Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece.
What secrets does this chapter hold?
"Why don't you read it?"
"Caylee, whatever he has written in here, I've already lived it. I don't need to read it." Eva extended her arm with the book in it, waiting for Caylee to grab it.
"Here. I'll read it." Nami snatched it out of her hands. "I think Caylee needs to rest those fingers."
The lock on the journal broke when Nami opened the cover. On the first page was a picture of the family when Caylee was the last one born. Chris had his arm around Belle-mere's shoulder, the kids were all held onto by one parent. Nami and Nojiko by Chris; Caylee and Julia by Belle-mere.
"Well, we know he really did care about us at first." She took the picture out and showed it to everybody in the room: Caylee, Julia, Eva, Choo, Arlong, Kuroobi, and Hachi. Belle-mere and Genzo were in another room of the hospital.
"Shoot, why did you have to show that?" Caylee hid her face from everybody, especially Choo. That was embarrassing. You just kiss a guy and he already sees a picture of you as a baby.
"Anyway, The first few pages just mentions how much he enjoyed his job. Him and mom discussing a new child, resulting Caylee. When he got promoted and….what?"
"What? What's wrong?"
"Just listen to this:
My doctor gave me a call today while I was a work
He told me that my test was positive: I have brain cancer.
I guess that's why I was so excited about being part of the committee.
Cancer was now a personal thing for me; it was now going to be my life's work.
To save myself so that I could watch my daughters grow up
"Well, that explains a few things."
"Before you guys go on talking, let me read the next passage:
I'm starting to go crazy. I need to find the cure fast.
Unfortunately, all of my usual stuff and the volunteers have been failures.
I've lost more people than needed. AND I'M GETTING SUED.
I don't have the money for this.
So I needed to find test subjects that no one would miss, and I found the most perfect ones.
Five people, four boys and one girl, are the ones I chose.
A gang leader, a bookworm, a playboy, a goody-goody, and…I could say she was a model.
Noboy was going to miss them, but I needed to take safety matters into thought.
So I killed the very few that those four people had. Now, they belonged to me.
I remember reading somewhere about how fish could survive cancer; I don't know if it was a lie or if it was the truth. I was willing to try.
I asked Boris, my assistant, to pick random fish DNA for my experiment.
I didn't know which ones he chose until I actually started.
I only recognized three of them though, One was a saw shark and another one was a string ray. And the last one I actually knew was a octopus. Now why would he choose a string ray? I need to know the reason why.
I wanted to save the girl for last because…she was just so beautiful. I didn't want to ruin her extraodinary beauty.
It hurt me to say this but…she was more beautiful than my wife.
A few days after I turned those four boys into fishes, I was going to start on Ebony.
What a shocker for me that she seduced Boris into letting her out of the cage early and then the boys knocked him out.
My best experiments, the ones that were going to give me a chance at life, were now gone. I needed another subject as soon as possible, my doctor informed me that the cancer was spreading fast.
Too my delight, I remembered how my youngest daughter, Caylee, survived so many near death experiences. She's my last resort.
"That was the second to last passage he wrote." Nami lowered the book from her site to see what everybody's reaction was. Choo was laying his head on Caylee's shoulder, his body was sharking slightly, she figured that he was trying not to cry.
Hachi was holding onto Eva, she didn't even try to hide the crying.
Julia was holding onto Kuroobi's hands and looking him in the eyes, just letting him know that it was all going to be ok.
Arlong was by himself in the corner of the room, his arms were crossed over his chest and his hair hid his eyes.
"Let me read the last passage he wrote:
I was able to get Caylee, the one person I needed. Much to my surprise, my last experiments and my ex-wife with our daughters were there. So I had no choice but to take them.
It's too late for me though, the cancer has spread too much. I can't even think straight.
Now, I don't regret anything at all in my life; except for possibly one thing, not being able to get to know my baby girls.
I'm going to die; but I'm not going to wait for those stupid police to finally catch onto my plan. I'm going to kill me and Boris. So finally, the pain will all be over.
"He wrote this just a few minutes before he came into the jail cells with the guns." Nami finally closed the journal, and took a deep sigh. "So he planned this all along."
"Nami, I need to show you something." Caylee went through the paper until she found the exact two she was looking for. "Give this to Julia, don't look at it though. And this one if for you."
"What are they?"
"You'll know when you see it." Caylee went back to comforting a crying Choo , Nami walked away from the two. She quickly went to give the piece of paper to Julia before looking at her own.
'Arlong as a human. Hm…interesting.' She went over to the corner Arlong was at. She put the picture up to his face. "Big difference huh?"
"Yeah, you probably like that one a lot better than this. Who wouldn't?" He grabbed the paper and crumbled it up before throwing it off in some random place of the room.
"No, I didn't like it. I thought it was interesting, but it didn't really peak my interest that much."
"Are you saying you prefer this to that?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Why?"
"Because you're different from others. You have your own look, what girl wouldn't be into that?" She smiled up at him. He couldn't take it anymore. With both hands, he grabbed onto the sides of her head softly, he turned his head slightly so that his nose wouldn't strike her in the face. Gently, he lowered himself down towards her lips.
She closed the rest of the distance, meeting his lips midway. The both of them closed their eyes and enjoyed the warmth they got from the other.
Both of Nami's hands slowly crept their way to the back of Arlong's neck and linked together.
Arlong's hands left the sides of Nami's head and wrapped around her body, pulling her close to him.
In another part of the room, Julia didn't want to bring up Kuroobi's past. She knew that he was still bitter about what happened to him and his brother.
She decided not to even look at the paper Nami gave her. She tore it up, not even wanting to know what was on it.
"You do know that my past was on the piece of paper."
"Why would I care? The past is the past."
"That's good. I was afraid you were going to ask questions. Like what did I use to look like and all that."
"I don't have to ask. You can tell me if you're ever ready." She slowly brought him into a hug. Resting her head on his…whatever the area is between his abs and chest.
"What if I'm never ready?"
"Then we don't talk about it. It's that simple."
"Guys, I really hate to ruin all of your moments but I just got a phone call from our record company. We need to go into the public and discuss your absense." Eva put down her cell phone, she needed to buy a new blue tooth.
"Do we have to?" Choo wiped away the tears from his eyes.
"Yeah. Get going. All four of you." She watched the mermen reluctantly leave the girls sides and walk out the door. "Guys, first off, Thank you for helping us out. And second, I'm sorry. But I don't know if you and the mermen will be able to see each other for a while."
"WHY?" The three yelled at once.
"Just because we have to continue the tour. This has set us back too much, and if the press finds out about you now, you'll never get rid of them. So we have to wait."
"For how long?"
"Possibly…a year. I'm sorry." She ran out of the room so that she couldn't see their disappointed faces.
A YEAR AND A HALF LATER
Amazingly, the paparazzi never found out about the girls. Eva had kept her promise in keeping them a secret.
Their mom, Belle-mere was moving on quite, she even began dating…Genzo, the stadium guy. Yeah, he asked her out about a week after they all got out of the hospital. They got to learn more about him, like how he barely is able to see his own kids. Nami decided to take that matter into her own hands. She won't tell anybody how, but she was able to get Genzo to see his kids a lot more now; he was even able to talk it over with his ex-wife, who was already remarried. They discussed how they both had different lives now, but would still like to get together for their children's sakes.
That was one good things that happened, now it was just too boring for the girls. Although, They were still having a hard time getting over the surprise of their father. Because of his suicide, he didn't have to go through all of the jail time.
Now it was out of their hands, and that's the way they like it. Currently, Caylee, Julia, and Nami sat in front of the Tv, the little black chihuahua they owned was sitting on Julia's lap.
"What's on?" Nami changed the channel on the TV, not even staying on one channel for at least two seconds.
"Nami, you won't be able to see if you don't stop." Caylee grabbed the remote and took it away just in time. The channel they stopped on was some news channel, featuring The Mermen.
They havn't been keeping up with anything the Mermen have been doing. They did hear that the tour went along really well, and they now had more fans than ever.
"Do we have to watch this?" Julia groaned as she continued to pet the dog.
"No." She turned off the TV. "I don't want to watch this." Silence seemed to be the key word that day, no one felt like talking at all.
Yeah, it's been over a year, but they couldn't get over it. The bonding they had in the hospital was too strong for words.
"Hey girls, we got mail from Eva." Belle-mere came walking into the room, with a big grin on her face.
"Oh joy. What is it?" Belle-mere opened the envelope, inside it were four tickets to a special Spring Break show in their home town.
"Spring Break? I forgot about that." It clicked to them, four tickets. They were inviting Belle-mere to come with them. What's more embarrassing than having your mom at Spring Break with you?
Belle-mere could tell the girls weren't gonna want her there with them. She didn't want to go anyway, she had a bunch of dates set up with Genzo for that week.
"It's next week. Better find cute bikinis. And don't worry, I won't watch the TV or anything." She hand three of the tickets to the girls and tore up her own before leaving them.
"SHOOT, I NEED TO GO ON A DIET!" Julia started to freak out.
"Why? You're already skin and bones."
---
Spring Break was fast to come. In a short amount of time, Julia was able to lose weight, much to her delight. And they were all able to find suitable bikinis.
Nami found a bikini that had different colors of thin green strips. They would start out dark and then be very light at the end.
Caylee picked out a purple bikini that had blue polka-dots on it.
Julia chose out a black one with red swirls.
Spring Break was a lot more crowded than they thought there would be. Another problem was that there were more guys than there were girls.
"I can't believe there's so many boys here." Nami said.
"I can't believe how many have asked for my number." Julia said as she walked away from another guy.
"I can't believe how many guys have touched not only my boobs but also my butt." Caylee was being very secure of her body, blocking it whenver some guy came walking towards her.
"Hey, who is the entertainment?" Nami grabbed onto both of her sister's hands.
Right when she said that, a woman speaked onto the stage, dressed in a blue bikini and was wearing sunglasses.
"What's up everybody? Having fun so far?" She held the microphone out towards the crowd to hear the response. She sure did get a good reaction out of everyone.
"Isn't that…."
"That's Eva." Julia stated, her mouth gaping open. Caylee and Nami were holding onto her, she was getting ready to faint right there. Why? They didn't know.
"Before I introduce everybody's favorite band, I would like to ask three certain girls to the front. And don't try to trick me because I know what they look like. So Caylee, Nami, and Julia, to the front you come."
The crowd talked to each other, eager to see what was so special about these girls. When the girls finally got to the front, they were all in awe.
All of the guys were whistling at them and all the girls were throwing cuss words at them.
'Oh, I hope the guys don't hear this. They will murder all the boys who dare to whistle.' "Ok, now let's get on with the show." Eva left the stage and passed the mic to the Mermen who would be speaking out.
"Hiya people." Choo said into the mic. Many of the girls cheered for him, all expecting him to say something like 'we got a lot of cute girls in the crowd.' "And hello, Caylee." He looked down at her, smiling.
Caylee got very nervous, she felt all the death glares being thrown at her. Boy, if looks could kill.
The rest of the Mermen got into place on the stage, all of them smiling at not the crowd, but to the girls in the front.
"So um, instead of starting with a hard rock song. We're gonna sing this new one we made on the road. See, a year ago, we met these awesome girls in the front. And they saw us in a way that no body else could. So we dedicate this song to Nami, Julia, and Caylee. Check it out."
Kuroobi started to play the piano in an almost soft lullaby tune. Since he was the first one to play, he was going to be the first one to sing.
I cant fight this feeling any longer
And yet Im still afraid to let it flow
What started out as friendship, has grown stronger
I only wish I had the strength to let it show
I tell myself that I cant hold out forever
I said there is no reason for my fear
Cause I feel so secure when were together
You give my life direction
You make everything so clear
Arlong took over the solo part from there, he bent down on one knee and pointed his hand at Nami.
And even as I wander
Im keeping you in sight
Youre a candle in the window
On a cold, dark winters night
And Im getting closer than I ever thought I might
Choo played the guitar while Hachi joined in the song with the drums. And all of them leaned into their mics to sing.
And I cant fight this feeling anymore
Ive forgotten what I started fighting for
Its time to bring this ship into the shore
And throw away the oars, forever
Cause I cant fight this feeling anymore
Ive forgotten what I started fighting for
And if I have to crawl upon the floor
Come crashing through your door
Baby, I cant fight this feeling anymore
Choo and Arlong switched back and forth between the lines of the songs.
My life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you
Ive been running round in circles in my mind
And it always seems that Im following you, girl
Cause you take me to the places that alone Id never find
And even as I wander Im keeping you in sight
Youre a candle in the window on a cold, dark winters night
And Im getting closer than I ever thought I might
And I cant fight this feeling anymore
Ive forgotten what I started fighting for
Its time to bring this ship into the shore
And throw away the oars, forever
They all joined in for the last part of the song, singing all of their heart and soul into the song.
Cause I cant fight this feeling anymore
Ive forgotten what I started fighting for
And if I have to crawl upon the floor
Come crushing through your door
Baby, I cant fight this feeling anymore.
It seemed all the other girls in the audience forgot that the Mermen dedicated the song solely to Nami, Julia, and Caylee.
"Please come onto the stage." They looked at each other once more before being guided to the stairs by security. Climbing the stairs to the stage, they got whistled at once more.
The Mermen all nodded at each other before going over to grab onto the girl they loved.
"Yes, these are the girls we were talking about." Choo decided to do most of the talking. "All that time on the road. We realized that no matter how hard we tried to fight it, we couldn't fight that feeling away anymore. And after hearing all of you guys whistle at my woman, I am sure of what I'm about to do."
"What are you about to do?" Choo threw the mic onto the floor and got down on one knee. The other mermen did the same thing. They all reached into one of their pockets and pulled out a black box.
"Will you marry me?" They asked in unison as they opened the box. The crowd all gasped, all waited for the answers.
"YES!" Julia was the first to answer, she jumped up in the air with excitement. Kuroobi stood up and placed the ring onto her finger and grabbed onto her while she was jumping.
Nami was too shocked to answer with words, so she was just nodding her head and covering her mouth with her hands. It wasn't until the ring was on her finger that she started screaming.
Caylee couldn't even close her mouth, it was wide open. And all that was coming out of it was air.
"Caylee, are you feeling ok?" She suddenly felt herself falling backwards, her back almost coming in contact with the floor. She closed her eyes ready for the impact, it never came.
When she opened them, she saw Choo looking down at her. He had jumped up in the nick of time and was holding onto her. Keeping her off the ground.
"Yes." She whispered for only him to hear. "Yes." Choo didn't take the chance to put the ring on her finger, he took the chance to kiss her. He was showing everybody that she was now his and his alone.
Aw, engagement. How cute. Now usually, I don't really give a hint as to what will be in the next chapter because even I don't know. But this time, I do.
The Mermen are now engaged to the girls. So they have to meet the crazy family. If they thought the colored hair was weird, they were so wrong.
Thank you to deathshark for suggesting the song. Thank you for reading. Please leave a review on your way out.