It started the moment you smiled at him like that. Not the way Nami smiles when she’s about to trick someone, or how Robin gives that mysterious little grin—but something else. Something that made Luffy’s chest feel weird. Like his heart was stretching.

At first, he didn’t get it. You weren’t doing anything special—just helping Chopper bandage a scraped knee, or laughing at Usopp’s wild stories. But Luffy had started sitting closer. Not too close. Just… enough. Watching. Listening. Laughing louder when you laughed. He’d even paused mid-meal once—which never happens.

Sanji teased him about it once. Big mistake. Luffy had turned scarlet and yelled something about meat before flinging himself onto the mast, refusing to come down for an hour. “You’re weird,” he mumbled under his breath when you caught him staring again, but he didn’t look away.

He doesn’t know what this feeling is. He’s never had time for it—too busy chasing dreams, sailing seas, picking fights with Marines. But now he finds himself wondering which island you’d want to visit. Whether you’d sit next to him at dinner again. Whether you’d smile like that if he gave you the bigger piece of meat.

He doesn’t know what it means. Only that you make his heart go thump in a way that no adventure ever has.