The sky had gone from a golden blue to a bright peach, a sleepy purple before finally going pitch black, Luffy checked his phone for the time and glanced out of the door every now and again to look at the living room. The entire apartment was dark and empty, except for the slivers of light visible under the other room's door, Buggy and his crew still playing after several hours. It was currently 5:57 and there was still no one out in the kitchen making dinner and the straw-hat boy's enormous hunger was immense.
He had grown bored; he had finished reading his manga and had played on his phone until he was no longer interested. He had thankfully got the room's WIFI password, so he had access to the net but now he craved to do something else or eat, one of the two. To his side, Zoro snored loudly, his arms still cradling the heavy metal box, his quilt being kicked off a couple meters away.
There was a click and a rattle from the hall, Luffy poked his head out again to see another boy with white hair, wearing a white shirt and baggy grey pants come out of the other room and head to the living room. There was some noise from the kitchen before the sound of the microwave whirring could be heard. A couple minutes later, the whirring stopped, there was the slam of the microwave door, the tinkle of cutlery before the boy finally called out.
"Dinner!"
Luffy darted out of the room immediately as Zoro blinked awake, yawning loudly. Buggy and two other boys also exited their room, all heading to sit down at the dining table for a good, earned meal. Luffy landed into his seat, snatched up a pair of chopsticks and looked down at the centre of the table to see what they had to eat… and was thoroughly disappointed. Their meal consisted of 2 packets of microwavable white rice, some cold egg rolls, 2 pots of cup ramen and some microwavable meals, all slightly overcooked. Still, a meal was a meal.
Buggy sat down, followed by the boy Luffy had seen before which now revealed his face to be messy and unshaven and he had a headband with small, white bear ears. The last boy had wild and messy hair that extended down to his shoulders, so bushy that it looked like a beard or a Lion's mane, he was wearing a peach pants and a beige shirt with a logo of a red circus big top on it the caption reading, Buggy the Clown Gaming. In fact, all of Buggy's crew had the logo somewhere on their clothing.
Zoro finally slumped out of the room, his eyes blurry and weight still present under his eyes. As the last one sat down, the group thanked the food before they stared sharing around the portions hastily, Zoro seeming slightly disgusted by the messy affair and Luffy disappointed about the small portion sizes. As they ate, Buggy spoke.
"Okay, we are currently on our half hour break before going at it again boys, I think now is time to welcome the new members of our crew." He gestured to the newcomers; Zoro distracted by talking to the person offering food.
"No thanks," he said, "I'll eat something else."
"Now, now, now," Buggy chuckled wagging his finger and walking over to one of the fridges, "Don't be like that friend." He opened it up and pulled out several bottles of beer with a sly wink before bringing them back to the table, "Drink up!" he commanded.
"Now that's more like it," Zoro replied cheerfully as he grabbed a bottle and downed its contents in seconds. "How'd you get this stuff? You're not of age"
"We have our ways," the boy with the long and shaved hair sneered.
"Right, crew, this is Luffy and Zoro, you two this is my number two, Cabbaji-" he presented the half-shaved teen, "Mohji," he gestured to the white-haired boy who looked over the two with judging eyes, "and Richie," he slapped the large boy with the lion-like hair on the shoulder as he ate.
"Right then Zoro and Straw-hat, how the house works is this: you do whatever, whenever. Mealtimes are at 7:00am for breakfast, 12:00 for lunch and 6:00 for dinner, remember to add what we need or what you want to the shopping list… unless it's snacks for yourself, then you buy it on your own."
Luffy nodded as he scarfed down his food in one bite while Zoro was downing another bottle. By now all of the food had disappeared so everyone barring the Straw-hat boy had started to drink some ice-cold beer.
"So, what do you do?" Luffy asked, pointing to the groups branded clothing, they all smirked.
"We run the Buggy the Clown gaming channel on YouTube. It's really popular and we are currently live steaming a Marineford Battle Royale session, we are on a short break before going back at it," Cabbaji answered confidently.
"Yeah," added Mohji, "we make a ton of money which allows us to order a lot of fancy food." Luffy's eyes sparkled wildly at the statement, the simple mention of 'fancy food' drawing out of his hole of boredom.
"What do you eat?" he asked excitedly.
"Watch it Straw-hat," laughed Buggy loudly, "to get good food, you have to earn it by either playing on my channel or by getting a job. You seem like a person the viewers would like, so whadaya say? D'you wanna join my channel?" he asked, an arm extended.
"No," Luffy grinned.
"Worth a shot," the clown-like teen grinned maliciously. "Whatever, as long as you're under my roof, just don't piss me off, 'you got that?"
"Sure," the unpredictable teen answered happily.
There was a short silence until just before the gaming crew were beginning to leave…
"Hey Booger," Luffy asked, "is your nose real?"
...
Luffy groaned boredly as he sat down at a café just a block away from their apartment, Zoro sat across from him, drinking a mug of black coffee and lifting a weight. The last couple of days hadn't been that great, starting with the straw-hat boy's comment on Buggy's nose. Turns out it was real, and he was incredibly sensitive about it, snapping immediately and the resulting argument (or rather Buggy yelling at Luffy) devolved into an all-out brawl. Since then, the apartment had been rather tense so the two had been finding excuses to leave as much as possible. Thankfully the clown's pettiness hadn't devolved into trashing their room or stealing items… yet.
They had gotten acquainted with some of the other residents of the building, particularly the landlord, Boodle. He was an elderly man of medium height and an energetic spirit, he had grey-white hair that was bunched on the top of his head and down the back of his neck. He typically wore sandals, black shorts, a brown checkered shirt and small spectacles over his eyes. The man was firm but also had a good heart, caring deeply about the other tenants in the building, which was why he did not like Buggy in the slightest. The crew were menaces to the other people, staying up late and making loud noises, harassing or pranking them and many other activities. By night, they were an obnoxiously noisy gaming crew and by day they were
The sound of excited panting could be heard from under the table they were sitting at so Luffy glanced down to check. He saw a cute, beige dog, about the size of the poodle with a squarish jaw panting happily and begging for food. Luffy immediately picked up his plate and moved it far out of the dog's range, glaring at it profusely, the dog growled and stared back at him.
Zoro rolled his eyes with a slight chuckle, the dog's name was Chouchou, by all intents and purposes; he was the mascot of the building. He was once owned by a man who lived there and owned a nearby petfood store, but he had tragically passed away. Since then, Mr Boodle had taken care of him the most but never explicitly adopted him, merely letting him sleep in his room and giving him food.
The two teens had run into the dog by chance under rather awkward circumstances, Luffy had accidently dropped the room key, only for Chouchou to swoop in, pick it up and…
He swallowed it.
This resulted in a brazen act of animal cruelty on Luffy's behalf as he and the dog got into a fight, the enraged teen attempting to strangle the key out of the thieving hound's belly. Boodle stepped in to break up the fight let them back into their room though Buggy's crew were playing games loudly, so they sat on the public balcony and drank some tea. Boodle revealed to them the dog's story and explained that from dawn till dusk, Chouchou would patrol around the small block where his owners petfood store still stood, ensuring no one would take away his 'treasure'.
A few days later, Boodle delivered back their key, freshly expelled and thoroughly cleaned, though the two were still apprehensive of using it. Now, when they bumped into each other on occasion, the dog and the straw-hat boy either acted like childhood friends or longtime rivals, both provided lots of entertainment for Zoro to see a person either talk or argue with a dog.
The two stared at each other for a long while, snarling and growling to scare the other off, garnering quite a lot of looks from the general public. Eventually, Luffy's eyes relaxed as he picked up the piece of cake on his plate, leant down closer to the begging dog… and popped the whole thing in his mouth. Enraged, Chouchou jumped at his face and began to brutally bite and scratch him.
"Arrgh! Get off me you, stupid dog!" the straw-hat teen yelled panicked as he began to grab at and punch the small animal. Luffy was not above committing acts of violence on animals, but Chouchou was his friend, and he didn't hit his friends as hard as he hit his enemies. All the same, the people around him began to call the police and animal abuse hotlines, forcing Zoro to quickly deescalate the incident and hush them away.
"Sorry 'bout this bye!" he yelled hurriedly as he pushed his partner in crime away and out of the public eye, paying for their meals as he did so. When they were gone and he had ushered the disgruntled dog away, he proceeded to pummel him before they returned to the apartment building to get Luffy some first aid.
"I still won the fight," Luffy declared weakly, his scratches and bite marks seeming minor in comparison to the bruising and swelling over his face.
"Shut up, moron," the angry swordsman snarled as they could see the apartment grow out from behind the other buildings.
As the arrived, Luffy noticed something, there was a girl, about his age standing across from the street from their abode. She was of medium height and had a very slim figure with slight hourglass shape. She was quite cute and had light, flowing orange hair that cut off at the base of her neck. She was wearing high-heeled sandals, a yellow skirt with two gold rings on the side and a white V-neck t-shirt with a blue collar.
Whilst an outsider may have taken Luffy's immediate focus on the girl a classic high school 'love at first sight' situation, this was not the case. He was in fact staring because he had seen this girl twice before standing around the building. This was not him being paranoid either as she was in the same position as the other times, he had seen her, looking towards the higher floors of the building, taking photos and writing notes. The straw-hat boy, however decided to just not care about all of that and just move on, as he and his number two entered the building, not noticing the girl eyeing them.
"Well, my friends," Buggy announced raising a bottle of beer in the air triumphantly, "We finally did it! It was a close match and some thought that we weren't levelled high enough to succeed, but we, Buggy the Clown Gaming pulled ahead in the tournament and successfully beat the New Giant Warriors in that final match-up!"
The other three all cheered in unison at this apparent 'great accomplishment', meanwhile, Luffy and Zoro were both just eating their meals uncaring. Luffy was thankful that they had won, it meant that they splashed out some more money to buy a fancier dinner. All the same, he did not like Buggy in the least and was hesitant to join in his victory party.
"With this victory," Buggy continued enthusiastically, "we have a chance at entering the War of the Best Championship, such an achievement cannot go uncelebrated so to you my men I say; cheers!"
"Cheers!" they all repeated happily as they clicked together their illegally acquired alcohol and began to down it.
"Hey," Zoro asked pessimistically, "Is there any chance that we'll get some sleep tonight?" his sleep schedule wasn't affected by their overly loud gaming sessions as he could just nod off wherever, whenever, it was just them continuing to do so past 10:30 at night annoyed him.
He was thoroughly ignored.
The green-haired teen was in a bad mood for the rest of the evening as the partying and festivities continued on for a while, preventing him from quietly reading a book (he wouldn't read it anyway, whenever he tried reading a book for leisure, he would just fall asleep before finishing the first paragraph). As the night drew longer and the clock struck 9:00, the now sober crew prepared to pull an all-nighter of gaming to propel them up the ranks. They had enough energy drinks and instant coffee satchels to keep, and entire country awake, meaning another long, loud night, not that Zoro would notice.
Luffy on the other hand, liked the fact that Buggy's crew could bond and be merry over a shared interest. We did however have a slightly more difficult time with trying to fall asleep to excited yelling, loud music and gunfire. Sure, they all owned headphones, but they were only connected to the computers to access online chat servers, not the loud game.
The two tucked themselves into their futons, it was a chillier night than usual, but other than that, it seemed normal. As consciousness began to fade from Luffy's mind, the last thought on his mind would not have been how tonight's events would change everything.
Luffy awoke with a start, it was still dark out and the clock read 1:12am, yet he still felt wide awake, why? He listened for the sounds of Buggy's crew and found that there were none, glancing out of the door, he could see that the light was still forcing its way out of the door's cracks, but he just heard the music and the muffled sound of snoring. It seemed that they couldn't pull an all-nighter after all.
He had a slight sore and dry feeling in his throat, so he figured that he just needed some water, so he went out into the kitchen.
After quickly grabbing a glass, filling it up and gulping it down it instantly, he turned and prepared to walk back to his room. It was only then that he noticed that there was another figure in the same room as him. They were dressed in a black hoodie and had a black facemask covering their face. They were on the floor backed against the fridge meaning that Luffy would not have seen them entering the room, though now he could see them in full. Perhaps they thought that Luffy was in such state of fatigue that he hadn't noticed them because he could see their shoulders relax slightly. By their side was a toolbox with various makeshift tools, all designed to aid in lockpicking and other burglary related activities.
"Must be a burglar stealing our food" Luffy thought to himself as he approached the obvious intruder.
"Eep!" they squealed quietly, Luffy, curious, walked up towards the figure and flipped the hoodie off their head.
It was the orange-haired girl he had seen; she seemed a little panicked at being discovered and was glancing around from the hall to the window and the front door, obviously looking for an escape route.
"I know you… I think?" Luffy said quietly.
The girl's eyes went from nervous to confident as she got an idea, grinned maliciously as she did so.
Sighing dramatically, she picked herself off the floor.
"Okay, you caught me," she feigned defeat as stared into the boy's blank face, standing up, almost at eye level with him. She then purposely leant forwards and slowly zipping down the front of her jacket to give just a slight peak at her 'assets'. Her lips pursed as her face took on the mask of a seductive expression, "What are you going to do about it?"
Luffy's arms motioned to move, and the girl's mind moved quickly, 'it's too easy to win guys over like this," she thought, 'I just have to kick him in the groin and leave.'
As time slowed down and Luffy approached the girl, she continued to pull of the act, waiting for the last second to make her escape. In the final moments she shifted her weight to her left leg and prepared to swing it as hard as she could. He was centimetres away from her as she prepared to act before he could.
The boy passed her.
There was only a split second of confusion awarded to the thieving vixen before two strong hands grabbed the back of her jacket and picked her up, so her body was hanging horizontally.
"Hey," she instinctively cried out, her orange hair getting messed up, "What are yo-"
"Shut up." Luffy hissed accusingly as he walked towards the front door. Opening it up he carried the girl out into the cold, unairconditioned hallway of the 9th floor before setting her down on her feet.
"But I-" She stuttered, completely confused about what had just occurred, Luffy, on the other hand, walked back inside of the apartment. Before closing the door, he turned around to look at her, a slight annoyance in his eyes.
"Next time," he began, "ASK before you take my food."
"W-w-would you have, uh, given me food?" She asked, trying to play along, her mind still not fully caught up.
"No." the boy with messy black hair replied flatly, "good night."
And with that he shut the door on the flabbergasted girl and headed back towards his bedroom. Zoro was still asleep, unbothered by his late-night awakening and once again having a single muscular arm wrapped protectively over the metal case beside him. The boy checked his messy clothing bag, (some garments scattered all over the floor) and found that his hat was still there like always. He grinned sleepily before slipping back under the warm quilt and drifting off to sleep, memories of a man with red hair drifting into his dreamscape.