A/N

Thank you so much for the reviewers! Your reviews always make my day :'')

Anyway, I made a mistake in the past two chapters about Drake's hair... thing is, I'm a manga reader and from the very start I've always imagined him with ashy blond hair. Even after I found out his manga color palette and watch some of the anime episodes, I just can't erase the image of blonde Drake from my mind x_x I'll edit the mistake some time. Sorry about that, Drake!

Chapter 3

Wild

It's itchy.

Drake scratches his arm, his eyes slowly fluttering open as he takes in the blue ceiling abov—wait. Blue?

Drake sits upright. Last time he checked, his ceiling was bone white, and his room was most definitely not this hot—

Oh, right.

He is on the National Camp, isn't he.

Drake glances to his right to see three other still bodies, their chests heaving up and down in slow and rhythmic movements. Drake flinches in surprise when he sees one of them has his eyes wide open, staring at… nothing...? above.

"Oh, you're awake" Law says, eyes flicking briefly to Drake before moving back to a spot on the top of the tent. Drake nods once.

"Yeah" he looks around, his left arm brushing against one side of the tent as he squints his eyes, "What time is it?" he asks softly as to not wake up the two others currently out like a light.

Law, laying on the other side of the tent and clearly making the effort to be pressed into the corner to avoid touching the other body next to him, hums. "If I count right, it's six in the morning"

"'Count'?" Drake repeats.

"Count"

Drake frowns. Well, at least that means his body clock is still working perfectly.

Having more adjusted to the dark, he can observe the silhouette that are his schoolmates more easily. Right next to his right side is Kidd, his red hair flopping down his forehead and his limbs sprawled out everywhere (so that's why Drake feels suffocated—the brute is taking all the damn space). On Kidd's right is Luffy, who, being the tiniest of them, ironically takes the biggest space, even bigger than Kidd. Drake wonders if that's because Law scoots over as far as possible from the energetic kid, leaving a pretty generous space for Luffy to freely take.

Drake is about to comment something when Luffy slowly stirs, his left arm moves upward and slams down on Kidd's chest with a loud slap. The red hair grunts, his brows knitted together, before clenching his fist and punching Luffy on the cheek. There is no power in it, though. The both of them continue to snore through their unconsciousness.

"They've been doing that the entire night" Law says with a defeated sigh, eyeing Luffy's other hand warily as if expecting himself to be attacked next.

"How do you know that?"

In answer, Law shoots Drake a look that the brown-haired boy isn't quite sure how to decipher. Looking closer at his tattooed friend, a disturbing suspicion creeps into Drake's mind.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" he carefully asks, noting the bags under Law's eyes that are deeper than usual. The lighting is still poor because of the darkness of the early morning, but Drake is sure that Law looks paler than his usual tanned skin.

"I did" Law moves his arms up and down in an almost stretching manner, trying to relieve sore spots "I got a wink in before Eustass-ya's disgusting foot nearly broke my ribs"

Drake does not even want to know how that happened.

They are silent for a while before Law abruptly sits up and goes outside, kicking Luffy's outstretched hand and stepping on Kidd's ankle with a half-hearted 'oops' on the way. Drake stops him halfway through the door, the morning light shimmering into the tent.

"Where are you going?"

"Morning routine, Drake-ya"

Law seems annoyed and knowing the most-likely-future-doctor, Drake doesn't press more about this routine of his he's talking about. Instead, Drake scrambles outside, too.

He is hit face first with cool, relaxing breeze and fresh air that don't exist in crowded cities. He should have gone out as soon as he woke up. Standing up to his full height, he feels like he's in some kind of novel, hearing the birds singing, leaves rustling, winds blowing, and the sunlight gently kissing his skin—

Okay, enough of that.

Drake goes to one of the toilets provided to take a piss – he refuses to do it in the bushes like some of the people. It's called 'nature call' but it doesn't mean he really needs to do it out in the open when he's in some kind of nature environment.

He loiters around with nothing to do as he sees some people start filling out of their tents, most of them yawning and stretching and having the best of bed hair.

"Excuse me" Drake blinks and glances to his right to see a committee looking up at him.

"Yes?"

"Here you go" she hands him a sheet of paper without any other explanation and goes her merry way. Drake's gaze lingers on her for a bit before turning it to the paper. His eyebrows rise farther and farther to his forehead the more he reads it.

"What is it?"

"AAH"

Drake almost gives into his fight-or-flight reflex when he hears a voice from behind. He turns around to see Law smirking, amused.

"Would you please not do that, like, ever again?" he says, rubbing his goosebump away.

"I didn't do anything"

"I'm pretty sure you're doing it on purpose"

"What makes you think I gain some fun sneaking up on people?"

Drake makes a face and drops the subject. He shoves the paper to Law's face, indicating for the tattooed teen to read it himself. Law grabs the paper and scans it (no, seriously, he reads it so fast Drake thinks his eyes are machine or something).

"Well, this looks interesting" the tanned teen comments, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

"No, that looks very potentially hazardous" Drake deadpans.

Law waves the paper dismissively, adjusting the hat on his head "That's why I say interesting. Anyway—" Law points at their tent "let's wake those idiots up"

Law has never seen anyone other than himself waking up screaming from a nightmare. But maybe, maybe, seeing Luffy snapping his eyes open and yelling "FOOD" at the top of his lungs as soon as he's awake is the closest thing.

"For the love of—Stop tearing our eardrums open, Mugiwara!" Kidd—who's unsurprisingly a very heavy sleeper—says, massaging his temple. It's too early for him for this. It's too early for him for anything.

Law yanks Kidd's hair before the red hair could flop back down onto the comforter and resume his sleep.

"You wanna fight, Trafalgar?" Kidd growls.

"I would like to say yes, but we have a more pressing matter than being at each other's throats at the moment" Law responds, not the least bit intimidated by Kidd's glare which could bring lesser men running away for cover.

Before Kidd could retort with his fists, Law puts a paper—which is already crinkled on all edges—in front of him. The tanned teen nudges Luffy, who's back asleep sitting up, to read it, too.

Kidd registers the paper in his sleepy mind, recognizing it to be a schedule from the timetable. He looks at the first row and lits up slightly.

"Alright, so the first thing to do is breakfast." He says, the idea of having food in his stomach sobering him up a little. Luffy beside him punches the air with an enthusiastic shout.

Law, however, doesn't look happy.

"Look closer, dumbass"

Kidd would normally beat anyone senseless that dares to call him stupid, but he ignores it in favor of seeing just what makes Trafalgar look troubled.

And he frowns.

"Fuck"

Law grabs the paper back, folding it three times before shoving it into his pants pocket. "Yeah, that's what I thought, too"

Law sticks his head out of the tent to see Drake walking with an angry Bonney trailing behind. Not long, an alarm blares alive, signaling for the first activity for the day.

Breakfast. Only spices and tools provided.

It's time to cook.

"Say" Bonney jumps over a very thick root sticking out from the ground "can any of you cook?"

Previously, the boys have simultaneously looked at the pink-haired girl expectantly, and she went into a hellish rant about how at this time and era, no women should be objected into house-keeping and cooking and the boys could bring their sexist asses to hell. It was good that they had the decency to look guilty for expecting her to be able to cook.

But yes, yes she can.

She loves food, and can make some very nice meals for herself if she feels like it.

Problem is, the things she usually makes are high-class, foreign dishes that require a lot of even more foreign ingredients and spices that are most likely not provided on this damn camp.

And there is no way she will cook for four other people. Just, no.

"I'm average" Drake answers hesitantly. Bonney wonders just what is 'average' in cooking, but knowing the student body member, he must have a pretty decent standard.

"I cook sometimes with Ace and Sabo!" the strawhat kid chimes in, then his expression turns thoughtful "But I'm not allowed to be five feet near the stove. Or the knife"

Luffy is sure there's an accident prior to the rules, but he somehow can't remember the details. Only the memory of Ace crying over his burning brows and Sabo frantically calling someone over the phone. That was… years ago.

The others mentally make a note to apply the rules to this time as well.

"The best I can make are instant noodles and sandwiches" Law deadpans, apparently not ashamed at all with his lack of cooking skills. Or maybe he thinks it's better for them to know it before something… unfortunate happens.

"Instant noodles have instructions written on the package and sandwiches are essentially playing cooking" Bonney comments. Law just grunts in response, stomping on the soil and leaves under him harder.

Kidd scratches the back of his neck "I'm so-so" he says, looking up at a tree because he could swear he just heard something.

"What are we hunting again?" Luffy asks, tugging his arm away from Drake who's desperately preventing him from straying away from the group. They don't need a repeat from the last time, thank you very much.

Law sighs "I told you, we're not hunting anything because it will just be a waste of ti—hold up!"

Kidd, who's walking at the front of the group, stops at the warning. He instinctively raises his hands on both sides, preventing the others from continuing ahead.

There is a moment of silence before Law takes a tentative step, eyeing the heap of leaves just one foot from Kidd. He brushes the small, green and brown leaves, revealing a bigger leaf under it all. He gets rid of the big leaf, too (and just what leaf is it to be so wide, anyway? Banana tree's? are there even banana trees here?) and finds a deep hole that's big enough to fit two Drakes in it.

"Isn't that the one that Luffy fell into yesterday?" Bonney asks. They've decided to use the same path they went through on 'the Great Exploration', because it leads to a lake and even passes a shallow river.

"It is?" Luffy asks, not really remembering how the hole looked like.

"It is" Law confirms, fingers tracing the slightly dented soil where Luffy slipped on.

"Wait. Didn't we leave the hole open yesterday?" Kidd asks. He distinctively remembers laughing his ass off at Strawhat before they all continued on the walk, leaving the hole as it was.

"We did"

But the hole is closed again now. Properly. With leaves.

There's a conclusion forming in their heads, a very disturbing one, but they have to point it out anyway.

"Is someone…" and of course it's Drake, the self-pointed voice of reason, who decides to bring it up "…is someone deliberately setting these up?" He winces even at his own suggestion because, well, that's just messed up.

"From the looks of it" Law, for whatever reason, closes the hole again. The little voice in his mind, the remaining childish and sadistic self he usually keeps well hidden, hopes that someone else will fall into it, preferably one of the committee, and hopefully he will hear their scream. At least that would make all of this the least bit more entertaining.

Kidd, despite being a little creeped out on their conclusion, scoffs, "It's just a boring prank is what it is." He hops over the hole "let's just go"

The others nod. Luffy starts walking in front, singing a weird, made-up tune, and despite the sometimes cracked up voice, no one stops him.

'The Great Exploration: The Second' goes well, courtesy of their experience the first time. They manage not to trip on anything (they catch themselves or the others before they can fall on their faces a couple of times), avoid any traps (there are two very close calls), and they make complete and absolute sure not to let Luffy climbs every single tree he finds interesting and potentially disturb snakes and bees at their homes. Though they are, weirdly enough, disappointed that they don't come across any boars or deer. Meat sounds good right now.

And this time, they don't soak themselves head to toe in the lake either, at least not accidently.

"Oy, Trafalgar, make yourself useful and at least try to catch something" Kidd yells at the tanned teen, the edges of his rolled-up pants beginning to get wet from the surface water. The group is currently on a lake, lingering around the edges on the shallow side, trying to get something to eat. They could've sworn they saw some fish in this lake yesterday, though somehow there is none now. What, do fish sleep in the morning or something? Do they even have a fixed sleeping schedule?

Kidd makes a note to ask Arlong sometime. That fish fanatic bastard.

"I am making myself useful, Eustass-ya" Law grumbles "I'm making a net so your non-existent fishing skills can actually get us something"

Kidd rolls his sleeves up higher "I take back my words. Get ready to catch these fucking hands—"

"Oh God. Shut up, Kidd!. You're scaring all the fishies!" Bonney elbows Kidd on the arm. The redhead reluctantly shuts up, but not before eloquently hissing out a string of curses.

"'Fishies'?" Drake mutters, looking miserably at the still water, not a creature in sight. He glances at Law who is perched on a big stone at one crooked corner of the lake, fumbling with the net.

Drake has long (not that long, but the days feel much longer in this godforsaken camp) decided not to question every single little thing, mostly because he has come to terms that many things regarding his schoolmates just generally don't make sense. But he really, really needs to ask "Where did you get the ropes?" because he's pretty sure Law didn't have anything in hand just minutes ago.

Law doesn't even look up from his work, "Where do you think?" he asks back. Drake raises an eyebrow at the tone indicating that he is stupid for not knowing. After not getting further elaboration, Drake throws his hands up and resumes the unproductive lake-watching. Maybe the ropes just fell from the sky, or were floating on the water, or just laying on the ground, or Law just took it from the traps—okay, thinking of it, it's probably that last one.

Drake wouldn't put it past Law to bring ropes around, though. For whatever suspicious reason.

After minutes of splashing in the water—which turns into a deadly water battle between all of them—Kidd has had enough.

"I'm going back in" he says, pointing to the forest. He puts off his monstrosity of a hoodie (Law's words, wondering just what kind of designer comes up with those motifs) and slings it around his shoulders.

Law wants to say that they should stick together, but they sure wouldn't be able to get anything if the current circumstance doesn't change.

"Go with him, Drake" he finally says, because Drake and Kidd don't automatically equal trouble.

Drake doesn't look too happy, or maybe he's just annoyed at being ordered around, but he complies anyway, probably thinking that it's in their best interests to keep an eye on Kidd. The redhead might get into a fight with gorillas and rhinoceros. Worse, he might win. Stroking his ego now wouldn't do them any good.

"I'm coming, too!" Luffy practically bounces on his steps, approaching Kidd with a toothy smile.

"Hey, wait! Mugiwa—ah, fuck. There he goes"

Luffy and Kidd disappear into the woods, followed hurriedly by Drake who spends time to shoot Law a shocked, betrayed look that says "You're really dumping the both of them at me?"

Law responds by sending a guilty and sympathetic look of his own, but it seems he can't really pull it off since Drake just looks more baffled and resigned. Oh, well.

Law looks around at the other schools doing the same thing they do, dipping into the water, trying to see and catch the scaly, unintelligent creature with soft, white meat. The lake isn't that big, but there aren't a lot of people so they still put on a pretty decent distance away. Maybe there are a lot of other lakes so the students are more spread out. They still don't know just exactly how big this place is, after all.

"You sure that would work?" Bonney asks, sidling up to Law and nodding her head at the neatly-tied net.

"I sure hope it will. Been a long time since I made one of these"

"You used to make fishing nets?"

"My adoptive father used to take me everywhere, most of the time the sea, and he taught me a whole lot of things" Law continues enlarging the net, adding more rectangular holes with precise accuracy, before muttering "especially about how to take out fire and doing emergency first aids"

Bonney raises a brow at the borderline fond tone but something moving at the corner of her eyes takes her attention. She almost yelps at the slimey sensation that brushes past her thighs. Looking down, she sees a fish swimming away and onto a shallow corner, its gray scales shining from the morning sunlight.

Bonney narrows her eyes and smirks.

The day starts pretty darkly, but as the wise man once said, rainbow comes after the rain, and at this moment it's raining rainbows for the Grand Line High School Team.

Law and Bonney team up and catch lots of fish that one of them has to go back to the tent and get something to put the haul in and bring it back. Bonney boasts about the catch loudly, causing other teams to give them hateful looks. Law, being the jerk he is, flips them off.

In the middle of the way back, Law feels something vibrating in his inner jacket pocket (yes, he has an inner jacket pocket). He fishes out his phone and smirks at the expression on Bonney's face.

"You bring your phone with you?" the pink-haired girl's eyes are wide with shock and… what the hell is that spark?

"Yeah"

"Omg me too!" she says as a phone with baby blue case seemingly appears out of nowhere.

Oh. Excitement, then.

Law's smirk grows as he answers the call (it's an unknown number, but if it's a prank, he has a pretty solid plan of pranking back).

On second thought, the number looks familiar—

"Hello?"

"…Trafalgar?"

"That would be me, yes. Who might this be?"

"It's Drake"

Law lets out an amused breath that suspiciously sounds like a chuckle, "Didn't know you would break the rules, Drake-ya"

"Uh, no. It's Eustass' phone. I'm the one calling because he is… busy"

Law realizes the curios look Bonney is throwing at him, so he sets the call on speaker. They can hear a faint evil laugh in the background on the other side of the line. Must be Kidd.

"What did that bloke do this time?" Bonney asks, figuring that yes, of course the redhead would do something stupid.

"Actually, he didn't do anything. Well, he did do something, or more like we did, but it's something good and—"

"Get to the point, Drake"

Law and Bonney can feel Drake rolling his eyes.

"We caught a boar. Eustass is busy bringing it out of its misery—" Ookaay the implication that the redhead is torturing the boar is pretty off-putting, but maybe not the worst thing he could've done, "—And, uh, the problem is—"

"Mugiwara-ya is gone"

"…How did you know?"

That's something Bonney would like to ask, too. Law, on the other hand, only looks slightly amused and exasperated.

"There's no way we wouldn't be able to hear him if he were still there."

"You don't sound worried"

"I'm not. He would come back for food"

Drake seems to be satisfied with that answer, dismissing the fact that Law just talked about Luffy like the energetic teen was a pet.

"That's all I have to say." There's a pause, then Drake hesitantly adds "Meet you guys at the clearing?"

"Sure. We'll be there in ten minutes"

The call ends and Law tucks his phone safely in his pocket. Bonney looks happy at the knowledge they would have some meat to eat. No idea how to cook boar meat, but they can guess and improvise. Maybe.

"How did Drake have your number? Didn't think you two were friends" she asks, mainly to fill in the silence between them as they bulldoze through the obstacles of the forest and picking up some mushrooms that Law deems safe ("No, that's Amanita Fuscaria, Bonney-ya. We learned about this in Biology. Yes, that's poisonous, we would be sick. No, you can't really kill a person with it unless you have a deathly amount—why are we even talking about this?")

"We weren't. And it's Eustass-ya's phone"

Bonney almost stumbles on a particularly big pebble. "And how did he know your number?"

"Actually, it's either Drake memorized all of our numbers or Eustass-ya's never bothered to delete mine off his phone after the chemistry group project we had last year"

With that statement alone Law earns some respect from the girl. Not just anyone can go through a group project—a chemistry group project, even—with Eustass Kidd. The redhead is basically hazardous. He should've been kept far, far away from anything remotely dangerous and has the potential to make people left burned and scarred, like, say, deadly chemicals. And Law is still relatively sane.

"But you erased his off your phone" Bonney guesses.

"I've memorized it"

"Who even memorizes people's numbers anymore?"

"Me"

Bonney looks somewhat disgusted, throwing dry leaves and twigs to the boy as they make their way to the camping site.

Luffy knows the basics of using a knife. How could he not? One of his best friends is a chef-in-training, despite only being in high school. His other best friend knows how to use swords, too. (Knives and swords are metal and sharp. So they're the same, right? Right)

So Luffy has no idea why the alligator meat he was meant to cut into small cubical shapes end up like… this. All butchered and messy and… all, he isn't sure how to describe it other than 'not really how it's supposed to be like'

"Oh, well" he shrugs it off, dropping the meat into the largest container. It barely fits, but there's no way he would let even a spoonful of the meat to be wasted.

He looks around, noting the very much still empty clearing, wondering just why the others are taking so long. Did they get lost? Zoro most probably would if he were here.

"Huh, those guys are laatee" Luffy whines as some more people arrive at the training, fresh from hunting. He eyes the cooking area in front of their tents that's been prepared for them. There're the small portable stoves, the equally small cans of gas, the knives, the skillet and pot, and other essential tools for cooking that Luffy sees often at Home Economics room or at Sanji's part-time workplace.

He would like to start cooking because being hungry sucks, but reels himself in—barely—at the thought of urgency in Law, Drake, and Bonney's voices when they told him not to even think about touching the stove. He vaguely gets reminded of Ace and Sabo, about how they're usually right when they get that dramatic. So, yeah, despite what others think, Luffy is still able to perform self-control. Not hard at all.

It's a good thing that Bonney comes in time before Luffy starts putting the cans of gas into the stove.

"What's this?" the girl pokes the meat inside the container. Luffy looks up from the mountain of fish he's been fawning over to look at her.

"Oh, that? I caught it!"

"Okay… what is this, exactly?" Bonney asks again. She really doesn't know the kind of texture and smell that this meat is giving off, "What animal?"

"An alligator!"

There are sounds of things falling to the ground with loud thumps, followed by hissed curses or startled gasps. Law glances at the few other teams who get unfortunate enough to listen in on their conversation.

Kidd and Drake get back a little later. Kidd somehow got full on with the primitive jungle people thing, and tried to hunt birds. Needless to say, without proper weapons like bows and arrows, or a gun, or heck, a slingshot, he failed. Honestly, he would have bigger chance fighting off a tiger with bare hands. He's still satisfied with the boar, though, especially with how the other schools look at him with fear and disbelief.

The team now has proper supplies and ingredients to make the best (hopefully) breakfast ever, and they get to it right away, though Luffy and Law kind off scoot aside to just wash the ingredients or cut something (turns out Luffy didn't skin the alligator first… and he doesn't even know if it's an alligator or a crocodile when Drake asks him. Not that that makes any difference, but still)

Luffy grows even more excited and impatient when the heavenly smell starts to come off the pan and fill the air.

"You're pretty good at this" Bonney comments at Kidd who is professionally stir frying the butchered meat. His hands move so naturally that anyone would know it comes from experience, "'So-so', huh?"

"I usually cook for myself" he shrugs it off.

Bonney will never understand why Kidd seems indifferent about his amazing cooking skills but very proud at the fact that he can best a boar in a fight. Like, seriously? He's got to have priority issues on top of his temper and violence ones.

"I really thought it would be the other way around"

Bonney shifts her attention to Drake who is filleting the fish, "What?"

Drake hesitantly glances at Law and Luffy who are currently tasked with preparing the cutlery (there's no need for that, actually, but they need to be doing something), "That Trafalgar, I thought he would be good at cooking, or at least with cutting foods, what with him and those… scalpels he carries around. And I thought for sure Eustass would be a disaster in the kitchen"

Bonney stills, and after a few seconds of taking the words in, guffaws at the blunt comment. Yeah, she had thought so, too. Drake squints at her, honestly not finding what's so funny.

"Guess that just shows how much we don't know about each other" Bonney says lightly, sprinkling the spices on the fish that Drake has filleted. Drake stares at her for a bit before turning back to his task.

"Yeah" he mutters "Maybe you're right"

The cooking goes smoothly. Too smoothly for Drake's likings. Because something too good could only be followed by something bad. And if he's about to be thrown into a more despairing situation than stuck in a crazy event with four equally crazy schoolmates, he might just bite his tongue off.

That's why he's very fidgety when they line up to get their foods evaluated by the judges. He keeps his senses up in case something happens. Something like people bumping into them and ruining their food, branches or leaves falling on their food, animals realizing the nice smell and stealing their food, or meteors coming out of nowhere burning their food.

He practically holds his breath when they fold open their scoring paper, and he can't believe what he sees.

Best point. They get another best point for the hunting and the cooking.

The team whoops and high-fives each other, throwing out honest, accidental compliments. They proceed to devour their food which taste much better after such hard work and effort since early in the morning. Drake smiles, letting himself relax for the first time since he got into Kidd's car.

Maybe this whole thing is not so bad after all.

A/N

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Have a nice day!