His Fault | Monster Trio

7

"Are you sure?" After giving him a nod, Zoro started to walk away from the dinner table, despite insisting that he could wait for Luffy to finish his meal before leaving.

Running both of his palms against his face, Luffy yawned for what appeared to be the third time in a row, not giving the muscles within his jaw a chance to relax.

"Rough night?" Looking around him, it took the younger boy no time to find who had spoken from across the table.

He instantly nodded at a tall blonde man that sat down next to him, holding onto a small, royal blue tea cup.

"I didn't sleep much either." Luffy's eyes widened with curiosity written all over the perplexed expression on his face once he heard what his friend had admitted to him.

"Is that so... How come?" He questioned, becoming cautious around the quiet Cook.

"I was up thinking about my dad and the guys back at Baratie. Sometimes I think about how they're doing."

"O-oh! You should call them sometime then." Luffy excused himself, standing up from the table. Sanji stood next to him and held his hand.

"Huh? W...what? What is it?" He asked, feeling breathless as the blue eyed man looked at him with a motionless look on his face.

"Your plate. I'll take it to the kitchen for you, Captain." Looking down at his hands, Luffy nodded at Sanji.

"And you know what? Maybe I will call them one day." A smile appeared on Sanji's face as he and his Captain went their separate ways.

Soon, a strange sensation in the center of Luffy's stomach washed over him and he realized that the further away he walked from Sanji, the more relaxed his body became.

He hated the way his body reacted in his presence: Sanji is a man that Luffy would never fear, even after seeing him at his worst.

"Calm down... Calm down..."

Wrapping his hands around his waist, the boy managed to control a bundle of overwhelming emotions within him before they activated a warning signal in his body that would cause him to develop anxiety.

~~~

Walking back into his bedroom, Luffy encountered Zoro who was struggling to get changed into a shirt that was a bit too tight around his Herculean figure.

"Need help?" The boy spoke as a crooked smile appeared on his lips, sensing how visibly annoyed his lover was.

"I got this. I know it fits!" Zoro responded with a bittersweet tone of voice as he continued tugging at his T-shirt from side to side, attempting to squeeze it passed his broad shoulders.

Returning his attention to Luffy the second he saw him acting strange, Zoro started questioning him.

"What are you looking for?"

"Clues." The younger man's response took Zoro by surprise.

"Of what?" Looking behind him, Luffy shut the door to give the Swordsman a clear answer.

"Last night. I'm trying to see if that person left a clue behind that could lead me to their whereabouts." Zoro's pupils shrunk out of shock.

The mere mention of Luffy's incident made him feel sick to his stomach.

Tossing his shirt over his head, Zoro put a different one on and walked over to his Captain, offering him his assistance.

"Do you remember what he was wearing?"

"The same suit Sanji has on today. That's what he was wearing." Luffy responded with a defensive tone buried deep within his voice.

While retracing his steps, both Zoro and Luffy started to find things that weren't in their bedroom before yesterday.

"This is..."

"Mine." Snatching something off of Zoro's hand to have a closer look at it, Luffy confirmed that the piece of dark red fabric he had found, was his.

Placing his hand over the shorter boy's dark brown mane, Zoro became Luffy's comfort when the Captain struggled to move forward, overcome with dark thoughts.

"Come on." Moving ahead of Zoro, Luffy continued his investigation, seeking evidence that would continuously lead him to the same person: Himself.

Torn pieces of clothing, strands of hair, and other personal items all belonged to Luffy.

His rapist didn't leave a single trace behind.

"What's in here? It smells kinda funny." Luffy subconsciously asked himself, unwrapping a plastic bag that was inside of his bathroom closet.

"Wait-!" The bag instantly dropped down to the floor when Luffy's trembling hands could no longer sustain it within his grip.

Out came a red t-shirt and a pair of soft, light blue pajama pants, covered with stains and emitting the same strong odors that were lingering within the bag.

Each smell matched every color that was messily splattered against the backside of his bottoms, almost as if an artist went on a rampage against what was once a beautiful canvas painting, leaving it completely destroyed and deflowered of its innocence.

The most dominant stain that stood out the most in both odor and color, was a murky substance that used to drip out onto the bag when Zoro first held it in his hands.

By now, it was dry and flaked off of the bag like the ashes that descend from a burning cigarette.

"There has to be something: A note, a ring, watch, anything!" The younger said, rummaging through the bag with his bare hands.

"Luffy, don't touch that for too long! It's dirty."

Out of nowhere, the crispy crackling sounds of the bag shifting from every which way, came to a deadly silent stop.

"Hey... You don't look so good." Zoro knelt down and touched Luffy's forehead, retreating his hands instantly.

"Shit, you're burning up." The Swordsman gently picked Luffy up in his arms, carrying him onto the bed where he later on rested his head against a pillow without saying a word, despite the amount of pain his body was in.

"Wait here, I'll go get Chopper." Rushing out of the bedroom to search for the ship's doctor, Luffy looked up at his old wooden ceiling with a pensive look on his face.

"Luffy, don't touch that for too long! It's dirty."

He tilted his head, staring at the bathroom door while biting down on his lips before the first tear fell from his reddened face.

"If Zoro thinks that the bag is dirty, how does he think I feel..."

~~~