ᓚᘏᗢ ★彡

When Sabo finally gets out of his room, you're posted against the wall, staring down the hall, half–way through craning your head to him at the sound of his heeled boot clicking against the linoleum floor. Kicking off the wall, your arms unfold from your chest and you press your thumb against the side of his jaw when you're close enough that Sabo imagines the smell of your flesh burning as you draw to him.

Smearing ash up the sharp of his face like you're blessing him, smoky black drawn out against his pale skin until it loses its colour, black, grey, white, gone. "Thanks," sounds like a cough to clear his lungs.

"Mm." Then, you're really gone and Sabo still has that itch in his lungs from the smoke.

Recently, Sabo's been side lined from a lot of stealth missions for fear of him literally catching fire and giving away their positions; He's both vexed and understanding about it, doesn't gripe his woes to Dragon, but makes it your problem. You're the only other logia devil fruit user in the Revolutionary Army, so you've been tasked with training Sabo to not catch fire. Sabo is okay with all of that— what he's not okay with is being spooked with how you sneak up on him to test his reflexes.

Your training isn't the kind that he's used to— not the kind of hand–to–hand combat he got from Hack, or the swordsmanship practice he got with Inazuma, or whatever the hell Ivankov put him through— defense training, he rationalises. It's not set from one time to another, doesn't require an empty space and equipment and loose clothing; you once threw a bee's nest into his room whilst he was changing and called that training. Sometimes, he'd be briefing you on a mission and you'd cut him in the middle of his sentence with a slap to the face that he can't do anything but take. He'd gotten adept at blocking you during your conversations though, so you've adapted to slapping him when he's talking to someone else in a conversation that doesn't involve you. Walk away afterwards before his hat even gets to drop to the floor, brim singed from the fire that bursts forth from his shoulder.

Whatever you're trying to prepare him for, can't be worse than what you're putting him through. He's sure about that at least.

The base is a little quieter today, Koala's not in his ear just yet— she will be when she comes back, prattling on about details of their mission that'll make Sabo simmer with some unsettling jealousy, irrationality about wasting his time trying to perfect something that isn't really his, will never be his. Always Ace's; forever his.

He settles next to you for his breakfast, eats quick like Ace and Luffy is still there beside him and he has to fight for his place at the table. The habit is more offensive when you're next to him, eating meekly and picking out pieces that you don't like— pieces that you offer to him with a quirk of your eyebrow and then glancing down at them. He gobbles those up greedily too.

"When do they get back?" He asks you, mouth full of cherry tomatoes you don't like the texture of.

You're pushing at the rice in your bowl, "day after tomorrow." Then, like a bad omen, "if nothing goes wrong." His reply is nothing more than a careful scrunch of his nose, a newborn judgemental look before it's stopped premature when you say, "how lowly I must seem in your eyes, your majesty."

It's so left–field, hurtful that Sabo gets whiplash, feels the ghost strike of your hand against his raw cheek suddenly, has to blink around your words for his mouth to slack. He doesn’t realise it until you've pushed your cup of water over, splashing it onto the fire that's drawn hot through his palm and melting the plastic of his chopsticks.

Sabo's eyes flicker down, assess the darkened splotches of his cuff where the water had deepened the hues of a night blue, a deep ocean and he frowns. Tries to keep that rural hurt from sounding in his words when he tells you, "you're a cruel teacher."

"I've high hopes for you." It doesn't flatter Sabo, not after your last comment.

You make a good attempt at trying to stab him in the eye with the end of your chopstick at some point, but he manages to duck his head out of the way. Sabo only takes offense when you click your tongue after your failure, turning your eyes away— annoyed.

After that, for the most part, it's quiet. You're doing what you do best: sinking into odd corners, quietly planning in the shadows, coldly judging other people's work, slipping through cracks, and ruining whatever is left out. There's no one around to distract Sabo long enough— make casual conversation with the second in command of the Revolutionary Army, so you're not even bothering with sneaking up to smack him or kick him at the back of his knees like Ace used to do or Luffy failed to do.

With Koala gone, the next in line to scold/make fun of/tease Sabo was Ivankov. Ivankov has a strange disposition that Sabo has slowly been getting used to over the years, calls him 'boy' like he's still that tiny little thing, running out of clean streets, high–rise buildings, the smell of wealth in the air that's near oppressive. Trading it all in for the smile of a young boy who doesn't turn up his nose when he comes sprinting dressed in a child's tailored suit, who doesn't sneer when he tumbles into the rough grass and stains his blue, a boy with a thousand freckles and a million dreams, with a younger brother who takes to Sabo far too kindly, even when Sabo pokes him in the head and teases him for his lack of strength, his disposition for tears.

The quiet is something that Sabo is not used to. There's only so much noise that Ivankov can bring— busy as they are.

Almost like you'd spoken it into existence, the mission that most of the army is on gets dragged out a little longer. It's only you that has the courage and audacity to come and make small talk with the second–in–command that keeps his days from being so dreary.

The second day after they should have come home, Sabo finishes a briefing for details and complications relayed to him by Hack and when he finishes tidying up, you're outside waiting for him again. Bored, tapping your heel against the floor like the ticking of a count–down for something horrible and Sabo near flinches when you kick off the wall once more. You do see it, tilt your head curiously, but you don't ask for any verbal confirmation about it so Sabo falls in line with you easily, following after you without a word.

He only realises it after you stop at the door, but you've been leading him outside the base. Through the backdoor, with all the weaves and extra halls— the long way around for no specific reason. You motion your head to the exit and he feels as though he doesn't have much of a choice when you disappear across the threshold. He glances back down the hall— thinks he sees a shadow of someone else walking— and then bends his step after you.

The heat of Baltigo is an awkward one. An inhabitable island, he supposes: unfit for anything with a beating heart, unequipped to nurture the life of a flame, perfect for their mission, empty, stale, still. Pulled loose from the monitors of a world that Sabo occasionally forgets he is a part of, stitch by stitch removed; the only thing that survives here, thrives, is the stationary things, that cannot feel, cannot ache, burn, hurt, want.

You test your shoes against the grip of the uneven ground, up and down with your hands loose from your chest, tight in its fist like you're preparing to box Sabo. He'll later be able to justify this, but satisfaction curls out of him easy, licks up the sharp of his cheeks so that it bares open the white teeth behind his grin. It is a feeling that is greedy without his attention, spills and shakes out of his feet when you've kicked off the floor without warning, rattles when your foot curves just over the cut of air and is then blocked by Sabo's upper arm.

Floods true through the little vignettes in his mind of months of tolerating the teaching violence you've tendered for him; it's been tenderised for months too long— Heaven knows that Sabo is patient, but even he is tested and endure he will, but he's forever been that boy who ran away, slipped through the waves with a small dinghy. You've never given him permission before, never explicit for him to stake his revenge when you acted out. He's not sure if this is any different from that combative eyebrow raise, inclined head that you sometimes give after you manage a successful, infantile sneak attack.

Vernal, the fire has no chance to recover the fractions that you've dispersed with the assault, even after you slick away, curl your foot back before Sabo's grip twists around to keep you tethered by your ankle. You're goading him by now, jumping a few steps back and then halting when Sabo doesn't move to attack; you file your hands politely behind your back and begin humming, an obnoxious tune that he can hear through the spinning of a needle over a vinyl, swing your feet into a march as you go around him in a quarter of a circle.

He's sure, by then, that you're expecting him to fight back. The naïve thought comes to him for a second as he scores his foot into the hard of the soil, he could be the bigger person, blind–side you himself, and come out on top with a little petty victory if only he turns on his heel and bent his step back into the building. But, growing up with Ace and Luffy had lowered him to their uncouth ways, so before you get to walking out a half circle, Sabo's feet have left the ground and he's only one mission.

To make you hurt.

If you allow him time to reflect later, he's sure he'll regret it. How easy, how fine, how smooth it'd come for that old, dried synapse to reconnect in his brain; allow for the wicked that he'd always thought himself to be better than to have. Either way, as the wind parts past the cut of a blurry silhouette, the crash of the shallow blue against the moor, waste deep in a forest he's seen often in reoccurring nightmares, his claw cracks through the peace of the heat of the breath you let out by the space of your mouth. Later, he'll be thankful that you dodged it.

Whatever he offers— angry, insecure, frustrated— you don't give him the satisfaction of taking. Each offense is equally parried by an even defence until the fire starts burning into itself. Until the fire rolls into action an Atlas stone that grinds the charcoal and firewood under weight and he can feel the early death of Ace's last flames diffusing into his blood, taste the salty brine of tears and snot in his mouth with the lingering char.

When he had first eaten the mera mera no mi, it wasn't like this. There hadn't been enough time for Sabo to think around the fire, study its components, feel Ace in its warmth; there was only that slight discomfort, the lingering disgust of the taste— then, he had to focus on protecting Luffy. He'd rationalised it for so many nights. The fruit was already accustomed to such a goal: protecting a younger brother, taking care of Luffy, so when he'd asked the embers to flicker through raw skin, it was easy. Ace had never been selfish with its powers like Sabo was urging it to be.

The fire always burns because it must, it was he who could not correctly utilise it. Even worse, most everyone knew.

The aggravation only continues to mount, gratification seems it'll take a forest fire for him to have and Sabo still can't see through the screen of smoke that keeps him alienated from the power that was so easy to Ace. Useless, he continues to attack with only his hands, feel the cold of an empty flame when he tries to shudder the pyre through his fist.

Apparently, enough is enough. All it takes for you is a slide of your right foot, straighten it up enough after you get away from a pathetic fist, a water tower loosens the shape of your calf and when it whips down onto Sabo, he's flattened to the ground. You don't give him enough chance to recover, to smell the fumes after a dying campfire before you've dropped down heavy on him: an anchor in all its weight and stubborn and drop your fist against his cheek.

None of that light–heartedness that you usually reserve for teaching and/or messing with him carries through the tone of your punch. "Get your head out of your ass, Sabo." He sees in the furrow of your brow and the snarl of your lips the image of his parents with their head turned to Grey Terminal.

Then, you leave him in the ground, disowned with the plumes of his smoke, ash heavy over the heaving of his chest— only more messed up than when you found him. Fuck.

It's not hard to tell that he's avoiding you after that. Not quite so avoiding, he believes, there's just been a shift in your dynamic that is something else he cannot get used to; your words fuels the fire— still not even his, but the feeling is raw and it is true and it is his. That is what Sabo cannot take. Why everything else but the fire?

He stalks through the base and leaves a trail of cold, cold ash where his wandering feet take him. It's bad even when Koala comes back to bring some semblance of norm to his life. The fire gets worse and worse, he keeps burning, alternating with the empty after the heat, the obstructive cold. Koala scolds, scolds some more; Hack even makes a joke that only settles with him awkwardly.

You're in his mind every time the fire is an issue. He wonders why you understand it better when you're the antithesis of it. He has to imagine that all logias follow the same kind of heart, their rules not yet privy to him, and whatever you're trying to teach him is wholly lost in your translation. It gets no better, his sensibilities are lost soon, you are still there in his mind, kicking sand into the fire.

One day though, a dull Tuesday morning after he'd woken, spluttering out soot from his throat and aching from sweeping up the remains of his blanket, you're dropping next to him with a tray of breakfast. Koala is halfway through a story of her own so Sabo doesn't make a scene as you scrape the chair back and settle in, nestle between the fold of waves. The fire pulls back, leaving a darkened hue of the sand and foams at its mouth— Sabo peeks over at your plate where you have a section of egg whites that you've cut away from the runny yolk.

He misses the way Koala's eyes linger on you, shift naturally to your plate, and then float away when it follows Sabo's chopsticks picking the whites, up to his mouth with all the half–chewed breakfast of his own. Her nose scrunches up like she'd understood something and she huffs, cutting her story short and mumbles something under her breath.

It's not something that's worth picking a fight over; he doesn't call you out on it— stranding him alone with that anchoring feel of worthlessness.

You keep coming back, offering him the food you don't like as if you're waiting for forgiveness— it reminds him of Ace's apologies. Ace was never good with the verbal stuff either, unless it was to make fun or to insult or to swear. It's a dull thing, light shifting in its hues through the dark, wavering with the wind that blows in through his open window; it burns through the shape of Ace and Sabo feels the wax melt in his brother's silhouette, leaves an inch or two of himself behind. It never burns all the way through, just keeps digging deeper in that harrowing shape. Hollows him out so he can feel the absence of Ace more and more.

Sabo resigns himself to forgiveness. An inch he gives and, much like Ace, you're able to stoke out of him that mile he never knew he had.

From thence forth, every morning without failure, after you feed Sabo your leftovers, you make the endeavour of dragging him to the place where you bleed him into a dry contusion. If you were still feeling any flickering remnants of apolgetic from the last time you'd sworn at him, you don't let it hinder you— beat him as cleanly as you could, don't leave him any allowance to argue a possible win for himself. Wind him each time so that when his spine snaps back against the hardened floor, he can feel the flame float up through his throat with the burn of oxygen and ooze with carbon.

You must do have some lingering regret though, because you drag him to the infirmary after each time.

A tickling feeling— one he can remember now from all those quiet years ago, like the bushweed and torpedo grass, dead leaves and branches along the open field of Foosa's backwash forest when he used to run after Ace, followed by Luffy. Against his pale calves from the knee–length pants, ticklish. It's your fingers scratching against his elbow, rolled–up sleeves and jacket discarded on the side— around and around with the soft cloth of a bandage, tight enough to choke out the fire.

The slope of your lashes, eyes lowered to see the blood you'd coaxed out of him with an expression of someone who is close to regret. All of a sudden— like it always is with you, "you should go see Ace."

You've certainly a way with words. The way his head snaps up so quick to look at you, rather than your calloused hands, makes his world spin; vision blurred. Slipped off its gravity as things trip on the catch of his breath, the hurt that remains makes the world clip off in small dots of black; tiny little constellations that obscure his view: Ace's freckles. Then, they disperse. "Huh?"

You only come stronger and clearer. "His grave," you clarify, still not looking at him. "I'll come with you if you need a hand to hold."

Sabo scores his gaze into you, until you feel it enough that you raise your head. "I've been."

It's satisfying to see the surprise melt over your usual unaffected features, "really?" He nods. "When?" He shrugs. "I just— hm." Your mind wanders for a few more moments too long, hot thumb strokes upwards past the lines of the bandage and slips onto his skin as you come back, "okay."

He's almost apprehensive to ask. "What?"

"It used to be Ace's no?" You cut the slip of the bandage and finish tying it— into a sweet, symmetrical bow that doesn't suit you, it'll bunch up under his jacket regardless. "Your devil fruit. I assumed that's why you're having a hard time with it."

A part of him already knew that, but it's near shameful that someone else does too. "Why'd you reckon that is?" He finds it in him to ask, beneath all the ugly shame that he wants to keep down.

"I don't know," he doesn't expect that kind of truth from you. "You feel guilty that you weren't there for him at Marineford? You're scared about it? You can't accept the fact that he's dead, so you're subconsciously refusing to use the mera mera no mi— there are a million and one reasons why it's not working out for you."

You tidy up the rest of the med–kit, rearranging things back into their places after you're done; Sabo doesn't offer a reply to you. In hopes that you get one, you throw your gaze over at him and he stares back at you like he's waiting for directions. "It might be a mixture of things; maybe the fruit knows you're hesitant and it refuses to burn for some half–baked reason."

"You're one of the people who think they're sentient?"

He catches the amused judgement in his tone after he speaks, readies himself for another left–field comment from you that'll hurt more than his arm now— you do deliver. Just not in the way he expects.

"No?" A click as you close the plastic box, slide back a drawer near the bottom, root around other supplies for the scrapes on his cheek. "You don't think the mera mera no mi wanted Ace's brother to have it?"

Dislodged through the cracks of his heart's marrow, through the pump of his ribs, oriented around that foolish Bundle of His; Sabo can— for the first time— feel the fire, know the affectionate air 'round it. It's a slow crawl contrary to what he had expected, more Ace like in its careful and precise; undying as the shadows warp about your face.

Sabo's the grace of a snowflake on a tongue— yours, if he dares to admit to that.

But with the way your breath is caramelised, syrupy sweet, onto the slope of his cheek as you press a stinging dull over the stripes of skin scraped back to reveal a treacly red; cotton swabbed with an alcohol that Sabo knows has to be flammable, with how the wild fire contorts so that he can feel the wisps right up against the crust of his body. It spins 'round the shadows over your five o'clock, shaking his sundial and grappling with time.

Sabo winces when you push especially hard, like you've been known to do; surprisingly, your other hand eases up its clutch on his jaw. There's enough space there to articulate the flames again, oxygen stroking through the curves of its shape so that when he steadies his fluctuant regard onto you, all he feels is the bursting fire.

For a second, he sees you twist into the wall of embers, limbs shroud in a mist and ash that he smells thick under his nose— "what the hell is wrong with you?"

You've slapped a hand warped with the lucid state of liquid against his cheek and when he hears the sizzling of a fire dying, Sabo realises that he'd caught aflame again.

Later, resigned to his own lacklustre presence, with the traces of you all over him, with your scent marred into the care and attention dressing his wounds, scabbed with the prints of your callous, Sabo realises that it'd been that way because of you.

His pay is docked again for that month because the realisation had burnt down half the office, then again, again, and again, because he can no longer see you without feeling his heart scratch against his ribs like a match against the box.

On days when Luffy isn’t hosting, he likes to invite you and his friends from high school to come over. He called this one in particular a simple get-together, a meeting with friends. Not wild, just chill. Naturally, he scheduled it on the day when his older brothers were out of town for “Seniors’ Night,” a mandatory event out of school grounds supposedly spent stress-free. Even then, all efforts at keeping the small gathering simple was lost once Zoro (certified rice wine lover) showed up with Nami (certified drinker) with a bag of alcohol squished in the backseat of Usopp’s Mazda.

You arrived at Luffy’s an hour early, so you witnessed your friends storm his home under the impression that it was an alcoholic party. As time passed, sobriety slipped from your grasp as you downed a bottle of who-knows-what until words came out slurred and conduct turned disgraceful.

The events that transpired from that point onward are incomprehensible.

“Drinks, drinks, anybody? Hey, would you care for a shot?”

“Stop it, Sanji. Leave the girl alone,” Nami hissed as the man tried to offer you another beautifully concocted drink. Upon her orders, Sanji retreated into the kitchen with a waiting tray, four—five?—shots into Jägermeister because Zoro challenged him to a drinking competition thirty minutes ago.

Nami relaxed into the cushion behind her and sighed deeply, her head buzzing from the alcohol she gloriously bought.

“Sanji! Zoro! You’re in the living room in the next two minutes, or I’m kicking you out!”

The following events are blurry, but you remember several things if you try hard enough. First, Sanji came back from the kitchen with a bottle of Jose Cuervo after Nami’s angry mandate; second, Nami unveiled a brand new deck of cards from her purse, a few of which suspiciously had an 18+ label stamped on the back; third, Luffy crashed your circle by barreling down the staircase in a yellow straw hat, a sign that he was already wasted; and fourth, Usopp cried into your side as the rest of the group realized that Nami was forcing everyone to a wild game of Truth or Drink.

You remember chasing a shot with ice-cold Sprite, deciding it was better to match everyone else’s drunkenness. A few rounds passed before you were chosen through a lucky spin of an empty glass bottle, to which Nami responded by shuffling the deck expertly and letting you choose from the display.

Afraid you would do something more than you bargained for, you chose the safe cards closest to you.

“Tell us which one of your friends’ siblings you would date… or drink the number of letters they have in their name.”

You don’t remember which one of your friends dared to howl aloud, but you recall Nami displaying an awful grin on her face, like watching you suffer was fun for her. Zoro erupted in genuine laughter, Luffy laughed through a mouthful of barbecue, Usopp covered his mouth in shock, and Sanji made a face of disagreement, waving his hands frantically in the air.

“Please,” he said your name, “do not say any of my brothers.”

You shook your head. “I don’t intend to.”

“Good,” he exhaled.

“Honestly, I don’t intend on saying anything.”

The small crowd erupted in oohs and ahhs at your display of bravery, surprised that you decided to drink x number of shots just to save face. You vaguely recall what they talked about as you chugged one shot after the other, but distinct voices at the back of your brain exchange a series of concerned mumbles that you can somewhat remember.

“How much is she going to drink?” Usopp.

“Not much. If I’m being honest, I don’t think she can handle drinking six.” Nami.

“She isn’t drinking past five because she emptied my Jäger an hour ago.” Zoro.

“That crosses out Nojiko and Ichiji. She’s two shots in.” Usopp again.

As you guzzled the third, the group waited for your next move. Stopping at three meant the obvious since Luffy’s brother Ace—hot, muscular, tattooed, and a little bit older—is the only suspect with three letters in his name. It was harder to tell otherwise. When you poured yourself another shot, your friends pressed on with concern.

“A fourth. God, she’s probably taking five,” Nami remarked.

Sanji was losing his cool. “I refuse to believe this.”

“I refuse your refusal,” Luffy joked.

“Tell me it isn’t Yonji,” begged Sanji. “Not Yonji, not Yonji, not Yonji, not Yonji—”

Nami shot him a glare, but his wish was granted soon enough. Silence fell in the room as you sat back on the armchair after having downed four shots nonstop. Sanji’s ears shot blood red as he realized that you weren’t hinting at his younger brother, but his older brother.

Vinsmoke Niji.

Zoro snickered. “You’re forgetting Sabo.”

After spending some time wordless, Luffy giggled. “Yeah, my brother! Sabo is a good man!” he uttered, happy to hear his brother’s name.

Sanji was unconvinced. Usopp shared the same sentiments.

Turning toward you, he asked, “Who is it?”

A hiccup erupted from the back of your throat. With every passing second, your vision began to darken. “I’m-I’m not telling,” you slurred stubbornly. Zoro laughed at your resistance, while Sanji broke down.

A few moments later, you blacked out.

The lights are out when Ace drives his Honda Civic into the parking spot by their front yard, which he finds rather unusual for a night like this. Luffy was supposed to host a get-together today—small and exclusive, sure, but Ace knows better than to expect any celebration thrown by his brother to actually stay that way. Luffy, after all, is an energetic twit. Plus, he scheduled it on a Friday night when most people at university are free.

Currently, it’s two hours past Saturday midnight and a quiet home is more suspicious to him than not.

Ace slaps Sabo awake in the passenger seat. Sabo stirs grumpily.

“What is it?” the blond mumbles, voice hoarse and laced with sleep. He’s been in that position for over an hour, just snoozing throughout the entire car ride home. That stupid Seniors’ Night robbed him of all his energy, so he passed out in the car as soon as he entered. Ace points a thumb past his shoulder.

“House is quiet. You enter first.”

“The hell?” Sabo whispers confusedly, not realizing that they’ve arrived home.

“Check if the coast is clear because I do not want to walk in on uni kids doing stupid stuff,” Ace reasons. “And can you bring my stuff inside while you’re at it?”

Sabo whines, but he doesn’t question it anymore because his feet are taking him to the front door in a matter of seconds, his bags and Ace’s slung across his body. With shoulders relaxed and eyes half-lidded, Sabo fiddles with his keys and unlocks the big timber doors to welcome the scent of old sweet home.

He acknowledges the scent of alcohol and the evident mess on the floor, but he walks past it nonchalantly, recognizing it as a typical occurrence at home. He checks the kitchen, takes note of the soda spill on the counter and the Dorito crumbs by his feet, then groggily saunters to Ace’s bedroom in the basement.

He drops his brother’s bags by the door before realizing that Ace is right about the eerie stillness. The house is dark, too. The only light comes from the faint glow of Sabo’s phone screen as he navigates the hallway toward his bedroom upstairs. Too exhausted to second-guess anything, he nudges his door open, drops his duffel bag to the floor, and collapses onto his bed.

But the moment his body hits what should’ve been his mattress, he screams at the bone and flesh he just collided into.

“AHHH!” he yelps, his body instantly rolling over to the side of the bed. His eyes shoot open as he collects himself, standing upright then scrambling to the light switch. He flicks it on.

“Oww,” someone groans pathetically underneath his sheets at the impact. Sabo freezes. He watches their hands clutch at the ends of his comforter and toss it aside swiftly.

He exhales a breath of relief when he realizes it’s you.

“What’s happening?” you mumble, eyes falling close no matter your efforts to keep them open. “Luffy? Sanji?”

“Uh, no,” Sabo answers. Eyes still closed, you stretch your limbs and roll over the mattress, getting comfortable once again in his sheets. “Um…”

“Wake me… in the morning… please,” you mumble, your voice barely above a whisper. Sabo lingers awkwardly by the door as you drift back to sleep within seconds, completely unaware of his dilemma.

Normally, he’d let you sleep undisturbed. He’s nice like that, and he avoids confrontation whenever he can. Plus, he has a soft spot for drunk people as the token caretaker of his friend group on a drunk night out. Luffy is probably passed out somewhere in the house, too, snoring alongside his equally rowdy friends.

But tonight, Sabo is too exhausted to be nice. He’s not in the mood to surrender his bed, even if he could just crash on the floor. For once, he wants to be selfish—either kick you off the mattress or wedge himself into the tiny sliver of space you’ve left behind.

“Hey, wake up,” he says, gently shaking your shoulder. You don’t respond. “Wake up. Please. I need to sleep.”

He pokes your nose, your side. He even tries to tickle you—still nothing. After a few more failed attempts, he sighs in defeat and sinks to the floor with a groan.

Having surrendered to exhaustion, he turns off the light, digs through his duffel bag for a fresh set of clothes, and quickly changes before finally collapsing into the space beside you. 

TWO.

Nami always insisted on cleanliness, and that involved keeping your shared apartment fragrant. It was her first complaint when she stepped foot in your flat—she thought she could brighten up the place with her aroma lamp and essential oils, something Zoro or Usopp never considered doing before she moved in with the three of you. From that moment onward, every waking morning at your four-bedroom apartment smelled of fresh bamboo or white tea, depending on the oil she chose to diffuse in her lamp earlier that week.

Apart from their clean crisp odor, Nami’s essential oils are pervasive. It wafts through every inch of the house, fighting with the aroma of grease and umami from the dishes that Sanji cooks whenever he comes over. The odor of fresh bamboo is simply something you cannot miss. Quite frankly, you love it. Even Zoro does.

That said, you find it strange when your senses come together and you smell nothing of the sort in your bedroom. It’s the morning after Luffy’s get-together—you’re aware of that, but for some reason, your senses perceive foreign textures and smells the more you stir. Your fingers, running across the soft comforter underneath you, move farther as you stretch your limbs awake. You feel the softness of the material until you brush against something warm, something soft… and flesh-like. 

You force your eyes open.

“What?!”

The morning calmness is disrupted by your cry. You sit up from the mattress, the comforter falling to your lap as you move away from the sleeping boy next to you. Sabo, the middle child of Luffy’s confusing family, is crammed into the narrow space by the edge of the bed. He sleeps soundly in a fetal position, his right arm tucked under his head as a makeshift pillow. His bangs fall softly on his face, covering the scar by his left eye.

Your heart skips a beat.

You hop off the bed and slip out of his room. How you ended up in Sabo’s bedroom after last night’s events is a mystery. It’s equally mysterious that he (and presumably Ace) are back home from their trip. Against all odds, you fell asleep beside him. The only logical response at this point is to evacuate the premises before he wakes up.

You retrieve your items from the living room, thanking yourself for keeping them clustered together on the couch. When you pass the staircase on the way to the door, Ace zombie-walks from the basement and greets you with bedhead hair.

“Why are you awake so early?” he asks, leaning against the banister. It’s 6:00 in the morning, and last he checked, not a single one of Luffy’s friends wakes up at this hour.

“Why are you awake so early?” you return the question, much to Ace’s dismay. He frowns.

“Serving me attitude at 6:00 AM? Okay,” he says through a yawn. “I’m surprised you can walk just fine after killing your liver last night. That, and not having serious bruises after sleeping next to Sabo.”

“Hey, I’m no— wait, what?” You blink.

“Sabo used to kick me in his sleep when we were children,” he continues. His face contorts into bewilderment when he notices your discomfort. “What’s with that look?”

“How did you know I slept at Sabo’s?” you question, tone firm.

“Oh, that.” He shrugs, scratching the morning itch on his elbow. He explains ordering Sabo last night when they got home. “Figured he’d gone straight to bed, but I wanted to make sure. To my surprise, you were there with him.”

Yawning, he runs his fingers through his soiled hair.

“What were you doing in his room, anyway?”

You look onward with a troubled expression. What were you doing in his room? Your latest memory of Luffy’s get-together was Sanji bickering with Zoro over shots of Jäger, which you delightfully emptied after they abandoned the bottle. You remember playing a game or two with alcohol as punishment, but you’re not exactly sure what occurred. You headed to the bathroom somewhere in between, and you don’t recall much after that.

“I don’t know,” you tell him truthfully, yet ashamed. It’s one thing to get drunk, but it’s another to lose memory of all that transpired. “I know it’s a hard ask, but can you promise me just this once that you won’t tell anyone?”

“About what?”

“About me winding up in your brother’s bedroom,” you deadpan.

Ace thinks you're being a little ridiculous for freaking out over this, but he gets it. Among the three of them, you know Sabo the least, so the awkwardness checks out. He’d bet good money that Sabo had a near-death infarction upon seeing you passed out on his bed.

You like to think Ace thought about it for a while before answering.

“Sabo wasn’t drunk, you know. He’ll remember what happened last night.”

You groan.

“But if you’re worried about my brother conspiring against you for stealing 80% of his bed space”—you shove your hands into your palms—“I can assure you there is nothing to worry about. He’s not the type.”

Ace decides to be a role model and gives you an aspirin tablet to kill your migraine. Not long after that, you walk home and snuggle in bed.

You don’t wake up for the next four hours, even when your subconscious hears the tinkling of Nami’s keys unlocking the front door.

THREE.

Your university is located along busy Conomi Avenue, where locals and tourists dash in and out of establishments, stores, and embellished infrastructures. Along the main road stands an authentic Japanese ramen shop, which you and your friends swing by often after school.

On this particular day, you’re with the usual pack: Nami, Usopp, and Zoro. Sanji is away preparing for a cookout hosted by his adoptive father Zeff, while Luffy is somewhere over the rainbow. Nobody really knows where he is; Usopp’s brightest guess is Sanji’s place, probably snuffling all the food he and Zeff are putting out before the big event.

That aside, your friends have made it a big deal to bring up the events that occurred one night ago. Well, “friends” being Nami and Usopp—Zoro is just there to eat.

“Care to explain what that was about?” Nami asks keenly, swirling her drink with a metallic straw. When you display ignorance to some parts of their wild recollection, Usopp runs with you the full sequence of events that you wish never happened.

“I did what?!”

“Maybe I should have lied,” he mutters.

“God, you’ve got to be kidding me,” you grumble. “I didn’t actually do any of that, did I?”

“Winding up in someone’s bed completely drunk was already embarrassing enough,” Nami says, “but what did it for me was the fact that you drank four shots of Cuervo in the name of the very guy whose bed you ended up sleeping on.”

“I was not drinking for Sabo!” you protest. Your friends are unamused. “Don’t give me that look. I could have been drinking for no reason!”

“Yeah, totally,” Usopp deadpans. There is silence before he speaks again. “So, about Vinsmoke Niji…”

“I am not interested in Vinsmoke.”

“Right, so, you’re into Sabo.”

“I—” you stammer, your brain going haywire. “Look, I don’t really know where this is coming from.”

“U-huh.”

“All I did was play a game and drink a few shots, which shouldn’t mean anything considering I wasn’t in the right headspace.” Usopp looks at Nami with a raised brow, and that’s how they communicate their thoughts. They’re calling nonsense, but you object. “It’s the truth!”

“I think her reasoning is fair,” Zoro chimes in for the first time in ten minutes. He swallows a mouthful of tuna onigiri and leans into another generous bite like the glutton he is. Nothing beats an authentic Japanese restaurant smack-dab in the middle of tourist central.

“Thank you, Zoro.”

“But their arguments are just as fair.” He sprinkles grounded pepper into his ramen bowl. Your mouth closes in shock. “There is no forgetting what we witnessed.”

A stubborn back-and-forth breaks out in the middle of your lunch date. According to Usopp—backed by Zoro’s half-grunted observations—you were carried off to Luffy’s bedroom for a proper night’s rest after getting absolutely wrecked by Nami’s stupid drinking game. But somewhere in the middle of the night, you apparently woke up, wandered off, and insisted on crashing in the next room over, which just so happened to be Sabo’s, where you proceeded to sleep like a rock until he came home. Your friends tried to get you out of there a few times, but you had clung to the door frame and refused to be lugged away.

“Maybe I just found his bed more comfy,” you guess. Really, there’s no telling what was going through your drunk brain that night. Sabo is just Luffy’s older brother to you. Nothing more, nothing less. You don’t even talk often. While he has the looks as any of his siblings would have, you don’t like him the way Nami and Usopp make your feelings out to be.

Although Nami objects regardless. “That’s a little extra, don’t you think?”

“There’s nothing else I can think of that can justify what happened. I don’t like Sabo that way,” you say firmly, but end up mumbling toward the end. Nami isn’t wrong. It does seem a little extra. All your actions align as if to indicate some hidden feelings that you haven’t been telling anyone.

Suddenly, a realization dawns on you.

“Unless I do like him. Could it be that I actually like him?”

“Everyone thought you did. It seemed real when you were insistent on not telling,” she points out.

“To my sober and fully awakened knowledge, I don’t like that boy, thank you very much.” You shake your head, collapsing on your chair. “But it’s food for thought. Maybe I do like him, and I just don’t know it.”

Truth be told, your friends make sense to some degree. You find Sabo quite interesting because he’s easy to like, but not in the same loud, chaotic way his brothers are. Liking him platonically is more subtle, quieter, and in many ways different. He has a side of him that is strangely similar to his brothers, but he stands apart with his calm demeanor and thoughtful gestures.

Although it’s a problem now that your feelings are being questioned. You never saw him romantically. You think he’s nice, but you have never thought of him in that light. Sabo is just Luffy’s brother to you, someone you can depend on in the event of an emergency, but not someone you actively think of and speak to. Before going back to his devices, Zoro spews out some words of wisdom that he ought you hear.

“You’re rarely yourself when drunk, but alcohol imparts people’s deepest desires,” he says. “On one hand, it changes people. On the other hand, it tempts you to say the truth. Think about it.”

So you do. You think about it as the conversation fades into something else. You think about it as you pay the bill and leave the store well-fed. It’s in your mind as you go to bed that night, as you hop in the shower the following morning, as you get ready for another week of university, as you do your homework at the library. Zoro’s words haunt you everywhere you go, and it doesn’t help when Nami and Usopp tease you whenever Sabo’s name is thrown around. You can’t shake off the feeling that Zoro might be right.

That, or you’re just delusional. Feelings are weird. You might just be infatuated, for all you care.

You’re back at the ramen shop with Zoro a week later. You haven’t seen Luffy, much less come over at his place, since your schedules have become increasingly different over time. But if it meant avoiding any and all interactions with his brother by steering clear of their home, it might be for the better.

“Usopp wants a mild bowl,” you tell Zoro. Having known the owner, he volunteers to order takeout, while you sit and wait for him at an empty table by the front window.

You’re on your phone when you’re approached by the very person you don’t want to see.

“Oh, hey. Nice to see you here.”

You lift your head to find Luffy’s brothers standing before you. Ace, who greeted you out of the blue, is in a black hoodie and shorts like he came straight out of the gym. Sabo, standing behind him, is more well-dressed, with a backpack strapped to his shoulders like he just got out of the lecture hall. When Sabo catches your eye, you quickly look away.

“What are you doing here?” you blurt out, unintentionally coming off as rude. “Sorry, I meant, what’s up? Here for some ramen?”

“Yeah, I’ve had a tiring day,” says Ace. You don’t point out the odd fact that he claims to be tired at 12 noon, but you remember he’s narcoleptic. “Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later. I’m getting food.” He nudges Sabo behind him. “Sabo can keep you company.”

“Wait—” Sabo is pushed aside as Ace lines up two customers behind Zoro. Your eyes fall on the man standing before you, but you avert your gaze quickly.

Sabo regains his composure and decides to sit across you, paying no mind at how undeniably awkward it’s getting.

Your sentiments aren’t any better, especially when the man in front of you has been on your mind the past week. If anything, you find it more suffocating. Sabo doesn’t know, but he’s all you ever think about because you’re confused with your feelings. Your roommates don’t make it any better, either. Your conversation with them flashes before your eyes, and momentarily, you hope Sabo is clueless about your drunken antics.

“Where’s Luffy?” you ask, a poor attempt to relieve the tension between you.

He’s a little surprised, like he doesn’t expect you to talk to him at all. Even then, he answers your question with a rather short reply. “At home.”

“Oh.” You nod. He looks down at his lap, and you figure he’s on his phone. Your shoulders sag, and shame creeps up your spine. He doesn’t want to talk.

But you’re proven otherwise a few moments later.

“Ace mentioned something about you being anxious that I was mad,” he says out of the blue. He awaits your reaction, only continuing when you look up at him with parted lips and a creased brow. “If you’re worried about the bed thing, I hope you know it’s okay. I kinda thought it was funny.”

You almost don’t believe him, but he supplies it with a light chuckle, so you do. His words become even more alluring when the corners of his lips lift upward and his front teeth show. Sabo is cute, but has he always been this cute?

“Thanks for not lashing out,” you say. “I was drunk, but I was worried it was inappropriate. Not that it wasn’t—it was, since I snuck in your room and slept there the whole night.”

“No, I should apologize for forcing myself on the bed beside you. I was tired,” he explains. You don’t think he should apologize, but it’s a habit of his. Sabo doesn’t want bad blood with anyone, it seems. “If what Luffy says is true, you blacked out first before your friends did. There’s no need to feel bad about wanting to sleep on a proper bed.”

Blood rushes to your face, and suddenly, your cheeks are hot.

“Yeah…” you mumble sheepishly, opting for such a reply instead of something else. “Just so you know, that doesn’t normally happen.”

“I understand it was a fun night.”

You shake your head. “Well, yes, but I never get that drunk. I drink moderately, and I’m not a lightweight either.” Realizing you’re getting defensive, your head falls in shame. “Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I don’t judge,” says Sabo. His tone is gentle like he means it, like he promises he isn’t judging. And the crazy thing is, you believe him. Relief washes over you at his reassurance, and you feel more at ease with your rambunctious display of behavior many nights ago. “I blacked out one time after Ace gave me Everclear. I know the feeling.”

A lighthearted laugh makes it past your lips, and for the first time in more than a week, you feel like you can talk to him normally again. It’s good to have brought it up, and suddenly you realize that he’s sort of confrontational, but gentle.

Zoro comes back a few minutes later with a paper bag of Japanese takeout. You don’t see it yourself, but you know he shoots you with an amused look when you seem to happily bid Sabo farewell. Even then, he doesn’t bring it up and just follows you on the walk back home, keeping his thoughts to himself.

FOUR.

From that day onward, you see Sabo more often than you expect. You cross paths on campus, sometimes on the way to class, and more surprisingly at random food chains along Conomi Avenue. It’s strange, and while it helps to have cleared up your awkward encounter, seeing him as often as you do now doesn’t help your confusing feelings. It’s especially problematic since he’s so nice to you, and you tend to be a sucker for courteous actions.

The next time you see Sabo, you’re at his house. Luffy begged you to come over because he’s been suffering the symptoms of food poisoning, which earned him a playful slap from Nami and a well-deserved lecture from Sanji. You decided to visit him with your roommates, and by the time you arrive, Sanji is already there.

“You’re going to die an early death if you keep this up,” Nami scolds him, pressing harder on the cooling gel on Luffy’s forehead. Sitting by the foot of his bed, your friends look at him pitifully.

“I’m sorry,” is all Luffy says, which sounds rather genuine given his pitiful state.

After some time, everyone shuffles out of his bedroom for lunch, leaving you to look after Luffy yourself. He falls asleep an hour or so later, and only then does Sabo decide to appear.

He approaches his brother, sits beside him on the mattress, and tucks the blanket under his chin. “He looks better than last night thanks to Sanji’s cooking,” he says, and you hum in acknowledgement.

“That’s great,” you mumble. Luffy hardly gets sick, but when he does, it sucks the life out of him. Thankfully, this isn’t your first rodeo with a sick friend. Living with three people and no trusted adult leaves you to just figure things out on your own. “How did he get poisoned?”

Sabo sighs. He stands from the mattress and crosses his arms on his chest. He tries to stifle a chuckle, saying, “He and Ace ate at a barbecue place when I wasn’t around. Lufy ate a bunch of undercooked meat and couldn’t handle it.”

Laughter erupts from the back of your throat, but you resist the urge in fear of waking your friend. Luffy shuffles in his bed.

“You can laugh,” Sabo tells you.

“I’d rather not,” you retort. “It’s already bad enough that he’s skipping uni. You should have more sympathy for your brother.”

“Hey, hey,” he says, looking at Luffy then back at you, “let’s tone down the accusations. And for the record, Ace had been making fun of him a whole lot worse.”

Sabo decides to stay at Luffy’s bedroom with you, oftentimes asking you things about his brother and commenting on nonsense that he thinks you would find hilarious. It feels strange to talk to Sabo this way after many years of just passively acknowledging each other, but his attempt to talk to you is sweeter than not. And for some reason, it makes you feel warm inside. Zoro’s words from a couple of weeks ago find their way into your brain, and for a moment, you’re distracted.

When you seem to have short-circuited, he asks, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you respond quickly. He nods. He inches closer toward Luffy and presses the back of his hand to his brother’s forehead. “Is he?”

“Not quite,” he says. “I’ll get him another gel pack. Could you slip into the bathroom and get some paracetamol?”

Upon Sabo’s orders, you walk to the common bathroom down the hallway of Luffy’s bedroom in search of the tablets. You open the medicine cabinet by the door, but the paracetamol isn’t there.

You look around the bathroom. Open shelves with toiletries line the back wall of the sink. At the topmost shelf sits a first aid kit, collecting dust. But there’s no stool in sight.

Standing on your tiptoes, you take your chances and reach for the kit, but it’s too far up. A grumble rips from your throat. Who stows away an emergency kit out of reach? Although when you stand back on your heels, you’re reminded that Luffy's brothers are unnecessarily tall on top of being bad organizers. Clearly, Sabo didn’t think your job through.

Slowly, you hoist yourself up on the small counter space by the sink. You kneel, but the marble hurts your kneecaps. You recoil backward before trying again.

That’s when Sabo comes in.

“Hey, I got—”

In a panic, he enters the bathroom and drops the pack of cooling gel on the counter to redirect his hands on supporting you from behind. His right hand clutches your hips, the other the back of your thighs. His touches are light and delicate, done out of courtesy and fear that you might fall, but it makes you somewhat dizzy.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, and slowly, you descend the counter with his help, even if you don’t need it. Sabo reaches for the kit and apologizes for its odd placement. “I’m guessing Ace put that there.”

“He probably did when he used it some weeks ago. He misplaces things often,” he explains. “You sure you’re okay?”

You appreciate his concern, but your stomach flips like you’re conflicted. Sabo doesn’t miss the way your lips purse tightly, a subtle sign that he should ignore, but instead chooses to address in an equally subtle gaze of concern.

“Seems A-okay,” he says. “We should head back.’

When you come back to Luffy’s bedroom, Usopp is already there. You throw him the first aid kit, which he catches, and pass down the duty before finding an excuse to leave, the events just a few moments before replaying in your head.

Sabo doesn’t question it. He just lets you.

A few days later, however, you see him again.

This time, you’re back at the ramen shop from a few weeks back, but you’re alone. When you enter, you notice him in the same circumstances. Ace and Luffy aren’t around.

It’s you who approaches him first, figuring there’s no point in trying to avoid him. Not that you have a proper reason to begin with—you spent some time reflecting on his actions at Luffy’s bedroom the other day, and after much contemplation, you concluded that you were just delusional. Sabo is a nice man. He likes to help people and he smiles at everyone often. He doesn't want bad blood, so he has a habit of apologizing. Most importantly, he’s just well-mannered.

Avoiding him makes you the problem, and you don’t want that.

“Hi,” you greet simply as you approach him by the counter, where he claims a bag of packaged ramen. He returns your greeting with his own, coupled with a smile that stretches on his lips. He asks where your friends are. “Half of them are in class. Zoro is taking a nap.”

“That goes the same for Ace. He won’t be waking up until evening,” he says in a joking manner. He nods toward the cashier. “Ordering something?”

“Just a quick meal before I head to the library,” you reply. “Are you a regular?”

Sabo looks down at the paper bag of food in his hands and cutely chuckles to himself. “Caught me red-handed? I come here often to buy their ramen.”

“Just like Zoro. Do you like Japanese food?”

“I think the cuisine is great, ramen most especially,” he says. It’s quiet for a moment until he realizes you’re there to dine, not to order takeout. An idea crosses his mind. “Can I sit with you?”

“Oh,” you stutter, “but I thought—”

“This? Nah, it’s for Ace,” he says before you can even finish your sentence. He’s lying, but you don’t look convinced, so he takes it up a notch. “He ordered a bowl with ghost peppers since he’s crazy like that. He said he couldn’t come since he was, uh, with friends… but he’s asleep now, so I’m in no rush to bring this to him.”

While Sabo isn’t a good liar, you decide to just nod and pretend to believe him. The takeout ramen in the paper bag is obviously his, but whatever his reasons are for lying, you shrug them off and instead appreciate his kindness.

You’re seated across him some time later, steaming hot bowls of noodles placed in front of you. Sabo offers you the first bite, and conversation flows naturally from there.

You ask how Luffy’s doing, and he laughs. “He’s somewhat in a predicament,” he tells you. Luffy’s been better since you last visited him, but as a precautionary measure, his grandfather imposed a no-meat ban for two weeks. In true Luffy fashion, he hasn’t followed it one bit, but Sabo stresses that he’s been looking after his brother’s diet to counterbalance his stubbornness.

“Your family is something else,” you remark.

“It runs in the blood,” he says, not long before he corrects himself. “Their blood. I’m kinda just there. I prevent them from doing dumb and dumber stuff, like a mediator.”

You hum over a mouthful of noodles, then you shake your head. “You’re blood-related at this point. You act like your brothers more often than you think.” But you’re more tolerable. And gentler. 

“Do I?” You nod. “Guess they’ve infected me. I would’ve turned out differently if it weren’t for them.”

“It might have been for the better,” you say after much internal debate. As far as your memory goes, Ace and Luffy are half-brothers, while Sabo is adopted. It was something along the lines of being disowned and left to fend for himself at a young age, which explains the visible scar on the left side of his face. You don’t know much beyond that, but you’re aware it was rather tragic. No child deserves to go through what he did.

“You might be right.” Sabo is surprisingly not offended or hurt that the topic shifted to his past. He figured you knew—most likely from Ace—but he trusts you with that sensitive knowledge, so it’s not a big deal. “Speaking of Luffy, he’d like to say thank you for taking care of him. He wants to host another party to show his gratitude..”

“I’m just glad he’s recovered,” you say. Food poisoning sucks. It sucks even more when you’re a massive foodie like Luffy. “When is it?”

“No clue. But if I were to guess, probably within the next three weeks.” Sabo has heard of the undergraduates’ suffering because the semester is ending in a month. He’s a senior, so his semester ended earlier than Luffy’s and his third-year friends. Sabo knows you’re a third-year yourself, so you’re in the same situation right now.

You note down the date in your head, then you joke about your wariness of Nami, her drinking game, and the presence of strong alcohol in this upcoming party. Sabo laughs with you, but he’s confused.

“Nami’s drinking game?” he asks, reaching for the chili bottle in front of you. Without a second thought, he drizzles his entire bowl with a layer of chili flakes. “What’s that about?”

“Well, if you remember Luffy’s so-called get-together a few weeks ago”—you grab a bottle of condiments and sprinkle a generous amount on your bowl—“I got totally wasted. It turns out that Nami, my dearest friend, decided it was fun to play this game, where you basically—”

You stop yourself.

Nami’s drinking game. Everybody getting themselves drunk through many rounds of Truth or Drink. You downing four shots because your subconscious just felt like it, not because you were intentionally naming one of your friends’ siblings in response to the prompt you drew.

Your friends poking fun at you for having feelings for Sabo.

Sabo doesn’t know what happened that night. The way he curiously questions you proves it. He doesn’t know about Nami’s game and the cause of your blackout. All he knows is that you drank one too many shots on a fun night with your friends, which caused you to drunkenly stumble into his bedroom and snooze there for the rest of the night until he came home.

Sabo finds your silence uneasy. Chewing on a mouthful of noodles, he asks what’s wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you reassure him, but it comes out a little shaky, like you’re hiding the fact that there is something wrong.

Sabo decides to ignore it. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“Well…” you stutter, eventually becoming speechless, winding up wordless. You stuff some of the noodles in your mouth and chew on it aggressively. Sabo narrows his eyes at you, and something clicks inside his head.

“Is it a secret? Something I can’t know?” he asks.

“Pretty much,” you say truthfully.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with why you blacked out.” And why you ended up in my bed. He thinks. “Was it something that happened during the game?”

You’re sweating buckets, and it’s not because of the malfunctioning AC within the shop. You’re incredibly nervous, and Sabo notices it as you look down at your bowl and keep eating.

“You’re easy to figure out,” he teases.

“I’m not,” you defend.

He nods. “Well, does Luffy know what happened?”

“Yes?” you answer in a questioning tone. “Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?”

As you look up from your ramen bowl, you see him holding a stupidly arrogant smirk on his face. You almost drop your chopsticks. You’ve been fooled.

“You are not going to ask Luffy what happened.”

“I’m sure it’ll reach me either way,” he teases. You whine in your seat, face falling into your hands. “Hey, if it’s just an innocent drinking game, then what’s the harm?”

You groan. You just dug your grave. You tried to run away, but you were backed into a corner at the last second. “It wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be, but there are some things that need to be kept buried. That event is Exhibit A.”

Sabo hums to himself, thinking deeply. He tries his hardest to guess what could have possibly occurred that night that makes you so uptight about keeping your mouth shut, but he ends up empty-handed. If he truly is curious, Luffy is his best source.

In the end, Sabo decides to be a good friend and respect your privacy, but his curiosity doesn’t leave as he continues to dwell on it for the next few minutes. Out of keen observation of your resistance, he asks something even he was surprised by.

“Does it have anything to do with me?”

You choke on your noodles. Your life flashes before Sabo’s eyes and in a matter of seconds, he’s up and standing, fetching you a glass of water from the self-service station. When he comes back, you’ve calmed down.

“I’m sorry!” he cries as he watches you drink the very last drop of your glass. Although his comment was nothing but a joke, it was truthfully riddled with narcissism, and you were probably taken aback by his prideful confidence. Stupid Sabo. He thinks to himself.

“It’s okay!” you tell him weakly, your airway relaxing with the subtle burn. Sabo apologizes for the nth time, and once he’s convinced that you’re okay, he shifts the conversation elsewhere.

But for some reason, his gut tells him that he was right.

The next two weeks pass by in the blink of an eye. You’ve been working yourself to the bone that you’ve forgotten how it feels to sleep on your bed. Your friends aren’t doing any better either; Nami has been working on a thesis proposal, Usopp on an architectural build, and Zoro on a paper debunking a mathematical theorem (“Nerd activities,” you once told him). As the semester comes to a close, you’ve finished the bulk of what has to be done before finals, so you’re now working on the less important matters (that are honestly quite important on their own, but less important than your other tasks).

You’re cooped up in the library to get them done, but as the clock strikes six in the evening, your body relaxes into your seat, your shoulders sagging in the process. Tiredness overwhelms your body, your energy expended after working all day. The paper you’ve been writing is nearly done, but you can’t find the brain power to finish it tonight.

“Somebody’s in a slump.”

You raise your head at the sound of Sabo’s voice. He stands before you in his usual get-up, well-dressed and presentable like he normally is. Unlike your pitiful self, his eyes are full of life, his face full of color. Clearly, he’s been stress-free. You try not to think about how tired you look, and instead acknowledge his presence.

“Up to something tonight?” he asks.

“Just trying to get this paper done.” He looks down at the mess you call your workspace, and his eyes flit to the many drafts and sticky notes you have on the table. “It’s for an elective. ECON 185. Not my strongest suit, so I’ve been fighting for my life.”

He nods. “‘Law, Economics, and Public Policy.’ It’s a tough elective if you don’t major in it.”

“It was the last open class left. Everyone else took the easier ones.” Your nose scrunches up at the bitter memory. You’re always unlucky with selecting free electives—you eventually just take what you can get when the promising classes are already full. “What have you been up to?”

“Helping Luffy with a project,” he answers. “Says he has to interview me for something. I dropped by to work on it since it needs a little bit of research. Involves local policies and all that boring stuff.”

Your eyes light up at the mention of your friend, and at that moment, your face regains color.

“Right! You major in diplomacy, don’t you?”

A few heads a couple tables away turn toward you, and you shrink into your seat. Sabo contains a chuckle and presses a finger to his lips, his teeth showing behind a grin.

“I do International Relations,” he whispers. A smile makes its way onto your face as you realize the gold mine of knowledge in front of you. Sabo can probably lend a hand or two with this godforsaken paper you’ve been working on.

You tell him this, and like the kind man he is, he agrees to take a look.

“Yeah? What’s it about?” He rounds the corner and drags an empty chair from the table across you to sit at your table. You scoot over to the side, but even with the large space the library has to offer, he decides to sit quite close. You note the proximity he’s subjected the both of you to, but you don’t dwell on the thought.

“Um, about international policies… and other stuff,” you tell him as you shuffle through your handwritten drafts. Sabo observes them from the corner of his eye. “Part of it is a case study, and the other part is somewhat subjective. It’s a final assessment, so you can imagine the extra instructions.”

You show him your working draft, a 12-page long essay formatted in Times New Roman 12 and correctly cited Chicago footnotes. Sabo is impressed by your progress, and with that, he’s convinced you don’t even need any of his help.

“It’s bound to get longer,” you say. “I’m 90% done, but it’s due in two days and I haven’t reviewed for a final. I’m not making that deadline without sacrificing many hours of sleep.”

“This calls for help then,” he says. He takes your latest working draft at the top of the pile and skims through the first couple of paragraphs. He reads them silently, his eyes scanning every word, every letter, every punctuation that you’ve inked down on the pages. You sit in silence as you await his remarks. “Looks pretty good to me. Do you have an outline?”

The next hour is spent on Sabo overlooking what you’ve written with the occasional questions on your work. You crunch a few concluding paragraphs in between his silent readings, your eyes focused on the laptop in front of you as you digitize your work. Your shoulders sag, relaxed. The load of stress disappears from your body. It feels good to be supported.

“Huh?” Sabo whispers to himself some time in between, immersed in your writing. You look up from your screen. “Oh.”

“Yeah?” you ask softly, but he doesn’t reply. He keeps his head down, eyes trained on the draft before him. He continues to read through it, unbothered.

You debate asking again, but you don’t. Sabo doesn’t seem to notice anything else, his attention all drawn to the words written before him. At that moment, your fingers rest on your keyboard, and you watch him silently.

He leans on the table, his cheek resting on the palm of his propped hand. Locks of his blond hair fall on his face, now longer than before. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him this up close. He’s pretty. Gorgeous, even. You found him cute just a few months ago, but it feels different now. He feels different now. For some reason, everything is.

What changed? It’s a question that comes from a place of unknowing. You’ve grown accustomed to seeing him so often that it might just be the answer, but that doesn’t explain your newfound fondness for his looks, out of all things. Pressing your lips inward, your thoughts jumble with the feelings in your heart, and you’re distressed.

Do I like him?

It feels almost wrong to think that way. You don’t know if it’s a claim you should be making. Your feelings tell you it’s true, but your brain says otherwise. Maybe you’re infatuated with the thought of him as you lack enough reason for how you feel, but that thought is only equally troubling because it feels wrong, too.

Your laptop enters sleep mode, and you realize you’ve been pondering for far too long. Sabo is on the last page of your draft, just a few paragraphs away from your concluding section. You tune back into your work, your fingers flying once more across your keyboard to distract yourself from your inner dilemma.

“You’re a great writer,” he says after reviewing your work the second time. “I like your voice. It’s clear. You don’t have to tweak anything else other than, well, finish the essay.”

Warmth simmers at the pit of your stomach, but you hide it behind a nervous laugh. “You’re sugarcoating it.”

“Does it sound like I am?” He tilts his head toward you, and you catch his eyes—round, black, and gentle. It knocks the wind out of you, and it doesn’t help the warmness of your insides.

“It,” you stutter, “it does.”

He smiles. “Please, take it as a compliment. I meant it.”

Staring becomes too much. You avert your gaze and turn to your drafts before you, shuffling through them in a make-pretend excuse for looking away. God. You’re a mess.

And just like before, Sabo notices. Your panic is evident to him. Beyond that are other things he’s noticed the more he lingers around you—how you get flustered, how you think before acting the way you do, how you move with bursts of confidence before thinking deeply again. You don’t do too well at hiding, he thinks.

“Your observance is only limited to me and Luffy though.”

Sabo shakes his head. A chill runs down his spine. Ace haunts him at untimely places.

While you busy yourself with writing your paper, he fishes his laptop from his backpack and gets some work done himself. The next hour is spent in silence, but Sabo wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I should get you something to drink.”

Your ears lift at the voice that disrupts your quietude. Sabo speaks to your right, having changed positions half an hour ago because his laptop died on him and you were closer to the charging port than he was. You roll your head to face him, but you don’t lift it from your arms, your body slumped into the table to get some rest.

“I’m okay.”

“You seem tired.”

“Just haven’t been getting enough sleep, that’s all.” As if to prove a point, a yawn forces its way past your mouth, your eyes shutting close momentarily. You look away out of courtesy and apologize.

“Yeah, I’ll get you something. Is water fine?”

You shake your head stubbornly, but Sabo resists just the same. Grabbing his wallet, he stands from his seat, although you stop him before he could go any further.

“I’ll come with you.”

That’s how you end up in the convenience store just across campus. Walking does you a great deal as sleepiness disappears from your body, only to be replaced with fuel as you take a few sips of an energy drink Sabo insisted on paying for.

When you meet him at the far corner of the store, he’s two hands deep into the ice cream freezer. Packaged cones line the first rows with the larger tubs occupying the back wall. He grabs two cones, one of them a flavor you like, and hands it to you.

“How did you know I like this?”

“Oh,” he says, but it’s met with a couple seconds of silence as he slides the freezer close. “You talked about it once.”

“I did? When?”

“Well,” he says, “you might have been drunk when you did. It’s a distant memory. Kinda hazy from my head, to be honest.”

You find it strange. Even your roommates wouldn’t know what ice cream flavor you would pick—it’s kind of just a random background detail that you don’t speak of. Sanji, out of all people, would probably be the only person to know. Still, you don’t press on. Maybe you really did overshare once.

“Hey, check this out. It’s a card game.”

Your eyes drift to several stacked cardboard boxes on the top shelf of the miscellaneous section. Your eyes widen by surprise.

“It’s a drinking card game,” you deadpan, grabbing a box and reading the labels. The memories from many weeks ago flood your head. Your nose scrunches up irksomely. “I’m not fond of this game.”

Chuckling, Sabo grabs a box of his own and he reads through it. “Why not?” he asks, but he remembers eventually. “Ah, I see. It was that small gathering, was it?”

“I don’t even want to remember what happened then,” you say, rolling your eyes. Sabo laughs at your misery, but it’s playful and not condescending.

“You should get back at your friends for that.”

“How I wish. Revenge sounds hellish when it comes to those dorks,” you say.

“I figured— wait a sec.”

You look at him.

“You know, I never got to hear what happened during that game,” he begins. You shake your head, looking away in a muffled groan. “Wow, did you just groan?”

“You’re persistent,” you remark.

“Please, it couldn’t have been that bad!” he exclaims. You look at him, unamused. “Oh, come on.”

You shake your head, lips sealed tight. Sabo can’t know. He can’t. Not when your feelings are still jumbled, not when you still haven’t figured out if drinking to his name meant anything. You haven’t had the time to reflect on it. All you know is that you like being around him, and you enjoy seeing him. It’s complicated.

“I’m the most curious of the bunch.” He places your box back on the shelf after mentally taking note of its name. “So? Do you really not plan on telling me?”

Grinning wildly, Sabo pokes your side a couple of times to elicit a response. You almost break, you’ll give him that, but you stay true to yourself. You can’t admit something so hastily. You need more time to think.

“I’ll tell you when I’ll tell you,” is all you say.

“Alright, alright. I’m just teasing.”

“You say that only to ask again a few hours later,” you tease back. He laughs. If you can’t share the truth behind that game, then he’ll just settle for the many jokes you’ll milk from it. This is fine with him. Getting to laugh with you is enough.

“No, no, I won’t. You don't have to worry about that.”

“Sure I don’t,” you reply sarcastically. You grab the ice cream cones from his hands and skip to the counter, leaving him down the aisle. “But I know you will.”

When you disappear into the next aisle, Sabo giggles softly before reaching for the box of playing cards in his pocket, tucking it up his sleeve, and heading to the counter before you do.

FIVE.

Luffy’s party, as usual, is a fun mess.

“Why is there a flamingo floatie on the roof?” Usopp asks when they arrive at Luffy’s home for the semester-end party he and his brothers have been planning. It was initially Luffy’s “thank-you” party for taking care of him when he was sick, but word somehow got out and everybody else showed up. Nami, tonight’s designated driver, steers Usopp’s car toward the curb and parallel parks with ease.

“People are passed out yet it’s still 9 o’clock in the evening,” you point out as you check your phone screen. You and your roommates file out of the car together and walk up the front door.

“Yeah, well,” Usopp says as he spots a guy straight-up drunk, face planted in the grass of Luffy’s lawn, “that was you two months ago. Can’t really criticize now.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut it.”

Around three weeks have passed since you’ve written your essay and you have survived your finals for the most part. Many days were spent cooped up in the library to get things done, oftentimes with the help of your friends, but you’re one step closer to freedom now as the school year comes to a close. Just a few things here and there for clearance is all you need to take care of, which shouldn’t take long if you tend to them swiftly.

But for now, you want to rest. Part of that is letting yourself loose at Luffy’s party with some drinks. Nami brings up the idea of another drinking game, but you reject her invitation right away, followed by a firm announcement of your abstinence for the next two months.

As soon as you enter Luffy’s home, your eyes scan the room. You squeeze in between hot bodies on the makeshift dance floor, excusing yourself when you get too close. You search for a particular blond. Your eyes narrow at the sea of people, your irises dilating under the faint light. To your dismay, he isn’t to be found.

“Where did you go? You got lost.” Zoro gently tugs the fabric of your top as he stands close to you. The music muffles his words, so you lean forward.

“I was looking for Luffy,” you lie. He nods.

“They’re on the patio. Let’s go.”

With one hand on Zoro’s wrist, you lead the both of you out of the wild crowd, past a populated hallway, and into the outdoor space adjoining the kitchen. Nami sits beside Luffy on a poolside loveseat, while Usopp stands before Sanji, who’s manning the grill. On the other side of the patio sits Ace with his older graduate friends, his shirt off and hair damped. Zoro is confused when you approach them first, but he doesn’t question it.

When you approach Ace, he’s wasted and surprisingly energetic, a complete 180º from his usual narcoleptic self.

“Hey! You came!” he greets enthusiastically. He tries to stand up, but his legs wobble, a sight you have never seen before from Portgas D. Ace, so he sits back down on the poolside furniture.

“Wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on the party,” says Zoro.

“And I’m kinda surprised you’re already drunk,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest. Ace laughs.

“Attitude!” he snaps. “A bottle a day keeps the”—he hiccups—“narcolepsy away!”

“That’s enough.” Marco, a tall blond guy with tattoos similar to that of Ace’s, snatches the bottle of alcohol from his grasp. He passes the bottle around, far from Ace’s reach. “God, you’re a problem.”

“What did you come for?” he asks anyway through a stifled hiccup, but his chest rises again and he lets out a burp. “Actually, I think I know. If you’re looking for him, he’s inside.”

“I was looking for your brother,” you say, intentionally vague. Zoro grunts behind you.

“U-huh, sure you are. He’s all you ever think of, I bet,” he teases. Your eyebrows knit in confusion. “He’s somewhere inside. Probably looking for something to drink, or looking for you—I don’t know!”

You roll your eyes. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he says, “oh, and, you weren’t as mysterious as you thought you were. You could’ve just said his name. I’m sure you’re aware that Luffy’s behind you.”

Right behind you, Zoro snickers. Your hands clench into balls of fists, but Marco shuts Ace up with a dry towel and a bottle of water. Turning on your heel, you decide to approach your friends at the other side of the patio and plop on the couch when you hear Ace’s scornful cackling from the distance.

“What’s up with him?” Sanji asks over the grill. The scent of melted cheese on marinated steak patties wafts through the area, and for a moment, you’re calm.

“Someone is finding one of his brothers in the middle of the party,” Zoro answers.

“I want to push him in the pool,” you joke.

“You’re looking for Sabo?” Luffy pipes up at the mention of his brothers. “He was just here. He went to look for something.”

Nami smirks devilishly. “More like someone.”

“Nami,” you warn.

She giggles. “I didn’t mention any names.”

“Let’s put our anger aside and get something to eat first,” says Sanji as he plates the first few burgers on serving plates from Luffy’s kitchen. He brings you a plate and an accompanying drink, just the way you like them served.

“You put seaweed on mine,” Zoro points out the evident nori flakes on his burger. Sanji glares at him.

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t want you complaining, so I added them ahead of time. Got a problem?”

Zoro’s forehead creases. “I was showing my gratitude.”

“It’s not my fault for assuming otherwise since you always talk like—”

“Hey, you guys came!”

Suddenly, Sabo emerges from the crowded kitchen, a red cup of liquor in hand with a pack of Nerds’ Gummy Clusters in the other. Your eyes shoot upward upon seeing him, and you fix your seated position on the couch.

“We were just talking about you,” Luffy says through a wide grin, his burger long gone. Nami nudges his side in an attempt to caution his words, which seemingly works since Luffy shifts his attention to Sanji’s food. “Sanji! Do you have any more patties there?”

“No, but I could cook some more,” replies the chef.

As your friends draw their focus to Sanji’s cooking, Sabo sits himself next to you on the couch. You scoot to the side, but your legs touch given the cramped space. “Have you eaten?”

You chuckle. “Haven’t even pre-gamed yet.”

“Planning on drinking tonight?” 

“As long as I’m not roped into anyone’s crazy game, yep.”

“It’s been two months since that happened yet you’re still so cautious,” he points out.

You shrug. He’s right. Maybe you should let it go, but you can’t. Not that you’re at his house, not that he’s in the vicinity. Your feelings are still at a state of tug of war, your heart and brain telling you two different things.

But Sabo has been challenging your feelings as of late. He’s been helping you constantly with whatever you needed, be it an essay he could proofread or a last-minute grocery run to get you something to eat. He’s been too kind, too generous. And perhaps the worst part of it all is that he’s too good at doing those things, keeping you on your toes all the time, always catching your heart effortlessly.

“Just trying to be cautious this time around. Like I said, I never get that drunk. I’d rather not blackout on your bed and wake up next to you again,” you deadpan.

Laughing, he leans on the couch and extends one arm behind you. You inhale sharply. He isn’t even touching you, yet…

“Why not?” he asks. “Not that I want to see you that drunk again, but I doubt it’d be weird this time. You’re no stranger to me. Unlike before, you’re… you’re a friend.”

You look at him. That’s when you see it. His eyelids hang lower than normal, his circular eyes glowing in the dark, the colors of his irises reflecting the light of the bonfire in front of you. He’s a little tipsy, but his words are softly curated that you find the sincerity behind them nonetheless.

“I’d really rather not give you a heart attack by waking up next to you,” you whisper.

“You really won’t,” he whispers back.

“ACE!” A screech of Ace’s name sounds from the other side of the patio, where you just were. Startled, you and Sabo whip your heads behind you to find his brother running amok, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floorboards. He stops just behind you, his movements somewhat wobbly.

“Man, how much have you been drinking?” Sabo scrunches his nose at the sight of his brother, his damp hair sticking to his forehead. Marco and a bunch of his friends follow.

“Not a deal, honestly. Where’s that card game you bought a few weeks back?”

Sabo shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

“It was like a game or something. You showed it to me after you went on that date with—”

You raise an eyebrow. Sabo glances at you before looking back at his brother. “Shut up! It wasn’t—I wasn’t—”

“The card game, please,” says Ace with an extended hand.

Sabo grumbles under his breath. He places his drink on the ground, tells you that he’ll be back in a few minutes, then disappears into the buzzing crowd inside his house. Ace laughs maniacally when his brother leaves.

“What was that about?” Usopp asks.

“Just him being stubborn,” Ace says in a sing-song. He looks at you. “I see that look on your face. You’re curious, aren’t you?”

Your eyebrows knit in anger. “Wasn’t even going to ask.”

“Aw, don’t be mad!” He giggles. You pick up Sabo’s drink from the ground and lean back into the couch, drinking your own. Lowering his voice, he says, “I promise you, I was just teasing.”

You huff, but you don’t let Ace see any more of your troubled expression. “Like I said, I don’t care,” you lie through your teeth. Ace is a great older figure when he’s his normal self. When he’s drunk, he becomes annoying ten-fold.

“We’ll see about that,” he chirps. He tries to wrest Sabo’s abandoned drink from you, but Marco stops him from doing so.

When Sabo comes back, he’s rather sheepish. He slides the so-called “card game” in Ace’s hands before repositioning himself on the space next to you.

Before you can ask him any questions, he chugs the rest of his drink and apologizes.

Ten minutes later, you’re confronting Sabo as your friends unite in laughter behind you.

“You did what?!” you exclaim.

“I was curious, but I wanted to play the game, too!” Sabo defends himself. Your head falls into your hands. Sabo caresses your shoulder. “I’m sorry!”

“I have my reasons, Sabo. They’re embarrassing.”

“I understand, but it’s nothing to worry about,” he consoles you. He pats your shoulder once, then reluctantly your head. Your heart misses a beat. “Nobody knows what went down that night, okay? I do hope it wasn’t homicidal, but embarrassing or not, you’re safe.”

Sabo smiles when he evokes a response from you, a light laughter that gets drowned in the noise, but he hears it nonetheless. You lean into him closer.

“You’re not joining that game, are you?” Sabo looks at Ace and his group of friends, where your group of friends now sit after inviting you over. Nami left you under Sabo’s custody when you declined, warning him intently to keep an eye on you throughout the night—and he takes the job seriously because you’re closer to each other than before, like he’s guarding anything and anyone who dares try anything on you.

“Not tonight, no,” he says. “I’m keeping an eye on you.”

“A drunk man watching over me,” you goad him. “It’s funny, but I appreciate it.”

“I promised your friends,” he says. Suddenly, the crowd erupts in laughter. “They’re having a lot of fun.”

You nod. In all honesty, you didn’t expect Ace’s friends to concur with his antics. Ace is the youngest of the bunch, and Truth or Drink doesn’t seem like a party game that graduate and postdoctoral dudes play. Sabo tells you they’re all like-minded regardless of age, which makes a whole lot of sense considering their closeness.

“Ew! Marco, you’re gross! You’re gross!” Ace yells in response to Marco’s revolting story, reminisced in light of the card he chose. “You could have taken the shot instead of saying all that!”

“I’m not getting myself drunk,” the man in question says. With a flick of his hand, he tells Usopp with the empty bottle, “Spin it.”

You spend some time with Sabo at the patio until he excuses himself to the restroom, saying he drank too much prior to your arrival. You promise him you won’t go anywhere, so he walks back inside with ease.

But you’re adventurous. And most of all, curious. Without Sabo beside you for a suspiciously long amount of time—it’s been more than ten minutes and you’re worried; he must be puking his brains out over the toilet—there’s nothing to do.

After much debate, you walk over to the crowded end of the patio and peek through the crowd to see the mastermind of it all. Ace is as energetic as ever, and it doesn’t seem like he’s ending the game any time soon. Your eyes flicker across the crowd, and there, you see your friends—Nami, Usopp, Zoro, and Sanji. You can’t find Luffy anywhere, but your instincts tell you he’s somewhere there, hidden.

“Yikes, it landed on me,” Ace hisses through gritted teeth. Right beside him, Nami expertly shuffles the deck and lays it out neatly. Ace picks a card somewhere in the middle, and with bated breath, he awaits.

“Tell us which one of your friends’ siblings you would date, or drink the number of letters they have in their name.”

You freeze in place.

“The hell? Their siblings are, like, older than 35,” he says, unamused. “These people don’t do dating.”

Usopp shrugs. “Try your brothers’ friends, then?”

“Ah,” Ace gives it a thought or two, “well, you guys are little siblings to me. Sabo only has two friends outside of this circle, who I don’t really know. Let’s see…”

“Hey,” Sabo whispers beside you, and just like that, you’re distracted. He spares Ace a glance before looking back. “You alright?”

“I need a drink.” He nods. He takes your hand in his, and together, you leave the patio and squeeze through the sea of partygoers before winding up in the kitchen. Sabo snatches two bottles of Smirnoff from the counter with your express approval, then leads you back outside, past the swimming pool to the far corner of the backyard, where a big hardwood tree stands tall.

Sabo sneaks behind the tree, and with a push of a lever in a discreet junction box, the corner of the yard lights up. Lanterns hang from the branches of the oak, emitting a faint orange glow that consumes the night with warmth. Sabo points to the ladder by the base that extends upward to the branches.

You know this place. A tree house sits at the first fork of the oak, its design attributed to the large trunk that transverses the middle. The tree house is the brothers’ childhood playground, back when the adults used to live with them. You’ve been to their home enough times to know this, but none of your friends have ever stepped foot inside. You always assumed it was an off-limits area for the sake of preserving the space. It’s almost sacred.

“In here?” you ask Sabo just to make sure you aren’t entering a place you aren’t supposed to.

He nods.

“It’s too loud anywhere else. My room isn’t any better.”

He convinces you enough to climb up. He follows suit. When you make it to the top, you look around in awe.

Sabo has to crouch down because he’s too tall for the life of him, and there is only so much space before he’s smacked in the face by leaves. You laugh at him. He marches over to a small door, fiddles with the lock and keys in his hands, then pushes it open once unlocked.

You enter first. It seems almost magical. “Nostalgic” is another word to describe it. The light from the lanterns spill through the cracks and windows of the space, providing enough light to guide you around. Part of the oak’s trunk is in the middle, designed with LED lights and guarded by rails that encircle it. On the back wall are three bean bags of different colors. Sabo walks over to them, patting away the light dust that has collected on top of the blue bag, and pats the yellow one next to him.

“I’m guessing this is your color?” you ask, sitting on the bag as you’re told.

“Luffy’s. Mine’s blue. We kinda had a thing for playing pirates, and the colors assigned themselves with our costumes,” he says sheepishly. He then points to a black tapestry behind you, the word “ASL” painted on top of a crossbone. “Luffy tends to wear his straw hat when he’s drunk.”

“I’ve witnessed that,” you remark. You look around the room, scanning the many pictures and drawings hung up on the wall. Sabo cracks open the bottles and hands one of them to you, ensuring to inspect them first before letting you drink anything.

“Thanks,” you mumble. You clink your bottle with his before chugging down a generous amount. Sabo just watches you go, like taking a swig this impressive is second nature to you.

“You sure drink like you’re 30,” he comments.

“I’d argue otherwise,” you reply. “Those in their thirties usually drink some wine. That, I don't really have access to. Alcohol is much, much cheaper for uni students.”

“Can’t argue with you on that,” he mumbles, only after which he drinks some of his own. It’s your turn to watch him. “What?”

“No reason.” It’s true. You’ve just grown accustomed to watching Sabo so much that it feels a little fun to watch him just be himself, doing his own things. You drink another gulp of the liquor. Sabo tells you to slow down, but you don’t listen.

“Don’t shock your digestive system with the sudden influx of 45% ABV,” he warns. You find it incredibly nice of him, a warning out of genuine concern for you. But if you’re going to spend the rest of the night with Sabo alone at his childhood space, you might as well match his tipsy level.

When you’ve drunk one-thirds of the bottle, you rest your body on the bean bag and face the man next to you. Sabo is more exhausted than he makes himself out to be. His eyes hang lower than earlier, his blond hair tousled all over. But it’s in a handsome way most women like, making him look more vulnerable, but raw.

Sabo routinely notices this—how you’ve gone quiet, how your eyes scan his face. Bravely, he asks, “Are you checking me out?”

You sneer. “Does it look like I am?”

“Totally, yeah,” he says, but it’s hypocritical because he goes silent and he starts checking you out himself. You look different under the dim lighting, but he stares right back nonetheless.

It’s endearing, to say the least. Sabo holds so much charismatic power in his eyes that it almost drives you crazy. Then you realize it’s all he’s been doing the past weeks you’ve known him. Your heart swells.

“Thanks for sticking with me tonight,” you decide to tell him instead. He hums.

“It’s the least I could do.”

The conversation ends like that, leaving you with your silent thoughts as the muffled noise from the sound system outside passes through the walls of the tree house. You and Sabo sip from your bottles until sobriety slips from your grasp many minutes later.

Your head is buzzing when you move around the bean bag, figuring that if you move too much, the subtle ache in your head will turn into an intolerable migraine. You look down at your bottle and notice that you’ve drunk all of it. That explains it.

Your eyes flit to Sabo, who’s in the same position, but he’s tipsier than you are with his bottle equally empty. His eyes are almost closing, but he keeps them open as he gazes past the windows, eyes trained on the dark void outside.

He seems to be zoning out. He hasn’t blinked in the ten seconds you look at him, but it’s not truly what it seems.

He’s been preoccupied since that evening. His thoughts have been floating in his head the moment you arrived a couple hours ago. Frankly, he hasn’t thought about anything else but you. Sabo notices that you occupy his mind a lot, like you’re living rent-free in his small head for an unfair amount of time, but he doesn’t know whether or not he should consider it a problem.

His lips thin out into a straight line as he falls deeper in thought.

“Your observance is only limited to me and Luffy though.”

He’s been telling Ace about his interesting predicament since the start of your friendship. It hadn’t been a secret to him—or to anyone, for that matter—that you weren’t close to begin with. For some reason, you always hung around Ace, which made him ponder a few times about your fondness for his brother.

“Does she like you?” Sabo asked one day.

Ace’s features contorted into confusion. “Um, hello? Chill out. I’m basically her older brother.”

“She seems to hang around you a lot. I mean, when Luffy’s friends are over.”

“Doesn’t really mean much. I just talk a lot more than you do.”

Sabo always thought it was odd how you were closer to Ace more than you did him. Not that he was jealous of Ace—no, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t anything in particular that you did either, but rather it was the bizarreness of it all that did. Sabo thought it felt strange that the both of you weren’t tight when you saw each other as often as you saw Ace. It made him wonder if he’d done anything wrong that seemed to repel your presence from him, but he always ended up clueless.

Ace shot him a look of doubt. “Are you implying that you want to impress Luffy’s friends?”

“Uh,” Sabo hesitates, “no.”

“Kinda seems like you’re worried about them not liking you, though,” his brother teased. Sabo was becoming flustered. “I guarantee you it’s my mouth. I doubt Luffy’s circle would approach me if I wasn’t loud.”

Sabo shrugged. Ace slid next to him on the kitchen island, gripping a glass of water.

“Hey, do you have a crush on someone you haven’t told me about?”

Sabo glared at him. “Don’t play with me.”

“I’m just saying, you’re asking an awful lot of questions. Some might say they lead back to one person in particular.”

The blond groaned, eyes rolling to the side before he hopped off the stool and trudged away. “Shut up, Ace.”

“If you like her, you should tell her! You heard it first from me.”

It killed Sabo thinking about it. The atmosphere always turned different every time your friends left the both of you alone, just sitting around in the living room and giving each other respectful looks before directing your attention to your phones. You’ve talked before—quite obviously—but it was always awkward, a thick layer of silence never failing to engulf the space between you after a short-lived conversation. Sabo never understood it. What was wrong?

He figured you just didn’t connect as well as you did with his two brothers. After all, Sabo was less energetic than those two. Maybe it was just a ‘him’ problem all along.

“Right, so, you’re conflicted because you’re awkward, and she’s not.”

He groaned once more. “Correction: we both are.”

“You just need to talk to her. She doesn’t hate you, you know,” said Ace.

“I don’t trust that,” replied Sabo.

“Well, Mr. Nice-Guy-Who-Wants-To-Be-Friends-With-Everyone,” Ace started, “she doesn’t. If you want to be friends with her so badly, just walk up to her. Start talking. But I personally wouldn’t do that.”

“You wouldn’t?” Sabo blinked. “What does that mean?”

“I personally would never disguise my crush on somebody as ‘wanting to be friends with them.’ I’d cut to the chase and ask them out directly.” said Ace with finger quotations in the air. Sabo frowned. “Dude, don’t give me that look. Sadness doesn’t suit you.”

“I don’t like her,” he said, “I just want to be—”

“Want to be friends with her. Yeah, yeah, sure.” Ace waved his hands in the air, then took a huge gulp of water. “Maybe you do. But you only do because you’re nice to everybody. And when you want to be at peace with someone who seemingly hates you, you don’t make a fuss about it. Do you?”

Sabo was silent. Ace was victorious.

“Look, attraction is very weird. Some people get attracted to people who hate their guts. Or when they get ignored by the person they like.” Ace laughed. “You probably think of her because you know her least, so you keep thinking of her until she’s in your head every time she’s near. And suddenly, you’re attracted.”

Sabo grumbled. Screw Ace for being a natural romantic. “Even if I were, that doesn’t mean I like her enough to date her.”

Ace shrugged. He marched over to the fridge to get a bottle of Yakult. He threw one toward Sabo, who caught it just in time.

“It doesn’t. But that’s where the dating part comes. You go out to get to know them.” He downed the bottle in one go and tossed it in the bin under the island. “Dude, you’ve dated people before. Think about it. She’s your type. Don’t waste your time and just ask her out.”

Sabo was red by the end of that exchange. You are his type. He wouldn’t hide that at all, because if he tried hard enough, he could imagine dating you. But he didn’t know if he should take his chances or not. You’re one of Luffy’s best friends. He didn’t know how his brother would react if he found out that he was making moves on you. Beyond that, it also felt wrong to ask you so soon. Not when you couldn’t spare each other a glance, not when you couldn’t hold a proper conversation without ending on an awkward note. If Sabo were to make his move, he’d make sure you’re on talking terms first.

Finding you asleep on his bed two months ago was the push. Like a catalyst to speed his reactions. He hadn’t thought of approaching you so soon, but he was glad. Whatever could’ve been the reason for your drunkard antics, he was glad you ended up in his room, then because he could talk to you, then he could clear things up, then he could finally befriend you and dissolve that wall of discomfort.

He hadn’t known it back then, but you’re nice. You’re sweet. You get shy when he’s around because of the bedroom incident that happened a few weeks back, but you hold yourself accountable. You're apologetic for your actions. Even then, Sabo always reassured you that it was fine because it really was. He wouldn’t have gotten the chance to be with you the way he is now if it weren’t for it. But he couldn’t say that, of course. He’d save the explanation another time.

Although the thing with Sabo is that he gets himself in the most baffling of situations. Unlucky, if you will. But they might also be blessings-in-disguise. Regardless, it’s clear that his brain is running on alcohol and he can’t control his thoughts from pouring out the way he normally would sober. His thoughts seem like they have a mind of their own. So through his drunkenness, through the dim lights of the lanterns at his childhood tree house, he just conveniently decides that now is that time.

“I thought you were with Ace,” Sabo said. He had come upstairs to use the restroom and miraculously ran into Luffy seated by the foot of his bedroom. “Are you alright?”

“I’m hungry, but my tummy hurts,” he admitted. Sabo looked down at his brother, who had one hand on his stomach. He shook his head. “I can’t open my room.”

Like the good brother he was, Sabo unlocked Luffy’s bedroom door and rushed him inside, laying him down on his mattress. He tucked his brother in bed despite his protests.

“I don’t want to go to bed, I still want to eat!”

Sabo flicked his forehead. “Don’t even try. You’ll get sick again.”

“I want to go downstairs with Ace! He’s playing that game we played before!”

He heaves a sigh. “Yeah, because I brought it to him.”

“That game was dangerous. It got me drunk, too,” Luffy reminisced. “Everyone was barfing, and—”

“Go to sleep, idiot.” Sabo threw the blanket over his face.

“—she picked the worst card, but she didn’t want to tell us who it was, so she ended up drinking four shots like they were nothing!”

Sabo stopped moving. He removed the blanket covering Luffy’s face.

“Wait, say that again. What happened?”

Luffy began to ramble. He narrated the events that transpired that fateful night, from the moment Nami revealed the deck of playing cards to when you blacked out. Sabo tried to process the information as much as he could, but Luffy rapped through his words, only slowing down when Sabo’s name was roped into the game.

“Hey, don’t tell her this, but she drank four of them. I think she was spelling your name! Not Niji!” Luffy whispered.

So, as he sits right next to you, Sabo is conflicted. He just learned something he wasn’t supposed to, something he wasn’t allowed to hear. No wonder why you were so insistent on not telling him—everything that occurred that night had everything to do with him. He was right all along.

On one hand, it satisfies Sabo that he’s been on your mind the same way you’ve been in his. On the other hand, he feels like a traitor. He knows it isn’t his fault, but he can’t prevent the guilt that gnaws at his conscience. It will probably haunt him for the rest of his life if he hides it from you. He has to apologize. He has to.

So he wants to say it. He wants to be honest, at least. It’s the least he could do for finding out something he wasn’t supposed to, then he can apologize by the end of it. And maybe, just maybe, he can be honest about his feelings for you, too.

He opens his mouth, but he hesitates at the last second. He has his doubts, and just like that, he begins to second-guess his decisions. He probably shouldn’t say it because he’ll end up being this jerk who doesn’t know any better than to snoop around your business. He doesn’t want to be so cocky and arrogant that your eyes well up with tears, your lips form into a frown. So he decides to shut up. He decides to be a good boy and a gentleman, providing you with amazing company in comfortable silence, until you’re in the mood to chat.

But his mouth betrays him, and he says it without hesitation.

“Can I ask you something?”

You look at him. Sabo’s heart thumps in his chest. You’ve made him nervous before, back when you would sit so close at the library or at a jam-packed restaurant around Conomi Avenue. But the nerves that hit him this time around are different. They're far greater than the ones he’s experienced, like his heart is about to leap out of his chest.

You nod.

Sabo sucks in a deep breath.

“Is it,” he hesitates, “is it true that you would date me over your friends’ siblings?”

He drops the bomb. Your face instantly morphs into shock, your mouth falling ajar and your eyes becoming wide with fear. Sabo immediately regrets it. His heart falls to the pit of his stomach when you don’t reply.

You don’t seem too pleased. You stare into the night silently, like you’re giving Sabo the cold shoulder after his utterance. Little does he know, alarms blare inside your brain to signal a fight-or-flight response to his words. Adrenaline rushes through your bloodstream and you think of what to say, but your body fails to do anything productive as you simply tremble in place.

Sabo notices your internal dilemma when you don’t respond. He keeps quiet for a few moments as he waits for you to speak, but silence remains.

“You okay?” he decides to ask. A safe question, nothing to be afraid of, even though your answer is clear as day.

“Who told you?” is your first question, but you don’t sound mad. Just surprised.

Sabo leans back on the bean bag, then brings his bottle to his lips, drinking the last droplets that have pooled at the bottom.

“Luffy,” he admits soon afterward. A sigh escapes your lips. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I knew you didn’t want me knowing things, and believe me, I never acted on it,” he continues. “I just got too close.”

“Too close?”

“It just came out mid-convo,” he explains. “Luffy was M.I.A. earlier due to a sick stomach. I found him upstairs when I left. Everything just came out, and… I was too shocked. I had no idea how to stop him from divulging more than what he already had.”

Your head falls forward in defeat, but the liquor makes it heavier. A subtle throb aches in your right temple.

Typical Luffy. Of course he would tell him that. He probably thought it wasn’t a big deal since you and Sabo seemed to have been getting along recently.

“If there’s anyone you should be mad of, it should be me,” says Sabo.

But there’s no point. Getting mad at Sabo won’t get you anywhere. After all, his name was just dragged into your stupid drinking antics. If anything, beyond the bed issue, he should be mad at you. He should be mad that your feelings are jumbled, to the point that you can’t even properly tell him what happened in that stupid drinking game many weeks ago.

“I’m sorry.”

You suck in a deep breath. “It’s fine.”

He looks up from the ground.

“Really, it’s fine.” Turning toward him, you force out a smile. It’s the best that you can offer right now. A part of you is relieved that he doesn’t seem to be mad at you after learning what he learned, but the other part remains anxious. You don’t want your friendship to end badly. You’ve only warmed up to him recently, so the last thing you want to happen is to go back to ignoring each other.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“I told you, it’s fine.” You laugh breathily. You reposition yourself on the bean bag, so you’re facing him. You call out his name. “Sabo.”

He twists his head slowly, looking at you. The warm glow of the tree lights reflect on his face, and for a second, you’re speechless.

“Hm?”

“I…” He waits patiently. “Well, I…”

Is it worth telling him the truth? What happens when you do? He’s drunk and he looks so smitten under the moonlight, so you can only imagine how deeply it would hurt to tell him the truth behind your stupid drinking spree. You gulp.

Why are you so reluctant?

“I don’t want to hurt you,” you say, “but that… all that didn’t mean anything.”

Sabo purses his lips. Your words leave a bitter taste in his mouth, but he sucks it up.

“I see.”

“But it was short-lived,” you interject. He listens. “All of it didn’t mean anything then, but it started meaning something when you came. When you started showing up in my life often a few days later.”

Silence falls.

“I thought I was going to lose my mind,” you confess. “I drank recklessly, but that was the end of it. You weren’t on my mind until the morning after, and the many days after that.”

“Until you woke up on my bed,” he finishes. “Right next to me.”

“You just knew when and where to show up,” you joke. “You were always there. You showed up whenever I thought of you, like you knew I was thinking of you… Did you know I was thinking of you?”

Sabo’s heart flutters in his chest. He never knew it felt good to hear someone say that. In some way, he felt honored. And for some reason, finding out your feelings for himself is a million times better than learning it from someone else.

“Even if you didn’t drink for me, I can’t say I didn’t like thinking as if you did,” he confesses. Your stomach turns. “For the time I thought it meant anything, it was rather short, but it felt good to know I crossed your mind that way.”

“Sorry,” you mumble. He waves his hand, disagreeing.

“An apology isn’t needed. Knowing you thought of me eventually in that light is good enough.” Smiling to himself, he replays your confession inside his head. He feels a jolt of electricity course through his body. He’s more than thrilled right now. “To make things even, I should let you know that it’s mutual. Always has been.”

“It is?” you ask.

He gives you a look. “I was obvious, wasn’t I?”

“But I was confused,” you explain. You’re into him, and you always have been into him—for once, you’re being honest with yourself. But it scares you to a degree that your feelings are merely infatuation. “What if I only liked you because you kept appearing around me? Because I’ve been thinking about you since I stumbled into your bedroom?”

You look at Sabo, your eyes a little glossy.

“I worried too much about these things that I didn’t pick up on your intentions.”

You’re not crying, but you might as well be. Alcohol is flushed into your system and it’s wiring your brain differently. You look helpless.

“What are you saying?” he asks, but he empathizes. He thinks he understands.

“I just didn’t know what’s fair and what’s not, and I still don’t,” you tell him honestly. “I’m into you, but how do I know if I truly do? Not because I see you so often, not because you’re nice to me?”

Sabo doesn’t respond right away and instead thinks to himself. It’s a great question, immensely reminiscent of his exchange with Ace. He and Ace don’t have a lot of differences, but it seems their views on dating is one of them. Ace likes things quick, fast, and straightforward. Sabo likes things slow, sweet, and just the right amount of pining. He doesn’t go out with people easily because he has an intrinsic fear of waking up one day and realizing that it isn’t love all along. It checks out with his dating history—he might as well be speaking from experience.

The problem now is that you seem to be in the same ditch. Other than the anxiety that comes with the doubt, he guesses it’s because he’s your best friend’s brother, too. Any problem between you will make things difficult for your friends, so Sabo understands where you’re coming from. You’re not about that risky life when the future appears blurry. When you commit, you want to be sure.

Sabo is smitten just the same, though, so he wants you to be sure. He wants it for the both of you.

“It takes time to know that,” he answers. “You go out and do things. You go on dates. When your heart is free of doubt, that’s when you know.”

Sabo watches you bite your lip. You’re still troubled, but the sight of you has him spiraling. Suddenly, he has the urge to hold you.

“It makes sense, but”—you bite your lip harder—”I still fear it. I don’t want to be wrong. I want to be sure. I want to be sure that it’s you.”

And I want that, too, Sabo says to himself. A sigh passes his lips. “We’re not far off. I didn’t know if I liked you because I knew you least or because I saw you as often as I did.” Standing up, he offers you his hand. You take it and let him hoist you up. As you stand before him, you look into his eyes while he peers down at you. “I got ahead of myself by bringing this up tonight. I’m sorry for causing you confusion. I hope you can forgive me.”

You frown. That’s not what you expected him to say.

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” you argue. “You don’t think this was a mistake, do you?”

“Being into you will never be a mistake,” he says, “but forcing us to have this conversation tonight might have been one. I brought it up early. I should have waited a little longer.”

Your lips form into a pout and you look so… sad. Sabo feels guilty for it. He wants to hold you closer, possibly even do the unthinkable and peck the sadness away from your lips. But it’s the alcohol talking in his system, so he prevents himself, not wanting to take advantage of you drunk.

“Thinking about it upsets me, but you’re not wrong,” you mumble. Things would’ve been different if you had this conversation at a later time. By then, you would have figured out your feelings and be more sure about Sabo than you are now. On the flip side, you’re challenged by the uncertainty of tomorrow. What happens after tonight? Will you continue your friendship as if nothing happened? There is no guarantee this will end well.

Sabo comforts you with gentle strokes of your head, patting your hair down as he surmises a reply. He’s distressed, but he’s glad you’re on the same footing.

“What do we do now, then?” He hears the brokenness in your voice, sees the genuine sadness in your eyes. He has to fix this.

“I’m still into you, you know?” He brings one hand up to your cheek, then pinches your skin softly. Blood rushes to your face at the endearing act. “That will never change. We just need time to figure things out together.”

He reaches for your hand. Sabo runs a thumb across your knuckles to soothe your nerves.

“If you want to, that is.”

You hold his hands in yours.

“I want to.”

“Then come here.”

He opens his arms, and almost automatically, you fall into them. Your arms encircle his waist as he lays an arm around your shoulder to bring you closer. You smell the liquor on him mixed with his cologne, and just like that, you’re entranced. You’re comforted. Sabo just does it so well.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not remembering a single thing tomorrow,” you warn him softly.

“It’s okay,” he whispers through a hearty laugh. “I’m no better. We’ll just see where this goes.”

SIX.

You remember every single thing.

When you and Sabo got back to the patio, it was past midnight. Ace and his friends were down by the poolside, while your friends packed themselves like sardines in Luffy’s bedroom, sleeping soundly as a 2000’s romantic comedy played in the background. The house had been less crowded then, allowing you to navigate around better without having to link hands with Sabo as tightly.

You ate some crackers to fill your stomach before heading to his room upstairs, where he offered to let you sleep on his bed. You initially refused, but he insisted, promising you that he could sleep on the floor just fine.

That’s how you find yourself in his bedroom the following morning. You wake up a few minutes before the clock strikes 7, jolting awake by the sudden unfamiliarity of your surroundings. When you realize you’re in Sabo’s room, you relax back into the mattress, your head hitting his soft pillows.

You realize that Sabo is gone when you look down to check his make-do bed on the floor. He’s woken up early, it seems.

You sling your feet off the side of the mattress when you feel the first throb of an impending migraine. You hiss in pain. Even then, you fight through the ache and make a beeline for the bathroom in search of some hangover pills, then tread to the kitchen for a glass of water.

When you get there, someone has beaten you to it.

“Good morning,” Sabo chirps from the other side of the island, tossing a pan of eggs over the stove. The side of your head throbs again, but you resist to flinch. “You’re up early.”

“I have a migraine,” you mutter. Approaching the stool just across him, you lay your head on the counter and pat your own head gently. “Got anything there for it?”

“Other than the classic pain-relievers, I can give you something good to eat,” he says. A few minutes later, he slides a plate of seasoned eggs in front of you, hot and freshly cooked. He rounds the island and sits on the stool beside you, watching you silently.

But you meet his gaze when you tilt your head to the side. Your head throbs again, and again, and again, but you stare at him, and he stares back.

You laugh.

You both laugh.

“Remember anything?” he asks, hopping off his seat and leaning on the countertop next to you. Reflex causes you to look away, but you aren’t rattled one bit. Flirt.

“Very much so.”

“That saves me the trouble of explaining things from the start. How much do you remember?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” you say. “Like, all of it?”

Sabo pinches your cheek. “I had a feeling. You’re a tough nut.”

“And so are you.”

“Mm-hmm, but you could give me that. I was pretty out of it for the most part,” he says. “You kept me sober. I fought the effects of the alcohol so I could remember.”

“Oh, Sabo,” you call his name. He smiles, and you’re ruined. You feel warm again, your heart beating a little faster. Your stomach swarms with a million butterflies and for a moment, your headache is gone, like Sabo was all you needed to get rid of it.

“What are you two doing, flirting in my kitchen?” as if on cue, Ace bellows from the living room, his hair untidy and his shirt gone. He looks around the space, deciding what to do first, then walks straight to the fridge where he hunts for food.

“We were having a moment,” Sabo snaps. Ace makes a face of feigned disgust, but you don’t see it from your seat.

“Gross. Let me have some breakfast first, then you can continue,” he says, drinking Luffy’s leftover can of orange juice from the fridge. “Not sure if anyone’s told you yet, but congratulations. I hope I was the first.”

Before Ace strolls out the kitchen, he bids you goodbye. “Remind your friends that they owe me some money!” After that, he’s gone.

You giggle. Annoyed, Sabo rolls his eyes. He has to confront Ace later for betting on his love life behind his back, but for now, his focus is on you and the migraine that seems to prick at your head.

“Hangover soup and a few more hours of sleep can fix this,” Sabo advises. You nod. “I’ll make you something, then we can order anything you’d like at noon.”

“Thank you,” you reply shyly.

“Anything for you.” He pats your head, ruffling your bedhead hair in the process. And there it is again—he smiles, and you melt. He’s handsome without even trying. “You have me.”

“I have you,” you echo.

-

thanks for reading! i apologize to everyone for taking so long to post this, especially to my giftee @justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms. i underestimated this semester's workload, so i barely got enough time to write on time:( my first idea was to write about the ASL brothers going on a glamping trip with reader, which i had written a substantial amount of, but i scrapped the idea because it was going nowhere. that was originally around 4k words, while this was supposed to be within 8k. it ended up stretching to 17k (i'm sorry).

some other things: i wanted to write about law, but i was afraid everyone else would write about him (and i was right), so i settled with sabo, who barely gets enough fics. i had a lot of fun writing this. sabo is very sweet and he deserves more stories written about him. following that thought, ASL modern AU's should definitely be more common. i don't understand why barely anyone writes them, it's kinda criminal.

Bepo, ever the reliable navigator, has been stepping up everywhere he can. You kind of feel bad for the mink; in between navigating the ship to an island personally hidden by the government and keeping the crew from tearing each other apart, he always seems down. That and the captain’s been far more withdrawn than before, barking out orders in between nutrient-deficient migraines and stress-induced nightmares.

(You only know of his sleep because the captain’s quarters are right next to yours, separated by what has to be the thinnest wall in the entire Tang. Your bed is pressed right up against it, giving you first class seats to hear Law toss and turn before he darts awake with a strangled shout.)

(You avoid him more after nights like those. You’re afraid that, if you saw him, you’d run up to hold him and break your heart all over again.)

When the Tang docks at Punk Hazard, it's a few meters away from the glacier-ridden shores. As hard as Bepo and Hakugan tried, there wasn't a way to get it any closer. The captain must have known that, considering he didn't snap at them the way he would've.

Instead, he steps over the Tang's railing. You're out in the cold reluctantly—the entire crew ushered to fit on that cramped deck, sweeping you along with them. You watch as his Room expands over the ship and the surrounding sea. Then, with a minute gesture, he's gone; All that remains is a small pebble of ice, the size of a berri.

No matter how many times you see it, your captain always impresses you. He walks towards the heart of the island. Law doesn't look back.

You don't know why you stand out there so long. The rest of the crew has already fled from the biting wind, preparing in the Tang for submersion. Your heart's begging you to yell something you'll regret—a goodbye, maybe, considering there's a chance you'll never see him again—but you rein it in. Just when he's about to disappear from your vision, you head back into the Tang.

You miss the way Law glances over his shoulder. It's short; just long enough to see you leaving.

~

Life is a little kinder when you're sailing to Zou. You can breathe easier, listening to Bepo go on and on about a home he doesn't really remember.

The crew seems like they can breathe easier, too, now that they aren't skating around you and the captain.

You almost feel bad, but then it makes you think of Law, so you force yourself to move on.

~

One day, when you're sitting in the kitchen and nursing a glass of water, Hakugan sidles up beside you. You nod your head at your crewmate, taking a sip.

"Shouldn't you be busy, mister helmsman?" You tease.

You can't tell if Hakugan rolls his eyes under that mask, but the huff you receive makes you laugh. He sighs, "I was just getting the mail."

The rain falls in waves, rising and ebbing with the sea, crashing down on the surface of the ocean until sheets of droplets sooth into dull pitter-patter in half an hour. It's calm waters compared to the Grand Line's usual. When he sits down with you, you aren't worried of going off course.

You can see the storm disturbing the surface, sloshing up foamy waves and echoing against the Tang's metal hull. It sounds like a lullaby you heard from an island you restocked from recently. You couldn't remember the name if you tried, but the warm feeling it gave you was easy to recollect.

It's early in the morning as the Tang's cruising the top of the cresting waves. Some of the crew is still waking up, but the News Coos have always been on time to the dot. It's why the (slightly damp) newspaper rolled loosely in his hands doesn't surprise you.

It's why you almost drop your glass when he unrolls the paper and you see "KING OF DRESSROSA OVERTHROWN" written in big, bold letters as the headline.

"Looks like the captain did it," Hakugan says.

You can't help but smile when you pick up the newspaper. "Looks like he did."

~

You all immediately lose Bepo the moment he sets foot on Zou. During all his ramblings, he had neglected to mention that the island was a giant, walking elephant, so you and the rest of the Heart Pirates were too busy exploring in awe to notice the mink dart off.

The trees rustle with what you (foolishly) assumed was wind before you hear something drop from its branches.

You barely have time to whip around—there's a sword at your throat before you can speak.

"Who are you," a voice growls, "and what do you pirates want?"

You blink. And blink again.

You must've bumped your head somewhere along the trek, you're sure of it, because you're currently looking a dog dressed like a musketeer in the face.

(Face? Snout? You decide it doesn't matter, considering there's a blade at your neck either way.)

Halfway between your stammered explanation, Bepo in all his glory appears from the foliage. Thank the seas, because you definitely would've had your throat slit if he didn't.

So, all in all, it's a lovely first meeting. Of course it is! You make quick friends with the minks, try to help them recover from the Beast Pirates' carnage, and ignore the scent of blood hanging over Zou.

(It was more a slaughter, really. They were beat half to death when you arrived.)

Then the Straw Hats stroll in, first in half then in whole, to really get the party going.

Honestly, you almost thought all the rumors were exaggerated. Almost immediately after a few Straw Hats helped you and the minks drive out Jack, moments after the alliance's creation, there's a feast thrown. It took partying with the Monkey D. Luffy to realize that, no, they really do get it going that hard. You'd be lying if you said you didn't enjoy it though. It's a fucking blast!

You're chatting with Wanda and Pedro before the Straw Hats leave for Wano and Whole Cake Island. Strangely, you haven't seen Carrot, but they both wave it off. Instead, you're talking on and off about the Three-Way Alliance, gossiping about the Straw Hats, and swapping all the stories you remember (and some you could've sworn you didn't).

You're halfway through giggling out a story about a glitter bomb between Shachi and Penguin when you feel a firm touch on your shoulder. You turn with a smile on your face.

Your words die and your smile crumbles when you meet Law's eye.

"...Captain?"

Law doesn't respond, instead looking over your shoulder to the people you were talking with. "I need to take my crewmate. Medical emergency."

It's clear to see how Pedro, even with half his face covered, raises an eyebrow at him. He opens his maw to retort when Wanda smacks her paw against his shoulder. "Of course. We'll be here when you're both done."

You can't even get a word in before there's a hand on your elbow dragging you away.

Even when you're pulled through the door and into the open air, wind stinging your cheeks, you can barely stumble through a response. Law doesn't offer you a moment of reprieve before you're pulled into a room you recognize—Zou's personal medbay. It's empty, which shocks you into finding your words.

"Captain!" You yank your arm back, crossing them over your torso. "What do you want? You don't say a word to me since- since— and now you're just—!"

"Quiet," Law says in a clipped tone. Your mouth clicks shut. You settle for glaring at the back of his cap.

After a long while (barely two minutes), Law straightens up. He steps back, revealing the... prepped med table. Bandages, ointments, cleaning alcohol, first aid kit; all things characteristic of a medbay, none of which you expected.

You look up at him, even though your captain almost never explains himself. He just jerks his head in the direction of the free chair next to the table.

...Well, What the hell. Ignoring the obvious, it's not like your captain's in the habit of steering you wrong, right?

When you sit down, Law's pulling on some gloves. He undoes the bandages around your neck and peels off the bandages on your face without much fanfare.

You try to ignore the cool hands hovering over your skin. They clean and bandage your healing wounds, wrapping the gauze around and around. You glare at the opposite wall like it offends you.

Though, it's a decently unoffensive wall, all things considered. It curves into the ceiling, with vines spanning from wall to wall with different canisters hanging from each. Law reaches up, swipes up some salve from one of the canisters, and hangs it back in place. You wonder if Zunesha's sporadic movements or two daily showers ever knock them loose. Curiously, you study what appears to be an EKG machine to your left, hooked to the wall to keep it from rolling away. Figures—if the minks have been living on Zunesha for this long, they must've adapted to the eccentricities by now. The canisters must be included.

In the end, there isn't many interesting things to look at in the medbay. Nothing, that is, but your captain. You can't stop how your eyes wander his face.

It's like time rewound to the moment before he told the crew about Punk Hazard. His cheeks are fuller, the shadow over his gaze is softer—you should really thank the Straw Hats next time you see them for taking such good care of your captain.

Though, his concentration has knit his eyebrows together, contorting his face into a look of perpetual stress. You want to reach forward and smooth the pinch in his expression, kiss the worry from his frown, lull him into the safety he deserves—something ugly and wanting rears its head in you, pawing at the door and begging to break free.

It wants to rest its eyes, curled up at Law's side. It wants to give your captain all the love it knows he deserves—the love it knows it could give him.

You shove it back down. The last time it tried, you lost him. If it were to do it again, you're not sure you could take the heartbreak a second time.

Law glares at the soaked cotton ball he dabs at your wound. It was something alcoholic—you could tell by the way it stung your nose and burned like hell—but there was something that kept you from asking. Maybe it was shame.

Shame that you had been damaged like this when the Beast Pirates raided. Shame that, even though he placed his trust in his crew, it took the Straw Hats' arrival for the tides to truly turn in their favor. You only caught the tail end of Jack's massacre, but...

You wince with a hiss when the cotton ball grazes a particularly deep cut. You take his pause and huff as an apology. You look away and nod, and that's when he continues to clean.

You almost smile. How long has it been, and you can still read each other like this?

It was only a twitch of your lip, but you know Law caught it. He pauses, throws out the ball, and searches through the first aid kit. Then hesitantly, as he unwraps a bandaid, he asks, "what's so funny?"

You blink at him. All that silence, and now he's making small talk? Before the fight of your lives?

You stare at him.

He stares at you back.

You can't help it—you burst out laughing.

The way his cheeks flush only make you laugh harder until you're doubled over, clutching your stomach and hanging off his shoulder. You hide your face against his collar and bite your lip to hold back giggles, but it's impossible. You look up at his bewildered face and burst out laughing all over again.

His hand remains hovered over your head as you laugh, your fist clutching his shirt. You can hear his heart thundering against your ear.

When you tame your raucous laughter into gentle chuckles, you lean into the hand posed over your cheek. It's only trained, doctoral instinct that leads his other hand to place the bandaid on your temple.

Your eyes trace from the edge of his fingers down his inked forearm, up short sleeves and along the length of his neck. They eventually land on his lips, like there was no other place to be. You can feel Law follow your gaze.

All those nights of heartache possess you. The gentle sounds of the party next door fade away until all you can hear is the blood rushing through your ears. You lean forward.

And you could kiss him. Damn it all, he's right there, leaning back into you—but you know better. You sit back and watch him lean forward like he's chasing you.

Good. For once, he's the one chasing.

"We missed you Cap'n," you murmur. Law's eyes fly wide open. Did he even realize he closed them?

A beat passes, then another. And then Law's face turns red, like a child caught after their bed time. You almost expect him to flee, and you suspect he might, but he shakes his head and smiles.

He straightens up, mirth lingering on his expression. With a huff of laughter, he says, "I did too."

You might explode. Ever since he's come back, Law's been different. Softer. Like ice caging his heart was thawed by the Dressrosan sun.

It makes you wonder if anything could work between you this time if it were with a man like this.

Brushing your fingertips over the bandaid, you consider it. It's been a long, long while since you had this thought without pushing it from your mind immediately upon having it.

Something about looking the man in the eye makes it hard to.

Quietly, you hear him ask, "do you want to get a drink with me?"

Now, wouldn't that be lovely?

But it has to be different.

With a considerate hum, you purse your lips before shaking your head. You can see it in his eyes that his heart almost shatters, but then you interrupts him, saying, "I'd rather be sober if I go out with you this time."

You can feel heart stutter. Your own just about stops. Really, your organs might be failing after seeing the look in his eyes.

Law ducks his head and nods. You can see the smile peeking out from under the brim of his hat.

In the back of your head, you know there's more to talk about. An offer like this doesn't erase what happened all those nights ago; like that stupid smile could ever make you forget what he said.

But he's still smiling. Better yet, he's smiling at you.

Not for the first time, your heart betrays you. It beats faster, thrumming against your chest, with excitement. Excited that, now, Law wants something more. It's like you've never known any better.

The silence that falls isn't suffocating this time. He cleans and wraps the rest of your wounds, packs up, and nods his head when you're the first to leave.

~

"We have to talk," you hear Law announce from your quarter's door.

You turn around in your seat, still tucked into your desk. What a familiar, scary statement. You go to stand, but Law holds up his hand, and you stay seated. He shuts the door behind him, placing Yoru against your bed frame.

"What is it, Captain?" You probe cautiously.

Law's face pinches. "Don't call me Captain when we're going to talk about..."

You swallow down the knot in your throat. "What are we going to be talking about?"

Law hesitates.

He knows an out when he's being given it. He looks at you, at your hands so tightly clasped together that your knuckles are white, and nods.

"It's about us."

It's been a while since the night of the party. It feels just like yesterday, when the two of you had reconciled. You two didn't even get to have an hour or two afterwards—Zou got invaded again and the Straw Hats split and the Polar Tang is cramped.

You like your temporary sub-mates. You really do! But, really, the Heart Pirates are already twenty strong. Now, with five extra? It really is cramped! Not to mention how every one of those Straw Hats are, well, eclectic. They make your head spin.

Needless to say, you and Law were the farthest thing from your mind.

(That's a lie. You thought of it every night.)

It's why your mind goes blank when he says it. Instinctively, you blurt, "there's an us, now?"

You regret it the moment you see your captain wince at your words. You're scared—scared that he'll decide that an us isn't worth it to him anymore—but Law walks closer. He perches close, leaning his hip against your desk.

Slowly, like his movements could spook you, he takes his hat off his head. Law tosses it onto your desk before he runs his fingers though his hair.

"I'm sorry," he admits slowly, "for doing what I did."

"What did you do?"

"...You know what I did."

"If you can't even say it, there's no way in hell we can talk about it."

You watch Law's eyes squeeze shut. His hands flex into fists over his knee, like he craved for Yoru to be in his reach. You wonder if Law was retreating again, running somewhere you couldn't reach.

(You know you're being unfair. Seas, this isn't fucking fair. You barely know what chases your captain when the sub fall silent, but you know they're ugly things with their teeth sunk into his bones. They've bowed your Atlas' shoulders, damn it.

But you're so tired you could scream. If it could fix anything, you would scream, I'm right here! I've always been right here!

So, screw it, you want to be unfair. It'd even the fucking playing field for once.)

When he opens his eyes, they're sharp. Focused. When he directs them at you, it's like laying under a scalpel's edge.

"You're right." Law rubs his face. "You're always right."

"Am I?"

"Don't push it."

You laugh like your chest isn't tight with anxiety. He smiles like it's the easiest thing in the world.

The Polar Tang thrums with idle energy, cruising through the gentle sea like its nothing. You look away from your captain to watch the fish swim past your window, catching the draft from the sub.

"I'm sorry," Law starts again, "that I walked out."

There it is.

You don't feel any hostility when you look at your captain. You just feel tired. "Why?"

"...What?"

"What do you want from me?"

"I want—"

"Please, captain. Don't play games with me. Be honest with me."

When you're staring daggers into the wooden drawer on the side of your desk, you miss how Law trails after you like a dog off a leash.

You do, however, see the pale blue light of Law's Room. You turn your head and—

—Its beat is fast, but consistent. A pitter-pattering thump-thump-thump against Law's tattooed fingers. You gasp when you see the cavity carved into his chest. When you look at the mass in his hands, it doesn't feel real.

His heart looks... normal.

More normal than you would've ever imagined.

"C-Cap—"

"Say my name."

You look up at him, caught somewhere between wonderment and shock. "Law."

Law kneels, slowly, one hand planted on your arm rest. When you see his heart, just below your eye level, you see his fingers curled over the edges. They're shaking. It's instinct that draws you to cup his hands and steady his heart. You feel the heartbeat stutter when you touch him.

Law's eyes fall shut, like he can't speak and look at you at the same time. "It's yours."

"Law, I can't—"

"—Please," he whispers. He begs, even, and when has the mighty Trafalgar Law ever begged for anything? For you? Your mouth clamps shut. "It's yours. It's always been yours, even when I was too scared to say it. I've... never been able to not need you."

You've always wanted to see Law like this—you've craved it. You craved to know him, wholly.

"What I want is you." His eyes open to see you, once again. "I want everything with you."

You've held many hearts in your hands, as weird as it is to admit. You personally helped sort the hundred hearts Law collected. When he passes it to you, you hold it, cradled gently in your hands, just like you did a hundred times before. For all intents and purposes, Law's heart isn't any different.

But it's his, your mind reminds you. Trafalgar Law's heart. The heart of a Worst Generation captain, a former warlord.

Your captain's heart.

Law's heart.

Its rhythm flows through your palms, thrumming with nervous palpitations when he watches you. Gently, oh so gently, you raise it to your lips.

Law's gaze softens as you brush your kiss against his heart. You can feel his heartbeat skip.

What did you want from Law?

"It's mine?" You ask quietly. Too nervous to trust his voice, Law nods. A smile blooms on your face.

You wanted this.

You want his everything.

When you reach towards him with one hand, Law leans into it. His eyes flutter shut as he leans into your palm.

"Alright," you murmur, "alright."

You turn it in your hands, ghosting the pads of your fingers above the atrium. When you slot his heart back into his chest, a sigh escapes him.

"Law," you call. His eyes open, just enough to see your lovestruck smile. "Keep it safe for me, okay?"

Bepo, ever the reliable navigator, has been stepping up everywhere he can. You kind of feel bad for the mink; in between navigating the ship to an island personally hidden by the government and keeping the crew from tearing each other apart, he always seems down. That and the captain’s been far more withdrawn than before, barking out orders in between nutrient-deficient migraines and stress-induced nightmares.

(You only know of his sleep because the captain’s quarters are right next to yours, separated by what has to be the thinnest wall in the entire Tang. Your bed is pressed right up against it, giving you first class seats to hear Law toss and turn before he darts awake with a strangled shout.)

(You avoid him more after nights like those. You’re afraid that, if you saw him, you’d run up to hold him and break your heart all over again.)

When the Tang docks at Punk Hazard, it's a few meters away from the glacier-ridden shores. As hard as Bepo and Hakugan tried, there wasn't a way to get it any closer. The captain must have known that, considering he didn't snap at them the way he would've.

Instead, he steps over the Tang's railing. You're out in the cold reluctantly—the entire crew ushered to fit on that cramped deck, sweeping you along with them. You watch as his Room expands over the ship and the surrounding sea. Then, with a minute gesture, he's gone; All that remains is a small pebble of ice, the size of a berri.

No matter how many times you see it, your captain always impresses you. He walks towards the heart of the island. Law doesn't look back.

You don't know why you stand out there so long. The rest of the crew has already fled from the biting wind, preparing in the Tang for submersion. Your heart's begging you to yell something you'll regret—a goodbye, maybe, considering there's a chance you'll never see him again—but you rein it in. Just when he's about to disappear from your vision, you head back into the Tang.

You miss the way Law glances over his shoulder. It's short; just long enough to see you leaving.

~

Life is a little kinder when you're sailing to Zou. You can breathe easier, listening to Bepo go on and on about a home he doesn't really remember.

The crew seems like they can breathe easier, too, now that they aren't skating around you and the captain.

You almost feel bad, but then it makes you think of Law, so you force yourself to move on.

~

One day, when you're sitting in the kitchen and nursing a glass of water, Hakugan sidles up beside you. You nod your head at your crewmate, taking a sip.

"Shouldn't you be busy, mister helmsman?" You tease.

You can't tell if Hakugan rolls his eyes under that mask, but the huff you receive makes you laugh. He sighs, "I was just getting the mail."

The rain falls in waves, rising and ebbing with the sea, crashing down on the surface of the ocean until sheets of droplets sooth into dull pitter-patter in half an hour. It's calm waters compared to the Grand Line's usual. When he sits down with you, you aren't worried of going off course.

You can see the storm disturbing the surface, sloshing up foamy waves and echoing against the Tang's metal hull. It sounds like a lullaby you heard from an island you restocked from recently. You couldn't remember the name if you tried, but the warm feeling it gave you was easy to recollect.

It's early in the morning as the Tang's cruising the top of the cresting waves. Some of the crew is still waking up, but the News Coos have always been on time to the dot. It's why the (slightly damp) newspaper rolled loosely in his hands doesn't surprise you.

It's why you almost drop your glass when he unrolls the paper and you see "KING OF DRESSROSA OVERTHROWN" written in big, bold letters as the headline.

"Looks like the captain did it," Hakugan says.

You can't help but smile when you pick up the newspaper. "Looks like he did."

~

You all immediately lose Bepo the moment he sets foot on Zou. During all his ramblings, he had neglected to mention that the island was a giant, walking elephant, so you and the rest of the Heart Pirates were too busy exploring in awe to notice the mink dart off.

The trees rustle with what you (foolishly) assumed was wind before you hear something drop from its branches.

You barely have time to whip around—there's a sword at your throat before you can speak.

"Who are you," a voice growls, "and what do you pirates want?"

You blink. And blink again.

You must've bumped your head somewhere along the trek, you're sure of it, because you're currently looking a dog dressed like a musketeer in the face.

(Face? Snout? You decide it doesn't matter, considering there's a blade at your neck either way.)

Halfway between your stammered explanation, Bepo in all his glory appears from the foliage. Thank the seas, because you definitely would've had your throat slit if he didn't.

So, all in all, it's a lovely first meeting. Of course it is! You make quick friends with the minks, try to help them recover from the Beast Pirates' carnage, and ignore the scent of blood hanging over Zou.

(It was more a slaughter, really. They were beat half to death when you arrived.)

Then the Straw Hats stroll in, first in half then in whole, to really get the party going.

Honestly, you almost thought all the rumors were exaggerated. Almost immediately after a few Straw Hats helped you and the minks drive out Jack, moments after the alliance's creation, there's a feast thrown. It took partying with the Monkey D. Luffy to realize that, no, they really do get it going that hard. You'd be lying if you said you didn't enjoy it though. It's a fucking blast!

You're chatting with Wanda and Pedro before the Straw Hats leave for Wano and Whole Cake Island. Strangely, you haven't seen Carrot, but they both wave it off. Instead, you're talking on and off about the Three-Way Alliance, gossiping about the Straw Hats, and swapping all the stories you remember (and some you could've sworn you didn't).

You're halfway through giggling out a story about a glitter bomb between Shachi and Penguin when you feel a firm touch on your shoulder. You turn with a smile on your face.

Your words die and your smile crumbles when you meet Law's eye.

"...Captain?"

Law doesn't respond, instead looking over your shoulder to the people you were talking with. "I need to take my crewmate. Medical emergency."

It's clear to see how Pedro, even with half his face covered, raises an eyebrow at him. He opens his maw to retort when Wanda smacks her paw against his shoulder. "Of course. We'll be here when you're both done."

You can't even get a word in before there's a hand on your elbow dragging you away.

Even when you're pulled through the door and into the open air, wind stinging your cheeks, you can barely stumble through a response. Law doesn't offer you a moment of reprieve before you're pulled into a room you recognize—Zou's personal medbay. It's empty, which shocks you into finding your words.

"Captain!" You yank your arm back, crossing them over your torso. "What do you want? You don't say a word to me since- since— and now you're just—!"

"Quiet," Law says in a clipped tone. Your mouth clicks shut. You settle for glaring at the back of his cap.

After a long while (barely two minutes), Law straightens up. He steps back, revealing the... prepped med table. Bandages, ointments, cleaning alcohol, first aid kit; all things characteristic of a medbay, none of which you expected.

You look up at him, even though your captain almost never explains himself. He just jerks his head in the direction of the free chair next to the table.

...Well, What the hell. Ignoring the obvious, it's not like your captain's in the habit of steering you wrong, right?

When you sit down, Law's pulling on some gloves. He undoes the bandages around your neck and peels off the bandages on your face without much fanfare.

You try to ignore the cool hands hovering over your skin. They clean and bandage your healing wounds, wrapping the gauze around and around. You glare at the opposite wall like it offends you.

Though, it's a decently unoffensive wall, all things considered. It curves into the ceiling, with vines spanning from wall to wall with different canisters hanging from each. Law reaches up, swipes up some salve from one of the canisters, and hangs it back in place. You wonder if Zunesha's sporadic movements or two daily showers ever knock them loose. Curiously, you study what appears to be an EKG machine to your left, hooked to the wall to keep it from rolling away. Figures—if the minks have been living on Zunesha for this long, they must've adapted to the eccentricities by now. The canisters must be included.

In the end, there isn't many interesting things to look at in the medbay. Nothing, that is, but your captain. You can't stop how your eyes wander his face.

It's like time rewound to the moment before he told the crew about Punk Hazard. His cheeks are fuller, the shadow over his gaze is softer—you should really thank the Straw Hats next time you see them for taking such good care of your captain.

Though, his concentration has knit his eyebrows together, contorting his face into a look of perpetual stress. You want to reach forward and smooth the pinch in his expression, kiss the worry from his frown, lull him into the safety he deserves—something ugly and wanting rears its head in you, pawing at the door and begging to break free.

It wants to rest its eyes, curled up at Law's side. It wants to give your captain all the love it knows he deserves—the love it knows it could give him.

You shove it back down. The last time it tried, you lost him. If it were to do it again, you're not sure you could take the heartbreak a second time.

Law glares at the soaked cotton ball he dabs at your wound. It was something alcoholic—you could tell by the way it stung your nose and burned like hell—but there was something that kept you from asking. Maybe it was shame.

Shame that you had been damaged like this when the Beast Pirates raided. Shame that, even though he placed his trust in his crew, it took the Straw Hats' arrival for the tides to truly turn in their favor. You only caught the tail end of Jack's massacre, but...

You wince with a hiss when the cotton ball grazes a particularly deep cut. You take his pause and huff as an apology. You look away and nod, and that's when he continues to clean.

You almost smile. How long has it been, and you can still read each other like this?

It was only a twitch of your lip, but you know Law caught it. He pauses, throws out the ball, and searches through the first aid kit. Then hesitantly, as he unwraps a bandaid, he asks, "what's so funny?"

You blink at him. All that silence, and now he's making small talk? Before the fight of your lives?

You stare at him.

He stares at you back.

You can't help it—you burst out laughing.

The way his cheeks flush only make you laugh harder until you're doubled over, clutching your stomach and hanging off his shoulder. You hide your face against his collar and bite your lip to hold back giggles, but it's impossible. You look up at his bewildered face and burst out laughing all over again.

His hand remains hovered over your head as you laugh, your fist clutching his shirt. You can hear his heart thundering against your ear.

When you tame your raucous laughter into gentle chuckles, you lean into the hand posed over your cheek. It's only trained, doctoral instinct that leads his other hand to place the bandaid on your temple.

Your eyes trace from the edge of his fingers down his inked forearm, up short sleeves and along the length of his neck. They eventually land on his lips, like there was no other place to be. You can feel Law follow your gaze.

All those nights of heartache possess you. The gentle sounds of the party next door fade away until all you can hear is the blood rushing through your ears. You lean forward.

And you could kiss him. Damn it all, he's right there, leaning back into you—but you know better. You sit back and watch him lean forward like he's chasing you.

Good. For once, he's the one chasing.

"We missed you Cap'n," you murmur. Law's eyes fly wide open. Did he even realize he closed them?

A beat passes, then another. And then Law's face turns red, like a child caught after their bed time. You almost expect him to flee, and you suspect he might, but he shakes his head and smiles.

He straightens up, mirth lingering on his expression. With a huff of laughter, he says, "I did too."

You might explode. Ever since he's come back, Law's been different. Softer. Like ice caging his heart was thawed by the Dressrosan sun.

It makes you wonder if anything could work between you this time if it were with a man like this.

Brushing your fingertips over the bandaid, you consider it. It's been a long, long while since you had this thought without pushing it from your mind immediately upon having it.

Something about looking the man in the eye makes it hard to.

Quietly, you hear him ask, "do you want to get a drink with me?"

Now, wouldn't that be lovely?

But it has to be different.

With a considerate hum, you purse your lips before shaking your head. You can see it in his eyes that his heart almost shatters, but then you interrupts him, saying, "I'd rather be sober if I go out with you this time."

You can feel heart stutter. Your own just about stops. Really, your organs might be failing after seeing the look in his eyes.

Law ducks his head and nods. You can see the smile peeking out from under the brim of his hat.

In the back of your head, you know there's more to talk about. An offer like this doesn't erase what happened all those nights ago; like that stupid smile could ever make you forget what he said.

But he's still smiling. Better yet, he's smiling at you.

Not for the first time, your heart betrays you. It beats faster, thrumming against your chest, with excitement. Excited that, now, Law wants something more. It's like you've never known any better.

The silence that falls isn't suffocating this time. He cleans and wraps the rest of your wounds, packs up, and nods his head when you're the first to leave.

~

"We have to talk," you hear Law announce from your quarter's door.

You turn around in your seat, still tucked into your desk. What a familiar, scary statement. You go to stand, but Law holds up his hand, and you stay seated. He shuts the door behind him, placing Yoru against your bed frame.

"What is it, Captain?" You probe cautiously.

Law's face pinches. "Don't call me Captain when we're going to talk about..."

You swallow down the knot in your throat. "What are we going to be talking about?"

Law hesitates.

He knows an out when he's being given it. He looks at you, at your hands so tightly clasped together that your knuckles are white, and nods.

"It's about us."

It's been a while since the night of the party. It feels just like yesterday, when the two of you had reconciled. You two didn't even get to have an hour or two afterwards—Zou got invaded again and the Straw Hats split and the Polar Tang is cramped.

You like your temporary sub-mates. You really do! But, really, the Heart Pirates are already twenty strong. Now, with five extra? It really is cramped! Not to mention how every one of those Straw Hats are, well, eclectic. They make your head spin.

Needless to say, you and Law were the farthest thing from your mind.

(That's a lie. You thought of it every night.)

It's why your mind goes blank when he says it. Instinctively, you blurt, "there's an us, now?"

You regret it the moment you see your captain wince at your words. You're scared—scared that he'll decide that an us isn't worth it to him anymore—but Law walks closer. He perches close, leaning his hip against your desk.

Slowly, like his movements could spook you, he takes his hat off his head. Law tosses it onto your desk before he runs his fingers though his hair.

"I'm sorry," he admits slowly, "for doing what I did."

"What did you do?"

"...You know what I did."

"If you can't even say it, there's no way in hell we can talk about it."

You watch Law's eyes squeeze shut. His hands flex into fists over his knee, like he craved for Yoru to be in his reach. You wonder if Law was retreating again, running somewhere you couldn't reach.

(You know you're being unfair. Seas, this isn't fucking fair. You barely know what chases your captain when the sub fall silent, but you know they're ugly things with their teeth sunk into his bones. They've bowed your Atlas' shoulders, damn it.

But you're so tired you could scream. If it could fix anything, you would scream, I'm right here! I've always been right here!

So, screw it, you want to be unfair. It'd even the fucking playing field for once.)

When he opens his eyes, they're sharp. Focused. When he directs them at you, it's like laying under a scalpel's edge.

"You're right." Law rubs his face. "You're always right."

"Am I?"

"Don't push it."

You laugh like your chest isn't tight with anxiety. He smiles like it's the easiest thing in the world.

The Polar Tang thrums with idle energy, cruising through the gentle sea like its nothing. You look away from your captain to watch the fish swim past your window, catching the draft from the sub.

"I'm sorry," Law starts again, "that I walked out."

There it is.

You don't feel any hostility when you look at your captain. You just feel tired. "Why?"

"...What?"

"What do you want from me?"

"I want—"

"Please, captain. Don't play games with me. Be honest with me."

When you're staring daggers into the wooden drawer on the side of your desk, you miss how Law trails after you like a dog off a leash.

You do, however, see the pale blue light of Law's Room. You turn your head and—

—Its beat is fast, but consistent. A pitter-pattering thump-thump-thump against Law's tattooed fingers. You gasp when you see the cavity carved into his chest. When you look at the mass in his hands, it doesn't feel real.

His heart looks... normal.

More normal than you would've ever imagined.

"C-Cap—"

"Say my name."

You look up at him, caught somewhere between wonderment and shock. "Law."

Law kneels, slowly, one hand planted on your arm rest. When you see his heart, just below your eye level, you see his fingers curled over the edges. They're shaking. It's instinct that draws you to cup his hands and steady his heart. You feel the heartbeat stutter when you touch him.

Law's eyes fall shut, like he can't speak and look at you at the same time. "It's yours."

"Law, I can't—"

"—Please," he whispers. He begs, even, and when has the mighty Trafalgar Law ever begged for anything? For you? Your mouth clamps shut. "It's yours. It's always been yours, even when I was too scared to say it. I've... never been able to not need you."

You've always wanted to see Law like this—you've craved it. You craved to know him, wholly.

"What I want is you." His eyes open to see you, once again. "I want everything with you."

You've held many hearts in your hands, as weird as it is to admit. You personally helped sort the hundred hearts Law collected. When he passes it to you, you hold it, cradled gently in your hands, just like you did a hundred times before. For all intents and purposes, Law's heart isn't any different.

But it's his, your mind reminds you. Trafalgar Law's heart. The heart of a Worst Generation captain, a former warlord.

Your captain's heart.

Law's heart.

Its rhythm flows through your palms, thrumming with nervous palpitations when he watches you. Gently, oh so gently, you raise it to your lips.

Law's gaze softens as you brush your kiss against his heart. You can feel his heartbeat skip.

What did you want from Law?

"It's mine?" You ask quietly. Too nervous to trust his voice, Law nods. A smile blooms on your face.

You wanted this.

You want his everything.

When you reach towards him with one hand, Law leans into it. His eyes flutter shut as he leans into your palm.

"Alright," you murmur, "alright."

You turn it in your hands, ghosting the pads of your fingers above the atrium. When you slot his heart back into his chest, a sigh escapes him.

"Law," you call. His eyes open, just enough to see your lovestruck smile. "Keep it safe for me, okay?"