Darling Typhoon [One Piece Law x Luffy]

1. Suspended Symbiosis

FOR TRAFALGAR LAW, there were a great many things that scared him. Despite his towering height of six foot three, the man's achilles tendon wasn't limited to a single spot on his foot, but instead, it permeated his entire existence. Quite worse, that existence dwelled not within him, but was the tangible embodiment of a twenty year old boy, who kept claiming to be the captain of a pirate crew.

What was even worse than having a liability, so inextricable from himself, run around on its own two feet—what was far, far worse than the very idea, and current reality of this—was the fact that Trafalgar Law himself knew nothing about this.

If you were to ask this man, whose very temperament could be summed up by: logic, austerity, and mild anxiety (yet often pulled through such anxieties by said logic)—if you were to ask such a man what was the root of his incessant worries as of late, he would point to a not so logical answer.

That totem!

It's definitely because of that totem!

It all began when Law, a man so married to his job as a cardiac surgeon, finally succumbed to the troublesome meddling of his father. One day after work, the surgical cap having barely lost any heat after he pulled it off, Bepo, his coworker, suddenly congratulated him.

Law frowned, for he did a surgery nearly every day. Why was his friend suddenly congratulating him?

Bepo, amused at his confusion, told him to check his messages. Alarms went off in his head—his father and Bepo must have been up to some collusion once again, but nothing could prepare him for the text message that greeted eyes once he opened his phone.

[Meddlesome Old Man: I've booked a plane ticket for you to a tropical island named Poneiro. We took the liberty of processing your vacation days. Have a great two weeks ♥︎] [BookingConfirmation.JPG][https://visitponeiro.po]

Law couldn't believe his eyes. This wasn't simply a figure of speech; perhaps the 18 hour surgery was beginning to make him hallucinate. He glanced after Bepo's retreating silhouette, raced to the reception desk, and asked the redhead sitting there to read the image on his phone screen to him.

"Eh?" came her voice. Her look of confusion turned to clarity, however, as she replied, "Isn't this a flight to Poneiro scheduled for the 16th? Congratulations Dr. Trafalgar!" Law had barely processed her words, as she informed him giddily, "my husband and I had wanted to go there for our honeymoon, since you know, the story surrounding that island is very fitting, but only 50 flights are allowed each year, and the island had been completely booked!"

Law's ears rang, and this conversation closely resembled a hearing test he would give patients for their regular check ups when he was a resident. A muffled sound came from his left, a squeal from his right, and he was supposed to say aloud from which direction the sounds came, but in reality, it was all from one fixed direction. It had been him who was spinning.

Law's legs felt weak, and he slumped against the counter. The receptionist—in his haze, her nameplate read something between 'Cynthia' and 'Cindy'—leaned over the counter slightly and tentatively pat his back.

"Oh don't worry, you won't meet the same fate we did. Your flight has been confirmed!" In case he didn't believe her—which she was right, Law was questioning every fundamental of his reality right now—she pointed to a hexagonal icon in the lower right of the ticket confirmation. "Look, don't you see the crest of the Poneiro Department of Tourism in the email footer? This is a flight directly booked through their government agency, you'll definitely be able to go there!"

Anyone could tell she was excited, but Law could hardly tell his left from his right, much less try to question why this was such a joyous piece of information. In the same way, Cynthia/Cindy could hardly tell that the nausea plaguing the man in front of her could hardly be assuaged by two perfunctory pats and her interminable rambling. She continued all the same.