Chapter 18
Tales of Terror and Cold
On a spring night, a bit colder than usual, Genzo ventured to tell the two mischievous sisters their first horror story. They were still too young to truly understand what fear meant, but Nami loved the tingling and jolts the scares gave her. The story made the hair on her arms stand on end, and the blood swirled in her ears, vibrating. For her, who relied so much on touch and instinct that she sometimes considered them a gift, having her nerves pushed to the edge of sanity made her feel alive.
As the years passed and she discovered the true meaning of fear, the stories told by the love of the fire became unpleasant to her, a childish and greedy memory. So innocent she despised it. So naive she missed it. So distant that she sometimes thought it was a stolen memory. She was so good at stealing that perhaps even that happy childhood was nothing more than someone else's memory. It was impossible she had ever been happy.
She was condemned to live with fear, anger, and sadness.
When she awoke from that dream that wasn't a dream, the waves were caressing her feet. She had to squeeze her eyes shut tightly to avoid being blinded by the sun, and for a moment, she felt free—no name, no age, no burdens on her back—just a child sleeping under the sun. Until a cold, scaly, sharp hand gripped her forearm, and the nameless girl was called Nami once again.
Despite the pit that formed in her stomach as she remembered where she was and who she was, she opened her eyes with a slowness which belonged to the calm or the cold-bloodedness of someone who had learned to face fear with hostility.
"Did you have sweet dreams, Nami?"
The irony scraped her ears like the squeal of metal.
As she sat up, she trembled slightly, but she made sure the fear didn't show on her face. Her awareness had given her enough time to gather the broken pieces of her wall, and adrenaline burned in her veins.
"What are you doing here, Arlong?"
The Fishman sat on the rocks with his feet submerged in the sea, his gaze fixed on her. Nami had the feeling that the monsters from the deep had taken the familiar form to chain her up again, and now she trembled not just from fear but from cold.
"Since you didn't come, we decided to come and see you," he said, his eyes gleaming sharply as he licked his tongue between his sharp teeth. "But apparently, I can't even talk to the crew without the girls pissing themselves. Got anything to tell us, Nami?"
She clenched her toes and straightened her shoulders, used to facing blows head-on. Out of the corner of her eye, she kept watching Arlong's relaxed posture and the colorful glints of the rest of the crew in the water surrounding them. Close to the cliff but far enough for the captain's words to be covered from strangers.
"You come here, scare me out of my mind, and accuse me of betrayal. What did you expect?" she said, trying to sound confident, but the tremors left her vulnerable to fear and anxiety.
"I'm not here to argue whether you betrayed me or not. I know you did. Don't you know that rumors and gossip spread faster than diseases? I came for your stories in prison and found you at a Vice Admiral's house, fraternizing with him and his grandsons. I like to trust my own, but in the end, you're nothing but a disgusting human. Betrayal runs in your nature, like it does in all the scum of your race."
"Look, Arlong, if you want, we can discuss how…"
Nami shut her mouth as soon as Arlong's cold, scaly hand scratched her neck. As she swallowed, one of his rings grazed her skin, and she felt it burned.
"We're not discussing anything, darling. You're going to do what I tell you, with your mouth shut and head down until we leave this damn island, and when we get to Cocoyashi, I'll remind you what loyalty means. Do you understand?"
The smell of blood and the image of her mother's eyes burned into her memory flooded her mind, and her chattering teeth prevented her from responding.
Arlong dug one of his claws behind one of her ears, searching for pain.
"I asked if you understood."
The teenage girl gritted her teeth and nodded as best she could, pinned between the huge hands of that monster.
"Good. That brings me to the next point. I need you to go back to old Garp and steal the map of the Grand Line he has. Along with a few other things I need you to do. Your little attempt at mutiny, in the end, might work in our favor."
"I didn't…" she tried again, but Arlong cut her off once more, with the tight expression of someone receiving an insult.
"Do you know what I felt yesterday when I went to free you from the Marine dogs and that damn Vice Admiral Garp declared you were his granddaughter, Nami?"
The girl quickly shook her head, driven by the instinct that made her arms flail when falling into the sea.
"My fins went cold thinking about the warmth of your blood between my claws. My muscles tensed while imagining how they'd contract if I squeezed your neck, the justice of seeing your skin turn red and purple. My ears rang with the screams of your village in my ears, of that fool with the windmill on his cap, of your sweet sister."
As he spoke, Nami's body went numb, immobilized by those foreign sensations that snaked inside her through Arlong's words.
"I'll do what you ask. You know I will."
Arlong laughed, his smile full of sharp, pointed teeth.
"Of course you'll do what I tell you, silly girl. Always remember that you owe me your life until the deal is paid in full."
The sea vibrated, roaring at their feet, as if Arlong's orders were caresses on the waves. She felt the cold at her ankles again, chained to that room Nami tried not to think about, yet always found herself returning to.
"Now get up and get to work. That scum is probably waiting for you to have breakfast, and we wouldn't want to keep that Marine dog waiting, right?"
As he spoke, Arlong grabbed her arms and, from the small rock where he sat, threw her towards the shore. She tumbled through the foam, and although the waves softened the impact, she felt the unpleasant pressure of water gushing into her ears.
"Don't forget to tell him you fell in the most pathetic way you can think of. And grab the telescope and compass—don't forget you came to do something, not just fool around with the enemy. You're good at that, aren't you, girl?"
Nami, more deafened than usual by the water, didn't notice the telescope that Chew threw at her from the sea, and the object struck her head unexpectedly. Between the blow and the water-induced imbalance, the teenager ended up on the ground, sore and disoriented.
She didn't even hear the crew's laughter. By the time she raised her head, the sea seemed to have swallowed her fears, darker than usual. The sight of the thin sunbeams reflecting on the choppy waves gave her the feeling they were drawing salt bars over the water. Not as a threat, but as a promise.
The promise of that prison high in a tower, full of maps and the weight of chains.
When the fish fought, they lost scales, and at Arlong Park, those pesky little flakes settled in the smallest cracks between the cobblestones. Nami always walked carefully, but it was inevitable some would get stuck in the soles of her shoes, and her feet were always wet.
By the time she got home, her toes were still swimming in the lukewarm seawater, and as she prepared to ring the doorbell, she tried to convince herself it was just another hole in her shoes. Her clothes and hair had dried on the way there, but despite that, the wrinkled fabric and the smell of dead fish told the story of a scuffle at sea that she didn't feel like telling anyone.
Mustering up a courage that felt fake, Nami raised her knuckles and knocked twice on the door. Before she could knock a third time, the door, rather than opening, vanished with a sigh, and Ace, as pale as milk, appeared before her.
The panic in his expression faded slightly when he found her standing there at the entrance, disheveled and shrunken, but present.
"Where the hell have you been?!"
He shouted, more relieved than angry, but loud enough for her to hear despite the wall of water that plugged her already damaged ears. The boy turned his head to shout something Nami couldn't quite make out, and the massive figure of Garp appeared from the kitchen, his face tight with concern and anger.
Nami shrank even more, but shook her head and pushed her way into the house while the wall of water that shielded her from outside noise muffled the shouts.
Before she could make it to the stairs without uttering a word, a large hand grabbed her arm. Fear and adrenaline, sudden and cold, made her thrash against the grip so violently she had to grab onto the stair railing to keep from falling.
When she turned to face them, Garp and Ace were watching her with closed mouths and silent stares.
She dropped the damned telescope and compass, which fell to the floor with a strong vibration, and turned her back on them, intent on nothing more than climbing the stairs, closing her eyes, and ceasing to exist.
"I fell into the sea getting that crap. I'm tired."
No one tried to stop her as she crossed the house in search of the room where she'd spent the night hugging Luffy, surrounded by warmth and hope.
When she removed her boots and collapsed onto the bed with wrinkled feet and a clenched heart, the only things that surrounded her were the cold and the fear.
She lay there for a while, staring at the wall, while the faint light from the door swayed to the gentle rhythm of worry. Amidst the comings and goings of Ace and Garp, sleep began to lull her again, ready to pull her out of the nightmare, and she surrendered willingly to unconsciousness, eager to lose herself in the darkness and never find the way out.
Nami was in the middle of the sea when the waves turned violent. She woke up with the sensation that the breeze was calling her from far away, and with Luffy's black eyes anchored on her.
The boy's gaze, filled with anguish and worry, brought her back to reality, and with reality returned the memory of how she had stumbled into the house, only to end up defeated on sheets that now smelled of dead fish. If her goal had been to go unnoticed, she had achieved the exact opposite.
A terrible headache, intensified by the burning pain in her ears, made her groan. Chew had hit her harder than she'd thought, and between the concussion and the fear, she had ended up worrying the people in that house. If her plan was to scam them, she had gotten off on the wrong foot.
"Nami, Nami..." Luffy's distant voice pulled her to the surface of her stormy sea of thoughts, raging behind the wall of water that isolated her from the outside world. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Where did you go? Ace and Gramps are worried."
She brought a hand to her ear, trying to break the invisible wall, but ended up touching the ugly bump next to it, left behind after the telescope had knocked her out.
"I went to get some things from my ship and fell into the water. The sea's really rough today. I think I've got water in my ears. It's hard for me to hear you, and it hurts."
Luffy's elastic hand stroked her hair in such an unfamiliar way that she found herself staring at him, unsure of what to say. His attempts to invade her space were usually clumsy and childish, not sweet and careful.
"You've left blood everywhere."
Alarmed, Nami turned her head as fast as she could, but the pain and dizziness intensified, and the scene on the sheets turned crimson.
The earache and her pile of accumulated curses made her collapse onto the bed again. If she didn't already have an infection, she was close to getting one.
"I hit my head. You would've laughed at how hard I smacked it," Nami said, settling comfortably under the web of lies that sleep had woven around her.
Luffy said something, but to her, it sounded like an incoherent murmur.
The infection was going to be bad. She just prayed the fever would be quick; she was starting to feel warm.
"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I don't like it when you lie to me, Nami. We're friends."
She shifted her gaze from the wall to him, evaluating him with the lie poised on the tip of her tongue. Her lower lip trembled as the wall where she had hidden everything began to sting inside her.
The boy's eyes gleamed in the face of her weakness, and she reached out a hand to wrap around Luffy's wrist, to absorb the warmth she had slept with and that now felt so far away.
"Hug me," she said. Luffy looked at her, doubt written in the furrow of his brow. "Just for a little while. Like before. Hug me."
"I think you've got a fever. We should tell Gramps."
She shook her head, cheeks damp, under the relentless pain that enveloped her.
"Hug me, please."
For a few seconds, the room remained still, filled with thoughts, but the heart won over the head, crammed with beetles and dreams. When Luffy lay down next to her, Nami grabbed hold of his vest, clutching him tightly with all four limbs.
"Nami, I..."
She tightened her grip and drowned the worries and problems in the depths of that embrace.
"No. Just hug me. Just hug me for a moment."
Luffy's chest trembled with words on the brink of escaping his mouth.
"Please."
She didn't even hear her own plea, but her friend must have, because his limp arms grew firm, and for a few moments, the pieces of a life spent among rags and patches were held together by two sweets rubber arms.
Author notes:
Well, here we are again!
Honestly, this chapter was going to be shorter, and I didn't plan to end it this way. I actually finished it two weeks ago, buuut then I found out that this year's #Lunamiweek was coming up, and the first day is about Luffy and Nami being childhood friends, and... well, you can see where this is going, right? Hahaha, I thought: Did they do this for me?
So I wanted to give the best version of the chapter possible for this special day, and I think it's the perfect chapter! And the perfect ending for the chapter.
By the way, I'm completely editing the English version. I'm already on chapter 9, focusing mainly on the translation, which is why I'm only editing this version. I hope to bring you chapter 19 very soon!