Chapter Text
Tags are subject to change in the future, as I work on this story. If I missed anything in the tags, please let me know. Let's hope the AO3 curse doesn't get me lol.
The first thing she noticed was the silence.
Not actual silence. The world around her was loud enough, waves crashing somewhere nearby, birds calling overhead, wind pushing through trees she didn’t recognise, but it was missing something.
No distant traffic.
No electricity humming through walls.
No phone vibrating in her pocket.
Nothing familiar.
Her breath caught halfway into her lungs.
Slowly, she sat up in the sand, fingers digging into the ground hard enough to hurt. Warm grains stuck to her palms. Her head pounded. Everything smelled too clean. Salt and earth and sunlight.
Sunlight.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“No,” she whispered.
Because she knew this sky.
Not personally. Not really. But she knew it the same way someone recognises a nightmare halfway through it. That awful moment where your stomach drops before your brain fully catches up.
The ocean stretched endlessly in front of her, bright blue under a cloudless sky.
Too blue.
Everything here always looked too alive.
A laugh rang out somewhere behind her.
Loud. Carefree. Completely unashamed.
She froze.
Another laugh followed, closer this time, and something in her chest tightened painfully.
No.
No, no, no.
Slowly, almost against her own will, she turned toward the sound.
And there he was.
Smaller than she expected.
Younger, too.
He sat on a crooked wooden dock with his sandals abandoned beside him, legs kicking lazily over the edge as he laughed at something completely invisible to anyone else. Black hair messy from the wind. A red vest hanging open slightly at the collar.
Fifteen.
He looked fifteen.
Not a captain.
Not a legend.
Not the man people would one day scream about across the ocean.
Just a boy.
And somehow that made it worse.
Her throat tightened.
Because he didn’t know yet.
He didn’t know about any of it.
Not about the Grand Line. Not about the people he’d lose. Not about the weight that would settle onto his shoulders little by little until even smiling became harder sometimes.
He just sat there laughing at the sea like the world belonged to him already.
Then his head turned.
Dark eyes landed directly on her.
For one horrible second, she forgot how to breathe.
His grin widened immediately, easy and bright like he’d never met a stranger in his life.
“Hey!” he shouted, waving hard enough his whole body moved with it. “You awake now?”
She stared at him.
Because what was she even supposed to say to that?
Hi. I watched your brother die when I was sixteen.
Hi. You become one of the most important people in the world.
Hi. You ruin me emotionally for years.
Instead, what came out was:
“…What year is it?”
He blinked once.
Then laughed again.
Not confused. Not suspicious. Just amused.
“That’s a weird question.”
She wanted to cry.
Instead, she pushed herself to her feet too quickly and nearly stumbled. The world tilted violently for a second before steadying again.
Luffy hopped off the dock instantly.
“You okay?”
There was no hesitation in it. No caution.
Just concern.
Like he’d already decided she mattered.
And God, that was dangerous.
“I’m fine,” she said too quickly.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He stared at her for a second longer before shrugging easily.
“Okay.”
That was it.
No pushing. No suspicion.
Just acceptance.
It caught her off guard more than anything else so far.
His eyes wandered over her strange clothes curiously before he pointed toward the village behind him.
“You hungry?”
She almost laughed at how absurdly normal the question was.
Hungry.
As if her entire reality hadn’t just split open.
As if she wasn’t standing right there trying not to panic.
“…A little.”
“Cool! Makino probably made food already.”
Makino.
Her stomach dropped again.
Every name here would feel like that now, wouldn’t it?
Every familiar thing suddenly real.
Luffy started walking without checking if she followed.
Completely confident she would.
And after only a moment of hesitation…
She did.
Because what else was she supposed to do?
Walk away?
Pretend she didn’t know exactly who he was?
Pretend she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering if he was okay?
The wind shifted softly around them.
Luffy talked the entire walk back to the village, bouncing from topic to topic so fast she could barely keep up.
She answered when she had to.
Mostly she just listened.
And watched him laugh.
Every time he smiled, something twisted painfully in her chest.
Because she knew.
She knew exactly how much it was going to cost him to stay smiling like that.
That night, she couldn’t sleep.
The little room Makino had let her borrow felt too warm. Too unfamiliar. Moonlight spilled across the wooden floorboards in silver streaks.
Outside, she could hear the ocean.
Even here.
Always the ocean.
She sat curled against the wall with her knees pulled tightly to her chest, staring down at her hands.
This wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be.
And yet…
A soft knock sounded at the door before it creaked open slightly.
Luffy peeked inside.
“You’re still awake?”
“…Couldn’t sleep.”
“Oh.”
He stepped fully into the room without invitation, completely casual about it, before sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her.
Neither of them spoke for a little while.
Then quietly, before she could stop herself, she asked:
“…If someone knew what was going to happen in the future… would you want them to tell you?”
Luffy tilted his head.
“Like everything?”
She nodded once.
He thought about it for maybe three seconds.
Then grinned.
“Nope.”
She stared at him.
“…What?”
“I don’t wanna know.” He rested his chin against his hand lazily. “That’d ruin the adventure.”
The simplicity of it hit her harder than it should have.
No fear.
No desperation for answers.
Just trust in the road ahead.
Her eyes burned suddenly.
Luffy noticed immediately.
“Why’re you crying?”
She hadn’t even realised she was.
Embarrassed, she wiped quickly at her face and looked away.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I said I’m not.”
“Okay.”
Again.
Just acceptance.
Something in her cracked quietly under the weight of it.
Before she could think better of it, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms tightly around him.
Luffy froze in surprise.
Only for a second.
Then his arms came around her just as easily.
No questions.
No hesitation.
Just warmth.
And somehow that made the tears worse.