juuri (she/her) | 21 | writing for fun | current hyper-fixation: one piece english is not my first language ~seems like i'm locked into this dreamlike reality~
In a world full of cruelty and darkness, there was Luffy.
His smile was contagious, his laughter a little too loud, a little too bright, but somehow still capable of bleeding warmth into every soul fortunate enough to witness it.
There was something almost miraculous about the way he existed in the world. Luffy moved through life with the kind of openness most people lost young, offering kindness so freely that it never seemed to occur to him that others guarded theirs carefully.
He was the sun in physical form, burning away hesitation, softening grief without ever realising he was doing it.
It was no wonder people loved Luffy.
It was no wonder you did too.
At first, it had only been admiration. It was impossible not to admire someone like Luffy, impossible not to be drawn toward the gravitational pull of his warmth. Somewhere along the way, however, admiration had become something gentler and far more dangerous, settling quietly into the tenderest parts of your heart before you had even realised what was happening.
Love.
The first time you truly understood it, the sky had been painted gold.
Not the soft gold of treasure or lantern light, but the kind that spilled endlessly across the sea at dusk, marking the beginning of golden hour as the world softened beneath the sun’s warmth.
The Thousand Sunny drifted lazily over calm waters while the rest of the crew retired below deck, yet Luffy stood at the bow with his arms thrown wide, laughing in the sunlight like he belonged more to the sun than to the world itself.
Maybe he did.
The golden rays clung to him greedily. It caught in the dark strands of his hair, brushed against the scar beneath his eye, and spilled across the curve of his smile so brightly it almost hurt to look at him for too long.
Luffy looked like the sun, not merely because he shone, but because everything around him bent instinctively toward his warmth.
Nami’s anger softened around him like waves smoothing stone. Zoro slept easier when Luffy was nearby. Sanji cooked mountains of food with the resigned devotion of a man feeding a bottomless star. Chopper laughed louder. Usopp stood taller. Robin smiled more gently. Franky carried his dreams with greater pride, while Brook, after decades of loneliness, laughed as though the world had finally given something precious back to him.
Broken people reached for him without realising they were doing it.
And yet Luffy, in all of his obliviousness, doesn't even notice. He loved people so openly, so completely, that it never occurred to him someone could drown in it.
“You’re smiling again.”
The sudden voice startled you badly enough that your hand slipped against the railing. Turning quickly, you found Luffy grinning at you only inches away, his chin hooked carelessly over the wooden edge beside yours. He had wandered over without you noticing, all warmth and sunlight and easy affection, standing far too close for your composure's sake.
“What?” you asked, hoping your voice sounded steadier than you felt.
“You do that sometimes,” he said matter-of-factly. “You look at me and smile all weird.”
Heat rushed instantly to your face.
“I do not.”
“You do.” Luffy insisted, leaning in with exaggerated focus as though studying you. “Like this.”
The face he made was so absurdly wrong that laughter slipped out of you before you could stop it.
Luffy lit up immediately, as if that had been exactly what he wanted.
There it was again. That warmth.
He looked unbearably pleased simply because he had managed to make you laugh, and the frightening thing was that perhaps it really had been his goal all along. Luffy loved seeing the people around him happy with such uncomplicated sincerity that it often felt impossible to protect yourself from him.
He made it terribly easy to love him.
Easy to ache for impossible things whenever he looked at you with the same warmth he offered the sea, the sky, and every wounded soul he welcomed into his orbit.
That was the problem, really.
Luffy looked at everyone that way.
And…sometimes it was the smallest things that ruined you most.
Luffy shoving the larger half of his dessert into your hands because yours “looked smaller.”
Luffy collapsing into your lap for naps without warning, trusting you so completely that it made your chest tighten painfully.
Luffy grabbing your wrist excitedly whenever he discovered something he wanted you specifically to see.
“Look!”
“Try this!”
“Isn’t that cool?!”
As though every beautiful thing in the world became brighter simply because you experienced it beside him.
He never noticed what those moments did to you. Never realised the way your pulse stumbled whenever he smiled directly at you, or how carefully you carried every thoughtless touch in the quietest corners of your heart.
Luffy loved freely and without restraint, but romance slipped past him like water through open fingers.
You learned that truth slowly.
Painfully.
Like standing beneath the sun for too long and only noticing afterwards that you had been burned.
The most beautiful woman in the world loved Luffy openly, fiercely, with the kind of devotion people wrote legends about. Men lost their minds at the sight of her. Entire kingdoms bent willingly beneath her feet.
And yet Luffy looked at her marriage proposals with complete confusion.
“Huh? But I don’t wanna marry you.”
Simple, honest, and entirely oblivious to the devastation such words might have caused anyone else.
Somehow, that hurt more. Because if someone as radiant as Boa Hancock could not stir something romantic within him, then your feelings had never truly stood a chance at all.
That thought settled quietly inside you after that, cold and silver like moonlight spilling across the sea.
So you stopped reaching for him so often. Stopped lingering beside him longer than necessary, stopped allowing yourself to imagine impossible futures whenever he smiled at you with that same careless warmth.
It was embarrassing, really, the foolishness of your own heart.
Perhaps the moon was always destined to chase the sun, caught forever in a hauntingly beautiful dance of longing and light. No matter how far you pulled away from Luffy, some part of you would always turn instinctively toward him.
And perhaps that was your tragic fate.
How could the moon have forgotten that its beauty shone brightest only in the presence of the sun?
Luffy noticed eventually. Not because he understood romance, but because he understood you.
“You’ve been sad lately.”
The words had come suddenly one evening while the crew slept below deck. You sat alone near the figurehead wrapped in moonlight and ocean wind, staring out at the dark water stretching endlessly beyond the ship. Luffy dropped down beside you cross-legged without invitation, close enough that warmth immediately brushed against your side.
Your throat tightened.
“I’m not sad.”
“You are.”
The certainty in his voice startled you more than the accusation itself. Luffy tilted his head slightly, watching you with open concern.
“Did somebody hurt you?”
You.
The answer rose instinctively before you swallowed it back down.
“No.”
Luffy hummed softly, accepting the lie in the same way he accepted most things: only halfway.
Silence settled between you, not uncomfortable, but heavy in a way that felt almost sacred. Above you, the moon hung large and distant, casting silver light across the deck.
“The moon’s bright tonight,” Luffy murmured eventually.
A quiet laugh slipped out of you, more fragile than you meant it to be. “It’s only bright because it reflects sunlight.”
Luffy blinked up at the sky as though the thought itself required a moment of consideration, not because it was difficult, but because it was unfamiliar in the way things often were to him when they drifted outside the reach of instinct. His attention moved easily through the world, never lingering too long on any single idea unless it caught his curiosity.
Still, he hummed softly, like the answer sat somewhere comfortable in him anyway.
“That’s still kinda nice,” he said after a moment.
You glanced at him despite yourself. “It is?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, as though it was obvious. “Even when the sun’s gone, the moon still gets to shine.”
Something inside you cracked softly at the tenderness of it. Because Luffy said things like that without understanding what they did to people. He offered affection so naturally that he never realised how desperately others clung to it.
“You make it sound romantic,” you murmured before you could stop yourself.
“Hm?” He blinked at you innocently. “How?”
Because I’m the moon and you’re the sun. Because you are the brightest thing I have ever known. Because I love you.
Instead, you only looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Luffy frowned immediately. It always startled you how quickly he reacted whenever someone he loved sounded even remotely hurt. He shuffled closer until your shoulders brushed, warm and solid beside you.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I like it better when you smile.”
Your breath caught, but he didn’t seem to notice. Luffy rested his cheek against his knee as he watched you with quiet sincerity, like the answer to whatever he was looking for might be written somewhere in your expression.
“When you stop smiling,” he added, pressing a hand to his chest as though trying to locate the feeling properly, “it feels weird here.”
And the worst part was that he meant it completely. There was nothing hidden in his words, nothing layered or uncertain, only an honesty so uncomplicated it could have split oceans apart without meaning to. Not flirtation, not romance, only affection in its purest, most unguarded form. Your eyes burned before you could stop them.
Because that was Luffy. He loved people completely, even when he did not understand the shape of what he was giving them.
“Hey,” he said more softly then, his voice gentler than before, “you can tell me stuff, y’know.”
The kindness in it nearly undid you. You let out a shaky laugh instead, quickly wiping at your eyes before he could notice, but it was already too late.
“Why are you crying?!” Luffy leaned toward you at once, alarm written plainly across his face.
“I’m not crying,” you insisted, though your voice betrayed you.
“You are,” he shot back immediately.
“I said I’m not–”
Before you could finish, Luffy suddenly pulled you against his chest.
The embrace was clumsy in the way everything he did was clumsy, all instinctive strength and careless affection without any thought for hesitation or distance. He was warm, unbearably warm, and being held like this felt frighteningly similar to stepping into sunlight after a lifetime spent in cold shadow.
“There,” he declared, as though it solved everything. “All better.”
Your heart shattered quietly. He held you so naturally, so easily, as if protecting you was not a choice but something built into him, something as instinctive as breathing. And maybe that was what made it hurt so much, the simplicity of it, the way he never had to think about giving you comfort.
And maybe that was enough to ruin you forever.
You buried your face against him before he could see the grief gathering in your expression, the impossible love and quiet heartbreak twisting together in a way that felt too heavy to carry alone. Luffy only hummed softly, content in a way that suggested he believed everything had been made better, and held you a little closer, still entirely unaware of the storm unfolding within you.
Above the Thousand Sunny, moonlight spilled silver across the deck in a soft, borrowed glow.
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||||၊|။|||၊၊||။||| 【Love Story • Indila】
Sanji never liked remembering his past.
Some nights, the memories clawed their way back anyway.
The damp chill of the cell beneath Germa Kingdom. The iron helmet locked around his head, heavy enough to make breathing feel like drowning. The ache of starvation on that barren rock with Zeff, where every passing day carved something smaller and hollower out of him.
In those dreams, he was always trapped there.
And he would wake with a sharp gasp lodged in his throat, chest heaving as though seawater had filled his lungs. For a few terrible seconds, he could never tell whether he had truly escaped at all.
His hands would tremble as they searched for his cigarettes. The familiar weight of the lighter. The scrape of flint. The thin ribbon of smoke curling into the dark.
Something to ground him.
Something to remind him he was alive.
“Sanji, are you alright?”
Their voice drifted softly from the doorway of his room aboard the Baratie, gentle enough not to startle him further.
“Did you have a nightmare again?”
“It was nothing,” he murmured automatically, turning his gaze toward the porthole window where dawn had begun spilling gold across the sea.
“Sanji,” they sighed, fondness threaded carefully through concern, “I know it wasn’t nothing.”
Right. A rueful smile tugged at his lips. When had he ever truly been able to hide from them?
“…You always read me too well.”
He finally glanced toward them then, finding them wrapped in the pale glow of morning light.
“If I admit it was a nightmare,” he asked quietly, “will you help me forget it?”
Soft laughter slipped from their lips.
It was unfair, really, how much that sound unraveled him. Sanji thought, sometimes, that if he could, he would bottle it away like fine wine just to hear it on his worst days.
“I can’t do that,” they teased, eyes glimmering mischievously. “But I can sneak you a hot cocoa before Zeff notices the missing chocolate powder.”
Sanji smiled helplessly.
The warmth blooming in his chest was far too large for words.
L'âme en peine, il vit mais parle à peine… His soul in torment, he lives but barely speaks…
It had never been his intention to leave without saying goodbye.
But the moment Sanji stepped onto that small departing boat and looked back toward the Baratie, the words died inside him.
Zeff stood at the front with crossed arms and a cigarette between his teeth, gruffly barking insults that cracked at the edges with grief. The cooks behind him were no better, shouting curses loud enough to hide the way their eyes shone.
And there–half-hidden behind everyone–
them.
The sea breeze toyed softly with their clothes as they looked at him with that same unbearably gentle smile.
Sanji’s chest tightened painfully.
Say something, he urged himself.
Anything.
Tell them to wait.
Tell them how much they mattered.
Tell them they had become home before he had even realized he was searching for one.
But fear had always made a coward of him in matters of love.
So instead, he stood there silently as the distance stretched wider between them.
The only thing he managed was a weak lift of his hand in return.
His last memory of the Baratie became their silhouette growing smaller against the sunrise, still smiling even as he disappeared beyond the horizon.
Une rose à la main, à part elle, il n'attend rien… With a rose in his hand, apart from her, he expects nothing…
At first, Nami thought Sanji’s strange habit was merely another dramatic flourish.
He would stand alone near the railing during quieter evenings, suit jacket shifting in the wind, a single rose turning slowly between his fingers as he stared at the ocean like it had stolen something precious from him.
Sometimes hours would pass that way.
Silent. Motionless.
As though he were waiting for someone whose presence never left him.
The others eventually learned not to disturb him during those moments. There was a loneliness about him then that even Luffy’s laughter could not chase away.
And the rose–
The rose became constant.
Fresh whenever he could find one, carefully preserved when he could not. Sanji never explained its meaning, though Robin seemed to understand long before the rest of them did.
Yearning settled into him quietly after that.
Slowly enough that no one realized it had taken root until it had already become a part of him.
Le regard absent, il est seul et lui parle souvent… His gaze distant, he is alone and often talks to her…
Nami heard their name most often when Sanji was half-asleep.
Long nights in the kitchen usually ended with him slumped against the counter, exhaustion finally pulling him under while something simmered softly on the stove.
And then–
Their name mumbled beneath his breath with startling tenderness.
Sometimes accompanied by a sleepy smile.
Sometimes followed by a quiet, broken little sound when he remembered they were not actually there.
Once, Nami watched him turn instinctively toward the empty space beside him.
“Could you pass me the–”
The words stopped abruptly.
Sanji stared at the emptiness for a long moment before lowering his gaze with a hollow laugh.
“…Right,” he whispered.
Nami had never known longing could look so devastating.
Il n'est pas fou, il l'aime, c'est tout… He's not crazy, he loves her, that's all…
Sanji realised far too late that love had already rooted itself inside him long before he understood what it was.
It had lived in the quiet things.
In the way he remembered exactly how they liked their tea.
In the instinctive glance he took toward crowds, always searching for their face first.
In the unbearable urge to protect every soft thing about them from a world he knew too well could be cruel.
He had mistaken it for comfort.
For habit.
For fondness.
Until the day he left the Baratie and discovered that no ocean in the world was wide enough to lessen the ache of missing them.
What a fool he had been.
A fool who flirted with every pretty face yet froze before the only person who had ever truly mattered. A fool who could face monsters without hesitation but trembled at the thought of saying come with me.
J'ai été trop bête… comme je regrette… I was so stupid… how I regret it…
Whole Cake Island forced Sanji to confront every part of himself he wished had stayed buried.
It dragged him back into chains he thought he had long since escaped. Into a life where his worth was measured only by usefulness. Obedience. Blood.
And worse still–
He pushed away the people who loved him most.
Luffy’s furious grief.
Nami’s heartbreak.
The crushing guilt of seeing hatred in their eyes when all he had wanted was to protect them.
But through every moment of despair, another thought haunted him relentlessly.
Them.
He wondered if they would hate him too.
If the softness in their gaze would finally disappear once they saw how weak he truly was. How easily he folded beneath fear. How quickly he sacrificed his own happiness the moment the world demanded it of him.
The night before the wedding, Sanji sat alone beneath the artificial lights of Whole Cake Chateau with a cigarette burning untouched between his fingers.
For the first time in years, he cried openly.
Not because of his past. Not because of Big Mom.
But because he thought he might die without ever seeing them again. And regret, he learned then, was far crueler than loneliness.
After all, he was the son of a notorious criminal. The blood running through his veins belonged to a man the world cursed with fear and hatred. A monster in the eyes of history. A name that still made grown men tremble.
Gol D. Roger.
Even years after his death, the sins of the father clung stubbornly to the son.
Ace carried it everywhere. In every suspicious glance. Every bounty hunter that came after him. Every whisper about whether the Pirate King’s child should have ever been allowed to live at all.
Sometimes he thought the world had decided his worth long before he was even born.
Did he deserve to exist?
He hated the way doubt gnawed at him in quiet moments, hated how deeply the question rooted itself inside his chest no matter how hard he tried to bury it.
It was a cruel thing, to inherit hatred before ever inheriting love.
Perhaps that was why Ace refused to believe that there could ever be someone capable of loving him after learning the truth.
At first, he convinced himself they simply did not know him well enough.
It was easier that way. Easier to pretend the warmth in their smile was temporary. Easier to believe their affection would disappear the moment they saw the uglier parts of him – the anger, the recklessness, the unbearable insecurity he buried beneath grins and lazy laughter.
Ace had become very good at making people love the version of him that never looked too closely at himself.
However, they had been far too observant for that. They had noticed the way his expression darkened whenever Roger’s name surfaced in conversation, noticed how tense his shoulders became whenever civilians spoke about the Pirate King like he was some inhuman devil instead of a man.
Most importantly, they noticed how Ace always fell silent afterward, as though every insult thrown at Roger lodged itself beneath Ace’s skin too.
The first time they had asked him about it, Ace laughed it off.
“Don’t worry about it,” he had said easily, flames dancing at his fingertips. “It’s nothing.”
But the way their eyes lingered on him too knowingly caused his heart to stutter. Ace hated that look. Gentleness like that was not meant for someone like him. Gentleness made him uneasy. Gentleness implied care, and care implied vulnerability – something Ace had spent years learning how to survive without.
Still, they persisted. Stayed beside him during quiet nights on the ship’s deck. Stayed when his temper flared. Stayed when he disappeared for hours to be alone with his thoughts.
And somehow, over time, Ace grew used to their presence in places he once guarded fiercely.
That terrified him more than anything – because if he let them close enough, eventually they would find out. And once the truth was out there, they would leave too.
Ace never intended for it to happen the way it did. One careless Marine, one overheard conversation drifting through a half-open tavern window, one name spoken too loudly in a drunken stupor.
He saw it in their expression the moment the realisation dawned on them – the faint widening of their eyes, the silence that followed as understanding settled in.
“Well, guess now you know.” Ace muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets, gaze fixed elsewhere. He refused to look at them. Couldn’t.
“Pretty disappointing, huh?” he continued, voice roughening at the edges. “The son of the Pirate King. Not exactly someone worth sticking around for.”
“Ace–”
“People love calling him a monster,” he cut in, words tightening as they came. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe I was stupid for thinking I could be anything other than his son.”
Hurt coloured their expression and a pang hit Ace’s heart but he forced himself to take a step back, as though distance could soften the blow.
“You don’t have to pretend,” he said quietly. “I get it.”
“You think this changes anything?” they asked softly. Between us?
“It should.”
“Why?”
“Because his blood runs through me.”
The words broke apart as he spoke them, not a statement anymore but an unraveling. Years of self-hatred spilling through the cracks at once. Ace finally looked at them, and the air between them felt too thin to breathe properly.
“You don’t understand,” he said, quieter now. “People hate him. They hate me too. They always will.” Silence followed, but they didn’t let go. Instead, they stepped closer, not away from the truth but toward it.
“That’s not what I see,” they said.
Their fingers slipped between his, threading together with a quiet certainty that didn’t ask permission to exist.
“I see the man who runs toward danger without hesitation if it means protecting others,” they said gently. “I see the man who carries burdens that were never his to bear. The man who smiles like it’s easier than being seen breaking apart.”
Ace felt something fracture inside him like a structure giving way after too long under pressure. They did not look away, not even once.
“You are not your father’s sins,” they whispered.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he managed, though it lacked conviction.
“I do and I love you, Ace.”
A hand lifted slowly toward his face, deliberate and unhurried, as though giving him every chance to retreat. When he didn’t, fingers brushed gently beneath his eye. Only then did Ace realize he was trembling.
“I love all of you,” they continued softly. “Even the parts you were taught to hate.”
Ace lowered his head suddenly, forehead pressing against theirs as his shoulders trembled with something dangerously close to relief.
It felt unfamiliar.
To be held without judgment.
To be loved without conditions.
To exist without apologising for it.
And somewhere between their quiet heartbeat and their gentle hands, Ace began to fall in love with the parts of himself he once believed deserved nothing at all.
Love was never about the grand gestures or the flowery words. Love is something that seeps into little moments; moments where you don’t even realise what that soft feeling in your chest was until much later.
Sabo prided himself on his composure, on his ability to be calm under pressure, those were the qualities that made him dependable. However lately he found that restraint slipping away from him like sand.
The cause of it sat directly across from him now, sunlight spilling across their features as a soft smile curved their lips.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Their voice, a lilting melody, caught his distracted attention. Sabo could feel his heartbeat pulsing as he mulled over his reply, slowly letting out a soft sigh.
“Work had just been piling up,” Sabo rubbed his temple, hoping to ease the onslaught of a headache. “There is no end in sight.”
They let out a soft hum, fingers lightly picking up a report sitting on his desk.
“I suppose so. It has been rather busy as of late.” Their gaze slowly trailed over Sabo’s face. Sabo desperately hoped they would ignore the dark circles and stress lines but to no avail. “But, you need rest, Sabo.”
His name was said in a scolding tone, worry evident in the way their eyes crinkle and the way their lips pursed.
“I know, I know.” Sabo fiddled with his cravat, “After this report, alright?”
“No.” Their disapproving gaze cuts through Sabo. “You need to rest now. Work can always wait.”
Sabo opened his mouth to protest, only for the words to die immediately under their unwavering stare.
It was absurd, really.
He was a man who had stood before nobles without flinching, who could negotiate under threat of violence with a smile still intact, who had stared danger in the face more times than he could count.
And yet one disapproving look from them unraveled him with humiliating ease.
“I’ll be fine,” he tried weakly.
Their expression remained entirely unconvinced.
“You said that yesterday.”
“…Did I?”
“And the day before that.”
Sabo winced faintly at the reminder. Apparently exhaustion had begun eating away at his memory, too.
They sighed, setting the report back onto the desk with deliberate care before leaning slightly closer. “Sabo.”
There it was again – that tone. Gentle, worried, impossibly soft despite the frustration threaded beneath it. He hated how much it affected him.
The sunlight pouring through the office windows caught against their face, outlining them in gold. Sabo suddenly became acutely aware of everything at once: the quiet rustle of papers, the faint scent of tea long gone cold, the closeness of them.
And their hands.
Their fingers brushed against his wrist as they reached for the pen still trapped in his grasp.
The touch was brief. Just a brush against him but warmth bloomed beneath his skin anyway.
“You’re burning yourself out,” they murmured.
Sabo looked away first.
“I can’t exactly stop,” he said quietly. “Not right now.”
“You can.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Their brows furrowed, and Sabo watched the emotion flicker openly across their face. Concern. Frustration. Affection so obvious it made something ache painfully in his chest.
“You always take care of everyone else,” they whispered. “But you never let anyone take care of you.”
Sabo felt the words hit him. They were right. He had spent so long being reliable that he no longer knew how to be anything else. If he stopped moving, stopped working, stopped holding everything together…Then what?
Silence settled between them. Slowly, they reached forward again, this time plucking the stack of reports directly from his hands despite the startled noise he made in protest.
“That’s enough for today.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.” They stood, clutching the papers to their chest with an air of finality. “And before you argue further, I already hid the rest of your paperwork.”
Sabo blinked. “You what?”
A tiny, triumphant smile curved their lips.
For a moment, he could only stare before an incredulous laugh escaped him – soft and helpless and far too fond.
There it was again. That feeling. Nothing loud nor dramatic, just something warm settling quietly into the spaces they occupied so naturally.
Love, Sabo realised, was not falling.
It was an accumulation. A hundred tiny moments that piled atop one another until suddenly the weight of them became impossible to ignore.
The way they remembered he skipped meals when stressed.
The way they scolded him into sleeping.
The way they cared enough to fight him on things that mattered.
And perhaps the cruelest part of all was that they probably had no idea what they were doing to him.
“You’re staring again,” they said, amusement flickering in their eyes.
Sabo rested his cheek against his knuckles, unable to stop the small smile tugging at his mouth.
“Can you blame me?”
The question earned him a flustered look and a quiet, “You’re impossible.”
Maybe he was.
But as they continued fussing over him, muttering about sleep schedules and proper meals while gathering scattered papers from his desk, Sabo found himself thinking that perhaps being remembered this carefully was the closest thing to love he had ever known.
