Chapter 7: I might be late


When Luffy had been four-years-old, he had been bitten by a stray cat. It hadn't been as if the bite had been painful, but the shock of being bitten had been what caused the boy's eyes to well up in tears. Reggy had been there to witness the ordeal. On those rare occasions, the girl had been convinced to leave the confines of their house by Luffy.

Luffy had cradled his finger as he had fallen on his bottom and cried. Reggy had watched him passively after shooing the cat away. There hadn't been any villagers besides them to hear him making a fuss, and the only other person who did had been just standing there. Luffy had snorted up the mucus that dripped down from his nose, turned his head up at his sister, and said, "I'm hurt!"

"Hm."

"Do something, Reggy!"

She had turned on her heel and walked away.

Feeling very put out that his sister had refused to help him, Luffy had tipped himself over onto his back and pounded his limbs onto the ground. "Reggy!" he had screamed.

Yet, despite the fit that he had thrown, no one had come to his aid. Once exhaustion had set in, Luffy had finally quieted down, wiped his face, and made his way home. Reggy, of course, had already been there. Luffy had been about to yell at her for leaving him behind when his sister had tilted her book down and fixed him a glare. He had closed his mouth and hadn't said anything else that day.

When Luffy had been eight-years-old, Grandpa had asked Reggy if she had wanted to leave the village to study at a top-notch school. She had refused.

"The village is quiet and peaceful. I don't want an environment that could be potentially more stress-inducing," had been her reasoning.

Grandpa had made a weird face in response. "Well, if you're sure, Honey. I just want you to be happy."

"What about me, Gramps?" Luffy had asked. "Do ya want me to be happy too?"

"Of course, my boy."

"Then will you finally let me become the Pirate King?"

"What? No!"

Luffy had been frustrated by that. He had fumed over by how it appeared that Grandpa had only been concerned with Reggy's wellbeing and not his. Reggy had always gotten whatever she wanted, didn't she? And what did Luffy had ever gotten? A beating and a scolding. Life just hadn't been fair.

When Luffy had been thirteen-years-old, he had finished running an errand for Makino and decided to train by himself while in the village. There had been a particular move that he hadn't been able to master well. If he had managed to get this right, then surely his fights with Ace would have fallen towards his favor!

Training for over an hour, Luffy had flopped onto his back and groaned. "I'll never get this right!"

"What's that saying? Practice makes perfect? Well, if you practice the wrong thing a hundred times, you're only perfect in doing that wrong thing."

He had lifted his head to see Reggy staring at him from under a tree. He hadn't seen his sister in so long and the first thing she had said to him had been criticism? The blazing heat of the sun had already dampened his mood, but Reggy had further soured it. Luffy had felt a surge of irrational angry.

"You don't even workout! You don't even know what it's like to train as hard as I do," he had snapped.

A part of him had wanted to see Reggy being riled up, being angry like him. He had wanted her to lash out, to glare at him like how she had done when they were younger. He had wanted to see her to become explosive, to become the opposite of her typical apathy.

But there had been no change to her.

As a boy growing into adolescence, it would have had made sense if Luffy had undergone tumultuous mood-swings. However, only Reggy had been able to easily elicit such reactions out of him.

Clashing personalities and unequal treatment hadn't been enough to drive a wedge between them, but there had been enough to cause a festering dissatisfaction. That had always been typical of the bonds of siblings: from birth had they been together until their blossoming adulthood, they had shared and fought over and compared what they had.

And, as siblings, only they had been able to truly influence one another. Luffy may had been one of the very few who could get Reggy to willingly put down her books and take a step outside, but he had never been able to affect her they way she had affected him.

Rage. Jealousy. Sadness. Distress. Anxiety.

But there had also been inspiration, dedication, joy, comfort, and love.

There had been moments like these that Luffy could never forget even when everyone else did. There had been times when Reggy had appeared to be cold and heartless, and he had never truly held a grudge against her. There had been times when Reggy had imparted bits of wisdom, and his eyes had grown wide with the newfound knowledge.

There had been times when Reggy had said things that just hadn't made sense. The villagers might have had behaved apprehensively around the unusual girl, but Luffy had always been there for her even when she hadn't been for him. Because, even if Reggy hadn't felt the same, Luffy had loved her because she had been his sister.

Even now, as he sang and danced with Usopp and Chopper to Brook's merry tune, he thought about her. He had companions to accompany him on his journey to find One Piece; they were his new friends for him to cherish and laugh with. But his mind sometimes fell back to her because this was the first time that he had ever been separated from her. If Reggy had been with him right now, seeing this spectacle, experiencing this chaos, exploring uncharted areas, they would be together.

But Luffy never wasted time to think about the what-if's because it was pointless. They each had their own destination towards happiness.

Luffy couldn't see beyond of the intersection of dreams and reality. Whatever possibilities and choices that he made would all lead to the one goal he fantasized since childhood. For him, there was no fork in his road. For Reggy, there wasn't any either, but that was because she was decidedly opposed to attaining an idealistic future; she couldn't see herself that far ahead in time.

For her, dreams were whimsical nonsense. For her, it was better to rely on simple practicality than indulge on arbitrary fancies that didn't promise any sort of security. Luffy saw it as boring and not a life worth living; his blood ran on risks and the thrill of adventure and fights, after all. He was a free spirit, unlike Reggy who was content being stationary and subsisting on a solitary existence.

Luffy wanted to venture out on the open blue seas and achieve his dream; Reggy wanted to live the rest of her days peacefully uneventful. That was fine, though, as Reggy had taught him. Everyone was made differently, and whatever everyone was contented with was fine.

His sister, as cold and heartless and wise and strange as she was, knew what she was doing in her life just as Luffy knew with his. And he missed her very much.