Wow, haven't heard from me in a while, huh? This is the first fanfiction I am writing while in... dundundun college! Go figure! Of course if you know anything about me, you'll know what couple this is, and even though names are hardly mentioned it's not meant to make you wonder. It's really obvious, but I just like leaving names out of my fics. ;; Anyhow, please leave some reviews! I'm lonely here in this dorm room. lol

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
-a One Piece fanfiction by MangoPirate-

It is often the custom for small port towns to hold large and extravagant festivals for any occaision they can think of. Be it the beginning of a season, the end of a year, or any obscure purpose otherwise, festivals are the finest way to celebrate. Such was the case one particularly important day on a small island in the small Syrup Village.

What was the event to be celebrated? It was the spectacularly unsuspected return of a friendly group of pirates, liked by all the villagers simply because they were kind faces. Few of the members of the village understood just how much they owed to these pirates; indeed, the highest purpose of celebration was not that this crew had saved them all one day long ago--for, again, few knew--but because one certain of the pirates had acieved a lifelong ambition.

Likely, the village would not have been so quick to delcare a festival had they not felt bragging rights were in order. After all, they had welcomed the now-renowned pirate king when he was only a boy, striving to start an adventure. Although the villagers secretly believed he would never succeed, upon being proven wrong, they brought out the very best of the decorations, food, and music. Colorful lights were strung from all the buildings, the finest musicians the island could offer played ceaselessly into the breezes, and acres of tables of food were piled high--all within two days of the re-arrival of the impressive crew.

In fact, from the moment their ship docked (for the village, as many of them proclaimed, had been the birthplace of the pirate king's ship), the crew were surrounded by fawning villagers. Hardly could they even sleep the first night, but for peasantfolk adorning them with the best gifts they could muster. And then, the second evening, the true fun began.

After the crew had eaten their fill--the captain taking much longer to do so--the villagers began to stop worshipping and start asking. Many wanted to hear the adventure stories told by the captain (who had, coincidentally, grown up greatly in appearance but very little in mature personality); others probed the navigator for information about islands far beyond their own. Some spoke of exotic recipes with the cook, when they could pry him from feminine attention; some, too, wished to learn skills from the swordsman and medical techniques from the oddly likeable doctor. The questions posed to captain and crew alike were so many and so close together that none could escape the onslaught, even if they had wanted to.

None, save for one. One lone crewmember, ignored by villagers who knew him welll, stole silently from the crowd. He was back home, but home did not want him; barely a greeting had been uttered to him in the length of time since he had arrived back amongst his once-neighbors. He had, at first, attempted to tell himself that he had not been recognized; after all, the years had left his hair longer, his face more lined, and his entire facade scarred. This sorrowful attempt, however, vanished as he was reminded of his very distinct features that few ever forgot. He was, then, resigned to believe that his accomplisments--so special to him--were nothing to the people of the place he had spent years longing for.

Shamefully upset by this, he left the limelight of his friends to wander with subconscious purpose to the village's most prominent structure. Driven by something not quite the mind,his feet carried him to the elaborate house on the hill overlooking his hometown. Little was different about it; two men in ebony suits guarded the iron-wrought front gate, just as he remembered. One of the men, white-haired and smiling, raised an eyebrow to him but said nothing.

And the feet of the lonely sharpshooted continued to propel him, without mental thought, but with unfathomable emotional desire. Past the gated entrance, through a gap in the hedges that once was the proper size for him but now nearly caught him in its snug grip, he went on. It was not, in fact, until he stood at the base of a friendly green tree that he came to understand where exactly he had taken himself.

As he stood contemplating his situation, a sudden and dramatic urge gripped his very being. Within a moment he had scaled the tree and sat, breathing heavily and fighting with memories, on the thick branch that so often held him many years prior. He might have stayed there for hours, simply recalling times long past, had the door of the large home not opened at that precise moment. Nearly toppling from his branch-perch, he twisted around quickly to see who had exited and felt his heart leapt into his throat.

A memory stood before him--but a memory grown up. He grasped the tree until his knuckles whitened and the bark cut into his hands, simply staring at the beacon of light that had appeared in the dusk below him. It was a woman; a beautiful woman stepped lightly onto the paved walkway in front of the house. Her skin was a soft ivory, glistening somehow in the setting sun. Her long blonde hair, loosely pulled to the nape of her neck in a ribbon, pulsed gently in the evening breeze. She wore a gauzy blue sundress that billowed in a simple yet elegant way against her slender legs and showed just enough of her slight curves as it did so. The pirate found himself staring, stricken by complete awe, as the woman stood, apparently enjoying the feel of the air against her skin. His mouth ran dry and a violent tremor overtook his body for a moment; fear of the past, perhaps, but a fear that still wanted so badly to speak to the angelic being below.

After a moment's struggle with his inner self, he shook his head repeatedly to clear it of thoughts. The woman had haunted his every dream for all the years since he left the village, and now that she was there before him, he could not bring himself to reveal his hiding place. She began to move, slowly, as though she could hardly bear to leave her home, and the wind caught her sundress a bit more. The ribbon in her hair blew softly, almost taunting him as he watched her began to saunter off into the distance.

And oh, how his heart ached as he watched her go. She would arrive at the gate at any moment, and he would not have been able to do the one simplest thing that he had longed after for so many years. He had practiced; he had gone over and over the perfect scene in his mind, but seeing the object of his daydreams so near to him was like an electric jolt to the emotions. She had grown so beautiful, and he had only become tough and scarred. And frightened... he had promised to return to her a braver man, and he could not even face her.

There is something to be said about the body's fight or flight mechanism, and particularly about that of the sharpshooter. Often his kicked into the flight gear without a moment's hesitation, and only if the life of someone he cared about was threatened did he bother to fight. When everyone could survive without his assistance, he ran; why, then, was it so hard for him to run from the girl about whom he had fantasized for the latter part of his life? Nothing was threatened, and no one's life would be over if he ran from the confrontation that he was so torn about insuing.

Or would a life end if he ran? Would his life be over? With a flush in his cheeks and a great upsurge of something that felt as if a flame licked at his throbbing heart, the man leapt from the branch of the tree and landed stealthily below.

The woman was so far off that she barely heard the sound of his landing, but paused without turning to consider what might have just happened behind her. The white-haired man at the gate, through it all, attempted to keep a straight face but failed in the most miserable of fashions, so that the woman was certain something terrible must be behind her. Too afraid, herself, to turn and face her fate, she shut her eyes tightly against the beginnings of a night-blackened sky. And then one quietly firm word was spoken to her; one soft utterance came from the man who stood behind her.

"Kaya."

Although it took her a moment to mentally register what was happening, she soon realized that her soul was flying blissfully through some kind of a reverie, past memories and into reality. A voice that she had ached to hear was speaking to her, and as she slowly turned to see its owner, he ran to her and held her tightly, close to him, embracing her as he had dreamt of doing for so long. And she stood against him, tears leaking from her dark eyes and her arms straining from the strength with which she held him. Distantly she could hear the laughter of her gate-guard and friend, a joyful sound mingling with the sudden soft sniffing of the pirate who had returned to her.

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