Chapter 3
Watered down promises
Nami didn't know how to keep promises, she only knew how to keep deals. For her, deals were sacred, but promises could be broken. She was a true believer of "a tooth for a tooth".
She imagined that Luffy would pick her up after dinner and leave as soon as he didn't see her there. The knowledge that promises were empty was also part of becoming adults. Nami had experience in helping children mature. She had already convinced several of them to end useless promises of revenge and dreams of the future around Arlong Park. The promises were overrated.
And yet, that night, when she finished the day's work, her mind circled around the idea of a pair of dark eyes full of hope. Luffy's laughter tormented her sleep in the early hours of the morning and the next day she woke up with her back more sore than usual. Although the pain did not stop her from going out to map again. Around noon, with the sun on her back, the fatigue of three bad nights and a poorly healed beating, she found an enormous wall that forced her to sit on the ground and resist the urge to cry. Until then Nami calculated that in a week she would have finished the job and now she found a damn city to map.
She hated complicated islands, Arlong insisted on going over the hand-drawn streets, so Nami was clear that, as soon as she got the map, he would send a couple of fishmen to the island to check the drawing.
Resentful of herself for believed that she would only lose a couple of days with that torture, she returned to her small shelter to rest for a while and prepare the necessary material with which to map the streets of the city.
Her belly began with the vibration of the drums when the afternoon sun slipped through the branches of the trees and touched the numerous sketches that danced in the wind, scattered among the green leaves and acorns. So Nami reluctantly picked everything up and slid down the trunk to the ground. First she needed to know how to enter the wall and once there she could rack her brain about the mapping method she would use with the streets.
Although the direction was clear to her, even with her singing belly and the memory of black eyes half-closed under smiles, Nami changed course, heading towards the town of the mills. Along the way it occurred to her that perhaps it would be a good idea to ask there about the entrance gate to the wall, maybe someone would be able to tell her something more about the city or whatever was hidden behind it.
When she came out of the grove and saw the blades of the windmills tearing the horizon, her stomach bubbled and her heart raced, the nerves would kill her and the worst of all was that it was impossible for Nami to hide the reason in any way. Her cheekbone pulled as she forced herself to take a deep breath and continue.
Luffy could be there, in the village. If she crossed paths with him, Nami knew she would feel something and what she feared most was recognizing regret among the mix of emotions. Because she couldn't regret it, she had chosen her path, Nami couldn't look back and the boy's black eyes made her doubt. Someday the doubt of "maybe" would kill her and she hoped it wouldn't be that day.
In the meadow, next to the headland where Nami promised to wait, the knot of nerves turned into a tangle when she saw the silhouette of a straw hat bordered by sunlight. Luffy was sitting in the same place she had fled from the day before. On his lap was a small cloth bag lined with grease stains, untouched.
The teenager, as soon as he noticed the sound of her footsteps, raised his head and circled his neck in her direction. A smile full of teeth and enthusiasm greeted her, despite the betrayal, the attempt to escape, despite knowing that she had not behaved well and that the promise was unfulfilled.
Luffy smiled and Nami's black eye squealed in pain as tears blurred her vision.
"What are you doing here?!"
The scream came strangled from his mouth and Luffy responded with a hungry roar and a laugh filled with amusement.
"You said we would meet here and I thought you would wait for me, but I had to wait for you. Now my belly is as talkative as yours, Nami! We share hunger."
A terrible desire to scream invaded the girl who, after days of frustration, pain and fatigue, finally felt that she had reached the end of her patience. The explosion came violently. Nami launched herself at the boy with overwhelming force that made him fall against the grass, with the stupid food crushed between them.
"You are idiot! I didn't want you to wait for me. I left because I didn't want to see you again, Luffy. We are not friends and we will never be because I have never wanted to be your friend."
The words were accompanied by blows and shakes that the boy received without resisting, as if he were the one who deserved the beating instead of her.
From Nami, who was a traitor, a viper. Nami, who lived off the suffering of others and stealing. Nami, who preferred to feel bone pain than cry with rage in front of Arlong. Nami, who didn't deserve friends, who was horrible, a witch. Nami, who killed and hurt anyone who touched her.
The ridiculous shaking and hitting with which she tried to get her anger out turned into sobs as she continued. Her belly was burning with hunger, her head was buzzing with fatigue, and her heart was hurting again.
"We are not friends! I lied to you. I'm a bad person. I don't want friends!"
The boy grunted under the continuous barrage of limp punches and desperate grabs.
"You know? My grandfather always says that love hurts and your hits hurt a lot" Luffy said between laughs, with his hand on her shoulder. His black eyes remained fixed on her and Nami turned away, embarrassed, her cheeks wet and her nose stuffy. "Although you are a bit of a liar, your laugh is not capable of telling lies, you like to play with me, that's why I wanted to share my food with you."
Tears melted into her throat and as she spoke, Nami felt like she was crying words.
"I do not like you. I can't love you. Because I don't deserve to have friends."
Luffy moved the crushed food out of his lap and placed it between them as if it were a peace offering instead of a rag full of stains and breadcrumbs.
"You're just like me. You can barely see out of one eye and you haven't complained once, but now you're crying because you know that being alone is more painful than being hurt. So I know you're lying to me, we're actually friends. Also, you are weird, but even the weirdest person in the world deserves to have friends."
The boy's words blurred her eyes, kneeling next to him, on the floor.
"Doesn't your belly ring after crying? I am starving."
Luffy waved the food in front of her again, with sucked cheeks and pleading look. Nami's belly growled and he didn't wait to uncover a hard and tempered cheese and ham sandwich after a day outdoors.
A sob made her look down, her mouth full of saliva and her legs limp.
Nami was so hungry that her throat burned and her sides ached. She had forced herself not to think about food so many times that seeing it during the day caused her physical pain. Hunger joined the wounds, the fatigue and the fear that the idea of letting herself be carried away by the word "friend" gave her. Nami had to lie down on the ground, with the sweet heat of the sun on her temples, under the watchful eye of Luffy , her mouth already full of crumbs.
"I would like to be like you one day" Nami whispered.
"How?" Luffy 's voice faded between the bites.
"Free."
Luffy laughed loudly as he brought her a piece of sandwich that Nami accepted, under the sweet and calm gaze of the clouds.
"One of my dreams is to be the freest person in the world."
She took a bite of the bread and reveled in the taste as she raised her eyebrows to look at him.
"And aren't you afraid that as you are the freest person in the world, others will live under your feet?"
Luffy scratched the back of his neck silently and, before speaking, he broke off another piece of sandwich and handed it to her.
"Then once I'm on top, I'll free everyone to do whatever they want." She nodded pleased. "What do you want to do, Nami?"
"I want to be a navigator and map the entire world."
Luffy smiled and squared his shoulders solemnly as he watched the flashes of light in the reddish hair. He swallowed a piece of bread before open his mouth.
"Then you will be perfect in my crew."
Nami squinted her head and narrowed her eyes questioningly, unable to speak with her mouth full.
"The crew of the King of the Pirates, of course, because I, Monkey D. Luffy, am going to be the freest man in the world, the King of the Pirates."
She swallowed hard and the bread went the other way. The cough doubled her in half and burned her lungs. If this was Luffy's revenge for making him wait without food or water for a day, it was well crafted. Nami would never have suspected that he would try to kill her while she was devouring a cheese sandwich.