Chapter 6: Smoker/Law: Tragedy
Finding your soulmate can actually be a moodkiller.
Notes: For you Mor :3
At 19, Smoker had his heart broken for the first time. She'd been gorgeous, long legs, hair as green as an emerald. But she'd met her soulmate on her way walking home and well. That was the end of that.
At 25, Hina kissed him in a bar on shore leave. Her lipstick looked like blood, a red rim on his whiskey glass. Like the bruises on his throat the morning after. Hina didn't believe in soulmates, to quote her: "Soulmates are foolish, they imply Hina is incomplete. Hina is NOT incomplete."
Three years later, Hina met Vice Admiral Gion. Her hair was pitch black, her eyes a drunk man's dream. To quote Hina on it, "Hina was not incomplete. Hina is not incomplete. Hina… I am more now, that's all."
At 29, Kuzan's cold fingers brushed over the back of Smoker's hand. Secret quiet nights, long letters, stolen glances and midnight bike rides. Like being a teenager again. Including the heartbreak. The bastard had met his soulmate long ago, and they had agreed that they could have outside relationships until they got too serious. And well… the two of them had gotten too serious. Even now, Smoker still felt his jaw clench when he looked at Fleet Admiral Sakazuki, though not with jealousy, but with dread and fear.
If soulmates could do that to one another…did he even want to find his?
At 34, Tashigi kissed him after the Paramount War. It was clumsy, and warm, and for a moment he felt… something new. She'd smiled at him, like he was special. Like he meant something. They'd held hands and shared coffee and long nights exhausted and furious at the G-5 and the challenges of the New World.
And he was happy. For two whole years. This one… this one felt right.
And then came Punk Hazard. And… Tashigi and the Cat Burglar looked at one another. Smoker knew that look. Like a secret universe shared between two people. Like opening a door and finding what you have been looking for. Like…
Smoker's bowl of soup sat warm in his hands. The black painted line dividing his crew and the pirates. And yet they all mingled, Strawhat laughing with his soldiers.
His eyes flicked to the man on the other side of the line. Golden eyes focused ahead under that stupid fuzzy hat. Music hummed in the back of Smoker's head, like a spring day, or sitting before a warm hearth in a blizzard.
"Tragedy follows me wherever I go, Smoker-ya," Law stated. A neutral tone, carefully measured. No particular inflection. The statement of a man who believed he was dead. Those golden eyes turned to him.
A sunset, or the dying embers of his cigars. "So don't follow me."
Boy was his soulmate full of himself.