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There’s a certain romance to the way you live now, you think about it a lot, in the quiet of the evening when the sun’s heat abates, the birds stop their calling and all that’s left are the sounds of swaying trees and the constant churning of the ocean. In your world, you never got to just enjoy the sounds of nature like this.
No cars, no police sirens, no blaring music, no planes. Just the wind and the water.
It’s serene. That’s the most standout thing you can say about One Piece, now that you’ve lived in the East Blue for yourself, rather than just reading about it. The people here live a simple life, work for their bread and keep to their own communities. It’s not a bad life, just different from the one you lived in the modern, suburban world you came from.
You’d been reborn as an orphan child, and by all accounts now lived “all your life” here, and were one of these island people. You’re an unremarkable person, perhaps the most vulnerable thing you can be in this world, and the only notable thing about you is the company you keep. For, much to your shock—and at first awe—you were reborn on an island that was also the home of the Pirate King himself.
Well, he wasn’t the pirate king when you met him. He was a young boy with a head of ruffled hair and a missing front tooth, who grabbed your hand and took you off on adventure after adventure until you eventually relented and became his friend.
Now the both of you were grown, and you’re not quite sure what you were. You tried not to be anything at all, far too afraid of what it would mean. Though your bodies were both about twenty, your mind contained that of two lifetimes, which made you feel strangely about befriending (or dating) anyone.
Not to mention you knew what he would become—and you didn’t want to interfere in that. Roger wasn’t just your childhood friend, he would be a martyr, a modern legend.
Yet, he was a stubborn fool, and he refused to let you detangle yourself from his life. Much to your chagrin, you are very much entangled. As friends? Something more? The one thing that you and he can agree on, is that you’d rather not give a title to whatever this was. Though that doesn’t stop the old ladies in town from gossiping about the pair of you, and how close you are.
That is why your ears sharpen as you wake and notice that there should be a few more sounds flittering around the tree house you live in, at the edge of the jungle. Namely, the heavy (often snoring) breathing patterns of a figure who will one day be of notorious reputation (but for now remains a local hooligan). The quiet is actually so alarming that you’re quickly blinking awake and sitting up.
“Roger?” You ask out into the darkness.
Nothing responds to you. Not even a stilted scuffle, like he normally makes when he’s trying to hide that he’s gotten up too early, or that he’s been out late causing trouble. Those nights he’ll filch and fuss as you try to treat his bruises and cuts, and tell you a grandiose story about his nightly adventure that you only half believe.
Gol D. Roger is not the kind of young man you expected him to be. He was very bookish when the two of you were very young, but still more prone to starting fights than seemed rationally possible. But the rational and normal seemed to melt away from Roger’s life, you watched it happen with your own eyes, and so learned to accept it.
He’s been acting antsy lately and you know why. He’s been researching things he shouldn’t be, and you may have slipped out a few pieces of lore you should have no way of knowing, accidently pushing him down the path he was already destined for. He wants answers to questions he doesn’t even know to ask yet, and the tides call him.
That and tomorrow is his birthday, or if that blue color outside is not from the moon but the first signs of dawn, and it’s actually his birthday today.
You stumble out of bed, grabbing a robe and throwing it on over your nightgown. Basically half-blind, you wander out into the land around this place you now call a home with him, though it hurts too much to ever call it that. Then there you see him, his silhouette against the slightly aglow blue of the water and he’s walking out towards the docks.
“Roger!”
It’s a miracle he stops at all, not when he’s got the sense of adventure about his step.
But for you, he turns back smiling like he hasn’t got a care in the world, but he’s got dreams in his eyes so big they couldn’t be contained by the ocean. You can see them so clearly, even though you’re both awake.
This day is coming so much sooner than you thought it would—though you always knew that he would be leaving. He was too young, too green, too precious, too everything to go out on that water and leave you behind. It hurt too much to watch him walk away, even if you knew there was no way to ever keep him from going.
You’re locked up in these feelings.
Stuck between an almost motherly need to protect him from the hardness of the world he’ll help to shape, and the sinking dread of never seeing him again, like a wife waving off her husband before he goes to war. It all comes crashing down on you at once, and much too late, that you’re desperately, devastatingly in love with him.
He stops with a swagger and looks your way, “Hey there, sugar.”
Damn him, he’s insufferably charming, even now that you know what he’s up to. Still, you’re almost desperate to convince him to stay. This feeling seized you, literally chasing you up from bed and out here, like you just knew he would be here, looking longingly out at the sea just before dawn. Those immortal words he’ll say to Rayleigh and start his adventure already brewing on his tongue. You don’t know how you know, but you just do.
“If you leave, it’ll be the death of you, you know that right?” You practically whisper, and his smile falls. Not to a frown, just to a thoughtful little tilt of his head.
“Are you on about this again? Everybody goes one day.” He shrugs, oh so flippant about his life. Like he always is. “Staying on land’s not going to stop that. And, you know, you’ve never told me what big bad thing is going to get me out there. I love a good legend.”
People. You think bitterly. People and greed.
But that would be too mundane for him to take seriously, so you just shake your head. “The biggest monster of all of them. I promise you that.”
He puffs out his chest, “Well, I hope it’s a great big beast then. Even if it kills me, someone in my crew will surely live to tell the tale—wouldn’t that be something! Do you think people will tell stories about me, like they do the old greats?”
Tears nearly spring up to your eyes, because they will. They will tell stories of him. But you can’t tell him that. It’ll make his head too big, make him reckless, and he’s already cocky enough.
“Being great has a price.” Is all you manage, choking on the words.
Of course, he doesn’t take you seriously. He hardly ever does. You pout when he just laughs at you.
“You worry too much, you always do. How about this…. Before that happens, I’ll come back here for you. Just to prove you wrong.” He teases, like he knows you’ll never take to the seas like he's about to.
“Or right.” You mutter back and he laughs.
He steps towards you, sounding so sincere, as he always does. And though you know he’s not one to make promises like that lightly, you can’t believe him. You don’t even think it’s in his will to keep that promise, because you know how his story ends. You know how all their stories end, and it’s not with him returning to you.
There’s no fight in you when he steps across the careful physical boundaries you’ve spent years mapping out. Like he only ever minded them to please you, and any moment he could have made you cast them all away (and you probably would have thanked him for relieving you of the burden.)
You’re so wrapped up in your thoughts, you miss how he leans in. How he mistakes your parted lips and the wetness in your eyes as a confession to feelings you’d never dare speak aloud (it’s not a mistake, he’s right, you’re a coward with words but you also have the fiercest heart he’s ever known.) This is not just a friend leaning in to give a supportive hug, it’s his lips hovering over yours for a baited breath before they meet.
Chaste at first, just the soft yet rough texture of his lips on yours, his beard tickling your skin. Then you grab him, with the ferocity of years of yearning, holding him to you as his hands grab around your waist. Something is jealous about the way his fingers finally grip your sides and pull your hips to his. The friction is painfully inadequate, you want him so much you could cry and beg for him. But you don’t—he wouldn’t listen to the pleas anyway.
He pulls back, leaving you gasping for air. He doesn’t go far, just far enough that his lips brush against yours when he speaks, sparking feelings you never wanted to acknowledge let alone admit to anyone (including yourself).
“I’ll come back.” He promises one last time.
And it breaks your heart, because as much as you want to believe him, you can’t. Maybe he sees that in your eyes, and the fire you see reflecting back at you is his determination to prove you wrong. You just smile, albeit weakly, and wish him good luck on his way. He walks away, while you stand there watching his figure disappear, trying to memorize the shape of his shoulders and the curl of his hair.
The sun eventually rises where he was, blinding you until almost noon before the stupor wears off. You never go back to the tree house, and Roger was gone before midday.
Even though he leaves, his presence haunts you.
Time passes—decades even—and with them you try not to linger too much on that last, fateful parting. A treacherous, traitorous part of your heart holds onto the words he whispered against your lips. A part of you hopes that it’s true, and that he’ll remember his little old childhood friend after all those years he’s spending making history on the Grand Line.
The hope keeps you alone your whole life—the love of one Gol D. Roger cannot be replaced, and you think he must have loved you on some level and no matter how low a level that love was you can’t betray it. You even tried, it’s not like men aren't interested in you, but you can never say yes to them. This makes for a lonely, so very lonely, life, but you do live. You love your island, and your community. You do your labor and are loved by your friends, but your bed is cold.
Despite how you behave, deep in your heart you know you’re not the one he returns to. He finds Portgas D. Rouge, a woman beyond all others, a living sacrifice to the bloodline of D, who could do the impossible and hide her precious son from the world. He loves her, and she gives him Ace.
You were not that woman and her fate wasn’t yours. The truth of it leaves a burning despair in you, an unfillable hole that is the home of your longing.
Yet, you watched for him in the way you could, all the way out in the East Blue. Every scrap of news was treated with such care, clips of papers hidden in scrap books full of his accomplishments. You compared his journey to what you already knew he would do, keeping track of the passing years by comparing the two.
Though you tried to appear like you don’t care about his coming and goings to the other islanders (they always thought you were strange, after the first few years of trying to get used to living in this world when you were a child, so they let you keep to yourself). Thirty-five years pass, faster than you thought they would, and you know it’s the end when the news goes quiet.
There are rumors that his fleet has disbanded. People talk about Roger like he’s a criminal or a thug, but you know the truth. Sooner than later, he’ll turn himself in, and the last piece of news that will finish your books will be the one that starts One Piece, the moment that hooked you into the show and will now break your heart into pieces that will never come back together.
Once you realized that it was really coming to pass, no matter how unfair it seemed to you, you spend more time drinking than you have ever before. The bar has become something of a second home, alcohol doing the bare minimum at keeping you from drowning in a sorrow that’s yet to overtake.
You haven’t been in there long when you hear the swinging door to the salon sway and squeak. You don’t even look to see who comes in, you don’t care if it’s locals or some crew from a ship fresh in. You don’t care, in a despondent, depressive way. You spent years and years hiding behind helpfulness and a smile. The disappointment you feel in yourself for being unable to save Roger (a goal you tried so long to hide you had) just breaks your soul too much to hide.
Since the news went quiet, it’s been like counting down the seconds before a bomb drops, just hopeless waiting for the moment your world ends. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen him, the wounds still feel fresh, and his death will either kill you too or finally let you move on from him.
Like that’ll ever happen. You sigh to yourself and take a swig of your drink.
There’s a shift in the air, though you think it must just be from the sea.
“Hey there, sugar.”
That voice. It makes the hair on the back of your neck rise up. Slowly, like you’re underwater, you turn to face him.
There he is, Gol D. Roger, in all his glory.
He looks older, of course he does, but he still does his mustache like you remember (and helped him keep up before he got good at grooming himself). He’s gotten big and burly, with lines of age under his eyes that only make him more handsome. The sun has left his skin leathery and tan, some gray has flecked into his hair, and he radiates a sense of power and steadiness that hits you like a wave. It uplifts you instantly and yet you stay totally frozen.
You know he’s ill, can see the tiredness on him, and yet he’s everything you remember and more.
“You know,” he appraises you too with a flicker of his eyes, “you look even better than I remember.”
This isn’t right, you think, he can’t be here. He should be with that unknowable someone, falling in love and sparking the first flame of life into the coming generation of pirates—the pirates that will save the world.
And maybe he has.
Maybe he’s done all of that, and this is his last stand before he heads off to turn himself in to the marines. Or maybe you’ve taken the place of that poor woman, and you’ll have to do the impossible, just like she did. Or maybe just by being, you’ve changed things so much that nothing you know will ever come to pass at all.
But when you stand up, toppling the bar chair over and throwing yourself into his arms, it turns out you don’t really care if the story stays the same or not. You love Roger, and it turns out, he loves you too, and no one keeps a pirate from their treasure—not even a fate that’s meant to be written in stone.
“Told ya I’d come back.” He whispers next to your neck. “Want to go on one last trip with me? You know, like we used to do when we were kids?”
You might not make a sound, but your cheeks are wet with huge glossy tears that will stain the shoulder of his giant coat (not that he cares). He’s never forgotten you, how could he? He’d fallen for your strange brand of strength the moment he met you, stubbornness and all. (And he knew you would always be waiting for him, just like you did).
And in the end, you were right even if he didn’t want you to be about this particular topic. (He should have known better than to think he’d ever prove you wrong. Even as kids you were always right, though despite your best attempts he just couldn’t be kept out of trouble.)
Greatness has a price, and he’s paying it in the last days of his life. But he wouldn’t want to spend those days with anyone else.
Finally, there’s a crack in your voice, and you hold him just a little tighter before giving your answer.
“Of course.”