Chapter Text
The sake bottle was empty when he brought it to his lips for the last time, but Ace kept squeezing the neck as if he could wring out a few more drops of oblivion. The slippery glass slid through his fingers and fell to the floor, rolling somewhere his blurred vision couldn't follow.
The bitterness was no longer just from the drink. It was the taste of the vomit threatening to rise, it was the taste of Marco's words echoing in the empty apartment, it was the taste of himself, rotten, useless, a dead weight tied to the ankles of the people he loved most, keeping them from running.
The kairoseki bracelet on his wrist was a gift from Marco, it was their one-year anniversary, back then he remembered commenting that he would like to know what being drunk felt like, since his akuma no mi didn't allow alcohol to circulate in his bloodstream long enough to have any effect before burning it all away… how ironic, Ace thought, staring at the jewel, it was a fire opal, a rare stone from the East Blue, from his homeland, he couldn't throw it away.
His back sank into the sofa, the rough fabric against his hot skin. His fingers tangled in his own black hair and pulled, as if he could rip the thoughts out by the roots. The tears came hot, tracing familiar paths down his cheeks, dripping to his neck, getting lost in the collar of the wrinkled shirt he had been wearing for two days.
Marco was right, wasn't he?
The question pounded against the walls of his skull, and each beat hurt. He was a distraction. He was useless. He was a burden on his little brother's back, he noticed the worried looks every day. What kind of older brother does that? What kind of man needs his younger sibling to hold his hand to cross the street, he didn't need to be reminded to eat, so why would he need Luffy to keep him from drowning his own existence?
The movement to get up was clumsy, a crawl at first, his hands seeking support on the arm of the sofa, then on the cold floor. His legs trembled as he tried to stand, his feet tripping over each other as if they had forgotten their own function. In the corner of the wall, the dark wooden shelf held pictures, and one of them, the one showing him, Luffy, Sabo, Uta, and their parents as children, smiling in Dawn, was turned around. The image facing the wood.
Ace didn't remember turning it. He didn't remember much, actually.
The bathroom door creaked under his trembling fingers, and the cold light of the white tiles cut into his retina like a blade. He squinted, feeling his stomach lurch, and fell to his knees in front of the toilet. The porcelain was freezing against his hands as he leaned on it, his forehead breaking out in a cold sweat.
Consciousness returned in waves, the first when his stomach clenched in a dry heave, the second when the acid burned his throat on the way up. He vomited, once, twice, until nothing was left but bitter bile and the metallic taste of having destroyed himself a little more. His body weighed tons. His arms trembled so much they could barely hold his weight, and he felt his face slip against the edge of the toilet, his cheek sticking to the cold porcelain.
That was when the hand came.
Warm. Steady. Tracing slow circles on his back, right between his shoulder blades, where the tension gathered like a blind knot.
"Ace, are you okay?"
The voice came from far away, muffled as if filtered through water. But he knew that voice. He had known it for as long as he could remember existing. He knew it on the good days and on the days when the world collapsed.
Ace shook his head, the movement small, almost imperceptible. He couldn't manage more than that. His stomach lurched again, and he felt the acid rise once more, burning his already irritated pharynx, tearing out another spasm that made his entire body shake.
When he managed to breathe again, gasping, his vision still swimming in fog and tears, the silhouette slowly came into focus. Sleep-mussed black hair. Eyes too big, too dark, too frightened for someone who should have been asleep for hours. The crumpled yellow t-shirt, the random shorts, bare feet on the cold bathroom floor.
Luffy.
His little brother.
Ace swallowed hard, tasting the horrible flavor in his mouth, feeling the weight of his body, his soul, the entire world on his back. And yet, even there at rock bottom, even with Marco's words still bleeding inside him, he found the strength to open his mouth.
"Sorry for waking you up this late.”
The voice came out hoarse, crumbled, almost a whisper. And Luffy's hand kept drawing circles on his back, as if he hadn't said anything, as if apologies were completely irrelevant.
Luffy helped Ace to his feet and put him under the shower, not caring about getting his own clothes wet or taking off his brother's. The cold water hit Ace's back like a shock, and he held his breath for a moment, his muscles tense under the icy impact.
"Are you better?" Luffy asked when Ace finally lifted his face to face the water.
Ace didn't say a word. He just let the water run through his black hair, forming paths that ran down his face and disappeared into the drain. The marks of his freckles seemed dimmer under the cold bathroom light, or maybe it was just the unusual paleness taking over his skin.
Luffy turned around, his bare feet making small puddles on the wet floor. "I'll get a towel." He already had his hand on the doorknob when he hesitated, his fingers tightening around the cold metal. "Thought I should call Sabo or—"
"NO, I… I'm fine" Ace's voice cut through the air, firmer than Luffy expected, but still fragile as wet paper. "I just had a bad day."
Luffy held the door ajar, his face partially lit by the hallway light. "Ace—"
"I'm fine, Luffy." This time it was quicker, almost automatic, like a rehearsed response. As if he had said it so many times that the words came out on their own.
Luffy felt his chest tighten, he tasted something gray, lately he had been hearing sounds he hadn't heard in a long time. He turned completely back toward the bathroom, his eyes fixed on his brother's silhouette behind the fogged glass. The water kept falling, and Ace remained still, his hands braced against the wall tiles as if he needed that contact to keep from collapsing.
"You're not." Luffy's voice came out lower than he expected, but it carried a weight that didn't match his seventeen years. "Because you keep saying that when it's not true."
He felt his eyes burn. He didn't want to cry, not in front of Ace, not now. But the worry he had been swallowing for weeks, for months, was starting to spill over the edges.
"I need to tell Dad what's happening." The words came out hurried, as if he needed to get them out before he lost his courage.
The water kept falling. The sound filled the silence that followed, a white noise that made everything more bearable and more unbearable at the same time.
"I'm fine, Luffy." Ace lifted one hand from the tile to push the wet hair away from his face. The movement was slow, heavy. "I would say something if I wasn't. I just need some time."
Time. Luffy had heard that before. It was always time. Time to heal, time to process what was happening, time to get over it. But time passed and Ace remained there, in that same place, pretending everything was fine while drowning in silence.
"Promise?" The question came out before Luffy could stop it. It was childish, he knew. Promises didn't mean much when it came to his brother's feelings. But he needed to hear it.
Ace sighed. A tired sound, too old for someone with only twenty-one years of life. The wet strands fell over his eyes again, but Luffy could see the movement of his head, the way his shoulders rose and fell before the answer.
"I promise."
It wasn't convincing. It was a tingling on the skin and a taste of green banana peels, maybe it was uncertainty, Luffy realized. But it was what he had for now. It was what Ace could give in that moment.
Luffy nodded, even knowing that Ace probably couldn't see it. His fingers found the doorknob again, and this time he left, closing the door carefully behind him, as if loud noises could break something.
The hallway was dark. The only light came from the living room window, where the streetlights cast an orange tone over the furniture. Luffy leaned against the wall for a moment, feeling the cold plaster through his thin t-shirt, and let his eyes wander across the space.
The apartment was small, but it had been theirs for three years. Three years since they left their childhood home, since Ace passed the entrance exam to become a great lawyer and ran through the house screaming as if he had won the lottery. Luffy still remembered the scene with painful clarity: Ace jumping off the sofa, knocking over a pile of magazines, almost slipping on the rug as he made a lap around the dining room with his arms wide open. He had been fifteen at the time and Ace had just turned eighteen.
"I passed! Holy shit, I passed!"
Beckman had to put down a pile of paperwork and unresolved documents, coming out of the office still wearing his reading glasses, a huge smile lighting up his face. Shanks put his glass down on the counter so quickly he almost knocked it over, running to hug his oldest son. Luffy threw himself onto Ace's back, and the three of them fell onto the sofa in a tangle of arms and legs and laughter.
Beckman had to drive two hours to find an open store because Shanks, in the height of his excitement, decided to make a cake and managed to burn not one, but three. The kitchen smelled like smoke for days, and Shanks swore up and down that the recipe was wrong. While they waited for Beckman to come back, the redhead opened one of the imported bottles he saved for special occasions and called Mihawk just to brag.
"See? My son is going to be a lawyer. A LAWYER, Dracule. What's your daughter doing again? Traveling around the Grand Line and filming stories for the internet? That's not a profession!!"
Mihawk hung up on him. Shanks laughed as if he had won a battle. Ace remembered apologizing to Perona later, on a video call with his friends in the middle of the night.
Uta wrote a song about how amazing her brother was. It was fun to hear her sing and watch Ace's face turn red with embarrassment while being praised. Ace was silly, he always got embarrassed when people told the truth.
Grandpa showed up in the late afternoon. Somehow he managed to get released early from his duties in the Navy, wearing that same wrinkled jacket as always and a real cake under his arm, bought from the bakery, because he wasn't idiot enough to try competing with Shanks in the kitchen. He spent the entire night trying to convince Ace to pursue a career in the district attorney's office, or any other position in the ministry, or anything that involved "catching pirates."
"You have a talent for it, kid. What's so great about being a lawyer? A prosecutor or a judge is another level."
Ace rolled his eyes, but Luffy saw the smile he hid behind his glass. 'Stupid grandpa,' Luffy thought back then, when would he understand that none of them wanted to follow in his footsteps in the navy? As if anyone could make Ace give up on something once he set his mind to it.
When Luffy decided to move in with Ace, no one asked or tried to stop him. Shanks and Beckman were busy with the business expansion. The branch in Elbaf was finally coming together, and the territory expansion required constant travel, endless meetings, sleepless nights, and last-minute trips to deal with "the garbage."
Not that Shanks couldn't visit them… actually, he couldn't visit them, at least not often. All flights to the New World had a layover in Mary Geoise, and he promised never to set foot in that cursed city again. That meant landing in Sabaody, taking a ship, crossing Fish-Man Island, and then catching another flight toward Foodvalten. On top of all that, Shanks insisted on traveling on his own ship, the Red Force. That meant longer journeys across the vast ocean. He didn't mind at all, after all, the sea was his home.
Sabo had just left for abroad, working with Dragon on projects that fifteen-year-old Luffy didn't fully understand yet, but that seemed important.
It was natural. Ace needed someone to split the rent with, and Luffy wanted to leave home too. Explore the world, even if it was just a new city, a new apartment, a new life.
In the beginning, it was perfect. There were video calls every Sunday. Shanks always called to check in, and sometimes they could see Beckman in the background handling the paperwork that Shanks found too boring to pay attention to. Makino sent frozen homemade meals through a delivery service. Sabo showed up on holidays with gifts from places Luffy couldn't pronounce.
Grandpa made a point of visiting sometimes, always with some flimsy excuse, always with some unsolicited advice, and for some reason, Sabo and Uta shared the position of favorite grandchildren, both for different reasons. Sabo made periodic calls to check on how their grandfather was doing, although it seemed more like an interrogation with the number of compromising questions Garp didn't mind answering. Uta, on the other hand, helped their grandfather badmouth pirates, after all, 'what's the point of being free if your freedom depends on other people's suffering?'
Go figure out your grandfather's head.
They were happy. Luffy was sure of it.
So… when did everything start to fall apart?
Maybe it was that damn Wednesday, two years ago, the day everything started to go right… or not.
A few months after the move to Foodvalten, the routine had already settled in like a strange creature, half-tamed, half-wild. Ace was in his first exams of law school, and that meant sleepless nights, books stacked in unstable towers on every flat surface of the apartment, post-its stuck to the fridge with illegible codes that only he understood, and nerves on edge turning small things into big tragedies.
At first, Luffy thought it was funny.
It was funny to come home to the small market where he had a part-time job and find his older brother hunched over a mountain of books at the kitchen table, cheek smushed against the open pages, soft snoring filling the silence of the apartment. Luffy took off his shoes carefully so as not to wake him, prepared two glasses of water (Ace always woke up dehydrated), and left a note next to his bent elbow.
'WAKE UP!! I lost the pizza'
Ace tried really hard. That, Luffy had always known. Even though he was smart, really smart, in that way that made things look easy even when they weren't, Ace studied as if every test was a battle he had to win alone. Luffy thought that was kind of silly, but also kind of admirable.
Meanwhile, the youngest dragged his feet through the second year of high school, counting the days until he never had to touch a textbook again. His plan was simple: survive these two years, take a gap year, work a little, maybe travel, figure out what he wanted to do with his life without the pressure of deciding everything at seventeen.
"You have time," Ace would say when Luffy commented about it. "You don't need to rush."
And Luffy believed him. Because Ace always told the truth. Always.
Not that Luffy could know back then. Wednesday was just Wednesday, an ordinary day in the middle of the week, marked by the smell of hastily brewed coffee and Ace's notes scattered across the kitchen table as if they had exploded. Luffy remembered waking up later than usual, dragging his feet to the kitchen to find his brother already on his way out, heavy backpack on his shoulders, deep dark circles carved into his freckled face.
"There's food in the fridge. Don't forget to pay the electricity bill."
"Okay."
"And study for the test, you idiot. You can't fail again!"
"Okay, okay."
The door slammed shut and Luffy yawned, opening the fridge looking for something remotely edible. He just brushed his teeth, grabbed his backpack, and went to school. His hair looked like a bird's nest. It was a normal day. It was summer.
It was only hours later, when he came back from work, that he realized how different that Wednesday had been from all the others.
But for some reason, and Luffy would only understand the full extent of that reason much later, Ace came home with a stupid smile on his face.
It wasn't just any smile. Luffy knew his brother's smiles: the mocking smile when he came up with a clever retort, the tired smile after hours of studying, the genuine smile when Luffy told some absurd story from work. This one was different. This one was light, silly, almost childish, as if Ace were ten years old again and had just received an unexpected gift.
His favorite shirt, that faded blue one Makino had given him for a birthday, was stained with coffee. Normally, Ace would be annoyed. He would complain that it was the only shirt he really liked, that the coffee would leave a huge stain, that he didn't have time to wash it properly.
That day, he didn't even seem to notice.
Luffy was in the living room, legs thrown over the arm of the sofa, watching something unimportant on television. The door opened and Ace entered as if he were floating, his eyes shining in a way that made Luffy frown.
"What happened?" Luffy asked, lifting his head. "Did you pass the exam?"
"What? No." Ace laughed, a surprised sound, as if he had forgotten that exams existed. "The results aren't even out yet."
"Then why that goofy face?" Luffy noticed that Ace's voice was happy, not happy, very happy, like when you eat a feast with lots of meat.
Ace didn't answer immediately. He tossed his backpack on the floor, something he hated it when Luffy did, but was doing now without thinking, and let himself fall into the armchair next to the sofa. The smile didn't disappear. Worse: it seemed to grow.
"I met someone today," he said finally, his eyes lost somewhere on the wall.
Luffy waited for more explanation. None came. "I meet people every day and I don't make a goofy face… I think."
Ace turned his face to look at him, and for the first time in months, maybe since they had moved, Luffy saw his brother without that tension in his shoulders, without that worry line between his eyebrows. He looked… light.
"He's nice," Ace said, as if that explained everything. "Like, really nice. We talked during Marco's class break. He's doing a master's degree in something I didn't quite understand, but when he explains it, it sounds interesting. And he laughs at my jokes. Even the bad ones.”
Luffy blinked. "What jokes? Ace doesn't tell jokes."
And when he tried, it was usually something horrible or comments that Luffy didn't quite understand. The point was, it wasn't funny.
"Exactly!" Ace pointed at him, his smile widening. "He laughed anyway. Said I have a peculiar sense of humor."
"Is that good?"
"It's great."
Luffy still didn't understand, but he saw the sparkle in his brother's eyes and decided he didn't need to understand. If Ace was happy, truly happy, not that forced way he used to disguise tiredness or worry, then everything was fine.
In the following days, Luffy began to notice small changes.
Ace kept looking at his phone notifications. Not in the anxious way of someone waiting for an important message about work or school, but in that distracted, almost dreamy way, as if he were waiting for something good. The phone would vibrate and he would smile before even reading it. The phone wouldn't vibrate and he would sneak a glance every few minutes, just to be sure.
It was as if he were waiting for a storm alert, not that they were frequent in Foodvalten, but the opposite. As if he were waiting for a warning that something wonderful was on its way.
"What are you waiting for?" Luffy commented one day, finding Ace in the kitchen with his phone in his hand and his toast getting cold on the plate.
"What?" Ace put his phone aside quickly, but his eyes kept returning to the dark screen every two seconds. "I'm just… waiting for a message."
"From who? That guy?"
Ace blushed. Blushed. Luffy almost dropped his glass of milk. His brother was sick.
"He has a name," Ace grumbled, biting into his toast without enthusiasm.
"Marco, you've said it many times," Luffy spoke with a sulky tone, like a child who had lost his favorite stuffed animal. "And what's so special about Marco?"
Ace took a while to answer. When he answered, his voice came out lower, more intimate, as if he were sharing a secret.
"He makes me feel… I don't know. Butterflies in my stomach.”
Luffy didn't understand. How could there be butterflies living in his brother's stomach? Wouldn't they suffocate? Even worse, wouldn't that give him a stomachache? Did they have room to fly? But there was something different—the tone of his brother's voice, the way his eyes sparkled, the goofy smile that insisted on appearing even when he tried to hide it. He seemed happy, so Luffy was happy too.
On the weekend, Luffy was going out with his friends. They had just left the movies and were gathered at some random restaurant, but his mind was still on Ace.
"Ace is acting weird again."
Luffy threw the phrase onto the table like someone casting bait into a lake, hoping for some reaction. It was the hundredth time just that week, and it was still only Wednesday.
Usopp sighed deeply. He was scribbling in his project notebook, which for some reason was always in some pocket. He exchanged a quick look with Zoro, who was focused on destroying a plate of curry rice as if he had a personal grudge against the food.
"Ace has a boyfriend, Luffy." Usopp said this with the patience of someone who had repeated the same phrase about fifty times. "That's how people act when they're in love."
Luffy took a huge bite of his burger, completely oblivious to the sauce dripping down his chin and accumulating at the corners of his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, his eyes lost somewhere on the diner ceiling, as if he were processing information too complex for his brain.
"Boyfriend?" The word came out muffled by the burger, but the confused tone was clear. "What's that?"
Nami set her milkshake straw aside and tilted her head, incredulous. "Robin, help here." She crossed her arms, her gaze fixed on the boy now licking his mayonnaise-covered fingers. "Because I don't have the patience."
Robin closed the book she was reading, something about ancient mythology that no one there would understand, and rested her elbows on the table. Her smile was calm, patient, like someone who had explained complicated things to Luffy before and knew exactly how to do it.
"Dating is when you love someone very much," she began, choosing her words carefully. "And you decide to admit it. When you want to be with that person in a special way."
Luffy frowned. His fingers were still dirty with sauce, but he seemed to have completely forgotten the burger on his tray.
"So you guys are my boyfriends?”
Zoro choked on his curry.
Usopp dropped his pencil on the floor. Nami brought her hand to her face, her shoulders shaking in a mixture of restrained laughter and despair. Robin, however, maintained her composure, just shaking her head with a soft smile.
"It's not quite like that, Luffy." She clasped her hands over her book. "When you love your friends, it's one type of love. Friendship love. But when you love someone in a romantic way... it's different." She paused, searching for the right words. "You know when you're in love with someone? You can only think about that person. Your heart races when they arrive. Everything seems more beautiful when they're around."
"But everything is cool and beautiful near you guys," Luffy argued, frowning.
"No, Luffy." Robin's voice remained calm, patient. "It's different. When you love someone in a dating way, it's as if that person occupies a special place in your heart. You think about them all the time, you want to share things with them, you miss them when they're not around, and the idea of being apart from that person makes you sad."
"But I miss you guys," Luffy looked at his friends. "I miss Usopp, Nami, Robin, Zoro, Sanji, Vivi, Jinbe, Brook, Franky. I love you guys."
"It's because we're your friends," Robin explained. "Friendship is also love, but it's different. How can I explain this… You like food, right?"
Luffy nodded, but he kept his brow furrowed, clearly struggling to understand a concept that seemed so simple to others and so complicated to him.
"However, meat is your favorite food," Robin continued, and Luffy nodded again. "Imagine that all your friends are foods, but a boyfriend is like Meat. He is your favorite person and will always come first."
"Hmm..." Luffy made a long sound, his eyes still lost in thought. The burger sauce had already dried on his chin, forming an orange crust.
"Give up," Zoro grumbled, finally returning to his curry after recovering from his choking fit. "He's not going to understand.”
So that was what Ace was feeling. Today, Luffy can't imagine what his life would be like without meat, so was that what Ace was feeling now? He loved Marco so much that he couldn't imagine what his life would be like without him.