The Game (luNa)

3

Luffy woke up in a rather unfamiliar room. He was lying on a soft bed, different from the hammocks he was used to. The pain in his stomach  was so intense he had to squeeze his eyes shut and bite his tongue to avoid yelling out. He slowly opened his eyes, tasting blood.

The pain was something he had come to live with after his battle with crocodile a short while ago. After his body had come to terms with the pain, He sat up and looked around, recognising the sea charts as a navigator's work. Nami’s room. He thought to himself. What am I doing here? The answer became clear to him as he remembered the events of last night. 

‘Well, shit.’ he muttered. Luffy rolled out of bed, amazed at how much more comfortable Nami's bed was to his own. A familiar empty feeling filled his stomach. Food.

He shot out of the room and into the kitchen, only to find the rest of his crew already in there playing cards. He froze, only just noticing the sun, which was already most of the way through its course. He slowly returned his gaze to the rest of his crew who were eyeing him in a strange way. Slowly, Luffy's brain began to catch up to what was going on.

He remembered the events of that morning. Being bored. Training with zoro. Finding nami. Being alone. Nami beside him. Falling asleep. His eyes widened as he observed his crew for a third time. He locked eyes with his navigator who was staring up at him with a concerned expression on her face. Not knowing what else to do, Luffy laughed. 

‘Haha, you should see the look on your faces.’ He said, still happily grinning away. He then turned to his cook, who pointed to a hot meal sitting on the bench.

Luffy ran over to it, devouring it all before he even got to the table. He sat down with his empty plate anyway, for the sake of being with his crew, who were currently staring at him with a look of complete awe, somehow still surprised by their captain's insane ability to devour food. Luffy grinned up at them. 

‘You want in?’ Zoro, who was about to deal a new hand, asked. Luffy shrugged and agreed. 

After a few hours, the crew gave up on their card games and slowly drifted off to do their own things. Nami wandered off to the front of the ship, staring up at the clouds. Zoro went back to his training, this time accompanied by ussop. Sanji got to work on the dishes. Luffy followed Chopper to his small makeshift clinic for a routine check in.

Luffy pulled his shirt over his head and turned to chopper. The reindeer was busy laying out clean bandages, but froze as he turned to face his captain, a look of horror spreading across his face. Luffy looked down at the doctor, concerned. 

‘What is it, chopper?’ he asked. Chopper raised his head to meet luffy’s gaze, and then lowered it back to luffy’s stomach. Luffy sat down on the bed, looking at the doctor with concern. 

‘Umm, Luffy?’ Chopper asked, his voice weak. 

‘Yeah?’ luffy responded, curious. 

‘How long has it looked like that?’ Chopper was shivering, horrified. Luffy once again looked down at the wound on his stomach.

The skin around the wound was horribly bruised and agitated, and incredibly painful. The wound itself looked horrific, despite the stitches that held it closed. The discolouring of the skin continued to the edges of the wound, which were peeling back from each other. Thick, congealed blood sat just inside the gaping hole between the stitches. Luffy looked back up at the doctor and shrugged. 

‘I dunno, a few days.’ He said, completely unaffected. 

‘Just wait here a second.’ the reindeer squeaked, running out of the door. Luffy pushed himself further up the bed and crossed his arms behind his head leaning onto the wall.