Luffy hated him, hated him from the moment he said he liked the cherry pie and hated the sake, hated his loud laughter, wide grin, unruly black hair. He wanted to get his nakama away from him, wanted to attack him, beat him up and leave the town, the town that didn't like dreams, but Nami said they needed information if they were to go to the sky island and thus Luffy endured.

But the man didn't shut up, so Luffy did the only thing Nami had allowed him to do- he got into a competition with the man. A competition of who would get to order more meat or pies, but his navigator soon stopped that fight also.

The dark man withdrew from the tavern, and then started another fight altogether, that Luffy and his nakama won, despite of not lifting a finger against the offending crew. Nami didn't understand, but Zoro did and that had been enough. Still, as the red-haired woman dragged them away, she was once again stopped by the man who liked the cherry pies.

The man laughed and said, that the age of dreaming had not yet passed, that it never would, and though in his heart Luffy wholeheartedly agreed, the man's voice still made him want to attack and to protect his friends from the mocking laughter.

And then the man told Nami that Luffy and Zoro had won the fight against those weak worthless pirates and Luffy wanted to rip him apart. Who was that man to understand the things Luffy did and who was he to tell Nami when in her heart she too already knew.

Luffy hated him.

Luffy wanted to attack him.

But he had promised Nami not to fight.

It wasn't until much later when the Strawhat Captain met the man again in the dungeons of Hell and found out who he was that he finally understood how grateful he had to be to Nami for forcing him not to fight in Mock Town. His navigator's desire to stay out of trouble had saved all his crewmates' lives that day. Because strong or not, Luffy too realised, that if this was the man who had put Ace in chains, then he who hadn't even now been able to protect his nakama from the Bear Guy would have lost everything.

If he had attacked him everybody would be dead.

And for the first time since his loss on Sabaody Archipelago Luffy was glad that his nakama weren't with him. Because even though they were far away right now, Luffy knew they were alive and that he would see them again. If they were with him though, Blackbeard would kill them and the Land of the Dead was not a place where the strawhat-wearing boy could follow them.

So once more Luffy thanked Nami in his head and ran on to fight in a war.

He had a brother to save.