char

He received no acknowledgement - only cold silence.

It was at that moment that Zoro decided to enter, pausing at the threshold when he noticed the scene before him. "What's going on?"

"Stay out of this, moss-head." The cook shot back, refusing to take his eyes off of the woman in the kitchen.

Nami and Usopp sniffed out the drama hours ago, sat at the back of the room watching it unfold as if it were peak entertainment. They beckoned the swordsman over, eager to gossip about the situation Sanji had gotten himself into. “He’s being punished.” Usopp explained, sipping on a lemonade as he watched.

“Why?”

Nami gave a cool smile, crossing a leg over her knee. “Because he’s an idiot.” Her smile only grew when the cook shot a glare over his shoulder. “He flirted with a waitress in town.”

“I was not flirting!” Sanji insisted. “I swear, I wasn’t!”

“Oh, excuse me,” Nami rolled her eyes, “he accidentally flirted with a waitress in the town.”

“I told him that ‘charm’ would bite him in the ass one day.” Usopp chuckled, paying no mind to the gesture Sanji sent his way.

“My love, please, there’s no need to take such drastic measures—”

“—Drastic?!” (Y/N) seethed, grabbing a knife.

Zoro tensed, wondering what the hell she was going to do with it. “Um… so what exactly is the punishment?”

“I’m calling it ‘culinary torture’.” Usopp answered, drink forgotten as the drama finally started up. “He’s locked out of the kitchen.”

“Darling, please, what are you— THAT IS A BREAD KNIFE! YOU CAN’T USE IT TO CUT MEAT!”

“Oh, I didn’t realise you were in charge of my free will.” (Y/N) sassed, using the knife with more force as she sliced through a chicken breast with added fervour.

“Did someone say meat?” Luffy appeared, smile stretched wide. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken.” (Y/N) replied.

“No, my love, please don’t— you’re supposed to cut against the grain. The texture—!”

“—Be quiet, Sanji.” She spat, dropping the meat into the nearest pan.

“That’s a SAUCEPAN! It’s for sauces — you can’t cook chicken in that!” The cook exclaimed, a face of horror overtaking him as he gripped his hair in both hands.

Luffy sat down with the others, beyond confused. “What’s going on?”

“Sanji’s being punished.” Zoro mused.

“Oh, okay.”

“What are you doing now?” Sanji asked, his voice shaking with dread.

“Pasta.” Replied (Y/N), seconds before they heard snapping and a cry from the chef.

“NO! DID YOU REALLY JUST SNAP SPAGHETTI?!”

“Did you really call that girl ‘beautiful’ in front of me?” (Y/N) scoffed as she filled another pan with boiling water.

“I was truly only being nice—”

“And I truly don’t care.”

“You are the only woman I have eyes for! IS THAT MAYONNAISE?!”

“And what about the woman at the market? You certainly had eyes for her.” (Y/N) turned up the heat, determined to overcook the spaghetti just the right amount.

“It was an accidental wink.”

“A wink, nonetheless.” (Y/N) strained the pasta and added it to the now cooked chicken, then reached for the spice rack.

A weak gasp escaped the man, a hand brought to his chest to clutch his heart. “Mon amor, I am begging you, don’t.”

It was all the motive she needed.

A large sprinkle of oregano would finish the dish off nicely.

“PLEASE, this has gone too far!” Sanji cried, face pale as a pained sound escaped him as she continued to sprinkle the herb in. He was doing his very best not to let his tears fall.

"You know what? I think I'm going to add some prawns."

"With chicken??"

"And how about a nice cheese sauce?" She pondered aloud, grabbing a frying pan and adding her ingredients.

"You can't make sauce in a frying pan!"

"And you can't accept your fate." (Y/N) shrugged him off, grabbing the bread knife and some garlic.

Finally, Sanji began to cry. "No! Stop! You don't chop garlic-- stop using the bread knife! Please!"

She blocked out his pleads and gasps of horror, continuing with her preparations as the rest of the crew watched in amusement. Before they knew it, dinner was served and Sanji was forced to watch as their friends ate without complaint.

The cook was served last. His plate was gracelessly dropped in front of him and (Y/N) sat herself down at the opposite end of the table, daring him to complain. The crew watched the interaction in silence, bets made and breaths held. With wet eyes, Sanji looked up to her pleadingly, but was disappointed to find the heartbreak on his face had no effect.

Finally, the man accepted his fate. He grabbed his cutlery, only to pause.

The knife and fork were at the wrong side.

The minx knew exactly how to get under his skin. And perhaps there was something thrilling about that; though, he could never admit it.

Sanji was at least wise enough to say nothing about the intentional mix-up. He swapped the cutlery to the correct hands, took a breath, and prepared himself to eat the monstruosity before him.

The spaghetti was lathered in a creamy cheese sauce at the centre of the plate -- half the size that it ought to be and not cooked al dente, as it should be. A mix of chicken and shrimp (a blasphemous combination) sat on top, in a buttery sauce of chopped garlic and oregano. No one else seemed to notice, but the chicken was too tough, a result of being cut with the grain.

To anyone else, it was a decent meal. But to Sanji -- a chef with a passion for culinary rules and refined senses for taste and texture -- it was all wrong. She broke every rule. And she knew it.

Obediently, Sanji brought a forkful to his lips, doing his best to keep a straight face as he chewed. Nami discreetly passed some cash to Usopp under the table.

Dinner was mostly silent as their friends watched the interaction, whispering between each other. This could very well be the highlight of their week; a drama they'd be bringing up for years.

He'd barely gotten halfway through the dish when he simply couldn't stand it any longer. He dropped the cutlery and pressed his face into his hands. "(Y/N), mon amor, I am sorry. I swear to you, the flirting was completely unintentional. I was only being nice--"

Nami audibly sucked in a breath, Usopp squeezed his eyes together, and even Zoro shook his head. Yep, he was fucked.

"Sanji, you really ought to learn the difference between being nice and being a flirt." (Y/N) glared at him, slowly cutting into her pasta with her knife and fork, ignoring the pained tensing of his jaw.

"I know that." He admitted defeat. "And I swear to you, I will not make that mistake again. And I will spend however long it takes making it up to you."

It was then that the others finally felt like they were intruding on this lovers' quarrel and not watching a scripted drama.

(Y/N) put down her cutlery and faced him fully, lips pursed and eyes steady, giving him a scathing look. She would forgive him, of course, but he would certainly feel her wrath for days to come. "You're cleaning up."

"Of course." Sanji conceded.

"I'm making breakfast tomorrow."

He ducked his head and sucked in a breath, but nodded anyway. "Alright."

"And from now on, the only person you will flirt with is me."

"Absolutely."

There was a silence again as everyone deciphered if it was safe.

Luffy, with his clean plate pushed aside, was the first to speak. "So... what's for desert?"

"Chocolate sauerkraut cake."

"Darling, PLEASE--"

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

Sanji, the whole time:

Poor thing needs at least 5 cigarettes at the end of dinner.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

Please tell me what you think - I’m an approval driven hoe I swear :(

You looked up and saw yourself standing beside the desk.

Shanks wore your pajamas. Your hair hung loose around his shoulders. Both of your hands were pressed over your mouth, though the alarm in your face did not last long.

His eyes moved over you.

Then he laughed.

The sound came out in your voice.

You pushed yourself upright using his right arm. “Stop that.”

Shanks lowered your hands. “I’m sorry.”

He was not sorry.

“You’re smiling.”

“I’ve never heard myself complain from across the room before.”

You tried to stand. Shanks’s body responded with more strength than you expected, launching you upright hard enough that you stumbled into the bedpost.

His smile widened.

“Say one more thing.”

Shanks reached up and touched your hair.

Your hair.

“Soft,” he said.

You stared at him.

He slowly removed his hand.

A knock sounded at the cabin door before you could threaten him properly.

“Boss?” Hongo called. “The ship from Brindle Cay was spotted. Captain Renner should be aboard within the hour.”

You and Shanks looked at each other.

Shanks’s amusement faded.

You pointed at the door. “Fix this.”

“I don’t think Hongo caused it.”

“The relic.”

Shanks glanced toward the small stone disk lying on the desk. The previous evening, both of you had touched it while arguing over whether it belonged in his cabin or locked below deck. It had flashed once, gone dark, and seemed harmless afterward.

Shanks picked it up with your hand.

Nothing happened.

The door opened.

Hongo stepped inside, took one look at the room, and stopped.

You stood beside the bed in Shanks’s body, wearing only his trousers. Shanks stood at the desk, holding the relic and inspecting your fingernails.

Hongo closed the door behind him.

“How long?” he asked.

“We just woke up,” you said.

Hongo’s attention moved to Shanks.

Shanks lifted one of your hands. “She has a small scar on this finger.”

You crossed the room and snatched your hand away from him.

“You’ll need to impersonate him,” Hongo said.

“No.”

You looked at Shanks.

“No,” you repeated.

Shanks tied the robe at your waist with visible satisfaction. “You’ll be excellent.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Some parts.”

You narrowed your eyes.

Hongo picked up the relic. “I’ll work on reversing it.”

Shanks smiled with your mouth.

You disliked how convincing it looked.

An hour later, you sat in Shanks’s chair at the head of the meeting table.

His boots were too large. His coat would not remain on your shoulder. His sword felt heavy at your hip.

Beckman stood near the windows, smoking.

He had recognized the problem the moment you refused the bottle he offered.

Lucky had recognized it when Shanks stole food from his plate walked away before he could object.

Now they had scattered around the room under the pretense of guarding the negotiation.

Most of them were watching you.

Shanks stood behind your chair, dressed in your clothes. He had pinned your hair back badly, leaving one side higher than the other.

You had told him twice.

He had claimed it was intentional.

Captain Renner entered with two officers.

“Red-Hair.”

You nodded.

Renner waited.

You remembered that Shanks usually smiled when welcoming allies. You attempted one.

Beckman coughed into his fist.

You looked toward him.

“Something in my throat,” he said.

You turned back to Renner and decided not to smile again.

The negotiations began.

At first, you tried to think of what Shanks would say. That proved impossible. Shanks rarely followed the same approach twice, and the man currently occupying your body offered no useful guidance.

When Renner proposed a route through waters controlled by a hostile fleet, Shanks caught your eye and silently mimed drinking from a bottle.

You ignored him.

Instead, you asked Renner what he expected to gain from an agreement that endangered only your crew.

He began explaining.

You let him.

The longer you remained silent, the more details he volunteered. He adjusted his cuffs. He changed the route twice. By the time he stopped speaking, he had weakened his own proposal considerably.

You leaned back.

The chair creaked under Shanks’s weight.

Renner cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should reconsider the eastern passage.”

“That would be sensible,” you said.

From beside the window, Beckman gave a slight nod.

You almost relaxed.

Then Renner noticed Shanks.

His gaze moved over your body with open interest.

“And who is this?”

You felt Shanks go still behind you.

“My companion,” you said.

Renner smiled at him. “You’ve been quiet.”

Shanks lowered your eyes, but there was nothing modest in the expression. His mouth had tightened.

“I was listening,” he said in your voice.

Renner seemed encouraged.

He addressed several more comments to Shanks, each more familiar than the last. Shanks answered politely at first, then with less patience each time. When Renner complimented your hair, he tucked it behind your ear with a sharper movement than necessary.

Lucky turned away to hide his face.

Renner eventually leaned back in his chair.

“You keep excellent company, Red-Hair. Perhaps she might show me the island while our crews finish loading supplies.”

Pressure rolled through the room.

One of Renner’s officers shifted in his seat.

You froze.

You had not reached for Shanks’s Haki. You did not know how.

Across from you, Renner’s smile faltered.

Shanks looked at you from inside your body, jaw tight.

Then you understood.

His body was reacting to him.

You placed Shanks’s hand flat on the table. The wood creaked beneath your palm.

“She won’t.”

Renner glanced between you and Shanks. “I meant no offense.”

“You asked for her as though she were part of the agreement.”

The last trace of warmth disappeared from Renner’s face.

You did not raise your voice.

“She decides where she goes,” you continued. “You will not ask me for permission to have her.”

Renner lowered his gaze. “Understood.”

The meeting ended soon after. The moment the door closed behind him, the crew began leaving through every available exit.

Beckman paused near you.

“You did well.”

You looked toward Shanks. “Did I?”

“You frightened him without breaking the table.”

Beckman glanced at the shallow impression beneath your hand. “Mostly.”

Then he left.

Shanks waited until you were alone before walking around the table.

He stopped in front of you.

“You get that often?”

You looked at him. “What?”

“Men speaking to you like that.”

“Sometimes.”

Your mouth tightened on his face.

“More than sometimes?”

You leaned back in his chair. “You usually don’t notice.”

“I noticed today.”

“You looked like you were smiling at him.”

Shanks rested your hip against the edge of the table. “I was deciding which part of his ship to sink.”

You stood and immediately had to adjust for his height. Shanks reached out with both of your hands and steadied you by the waist.

The contact felt strange. Familiar hands in the wrong place. Your own fingers resting against Shanks’s body.

Inside his body, you could feel how much tension he carried. His neck was stiff, his shoulders sore, and the muscles across his back tightened whenever you moved. Even his jaw ached from how often he kept it clenched.

“You ache,” you said.

Shanks looked up at you.

“All the time?”

“Not all the time.”

It was not a convincing answer.

“You never mention it.”

“There usually isn’t anything to be done.”

“You could still tell me.”

Shanks studied your face as though he had forgotten he was wearing it.

“I could,” he said.

A knock interrupted you.

Hongo entered carrying the relic between two cloths.

“It requires a shared admission,” he said. “Something withheld. Both of you touch it while speaking honestly.”

Shanks frowned. “We speak honestly.”

Outside the cabin, someone laughed loudly enough to be heard through the door.

Hongo set the relic on the table and left.

You placed Shanks’s hand against one side.

Shanks covered the other with yours.

You stared down at your joined hands.

“Sometimes,” you began, “I worry that people see me as something belonging to you before they see me as myself.”

Shanks stopped smiling.

The relic warmed beneath your palms.

His thumb moved over the back of your hand.

“I like when they know you’re with me,” he said. “I like it more than I should.”

The stone brightened.

“But I never want you to believe being mine is all you are.”

Light filled the room.

The floor vanished beneath you.

Then you were falling.

Shanks caught you against his chest with his right arm.

Your own body felt small after wearing his. Your knees weakened, and you grabbed his shirt until the room stopped moving.

Shanks looked down at himself, then at you.

Both of you remained still.

He touched your face carefully.

You lifted a hand to your hair and found three separate tangles.

“What did you do?”

“I pinned it back.”

“You tied it into knots.”

Shanks allowed you to push him toward the chair. He sat while you began pulling the pins free, placing each one on the table with increasing irritation.

His hand settled around your waist.

“You were a good captain,” he said.

You tugged sharply at one of the knots.

Shanks winced.

“You were a terrible companion.”

“I was charming.”

“You stole Lucky’s breakfast.”

You finally freed the last pin. Your hair fell around your shoulders.

Shanks started to pull you closer, but you moved behind the chair instead.

“Sit still.”

His brow lifted. “What are you doing?”

You placed both hands on his shoulders.

The tension you had felt while inside his body was still there, hard beneath your palms. You pressed your thumbs into the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

Shanks’s head tipped forward.

“That,” you said.

He went quiet as you worked slowly across his shoulders, easing the knots you now knew he carried there.

After a moment, his hand reached back and rested against your thigh.

“Be gentle with your captain.”

“You survived being me for an afternoon.”

“Barely.”

You leaned down and kissed the top of his head before returning your hands to his shoulders.

Shanks relaxed beneath them, though his grip remained around your leg.

Outside the cabin, Renner’s voice carried from the passage.

Shanks lifted his head.

You pushed it back down.

“Leave the ship alone.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re thinking about it.”

His shoulders moved beneath your hands with a quiet laugh.

You only began questioning the state of your own emotions when you noticed that one of your sketchbooks was nearly full, yet didn’t contain a single drawing of anyone else from the crew.

There were still the usual everyday sketches of Law scattered throughout its pages, of course, but now they were joined by an ever-growing collection dedicated almost entirely to his tattoos.

Heat spread across your cheeks at the mere thought of wanting a better look at them. Up close. Close enough to faithfully capture every intricate line, even the ones hidden beneath his clothes.

Somewhere along the way, you’d forgotten that those pages had originally begun as anatomy studies.

Now they were filled with careful observations of the muscles in his arms and chest, how each tattoo stretched and shifted ever so slightly as he moved.

You had even asked him not to move once while trying to capture a particular angle.

“Hold still.”

Law didn’t so much as glance up from the medical journal in his hands.

“…Why?”

“Your forearm tattoo curves weirdly when you rotate your wrist.”

Too absorbed in his reading to question it, he simply extended his arm toward you without another word, letting you do… whatever it was you were doing.

It wasn’t until nearly ten minutes later that he realized you’d been staring at him the entire time.

Your mind drifted back to all the afternoons spent watching him from the opposite side of the office, your heart racing as you quietly melted at the sight of him getting irritated over paperwork that refused to add up.

Without realizing it, you had filled pages with sketches of his furrowed brows, his slightly pursed lips, the faint puff of his cheeks whenever he grew annoyed, somehow ending up with eleven different versions of that expression alone.

Then there were the shadows his eyelashes cast across his cheeks.

The subtle curve of his lips whenever a smile escaped him.

His eyes.

His eyes in every imaginable expression: irritation, concentration, curiosity, happiness.

Oh God.

I’m in love with our grumpy captain.

The doctor of the Heart Pirates found himself increasingly confused by your recent behavior.

He would never admit it aloud, but he was worried.

For the past several days, although you still spent your usual hours working beside him in the office, you had begun avoiding him whenever you could.

You still sorted mountains of paperwork as diligently as ever, only now you always wore your headphones, leaving little room for conversation. Whenever he asked you something, you’d slip one earbud out just long enough to answer before immediately putting it back in. Sometimes you didn’t even hear him the first time.

He never commented on it.

Everyone had days when silence was preferable to the noise of other people.

God knew he had more of those than anyone.

Still, your company had always been one of the few he genuinely enjoyed, and he couldn’t shake the quiet hope that perhaps tomorrow you’d be a little more willing to talk to him again.

It felt strange in other ways too.

Whenever he found enough free time to join the crew for an evening card game, you were no longer sitting beside him as his partner.

Instead of exchanging knowing smiles and whispering advice over your next move, you now found yourself across the table beside Shachi, laughing every time he stubbornly ignored your suggestions and confidently played exactly the wrong card.

A faint pang of jealousy, one he would sooner die than acknowledge, settled somewhere deep inside his chest as he caught himself glancing in your direction throughout the evening.

Across the table, Bepo seemed equally distracted, nervously darting his gaze between the two of you while absentmindedly throwing random cards onto the pile.

Law had always claimed he enjoyed card games.

The truth was, his favorite part had never been the cards.

It had simply been sitting beside you.

Faced with the alternative, he couldn’t help but admit to himself that he would’ve rather skipped the game altogether.

The following afternoon, after excusing yourself from the office for half an hour to go listen to Penguin’s newest collection of music he’d picked up on the last island, the submarine’s brooding captain remained behind to finish his paperwork.

Or rather…

He sat with his pen hovering uselessly above the page, wondering whether he’d done something over the past few days to upset you.

Perhaps he’d been too cold.

Perhaps you’d finally grown tired of trying to get through to him and decided the more entertaining members of the crew were simply better company.

Regret quietly settled over him. He should’ve asked you to go somewhere together on the next island. Just the two of you.

Now charismatic Penguin had probably charmed you with his music collection…

…and who knew when you’d come back to him…

His spiraling thoughts were interrupted by an unusually cheerful polar bear entering the office with a steaming cup of green tea.

“Captain, where’s Y/N?”

“What does that have to do with me?” Law answered with mild irritation. “She can spend her time however she wants.”

After a brief pause, he muttered,

“As long as she gets back soon enough to finish this documentation, she can spend time with whoever she wants for as long as she wants.”

Bepo pretended not to hear the second half.

Still smiling to himself, he set the cup beside Law, who acknowledged it with a quiet nod of thanks.

“Hmm… Y/N really is a wonderful artist, isn’t she?”

Silence.

“As you know… she draws everyone on the crew.”

“Hm.”

“You have the most pages, though.”

“…What?”

“Not fair,” Bepo chuckled as he walked out of the office. “You’re one lucky guy.”

He left behind one thoroughly bewildered captain.

Later that day, the two of you were updating the submarine’s library. Law stood atop a ladder placing the newly acquired books onto the shelves while you handed them up one by one, carefully recording each addition.

Every so often your fingers brushed against his.

Each fleeting touch sent an unwelcome current racing through both of you, one you silently agreed to ignore. You’d pretend to examine the bookshelves with great interest while embarrassment painted your cheeks, and the tips of his ears.

This angle is really not helping my increasingly ridiculous crush, you thought, looking up at your captain from almost directly below.

From there, the sharp line of his nose seemed even more striking, and you found yourself watching the slow rise and fall of his long eyelashes.

Ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

The word echoed through your mind later as well while the two of you worked in companionable silence, cataloguing documents together.

It echoed again as your pencil unconsciously recreated those same thick eyelashes arching above serious golden eyes.

Then the tattooed heart with the smiling Jolly Roger emblazoned across his chest.

You jolted when you heard your captain calling your name, snapping your sketchbook shut almost instantly.

“Could you take these books back to the office?” he asked. “We’ll go through them properly tomorrow. Keep two or three with you and leave the rest on my desk. Then head to dinner. I’ll join you once I’m finished here.”

Still distracted, you nodded, gathering the towering stack of books into your arms.

The pile was so high you had to steady it with your chin to stop it from collapsing like a house of cards, a sight that made an unexpected wave of fondness wash over Law.

In your haste, however, you failed to notice that your sketchbook, buried beneath the stack, had slipped free and remained behind on the table as you left the library.

Once he’d finished highlighting the necessary information and sorting tomorrow’s paperwork into neat piles, Law finally prepared to head for the dining hall.

That’s when he noticed something lying on the table where you’d been sitting.

Of course.

You’d forgotten something.

He walked over and picked up the light-colored sketchbook, intending to return it the next time he saw you.

Still…

Curiosity quietly tugged at him.

Just one look.

He opened it.

A drawing of himself.

He turned the page.

Another one.

He flipped to the middle at random.

Him again.

Another page.

A detailed anatomical study of muscles.

He flipped toward the back.

A meticulous rendering of his hands.

…What the hell?

He stood there staring at the sketchbook in complete silence, so stunned that his thoughts seemed to short-circuit altogether.

More than embarrassed, he was simply… astonished.

Not because someone had documented him in such painstaking detail.

But because you had.

And not because he was the captain.

Simply because he was him.

After everyone had finished dinner, full and ready to retreat for the night before another day awaited them, Law quietly asked you to stay behind.

“I think you forgot this,” he said, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

If the earth had opened beneath your feet and swallowed you into its deepest depths, straight to the bottom of the Grand Line, you wouldn’t have protested.

You felt like you were dying.

Before you could snatch the sketchbook from his hands, he deliberately opened it to one of the more detailed portraits, the kind that made it painfully obvious you’d spent hours bringing it to life.

“You spent that much time on this?”

“…Maybe.”

Silence settled between you, and for the life of you, you couldn’t decipher what was passing behind those amber eyes.

“You got the eyes wrong.”

That…

That was not what you’d expected him to say.

“What?”

“They aren’t always that harsh. Or that distant.” His gaze lingered on the drawing for another moment. “They’re softer. Especially depending on who’s standing in front of me.”

He tried to sound casual, though the warmth creeping into his cheeks betrayed him far more effectively than his voice ever could. It was, whether he intended it or not, a confession.

“You’ll have to take another look from up close,” he continued, gently placing the sketchbook back into your hands. “You can fix it tomorrow, when we visit the next island.”

With that, he turned toward the door, wished you goodnight with the smallest of smiles, and left.

Your heart threatened to leap straight out of your chest and join the rest of his collection.

Not that you would’ve minded.

And that…

That was how it all began.

By the time the two of you were together, the quiet blooming of your relationship could be traced through your sketches alone.

Little by little, they transformed into increasingly intimate moments, the sort only someone who shared another person’s quietest hours would ever have the chance to witness.

Law lying in bed, still wearing his glasses as he read.

Law fast asleep with his head thrown back, mouth slightly open, snoring without the slightest hint of dignity.

Law first thing in the morning, hair hopelessly disheveled, not quite awake yet.

A cup of coffee slowly growing cold beside him.

Law laughing so hard he doubled over.

His head resting in your lap while insisting he was only “resting his eyes.”

Whenever his gaze happened to fall upon one of those sketches, an unfamiliar feeling quietly settled inside him.

He had expected studies.

Those had never embarrassed him. To your pencil, he’d simply been another subject worthy of observation. A body was a body, and as a doctor, he understood the fascination that came with studying the way muscles shifted beneath skin or bones dictated movement. Those were the kinds of drawings an artist made when captivated by form.

But these…

These were something else.

They reached far beyond anatomy, and that singular way you saw him unsettled him in a manner he couldn’t begin to explain.

This wasn’t merely what he looked like.

It was what you had chosen to see.

Not the captain.

Not the Surgeon of Death.

Not the man whose name people spoke in hushed voices.

Your gifted hands had filled page after page with the version of him that existed only in the quiet spaces between responsibilities, in fleeting moments rarely witnessed by anyone else.

As though those ordinary, forgettable fragments of his life possessed a beauty he had never once thought to assign them. As though simply existing beside him had been enough to make them worth remembering.

Much like every moment he spent beside you had become filled with countless little memories he knew he would carry with him for the rest of his life.

He hadn’t even realized you had been watching during those moments of quiet contentment. He’d always assumed those tiny glimpses, the rare instances when he allowed himself to truly relax, belonged to him alone. They were the sort of moments no one else would notice, let alone consider meaningful.

And yet…

There they were.

Preserved with the same tenderness another person might reserve for sunsets or constellations.

His breath caught.

The feeling blooming inside his chest was unlike anything he had ever known, something impossibly gentle brushing against his heart, as though wings had suddenly begun to unfurl from it, eager to lift it free and carry it out into the open air.

As your relationship settled into something comfortably familiar, Law gradually became the most frequent subject of your artwork, much to the dismay of certain rather jealous members of the crew, who weren’t above voicing their complaints every now and then.

“There has to be something of me in here somewhere,” Penguin muttered as he flipped through your sketchbook. “Captain… no, Law… Captain again… Captain… Ca… AAAH!”

He yelped, dropping the sketchbook in sheer panic.

It never reached the floor.

An already irritated Law caught it with one hand before it could even come close.

“Be careful.”

“I CAN’T BE CALM WHEN I JUST ACCIDENTALLY SAW TWELVE DRAWINGS OF YOUR ABS, CAPTAIN!” Penguin cried, his face turning scarlet.

He immediately yanked the brim of his hat down over his eyes as though it might erase the memory.

“I can’t believe you never drew the time I absolutely demolished that guy!” he continued dramatically. “It was legendary! A once-in-a-lifetime moment! But no! Apparently all you ever feel like immortalizing are this Surgeon of Death’s hands and ridiculously thick eyelashes.”

He stared at Law in theatrical disbelief.

“…Who knows what else I would’ve found if I’d kept turning the pages.”

Now it was your turn to blush.

“Penguin, no… I’ll draw you soon, it’s not like there’s any—”

“That’s none of your concern,” Law interrupted flatly, still holding the sketchbook securely against his chest.

“She can sketch whatever she wants.”

His golden eyes shifted toward Penguin.

“And if you’re ever that careless with her artwork again…”

A brief pause.

“…we’ll have a conversation in my office.”

Penguin visibly paled.

“…You know what? I suddenly feel very well represented already.”

Even your anatomy studies had grown more detailed.

More intimate.

By then, you could shamelessly ask him to stay perfectly still for ten minutes so you could capture the angle of the tattoo stretching across his chest. The easiest position usually involved you reclining halfway against his lap so that his torso angled ever so slightly toward you, allowing every contour of his chest, abdomen, and arms to reveal itself beneath shifting light. Every muscle found its place upon the page, every subtle ridge and hollow observed with painstaking care.

“Don’t move.”

“I’m not moving.”

“…Your breathing counts.”

He sighed.

“That also counts.”

You frowned at the page, erasing another line.

“Something’s wrong…”

Law leaned forward just enough to glance at your sketch.

“You’ve pulled the pectoralis major too far toward the sternum.”

You looked up at him.

“…Do you enjoy ruining my confidence?”

“No.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“I enjoy preventing anatomical inaccuracies.”

“…That’s somehow worse.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Your tattoo work is flawless,” he said, his eyes returning to the page. “It’s just the muscle beneath it.”

“…You couldn’t have started with that?”

“You would’ve stopped listening.”

Sometimes you drew him while he was occupied with something else, and other times, simply because those quiet moments together filled you with such contentment, you found yourself sketching those beloved muscles and bones entirely from memory.

One evening, the two of you sat close together as Law leafed through a medical textbook while you frowned at a sketch of his back, trying to make sense of the broad planes shifting beneath his skin.

So absorbed were you in your work that you never noticed him leaning over your shoulder.

“The trapezius overlaps the latissimus dorsi more than that.”

You looked at him blankly.

“…Do you ever say upper back like a normal person?”

“No.”

Having long since accepted that you would never possess his encyclopedic knowledge of osteology and myology, you had resigned yourself to spending the rest of your life with one impossibly adorable, hopelessly pedantic doctor who insisted on correcting you every chance he got.

“You’re looking at the tendon, not the muscle.”

“Law.”

“Hm?”

“I’m going to need you to use words normal people actually know.”

He sighed, as though you had just asked the impossible.

“…The stringy bit.”

Laughter burst from you before you could stop it.

“See? You can do it.”

“That’s the flexor digitorum profundus,” he informed you knowingly.

“…Mhm.”

“You have no idea what I just said.”

“Not a clue.”

“You’re pretending to understand,” he accused, already preparing an impromptu lecture.

“I love listening to you talk.”

He froze and blinked twice.

The tips of his ears bloomed a brilliant shade of pink as something entirely incoherent escaped beneath his breath, quiet enough that you couldn’t make out the words, though they still managed to tickle something warm inside your chest.

“You sound cute when you get all professor-like.”

Watching your normally composed, reserved boyfriend become so hopelessly flustered filled you with entirely unreasonable satisfaction.

I could get used to endless medical lectures if teasing him always earns me this reaction.

After months of constant reminders about proper anatomical terminology and what felt like several medical lectures every month, though you would never admit just how much you’d secretly enjoyed them, you gradually found yourself using words that had once sounded like an entirely foreign language.

There was something undeniably attractive about having such an absurdly brilliant and beautiful boyfriend all to yourself.

The first time Law had enthusiastically begun explaining the intricacies of the human neck and casually mentioned the sternocleidomastoid, your instinctive response had been to blink at him and mutter, “Bless you.”

Now, whenever he gently corrected your drawings with the same term, you simply nodded.

“I know, I know.”

Without even looking up, you adjusted the line.

“It attaches to the mastoid process, and mine’s too straight.”

Law slowly looked up from his book.

“…I’m proud of you.”

You stared.

“…Was that a compliment?”

“I’ve given you several.”

“You’ve given me homework.”

You teased him, fully aware that countless more assignments would follow, each one secretly becoming your favorite. Every now and then he’d even reinforce those lessons in practice, tracing surprisingly gentle kisses along your neck as he pointed out precisely where each muscle and delicate bone lay beneath your skin.

You had barely blocked in the basic shapes before a familiar voice drifted over your shoulder.

“You’ve exaggerated the deltoid.”

Law had been quietly watching you work for quite some time, long enough that, for once, you had begun to believe he’d found nothing to correct.

Alas…

It had simply been too good to be true.

Without even turning around, you let out an exaggerated sigh.

“There he is.”

“What?”

“My insufferable anatomist. I was wondering how long you’d last before correcting me.”

“I lasted twelve minutes.”

“That’s a personal record.”

A quiet hum escaped him.

Almost a laugh.

“I was trying to let you finish.”

“You failed.”

He rolled his eyes, muttering beneath his breath.

“I’m only trying to help.”

You smiled despite his incurable inability to leave your drawings alone.

“I know.”

Your voice softened.

“You always do.”

Something shifted behind his eyes.

“I know how seriously you take your work.”

His voice had grown quieter now.

“I want your references to be as accurate as they deserve.”

He hesitated before adding,

“…I’ll survive even if that means you’ll keep calling me insufferable.”

He leaned forward just enough to study the page more closely, one finger hovering above the paper without touching it. He knew better than to smudge charcoal.

“The contour’s right,” he said after a moment. “It’s just the insertion that’s slightly off.”

A brief silence followed.

“…The shading’s beautiful, though.”

You blinked.

“You noticed the shading?”

“I notice everything.”

There was an almost bashful quality to his voice now.

“I’ve known you long enough to learn a thing or two myself.”

He cleared his throat.

“…Though you should still fix the deltoid. It’s exaggerated.”

“No. I made you look stronger.”

“I don’t need artistic charity.”

“No?”

“No.”

You erased the line with theatrical reluctance, grumbling under your breath.

“It looked good.”

“It looked inaccurate.”

“It looked handsome.”

The faintest blush dusted the tips of his ears.

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

More often than not, Law would catch himself watching your hand move across the page, your pencil gliding with practiced confidence as it gathered fragments of him into graceful lines.

The feeling it stirred inside him remained wonderfully unfamiliar, equal parts strange and intimately warm. Somehow, in your drawings, he always appeared calmer than he’d imagined himself to be, softer around the edges, and with time he came to realize that the version of himself reflected through your eyes was the one he preferred above all others. It was the man he wished to be when you looked at him.

And perhaps that was why he found himself hoping you would never stop observing him with those endlessly hopeful eyes that seemed to hold love in every blink.

With all of that in mind, it wasn’t long before Law noticed something else.

In every drawing of the crew, whether they were gathered around the dinner table, celebrating at a festival, pelting one another with snowballs, or simply spending a quiet evening together in the lounge, one person was always missing.

You.

Not just from that sketchbook, but from every sketchbook he’d ever seen.

At most, a hand would occasionally appear, or perhaps a glimpse of your legs stretched across his lap in one of the quieter sketches of the two of you together, but you were never there as part of the crew.

He didn’t ask you about it immediately.

Instead, he continued to watch in silence, patiently waiting until the right moment presented itself.

It came while you were sketching Shachi’s birthday celebration.

Everyone was there.

Penguin and the birthday boy laughing as they clapped each other on the back.

Ikkaku and Jean Bart raising their glasses in a toast.

Bepo sprawled comfortably across the couch beside what had to be his fourth slice of cake, absentmindedly rubbing his contentedly full stomach.

The captain of the Heart Pirates sat at the far end of the sofa, wearing the faintest smile as he spoke with someone outside the frame.

The only indication of that unseen person was a pair of legs draped lazily across his lap.

“Why aren’t you ever in these?”

The question escaped him before he could stop himself.

You blinked, lowering your eyes to the drawing once again.

“What?”

“You draw every member of the crew.”

“…Yeah?”

“Except yourself.”

Your expression turned genuinely puzzled, tinged with a hint of embarrassment.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve never wondered why?”

“I guess… it just feels… strange.”

You hesitated, searching for the words.

“I can see all of you. I know your faces, the way you move, the energy each of you carries. But I don’t know how I’d even draw myself. It feels awkward.”

A sheepish smile tugged at your lips.

“And I’d probably ruin the whole picture.”

“Hm.”

Law understood that feeling better than most.

The quiet estrangement of looking at yourself and finding a stranger where you ought to have felt at home. He had spent years treating his own body as little more than a vessel for a mind that never quite seemed to belong inside it, as though the two merely happened to coexist rather than truly belong to one another.

So he carried your confession with him long after the conversation had ended, already wondering how he might one day convince you to see yourself with the same tenderness you so effortlessly gave everyone else.

It had been the end of one of those wonderfully uneventful days, the kind that settled over the submarine just before setting sail from another island the following morning.

The two of you had spent the evening tucked away in your room, reading, dozing, and quietly enjoying one another’s company.

Your head rested comfortably in his lap, your eyes closed in contentment as the long, deft fingers of one hand lazily combed through your hair, gently scratching your scalp. With the other, he absentmindedly flipped through the latest pages of your sketchbook.

More than once, his eyes lingered over the confident strokes of your pencil, quietly admiring the remarkable skill behind them. It filled him with a strange sense of pride to know that the same hands capable of holding their own in brutal pirate battles could also create something so delicate, so patient, so impossibly beautiful.

Then his breathing caught.

He had reached another sketch of himself.

He was lying curled against you, his head resting on your shoulder, lips slightly parted in deep, peaceful sleep while the brim of his hat had slipped low enough to shade his eyes.

Of you, only fragments remained.

The curve of a shoulder.

A curtain of hair cascading over it.

The soft folds of your sweater.

He noticed immediately that the drawing hadn’t been finished. The shading remained incomplete, certain details lacked the refinement so characteristic of your work.

Had you been fully awake, you probably never would’ve let him see something unfinished.

But that wasn’t what held his attention.

Near the bottom of the page, written in your careful handwriting so small it might easily have gone unnoticed, were three simple words.

My favorite view.

It was almost unbelievable that three ordinary words could settle so deeply beneath his ribs, finding a place he had long believed incapable of holding this kind of warmth.

As though, without ever searching for it, he had stumbled upon the final dream his soul had been quietly waiting for all along.

It wasn’t the sketch itself that moved him.

It was the realization that someone had looked upon one of his most unguarded, most ordinary moments and found it worthy of preserving.

Worthy of calling beautiful.

Worthy of returning to again and again.

For as long as he could remember, Law had believed love always demanded something in return. That it had to be earned, repaid, or would inevitably be lost.

And yet, within every careful line you had drawn and every shadow you had patiently built, there had been nothing except a quiet admiration for the man he was when he wasn’t trying to be anything more than himself.

For the first time in his life, it occurred to him that perhaps it truly was possible to be loved not for what you chose to show the world, nor in spite of everything you carried within you…

…but simply for who you were.

Perhaps…

Perhaps this was happiness.

Not the loud, fleeting kind he’d always assumed belonged to somebody else, but the quiet sort that slipped beneath your skin unnoticed until, before you realized it, all you wanted was for the moment to linger a little longer.

He didn’t know how to put any of it into words.

Instead, his fingertips drifted slowly across the paper, careful enough that one might have thought he feared smudging the graphite with a single careless touch. He traced those lines for longer than he needed to before gently closing the sketchbook.

Then he drew you closer.

Burying his face in your hair as though it were the safest place in the world, he pressed countless quiet kisses against your forehead and the crown of your head, holding you with a tenderness that said everything he could not.

Basking beneath the golden light of the setting sun in a meadow on the newest island you’d docked at, you and Law had quietly slipped away from the rest of the crew, content to spend the afternoon wrapped up in one another.

Reclining in the grass, you watched clouds drift lazily overhead, you pointing out the shapes they formed while your ever-skeptical boyfriend dismissed each one with an amused scoff, the two of you talking about nothing in particular.

After a while, Law reached into the backpack he’d thoughtfully brought along for your little excursion away from the submarine and pulled something out.

It was the sketchbook you’d been searching for days, the one you’d eventually given up on finding and replaced with a new one before you had the chance to finish it.

“Where did you find it?” you asked, eyes widening as you instinctively reached for it.

Instead of handing it over, Law shifted a little closer, gently guiding you back until you were sitting comfortably between his legs. Then he opened the sketchbook to its final pages.

There, spread across a single sheet, was someone who looked remarkably like you.

You were lying on your stomach atop the bed, surrounded by towering piles of books. The books themselves had been drawn with stiff, ruler-straight lines, yet each one had been filled with painstaking, almost childlike details, right down to your favorite titles and editions. You rested against the fluffy white blanket he’d done his earnest best to capture, your hair spilling loosely around you in delightfully unruly strands, your smile warm and just a little crooked, every tooth nearly the same size. He had even attempted shading, and truthfully, it wasn’t bad at all.

Ever the meticulous man, the Captain of the Heart Pirates had even placed his familiar spotted hat beside you at the corner of the bed.

You stared at the page, speechless, as warmth stung unexpectedly behind your eyes.

“…There was one person missing,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. “I may not be very good at this, but…”

He never got to finish.

You threw your arms around him so suddenly that you nearly knocked him onto his back.

He let out a quiet, startled, “Mm…”

“It’s beautiful! Thank you so much,” you said, your voice thick with emotion as you peppered his cheeks and the corner of his lips with grateful kisses, leaving him blushing a deep shade of red. “You’re actually not bad at this. We might have to become colleagues.”

A quiet laugh escaped through his nose.

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed.

“It’s perfect.”

“It objectively isn’t.”

“It is.”

“The perspective’s wrong.”

“I don’t care.”

“My line weight is inconsistent.”

“I don’t care.”

“The left eye…”

You kissed him again, effectively silencing yet another critique before it had the chance to escape.

You couldn’t help imagining him, a man who had never been blessed with an artist’s hand, sitting down with nothing more than a pencil anyway, enduring every crooked line and every failed attempt simply because, somewhere along the way, he’d decided you deserved to be seen. To be remembered. To see yourself through his eyes.

No one had ever loved you so deliberately.

And in that moment, you silently promised yourself that you would never let that happiness slip away from your heart.

It was well past midnight by the time you began teaching him how to draw hands.

You gently turned his wrist.

“Loosen your grip on the pencil.”

“Like this?”

“A little.”

You nudged his fingers into place.

“You’re holding it like you’re about to perform surgery.”

“…Old habits.”

As everyone aboard the Polar Tang already knew, drawing hands had long since become second nature to you. While you carefully sketched Law’s hand, he concentrated on drawing yours.

On the same sheet of paper rested two intertwined hands.

One was long and slender, tattooed from wrist to fingers, its elegant bones subtly visible beneath the skin as the thumb traced a gentle caress across the other.

The second was smaller, the fingers a little stiff, the nail beds broader than he had initially managed to capture. Fortunately, under your patient guidance, it changed shape minute by minute until it became something that felt perfect to the two of you, even if any self-proclaimed art critic, whose opinion neither of you had asked for in the first place, would’ve called it an awkward collision of two entirely different styles.

The finished page found its place in a frame on your bedside table before the two of you drifted off to sleep, laughter still lingering softly between you in the darkness.