A/N: Not my first rodeo here, for those of you wondering about Life is Like a Boat I'm actually in the middle or revising and editing it. This is what I get for writing long-ass chapters, lucky you. Anyway, this is another take on the One Piece genre that you all have no doubt heard; making an original character have relations with a canon character. Yeah, you know; Luffy/Ace having a sister or somebody having a sister. I have yet to come across a good one (if any of you know, give me some recommendations). This is my take, enjoy!

Disclaimer: One Piece and its characters belongs to Oda-sensei, my OC belongs to me!

It was like something out of the first pages of the Bible, the story about Eve and the Serpent.

The Serpent invaded the Garden of Eden. The Serpent went undetected for he was a crafty creature. Making his way through the garden, the Serpent came upon a great tree; the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God had told both Adam and Eve to never eat the fruits of the Tree, or there would be dire consequences from disobeying.

And so, the Serpent called out to the naïve Eve, whispering for her to come and eat the fruits from the Tree.

"It will open your eyes and make you just like God. And you will know good and evil."

The Serpent cackled to himself as he watched Eve pluck the fruit from the Tree and sink her teeth into it, watching the red juices drip from her mouth and down her chin...

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"Drake! You're up!"

I let out a heavy sigh as I watched my friend stand in the middle of the stage, alone and nervous, as the three older girls watched her speculatively. All of them were pondering on one thing; was Miranda Drake worth it or was she just another face in the crowd?

"What would you like to hear?" Miranda nervously asked, offering a weak smile that none of the girls returned.

I couldn't help but wince at their coldness.

One girl, the tallest blond (because they are all blond) leaned closer to the table the girls were sitting behind, skimming through a paper before returning her gaze towards Miranda.

"Bruno Mars, If I was your Man."

Half an hour later, Miranda and I left the building... well, I more like dragged the foaming mass away from the building when she was too busy convulsing on the floor because she had been denied entering the A Capella groups. Miranda was a good singer, but I suppose in the eyes of the A Capella groups, they only wanted the best of the best.

"C'mon Mandy, don't let those idiots get you down. You're better than that." I said to her, dragging her over to a nearby fence. "Those people don't know talent when they see it. That's why they lose all the time from competitions."

"But..." Miranda whined, but was quickly cut off.

"No buts. You're going to to do great somewhere better than this dump!" I exclaimed.

Finally, the red-head gave in and smiled. She leaned in and hugged me tightly, something of which I returned the gesture.

Miranda and I had went to middle school together, I was the new student and she was assigned as my guide. Miranda had other friends, too, while had none of my own but her; she was my one and only best friend. I wasn't good at making other friends, I've always been a bit introverted and the only reason I talked to Miranda at first was to find the next class. Even now, I couldn't find the courage in me to ask a boy out because I'd choke up the minute I made eye-contact with a person!

It was only worse when others branded me a social outcast. I wasn't a goth or an emo, I just liked to dress in dark clothes sometimes. The only time I dressed in bright colors was when the sun was too hot for me to dress darkly in. Anyway, back to the present at hand.

"Anyway, lets go somewhere to find some food!" Miranda announced, standing up from the bench and taking my wrist in her hand so that I was forced to stand with her.

"You're always hungry..."

"Food comforts me!"

"You're going to get fat, Mandy!"

~+~+~+~oOo~+~+~+~

We left the campus behind us, Mandy was driving the whole way to a small, cute cafe shop she found yesterday on one of her morning jogs. I stepped out of the car and followed her into the small building, and I was intrigued with the building the moment I looked at it. It looked like someplace I would hang out at, it was the kind of a place only hipsters would hang out at.

I wasn't a hipster, but I would've liked to think I was.

"C'mon, I'm buying!" Miranda called from the doorway.

I entered the shop and was hit with a cold blast that was built within the building and it was comforting. There was a small line of people ordering their caffeine and bread rolls (thankfully, this wasn't another one of those expensive Starbucks), and it wasn't long when Miranda and I reached the counter where a small, mousy-looking girl was waiting for us with a smile.

"Hi, what would you like to order?"

"Two caramel mocha frappuccino and coffee cake, please."

After the order was made, Miranda told me to save us a seat and my feet soon led me to an opening at the near back of the small shop. There wasn't any people outside so it was good that there was empty tables and chairs. I flopped down on the chair near a fence that surrounded the tables, looking back inside the shop to see Miranda talking—sorry, flirting!—with someone behind the counter where the mousy girl had once been.

Typical, Mandy. She was the bold one when it came to matters with the heart, having been in a good and healthy relationship before having to break it off when one or the other had to move on or things just weren't working out for them. I prayed that never a day would come when someone would break my friend's heart with cruel intentions, like what happened to one of Miranda's old friends back in high school.

Shelly had been in love with an older guy and she trusted him, trusted him enough that she had no idea she was being used. The whole ordeal was horrible, especially when other people would whisper behind her back and call her awful names. It was worse when Shelly's ex-boyfriend started a rumor of just how easy she was and it made majority of the guys at school want a piece of the action.

It resulted in the girl moving far away from the school and state. Miranda and the other girls never heard from poor Shelly again.

"It's a nice day, isn't it?"

I paused for a moment before realizing that someone must be talking to me. My eyes scanned around the chairs but I see no one, and so I turned my head to face the streets and that's when I see the source of the voice.

A tall man with broad shoulders and wearing a dark fedora over his light blond, shaggy hair was leaning against the fence near my table. His back was to me, and I took in his dark blazer and slacks, wondering briefly if he had been really talking to me or he was talking to someone in front of him that I didn't see. The man answered my question.

"The coffee and food is great here. This place isn't as popular because of the whole Starbucks propaganda..."

"That's true," I murmured and looked down at the table.

"You must be happy with the way you are living, am I right?" he suddenly asked.

He still wasn't facing me, his attention elsewhere but he was waiting for an answer. What an odd question to ask a stranger, was it not? I looked back to Miranda, watching as she was talking to the man and the mousy girl. I bit the bottom of my lip, feeling that familiar twinge in my chest every time when I was watching from the distance...

"Would you like a snack?"

I looked back to the man and I blinked when I see a round fruit with a top looking like it was trying to blossom. I followed the limb up to see the fedora-wearing stranger and I winced when my eyes caught the sun. His face remained shadowed and I quickly wiped away the tears from my sensitive eyes. Again, I'm facing the fruit that is still offered to me. With reluctance, I take the offered fruit and examine it, becoming fascinated with it because I didn't see the usual bruises on it. It was unbelievably a perfect fruit.

"Thank you, Mr...?" I trailed off, looking back to him but careful with the sunlight.

"Don't worry, just enjoy the fruit."

Even as he was obscured by the sun, I could see a wide smile directed towards me. He turned away without a word and left me alone. I stared after him, assessing and wondering on what had just happened the last minute since he first spoke to me.

"Oooh~ Who was that you were talking to?" Miranda's voice startled me.

"Mandy! Don't do that!" I snapped at her, clutching the fruit when I nearly dropped it.

"Hey? Where did you get that? I want one!" she whined and reached over the table for the fruit, but I immediately kept it out of her reach.

"No way!"

"Ah, whatever! I brought our order!"

I thankfully took my mocha frappuccino and bit off a piece of my coffee cake. Miranda went on a one-sided conversation about the two people she had been talking to, Jesse and Terry. Jesse was working to pay off a debt because of some trouble he had caused and Terry hired him because she needed an extra hand around in the shop...

I zoned out, nodding once in awhile in the pretense that I was listening every word Miranda was saying. I looked down at the fruit sitting innocently on my lap, my mind wandering back to the man and his odd question.

~+~+~+~oOo~+~+~+~

By the time we returned to the campus it was almost dark. Students were returning to their dorms or apartments and Miranda wanted to go out to a local bar and get drunk. I, on the other hand, wanted to go back to the dorm and sleep.

"I have a midterm test coming up."

"Whaaat~?" my friend whined. "Already?!"

"You should sleep, too, you'll regret it by morning."

"Ahhh... I promised Jesse I'd meet him at the bar..."

I let out a sigh and looked at the direction of the campus, shoving my hands into my pockets. I hear her give a sign of her own and arms wrap around my shoulders.

"Please...? I just got turned down because of those stupid A Ca-bitches. I just want one day for me, one day for things to go right."

"Of course. As always..." I couldn't stop the bitterness in my tone. In my pockets, my hand brushed against something.

"What's that suppose to mean?" I feel her arms loosen and her voice sharpen.

"What do you think?" I escape from her embrace and start towards the campus, but I was forced to stop when Miranda's hand halts my steps.

"No, seriously, what was that suppose to mean?!" she demanded, her green eyes flashing with anger.

Normally, I would have tried to placate her and calm things down, but I had enough of her "me, me, me" world. Miranda was a good singer, a great friend, and an outgoing person, but sometimes she seemed to believe that the world revolved around her. And sometimes, her world would crush me.

"I'm tired, Mandy! You would skip classes and when you're in danger of being dropped out, you'd come to me and I have to be the one that cleans up your messes!"

All the while I was lecturing her, my fingernails were digging into the fruit, wanting to keep my hands busy with something while I was speaking up. I was forced to remove the fruit from my pocket when it was starting to drip. I dug my nails deeper, opening the fruit wider until it revealed the contents of its insides to me.

"Why didn't you just say no, then?!" she demanded, becoming more angry.

"Because you are my friend. But sometimes, you just treat me like some pet or something."

"I do not!"

"Yeah you do! You go around picking clothes for me from my closet, tell me to pick up things that you need from somewhere, and you give me food that I don't actually like!"

This was getting worse by the passing seconds, but I couldn't stop myself. I glanced down at the fruit in my hands, recalling the words that the fedora-wearing stranger had asked me earlier on that afternoon.

"No," I said to myself but loud enough for Miranda to hear. "I'm definitely not happy!"

I bit the fruit.

"If you're not happy then you can get the hell out of my life!"

Several things happened at once; Miranda strode up and pushed me backwards very roughly, there was a car full of frat boys coming down the street in an illegally fast rate, and all I could think was how awful the fruit tasted.

Miranda Drake let a scream erupt from her mouth when she saw her best friend fly right into the path of Greg Taylor's BMW. Stanley Collin, who had been sitting at the passenger seat, had shouted at Greg to stop when he noticed a person stumble on the road, but by the time Greg noticed, it was too late.

As if the world had gone slow motion, the three boys watched the glass shatter and a body halt halfway into the car, bleeding profusely. The third passenger, Hector Martinez, who has previously worked in clinics as a nurse, shakily reached a hand to touch the person's neck and searched for a pulse.

There was none.

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The moment I took my first breathe for what seemed forever, I screamed.