#lawoc

“And why exactly am I here?” I asked the boy who brought me here. We were in a house, Luffy’s home, or so he said himself and I didn’t believe that for a second. How could a kid like him – he probably wasn’t even 20 yet – afford a beautiful house like this? My thoughts were interrupted by a second person. He looked a bit like Luffy, but he was older. He introduced himself to me as Ace, and he was indeed Luffy’s brother.

Ace led me to the living room slowly, so that I could take my time looking at all the weird stuff in the hall. It was an old house and the walls were all made from wood, I couldn’t say for sure which kind. On the walls were a lot of paintings. Dog paintings to be exact. Weird choice… I followed Ace, who was already in the next room. There I was greeted by a group of people I didn’t recognize. One by one they introduced themselves to me. Zoro, Nami, Sanji, Chopper, Usopp, Kaya, Vivi, there were more names than I would remember in the next five minutes. They’d forgive me for that probably, hopefully, as they were already talking to me as if they have known me for years. The last person to introduce himself looked older than the rest. I couldn’t help but stare at his face. He certainly was good looking and he caught my full attention like it was nothing. The man was sitting in a chair, but I could see that he was tall. ‘Totally my type’ was the thought that crossed my mind in a haze. Of course I didn’t want to let him notice, and so I tried to act as normal as I could possibly manage. I really hoped no one saw through it.

My thoughts (and his introduction) were interrupted by Luffy, coming out of the kitchen with a drum stick in his mouth, and three others in his hands. “I know what we’re going to do tonight!” He yelled through the room.

One of the people raised an eyebrow at that. A green one, which surprised me a little. “And what is that exactly, Luffy?” He asked sarcastically. He obviously didn’t want to take part in anything the boy wanted to do, judging from his voice and look on his face.

“Shishishishi, come on, Zoro, it’ll be fun!” Luffy laughed. The greenhead, Zoro apparently, only sighed.

Much to my surprise no one asked Luffy what he wanted to do, it seemed like they all just went with the idea, with no further objection. I decided to break the small silence, curious for what was coming.

“What are we going to do, Luffy?” I asked the boy who had brought me here. In response, he looked at me with a weird frown, almost questioning himself why I was in the same room as the rest. Maybe I was too normal for their standards after all? It took him a moment to respond.

“Spinning the bottle, of course!” His grin had returned on his face, having decided I was still a part of the group. Terrific. Only then I realized the opportunities I had with that particular game. If I was going to take part in it, I could as well make the rules. And maybe let myself end up with some good looking man sitting in front of me. The wheels in my head were already spinning on full power.

“Alright, sounds like fun to me. Shall I get a bottle to spin with?” I asked innocently.

If it was possible, Luffy’s eyes would have lit up more. “Yosh, let’s do this!” He exclaimed happy.

It took me a while to get the right bottle. After having led me to the kitchen, Ace had left saying that it was nice that I tried to please Luffy. According to the big bro, Luffy was a kind boy, but he could tick off a lot of people at the same time too. I laughed at it, saying that he just had an innocent kind of personality. That it made you think about yourself too. But now I was alone for a moment. As fast as I could, I checked all the cabinets for bottles, empty or not, until I found a good bottle. It was still filled with some soda. Unbeknownst to the rest, I opened it, drained the leftover soda and grabbed the cap. For this moment I praised myself lucky that I was such a fan of daily horoscopes. Every day, when reading the paper, I would find out what the lucky item of the day would be, and every day, I would obtain before the day had ended. And today the lucky item was a pair of magnets. I knew that if I played it smart, I would get what I wanted. With two ingredients already ready, I searched through a few drawers to look for tape, wanting to tape one of the magnets in the cap of the bottle, and keeping the other one in my hand when a certain someone was spinning the bottle. It sounded so brilliant, if I could say so for myself. Just when I was thinking that I was taking too long, I found the tape.

Quickly, I taped everything together, and put the cap on the bottle again, ready to play.

I returned smiling. “Sorry it took so long. I couldn’t find an empty bottle and figured it would be a shame if I just drained the soda, so I drank it.” I lied through my teeth. “With what set of rules shall we play?”

No one reacted but Luffy. He put a finger on his chin, making himself look like he was thinking, and remained quiet for a few seconds, then his face lit up. “I know a rule! Everyone spins the bottle, and then we’ll see what happens.” He giggled.

I couldn’t help but sigh, noting that the others didn’t look particularly happy about his words.

“Alright, we’ll see where it brings us.” I said. If Luffy wouldn’t think of more rules, I could state one of my own. To my own advantage of course.

I walked up to the only guy who hadn’t introduced himself yet and gave him the bottle. “I’m guessing you’re the oldest of the bunch, so you start.”

He opened his mouth to protest, which would be the first time he spoke, if he hadn’t gotten interrupted by Luffy again.

“Guys, guys, sit down. I want to get started.” While saying it, Luffy, helped by Ace and some other guy, moved all the chairs and the couch to the side of the room, so that we could sit in a round circle. When we sat down, I tried to avoid the blond who drooled when he looked at me, and also my target. In the end I sat down between a girl with whitish blond hair (I think her name was Kaya or something) and Ace. I looked around, trying to remember all their names, though only a few would come to me. The drooling blond and the green-haired idiot, who were arguing most of the time, were Sanji and Zoro, I could recognize Luffy and Ace of course, and the voice in the back of my head said the small cute boy was Chopper. A weird name, maybe it was a nickname? The rest of the names I couldn’t quite remember.

The unnamed guy still looked pissed that he had to start and I had trouble not giggling at the sight. He looked even more attractive when angry.

We were all sitting now, and most of us, except those guys who were still fighting, were pointing our eyes at the bottle in my target’s hands. He noticed and rolled his eyes before laying the bottle down in the middle of the human circle and giving it a spin. I quickly retrieved the second magnet from my pocket and held it in my hand, hopefully close enough for them to feel each other. The thought that someone would notice my movements never crossed my mind.

It was a quick spin, so it took a while for the bottle to slow down a bit. Slowly, very slowly, the bottle stopped, pointing at the guy’s victim. Me! If I were all alone, I would be dancing, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I remained calm, or tried to, and looked at Luffy for further instructions. Though that maybe wasn’t the best idea, I wouldn’t just go kiss the guy or something without saying anything. My heart wouldn’t be able to handle that.

“What now, Luffy?” I asked him, just to be sure.

The reply came immediately. “You kiss of course.” When he said it like that, it sounded so obvious. Only then I realized everyone would watch. My head turned into a tomato. The color, so to speak. I turned to the targeted man again, searching for an emotion in his eyes. There was some anger left, but it was mostly replaced by curiosity. Or I hoped so. Nonetheless, the guy stood and stepped into the circle. I did the same, stepping over a pair of legs, owned by the girl next to me, Kaya.

Now that it was really happening, I felt shy. My tomato head had turned into the embarrassed kind of red, so there was a chance he could see me as a shy type of person. Again, there were no further rules, meaning I didn’t really know what to do. Luckily for me (I was really lucky that night apparently!) the guy did, because he grabbed my face gently and put his lips on mine. As expected as it was, it still came a bit unexpected. The warmth of his lips surprised me, just as the soft touch he left me when he pulled back slightly. My first instinct was to push back, it hadn’t been a shared kiss after all and so I did. Now I was the one to surprise him, pushing maybe a little further than I usually did, but with how he reacted, it seemed like I made the right choice. Together we held this position, lips on lips, for a few seconds before releasing each other. After that I noticed that my hands were on his sides and I retracted them quickly. The man didn’t comment about it, leaving me with two options: saying something about it, or sitting down and keeping silent. I chose for the second option, my embarrassment taking the overhand.

As I sat down, I was totally dazed by what just happened. That made me didn’t notice the game going on. Now Luffy was spinning the bottle rapidly. If he had put a little more strength into it, the bottle would have crashed into someone’s legs. The last 30 seconds had made me forget I was carrying something in my hand, something that reacted to the other thing that I had placed in the bottle’s cap. I had totally forgotten the two magnets, resulting in the bottle pointing at me for a second time. And after Luffy a third time and a fourth one, until I finally noticed what was wrong.

By then the others were also suspecting something and made me explain why the bottle was pointing at me the whole time. I confessed my crimes, they all laughed about it, even the mysterious guy I kissed first.

In the end, they made me put away the second magnet, saying that I had enough luck for today. I agreed, with my eyes looking at a certain someone. He looked back, even more curious than before.