"Cool! Fish people!"
"L-l-l- Luffy-aniki! NO! That's a Fishman! Don't just walk up to it!"
Yosaku clings desperately at the boy, but Luffy just walks on, his very long arm still holding onto Gin.
The commotion draws the attention of the other Fishmen nearby.
"Oh, are you a visitor?" an octopus fishman asks, walking forward to greet them before they came too far into the gates and offended someone by accident. "You guys don't look like you're from this island."
Yosaku squeaks, ducking behind Luffy, "it's an octopus fishman!"
Hachi nods, "yes. I'm a dandy octopus fishman," he says, swirling his arms about in a very bodhisattva fashion. "I'm Hachi."
Luffy laughs, "you're an octopus but you're a person! That's so weird. Oh! Hey, do you poop?"
"DON'T ASK THAT!" Yosaku yells, hysterical.
"Yeah, I do."
"DON'T ANSWER!" Yosaku snaps.
The laughter rings through humans and fishmen alike. Luffy laughs boisterously, Yosaku looks on the verge of fainting, while Johnny and Gin just look defeated at the side.
Sanji was frankly disinterested, simply because there were no female fishmen where he could see them. Nami and Usopp stayed behind to look after the sick people in the infirmary, but for politeness' sake, they were here in Arlong Park.
"Hey, Aladine-chan," Nojiko greets them loudly, catching everyone's attention with the bandages around her shoulder. "Nami's busy, so I came to introduce her crew to you guys!"
"Wait, wait, what happened to you?" Hachi fusses.
"Oh, I got shot a little."
"HOW DO YOU GET SHOT A LITTLE?!" Hachi grows red, "who?! How dare they!"
"Don't worry, Nami dealt with them already," Nojiko says.
But before she gets to say anything else, a certain sea cow surfaces at the port, teary-eyed and full of bumps on his head.
"Oh," Luffy says.
"Ah," Sanji drops his cigarette.
"Moh-moo!" Hachi squawks, rushing over in a panic. "Oh no! Who bullied you?!"
Gin just facepalms.
"Nami sure has some strange friends," Choo says.
After Luffy and Sanji got on their knees to apologize to the traumatized sea cow, they became fast friends. Sanji and Gin stare as Luffy starts sea cow rodeo riding, while Yosaku and Johnny squeak at every fishman that comes too close.
The Fishmen are getting way too amused by the two bounty hunters' jittery reactions, and they've started playing Peek-a-boo.
By the end of it, Johnny and Yosaku look like they've lost ten years of their life.
"The captain is Luffy-kun, then there's Sanji-kun, and Gin-kun. Those two aren't members, but they're friends," Nojiko introduces them. "The rest are back at Doctor Nako's place, but they've also got pirate hunter Zoro and one more, Usopp-kun."
"Hehh," Choo says, "so, which one broke Kuroobi's jaw?"
"Wait, what?" Nojiko swirls on the ray-fishman in the corner, suddenly noticing the darkening bruise at the man's chin. "Woah. Who did that, was it the pirate hunter?"
"No, it was the longnose," Kuroobi answers.
Choo does a double-take. "The longnose?!" he asks. "I saw him. Seriously, you let that guy land a hit on you?"
"How about you try facing the longnose before you talk, Choo."
"WOAH! You're a fishman too! You look like an eel!" Luffy exclaims, because he needs to establish that every fishman around him is a fishman, apparently.
"I'm a merman. A goatsbeard brotula merman. It's a little different from an eel," Aladine explains in his greeting with all the patience of a man talking to a child, resting his trident over the crook of his arm. "It is an honour to meet you."
"A goat? You're a goat?!"
"...Something like that."
Sanji smokes. No hand is extended, so he doesn't offer one either. "Nice to meet you. Heard you're a shitty big deal in the Grand Line?"
Johnny's soul escapes him. Yosaku screams. He wants to go home.
Aladine laughs good naturedly.
Sanji's eyebrow twitches. Judging by the mirroring responses-- Aladine's pretty much treating him like a kid. And he doesn't quite like the implications of that. It's one thing to treat Luffy like a kid, and a totally different thing to treat Sanji like one.
Sure, Aladine probably has an unimaginable bounty, and Sanji's not dumb enough to think he can beat the merman in an actual fight-- but still.
Aladine grinned at him.
Sanji thinks he wants to grill some brotula for dinner tonight.
"C'mon, don't look at me all angry like that," Aladine says cheerily at Sanji, "I can tell all of you have great potential and I respect that. You're just very endearing to me."
Sanji raises an eyebrow. "I'm not angry," he says.
Aladine grins, like he knows better.
Sanji really wants to grill brotula for dinner tonight.
"It might've been Old man Zeff."
The two are sitting outside on the bench, side by side, speaking in hushed tones
Nami's jaw drops. "You told him?"
Usopp holds a hand up to stop the girl before she mauls him alive, "in my defence, I'm blind. It's tough to hide Haki from a veteran when I'm literally counting on it to have sea legs or legs at all."
Nami groans, "I spent half a year with Whitebeard and I didn't tell him anything!"
"I'm not a scoundrel like you."
"I will break your nose, Usopp."
"I apologize from the bottom of my soul."
They sigh in unison. Nami brushes her hair back behind her ear.
"Hey, Nami," Usopp speaks up, tone more sullen this time as he leans in closer for a serious whisper. "...have you dealt with that yet?"
And Nami leans onto Usopp's back, closing her eyes on Usopp's shoulder. The boy traces a letter on Nami's finger-- a faint B, slow and unnoticeable, but Nami knows what it means easily.
"I couldn't," she admits. "I wasn't close enough to Oyaji to warn them about it. They just told me that I'd get used to him, because I'm new. And I couldn't stay long enough to thwart it. I didn't go there to fix it to begin with, so I didn't plan things out."
Usopp's fist closes.
"His Haki is better than mine, so I couldn't do anything about him on my own," Nami says. "And now my Den Den won't reach over the Red Line."
Usopp sighs. "Countermeasures?" he prompts.
"Striking when the time is right," she tells him. "We don't know the exact time-- but it's around now. I'm going to ask Aladine-chan to go over and check things out, but we can only hope for the best to ripple out since we can't be there ourselves."
Silence runs between them.
"I'm sure you did what you could," Usopp says, closing his eyes and steadily tapping on Nami's fingers at an unrhythmical pace. "Question is-- what now?"
If they truly want to change the future, they should be changing further than just their adventures. They should be causing world-scale ripples that could upset the balance of everything much earlier, much more differently.
"Maybe I should've joined the revolutionaries this time," Usopp considers.
Because if they were truly putting their all into changing the future, working on another side would be the easiest way to get through it. Especially the revolutionaries-- that's the side that needed the most support now.
And yet, both Nami and Usopp chose to cling to the Strawhats, like selfish bastards wishing only for their own happiness and pretending to forget the inevitable future in favour of sweet memories with once-dead comrades.
"Should I have stayed with the Whitebeards?" Nami asks rhetorically.
And Usopp doesn't answer.
Because no one knows.
No one knows how things could have turned out if they went big and apart in the first place, focusing all their energy into a greater future. Maybe things would already be different. Maybe the world could already be changed.
"Do you think we're selfish?" Usopp asks. "We could be doing something so great. And yet, we're here, wasting our time."
Nami closes her fingers-- her flesh hand, over Usopp's.
"Maybe," she whispers.
They lean on each other, silently. Their breathing in tandem and their eyes closed in serenity-- they stay like that.
Maybe it's fine to waste their time and do nothing.
They've lost this nonchalance once already, they know how precious it is.
It was evening now, and the villagers held a little festival to party with the Sun Pirates' arrival and news of Nami's departure.
Luffy was out in the village, because all the food was free and he was trying to find raw ham melon with no luck.
Zoro was having a delightful drinking game with Kuroobi, Sanji was on a food venture, and Nami had gone to visit her mother's grave-- so Usopp was by the alley with his bird enjoying the cacophony of the crowd and revelling in peace.
With Gin.
"Uh," Usopp starts nervously, "nice to meet ya properly, I guess."
Luffy had strapped the former Krieg pirate to Usopp out of nowhere, with strict orders to 'keep an eye on him ok Sanji said he was sick' before running right off.
Seriously, did Luffy think the blind kid had any power to stop Gin if the Man-demon was seriously trying to run away?
"...Yeah," Gin responds.
It's awkward. But Gin isn't bolting so maybe conversation is okay.
"So, poison?" Usopp asks.
He feels Gin's presence shuffle a little further away, and he doesn't respond.
So Usopp runs his fingers through Kinoko's fur and smiles. "Y'know, I know a man who was submerged into deadly poison, from the roots of his hair-- to the depths of his bones! He was on the verge of death by the time anyone found him."
Gin makes a scoffing sound.
Usopp continues talking. "When we asked him later on, how he survived to tell the tale-- he said he stumbled upon a paradise filled with Okama , right in the pits of hell!"
Surprisingly, that got a laugh out of Gin.
Usopp smiles victoriously.
"He said--" with a high, squeaky voice, "--the Queen of New-Kama Kingdom stabbed me with the miracle elixir of the legends!" he cleared his throat to get his low, dramatic voice back, "so in exchange for ten years of his life, he lived!"
"Ten years?"
"Yes, ten years!"
There's a silent pause. Then Kinoko caws through the awkward silence, because the little shit thought that'd be appropriate. They both burst into exasperated laughter at that.
"That's the most ridiculous conversation starter I've ever had the misery of experiencing," Gin says, and Usopp feels him move to sit directly opposite him.
Usopp hums, "well, it worked, didn't it?"
Gin takes a moment before humming as well. "It sure did."
When they spoke again, it was of their journey here, the journey before here-- and it was all about Luffy and Zoro, their crazy rampages thus far, and what they'd have in store therein. Usopp also introduced Kinoko halfway through.
"Are you sure I can't escape?" Gin asks, not for the first time in their conversation.
Usopp chuckles. "You can try."
"Was that a threat?"
"Please don't kill me, I'm just a blind boy trying to live with my ugly pet bird."
Gin scoffs. "Liar."
Usopp laughs. "Yeah, I get that a lot."
"Luffy-kun, was it?"
Luffy turns around to see Aladine sitting by the alley, out of the way of most of the party but still enjoying a mug of booze.
"Whuzzit, goat-eel guy?" the boy asks through a mouthful of meat.
Aladine chuckles at the nickname. "How is Nami on your voyage?" asks the merman, taking a sip. He sets a set of meat beside him, to which Luffy delightfully scoops up into his endlessly wide mouth. "Is she happy?"
"Nami?" he questions. "Of course she's happy. Why wouldn't she be?"
Aladine smiles through his mug. "Is that so? That's a relief."
Luffy stares curiously at the merman. "You're a weird old guy, aren't ya. You talk for a little, and then you don't talk. What're you doing in the corner like this? Trying to act cool? Benn always did that."
Aladine raises his eyebrow at the name, but dismisses it as a common name. "What can I say, I'm not much of a talker. I may have the authority, but I'm not a people person, you see."
Luffy blinks. "What a person people?"
Aladine just looks at him and bursts into laughter.
Luffy squawks, because that's exactly what Shanks does when he doesn't want to answer Luffy's questions-- not because it's a dumb question in partcularly, but because he's an asshole like that. He makes an offended noise.
"Goat-eel guy, you're mean!"
Aladine laughs harder.
"So Usopp bruised your jaw? Seriously?"
"I was telling him that he'd gotten rusty, chu!"
Sanji, ever the fearless deviant, decided to tease Kuroobi about it. Choo had joined in, cheeks flushed from drunkenness.
Zoro can see the growing irritation in Kuroobi's movements-- but as expected from a martial arts master-- he kept his composure and simply took an angry sip of his ale.
"He might be blind, but I must admit, his grasp on Haki far surpasses mine," Kuroobi says, humbly. "I let my guard down where I should not have."
Choo burps, "haki, huh. Never thought we'd see that here in the East."
Zoro and Sanji share a confused glance, the latter a little more so.
"Haki?" Sanji asks.
Zoro hums, "so Haki's really a big deal out there?"
"Wait, what's Haki?" Sanji interrupts.
"It's essential for survival in the Grand Line," Kuroobi says, his eyes casting to the side steadily. "It doesn't matter if you're blind, deaf, or missing two limbs. As long as your Haki is disciplined, you stand a greater chance in any battle."
Sanji blinks at that. "Survival in the Grand Line? How did our longnosed blindie get that power, then? He's never left the East."
"Some people are just naturals," Choo says with a shrug. "Rare in the East, but even Gold Roger heralded from the East, so what can we say…"
"Wait," Kuroobi interrupts, "he's never left the East? That's impossible."
"Oh, you sore loser," Choo teases.
"I'm not!" Kuroobi finally snaps, "Choo, you're drunk! That's enough liquor for you!"
Choo whines, "I'm fiiiiiiiine!" before slipping right past Kuroobi's punch. He laughs. "Your Observation is rusty, Kuro!"
"It's not! Stop that stupid drunken fist of yours!" Kuroobi snaps, "we all know you've been hanging out with Hyouzou for that! What have I told you about him?!"
"That he's a bad guy and I shouldn't go near him. I know, mom ."
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"
Zoro takes another sip of his booze.
At least the fishmen were good drinking buddies.
Sanji squints, still skeptical, but at this point of drunkenness, there wasn't a fish around that wanted to answer his questions.
(So in the end, what is Haki?)
Honestly, Zoro wants a proper answer to that, too. Usopp and Nami were both so vague about it that he was getting rather frustrated.
"So, I heard you've brought friends over, Nami."
The girl stands up quickly, turning around in surprise. "Gen-san?!"
The man is seated on a wheelchair with Nojiko pushing him up the hill. His usual police uniform was nowhere to be seen-- he was wearing a strangely unfitting button-up left open over his bandages, and Nami can't help but feel it's off.
Her smile falls when her eyes land on his leg stump.
"What, this?" Genzo doesn't miss her glance. "It's nothing. It's a shame you won't get to see it when I get the prosthetic done, but now you and I can have something in common, don't you think?"
Nami bit her lips, but the smile came anyways. Setting her metal arm at her hip, she sighs. "Don't you think it's about time you retired from sheriff duties, Gen-san?"
Genzo scoffs, "never!"
Nojiko pouts behind them, "I'm on Nami's side with this. We have the Fishmen to turn to now."
Genzo feigns a jaw-dropping gasp, "both my daughters have turned against me. My life is over now, they're in their rebellious phase! How miserable."
"Don't be a drama queen," Nojiko chides.
They laugh synchronously.
They make space beside Bellemere's grave, and Genzo's wheelchair is pushed adjacent to it, the girls sitting by the little bed of flowers. The wind blows strong in the night, so Nami brushes her hair back against her ear, breathing in.
This would be their last night together here, enjoying their time as a family.
Nami spun tales about their adventures thus far-- about the times Luffy would race a bird across the horizon only to sink into the sea and get fished out by a fuming Zoro-- about the times Zoro would sleep through dumbbell falling on his head, but would wake up when Usopp leaned a little too close to the stairs.
Each story made Nojiko laugh a little brighter, and Genzo would always find the pettiest things to whine about.
"I found my comrades ," she admits to Bellemere. "They're unhinged, they're hopeless-- but I'm one of them too. They'd be dead without me!"
Nojiko giggles at that. "I honestly think you're more than they deserve."
Genzo leaps to agree, but he's stuck on his wheelchair so he just leans really far toward them over the chair, "of course she is! My Nami is the best in the world! Not a million or billion beris is worth her!"
Nami feels the sudden urge to tell them that, in fact, she is worth about a few billion in the future simply because of her world map-- but she keeps it to herself.
She puts a hand on the gravestone.
"I'll be happy," she promises to the wind, to the soil, and to the soul. "I'm sure Bellemere-san will be there with me the whole way, right? I'll be fine."
Genzo turns away with a defiant huff. "If that captain of yours makes you cry, I'll personally run over to that young man and kill him myself!"
Nami grins.
She turns behind her.
"You hear that, captain?" she hollers.
Nojiko and Genzo swirl around, startled-- to see Luffy in the very near distance, hunks of meat in his hand. He had been staring at the three for what seemed to be a while now, accidentally eavesdropping.
He grins widely.
"Loud and clear!"
Then he turns around, suddenly wondering when the festival got so far behind him.
"By the way, pinwheel-ossan, your pinwheel is REALLY COOL!"
He waves a gleeful goodbye at the three, then continues his marvelous misadventure of the raw-ham-melon scavenger, that will, inevitably, end in failure if Nami's hunch has anything to say about it.
Nami turns back to her father figure. "He's adorable, don't you think?"
Genzo immediately flips, "what? NO! Nami, you are NOT--"
"I didn't mean it that way, Gen-san!" Nami bursts into laughter, looking at her sister, "I'm allowed to look at the menu without wanting to take a bite. What do you think, Nojiko?"
Nojiko smirks. "Not my type, but I wouldn't mind a cutie like that."
Genzo explodes. "I SAID NO! Seriously, you guys take after Bellemere in all the worst qualities possible!"
It's the break of dawn when Gin wakes up from the chronic ache in his chest.
Groaning, he untangles himself from the mess of Luffy (because those things are only fifty percent limbs) before stretching out the kinks in his joints.
The village had partied all night, and the morning was uncomfortably chilly. Everything seemed to be coated in one humid layer of dew and mist. He rubs at his face in an attempt to wake himself up a little, grumbling through the throes of the pain in his senses.
(Wait.)
He turns to the side.
Luffy is sleeping in a mess of barrels, and Zoro was beside them, legs hooked around Usopp's. Sanji was on the other side, sleep muttering something about shitty rubber thieves.
(Isn't this the perfect opportunity to run away?)
He takes one step away.
Yeah, he really should run away now while he has the chance. These guys were really good kids, he really liked them-- but truth be told, he just wasn't in the right state of mind or physical condition to join them on their adventures.
Luffy was just hanging onto him out of respect for his old crew's wishes, after all. Gin himself didn't particularly… deserve to be in this dynamic. He could sort of feel it.
So, fists clenched and resolve gained, he steps out of the alley...
...and immediately, he's met with a facefull of bird and feathers and everything else unpleasant about avian anatomy at seven in the morning.
He screeches in a language he never even knew existed, the shock throwing his soul right out of him. By the time he pries the animal out of his face, he's already going through all the steps in his head for a good roasted bird.
"What the--" he notices the ring around its feet, "you're Usopp's bird, just fucking great."
(He is not going to be stopped from his escape attempts by a fucking bird.)
(...or is he?)
He turns around. Seems like he wasn't as loud as he'd thought, because none of them seemed to be awake yet.
The bird makes a proud little huff as it (she?) settles on Gin's arm, preening its feathers a little before hopping along the man's forearm.
It's a strange feeling, having an animal just climb over him like he's harmless. Gin's only seen birds do it to corpses, so maybe this bird is trying to tell him that he's dying-- "Ow!" he yelps, when the bird pecks at his cheek sharply.
Before he'd even realized, the bird was just making herself comfortable in his hair.
"No, get off. I'm leaving this island already, so go back to your owner," he hisses at it, reaching for it over his head-- only to get picked in the hand and almost lose a finger.
Gin was losing his patience. Is he seriously being thwarted by a bird?!
"You little shit get off my head!"
"SQUAWK!" came the defiant response.
When Nami wakes up an hour later, she decides to take a walk by the river bank.
There, she finds Gin sitting on a large rock, thinking deeply to himself as he gazed into the river, a melancholic look on his face. His shirt and bandanna are presumably washed and hung by a branch to dry.
(What was he thinking about? About his former crew? About Luffy's offer?)
In his topless glory, Nami sees the blue freckles sprinkled across his body, from his collarbone to his shoulders to his forearms-- that just couldn't be natural .
Sanji had told them he inhaled and barely survived poison, so perhaps that was the mark it left.
More importantly, she fixed her gaze on the bird resting in the nest of his hair.
Even Kinoko looks like she went through a rinse and shake, but she was still sitting there with regality and determination. Nami guesses that the guy tried to get rid of the bird by swimming in the river, only to fail.
Suddenly, Gin looks less like a contemplative man of maturity, and much more like a brooding boy pouting in irritation.
Needless to say, Nami bursts out into laughter.
Their eyes meet, and Nami stops abruptly, a little embarrassed by her vulgar show.
Ah well.
"Gin, right? Good morning."
"You're telling me you made it halfway across the Grand Line, came back twice, went over the Red Line on the other side and returned-- all in the span of a little less than two years?"
"To be fair, I didn't make any unnecessary island stops."
"And you were on the sea the entire time?!"
"Oh crap, I forgot that the sea's more dangerous than the land."
Gin has a bird stuck on his head, an irritated itch in his lungs, and a girl speaking nonsense beside him. What has his life come to?
He shrugs his shirt back on, but leaves the jacket hanging on the branch.
Nami sits down beside him on another stone, and Gin has to look away.
Unlike yesterday's top and jeans, she's wearing a tanktop and shorts-- leaving the connections of her metal pars in full exposure, her hair sliding over her shoulders comfortably.
(She really does look like a village girl when she dresses like that. Maybe she covers up simply to hide her metal parts?)
Seriously, Gin has heard that she's a veteran, but he didn't expect this.
Nami had been gallivanting across the perilous seas like it was a joke. She was a Whitebeard Pirate, a crew of one of the Four Emperors of the sea, a party only heard in myths too far away to sound relevant.
Gin almost feels inclined to get angry at it-- but the fault lies in him. She's not making fun of him, he and the Don he once worshipped were just that pathetic.
(It's so frustrating.)
"What's all that lightning you did?" he questions. He's been wondering about it since he landed on that little house on the hill (wait, what about the house? Are we going to forget about the house?).
"It's called the Clima Tact," Nami says. She hooks out a three piece baton and assembles them in the air. "It's my weapon. Weather Science."
Gin squints at that. "Weather… science?"
Nami chuckles. "In the Grand Line, common sense makes no sense!" she says, as if that was a legitimate sentence to say, "don't worry, you'll get used to it soon."
Gin grimaces. "Why do all of you assume I'm joining permanently?"
Nami disassembles her staff and tucks it on her belt again. "Everyone doesn't want to join at first, don't worry. But the greatest captains don't quite let you leave after they've got their eye on you, y'know? Whitebeard was like that with me."
Gin hums at that.
Wait, something doesn't add up.
"Wait, where does the longnose fit in that story?" Gin realizes, "were you two together in that two year journey? You've known him for really long, right?"
Instead of answering, Nami smiles.
"If I explained all that, it'll get too confusing, don't you think?" she says.
Gin stares at her. Obnoxious, misleading types like her were usually people that Gin would immediately kill for being annoying-- after all, he was known as the Man-Demon for a reason, and Gin always found it easier to teach insolence a lesson.
But if he did anything, Sanji would probably kick him to next year, so maybe not.
Nami whistles, "I see your bloodlust is still going strong." Gin turns to her in surprise, and Nami smiles, leaning into her hand, elbows resting on her knees. "I thought mister scary Man-Demon mellowed out after meeting our cute little captain, you know?"
Gin's hands itch for his tonfas, but they're hidden under the deck of the Going Merry and much too far away to weaponize right now. Maybe that rock over there…
Nami giggles.
She stands up. "Wanna fight?" she suggests and Gin's face lights up. "Hand to hand, no weapons."
He raises his eyebrow. Nami may be a Whitebeard, and Gin may be severely impaired by the poison in his veins, but it really doesn't take that much to know how to take down another person.
He stands up anyways, flexing his wrist. "Don't underestimate me."
Nami grins.
Gin sets his eyes on her.
"But before we start, can you get this stupid bird off of me?"
"Wait, you mean Noko-chan isn't there because you like her?"
"NO?!"
It's sunrise now, and the boys are at the tangerine grove. Sanji's helping a few of the village men and fishmen transfer tangerine trees onto the Merry.
Usopp sits out of this one.
The purple-haired lady notices him as she takes a break from tidying up the house. It was in rubble now, but most of the furniture is intact. There aren't a lot of valuables in there to begin with, other than memories and a few pictures.
"So you're Usopp-kun?" she steps forward, taking notice of his barefooted state.
"Nojiko-san, was it?" He greets her. "Ah, so you're the reason why my bird smells like honey in a tangerine grove."
Nojiko leans forward. "You have quite the sharp nose, don't you?"
Usopp huffs proudly, "haven't you heard? I once tracked down my companions on the other end of the desert, with just the smell of the perfume she wore!"
Nojiko chuckles at that. "I'm sure you did."
Usopp pouts. "And the saga of no one believing me continues…"
Nojiko sits down right beside Usopp, less than an inch away. Usopp flinches slightly, not quite expecting that-- Nojiko has always been the bold, touchy type-- Nami was like that too, but she was always too much of a tomboy so Nojiko was better at it.
(No, that's not the problem.)
(There's only one reason these sisters would get near you.)
"Nojiko-san, even if you steal my wallet, it's empty," Usopp warns her with all the resigned intonation of someone that's been swindled out of his purehearted boyhood emotions too many times.
Nojiko whines in defeat. "Ah, you got me."
Usopp sighs. "Like sister, like sister…"
Nojiko observes the boy. Not once looking her way-- understandable, he's blind after all-- but Usopp didn't budge even when Nojiko came much too close to be comfortable. Such, he flinched, but he stayed perfectly still.
She's read Nami long enough to know that Usopp is holding back. Holding back because, even though he's uncomfortable with the distance, disturbed by the suspicious contact-- he knows that Nojiko means no harm.
It's the reflex of a person that has learned not to trust for too long in the past, and is now trying his hardest to come back to the safer, harmless present.
So Nojiko moves away.
Usopp may be wary and attentive, but he's a little too kind. Just like Nami.
She grins and stands up. "Take care of Nami for me, okay?"
She knows her sister's in safe hands.
Usopp smiles a little, "of course we will. We're nakama, after all."
"Oh, you're one of Nami's friends. What are you doing all the way out here?" Aladine notices Gin walking over to the bay of Arlong Park.
Everyone was out to guard the perimeters or help Nami load their pirate ship, so only Aladine is here now.
Gin, with a bird on his head still, makes a gurgling noise. He's wearing his short-sleeved shirt, his jacket in his arms.
"I'm trying to find a way to swim away from this island and that crazy crew while I still can," he says, because it sounds so incredulous he wasn't going to bother sugarcoating it anyhow anymore. He's too tired for this.
Aladine stares at him. Then he turns to Kinoko, and looks back at the boy.
"Ah, I see. Best of luck to you, then," he says, in all seriousness despite the disbelieving implications. Aladine has seen more incredulity in the Grand Line before, so he's not going to retort on this one. "I will be taking my leave now, so do bid your captain a farewell in my place."
"He's not my--" Gin hesitates for a moment.
Aladine laughs at that, arms crossed. "Ds are always incredibly attachable, stubborn, and hard to look away from. I'm sure he'll grow on you," he assures.
Gin isn't sure why he can't find the words to deny it again. He just bites his lip and looks away in defiance. Man if he had his tonfas, he'd be fighting right now. Maybe. He's tired so maybe not.
(Dammit he is not getting soft! He's just… tired from the poison. Yeah.)
It's only when he hears the splash and Aladine is gone, that he wonders what the Fishman Vice-Captain could be heading toward, rushing away from his base without his crew.
He sighs.
Maybe swimming across the Grand Line is no big deal for a pirate like that… what next, is a human going to be able to swim through the Calm Belt too?
(When he asks Nami about it later, Nami actually laughs in his face.)
(He hates that witch. Why does he bother asking her anything? He knows she won't answer him.)
There's a sea cow in this part of the ocean, so swimming out is definitely a no. Guess he'll go look for a rowboat somewhere else…
"How long are you going to stay on my head?"
Three defiant caws.
Gin, unfortunately, does not speak bird-- and any attempt at pulling the bird away is met with retaliation in the form of deadly bird claws gouging into his skull, so he gives up on it for this hour.
"I finally got rid of the clingy monkey, and now I get the sticky bird instead?" he sighs.
When will he get a break?
"Oh, young man with the blond hair over there, I've got fresh fish if you need any."
The grocers in the morning market are all incredibly social people, and Sanji really feels quite at home in this sort of environment.
"Oh, really? What's the best you've got?," he approaches the store, taking one last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out on a trash can nearby. "Come to think of it, you guys get along with the fishmen but you still eat fish, huh?"
The grocer chuckles warmly, "now now lad, the fishmen do take offense in being compared to fishes, y'know?"
"Seriously?"
"I mean, think of it this way-- we're literally just smart, less hairy monkeys to them, but they don't call us monkeys, do they?"
"Ah."
It's an interesting way to look at it, and Sanji had honestly never quite cared if whatever he said offended anyone. He grew up in a restaurant with an A grade in inelegance, had a diploma in swearing, and a bachelor's degree in pissing everyone off.
It's far too late to redeem Sanji's personality from literally not giving a shit about anything that isn't female.
But well, Hachi had been a nice guy yesterday and his takoyaki was delicious, so Sanji will try not to treat them as things on his chopping block anymore.
Try.
Maybe.
"Speaking of which, I saw your bandanna pal walking toward Arlong Park this morning," a vegetable grocer strikes up a conversation. "He looks pretty sick, so are you guys sure you don't want Nako to take a look at him?"
"Well, if he was gonna die, he'd be dead by now," Sanji hums.
Come to think of it, he didn't see the guy around when he woke up. Maybe he ran off? Well, Sanji wouldn't put it past the guy to run off since that was his intention this entire time, but if Luffy let the guy go, it's on Luffy if Gin's missing.
His condition isn't all that stable yet, and Gin is obviously a hater of being perceived in weakness, so like a stray cat, he's probably run off to hide. If his condition worsens… well, it probably won't. Maybe.
"Was anyone with him?" Sanji asks anyway, not because he's worried, absolutely not, but because he wants to know how whiny Luffy will be about it.
"Well, the bird," someone mentions.
Sanji pauses.
"Ah," he says, "don't worry about it, that bird's the most territorial little shit I've ever met. Anyways, let's look at the fishes."
Gin's in perfectly capable hands.
Sanji knows the terror of that bird better than anyone else on the ship, after all.
"Speaking of that-- you guys got a clothing store open this early?"
"Zorooooo!!"
Luffy latches right onto his First Mate from three miles away.
Zoro holds the little, cross-shaped knife against the sun to observe the curve-- when he hears the yell, his grip on the hilt tightens, startled. He doesn't manage to stop the short, absolutely-not-a-squeak from escaping his throat when Luffy rockets at him.
Thankfully, the force wasn't enough to throw them off the cliffside, but it really rattled his injuries enough to make him cringe.
"What, Luffy?" he asks, his tone irritated but it probably didn't sound as angry as he thought because his captain is still grinning over his shoulder.
Zoro sheathes Kogatana, wrapping the cord around his wrist because his captain is being one necklace too many for him right now.
"The old guy said he wanted to change your bandages, so I came to get you!"
"I thought Nami was getting her tattoo done so I couldn't go in?"
"She's done already!"
"It's not that fast."
"Zoro's slow, so Nami said to come get you or you'll get lost."
"Oh, that witch is picking a fight."
He picks up his sword, getting up. Luffy just keeps hanging onto him, like a limpet hitching a ride. Zoro doesn't brush him off.
"Zoro, it's that way."
"I know, dammit."
"Zoro, no. I said, that way."
"I said I know, dammit."
"Zoro, are you an idiot?"
"Shut up!"
"Usopp, you have to see this."
"I hate to break it to you, Nami, but--"
Papers are shoved in Usopp's face, and Usopp wants desperately for his next line to be 'wow, a piece of paper' , but he doesn't say it yet.
Because there are two.
Promptly, he corrects himself.
"Wow, two pieces of paper," he says, immediately ducking sharply to dodge Nami's fist. The texture of the paper is rough and grainy, so it's definitely a wanted poster. "Did someone else get one aside from Luffy?"
"No, one of those is Gin's," Nami explains, "he got a raise from twelve to eighteen for assaulting Commodore Pudding-puddle."
"I did what?" came the confused voice beside them.
"And the other one is mine," Nami continues, ignoring the question, "they were holding mine off for a long time anyways. I'm at twenty-five mil."
Usopp hums. That's impressive for East Blue, but it's really paltry for a Grand Line veteran. Ah well, Nami specializes in being undercover, so it makes sense. It's still a big deal for this side of the world, so...
Wait.
What?
"Where's Luffy's," it doesn't come out as a question, and it ends up sounding more like a demand.
Because excuse me? You're telling me our captain doesn't have a bounty but two in our crew of six already have above average bounties for the east?
And of all things, the only girl in the group has the highest bounty in all of East Blue? Ah, no offense to girls of course. But what?
"Exactly," Nami says, "maybe I should have let Luffy destroy an island before we got here. Or told him to beat up Pringle-pimple for me instead. What else didn't he do again?"
Gin sips on his tea.
This Honey Tangerine tea is really good.
"Maybe you should've asked him to destroy Arlong Park?"
"No no, that's war against the Sun Pirates and Jinbei-chan will get angry at me."
Gin does not hear anything. He does not.
(Yes he absolutely does.)
He stands up and smashes his teacup against the floor. Usopp and Nami turn to him. The bird on his head makes a very robotic and long 'caaaaaaww'. Gin sits down.
Nami's face scrunches up in intense sympathy, and Usopp actually facepalms.
"Anyways, this is really bad. Can't you find a way? Like is there a nearby government flag we can shoot or a nearby Celestial Dragon we can punch?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Usopp. People that important aren't in the East Blue. We need to find a King or something. Wanna drop by Goa?"
Gin is starting to wish he died from the poison.