Chapter 27
The boy on the bed started smoking, releasing smoke from inside him. Steam from his skin and smoke from every hole on his body.
"Shit!" Dadan curses as she runs to the boy. If this kid loses 20 years, he's dead. The boy was half of that age for peats' sake!
"Dadan! What's happening?" Luffy finds himself asking, already at the other side of the boy, hands grabbing for his forehead. Dadan slaps his hands away.
"Be careful. Don't touch him until we know what's happening." She knows what's happening. It's her fault after all.
"Nuh!" Luffy ignores her, reaches for the boy's forehead, as he intended to do at the start. Then he stops releasing the smoke. Immediately, crystal blue eyes snap open to land eyes on the worried black-haired boy with a scar on his face.
"Rain. Are you OK?!" Luffy asks, frantic. "Rain? Can you hear me?" He asks, hands touching everywhere, checking for bones and poking skin, just like Ace does when he's done something stupid before he realizes Luffy was made of rubber and there was nothing that could hurt him other than sharp objects.
"You're not hurt." Luffy announces after his poking and prodding. "How are you feeling?" Luffy asks instead.
"I feel…" He starts, taking one deep breath to fill his lungs, and expelling the air with one exhale. "-fine." He smiles. "My nose is good too." He announces. "I feel better even."
Dadan sighs in relief. "That's good ta hear." She says as she finally collapses on the chair she used to sit on.
"Do meh a favor and keep this a secret from yer' mom." Because Dadan does not know what that woman will do if she finds out her son started smoking.
"Why not?" Rein asks, not sure why he can't tell his mom that he got sick and fell asleep and suddenly he's all better.
"Because!" Dadan takes a second to make an excuse. "She'll find out you were troublesome, hopping around and throwing plastic coins all around. That's why you exhausted yerself, yeah?" Hoping she sounds believable enough that the boy rides the story.
"No, please don't tell mom I was bad." Hook, line and sinker.
"Meh? But I was jumping on the bed, and I didn't have to hide it from Dadan." Luffy explains. "I didn't get in trouble."
"That's because you can't lie for shit, brat." Dadan answers, "What I need ta' know, I can just get it outta ya by askin'."
"Shishishi, that's true." Luffy laughs. "Well, you better rest some more Rain. Luffy pats the bed one last time before hopping off of it.
"Luffy, you can take the couch near the window. Sleep for a bit, I'll start on making dinner down stairs." Dadan says as she stands from the chair. Still quite shaken at what had happened. When the door was closed and she was sure she was alone and no one could hear her, she sighed. Her body started trembling, her eyes started to water and she found her hands clutching her arms and wrapping around her.
When she saw the boy started smoking like Newgate, she was so much more afraid of what would have happened. Unlike Newgate's case, where capable doctors and nurses were just one call away from helping them, this time she was alone with just the kid and Luffy. Magra and Dogra weren't even there to help her. She was so… she was terrified. Being alone was terrifying. - She didn't even know what she'd done to the kid. He could be growing wings on his back or mushrooms on his feet. She just doesn't know!
She finds herself back in the kitchen instead, back pressed against the wall as she slowly loses the strength in her legs. She wipes the tears escaping from her eyes as she lets out a low chuckle. 'Look at you Dadan," she says to herself, 'since when did you learn to cry and fall on the floor like a girl?'
She'd never thought she would do this again, not after that night. The night she lost everything… She breathes, calms herself down before she sniffs, one more unladylike sniff, she finds a tissue at the kitchen counter, wipes the tear tracks away and blows her nose instead… She's been through worse, she'd felt worse before. This was nothing. She repeats it to herself, a mantra in her head.
She looks at the hearth and the cellar on the other side of the wall. It was time to start on dinner. So she works, to keep her mind at ease, to keep her thoughts away from what had happened. And every time she thinks about how she would have explained what happened to Zarhi. A mother who loved and cared for her child like he were the sky that held up all the stars, she repeats in her head, 'count yourself lucky that didn't happen.'
"Who is Dadan-san to you Captain?" Zarhi asks, as they walk through the cemetery.
For a private tomb, it was more like the cemetery of the whole village. The stones were closed together, signifying the relationships of the people buried around them. The ground is too frozen to dig through, the dead are buried above ground, in little rectangular stone boxes, some even stacked together to indicate a family had died together after an attack or a disease. The designs of the graves were different too, signifying the character of the person, or the era that they died or what they did. One grave had been decorated with pressed dried leaves and grass. Another notable one was a grave made with stone white marble. Zarhi was told it was the grave of a well respected and loved mayor sometime in the past. But at present, the leader stops to look around their current location, also waiting for the captain's answer.
"Dadan is a friend." He answers proudly, with no doubt- "She is also one of my son's foster mother." He says nothing more.
It was Thatch who says it, "But he likes her more than just a friend."
Whitebeard raises a brow. 'What?' He seems to think, and his face! For all the faces he could have conjured, when he is before the other Yonkos and Marines, he couldn't help but show his complete and utterly stupefied expression. His mouth hangs open, about to say a refusal…
"What was that?" He says instead.
This time, it was Marco who raises a brow, high is his unbelievably wide forehead. "Pops," he starts, still trying to form the sentence that won't give him a heart attack. "What Thatch was trying to say is- You like Dadan a lot more than just a friend." Just repeating how Thatch had said it, but getting a bigger reaction from their captain.
"WHAT?" He flounders, a blush creeping up his cheeks, till the tip of his ears and the back of his neck. "I- I don't. We're really just friends! I mean, we're not young anymore. Being like that- at this age is…" He tries to explain. "We're just very close friends." He ends dryly. Saying it more to himself to make the statement sink into his mind. "She sees me as her friend." He continues, "I would like to respect that." He says with finality. He gives a slight smile to his sons, just a lift of a corner of his lip. Just enough to measure them, this was what he wants.
Thatch only looks on in confusion, but Marco, ever the reliable first mate, nods his head in understanding. It was for the best. To keep the peace in the crew, to maintain the peace of the seas.
"Captain-" Zarhi responds. "I may not know you well, nor her, but believe me when I say this. The two of you are good together." She says with a smile. Not saying more as she leads them through another set of graves.
Thatch interrupts, "But!-" Marco slings an arm over the chef's shoulders. "They say they're friends, then they are just friends." Marco says as he leads them through the stones.
Even then, Newgate sighs. It's for the best. He says to himself. "After all, she has a mountain to conquer, and a hideout to build." That was Dadan's dream, and who was he to stop her?
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
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