2. Aggrieved Acquiescence

ONE OF THE MANY THINGS BEPO liked to eat, besides salmon, was a juicy slice of gossip.

Despite his innocent and pushover demeanor, Bepo prided himself in being a casual spectator of the many ups and downs of the biography he wrote for Trafalgar Law's life. Oftentimes, he documented these events when he was sulky—usually as a result of Law ignoring him, but now, he did so out of a sort of shared happiness. Except, that happiness was shared amongst everyone in the world except Law. It explained why, as Law's figure slowly emerged from the passageway connected to the main reception, his face looked haggard, and not even the bright fluorescent lights of the concourse could illuminate the deep set shadows between his eyes.

Bepo chuckled to himself silently, amused that Law was so upset over something as exciting as going on vacation after peak season. After all, it was only January 15th—a Monday, . Mondays were the worst. Abruptly Bepo had the breath knocked out of him as someone slapped him on the back.

"O-O-Owww!" Bepo complained, only to see the eyebrows above Shachi's tinted glasses raise inquisitively.

"If you're on break don't just stand in the middle of the walkway. Have you forgotten what day it is?"

Bepo chuckled nervously as he rubbed his back. For such a tall man, even in his scrubs, which held a certain level of prestige, or responsibility, he looked clumsily unsure of himself as he said, "Haha, as expected of Shachi...I think your hand-print is burnt into my shirt now TT"

"Why does Law look like he just got news about his dying aunt," Shachi asked, unremorsefully squeezing a bottle of hand sanitizer onto his hands and rubbing them.

Reminded of the good news, Bepo grinned and his feet danced lightly in excitement. He was a hulking ballerina, he was. "Shachi...Law is going on vacation!"

Even with Shachi's concealed eyes, Bepo could see his eyebrows raise and his lips tilt upwards, poised in reply, before the side doors connected to the ambulance reception burst open, and EMTs stormed the room, pushing a patient on a stretcher. With his massive hands by his side, and a grimy black mohawk limping over the egde—what drew Shachi's attention wasn't the blood-soaked gauze secured tightly to the patient's forehead, but the wide, searing burn scar spanning his entire left side. Cut clothes revealed the exposed, pink dermis in small, singed patches, and Shachi could hear the yells from other physicians as they directed the group of five EMTs to the nearest available bed. One such yell was calling for him.

Shachi slapped Bepo's back as if to say 'I'm off' before running carefully in the direction of the victim as he asked one of the technicians for an update on the patient.

Bepo sighed, turned to see that Law had disappeared, and a little dissatisfied, contemplated finding Penguin in the pediatrics department to gossip to him instead.

When he passed by the main counter, however, he was told by Cyndi, one of the receptionists, that Ikkaku had finished the CT scan and passed on the results to Bepo. He glanced at the scans of the woman's brain and nodded. It seems his gossip would have to wait. This patient of his, a sixty-four year old woman, who had complained of numbness and chest pain, had seemed to have a minor stroke and not even know it.

Bepo contented himself with the knowledge, that besides his stroke patient waiting in bed 3, there was one who had escaped the hospital, wandering the streets in a daze somewhere, and his name was Trafalgar Law.

"

"

Law felt nauseous. In the span of the 2 minutes after he hung up with Corazon, the events of 3 days prior flashed before his eyes, and he vaguely remembered taking home a woman he did not know, proceeding to have a one-night stand with said woman, and then falling asleep for four hours before he was awakened by a summons for a cardiac surgery, and hurriedly woke the stranger in his house, frantically asking her to leave. Only in his now, half-dazed throes of sobriety, did Law realized, as his heart plummeted to his feet, that in his rush his apartment was left virtually untouched.

If the foyer didn't look like a 18+ film, as you ventured further into the house it certainly would. Law quickly opened the car to his SUV, pushed the start button to turn on the engine, and high-tailed out of the office. His bag slid from left to right, bounced up and down, soared forward then plunged back into the seat, as Law weaved expertly through the roads and thoroughfares like a practiced seamstress. His proficiency in driving on the exterior nearly distracted from the fact that his face was a tense, vein-popping, bag of nerves.

Never mind the look Corazon would give him, the suggestive smile, the wink-wink—!, the whistling!—he'd probably try to make it a conversation topic too! 'Ahhh, I remember when you were so small and scrawny even female animals didn't get too close to you. Now, imagine~ My son's all grown up!' He could see the shit-eating grin, the wiggly eyebrows, the self-satisfactory smug face, as he nodded, half a doting father, half an 'ah, to be young again'.

Over his dead body! Law would rather peel off his skin, cake it in batter, and throw it into an incinerator, than witness Corazon nodding in pride that his twenty-seven-year-old son was sexually active. Even if it meant racking up a few tickets and showing up to traffic court, Law would race home and remove every single bit of evidence, down to DNA sampling, than to let such a nightmare ever come to fruition.

So stalwart was his resolve, that Law got home in record time. Never mind that prior, he hadn't even let the engine warm-up. The engine hardly realized that it had been put to rest, before being flung into a parking spot and switched off immediately. As soon as Law parked, his long legs flew from the car, and propelled him to the entrance of his condo, where he fumbled for his keys. In the adjoining building, he could see the lights on of his neighbor—Bonney, a Mukbang streamer. Right now she seemed to be streaming, if the loud-speaking from her room drifting into the parking lot wasn't indicator enough, and Law felt relieved that at the very least, his walls were soundproof, and that the only part of his condo that was anywhere near hers was his closet, the laundry room, and the guest bathroom.

Pushing open the door, her babbling faded to nothing, and Law was greeted with the smell of—clean furniture—and as he stepped in closer—yeah, it was still the smell of clean furniture, and detergent, drifting from the washroom. Law didn't know whether to feel relief that it didn't smell incriminating, or annoyance that he rushed back for nothing. Law opened the sliding floor-to-ceiling doors of his open space living and dining room, to let some fresh air in. With the night sky behind him, Law mindlessly turned on the TV, switched it to the news, and as always, listened closely for any army-related keywords. He checked the time: 19:45, and as he walked towards the bathroom, soon the announcer's calm voice enveloped the condo.

He took a quick shower, placed a towel around his shoulders, and quickly pulled on some boxers and black sweatpants, then stared at his unmade bed. Rumpled sheets, carelessly thrown coat, slippers askew—he pinched the bridge between his nose as he hovered at the epicenter, the bin—all evidence of the night sitting timidly there. It plaintively looked up at him, pleading, as if to say it wasn't its fault it looked like this, but the very man in question. Law sighed, and as if resigned to his fate, took out the white plastic bag in the bin, tied it up, and hauled it into the garbage.

He threw his sheets in the wash, and changed the bedding to new ones. He then vacuumed the carpet, worried that maybe...there was more evidence elsewhere, when suddenly, the vacuum cleaner tried to suck up a stiff card. As Law bent down to pick it up, he realized it was a business card.

He didn't read the name on the card, he made a mental note to censor it after the heading said something about a travel agent.

Whoever it was, he never wanted to see them again. Law very much wanted no reminder that sometimes, he did make foolish mistakes (were there ever clever ones?)

As he was about to start cleaning his kitchen, his stomach growled. He released an annoyed sigh, and recalled the scanty contents of his kitchen. Law took down a box of yellow rice from the cupboard, and decided he would make it with the frozen fish fillet in his fridge. As he set the rice on the stove, and vaguely began to wonder if he had any tomatoes and onions left, there was a ring at the door.

"Haaah…" the man said, trudging to his room to put on a shirt, lest Corazon say for the umpteenth time 'Eeek! I always forget how scary my son looks shirtless, haha! Whoever allowed you get those tattoos must have been such a tolerant father~'

"Law," Corazon said once the door opened, attempting to sound composed, but the brown paper bag in his suddenly slipped from his grip, and he frantically yelped as he tried to catch it.

Law wasn't amused. "Don't wait for me to say you can come in. You're not welcomed—"

"—Mmm something smells delicious!" his father said, and as he moved, his broad shoulders slowly vanished behind him to reveal a young woman, barely above five feet, with short chestnut-brown hair and big, warm, chocolate brown eyes. Her skin was a tan olive, similar to the scowling man before her, and while Law's eyes were sharp and decisive, the minute they landed on her, they turned to water. Law felt his mouth open in an 'Oh' shape.

"L-Lammy…"

"Tsk, tsk, look at that," Law's father shook his head from his peripheral, resting the paper bag on the kitchen island. "Ice-cold to his own dad, but it melts right off the minute he sees your face. If this isn't a sister complex, then I'm not an earth-shatteringly handsome (single) dad."

Law ignored him.

"Lammy," Law breathed, and his sister merely smiled at him, and opened her arms wide. Law cleared his throat, ignored the self-satisfying grin Corazon kept sending him, and bent down awkwardly to hug his sister. He really was overwhelmed with joy to meet her, but the blurry blob in the corner of his eye kept giggling in the most conspicuous of ways.

Lammy sensed Law's timidness, so she wrapped her arms around him, and yanked him even closer. Law was surprised, and bent fully at the waist, as she swayed and rocked, gently tightening her grip around his neck. Law soon relaxed and a small smile graced his lips as he finally returned her hug. She pat his back.

"Stupid," she muttered, but her voice was smiling.

Corazon nodded approvingly as he unpacked the groceries. "Of course— Lammy is the only person who dares to call my son such a thing."

Lammy chuckled, releasing Law's neck and returning off her tip-toes. "I meant you, Cora-san."

Law smirked, suppressing a laugh, before he bent down and brought some slippers for Lammy to change into wordlessly. She smiled at the gesture. Before Cora-san could steer their conversation anywhere, and begin comparing stories of them as fresh adoptees, stubbornly boycotting their new dad, to them now, Law scowled as he saw a flash of brown. "Why did you buy bread."

Corazon pulled out a medium-length baguette, and rolled his eyes. "So self-centered. Is that how I raised you?" He held up the baguette and threw it over his shoulder, as if it were a heavy wooden plank. "This is for your sister and I. It's garlic bread from the supermarket. You know, I waited 10 minutes in line for this at the bakery section—"

"—Law give me a tour!" Lammy interrupted, and Law effortlessly smiled and turned to show her down the corridor that led to the bedrooms.

Cora-san stared as the two retreated, already knowing inside that at this moment, their hearts were quite full. He turned to adjust the flame underneath Law's rice, and stared at the fish fillet being seasoned mid-way. He smiled, turned to open the freezer, and took out the remaining fillets. If Law was leaving tomorrow, best eat as much as they can.

'

'

Down the corridor, Law led Lammy to one of the guest bedrooms. The walls were a pale mint green, and the floor a deep dark brown hardwood, like the rest of the condo. She ducked her head into the bathroom, frowned at the faint talking she heard, decidedly ignored it, then came back out to look at Law.

"Surprised?"

Law put his hands in his pockets and his expression was relaxed. Only around his sister did he feel this much calm. "I thought you would be in Australia for at least another few months. Why the sudden visit?" His expression then relapsed into a furrowing of his brows. "Did something happen at the outpost?"

Lammy looked up at him, eyes twinkling. "I came back because I wanted to~" she trailed, and went and jumped onto the guest bed with an oomph! "I'm so competent at my job, that I can simply take leave whenever. Unlike someone."

Law didn't miss her jibe. "I'm an essential worker," he said, but his voice had a grin to it. Lammy treated his words like the air.

"Is that why you're trying to work yourself to an early grave?"

Law stiffened, and he glanced at the bed to see Lammy's playful expression had turned cold. It mirrored his own far too much, and he shifted backwards a little.

"L-Lammy-ya…"

"What's that your foot's doing?" her eyes were soulless, black voids, framed by blushed cheeks and a sweet face. "Don't humans answer questions with words? What's all the shuffling about for?" The question mark was purely a formality. Every syllable was punctuated with a full stop.

"I can explain--"

"Don't forget what happened to dad," she warned, but her ice-cold eyes wavered with worry.

"Don't you dare," she emphasized, already having sat up on the bed. Her eyes were stern, and also a distance away, as if recalling the last few years they had spent with their birth father. But the more resolute her gaze became, the more her eyes began brimming with tears. Law stood there awkwardly, his eyes widening, before he glanced around frantically for some sort of tissues. Or maybe hand-towels—there were hand-towels in the kitchen. Or should he just offer her his hands? His hair?

Law hovered half between the bedroom, half between the corridor, until she cried, "Get over here!" and he basically teleported across the room. Kneeling, he glanced up at her, his face grim as he sweat nervously.

"I-, I-"

"Give me your shirt," she sniffled. Law awkwardly raised the hem of his shirt to her eyes, but she just grabbed a fistful and he nearly fell over. There was a soft thump on his arm, and he soon realized it was supposed to be a hit.

"Don't scare me or Cora-san like that again," she muttered, and Law, who had forgotten that in the year he had last seen his sister, his news of collapsing at work would have still remained unresolved all this time.

Her joke about leaving whenever she wanted was a lie. Lammy served in the army, and was often dispatched overseas. Currently, she was in Australia, and while it was less dangerous, approval for military leave wasn't so easy to achieve.

Law wanted to chuckle, as he thought that for a soldier, his sister hit so lightly. This was overturned, when he was suddenly pinched on the same spot she hit. Law's face turned dark with pain.

He hissed in pain, but made no further comments, knowing he fully deserved it.

"If you so much as lift a finger during your vacation, I'm cutting it off," she complained, then smiled as snot ran down her nose. "Not so gently either."

Law stared in silent horror. His sister said some terrifying things with such an innocent face. "Mmm," he could barely utter, before she pinched him again.

She sniffled. "If you even so much as lift a pebble, I'm going to do it, you hear me? Don't even lift the air!"

Law smiled, not dwelling on how or why he would even lift the air. A full-fledged grin spread across his face, Law's usual grim, serious way. Affectionately, he wiped the snot off her nose. "What age are you, snot-nosed brat, to be ordering me around like this?" he teased.

She hit him again. Hard. "Ack—"

"You hear me?"

Law smiled grimly. "Loud and clear, Captain."

Satisfied, she made a 'hmph' sound, then bundled up more of his shirt in her hands and blew her snot, before getting up and giggling as she called to Corazon in the kitchen. Law stared down at his shirt half in disgust, half in amazement at his own servility. Maybe he spoiled her too much.

.

.

.

.

Corazon had generously steamed all of Law's fish fillets in the time that he took to speak to Lammy, change his top, and throw the snot-infested one in the wash. He took out his sheets, threw them in the dryer, and as he returned to the dining room to turn off the TV, suddenly paused when he saw a smartwatch sitting on the coffee table beside the remote.

It was brand new, clearly because it was still in an open box, comfortably seated on a cushion, and when Law turned to glance at Corazon, the man cleared his throat innocently. Law ignored his feigned uninterest, and unceremoniously plucked up the watch, before there was a foreign beep.

'YCX Booting- Up...Du du du ding!'

Law froze, as the start up jingle awkwardly filled the room, and Lammy giggled from the kitchen island as she stared at her brother's frazzled face.

"Haha, you can really tell he's old when he gets surprised like that!" she giggled, and Law cast her a glare. They were only 4 years apart. Was she a newborn?

"What useless thing is this," he said, about to put it back down, before Corazon rushed to his side and buckled the watch around his left wrist.

"My love!"

Law stared in disgust, before desperately trying to unbuckle the watch.

"Stop, Stop!" His dad insisted, and the watch decided that was its turn to speak.

'Sorry, voice command is currently disabled. Please complete System Setup to access all features.' Then a screen glowed light green, and asked for the user to enter all of their body metrics.

Law was more and more puzzled, and finally, Lammy clarified the situation.

"Dad bought you a smartwatch to monitor your vitals," she explained, getting up to turn off the oven that the garlic bread was in. "It's connected to both of our phones. It can also make calls, and it's customizable too."

She took a crunchy bite out of the garlic bread, and Corazon said, "Lammy, we must all start eating together, together…" he emphasized, moving to scoot her from behind the counter and to share out the rice and fish. Law hated the smell of baked bread as much as he hated bread itself, and placed down the watch to turn on the exhaust hood above the stove. Lammy watched this silently as she chewed.

Eventually, Law succumbed to wearing this strange 'YCX' watch on his wrist, and was even cajoled half to death into downloading the corresponding app onto his phone. Lammy asked how he was going to get to the airport, and Law supplied that taking the air train was fine. He would ask Bepo or Shachi to pick up his car at the train station for him and drive it back whenever they were free, as they both had work. Law abhorred taking cabs, and he wasn't very keen on going into stranger's vehicles if he could help it.

Ironically, however, Law wouldn't succumb to Corazon insisting on driving him to the airport either—as his flight was at 9, and that would mean getting to the airport for 6 in the morning. His father still had work tomorrow, and a part of him didn't want to take them to the airport with him, as something about it felt startlingly final. He wasn't migrating to some foreign country never to return—there was no need for an emotional farewell. At most, Law was only staying for two weeks, and the minute the vacation was over, he would be high-tailing it out of the island.

As such, Tuesday morning, with his single piece of luggage, and two extra suitcases weighing down his raccoon eyes, Law stood in the middle of the airport at his towering height. He stifled a yawn—he had stayed up late panic-reading about this Poneiro Island. Some of his haphazard research had yielded strange results—he wasn't very excited to visit the island, but he was curious about its unorthodox foreign policies. Up until yesterday he had never even heard of the island—maybe that goes to show. With a relatively empty airport in the middle of winter, Law began to walk towards the short security check line, having already checked in online when he was doing research. Suddenly, a bright red suitcase zipped right in front of him, nearly trampling his feet.

A loud voice boomed as it faded away at an alarming rate. "Sorry old man! I didn't see you there, shi shi shi!"

Before Law could argue, they whizzed by, darting up the escalators, hauling the heavy, bright red suitcase behind them as if it was the weight of a balloon.

Law frowned. Didn't those escalators lead to the air train and subway?

Law decided it was none of his business and turned to enter the security line, when he saw a long-nosed, dark-skinned boy run in shortly after, out of breath and glancing wildly around. Their eyes met, and Law instantly regretted it. Suddenly he was accosted.

"Hey, Sir! Have you seen a guy, about 5'7, skinny, with a bright red suitcase run in here? Oh! He's got a scar under his eye, and he's wearing a straw hat!"

Law didn't know what the upper half of this person looked like, he rightfully avoided making eye-contact because they were likely not sane. Nevermind that, Law definitely didn't want to speak to anyone even if they were the incarnate of sanity itself.

Urgent eyes stared at him for a reply. Law glanced towards the escalators.

"He went that way."

The young man groaned. "Ahhhhhh! I told him that you need to go through security first! You can't just run straight onto the plane!" He rubbed his face in distress, before asking politely, "Sorry, could you watch this carry-on for me? I'll be right back!" He promised, and before Law could decline, the boy ran off, up the escalators (albeit at a laborious, desperate pace) before he also disappeared in the direction of the air train.

Law stared at the small suitcase before him—it was a hard-shelled carry-on with large palm tree leaves and coconuts, and even said the words, 'BunaFasi!'

Law stared at it limply, noting not only that it was custom-painted, and seemed to be done by a grade-schooler, but that the phrase, "BunaFasi" was a language spoken solely on one island in the south pacific.

Law knew this, because after having a sudden crisis at 1am today, he stayed up for two hours googling as much as he could about the so-called Poneiro island, for fear of poisonous snakes or other deadly flora/fauna leading to an untimely death. He certainly knew if he dared to die on the island, his sister would certainly revive him, cut off his finger anew, and then un-alive him again.

Soon loud boisterous, yelling broke into the relatively scanty airport. Law morosely glanced up at the escalators, to see the two young men racing down, and headed straight towards him. If racehorses were human, this is what they looked like.

"Haha!" came a loud, exuberant laugh. "Usopp! Why didn't you just tell me to turn right once I entered?"

The boy in question wheezed. His nasal voice sounded every bit as aggrieved as Law felt. "I TOLD YOU! You can't just WALK onto the plane like that!? What's your passport for!"

The young man with the straw hat cleaned the wax out of his ears. "Ahhhh, that makes no sense!" He even dared to sound exasperated. His dark eyes wandered absently until they landed on the ball and chain by Law's foot. "Oh! That's my suitcase. Thanks old man!" He beamed up at Law, and Law felt some level of disgust. That smile was so foolishly simple and guileless, that Law felt like a criminal standing next to him, even though he was the one being wronged. He didn't have the energy to reply, he only nodded his head, and turned to proceed down the line.

A voice behind him halted his movements. As the words were uttered, he felt his heart sink. "So, how about that Poneiro place, huh?" Straw-hat sighed, and seeing the words displayed on the screen at the front of the line, big bursts of booming sounded throughout the airport once again, even dragging the attention of people farther ahead.

"Old man, we're on the same flight huh!" more laughing. "Man, that's so weird! Oi, Usopp! Hey, do you have any snacks?"

Law wanted the earth to swallow him whole. He wanted a cataclysmic earthquake to suddenly hit everywhere except where he was standing, saving him from the crutches of a damned fate of a 13-hour plane ride with those two hooligans. At the very least, Law wanted a refund on his ticket.

But between his father, his sister, and the two troubled youths behind him, if Law so much as lifted a finger, to reject the two weeks vacation even through hell and high water, Law was a dead man. At this rate, the only thing he had to look forward to were the seating arrangements, and hope a fussy baby wasn't on the flight.

On cue, an indignant, infantile cry rose far ahead, near the front of the line, and Law could have sworn an artery somewhere in his body just burst.

To remind him of his vitality, however, the boy behind him stuck out a neon orange Cheeto in his direction. "You look really sick, old man. Want one?"

Law glanced at the barely FDA-approved Cheeto, so bright it could guide him through a dark, stormy night. He then glanced at the crying baby, and then glanced out the windows of the airport. Outside, a bird was flying freely in the sky. He glowered darkly, considering his chances. Was it too late to make a run for it?