Hi guys! Late again, I know, and I'm sorry! I tried to finish it up yesterday, but me and my family went to a Cinco de Mayo party. An extremely loud, exhausting one. So, sorry. Enough of the excuses! This is for Luffy's birthday, so... nyeh, ENJOY!
The next day, Friday, Sanji was hyper with excitement and sugar. He didn't know why, but every other second he was grinning. Well, he sort of knew why. He just felt weird for being so excited. It was stupid. Maybe illegal. Nami thought it was illegal, anyway. But, damn, it was gonna be fun.
Sanji didn't quite understand why he agreed; it was just odd. Such a strange idea, definitely crafted by Luffy. It was ridiculous. He couldn't wait, though. He had to keep from jumping up and down in his seat. Why am I so excited? Sanji thought to himself, trying to focus on what the teacher was saying. A moment later, he was smirking again. Stupid, goofy, awesome, weird ideas.
Even though it was kind of boring, school passed really quickly. Even lunch, when he reconvened with his friends and they informed Zoro of their little idea. That was kind of disappointing, because Zoro told them it wouldn't work, and it was stupid. He agreed though, since everyone else was already on-board. Sanji thought that was weird, but Zoro was weird, so, problem solved.
After the last bell rang, Sanji was off like a bullet to their designated meeting place; the hallway connecting the elementary school building with the vacant, soon-to-be high school building.
That part of the building was practically deserted. He could hear echoes of people talking, grown-up voices, and kid voices. Footsteps and lockers and all the usual things. From both sides. It was kind of loud, and that made it perfect. Sanji dropped his bag in the space behind one of the pillars in the hall, along with two other bags, and he hurried through the wide, carpeted area. The heavy door at the end of the hall groaned when he pushed it open, and squeaked as it swung itself shut behind him.
"Hey! Who's here?" Sanji asked, peaking around the corners at the hallways on either side. The halls were wider than in their school, but Sanji didn't much care. It was all dirty, still, from lack of use, and the walls were an ugly green color. He was definitely going to skip high school.
"Sanji! Over here!" A hoarse whisper from the left hallway. Sanji swallowed a giggle when he saw a hand peeking out from a doorway with no door. He hurried over to the doorway and slipped in past Ussop. "Don't wave. I can hear people in this building." Sanji said, quietly. Ussop nodded, plastering himself flat against the wall with his arms at his sides.
Sanji shook his head at Ussop, who was leering at the empty hallway, appearing to be listening intently. Luffy giggled from behind the teacher's desk at the front of the room and Sanji looked at him. "What's so funny?" He asked, smiling as he walked around the desks to go stand by Luffy.
Luffy, wearing his straw hat that Sanji saw only when they weren't at school, waved for Sanji to come closer. "I have to tell you something!" He whispered roughly. Really, Luffy and Ussop weren't any good at being sneaky.
The blonde looked around at all the chairs sitting on top of the desks before crouching and leaning closer. "What s it? Part of the plan?"
"No. Do you know what today is?" Luffy asked, with serious eyes and a betraying grin. Sanji figured it wasn't going to be something serious, but it was important to Luffy, so maybe he'd just guess. Just for fun. Sanji hummed in thought, and then laughed. "Barbeque night at *the Line?" Sanji guessed.
"Eh? Really?" Luffy asked, excited. Sanji thumped his forehead. "That was a guess, Dummy! What's today?" Sanji looked to Ussop in question and the long nose shook his head, sighing. It could've been an answer to the 'what's today' question, but Sanji figured it was a 'the coast is clear; nobody heard Luffy's loud voice'.
Luffy laughed. "I can't believe I didn't tell you! It's my birthday!"
"Oh." Sanji said. "Happy birthday. So you're nine?"
"Yep!" Luffy grinned, patting down his pockets in search of something.
"Sorry I didn't get you anything." Sanji apologized, raising an eyebrow when Luffy shrugged. "It's okay. We're going on an adventure, so that's my present!" Luffy said, reaching into one of the pockets in his beat-up jean shorts. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and opened it out.
Sanji leaned over to read the note, but whoever's handwriting, (probably Luffy's), was illegible. "This is a note that Zoro told me to write so I wouldn't forget. It says, 'Zoro will be late and Nami's helping him, so we can start without him'." Luffy said, holding up the note and waving it around.
"Shhh!" Ussop shushed them as he leaned out into the hall. He looked both ways before ducking back inside and rushing over to the teacher's desk. "Someone's coming!" He whispered, ushering Sanji and Luffy to scoot over. The three of them piled up under the desk, holding in their legs and their breath.
They could hear clacking footsteps, close or far away, they couldn't tell. There were voices, too, weird ones, and laughing. Sanji had to strain his ears to really hear anything. They were discussing the building. Renovations, a woman said. A man's voice was talking, but Sanji couldn't quite understand him. He heard 'kids', and 'this semester', so he had to guess that they, or at least the man, were teachers.
There was a loud burst of laughter, and then the sounds died out. They waited a few moments before they began breathing again. "That was close!" Luffy sighed, laughing. Ussop reached across Sanji and covered Luffy's mouth with his hand. "Quiet! They can probably still hear you!"
"They'll think it's coming from our school!" Luffy said after prying Ussop's hand away from his face. Ussop pushed Luffy's face against the wood of the desk repeatedly, before returning his arm to its proper place. "Idiot." Ussop grumbled.
Sanji put his hand over his own heart. He was shaking. With fear or excitement, he didn't know, but it was making it difficult to sit still. He stood up and walked to the door with the other two close behind. "What? Did you hear something?" Ussop asked in a harsh whisper.
Sanji shook his head. "They're gonna be late, right?" Sanji asked, looking up and down the hall. Luffy and Ussop nodded, curious. "Why don't we go ahead and explore a little?" Sanji suggested. He wasn't sure why he would say that, but his brain told him it was a good idea. A fun adventure. Yeah.
"O~h! That's an awesome idea! Why didn't I think of that?" Luffy grinned and marched out into the hallway without another word said. Ussop jumped out as far as he could while keeping one foot in the doorway and grabbed Luffy by the back of his shirt. "Nononono! Not an awesome idea!" The long nose hissed, pulling Luffy backwards into the room again.
"Why not?" Luffy whined walking forward against Ussop's pulling.
"Yeah. I think it's a good plan!" Sanji protested.
Ussop rolled his eyes. "That's because it's your plan!"
"But, it is a good plan!" Luffy argued, suddenly standing completely still, causing Ussop to fall backwards.
"You're a terrible judge of good plans!" Ussop retorted, scrambling to stand up as Sanji and Luffy made their way down the hallway to the right.
The wall to their left was entirely, floor-to-ceiling lockers, all of them the same ugly green as the walls, almost like camouflage. The wall on the right was practically just a window, showing a bunch of empty classrooms, some of them without furniture and half-painted, some of them already finished. The new color was, if possible, even uglier, in Sanji's opinion. There weren't any doors in the doorways except for on the bathrooms.
"This place is kinda boring." Luffy mumbled, peaking into a room where the windows were covered in paper.
"What did you expect?" Ussop asked, peeking into the room a moment after Luffy moved on. He had calmed down significantly, seeing that there weren't even any workers anywhere.
Luffy shrugged and Sanji rolled his eyes at him. Luffy had probably expected something exciting, like talking animals and pirates. Well, that's what Sanji thought happened in Luffy's brain, but no one could be sure. I thought there would be, like, guards or something... At least some spare- Sanji stopped mid-thought. He could see right into a room with blue tape around the windows and more blue tape holding a giant piece of paper to the floor. The thing that caught his attention, though, was a three-foot step stool with an open can of paint and a bunch of brushes and paint-rollers on top.
"Hey." Sanji said, stopping in the doorway. A grin spread across his face, slowly. He didn't normally think things like he was thinking then, and he wouldn't normally act on them if he did think of them. The smell of cleaner and paint must have been messing with his head. The impulse just bubbled to the surface. "Let's go in this room."
Ussop and Luffy crashed into his side, pushing him a little bit more than necessary for just seeing inside the room. "Geez." Sanji mumbled, stepping into the room and rubbing his shoulder where Luffy's head had collided with it.
"Wow! They actually left some paint in here!" Ussop marveled, skipping in past Sanji and grabbing a paint brush off the stool. "You wanted to paint a room, Sanji?" Luffy asked, stepping up beside him and grabbing a paint roller. "Weird. This thing is weird."
"No, I," Sanji paused, watching Luffy pretend to paint his own face. "I didn't mean paint the room, just... doodle."
Ussop had already dipped his paint brush in the weird grey-ish color and walked over to the wall. "What should we draw?" He asked, holding the paint brush up so that paint dripped down his arm and off his elbow as he stared at the wall. Sanji shrugged, though Ussop couldn't see it and Luffy wasn't looking.
"How about our names?" Luffy suggested, rolling a large slanted stripe up from the floor to as high as he could reach. Sanji rolled his eyes. "Then, they'd know it was us, stupid."
"Stop calling me names!"
"Shh! I think I heard something!"
"..."
"..."
"Nope, never mind."
Sanji and Luffy sighed. "Ussop, you're so paranoid." Sanji grumbled, grabbing a paint pan off the floor and pouring some paint into it. He grabbed a roller off the stool and dipped it in the paint. "Try not to get any on your clothes, or else they'll know you were here." Sanji said, somewhat absently. He flicked his wrist so the excess paint off the roller splattered onto the wall and the floor.
"Eww. That was a gross sound, Sanji!" Luffy laughed, drawing an ugly grey-blue zigzag on the wall and down across the floor. Sanji grinned and splattered the paint again, earning an 'ew' from both Ussop and Luffy, that time.
Sanji laughed, but instead of doing it again, he picked up a paint brush, dipped it in paint, and began to write on the wall. "*Ba... ka... ya... ro..." Sanji said, slowly as he painted the words. Ussop and Luffy laughed, joining in. "**A... ho." Ussop wrote, laughing at his own insult.
Luffy's face lit up, reading his friends' written insults. "How do you write (*)boroboro?" Luffy asked, stepping up to the wall, paint roller in hand. Sanji and Ussop laughed at him, and Ussop demonstrated how to write boro. Luffy copied Ussop's example to the best of his abilities and laughed at the outcome. "Writing's hard!" He decided, exchanging his paint roller for Ussop's brush and beginning to doodle.
They wrote what expletives they knew on the walls for at least fifteen minutes, although Luffy spent most of that time drawing stick figures. They hadn't heard anymore footsteps coming their way, though there were still some voices every now and then. Not like they were paying much attention anymore, since the lookout was writing 'frog-face' on the wall.
Sanji certainly hadn't expected that they'd be vandalizing the school. And he was especially surprised that it was his own idea. But, it was fun. Probably even more fun than exploring the nearly-empty school building, like Luffy had suggested the day before. It was less likely that they'd be caught, anyway.
Sanji lifted his brush again with the intention of writing 'pea-brain', when there was a loud knock that caused all three of the boys to gasp and turn around. Ussop was already starting on his full confession before Luffy said, "Finally! Zoro, Nami, where've you been?"
"Oh? Just you guys? That's good." Ussop said, shakily. "Don't scare me like that!"
"Stop being so scare-able, then!" Nami huffed, skipping up to the step-stool and grabbing a small-ish paint brush. "Wow. The grown-ups in charge of fixing this place must be really dumb."
Zoro idled in the doorway for a minute, just reading what was already written on the wall. He snorted as he stepped into the room. "This is what you guys were doing?"
"It was Sanji's idea!" Luffy said, pointing at the blonde with his paint brush. Sanji looked to Nami and Zoro for their approval. Nami grinned and dipped a paint brush in the paint, but Zoro simply stood just inside the room, looking around.
"Y'know..." Zoro said, after a moment of watching everyone else painting various insults and faces on the wall. "The halls are still green."
Sanji paused. The halls are still...? "Yeah... Yeah, they are!" Sanji said, nodding. Nami and Ussop nodded as well, but Luffy just frowned. "Okay?" Luffy questioned.
"Meaning, we could paint out there." Nami explained. Luffy made a small 'o' shape with his mouth before grinning wide. "Cool! But, we'll have to hurry so we can get back before dark! Makino's making me a birthday cake!"
"On your marks!" Nami said, raising her arm above her head. Zoro and Luffy crouched a little lower and smirked at each other from across the hallway. Paint was dripping down from where their paint brushes touched the wall. "Get set!"
Sanji and Ussop stood in the halls where they separated into different hallways, keeping an eye out for anyone coming. Nami looked between Luffy and Zoro as she took a deep breath. "Go!" She dropped her arm and the two boys participating in the race took off down the long hallway, one painting a stripe across the lockers, and the other painting a stripe across the wall and windows.
The by-standers watched in amazement, though that was short-lived. Luffy's sandals were so loud when he ran, they were sure everyone in the soon-to-be high school building, and in their own school, could hear him. Zoro and Luffy didn't even get to the finish line, an 'exit' door at the very end of the hallway, before they heard a woman's voice shouting, "What's going on over there?"
Since she had to shout, they knew she wasn't close, but that didn't stop a single one of them from bolting back through the hall and out the passage where their backpacks had piled up. They left all the paint brushes and rollers in the floor of the hallway, as well as nasty paint splatters on the relatively-nice tile floor, evidence be damned.
Once they started running, they couldn't stop for fear that they'd be caught and punished, so the group ran as far and as fast as they could, straight back to the orphanage. The safety provided by those brick walls was just barely out of their reach, but they were already in the yard so they stopped to take a breather.
"That... was a... close one!" Luffy panted, leaning against the swing set just outside the orphanage. Nami and Sanji collapsed in the grass a bit behind the swing set, both nodding in agreement. "Too close!" Ussop wailed, falling to a heap in the dirt when he tried to sit in a swing. Zoro managed to get all the way to a wooden bench with no back on the other side of the swing set. "Never... again." Zoro huffed.
"Are you kidding?" Luffy shouted, grinning like a crazy person. "This is the best birthday, ever!"
* the Line - The Red Line Orphanage, where they live. I figured the had to have some way to reference it without saying the whole name.
* Baka yaro - (I don't know if I spaced that right) It means 'you idiot' or something like that. Yaro is used as a rude way to say 'you', and baka is 'dummy' or 'stupid, so, there you have it!
** Aho - Idiot. Plain and simple. I love Ussop.
(*) Boroboro - Piece of crap, junk, trash. Don't know about the spacing on that one, and it may be just one 'boro'.
So, that was a lot! It was mostly them, (hopefully), becoming closer friends. I felt like they weren't very friend-ish, because they didn't hang out much, and they weren't very pirate-y, so, yeah. This is my solution to that. So, what did you think? Personally, I liked it. I'll do some more progression on the story in the next chapter, hopefully, but everything depends on what kind of inspiration I get. Review, please!
Ciao~
