I do not own One Piece or its characters, I only own this story.

EDITED Hopeless Romantics: Chapter 8

Law was awakened by the sound of his alarm and quickly rolled to his side to silence his phone. He had managed to fall asleep for a few hours—thankfully—but he was still feeling sleepy as he walked to the bathroom and took a piss. Law then stripped down before stepping into the shower, he turned on the faucet and blasted his skin with cool water to wake himself up. As he stood under the water he felt the temperature steadily rise and in return began to feel his muscles relax and he began to wash himself.

Once he cleared the sleepiness from his mind, Law's first few thoughts were of memories from the previous day. The girl who wore a straw hat, as he was remembering the way she smiled he felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. After finishing his shower, he opened the curtain and saw himself in the mirror above the sink.

His tall reflection gazed back at him, Law's black hair was soaked and there were beads of water running down his face. There were permanent dark circles under his pale eyes, his body was too thin, covered in hard muscle instead of bodyfat. His long torso was tanned and adorned with a large tattoo on his chest, he had more tattoos on his shoulders and forearms as well as the ones he had on his hands. Law turned to look at the large tattoo he had on his back, admiring his artwork before he grabbed his towel to dry himself.

The tattoos on his body were the only thing that kept him from loathing what he saw. Law was proud to have them, even though he knew it wasn't very 'professional' considering his future career. He didn't care about that though, he got them because he wanted them—they were the only things he liked when he saw his body. Everything else reminded him of how unhealthy he was, despite his extensive medical knowledge of the human anatomy, he never took care of himself and he was reminded of that whenever he looked at himself.

Law returned to his bedroom he dressed himself in his scrubs for the day. It was Tuesday, which meant he would be spending his day at the hospital for his residency instead of having classes. He wasn't feeling hungry and decided to skip breakfast, like usual, and headed straight to the hospital.

Even though he owned a car, he didn't like to drive everywhere and deal with parking. It was about a ten-minute walk from his apartment to the hospital and since he wasn't running late, he had stopped at a coffee shop along the way. The girl at the counter smirked at Law as he entered the shop and approached the counter. She had long pink hair and a small gold hoop pierced through her right eyebrow.

"Hey, Law, what can I get for you today?"

"Just a black coffee, Bonney-ya."

"M'kay," she turned and began to prepare his coffee, "How long are you going to be at the hospital today?"

"I don't know," He furrowed his eyebrows, Law was a little frustrated by her question, "How am I supposed to know how many people will end up needing emergency care?"

Bonney began to giggle at him, "I was only asking because I thought I could keep you company afterwards."

Law should've known that was the reason she asked, Bonney was one of the girls he would oftentimes hook-up with for casual sex. She wasn't interested in anything more and neither was he. She was one of the girls Law had repeat sex with instead of just one-night stands, but for whatever reason he found himself extremely against the idea, "Not tonight."

She had placed his coffee in front of him in a to-go cup and he tossed a few small bills on the counter. Bonney caught his gaze, "Another time then," she gave him a small smile, which went unreturned before Law picked up his coffee and left the small shop.

On his walk to the hospital, Law drank his coffee and thought about his interaction with Bonney. Of course, she just wants sex, Bonney-ya is always trying to hook-up lately—more than usual. His frown only deepened and a scowl was present on his face, how annoying…she used to just be a distraction, but now she's just getting clingy.

When he walked into the hospital and made his way to the ER, Law was told there had been a large car accident and they had a couple dozen people coming in due to that. Most of the injuries weren't serious but he would need to get to work right away. Car accidents were one of the things Law hated to see, they were dangerous and he had once lost nearly everything to one. He was grateful that there weren't any people who had been killed today.

The next few hours he tended to patient after patient who had been in the car accident. Law spent his time cleaning wounds, pulling out broken pieces of glass, stitching people up, and wrapping their injuries. There had been a couple younger female patients who tried flirting with him as he examined them. He was nothing but professional, tried to brush it off, but there was a green-haired woman around his age who ended up going too far.

She had needed stitches on her arm from where it had been pierced with broken glass. Law bandaged her and said she was free to go after he explained that she would have to wash her wounds carefully the next day. The woman had smiled seductively at him, "Would you like to come back to my place and stay the night—you could show me just how carefully I need to be taken care of."

Law stared at his patient with a blank expression, "Excuse me, Monet, I need to get to the next patient."

Monet grabbed his arm when he turned to leave, "Please, I will let you do whatever you like with me—I'll let you fu—"

He cut her off with his hallow laughter, "You're not the first person to offer me that today."

She let go of his arm and had an offended look in her eyes but stayed silent. Law left her room and continued with the rest of his shift. He was told he could leave once all the people from the accident were taken care of, which ended up taking quite a while since there were so many people and not enough staff and nurses to help them all.

Law finally could leave around three in the afternoon, he walked straight back to his apartment and took another shower after changing out of his scrubs. He stood under the hot water for a few moments, why must every woman assume I want to fuck them… Groaning loudly, Law cursed himself, I'm such a fucking idiot. As he washed the smell of antisceptic and blood from himself he realized the only thing he ever did with women was have sex with them.

When he finished his shower, Law went to his bedroom wearing nothing but a towel on his waist. He hadn't looked at his phone since he woke up, so after he dressed himself in a pair of black jeans and a dark gray t-shirt, he found his phone and checked to see if he had missed anything.

There were a couple of missed calls from Shachi, along with a voicemail where he was telling Law that he and Penguin were going out later along with details on where they were going if Law wanted to join them. Why would I want to go to a strip club with those two idiots? If I wanted to see action I would send Bonney a text. He wondered why the idea seemed so unappealing, but didn't worry about it for too long.

He began to think about the girl he met the day before, Law had to force himself to not get distracted by thinking about her during his shift at the hospital. Now that he had the rest of his day free to spend as he pleased, Law could relax, I wonder what Luffy-ya is up to… Before he realized what he was doing, Law had begun to call Luffy, his phone held next to his ear.

For the next few moments, Law felt like he had made a huge mistake and panic flowed him while he listened as the line rang. The sound was cut off and replaced with Luffy's cheerful tone, "Traffy—hey! I can't believe you called!"

He couldn't stop himelf from grinning like an idiot, "Hey, Luffy-ya." Law released his breath he was unconsciously holding in, fuck what am I supposed to say? He quickly decided to keep their conversation as casual as possible, "I just finished working for the day. What're you doing?"

"Oh? Do you work at the hospital? I just was reading a few things for class, but it's soooo boring!"

"Yeah, I work in the emergency room. What have you been reading about?"

Luffy groaned into the phone, "I don't even know! It's something for my chemistry class and it doesn't make any sense, it's boring. How am I supposed to stay awake while trying to read and understand something so boring?"

Law listened to Luffy as she yawned through the phone. I finally found a reason to see her again, "I'm pretty good at chemistry, Luffy-ya. If you want, I can help you—"

"REALLY?" He was cut off by a screech, causing him to flinch and pull the phone from his ear. "Oh Traffy, that would be soo great! I have no idea what any of this stuff means, it doesn't make sense to me."

"Yeah, sure Luffy-ya." Law was grinning, "I'd be happy to help."

"Are you busy right now? I have been sitting in the student lounge trying to figure this out for the past hour."

"No, I'm not busy, I can meet you there in about fifteen minutes."

"THANK YOU SO MUCH!"

Law was chuckling at her grateful tone of voice, "Sure, I'll see you soon, Luffy-ya."

"Okay, see you, Traffy!"

He pressed the end key on his phone and smiled when he saw the silly image Luffy had taken of herself for her contact picture. Law was excited to see her, there was something oddly refreshing about the way Luffy acted, she wasn't like the other girls who practically begged him to sleep with them. His hair wasn't yet dry from his shower, Law put on his hat and grabbed his backpack then left his apartment for campus.

Luffy was sitting at a table in the student lounge with her chemistry book opened in front of her and some other papers scattered around. She rubbed her temple in frustration, this doesn't make any sense…'balance the chemical equations?' There are only those weird little numbers next to these letters…I want Traffy to get here, already!

She glanced up when she heard the door open, when she saw who it was her face broke into a huge grin, "Traffy!" Luffy jumped up from the table and ran up to him, "Thank goodness you're here!" She grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the table she had been sitting at, "I tried reading the book and all I've managed to do is confuse myself even more!"

"Okay, what're you trying to figure out?" Law spoke softly and placed his bag down on the floor. He could tell how frustrated the girl was and lowered himself into a chair he pulled up.

With a loud groan she told him, "It says to 'balance the chemical equations,' but I have no idea what that means."

He began to chuckle beside her, "Have you ever taken chemistry before, Luffy-ya?"

Pouting at him she replied, "Noooo—that's why I need your help, Traffy!"

Law blinked a few times at her before he spoke, "Okay, well first of all—" he picked up her pencil and began to write on a new sheet of paper, "These are the chemical symbols for different elements. They each have a positive or negative charge depending on where they are on the Periodic table…"

Luffy listened intently as Law began to explain the basics of chemistry to her, for once she found herself actually paying attention to what someone was explaining to her. She was listening to his soft, low voice as he talked about elements and their charges, how when combined they formed molecules, and what it meant to balance a chemical equation. Woooow! Traffy is so smart…when he explains this stuff it actually makes sense—unlike when I was trying to read that boring book…

"They have already written the product of the reaction, so you don't need to worry about the charges since they have already done that for you. What you must do here is make sure there is the same amount of each element on each side of the equation. So, in order to balance NaBr + Cl2 → NaCl + Br2 you need to add a '2' in front of NaBr and NaCl so there are two of each element on each side." Law paused and looked at Luffy, "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it actually does! Thanks!" She smiled at him then turned to the next problem, "So for this next one, HgO → Hg + O2, there needs to be a '2' in front of HgO and Hg?"

Law smiled, "Yes, that's right, Luffy-ya." Even though that one was easy, he was proud she understood, "Now the next one is a little harder—CH4 + O2 → CO2 + H2O. Do you want to see if you can figure it out?"

She picked up her pencil and began to scribble on a scrap sheet of paper, trying to figure it out, "Umm, I think there needs to be a '2' in front of CH4 and CO2 and a '4' in front of H2O and O2." Luffy questionally looked up at Law, "Is that right?"

He bit his lip, why does she have to look so damn cute? "No, not quite. Try it again."

Luffy scratched her cheek and sighed, "Okay." Then, turning back to her paper she continued to scribble things down, trying to figure out the equation. "Oh! It just needs a '2' in front of H2O and O2!" When she looked beside her, Law was grinning at her.

"Great job, Luffy-ya." He ruffled her hair, since her straw hat was laying against her back, wow, it's so soft. "See, you understand it just fine."

"Shishishishi," she liked the way Law's hand felt in her hair. Luffy was feeling at ease for the first time all day, "Well that's only because it made sense when you explained it."

He chuckled, "You're not the first person I've explained this stuff to—I used to be a chemistry tutor before I got too busy with work and everything else."

Luffy was unbelieveably happy, even for her, "Gee, I sure am lucky to be friends with you, Traffy!" Her smile stretched across her entire face, "I would have been trying to figure this out all night, now it won't take any time at all to finish!"

"I'm glad I could help." He really was, Law found himself smiling back at her and asked, "Want to get a bite to eat once you finish?" Damn, this is a low move, even for me…but I want to spend more time with Luffy-ya and I know how much she loves to eat… "I haven't eaten all day and I'm getting pretty hungry—I can pay for you again if you'd like."

The way he was smiling at her made Luffy's heart jump, but she was more surprised by what he said, "You haven't eaten all day?" Her eyes grew wide, the very thought of not eating all day was absurd, "You need to take better care of yourself, Traffy! I'll hurry up and finish so you don't starve!" She quickly did the equations they were assigned for class as Law checked her work. Before long she had all her chemistry homework done and her things inside her backpack.

"Where do you want to eat, Luffy-ya?" Even though he was the one to suggest getting something to eat, Law felt compelled to do what he could to make her happy.

She thought for a moment, puckering her lips and tapping on her cheek. When Luffy made up her mind she brought her fist to her palm, "I heard there was a buffet near campus, do you know where it is?"

Law began to laugh, "Yes, I know the place. I should've suggested that in the first place." Obviously, a buffet is a good choice considering her appetite.

Luffy was about to pick up her backpack, but Law beat her to it and hung it over his shoulder with his own bag. She didn't say anything to him, Luffy just at him then grabbed his tattooed hand. What's that sparky feeling? I feel it whenever Traffy and I touch. Disregarding the strange sensation, Luffy began leading him out of the student lounge.

As they walked in the direction of the buffet-style restaurant, Law's cheeks began to ache from all the smiling and laughing. Luffy was his friend, she said so herself and she seemed to enjoy his company. Never in his life had he spent time like this with a girl or been friends with one. The day before was the first time Law had walked with a girl to dinner or held their hand. He felt lucky to be her friend, but there was still this ache inside his chest that wanted something more.

AN: Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was hard to get started but once I figured out what I wanted to write about it was only a matter of time for me to finish this.

Please review the story, or PM me and let me know how you've liked the story this far! The next chapter will be up later today!

xoxoLadyLiberal