【One Piece】Dawn in the Darkness
Chapter 27 Ace’s Worries
"Great! We defeated the tiger!" Luffy said excitedly.
"Great! Should we eat him?" Lucci said with a smile.
"We'll keep it as our training target. Now it will take the combined efforts of four of us to defeat it. When each of us can defeat it on our own, we'll eat it!" Ace grinned.
"Okay, this way we can train to become stronger!" Sabo said with a smile.
"But I'm hungry!" Luffy said, touching his stomach.
"Let's go eat delicious ramen!" Ace grinned.
In this way, Lucci, Ace, Sabo, and Luffy spend their days fighting with the beasts in the jungle, the thugs in the waste terminal, and the pirates in the bay, and they become stronger and stronger.
They would often be around the outskirts, stealing from the thugs who tried to attack them or going into town and looking for some restaurants to go into, but due to their reputation, they can no longer attack restaurants the way they did before. After they had collected enough treasure for the day, Sabo decided it was time for us to leave.
Sabo and Lucci walked in front, Luffy followed behind, and when Ace was about to catch up, the mocking voice coming from the tavern made his whole body still. His hands clenched the purse on his body. For a moment, he thought he was imagining it, but when they walked past the shabby tavern, the hoarse laughter coming from inside told him that it was not an imagination.
"Ace?" Luffy turned around and looked at him in confusion. Ace seemed not to hear Luffy's voice. In his ears, there was only the vicious mocking voice coming from the tavern.
"Ace, what's wrong?" Lucci looked at Ace's gloomy face in silence and found that his eyes were filled with a lot of darkness.
"Ace..." Sabo's voice became smaller and smaller. He had realized what was happening. He went over and quickly grabbed Luffy's wrist. "Luffy, let's go."
"But Sabo, Ace..." Luffy looked at Ace.
"Ace is coming with us, right?" Sabo asked in a serious voice.
Ace looked at Sabo with flickering eyes, in the past whenever they overheard someone saying bad things about Roger, Sabo and Lucci had never been able to convince him to let it go and leave, Ace always started a fight, asking those people what they would think if the person they hated had a child, but the answer always made him angry.
Even now, he wanted to go in and question those people, accuse them of hating him without knowing him, even if they had no idea, but that's what they were doing now, and even if they knew, it wouldn't change their tune, it would just give them a new target and an outlet for their hatred.
But this time Sabo didn't try to convince him otherwise, with a look and a nod Sabo clearly indicated to him that his little brother was watching him.
Luffy stared at Ace with wide, uncertain eyes, and one of his little hands nervously grasped his hand. At that moment, Ace saw his reflection in Luffy's eyes, and his heart seemed to stop beating. His little brother probably couldn't understand what made his brother become like that. Even when he was at his worst, he never looked at him with such dark and hateful eyes.
He felt sick at the thought of Luffy seeing him like this. He closed his eyes to block out the taunting voices in the bar, then turned his gaze back to Luffy.
He didn't know what to think when he noticed that Luffy didn't look at him in fear or back off. When they first met, even when he tried to shake him off or glared at him fiercely while claiming that he wanted nothing to do with him, Luffy always just ignored him and continued to follow him like it was okay, and it seemed that this time would be no different, even after seeing something so horrible, he seemed to be the same as before.
"Ace?" Luffy tried again, squeezing his hand even tighter.
He felt the warmth of his palms, which seemed to produce a warmth that seeped into Ace's body, seeming to drive away all the anger and malicious voices.
"Let's go." Ace whispered. Just this once, Ace thought, he resisted the urge to deny his need for contact, and he shook it back, holding Luffy's hand to show that he didn't mind or want Luffy to let go. Luffy responded with a smile full of sunshine.
They returned to their home, Luffy's stomach making loud noises, Ace sighed "Sabo, why don't you go with Luffy and put our treasure in its hiding spot while Lucci and I go find our dinner."
"Ace, Lucci will help me find dinner, and Luffy can help you put the treasure away," Sabo said firmly.
"I'll help Sabo," Lucci agreed.
"Then Ace and I will go together," Luffy said with a smile.
Ace opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again and sighed. As much as he wanted to go out and vent his frustration as violently as possible, he couldn't deny that he wanted Luffy to stay by his side and not slip into that familiar darkness he had felt earlier.
"Okay," Ace agreed.
"Ace?" Luffy asked after Lucci and Sabo walked away. "Are you okay?"
Ace hesitated, wanting to tell Luffy that he was an idiot and that there was no need to worry, but he found that he just couldn't do it, especially after he had given his little brother such a cold and scary look when he was in town.
"I feel better now," he admitted, leading Luffy towards the forest.
After they put the treasure in the hiding place, when they returned to the tree house, Sabo and Luffy had not returned yet, but Ace was not worried. He knew that Sabo might want to leave them some alone time, so he would tell Luffy the truth because Luffy was the only one who didn't know.
"Ace? You were really angry before," Luffy said.
"Um, sorry," Ace sighed and looked away, "but..."
"You look really depressed" Luffy continued, interrupting him "but you also look lonely"
Ace turned his head and looked at Luffy again, his face full of confusion. Didn't Luffy see hatred on his face?
"You look just like when I first met you, you always looked angry, but you look like the lonely I felt when I was alone as a kid and Luffy wasn't with me. I haven't seen you like this in a long time, so I was worried. But you don't look lonely now, so I don't have to worry, right?" Luffy added.
Ace sighed in relief at the explanation and then hit Luffy lightly on the head.
"Ouch!" Luffy protested, but he just blinked when Ace put his arm around his shoulders and held him in a hug.
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