@horonomi - continued from here.
❝I wouldn’t have thought so either. But here we are.❞ The noise that escaped him was somewhere between a scoff and a snort, but there was a tightness to the pirate’s voice that betrayed him. A particular set of a clenched jaw that suggested his blood had not yet cooled from the conversation with the blue-haired woman’s mother: Bellemere had had plenty to say about “all of this”, despite the fact that even the younger of her daughters was a fully-grown woman capable of making her own decisions – both for herself and the little life she was growing inside of her.
The elder ex-marine’s response had not been entirely unexpected – Nami had warned him, after all, and even if she hadn’t dreaded that initial encounter with her mother after the scene they’d made in the papers and her subsequent disappearance, it wasn’t as though Law himself were a stranger to the woman’s temper. His stay in the East may not have lasted all that long, but it hadn’t taken a pre-teen Law long to incur Bellemere’s wrath and work out exactly how to press her buttons in every way possible when he and Cora-san had slept beneath her roof all those years ago. He had known there would be words between them, but the part of him that had equally dreaded the “so, not only did you knock my daughter up, you convinced her to walk away from her entire career” conversation had hoped she would surprise him.
She had not.
He was annoyed at being chided, exasperated at the ridiculous conditions she’d set down for their stay for the next few months, and nothing short of irate that she’d greeted her daughter with the back of a hand across her face – even if he should have seen it coming. These were not the only sources of the surgeon’s displeasure, however. Part of him knew his mood was just as largely due to the conversation he’d need to have with Nami the next time he got her to himself, again. He had no doubt she’d heard her mother’s demand through the open window, and while he’d known the subject of marriage would come up eventually, these were not the conditions under which he’d wanted to bridge it with.
But chastised and annoyed as Law was, there was something soothing in Nojiko’s presence. Granted, it wasn’t saying a lot to consider the older sister the sane one among the ex-marine’s household, but Nojiko had always had a way of being the voice of reason in a conversation – the one adult at the table, even when the table had consisted of both Bellemere and Cora-san when Law went out of his way to draw the former’s ire. She’d also served as the calm middleman between himself and the “little crybaby” whose secrets she sat down and spilled so easily.
It was a rather effective distraction from his frustration; instantly, golden gaze shifted her way beneath the shadow of his spotted hot, one dark brow arching in amusement: no, no she had not. ❝Did she, now?❞ There was an undeniable note of mirth to Law’s voice – a twitch to his lips that conveyed it was both the first time he had heard about it and yes, he would absolutely be bringing this up with her younger sister at the earliest opportunity. ❝Funny that she never mentioned. How long is ages?❞ There’d been quite a few updates to it throughout the years, after all; he wondered how far back that little collection had begun.
He felt his mood lighten despite himself. It was exactly what he’d needed. Voice of reason, indeed – but a feisty troublemaker nonetheless. And one exactly aligned with his own mischievous sense of humor, it seemed.
