"!!!"
Uta could not process Luffy's absurdity at all. The moment he started pulling down his pants, she squeezed her eyes shut on instinct.
Which meant the "competition" ended exactly how you would expect.
Luffy won again.
"See?" he said proudly, flashing a grin at the older girl beside him. "I've beaten you twice already."
"You're shameless, despicable, and disgusting!" Uta snapped, face red with fury.
"You're pirates!" Luffy shot back without missing a beat. "When dealing with pirates, I don't have to follow any of those so-called rules of honor!"
"Then let's compete in singing!" Uta finally remembered the one thing she was actually good at. Her eyes lit up as she looked at him, eager to crush him properly for once.
"Sure," Luffy agreed immediately. "Whoever makes the other one break first wins."
"Lalalala…"
Luffy's voice was loud, wildly off-key, and paired with lyrics so nonsensical they sounded like a crime against music itself.
Uta, who cared deeply about rhythm and melody, suffered visible psychic damage.
She clapped both hands over her ears and sprinted away, tears flying behind her.
"How can there be music this terrifying in the world!"
"You lost again, Uta," Luffy called lazily, strolling after her like he had all the time in the world.
"That doesn't count as losing!" Uta whirled around, incredulous. "You sounded awful!"
"The rule was who sings until the other person breaks," Luffy said matter-of-factly. "Not who sings better."
"Wha…" Uta made a strangled sound of disbelief.
"Fine." Luffy waved a hand, suddenly generous. "You look pathetic. Let's play a simple game instead."
He picked up a stick and drew a grid on the dirt: two lines across, two lines down.
"Each player uses O or X. We take turns marking a square. If any three of your marks form a straight line, you win…"
Luffy explained the rules of tic-tac-toe with bright enthusiasm.
Since coming to this world, nobody had played games with him at all. Every day was training, training, training. It was boring in its own way.
Uta leaned in curiously. The rules sounded easy enough, so she grabbed a stick and tried.
The two of them squatted on the ground, scribbling and crossing out marks again and again.
Uta, inevitably, lost the entire evening.
"This is weird," she muttered at last, numb from defeat. She threw the stick aside and glared at him. "Why do you keep winning?"
The rules were simple. There was no reason she should lose this badly.
There were some draws, sure, but Uta did not come here to settle for ties.
"So," Luffy said, leaning closer with a smug smile, "after losing this many times, you should call me big brother now, right?"
"No!"
"So Shanks's daughter is nothing special after all," Luffy teased.
Instantly, tears swelled in Uta's eyes.
"I'll let you off the hook," Luffy said, hooking an arm around her shoulder and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "But you have to promise me one thing."
"What thing?" Uta demanded.
"I haven't decided yet," Luffy whispered. "So I'm not telling you."
Uta stared at him, speechless.
"It's late." Luffy patted her back and guided her toward the village. "We should go back."
The moment they stepped into the tavern, Uta's eyes filled up again and she rushed straight into young Shanks's arms, rubbing her head against him like an aggrieved kitten.
"Shanks! Luffy bullied me!"
"Hahaha," Shanks asked with genuine curiosity. "What did he do?"
"He had no shame, and made me compete with him to see who could pee farther…"
The tavern exploded into ear-splitting laughter.
"Stop laughing!" Uta shouted, furious and mortified. Then she turned and tugged at Shanks's sleeve. "Shanks, let's play a game! It's really fun…"
Luffy returned to his little house.
His grandpa, Vice Admiral Garp, was already snoring like thunder.
And it was exactly because this man existed that Luffy lived wrapped in an absurd sense of safety.
Whenever Luffy faced actual danger, Garp would appear behind him like he had used Soru and teleportation at the same time.
Of course, if Luffy was not in real danger, then no matter how badly he got beaten up, Garp would not care at all.
Garp was lazy.
Even back in his hometown, he could not be bothered to clean up the place.
The fact that Foosha Village still had a large number of bandits hanging around was a perfect example.
Sometimes Garp would get in the mood and crush a few pirates just to pass the time.
Luffy ate some fruit and went to sleep on schedule.
Foosha Village was poor, and there was almost no entertainment. Luffy's life was training, and training with his animal "friends," until the sun went down and he had burned off all his energy.
Only then could he fall asleep.
Only then could he forget phones, computers, games, novels, movies…
That had been his life until now.
But the arrival of the Red Hair Pirates had, unexpectedly, injected a burst of fresh energy into Foosha Village.
Garp clearly had no interest in meeting Shanks.
Even while the entire village boiled with excitement over the pirates' arrival, the "local sheriff" stayed inside and kept sleeping.
Then Garp's voice came from the darkness.
"You met Shanks?"
"Yeah."
"He's an interesting pirate," Garp said, slowly opening his eyes. His expression was complicated.
"But no matter how interesting he is, he's still a pirate. Stay away from him. You're going to be a Marine."
"Ooh, Grandpa," Luffy said, deliberately switching to an innocent tone. "They say pirates are the freest people in the world. Is that true? I want to be a pirate!"
"Free?" Garp snorted. "You mean the kind of freedom where the Marines chase you like a dog wherever you go?"
He rolled out of bed, pulled open a drawer, tore open a bag of donuts, and started chewing.
"Luffy must become a Marine."
"Then why aren't you arresting Shanks?" Luffy asked.
"I'm on vacation," Garp said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "When you're on vacation, you eat, drink, and have fun."
"Wow… Grandpa, you're pretty free." Luffy tilted his head. "So if I become a Marine, can I be as free as you?"
Garp froze.
"…Luffy," he said, eyes widening with joy, "are you finally willing to become a Marine?"
"No." Luffy's answer was immediate. "Grandpa, I want to board Shanks's pirate ship. Just to investigate. I want to see what the pirate world is really like, and whether they're truly free."
"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?" Garp barked.
He grabbed Luffy by one leg and lifted him upside down into the air like he weighed nothing.
"You're not going on a pirate ship."
"Why not? Shanks seems like a good person. Everyone in the village likes him."
"And you know that too," Luffy said, swaying back and forth in the air, completely unafraid. "That's why you don't want to meet him, isn't it?"
Garp did not respond to the part about Shanks.
He only repeated, like an adult stamping a label on the world.
"He's a pirate."
Because he's a pirate, it's not allowed.
"Then I'll go see how bad pirates really are," Luffy said, crossing his arms even while hanging upside down. "That way I'll become a Marine."
"And besides, Grandpa, you'll protect me, right? You'll protect me from the pirates."
"I'm curious," Luffy continued, eyes bright. "What is Shanks's pirate life really like?"
"Aren't you curious too?" he asked.
"No matter what you say, I'm not letting you board a pirate ship." Garp flicked Luffy on the forehead.
Then he tossed him back onto the bed.
Pain detonated in Luffy's head and scrambled his thoughts.
Again.
Garp was like that. No matter how he hit, Luffy would only feel a brutal shock to the spirit, not a single hint of bodily injury.
"Two days from now, I'm going back to Marine Headquarters for work," Garp said, yawning. "If you want to eat something, ask Makino."
"Okaaay…"