-1These characters are the property of Eiichiro Oda. This story is not intended for profit.
The Plan
Luffy was explaining his plan to get the crew out of their current predicament and she wasn't really listening. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying, she was entranced by his face. It bothered her but when Luffy's features were hardened with determination and he spoke with a seething anger that someone had said that there was something he couldn't do, she couldn't stop staring at him. And she knew by now that it didn't matter what his plan was. It was bound to be absolutely brainless and it was going to work. Every time Luffy said he was going to do something, he did it. Every time. She realized that he was no longer talking. He was looking at her. The air was thick with expectation. She wished she had paid more attention to the plan.
She smiled sweetly. "I don't understand the plan yet. Could you explain it again?"
He grinned. His teeth loomed enormous. If he hadn't been made of rubber, there was no way he could smile that widely. His cheeks would always ache. "That's okay, Nami. The plan is really complicated. After all, I came up with it!"
She listened this time. After she heard, she experienced a sudden mood swing. The almost overwhelming affection she had been feeling was replaced with overwhelming irritation. She slammed her fist into the center of Luffy's face. His head rocked back and then sprung forward.
"Oi Nami, you don't like your part of plan?"
"No!" She screamed, "That's plan's not complicated at all!"
Luffy's face contorted in confusion. "But you said you couldn't understand it. You must be pretty dumb!" He laughed.
His laughter was galling to her. She began to raise her fist to punch him again. But she restrained herself. It was her fault for lying, she supposed. He smiled at her. He was only joking. She felt another wave of a different emotion: concern. "I don't like any part of your plan. Luffy, why do you want to fight alone? Make Sanji and Zoro do it or at least help you."
His smile waned and then disappeared. She had offended him. "I don't need to make anyone fight my battles for me."
He looked away from her. He put his hand against the wall and stood up. He turned to leave. Nami grabbed his hand. He looked down at it. When she spoke her voice was quiet, "I didn't mean that you couldn't fight by yourself. I know you can. You just don't need to."
"I do if I want to stop my Nakama from being hurt."
He was so serious. Nami began to grapple with the fact that she wasn't the only one whose moods wildly fluctuated. Her voice had became even quieter, "You can at least let Zoro get hurt."
"Nami, stop grabbing me. I have to go now."
She didn't let go of his hand. She pulled on it, forcing Luffy to help her up. Even when she was on her feet, she kept his hand entwined in hers. "What about us, huh? Anything could happen to us on way back to the Going Merry?" She tried to sound angry but her heart wasn't in it. She was fighting a lump in her throat. She was touched by Luffy's devotion. She felt like an idiot. She told herself to let go of his hand, but she did not comply.
"If anything tries to get you, just tell Zoro to take care of it." Luffy grinned. He pulled his own hand out of hers. "You'll be fine, Nami. Trust me."
His face was serious after he said it and looking at his grave expression made her feel foolish and sentimental. She mused over the way his voice had sounded when he told her to trust him; it was more like a request than a command. He began to turn his back to her. "Oh, Luffy," she heard herself say breathlessly. She lifted her hands and grabbed Luffy's face. She pulled his face into hers. She kissed him.
It wasn't an overly long kiss or overly passionate. But Luffy didn't shorten it by pulling away or shoving her off of him like she had always feared. And when the kiss ended, Nami removed her hands and stared into his face. Luffy wasn't looking at her with repulsion or embarrassment or horror which she had suspected he might. He was looking at her with pity. Her mind boggled. Pity?, she thought.
All of the ways she had imagined this kiss going, she had always envisioned herself coming out the experience unscathed. She knew that the chances of the kiss ending poorly were high. But she also anticipated that she would just pretend that Luffy's negative reaction had been her goal. She would laugh it off and no one would be the wiser. But there was no laughing this off. No one could laugh when someone was looking at them with a wide-eyed expression of pity. She searched his face in earnest hoping she had read it wrong. But no, the pity remained and something else was there too: compassion.
She was having a physical reaction to the humiliation. Her stomach churned. She wanted to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. She wanted to run away. She wanted to never face Luffy or the others again. Luffy stopped her from doing any of this.
He lifted his hands and gently clasped her shoulders. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice was heavy with sympathy.
"Sorry?" she spat out. Her voice was harsh with anger.
"I can't marry you," Luffy told her.
"Marry me? What are you talking about?"
"It's not that you don't mean anything to me. You mean a lot to me. This whole town does. You mean too much maybe. I'm not done. There are still things that I have to do. I don't know when I'll be ready to stop but I might be one day. It'll be different for us then. I'll come back."
He said the entire speech in a monotone. As he delivered it, he had looked earnestly into her eyes. Nami blinked. He's gone crazy. It was the only conclusion she could draw.She took a step back. She tried to shake Luffy's hands off her shoulder but he tightened his grip. Apparently, holding onto her was part of his venture into insanity.
She was faced with another expectant pause. "What are you talking about?" Her voice cracked with distress.
Luffy interrupted his serious gazing by blinking. "No, Nami, that's not what you're supposed to say."
She became incensed. "Who are you to tell me what I am supposed to say? You're not even making sense."
"Nami, tell that I shouldn't make promises that I'm not going to keep." He said it slowly, with the same careful precision he had used to explain his stupid plan.
"Will that make you stop being crazy?"
He didn't respond. He stood immobile. He was in a self-imposed inertia until she said her line. "You shouldn't make promises you don't intend to keep." She told him, surprised that the words sounded natural coming out of her mouth.
Luffy turned his head slightly to the right. He cast his eyes downward. "You're right. Even if I want things to be different sometimes, that doesn't change them. I'm sorry," he said, his voice was sorrowful. It made Nami ache. His hands dropped from her shoulders and he turned away. As his shoulders were turning towards her, she heard his voice speak once more. It was the saddest voice she had ever heard, "Makino-chan."
Name's mouth slipped open. She lifted her hands to her eyes to catch the tears that were going to start to fall. She watched him walk away and knew that this was it. He was walking out of life and he wasn't coming back. She suppressed the urge to call out to him and beg him to stay. It wouldn't be fair to make him watch her breakdown not when it was already so hard on him. Except it wasn't hard on him, his back wasn't slumped with despair as he slowly walked down the ally. He shoulders were high. There was a jovial bounce in his step. He was whistling. Something occurred to her.
"Wait!" She shouted, "My name isn't Makino!"
Luffy was almost at the end of the ally. Nami sprinted towards him. She lunged. Her arms circled around his waist and threw him to the ground. She spun Luffy so that his back was on the ground. She sat on his legs and grabbed his vest with her right hand. "Oi, Nami. What's wrong now?" He stared at her genuinely confused.
"What's wrong? What's wrong?" She screamed. She pounded her fist into Luffy's stomach. She accentuated each word by pounding her fist against his skin, "My. Name. Isn't. Makino."
"I know," he protested.
She stopped punching him. "Then, why did you call me that, you idiot? Why did you give that speech, you dumbass? What town are you talking about, you jerk? What's wrong you, you moron?"
"When a girl wants to marry a pirate, that's what the pirate's supposed to do," Luffy said this as though it were rather obvious and he was shocked to find himself explaining it.
She let his vest slip from her fingers. "The words you said, someone told you to say them?" She felt confused again. "Just tell me who Makino is."
"She owned the restaurant in my town. She wanted to marry Shanks."
She moved herself off of Luffy's legs. "The person who gave you the hat?"
"Right," Luffy said. He nodded enthusiastically.
Could it be that Luffy had memorized some speech he had overheard from his childhood just so he could repeat it in the exact same way it was delivered to the first girl who kissed him? It seemed to explain everything. Nami mournfully wondered why she had to be that girl. She rubbed her eyes, "Luffy, when I kissed you it wasn't because I wanted to marry you."
Luffy incredulously chuckled, "Nami, that's why girls kiss pirates."
"Well, that's not why I kissed you!" She shouted.
Luffy tipped his head and looked at her. It was apparent that he didn't believe her. Nami gaped again. She was at a loss. She couldn't think of a thing to say to make this turn out well for her.
"I can't marry you, Nami. I don't have time. I'm too busy for a wife. When I'm the King of the Pirates, maybe things will be different. If you still want to, I'll marry you then." He pulled himself up again.
He offered his hand to Nami to help pull her up. She didn't take it. She wanted to stew for a while. "Nami, come on, you have to take everyone to the Going Merry."
She had almost forgotten. She took his hand. As soon as she was standing, she let go. "Cheer up, Nami!" His voice was bubbly. She glanced at him. He was grinning. She looked away before she could involuntarily return it. "You know, if you don't want to wait. You could marry Sanji. He would make a good husband. He knows how to cook and he takes orders well." No matter how unlikely it might be she hoped that he was joking but he was being sincere.
She looked at him. "That wouldn't bother you at all." She had intended for it be a question for Luffy to answer but it turned into a statement. She didn't need him to answer she knew she was right.
"Why would it bother me? Wouldn't that make you and Sanji happy?"
She looked away again. "I don't think I would be happy."
"So are you going to wait for me?"
She considered it for a moment. "I don't know," she told him.
"Do you need time to think about it?" He said the sentence cautiously as though he were grappling with concepts that were so foreign to him he was afraid of getting it wrong.
She nodded. Luffy's plan required them to walk in opposite directions. She turned her back to him and started to walk away.
"As your captain, I order you to think until you're done!" He shouted to her back.
It halted her in her steps. "Aye, aye Captain."
But she had hesitated for a moment before she spoke and over the clattering of his sandals on the pavement as he ran to complete his mission, she didn't think he had been able to hear her.