Chapter Text
The life cycle of every plant starts with a seed. Inside every seed is all the material needed for its journey. It is important that you have the proper environment to allow your flower to sprout - otherwise, the seed may remain dormant until its conditions are more favorable.
Luffy was a lot of things when she was a baby, but most of these things were relatively on time. Her crawl, when she was around seven months, was more of a frighteningly quick scuttle. At twelve months, Luffy pulled herself up and took off running with a stolen piece of cheese bread in her fist before she’d ever taken an unsupported step. She played and climbed and dunked her hands in water cups and splattered water all over tables when children her age were expected to.
There was one thing that was different, however, and that was talking. Luffy was a very early talker.
The day Makino met Luffy, Mr. Garp had just left, and her dad reentered the bar with a squirming bundle of light green blankets in his arms. It was eight in the evening, just past closing time on the weekdays, so it was just Makino, her dad, and the moving blankets. The night before, Dad had asked her if she’d ever wanted a little sibling. “I’ve thought about it,” Makino had said. Having a little brother or sister to spend time with had crossed her mind mostly when she was younger, whenever Dad was really busy and she wanted someone to stick by her side, but she could never actually decide if she wanted a brother or a sister; either was just fine, she’d thought, though she was always partial to a brother.
With the bundle cradled carefully in his arms, Dad knelt and said, “Makino, I want you to meet Luffy. We’ll be taking care of her for a while,” and Makino leaned in so close she nearly bumped her head into the corner of Dad’s glasses.
Little Luffy had looked up at her with wide dark eyes, made a squeaky noise, and gave her the beginnings of a smile.
Makino was enamored.
Alongside helping her father run the bar, Makino quickly took to helping take care of Luffy. She’d babysat once or twice, but there were never many infants in Foosha—there were only a handful close to Luffy’s age that year—so she would watch her dad make bottles or change diapers or tie a carrier around himself, and then she’d imitate him while he watched. He always said she was wonderful at it. His praise was something Makino cherished.
But she was also twelve years old. So whenever Makino was free—or whenever she was bored—she would often do what any other lone twelve-year-old would do for entertainment: talk to the baby like it understood what she was saying.
It’s not that Makino thought she was directly responsible for Luffy’s early talking, but—well. Her dad said Luffy babbled at her more than anyone else, and the lady whose five kids grew up before Makino was born said that reading and talking to babies helped them learn faster, so that had to mean something, right?
Ever since the day they got her, Makino would talk to Luffy. She’d tell her about things like the weather, the pretty bird she saw, her nice sweater that needed washing because she spilled a guest’s drink all over herself while trying to carry it, her favorite peaches from this one lady down the street so Luffy needs to hurry up and start eating solids so she can try them before they go out of season—anything and everything she could think of, and Luffy would coo and laugh and babble back. She was a natural noisemaker, grown-ups would say, she’ll put the crows to shame when she’s older. Makino hadn’t known first laughs were even a milestone because Luffy’s version of laughing was squealing, and she’d been doing that since she could smile.
“She laughed!” Dad once said, fingers still poised to tickle on Luffy’s tummy.
“She’s been laughing,” said Makino. When Dad gave her an odd look, she shrugged, because to her it was obvious. “You know how she squeals all the time? That’s her laugh. She just doesn’t really know how to laugh right.”
That’s how she learned about the ‘milestone.’ Dad was quite surprised.
Everyday Makino would wake up, kneel by Luffy’s crib and peek through the bars in awe of the fact that she really existed until the little thing decided she was done sleeping, and then Makino would take Luffy into her arms, get her dressed and changed, and bounce downstairs in the way that made Luffy squeal-laugh to say good morning to Dad as he made breakfast. Makino’s favorite thing to do was to chatter or hum when she knew Luffy could hear, while washing the dishes or cleaning tables or prepping the bar, because she knew Luffy would sit in her chair or in her carrier on Dad’s back or in the little basket they bought to give her a place to people-watch and answer Makino with ah! or bah! or ma-ma-ma!
Dad said Luffy really was the chattiest baby he’d ever heard. In response, Luffy squeal-laughed and screamed, “WAH!”
In the middle of the day as the bar was filling up for dinner, a few days after Makino’s thirteenth birthday, Luffy said her first real word. A woman that looked close to Dad’s age was playing with her (with Makino watching them out of the corner of her eye from behind the counter), dangling Luffy’s favorite caterpillar toy above her head. She'd wiggle it, lower it down, then bring it back up when Luffy reached for it. After a few minutes of this, Luffy finally snatched it, clutched it tight in her little fists, and shouted, “Mine!”
The woman smiled like she was reminiscing about something. Makino, however, stared at them with wide eyes, then at her dad who looked just as shocked as she felt, then back at them, and then burst into cheers so loud and sudden that the poor woman jumped.
It took a moment of excited jumping and laughing and doing her very best not to take Luffy out of her little basket because she looked so comfortable, but eventually Makino managed, “That was her first word! You just made her say her first word!” and then the woman was smiling and laughing with them. That woman became one of Dad’s close friends, and one of Makino’s favorite regulars.
Despite all the noise, which had grown louder when Dad started bragging that Luffy just said her first word, Luffy didn’t seem to care. She just giggled and gnawed on the head of her caterpillar, and squeal-laughed when Dad picked her up to bounce her.
“Thank you very much for the late birthday present,” Makino told Luffy as she was getting her ready for bed that night, and Luffy cooed and latched onto her hair and cried, “Mine!”
Although a lot of her speech bordered on gibberish, Luffy’s vocabulary started to grow just as fast as her imagination (and appetite). She was quite fond of “no” and “baba,” which was the word she typically used when she wanted food. Makino was proud; they had the best baby ever.
Six months and ten days after Makino turned fourteen, her father passed away.
They never did find the true cause, but the town’s doctor suspected problems with the heart that had gone undetected. Makino was to take over Party’s Bar, she knew she would—but first, she sat on her bed and cried until her head hurt, then got up with tears still sticky on her cheeks and made sure Luffy was at least satisfied by the time she went to bed.
This went on for several days. It was, decidedly, the worst she had ever done at taking care of Luffy, and even through the heavy cloud of grief in her mind, Makino felt like the worst person ever. She just couldn’t think right.
Luffy was even more of a talker now that she was two. She loved to point at things and shout what they were, or to have Makino point at things so she could make up words for the objects she didn’t know, and she loved narrating during play, and she especially loved yelling “Maki!” anytime Makino walked into the room. Ever since she could pronounce the word “food” correctly, they realized that her still saying “baba” actually meant “Baba,” as in Makino’s dad.
On a particularly cloudy day, Luffy held up one of Dad’s spare glasses and said, “Baba lost it,” and Makino just started crying, and then Luffy cried at her crying.
But Luffy was also, Makino had noticed over the past few weeks, incredibly observant. It was hard to tell if she really understood everything she saw, but she could spot small details and think “that’s wrong,” and then she would try to see if words could fix it. If words didn’t work, she’d try offering a snack next. Makino knew her emotions were really out of control when she almost teared up after Luffy offered to her a piece of the peach she’d been eating.
Luffy was so little, but she was so in tune with how other people felt, it left Makino speechless.
So while she wasn’t sure why Luffy toddled in wearing nothing but her sleep shirt, toddled back out, and then returned wearing the red dress with small yellow flowers she’d gotten as a gift for her birthday but had yet to even look at, she wasn’t surprised when Luffy plopped down onto the mattress beside her and started petting her hair.
“It’s okay,” said Luffy, more of a loud hiss than a whisper, when Makino still couldn’t get her tears to stop a few minutes later. Her pronunciation was clumsy and she still mixed up some words, but Makino never had trouble understanding her. “Maki likes flowers, so I put flowers on for her. I didn’t need no help!”
Despite it all, Makino chuckled, weak and watery. “Thank you very much,” she whispered back. “You didn’t have to do all that. I’m not very dressed for you right now.” And it was true; she had yet to change from her pajamas.
Luffy smiled big enough to make her eyes squint, said, “It’s okay!” and continued stroking Makino’s hair in that uncoordinated but well-meaning way all toddlers moved. For hours, the two of them sat there on the too-big bed, one humming tunelessly and the other sniffling, up until it was time to start making dinner. As she did, Luffy circled her feet and chattered in sentences that were barely strung together properly. Occasionally she’d pause to ask, “Does Maki need her blankey?” to which Makino would respond, “Maybe later,” because her blanket was Dad’s blanket and she was tired of crying and they really did need to eat.
Luffy’s most used words that week were “Maki” and “it’s okay.”
(In the end, Makino had to tell Luffy that she didn’t need to wear the red and yellow dress to make her happy. It was also because she hardly treated it like a dress at all and they couldn’t afford to have a good outfit ruined, but Makino didn’t mention that part. Luffy started taking it off right there behind the counter.)
Luffy was never really one to throw tantrums. Sure, there were times where she was tired and everything was too much for her little brain and she had to either scream or cry to get it out, or there would be something she wanted but couldn’t get and she’d pout as much as she knew how to, but she never threw tantrums.
But sometimes, once she reached the age of four, Luffy would throw complete fits about what she wanted to wear.
It was odd. She didn’t throw herself on the floor and scream about it, but she would look at whatever outfit Makino had set out like it was the most offensive thing she’d ever seen in her short four years of life before putting it on. It didn’t always happen, but when it did, it stuck with Makino for hours, even though Luffy eventually went on with her day like nothing had ever bothered her.
There was one particular instance where, while they were in the middle of cleaning the bar after closing together, Luffy had carefully set down the glass cup she was holding on the counter, then stepped back and just started bawling. Makino was distraught, trying to ask what happened, if she was hurting anywhere, if she needed any help, but Luffy just shook her head and pointed at her chest.
“Does your chest hurt?” Makino had asked. Shaking her head again, Luffy tugged on her top. She was wearing a citrus-colored dress with white details swirling across the ruffles that sprouted from her middle. “Is it your clothes?” A nod. “Do you not like it? Oh, I’m sorry!”
Oddly, Luffy shook her head again. “I like it,” she said, choked up and watery. “But I don’t like it on me.”
Makino, having gone through her own bout of insecurities, brief as it was, had been worried. “Honey, is something making you feel bad about yourself? Or someone?” She’s not sure what toddlers could be insecure about, but she wasn’t going to doubt that it never happened.
“No,” Luffy croaked. Her tears were slowing down now. “I just don’t want it. It feels no good. I want it off now.”
So they went upstairs to change. Makino found a plain pastel yellow shirt and a pair of her old drawstring shorts from the box in the closet Dad never got rid of and gave them to Luffy. The bottoms were a little loose, but Luffy was happy enough with the change and declared, “No more Honey!” before escaping outside like she hadn’t just given Makino a special glimpse on what heart attacks felt like.
There was still cleaning to be done, so she went back downstairs and started picking up the cups Luffy had missed. But the incident never left her mind, and she never stopped wondering what caused the sudden outburst when it had never been so bad before. What was the “Honey” Luffy was so happy to be rid of?
(Later, Makino would look back on this day and feel like kicking herself.)
Makino is eighteen. She knows she’s not grown up, and sometimes she doesn’t feel very much like the woman she has to be—the woman she wants to be—but she’s grown, and she prides herself in being someone who notices the little things.
Dad was a smart man who raised Makino to be a smart girl; he was always letting others know how Makino excelled at reading and writing despite the village lacking a proper school. She was good at puzzles, skilled at problem solving, and she could wrangle someone’s words and shape them to mean something else entirely long before she’d been allowed to make her first Vodka Soda. Living in a bar meant learning to watch for certain cues that would help you know if you needed to smile, apologize, or drag someone out. It’s what’s kept her and Luffy safe, especially in these last few years.
So Makino knows her girl. She knows her favorite colors, and foods, and games, and what songs she likes to hear in the morning, during the day, and before bed (most of them are shanties she picked up from sailors and the rare foreigner). She knows that sometimes Luffy prefers simple clothes over dresses and skirts because sometimes she likes to get dirty and other times she can’t stand the way they feel. Makino will take that over her coming home with her clothes tattered and ripped; in fact, just last week, as they’d been looking for a new pair of shorts to replace one of her old pairs, Makino bought her a t-shirt from the boys side of the shop—white with a dark blue ship riding the ocean’s waves embroidered on it—because Luffy loved the design and they couldn’t find anything like it in the girls section. Makino knows that that shirt and the light blue shorts they found to match is Luffy’s favorite outfit.
She loves that outfit so much, in fact, that Makino has to convince her to change so that she’s not wearing the same thing everyday. “You don’t want it to get all dirty and smelly, do you?” she always has to say, and Luffy will pout and finally retreat upstairs to change into something else. It’s fortunate they started buying more play clothes.
So Makino knows Luffy is more tomboyish, and that’s fine. Honestly, it makes outfits easier to salvage. She knows Luffy has odd interests, but she frankly does not care. A woman had once come up to Makino while she was wiping down the bar top, one eye on Luffy who was playing outside by the window, and told her, “I can’t believe you let her play with bugs all day. Don’t you think it’s dirty?” Makino had just stared at her until the woman pursed her lips and made an awkward escape. If Luffy wants to catch beetles and ferry caterpillars from the path to a branch, then she can catch beetles and ferry caterpillars. There are bound to be other kids who do the same.
Makino has raised this child since she was a child herself. She knows Luffy, and Luffy knows her, as much as a five-year-old even can.
But right now, as Luffy sits in her favorite outfit with her knees pulled up to her chest on the steps of Party’s Bar even after Makino told her she could go play, Makino is finding that there are still some things she missed.
“I was with them,” Luffy insists, after Makino asked why she wasn’t out there with the other girls. “But I don’t think they like me.”
Hm. Makino hasn’t heard about that. She’ll have to ask their parents later. “Well, why don't you play with Fina and Hoshimi? I’m sure they’ll be happy to include you.” Fina and Hoshimi aren’t as close to the bar as the girls Luffy said didn't like her, but they always play by the beach, being the daughters of fishermen, and Luffy adores the beach. If she weren’t so young, she’d be going out there everyday.
“I don’t wanna play with Fina and Homi. They’re too weak,” Luffy says bluntly. “The only bugs they like are butterflies and ladybugs, and they cry when I push them and say I don’t know how to play like a lady.”
Frowning, Makino settles down on the step beside her. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“They said—” Luffy starts, and then stops. For a moment, she actually seems to hesitate, furrowing her brows and rubbing her finger over the band-aid on her knee. Finally, she says, “Homi said that it’s bad to wear boy clothes, because then people will think I’m a boy when I’m not.” When she looks up at Makino, her expression is sour. “Is that true?”
“Ah.” Makino leans back, raking her eyes over Luffy’s form. Admittedly, her hair is a little short, since there was an incident that involved twigs and far too much mud and Makino decided she was better off keeping her hair at a less-likely-to-tangle length. Upon seeing her reflection, the girl had beamed. “Well, I don’t quite think so,” Makino says as she resettles on the step. “Sure, you’re wearing boy clothes, but it’s not wrong. People won’t mistake you for a boy. You still have your dresses, after all.”
Luffy tilts her head. “But what if I like wearing boy clothes?”
“Then wear boy clothes,” says Makino.
“But Homi said people would think…”
Luffy trails off, gaze drifting to the side like it does when she’s thinking harder than she usually cares to. Then her face lights up. “No, that’s okay! I don’t care what she thinks anyway!”
Makino grins. “That’s the spirit!”
The two of them snicker together. The next time Makino encounters Hoshimi’s mom at the square, she’s going to give that woman her best glare until she feels unsettled enough to leave.
Later, as Makino’s setting down their plates for dinner, Luffy puts her glass of orange juice down and announces, “I still don’t get what Homi was saying.” She’s changed into her sleep pants, but she refused to change out of her shirt yet. Not even the shirt with the stylized hound dog, which had been Luffy’s previous favorite, can compare to the shirt with the ship.
Makino slides into her seat at the counter, next to her baby. “About the boy clothes?”
“Uh-huh!” Through her mouthful of corn, Luffy says, “Why’s what I wear so impotent?”
“Important,” Makino corrects with a smile.
“Important,” Luffy echoes. “Why does Homi care so much?”
Taking a bite of her own food, Makino hums thoughtfully. “I guess,” she says after swallowing, “boy clothes were made with boys in mind, and girl clothes were made with boys in mind. Some people think that means only boys can wear boy clothes, and only girls can wear girl clothes.”
Luffy listens raptly. “What's so different?” she asks.
A good question. What is so different? “Well, some workplaces and schools have uniforms. That means the people have an outfit they need to wear when they work.” At Luffy’s confused look, Makino chuckles. “For example, there are some places where the boys wear dress shirts and pants, and the girls wear skirts or dresses.”
Almost immediately, Luffy’s face scrunches up. “I don’t wanna do that!”
Makino laughs. “You don’t have to!”
“Good! They can’t make me!” Luffy falls quiet after her declaration, quickly scooping her dinner into her mouth before it can go cold. It’s an odd time to bring up a topic such as this one, Makino thinks; Luffy has always been eat first, think later. That she thought to ask Makino about a silly comment a mean girl said hours ago can only mean it bothered her more than she’s letting on. But why? Luffy loves her clothes.
Oh, have they been teasing her where others can’t hear? In all her years of being her caretaker, Makino has never seen Luffy as any kind of shy, but too much teasing can get to anyone’s head—especially impressionable five-year-olds, who absorb everything they hear. And that’s another thing to worry about; are Fina and Hoshimi’s parents aware of what their daughters say? Are they the ones who taught them to say that? Should Makino confront them if they are? She’s only eighteen. These people are real, fully grown adults.
Seas, she despairs internally. Dad didn’t tell me anything about how to take care of bullies.
“Luffy,” says Makino. The girl perks up. “Can I ask why you wanted to ask me about what Hoshimi said?”
Blinking, Luffy swallows. “Oh, Homi?” Unlike before, where she’d sounded almost nervous to tell Makino what Hoshimi had said, Luffy sounds perfectly at ease now. “She was stupid, but she made me think really hard, and now I’m done thinking.”
“Oh?” Makino tilts her head, putting her fork down. “And what were you thinking about?”
She expects a simple answer—something like “I wanna keep wearing boy clothes!” or “I’ll ignore her!” since Makino had once told her to do that if anyone was bothering her. Luffy may be a five-year-old with an overactive imagination, but she’s still a five-year-old. There are only so many things their little minds can comprehend. Makino knows Luffy, she knows she does, so she thinks what she expects is what’s going to happen.
What Makino does not expect is for Luffy to beam up at her, earnest as she always is, and shout, “I’ll just be a boy!”
Instinctively, Makino smiles. It’s something she learned to do, way back when she’d just began training, whenever something surprised her but she knew it’d be rude to let it show. “Oh?” is all she says, but somehow, that single word makes Luffy deflate.
“You think I’m weird,” she mutters.
“No!” It comes out louder than Makino intended. “No, no, Luffy, I don’t think you’re weird, just—you aren’t—I mean, what do you mean by that?” Where did this come from? she doesn’t add.
Luffy shrugs, feet swinging. “I always feel like a boy,” she murmurs, like she heard the thought anyway. Makino curses herself for making her feel embarrassed. “If I was never a girl, I could play and wear whatever I want, and I could tell Homi that I dress like a boy because I am a boy, and everything would be right.”
“Luffy…” Something in Makino fractures a little. Abandoning her plate, she moves to kneel by the stool, putting her head a little lower than Luffy’s, who pouts down at her. “Luffy, you know you don’t have to change yourself for anyone, right? It’s—it’s okay to be a girl and wear boy clothes.”
Luffy only shakes her head. “That’s not right!” she cries. “That’s just being a girl in boy clothes! I’m supposed to be a boy in boy clothes! No Honey!”
Makino hurriedly rubs her hand up and down Luffy’s shoulders. “Okay,” she says, “okay. I understand, Luffy. Don’t worry so much about it, okay? No—no Honey, I understand. Honey can leave.”
Sniffling, Luffy lowers her head. “I don’t know,” she mumbles.
”You don’t know what?”
”I don’t know.”
Makino bites her lip. This isn’t how she meant for this to go. “Then let’s go to bed. Okay? Sleep is always good.”
”Okay.”
They go through the routine of getting ready for bed together. Luffy brushes her teeth, Makino brushes her hair, then she carries Luffy to her room to get dressed. Except this time, now that Makino’s paying attention, Luffy seems a little more despondent as she takes off her favorite shirt and puts it in the dirty clothes basket. She crawls into bed, and Makino tucks her in and hums quietly until she falls asleep, sprawled across the mattress with her stuffed monkey by her head. Makino runs a hand over Luffy’s hair for a few long, worried moments, then retreats to her own room, sitting down hard on the mattress.
“I understand,” she’d said.
The pieces are rapidly falling into place; when Luffy put that red and yellow dress for Makino on despite never sparing it the time of day before, or when she threw fits over wearing different clothes, or when she looked so happy with her hair cut short and wild and never seemed to have fun playing with other girls her age. Despite the village calling her their smart young woman, Makino doesn’t feel very smart at all. It takes a minute, but she’s able to recognize what this is. But is it just a phase? Someone once told her that children go through phases all the time, and Makino knows that—she went through a few of her own, she’s sure—but when she tries to apply that to what Luffy said, it leaves a sour taste in her mouth.
No, it was serious. Luffy may be five, but she’s smart—she’s never had trouble expressing her feelings, and she’s flat-out told Makino before that she hates people who say things they don’t mean. Luffy herself can’t even lie about something as simple as stealing food when she wasn’t supposed to. The conversation from earlier couldn’t have been anything but genuine.
Her girl wants to be a boy. Not a boyish girl—a boy.
“Okay,” Makino says to her floorboards. Okay. If that’s what Luffy wants, that’s what Luffy will get.
Now, they just need to figure out how to make it work.