Chapter 7
Lentil delicacy and coups d'état
When she met someone, Nami often studied their weaknesses while she hid her own. It was something that was born in her instinctively. Just like walking, eating or breathing. When other shook hands she studied the nails. When Nami spoke, she looked out of the corner at the marks on the skin. She observed the small gestures, the tears in clothing, everything that told her where she could put the salt to reach the wound.
When Arlong and her group invaded the Conomi archipelago, she dedicated all of herself to find the weaknesses of the fishmen.
They had a hard time being out of the water. The body, light in the sea, became heavy on land. Certain comments hurt them. Danger loomed as soon as someone mentioned the differences between fishmen and humans. And they were slaves.
The first time she noticed the iron mark on Kurobi's wrists Nami told herself that she misinterpreted something due to fatigue. One of Hachi's tentacles twisted strangely around a puncture mark, although it could easily have been from a wound he received as a child. The drawing of long, thin, healed wounds on Chew's back would also be part of a complicated childhood. The gold chains Arlong wore on his wrists were not to hide his iron-eroded skin.
All of those were marks of fights. From another time before her. Piracy and pillage always carried some kind of price. Nami also had scars from the travels.
And yet, she could never confuse one of those scars from the days she spent sailing the sea and stealing with one of the ones Arlong inflicted on her. The scars left by a life dedicated to servitude were easily recognizable and Arlong and his gang had them reflected on their bodies.
Arlong's weakness was the same as her own, slavery.
The idea took her months to process. That a slave was dedicated to enslaving people made her nauseous, because that meant that one day she could end up being like the one who hurt her so much. Nami couldn't stand the idea, but maybe it was her destiny. Therefore, she used to closely monitor all her attitudes. She only allowed greed to nest inside her.
When Luffy was about to fall into the void and threw her hand forward to catch him, she didn't think about anything, but on the way home, between the rooftops, the streets full of people and marines, Nami judged herself against the darkness of her mind and the commotion outside.
Luffy guided her through the streets in search of an easy way out of the wall, but the marines and the uncertainty of knowing what had happened in the palace encouraged collective madness. There were rumors of dead kings and melted gold, but for now they were nothing more than that, rumors.
The commotion allowed Nami to think as she let herself be carried by the tide, behind Luffy.
The first thought was that she saved him to take advantage. In the end it was what she always wanted. People never studied the saviors with a magnifying glass. But Luffy didn't distrust her, neither did Ace. The only one who had stepped in was Nami, so the theory was ruled out.
A man pushed her past and an elbow dug into one of her sore ribs. Nami increased her pace.
Maybe it had been a simple instinct. Instinct used to win battles in the midst of desperation. But when her mother died it didn't show. When Carina betrayed her she couldn't react. The instinct was not the culprit.
A woman stepped on her foot with her heel and Nami grunted in pain. Luffy turned to look at her and after thinking for a few seconds, he stretched out an arm like a rope and tied it around her waist.
"This way we can't get lost." The boy stated with a smile.
Luffy's teeth, white and promising, made her dizzy, with the answer to her question on the tip of the tongue.
Luffy, without even knowing it, found her weakness.
She, who lived behind a wall, who slept scared to death, always with one eye open, who distrusted the sweetest look, had relaxed. Luffy extended his hand to Nami and she didn't realized that, by taking it, she lowered the defenses she used to wear so proudly as a flag.
Affection and love were Nami's weak point and she should have known it as soon as she saw him rummaging through her things.
It wasn't just that she loved or began to love that boy with childish smiles and loud games. Yes, she had grown attached to him so intensely and quickly that it scared her. It had been so long since she tied her love to Cocoyashi that it was amazing to feel it there, surrounding that self-proclaimed friend who played with the sun and stretched like a piece of gum. She also loved his mother and, however, she couldn't break the immobility. But for the first time after years of confinement, pain and tears someone had reached out to her and she had seen a promise. A promise full of travels, maps, laughter and games, anger and fights, meals together and unearthed dreams. Luffy offered her hope and she, after four years of nightmares, could see the light in the darkness.
The hope that affection provoked in her, that dangerous trust, was her great weakness, Nami and Arlong knew it very well. That's why she spent the first two years locked up, at the mercy of beatings, humiliations and memories.
Luffy's hug as they ran through the streets gave her security and fear. Fear because talking about dreams and possibilities always broke her heart.
As they ran, further and further from the city, Nami caught omens of death and terror. If the whispers were real things would get complicated again on their mission. The thought terrified her, even more so now that she had seen herself weak and helpless in the arms of two strangers whom she would have to abandon soon.
Despite the uneasiness and hazy thoughts, as they approached Luffy and Ace's house again, calm took over. Calmness was a virtue and, although Nami was bad at maintaining it, she used to work on it.
Next to Luffy's treehouse, loud music and noise floated, she could barely hear in the form of a faint murmur. The fact that the wood structure near of the house served as a tavern for some group of who knows what type of people, caused some uneasiness in Nami who studied the orange light with a critical eye. She didn't realize that she had stopped, immersed in her thoughts and inquiries, until Luffy touched her bruised cheek with a finger. Like a curious child.
She jumped, agitated by surprise, and by the time she tried to face the discomfort, Luffy's eyes were a couple of inches away. The boy's deep breathing tickled her. The anger dissolved under the curve of those childish eyelashes turned into knives.
"It hurts?"
Nami opened her mouth to answer and he looked down at the side of his jaw, the side she didn't use to chew yet.
She considered denying it categorically, offended by the question, because Luffy would see the weakness she had tried to hide, but the day was giving way to night and in the darkness of the moonless nights, Nami used to lie down with her sister, in silence, before confessing what she didn't dare to speak under the heat of the sun.
"A little bit, the waves that day were too rough. The blow was very hard."
His friend squinted his head to get a better look. The muffled music in the background, with drunken voices intertwined, would have made her nervous if it weren't for the fact that she was accompanied and, in company, her fears diminished.
"When we met you were limping and a while ago, when I hugged you or when we jumped between the roofs, you made that grimace with your mouth that you made when I touched your face. You have more hits, right?
She walked away shaking her head before even formulating words.
"I have to go cause…"
"Ace said it would be better if I didn't ask you. That maybe you would want to get away. He didn't like me asking questions either."
The confession stopped her in her tracks. Paralyzed by a thought that had already become a storm.
"Ace got hit?"
Luffy's dark, rounded eyes, which always seemed to navigate the world aimlessly, met Nami's again and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
"Someone hit you?"
The question aroused agony and nerves. Her heart raced and anguish reduced her to a confused thought overlapping fears, desires to escape, and vague excuses.
Before she could scream, run away, or touch the two ribs that had given her away, the music grew louder as the tavern door opened and closed again. Nerves activated, Nami turned her head on impulse towards whoever had escaped the noise of the voices.
The tension turned to relief as soon as she recognized Ace's strange hat and the smile that had begun to form on his face when he saw them there.
"I heard about the terrorist attack, I was thinking of going out to look for you if you didn't return soon. Thanks for protecting my stupid brother. If I had left him alone, I'm sure he would have been arrested by now for the commotion..." The teenager stopped when he saw the tension in the atmosphere, so unbecoming of Luffy. "Something happened?"
Automatically, Nami generated a wide smile, immersed in lying and deception again. In survival mode.
"No, nothing, I was just leaving, it's time for dinner and I have to heat up the lentils."
He raised his eyebrows and looked at his brother, confused, but Luffy had already returned to his usual character, carefree and smiling.
"I told Nami to stay for dinner. Meat and lentils are tastier.
She forced herself to laugh.
"If you want me to stay you will have to pay extra, Luffy, my time is worth money."
Nami hid the sadness she felt at that farewell disguised as a lie while she placed the backpack. As soon as she left he wouldn't come back.
She couldn't go back.
Nami had to get away. Now or never.
Luffy was dangerous. The information could harm her.
The next day she would make a detour to enter the city one last time and draw what she could, then, she would leave. It didn't matter that Nami couldn't finish the map. She would make another island, an entire archipelago if it left Arlong alone. She would find books about the Isle of Dawn and lead the fishman crew away from there. From a boring and charmless island. Of the danger that Chew or Hachi could pose if they ranted their tongues over drinks when they reviewed the drawn streets of the mill town.
The ideas were beginning to take shape when Ace wanted to intervene, but Luffy beat him to it.
"How much?"
The train of thought was suddenly cut off by the question.
"'How much' what?" she murmured.
"How much money do you want to stay for dinner? We don't have much so, if you want, I'll give you my bed or Ace's in exchange."
Nami, still blank, stumbled as she spoke.
"What?"
"Well, I'm sure you like it more than sleeping on the branch. That should be enough for the pay and my brother's food is delicious with lentils, right, Ace?
The teenager, confused by the question, the atmosphere and the way the conversation was developing, nodded between questions.
"Yeah?"
She lowered her head, doubtful.
"What do you want?"
He smiled.
"That you stay for dinner and sleep. You could live with us."
The silence came to life, full of music, diluted tension and stupid suggestions.
"Luffy, you know perfectly well that at some point I'm going to leave. You knew it from the beginning. I already have a place to which I must return."
The boy seemed to shrink in on himself, folded like hot rubber.
"Stay" he grumbled.
"I can't, do you listen to me when I speak?"
"I want you to stay."
"I'm not staying..."
Ace took a couple of steps forward to put an arm over each of their shoulders. Again, as if it were his duty to mediate all the discussions they had.
"Well, for now I think it's time for dinner. Aren't you hungry?"
Luffy gasped.
"Ace, don't pinch me, it hurts!" despite the request, the boy complained louder when his brother poked him again.
"Meat and lentils," Ace commented with a huge smile and a wink in his eyes that gave Nami the feeling he had little rehearsed. "And a little rice that Dadan gave me. We're going to lick our fingers."
She had the intention of denying it, getting off the plan and running away, because the plan seemed one step away from the precipice, but she was a good liar, she could turn the tables so that the next time Luffy wondered about his injuries, everything would be clear, a misunderstanding. And the truth is that Nami was hungry, tired and she wanted to eat meat and rice instead of lentils reheated on the stove for the fourth night in a row.
The idea of moving away weighed more and more and she became lighter every day. The time had come to leave. Her heart trembled under the thought.
Two days. She would give herself two days for prepare things, enjoy her time with two people who, despite the love, were still strangers, and Nami would leave. She would come up with some excuse for Arlong when the time came, because she couldn't take it anymore. Either she fled now or she would end up dead of pain when the ship sailed and the betrayal and friends were left on land.
Notes:
This chapter cost me a kidney, between the fact that this week has been a horror of papers, demands and writings at work (I am a lawyer) and that I wrote an entire chapter that in the end did not convince me (I have only saved the first paragraphs from it), I was giving arrhythmia with the fic.
Oh, and the translation. I don't like cut the expressions of my language because they don't adapt well to English, I cry a sea of tears (another expression of the spanish language) when I have to cut ready-made phrases.
In the discarded chapter I finally introduced Dadan, but Nami needs time to start focusing. With all the trouble they had, the poor girl has to be lost and Nami need to accept that she is starting to develop affection for these two strangers, just imagine how hard it is for her, cause at some point she is going to have to leave them.
So little by little. Dadan will have time to comment on everything she thinks about this crazy friendship hahahaha.