Okay, here's the second One-Shot, this time featuring Usopp. It's a little different from the first one, mainly because there's no smut and an actual background story behind it (I know, surprise, surprise!). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! :)

Usopp x Reader

There was absolutely nothing here. So what the hell was he drawing?

I tried squinting my eyes, turning my head, looking in every possible direction, but... nothing. I didn't see anything worth the effort of drawing it. Just the plain old stupid market with hordes of people bustling about and shouting their prizes. And off to the side, watching, scrutinizing, was a man with a ridiculously long nose huddled over a sheet of paper, tongue between his lips in concentration as he scratched his pen over the page. What was so interesting that he felt like he had to save it in a drawing? I walked through this place every day and never saw anything worth mentioning.

Both curious and slightly frustrated I looked this way and that, trying to find something special, something exciting... But found that everything was the same as ever. I startled when he suddenly looked up, eyes fixed on something further down the street where my eyes couldn't reach. Well, now my interest was piqued.

I could've just walked up to him and asked to see his drawing, maybe even simply looked over his shoulder, but that seemed a little too straight-forward. I sighed. Should I really talk to him? I didn't recognize him, actually I'd never seen him around before. From the looks of it he was probably a foreigner, maybe a merchant's son. Who knew how he might react? The few artists I'd met before all didn't want to be disturbed while they were working. I really didn't want to be rude, but... ah, fuck it.

I walked up to him with determined steps, stopping directly in front of him.

"Hey."

He looked up, probably surprised to be spoken to. "Huh?"

"What are you drawing?", I asked, nodding in the direction of his sketchbook.

"What am I-" The man followed my line of sight, a smile finding its way to his face. "Oh, that? It's nothing special."

I cocked my head to the side, crossing my arms. "Can I see it?"

"You...", he said, looking rather taken aback, eyes wide in surprise. "You want to?"

"Yes, please."

A huge grin lit up his face and he laughed loudly, startling me. "Yosh, yosh, so you want to see the great masterpieces of the amazing Captain Usopp-sama, huh? You should know, I am actually a world famous painter with over 8000 followers", he exclaimed with great flourish, making people turn to look at him quizzically.

I blinked. "What are you talking about?"

He didn't lose his grin, simply patted the space next to him to beckon me over. I sat down, still looking at him from the corner of my eyes. What a strange man.

Usopp - he said that was his name, right? - didn't seem to mind. He simply kept drawing, his sketchbook slightly tilted towards me so I could see. Full of curiosity I leaned over to get a closer look at... Wait...

I stared at the picture for a good minute before I could come up with something to say. "I... what?"

He looked up at me questioningly. "Hm?"

"Is that... a bird's nest?", I asked, pointing at the picture of the two flying sparrows, one of them feeding its children nestled in straw off to the side. Don't get me wrong, it was beautifully drawn and very detailed, but... Well, I didn't know what I expected, but it definitely wasn't that.

"Yes, yes it is", he told me with a smile, pointing to some far corner on a roof. "Look, up there."

I looked in the direction of his finger and sure enough there was a family of birds nesting in the gables. I could just barely make out the baby chicks flitting around in the hay, little beaks wide open in hunger. My eyes widened in surprise. "You're right! How did you notice that?"

He cocked his head. "How did you not?"

I stuttered for an answer, suddenly ashamed. It was true, I walked through this street every day and never even noticed something like that. How embarrassing.

"Hey now, cheer up, I was joking", he laughed, patting my shoulder. "But seriously, this town is amazing! There's so much cool stuff around here!"

I cocked an eyebrow at that. "Like what?"

Usopp stared right back, seemingly surprised. "The market! The people! They're interesting, don't you think?"

No, I really didn't. "Well..."

"You don't think so?" He tilted his head, eying me with a look I couldn't read. "Is there really nothing you like here?"

"No, nothing at..." I trailed off as I looked into the distance, suddenly remembering something. "No, wait. There's one thing."

He perked up at that. "Really? And what's that?"

I thought about it for a while before pointing to the north entrance. "When you walk this way out of town there's nothing but grass fields and small trees everywhere you look, but somewhere to the right you can see a path that leads you up the hill into a forest. If you keep going straight you'll find a pretty big tree trunk that got knocked over by the wind ages ago. And behind it..." I trailed off, suddenly feeling a little stupid. Why did I even remember this?

"What, what's behind it?", Usopp asked excitedly.

I hesitated just a second before sighing in answer. "Strawberries."

He seemed a little stunned. "Strawberries?"

"Yeah", I said, a fond smile finding its way onto my face. "They don't grow anywhere else on the island, so those few plants were like a treasure to me." I tipped my head back, looking at the sky in remembrance. "My friends and I used to go there every summer to pluck them. Nancy's mother had a farm, so she always brought some homemade cream to dip them in." I chuckled. "We barely ever got two hands full, but it was enough to keep us happy for days."

I turned to find Usopp staring at me intently as if he was trying to figure something out. That look was gone in a flash though as he smiled widely at me.

"Can I see them?", he asked. "The strawberries?"

I eyed him silently for a little while before nodding slowly. "Sure."

His grin grew as he stood up, pulling me with him. "Yosh! Let's go!"

The walk wasn't very long and I was surprised by how familiar it all still looked even though it had been years since I'd walked this path. The carving in our tree was still there, the forest smelled exactly the way I remembered it, even our secret base – though covered in moss – still stood tall. I took everything in with a strange sort of awe. Just like old times...

When the trunk came into view I stopped.

"Here it is", I said, motioning Usopp forward.

He stepped up, walking around the trunk to take a long look at my treasure. I stayed where I was as I watched a soft smile play over his lips.

"It's a beautiful spot", he finally said, sitting down and pulling out his sketchbook. The scratching of pen over paper was the only sound I heard as he worked in silence, me just standing off to the side, watching him yet not actually looking at him. This place brought back so many memories. It reminded me of why I hadn't been here for so long.

"Your friends", he suddenly spoke up, startling me from my thoughts. "What were they like?"

I sighed and looked into the distance as I remembered their faces. God, I hadn't seen them for so long. "There were four of us. We called ourselves the 'Super Forest Peace Rangers' even though we were anything but peaceful and quiet." I didn't even notice the smile tugging at my lips, too caught up in the memory. "Nancy always had her hair in pigtails because her mother didn't want her to wear it loose. For some reason Kurt really liked to pull on it. I always thought it was because he had a crush on her." I couldn't help but chuckle slightly as I remembered that. It had been obvious, really. "Noah was a wild child, always talking big about adventures and getting us into all kinds of trouble. But he had a really big heart, especially for his friends. He used to run around saying that we were his 'nakama' and everything." I closed my eyes, smile turning soft. "I miss those times."

Usopp didn't say anything, just sat there quietly sketching for a few minutes longer, but I could tell that he had heard every word. I watched him, feeling at ease for the first time in a long while. It felt really good for some reason, knowing that someone else now knew of my treasure even though all there was to it were a few strawberries and some fond memories.

"Yosh, I'm done", Usopp suddenly said, standing up and walking back over to me, smiling that huge smile of his. "Let's go back!"

His enthusiasm was contagious, so I found myself smiling back just a little. "Yeah, let's."

The way back was filled with stories of his great adventures at sea, his boisterous laughing and my amused comments. Even though he was obviously lying (who ever heard of an island in the sky, I mean seriously) I found myself enjoying his company more and more. I was almost sad to see him off once we got to town and it was time for him to go. To my surprise he didn't bother to make a huge dramatic scene about it, simply putting a piece of paper in my hand and then walking away with a hand raised in silent goodbye.

Once he left I unfolded the page he had handed to me and looked at it. And looked harder. And then some more.

The first tear hit the paper with a mute splash, making me blink and raise my head only to find that he had already disappeared into the crowd.

I looked back at the drawing, at the girl with the pigtails, the boy pulling on them, the little brat striking a hero pose. I looked at my younger self, shockingly accurate in her looks, sitting at their side laughing and holding a small basket in her hands. And around them... strawberries.

Tears blurred my eyes before I squeezed them firmly shut, choking on a sob. It looked nothing like the scene had back then, but that wasn't the point.

I knew for a fact that there were no strawberries behind the tree trunk anymore. The small plants had long since died, just like Nancy and Kurt and Noah. But there was no way he could have known that. He couldn't have.

I clutched the paper to my chest with a shaking hand, hiding the message he left behind on the bottom of the drawing. And I cried, not caring in the least that people were staring, not listening to the questions of 'Are you okay?' or 'What happened?', not even noticing the grinning man leaning against a wall around the corner before he put his sketchbook away and walked towards the harbor. Nothing could have ruined this moment for me.

And even though they looked nothing like my friends had and there were no strawberries anymore I couldn't help but smile through my tears as I looked at the bird's nest across the street, silently thanking the stranger who gave me what I needed without even knowing he did.

'You should smile more often. - U'

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and tell me what you think :) - Ani