Marine || One Piece [ENG]

1| part 2

God, my father will kill me.

Ruki didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know what he was thinking and continuing to think. This is not how it was supposed to go, this is not how it was supposed to turn out, all of this was going wrong.

He was beginning to question whether anyone should ever give him the right to choose.

He had followed others so easily, had been so easily taken in by Leona's words at the meeting. Beautiful words, enticing ideas, the shadow of freedom, the key of choices with which they could change the world. And in doing so, he was lost.

He had been standing for a good few minutes, bent over the snailophone. The hand he held on the receiver was shaking slightly, he could feel himself sweating. It was just a phone, one little phone, he repeated to himself.

But it was more than that. This one phone call will define everything. He would learn that he had disappointed his father. It was painful, and he couldn't go any further than holding his hand on that damned earpiece of the snazzy phone.

He couldn't.

He didn't want to.

What's the point of all this when he let down the dearest person in his life.

His father was a hero to him.

It was his father's rough, large hands that lifted him when he toppled over as a child.

It was those broad shoulders that carried him when they walked through the festivities.

It was the loud laughter he had in his head when he looked at the figurines he was planing in wood with his father.

He was his goal. All his life, it was his father's stocky figure that was in front of him. He could hear his heavy steps, the tapping of his cane on which he rests the weight of his right leg.

And he was always the boy stuck attached to his father's leg. It was his big eyes that watched his father planing. It was his quiet quick thud that could be heard as he spun around his father, trying to help him.

Ruki closed his eyes, the fingers of his free hand tapping on the table. He bit the center of his cheek once again, continuing to feel the slight metallic taste of blood.

Ruki took a deep breath in. A slightly shorter inhale. An exhalation. A long inhale. A short inhale. Exhale.

There was a slight smell of the sea in the cabin, of fresh boards and wet dog. He was the one who smelled the wet dog through his storm-soaked clothes.

Finally, after many moments, he managed to lift the receiver to his ear. His trembling fingers clumsily dialed the number.

A long inhale. A short inhale. Exhale. A long inhale. A short inhale. Exhale.

,,Yes ?" he heard his father's calm, low voice.

Ruki did not speak. He trembled, pressing the earpiece of the snailophone to his ear, unable to make a sound.

,,Dad,” he finally whispered in a hoarse, slightly cracking voice. He couldn't control his emotions, couldn't control them. He had the feeling that his heart simultaneously stopped, dead, at the same time pounding in his chest, trying to break free.

Dad, look, look at this! I did it!

,,Ruki,” he replied after a moment, his voice quieter.

For another moment, there was silence for another moment.

,,Are you all right? Are you not injured?" asked the older man in a soft voice.

Ruki tightened his lips, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The side of his head pressed against the wall as he sobbed quietly.