Love Is Blind | ZoLu

6

Adjusting his head against his pillow, Luffy shut his eyes, seeing no difference between having them closed or keeping them open. In the end, open or not, he still saw the same cloudy darkness.

Sanji had prepared dinner for The young Captain and even brought it upstairs to him in a tray, but his appetite had been compromised by the terrifying thoughts in his head which limited him in doing many things.

Having his friends checking up on him every hour or so didn't help his current state of mind either.

Yet, after falling asleep, Luffy no longer heard anyone knocking against his door to check up on him.

The temperature in his room dropped as the ship grew colder.

He felt the waves rocking the boat, relaxing his body while the motion put him to sleep, at last.

For awhile, he was at peace. Nothing could awaken him from the deep, silent sleep he had fallen into.

But later on that night, the Captain's slumber was interrupted by the sound of footsteps.

Minding the noise, Luffy ignored it at all cost in order to not delay himself of getting the rest he needed.

But while his body could sleep through anything, he couldn't ignore the familiar voice that had just passed him by.

A voice he hadn't heard in such a long time, it simply couldn't be left alone. The footsteps got louder, almost as if the person was nearby.

Luffy sat up, seeing someone standing tall right beside him: The details were unimaginably clear and well-defined, including the colors he was viewing, which caught him by surprise, given the diagnosis Chopper gave him, earlier.

But as he focused his eyes on what was in front of him, the boy could not only see the figure, he also recognized it, very well.

That anatomical semblance was a well-known, shirtless man with a light beige skin color, wearing a beaded red necklace and a tangerine tinted cowboy hat.

He held Luffy's straw hat in his hand, watching tears descend from the boy's eyes when he gently placed the hat on him, leaving half of his face covered by it.

"It's okay." He spoke, his voice sounding just as Luffy remembered it: Soft and serene, yet full of life.

The life that was taken from him right before his very eyes, and then left to die in his arms.

"Ace..." A breeze drifted throughout Luffy's skin, leaving him to shiver within the warm covers he was lying beneath.

Seeing his late brother, Portgas D. Ace, appear right in front of him was triggering to Luffy.

The impact it had on him was so grand, it made him rise from his bed to run towards his sibling who he cared for, dearly.

"ACE!! Ace, I missed you so much. Where have you been? Where!" He immediately latched his arms around the older boy, crying into his chest.

The vivid emotions Luffy was going through were unlike any others he had ever experienced before. It was a new undiscovered feeling that restored a part of the sanity he had once lost.

But being reunited with his loved one was becoming too overwhelming for Luffy to handle as he gripped tightly onto Ace's figure.

Little by little, that figure started to vanish into a translucent hallucination. A beautiful soul that was now departing from Luffy's side, causing him an unbearable amount of pain.

Soon, the light he was able to capture, even momentarily, the flaming brightness that was an outline of Ace's shadow stance, had disappeared.

The only words that ever came out of Ace within the nostalgic, disheartening dream Luffy woke up from was a simple sentence, yet it held a great significance that the young man was too disoriented to understand, at the moment.

His tears stung his cheeks, the more he sunk into his own depressive thoughts while lying awake in bed.

"It's not okay." He told himself in response to the words Ace told him in his dream.

Thinking about it made Luffy's heart bleed with a wound that could never be sealed.

Not even the friends he's met could replace the emptiness that Ace left within him, for it is a void that continues to expand with his inevitable suffering.

For awhile, Luffy was doing okay: He had the endless support from his caring friends.

And although their intentions were good, he always felt broken, deep down inside.

To not make anyone around him feel gloomy because of his mood, Luffy hid his emotions through sailing across the vast ocean and by eating his favorite dishes.

However, he was never as cheerful as he seemed. And that's something that his friends still had yet to learn about their mysteriously joyful Captain.

"Luffy, are you awake yet?" A knock on his door made him snap back into reality.

A cruel reality in which he no longer had the pleasure of viewing life with his own two eyes.

"Y... Yeah, good morning." He bitterly responded, feeling low on energy.

Sanji entered the room, bringing in a tray of food.

When he walked towards the old tray he had left for Luffy last night, he was saddened to see that the meal was just the way he served it to him, and had been left completely untouched.

"His eyes are swollen... Has he been crying all night?"

~~~