#a few hours early but it's already luffy day in japan

[supernaturallyginger]

midnight snacks & early morning company

05.05 Happy Birthday Monkey D. Luffy!

[cheswirls]

it’s your extension (let me extend) 6/6

sabo climbs into the backseat, and shanks squints at him from the rearview mirror.

“isn’t that ace’s?” he asks, gesturing to the cord wrapped around sabo’s wrist.

he looks down at it, humming. “i’m just holding onto it.”

-

sabo can’t sleep that night.

he feels like he’s missing something, and it keeps him up.

he wanders into the kitchen the next morning, eyes dry and red, and makino looks at him with concern. she gets up from her place at the table for two, letting sabo sit across from shanks.

“you look terrible,” he notes.

sabo hums, not enough energy mustered to form a snarky comeback.

“you . . are going to do great today!” shanks says next, switching tactics when he notices makino’s stare from the sink. “fuck those people from yesterday. today you’ve got this!”

he heads off before too long, leaving sabo at the table alone. makino heads out too, leaving sabo to watch micah while she worked her day shift. not that he minded. he was there for the week, and this was the least he could do.

he switches with shanks around midday, and comes back to the redhead in the exact spot he’d left him.

“how’d it go?” shanks asks, and sabo’s lips quirk down.

“i picked a more competitive career than i thought,” he mutters.

he crashes for a few hours and wakes up as the sun is setting, mind still set on something he can’t seem to remember.

he doesn’t sleep again.

early, the next morning, sabo decides he’s had enough. he gets out of bed, giving up on sleep, and turns on his desk lamp.

makino is in the kitchen. she looks tired. she doesn’t look surprised to find sabo there, messing with the old coffeemaker. instead of questioning, she pulls out two mugs and a carton of eggs. 

sabo fills up both and takes one back to his room, closing the door softly. he sets it at his desk, and a minute later he’s hefting all twenty of his notebooks right next to it.

sabo’s never really read through his logs. there’s never been a need. he’s never forgotten.

but there’s a gap. one he hadn’t noticed until now.

and he hates forgetting.

so he steels himself, divides the stack in two to see the light, and begins flipping through the first notebook before the sun has thought to rise for the day.

he’s a third of the way through notebook nine when he pauses, hand going through the motions to flip the page and freezing, and he peels it back to still find something unusual written, uncertain now that it wasn’t his tired mind trying to pull a trick on him.

he marks the page and rises from his seat, digging around until he finds an old sketchbook, all but one of the pages ripped from the spiral, stacked loosely inside.

it’s the one attached that he’s interested in.

“who are you,” he mumbles, reading the sprawling script, near covering the entire page, aloud. 

“quit writing in my sketchbook.”

“surely one page is fine.”

he pauses, continues, voice picking up, heart rate steadily increasing.

“this isn’t a dream, y’know.”

his coffee has gone cold, so he sets it on the corner of the old wood, not willing to get up and leave his reading to warm it.

he’s missing days in the notebook. well, he is. they’re there, after a spell. just in a different handwriting, a different format. 

he has trouble reading them, at first, because it’s very hard to process. but the more he does, the more dread and wonder pool in his stomach, as he realizes the impossibilities of him doing this to himself, playing some sort of trick years in the making. this person, this ace, was undeniably different, and was taking control of sabo’s life every other day.

sabo’s notes weren’t very interesting, usually. it was either long, unending paragraphs ranting or rambling about the day, or neat, precise notes for more uneventful times. but, after ace started leaving entries, sabo’s changed.

he still wrote for the sake of logging, yes, but now the margins were filled. certain things, reminders for tests or important events, were more bolded and circled, easy to catch. like that was the point, to get someone to notice. he finds himself reading the notes more closely than his own entries.

please set my alarm from now on. at least three of them. preferably all five.

quit writing all over my face!! i get it!

i finished that report. just print it out and bring it, please.

sorry if you wake up tired. had a long night.

yeah, sorry. here’s the password.

if i have to scrub ink from my face one more time i swear ace portgas i will take permanent marker to your eyebrows.

let’s make this easier for ourselves. if we write about what we did when we switch, it won’t matter that we weren’t there. we’ll be all caught up for the next day.

we didn’t switch again.

sabo blinks. he turns to the next page, again met by his own handwriting.

we still haven’t switched. i’ve been drawing, what i could remember. it’s funny, i just realized today that i don’t even know where he lives. somewhere in japan, in the corvo mountains. but it’s a big mountain range. there are a lot of settlements. i draw everything i can remember. the old vending machine out near the high school. the view of the mountains from the lake’s shore. the inside of garp’s craft room. my calls still aren’t going through. i try and convince myself that the number’s not wrong, but every time i try again, it ends the same. i tried texting, but it didn’t send. 

it’s weird. after that night, after i finally convinced myself how i felt, that i really    well.

and then it all stopped. like it really was a dream. except, i still have his cord. i wear it all the time, like i’m afraid it’ll disappear too, if i leave it alone for too long. i can’t lose it. i can’t lose anything else.

i don’t want to believe i’ve lost him, either.

the next entry he finds worth to note is only a sentence long. it’s the shortest one he’s ever seen. 

i’m going to find him tomorrow.

he turns the page. the next entry is marked a few days after that, after he’d come home, apparently. if he ever left at all.

he bites on his lip, moving the page corner between his fingers, flipping back and forth as if the missing entries would magically appear.

he sighs after they don’t, leaning back in his chair and throwing his head back.

out his window, through the blinds, it’s lighter. he blinks tiredly at it, trying to process this fact.

muffled crying from further in the apartment breaks his train of thought. sabo sits up, leans over the desk, and grabs the coffee cup, intent on refilling it before he read through the other half of the stack.

as he’s standing, though, his gaze falls to his wrist, and his feet fall still. he stares.

the red cord from the other night is still wrapped around his arm.

-

sabo meets robin one day for coffee, because she’s in the city by chance, and he’s looking for something to do.

he’d already had coffee that morning, but he definitely wasn’t passing up the chance for more.

makino had turned the machine off on him after his fourth cup, and even as she left to take micah on a walk, he hadn’t the courage to turn it back on.

shanks had woken up and walked in on him still mulling over his notebooks, this time with the added bonus of all his sketches laid out across his desk. he’d quietly closed the door after seeing sabo had spend yet another night without any sleep, and left for work soon after.

sabo slips into a loose jacket, attempts to flatten his hair that had been ruffled through in his earlier musing, and drains half a bottle of water in hopes of clearing the more gaunt part of his expression.

he thinks it maybe does. somewhat. robin doesn’t bother to mention it, so he doesn’t think about it anymore.

instead, halfway through their light conversation about life as they trekked through the city, he thinks about something else. he casts glances down to his wrist, where the cord was tied, leaning against his coffee cup. robin stops talking and he finally looks up to her questioning gaze. he feels like he’s missed a cue to respond, but instead of trying to figure it out, he throws one back at her.

“hey. when we worked together, did i ever . . . mention an ace portgas?”

robin’s eyes narrow, and she hums, still walking forward. “wasn’t that who you went to go find, that one summer?”

he turns his eyes back to their path, thinking it over. it synced up. so she knew about his trip, the one missing from notebook number nine. entirely.

“did i find him?” he asks, almost scared of his own voice.

“you found fuusha,” robin answers, not the one he wanted, but an answer nonetheless.

sabo gets home and rips his desk drawer open, taking out all the articles on fuusha and lying them across his desk.

they don’t all fit, so he lies them across the floor instead, taking time to examine each of them.

he reads them all carefully, about the comet, about the crash, about the evacuation. fuusha was nestled in the corvo mountains, so it matched up. 

wait.

he purses his lips, stands so fast he trips and nearly tumbles over, gripping the back of his desk chair. he swipes notebook nine from the desk, moves to sit back on the floor, and rifles through the pages. there.

by the time your date is over, you’ll be able to see the comet.

the date was the same as miran comet, though the years were different. his eyebrows slant. that was odd. something still wasn’t adding up.

he stands again, another fleeting thought passing through.

“makino,” he mumbles just inside the kitchen doorway.

she looks up, turning away from micah in the highchair.

“can i get luffy monkey’s address?”

this was crazy.

sabo sighs, dropping his hand away from the door for the fourth time. he couldn’t knock. what was he even thinking, coming here? sure, these were the only people from fuusha he knew, but he didn’t really even known them. he’d greeted garp in passing, he’d seen his son once, and he hadn’t even met luffy, that night.

but. he did know the other brother. sort of. at least, he had some connection with him, now.

he drops his raised arm again. but! there were over one thousand people living in fuusha, back before the comet hit! even if they could help him, would they even know the person sabo had been switching bodies with?

he raises his arm before he can think of another excuse to walk off the porch.

the door opens as he’s reaching to knock.

sabo startles back, the door swinging open all the way. a scruffy head of black hair greets him, the boy nearly a whole head shorter than him still bent over to stuff on a pair of shoes. his head raises as he attempts to step forward, finding sabo in his way. he’s met with a wide pair of eyes.

sabo tries to smile, but he’s nervous now, and he doesn’t think he does a very good job. “uh, hi,” he begins. “luffy, right?”

“luffy” picks his hand out of the back of his shoe, letting the leg fall to the ground as he straightens to full height. “yeah. who’re you, though?”

sabo nearly slaps himself. of course. he didn’t even- “i’m sabo.” he offers his hand. “i was here the other night, for your graduation party.”

luffy doesn’t take sabo’s hand, but he stares at it for a long time. he realizes it’s the hand he has the braided cord wrapped around. “oh, that’s-”

“my brother’s,” luffy finishes, looking back up. there’s a new light in his eyes. “you said your name was sabo, right?”

“yeah.” he nods. “is, um. is your brother here?”

a wide smile slowly begins to form on luffy’s face. “no. but i can tell you where he will be.”

-

[ 6:23 ] ill b home late

[ 6:24 ] you have your key?

[ 6:24 ] yeah

[ 6:27 ] Then i won’t wait up

[ 6:28 ] Take care of yourself

sabo sets his phone facedown, his lips quirking up. he feels around his pockets to make sure he has his key, not wanting to give makino anymore worry. he settles down again when he finds it, fingers pressing into the cool metal.

outside, it starts snowing.

sabo watches it, gaze fixed on the large windows he’s sat in front of. there’s a drink in front of him, steam wafting up. his phone vibrates again.

he picks it up as the tingling bell signals the door opening. the passing conversation catches his attention, though.

“lighten up, kidd. this will be the last one, i swear!”

“you said that the last time.”

sabo sets his phone back down. he tries not to stare, but as they order at the counter, then turn to find a table, he can’t help but watch the pair. he’s certain he’s never seen them before. at least, he doesn’t recognize them. but that name . .

“i just want this wedding to be perfect,” the girl mutters, sat close enough to where sabo can hear. 

“i know, lami,” kidd says, ducking forward. the name strikes sabo, again. lami. and kidd. 

his eyes narrow. he turns back to the window.

it’s still snowing.

he hikes up his scarf at the thought of venturing out into it, phantom goosebumps rising on his covered skin. his eyes watch as people walk by, the streets still relatively crowded for the hour, considering it was a weekday.

he takes a sip from his drink, content on people-watching.

“-like from fuusha?”

his ears prick as they catch on to the word, and he inclines his head slightly to hear the conversation behind him.

“no. maybe? i . . i don’t know.” a sigh. “i think i just miss it, y’know? it’s that time of year and all.”

sabo blinks, and then his eyes catch on a figure coming across the street. he bends forward, catches sight of dark, mused hair beneath a hood, freckles lined on tanned skin-

the door opens and he reaches out, having chosen the seat nearest to it for a reason. his hand snags in black fabric, right at the elbow, and he holds tight. 

the door closes again and sabo looks up, seeing the surprised look just moving off of luffy’s brother’s face, replaced by something more knowing, like he knew exactly who sabo was.

or, his mind supplies, luffy just told him.

he turns to face sabo and the blond releases his sleeve, confident that he’s gained the attention he’d been seeking. carefully, not looking away from the other’s face, he undoes the knot tying the braided cord to his wrist, and holds it out in the space between them.

“you should have this back,” he mumbles. “it’s important to you.”

you’re important to me.

sabo blinks.

freckles reaches out, carefully, and after a moment cups sabo’s hand in both of his own. he’s smiling, now, faint and soft, but definitely still there. his hands are cold around sabo’s.

“thank you,” he says, removing his hands, dragging the cord with them. sabo resists the urge to frown as they leave, suddenly missing their presence. they’re back soon enough, though, as ace holds the cord out length-wise, presents it to sabo. “then, will you tie it for me?”

sabo takes the cord back. his eyes widen. wait-

he looks up. “you never told me your name,” he whispers.

“you already know it.”

“ace?”

“hey, sabo.”