4 in the morning.
Dadan's hideout was still dark and quiet when Luffy opened his eyes.
No loud sound had woken him. Nobody had touched him. Just that feeling again, like something heavy sat inside his chest, like a hand was squeezing something in a part of him that had no name.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
It didn't work.
Luffy rolled to his right. Then his left. He searched for a comfortable position but nothing felt right tonight. The feeling wouldn't leave. Helpless. Unable to do anything. A feeling he couldn't even name properly, but it sat in his chest and it was real.
Finally he got up.
Outside the hideout the air was still cold and dark. Stars were still visible in the sky but had begun to fade on the eastern side. Luffy stood for a moment at the door breathing in the morning air, then started to run.
No destination. No planned route. He just ran circles around the hideout, once, twice, three times, hoping that if his body grew tired enough the feeling would leave with it.
It didn't.
He kept running.
Inside the hideout, Dadan woke to the sound of footsteps outside. The large woman got up with a face already prepared to be angry, walked to the window to see who dared make noise this early in the morning.
She saw Luffy.
The boy ran alone in the darkness, circling the hideout without stopping, his face carrying no clear expression. Not the face of someone exercising. Not the face of someone playing. Just running, like he was trying to outrun something he couldn't leave behind.
Dadan watched him from behind the window.
Then she went back to her bed without saying a word.
The sun had begun to rise when Luffy finally stopped.
His breathing was slightly heavier than usual but the feeling was still there, not gone, only a little dimmer. Luffy stood in front of the hideout and watched the sky shift from black to orange.
His stomach growled.
"Mah. If I can't sleep I'll just eat instead."
He turned toward the forest and walked in between the trees that were still dark.
Two hours inside the forest and Luffy finally found his prey.
A fairly large wild boar was drinking at the edge of a small stream, unaware of the pair of eyes watching it from a tree on the opposite bank. Luffy peered from behind a branch, his mouth already watering on its own.
He licked his lips, got into position, then jumped.
"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!"
His arm stretched back then shot forward, striking the boar's head dead on. The sound of the impact shattered the morning quiet of the forest and the boar collapsed before it could react.
Luffy landed beside it and looked at his catch with satisfaction.
"Yosh. Today's breakfast is good."
A small campfire burned between stones Luffy had arranged carelessly. The boar was skewered above the flames, its fat dripping and sizzling on the coals, the smell spreading through the surrounding forest.
After eating nearly the entire boar by himself, Luffy lay on the grass near the stream. His stomach was full, a light wind blew, the sound of water moved beside him.
Perfect conditions to sleep.
Luffy closed his eyes.
The feeling came back.
Not immediately, not like last night when it arrived the moment he opened his eyes. This time it crept in slowly, seeping from the edges of his awareness, but the end result was the same. Helpless. Unable to do anything. A feeling without a name that sat in his chest and felt completely real.
Luffy opened his eyes and stared at the sky with a flat expression.
"Why."
Not a question. Just one word leaving his mouth in the tone of someone who had run out of options.
He rolled to his right. Then his left. He held his chin and stared up at the trees without really seeing anything. His thoughts turned looking for something, anything, that could push the feeling away.
A long time passed.
Luffy finally sat up.
"Mah. If I can't sleep I'll just train instead."
Not a decision he had planned. Only because it was the one other thing he could think to do rather than sit still with that uncomfortable feeling in his chest.
He stood, rolled his shoulders, and started.
"Gomu Gomu no Pistol."
His arm stretched and struck the trunk of a large tree in front of him. The tree shook. A few leaves fell.
Luffy looked at his hand for a moment, then at the tree, then tried again from a different angle.
"Gomu Gomu no Pistol."
Again.
"Gomu Gomu no Bazooka."
Again.
Slowly, without noticing it, the uncomfortable feeling in his chest began to fade. Not gone completely but dim enough to stop being a distraction. Luffy, who had started training only to push that feeling away, began to fall into his own rhythm of movement, trying this variation, trying that angle, trying something he had never tried before.
Time passed without him paying attention.
The same thing repeated almost every day for the next two weeks.
Waking before sunrise with that uncomfortable feeling in his chest. Running a few laps around the hideout. Going into the forest when the sky began to brighten. Hunting, eating, trying to sleep, failing, then training until the sun began to tilt westward. Hunting again to bring back to the hideout. Returning when the sky went dark.
Repeated the next day.
But at some point in those two weeks something began to shift.
Luffy didn't know exactly when. Maybe on the fifth day, maybe on the ninth. But one morning he noticed he was no longer training just to push the feeling away. Questions had started appearing in his head as he moved, questions he couldn't answer by just doing the same thing over and over.
Why does this technique work?
Why is the punch harder from this angle than that one?
How do you keep from wasting energy?
The questions didn't come in neat sentences. More like an itching curiosity, like something he could almost grab but always stayed just out of reach.
And an itching curiosity was the hardest thing in the world for Monkey D. Luffy to ignore.
On the fifteenth day, Luffy came down from the mountain.
Not because he had urgent business. Only because his feet carried him in that direction and he saw no reason to refuse.
Foosha Village in the morning always had the same rhythm. The fishermen had already left before dawn, the women were starting to open their windows and doors, smoke from kitchen chimneys had begun to curl between the simple rooftops.
Luffy walked along the village road with his hands behind his head until his nose caught the smell of coffee from the direction of Makino's bar.
The bar door was open.
Luffy peered inside.
Makino was working alone, not serving customers since there were no customers this early in the morning. She was reorganizing the entire bar, moving bottles from the shelves in a specific order, shifting tables a few centimeters, storing glasses in different places.
Her movements were calm and unhurried. But not one movement went to waste. Everything she moved went directly to its right place, no need for correction, no need to do it twice.
Luffy stood at the door and watched without realizing he was watching.
There was something different about the way Makino moved. She accomplished more with far less effort. No movement was excessive. Everything flowed from one thing to the next as though planned long in advance, even though it didn't look planned at all.
Luffy frowned slowly.
"Makino."
The woman turned from her shelf. Her smile came naturally when she saw who stood at the door. "Luffy. You're down early today. Want breakfast?"
"No, I already ate earlier." Luffy walked in and sat at the bar stool, jumped up and sat sideways like always. "Makino, do you have any books?"
Makino stopped.
Her hand still held the bottle she had just taken from the shelf but her movement stopped completely. She looked at Luffy with an expression that was hard to read, a mixture of confusion and suspicion she didn't hide very well.
"You..." She hesitated. "Are you... really Luffy?"
Luffy furrowed his brow. "What are you saying? I'm Luffy. Monkey D. Luffy." He pulled his right cheek sideways with two fingers, proving something that didn't really prove anything. "This is me."
Makino covered her mouth with her hand and laughed quietly. "Sorry sorry. It's just that you don't look like someone who enjoys reading books."
Luffy dropped his hand and looked at Makino with an offended expression. "So you think I'm someone who doesn't like reading? Even like this, I sometimes read the newspaper, you know."
"But only the comics section," Makino replied, still laughing softly.
Luffy's face grew more sulky.
Makino looked at that expression and laughed once more before walking behind the bar. "Hai hai, I'm sorry. Sit down, I'll make you some juice."
Luffy's face changed instantly. The sulk vanished, replaced by a wide grin. "Ooooh! What kind?"
"Orange juice. I just got fresh oranges this morning from Mr. Roji's orchard."
"Yosh!"
Makino prepared the juice while occasionally glancing at Luffy sitting nicely in his chair. After placing the glass in front of the boy and watching him immediately drain half of it in a single gulp, she walked to the back room.
She returned not long after with a book in her hand. Its cover was slightly worn at the edges but still in good condition. She placed it on the bar in front of Luffy.
Luffy looked at the book then at Makino. "What's this?"
"A book about the human and animal body. How muscles work, how animals move, things like that." Makino leaned lightly against the bar. "You can borrow it if you want. But take good care of it."
Luffy picked up the book and flipped through its pages in a way that showed he wasn't used to holding books. Diagrams of muscles and animal skeletons filled many of its pages.
He stopped on one page. A diagram of a tiger mid-leap, with an explanation of how the force from its hind legs distributed through its entire body during the jump.
Makino watched him from behind the bar.
Luffy's expression didn't change much. But his eyes didn't move from that page.
Makino smiled quietly and turned back to her work without saying a word.
Luffy left Makino's bar with an empty glass in his left hand and the borrowed book under his right arm.
The sun had climbed higher. Foosha Village was busier than it had been earlier. In the distance the sound of waves reached him faintly from the direction of the small harbor.
Luffy glanced at the book under his arm.
Then he tucked it more firmly against his side and started walking back toward the mountain.