COAST - Luffy x Reader

CHAPTER NINE

I am having SO much trouble coming up with content ideas for the side stories ;-;

I've thus decided, in order to avoid too much unnecessary plot, I'm gonna skip Zenny and the Rainbow mist, and move right into Skypiea! I'm so excited to write for this arc you have no idea lol.

Still, this chappy is kinda-sorta filler. I'm not in love with it, but think of it as a stepping stone for better things to come ;)

Also, I feel like it's important to note that my writing is very inspired by cheesy romance webcomics; stuff like webtoon or tappytoon is like crack to me. Just for future reference. 

Enjoy :)

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It's been quite a couple of days since that night. So, let's have a little recap:

First, the crew had managed to run into marines, my first encounter with them so far, and it was terrifying. They shot cannons at us even as we managed to lose them in a fog, the crew relatively at ease while it happened; I didn't understand how they could be so calm. If even one of those cannon balls hit the ship, we would've been sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and yet they were all just laying there... Luffy specifically 'couldn't move because he was too hungry,' and by that point I was ready to have a panic attack.

In the end, all thanks to Nami's navigational skills, we ended up arriving at an island inhabited by an army of goats that were led by an old man named Zenny. Throughout the four to five days we had stayed there, we had learned that he had used to be a pirate-money-lender, marooned after being chased off with a great fortune. Then, the same marines had somehow managed to track us down, and we found out the sergeant chasing us was actually acting against his higher-ups' orders; he wanted to search out Zenny and steal this alleged fortune, but it was actually eaten by goats, so there wasn't any fortune to steal.

It was an insane venture, ending happily with the sergeant being arrested for his crimes, and the rest of the marine ships being destroyed in the reef surrounding the island when they made the move to arrest the crew. Zenny decidedly became a pirate himself, and all of the Strawhat crew remained relatively unharmed throughout the ordeal.

Oh, and during our stay, Zenny taught me how to take inventory, as well as how to easily manage finances. It was a skill that I was genuinely excited to try out with the crew, and was hoping it would be something that I could actually be useful for, since I felt like I had nothing valuable to contribute to the group. So, that was pretty exciting.

There was one recent development that was a bit of a downside, though...

"You don't look much like a pirate, girl." His voice grated from my side, old and weathered over the long years of use. I turned to look at him, confused on how he could tell. Why did it seem like everyone was able to see it so clearly? Was I that out of place?

"Um... Well, I'm not really. Luffy is my soulmate." I decided to leave out the part that I was from another world entirely.

"Soulmate?" He blinked widely at me, as if I had just told him the most surprising information in all his life.

"Yeah." I nodded, and he furrowed his brow.

"Sad for you, girl. He doesn't seem like he cares much for your company," he gestured to the teen, who was stuffing his mouth full of fruit a few feet away, completely oblivious to our conversation about him. My stomach dropped.

"That's... not true." I weakly denied. Truth be told, Luffy had gone back to his old ways of running around and doing whatever he pleased without so much as looking in my general direction. Every time he ate, did chores, or even before he slept; it was like I had been forgotten about all over again, I was a lost thought in the back of his mind. I had been trying my best, ignoring the discomfort to keep the peace, but if Zenny had noticed then...