nami remembers the chains. it isn't difficult, of course, to remember. reminisce. the map room was the only thing the girl had known for 3 full years, after all. she remembers the solitude, the grief. how she cried for her sister and her mother. for her whole village, really.
the two little girls across the street from them discretely look around before swiping the sushi boxes from the stand in front of them. they're obvious, of course, too young to really grasp the need for stealth, but they're fast. they have one hand each on a box of sushi, and the other wrapped around one another's fingers.
off they run like that, hand in hand, with their loot. it's no doubt dinner. watching them, she sees v's hair from the corner of her eye, and she looks down at her own free takoyaki. this is the 8th time they've managed to con the vendor. she thinks there's a correlation, between those girls and herself and v.
❝ if we knew each other back then, do you think we could've been friends too ? ❞ @streetsrot asks, and it looks like nami wasn't the only one thinking it. it makes her smile, small and private. ❝ i think so. ❞ an honest answer paired with a shrug. ❝ i sure could've used it. ❞ nami muses, wistful and a little bitter. she looks at v, who watches the girls run off until they're too small to see. ❝ i think i could've been [ . . . ] different. ❞
