside the door won’t either. But I damn well know when it’s my time to.” He finally lifted the pen.
Jumping out of her awkward musings, Nami brightened back up into a confident smile. “Before anybody signs anything, I want you to repeat the last terms of our agreement, so we’re clear.”
Garp closed his eyes, tilting his head until his temple rested against two of his fingers. “Any island bearing the Straw Hat Flag will not have Navy interference without its political leader’s say-so following a vote, and if said political leaders start abusing that power then any member of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet has full authority to, per Commander Monkey D. Luffy, ‘Kick their ass.’”
“And…?”
“The Buster Call will be abolished. No argument there…”
Nami leaned forward, her brows tightening. “...And?”
The Monkey D. elder rolled his eyes and sighed…but if Nami weren’t mistaken she could see a speck of glutinous drool escaping the corner of his lip…
“Meat supply warehouses are to be erected on every aforementioned Straw Hat Island.”
Lo and behold, a snot bubble popped and the King of the Pirates was suddenly very much awake and present.
“WHAT?! Seriously?!” Luffy screeched, assaulting the eardrums of the other two parties.
“...Did you hear all of that?” Nami asked with a disbelief she shouldn’t have possessed at this point when it came to her captain.
“Bits’npieces,” he said in a quick deadpan before rushing ahead to the pertinent subject, “But, my own personal meat stock?! THAT’S THE REAL ONE PIECE!!!!”
Before Nami could even have a chance to laugh, Luffy pounced on her, wrapping his legs around her body in a suffocating hug.
“Oh Nami, I could kiss you right now!” Luffy cheered as he tried squeezing every last drop of life from her, even stretching and wrapping his rubber limbs for more grip.
Nami’s eyes shot open. In a typical situation with a typical person, she would’ve promptly punched him in the face to free herself. Here? She was trying her best not to reply with, “Go for it,” even as a (half-)joke.
Instead, she just settled on saying, “It’s not official until you get that signature on there,” while attempting to both cool off the blush on her face and get possibly the strongest person in the world off of her. Guess which one she pulled off?
Luffy, lying on the floor with his limbs looking like a discarded pile of streamers, wrung himself back together and snatched the pen out of his grandfather's hands to put his Hancock D. John on the bottom line.
“Awesome, thanks Gramps.” Luffy held out his hand. His grandfather accepted it and let a few seconds pass until he locked it in a vice grip of love that made Luffy squeal in agony.
“Don’t make me regret this, boy,” Garp said, leaning in just a few inches from his grandson’s face. “You may be the Sun God but I knew you when you were the Sun Pantshitter.”
“Y-Yes, siiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrr…”
And just to emphasize his point, Garp released the handshake — by way of chucking Luffy like a rubber roll into the door and smashing it into a million pieces. The eight other Straw Hats immediately prepared themselves for battle to defend their captain, but their nonchalant navigator waved them off.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Nami reassured. “I’m pretty sure that translates to ‘goodbye.’”
As if confirming her, Luffy sat back up and waved at Garp with a toothy grin. “Later, grandpa.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Garp said, shaking his head with a smile he was trying and failing to make menacing. Nami turned on her heel to join the crew, but he had one last thing to say. “Navigator!”
Nami froze and gave him his full attention.
“Keep that brat to the ground. He’s only gonna go as far as you can take him.”
Nami smiled. “You’d better wish me luck, then.”
“A queen won’t need it.”
A few hours later, Nami sat at the desk of her survey room, tapping a pen in one hand and aimlessly adjusting her glasses in another. Below her was a desk full of papers that gave her more sweats than a ceasefire could ever. Every map she’d drawn since setting sail with Luffy nearly three years ago. All of them, meticulously drawn snapshots of the road he took en route to becoming King of the Pirates.
And it was all now worthless.
When she declared that she wanted to draw a map of the world, Nami never considered the possibility that the artist’s reference would fundamentally change. Who would? But that was the new reality. After making progress at a rate unmatched, she was now back to square one.
The navigator groaned with enough rumble to pass for a growl. Starting from nothing? That was easy; all she needed was an equal dosage of tenacity, audacity, and insanity. Restarting, even with a better-than-decent foundation? That required all that and overcoming the powerful urge to put a bullet in her brain during every second it spent calculating how much she’d have to do over.
Nami was rarely ever stuck. Her job description frowned upon it. But she sure as shit was today.
She leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling in hopes that maybe the wood patterns contained some subliminal directions.
Just as Nami was about to fully surrender herself to the death of her executive function, a force of nature made its way down the ladder and to the floor behind her in the form of rubber.
Nami looked up at Luffy and smirked. “Recovered from that thinking cramp, yet?”
Luffy fell back-first onto the couch beside her and kicked his leg onto the back cushion. “It’s just too much talking and thinking lately. I wanted to be King of the Pirates, not responsible for a bunch of stuff.”
Nami stopped tapping the pen and slumped her shoulders, stunned but less surprised the more she thought. “The way your mind works is fascinating.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, Luffy tossing his hat up and down and Nami doing the same with her pen. After catching the inside of his hat and spinning it around, Luffy flipped onto his stomach and looked up. “Whatcha got all the maps out for? Ooh, maybe you should close your eyes and we’ll go wherever your finger lands.”
“As fun as that sounds, the path to wherever I pick probably doesn’t even look like what’s on here anymore, anyway. I have to start it all over, no thanks to you,” she said, teasingly.
“Oh…my bad,” Luffy said with a genuine frown.
“I’m kidding!” Nami replied, laughing at her captain’s earnest literal-mindedness. “It’s just…a lot. A whole lot. I guess this is my navigating-the-liberator tax.”
She looked down at The Liberator, the man that couldn’t have been any lighter than the weight attached to such a title. His eyes were stuck on her, relaxed but with a curious focus that she found intriguing. Had it been Sanji, or Brook or even Usopp she wouldn’t need but one guess to figure out why it was so; but with Luffy, it was a mystery. When he started blowing wind at the bangs in front of his eyes, she went back to the maps. In the back of her mind, she was hoping something, anything would strike to pull her away from the daunting path ahead of her.
“Let’s get married.”
Nami snapped her pen in half. She looked down at Luffy, whose face remained flat as if he hadn’t just said what he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
Luffy stopped spinning his hat.
“Let’s get married.” Just in case she hadn’t heard it.
“Did…did Usopp put you up to this? So I could react like THIS?” Nami viciously scowled with extra emphasis on the vicious.
Her temper had no effect on Luffy and his thousand-yard stare. “Nope.”
Her nose twitched. “So then WHY?”
Luffy sat back up and placed his hat on his lap.
“‘Cause I want to.”
Nami covered her eyes and pointed her head to the ceiling, muttering pleas to herself. This was going to be one of those days, wasn’t it? A torrent of questions surged up and down her body, many new and many that had been lingering unchecked for a few years, and it was a warm front.
“Well you don’t just tell somebody to marry you like you wanna get something to eat!”
Luffy scrunched his brow like he, not her, should have been the one losing patience. “I’m not telling you to marry me, it’s just an offer.”
Nami brought both hands to their respective temples and took a deep breath. There was no use in figuring out where Luffy was going without finding where his anchor was planted first. She lowered her arms and spread them in different directions, a universal gesture of exasperation. “Where is this even coming from?”
Luffy leaned back in his seat and propped an elbow on the back cushion, relaxing like he’d been waiting for that question the whole time. “You and everyone else helped me reach my dream, and I wanna do everything I can to help you guys reach yours, too.”
That sure softened her up. While so far no less confused, seeing and hearing Luffy’s conviction made Nami flicker half of a smile out of swelling admiration.
“But think about it,” Luffy looked all around at the walls with a solemn expression, the shelves full of books he’d never picked up a day in his life. “Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky, Brook, Jinbei…all of them have dreams that aren’t gonna finish themselves ‘til they leave the Sunny.”
Nami frowned, having thought about it quite a bit ever since they uncovered the last poneglyph. She didn’t want to think about it, but above all else Nami was a realist.
“And then that just leaves you and me.” Luffy got up and walked over to Nami’s desk. His closer presence suddenly brought an ache to Nami she’d only rarely felt around him, the idea of a ‘you and me’ as it pertained to them making her purse her lips. He picked up a different map in each hand, observing them closely; the most interest he’d ever shown in the nitty-gritty of what Nami did.
“I wanna go to more places, you wanna draw more places. And it’s gonna take a loooonnng time.” He set the maps back down and playfully smiled. “Face it, Nami — we’re stuck with each other!”
Something terrible happened — the rare level of consideration, and most ominously, the idea of being “stuck with” Luffy, brought a smile to Nami that concealing took her running her tongue along as much of the inside of her mouth as it could maneuever. But still.
After a few blinks brought her back to Rationalia, Nami slammed her hand down on the table. “Luffy. Just because we might be sailing together ‘til we’re fossils doesn’t mean we have to get married to do it.”
“I know,” Luffy said as if it should’ve been obvious he agreed. He spun around and leaned back against the table, his smile warming up. “I’m not saying we should get married ‘cause I have to, I’m saying it ‘cause I want to.”
Was it just Nami, or had it suddenly become really hard to breathe in that room?
Oh wait, she was the navigator and could detect changes in the atmosphere with her body alone. It hadn’t.
“What?” she asked, coming out closer to a whisper.
Luffy leaned into Nami’s face until his nose was almost touching the hair above her ear, and buddy, the way she thought he was going with that made her heart start beating the Drums of Exasperation.
“IIII WANT TO MAR-RY YOUUUU,” Luffy said, loudly and deliberately and clearly under the impression that her hearing had gotten faulty.
Nami responded by clawing his head with one hand and squeezing it like she was trying to pop a balloon.
“Luffy,” she said through grit teeth. “Ye of little sex drive. Why, when, what, where, how; JUST TELL ME WHY YOU SUDDENLY WANT TO MARRY ME!!!!”
“Can…you…let go of me…” Luffy choked out.
Nami relinquished her grip, taking a deep breath in an attempt to cool off. “Look. It’s just…not once have you ever shown any sign of being interested in me, or any woman for that matter.”
“Not true, I peeped on you in the tub that one time,” Luffy diligently corrected. Nami socked him on the top of his head.
“THAT’S NOT THE EXAMPLE TO BRING UP, PRINCE CHARMING!”
Luffy just laughed and backed away; then he tugged away the ends of his cardigan, puffed chest out and yelled, “HAPPINESS PUNCH!”
In spite of all decency and good sense, the sight of Luffy’s well-sculpted, scarred chest so close to her just made her bite lip with a hunger that she had usually snuck past him. The sounds of his continued cackling pulled her from her haze.
“Whatever. That was just one time — which you still owe me for, by the way!” she said with a menacing finger-point. “My point still stands. If you’ve liked me,” a deliberate choice of words to maintain sanity, “I’m sure as hell the last to know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Luffy replied, ruffling his hair. “But I was tryin’ to be king of the pirates, I didn’t have time to think about all that stuff.”
Nami hummed in surprise; she had reached that same conclusion herself a while back. And it definitely had not come from her agonizing about it when left alone with her thoughts or anything like that! No sir or ma’am!
“Friends are easy, girlfriends are crazy,” Luffy said with a grimace. “How am I supposed to take down an emperor when I’m worried about you being mad at me ‘cause I bought some meat instead of flowers?!”
Nami nearly fell out of her chair laughing, widening his smile. “Luffy, you are insane, you know that?”
“Yup.”
Something about that blunt, self-aware, and proud declaration made Luffy feel a good five years older in her eyes. His smile straightened, and it was possibly the first time she ever saw the desire that had driven him to his “offer.” It was impossible for Nami not to lose herself in it.
And then he laughed again.
“What?” Nami asked, annoyed — and disappointed.
And then heart melted just a smidge when Luffy gave her a teasing smirk she didn’t even know he was capable of. “That’s not the first time you’ve looked at me like that.”
That observant motherfucker.
“Must be my annoyed face, then,” she flatly muttered. A fib unworthy of a cat burglar.
“Nah, see, your annoyed face is more like this…”
Nami looked up and Luffy was doing his best imitation of an angry cat with no pupils and fangs for teeth. He even put his hands on his hips and mouthed verbal assaults. Nami covered her mouth but couldn’t mute her laughter, eventually looking away.
“Fuck you,” she said with a giggle and a middle finger.
“Aww, c’mon,” Luffy said, mischief all over his tone as he shook her shoulder.
Nami took a breather and tried to change the subject. “And wait, you said it’s eventually gonna just be you and me, but what about Zoro? If he wants to defend his title as the world’s greatest swordsman, keeping up with your shenanigans will make it a lot easier.”
With a shrug and a smirk, Luffy answered, “So we’ll adopt him, then.”
Nami nearly choked on her spit, face flushed red and laughing with no restraint at the mental image of a family portrait featuring her and Luffy smiling at the camera while holding up a drooling Zoro in their arms. “How fucking dare you make me want to kinda see this, now!”
“See?” Luffy bent down and gently grabbed her wrist. That instantly shut off Nami’s laughter. Being abruptly grabbed by Luffy happened on any day that ended with “-day” but that had a 100% irritation rate. Being dragged into nonsense and/or danger she wanted nothing to do with. This? When she looked up into his eyes, more assured than she could ever recall seeing him, she wanted everything to do with wherever he was taking her.
“Luffy…” her other hand started inching closer to him, but she put a stop to it as soon as she realized and looked aside. “...You still haven't answered my question.”
Luffy reverted from that smooth suitor to his usual self in an instant, scratching his chin. “What was that again?”
Nami rolled her eyes. “When you knew you were attracted to me!”
“Ohhhh, right. It was when I was training with Rayleigh…”
Luffy stared at the petrified T-Rex in shock; he'd only ever seen Hancock's powers work on humans, and now she’d pulled them off on a whole ass dinosaur. The snake empress had neglected to revert it before she left.
Rayleigh walked by and laughed in astonishment. “Sheesh, even the lizards can't resist her beauty, huh?”
“Her beauty? What's that got to do with it?”
“You are aware of how her power works, right?”
“The Love-Love Beam thingy? Yeah.” Luffy stared ahead for a minute. Then he scratched his head. “...actually, I forgot.”
Rayleigh could only shake his head and sigh. “She can turn anybody who has lustful thoughts about her into stone.”
“Oh, damn. Y’know, she even tried it on me before.” Luffy laughed with relief. “Boy, am I lucky she doesn't look like Nami.”
Rayleigh buckled in shock, though a smirk curled from the corner of his mouth. “You favor your navigator, boy?”
The words Luffy spoke suddenly caught up with his mind. “I do…?!” He gasped and folded his arms, looking down with deep thought. “Aww shit…”
It started to hit him. The occasional times he'd spot Nami in a sunset, with the parting star giving her orange locks a captivating glow. The outfits sometimes racy enough to throw off even his laser-guided focus for a second or two.
This overwhelming urge to find a way to see that breathtaking smile on her face.
While he initially laughed, Rayleigh's expression firmed. “Word of advice, kid: don't shit where you eat.”
Luffy leaped back in disgust. “Ewww, why would I wanna do that?!”
Rayleigh shut his eyes, removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “Why did I even bother…I mean, don't go foolin’ around with a crewmate.”
“Ohhhh.” Luffy looked down and wobbled his head around, pondering his words. "I wasn't really planning to, but now I'm all scrambled up."
Rayleigh looked down at the grass and laughed a contemplative laugh. "Of course at the end of the day, it's all up to you and what you think you're ready to deal with. The word 'impossible' doesn't seem to have any meanng to you anyway, so who knows?"
Luffy took one last look at the dinosaur that had fallen victim to Hancock's beauty, a fate he could only suffer himself at the hands of his navigator. Who knew, indeed...
Mentally, Nami scored herself a point. World's Most Beautiful Woman? Ha! I suppose I shall allow her to settle for number two.
Still, it stunned her hearing it straight from the horse's mouth. She always assumed the aforementioned bathtub incident at Alabasta was just him playing tagalong with Usopp and Sanji, the nosebleed a simple matter of biology. What alarmed her more was how much the new knowledge released the butterflies in her stomach from their cocoons.
“But, that's not important, anyway,” Luffy dismissed. “I mean, sure, I wanna bang you; but that's not why I wanna marry you.”
Nami swooned, squirmed, scowled, and slapped Luffy with the back of her hand. “Don't say it like that!”
"Anyway..." Luffy rubbed his face and straightened his eyes, looking at Nami as frankly as he could.
“...I wanna marry you ‘cause I love you.”
What planet was Nami on? She wouldn't have been able to say it at that moment. Her internal log pose busted and sent her eyes spinning in every direction, and by the time they landed back on Luffy she was seeing him and his twin, Duffy. She stood up, and soon as she reached her feet she held onto the desk to support herself.
Only Luffy. Only Luffy could make her react that way to those three words. Only Luffy could say those three words as plainly as he'd state that sharks have fins.
“Uhhh, Nami, are you sick?”
She reached her hand out to touch Luffy. She pulled it back. She swung it back down to her side. She rubbed it across her forehead.
“Luffy, I…” She swerved away from the words flashing in neon lights directly in front of her and into another path. “How…how long have you known?”
After a brief beat of thought, Luffy reached over and grabbed his straw hat, wielding it in front of her.
“Prolly after you fixed this.”
That long??????
He placed it on top of her head and patted it down, wearing the most affectionate smile Nami had ever seen on a man. This was it. This was Luffy's version of getting down on one knee and putting a ring on her finger, wasn't it?
Feeling a buzzing noise blaring in her head, Nami stumbled past Luffy and into the ladder leading to the bathroom. She placed her hand on one of the rungs and turned around. Luffy looked genuinely concerned, so she put on her best fake smile.
“Um, Luffy, could you give me a minute?” she said as casually as she could. “I...gotta take a dump.”
“Gross.”
Of all the excuses, she chose that?
She ran up the length of the ladder at a speed at least 10 times beyond her capability. Panting profusely, she leaped to the sink, ran both hot and cold water and splashed it into her face so hard she nearly smacked herself. She looked into the mirror, getting an up close and personal look at her completely fucking gobsmacked state. A second later and she was out the door and outdoors.
Robin, where the FUCK are you?! She said to herself. She sprinted down the steps, leaped all the way across to the women's quarters and opened the door. Empty. That was okay, maybe she was just hanging out in the men's room. She checked there, no sign there.
Now if Nami was Nico Robin, where would she be?
“The Library!”
Nami sprinted back up the steps on the other end of the ship and to the entrance of the lookout tower, then ran down the ladder leading to the library. The first person she saw was not Robin, but some guy that had just declared his love for her and asked for her hand in marriage.
Oh, right. The survey room and the library were the same fucking thing.
“I uh…” she rubbed her stomach. “I feel another one comin’ on.”
Luffy's face squeezed into a nauseous cringe. “Sheesh, Nami, what the hell did you eat?!”
Oh that wonderful, delightful idiot. She raced back up the ladder and back outside, settling on running down the steps and pacing in circles in circles. After lap two, a hand sprouted from her stomach. She looked down and it was pointing to her 10 o'clock.
When Nami looked up, a certain leggy archaeologist was waving at her from in front of the Tangerine grove literally just a few feet away from the lookout tower she'd just made two frantic exits from.
“NICO ROBIN!” she screamed, literally jumping to the top of the platform like she was Luffy herself. As soon as her feet planted, she collapsed into Robin's arms.
Robin pulled her into a tight embrace. “What's wrong?” she asked, albeit with a teasing timbre in her voice.
Tears fell from Nami's eyes as she pressed her head into her elder's shoulders.
“Luffy…Luffy just asked me to marry him!”
“Wait, what?” Robin dryly asked, her usual coy flavor absent as if her routine had been blindsided.
Nami wiped her eyes and caught her breath. “And y'know it'd be one thing if it was just another ha ha ha Luffy you silly goose there you go saying word thingies you don't completely understand again but then HE TOLD ME HE LOVED ME!”
Petting the half of Nami’s orange locks not hidden beneath the Straw Hat, Robin asked, “And what did you say back?”
Nami wrapped her arms around as much of Robin's body as she could and squeezed, her tears and whimpers intensifying. “I told him I have to pooooooopppp!”
“Not ideal.”
“TWICE!!!!”
Despite her navigator's emotional turmoil, Robin giggled. “I dunno Nami, you might impress him with your eating habits.”
Nami sucked snot back into her nose and looked at Robin with a hopeful innocence in her glistening eyes that felt ten years her junior. “Y-You think so…?”
Robin swung her head back and laughed in a manner more fitting of Jinbei. The outburst was stark enough to calm Nami's emotions and pull her into amusement.
“It's like there's somethin’ in the air,” Nami said, her voice still shaky as she straightened her hair. “First his grandpa saying all this cryptic shit about me being his queen, then he's asking me to marry him? What, is there a Cupid Cupid Fruit and Luffy got struck?”
“If that was the case, he would have been struck a long time ago, as would you.”
Nami scoffed, but the look in her eyes was like a kid with red all over their hands. “What are you talking about?”
Robin cocked her head with a sideways smile. “Nami, you are aware we share a room, right?”
“What's that got to do with anything?” Nami asked, feigning innocence.
“You've said his name in your sleep in various, various contexts.”
That second “various” sent a shiver down Nami’s spine.
“I mean c'mon, I'm sure I've said other names, right?”
“You have…” Robin leaned in, her smile darkening into more of a Miss All-Sunday variety. “Sanji.”
Every shade of color teleported from Nami's face. “What?!”
Robin leaned back with a relaxed giggle. “From what I could piece together, you were making him sit in a corner and watch you and Luffy go at it.”
Nami gasped. “Damn, I'm ruthless.”
Robin let Nami go and ran her fingers down her shoulder. “Gotten it out of your system?”
“Yeah,” Nami replied with a nod, her eyes dried up. “So…is it really that obvious?”
“Is what that obvious?”
Nami groaned. That woman was always a step ahead.
“That I…” Nami scowled off to the side. “MIGHT feel the same…”
“Franky, Usopp and I have a betting pool. Which I've won, by the way.”
As if Nami’s head could have spun any faster. She always thought her affection for Luffy had been subtle but apparently everyone but her and Luffy (and mercifully, hopefully, Sanji) had just been counting down? “Seriously? How can you even tell?”
“Well, our captain is quite the looker despite his antics, and you've always seemed to have taken extra notice,” Robin answered with a twinkle in her eye.
With her emotions settled, Nami's defensiveness made its return. “N-No I haven’t! There's plenty of good looking guys…”
Robin, intrigued, leaned forward with a curious smirk. “Really? Do tell. How about our swordsman?”
Nami shrugged with a frisky grin. “Not gonna lie, if I spotted Zoro in a bar and didn’t already know what a lunkhead he is, I might’ve wound up crawling out of bed and getting dressed before I ran off with all of his shit, if ya know what I’m sayin’.”
“I'd sniff you out in two seconds, cat burglar.”
That voice.
Nami's soul left her body.
Literally on the other side of the tangerine tree emerged the proverbial and perhaps literal devil, Roronoa Zoro. His one working eye was glazed over, fresh off the only other thing in the world he liked besides booze and swordfights.
“How much of that did you hear?” Nami squeaked out.
“Enough,” Zoro replied, the implication in his voice heavy as he walked away from the ladies — but not before turning around with a smirk of mockery aimed at the one in the captain’s hat. “And for the record, I don’t much care for the taste of ginger.”
While Robin covered her mouth with both hands to hide her laugh, Nami stood up with her volcanic rage back in full force.
“Yeah, well you’d probably get lost down here!” She pointed to her crotch, in case she hadn’t been clear enough. “You big dumb stupid, um...guacamole!”
“Hell, you’re probably right. That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Both Nami and Robin gasped, shocked in equal parts by the vulgarity and the wit.
“Yeah…well…” the air fizzling out from Nami might as well have been visible. “Three-sword style?! HA! I guess somebody’s compensating for a tiny WEINER!!”
Zoro erupted with belittling laughter as he climbed down. Nami stood in a puddle of shame.
“Weiner?” Robin asked with disbelief and a side of pity.
Nami turned around and deflated into a humiliated whimper. “I’m not my usual self today, Robin…”
She reassumed her seat next to Robin and welcomed her shoulder rub. Her mewling drawl and lovesick poutiness made her come off so much more juvenile, making it easier for Robin to take on the big sister role.
“So clearly, any physical attraction you may have for Zoro is instantly cancelled out by his personality.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“Now how about…Franky?” Robin sounded oddly perky as she asked it.
“He’s not old but he’s too old for me. Plus, his legs are too skinny,” Nami replied with a bemused scrunch of her face at the thought of his chicken legs.
“I think they’re cute,” Robin replied with adoration.
“No offense, Robin, but you have weird taste.”
Robin balked. “I do not!”
“You called that goblin with his head dangling off his neck from the last island we visited the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen.”
“He was!”
“I rest my case.”
“Whatever…but we can rule Franky out. Sanji?”
“Objectively hot but he’s too ‘Sanji.’”
“Agreed. Usopp?”
Nami threw her hands up. “Alright, alright, I get it!”
“Hey!” Robin scolded, suddenly very defensive. “Usopp has grown into a very handsome young man!”
“You’ve thought about the nose, too?”
“Once.”
“Same.”
After taking a beat to shake off the laughter, Robin reached the conclusion. “Regardless, that takes us back to the King.”
“I mean, what is it? Do you see me staring at him?” Nami knew the truth, but wondered if anybody else had noticed.
“Sometimes, but it’s deeper than that. There’s a certain physical touch you share and allow with Luffy that I’ve seen you knock out plenty of other men for even approaching.”
Nami squeezed her arms to her chest, her expression so strained it would’ve seemed sarcastic had she not been so petulant. “...Ch-Chopper, too!”
Robin lowered her eyelids. A clear and decisive rebuttal.
Nami sank her head in her palm as she recalled all the times she put his head on her sacred chest (or lap), let him wrap his stretchy limbs (and once even his neck) around every inch of her body, sat on his face (don’t ask), and countless other instances. “Yeah, yeah, yeah so I think he’s a bigger snack than a tangerine cake. That’s not love.”
“You gravitate towards him like nobody else in the crew. You know he can handle himself against almost anything, but he’s still the first one you worry about. And when you’re worried about your own self-”
“-My mind goes straight to him…” Nami finished, her voice lighting up as everything came together. “It’s like I need him…”
Robin nodded along, like a teacher leading her student. “And that’s because…”
Nami groaned and pulled the brim of the straw hat over her eyes, lip quivering. “‘Cause I…shit.” She swung her head back with a groan of frustration. “Ugh, it’s so much!”
“See, there you go leaning on him again.”
As Nami hummed with confusion, she felt the straw hat leave her head. She looked down and realized another one of Robin’s hands was sprouting from her shoulder and holding the hat before her.
“The fucking straw hat,” she cooed with a soft smile. She picked it back up, and the hand from her shoulder poofed into a trail of flowers. “Luffy said he fell in love with me when he saw me fix this.”
“His greatest treasure…”
“But that was literally the day we met, Robin!” Nami thought back to that day, how her hatred of pirates instilled by her time with Arlong bled into every interaction she had with Luffy even when she was playing nice. But then came that “it” factor.
“Well, our captain certainly wears his emotions on his sleeve,” Robin mused. “Though I imagine it was more the seed being planted than blossoming outright.”
“You wanna talk about seeds being planted…I guess you could say for me it was when he plopped this thing on my head.”
“Ah yes, the situation with the Fishman and your village,” Robin giggled. “The king giving you his crown. You’ve spoken to me about this many times…”
Nami felt a twinge of embarrassment. “Oh God, I’ve been the frickin’ female Barto around here, haven’t I?”
Filled with mischief, Robin just had to egg it on. “Your illness on Drum Island, sharing food with you on Alabasta…but I can assure you, you are not as bad as Roosterhead.”
“Honestly, the way it all lines up, why did I never see it myself?” Nami pondered. “I guess…I mean, Luffy’s stuck his neck all the way out for all of us, not just me. He declared war on the frickin’ World Government to get you back.”
“...But for you, specifically, it’s almost like he offers a part of himself he’d never dare let anybody else near. He doesn’t just want to help you — he wants you to share his greatest strength.”
Nami turned her sights back to the lookout tower she’d made her two frantic exits from, a warm glow overtaking her as the reality set in. Robin was right; it was always there, from the beginning. Because that's how much he trusts me… she thought as she saw flashes of the moment she stitched the hat in her hands back together.
“It’s only natural; what’s clear to others may be invisible to us when we’ve never considered it a possibility.” Robin turned to the lion’s head of the Sunny with a wistful smile. “We’ll even deny it to protect ourselves.”
Nami could see in Robin’s eyes alone that she was speaking from her own experience. The aforementioned Enies Lobby situation sprung to mind — a situation very similar to Nami’s own before Luffy restored her faith.
“Do you know what the terms of my bet with Franky and Usopp were, and why I won?” Robin asked, to Nami’s intrigue. “It wasn’t how long until you two would get together, but which one of you would crack first.”
“And you said Luffy instead of me? Even though he’s the only person on the planet less romantic than Zoro?”
Robin gave her surrogate little sister an endearing smile. “You prefer to think, and Luffy prefers to act.”
“My impulsive, rubber dumbass…” Nami said with pure affection, staring dizzily at the blazing sun.
Robin stood up and reached her hand out in offering. “The King dove headfirst into his feelings, and now the Queen needs to think hers through before she acts. Maybe try doing it with some privacy?”
Assuming it an invitation to have a moment to herself in the women’s quarters, Nami grabbed Robin's hand and stood up with her assistance. They headed down the steps and onto the other side of the ship.
“Luffy jumped off the porch today but he sure did take his sweet-ass-time to decide,” Nami joked. “Said he didn’t want to deal with relationship crap on the way up.”
“I suppose achieving his dream opened up a part of his mind he’d kept off-limits… I mean, who knows? He’s kind, compassionate, and has a sense for people’s true desires. He just might be the picture of the ideal romantic partner.”
“Yeah, when fish ride bicycles…” Nami snorted. “What’s next? He’s actually been a genius all this time but focused all his brain power on the One Piece?”
“That’s my betting pool with Zoro and Sanji,” Robin replied as she reached for the doorknob to their room
“Hey…!” Nami growled, interrupting Robin in a rare moment of annoyance at her. “Why don’t you guys let me in on all these bets?”
Robin folded her arms, tilted her head, and quirked her brow with an accusatory stare for the greedy cat burglar.
Nami’s scowl withered against the power of Robin’s painfully accurate probing.
“........What?!”
After waiting way too long for Nami to return, Luffy went to his thinking cave…well, really, just the dining room. He really hadn’t planned on things getting so messy, but now he had a foreign sensation in his stomach that he wanted to flush down — anxiety over Nami’s feelings, not just consideration.
He wasn’t alone in the dining room, as Usopp, Franky, and Zoro were all gathered at the table enjoying snacks and beer. Zoro was the first to acknowledge Luffy and wore a mystifying smirk on his face. Luffy took note of it before he sat down.
“‘Lot on your mind, captain?” Zoro asked, laying the sarcasm on thick enough for even him to catch.
Luffy frowned and bit his nails. “Man...guys, I think I really screwed up big this time.”
“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific,” Franky quipped.
Usopp squirmed in his seat. “Dammit Luffy, don’t tell me you’ve already done something to piss off the new regime! Has the ink even dried?!”
“No, it’s way worse than that!”
Franky leaned closer with urgency, removing his shades while Usopp looked to the heavens in pleading.
“Oh God it’s an ancient weapon headed right for us, isn’t it?” He deepened his voice into a dramatic baritone and added, “‘Somehow, Imu returned,’” before frantically taking a swig of his water.
Zoro on the other hand, hadn’t moved; sure, he was never one to show fear, but he would’ve ordinarily at least reacted. In fact, his smirk grew wider.
“No,” Luffy began, snatching Franky’s beer and having a sip himself even though he was never a fan of the taste, “I told Nami we should get married!”
That water Usopp was drinking hit Luffy’s face like it came from his slingshot. Franky fell out of his seat and shook the entire room on impact. Zoro said nothing.
“WHAT?!” Usopp shouted.
“Sheesh, Robin sure is sharp ain’t she?” Franky whined as he got back into his seat, putting his shades back on.
“Oh yeah we owe her money now,” Usopp quickly muttered. Then he slammed his fists on the table. “But that’s not the point! Luffy, what the hell were you thinking?!”
“I dunno! And now I feel really bad ‘cause I think I stressed her out and made her sick. She’s been takin’ a dump for a really long time now!”
Zoro almost joined Usopp in the spit-his-drink-out club, but swallowed his beer before he laughed. “I think that was just her excuse to leave. I overheard her talkin’ to Robin about it a few minutes ago. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her freakin’ out like that.”
Luffy’s breath tightened. Sure, his observational power may have suggested that she had indeed been fibbing, but for once he had been the one denying his intuition.
Usopp was the first to speak. “Wait, Zoro, you’ve been sitting here this whole time knowing about our captain’s proposal to our navigator and said nothing?!”
“Yup. You could learn a thing or two.”
“...Touché.” The sniper set his sights back to Luffy. “But back to you, Luffy; why marriage?!”
Franky patted Luffy on the shoulder, trying to play the good cop. “Now, c’mon Usopp, relax. Is it a little more forward than I’d do? Sure. But our boy here is learning!”
“But we’re talking the big M, here!” Now it was Usopp stealing a swig of the cyborg’s beer. “Ask her on a date, a kiss, a stroll on the beach…hell, tell her you want to bend her over the survey desk and give her the Gum-Gum Bazooka; but you don’t jump straight to marriage!”
Luffy ran both hands through his hair. “I wasn’t even planning on asking her, it just kinda came out!”
“Heh, you really Luffy’d it up, didn’t ya?” Franky joked. “Credit for the attempt, but you got a lot to learn about the ladies, my captain. See, they don’t want to have a whole bomb dropped on ‘em and have to make a choice. They wanna be courted, they wanna be romanced, they wanna be sure about their feelings…they wanna make you earn their love and have a story they could sell to an author!”
Luffy listened intently, hanging on every word from the self-proclaimed pervert like he was learning haki from Rayleigh all over again.
“I know we’re skippin’ steps here but depending on how receptive our navigator is to your advances, you’re gonna have to learn it anyway,” Franky continued, leaning closer like he was revealing ancient secrets. “But this is why foreplay is crucial. You can’t just jackhammer the pu-”
“Hold it, hold it, hold it!” Usopp mercifully interrupted. “This is not another episode of Franky’s Freaky Fantasies!”
While Franky shrugged, Luffy kept a tally. “Romance, foreplay, no jackhammering…right!” The cyborg nodded in approval.
“And just so we’re clear here…you didn’t just tell her, ‘Hey, let’s get married’ and leave it at that, right?” Franky asked. “‘Cause no offense, buddy, but you have a proclivity for saying some crazy ass shit.”
While Luffy took that as a point of pride, he nodded. “No. I mean, she started beating me up and yelling at me like she always does.” Was that the sound of butterflies chirping? “But then she started asking questions, so I just said how I really felt about her.”
“And that was…?” Both Franky and Usopp asked.
“That I love her.”
The duo froze and exchanged glances with each other.
“Awwwww!”
Luffy shrank in embarrassment as Usopp hopped across the table and patted his head with a tear in his eye. “Well, look at that, our captain finally admitted his one love more powerful than meat and adventures!”
Franky removed his shades and wiped away tears. “How I’ve waited for this day…! True love always prevails!”
Zoro, of course, did not share their sentiments. “Of all the women, it’s the witch…”
Ignoring his more blubbery crewmates, Luffy asked Zoro, “What was Nami saying out there, anyway?”
“As much as I can’t stand her, I don’t want to speak for her,” Zoro replied, twirling his bottle around. He looked up with a smirk. “Most I’ll say is, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you.”
Luffy grinned, his usual optimism returning. Usopp and Franky’s remarks did give him some questions, however.
“But wait, how did you guys know I liked her? I’ve never said anything before…”
“I’ll put it like this,” Usopp began. “You’re not wearing your hat right now, clearly. Now, if I were to guess where it is, I’d pick one of two places. Tell me which one is correct.”
Luffy scratched his head, though his suspicions were rising. Usopp smirked.
“Is it on top of A) your bedsheets, or B) a head of orange hair?”
“...B. I put it on her—” The light bulb flickered. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“Exactly! I’m pretty sure if any of us tried to put it on, we’d get Gum-Gum Pistoled from here to East Blue.”
“Heh heh, yup!”
“But not Nami.” Usopp closed his eyes and planted his foot on the edge of the table, squeezing his fist with a fierce passion. “Between our captain and navigator, the Straw Hat is the sacred symbol of their intimate bond, a piece of the Sun God Nika that no mere mortal is allowed to touch.”
“Admittedly, Nami made it super more obvious than you,” Franky added. “But yeah, that Straw Hat is the smoking gun.” He even fired a finger pistol for emphasis.
“I’d wager everyone in the crew knows except for Jinbei since he came in so late…” Usopp added. “And hopefully Sanji for the sake of his sanity, but even he might just be deluding himself.”
The chef’s name brought fear to Luffy’s face. “Ah man, Sanji’s gonna be pretty mad, ain’t he?”
“Let him be,” Zoro replied with sadistic splendour.
As if on cue, a blonde in a black suit opened the door, in the middle of a sneeze and holding a brown paper bag full of plants as he stepped in.
“Which one of you slapdicks was gossiping about me?” Sanji asked as he set the bag down on the counter. “Actually, don’t answer; I already know it’s Captain Algae keeping me in that tiny little brain of his rent-free.”
Zoro just closed his good eye and methodically tapped his bottle against the table. “Yeah, keep chirpin’, Dartface…” His voice was equal parts mischievous and ominous. “We’re just talking ladies, something you wouldn’t know anything about.”
With a haughty laugh, Sanji left the counter for the table. “I don’t know anything about ladies? Me?! And from you of all people?!”
“Oh boy, now you’ve gotten him started,” Usopp grumbled.
“Mealy Mossman, you wouldn’t know a woman’s touch if it was the tip of a blade,” Sanji smoothly spat.
Zoro rested his hands on the back of his head, leaned back in his seat and pressed his foot against the edge of the table to keep steady. “Why don’t you ask Perona how I kept my cardio up on Mihawk’s island?”
“P-P-P-Perona?!” Usopp squawked, his entire face turning blue as he shivered. “The creepy goth girl with the ghosts from Thriller Bark? The one who almost killed me?!”
“The very same,” he replied through satisfied teeth, ignoring the shuddering blonde next to him.
Seemingly from nowhere, Usopp retrieved two holy crosses and flashed them at Zoro. “Oh, you two are a match made in hell!”
“BULLSHIT!” Sanji shouted. “No woman in her right mind would EVER let you and your big hairy paws sully an inch of her flesh!”
A black shadow cast over Zoro’s face, and with that smirk he looked more demon than man.
“Did that woman look sane to you, cook?”
Sanji opened his mouth to counter, but couldn’t truthfully answer that in a satisfactory way. So he simply seethed and looked away.
“Whoa, Zoro, you’ve banged a girl before?!” Luffy asked with amazement, forcing Usopp and Franky to grab hold of each other to stop from laughing the entire kitchen to pieces.
Sanji could be faintly heard grumbling, “No he hasn’t,” through his teeth while Zoro replied, “A girl? Singular? Heh. What, you need some pointers?”
“Sure! What do you think would impress Na-”
Usopp freed himself from the clutches of hilarity just in time to slap his hands over Luffy’s mouth.
“Oh, silly Luffy, some details are best left in the bedroom!” While Sanji's swirly eyebrow did perch, that last syllable of Luffy’s request didn’t appear to set off any alarms. When Usopp let go of Luffy’s jaw, the captain whispered his thanks.
Since the theme of the day seemed to be people arriving right as they were being talked about, guess who opened the door next?
“NAMI-SWAN!”
Luffy’s jaw clenched. There she was in the doorway, still wearing his hat with an angel’s glow enveloping her. While Sanji merrily tornadoed his way towards her, the other guys conspicuously observed her with greater interest than usual. For her part, Nami had an awkward smile on her face.
“Hey, um…Luffy? Can I see you for a sec?”
Luffy tensely turned to Usopp, who appeared to have been stricken with a case of sympathy-spooks. Next, he sought Franky, who just subtly motioned for him to get up. Luffy heeded the advice of the big bro of the crew and stepped up to the plate.
With every footstep he took, more goosebumps poked out from his rubber skin. By the time he made it outside and Nami shut the door, he was full-on shivering even though she had mentioned earlier that they were in a tropical climate. Nami turned around to the door, a quizzical look on her face.
“Why do I feel like we’re being watched?” she asked.
Luffy could feel the presence of Usopp, Franky, and yes, even Zoro leaning against the other side of the door. That wasn’t all he felt, though. He could hear the sound of Nami’s heart beating as fast as his own footsteps did in a jog, which just caused his own heart to follow its lead.
Meanwhile, the universe seemed determined to set the mood, as Brook was outdoors strumming an enamoring musical backdrop on his violin. Luffy whistled completely out of tune with it, attempting to appear nonchalant and not a guy that had clumsily spilled intense feelings he’d spent three years willfully ignoring.
Nami cleared her throat, and —
“Hey Luffy, Brook, look!”
It was then that Luffy noticed that Chopper was outside, too, his sparkling eyes pointed to the sea down below.
“What’s up?” Luffy asked, running over to Chopper with no sight of Nami’s perturbed expression.
“Look!” Chopper said. Luffy followed the direction of his finger, and soon he and Brook joined the raccoon dog reindeer in the sparkly-eyes club.
“It’s a fish riding a bicycle!!!!”
A blue fish — not a Fishman, just a regular ol’ fish. It wore a tank around its head filled with water, presumably so it could survive on land. And it was sitting on top of a regular ol’ bicycle, its fins controlling the handlebars while a fan attached to the back wheel propelled it forward. The fish, its eyes oddly human, turned towards its new admirers with a weary stare.
Luffy stared back, his eyes blank, captivated by the once-thought impossible sight. Now this? This was what being King of the Pirates was all about. Just sailing the seas, and seeing random cool shit out of the blue.
“Chopper…get Usopp’s bike.”
Chopper nervously raised an eyebrow. “Luffy, you’re not thinking…?”
“FOR I AM THY KING AND IT SHALL BE THINE DECREE!”
Chopper jolted back and dashed into Usopp’s factory. It pained Luffy to pull rank, but on this occasion it was very necessary.
He was going to race that fucking fish.
Chopper quickly returned with one of Usopp’s bicycles. Not even taking his eyes off the fish, Luffy grabbed it and hopped to the top of the railing.
Nami ran her hand over her eyes. No fucking way. No fucking way had the universe manifested that dismissive idiom from earlier. And all over this guy. This was the man that had her ready to stress vomit an hour ago. Granted, a fish riding a bicycle did sound pretty fucking rad now that she thought about it, but still. In fact, had she not been worried about considerably more significant matters she would’ve been right there with him watching it. But all she could now was cringe, especially at the course of action Luffy was set on taking.
“Goddammit, Luffy, get down from there!” Nami yelled, marching forward.
“HERE I GO!!!!!”
He did it. The guy who, by the way, was cursed to be rendered a glorified stone if he fell underwater, jumped up, [impressively] hopped onto the bike mid-air, and plunged to the water. Nami leaped to the railing, leaning forward with her mouth agape. Through some abominable corruption of physics even without red pupils and a silver flame of hair, Luffy managed to get the bike to drift along the water. Eventually, logic and reason won out and teetered his balance. And with each passing second, the more Nami’s heart rumbled. The more her legs wobbled.
The fish riding a bicycle, clearly wanting nothing to do with this rubber psychopath, blew past him, and the burst caused Luffy to fall underwater.
Nami gasped and covered her mouth.
“Luffy…!”
“Oh no!!!” Chopper yelled, running back and forth and screaming along with Brook. “Why did I listen to him?! It was like the power of Nika compelled me!!!!”
In no mood to wait, Nami hopped to her knees against the railing, steadying herself. She was just seconds from leaping after him before a rotund blue figure beat her to the punch — the significantly more equipped Jinbei, who had been guiding the ship the way expected of an experienced helmsman…so smoothly nobody noticed he was even around. Seconds later, he returned with an unconscious Luffy in one hand and the bike in another.
Jinbei set Luffy down, and that was when something cracked within Nami. This should’ve been funny. Chopper and Brook were running around screaming in overblown panic. Hell, Jinbei was even snickering as he slammed his fist against Luffy’s chest. And even though he was coughing up water in no time, it was the state just prior that fixed itself in Nami’s mind. Luffy, unconscious, eyes glazed over, unmoving and scarce of breath.
It was what she didn’t see when she had been told Kaido had killed him. Nami held onto a lot when it came to the captain. There was her desire, there was her dependance, there was another element she wasn’t ready to confront yet, but there was another one maybe stronger than any of those. Fear. And not a typical, “My friend will die,” fear.
Those moments in Wano when she succumbed to the thought that maybe it was true, she couldn’t even find it in her to move…
Jinbei laughed boisterously when Luffy took stronger breaths and attempted to sit up. “Son, you are lucky you have a Fishman on-board, because you figure out a new way to be unpredictable every day!”
Despite another brush with death, triumphant laughter mixed in with Luffy’s coughs. “I…I did it though…! Rode a bike with a fish…next time I’ll race him and win!”
“Maybe in the kiddie pool, my boy.”
Luffy sat up and quickly blocked the tearful strikes from his reindeer. “Luffy, that might’ve been awesome but don’t do that again! The King of the Pirates isn’t invincible, dammit!”
“You nearly took the wind from my lungs,” Brook chimed in, “If they still existed!”
Luffy just grinned. “I know, I know…but you admit it was awesome!”
Tears turned to sparkles and smiles on the reindeer. “Y-Yeah…”
Luffy’s expression straightened when an hourglass-shaped shadow emerged above him, his apprehension shared by Brook, Chopper, and even Jinbei
“Hey guys,” Nami began, her voice constrained. “Can Luffy and I have a minute?”
Brook and Chopper dutifully obliged, Chopper taking the bike with him, but Jinbei hesitated. Something in her expression, whether it was her tremors or her hollow stare, unnerved him.
“You’re okay, right?”
Nami closed her eyes and smiled faintly at Arlong’s former brother-in-arms. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
After a curt nod, Jinbei left as well, returning to helm duty.
Luffy observed Nami with beads of sweat mixing in with the seawater. “Isn’t this the part where you hit me and make the scary face?”
The tone of his voice and the concern in his face gave away that he didn’t expect either of those to be happening.
To her embarrassment, her eyes welled up. She looked away and grit her teeth. “Fuck…why am I so mad about this…?”
“Are you crying?” Luffy asked, slowly standing back up and shaking off the rest of the water. “It’s okay…I’m alright; you’ve seen this happen to me a million times.”
He was right, and yet that still couldn’t stop the whimper that Nami needed to bite her lip to impede. She looked up and grabbed both ends of her head, nearly clawing through her orange locks. A rumbling groan of frustration spilled from her lips.
“God, this is why I can’t answer you, yet, Luffy…”
“What…?”
“You’re just…” she paused. Every ounce of her brain power went into finding the correct way to phrase her stream of thoughts. “Sometimes, you’re just...”
She couldn’t quite figure it out, so she just clenched her teeth, looked at the floor, and said it.
“You can be such a fucking manchild.”
Against her better judgment, Nami looked up. Luffy’s face was one of quiet confusion; restrained. Maybe even hurt.
“Nami…what…? Where’s this all coming from…?” This weak timbre in Luffy’s voice might as well have made his words a foreign language. “Why, now all of a sudden?”
“Why, now? Luffy-!” she cut herself off again, too flustered to figure out what direction her thoughts were supposed to travel. Where she landed wasn’t ideal. With her hand brushing against her cheekbones, she said, “You don’t THINK!”
“You just…do shit!” she flung her hand at the railing Luffy had leaped from, ignoring the way her joints stiffened as they always did in the face of changing wind pressure. “What if Jinbei wasn’t here? What if the only people around were the ones with devil fruits and you have to drown because a…fish rode a FUCKING bicycle?!”
She actually laughed in her anger, the insanity of the sentence chipping away at her rationale.
“You asked me to marry you, Luffy! Do you realize how big of a deal that is?” Her vision filled with enough water to rival what could have downed Luffy, and his slumped shoulders only accelerated the downpour. “It means your life is the most important thing in the world to me and you can’t be so fucking loosey-goosey all the time…and It’s not some kooky idea you just throw at me because you’re bored.”
“But Nami, I wasn’t —”
Nami swung her hand up to halt him. “I know you weren’t trying to hurt me. You never would. But it’s not always about your stupid whims!” Oof, wrong choice of words. “You have to think about my feelings, too!”
“What…?” Luffy’s delirium spiked into genuine anger. “Nami, I always think about your feelings!”
Nami shut her eyes and once again pulled the hat over them. She couldn’t dispute his sentiment, but…
“Well, you’ve never fucking shown it.” It wasn’t a scream, it wasn’t a yell, just a bitter murmur as a strong gust of wind blew against her face.
Luffy released a groan of frustration that sounded like anything but the childish pouts she’d grown so accustomed to. “See, this is why I never wanted to do this stupid shit before…!”
The internal pose broke.
With a ferocious growl, Nami squeezed the brim of Luffy’s straw hat. “If you never wanted to do this…”
She yanked it off of her head…
“Then here’s your fucking hat!”
…and swung it at its owner. Even in his frustration, Luffy still had the presence of mind to reach for it.
But, there was that change in the winds that Nami had only subconsciously accounted for. They swept the hat up and carried it past the railing of the Thousand Sunny.
Nami’s blood ran cold. She covered her mouth. No, no, no! Please…! She dashed with all of her might.
Luffy, with one hand gripping the railing, leaped for the only treasure greater than the One Piece, but a sizable fish that emerged from the water saw it only as a decent meal and swallowed it whole.
Nami screamed at the top of her lungs.
“NO!”
She jumped to the top of the railing, but Luffy restrained her at the last second and stretched his arm into the ocean water. It took a few rotations, but the arm soon came back up with the fish in Luffy’s grasp. He shrank his arm down, set the floppy fish on the floor and with evidently no better ideas, shoved that same arm down the fish’s gullet.
“Eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww,” he repeated as he dug through fish guts. Nami watched the absurd sight with an invisible hand squeezing her neck.
“GOT IT!”
He pulled his arm out of the fish’s body and a straw hat coated in pale, green goo along with it. After quickly tossing it and its sulfuric stench to the floor, he punted the fish back into the ocean.
Nami bent down with her hands to her knees, dry heaving as regret and turmoil grasped at her breath. When she found it in herself to look up, she saw Luffy standing idly, bangs obscuring his eyes and leaving only his quivering frown in view.
“Luffy, oh my God…” she grabbed his hand, even ignoring the warm stomach acid coating it. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…”
She kept repeating it over and over again, pressing her head to his shoulder and drenching his cardigan with her sobs.
“I’m so sorry…”
Luffy backed away. Nami stumbled over, but he gently tapped her shoulder to halt her fall and steadied her. But he walked away in silence, off to the men’s quarters. He hadn’t even looked at the straw hat.
Nami sank to her knees, cursing everything she could think of as she wailed. What should have just been some silly Luffy shit for the ages, going back to “Meat warehouses on every island,” had spun into a shitshow because she just couldn’t get a grip — not on what she felt. She knew what that was. But what she wanted.
All that shit about Luffy being careless and she went and nearly lost his hat. Threw a piece of him back at him. She felt like whatever the fuck that slime was that submerged said hat.
A certain seven-foot tall skeleton sullenly walked towards her, violin simply dangling from his hand. Brook had seen the whole thing, choosing to let the two hash things out themselves. But now the navigator needed somebody to steer her back on track. He lingered, watching over her and letting her get the tears out of her system. Though it took many minutes, she relocated her strength to stand even if her sobs continued on.
“So, um…I suppose now wouldn’t be the greatest time for me to ask about seeing your-”
“Shut the fuck uuuuuppppppppp…” she whined while nonetheless grabbing his coat and sobbing into his shoulder. Brook patted her on the back, letting himself serve as her dead living handkerchief.
Ah, young love, full of fears both rational and irrational, driving those it afflicted to do the most hurtful things to those they wouldn’t ever consider hurting. A fuel for some of the most beautiful, poignant, and sometimes gutwrenching melodies the human mind could produce. It was enough to ache his heart…that is, if he still had one.
Yo, ho, ho.
