This is my contribution for day 15 of share-the-love-month on tumblr, organized by myladyday and aerle. Usopp and Kaya are this couple I've always found super cute but for whom I never wrote anything, so I decided to try. I would've liked to write some FRobin, too, but unfortunately I have no ideas for them.
This hasn't been beta-read, you've been warned.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't want to own. Oda is too much of a genius. Don't make any money out of this.
Field Trip
Kaya dropped the book she had been pretending to read in her lap when she heard the telltale tapping sound on the window that announced the arrival of her awaited daily visitor.
She threw the bedcovers off her legs, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, sliding her feet into her slippers as she hurried to pull her curtains apart and open her window.
"You should keep your window open, the fresh air is good for your health."
There was Usopp, sitting on the branch closest to her window as if it was the easiest thing to do in the world, satchel bag thrown over his shoulder and grinning widely at her.
Kaya smiled.
"Klahadore insists I keep it closed. He says I need to rest."
Usopp scoffed.
"That guy doesn't know anything of what someone needs to get better." Usopp didn't like her butler, but, to be fair, Klahadore didn't like Usopp, either.
The girl decided to change the topic, aware that they would never agree when it came to her serious caretaker.
"Do you have a story for me?" she asked excitedly, leaning with her elbows on the windowsill.
In opposition to his usually open and overdramatic manner when he came to see her, this time Usopp seemed to hesitate for the shortest of moments before answering the daily question.
"Not exactly." Again, he didn't immediately speak. "I want to show you something."
"Really? What is it?"
Instead of responding directly, the boy opened his bag and pulled out a rolled up rope ladder. Kaya took a step back.
"Usopp, I don't think I should-"
"It'll be fine!" he exclaimed before she could finish her sentence. Then, more subdued, added, "I'll take care of you. It's not far, we'll come back if you aren't feeling well."
Maybe it was Usopp's serious yet pleading demeanor, or perhaps it was the fact that Kaya was sick of staying inside all the time and missed the outside world, but either way the girl found herself agreeing. She excused herself for a moment, took the first thing she found inside her now rarely used wardrobe and went into her bathroom. The girl came back out dressed in a long skirt, shirt and a comfortable pair of slippers she hadn't put on in months.
She descended the ladder with Usopp's help, probably not as afraid of the unstable footing as she should have been given the fact the ladder was obviously handmade, and they walked around the edge of the village, taking a detour to avoid being seen by anyone who could alert the mansion of their whereabouts, until the boy stopped in what to her looked a random clearing in the forest that took up a good portion of their small island.
Usopp took out his slingshot and a little red ball, a small projectile just like the ones he had told her about many times, and proceeded to explain what it was. She should probably have paid closer attention to his very well spinned tale, but she had serious trouble believing he had obtained the main ingredient of his new concoction from the stomach of a giant sea monster. She was busy trying not to laugh too much.
"Alright, see that?" He pointed to one of the many trees surrounding the clearing. Kaya had to squint to notice the small black target drawn on its bark.
She nodded.
"If I did well, which I of course did, this should paint the area around the mark brown. It would temporarily blind an opponent."
"That sounds useful," the girl said, deciding she liked this experiment better than the still unsuccessful ones he had told her about trying to create an explosive projectile. Those sounded too dangerous for Kaya's taste.
Usopp put the little ball in place, aimed -and he always looked so good and solemn when he did that- and shot. The ball hit square on the target, he had very good aim. The target and the area surrounding it caught on fire.
The boy yelped, pulled a bottle of water out of his bag, practically teleported next to the tree and doused the liquid over the small flame. The fire released a column of smoke and died a pitiful death.
Silence fell over the clearing.
Kaya snickered. She chuckled and soon was openly laughing. Maybe she shouldn't be laughing, that incident could have set fire to the forest, but the boy's reaction had been too good to resist. Usopp did a valiant effort of being offended before giving up and joining her in her laughter.
"That didn't go as planned," he admitted once he had calmed enough to be able to speak properly.
"No," she agreed.
They still chuckled for a couple of minutes before calming down at last. Usopp opened his bag again and this time he pulled out a small bundle wrapped in a cloth. Opening it, he revealed it held four sandwiches.
"This isn't exactly how I'd planned it," he confessed sheepishly, offering them to her, "but I brought lunch."
She smiled and took one of the sandwiches.
"No, Usopp, it's perfect."
Usopp took a sandwich as well and sat down on the ground, leaving the remaining two at his side. She did the same.
"We don't have anything to drink, though."
She laughed.
Maybe Kaya was the sickly rich girl of the island, and maybe Usopp was the so-called liar who always yelled 'pirates', but now, for the next few hours, they were just a girl who sat in the middle of nowhere with a boy she liked and a boy who sat in the middle of nowhere with a girl he liked, both enjoying a drinkless picnic and talking about impossible adventures in places that did not exist and fighting monsters that couldn't be found even in a children's book.
And that, in Kaya's opinion, was worth any temper tantrum her outing would elicit and then some more. Because, for a few hours at least, she was just Kaya, not a sick or fragile girl who had to stay in bed, and could enjoy Usopp's company without fear of being caught.