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You really should stop letting Luffy drag you into his plans.
Somehow it always ended in the strangest situations. Fun ones. But weird, nevertheless.
“You should sit closer,” you murmured when you noticed the waiter look at you. “Couples normally sit together.”
Luffy immediately wrapped an arm around the back of your chair and dragged it, wood screeching loud enough to make two people at the next table glance over, until it was flush to his own. “Like this?”
He was warm against your side, careless and easy about it in a way that made the whole thing feel much less fake than it should have.
You laughed softly. “Not fused, Captain.”
“You said closer.”
“Yes but still at a distance where we can eat,” you said, shuffling your chair a little further away. “You can put an arm around me if you want while you wait for the second course. It would sell it better.”
His arm immediately snaked around you and settled warm and heavy across your middle, like he had been waiting for permission to commit to the entire idea with his whole body. You sighed.
“I just meant on my shoulder or my hip,” you said. “But this is fine too.”
A salt-filled breeze moved lazily through the patio. Not a cloud in the sky and the refreshing sparkle of the drink in your hand made this almost seem like a normal trip to an island. Almost.
“What… are you two doing?”
You turned your head toward the sidewalk that meandered just on the other side of the restaurant’s half wall. Usopp and Zoro were looking at Luffy’s arm wrapped around you and the drink in your hand.
You smiled and nodded your chin toward the restaurant’s window. “We’re dating. Considering that couples eat free today.”
Usopp looked at the sign and then snorted. “Fair enough. Good food?”
“Great food!” Luffy corrected.
“We just have to keep up the act,” you said with a small smile. “Want to try some of the breadsticks? They’re good.” You offered one to Usopp who snatched it before Luffy could.
“Hey,” your captain complained. “You said they were finished.”
Usopp hopped the wall to take a seat next to you, grabbing Zoro and tugging him over before he could wander off. “Did you apologise to them beforehand for how much they’d be feeding Luffy?”
“I felt bad for a second,” you said. “Then I spoke to some locals and found out this place is a bit of bad news so…”
“Serves them right?” Usopp asked.
“Exactly.”
Zoro dragged over his own seat, slouching into it. “Makes more sense,” he scoffed. “I thought I had missed something.”
“You did!” Luffy said cheerfully. “They already brought the first round.”
“Not what I meant,” he scoffed. “Is there booze?”
Luffy pointed toward the sign with a bone. “Yeah. Couples drink free as part of the plan.”
Zoro looked at you and you shook your head. “Don’t look over here. I’m taken. You can date Usopp.”
He looked to his side then shrugged. “Whatever. As long as I get free drinks.”
“What?!” Usopp squawked.
“We’re dating,” Zoro decided. “Don’t ruin it.”
“Says who?!”
“Whoever’s in charge of booze,” he said, looking back over his chair for the nearest waiter.
“Are we allowed to do this? This feels like the kind of thing people get thrown out for.”
You pressed a hand over your mouth to fight off the laugh at Usopp’s distressed expression, made far worse when Luffy slammed both his palms into the table.
“Yeah! Usopp and Zoro are dating too! That means they’ll bring more! But you guys should sit closer together.”
“No!” Usopp said.
Luffy immediately looked to you for assistance and you shrugged. “They don’t have to. Sometimes people sit further apart but you sitting close is easier than you trying to compliment me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Captain, give me a compliment.”
“Okay.” He looked at you for a long moment and you nodded. “You’re good at hiding food from me.”
“Yeah, stick to sitting closer,” Zoro said dryly. “Oi!”
The waiter who stepped over was tired enough from Luffy’s appetite that he only took a look at the other unconventional ‘couple’ and sighed, bringing the drinks Zoro wanted with resignation. Them not having to prove it was probably much better for their sanity.
You ended up returning to the Sunny far later that night, cheeks sore from laughing while Usopp firmly dragged a drunk Zoro along. Luffy looked at the two of them and immediately snaked his arm around your waist instead. You sighed and just moved his hand to rest right above your hip.
“More here for actual couples,” you whispered though it didn’t really matter if the restaurant heard you now.
“Oh okay.”
His hand stayed there until you boarded and he eagerly explained the plan to Nami who honestly looked impressed at the lack of money spent. You’d thought that was the end of it, even if his touch still lingered on your side.
But no sooner had you arrived at the next island and hopped off the ship than Luffy’s hand was resting on your hip again.
You looked down at it, noticing Franky’s confusion from next to you.
“And this, captain?”
“We might get more free food,” he said with a grin.
“Luffy,” Nami sighed. “They’re not going to have something like that on every island.”
“You don’t know that,” he said with a broad grin. “It worked great last time and I know what to do now.” He was maintaining the close thing, that was for sure. His body was practically flush to your own.
You took the hand from your hip and laced your fingers through his instead so you were holding hands. “This looks much better,” you promised with a small laugh. “Holding hands is much more common.”
Luffy swung his hand with yours happily. “Alright. Let’s go find somewhere that has food then.”
“Good luck,” Nami said to you and you shrugged.
“Just remember to not run ahead if you want this to work,” you told him. “Or you’re going to pull out my shoulder.”
“Right.”
That island had no restaurants with promotions and no heart-shaped signs in windows. By noon, Luffy had already been distracted by three food stalls, a beetle, and a man balancing knives on his chin.
His hand still stayed locked around yours.
At first, you told yourself it was easier not to mention it. He was following the rules you had given him, after all, and Luffy could be stubborn once he thought he understood something. But when you slowed to look at a row of painted shells, he slowed too. When you stopped, he stopped beside you, fingers warm between yours, patient in a way he almost never was around food.
You looked down at your joined hands and decided, very carefully, not to ask why.
And that just turned into a habit.
On the next two islands you found, no sooner had you made land than your captain’s fingers would be laced with your own. He made no true complaints about following your exploration or helping with the tasks you were given to handle. If you slowed, he matched your pace, exactly like you had asked the first time.
One day, when you found a stall with beautiful jade jewellery, you found his arm move from your hand back to your waist again while you looked, more and more weight pressing onto your side.
“You can go and find food,” you told him, turning over a bracelet between your fingers. “I’m not going to keep you here.”
Luffy made a thoughtful sound and leaned his cheek against your shoulder. Then his arm looped around you twice suddenly.
“I’m good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
“Captain.”
“Mm?”
“You’re very close.”
You reminded him as though his arm wasn’t continuing to snake around your entire torso. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this but it was new outside of fights where he used it to move you from danger.
“I know,” he said, seeing no problem with the proximity.
“Alright,” you said, fighting not to laugh. “But it makes it quite hard to look at things.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He unwound himself from you and stood normally at your side, rocking back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. You looked at him for a second longer, smiled, and then went back to considering the jewellery.
It didn’t even take ten seconds before something warm touched your hip and you glanced down to see his arm slowly winding its way around you, as though if he moved carefully enough, you might not notice several feet of rubber.
Luffy started whistling when you tilted your head toward him, eyes fixed very purposefully on the opposite stall.
The old woman behind the jewellery display gave a soft laugh. “That is quite the devoted arm. Very interesting devil fruit power.”
“Eh?” Luffy asked, looking around him.
“Yours,” you clarified, poking his arm that had already wrapped twice around you. “But it really is, isn’t it? I think I’ll take the bracelet, thank you.”
The woman smiled. “Half-price for such a sweet couple,” she said with a small twinkle in her eyes.
“Really? Thank you.”
You paid and Luffy didn’t let go of you when you walked away, still rather curled around you as he laughed.
“See. I told you the couple thing would pay off!”
“You weren’t wrong,” you admitted, smiling at the small bag. “Though, I must say, this is a bit close for a normal couple.”
“You said I should be close.”
“When sitting.”
“Standing and sitting are basically the same.”
You laughed and left it. You certainly weren’t about to admit that you really liked it when he was this close and wrapped around you. It felt wrong to say the pounding in your heart was caused by the press of his chin against your shoulder.
The act continued onto the next island too.
An island where there were no discounts for couples and no heart-shaped signs anywhere. No reason for Luffy to be holding your hand as though the two of you were about to be inspected at any moment.
Yet his fingers were firmly through yours even as the group split and you joined Nami, Robin, and Chopper in walking through a shopping district.
The two women were definitely giving you looks but Chopper mentioned it first after he almost walked between the two of you and got caught on your joined hands.
“Is this still the dating thing?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Luffy said easily. “It works.”
You didn’t really have an answer so you stayed quiet, even when Nami looked over her shoulder, very unimpressed.
“There are no couple promotions here.”
“You don’t know that,” Luffy said. “We found the last one by accident.”
Robin, who honestly looked far too entertained, commented, “You’re very committed to the role of a good boyfriend.”
“I am!” he said brightly.
“He has taken all my lessons to heart,” you admitted with a slight laugh.
He grinned at you and something in your chest did a stupid little flip.
Robin disappeared into a tiny bookshop not long after which meant the rest of your little group settled onto a bench outside to wait. Well, most of you did. Luffy instead chose to drape himself over your shoulders, winding around you like the world’s most enthusiastic backpack. His head rested on your shoulder, hair tickling your face.
“This is boring,” he said into your ear.
“You didn’t have to come,” you reminded him, hoping he didn’t notice the shiver that went through you when he spoke so close.
Nami looked over from the bag of fabric samples she’d been sorting through and then frowned. “You two really don’t need to be so close for this game.”
“Huh?” Luffy asked.
“You’re practically on top of her.”
You lifted one hand in mild protest. “Technically, he’s behind me.”
“You can hold hands again,” Nami said. “That works just as well as… whatever that is.”
“We got food out of it once,” you defended though your heart was pounding. “You never know when it might happen again.”
Chopper frowned up at you. “Why would you get food out of that?”
Luffy, utterly unbothered by the stares he was getting, leaned even more of his weight against you. “Because we’re good at it?”
“Good at what?”
“Dating.”
You made a small sound that was supposed to be a laugh and came out far less convincing when he was so warm against you.
Nami looked at you and you hurried to look away.
He dropped his head back to your shoulder, nose tickling the side of your neck as he sighed. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too,” you said, immediately grateful for the escape route. “Let’s go find somewhere to eat while we wait.”
He was off you so quickly that the sudden lack of warmth almost startled you and you hoped Nami would go back to whatever she had been doing. She wasn’t. She was still staring as though you were losing your mind.
“Can I come with?” Chopper asked.
“Of course.”
The restaurant you found was quiet enough that you could hide your fluster in the dim light. They didn’t offer any couple’s discounts but they had meat enough that Luffy quickly forgot about his acting and set about inhaling the plates.
You helped Chopper guard his meal as you shuffled your own plate closer, waiting for the inevitable.
A hand darted toward your plate and you smacked it lightly without looking. Luffy, entirely undeterred, tried again, this time far too fast for you to stop. So instead, you sighed and reached over to take something from his plate.
He glared at you. “Hey, that’s mine.”
You put it pointedly on your plate. “You started it.”
“But I’m your boyfriend.”
You nearly knocked over your water glass. Chopper frowned up at you and you fought to keep the embarrassment from your cheeks.
“Even then,” you established, trying to regain control of the whole pretend thing. “Couples share. They don’t just rob each other’s plates.”
Luffy huffed and then picked up another piece from his plate and dropped it onto yours with exaggerated slowness. As though it even made a dent in the massive pile he had in front of him. You laughed and leaned over, kissing his cheek before you could think better of it.
“Good boyfriend,” you teased. “Thank you.”
Luffy blinked once.
You realised as you stared at him that that probably was a bit too much. But then he swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned in to kiss your cheek in return.
“Thank you too.”
And he went back to eating like nothing happened.
Chopper stared at you both for a second. “Is that… part of it?”
You took a very careful sip from your drink and tried to pretend your face wasn’t heating up substantially. “It can be. A dating thank-you thing. Sometimes,” you said, voice slightly too thick.
Unfortunately, it seemed Luffy took that lesson and ran with it.
At breakfast the next day, half of your plate disappeared, only to be replaced with the fruit from his before you could even protest. You sighed and looked at him.
“Captain?”
“Yeah?”
You gestured at your plate and caught his wrist before he could grab from another piece. “Not an invitation,” you corrected. “What was that?”
“Oh right.” And then he leaned over and kissed you on the cheek. “Thank you.”
It flustered you enough that you let go of his wrist and he beamed as though having solved some kind of puzzle.
Sanji, who had been refilling your glass, froze and the water spilled across the rim, splashing across the table and straight into Usopp’s lap.
“Hey! Watch where you’re pouring!” Usopp yelled as he jumped back.
Sanji didn’t respond. The jug was still pouring as he looked between you and Luffy with not a single ounce of comprehension. He opened his mouth as though to ask but before he could, Luffy dropped something onto your plate.
“My turn,” he said, leaning his cheek toward you.
You pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, trying to ignore the eyes all burning holes through your skull. “It’s a way to say thank you,” you said to nobody in particular.
Brook laughed heartily. “A kiss as thanks? How romantic. Though I suppose I would have to receive mine directly on the bone.”
“Nope. They’re our thing,” Luffy said with enough surety that you had to take a second to get your heart rate back to normal.
This fake dating thing was really starting to go a bit far. And then, of course, you ended up making it much worse.
You were in the pantry, trying to reach a jar somebody had shoved onto the highest shelf which was ridiculous considering that half the crew had no real way of getting it. You’d been stretched up onto your toes, reaching desperately for it when a familiar arm stretched past your shoulder.
“Here,” Luffy said.
“Thank you.”
And without thinking, you turned to give him a kiss on the cheek the way he’d apparently taught you to both do now. Only Luffy turned his head at the exact same time.
Your mouth met his. Not his cheek.
For a second, your heart just about stopped.
The jar slipped from your hands and Luffy caught it before it could fall. Your shoulder bumped into the shelf behind you as you stared blankly at him, not certain where to even begin defending that one.
“I…” you trailed off.
The words just weren’t forming in your brain.
“I was going for your cheek,” you finally managed to say.
Luffy nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at you then and smiled. “Why? That was fun.” He leaned in and kissed you again, quick and certain. Not long enough for you to move but not short enough for you to pretend it hadn’t happened.
“There,” he said. “Now we’re even.”
You stared at him, finally starting to realise that this might be something you should talk about.
He picked up the jar and twisted the top off with a pop, peering into it curiously. “What’s this for?”
“I forgot,” you said honestly because your memory seemed very caught up on what had just happened.
You should have asked what that meant. You knew you should have. But asking meant giving him the chance to laugh and say it didn’t mean anything at all, and you hated how quickly that thought made your stomach drop.
Things became much harder to explain neatly after that. Because the cheek kisses were a thank you that you’d accidentally taught him but the others were… less easy. Mainly because Luffy seemed to use them for everything.
He’d give you a proper kiss at random points throughout the day. To say good morning. To ask you to move over so he could sit with you. To thank you for moving over so he could sit with you.
It was something you should have stopped. Probably.
Or at least should have admitted that it was a little strange.
Instead, when he leaned in across the breakfast table and kissed you quickly before stealing the last piece of toast from your plate, you only stared at him for a second before saying, “That’s… not a fair trade.”
He grinned with the toast already between his teeth.
The worst part was that you stopped needing a reason too. Once, he leaned over your shoulder to look at the map in your hands, and you kissed his cheek simply because he was there. He grinned for the rest of the afternoon.
So you accepted it as part of whatever game you were playing and every time he did it, it sent your heart into a complete panic. And you found he was weaker to those sorts of kisses too. Especially when you wanted him to do something, there was no easier way.
Which ended up being a problem when you forgot this was far from normal for the others to see.
Luffy had wrapped himself around you with terrifying efficiency. One arm was looped around your waist, the other hooked over your shoulders, and his chin was planted stubbornly beside your head. He was warm and heavy and impossible to move when he decided gravity was somebody else’s problem.
“But it’s my turn to be on watch,” you told him.
His arms wound around you an extra time. “Well, I’m the captain and I think somebody else should do it so you can stay here.”
“That’s not fair,” you said with a small laugh squeezed from your ribs.
“So?”
You tried to pry him off to no avail and Nami had already tried a lecture that went nowhere. And you had no chance of actually beating him in a competition of strength so you relented.
“Okay, okay,” you said. “If you let me go on watch, I’ll buy you whatever food you want the next time we make land.”
“Nope.”
“Captain…”
“What? I want you to stay here.”
He was close enough and you were distracted enough that instinct moved you toward the one thing you knew would work. It was a quick peck, done mainly out of exasperation and because it was the best way to say please.
You just forgot you were very much surrounded by others who didn’t see kissing their captain as an effective way to beg for release.
Sanji dropped a knife from the plates he’d been carrying. It clattered over the floor and stopped alongside Zoro’s foot who kicked it back without looking.
Nami had gone completely still, one hand frozen halfway through sorting a stack of coins. Usopp’s mouth was hanging open and Robin was openly smiling behind her hand. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Luffy, apparently caring about none of this, groaned and dropped his head onto your shoulder, his hair tickling your face.
“You can’t do that to get your way,” he complained.
You had an answer but it didn’t really seem to be forming because everybody in the room was staring at you. You hurried to look at him instead as he unfurled his arms from you rapidly.
“Fine,” he huffed. “But only this time. Nami, you can’t put her on night watches anymore. It’s not fair.”
Robin cleared her throat. “So…” she said. “This is new.”
Nami opened her mouth. Then closed it again. And you realised with a very sinking a sinking sense of doom that there wasn’t really any room for misunderstanding that you had, in fact, just kissed Luffy. Very much in front of everyone.
“Habit?” you offered in a very weak defence.
“That’s worse!” Sanji exploded suddenly in a very wounded tone. “I have spent years perfecting the art of romance and he gets kisses out of habit?”
“There is no way this is a game anymore, right?” Nami asked, finally managing to get her voice back. “You two cannot be serious.”
“It’s not that weird,” you defended.
“Yeah,” Luffy agreed and you should have known that he was going to say something slightly worse because he immediately followed with, “But we always do this.”
Brook leaned forward at the table. “All the time, you say?”
“Brook,” you warned.
“It’s normal,” Luffy said and he grabbed your face and kissed you firmly on the mouth. “See?”
Sanji dropped the knife again.
“You picked it up just to drop it?” Zoro asked.
“Shut up!” Sanji snapped though he was staring at you with betrayed horror.
Robin laughed softly. “It’s certainly unusual,” she said. “Sanji feeds all of us without anybody needing to pretend to be a couple.”
Luffy blinked as though that hadn’t even occurred to him. “Yeah, I know. I’m not doing it just for the food though?”
You turned to him, your last defence against this entire thing shattering as you heard him. What did he mean he wasn’t doing this for… The entire time you’d been telling yourself to stop your heart from fluttering as it did and… Your brain wasn’t working.
Zoro scoffed. “Sounds like dating to me.”
“Yup,” Luffy said and you stared at him helplessly.
“We are?”
Nami groaned and just moved all the coins into her bag, sorting forgotten. “You cannot tell me the two of you fake-dated into actually being together. I knew it. I hate that I knew it, but I knew it.”
“Captain,” you said and Luffy looked at you, far too eagerly. You forced yourself to speak before you forgot. “We’re dating?”
“Yeah,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” you said, softer now. “I thought we were doing the fake dating thing. You never told me it was real now.”
“Right,” Franky said. “Super normal fake dating. You two have been acting like a couple for weeks.”
You gave him a sharp look. “I don’t… I told him to do all those things.”
“Yeah, so we could date better,” Luffy clarified.
And you didn’t really have an answer for that one because the more you were thinking of it, the worse your excuses became.
“We were pretending,” you reiterated. “At first.”
“I stopped pretending ages ago,” he said. “Didn’t you? I mean, there wasn’t free food afterwards.”
You stared at him, realisation creeping up on you with the same heat as the embarrassment crawling over your neck. No, there hadn’t been any free food. Not for weeks. There had just been his hand finding yours every time you stepped onto a new island, his weight against your shoulders while he complained about being bored, his mouth pressed to yours like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“No,” you admitted. “I wasn’t pretending either.”
Then he grinned widely. “Good.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself, helpless and embarrassed and absurdly happy. Around you, the silence finally broke. Usopp made a strangled noise, Sanji said something wounded and dramatic, and Nami dropped her face into her hands. Even Zoro huffed a laugh from his seat.
Luffy only looked at you, still grinning, as though this had all been settled ages ago and he had only been waiting for you to catch up.