Here comes the next chapter!
Enjoy!
/ Daeli
2) Noodles
Age: 11
It had been five days since Buggy was taken by the Roger Pirates and he had not eaten a bite since he got aboard. He could both feel and hear his stomach grumbling in protest, but he was determined not to give in to his hunger. He didn't want to owe these pirates anything.
He took a small sip from his flask and grimaced at the taste. The water was slowly going bad. That really wasn't good. He could live without food for a while, but not water. And he had even made sure to fill the flask with water from Carnibal Town before the crazy crew had left his hometown. But now the last of it was going bad. If they didn't get to another island soon, he would have to start drinking the water that was on the ship. Their water.
Food or water; they would get him one way or another.
'And I can't think of any other way to solve this. Damnit, why did they have to freaking kidnap me?!'
There hadn't been as much uproar as he had expected when he was introduced to the crew as the new cabin-boy. Some seemed a bit skeptic, but there had been surprisingly few of them who had openly protested against the idea. Most of them had simply sighed, giving the impression that the captain often did weird and crazy things without consulting his crew and that they had gotten used to it by now.
They had all been acting pretty nicely towards him (except for the the big, black-haired guy they called Bane, who had done nothing but glare at him since he got aboard) but Buggy wasn't an idiot. Adults were never nice unless they wanted something in return. Any day now, the crew would drop their nice act and show their real colors. Just like Fabioli had. Just like...
He shook his head. No. He refused to think about HIM.
Buggy was sitting down on the deck, with his back against the cabin wall. It was well away from the other pirates working on the deck, and since they had given up on trying to include him in, for him, meaningless conversations, no one was bothering him at the moment. He tried to ignore the rumblings of his stomach by focusing on the salty smell of the sea and the sound of seagulls. This was the only part of his kidnapping that he didn't mind.
Even before he became Fabioli's errand boy, he had dreamed of going out to sea. To be free to go wherever he wanted and find treasures beyond his wildest dreams, and, if he was really lucky, to meet his father.
His mother had often told him the story of how she met his father. He had been a pirate who one day visited Carnibal Island along with his crew. They met at the bar where she was working as a singer and dancer at the time, and during the week that followed they spent every day together.
"It was never really love on my part..." Buggy remembered his mother saying, "...and I don't think that whatever he felt for me was really serious either, but we were very comfortable with each another. He did not look down on me for being a mere dancer and treated me like I was a lady. I couldn't care less that he was a pirate. His kindness told me that he was a good man."
After a week in each others company, his father's ship had departed and he along with it. Nine months later Buggy was born.
Buggy, being as young as he was at the time, did not really understand all of what his mother was talking about. He was far too young to understand why anyone would look down on his mother, who was a goddess in his eyes, or even what love really was. He was more concerned with the fact that everyone else seemed to have two parents whereas he only had one. He didn't understand why his father hadn't come back to visit them. He didn't even know what his father really looked like. He had pestered his mother endlessly for more information about his father, but she only ever told him one other thing. "You got his nose."
Light footsteps could be heard on the deck, breaking through his nostalgic state. They stopped right in front of him and he sensed someone sitting. He didn't look up, but he knew who it was, because there was only one person on this ship who just wouldn't leave him alone.
A bowl of steaming hot noodles was put in front of him and Shanks' voice rang out, "Howard says that you haven't eaten anything since you got aboard. Here." He pushed the bowl towards Buggy. "I figured you might be uncomfortable with the others, so I brought this out to you." He leaned back on the railing, simply looking at the boy sitting opposite of him, waiting for him to eat.
Buggy could smell the delicious aroma of the noodles and felt his stomach rumbling in response to it. He glared at the boy sitting in front of him. This was all his fault! If that redhead hadn't hounded him, spouting nonsense about nakamas, he wouldn't be on this stupid ship in the first place.
He ignored the fact that if it wasn't for Shanks being captured along with him, the Roger pirates wouldn't have raided the warehouse and Fabioli would probably have killed him and dropped him in the ocean. It's not like anyone would have come for him...
He shook his head to shake off the troublesome thoughts. 'What's wrong with me?! First I'm thinking about my parents, and now this? It's the hunger, it has to be...'
"Buggy."
He was shaken from his thoughts, again, by Shanks voice which, to his surprise, was heavily tinged with worry. He looked up and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Shanks' face no more than an inch away from his face. "Is your stomach hurting? Is that why you won't eat anything? We don't have a doctor on board, but Rayleigh-san said that your wounds weren't serious. Was he wrong? Are you hurting anywhere else?"
As the redhead shot off question after question, Buggy could do nothing else but stare at him incredulously. He couldn't believe that this idiot had the gall to act like he was worried. They had only known each other for a few days. Did he think Buggy was actually dumb enough to fall for a lame act like that?
His hands shot out and he pushed Shanks' away from him. The redhead fell on his back, and then just looked at Buggy with a shocked expression, while Buggy glared at him with contempt.
"As if I would believe that you're actually concerned! It was that captain of yours wasn't it?! He sent you here to make YOU make ME eat something, didn't he?! Then you're gonna report back and he and that split-bearded old guy is gonna be all 'He ate our food, so now he owes us'. And then your gonna make me do stuff I don't want to do, all the while hanging the fact that I survive by eating your food over my head!" Buggy snarled at the redhead. "Well guess what! I've it all figured out! If I don't eat your food or drink your water, you can't hold that over me, so there!"
The furious ranting was cut off by Buggy's stomach rumbling impatiently, and the clown's expression changed from anger to pain. He brought his knees up and clutched his stomach with his hands, trying to will the painful, empty feeling in his belly to go away. He just had to hold on to the next island. Just had to ignore the feeling of hunger ... Ignore the sweet smell of spicy noodles wafting gently under his nose...
"So that's how he got you, huh?"
Buggy's eyes snapped up and met Shanks'. He was still in the position he had fallen in, but his expression had changed from shocked to understanding.
Shanks smiled at the clown. "I was wondering why you hung around that slime-ball. Did he trick the other kids like that as well?"
Buggy's gaze still held an amount of suspicion, but after a few seconds he answered Shanks' question. "It was his specialty. He would tempt a kid with the promise of food and a place to sleep to reel them in and then force them to steal for him as long as they lived under his roof. It's not like we had anywhere else to go..."
Buggy shook his head. 'Why did I say that? Damn hunger...' It was making him weak. He would have never let it slip if it wasn't for the fact that he was being tortured by the smell of hot food and damnit couldn't the redhead take a hint and just go away and take these stupid delicous noodles with him?
"Anyway, I know what adults are like, and your captain is no different than..."
"Don't you dare compare my captain to that weasel."
Buggy promptly shut up. That tone the redhead just used was the same as the day they first met, the day when they both went down in fury of fists. A part of him, the part that was frustrated about this whole situation and just wanted to hurt something, wanted to fight, but the bigger part of him knew that the way he was now, he stood no chance of beating Shanks. So he grudgingly backed down.
Shanks glared at the clown before getting up on his feet. "You can think whatever the hell you like. That does not make it true. You are offered food because you're part of the crew now and because I... we don't want you to die. That's all."
The two of them just looked at each other uncomfortably for a moment before Shanks started walking towards the deck door. "Just... eat the food, Buggy."
Buggy's eyes followed Shanks until the redhead went under deck before looking down on the rapidly cooling noodles that was in front of him.
He sighed before picking up the bowl. The encounter with Shanks had let him understand one thing, at least. Starving himself wasn't working. A tiny part of him might have known all along that what he was doing was stupid and that he needed to eat, but the larger part of him could not help but remember how he had been tricked by Fabioli.
He thought back on Shanks' expression when he compared Fabioli to the captain. 'He looked really insulted.' Buggy looked down on the bowl, then picked up the chopsticks before he slowly started to eat the noodles.
It was such an unspectacular meal, a bowl of simple noodles, yet Buggy felt like he never tasted anything more delicious in his life. He was so distracted by the taste and the feeling of finally getting some food in his stomach, that he failed to notice the tears that had started to run down his face.
Maybe these pirates weren't the same as the adults on Carnibal Island. Maybe it was safe for him to eat their food and drink their water.
But he was not their nakama. It didn't matter if they shared their food with him, it didn't matter if they let him be. It didn't even matter that they had saved him from Fabioli. He knew that if push came to shove, they wouldn't care whether he lived or died. In that moment he made a decision.
He would eat and drink whatever was offered, he would sleep under their roof, he would play their games, all while gathering his strength. And when an opportunity presented itself... he would escape from this flashy ship with its flashy crew, flashy captain and flashy redhead.
'Crewmates... Nakama...' he thought sourly as he scarfed down the noodles. 'Give me a break.'