The next morning, Nami realized that she'd essentially been worried for nothing. Aside from the fact Luffy was apparently a bed-hog and she'd woken up with his noodle limbs all over her (she'd made a big show of shoving him off, but truth be told… she… didn't mind all too much. She even found it strangely… comforting. Hm. Weird.), it had been a pretty uneventful night and morning after.
Thankfully (especially so for Luffy; he would have been absolutely beside himself with anguish had Sanji been unable to cook), the kitchen (though pretty banged up) was still mostly usable, so they were able to join the rest of the Mugiwaras there for breakfast as usual.
It was tamogayaki day, which Nami was perfectly happy with. Sanji made the best tamogayaki she'd ever had in her life; it was always so perfectly sweet, pillowy and rich. As she took her first bite, she got a whiff of something sweet and vinegar-y nearby and glanced at Robin, noticing he'd made her ginger, daikon and kabu amazuzuke to go with it, which was a favorite of hers. This was quite common; Sanji would often bring Nami and Robin extra sides he knew they both liked, so Nami began to look around for the tangerine and kiwi sandwich she was sure she'd get, but oddly didn't see it. No biggie, she thought. Surely it would arrive any minute, now.
In the meantime, though, she needed the salt. She'd sat next to Luffy (on her right) in the booth. The salt was to his right, so she reached across him to grab it, thinking nothing of it, as Nami had learned long ago not to bother asking Luffy to pass her anything at the kitchen table. He cared not for table manners and would simply say, "Nah, do it yourself! It's right there," whenever she asked. As she reached, she realized that she may have miscalculated how far the salt actually was; she had to lean in pretty aggressively. So aggressively, in fact, that she could feel Luffy breathing at her right ear. It immediately sent her back to the night before, and she was reminded (whether she wanted to be or not…) of how surprised she'd been about how… pleasant she'd found the feeling.
Clang.
Whatever world she'd just been in immediately shattered as she dropped the salt shaker and it felt like the loudest sound she'd ever heard in her entire life. She was about to apologize when she saw him open her fingers and place the salt shaker in her palm before closing them again, giving her hand a double pat for good measure.
"Tha—" just as she turned to thank him, he turned to her at the same time, and they were nearly nose to nose. She made an indiscernible noise of bewilderment as she immediately turned away and scrambled to her regular seating position.
She went back to her food, but could now feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of her head. Great, she thought, now what is it? He usually only stared like that when he was having some kind of epiphany related to whatever or whoever he was staring at, as if the little hamster wheel powering his brain would stop working unless he maintained freakishly blatant eye contact.
"I like sleeping with you, Nami."
For a few eerie moments, you could hear a goddamn pin drop.
And then, as if the universe decided to press 'Play,' the crew came to life:
Usopp's drink came gushing out of his nose with impressive force. Chopper turned white as a sheet. Franky could not stop howling with laughter. Brook was frantically running horizontally from one side of the kitchen to the other, arms flailing wildly in panic as he muttered all kinds of things in disbelief. Zoro raised an eyebrow in Luffy and Nami's direction before returning to shoveling tamogayaki down his gullet.
The only ones not taking part in this display of varying degrees of dramatics were Robin and…
Sanij.
…
Sanji?
Nami currently had a lot of emotions swelling up that needed dealing with, but the absence of any reaction from Sanji was significant enough to distract her, if only for a few moments. She glanced at him, wondering what on Earth he could be doing that would cause this, and he was just… seated next to Robin, engrossed in conversation with her. That was it. With everything currently going on, she had no time to dwell on it, but she absolutely put a huge pin in it so she could get back to it later. This wasn't just something odd; it was something downright improbable.
Nevertheless, a few moments was all she had to spare before she completely erupted at Luffy.
With violence.
"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR GODDAMN MIND?"
Luffy hissed in pain. "Itai… what's your deal, huh?!"
Ignoring him for the moment, Nami turned her ire to her crewmates. "Can everyone stop freaking out, please? He just gave me a place to sleep so I wouldn't have to sleep outside. Not a big deal so just... relax, already. Shit."
This seemed to satisfy everyone (except Zoro, who hadn't cared enough in the first place to be swayed one way or the other), and they returned to their regularly scheduled breakfast programming.
Nami wasn't finished with Luffy, though.
"You. Outside. Now."
"Wh–"
She grabbed him by the ear and dragged him, wailing, out of the kitchen.
Still fuming, she pushed him up against the wall outside the kitchen. "You can't say shit like that in front of everyone, you MORON."
"Why not?"
"Because of the phrasing."
His face was completely deadpan as he rapidly blinked. He had no idea what she was talking about.
"That phrase, it… it doesn't mean what you think it means, Luffy."
"You slept in my bed, same time as me. That's what it means."
"Sometimes, yes, but a lot of the time it means… something else."
"Something else like what?"
"Like… it means… it's…" she paused. If anyone else had asked her something like this, she wouldn't even entertain the concept of answering them in any serious manner (she could tell when she was being fucked with, after all). But this was Luffy. And he was sincere, naive and breathtakingly stupid to a fault.
She finally let out a very weak, soft mumble. "Se… x."
"Speak up, can't hear you."
"Sex!" she hissed.
"Oh." He knew… of sex, as a concept. He had a… general idea. He knew it was how babies got made. He'd taken a peek at some of Sanji's… adult materials before. Had he been entirely sure what he was looking at? No, of course not. But It was a very, very general idea, all the same.
"But, we didn't." Not that he would know for sure (for reasons stated previously), but if he had to wager it, he was pretty sure they hadn't had sex.
"Yes, exactly, so don't say shit that makes people think we have!"
He may not have been 100% (or even 50%...) sure on what sex actually entailed, but that didn't stop him from wondering why Nami was so angry about the notion that people might think they'd had it, even mistakenly.
"C'mon," he laughed, blissfully ignorant in the face of her deep embarrassment. "I'm sure it's not as big a deal as you're makin' it out to be." This was genuinely a truthful statement. He couldn't fathom what, specially, could have Nami so bothered about all of this.
Nami pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as she let out a deep breath. "Do you hate me or something? Is that why you're tormenting me?"
"What?" He looked truly confused and even, for the tiniest fraction of a split second, slightly… hurt, before grinning again. "Don't be stupid. 'Course I don't hate you. I really like you." He leaned in and tousled her hair.
Nami turned pink, crossing her arms as she seethed, staring at the floor, but said nothing.
Luffy grabbed her face with both hands, squishing it as he brought her face up to his, whipping it left to right so he could inspect it. "Are you mad at me?"
She huffed as she shooed his hands away and pulled out of his grasp. "No." She was starting to feel a little bad about how severely she'd reacted to all this, so she softened her tone. "Just… before you say shit like that in front of everyone, maybe run it by me first next time, okay?"
"I'll try, I guess. But I kinda still don't know what you're even talking about, so don't be mad if I forget later."
She sighed in defeat. Well, this was as good of an agreement she could get from Luffy. "What brought that on anyway, why'd you bring it up?"
"Hm? Oh… lemme think," he pondered. "Oh! Your hair."
"What?"
"Your hair reminded me, when you were next to me, grabbing the salt. The smell. Tangerines. It's why I liked sleeping with y—"
She shot him a death glare.
"Uh… why I liked… sleeping in the same bed as you, at the same time? Normally all I can smell is sake 'cause I sleep above Zoro."
Despite how angry and mortified she'd just been, she couldn't help laughing. "Well, that's not surprising."
"Oh! Also, you're soft like Chopper, but not as hairy. Which is good, 'cause when I mess with him, his fur gets in my mouth. It's kinda shit, y'know?"
She swallowed. She hadn't really been expecting… a list?
"And… also, you feel warm, like a blanket, but… kinda better."
That's three.
"And when you sleep, you don't snore real loud like Zoro, either. You sound… nice."
And four.
"Your hair made me think of all that, I guess."
Her eyes grew wide and her previous closed-off stance had now completely relaxed as she looked up at him. She had no idea what to say. There was something very… endearing about all of that, and she was completely blindsided by it; 'Luffy' and 'endearing' were two words she rarely associated with one another.
"Oi." Luffy poked her cheek with a single finger. "Did I say something wrong again?" He poked her a few more times, as if it were an important element of the question he was asking.
"Hm? N-no." Nami shook her limbs in an attempt to snap herself out of… whatever she was in. After hurriedly mumbling that she had to go prepare the ship to reach port, she ran off, as Luffy cheerily waved.
"Ja ne~"
.
.
"No splitting up this time, got it?" The crew was just about to leave the docks and head into town.
"The only one who is allowed to go do their own thing is Franky. He's got a lot of work to do. I don't want to have to run up and down this whole island looking for everyone when it's time to go. We just need to get The Sunny back in shape so I can sleep in my own goddamn bed again, then we can be on our way."
Nami knew this little speech would most likely be futile, but she had to at least try. "I'm not saying we have to be attached at the hip or anything, just… don't go too far. Looking at you, Zoro."
"Tch. We done here? I need a drink."
Nami sighed and made big, sarcastic, arm movements with excessive flair. "Yes, fine, go: I release you."
And they were off, at wildly varying degrees of speed and excitement.
"Zoro, wait up!" Nami called out. Zoro hadn't made it very far. As usual, his pace was very leisurely. He seemed to be in a permanent state of preserving as much of his energy as possible in the event of a fight.
He stopped, but didn't turn back to face her.
"I uh… could use a drink, myself, actually. Mind if I–"
"Suit yourself."
"Thanks. So, do you… actually know where this place is, or…" He didn't, obviously. But she had to ask. Out of politeness, or something.
"Of course I do. I can smell it."
"Then explain why the last sign we just passed pointed to a tavern going east, while you're over here going west, marimo."
"Sign's wrong, curly-brow." He still refused to turn around.
"Are we doing drinks? We'll come, too." Robin approached just behind Sanji, intertwining her arm with Nami's.
Usopp was a bit farther ahead, attempting to catch up to Luffy. Chopper and Brook weren't far behind him. "What's goin' on over there? Whatever it is, we want in!"
"We. Want. In! We. Want. In!" Chopper and Brook chanted in unison, hitting dramatic poses at every syllable as they joined the others.
"OI!" Luffy yelled from the top of the cobblestone street's hill, the furthest away from them all. "YOU GUYS MAKING SECRET PLANS WITHOUT ME? WHAT THE SHIT, NAMI?"
"HOW EXACTLY IS THIS MY FAULT?!" Nami yelled back. "ALL I DI–"
"DON'T MOVE. I'M COMIN' DOWN."
"The more the fucking merrier, I guess." Zoro sounded annoyed, sure, but Robin and Nami both saw the smirk that flashed across his face as he shook his head.
It took quite a bit of cajoling, but Zoro was finally convinced to follow the signage to the tavern. To absolutely no one's surprise (except Zoro's), the signs were, in fact, correct.
.
.
Robin was surprised by how busy the place was. It was so crowded that the group hadn't been able to find a table where they all could fit, so they'd split up into smaller groups, switching places with one another every now and then as they saw fit.
In their current configuration, Zoro, Nami, Robin and Sanji had managed to snag some seats at a counter-height table, Luffy and Usopp were posted up at the bar, and Brook had commandeered what seemed to be the tavern's open mic night stage for his very own performance, with a starry-eyed Chopper hyping him up just in front of the stage.
Robin had taken it upon herself to grab a round of drinks for the table (she did have the extra hands, after all), and had just returned with them.
"Will Nami-san be returning or should I donate this to Zoro?" she slid her drink to the empty seat where Nami once was.
"She went to wash up, so no charity for mosshead," Sanji grinned at her from behind his glass of mead just before taking a drink.
She turned her attention to Zoro, smiling sympathetically with his drink in hand. "Better luck next time, Zo–"
Before she could hand it over, someone in the crowd shoved right into her, hard, whilst walking past, and she careened right into Zoro, pressed completely flat up against him. He was holding her up with one hand at her lower back, while the other was helping keep his drink steady in her left hand. They both immediately scrambled to pull away from one another before getting into a flustered back-and-forth.
"I'm so–"
"Sorry–"
"No, please, I–"
"Are you–"
"Yes, I'm fine–"
"Fucking prick…"
"Your drink–"
"It's all here."
There was a beat of silence as they both opened and closed their mouths a couple times in false-starts, before Zoro finally landed on something.
"I'll be back after I find that guy and beat the shit out of him." As usual, he didn't wait around for any kind of acknowledgement of what he'd said.
Sanji had frozen, glass mid-air just before taking another sip, brow suspiciously furrowed as his visible eye darted back and forth from Robin to Zoro about a dozen times in increasingly rapid succession.
"The hell was that about?"
"Hm?" Robin took her seat next to him and immediately started drinking her mead with great focus.
Silent, his eye grew wider as he dramatically motioned his free hand back and forth several times between Robin and the direction Zoro went, in an incredulous fashion that only could have said: Fucking that.
"Was there something odd about that? I didn't really notice," she innocently shrugged.
He leaned into her, the smallest hint of warning in his tone, "Robin-chan…"
Her shoulders heaved as she let out a large sigh. "Alright, fine." She started casually looking out into the crowd as if searching it for someone she'd been waiting for. "It's nothing serious. Probably has something to do with the fact that Zoro-san essentially thinks I'm in love with him–"
Sanji picked a very bad time to take another drink of his mead, as it immediately went down the wrong pipe and he nearly coughed it up all over the table.
"He fucking what?!" he hoarsely spit out once he finally had enough air in his lungs.
As quickly and as thoroughly as she could, she explained everything: the constant chats, the misunderstandings, all culminating in their conversation in the aquarium.
Sanji sat still and quiet for quite some time (it seemed like eons, to Robin), his expression very focused and intense. Finally, he abruptly stood and made motions to leave.
"Where exactly are you going?"
"To torture mosshead with this information, where else?" He said this with the exact same inflection he would have used had she asked if he knew what color the ocean was.
"Absolutely not." She immediately pulled him back down into his seat. "You can't. I promised him I wouldn't tell a soul; he'll be incredibly upset if he finds out I've told you."
"... That supposed to be a deterrent, or…?"
"Sanji." Her tone was much sharper than the one Sanji had used a few minutes ago to get her talking.
"Okay! Okay. My lips are sealed." He mimed zipping his lips, locking them and flicking away the key as he smirked.
Before Robin could thank him for his noble sacrifice, someone approached the table.
"As I live and breathe… Sanji? Is that you?"
Sanji looked confused for a moment before recognition bloomed over his face and he stood. "Leah Harper!"
"In the flesh!" She leapt into his arms for a hug as soon as he got close enough. She was very petite, so it was quite the jump.
Sanji eagerly returned the hug. "Your hair is new; almost didn't recognize you."
"Like it? I just got so tired of messing with it when it was long."
"You look lovely either way, but y'know… the cut really suits you." Sanji was right; her dark teal hair was in a very flattering pixie cut. It framed her golden yellow eyes quite nicely, and the teal paired well with her deep yellow-olive skin. To Robin's eyes, a pixie cut seemed a very appropriate choice for her; she was, overall, very… spritely, and young. Much closer to Sanji's age than Robin was, she'd wager.
The young woman giggled and blushed at the compliment, running her hand up his arm as they continued to chat and catch up.
Must be quite the conversation, Robin thought, for them to forget she was there.
"Another one of his 'conquests,' I'm guessing." Nami leaned into Robin's ear as she rolled her eyes and sat down beside her, back from the washroom.
It made Robin jump a bit; she'd been so focused on the scene playing out in front of her that she hadn't even noticed Nami's approach.
"So it would seem."
.
.
A/N - Hi, hello! Sorry again this took so long. Thanks for sticking with it! I'm sure this is very frustrating as a reader to have all these long waits D: I'm gonna try to get my act together, I swear! (Reading your comments/reviews did help give me some motivation to continue, so thanks everyone for those!). Some more LuNa happenings, hope it turned out okay~ I know not everyone likes that pairing, either, but I am trying my best to have it be super in-character (which means that it may take quite some time for any romance to happen, anyway!).
