Me: Sorry this took so long! Because of this and that and I need to finish this story first before I can continue with the others and ya know the rest ^^

Zoro: *snorts*

Me: *push a button and Zoro falls down in a pit of jelly* Enjoy!

3. Connecting Visitors

Day 5:

I found this morning a typical morning since these strange beings (not like I'm one to talk) dropped into my house. In other words, I'm not bothered when Luffy have tried several attempts to steal my breakfast or that Ace would glare at me whenever I threated his little brother that I'm not above to cut Luffy's hand off. At least they leave my coffee alone. I'll go crazy if they tried to do anything with my coffee.

I spoke too soon when Luffy accidently knocked the coffee maker off the counter, and by some dumb sheer bad luck, broken into pieces beyond repair.

I am also not above intentionally choking Luffy to death.

And when Ace tried to burn me during so, I knew it would be a good idea to order that pocket-sized fire extinguisher. And also fire resistant ropes.

It's a wonder what you can get in e-bay.

And so, I have a squirming Luffy and a tied up, growling, Ace.

My friend, who looked like Sanji, refused to have these two in his house after his flat-screen T.V. was… annihilated, so to speak. So I ended up dropping them at another one of my friends who works in the garage fixing cars… Now that I think about it, he looked kinda like Zoro, earning points immediately from my rubbery charge.

And so now I'm at work, thinking about some of the strange events that I have encountered. Now that I think about it, my so called 'friends' strangely do look like the One Piece characters, except for the fact that their personality and specialties are different to the extreme. The one that looked like Sanji works at a bank. Zoro works with cars and vehicles, sometimes making his own inventions when bored. I do question about why my friends look familiar like the One Piece characters but I decided to figure that out later.

My 'Sanji' friend is greedy and sometimes found girls as a nuisance with their high emotional problems (I made sure to kick the crude out of him for that bias opinion), unless it comes to his job, then he could become the greatest actor I have ever seen. My 'Zoro' friend is friendly all together with always a smile on his face. He's always busy but he is always understand and would put his friends before his goal or job. He hates fighting, despite how 'scary' he supposedly looked.

After thinking about the subject a few more times, I decided that it would probably be a good idea to take care of them myself; stop dropping them off with my friends once I realized how familiar they looked to their crew.

I heard a whisper in Luffy's heart when he realized that even though they look like his crew, they aren't his crew. He kept a smile on his face despite that he was turmoil by the fact. I doubt the kid needs more reminders of the fact that he's away from his 'family'. That he's away from his friends and the sea that he loved so much.

I would hear the same thing from Ace, but it was only for a second with a desperate hoped that he would find his family that he sailed is here with him and that they would help him through this confusing time. He knew deep down that it doesn't seemed to be possible.

Whenever Luffy looked at me, I would hear the hurtful whisper in his heart. I looked like his 'Nami', but I'm not his 'Nami'. I'm too independent, too calm and too passive. I'm just not his 'Nami'.

Well, it's better to have one reminder than several.

When I picked them up, I recognized that Luffy isn't as so happy go lucky as he usually is. And Ace became rather thoughtful, not bothering to retort or to glare at me when I came to pick them up. Their hearts are telling me their troubled thoughts.

"Starting today, you don't need to have babysitters." I told them while walking back towards home. For some reason, I knew that I'm going to regret this.

Luffy and Ace, out of there uncharacteristic mood, seemed shocked for a while. And then they cheered while high-fiving each other.

"Starting from tomorrow, you will come with me to work."

And then their grins turn into deep frowns. On my way home, I wasn't above gagging them and tying them up while dragging them on the cold concrete.

I'm pretty sure that their fans would kill me if they knew I did that.

Day 6:

Morning started out like the mornings before. I locked them out of the kitchen till breakfast is ready and defended my plate from the owner of the black-hole stomach called Luffy. Ace glared at me, tried to burn me when I tried to kill Luffy from breaking my coffee maker, again, and I end up hanging him outside of the window ten stories above ground.

Ace was yelling Japanese cusses at me, bringing attention to him from people who wondered what kind of monster is permitted to do such a cruel thing and Luffy cowered for the rest of the morning. The youngest member in this apartment knows too well that I shouldn't be messed with if I didn't have my daily morning coffee.

And then, after many reconsideration of bringing Ace back up since I don't want him to burn my stuff, we were on our way to my work place.

I wondered if it would be wise to bring two owners of pitless stomachs to my pastry shop. It was already difficult enough to make sure that Luffy wouldn't sneak in the middle of the night raiding my fridge. And there is also the fact that I do not want them to interact with other people.

My two friends promised in secrecy to not tell of their arrival. My 'Sanji' friend doesn't care either way anyway and decided to ignore the problem while ahead, still mad at the fact that they broke his flat-screen T.V. and 'Zoro' was too nice and loyal to say anything of course. He's too busy anyway from here to there so there is no problem whatsoever.

When I entered my shop, I end up dragging Luffy out of my kitchen so that he wouldn't eat the ingredient. I promised both of them a painful death if they do not listen. Or that I wouldn't give them the lunches I had made for them if so. The latter works much better.

They promised to stay in the workroom. In truth, I forced them into the worker's lounge with many threats and deadly promises.

"Hey! I came for that tart!"

I looked up from what I was doing to see four of my regular customers coming up. They were wearing pretty thick clothing for the summer but I didn't say anything about it. The voices of their hearts tell me that they didn't want to talk about it or mention it.

"Hey Michelangelo." I greeted passively as ever, somewhat glad that I could speak once again in my native language; English. He was the first one who had come to this shop before his other brothers decided to come.

They know that I know about their secrets. But we didn't say anything about it or mention about it. If anything, they are just people who wanted to buy my tarts.

"Yea yea, hello and goodbye; can we just get these freakin' tarts and git the heck out of here?"

It was obvious to the brother with the red jacket that he's not exactly comfortable being out of the open so casually. None of them were in truth.

"And it's nice to see you too Raphael." I sarcastically greeted, rolling my eyes to emphasis it.

He went forward, probably trying to sock me in the face, till he was stopped by Donatello, who gave me a sheepish grin, also feeling uncomfortable to be out of the open but knew to trust me. Other than big mouth Mikey, Donatello has been here more than the rest of his brothers after he finish dumpster diving, since my shop is close to one. He and I commonly share opinions while enjoying caramel flan puddings.

"Sorry, we're kinda in a rush." He mentions shrugging as if to try to ease the tension.

They all know that me and Raph aren't the best of friends. Not my fault he's fun to tease and insult. He's just so easily predictable when he blows up.

Leonardo has been quiet the whole time, not surprisingly. He doesn't eat many of the sweets I made unless I introduce him to some Japanese cultural ones. He's interest in those though I don't have much knowledge on them. French, yes. Japanese, no.

I turned to get the tarts, only to twitch when I saw a stretching hand reaching towards the kitchen. How I'm glad that my current visiting customer couldn't see that.

I had no hesitation to step on the hand with the heel of my shoes and then grab the arm, flinging the rubbery boy towards me.

Luffy gulped when he saw me smiling…

With a murderous aura.

"W-Wait, Y-You see, I was hungry and-"

"Whoa! That kid looks like Luffy!"

I immediately snapped my head towards Mikey, my eyes widen slightly.

The comic freak reads mangas?

"What? One of yer lame-brain heroes?"

"Dude, don't you dare call Luffy 'lame'."

Michelangelo stated while poking his brother on the chest to get his point.

"He's one of the most awesomest, totally radical, the heroes of all heroes –of course that is nothing compared to the Battle Nexus Champion!-"

That earned him a slap on the head, but Mikey continued on.

"Funniest, strongest, the most daring pi-"

I doubt anyone was expecting the pie thrown at his face.

"Pie! Who knew you're named after a pie!" I hissed in Japanese, knowing that the other three couldn't hear me for they were too busy laughing at the pie encounter that Michelangelo had. They can understand Japanese, that I know.

Luffy on the other than doesn't know English, I'm glad for, but he should be able to hear his name and the word 'pirate'. I'm not going to risk it if he puts together the fact that Mikey knows this dumb-bell.

I kicked Luffy, literally, into the lounge and decided to lock the door from the outside. I also put stove in front of it. Extreme, but necessary.

I soon after gave the four brothers their ordered tarts and asked them, not so nicely, to leave. It seemed that Raphael had a thing or two to say to me for the rude farewell and Mikey had wanted to question to why I threw a pie at his face, despite that it was delicious and he ends up getting free, while messed up, pie.

Both decided to shut up instantly when they saw the pointed, darkening glare that I gave them. They knew that I wasn't in the mood for any discussion and decided to leave it at that.

I came back into the kitchen, deciding to finish that new batch of Strawberry Tarts, when I took notice that my kitchen had been raided. It was a rather clean raid, taking whatever that normal people wouldn't pay attention to.

News Flash: I'm anything but normal at this rate.

I figure out that Luffy was the diversion while Ace decided to go and raid the kitchen when I was busy with his little brother.

During lunch, I locked them in the supply closet, making sure that Ace is tied up in that fire resistant rope while Luffy limbs are actually tied up together.

I asked one of my strong friends, the one that Donatello introduced me to who had such a polite tone and is very interesting to converse with to guard the door while at it and gave him a fire extinguisher if Ace tried to pull off anything burning schemes.

Work was easy after that, due to the fact that I forgot to untie them after lunch.

Me: I am so sorry but I have to put some TMNT reference there XD I couldn't help myself. Works out in the end though XD

Zoro: ... TMNT?

Me: Yes, TMNT. ^^