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Dinner on the Thousand Sunny was a sacred affair. Unless someone was healing in the med bay or on watch duty in the crow’s nest, every crew member gathered around the dining table for the evening meal.
Chopper took his usual seat between Robin and Brook. It was his favorite spot because he didn’t have to worry too much about Luffy stealing his food, and Robin had a habit of sneaking him half of her dessert. Brook was a bit of a messy eater, but he was quieter than Usopp and took up far less space than Franky.
They didn’t always eat in the galley. Depending on the weather, they sometimes took their meal out on deck, or beside the aquarium. It was too hot today to even consider eating outside, but the humidity had been building all day, so Nami said a storm was brewing, and tomorrow promised to be a nicer day. The configuration of their dinner guests varied a lot in the past few months as well, with the addition of Kin’emon’s group and Law, and then the Minks for a while.
Since departing Wano, only Law remained. His own ship and crew were now tethered to Sunny, but Law still took his dinner with the Straw Hats in his seat of honor by Luffy’s right hand side. The seat used to be reserved for Zoro, except the swordsman preferred the late-afternoon watch and typically ate cold leftovers (and rum).
Which was why everyone was so befuddled when Law didn’t show up for dinner.
“But I made paella,” Sanji said. There was a hint of a pout, but no one called him out on it.
Jinbei said, “Maybe he is busy and will arrive shortly?”
“Busy doing what?” asked Usopp between bites. “He’s basically the unemployed second cousin living out of our pool house.”
Nami rolled her eyes and muttered something about mansions and Kaya as Chopper wondered out loud, “What’s a pool house?”
Beside Chopper, Robin was characteristically silent while Luffy was uncharacteristically so. With her all-seeing gentleness, she sipped her coffee and patiently studied their captain, who was stuffing his mouth with soup. After the topic of Law’s absence was finally abandoned by all others, Robin sniped a lull in the chatter to ask Luffy, “Did something happen between you and Law, Captain?”
This immediately piqued everyone’s interest again. Robin never jumped to half-assed conclusions, which meant something definitely happened. A fight? Law and Luffy were so different that Chopper was surprised they had lasted as allies for this long in the first place. Conflict was inevitable. Whatever the fight was about, he hoped nobody was badly hurt.
Luffy scratched his right cheek and retrieved a stray crouton. Everyone was staring at him in wait of an answer, but for once, he didn’t look at any of them.
“Nothing happened,” he shrugged. “Law told me he’s leaving the day after, so he’s probably too busy taking care of stuff on his ship to come to dinner. Oh, we’re throwing him and his crew a goodbye banquet tomorrow.”
Sanji slammed the cutting board he was washing so hard on the kitchen counter that it almost broke in half. “What the shits, Luffy? You’re telling me this now?” But despite his complaint, Sanji’s immediate next step was to look through his inventory log and check his spice cabinet. Surely he was already formulating new gluten-free recipes in his mind and planning the appropriate appetite-sidedish-dessert combo.
Everyone else, including Chopper, reacted to the news with confusion. Usopp even stood up, arms waving, to defend himself. “I was just kidding with the freeloader joke! I like Law. Heck, he’s one of us now. Aw, man, Luffy, did he hear my jokes about him? Is that why he’s leaving?”
“You make jokes about him?” Luffy was equally confused. “I don’t know. He just said his crew has been preparing, and he’s going for sure.”
“Oh, phew!” Usopp sat down and was all smiles and arrogance again. “You know, he’s probably just ashamed of how many times we’ve saved his butt.”
Nami rolled her eyes. “He’s his own captain, Usopp, and not even a member of the Grand Fleet. He was never going to stay with us forever.”
Usopp continued as though he didn’t hear Nami at all, “Nah, nah. You know what it is? He probably thinks you talk too much, Luffy!”
Sanji had completed his preliminary inventory check and was now going around collecting everyone’s empty soup bowls. He snorted at Usopp’s suggestion and added, “He probably thinks we all talk too much.”
Everyone chuckled except Robin, who was staring across the table with a deep furrow in her brow. “Luffy?” she asked.
Chopper realized Luffy hadn’t responded at all. He looked up from his salad and realized Luffy hadn’t laughed either. In fact, he seemed quite upset. His big brown eyes blinked at Usopp with an expression of disbelief. The corners of his lips were decidedly turned downward and possibly quivering.
The others quickly came to the same realization. Nobody knew why Luffy was so upset, or how to react; Chopper was completely lost as to why his perpetually optimistic captain suddenly looked as though someone had sat on his pet atlas beetle.
In hindsight, it made sense that Sanji understood first.
“Oh. Oh, shit. Luffy, really?” the cook said in the most serious and empathetic tone Chopper had ever heard out of him. The unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth dropped to the ground.
Nami likely clued in next because she put a soft hand on Luffy’s shoulder and squeezed. Chopper searched frantically around him for a hint, but no one was talking.
Then the galley door slammed open and a yawning Zoro walked in, demanding, “Shift change! It’s so damn hot I can’t keep my eyes open today. Cook, hand me a bottle. What’s with the faces? Who died?”
The mood was successfully disrupted. Luffy pasted on a big grin and continued eating. Others, too, gladly let the topic drop.
But Chopper heard with his sharp ears the unequivocal command Robin whispered to the men sitting closest to her:
“Fix this.”
***
Before bed, Chopper wiped down the infirmary, as was his nightly routine. It mattered not that nobody had gotten injured that day. Cleanliness was the first step of a long journey toward good health.
After washing up, he trotted to the men’s cabin, where it’d become a bit of a tight squeeze these days with Franky’s oversized body and the addition of Jinbei, but no one seemed to mind.
He walked in on an unusual sight: Sanji and Zoro sitting on the couch with their heads inches apart, whispering quite heatedly about something but not bickering for once. When Sanji noticed Chopper, he nodded at him and said, “I’m just filling Mosshead in on the Luffy situation.”
Chopper nodded back. It would be nice if someone could also fill him in on the Luffy situation.
“And I think you’re full of shit,” Zoro sneered.
“No, Zoro, you weren’t there!” chimed in a horrified Usopp from his hammock. “You didn’t see his face when I joked Law leaving might be because of him!”
“This is Luffy we’re talking about.”
Jinbei coughed almost apologetically. “While I admittedly know Luffy the least well, from an entirely objective perspective, I have to agree with Sanji this time.”
The swordsman was aghast. “Luffy. Straw Hat Luffy. With Law. Cook, what did you put in everyone’s food?”
Sanji was about to throw hands. A fight might start after all. “No, listen to me, you nin—”
Luffy chose that moment to walk in, and Chopper never found out what Sanji was going to insult Zoro with. Everyone quieted and tried to look preoccupied. Sanji got up to change into pajamas. Brook pulled out his violin to absently pluck at its strings. Franky pretended to show Usopp a not-so-new feature on his leg.
Only Zoro, who probably hit his head one too many times as a child, went straight to Luffy and asked point blank, “Luffy. Are you in love with Law?”
All the men stopped moving. Finally caught up, Chopper now also thought Sanji had poisoned the crew somehow.
Having just crawled into his hammock, Luffy was still swaying when Zoro ambushed him. The two of them had always been on their own special wavelength, because he blinked straight back at his swordsman, frowned, and replied, “Oh, I totally am!” as though he’d only just realized it himself. Then he said, “You’re so smart, Zoro!” And that almost gave Sanji seizures.
Stunned, Zoro backed into the couch and sat down again. He looked queasy. Chopper considered going back to the infirmary for smelling salts.
With the floodgates opened, Usopp felt it appropriate to jump in, “Whoa! Luffy, this is huge! When did it start?”
“Wait, hang on.” Franky physically pulled him back. “First of all, Luffy, Robin will have my balls again if I don’t ask this: Are you sure this is how you truly feel?”
“I think so?” Luffy thought about it for exactly three seconds. “Yeah, it makes sense!”
Brook was still cautious. “How do you know? How exactly does Law make you feel, Captain?”
Luffy didn’t have to think about it this time. “It’s kinda like how I feel about all of you. I’m happy all the time around him. But it’s different too.”
“How so?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know how to say it. When he’s here, it’s like someone is stretching my insides.”
Franky was still skeptical. “I’m not sure that…”
“And I want to share my lunch with him every day! That’s gotta mean something, right? I don’t even like sharing it with any of you.”
An exasperated groan rose out of the depth of Zoro’s soul.
“Don’t mind the grouchy ball of moss, Luffy! He’s naturally a downer.” Sanji spun around the room. “You’re experiencing your first love! This is beautiful. Congratulations, Captain.”
“I’m not trying to bring anyone down! I just don’t want to see him debasing himself to Law, all googly-eyed, like you do everytime you see a pair of —”
“You’re just mad because you have swords for brains and can’t see the beauty of love even if it hits you over the head!”
Chopper knew the conversation had officially devolved. Luckily, Franky and Jinbei jumped into the fray and pulled the two men apart. Zoro went sulking in a corner to mutter about “useless emotion” by himself, and Sanji fluttered toward Luffy to gossip.
“Have you told him, Luffy? Wait, you just realized it yourself, so you couldn’t have. You have to tell him!”
Luffy pouted. “But why? He thinks I’m loud and annoying. Usopp says so.”
Sanji glared at Usopp, who couldn’t backpedal fast enough. Before the two of them could start bickering, Jinbei said, quietly and fondly, “Luffy… I may be an old bachelor of a fishman, but even I could see that man is head over heels for you.”
“It’s true. I don’t even have eyes and I can tell,” Brook said.
Franky nodded too. “Yup. The guy is already hopeless, Luffy. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
There was a thump and Usopp had fallen to the floor. Chopper thought he saw someone shove him. The sniper pulled himself up and chirped, “Don’t listen to me, Luffy! I was making a joke! A very, very bad joke.”
Thunderclap echoed overhead. The heat broke just as Nami predicted. Within seconds, fat raindrops began pelting the roof of their cabin.
Luffy had to speak a little louder to be heard over the downpour. He sounded lighter now, almost back to his old self, except Chopper had never seen him so unsure of himself. “You think so? You all think so? Should I go tell him now?”
“A little planning can’t hurt,” suggested Sanji. “He’s an insomniac anyway, so that’ll give you some time to light a couple candles and me to whip up a souffle. Brook, can you compose a —”
“Wait a damn moment, all of you!” Zoro shouted. “That bastard just told our captain he’s going to be leaving in two days. Now, to me, that doesn’t sound like a man in love. Before you all send Luffy off to be humiliated, maybe think about it for two seconds. I swear, Curly-Brow’s illness must be contagious because none of you are using your brains.”
The entire men’s cabin blinked at him.
“Well, what do you suggest, Love Guru?” Usopp mocked.
Zoro blinked back. “I don’t fucking know. Leave me out of this.” And he slunk back into the shadows once more.
Sanji rolled his eyes at Zoro so hard Chopper was worried he’d pass out. But Zoro’s words struck a chord, and Jinbei patiently suggested, “Perhaps a conversation to start? Often, the best way to solve a problem is also the most straightforward approach. Why don’t you ask him what prompted his sudden need to depart?”
Silently, Chopper was grateful for Jinbei’s level-headedness. But reason had no audience amongst Straw Hats, because Franky immediately shot it down with, “Asking him questions just means giving him a chance to lie. You know what doesn’t lie? Dick. Just take your pants off and sit on him, Captain. You’ll get your answer.”
“Yohohohoho! What an honest approach! I shall second that motion.”
Sanji’s kick made contact with Brook’s thick skull and sent the skeleton flying into a wall; Franky was able to block the attack aimed at his own head and got away unscathed.
“You two are disgusting,” Sanji huffed. “This is Luffy’s first love. First romance! Luffy, listen, if you decide to surprise him with action instead of words, you have to do it with a soft kiss. You can’t move too fast or he’s going to think you’re easy. We’re not easy, ok? Make sure he knows that.”
From the darkest corner of the room, Zoro could be heard muttering in disbelief, “What the fuck, ‘we’?”
Everyone had decided to ignore the moping swordsman. Franky and Brook were arguing with Sanji regarding the effectiveness of kissing versus more “compelling” action, while Jinbei counseled Luffy on honest two-way communication. The buzz in the cabin was brought to a halt when Usopp asked, “Hold on. Luffy, do you even know what Franky meant?”
A brief silence blanketed the room. Chopper could feel the men tense up in unison, like the strings on Brook’s violin.
“I was raised in a forest, with bandits, and Makino,” Luffy offered as answer. Chopper wasn’t sure who Makino was or what their relation was to bandits. Luffy never really talked about his past unless it was directly related to his present. But from the sounds of it, Luffy knew enough about the birds and the bees.
Somehow Luffy’s candid response brought the entire forum to an end. Chopper didn’t quite understand, but the other men no longer looked comfortable doling out advice after realizing Luffy knew more than any of them had expected. He wondered if it was a human thing; or perhaps a limitation among human males. Perhaps Robin and Nami would have been more useful here.
Chopper was hyper aware of his own uselessness as the lights dimmed and everyone settled into their hammocks and beddings. The dying embers of their previously heated discussion faded into mutual gripes against Law instead, and they all fell asleep grumbling unfavorable suggestions about the surgeon’s character for daring to abandon Luffy.
Chopper didn’t participate. He was just glad no one called him out on his silence. He didn’t feel love or lust the same way humans did. Supposedly he could learn to identify certain pheromones given off by humans that denote desire, but he’d never felt the need to devote energy toward that particular skill. He only knew that Luffy was his captain and Law was his friend, and no matter what happened, he hoped both of them came out of it happy.
For the longest time, Chopper couldn’t sleep. The rain was helpful in drowning out Brook and Usopp’s snores, and usually the swaying of his hammock could lull him to dreaming in no time, but he tasted a bitterness in his mouth. He had been completely and utterly useless tonight.
Long after the time when everyone should have fallen asleep, Chopper heard Luffy murmur, “Stop feeling bad about it. You’re thinking too loud.”
And Chopper almost gasped at Luffy’s perceptiveness, except Zoro immediately replied in the dark, “Luffy… it’s not that I don’t want to be supportive…”
“I know,” Luffy said. “And nothing will change. I promise.”
“So you’re not going to convince him to stay?”
“Nope. I just want him to know. Makino used to say, ‘There’s no such thing as too much love in the world.’ He has his own path, though, and we have ours. Wherever he goes, I think it’d be nice if he knew I love him. Law of all people deserves that, don’t you think?”
Chopper could somehow hear Zoro’s grimace. “That’s too fucking mushy, Luffy. And you say nothing will change. Bullshit.”
Their captain’s returning laughter was soft and airy and a bright warm light in the night. “Go to sleep, Zoro! We’ve got a party to throw tomorrow.”
Zoro huffed. “Fine. But if he ever cheats on you, he’ll have to deal with me first.”
“If he even likes me back.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Luffy. If he wasn’t already stupid for you, I’ll eat my shoe.”
“But earlier you said —”
“I know what I said! Ugh. Go to sleep. You too, Chopper.”
Chopper squeaked, which prompted another laugh from Luffy. The cabin was truly silent after that. Chopper didn’t know when he fell asleep; he was only aware of a few hours later when Nami came in to wake him up for shift change. As he groggily climbed up to the crow’s nest, Chopper thought of a certain bottle he kept in stock in the med bay for special circumstances, and he made a mental note to fetch it for Luffy first thing in the morning.