This was sort of a last minute idea I had, so I apologize if the quality isn't as good as I usually try to make it.
This is the most I'm doing specifically for this holiday, so I hope you enjoy it!
For those of you who are new to my stories, this one is a one-shot special that's centered on my OC, Terra, and the Straw Hats. I hope that this one-shot will also get you interested in reading my One Piece story, "Who Is She?" There are a few elements here that are more thoroughly explained in the main story, but not here because this one-shot is written under the assumption that you have some knowledge of how Terra's dynamic with the Straw Hats is.
Other than that, this is a Valentine's treat to all my followers and reviewers and people who've added "Who Is She?" to their favorites list. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. Terra/Myka is my OC.
"Is there any particular reason why Sanji is acting more like an idiot than usual?" asked Terra, completely annoyed with the chef already.
It had started out as just another rainy day on the Going Merry. The Straw Hats had their breakfast in the usual hectic manner (mainly because Luffy would always try to steal other people's food). However, Sanji appeared to be even more love-struck than usual as he handed the girls their food. Terra, who did not get an adequate amount of sleep the night before to deal with this, ended up kicking Sanji in the stomach by the time she left the kitchen.
"It probably has something to do with today," said Robin as she walked out on the deck. Terra frowned.
"Today? What does that mean?" she asked. Before Robin could answer, Zoro announced from the crow's nest that there was an island in sight. Luffy, being his typical self, gave out the order to land there.
As they could have guessed from the rainy weather they were traveling through, they had arrived at a spring island. Terra didn't particularly like being out in this weather, but she was tired of being stuck on the ship. She wanted to move around.
After some debating, everybody but Zoro left the ship to explore the town that was just out of sight of their ship anchored in a sheltered bay, each of them wearing a raincoat to protect them from the weather. Once in the town, Sanji had split off to go shop for supplies. Chopper and Robin went to look for a local bookstore. Usopp had gone off in search of tools for his weapons and to fix Merry up with.
Terra, Luffy, and Nami were just wandering around, looking at all the different shops and seeing what all was there. Terra couldn't help but frown at all of the pink and red paper hearts that were decorating some of the store windows.
"What's all this? Is there some kind holiday happening on this island?" asked Terra after seeing the fifth shop in a row emphasizing its sale on flowers and sweets and other romantic crap.
"Don't you know what today is?" asked Nami.
"It's Thursday, isn't it?" said Terra, not seeing what that had to do with anything.
"It's the 14th," said Nami. Terra continued to give Nami a questioning stare. Nami sighed.
"Of February," Nami elaborated further. However, Terra's expression did not change.
". . . I still don't see what that has to do with anything," admitted Terra. Nami frowned at the woman. Was she being serious? Before Nami could explain the date any further, Sanji had appeared out of nowhere from behind them.
"Nami~! Terra~! I'd be honored if you two would be my Valentines!" he declared. The trio turned around to see that Sanji was kneeling down on one knee with flowers and candy for both women in his hands. Nami had expected something like this to happen, so she wasn't surprised. However, Terra was now annoyed and very confused.
"What the hell is a Valentine?" she asked, effectively ruining the mood Sanji was trying to set out in the middle of the muddy street. Instead of acting shocked, Sanji got up, cheerfully laughing.
"Nice one, Terra, but you know that today is Valentine's Day!" he said. This did nothing to lessen Terra's confusion.
"Like I said, what the hell is a Valentine? And why does it have its own holiday?" she asked. Nami stared at Terra in surprise when she realized that the woman was not joking in an attempt to blow Sanji off.
"Wait, you really don't know?" she asked for clarification.
"Well, apparently everyone else does, because I'm the only one here who's in the dark," said Terra, annoyed that nobody had yet to answer her questions repeatedly now.
"It's a holiday where you get candy!" said Luffy, like it was the most obvious fact in the world. He also looked excited about getting candy now that he remembered the holiday.
"That's not even close!" claimed Sanji, "Valentine's Day is the holiday of love~!" Suddenly, Sanji's behavior made a hell of a lot more sense to Terra. She frowned in annoyance.
"That sounds like cheesiest holiday anyone could ever come up with," she said flatly.
"Oh come on! Surely you've celebrated it before! Even if you just exchanged cards or candy to someone you loved," said Nami, not believing the degree of Terra's ignorance on the holiday.
Terra stood there as she suddenly felt cold. The rain felt like ice where it hit her face, despite having the hood of her violet raincoat being pulled over her head. Her amethyst eyes glazed over slightly as her mind took a dark turn. Nobody realized the change in her mood until after she spoke up again.
"Yes, of course it would be natural for me to have celebrated this holiday. After all, with all the people who would try to kill me on sight, or refused to sell me food or medicine, or even a teacher who had dropped from the face of the Earth and hadn't shown up to give me any help since, I have such an abundance of love to celebrate with," she said sarcastically. Nami and Sanji froze at her words. Her mood now sour, Terra turned and walked away.
"Ah, Terra . . ." Sanji called out.
"Go celebrate this stupid holiday on your own," she demanded icily as she disappeared from their sight in a crowd.
"Hey Terra!" This time Luffy was calling out to her. But she still didn't turn back around.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Had that been a fair thing to do? Probably not, but Terra couldn't care less. After all, this was a stupid holiday that only idiots celebrated, so why expect her to do so?
Terra was now sitting on a stump just inside the woods at the edge of town. She would rather be in a bar somewhere, but she forgot to ask Nami for money, and she wasn't willing to go talk to any of her crewmates at this moment.
Now that she was paying closer attention to her surroundings, she couldn't help but notice how everyone on the island seemed to have grouped together into couples and appeared to be enjoying themselves, despite the cold, rainy day. That had been the main reason why Terra opted to be away from people in general right now.
Seeing them act that way only made her think back to the parts of the past she could now remember.
Listen here! You're just a stray piece of trash that I decided to take into my crew to see if you're actually worth something. Don't make the mistake of thinking you hold some weight around here.
Stay back! That's a demon in human skin!
You . . . your stupid stunt brought the Marines down on us! We're not dealing with this! You're going to face them on your own!
I hope you don't mind if I sent you to an early grave. After all, you weren't supposed to exist, anyway.
Why does someone like you bother? It's not like there is anything for you in this world . . .
Majority of the time, such scenes end in a scarlet tint with a vague memory of people screaming bloody murder. She assumed those were the points when she just snapped. She couldn't say she felt any regret for doing so, though. She hated all of those people too much to do so. In fact, there wasn't really anyone she didn't hate. And she didn't see a point to put up a farce that stated otherwise.
Perhaps the reason for this was because she still didn't understand the exact reason why the whole world thought she needed to be dead. She knew it was because of Katie, but that explained almost nothing to her.
Oh well. Did it really matter? In the end, no one acted like they cared about her, so she returned the favor. It was as simple as that.
Terra huffed as another young couple walked by, acting so sweet and sappy that she thought she was going to get diabetes from staring too long. She got up and walked further away from the town.
She didn't care about this stupid holiday. She didn't care how suddenly everyone had someone they cared about enough to spend this miserable, dreary day with. She didn't care about people in general! So none of this should bother her.
Why was she feeling so damned annoyed and angry? Probably because of the lack of sleep from the night before. Yeah, that was the most likely cause.
Terra was pulled out of her thoughts almost literally as someone grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.
"Give me your money, and we both can walk away." A vein popped up on Terra's head. Great! Just what she needed. An asshole that had the balls to try to mug her while she was in such a terrible mood.
"Too bad that only one of us is going to live, though," she said coldly as she pulled out her dagger.
Two swipes were all it took to bring this guy down. He fell face first into the mud with a splat. Terra glared down at him as he looked up at her. Not wanting to waste any unnecessary time, she went ahead and slit his throat. She left as the last of his life pooled onto the muddy ground.
After cleaning her knife, Terra returned it to its sheath and headed off in a random direction.
She didn't get far before she heard someone shouting, "Heeeey!" She frowned as she looked around her immediate area. It sounded like that person was getting close really fast. Then, as her eyes narrowed, she turned around just in time for a body to crash right into her chest. The impact caused her to fall and skid against the mud. Due to being in a slight daze, it took her a moment to recognize the straw hat and the red rain jacket.
"What the hell, Luffy? Was this necessary?" she asked as she shoved him off with a grunt.
"I was looking all over for you, though! You disappear too often," complained Luffy. Terra rolled her eyes as she got up.
"Just why were you looking for me, anyway?" she asked. Luffy smirked as he then grabbed a tree and started to stretch his arm out.
"Uh . . . Luffy?" she asked, not understanding what he was doing. It didn't click that she should be worried until Luffy stretch out his other arm to grab her and pull her close to him.
"W-Wait! You're not gonna . . ." Terra wasn't able to finish that sentence because, in that moment, Luffy had them rocketing through the sky. They were flying for about a full minute before crash landing in yet more mud. Once she recovered, Terra punched Luffy upside the head.
"Dammit, Luffy! What the hell are you up to?" she demanded.
"Hey! There you are!" Terra looked over to see that Luffy had taken her back to the ship and everyone was leaning over the railing to see Terra with a fistful of his raincoat in one hand and another fist in the air to continue the beating.
"Hey Terra, can you lay off of him? We're about to start the party!" said Usopp. Terra paused in her actions to frown at them.
"What party? We didn't find anything here, did we?" she asked. Luffy laughed as he got out of her grip.
"We're celebrating Valentine's Day!" he said. Terra looked at him incredulously.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because it's a holiday for friends!" he said like it was the simplest concept to grasp in the whole world. She frowned.
"Friends?" she asked. Luffy nodded as he led her back to the ship.
"Yeah. We are friends, so why wouldn't we celebrate it?" he asked.
They all gathered in the kitchen, where Sanji already had food prepared for them. There was also a large amount of sweets on the table that Chopper was already helping himself to. Terra . . . was still pretty confused.
"I'm not sure I get what's going on here . . ." she muttered as Luffy and Chopper started to do that dance with chopsticks up their noses sometime into the party.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Robin, who was also watching things from the side, "Valentine's Day is supposed to be celebrating the bonds you have with others in general. It's not specifically about romance." Terra frowned as she turned her attention back to the party.
"You've been traveling with them for quite a long time. Wouldn't you say that they're your friends?" asked Robin. Terra gave their adventures since joining them back in the East Blue some thought.
Finally, she allowed herself a small smile. She was debating about joining that drinking contest Zoro and Nami had started when Luffy started waving at her.
"Hey Terra! Come join our dance!" requested Luffy as he was in the process of devouring as much meat as he could without stopping the dance. Terra sighed.
"For the last time . . . I'm NOT going to do that dance!"
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this one-shot. Please leave your thoughts in a review and Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
