Chapter 5
What is the difference between a brother and a beetle?
Nami had the feeling that living life with Ace and Luffy would be easy. It would consist of going with the flow of laughter, fights, and nonsense. No worries, no strings attached, no threats.
The two lived in a small, messy treehouse. Dirty clothes piled up in a corner. A petrified sock hung from one of the kitchen's pieces of furniture. A vine had slowly begun to invade the house from the corner of the door, and one of the curtains separating them from the outside was tied to an aged illustration of three deformed little figures nailed to the wall. Still, Nami's heart fluttered, warm, as she sat, for the first time in years, in a house that felt like a home. Her own home had long since become just a stopping place where tension and anxiety nested in the corners.
In Ace and Luffy's house, the sun streamed through the poorly nailed planks and bathed them in light, the rumpled blankets a testament to how close the two slept, and the poorly taped list of food they kept in the stash of their tiny pantry spoke of a happy life. It was a stark contrast to Nami's room at Arlong Park. The corners of her room were full of ghosts, spiders, and fear, between neatly folded sheets, the smell of ink, papyrus, and old iron.
For the first time in her life, Nami felt jealous of dirt.
After eating a disgusting but stomach-filling soup, Ace and Luffy geared up, determined to accompany her to town, despite her insistence that she could go alone. Nami knew they'd get bored with her, but the thought of going with them warmed her fingertips.
As they walked, the afternoon light filtering through the tree branches reflected off the straw strands of Luffy's hat, and she felt like it was glowing as he led the way through the forest. he was a small sun guiding lost cats like her toward light and warmth.
"Look, Nami, a beetle just like you!"
The girl was so lost in her thoughts that the shout made her jump instinctively, digging her nails into her palms because her first reaction to fear was always to silence it with the distraction of pain. She wasn't the only one surprised; Ace cursed under his breath long before the pain of nails digging into flesh reached his mind.
She covered it up with a huff as she approached Luffy, with Ace beside her. She cautiously stopped behind the brothers, keeping a prudent distance from the colorful bugs the teenager was studying with admiration.
"I don't like beetles; they have long, serrated noses," Nami said, wrinkling her nose, horrified by the movement of those small, hard legs.
"They're not noses, they're horns."
"They're the same, what does it matter if they're noses or horns?"
Luffy pinched the beetle's forked horn and quickly turned towards Nami to show it with palpable indignation.
"Horns are cool, noses aren't. Horns come out of the head and are long and..."
The girl jumped back with a choked scream and fell on her back to the ground. Ace, crouched next to Luffy, pinched his brother's cheek and stretched it in a terribly unnatural way.
Nami, more petrified by the sight, let out a strangled sound.
"What the heck are you doing, idiot? Don't you see you're scaring Nami?"
The teenager whimpered as best he could with his cheek stretched inches from his chin.
"Wh-what..?"
The girl, wide-eyed and mouth agape, scooted back a few steps, terrified.
Ace looked at his hand and, with it, Luffy's stretched cheek, and burst into laughter, leaving Nami even more perplexed.
"Don't worry, it doesn't hurt him. He's a Devil Fruit user, the Gomu-Gomu no Mi."
"A Devil Fruit?!"
Luffy freed himself from his brother's grip and stretched his cheeks himself so she could see the strange ability from another angle. His teeth protruded beneath his skin in a grin.
"I ate it by accident; Shanks didn't even notice."
At the mention of the name, Nami narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"Never let a pirate off the hook that easily."
He clenched his teeth and shook his head vigorously.
"Not all pirates are bad! At least, not all of them."
She was about to contradict him when Ace cut both of them off by making them duck behind some bushes, watching for a movement she hadn't noticed before, too focused on arguing with Luffy to pay attention.
Two adults in tattered clothes appeared behind the tall bushes just as Nami looked up to assess the possible danger from their hiding spot. Beneath her, Luffy also eyed the intruders. Ace didn't even move, so quiet his breathing blended with the breeze.
"I hate wandering through the damn dump," said the stockier man, who, despite his tattered clothes, wore a good-quality handkerchief under his nose, "then I spend two days with a cold. My lungs get worse each time. That fire only mixed the stench of the dead with the damn trash."
His companion, a hunched, short man, shot him a nasty look, hidden by the distance but not from the trio hiding a few meters in front of them.
"The sooner we finish this, the sooner you can go back to pretending you've never set foot in the slums. Do the job right, and don't give that brat Sterry any excuses, or you know where you and your precious lungs will end up."
A silence followed the threat, and Luffy, below her, shifted uncomfortably as the two men came closer to their position. Her skin began to itch with nerves when she felt Ace's hand pulling her back. Luffy and Nami, sitting behind the tree trunk where Ace had hidden them, watched their protector curiously. The boy didn't even glance at them, his fists clenched as he studied the two large men towering over them.
"Do you really think that weakling will achieve anything? All of this seems like a waste of time to me."
The short man let out a sharp laugh, so close that Nami felt the fluctuations of his voice in her bones.
"Would you rather be a nobody in the Goa Kingdom for the rest of your life, Fede? I'd rather do the dirty work now and live the rest in comfort than wait for the Celestial Dragons to get bored and come to kill me."
The man with the handkerchief, Fede, snorted, and for the first time, Nami felt he wasn't as dumb as the other man made him seem.
"It's no use being a noble in Goa when Mariejoise exists. If they want to kill us, they will—don't you remember the former heir?"
The conversation drifted off with the sound of the two men's voices, but the tension didn't leave Nami's body. She was alert to how stiff Ace had become after the strange chat.
"They scared away the beetles," Luffy whimpered once the intruders' voices faded, leaving them alone again.
Nami looked at him reproachfully.
"What do those bugs matter when you're in danger?"
The boy watched her, his brows almost meeting in a scowl, upset by her response.
"Geez, Nami, you're just like Ace. You'll definitely get along. Always with paying attention and stuff."
"I don't know, Luffy, maybe…"
Ace, who had been silent, absorbed in his thoughts, interrupted the argument with a look that set off alarm bells in Nami's head. Alerted by the danger of his narrowed eyes, clenched jaw, and tense shoulders. He saw her watchful, hesitant gaze and consciously relaxed his body to avoid confronting her fear. Despite herself, Nami had to admit the teenager was good at reading her and adjusting to her attitude. It was the second time that day he had made her rethink her stance, and the fact that it was so easy to combat the distrust she had honed over years of living with the enemy made her feel weak, exposed to the elements.
"I'm going out for a while," Ace declared before she could finish her thoughts and the sensation caused by that look capable of unraveling her survival instincts, "I trust you'll be able to look after each other, right, Luffy?"
The boy didn't hesitate to nod, with a finger in his nose and his eyes fixed on what Nami suspected was another beetle on the ground. The metal tube with the cartography materials jingled on his back.
"Of course."
She straightened her back and looked at Ace with a defiant glint in her eyes.
"I can take care of myself just fine."
He smiled, and the freckles danced under his eyes.
"I know, but my brother can't."
To corroborate that statement, Luffy's excited shout startled them a few meters to their left.
"Nami, this beetle is as orange as you!" a laugh interrupted him before he turned toward them, showing them a bug the size of his hand with a perfect horn ready to fight for its freedom, "Maybe you're from the same family."
The tense atmosphere relaxed with Ace's laughter and Nami's blushing cheeks.
For a moment, her gaze traveled between the setting sun, the tall wall separating them from the city, and Luffy's bright black eyes as he gripped the beetle between his fingers.
She sighed, and even though the days on Dawn Island threatened to become endless, slipping through her fingers as the hours became eternal alongside Luffy's enthusiasm, a treacherous smile crossed her face. The memory of her meal with the brothers, the feeling of a full stomach, and the sight of dozens of orange beetles crept into her head in the form of a silent promise.
She was sure that the days on the island would stretch on for quite some time. And the worst part was the very thought of it brought a smile to her face.
When the time for goodbyes came, she would cry, but for a few seconds, she allowed herself the luxury of imagining a future without farewells or long noses.
A world filled with food, games, laughter, and rays of sunshine.