"What do you mean she looked disgusted?" Usopp asked.
"Exactly what it means! We asked her if she often kiss Luffy's ... lips ... and she looked as if she was creeped by the idea!" Marguerite exclaimed.
"Then they are just friends," Perona said.
"If you heard how Nami-san said she loved Luffy-san more than anyone in the world, you wouldn't say that," Vivi told her with a tired expression.
Kaya sighed, "We all thought that everything will be resolved, but guess it wasn't that easy…"
"And there is someone who just don't care anymore about this," Usopp said as he looked at the sleeping Zoro.
Sanji was also silent through the whole conversation. He calmly puffed out some smoke before he said, "No, we're on a good way. Why would a lady like Nami-san be disgusted by the idea of kissing? No matter how you think, it's not normal. Maybe that's the cause of everything?"
Everyone blinked at him before they heard the bell rung. They returned to the classroom, leaving this problem for later.
After class, a few of them went to see Robin to tell her of what they discovered.
"I agree with Sanji," Robin said after hearing everything, making the blonde man swoon around her.
"Well ... it might make some sense but we've always been misled until now," Usopp told her. "So maybe this time too…?"
"No, everything would make sense if Nami's disgust was the problem. Absolutely everything."
"Why do you think so?" Marguerite asked.
"Up until now, we came up with all sorts of reasons and argument to explain their relationship. But beside the one about Luffy's innocence, I think everything else is wrong or just irrelevant now. They might have had some truth, but they were also full of holes."
The students remained silent as the teacher was explaining.
"It's actually simple when you think about it. If Nami hate the idea of kissing, it explains why she doesn't want to date Luffy and why she states that they are friends even though they clearly love each other. It's because she know. As a girlfriend, not kissing your own boyfriend is something very unnatural in this day and age. Obviously, it's the same for lovers. But no matter how much they love each other, if she states that they are just friends it would be more unnatural if she was kissing him. In other words, I think Nami is using the status of 'friend' to avoid kissing Luffy."
Everyone's eyes slightly widened at Robin's reasoning. Could it really be possible? It made sense but it was also hard to believe.
"Wait. Do you mean that she is disgusted only for Luffy or just that Nami hates kissing altogether?" Usopp asked.
"It's obviously the latter," Vivi said.
Sanji rubbed his chin. "I'm really curious about the reason Nami-san hates kissing, but I guess we don't really need to know. If we correct that hate, Nami-san would surely stop the 'friend' crap already."
Usopp was still suspecting that there was another reason behind it. Like some wicked devil had given powers to Nami, making her a Dark Magical Girl that will lose her powers if she kissed someone… It must surely be that! But if he told this to everyone, he had a hunch they will look at him with pity in their eyes... Their stares will surely pierce his frail heart mercilessly, so he decided to not tell them.
"I think we should still know what's the reason if we want to help Nami-san correct it," Vivi said.
"But what if the reason was too personal?" Marguerite asked.
"We've already came too far to care about that."
"True."
"Do you think Nami will even tell us in the first place?" asked Usopp.
"Well, maybe we should try with the shitty idiot first. I just hope it won't take too long for him to remember... if he knows."
"Hey, why did you bring me here?" Luffy asked to his friends as he sat at a table. They dragged him to the restaurant where Sanji was working.
Sanji, Usopp, Vivi and Marguerite were the only ones left in the group as the others were either busy or just too lazy.
Usopp took a deep breath as if to prepare himself for a long interview. Even though he was the interviewer.
"Ok, Luffy. Listen. We need to ask you a few questions."
Before Usopp could do it, Marguerite asked Luffy, "Did you ever kiss Nami?"
Luffy blinked. "Yeah, I kissed her lot of times. You even saw it, no?"
Sanji sighed. "We are talking about the kiss on the lips, Luffy. Not on the cheeks."
Luffy blinked again. When they started wondering if he even knew it was possible to kiss the lips, Luffy made, like Nami, a surprising reaction.
"Pffffft! Hahahahahahahahahaha!"
Contrarily to Nami who looked disgusted, Luffy laughed uncontrollably while clutching his stomach as if he just heard the best joke in his life.
"Oi Luffy! Why are you laughing?!" Sanji yelled as a vein popped on his head.
"So-Sorry, hahaha… I just remembered something," he said as he continued laughing.
They all raised their brow and looked at each other.
Vivi asked, "Luffy-san, can you tell us what you remembered? Does it have something to do with Nami-san?"
"Ah… yeah. I think it was... when we were seven years old?"
*Flashback*
Luffy was playing with small robots at Nami's house, on the couch, as he watched the TV with her. He wasn't paying attention to it since he found the program boring, but Nami was very focused on it. At some point, she crawled toward him and tugged his sleeve.
"Luffy. Luffy! Can we try that?" she pointed innocently toward the TV.
Luffy looked at the screen, and saw a man and a woman doing something extremely weird. They were literally trying to devour each other's mouths! Even though he grimaced at the cannibalistic scene, he wondered why they were stupid enough to eat each other that way. Seriously, who would want to eat something from its mouth? He also wondered since when it went from a boring show to a horror movie. Then Nami's question started to register in his mind and his eyes widened at her.
"Nami, I don't want to eat you…" he said with a sad-looking and almost scared face.
Nami giggled and said, "It's just a kiss Luffy! Like the one I do to you on the cheeks … but this one is on the lips."
"Don't lie! Their mouths are not closed and they are licking!" the young boy yelled before stucking out his tongue in disgust.
Nami blushed slightly at what he said. "I know it's a little creepy … but I don't mind if it's you. And you said that you will marry me so you should at least do this much."
Luffy blinked. "I don't really understand … but if you want to, I'm okay with that," he grinned.
Nami grinned back before she leaned toward him. They both parted their lips, like the people in the TV, as their mouths were only inches away from each other, when they suddenly heard a familiar sound.
"Nami, I'm home!" Nami's mother called from the front door.
Nami's eyes widened and she was about to pull back immediately, but her knees slipped on the couch, making her mouth crash on Luffy's. The young girl's teeth collided hard with Luffy's own and they both cried in pain.
When Bellemere came to the living room, she saw her daughter on the verge of crying with a bloody mouth.
"Nami! What happened?!"
*Flashback End*
"And you know, because of that Nami lost four baby teeth and she was too embarrassed to show them for a while!" Luffy continued to laugh hysterically as Usopp joined him.
Vivi said, "Ah! I remember that! I asked her how she lost four in one day... but she didn't tell me anything. I thought she was just unlucky..."
Marguerite and Sanji had their heads down at the whole revelation. While it made some sense, they didn't want to believe that such a trivial experience was the cause of this whole problem for some reason.
Then, Marguerite blinked as she realized something else. "So that's why she made that reaction during lunch! She didn't cover her mouth because she felt like puking, but because she still remember how her teeth hurted at that time."
"Still can't believe it's a reason like that," Sanji muttered before looking at Luffy. "Did you try kissing her after that?"
Luffy blinked. "No. It hurt for me too and I don't see the point."
They all sighed.
"Looks like we have to correct this too," Vivi said. "Luffy-san needs to know everything about relationships, or it will only be stressful for Nami-san in the future."
Marguerite stood up and grabbed her bag. "Let's leave that to the guys. We should go talk to Nami as soon as possible."
Vivi nodded. "Good idea. It will be awkward to talk about that tomorrow at school. Sanji-san, make sure to teach everything to Luffy-san."
"Your wish is my command my sweet angels~!"
Usopp smiled smugly as he said, "Who do you think you are talking to? I'm the expert of love, Usopp the Great! Leave everything to me!"
As the women walked away, they could hear the boys start their lecture.
"Ok Luffy! First things first. Let's start with the bird and the bees."
Sanji slapped the long nose's head. "Start with dating, idiot."
"I'll leave that section to you."
"Talking about birds, it makes me want to eat chicken."
"Oi!"
The girls chuckled as they left the restaurant.
Marguerite and Vivi got themselves in Nami's house by begging for help with their homeworks. They sat in her room before they looked with serious expressions.
"Nami, we have something important to talk."
The orange-haired woman blinked. "Is it more important than your homework?"
Vivi laughed. "Well, yes, but I hope you will still help us with that."
"Ok … what's the problem?"
"It's about you and Luffy. We know why you don't want to go out with him. It's only because you don't want to kiss, right?"
Nami's eyes widened... before she looked away with a sigh. Her reaction made it clear for them that it wasn't unconscious. Nami was aware of everything. So it made things easier to talk for them.
Vivi asked, "Why do you fear it so much? I can imagine that it was painful, but it's not something you can't overcome."
"I know... It's just unconscious, I think… I actually tried to ask Luffy out a few times you know. But when I realized that Luffy's innocence is really convenient to avoid kissing him without hurting him, I kinda…ran away from my fears. It's stupid, I know," she said with a sad tone.
Marguerite shook her head. "What's stupid is that you're not expressing your love as much as you want. You never felt the need to kiss him again recently? It's just a small experience from when you were kids so it shouldn't bother you even now."
Nami laughed. "Of course, I wanted to kiss him. More times than you can even think of. But what's bothering me isn't the pain from that time." She covered her mouth like at noon as she looked away with a pale face. "It's the hell I lived the next 6 months…"
Marguerite blinked before she looked at Vivi for some answers.
"Do you mean about when the other in the class laughed at you for having so many holes? You shouldn't mind that. We were all just children."
"It doesn't mean much to you but I couldn't even smile during that time you know! I certainly don't want to go through that sort of pitiful experience ever again. And when I think that my curiosity for kissing was the cause of all that, it stops me from trying to kiss Luffy again."
Vivi sighed with a smile. "But you know, it was also an accident right? What we want is to see you two in a steady relationship so that it won't cause some problems in the future. Luffy-san is also a man. He will learn that he also has desires sooner or later. Actually, Sanji-san and Usopp-san are teaching him everything about a relationship right now. If you stop telling everyone that you're just friends, and start to go out with him, then I'm sure that everything will go for the better. You will just have to be patient. Telling everyone that you're just friends will never solve this problem!"
Nami thought a few seconds about what Vivi said and smiled. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sincerly, I was also tired of calling him my 'friend'."
Vivi and Marguerite's smiles widened at her words.
Nami grinned. "From now on, Luffy is my lover!"
"Wait, aren't you going too fast?" Marguerite asked, even though she was grinning like Nami.
"What's the problem? I always told that I love him every day and he always did the same. It would be awkward if I just asked him to go out with me. Especially since we went on countless of dates."
"So you were aware that those were dates?" Vivi asked with a grin too.
"Of course. I'm not dumb like Luffy, Zoro or you."
"That's mean, Nami-san!"
The three women laughed before Nami reminded her guests about their homework. They pouted as their fun time was over, but at least everything was fixed now. And it only took one heart-to-heart conversation for that. They learned that being honest was always the best solution for most problems.
Back in the restaurant, Luffy managed to learn and understand everything about copulation. Usopp and Sanji sighed in relief when they saw that it didn't take more than an hour for that. It could have been way worse.
But then Luffy asked, "Wait, what does it have to do with birds and bees? Bees are just food for birds."
Usopp exclaimed, "Good question! I hope Sanji will be able to answer it."
"As if I know!"
Finally, the mystery is cleared. Now, it will be mostly Luffy and Nami. I'm sure many people were waiting for this, since oddly the minor characters were appearing more often than them. Though I will say that it will only be one or two chapters at most before the end. The fun for me in this fic was only the mystery and now that it's cleared, my motivation went down. I don't intend to drag this fic for more than two chapters (unless I find a very interesting idea to include here). Anyway, I'd like to get some reviews as I want to know how well I did the mystery of this fic. I think I did good considering that the cause of their special relationship wasn't anything special in the first place. But I'd still like to hear your opinion.