It was around ten the next morning, which is right around breakfast time for those whom managed to sleep in late when Luffy finally emerged again, earing a few weird looks and some not so subtle jokes at his expense from Sanji and Franky as he slowly trudged towards his cabin to grab a shower, his toothbrush and some clean clothing.
One of which almost jumped up out of his seat mid meal and jumped up onto the table as he yelled out and pointed, "Look! It's the elusive Monkey D. Lufficanus! One of the most elusive creature's in the world. This creature is so rare that he can be likened to the mystical unicorn!"
To which Sanji responded with a snigger, "Let's poke him with a stick!"
Luffy paused in mid step and tensed ever so slightly as something a way's away caught his attention for a moment, before he called out to the lot of them, "I don't know what you jerks are planning but I suggest that you weigh anchor and get this tub moving again before I kick all of your asses overboard." And then started walking again, completely missing the looks of comical disbelief on the faces of almost all of his friends as both Sanji and Franky finally sank down into their seats at the table and everyone began whispering.
"How does he do that?" Franky asked in a scandalized sounding tone.
"I dunno. He's always been a bit weird." Usopp said in a hushed tone before Nami chimed in,
"One day I saw him staring at the water for a good fifteen minutes before he told me that we were going around in circles, which we were, but still- How did he know that from just looking at the water?!"
"Maybe he memorized with waves." Robin said seriously, finding this entire conversation more than a little bit fun to listen to. So naturally she couldn't help but want to join in even if it was just to mess with everyone's heads a little bit.
Everyone practically screamed in shock before suddenly falling silent and looking to Zorro as if he was the leading authority on Luffy's Luffy-ism or something. Causing the green haired swordsman to growl at them. "Stop looking at me like that you bunch of freaks! I don't know how he does it either!"
"And yet you've known him the longest." Nami said before Chopper said,
"And you call yourself his best friend- your friend license should be revoked."
"Shut up you jerks!" Zorro snapped at them before getting up and stomping off to do some morning kata's so that he could cool down.
Luffy watched his friends from the crack in his door and smirked evilly around his toothbrush. His special band of idiots had apparently thought that they could pull the wool over his eyes for a while, huh? He'd known that the anchor had been dropped since the other day when they had dropped it instead of continuing to sail as they should have. Mainly because when their ship dropped anchor, it slowed and even lurched a bit before stopping.
Not only that but once he had figured out what they had done, he'd had to move quickly to Kay's side and use himself to shield her from any possible injuries that she could have sustained during the 'lurch' bit. He'd had books, pictures and a few other things fall on top of him.
But that wasn't all his idiots hadn't considered. At the moment they were all very, very wanted men and women by the world government. And since they weren't moving anymore... He knew that it was only a matter of time before the navy would catch up to them.
But whatever.
If his idiots wanted to court trouble then he'd let them as long as it didn't lead to his captain being dragged into any of the possible fighting along with them.
If that happened then he'd have to kick each of their asses several times over. Moving back a tad from his cabin door, he used the toe of his bare foot to close the door and then shook his head as he walked back towards the bathroom to spit out the toothpaste he had been holding in his mouth for the past six minutes or so.
The minty flavor was nice and all, but if one kept it in their mouth for more than a minute or two, it tended to burn one's mouth like acid. Then that minty flavor became a damned curse that just made one's mouth burn all that much more.
Once he had done that, he turned his attention to the shower and turned the tap on.
He needed to wash away several days worth of BO, sweat, blood, dirt and dust. And he needed to do so quickly if he was going to redress in his clean clothing and make himself more presentable for his captain. Humming as he quickly stripped out of his dirty and smelly clothing, he then stepped into the shower and sighed as the warm water hit his skin, helping some of his tense muscles loosen and relax.
Quickly grabbing his favorite soap, he lathered up everything that he could think of- including his hair- and then once that was done and he looked like a big ol bubble monster, he turned and moved back underneath the spray a bit and began rinsing everything off.
All in all it took him about ten minutes or so before he was what he dubbed 'squeaky clean' and was out of the shower again after he turned the tap off. Grabbing the towel he'd pulled from the wooden cabinet before he had paused his routine to watch his friends a little bit, he quickly dried himself off and then grabbed his clothing.
Today he figured that he would go with his usual knee length blue denim shorts and instead of his usual vest, he had picked out a T-shirt that he'd gotten from his brother about the time that he and the others had met Ace while they had been on their way to Alabasta.
It was a solid black shirt, with a nice jolly roger print on the front of it in white.
He'd never really worn it before so he figured that now was as good a time as any to wear it. Especially since they had a lady aside from Robin and Nami on board and he didn't want her injuring herself trying to scurry away from him because of some ridiculous notion of maidenly modesty or some weird shit like that.
Also, he kind of didn't want to be dressed in a way that could offend her delicate sensibilities.
Finishing up his current task of straightening up his appearance, Luffy grabbed his trade mark straw hat and headed for the door so that he could go back to Kay's cabin and paused briefly when he noted that A) the anchor hadn't been raised just yet. And B) Sanji had just walked out of Kay's room- after delivering food, Luffy assumed.
Pissed about the first thing, but knowing that he had no right to bark out orders since he was stepping down as the crew's captain, he kept his mouth shut and merely went to check and see if anything to eat had been delivered to Kay's room and paused again when he grasped the door's handle and heard Robin's soft voice speaking on the other side.
Curious to see if Kay was awake now or if Robin was merely speaking to herself, he cracked the door open and found himself staring at both Robin and Kay.
His captain was finally wide awake it seemed, and sitting up when she shouldn't be too. And on top of that she was slowly working her way through the meal that Sanji had left for her while Robin grinned at her.
It was certainly a nice sight to see, Luffy thought to himself with a small grin as he slowly shut the door and decided to sit outside on the deck of the ship and enjoy the sunshine a little bit until Robin was done with her visit.
He must have sat in place for more than an hour, patiently waiting for her to leave when the door finally opened and she stepped out and looked around for a second before spotting him and smiling as she said in an apologetic tone. "Forgive me for monopolizing Kay's time like this Luffy, but after she ate and we talked a bit she wanted to try getting cleaned up some after I had mentioned that you had been staying with her."
Luffy got to his feet and smiled at her in understanding before replying. "It's fine Robin. She probably wouldn't have appreciated me being in there around the time she bathed and wondering if I should scrub her back or something."
Robin giggled at the mere thought of Luffy thinking something like that when she seemed to realize something and quickly moved in close to him to check for a fever or something.
"Maa, maa- what are you doing?" Luffy asked curiously as she laid a hand on his forehead.
"I-I just realized something," Robin said as he gave her a questioning look and did this odd little motion with his hands to indicate that she should continue. "I j-just realized that you see Kay as a person of the opposite sex. As an actual girl. You don't normally do that. If it had been me or Nami wanting a shower after being injured, you would have walked right in while we were naked and then you would look at us and then start stammering while you stood there trying to think of something relevant to say."
"Oi, I'm not that bad." Luffy growled at her, not liking where this conversation was going.
"No, you aren't that bad. But you've never really realized before that there are females and males in the world. You're totally immune to a woman's sex appeal and charms-"
Luffy had the good grace to duck his head and stifle a cough or two.
He more than knew the differences between men and women. But usually until he noticed, he simply labeled a person as 'sexless' or simply 'different from me' in his mind. Which was how a lot of accidents and misunderstanding involving Nami and Robin tended to happen in the first place.
But then again the world was full of weird and wonderful things. He knew already that he couldn't always trust his eyes or his sense of touch when it came to a 'female' form. He'd simply been fooled too many times on that account.
Besides it wasn't like the occasional person didn't catch his attention and he automatically knew they were female or not. It did happen, it was just really, really incredibly rare. Almost like the earlier comment about the mythical unicorn.
Someone catching his attention and having him automatically know that it was a girl or woman- was exactly like finding a unicorn.
Even so, despite his bandit/wild child upbringing which included the frequent bars he had hung out in once he hit eleven, he had been taught to respect girls by Shanks, his older brother Ace and a few of the bar sluts that he'd met and befriended. Well true girls, anyways.
He would never lay his hands on one in anger, nor would he ever strike one in a drunken rage. He would never fall into bed with one who was unwillingly, nor would he want to do something that would make one cry just to be cruel.
It was weird but every time a girl broke down crying his first and main impulse was to go and find flowers and a few stuffed animals. He blamed Shanks for that more than Ace- though both men had found it hilariously funny how he reacted to a crying female.
At least until they were both in his place, and then it wasn't so funny anymore.
Still, he wasn't nearly as bad as everyone thought he was when it came to the opposite sex. Robin slowly dropped her hand from his forehead and was about to go ahead and leave him alone when Luffy suddenly stopped her with one hand and asked her to come into the cabin with him, there was something important that he needed to speak to her and Kay about.
She gave him a questioning look but agreed and quietly followed him as he pulled open the cabin door and slipped inside and was almost run over by Luffy when he suddenly turned and tried to walk through her with his hands covering his eyes.
Wondering what was going on Robin let herself stagger back away from the young man for a moment before whipping her head around to look at her friend.
For once since she had been carried to the ship the other day, Kay was sitting upright. Her long dark hair was damp and tousled, some of it falling in soft waves and curls down the middle of her back. And she was wearing nothing but one of Zorro's over large T-shirt's and a pair of her own navy blue and black lace panties.
Which probably explained the amount of shoulder that was showing through one side of the neckline of the shirt, plus the bared smooth skin of her long slender legs.
Blinking at the sudden humor of the situation, she was about to call out and ask Luffy what was wrong when she heard him demand, "Tell her to cover up dammit! It isn't safe for a woman to be so indecently dressed!"