#monkeydluffy

no thoughts head empty.❓

03. DISTANCE → if they wanted me there, why did they leave?

theme: withdrawal 🌧️

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ YOU ✦

You came back slowly.

It didn’t feel like waking up. It felt like being pulled out of something warm and heavy and wrong all at once—like your body was being forced to remember how to exist again.

Air hit your lungs too hard. Too fast. Like it was punishing you for ever leaving. And the first sounds you understood weren’t comfort—they were panic. Your name breaking in someone’s throat. Someone crying like they couldn’t stop.

And when your eyes finally opened, it wasn’t relief that greeted you. It was fear. Not just yours. Theirs too. Like you had come back too close to something that had already accepted you were gone.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ ZORO ✦

When you woke up, Zoro didn’t breathe right for a moment.

He just looked at you like looking away would make it real again. Like if he blinked, he’d be back in those three minutes where nothing moved and everything felt wrong.

After that, he noticed the shift without needing anyone to say it. You didn’t come close anymore. Not naturally. Not like before. Even when you stood near him, there was hesitation in your body—like something in you had decided distance was safer than trust.

He could’ve fixed it. He knew that. One step forward, one word.

But every time he thought about it, he remembered how still you looked before you came back. And suddenly, his own presence felt like something dangerous.

So he stayed where he was. Even when it hurt. Even when it felt like losing you in slow motion.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ SANJI ✦

When you woke up, Sanji broke before he could even speak.

Your name left him like relief and fear at the same time—like he didn’t know which one was stronger. His hands were already checking you, already confirming you were real, even though his eyes kept shaking like they didn’t believe it yet.

After that, he never stopped taking care of you. Not once. Tea, food, medicine—everything perfect, everything careful, like if he controlled enough details, nothing like that moment could ever happen again.

But you started going quieter around him. Not rude. Not distant in a loud way. Just… slipping away in small pieces. Less eye contact. Softer answers. Like looking at him too long brought back something you didn’t want to feel again.

And he noticed. Of course he noticed.

But he stopped asking because your silence already felt like an answer he didn’t know how to survive hearing out loud.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ LUFFY ✦

When you woke up, Luffy smiled like nothing in the world had ever gone wrong.

“You’re here,” he said, like it was simple. Like it was fixed. Like the universe had just returned something it owed him.

But that version of happiness didn’t last. Because you didn’t laugh the same way anymore. You didn’t react the same way. There was a space in you now that didn’t answer him back, even when you were sitting right beside him.

So he tried harder. Stayed closer. Talked more. Like if he filled every gap, nothing else could slip in.

Because Luffy didn’t understand distance.

But he understood what it felt like to lose someone and not know how it happened. And that scared him more than anything.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ LAW ✦

When your heartbeat came back, Law didn’t say anything for a long time.

He just stood there, watching numbers stabilize, watching reality return in the most clinical way possible—because if he didn’t make it clinical, he wasn’t sure he could stay standing.

After that, he changed without announcing it. Subtle. Controlled. Distance built into every step like a decision he made to protect both of you.

Because he remembered too clearly what it felt like when you didn’t exist in the room anymore. When there was only silence and waiting and nothing he could fix no matter how precise he tried to be.

So he kept space between you. Not because he wanted it—but because closeness now felt like something that came with a cost he wasn’t ready to pay again.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ ACE ✦

When you woke up, Ace laughed too fast. Too loud. Like sound could cover up fear before it showed.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, stepping closer immediately—like if he didn’t touch reality, it might disappear again. But his voice cracked halfway through anyway.

Because he remembered too clearly what came before it. The stillness. The panic. The three minutes where he thought he had lost you without being able to do anything about it.

After that, he stopped realizing when he was stepping back.

Jokes stayed. Smiles stayed. But something in him always paused now—like his body didn’t fully trust you were still here until he looked twice.

So he stayed close enough to see you. Never close enough to feel that fear again.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ SABO ✦

When you woke up, Sabo exhaled like he had been holding his breath for days.

“Good,” he said softly. “You’re awake.” But it didn’t sound like relief only—it sounded like something fragile finally not breaking.

After that, he started coming less. Not because he didn’t want to see you—but because seeing you made everything inside him tighten. Relief. Guilt. Fear. All tangled together in ways he couldn’t separate anymore.

He kept thinking about how close he came to losing you completely. About how easily it could’ve gone the other way.

So he stayed away in safer ways. Words instead of presence. Distance instead of risk. Anything that let him care without standing too close to the edge again.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

✦ YOU ✦

You felt it before you understood it.

The space between conversations. The way people stopped staying near you for too long. The way your name was spoken more carefully now, like it had weight it didn’t used to have.

At first, you told yourself it was healing. Recovery. Time doing what it always does after something breaks.

But then you realized something worse.

They weren’t leaving you.

They were just afraid of what it cost to almost lose you—and that fear was turning into distance you could feel even when nobody said it out loud.

So you stopped reaching first. Not to test them. Just to see if the silence would finally mean something when you weren’t the one holding it together anymore.

✦ ━━━━ .°• ♔ •°. ━━━━ ✦

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