Missy

More questions than answers

I don't own One Piece. If I did, I wouldn't have gotten so excited writing this chapter. Like... why, me? Why?

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"Oi! Bring me some more timber!"

"There a helluva lot of water damage over here. We're gonna have to rip it up from the foundations just to be sure..."

"Paulie what should I do next?"

A black beak peered over your shoulder as you looked down from the splintering rooftops, "You see? The majority of people seem to be optimistic and building towards the future..."

"Mmm..." You hummed blankly, grip tightening on a black-bloodstained board, "Sure."

Two days had passed since you'd said goodbye to Merry. Two long and painful days. At first you'd been worried that you wouldn't be able to cope with the loss, that you would be staying up at night unable to deal with the overwhelming surge of emotions. But you hadn't. If anything you'd slept like a log.

You still felt exhausted though.

Mello'd said it was because your body was still healing. You'd been in a pretty critical condition after all. Chopper and Mello had found it hard to find any one place which was worse than any other. Apparently if it hadn't been for that immense surge of adrenaline you'd summoned while leaping off the Tower of Justice you would have died.

Merry would have never been able to save you.

"Hey..." Mello had taken on his physical form more and more lately, claiming that your injuries were already healing well enough without him. You accepted that lie for now. "Let us not dwell on those thoughts for now. We lived. We have walked through hell itself and survived. That is not something people can boast lightly. Granted," his beak drooped, "it may have come with a sacrifice... however we both know that loss would have occurred regardless. To honour her memory, we should instead focus on maintaining her legacy. To travel to every corner of the seas, throw ourselves into every adventure, and-"

"-to do it all with a smile." Your heavy eyes blinked once. "I know, I know, it's... It's just..."

"Hard?"

"Yeah. Hard."

Saws ripped planks in two. Hammers pounded against nails. Carts clattered over broken cobblestone walkways. People jubilantly continued building their own future.

"Loss is always hard," Mello eventually continued. "No amount of exposure to it or preparation will ever cause loss to cease being hard. People make connections. People become attached. And when those connections are cut short by one way or another... we are left to deal with the void they leave inside of us."

He sounded so... sad. Which was a massive understatement in and of itself, but you couldn't quite find the words to describe it. There was sadness, sure, but guilt as well. And resignation. A whole bunch of resignation. You didn't think you'd ever heard your dear friend sound so down. If anything, that hurt more than the ache inside of you.

"Is this..."

You pursed your lips shut before you could continue further. You'd tried not to think about them most times. But the way Mello sounded now was... it showed that even he had scars, even though you couldn't always see them. And you wanted to know. He'd done so much for you before and you... you...

A deep breath. Then another.

...you just wanted to understand. At least a little. He was his own entity, separate from yours. He had his own long and convoluted history. One far longer than any regular human's. And filled with loss after loss after loss.