Category: Romantic Fluff
Characters: Monkey D. Luffy and Boa Hancock
Requested by: killercroc (FanFiction)
Luffy breathed in deeply as he sat on the massive bulkhead of his sheep, savoring the salty spray of the sea. He then snickered, howling the to the wind as he threw his arms wide.
"I'm the King of the Pirates!" he shrieked in delight, banging his feet against the ship. Though it had been quite some time since he had, at long last, acquired the title, it still made him positively giddy. It had taken a long time, and it had been a long, painful road, but he had done it. He continued to bask in his success, laughing and making a racket, until he attracted the attention of his navigator.
"Luffy!" Nami sighed as she walked out of her study into the deck of the ship and put her hands primly on her hips. Luffy glanced over his shoulder, blinking, and then snickered slightly and obediently hopped down from the prow of the ship. "Good grief. I'm trying to make sure we make it to Amazon Lily in one piece, and your incessant banging doesn't help!" she complained as he hopped up on a barrel and began swinging his feet. He ignored her rant, picking his teeth, until she mentioned their destination.
"Oh! How close are we?" he beamed, perking up at the mention of the island filled with tough women. It was a particularly enjoyable location for him, as he had spent two years training intensively on the island after the decisive battle with the Navy, and it was home to his good friend Boa Hancock- not to mention, the food was mouthwatering. He grinned dreamily as visions of steaming, juicy tracts of meant danced in his head, and he didn't even bother listened to Nami's conjectures and calculations. He was snapped out of his fantasies as Sanji, who was leaning against the side of the ship smoking a cigarette, frowned and released a plume of thick white smoke before speaking up.
"Amazon Lily? Isn't that the island that Boa Hancock lives?" he asked. Luffy was the only one who had visited the primal jungle kingdom, but his friends were familiar with the proud woman who served as Luffy's benefactor. "The one who is totally head over heels with our knucklehead?" he added with a slight sniff of disdain, and Luffy cocked his head to the side in confusion.
"Huh? What do you mean, Sanji? She's just my really good friend," he blinked. He liked Hancock a lot; she was very good to him in helping him storm Impel Down and supported him greatly in his quest to achieve his dream. Plus, she always fed him well when he was around. Both Nami and Sanji sighed deeply, pinching the bridges of their noses as they tried to level with him. Suddenly bored with the conversation, Luffy's attention lapsed once more, and he whined loudly as his stomach grumbled. "Sanji, is it lunch time yet? I'm hungry!" he complained as he beat his feet on the side of the barrel angrily.
"That's it!" Nami exclaimed, snapping her fingers as an idea bloomed in her bright mind. Luffy stared at her with wide eyes, not sure what she was quite so excited about. "Luffy, think of it this way. You know how much you looooove food, right?" she asked him, speaking to him like he was a young child. A grin split Luffy's face as the mention of his favorite thing on the earth.
"Yeah! I love food! Especially meat! It's my favorite! Sanji, are we having meat?" he babbled excitedly, but his attention was drawn back to the orange-haired navigator as she snapped her fingers repeatedly in front of his face.
"Focus, Luffy," she demanded. "Hancock thinks of you like you think of food," she explained simply, and that statement got the gears turning in his head. Hancock… Thinks of me as food? No, no, she likes me as much as I like food, he realized, frowning deeply as he considered the strange analogy. Now that he thought about it, Hancock always got this starry-eyed, funny look on her face whenever she looked at him and she was always so eager to please him. She gets really sad when I say no to going on walks and stuff. He suddenly got the insane vision of him going to chomp down on a particularly appetizing plate of meat and it suddenly screaming rejections, making him shudder slightly. He crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side, his face screwed up in concentration as he attempted to understand the strange analogy.
"I'm not sure that I really get it," he whined.
"Oh, forget it. It's pointless," Nami sighed and rolled her eyes, throwing up her arms and slapping them to her sides in a motion of indicating her abandonment of the situation. Luffy continued to contemplate the puzzle of the beautiful woman and food all the way to the island of Amazon Lily.
As they docked in the port, the woman in question was there to meet them, flanked by her two gigantic sisters. She waved excitedly as Luffy hopped down onto the dock, holding his straw hat to his head as he took in the majesty of the island. He appreciated its wildness, its untamed growth of jungle, because it was simply ripe with adventure. While his companions prepared for their stay at the island, Luffy snickered and ran right up to the warlord, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her down the dock.
"Come on, Hancock! Let's go explore!" he howled with laughter as he took off into the island with the woman in tow. His crew mates shouted objections after him, but he ignored them, too caught up in his own excitement. He had no chosen Hancock as a partner aside from the reason that she was simply the only own available, but she wasn't objecting. Her face had turned bright pink and she was holding a hand to her cheek, stammering and avoiding eye contact.
"Oh, Luffy, I would love to explore the jungle with you!" she sighed as he tugged her off the dock and into the loamy soil on the outskirts of the jungle.
"Great! Let's go!" the pirate captain cried and pulled her into the jungle. He let her go when they were well within the jungle, and he held his hat to his head as he looked around in wonder. The jungle looked pretty much the same as the last time he had been there, with towering trees and a forest floor thick with undergrowth, but he was determined to take down a wild animal or two for dinner and explore the areas he had not had a chance to in the two-year time span he had resided on the island. He raised an eyebrow when Hancock abruptly hugged his arm, propping her chin on his shoulder as she gazed up at him with sparkling eyes.
"I've missed you very much, Luffy," she smiled up at him. I am to Hancock like food is to me, he recalled, unsure of how to respond to the situation without much context. He thought of how long it felt since he had had his last meal, and he frowned when he realized that it seemed like a lifetime ago. He then grinned brightly down at her.
"Yeah! It's been forever since we last saw each other, huh? I really didn't think about it!" he cackled, then looked around with curious eyes, eager to explore the jungle. He shook off the Amazonian empress to stomp over to a well-sized stick and began poking it around in the bushes, hoping to scare some critter or another out in the open. He picked up the only thing he stirred up, a small, wriggling snake, then snorted and flung it into the bushes since it did not amuse him. He grabbed Hancock by the hand again and began pulling her along through the thick bushes and blooming flowers, whistling loudly as he searched the forest for something entertaining. He was pretty much unaware of the woman's swooning. He stooped beside a small river, poking his stick in the water in an attempt to disturb the minnows swimming around in it.
"I'm really glad you decided to stop here," Hancock told him as she sat down on a rock beside him, her hands resting primly on her lap as she regarded him with a bright red, happy face. "It meant so much to me to hear you were coming…" Food. Hancock. Food? He pondered with a frown. He glanced over at her, and suddenly instead of Hancock he was staring at a rice ball. What the heck? He blinked and marched over to investigate the phantasm, and sniffed the strangely giant rice ball experimentally to make sure it wasn't real. He heard Hancock squeal, and he blinked, and then she was sitting there in front of him and his face was in her black hair. Nope. Not a rice ball, just Hancock. How weird, he concluded with a shrug and straightened up, pointing down the river with his stick.
"Let's follow the river!" he shouted, and he rested the stick on his shoulder as he marched determinedly along the riverbank. Hancock followed behind, holding her face as she mumbled some nonsense to herself. Luffy glanced back at her occasionally to make sure she was following- and not a rice ball in disguise. Maybe Nami's weird explanation got to my head, he frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he continued his journey along the small river. The trees began to grow thinner, less packed together, and large patches of sunlight splashed over the ground. He could hear the waves and smell the salty spray of the sea, indicating that they had approached the shore. His eyes widened as the forest abruptly fell away and he was walking one solid stone. "Cooooool! I haven't been here before!" he grinned as he looked around excitedly. His eyes fell on an opening in the rocky ground, leading below the surface of the earth and even below sea level. "A caaaaaave! Come on, Hancock!" he cried and dragged the woman over to the entrance. "Helloooooooooo?" he called into the dark, snickering as he heard his voice bouncing off the stone walls.
"Be careful, Luffy. That cave is made of sea stone," Hancock warned as she stood beside him. He shrugged; he could care less what it was made of. He just wanted to know if there was treasure in it.
"Bombs away!" he cried and jumped into the cave with a howl, clamping his hat to his head as he fell into the cave. The bottom was just a few yards down, and he landed securely on the sandy floor. He looked up at the light shining above, where Hancock was still standing. "Come onnnnn!" he whined impatiently, and the woman pouted at him before picking her way down the wall. She gasped as he foot suddenly slipped and lost her grip, and she shrieked as she fell into open air. "Uh-oh," he blinked, and stretched out his arms to pluck her out of the air and pull her safely to her chest. Holding her like a groom would his bride, he looked down at her. "You're pretty clumsy!" he laughed.
"Oh, Luffy… You caught me!" she breathed, and even in the dark she could see her blushing. Hancock thinks of me like food, so I should think of her like food? I wouldn't want my food to get hurt, he thought as he set her down. Or dirty. To that end, he brushed her off with his hands, as she had gotten dusty from slipping on the loose sediment, and her body went rigid. He whipped around when he was finished, eager to explore, but when he walked a bit and looked back she was still standing stock-still.
"Hey! You coming or what?" he whined, and that was enough to pull her out of whatever stupor she was in and send her scurrying after him. He waited until she was beside him before continuing onward into the dank cave. It ran underneath the surface of the island, leading inland, but just barely. Several sections of the roof were open to the jungle above, and vines and tree roots hugged the walls while all sorts of mushrooms and molds grew in the dank conditions. Luffy tried to catch a crab as it scuttled away, but the crustacean squirmed into a crack and out of his grasp. As he straightened up, disappointed at the loss of his potential dinner, he blinked as the cave suddenly shuddered slightly.
"Luffy! Look out!" Hancock screamed, and he glanced up in time to see a sizable section of the rock roof breaking free and plummeting toward him. He let out an oof! as it cracked into his head, and the force of the blow sent him sprawling out on the floor. He groaned as he tenderly rubbed his head, feeling a sizable lump in his black hair. He blinked when Hancock suddenly leaned over him, her face flushed and her expression worried. "Luffy! Are you all right?" she cried.
"I'm not sure," he drowned. Hancock looked funny. Had her hair always been that shiny and silky? She had pretty eyes, too. She didn't seem that different, but Luffy still felt like it was the first time he was seeing her. As he stared at her, he felt strangely happy. I like Hancock, he thought giddily, but somehow it wasn't in the same context as before. He was happy they were alone, in the cave, and the others weren't around to bother them. Hancock continued to frown down at him, and he grew strangely embarrassed as she ran a hand through his hair to check his head.
"Oh! You have a bump," she fretted. "You poor thing… Let's get back. I'll prepare a nice big feast for you. A little meat and a party should do the trick!" she decided, sitting up. Yeah! A feast! He thought with a grin, the thought of meat tantalizing. He then frowned, falling deep in thought.
"No," Luffy refused suddenly, and she looked down in him in terror.
"Oh, my God. You're dying. Stay here! I'll go get your ship's doctor she shrieked and moved to take off, but he grabbed her wrist so she wouldn't leave. She looked down at him, eyes wide.
"That's not what I meant," he explained. He wasn't sure why, but a party just didn't sound appealing to him right now. Nami would be there, and Sanji, and Zoro, and everyone else, and that just got in the way. "I just wanna eat with you," he told her, and her mouth slowly fell open and something between a wheeze and a squeal slipped out of her. She placed a hand over her heart, bright red.
"Oh! Just m-me?" she stammered, and he nodded fiercely. Yeah… Dinner with Hancock… That sounds really nice. At his affirmation, she exclaimed excitedly and clapped her hands together. "Okay! A private dinner between us! Definitely! Oh, I'm so excited!" she gushed. Seeing her so happy made Luffy happy.
I think I finally get that stupid analogy, he thought with a snicker. With the promise of food on the horizon, he hopped up and exited with Hancock out of the cave, pulling her back through the jungle.
This time, he made a point to hold her hand.
