Brothers

Savage Valentine

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Life is slow in the windmill village. The young boys find fun where they can. When lessons let out, the boys of the village would ban together to decide the afternoon's activities. A town-wide hide-and-seek, kick the can, these games filled their childhoods.

But the children always knew about the two brothers. In every group of children there is always that one (or in this case, two) that were always separate from the group. They would join in the afternoon activities, but no matter what happened, the lines were never blurred, never crossed. The brothers were a group all their own, somehow diffeerent yet the same, as the other children.

It was not the fact that they often spent time at the bar with Makino, nor the fact that they had befriended the strange docile pirate crew that came into port occassionally. It was not that the older brother was always just a little bit faster, a little bit stronger, a little bit more cunning and brazen than the others. It wasn't when the younger brother stabbed himself, ate a fruit that made him rubber, or when he went around saying he'd be a pirate. None of these things ever come between the relationships between children.

Perhaps it was the brothers themselves. The adults knew the brothers, knew their father and grandfather, and their history which the boys themselves did not know. Whatever the parents knew, the children felt. Whatever past the brothers had, it made them different. More daring, more durable, more resistant. It made them run towards the raging sea while the others held back in fear.

And that was the reason. The brothers had no fear.

"Ace!"

"Yeah, Luffy?"

"You can't just copy me all the time! I said I'd be a pirate first! I'm gonna be the Pirate King!"

"I'm not copying you, dummy."

"Oh yeah?"

"I don't want to regret anything. I won't be trapped by regret."

"…"

"I'm not going to be like him!"

"Who?"

"I'm not just gonna run away when things look bad! … Listen up, Luffy! Promise me we'll live a life without regrets!"

"Okay!!"

"Luffy… Let's set out to sea one day, and live life the way with more freedom than anyone else!!"