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“Ace!”
A small 8 year old Luffy wandered the woods where his and Ace’s Treehouse was. He knew the woods like the back of his hand, he knew where Dadan’s group was, where Fuscha was, and exactly where the Treehouse was.
“Ace!”
But he wasn’t looking for any of those right now.
“Ace!”
Right now, he was looking for—
“ Ace! ”
He yelled out hoarsely after having been screaming the entire afternoon.
Monkey D. Luffy had been looking for Portgas D. Ace ever since they separated while running away from his Grandpa.
Of course, usually Luffy would have gone with Ace, but… well, his Grandpa was there, and chasing them, quite relentlessly at that. When he was there, it was every man for themselves.
He made a face and pouted while grabbing a nearby stick as he walked further into the woods. These were the darker parts of the woods that made it seem like late afternoon even when it was midday.
Now taking into account that it was actually dusk, the woods seemed to have been taken over by the darkest night. Barely any light shone through except that from the lighter parts of the forest where he had come from.
He was starting to get worried about his older brother though, Luffy usually would have found him by now, but he was nowhere to be seen. His eyes started to get teary as he imagined that Ace might've been eaten by an animal, or caught by grandpa!
Luffy shook those thoughts away, his older brother was strong! He would beat any wild animal that meant to make him prey! And as for grandpa, well…he didn’t know, but he had hope!
His sandals crushed the leaves and dirt beneath them as he kept walking further into the creepy forest.
He huffed and saw a couple of weird looking trees that seemed like they had faces on them, but just ignored them and kept searching for his brother.
So he decided to start calling out again. As he heard leaves rustling and pitter patters of wildlife.
“A—mhmmphm!”
Hands had shot out from behind him and muffled his shouting, he struggled and tried for a second to get them off his mouth until—
“Shush Luffy!”, whispered distinctly…
Ace!
He was ecstatic! He found Ace! Luffy turned around with Ace’s hands still covering his mouth, “hmhMhmhmhm—” Until Ace gave him a look , one of his ‘do as I say immediately’ looks, and he promptly shut up.
Ace removed his hands from Luffy’s mouth and kept whisper-scolded him, “What were you thinking! Shouting in the woods! You know better than to attract predators—or better yet, the old man!— to you!”
Luffy simply gave Ace a look with his wide eyes and hugged him. “Sowwy”, he said with snot in his nose and tears threatening to leave his eyes. His older brother sighed as he took a hold of Luffy’s back and hugged him too. He held him until he decided getting his shirt dirty with Luffy’s snot was not worth cleaning it again for.
“Luffy, let’s go back to the treehouse and get you cleaned up, alright? We can have dinner after.” He said as he grabbed his younger brother’s hand tightly and led them out of the dark parts of the forest.
Luffy eagerly followed his brother through the forest until they came up to their treehouse, which looked like a ship got caught up in a tree and a base was built around it.
They climbed into their home and lit a few candles for light as night came upon them. Afterwards they climbed back down near the firepit as they lit a campfire to begin cooking their dinner from.
As Ace set down the meat from a boar they hunted earlier in the day onto the campfire, he noticed Luffy fidgeting around next to him.
“Hey, hey Ace,” he called out.
“What?”
“Did you get the prickly powder today?” His eyes glistened as he asked.
The ‘Prickly powder’ is what Luffy had taken to calling the spicy powder that Makino had put on a dish for them once. Ever since he tasted it, he wanted it on everything he could put in his mouth, and he means everything . Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, if he could eat it, he would put the powder on it.
“Yeah, they had it for cheap today, we even got double for next time, so don’t eat too much!” He warned as he took out a supply bag and brought out two jars. Luffy looked at them with stars in his eyes, he began to drool and smiled widely as his hands shot up into the air in celebration.
“Yoooooohoooo! Thanks Ace!”
Ace smirked and handed Luffy one of the jars, he watched as his younger brother poured copious amounts of powder on the meat cooking over the fire.
“Careful with the amount, don’t want to burn off your taste buds. You won’t be able to taste the meat if you do!”, he smirked smugly as Luffy’s head snapped back from the charm of the spice to look at Ace with horror on his face.
“Not taste the meat!?? NOOOO!”
Ace’s giggle erupted into a laugh as Luffy changed from dumping the powder to sprinkling it on the meat. When he finished it looked like an anthill decided to make a home on top of the meat with all the spicy powder on it.
“Don’t say I didn't warn you when you burn your tongue off with all that spice”, Ace called out as he took his own portion of the meat away from the red mound.
When the meat was done cooking, they each took a respective bite out of their own meal. Suddenly, Luffy started shouting and drinking the water next to him each time he took a bite out of the meat, his eyes became watery due to the spice but he persevered.
Ace laughed as he watched his crybaby brother tough out the meal for the duration of the night.
“Do you really have to go, Ace?” Luffy cried out from the cliff above.
It was Ace’s seventeenth birthday, and the day he’d sail out to officially become a pirate captain and form his own crew. They promised each other and Sabo that the day they became seventeen was the day they would sail out and become pirates to find the One Piece.
Well, at least Luffy did, he wasn’t quite sure if it was Ace’s dream to find the One Piece, but one thing they were both sure about was the yearn for adventure.
“Duh! We promised we’d sail out when we became seventeen!” Ace called back up from his little ship below as he filled it with supplies. It rocked back and forth with the waves yet stayed in place.
Dadan was also there, with her back to the small ship and her band of bandits in front of her. To anyone else that didn’t know them, the gesture might have seemed cruel, however, to both Luffy and Ace, who grew up with her as a guardian, it was merely her way of repressing the tears that seemed to gush out of her face.
Though that gesture in itself failed miserably at that, as backed up by the loud sniffle both brothers and bandits heard from her.
“Take care of yourself, eh Luffy? Tell Gramps the next time he comes around to be watching for my wanted poster!”, Ace shouted with a smile as he started sailing away.
“Good luck Ace!”, Shouted Luffy, “I’ll catch up to you once I become a pirate too! So become a great pirate!”
Ace waved in the distance as Dadan turned around to reveal her face full of snot and tears and shouted, “Go cause problems elsewhere you brat! Returning here would create more problems for me!”, she paused and blew her nose, “TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF YOU BRAT!”
Ace looked back one last time, crying, and screamed, “THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, YOU WITCH, I’LL MISS YOU!”
Luffy waved as Ace became a speck in the horizon, he then turned back to the island and declared, “I’ll keep training and get super strong, strong enough to be my own captain, so just you wait for me, Ace, I’ll definitely see you again as a pirate!”
Because family would always look out for each other, no matter how far apart.
“Oi, Luffy.” Said Zoro.
“Hm?”
“What’s that…dance you sometimes do?”
“…What dance?” He tilted his head to the side as he frowned.
It had been a few days since they left the Conomi islands and Nami’s village. They were on their way to Loguetown before entering the Grandline to get supplies and prepare for the journey ahead.
“You know, that dance or rhythm that you stim sometimes?”, clarified Zoro as he leaned on the rail of the Going Merry .
“I do lots of things Zoro, can’t remember all of ‘em”, stated Luffy.
Zoro gruffled as he stood up properly and started doing a series of familiar poses with movements and a continuous flow, “This dance”, finalized Zoro.
Then it clicked, “Ohhhhh, that? I dunno, I just do it cause I feel like it. Let my body move naturally.”
“Really?”, Zoro seemed surprised yet not at the answer as he fell into deep thought.
So Luffy relented to his now piqued curiosity, “Yeah, so what about it?”
Zoro broke out of his stupor and looked at Luffy, “Well, it’s… hmm, Luffy, you’ve never practiced swordsmanship or with swords before right?”
“It’d be cool, but nah, I don’t fight with ‘em, my fists are enough.”
“And you’ve never been exposed to swordsmanship much in your life, right? Or, you weren’t friends with anyone who practiced swordsmanship?” Continued Zoro.
“No, not until you. I knew about swordsmen existing, but no one practiced it back at the village”, retorted a confused Luffy.
“Yeah that’s what I thought, I would have assumed you picked it up naturally from close proximity or from the practice itself. But since you didn’t study swordsmanship or know anyone doing so, I must just be seeing things.” Explained the swordsman.
Luffy frowned as he tried to think of where the conversation was going from where it started and spoke up, “So what is it about the dance?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just that…dance seems like the Katas for a sword form, though not any I’ve ever seen before”, finished Zoro.
“…Huh, weird.”
“Yup.”
They laid on the floor of the deck staring up into the sky when—
“…Do you think I might've been a swordsman in a past life?”, Luffy turned to look at Zoro with stars in his eyes and a hopeful smile.
“…With you captain? I never know”, said an amused second mate.
Franky set down his glass of beer on the deck, “Alright! It’s your turn captain, c’mon give it to us, truth or dare?”
The Thousand Sunny rocked to the waves of the sea as the night filled with stars. The Straw Hat crew was all on deck partying after their departure from Water 7 and subsequently Enies Lobby.
“Hmmmm”, Luffy grumbled as he struggled to choose, his face scrunched until he had the face of an old man who ate a lemon, though in the end he decided—
“Truth!”
The crew cheered at the captain’s decision, he hardly ever mentioned much of his life in detail to others, much less his childhood. Most occurrences where he did share a detail or other were often not elaborated upon and left more questions than answers.
“Hmm, but what to ask—”, began Franky.
“How about if he had any pets?”, Suggested Usopp.
“He’s more likely to eat any animals than to keep them as pets”, Nami fired back, “…and anything else he’d have as pets would be bugs…”, she added as she shuddered.
“What about favorite food?”, declared Chopper.
“We all already know that it’s meat! But spicy dishes do the trick too.”, Shouted Sanji from the kitchen.
“How about childhood fears?”, Robin retorted from her side of the circle.
Everyone stopped and thought about the suggestion, no one knew if Luffy had any childhood fears, their captain always seemed so reckless that it seemed he feared nothing.
Then Franky smiled as it seemed they found the perfect question.
“ Superrr idea Robin! Hey Luffy, what was a Childhood fear you had?”
“Childhood fear? Hmmmm”, Luffy sat and thought for a while as he came up with an answer. The crew all leaned closer to him in anticipation.
“…I guess I was afraid of dogs for a little while…” he said as he rubbed his chin.
“…Dogs?”, The crew choked out. Their fearless captain? Afraid of dogs ? It almost seemed like a joke until they thought of it. Many people were afraid of dogs for one reason or another, either through bad experiences or a phobia. It wasn’t really unheard of, but it was still extremely strange.
It was even stranger for Nami and Zoro who had seen him deal with the dog protecting the store back in Orange Town.
“I was really little, it was back before I'd even met shanks!”, the captain declared, “‘m not afraid anymore, grew out of it.”, Luffy said as he picked his nose nonchalantly and threw a booger to the side.
“Huh…”, huffed out a stupefied Franky, “Well then, I guess our captain’s just full of surprises!”
“So you don’t know where the fear came from?”, Asked Chopper. Usually a fear like that would have some sort of cause.
“Nope, it was just there until it wasn't, anyway it’s my turn to ask now!”, Luffy exclaimed.
“Again!” Shouted Rayleigh.
Luffy dodged the strikes while taking note of the blindfold on his face—
Bonk
—Until he got hit. Luffy fell on his butt as yet another bump formed on his head from the force of the stick Rayleigh hit him with.
“Phew, let's take a break kid, constant training is good and all, but we should know our body’s limits.” He said as he took off Luffy’s blindfold from his face and helped him get up.
Luffy’s stomach growled loudly and he groaned, “meeeeeeeaaaat”.
“…We should probably put some food in you before you collapse”, grinned Rayleigh.
It had been a couple of months since the beginning of Luffy’s stay in Rusukaina to train his Haki with Rayleigh. In that time he had begun to understand more about Haki and its importance in how one experiences the world.
Rayleigh got a campfire going to cook some meat he had hunted outside the island. Ever since Luffy became friends with the animals on the island —Take that Nami!— he had vowed not to eat them, however, meat was still a great motivator for him.
So Rayleigh would leave the island sometimes to get meat from outside.
Luffy looked at the meat with unbridled intensity as Rayleigh watched amused from the side, “You’re great at making friends, eh, Luffy?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
Rayleigh leaned back on the log and continued, “Just saying that you have an uncanny ability to make friends to most places you go. Look, all the animals of the forest respect you now, and are even friendly with you!”
Luffy thought about it and answered, “Yeah, I guess, the animals here and I are pretty similar, a good fight is tons of fun!”
“Does that extend to the Kuja ladies too?”, he teased.
Luffy looked confused at Rayleigh’s tone, “Yeah? Why wouldn’t it? Hammock’s nice enough and her sisters are plenty strong!” He stated.
“…So nothing extra going on there?”, Rayleigh raised his eyebrow curiously.
“Nope.”
Rayleigh is intrigued, Luffy had never really shown signs of liking liking any of the Kujas, but he doesn’t know if that's because he has somebody else or if he’s just… one of the Interested In Nobody types.
“So you have nobody that you like like?”, chided Rayleigh.
“I mean… I have lots of people I like? My Nakama and Br-…Family for one.”, he looked down for a moment until he shook head around. “Then there's Vivi, who’s still in Alabasta, Dadan and Makino back at Goa, my nakama’s families, and—”
“Luffy, that’s… great, but not what I’m asking you” he interrupted.
Luffy turned his head to the side in questioning.
“I mean… Do you have anybody that you like…romantically? Anyone you would want to Marry?” He clarified.
The Straw Hat captain’s face scrunched in thought as he seemingly shuffled through his mind to find anything relating to what Rayleigh is talking about.
He ended up settling on a blank curious expression as he watched Rayleigh, “Do I have to? ‘m not really interested like that in anyone”.
Rayleigh sighed and smiled, “It’s completely fine, you don’t have to, it just means you can have twice as many friends as other people who think about romance!” He finished.
Luffy smiled and cheered, “Yahoooo! More friends!”
“Luffy-san”, called Brook from the deck.
The captain stopped humming and looked over from his spot on Thousand Sunny’s figurehead. He shifted until he was facing the Musician from above.
“Yeah?”
“What was that song you were humming?”, Brook asked.
The crew was on their way to Dressrosa after picking up Law from Punk Hazard to fight the Warlord, Donquixote Doflamingo. They had a plan and everything to make sure that things would go as smoothly as possible.
Luffy paused his musings and began to think. The song he was humming was just a song that he… always knew. He can’t for the life of him recall where he heard it, if he heard it at all. It’s a tune he’s always known, right alongside the beat of his heart.
“Dunno, I’ve just always known it.” He answered.
Brook contemplates, “It’s a very beautiful melody, a little melancholic, but that's not always a bad thing.”
Luffy paused as he thought about what to say.
“Mhm, I’m not a musician, but in my head it’s always playing with two instruments!” He exclaimed.
“Oh? Which ones?”, asked the skeleton.
“Well, one is a flute, I think… ‘m less sure about the other one. It kinda sounds like a harp, or guitar”, Luffy explains.
The musician paused for a bit, perhaps lost in thought and then, “I could try and replicate it, if you like?”, Brook asked, while taking out some paper.
“Could you?!” Luffy beamed, he’d never heard the song out in the open before, it would be his chance to hear the song in real life for the first time!
“Of course, Luffy-san, but chances are that if it only has two instruments, it is a duet. As such, I may need some help to accurately procure a melody.” Said the skeleton.
Luffy jumped down to Brook’s place on the Deck and smiled widely at him as he began to give his best rendition of the song with hums and doots, as he couldn't actually play any of the involved instruments.
After a while when they were taking a break, Luffy was contemplating the mysterious tune they were attempting to transcribe onto paper when Brook asked a question he hadn’t thought of before.
“Hmm, Captain-san, what should we name the song?”
Luffy came back from his head space and stopped at the question, the song never really had a name, he’d always just called it “The song in his head” to simplify the meaning. A proper name was never something he’d considered. In hindsight, it was probably a crucial part of giving the song an identity, but…
“…How about we just keep it nameless for now? Also, dunno why, but let’s keep the song between us.”, Luffy said, as the song itself felt strangely personal, like something that should be kept private.
Brook looked at his captain with an understanding look, even though ‘Bink’s sake’ was a song for all pirates, his own crew’s rendition of the song felt quite personal. It definitely wasn’t something he’d share with an acquaintance, or even an enemy.
If Luffy wanted to keep this mysterious tune between them, then who is he to pry as to why?
“Alright, Captain”, he said finally, as the strange song hung over them like a warm hug.
“Luffy-dono has quite a bright smile, doesn’t he?”, Kin'emon asked Hyogoro during the celebration of Kaido’s defeat.
The Straw Hat captain was dancing around the fire enjoying the festivities as everybody else indulged as well.
“Hmm, he’s an amazing young man, that one”, Hyogoro answered. The Captain was quite an unusual person, though that didn’t mean bad. Hyogoro wasn’t sure if there was anybody more fitting to have saved Wano than the pirate captain and his allies.
“The rest of his crew are also a force to be reckoned with, though… that doesn't make them any less kind.”, The Samurai commented.
Hyogoro smiled as he huffed, “A fitting captain to his crew then, though it’s not as much of a surprise as you would think.”
Luffy joyfully climbed one of the festival towers as he toasted to everyone within the vicinity, boisterous laughter and smiles accompanying it.
“A smile like the sun”, Kin’emon commented with a growing smile as he watched the festival.
Hyogoro smiled too.
A new dawn was coming.
It had been nearly twenty years since Wei Ying had died, a little less since A-Yuan officially became part of the Lan clan.
Lan Wangji kept mourning (and most likely always will) the love he never had with the former Jiang disciple.
It had become the norm for him to mourn. Almost two new generations of disciples only knew him to wear the pure white funeral robes. And none of them knew the reason why.
Of course, how could they know that the sun was taken away? They never knew it, never knew the smile, never knew the laugh, never knew the tricks and pranks he would pull. Sometimes all the flirting with others would infuriate him, never being able to get a read on whether or not he was actually being serious. But Lan Wangji would never change Wei Ying for the life of him.
His own son would never remember the sun he had bathed in while in the darkest of places. Perhaps he recognizes the loss of the heat, but not of the light.
It’s often easier to miss a feeling, than to miss a sight.
But all the love Lan Wangji had for Wei Wuxian turned into longing and regrets for something that can never be now.
He longs for Wei Ying, he longs for the warmth he gave, for the light he would emit, for the righteousness of his ideals, and for many other things.
He regrets not helping him, he regrets not finding A-Yuan sooner, regrets giving him the letter to the one month celebration, regrets—
Lan Wangji regrets many things,
Especially the promise to live a righteous life with no regrets.