Chapter Six – Somewhere in the Grand Line Academy Cafeteria
"Another victim, huh?" the lunch lady sighs and smiles tiredly at a twitching Nami. The smile emphasises the deep creases around her eyes and mouth and makes her brown eyes reduce themselves into rainbow arcs. She turns and calls, "Now, Luffy, you can't keep on doing this to your friends."
"I was right, wasn't I?" Luffy hops down from where he sits on a side bench and whips off the tea towel blindfold, "It was roast beef sandwiches, barbeque kebabs and red bean buns, right? Right?"
I can't fucking believe this… On the other side of the bench, near the doors to the kitchen, Nami slumps defeated against the wall and places her palms against the cool surface, as if the action will meld her into it. Whyyyyyyyyyy...
"He always does this, that Luffy," the lunch lady is saying, kneeling beside her, "Don't worry Miss, he's won heaps of bets by coming here every morning, like clockwork. He uses that weird power of his and guesses all our specials every morning then tells us to save his favourite for him." She sighs, "Such a special kid, that one. I hope I can count on you to take of him," she ends with another sympathetic smile and hands her a red bean bun, "Here."
"Thanks…"
As if a red bean bun's going to help her now. Her soul is sold to a Pirate bloodhound waving around a bright pink tea towel. Still, she picks apart the outside and nibbles towards the centre sulkily even as she hears him ambling towards her.
"Here," Luffy's voice laughs behind her and the bottom of something cool and firm pokes the back of her head. Nami reaches up and her mouth lifts ever so slightly at the distinctive feel of a plastic water bottle.
"Thanks." She holds the bun with her mouth and stands up before taking a bite out of it, debating her choice of words with each chew. I will, I won't, I will, I won't, I will… She swallows.
"I won't back out or anything. When do I meet your friends?"
"Today?"
A cold trail of ice freezes her spine. Too soon. She presses the cold bottle further into the underside of her bare arm (the blazer was forgone after PE), but aware that if he peers closely enough, he could still see the watery and diluted bruise through the clear disguise.
(What was my excuse for my arm bruise? Door jamb? Or—?")
"No," she utters, falters, stumbles and pushes herself back up, "Not today. I'm helping out my sister with some casual work."
That strange look again. This time he is quiet but he still accepts her words easily as he turns and walks away. She wonders why she feels so unnerved. Maybe he didn't smile. She forgot to look.
Encased in the crook of her arm, the cold bottle is a strange contrast to her warm thermos against the other side of her arm. She follows Luffy as they make their way through the cafeteria. Much like the corridors, the students are within their groups but still all move, sometimes unanimously, to acknowledge Luffy in some manner. The subject himself doesn't appear to notice, though he does call out at a few individuals cheerily with a grin and wave. Half of those individuals glare at him, not that he seems to really notice. He comments absent-mindedly without any sort of tact.
"That's the swamp-guy," he says, pointing towards an intimidating character lounged in his seat, "His brother's Shovel. He's kinda funny, Swamp-Guy. I think he had really long arms but had to cut them off."
Nami only blinks her question.
"Well, that's the only reason he could have shirtsleeves that long, right?"
"Unless his arms are just really short and he's overcompensating for it," Nami replies.
"What the heck?" Luffy laughs and reaches out to pinch the bottom half of her bean bun, "Hey, let's go halves."
"No way, you have to win the lunch lady's sympathy yourself," she grins, wanting to keep that unsuspecting smile there on his face, and pulls it out of his grasp.
"Come on!"
"No way~" she sings mockingly, extending her long arms well out of his reach while he complains.
"Usopp, grab it for me!" Luffy suddenly yells and Nami whirls to face Usopp having just entered the cafeteria. The boy watches with a face of amusement but deadpans at his request.
"Nope."
"Usopp!" Luffy stretches the word into two long syllables, "What's the point of a crewmate who doesn't have his captain's back?"
"For getting a red bean bun? Get your own, cheapskate! Good grief," at the last words, Usopp removes a thick textbook from his backpack, "Thanks to you, I'm late for lunch too. Come on, let's go and we can look at this."
"Go where?" Nami asks at the same time as Luffy says, "Let's just look at it here."
"Rooftop," Usopp replies to Nami. To Luffy he yells, "As if I'll fall for that again after you 'accidentally' dropped this in the bin! What do you take me for?" He half-turns towards the doors again and waves the book to and fro like a beckoning signal.
Without much choice, Nami tags along nibbling on her bun, briefly, briefly wondering if Ace got bored again today; while Usopp rants on about Luffy's 'accidents' of destroying the textbook he holds tightly under his arm as if afraid another 'accident' will occur. Luffy denies each claim, sticking his lips out to the side in a pouting manner like a child who's a terrible liar. They leave the cafeteria and cut across the courtyard to the side of a building with ivy slithering over it like snakes. Nami guesses it's some sort of greenhouse within by the views of the large windows.
Along the backside of the building is a shadowed enclosure; as if a square was carefully removed from the structure, with thick moss growing out of small crevices. Climbing up the side of the enclosure is an iron ladder, clamping firmly onto the roof. It is around five metres off the ground, probably to discourage delinquents climbing it.
"Don't lag, Luffy," Usopp says as he grasps a protruding stone off to the side and lifts himself up, pushing off with his other foot forcefully and grabbing the first rung of the ladder. He effortlessly scales the structure and disappears onto the roof.
Next, Luffy ascends it without pause, only turning around to beckon her with another challenge, "Come on. You'll really love the top." He hangs off the sixth rung with one hand and leans back with the other outstretched, eyes making contact with hers, "Can you push yourself off?"
Without much thought, and many seconds of hesitation, Nami chews her bun until it loses all trace of flavour. She wonders why the boy still doesn't lose faith in her, waiting patiently as if his muscles must not be screaming at him to pull himself back from gravity's force.
Finally, she finds herself grasping the same stone and pushing off the same foothold as the two Pirates before her; and she softly, softly takes his hand, barely folding his fingers. His firm strength in comparison almost breaks her.
Yet she feels safe when he easily hoists her up so she balances on the bottom rungs, her other hand clutching the next one. Automatically she leans inwards and exhales, her entire body throbbing with the day-old bruises. There is a burning sensation on her arm too, likely a scrape from that abrupt stunt. Son of a bitch.
"Are you OK?" Luffy asks as he releases her hand, peering down at her, "It's not as hard after a while."
"Yeah, fine," she lies.
Something that could be said for these Pirates: they found the best spots to eat lunch.
At the top of the ladder, there is a fairly narrow strip of glossy steel running the entire length of the greenhouse, right in the centre as if uniting the two halves of the roof, up until it connects with the neighbouring stone building. A large opening cut out of the neighbouring building, shaded with overhanging roofs, is like, or a pathway to, an exclusive hideout. If one were to look from the courtyard, they would never be the wiser.
Nami pokes her head above the roof just in time to see Usopp's form hop off the steel strip into the safety of the neighbouring building's hollow opening with a grunt mixed with laughter. He looks back and crows, "You're getting slow, Luffy!"
"Am not!" Luffy retorts, sticking his tongue out from where he stands on the beginning of the strip. He easily balances on it and runs a few paces forward as if on the ground; that straw hat on its string bobbing behind him, "Meet you on the other side, Nami! Look at the sides if you can!"
What the actual fuck is happening? Nami thinks to herself, lifting herself off the ladder and tentatively balancing on the steel path. I am actually doing this… OK…
In her mind, she imagines running across this strip as effortlessly as Luffy had done; maybe like something out of an action movie.
(To her credit, she would reason later, Luffy didn't have to do this wearing heeled boots.)
The first few seconds are fine. Until Nami realises she has inched only about a ruler's length from the start and feels the slight pull of falling, does she start sprinting, screaming the traditional way mixed with curses. The steel frame beneath her resonates loudly with each step in a hollow, metallic ring.
Near the end, she feels someone grab her arm and pull her in the rest of the way. She stumbles with relief onto solid ground and breathes shallow, panting breaths in the shade of the little hideout.
"Well that was entertaining," remarks a voice wryly, muffling the sound of laughter. Nami feels like hugging and punching the source when she can get her breath back from the spike of adrenaline. Finally, he can't hold it anymore and Ace laughs loudly within the small space, doubled over clutching his stomach and shaking with the guffaws. Every time he tries to speak again, he descends back into laughter, his whole face contorted in an expression of undisguised glee; until Nami herself can't even hold herself back and she bursts out laughing from where she has pushed herself against the wall. She welcomes the cool, solid stone beneath her as her body shakes with the explosive laughter.
For a while, the two; a brother of a Pirate and the bluffer stand and sit respectively in the shadowed space, laughing unattractively and hearing their echoes laugh at them. The latter has her arms drawn around herself, her palm resting gently on the spot on her arm where it feels warmer.
"What the hell was that?" Ace finally gets out between laughs.
It feels warm. Warmth feels weird; like danger in its early stages, but, just right, it feels nice, too.
"What the hell was that?" Nami agrees, grinning at him from the ground, never moving her hand.
"And then she went like this!" Luffy yells, standing and flapping his arms at his sides like an agitated chicken.
"More like this," Ace joins in and runs in a drunken line with flapping chicken's wings, "It's incredible you didn't tumble off!"
"Shut up!" Nami yells from her place sitting on the stone slab making up a side of a planter. Her legs are still trembling just watching the two brothers.
Who knew rooftop gardens existed up here…
Feeling the need to make her case, she adds, "I'd like to see you run across in heeled boots!" to which Luffy only laughs, collapsing onto the ground in his hysterics.
"We could hear your screams all the way from here," Usopp remarks, "I wonder if they heard it in the cafeteria…?"
"Well, if they did, this school seems very concerned of their students' wellbeing," Nami replies sarcastically. As far as she knew, there was flat silence that followed her dash and subsequent screams. No teacher or student ran out to see what the commotion was; Nami could be lying dead for all anyone at this bloody school would know, which reminds her… She twists her arm and frowns at the light scrape there. Mostly it's just the top layer of skin cleaved off but there are spots of blood as well, probably pumped through by the race of her heartbeat.
Geez… It could have been worse, she supposes. She would like to see Nojiko's face if she tore the sleeve of that expensive blazer. Automatically, she moves to wipe off the excess blood with her fingers.
A firm hand takes hers, "Don't do that. You don't want to infect it. Let me take a look."
It is the steadiest she has ever heard Chopper talk. That alone surprises her enough to obey his next orders without question. She gives him her arm and watches, intrigued, as he extracts a first-aid kit from his bag and proceeds to quickly patch her up without another word. His hands are quick and precise; never faltering once as he deftly cleans and covers the wound.
"Lucky it's not that bad," Chopper comments, "If you needed stitches, I couldn't do much. They don't let me bring stuff like that to school."
"You… really know what you're doing," Nami retracts her arm and observes the boy's impeccable handiwork, "Do you carry that around with you all the time?"
"Yeah. I live with a doctor, Dr. Kureha, and aspire to become one myself." He quietly packs away his tools and turns slightly to look at the other boys behind him, "Plus they're always getting injured so I have to patch them up. The school nurse would get kind of overwhelmed if she had to help all of them."
Nami raises her eyebrow but her next sentence is interrupted by a loud moan from Luffy, "Usopp, not today! It's such good weather too! Let's play a game!"
"Sit down!" Usopp retorts and Nami turns her head to watch the boy sit himself firmly on the ground with the textbook from before open on his lap. From her higher vantage point, Nami can see the distinct lines of graphs and number planes.
"I swear Luffy, I am barely keeping you from going under in Maths so be thankful! Buggy's getting on my case too about your scores."
"Why to you?" Nami asks.
Usopp shrugs, "Who knows. I think Buggy just purposefully avoids Luffy, and his family, if he can help it— Luffy! Don't run away!"
"Let's do it tomorrow!"
"No!" Usopp yells and chucks a pen at the boy who perches on the small rooftop hanging over the balcony. He deftly avoids it and catches it in the same motion.
"Prepare yourself, Usopp!" Luffy crows as he holds the pen like a dart.
"Stop messing around! You actually have to learn this stuff if you want to pass! Zoro, you too! Wake up!"
"Luffy, learn your Maths!" Ace calls from his spot on an identical seat to Nami, "Stop being a pain to your friends."
"Shouldn't you be somewhere else?" Luffy pouts, "Truant."
"Hey!" Ace sits up abruptly in a rigid posture, but he is grinning, "Do you want to go, you punk?"
"Come on, then!" Luffy crows.
"Ace!" complains Usopp.
Chopper patters off and pokes Zoro awake, diligently attempting to wake the larger boy when he simply rolls over.
"Zoro, we have to learn linear functions, come on."
"Mhm," the boy mumbles. He would sleep like a corpse if he weren't flushed with colour from the sun.
Nami feels slightly out of place in the chaos around her. As she sits and observes from her planter seat, she could have quite easily inserted herself in any situation. She could have attempted to separate the grappling brothers, she could have attempted to wake the sleeping boy, or talk to the student with the textbook. But… she couldn't.
On her arm, the red pinpricks of blood seep through the white. She could patch it up, or Chopper could, if she asked; but her heart will keep thumping and the blood will keep flowing, no matter what she could do.
In the back room, Nojiko speaks to Nami for the first time the entire night, apart from brief comments like, "Latte and tiramisu for Table 6" and "Nami, could you take the couple over there?" Nami is slipping the school blazer over her shoulders when Nojiko says, "Thank you." The other workers had all already left and the room felt starkly empty, lit only by the bright fluorescent lights.
Nami knows Nojiko could see the bruises when she changed out of the standard uniform. She knows Nojiko doesn't mean helping out with casual work and earning extra money.
Nami turns around and looks at her but she's already turned and pulled the button-up shirt from her shoulders. The smooth, unmarred, unhurt skin between the curves of her shoulder blades greets her. She's not sorry.
But how can I blame her?
"Yeah – fine," Nami meant to say 'it's fine' but her throat caught halfway and betrayed her.
That is the second time she's used the lie today.
She would need to use the lie a third time. Perhaps a fourth, fifth, countless times…
… Without even counting the times prior to her move to the East Blue district she's had to tell that lie.
Over the years, Nami noticed Nojiko's passionate dislike for the EDM remixes the radio stations tend to play late at night until she eventually refused to even leave the volume up at night in case of one. Sometimes Nami would reach over and crank up the volume quickly when Nojiko isn't paying attention just to annoy her with the repetitive beats, like tonight.
"Stop it!" Nojiko jokingly yells, slapping away Nami's hand from the volume dial, "No! If I have to hear that stupid song one more time…"
"Keep your eyes on the road!" Nami laughs, reaching for the glowing dial, "Nojiko! They're probably not even playing it."
"Hey, stop! Your boss is gonna come out and arrest me for reckless driving! And besides, that song was still in the top something-or-other when I was driving to work this morning and I'm not taking that chance!"
"Twenty dollars if I'm wrong?"
"I'm not betting you on this!"
"Fine, ten!"
"Nami!"
The laughter feels trapped within the small confines of the car, but until they pulled up outside the equally small apartment, it felt like enough.
"All right, straight to bed," Nojiko says when she unlocks and pushes open the door, "It's late. You're not hungry or anything?"
Nami shakes her head, "I ate at the café." As she does so, her eyes spy the stack of neat envelopes and paper on the bench, "Is that our mail?"
"I asked the landlady to put it in here for us when she could," Nojiko says, "Otherwise some idiot might come and steal it while we're both out." She crosses the small space and picks up the stack, "Can you take care of the bank stuff when you're free? Just give it to me if I need to sign something." As Nojiko scans the logos at the corner of each envelope, she quickly picks out all the bank-related ones, "I swear they send us more and more…"
"Sure," Nami quickly takes the stack, sealing the clear plastic displaying the addressee's details under her hand. Half would be addressed for their joint account. The other half would be just for hers. She steps back as Nojiko scans the rest of the mail, "I'll just go to bed and take care of it in the morning."
"Night," Nojiko murmurs. She has reached a point in her stack and is reading the top article intently.
"Coupons?" Nami guesses sarcastically as she walks out of the room.
"Don't knock my coupons!" Nojiko retorts, but Nami misses the slight pause just preceding it and the slight curve of her sister's wrist to lower the envelope out of her sight.
That night, if a stray wanderer were to stand on the corner of the street and tilt his head up, he would see the two squares of light on either side of the apartment – one bright and one dim. For a long time, neither would go out. The wanderer might wonder what could keep two people up so late and he would come to the only conclusion – worry and anxiety, though he could not possibly guess why. Not yet anyway.
On the threshold of morning, the dimmer light would die.
It would take much longer for the brighter one to go out.