The real ceramic dinner plates, mismatched, but real, were set at the table alongside drinking glasses smudged with water spots. The napkins were still paper and had been folded with an attempt at meticulous care, the forks and knives lining the plates completely out of order.
Makino doesn't mind. She steps into the living room and her face lights up as always whenever it is transformed into a dining room on her behalf.
"Dadan, it looks lovely," she says, and the rest of the house falls into their cues like clockwork.
Luffy scrambles to the table first, but Sabo knocks him out of the way. Ace has the patience to wait for the rest of the Dadan family to shove into their seats, before picking up his youngest brother by the back of his shirt and tossing him into the next chair over.
To Ace's right, Makino sits, as always. He pulls out her chair and Sabo cracks a remark, where are these manners when Makino isn't around, Ace?, and Luffy snorts out laughs as he eats his steak.
Dinner is fast, and loud, and dirty. Luffy likes the ceramic plates because they're easier to lick clean than the paper ones usually reserved for dinner. He likes dinner with Makino in general, because it only happens once a week, and everything just feels warmer with her around. Everybody says thank you after they leave the table, just because Makino is there, and Dadan pretends like she doesn't appreciate hearing it once in a while.
When the piles of food disappear, and the rest of the boarding house tenants leave to their apartments, everyone is calm. Makino still slowly eats her meal while Sabo tugs Luffy and Ace's ears to get them to clean the table. Her laughter mixes with Dadan's as the older woman enjoys a cigarette. The tv is set on the evening news, droning on in a pleasant way that fills the room.
It isn't often that the boys follow rules, but for this they do: they all shuffle back into the living room with their pruney, soapy hands, brushing them dry on their shirts. They sit at the table around Makino and Dadan, and talk.
Before Makino can even ask the same question she has asked him for the past month, Luffy already blurts out, wanna know what I did at school this week?
"Actually, I was more concerned for those bruises on your shoulder," Makino laughs.
Luffy's smile drops and he looks down at his shoulder in surprise, touching a hand to the mottled purple dots barely hidden under the strap of his red tanktop. His reaction had been the same when he staggered home to Dadan, who screamed, and then placed all the ice in the freezer into plastic bags to press to his wounds.
"Oh, a fish bit me," Luffy says, then his smile flips back on. "But Makino! I made another friend!"
"Another! What is this now, number 4?"
"Yah-huh," Luffy nods and grips the table, leaning forward, just like how he always did at Makino's bar as a child. "He works at the Baratie. Or, he did, I think he was fired? But it was a good thing. Anyway, he's my friend."
"Fired, but it was good?" Ace repeats. "You probably got that one mixed up."
"No! His dad owns it."
Makino gasps, in that light way that sounds like she is humoring Luffy.
"The owner of the Baratie? That's a very fancy restaurant, Luffy. Your friend must like cooking," Makino says.
"Or hates it, since he was fired," Dadan mutters to the ceiling, watching her cigarette smoke leave her lungs as she speaks.
"Nuh-huh, he loves cooking. He just doesn't wanna work there anymore, he wants to go to normal school, like us."
"Oh, where did he go before?" Makino asks.
Luffy shrugs, and starts to get bored, because there's only so much he can talk about. He dips his finger in his glass of water and drags it along the rim, the way Sabo taught him, but no singing note happens no matter how hard he presses.
"He didn't go to school. He just worked at the Baratie," Luffy says, and pushes harder, until Dadan smacks his hand away.
"Like social services would let that slip," Ace snorts.
"Is this guy like your other friends, Luffy? Like that guy who uses three bats on the baseball team, or the other one that's fourteen and owns a car?" Sabo teases.
Ace laughs and slaps his hands on the table, rattling the glasses as he leans across the surface, beaming at Sabo.
"Or, the one that steals from teachers when they aren't looking," Ace says, and he and Sabo hit the table with their laughter.
Luffy can only take so much, so he stands, knocking over his chair and lunging forward to punch his brothers. One blow manages to clip Ace on the back of the head, while the other lands into the table, and the whole thing would keep going if not for Makino's voice slipping in between all the yells, asking them to stop.
With one last suckerpuch from Ace, Luffy falls back down in his chair and glares at his brothers.
"Luffy, you were telling me about your friend?" Makino says.
His anger disappears and he looks at Makino blankly, before his mouth twists up in a pout.
"I have friends. I have four of 'em, and they're real people," he grumbles.
"Not with names like Zoro," Ace mutters, and Luffy's fist is caught by Dadan the second he reels it back.
Sensing another blow up as Dadan screams at Luffy, Makino knocks on the table to grab their attention.
"Zoro! Yes, that is a unique name. What are your other friends' names?" Makino says.
Dadan sighs and sits back into her chair with a heavy thud, and Luffy just grins, his anger melting away in an instant.
"Well, the newest one is Sanji, and there's Usopp, and Nami too," he says with pride.
Before Makino can open her mouth to keep smoothing out the mood in the room, Sabo knocks over his drink, but there is no explosion of loud voices to follow it. He and Ace are stuck frozen, mouths open, staring wide-eyed at Luffy.
"Did you say Nami?" Ace asks.
Luffy nods. "Yup. Nami."
"No way, no way is that girl friends with you," Sabo says.
"Well, not at first," Luffy says with a shrug and a grin. "But now she is! That's why I was home late last night, she had a party at her apartment -"
"- A what," Dadan hisses, but it is drowned out by the older boys shouting.
"You did not go to Nami's apartment!"
"Is it full of other people's stuff -"
Makino watches helplessly as Dadan stands up, her chair falling behind her to the floor with a loud clatter that does nothing to stop the shouts from the three boys. Despite their height, she still towers over them all, and easily lifts Sabo and Ace under her arms as they kick and scream in protest. Luffy stays behind and laughs at them, watching as they disappear down the hall. All shouting stops after the loud bang of their bodies being dropped at the foot of the stairs echoes around the house.
"Your rooms! Now! No dessert!" Dadan bellows.
"What? But what about dessert -"
"Go!"
They pound up the stairs just because they know the splintering, old steps can handle it just as much as Dadan's temper can. The door slams shut and Dadan waits a moment before rushing back into the living room, grabbing Luffy by the back of his shirt.
"What?! Why me, too?" Luffy asks.
He doesn't get dropped, just placed at the stairs, and he looks up at Dadan whose entire cigarette needs to be ashed.
"Because you're a damn beast like the other two! Now get up there, because I want to talk to my friend," Dadan says.
Luffy huffs but, as far as Dadan's reasoning goes, it's pretty good. He can't disagree. He makes it halfway up the stairs before turning around, face splitting with his smile.
"Hey, what's for dessert -"
"It doesn't matter, because you aren't getting any!"
He shuffles the rest of the way up, and knows, before trying, that the door to the boys' room is locked. He kicks it against the same corner as always before Dadan shouts for it to be opened, and instantly, it does, and Luffy is dragged inside.
The night runs late because Luffy refuses to say anymore about his friends, and his brothers team up against him to try to get him to speak. It doesn't take long for the meaning of the interrogation to be lost among chokeholds and laughter. Their three mattresses are shoved against the wall, placed in a way that makes it a perfect landing site for them to practice their body slams on each other.
By the time Makino leaves, and Dadan stomps up stairs to chew them out over all the noise, they're all asleep in a pile on the floor.
She mutters a curse under her breath, aimed at them and herself. She pulls out a blanket and tosses it over them, shutting the door quietly behind her.