#amazonlily

Part I 

Luffy breathed in deeply as he sat on the massive bulkhead of his ship, savoring the salty spray of the sea. He then snickered and threw his arms wide to release a tremendous howl. 

“I’m the King of the Pirates!” he shrieked in delight, banging his feet against the ship. Though it had been quite some time since he had, at long last, acquired the title, it still made him positively giddy. It had taken a long time, and it had been a long, painful road, but he had done it. He continued to bask in his success, laughing and making a racket, until he attracted the attention of his navigator.

“Luffy!” Nami sighed as she walked out of her study onto the deck of the ship and put her hands primly on her hips.

Luffy glanced over his shoulder, blinking, and then snickered slightly. He obediently hopped down from the prow of the ship.

“Good grief. I’m trying to make sure we make it to Amazon Lily in one piece, and your incessant banging doesn't help!” she complained.

Unperturbed by her nagging, Luffy hopped up on a barrel and began swinging his feet. He ignored her rant, picking his teeth—at least, until she mentioned their destination.

“Oh! How close are we?” he beamed, perking up at the mention of the island filled with tough women. It was a particularly enjoyable location for him. He had spent two years training intensively on the island after the decisive battle with the Navy, and it was home to his good friend Boa Hancock—not to mention, the food was positively mouthwatering. He grinned dreamily as visions of steaming, juicy tracts of meat danced in his head, and he didn’t even bother listening to Nami's conjectures and calculations. He was snapped out of his fantasies when Sanji, who was leaning against the side of the ship smoking a cigarette, frowned and released a plume of thick white smoke.

“Amazon Lily? Isn’t that the island where Boa Hancock lives?” he asked. Luffy was the only one who had visited the primal jungle kingdom, but his friends were familiar with the proud woman who served as Luffy's benefactor. “The one who is totally head over heels with our knucklehead?” he added with a slight sniff of disdain.

Luffy cocked his head to the side in confusion.

“Huh? What do you mean, Sanji? She's just my really good friend,” he blinked. He liked Hancock a lot; she was very good to him in helping him storm Impel Down and supported him greatly in his quest to achieve his dream. Plus, she always fed him well when he was around.

Both Nami and Sanji sighed deeply, pinching the bridges of their noses. Luffy wasn't quite sure why they looked so irritated with him. Was there something he wasn't getting?

Oh well. Suddenly bored with the conversation, Luffy's attention lapsed once more to his daydreams of delicious foodstuffs. He whined loudly as his stomach grumbled.

“Sanji, is it lunchtime yet? I’m hungry!” he complained as he beat his feet on the side of the barrel angrily.

“That's it!” Nami exclaimed, snapping her fingers as an idea bloomed in her bright mind.

Luffy stared at her with wide eyes, not sure what she was quite so excited about.

“Luffy, think of it this way. You know how much you looooove food, right?” she asked.

A grin split Luffy's face at the mention of his favorite thing on the earth. He was too enamored by the sudden shift in conversation that he didn't even register Nami's voice had taken on the tone of baby-talk.

“Yeah! I love food! Especially meat! It's my favorite! Sanji, are we having meat?” he babbled excitedly, but his attention was drawn back to the orange-haired navigator as she snapped her fingers repeatedly in front of his face.

“Focus, Luffy,” she demanded. “Hancock thinks of you kind of the way you think of food,” she explained simply, and that statement got the gears turning in his head.

Hancock… Thinks of me as food? No, no, she likes me as much as I like food, he realized, frowning deeply as he considered the strange analogy. Now that he thought about it, Hancock always got this starry-eyed, funny look on her face whenever she looked at him, and she was always so eager to please him. She gets really sad when I say no to going on walks and stuff. He suddenly got the insane vision of him going to chomp down on a particularly appetizing plate of meat and it suddenly screaming rejections, making him shudder slightly. He crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side, his face screwed up in concentration as he attempted to understand the bizarre analogy.

“I’m not sure that I really get it," he frowned after a few minutes of furiously wracking his brain. All he could think about now was meat with teeth, and that wasn't a pleasant thought at all. 

“Oh, forget it. It's pointless,” Nami sighed and rolled her eyes, throwing up her arms and slapping them to her sides.

However, Luffy did not consider it pointless at all. He continued to contemplate the puzzle of the beautiful woman and food all the way to the island of Amazon Lily. Not that he came to any epiphanic conclusions or anything, but he still tried. 

As they docked in the port, the woman in question was there to meet them, flanked by her two gigantic sisters. She waved excitedly when Luffy hopped down onto the dock, holding his straw hat to his head. He paused to drink in the majesty of the island. He appreciated its wildness, its untamed growth of jungle sprawling over rocky masses. It was simply ripe with adventure. While his companions prepared for their stay on the island, Luffy snickered and ran right up to the warlord, grabbed her by the wrist, and started pulling her down the dock.

“Come on, Hancock! Let's go explore!” he howled with laughter as he took off into the island with the woman in tow. His crewmates shouted objections after him, but he ignored them, too caught up in his own excitement. He had not chosen Hancock as a partner aside from the reason that she was simply the only one available, but she wasn't objecting.

Her face had turned bright pink and she was holding a hand to her cheek, stammering and avoiding eye contact.

“Oh, Luffy, I would love to explore the jungle with you!” she sighed. 

Great! That was that. Without further ado, he tugged her off the dock and into the loamy soil on the outskirts of the jungle.

“Great! Let's go!”

He wasted no time diving right into the undergrowth. The ferns and wild grasses crunched under the soles of his flip-flops as he marked an untracked path through the thick forest. He let her go when they were well within the jungle, and he held his hat to his head as he looked around in wonder. The jungle looked pretty much the same as the last time he had been there, with towering trees and a forest floor thick with undergrowth. Still, he was determined to take down a wild animal or two for dinner and explore the areas he had not had a chance to when he had resided on the island. He raised an eyebrow when Hancock abruptly hugged his arm, propped her chin on his shoulder, and gazed up at him with sparkling eyes.

“I’ve missed you very much, Luffy,” she smiled up at him.

I am to Hancock like food is to me, he recalled, unsure of how to respond to the situation without much context. He thought of how long it felt since he had had his last meal, and he frowned when he realized that it seemed like a lifetime ago. He then grinned brightly down at her.

“Yeah! It's been forever since we last saw each other, huh? I really didn't think about it!” he cackled.

He then looked around with curious eyes, eager to explore the jungle. He shook off the Amazonian empress to stomp over to a well-sized stick and began poking it around in the bushes, hoping to scare some critter or another out in the open. He picked up the only thing he stirred up, a small, wriggling snake, then snorted and flung it into the bushes since it did not amuse him. He grabbed Hancock by the hand again and began pulling her along through the thick bushes and blooming flowers, whistling loudly as he searched the forest for something entertaining. He was pretty much unaware of the woman's swooning. He stooped beside a small river, poking his stick in the water in an attempt to disturb the minnows swimming around in it.

“I’m really glad you decided to stop here,” Hancock told him as she sat down on a rock beside him, her hands resting primly on her lap as she regarded him with a bright red, happy face. “It meant so much to me to hear you were coming…”

Food. Hancock. Food? He pondered with a frown. He glanced over at her, and suddenly instead of Hancock he was staring at a rice ball. What the heck? He blinked and marched over to investigate the phantasm, and sniffed the strangely giant rice ball experimentally to make sure it wasn't real. He heard Hancock squeal, and he blinked, and then she was sitting there in front of him and his face was in her black hair. Nope. Not a rice ball, just Hancock. How weird, he concluded with a shrug and straightened up, pointing down the river with his stick.

“Let's follow the river!” he asserted, and he rested the stick on his shoulder as he marched determinedly along the riverbank. Hancock followed behind, holding her face as she mumbled some nonsense to herself. Luffy glanced back at her occasionally to make sure she was following—and not a rice ball in disguise. Maybe Nami's weird explanation got to my head, he frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he continued his journey along the small river. He didn't really want to waste time pondering it, not when there were discoveries to be discovered. 

The trees began to grow thinner, less packed together, and large patches of sunlight splashed over the ground. He could hear the waves and smell the salty spray of the sea, indicating that they had approached the shore. His eyes widened as the forest abruptly fell away and he was walking one solid stone.

“Cooooool! I haven’t been here before!” he grinned as he looked around excitedly. His eyes fell on an opening in the rocky ground, leading below the surface of the earth and even below sea level. “A caaaaaave! Come on, Hancock!” he cried and dragged the woman over to the entrance. “Helloooooooooo?” he called into the dark, snickering as he heard his voice bouncing off the stone walls.

“Be careful, Luffy. That cave is made of sea stone,” Hancock warned as she stood beside him. He shrugged; he could care less what it was made of. He just wanted to know if there was treasure in it.

“Bombs away!” he cried and jumped into the cave with a howl, clamping his hat to his head as he fell into the cave. The bottom was just a few yards down, and he landed securely on the sandy floor. He looked up at the light shining above, where Hancock was still standing. “Come onnnnn!” he whined impatiently, and the woman pouted at him before picking her way down the wall.

She gasped as her foot suddenly slipped and lost her grip, and she shrieked as she fell into open air.

“Uh-oh,” he blinked, and stretched out his arms to pluck her out of the air and pull her safely to her chest. Holding her like a groom would his bride, he looked down at her. “You're pretty clumsy!” 

“Oh, Luffy… You caught me!” she breathed, and even in the dark, he could see her blushing.

Hancock thinks of me like food, so I should think of her like food? I wouldn’t want my food to get hurt, he thought as he set her down. Or dirty. To that end, he brushed her off with his hands, as she had gotten dusty from slipping on the loose sediment. Her body went rigid.

He whipped around when he was finished, eager to explore, but when he walked a bit and looked back she was still standing stock-still.

“Hey! You coming or what?” he whined, and that was enough to pull her out of whatever stupor she was in and send her scurrying after him. He waited until she was beside him before continuing onward into the dank cave. It ran underneath the surface of the island, leading inland, but just barely. Several sections of the roof were open to the jungle above, and vines and tree roots hugged the walls while all sorts of mushrooms and molds grew in the dank conditions. Luffy tried to catch a crab as it scuttled away, but the crustacean squirmed into a crack and out of his grasp. As he straightened up, disappointed at the loss of his potential dinner, he blinked as the cave suddenly shuddered slightly.

“Luffy! Look out!” Hancock screamed, and he glanced up in time to see a sizable section of the rock roof breaking free and plummeting toward him.

He let out an oof! as it cracked into his head, and the force of the blow sent him sprawling out on the floor. He groaned as he tenderly rubbed his head, feeling a sizable lump in his black hair. He blinked when Hancock suddenly leaned over him, her face flushed and her expression worried.

“Luffy! Are you all right?” 

“I’m not sure,” he droned. Hancock looked funny. Had her hair always been that shiny and silky? She had pretty eyes, too. She didn’t seem that different, but Luffy still felt like it was the first time he was seeing her. As he stared at her, he felt strangely happy. I like Hancock, he thought giddily, but somehow it wasn’t in the same context as before. He was happy they were alone, in the cave, and the others weren’t around to bother them. Hancock continued to frown down at him, and he grew strangely embarrassed as she ran a hand through his hair to check his head.

“Oh! You have a bump,” she fretted. “You poor thing… Let's get back. I’ll prepare a nice big feast for you. A little meat and a party should do the trick!” she decided, sitting up.

Yeah! A feast! He thought with a grin, the thought of meat tantalizing. He then frowned, falling deep in thought.

“No,” Luffy refused suddenly, and she looked down at him in terror.

“Oh, my goodness, You’re dying. Stay here! I’ll go get your ship's doctor!" she shrieked and moved to take off, but he grabbed her wrist so she wouldn’t leave. She looked down at him, eyes wide.

“That's not what I meant,” he tried to explain. He wasn’t sure why, but a party just didn’t sound appealing to him right now. Nami would be there, and Sanji, and Zoro, and everyone else, and that just got in the way. “I just wanna eat with you,” he told her, and her mouth slowly fell open and something between a wheeze and a squeal slipped out of her. She placed a hand over her heart, bright red.

“Oh! Just m-me?” she stammered, and he nodded fiercely.

Yeah… Dinner with Hancock… That sounds really nice.

At his affirmation, she exclaimed excitedly and clapped her hands together. “Okay! A private dinner between us! Definitely! Oh, I’m so excited!” she gushed. Seeing her so happy made Luffy happy.

I think I finally get that stupid analogy, he thought with a snicker. With the promise of food on the horizon, he hopped up and exited with Hancock out of the cave, pulling her back through the jungle.

This time, he made a point to hold her hand.

Part II

“A-are you sure you’re quite all right with this, Luffy?” Hancock fretted. She was standing in the doorway of the balcony on which Luffy was currently standing, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently. 

“I-I mean, I know what you said in the cave, but—” she quickly cut herself off with a gasp, moving aside to allow her handmaidens to proceed with carrying a table and a set of chairs onto the balcony. When the table touched down onto the stone floor, her already pink face flushed the bright red of a tomato. 

“I’m sure,” Luffy nodded adamantly. He loved his crewmates, and mealtimes were some of the most fun of their affairs. But Luffy could eat with them anytime. This was not anytime; this was his visit with Hancock. He wanted to eat dinner alone with her, and that was that. 

To that end, they’d arranged for a dinner for two on the balcony of his very luxurious guest room. 

Luffy grinned with satisfaction when one of the women draped a soft silken tablecloth onto the table. Another followed suit with a golden candelabra. The rich yellow-orange light of the setting sun poured forth from the horizon, making the metal of the ornate candelabra seem to glow from within. But Luffy wasn’t looking at it; he was looking at Hancock, watching the sunlight shine on her cascading black hair and illuminate her ocean-blue eyes. 

Luffy had never really understood the concept of beauty before. He did now, for whatever reason. 

There was a soft fwip as another woman struck a match. She cupped her hand around it to shield it from the balmy breeze as she lit the three white candles of the centerpiece in turn. She then shook it vigorously to douse the flame. All three women then turned to bow respectfully to Hancock. 

“The chefs will be up with the first course shortly, My Lady. Enjoy your dinner.” And with that, they scurried away. Their excited giggles floated behind them, too giddy to contain themselves until they’d fully left the Pirate King’s suite. 

Luffy smiled. He was glad that Hancock was surrounded by people who were happy when she was happy. 

And Hancock was happy. Luffy could tell, despite her valiant attempts to stifle it. Though her blush had diminished, a rosy-pink hue had made a permanent residence in her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled with delight, and her lips just couldn’t resist pulling into a tiny smile. But her happiness was quickly marred by hesitation—smile drooping, eyes clouding with doubt, body curling in on itself as she shrank further back into the room. She hovered apprehensively at the entrance to the balcony, though she gazed longingly at the elegant dinner table—like if she dared step out, it would all be revealed as a dream and melt away around her. 

“It’s not really a dinner for two if it’s just me sitting here, Hancock,” Luffy called out to her with an amused, lop-sided smile. “Come on. Join me.” 

He walked up to the table and pulled out one of the chairs for her. Not only did it further emphasize Luffy’s desire for her to join him there, but also, Sanji had expressed time and time again that it was a polite thing to do for ladies. Luffy figured Hancock would appreciate it. 

What was the word Sanji used to describe it? Ah. Romantic. Yes. Luffy wanted to be romantic. 

“Okay,” Hancock relented shyly, finally stepping out onto the balcony. She strode over to the table, confidence growing with each step she took; by the time she reached the table, she’d regain that regal and dignified aura that she usually possessed. She eased primly down into the chair, back straight and head high. 

All it took for her to lose her composure was Luffy helping her scoot in her chair. She hunched over a little as her hand flew to her mouth to try and cover her girlish giggle of glee. Luffy didn’t know why she tried to conceal it. It was a nice little laugh, in his opinion. 

“The chefs have prepared a rather lovely meal for us, Luffy,” Hancock smiled genially at him when he took a seat opposite of her. Normally, he’d just flop right down; this time, he took care to try and be as graceful as Hancock was. This was a rather fancy get-up—not that such things usually fazed him—and Sanji said it was good manners. Good manners were something one practiced in front of a lady, and Hancock was a lady of ladies. At the very least, Luffy wanted to look good in front of her. 

Much to his delight, she took notice of his efforts. 

“Luffy, are you trying to mind your manners in front of me?” she asked, blinking at him in confusion and surprise. 

When he nodded, her intrigued expression morphed back into a smile. There was so much warmth in it that it made Luffy feel weird. Like… he was a soda, and the fizz was bubbling up inside of him, making him feel tingly all over. It wasn’t a feeling he disliked. In fact, he wanted to keep doing things to make Hancock smile like that, so he could keep having that feeling. 

“I appreciate it, but you don’t have to go to such lengths for me. I’d much prefer you act as you normally do.” 

“Dun wanna,” he refused with a dismissive shrug. When Hancock traded her smile for a set of pursed lips and arched her brow, he continued, “You’re a lady, right? Sanji says that ladies like it when guys act all gentlemanly. So, that’s what I’m gonna do.” He paused for a moment, then tilted his head as he gave her a thoughtful look. “It does make you happy, doesn’t it?” 

Though it seemed to be a common enough sentiment, Luffy supposed that it were impossible for every woman to like that kind of stuff. Just like it was impossible for everybody to like meat, or chocolate, or whatever. If Hancock didn’t like the way he was acting, he was certainly gonna stop. 

“No, no! It makes me very happy, Luffy. Thank you,” she reassured him. It looked like she was telling the truth, because when her face melted back into a smile, it was even warmer than before. 

Luffy straightened up in his chair and proudly puffed out his chest, a self-satisfied smirk dancing over his lips. Sanji had always said that Luffy didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Well, the joke was on him, because Luffy was being plenty romantic right now. He wondered which bones of his were the romantic ones? He wasn’t dumb enough to think it was all of them. But clearly, he had some. 

Eh, I can ask Chopper later, he decided with a little shrug when the waiter waltzed out with their first course of the night. Luffy licked his lips in anticipation as the silver serving tray was set down before them, but he resisted the urge to let his tongue loll out and start drooling everywhere. That wasn’t very polite. 

Oh, but it smelled so good! And when the server removed the silver cover to reveal bowls of totally yummy-looking soup, it was all he could do to not snatch up his spoon and start shoveling into his mouth before the man had even placed it in front of him like he normally did. 

Must… Mind… Manners… Luffy fidgeted impatiently in his seat while he waited for the waiter carefully to place the bowl of soup in front of him; he sure took his damn time! One would think the guy had been suddenly hit by Captain Foxy’s weird slow-motion beam with how languorously he moved. 

Finally! Luffy thought in relief when the soup was finally before him. He eagerly began to spoon it into his mouth. Even with how adamantly his stomach was clawing at his belly, he did his best not to slurp. That was also bad manners, according to Sanji. Now that Luffy thought about it, pretty much everything Luffy did was bad manners. He’d have to work on that… 

Hancock gave Luffy a conflicted smile all of a sudden, making him stop eating and blink at her. 

“What’s up?” 

“Luffy, are you sure you’re all right?” she asked him with a fretful pout, gripping the handle of her spoon tightly in her fist. “I mean, you’ve been acting so strange ever since that rock hit your head. I know you said you weren’t hurt, but—with you being so out of character, I can’t help but worry that you have a concussion or something…” 

“I’m fine, really,” he pouted back. He could understand that he was acting a little weird—he was literally fighting every instinct he had when it came to food right now—but didn’t Hancock understand that he was doing it to make her happy? Apparently not, based on the way she continued to frown concertedly at him. 

With a sigh, Luffy dropped the spoon—making sure to set it on the napkin like a good little dining guest and not just plop it into the bowl. He wouldn’t want the soup to splash everywhere. He then lifted his behind off the chair, grabbed it under the seat, and crab-walked around the table until he was sitting beside Hancock. He dropped it back down with a huff, then planted his rump back in it. When he glanced back at Hancock, she was now gaping at him in incredulity. 

“Hancock, I realized something while we exploring today,” he explained. 

“You… realized something?” she echoed with a slow blink of her eyes. 

“Yeah. Before we docked, Nami said something that had me really confused. She said that you think of me the way that I think of food.” 

“The way that you think of food…?” Hancock repeated under her breath, her eyes narrowing as she considered the cryptic comparison. Apparently, she understood it way easier than Luffy did, because it was less than ten seconds before a gasp flew from her lips and her eyes flew open. 

“O-oh, my, she really said that?!” she cried in mortification and slapped her hands to her flushing face. 

“Yep. At first, I couldn’t really figure it out. Like, I understood that she meant that you like me as much as I like food.” While he just babbled casually about his thought process, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms, Hancock groaned and leaned forward until her head thumped against the table; the soft impact it produced made the glasses and plates rattle slightly. “But it still felt like I was missing something important. And then that rock fell on my head! I dunno if it knocked my brain loose or what, but it suddenly all made sense!” 

“It did?” Hancock murmured sheepishly and peeped out from between her fingers. 

“I like food, and I like you, but not in the same way,” he said. He had pushed the chair up on two legs and had been rocking back and forth slightly, but he dropped it back down on four legs as he frowned. While he pondered on how to expound on that, Hancock sat up, dropping her hands from her still-red face and into her lap to clutch slightly at her dress. 

“I’m still a little confused about what to call it,” he admitted and scratched at the side of his head. “But it makes me wanna be around you, and just you—that’s why I wanted to this dinner,” he said with a wave at the table. “And I want to act like a gentleman for you, and I want to make you happy.” 

“Luffy…” Hancock breathed, and when he looked at her, he found her gazing at him with glistening eyes and a hopelessly fond expression. “Luffy, that’s… that’s affection.” 

“Affection?” he repeated, his puzzled frown deepening slightly. 

“Yes,” Hancock said with an emphatic nod. “It’s… It’s the attraction toward someone that can turn into… into love.” 

As she shyly explained it to him, she fidgeted nervously in her seat. Her eyes quickly abandoned any notion of holding his gaze, instead dropping to focus on her hands in her lap and then shooting off to the side to anxiously fixate on the flickering candelabra. Just as he’d never really given much thought to beauty before, Luffy hadn’t ever understood Sanji’s expression of finding women ‘cute’—but he did while watching Hancock battle with her bashfulness. 

“A feeling that can turn into love…” he pondered while tilting his head to the side and cupping his cheek in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. Luffy understood familial love well enough, but romantic love had always escaped his sphere of understanding. He couldn’t say for sure that he could ever experience the depth of feeling that Hancock clearly did for him—but as long as he cared about her and her happiness, that was some form of love, wasn’t it? It was all a buncha word nonsense anyway, and Luffy cared far less for words than he did actions. 

Because, as the saying goes, actions speak louder. 

“Luffy—and I cannot believe I am saying this—are you sure you’re not just confusing friendship for something else?” Hancock had begun to fret while he was contemplating it all. “I’ve never wanted to force you to return my feelings; I’m quite all right with us only being friends. Did Nami make you feel bad? Or, you really could have an injury and be confused; why don’t we—” 

Luffy was honestly quite tired of not being taken seriously, and so, he may have done something a little daring. But, that was pretty on-brand for him, so Hancock wouldn’t begrudge him too much for it, he reasoned. So, while Hancock continued to wiggle and worry, he took the opportunity to swoop in and plant a kiss on her cheek. 

“O-oh!” she cried out, and Luffy felt the heat rush to the skin his lips were still pressed against. He pulled back, sniggering in satisfaction, and Hancock just gaped open-mouthed at him in utter disbelief. 

“I know what a kiss is and what it means,” he smirked. “You still think I’m confused?” 

Hancock slowly closed her mouth and sucked her lips in. With her eyes still as wide as the full moon hanging in the sky above their heads, she meekly shook her head. Tears rushed to her eyes as bliss gushed up from inside of her, sweeping away her shock like a cascading wave. Luffy liked it—seeing the happiness slowly light her up like the rising sun. It made his heart flutter in his chest and his body fill with that fizzy, fuzzy feeling again. 

“F-forgive me,” she stammered with a bashful laugh and hastily wiped at her eyes with her knuckles as the tears spilled over them. “I’m just—I’m just so happy—” 

“Don’t worry about it, Hancock,” Luffy reassured with a shake of his head. “It’s okay to cry, especially when you’re happy.” 

She froze; then, she slowly melted. Her hands fell away from her face, and the tears spilled unimpeded down her cheeks. 

“Yes. Yes, you’re right, Luffy,” she murmured. “Thank you.” 

“I dunno what you’re thanking me for,” he shrugged and grabbed the edge of his soup bowl to drag it across the table. Now that he had taken care of serious business, it was time to get back to the slightly-less-serious business: eating! Right before he spooned some more of the soup in his mouth, he said, “I was just being honest.” 

“Yes, I know,” Hancock laughed. “That’s my favorite part about you.” 

Luffy didn’t really understand what love was, and maybe he never would. But he did understand that the feeling that rushed up inside of him was one only Hancock could make him feel—and there was something really special about that, no?