ᴀᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴘᴀᴅᴇꜱ

Recollection

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It was your typical Saturday.

At 8:00 a.m., you woke up, took your shower, and went to work.

At 10:00 a.m., you bumped into Pudding and had a stare-down with her. The outcome became obvious when she 'accidentally' poured a piping hot latte over your shirt, but other than that, she made no other move to harm you any further. It was as if she'd done it to get a rise out of you as if she expected you to raise your hand at her.

Bitch.

Although you had no idea what her problem was, you deduced that it had to do with Ace--and as shitty as it was, you had no intention of dipping your fingers into that pot just yet. Whatever business she had with him, she'd just have to resolve it with him herself.

His problem, not yours.

At 12:31 p.m., you met up with Monet at your scheduled location. As expected of her, she just talked about Kid for the entirety of the meet-up, save for the few times she brought up her school schedule and her abroad trip with Ace.

Typical.

--but she did ask several odd questions about the other two boys, which certainly raised some questions of your own, but it wasn't anything to look too deeply into. After all, what intentions did she have for them if she only had eyes for the redhead? Although it may have seemed like that's all that happened, there were several more interesting occurrences that had occurred while you were still present.

For example, the near peculiar reaction she was able to provoke from Law when they had 'happened' to run into each other on the way to the nearest cafe.

It was odd, albeit a little uncomfortable with the way he was staring at her wide-eyed and in shock, but it wasn't anything out of the norm--well, for you anyways, but it was concerning, to say the least.

You'd never seen him look that way, even if he was able to recover in no time at all. It was peculiar, if not a little worrisome, but whatever business he had with her, it had nothing to do with you. Just as you resolved the Pudding issue, you did the same with the Monet one. Going by your motto 'Ignorance is bliss', was simply the easiest way to get out of these situations. Sure, it was a little lazy, but who were you if you weren't a little indolent from time to time? You couldn't shoulder these problems all by yourself, could you now? There was a time and a place for these things, but right now wasn't it.

The next week wasn't any better either...

From your project with Drake to your tutoring session with Law, things weren't looking good for you, especially when Pudding was involved with them. Much like Monet, she was hellbent on 'getting to know' Ace's friends, no matter the cost. Whether that be rooming with you and Nami or creating plans with them behind your back, she went to all lengths to get closer to them, at the expense of her alone time with Ace. As similar, as she was to the mint-head, there certainly was one key difference between the two and it was the fact that you did not like her. It wasn't because she hogged your time with Ace, but because of the constant insults and the petty gestures she did to make your life progressively miserable--not that it had. If anything, your life was becoming better, especially because her actions were proving to be a catalyst for yours with Luffy. With how she was constantly hounding Ace, it came to no surprise that Luffy would drag you out to hang out with him so he could avoid the eccentric ginger. The same could be said about Zoro, Sabo, and Robin. They had no intention of playing nice with the conniving ginger or spending their free time around her. The other Mugiwara's were far too nice or enamored--i.e., Sanji--to leave her.