Dadan had never said she cared about that boy.
Never, not once, and anyone who dared say it to her face would immediately find themselves dealing with her fist. She only kept watch because it was her job. Garp had entrusted the boy to her and she didn't want the hassle of dealing with Garp if something went wrong.
That was all. Nothing more than that.
But lately something had been off with Luffy, and Dadan didn't know how to explain it even to herself.
At first she didn't think much of it.
Luffy had long had strange habits that came and went without any sensible explanation. One of the more memorable ones was the night he came back from the forest laughing without stopping, carrying his catch in one hand and laughing up at the ceiling like someone who had just heard the best joke of their life.
Dadan, who had been eating, stopped her spoon immediately.
"Luffy." Dogra, sitting at the end of the table, looked at the boy with raised eyebrows. "What happened to you? Is something funny?"
Luffy put his catch on the kitchen table still laughing. "Hahahah... I don't know either... hahaha... what's happening."
Everyone at the table exchanged looks.
"Try to remember," said Dogra, his tone already shifting from confused to concerned, "what did you eat today?"
"Hahaha... let me think... hahhah... I ate rabbit, fish, apple..." Luffy paused, his brow creasing slightly between laughs he couldn't control. "...and a strange mushroom I found by accident."
"Mushroom?"
Dogra stood immediately and went inside, his feet moving fast, and not long after he returned with a book in his hand, its pages already open to a picture of a red mushroom with blue spots.
"Is this the mushroom you mean?"
Luffy looked at the picture and immediately called out between his laughter. "Hahaha... yeah that's... hahaha... the mushroom I ate today!"
Dogra let out a breath of relief. "Don't worry boss, the side effects will wear off soon."
Dadan, who had been holding her bowl of rice without moving, finally set it down on the table and went back to eating. Beside her Magra and the others also relaxed and continued their meals.
Nothing to worry about. Just a mushroom.
Luffy did often come back from the forest in conditions that couldn't be explained by normal logic. Once he came home with a sad face all day for no clear reason, sitting in the corner of the room staring at the floor until everyone in the hideout started feeling sad too without knowing why. Another time he came back looking like he had just seen a ghost, refusing to sit near the window for two days afterward.
All of it resolved on its own. All of it could be explained by some mushroom or strange fruit he ate in the forest.
So when one morning Dadan woke to the sound of footsteps and saw from behind the curtain that Luffy was already running circles around the hideout before sunrise, she just grunted and went back to bed.
Mushroom again, she thought. Or strange fruit. It'll sort itself out by tomorrow.
But the next day Luffy still woke early.
And the day after.
And the day after that.
Dadan started sitting by the window every morning with a cigarette, watching the boy run in the darkness before dawn with an expression she couldn't read even in herself. Not worried. She wasn't worried. Just watching because it was her job.
That was all.
The alarm in her head went off for the first time when Luffy came back from the village carrying a book.
Not a comic book. Not an illustrated storybook like the ones he sometimes borrowed from Makino to read before bed and then left lying on the floor. This was a thick book, its cover plain, its pages filled with small writing broken up by diagrams Dadan couldn't recognize from a distance.
Dadan watched Luffy sit in the corner of the room and open the book.
She waited.
One minute passed. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Luffy was still reading.
Dadan stubbed her cigarette out on the edge of the table and went to sleep with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
The peak came two weeks later.
That morning as usual Dadan sat by the lit stove with a cigarette in her hand, half drowsy, half watching. Luffy sat in the corner of the room with a newspaper in his hands, something that had lately become another new habit of his.
"Oh Luffy," said Dadan in a tone she worked to make sound casual. "Reading the comics section?"
"I already read that part." Luffy didn't lift his head from the newspaper. "Right now I'm reading the news." He paused, then turned toward Dadan. "By the way, do you know what Logia means?"
Dadan froze.
Her cigarette still hung between her fingers, its smoke rising thinly toward the ceiling, but her hand didn't move. She stared at Luffy who had already gone back to looking at his newspaper with an unchanged expression, as though the question just now was as ordinary as asking about the weather or what was for lunch.
"I don't know either," said Dadan finally. Her voice came out quieter than she had intended. "Maybe your grandfather would know."
"Oh, I see." Luffy nodded slowly. "Hmm, maybe I'll ask him when he comes."
He went back to reading.
Dadan drew deeply on her cigarette and watched the boy from the corner of her eye.
Dadan gathered Dogra and Magra outside the hideout after Luffy had gone to bed.
"You've seen it for yourselves," said Dadan quietly, keeping her voice from carrying inside. "It's been how many weeks now."
"Waking up early every morning," said Dogra.
"Bringing books from the village," Magra added.
"Reading the newspaper. The news section." Dadan put weight on her last words. "Not the comics. The news."
The three of them fell silent under a night sky full of stars.
"Boss," said Dogra carefully, "maybe he's just trying something new. He's almost seventeen, it's natural for him to—"
"He asked about Logia." Dadan cut him off. "Luffy. Asked about Logia."
Dogra and Magra looked at each other.
Dadan drew on her cigarette, her eyes not moving from the fire in the stove in front of her. Her mind turned searching for a reasonable explanation. Mushrooms couldn't be the excuse anymore because this had gone on too long. Illness didn't make sense either because Luffy looked healthier than before.
What remained was only one possibility she didn't want to think about but that kept appearing on its own in her head.
"Have either of you ever heard about possession?" said Dadan finally, her voice dropped to almost a whisper.
Dogra and Magra went quiet.
"That boy has changed too suddenly." Dadan stood. "We need to make sure."
"But boss, how?"
Dadan had already gone inside and came back with a small cross in her hand, something that had found its way into her desk drawer at some point and that she had never used for anything in all these years. "They say if someone is possessed, the person will react to this."
Dogra looked at the cross then at Dadan. "Boss, is that really—"
"We check tonight," said Dadan, already turning toward the door to Luffy's room.
They entered Luffy's room carefully. Luffy was sleeping on his side, his breathing steady, his hat lying beside him as always.
Dadan gave a signal. Dogra and Magra moved to either side of the bed, each taking one of Luffy's hands gently so as not to wake him. Dadan took the small cross from her pocket and brought it close to the boy's face.
No reaction.
Luffy shifted slightly, his brow creasing, then his eyes opened halfway. He looked at the cross in front of his face, then at Dadan, then at Dogra and Magra each holding one of his hands.
"...What are you trying to do?"
Nobody answered for a few seconds.
"Nothing," said Dadan finally, her voice slightly higher than usual. She nodded with an expression she hoped looked relaxed. "I just wanted to show you this cross. Hahaha."
Her laugh sounded like someone who had never laughed in their life and was trying it for the first time.
Luffy looked at all three of them in turn with a flat expression. "You're all acting strange." He yawned long. "Mah, whatever. I'm still sleepy. Good night."
He closed his eyes again.
In less than a minute his breathing was steady once more.
Dadan, Dogra, and Magra filed out of the room with slower steps than when they had entered.
Outside Dogra let out a breath. "Boss, he seems fine. Maybe he really is just trying new things."
"That's right boss," said Magra. "Luffy is almost grown up. It makes sense that he'd start getting curious about the world."
Dadan didn't answer right away. She lit a new cigarette and drew on it deeply, staring at Luffy's closed bedroom door.
The boy who used to refuse to touch a book unless it was the last thing he could possibly do. The boy who read the newspaper only as far as the comics page then threw it on the floor. The boy who was more interested in chasing wild boars than thinking about anything connected to the world beyond this forest.
Now waking before dawn every day. Bringing thick books from the village. Reading the news. Asking about Logia.
"Seems like it," said Dadan finally, her voice quiet.
She turned and went inside.
Behind the closed door, in his dark room, Luffy slept soundly with his straw hat beside him.
Dadan never said she was worried.
Not once, not ever.
But tomorrow morning, if that boy woke before dawn again, maybe she would wake up too.
Just to keep watch. Not because she was worried.
That was all.
End of Chapter 4