Sometimes he would just pause to take in the moment. The feeling of being free, the endlessness of the sea below and the sky above, the bonding to this ship he calls his home. The feeling of being home.
He'd listen closer to the life around him, the sounds and the smells. The presence of his nakama, as the joyful squeals on deck, the distant noise of cooking from the galley, the soft piano play floating closer from his right.
And he would concentrate more, focus on the things he usually didn't hear, the things he usually didn't see. Then he would hear a quill scratching over parchment, the clicking of barbells, the dull sound of a hammer working on wood. If he let his imagination play, he could even hear pages of a book being turned in the far distance through thick walls.
Then he'd stand there, with his eyes closed, his senses opened, absorbing the world around him. Soaking it up like a sponge, every ounce of positivity, of being welcome and wanted, of joy and peace, of friendship and family. For the moments in which none of this will be.
For they are destined to happen, when he least expects them.