starter for @ikkaku-of-heart // canon verse
Normally he isn’t allowed in the Tang. He was too much of a risk to have onboard, apparently, and any wrong move he makes (which, really, is any move he makes according to the Hearts) might end up with them all drowning. Honestly, did they have any respect for him? He had more self-control than that. He’d even been on the submarine before, apparently!
Granted he was unconscious and he did destroy a door or two when he woke up, but that was neither here nor there. That was a different time, a different Luffy. He was more mature now. Sort of.
He’s been practically forced to stay on the Polar Tang with a small number of his crew while Franky and the others man the Sunny. Something about the territory they’re entering, and certain assassination attempts on Luffy’s life. It took one near-death for his crew to insist he go in hiding while they cross the territory, and while at first he was against it, the fact that he can hang out in a submarine (a submarine!) heavily outweighs the cons.
Still, he misses the Sunny. As he always does when he’s away from his home. He sits by the kitchen door (locked - why was this one locked too? Did Traffy like midnight snacks like him? He did see Sanji talking with the Hearts’ cook earlier...) and leans his head against the cool metal, closing his eyes. It’s only when he hears footsteps, and senses a new presence, that he opens them.
“Oi, Kaky!” he greets, waving at her. Kaky is nice, and he likes her. He likes all of the Heart Pirates, in fact. But the polar bear is the coolest, that was just a fact. “How’s Tangy?”