Chapter 7
Lentil delicacy and coups d'état
When she met someone, Nami used to study their weaknesses while hiding her own. It was something that came to her instinctively, just like walking, eating, or breathing. When shaking hands, she studied the nails. When speaking, she glanced at the marks on their skin. She observed the small gestures, the nicks in their clothing, anything that would tell her where she could pour salt so it would reach the wound.
When Arlong and his group invaded the Conomi archipelago, she devoted herself entirely to finding the weaknesses of the fish-men.
They struggled to stay out of water. Their bodies, light in the sea, became heavy on land. Certain comments hurt them. Danger arose whenever someone mentioned the differences between fish-men and humans. And they had been slaves.
The first time she noticed the iron brand on Kurobi's wrists, she thought she had misinterpreted something due to exhaustion. One of Hachi's tentacles twisted oddly around a piercing mark, though it could easily have been from an injury sustained in childhood. The pattern of long, thin, healed wounds on Chew's back might also have been the result of a tough childhood. The gold chains Arlong wore on his wrists weren't just for show—they concealed skin eroded by iron.
These were all battle scars from a time before her. Piracy and plundering always came with a price. Nami had scars from her travels, too.
Yet, she could never mistake one of those scars from her days at sea and thieving with the ones Arlong had inflicted on her. The scars left by a life of servitude were easily recognizable, and Arlong and his crew bore them on their bodies.
Arlong's weakness was the same as hers: slavery.
It took her months to process the idea. The thought of a slave enslaving others made her sick because it meant that one day she might become like the one who had hurt her so much. Nami couldn't bear the idea, but maybe it was her destiny. That's why she constantly watched her own behavior, allowing only greed to nest within her.
When Luffy almost fell into the void and she reached out to grab him, she didn't think about it, but on the way home, between rooftops and streets full of people and marines running about, she judged herself against the darkness in her mind and the chaos outside.
Luffy led her through the streets, looking for an easy way out of the wall, but the marines and the uncertainty about what had happened in the palace fueled the collective madness. Rumors of dead kings and melted gold spread, but for now, they were just that—rumors.
The commotion allowed her to think as she let herself be carried along by the crowd behind Luffy.
Her first thought was that she had saved him to take advantage of him. After all, that's what she always intended. No one ever scrutinized saviors. But Luffy didn't distrust her, and neither did Ace. The only one who had distanced herself was Nami, so that theory was ruled out.
A man bumped into her, his elbow jabbing into one of her sore ribs. Nami quickened her pace.
Maybe it had just been instinct. Instinct often won battles in the midst of desperation. But when her mother died, she hadn't intervened. When Carina betrayed her, she hadn't even been able to react. It hadn't been instinct.
A woman stepped on her foot with a heel, and Nami let out a pained growl. Luffy turned to look at her, and after a few seconds of thought, stretched out his arm like a rope and wrapped it around her waist.
"That way we won't get lost," he said with a smile.
Luffy's bright, promising teeth made her dizzy, with the answer to her question right on the tip of her tongue.
He, without even knowing it, had found her weakness.
She, who lived behind a wall, who slept in fear, always with one eye open, who distrusted the sweetest look, had let her guard down. Luffy had offered her his hand, and without realizing it, she had lowered the defenses she had proudly carried like a banner.
Love and affection were Nami's weak points, and she should have known that the moment she saw him rummaging through her things.
It wasn't just that she loved or began to love that boy with childish smiles and loud games. Yes, she had grown attached to him so intensely and quickly that it scared her. It had been so long since she tied her love to Cocoyashi that it was amazing to feel it there, surrounding this self-proclaimed friend who played with the sun and stretched like rubber. She had loved her mother too, and yet she hadn't been able to break free of her paralysis. But for the first time, after years of imprisonment, pain, and tears, someone had offered her a hand, and she had seen a promise. A promise filled with journeys, maps, laughter and games, fights and arguments, shared meals, and unearthed dreams. Luffy had offered her hope, and after four years of nightmares, she had glimpsed light in the darkness.
The hope that came from this affection, this dangerous trust, was her greatest weakness. Nami and Arlong both knew that very well. That's why she had spent the first two years trapped, at the mercy of beatings, humiliation, and memories.
Luffy's embrace as they ran through the streets gave her both security and fear. Fear because talking about dreams and possibilities always broke her heart.
As they ran farther and farther from the city, Nami sensed omens of death and terror. If the whispers were true, things would get complicated again in her mission. The thought terrified her, especially now that she had seen herself weak and defenseless in the arms of two strangers she would soon have to leave behind.
Despite her unease and foggy thoughts, as they neared Luffy and Ace's home, calm began to settle in. Calm was a virtue, and although Nami wasn't great at maintaining it, she often worked on it.
From the wooden structure a few meters from Ace and Luffy's treehouse, loud music and noise floated in, though she could barely hear it as a faint murmur. The fact that this building served as a tavern for some unknown group of people made Nami uneasy, and she studied the orange light critically. She didn't realize she had stopped, lost in her thoughts, until Luffy touched her bruised cheek with a finger, curious like a child.
She jumped, startled, and when she turned to confront the annoyance, Luffy's eyes were just centimeters away. His deep breaths tickled her. Her anger dissolved under the curve of those childish eyelashes turned into knives.
"Does it hurt?"
Nami opened her mouth to answer, and he lowered his gaze to the side of her jaw, the side she still couldn't use to chew.
She considered denying it outright, getting offended by the question, because Luffy had seen the weakness she had tried to hide, but the day was giving way to night, and in the darkness of moonless nights, she usually lay in silence with her sister before confessing what she didn't dare speak of under the sun's heat.
"A little. The waves were too rough that day. The blow was hard."
Her friend tilted his head to observe more closely. The muffled music and the drunken voices in the background would have made her nervous if she weren't in company, and with company, fears diminished.
"When we first met, you were limping, and earlier, when I hugged you or when we jumped between rooftops, you made that face, the same one you just made when I touched your cheek. You have more injuries, don't you?"
She moved away, shaking her head before she could even form words.
"I have to leave because…"
"Ace said it'd be better if I didn't ask. That maybe you'd want to keep your distance. He didn't like it when I asked questions either."
The confession stopped her in her tracks. Paralyzed by a thought that had already turned into a storm.
"Did Ace get hit?"
Luffy's eyes, dark and round, always seeming to drift aimlessly through the world, met Nami's again, and the hairs on her neck stood on end.
"Have you been hit?"
The question stirred agony and nerves. Her heart raced, and anxiety reduced her to a whirlwind of confusing thoughts, mingling fear, the urge to flee, and vague excuses.
Before she could scream, run, or touch the two ribs that had betrayed her, the music grew louder as the tavern door opened and closed again. Nami, nerves on edge, turned her head impulsively toward whoever had escaped the noisy crowd.
Relief washed over her as soon as she recognized Ace's odd hat and the smile that had begun to form on his face when he saw them.
"I heard about the terrorist attack. I was about to go look for you if you hadn't returned soon. Thanks Nami, for protecting my idiot brother. If I'd left him alone, they'd have arrested him by now for causing a scene…" The teenager stopped when he noticed the tension in the air, so unlike Luffy.
"Did something happen?"
Automatically, Nami forced a wide smile, slipping back into her lies and deception. Survival mode.
"No, nothing. I was just about to leave—it's time for dinner, and I have to heat up the lentils."
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at his brother, confused, but Luffy was already back to his usual carefree, cheerful self.
"I've told Nami to stay for dinner. With meat, her lentils will surely taste better."
She forced a laugh.
"If you want me to stay and eat, you'll have to pay extra, Luffy. My time is worth gold."
She hid the sadness she felt about that farewell disguised as a lie while she packed her bag. Once she left, she wouldn't come back.
She couldn't come back.
She had to leave. Now or never. Now.
Luffy was dangerous. Information could harm her.
The next day, she would take a detour to enter the city one last time, sketch whatever she could, and then leave. It didn't matter if she couldn't finish the map. She would make another island, a whole archipelago if that would keep Arlong at peace. She would look for books on Dawn Island and steer the fishmen's crew away from there. Away from a boring, charm-less island. Away from the danger that Chew or Hachi might spill something over drinks when they reviewed the drawn streets of Windmill Village.
Ideas were starting to take shape when Ace tried to intervene, but Luffy spoke first.
"How much?"
The flow of her thoughts was abruptly interrupted by the question.
"How much what?" she murmured.
"How much money do you want to stay for dinner? We don't have much, so if you want, you can have my bed or Ace's as payment."
Nami, still caught off guard, stammered as she spoke.
"What?"
"Yeah, well, I bet you'd like it better than sleeping in the tree. That should count as payment, and my brother's food will taste delicious with the lentils, right, Ace?"
The teenager, confused by the question, the atmosphere, and how the conversation was unfolding, nodded with uncertainty.
"Uh, yeah?"
She lowered her head, hesitating.
"What do you want?"
He smiled.
"For you to stay for dinner and spend the night. You could live with us."
Silence took on a life of its own, filled with music, diluted tension, and silly suggestions.
"Luffy, you know very well that at some point, I'm going to leave. You knew it from the beginning. I already have a place I need to return to."
The boy seemed to shrink in on himself, like soft, melting rubber.
"Stay" he muttered.
"I can't, Luffy. Do you even listen when I talk?"
"I want you to stay."
"I'm not…"
Ace took a couple of steps forward, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders. Once again, as if it were his duty to mediate all of their arguments.
"Well, for now, I think it's time for dinner. Aren't you guys hungry?"
Luffy let out a muffled yelp.
"Ace, don't pinch me, that hurts!" Despite his request, the boy complained even more loudly when his brother poked him again.
"Meat and lentils " Ace commented with a huge grin and a wink that, to Nami, seemed poorly rehearsed. "And a little rice Dadan gave me. We're going to lick our fingers clean."
She intended to refuse, to back out and run away, because the plan felt one step away from disaster, but she was a good liar. She could twist things so that the next time Luffy asked about the bruises, everything would seem like a misunderstanding. And honestly, she was hungry, tired, and wanted to eat meat and rice instead of reheated lentils by the fire for the fourth night in a row.
The idea of leaving grew heavier, and she felt lighter with each passing day. It was time to go. The thought made her heart tremble.
Two days. She'd give herself two more days, prepare everything, enjoy her time with two people who, despite the bond, were still strangers, and then she'd leave. She'd come up with some excuse for Arlong when the time came.
She couldn't take it anymore. Either she escaped now, or she would die of heartbreak when the ship set sail, leaving betrayal and friends behind on shore.
Notes:
This chapter cost me a kidney, between the fact that this week has been a horror of papers, demands and writings at work (I am a lawyer) and that I wrote an entire chapter that in the end did not convince me (I have only saved the first paragraphs from it), I was giving arrhythmia with the fic.
Oh, and the translation. I don't like cut the expressions of my language because they don't adapt well to English, I cry a sea of tears (another expression of the spanish language) when I have to cut ready-made phrases.
In the discarded chapter I finally introduced Dadan, but Nami needs time to start focusing. With all the trouble they had, the poor girl has to be lost and Nami need to accept that she is starting to develop affection for these two strangers, just imagine how hard it is for her, cause at some point she is going to have to leave them.
So little by little. Dadan will have time to comment on everything she thinks about this crazy friendship hahahaha.
New note: 7/10/24 This is another corrected chapter ;)