Chapter Text
A devil child.
The scum of the earth.
Someone who would be better off six feet under than walking amongst the rest of the world.
Ace has grown used to the world’s cruelty, has stood compliant as its poison ruthlessly tailed him. He’d known he was unwanted since before he could stand on his own two feet; when he couldn’t even comprehend the meaning of harsh words and thus, was unable to raise his fists and rage against them.
He is not like everybody else. He was born to be damned, and he knows it.
So, he isn’t shocked to discover another way in which he is different. It comes forth when Dadan mentions the pink in a piece of meat she is cooking and he stares at her, confused, asking what the hell that means. Except this difference, Dadan claims, is one that people often consider to be lucky.
He almost wants to laugh. No one has ever referred to his existence in such a way. Surely this would just be further trickery, something that will only be added to his long list of woes.
“If you can’t see what I’m talkin’ about,” Dadan explains, “that means you got a soulmate.”
Ace narrows his eyes. “A soulmate?”
She grunts an affirmation. “About half the world has gotten stuck like you. Born without the ability to see colour. You’re supposed to gain it when you meet your ‘soulmate’. It’s like the person you’re meant to fall in love with and dedicate your life to. Your other half and all that crap.” She rolls her eyes, then takes another slow swig from her bottle of sake. “But that whole thing’s a gamble. You might never meet them or miss them in a crowd. And if you do find them, they could die on you, which’d make your colour go away again.”
“What’s the point then?” Ace snaps.
Dadan snorts. “You think I know, brat? If you ask me, that stuff brings nothing but trouble.”
Nothing but trouble.
Yeah, that sounds fitting for something Ace would wind up with.
Bitterly, he hopes he never meets this “soulmate”. Somehow, it feels easier to live his pathetic life in monochrome.
-
Study harder.
Do better.
Quit daydreaming and put your head to good use for once.
All Sabo knows are rules. Rules, rules, and more rules, imposed onto him with an iron grip. A warm hug and a pat on the head are foreign compared to hefty textbooks and fingers wagging critically in his face.
His parents tell him this will make them all very happy.
They tell him he has to become accomplished, or everything they’ve built will go to waste.
They tell him about soulmates, and in the same breath, say that those things are fairytales, that they don’t matter.
“It is unfortunate,” his father says, “that you cannot see in colour. It could be a detriment to your future prospects. But I suppose it’s the reality you will have to become used to.”
“And what if I do meet my soulmate?” Sabo asks. “Won’t I be able to see right then?”
His father wrinkles his nose. “It would be more beneficial not to meet them. We don’t want to complicate matters. After all, you are to marry a daughter of the royal family. It would be very troubling if anyone attempted to get in the way of that.”
His father lets it go, and Sabo doesn’t, doing further research on the soulmate phenomenon within hidden books during twilight hours. It intrigues him; excites him, almost. The idea that he might not be tied to the goals his parents want for him, and instead to someone else altogether. Someone far away from here.
Here, it doesn’t matter what Sabo wants. It never has. A supposed destiny means nothing, not unless it can give his family profit and fame. It will not grant Sabo peace while he’s still trapped in this prison.
So, in the end, maybe his father is right about one thing. A soulmate isn’t a gamble worth betting everything on. Whether he finds them doesn’t matter. His eyes have been set firmly on the path to freedom, and if he succeeds in his escape, he can be happy even without colour.
-
Fate, as it turns out, is a funny thing. It grants no favours to those begging for them, and when you anticipate nothing, even avoid a particular outcome, that is when it doubles its efforts to find you.
-
Everything happens in a rush. There’s a rustle in the bushes behind Ace, a telltale sign of life bustling within. He tenses, fingernails digging into the dirt, where he’s just buried the gold he’d stolen off some lousy drunk. He knows he only has a second to act before whoever it is attacks, intent on taking what is now rightfully his. His grip tightens on the closest weapon he can find, a particularly sharp branch, and he turns around, shouting as he launches forward to attack. There’s a gasp, and a person dives out of the bushes, raising a weapon—a metal pipe?—of their own to deflect Ace’s advance.
And then, within the blink of an eye, Ace’s entire world shifts. Everything brightens, like someone has lit a candle and illuminated a pitch-black room, and he can finally see as intended. All around him are beautiful, unrecognizable colours, from the grass below him, to the branch in his hand and the tones of his skin. It’s so jarring that he shoves back his attacker, hard, and jumps backwards. He stumbles a little, breathless and attempting to hide it with a snarl directed at this— at his…
The person is a boy who looks to be about Ace’s age. It’s a fact that is shocking in itself, considering he’s never seen other kids, especially so young, who wander in the Gray Terminal and its surrounding woods. The boy has got a rumpled button-up shirt on, and his short hair has tight curls of a cheerful unknown shade. He wears an oversized pair of goggles atop his head which fall off more to the right side instead of staying locked in one place. His eyes are wide, and they shine in a colour that Ace doesn’t have a name for, but instantly feels familiar to him. Like maybe it’s shared with the distant oceans.
“You…” the boy stutters. “You’re my…”
Ace grimaces, and he shifts on his feet. No. Don’t say it, don’t let it be true.
The boy’s expression shifts, his gaze sharpening and brows scrunching in anger. “Why did you attack me?!”
“You snuck up on me!” Ace snaps. “You were trying to steal from me, weren’t you?!”
“Steal?! No! I was just hungry!”
“Hungry?!”
“This bush has berries in them! I didn’t even see you!”
Ace’s gaze falls to the plant again suspiciously, and sure enough, when he squints, he can see the shape of small native berries sprouting throughout it.
The boy follows his stare, and he chokes out a strange sound when he notices them as well. He crouches down, collecting them in his palm. “Wow, they’re so pretty now!”
He stuffs one in his mouth, humming in satisfaction as he chews.
“Red,” Ace mumbles.
“What?” the boy asks.
“The berries. They’re red.”
Dadan had described them to him before, but up until now, the details had been irrelevant to him.
“Red…” the boy repeats, wonder in his voice. He looks back up at Ace, tilting his head contemplatively. “Just like your shirt.”
Ace looks down, and sure enough, the tank he is wearing is a more vibrant shade of the berry’s colour.
“Yeah. So?” he says, crossing his arms.
“So, it’s cool! And you’re kind of a jerk! Maybe I will steal from you!”
Ace reaches back for the branch, holding it out threateningly. “You better not! I need every last bit of what I have!”
“What for?”
“I’m not telling you!”
“Well, I’m not really gonna steal it, I just wanna know!”
“I said I’m not telling!”
The boy huffs, and turns away from him. It’s clear he finds his surroundings interesting, but he hasn’t brought up their implications yet, and Ace sure as heck won’t do that himself. Whoever this boy is supposed to be, Ace won’t take it. He doesn’t need him.
He’s survived this long on his own, after all.
“Do you have a bunch of hidden treasure or something?” the boy asks, obviously not giving up yet. “Why do you need all that just for you?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m an orphan! I have to fight for myself!”
“An orphan…” the boy repeats. He swallows. “Uh, yeah. Me too.”
Ace blinks. “Huh? You mean it?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I live out here.”
“No, you don’t! I would’ve seen you sooner!”
“I just started, okay?! I’ve been staying by that tree over there!”
He points to their right, to one of the many tall and sturdy trees in the forest. There aren’t exactly any signs of life surrounding it, but if you’re smart out here, you don’t let anyone know where you’re hiding.
Ace will need to find a new place for his treasure. He looks back and forth between the crevice where he has buried items at the base of a tree and his intruder. Should he gather it up and run? Will he have to knock this kid out first?
The boy sighs. “I told you I’m not gonna steal from you. I can get my own treasure.”
Ace stays silent, still expecting an attack to occur at any moment.
The boy holds out a hand. “Sabo.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s Sabo.”
Ace frowns, staring at the hand like it may conceal deadly intent. He doesn’t take it, but his grip on his weapon loosens. “Ace.”
Sabo’s hand moves behind his back, and he offers him a toothy grin. “Well, it’s good to finally meet you, Ace.”
‘Finally’; like he’s been waiting for this. He recalls Dadan’s comment about how many people never even meet their soulmates, and here Ace is, discovering his own at five years old. It might have been a miracle for some, yet to him, it’s clearly some kind of curse. Even if this Sabo hasn’t betrayed him yet.
Ace grits his teeth. “Whatever.”
Sabo crosses his arms, smile falling. “There you go being mean again.”
“Who cares if I’m mean?” Ace says. “I don’t need you. Just ‘cause you gave me colour doesn’t mean anything.”
Sabo’s fingers tighten against his skin. “Well, I don’t need you, either! I’m good without a soulmate!”
“Good!”
“Fine!”
The two avert their gazes, and tension sparks between them. It’s the sort that can easily lead to another, real battle, especially out here, and doesn’t. Nor does Ace really expect it to. Not anymore.
“I’m going home,” Sabo mutters, stomping away from him. “Do whatever you want.”
Ace watches his back as he goes. Sure enough, he trails over to the tree he’d indicated earlier, crawling into a hollow concealed beneath the roots that he hadn’t noticed before. So, he does really stay there, or at least knows it well enough to make it a decent hideout.
He waits thirty seconds, a minute, then two, eyes remaining sharp in anticipation, and nothing happens. Sabo doesn’t come back out. Ace turns to crouch at his tree, fingers already frantically digging back into the dirt to uncover his possessions.
Whether Sabo is going to make a move or not, he needs a safer place for his savings. One that will never be discovered.
After all, the only thing that truly matters is himself and his goal of setting sail, somewhere far away from here.
-
Sabo tries not to think about Ace.
As he’d suspected, a soulmate wouldn’t be saving him from anything. He’d already had to do that for himself, officially running away from High Town weeks before their chance meeting. His new life had begun in Gray Terminal, and it was strange how a place littered in garbage and crime could be so much easier to breathe in, welcoming in a twisted sort of way. Out here, he can do whatever he pleases with nothing and no one holding him back.
He's not afraid of the challenges, no matter how tough, and manages as okay as he can.
The only issue is the loneliness.
Before he’d abandoned his former home, he’d snuck to Gray Terminal several times against his parents’ wishes. There, he would sit for hours by makeshift fires, listening to old sailors recount grand tales of the oceans they’d travelled. Their voices were weathered and gruff, and they appeared scraggly and beaten down, but the light that shone in their eyes spoke of passion, excitement, and adventure. They’d succeeded in pursuing freedom, and they’d had lives well worth living.
It was all Sabo wanted. Listening to their tales, he never felt isolated or hopeless, and when he relocated for good, he sought that comfort every night. He yearned to continue clutching onto that lifeline with everything he had.
It didn’t take long for reality to set in. The storytellers, who themselves were liars, thieves and cheats, grew weary of him. Others he encountered viewed him as a nuisance or a threat rather than a child. All too quickly, he found the number of people he had to talk to shrunk, and those who did bother entertaining him only did so rarely, thus he couldn’t call them friends.
So, he tries not to think of Ace, and how he’s meant to be the sole person who should be at his side. He tries to move on from the idea of soulmates and find other company to keep.
He tries, and yet…
Ever since that day, he has been unable to stop catching glimpses of Ace. There are blurs of a body, glares fraught with ice, and the murmurs of strangers who fear the ramifications of an unhinged child terrorizing their community. With Sabo aware of his existence, every sign of him sets off alarm bells in his mind, and with every ring, he takes a step in Ace’s direction, like he’s a magnet pulled forward.
He never quite reaches him, and they don’t have anymore real conversations. Once or twice, they exchange a quick word or silent stares before Ace shoots off again, doing who knows what, who knows where. Funnily, Sabo never notices Ace at night. Maybe he has some sort of home beyond the borders of this cursed town. A place where he is cared for, perhaps an adopted family to call his own.
He thinks about following Ace a few times, even tails him far beyond the reaches of the Terminal once. It’s when Ace turns and shouts at him to go away that Sabo tightens his grip on his pipe and whips away. He doesn’t need him. He doesn’t. He’s not going to chase his company if Ace is too stubborn to accept it.
Fate, of course, decides to laugh at him for his feeble attempt at creating distance.
He hears it while picking through piles of trash in search of discarded treasures: the clutter and bang of a commotion nearby, the shouts of angry men and the shift below him of the ground being shaken. He peeks his head around an old appliance, curiosity guiding him over common sense.
He’s somewhere between shocked and dejectedly accepting when he finds Ace at the centre of the trouble. Based on what he’s heard, it’s just how Ace is. He gets into crap and always manages to dig himself out of it somehow, too quick on his feet to let anyone grab hold of him and just young enough that some might hesitate to attack too harshly.
Only this time, he appears to be in a situation that won’t be as easy to weasel his way out of.
He’s surrounded by four—no, five men, all of whom are holding sharp objects toward Ace, who looks like a feral animal about to drop to all fours and growl at them like a beast. He’s hurt, Sabo realizes, already covered in bruises and gashes and favouring his left arm like it houses another hidden injury. He’s outnumbered and outmatched, especially since it appears his own weapon—a pipe that is almost a twin to Sabo’s—has been stolen by one of the men in question.
One man lashes out, trying to slash Ace with the jagged edge of a bottle. Ace dodges, only to fall back against another man, who raises his knee and delivers a hard kick against Ace, sending him skidding across the ground.
Sabo winces, his body tense, and for an instant, he swears the colours in his vision dampen.
Ace doesn’t need me, he thinks, as he is kicked again.
I don’t need Ace, he thinks, as the men yell at Ace to return what he’d stolen from them.
We’re not—
Ace cries out, crumpled up on the ground in a pathetic lump. Sabo’s heart clenches.
Why don’t you just surrender? Why bother fighting when there’s no chance you can win?
As if hearing Sabo’s thoughts, Ace’s gaze rises to meet the men’s glares and the pure defiance there sends a shudder through Sabo’s body.
“I’ll never tell you,” Ace spits out. “You can’t control me! You can’t take away my freedom!”
The men don’t have a chance to react, and neither does Ace, because suddenly, Sabo’s feet are moving from under him, carrying him across the distance between them at a speed he didn’t know he was capable of. His body twists as he swings back his pipe, and it flies forward with high momentum, knocking one of the men flat in an instant.
He’d picked wisely too, because as he falls, the man’s weapon—Ace’s weapon—clatters to the ground before them. Ace blinks up at Sabo, eyes wide with surprise.
Sabo turns away from him to deflect a blow from another man, clenching his teeth in concentration. “If you don’t want to die, fight with me!”
He doesn’t have time to question whether Ace is even capable of standing before Ace shoots to his feet, fumbling as he takes steps forward but, as expected, not relenting. With the element of surprise Sabo brought in their favor, and Ace by his side, they manage to take down the remaining men in four fell swoops, ruthless as they swing their pipes against legs and arms and chests.
The attackers groan on the ground in a clump, twitching and crawling onto their elbows. If they’re given another minute or two, Sabo has no doubt they’ll rise again and attempt to get their revenge, so he doesn’t offer them the chance.
He reaches for Ace’s hand, squeezing it to get his attention and tugging him away. “C’mon, we have to leave!”
Ace’s head swivels back and forth between Sabo and the men, and for one horrifying moment, Sabo is sure he did this all for nothing, and Ace is going to stay behind and risk getting killed all over again.
Instead, the uncertain look in Ace’s eyes mellows into a reluctant acceptance and he steps forward, wordlessly allowing Sabo to drag them from the battlefield. They don’t stop running until they reach the forest, where they collapse down against a tree trunk gasping for breath.
Sabo heaves, aching from the hits he’d taken in his defense of Ace, new wounds blossoming on his forearms and his cheek. It hurts, yet he can’t find it in himself to have any regret, the adrenaline still rushing through him causing him to chuckle breathlessly.
Ace stares at him like he’s gone mad. “Why’re you laughing? And why the hell did you help me in the first place?! I didn’t ask you to do that!”
Sabo shakes his head, the harsh words not stalling his laughter. “I dunno. I just did.”
He’d reacted before he could even think through his actions, really. All he’d known, at that moment, was that he was drawn to Ace, and he didn’t want him to die like this.
Ace huffs, crossing his arms and staring ahead pointedly. He doesn’t say anything as Sabo comes down from his laughing fit and doesn’t leave even as silence stretches between them.
“So, are you gonna say thanks?” Sabo asks.
“For what?” Ace demands.
“Saving your life!”
“You didn’t do that!”
“Did so! And I saved your treasure!”
“Who said I had treasure?”
“Those guys attacking you. Oh, and you! When I met you!”
Ace’s nose scrunches in distaste.
“I’m not saying thanks,” he mumbles.
Sabo pouts. “You’re so mean.”
“Whatever,” Ace says.
That pointed silence returns and it makes Sabo antsy, kicking his feet petulantly against the grass. If Ace is so ungrateful, why doesn’t he just leave then? What’s the point of sitting here and doing nothing?
He stands up, about to give up on waiting when Ace finally speaks again.
“I need the treasure to be a pirate.”
Sabo blinks down at him, surprised. “Huh?”
“I wanna get off this island and be a pirate,” Ace explains. “I’m gonna get a big ship with all my money, and then I’ll be able to do anything.”
A pirate. Some of the men in Gray Terminal who used to tell him stories had been pirates. They’d sailed the seas, taking what they wanted and living amongst others like them. It had sounded so amazing, but Sabo didn’t know being one was as simple as just buying a ship and deciding it.
Did that mean…?
Slowly, Sabo’s face lights up. “That’s so cool! I wanna do it too!”
Tentative intrigue crosses Ace’s expression. “You wanna be a pirate?”
“Yeah, that sounds like the best!” Sabo exclaims. “I need to start getting money too! Then I’m gonna sail away as soon as I have enough! Far, far away from here, and I’m never gonna come back!”
Ace smirks. “Well, I’ve got the best hiding spot in the whole woods for treasure.”
“You do?”
“Yep.” He hesitates a moment, then says, a little quieter, “D’you wanna see?”
Sabo nods, head bobbing up and down enthusiastically. It looks like, maybe, Ace isn’t as bad as he’d thought!
Ace’s treasure cove turns out to be fairly close to where Sabo tends to camp out at night, hidden within a secret compartment of a thick tree branch that towers many meters above the ground. It’s… mostly empty, not too much in there yet besides a few coins, bills, and fancy jewelry shoved into a dark corner, but Sabo can already picture how it will appear when it’s filled to the brim.
“Wow! You’ve got so much room and it’s a great hiding spot. No one’s ever gonna look here!” Sabo enthuses.
“I know, right?” Ace agrees. “I can steal as much as I want and no one will ever get it back!”
Sabo laughs at that. “As long as they don’t follow you!”
“Nah, they’d never catch me!”
Somehow, Sabo buys into the bravado.
“I’ve gotta get a spot as good as this,” Sabo declares, sticking his head low in the tree and inspecting all the space with awe.
“Well…” Ace says, trailing off for so long Sabo thinks he may have disappeared, only to look up and see him still standing there, toeing at the branch under his feet awkwardly. “You could always share this one.”
“Really?” Sabo asks.
“Really,” Ace agrees. He kneels down, drawing a line down the middle of the crevice with his finger. “We’ll split it. I take one half, and you take the other half. We’ll see who gets more first, but no stealing from the other person!”
“Why would I steal?” Sabo asks. “That would make the game boring!”
Ace grins. “You know how to have fun.”
“Sure do!” Sabo agrees, cackling under his breath as he feels the rush of their truce. “So, are you finally gonna quit being mean and be my friend?”
“I never said that!” Ace argues.
He didn’t, and yet, he trusted Sabo with his secret this time. He’s even willing to share his space with him. In Sabo’s opinion, that’s worth a whole lot more than that ‘thank you’ he was after before.
“We’ll work on it,” Sabo promises.
-
From the day of their agreement to share in Ace’s space, two years fly by, and while Ace is reluctant to admit it, he begins to grow used to Sabo’s company. Their partnership starts with simple actions: waving to each other, walking back to the hiding spot together, sectioning off their own space and bragging briefly about their treasures. They didn’t talk, not really, and they certainly didn’t seek each other out. It was only acknowledgement, an acquaintance.
But soon enough, it evolves.
The shift happens when they stick around atop the tree branch longer, sharing elaborate tales of how they’d obtained the treasures they’d brought back with them.
Sabo has a knack for storytelling, managing to capture Ace’s interest on every occasion he begins to share despite his attempts to ignore him. In the end, Ace is always leaning close with wide eyes, quietly demanding to know how Sabo accomplished some feat. It’s different, after all, hearing Sabo’s approach. While Sabo is prone to reckless strategies, that’s typically what it is: a strategy. He thinks things through, considers how to attack in order to best get what he wants and without attracting too much attention.
Ace doesn’t usually bother with that stuff. He knows what he can handle, and when he picks a fight, he does it confident he will win. Even when the odds are stacked against him, he refuses to back down. It was a commitment he had made long ago.
It’s this attitude that impresses and horrifies Sabo in equal measure, so when Ace boasts about the enemies he’d taken down, Sabo greets him with a shocked grin and stars shining in his eyes.
This continues on and on, like clockwork, stories swapped back and forth between them.
“Did you beat them?” Sabo insists, when Ace speaks of being surrounded.
“So, how’d you win?” Ace demands, when Sabo pauses dramatically for effect.
“And then what?” They both ask, over and over until sharing becomes a daily occurrence, both of them always awaiting each other in their own private haven.
Every night, Ace hides away in his corner of the bandits’ home, snagging his portion of the food and glaring as they talk. This place is cold and lame and he sometimes wonders if maybe he’d prefer to be back with Sabo instead of here where he’s certain Dadan and her companions look at him with disdain.
Sabo never looks at him like that. Maybe because he doesn’t know about his history. Maybe because of the dumb soulmate thing; a portion of their relationship that Ace chooses to ignore in its entirety.
He never lets on that he’s gained the ability to see colour to Dadan, pretending like everything is as bleak as it’s always been. All the while, the world around him becomes brighter, opening up doors and welcoming him in ways it never has before.
“It’s so pretty,” Sabo muses one day, staring upwards in awe.
They’re settled on their branch, feet dangling in the air below them. It’s been hours since they’d both arrived. The animals Ace had caught for dinner are in a pile at the base with some fish Sabo captured in a makeshift net, forgotten like their previous hunger. Above them, the sun is sinking further from their sight and it leaves the sky glowing in a myriad of beautiful colours. Blues and pinks and oranges cascade across the horizon, painting the world masterfully and leaving Ace breathless.
“Yeah,” he admits, and his voice is rough, like it’s been a long while since he’s talked. Maybe it has been.
He bumps his shoulder against Sabo’s and Sabo nudges back, cackling in that weird way of his. When Sabo stares over at Ace properly, he grins, reaching out a sticky finger and poking at Ace’s mouth.
“Why’re you touching me?” Ace demands, swatting at his hand.
“’Cause you’re smiling!” Sabo exclaims.
He… was? Huh. He hadn’t even noticed.
“Y-yeah, so?”
“You do it more now! You never used to smile!”
Ace whips his head away, not willing to let Sabo have this. “It’s no big deal.”
“Feels like a big deal,” Sabo says, and then, quieter, “I’m glad you smile.”
Ace stays silent, nausea taunting him as the words swirl in his mind.
“It’s just ‘cause the sky’s pretty,” Ace finally mumbles.
“I know,” Sabo replies.
Somehow, he gets the impression that Sabo is lying to him, but this time, he doesn’t call him out on it.
“Is it time for you to go?” Sabo asks, when purples have overtaken the warmer hues above them.
“I guess,” Ace says.
Dadan is probably cursing him back home, asking what the point of having a good-for-nothing like him around is when he doesn’t do as much as bring them dinner on time.
He should get going.
“Do you have to?” Sabo whispers.
“Huh?”
Sabo turns to face him and there is emotion swimming in his eyes that Ace is unfamiliar with. His heart clenches uncomfortably. “Can you stay longer?”
Ace swallows past a lump in his throat. “I… yeah. Okay.”
“Really?!”
“Sure. They can wait.”
He’s told Sabo who ‘they’ were before, not seeing a point of keeping the mountain bandits who took him in a secret. It’s not like they’re family, anyway. It’s just where he goes to rest his head at night, nothing more. He’s the one looking out for himself, just like Sabo is.
And Ace is sure that the night sky looked nice before he could see colour, but he understands now it is more than black and white. There is a yellow shine to the millions of bright stars and midnight blue mixed in with the endless dark.
“I bet the sky looks even cooler out at sea,” Sabo muses.
“Everything would be cooler from the sea,” Ace says.
“Yeah, like the actual ocean! Imagine water all around you for miles.”
“The waves probably get really big.”
“They do! I heard they’re scary during storms!”
“Nah, it wouldn’t be scary, only fun, ‘cause I could totally take it all on!”
“So could I! And I bet we’d see lots of sea beasts too, ones that are even bigger than the ship!”
“Maybe we could catch one and have it for dinner!”
Their excited voices continue to carry through the night, the two making more and more guesses about what their future life as pirates will be like. All the talk makes Ace antsy. Why can’t they just leave now?
“And y’know what I’m gonna do when I finish my adventure?” Sabo asks.
“What?”
“Write a book about all the stuff I’ve seen! I can share my story with the whole world!”
Ace smirks. It’s an appealing idea. Doing something prominent enough to be remembered even after your future death. He wants that, too, though maybe in a different way than Sabo does.
“Bet everyone’ll be so jealous when they read it!” Ace says.
Sabo’s expression softens, clearly touched by Ace’s support.
It’s easier now, to give him that sort of thing. To extend a hand just a little in Sabo’s direction alone. He realizes now, he’d definitely rather be here than with the bandits, but he won’t let himself stay.
Sabo follows him down the trunk of the tree, trailing by his side up until they get to the edge of the forest. In the distance, they can make out fires scattered across Gray Terminal, smoke billowing above them and partly concealing the stars.
Ace scuffs at the ground with his shoe. “’kay well… Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It’s the first time he’s made a promise like that, a fact Sabo knows if the surprise on his face is any indication. The expression clears quickly, shifting into something brighter as he waves goodbye.
“See you tomorrow, Ace!”
And there might be something contagious about that look, because Ace doesn’t stop smiling the rest of the way home. It doesn’t slip even with Dadan’s yelling when he arrives, blubbering something about going out searching for him that barely registers.
It’s when he’s lying in bed that night, usual dark thoughts replaced with something more content, that it hits him.
Oh.
They’re friends.
-
Sabo and Ace are eight years old when they begin to be known as twin terrors of the Gray Terminal.
Individually, they’ve always been menaces, almost akin to small, feral animals that adults have to watch out for, otherwise they will nip at their heels and steal their dinners. They gather their own scraps and bring them home to their secret spot, continuing with this routine day in and day out. They don’t need to aim higher exactly nor to gather any more infamy.
Except, naturally, their routine begins to alter when instead of simply meeting when everything is said and done, they head out together. They share treasures as they come across them, point out new places to dig around together, and most of all, put both of their heads together when they face a tougher battle.
When the two of them fight together, they’re a force of nature. It doesn’t matter that they’re just kids: they’re speedy, ruthless, and scrappy. They can sneak into bigger and better places and get even heftier bags of loot.
Together, everything they want seems so much closer.
Sabo frowns. “Maybe we just need something better to split our two halves.”
The only trouble, Sabo finds, of how competent they’ve become, is their piles are growing at a faster speed than they’ve anticipated, and naturally, it has all started to spill together in their hidden crevice. After a heated debate over whether one gem was the property of Ace or Sabo due to it tumbling down into the middle of the pile, they sit quietly as they discern what to do about this new predicament.
“Like… like a really good plank?” Sabo suggests. Anything is better than the flimsy branch that hasn’t much served its purpose.
The unsettling thing is Ace hasn’t made any suggestions, staring with his arms crossed like he’s having a war with himself.
Sabo clears his throat. “Earth to Ace! Are you gonna actually help think of solutions here?”
If they kept fighting about who owned what, it was bound to get annoying and maybe even mess up their friendship…
“Maybe,” Ace says, slowly, “it’s time we quit doing this.”
Sabo’s blood runs cold. Oh…
He supposes it was Ace’s space to begin with, but still, after everything they’ve been through, this doesn’t sit right with him.
“I-I know that maybe I need to find a new place of my own! But it can be… it can be somewhere else on this tree,” Sabo says. “We don’t have to stop being friends because of something dumb like this!”
Ace bonks him on the head.
“Hey!” Sabo shouts. “What was that for?!”
“Being dumb!” Ace says. “I wasn’t saying that!”
“Then, what were you saying, jerk?!”
“I was gonna say…” He takes a steadying breath. “Why bother keeping our stuff separate, anyway?”
Sabo’s eyes widen, his heart thumping in his chest. “Like… we start sharing?”
“Yeah. Can’t be so bad. We’d get outta here sooner if we just left together, anyway,” Ace mumbles. With glee, Sabo realizes he’s blushing.
“Awww, Ace!” Sabo coos, only a little bent on embarrassing him further. “That’s so cute!”
“Shut up! I’ll take it back!”
“No! No, don’t take it back!”
Ace raises an eyebrow. “What, so you wanna do it now?”
Sabo grins. “I always wanted to do that. I thought of sharing it ages ago. I just thought you’d say no.”
Ace falls back into silence at the admittance. He’s really bad at this.
“We can get a bigger and better ship,” Sabo says. “The best on the seas! And we’d probably get to leave really soon! Plus, then we’d be on the same crew.”
“You wanna be on my crew?”
“Maybe I want you to be on my crew!”
Ace wrinkles his nose. “No way! I would be the captain. You’d be the navigator.”
“Lame! I wanna be the captain!”
“I was the one who wanted to be a pirate first!”
“So what? I’d totally be a better captain!”
“Would not!”
“Would to!”
Ace rolls his eyes. “Maybe I don’t even want you on my crew at all!”
Sabo snickers. “Yeah, you do! You said so!”
He sticks out a hand and Ace eyes it with skepticism.
“For now, let’s just be a team, okay?” Sabo suggests.
Ace smirks and grips Sabo’s hand back, giving it a rough shake. “Okay. We’re a team.”
It didn’t matter who gathered more treasure in a day, it didn’t matter how long it took. They would surely get enough to make just about anyone envious. And then, they’d get out of here. Together.
-
“Ow, ow, ow!”
“Stop squirming!”
“That hurts, Sabo!”
“I’m trying to help!”
Sabo quits poking at the gash in Ace’s arm with his cloth—doused with alcohol Ace had stolen from Dadan—and stares at it seriously.
It’s stupid. It’s not like Sabo’s a doctor!
“But you’re bleeding and it could be infected!” Sabo had exclaimed.
He doesn’t get how Sabo knows anything about “infections” or whatever, but he didn’t ask, simply let himself become Sabo’s patient. It would suck if something bad happened and his arm fell off, after all.
Sabo takes a roll of bandages they’d stolen from Edge Town—rumpled but mostly clean—and binds it around Ace’s arm tightly. He tugs to make sure it is intact, and examines it again, mumbling something about how at least the blood isn’t really coming through.
Ace is beginning to think Sabo is winging this a little bit.
He raises his arm, showing off the wrapping. “You happy now?”
Sabo nods, that awful worry in his expression that had tied Ace’s chest into knots melting away. “Yep. As long as you’re better!”
Later, Dadan doesn’t point out the injury, but Ace thinks he catches her staring at one point. Probably ‘cause it’s very different than the sloppy work Ace usually does on himself.
He can’t really blame her there. He thinks this medical job, while a painful process and binding him a little too tightly now, is a whole lot better too.
-
“Sabo, hey, check this out!” Ace calls, beckoning him over to a new pile of goodies dumped into Gray Terminal.
Sabo scampers over, expecting gold or silver or jewels, and instead being greeted with a hoard of clothes and accessories.
“Looks like some of the scum from High Town got too greedy,” Ace sneers.
It seems true. The outfits spread before them were made with high quality material, certainly akin to the type he used to see people wearing up there. They had very little damage to them as well, mostly holding tiny tears in the material or a stain you almost needed a microscope to detect. Though he swore some had no damage at all. He wondered what exactly made them so unbefitting to the family who owned them that they simply threw them in the trash without a thought. Likely, there was no good reason at all.
A familiar discomfort settles in his gut.
He hates the people of High Town.
He hates his own family.
It’s an emotion so intense, with so many different complicated facets, that he doesn’t like to dwell on it for long, preferring to forget his past in its entirety. That Sabo, he’s dead. At least that’s what his family probably thinks, and he’d be happy to keep it that way.
He still hasn’t told Ace about coming from nobility. Part of him is terrified of what Ace would say if he knew.
“Maybe some of these will have jewels in them,” Sabo suggests. It’s something he’s seen before, precious gems embedded into the cuffs of suits or along the lines of a dress. All for the people’s own vanity, of course. “And check the pockets too, maybe they left some money inside and forgot about it!”
They dig through the pile, investigating each item thoroughly, not having any sort of time limit. Ordinary people around here knew better than to mess with Ace and Sabo when it came to their hunting, and those who didn’t only pattered around for a minute before twin death glares sent them scurrying in a different direction.
“Sabo! Look at this!” Ace calls, waving a hat in the air.
The second Sabo sees it, his eyes widen. It’s a top hat, pure black and pristine in its condition. He doesn’t know why, but he likes it, and reaches for it instinctively.
“Ooh, gimme that! I want it,” Sabo says.
Ace twists away from him, holding the hat out of Sabo’s reach. “No way! I’m the one who found it!”
“So? Are you even gonna use it?!”
Ace plops the garment on his head. It’s oversized and droops slightly to one side. “Maybe! I think it looks cool!”
Sabo scowls. “It would look cooler on me!”
Sure, it’s an awesome hat no matter what you pair it with, but Sabo knows it would go way better with his cravat and jacket than with Ace’s plain t-shirt and shorts.
“You never look cool, you look lame,” Ace says.
Sabo fumes. “Let’s fight for it!”
“Nope! Even though I’d win, I can’t risk you cheating to get it,” Ace says.
With a satisfied smirk, Ace goes back to digging through the remainder of the clothes. Sabo stands still for a moment, fists clenched in frustration before he regretfully returns to it as well. He finds a few other hats, and tries on each, but none of them feel right. They’re not calling to him like that top hat did.
It’s strange. He usually isn’t drawn so much to anything related to High Town, but back then, Sabo had never had the freedom to choose what he wanted to wear, even when he saw lots of awesome pieces in the windows of shops that he pointed out to his parents. Now that he could, why wouldn’t he take advantage of being able to make those choices?
They walk away with a good haul at the end of the day, having swiped a decent number of coins and some fancy looking accessories. They didn’t even have to get into any fights for it, so there shouldn’t be anything to complain about.
Except Ace looks way too pleased with himself, still wearing that hat with an ever-present cocky smile, so Sabo can’t stop frowning. He practically stomps his way to their hideout and is slow at unpacking their findings when they arrive there, barely entertaining any conversation. It would serve Ace right! He probably only even wants the hat because Sabo does!
“Are you seriously still mad at me?” Ace asks.
Sabo glares at him. “Yes.”
Ace laughs, finally taking off the hat to inspect it in his hands. “Just ‘cause of some weird hat?”
“It’s not weird!” Sabo insists.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” Ace says. He spins the hat around in his hands a few times, and Sabo is almost certain he’s going to throw it.
Instead, he stops and sits down with it placed on the grass in front of him. He holds out a hand in Sabo’s direction. “Give me your goggles!”
“Why, so you can take them too?” Sabo snaps.
“Just hand them over!”
Sabo sighs. He swears he doesn’t get Ace sometimes. Hesitantly, he removes the goggles around his head, placing them in Ace’s hand with a pointed stare that says, don’t you dare be an idiot.
Ace nods, then makes quick work in his task: buckling the goggles around the base of the hat. When they’re secured, he holds it upwards, tilting his head with his tongue sticking out as he inspects it. He turns it so Sabo can see, eyes crinkling in delight.
“What do you think?” Ace asks. “Cooler, huh?”
Sabo really hates to admit he agrees. It’s way better now. No longer does it look like an item exclusively from High Town. With this addition, it has a new flair to it that speaks of something a little wilder.
“I guess…” he mumbles. “So what?”
Ace laughs, unaffected by Sabo’s moodiness. He rises back to his feet, hat in hands, and places it on Sabo’s head. Unadjusted, it falls down his forehead a little, almost covering his eyes.
“That should do it!” Ace declares.
Sabo’s mouth falls open. “Huh?”
“Take it. You obviously want it way more than I do.”
Sabo grins, fixing the hat to sit properly on his head. When he’s satisfied, he digs around in their treasure trove to pull out a fancy mirror, using it to inspect his appearance.
This is it. He likes this.
“Good?” Ace asks.
“It’s awesome!” Sabo exclaims. “Thank you, Ace!”
Ace shakes his head, turning away from Sabo. “Yeah, you’re welcome. It’s no big deal.”
Since he’d just given him a gift, Sabo will do him the favour of not laughing at the way his face had totally gone red.
“I figured you’d like it,” Ace mutters.
Sabo blinks, too distracted to properly make out the words. “What’d you say?”
Ace smirks. “Nothing. Just that… you look cool.”
-
“You look so dumb,” Sabo teases.
“No, I don’t!” Ace growls. “Shut up!”
Sabo forces his mouth into a thin line, trying desperately not to laugh as Ace hobbles along the grass. It’s not Sabo’s fault he’d made an idiot of himself. While racing back to their hideout together, Ace had caught his foot on a root. He’d shouted in surprise, falling flat on his face hard.
He’d shot back up quickly, except when he did, it was with a wince as he tried to put pressure back on that foot. Sabo deduced it could be a twisted ankle, so their race had been called off. Ace has looked grumpy since, lips pressed into a pout and brows scrunched together as he struggles to walk.
“Do you need help?” Sabo teases.
“No way!” Ace snaps. “I’m fine.”
Sabo rolls his eyes. If this is what ‘fine’ is, he’d hate to see what Ace considered ‘bad’. By this point, Sabo could have made it to their destination about ten times over!
He picks up his pace, transitioning back to a normal speed. “See you there, then!”
Ace sputters in protest and accepts the challenge, pushing himself to go faster by hopping on one leg. Seeing him reduced to that really is funny, and Sabo’s sense of pity only kicks in when Ace is forced to stop again, pressing a hand against a tree trunk to regain his breath.
“Come on, I’ll help,” Sabo offers, more genuinely this time.
“I don’t need help,” Ace sneers.
Sabo ignores that, crouching down in front of him and waiting.
“What’re you doing?” Ace asks.
“Waiting for you!”
“I don’t get it.”
“I’ll carry you, come on.”
“I don’t wanna be carried.”
“Well, I don’t wanna wait for you, so too bad!”
Ace grumbles complaints, something about this being uncool and pathetic. Sabo frowns.
“If you’re gonna say ‘no’, I’ll just leave without you!” Sabo adds.
Ace sighs. “I hate you.”
It’s a half-hearted insult that loses its effect when Ace finally listens, climbing onto Sabo’s back and wrapping his arms around his neck.
Sabo grins. “No, you don’t!”
It’s difficult to stand back up and move at first; Ace is kinda heavy! He’s tough though, and all their physical training these past few years manages to pay off. He adjusts to the added weight on his back and forces himself forward, easing into a rhythm.
“See?” Sabo says. “This is way faster!”
Ace snickers. “Yeah. Maybe it’s not so bad, getting you to carry me around! It’s like I’m a noble and you’re my servant!”
“Do you want me to drop you?”
Ace laughs, and Sabo doesn’t let him fall, even if he kinda wants to.
-
“I need you to make this into a soup,” Ace demands, when he drops the carcass of a bear outside of the bandits’ house.
Dadan raises her brows. “Who said you get to make demands, brat?”
“I caught it! Why shouldn’t I?”
“’Cause you don’t have to do the cooking, do ya?”
Ace sticks his nose up at her. “So? It’s probably easy to make soup!”
“Like hell it’s easy,” Dadan snaps. “What d’you want that for, anyway? I thought you liked when the meat was fresh off the bone?”
She’s not wrong. It’s only that today, it doesn’t really matter what he wants.
“Well, this time I want soup,” he insists. “So what?”
Dadan bristles, muttering curses about Garp and ungrateful orphans as she drags the carcass inside. Ace is hot on her tail, regarding her with a glare and a healthy amount of skepticism as she begins prepping the meal. If she didn’t listen to what he wanted, well… he’d steal his catch back and make soup himself! It couldn’t be that hard to figure out, could it?
Thankfully, he doesn’t have to start a fight. Dadan brings out a cauldron and sets it over an open fire, already boiling some water. Ace nods, satisfied, and watches like a hawk nearby as Dadan slices up the meat and chops some vegetables for good measure.
It takes forever for it to finish cooking and by the time it does, the other bandits are sticking their noses through the door, gushing about the smell. It’s obvious they’re ready to clamber over each other the minute bowls are set out in front of them. Unfortunately for them, Ace has always been significantly faster and tougher. He pushes everyone aside, snatching the ladle and dumping a portion of the soup inside his own bowl. It’s one he stole from the cupboard and has a lid to go on top of it, encasing the food to keep it nice and warm.
With that secured, he turns on his heel and dashes toward the front door, bowl secured carefully under his arm. There are a few shouts of protest as he races back outside, the sky a midnight blue that would fade into deeper darkness in the coming hour.
It’s more dangerous to be out here at night, with his vision impaired and little light to guide him on his path back towards Gray Terminal, and he can’t be bothered to consider it.
He dodges past outstretched branches and roots digging out of the ground. He nearly gets attacked by a tiger who bares its fangs menacingly at him. He is heckled by a group of men in Gray Terminal, their yellow teeth fully showcased as they sneer at him, questioning why he’s wandering around here so late. He pants for breath as he crosses into a familiar forest, sweat beading down his back and exhaustion sinking into his bones.
“Sabo?” he calls, eyes casting over the area in search of him.
“Ace…?” a scratchy voice replies.
From his usual place of the burrow beneath his tree, Sabo pokes his head out. A ratty blanket is wrapped around him, his fingers gripping tightly onto the fabric. His now-signature hat is missing and his curls are in even greater disarray than usual. With droopy eyes and a leaking nose, he makes for a pretty pathetic sight.
“Uh-huh,” Ace says. “You still feeling like crap?”
Sabo chokes on a laugh. “What do you think?”
“Well, you look like crap!”
Sabo shakes his head, face contorting in irritation. “Great. Thanks for letting me know. What are you even doing here, Ace? I told you to go home!”
“I did go home,” Ace argues.
He steps closer to Sabo, holding the bowl of soup out in front of him. Sabo takes a hesitant step forward, examining the container.
“What’s this?” Sabo asks.
“Dadan’s homemade bear soup!” Ace exclaims.
“You… brought that for me?”
“Yep! Can’t have you staying like this much longer! Going out on my own isn’t as fun!”
The apprehension on Sabo’s face is wiped away, his eyes growing clearer and his lips wobbling. “Thank you, Ace…”
“C’mon, it’s no big deal! Now eat up already, it’s probably already getting cold!”
A smile settles on Sabo’s face and he graciously accepts the offer. He sits down, tilting back the bowl and gulping the soup in large sips.
“It’s really good,” he says.
“Don’t give Dadan too much credit. She’s still a witch.”
Sabo laughs. “Yeah, I know.”
Ace stays until Sabo has finished every last drop, wiping at his mouth and already seeming to possess a lot more energy than he had earlier that very day. Pride has settled so prominently in Ace’s stomach that he can ignore how it rumbles with ease.
“You gonna be okay?” Ace checks, before he heads back again.
“I’m fine,” Sabo insists. “Don’t be dumb. You already did way too much for me!”
Ace nods. “If you say so. Just don’t die in your sleep or something, okay?”
“As if! If I died like that, I’d be a disgrace of a pirate!”
“Yeah! You totally would!”
Sabo snickers. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ace.”
On his trek back, Ace is in a much better mood than before, no longer plagued with stupid bouts of anxiety. He plucks at berries as he walks, popping them into his mouth and knowing he will have to settle on these as his dinner. There’s no way the bandits saved any soup for him, after all.
Too bad. It did smell good.
He expects everyone to be sleeping when he opens the front door of the bandits’ cabin again, and instead is greeted with Dadan, sitting up in the dark.
“What the hell are you doing up?” Ace snaps.
She snorts, but doesn’t answer. “What were you doing out?”
He curls his hands into fists. Fine, he’ll get this over with. “I was seeing Sabo.”
“What’s a Sabo?”
“He’s not an ‘a’! He’s a ‘he’! He’s my friend, and he’s none of your business!”
Dadan shakes her head, amused and clearly not surprised. “Whatever. How’d he like the soup?”
“Who said he got any soup?” Ace asks. He stalks past her, pushing his way past the men sleeping on the floor towards his room. “I’m going to bed.”
Dadan huffs out a laugh. “Sure. Night, brat.”
“Whatever,” he returns. But, before he makes it inside the room, he pauses. “And, uh… thanks for the soup, I guess.”
She grunts in affirmation and doesn’t add anything else. Ace figures it’s for the best.
-
It’s soon after they turn ten that Sabo realizes there’s something odd between Ace and the King of the Pirates. From regular citizens to world travelers to pirates—whether current, wannabe or retired—everyone seems to have an opinion on the guy. He was the scum of the Earth. He was a legend. He was dangerous and left carnage in his path. He was fun and breathed adventure.
Out of everyone in the world, Gold Roger stood above them all. For pirates in particular, his legacy left them with greater goals. They either hated Roger, admired him, or wanted to surpass him. Sometimes all three.
So, it isn’t odd for someone to express disdain toward him. What’s weird is the attitude Ace has is… different for reasons Sabo can’t quite put his finger on.
When Gold Roger is mentioned, Ace always seems to tense up. He clenches his fists and waits, deadly silent until he hears the person express their opinion. Sometimes it’s a pirate who begins going off about how amazing Roger was, recounting a tale he’d heard from a friend of a friend who had met him. Sometimes it’s an ordinary man, scoffing at the name, saying that Roger’s very blood must be poison. Whether it was the first, second, or something in between, though, Ace’s reaction never changes. Positive or negative, Ace seems to loathe every judgement someone has.
Sabo tries to bring it up to Ace once, casually asking what exactly he thinks of Roger.
Ace glares daggers at him and gives a simple three-word reply: “I hate him.”
The sheer malice in him is enough to make Sabo drop the subject on the spot, but it sticks with him, because somehow, it doesn’t seem so simple.
When it comes up between them again, it’s weeks later, while they’re locked in an intense sparring session.
Fighting has been a regular occurrence between them for ages, the two taking days off scouring for money to train up their skills. They’re almost evenly matched, scoring back and forth wins that prompt the other to declare they go again and again until they’re both exhausted. They started to cap it off at 50 only when they battled for so long on one occasion that they threw up.
Ace wins more often than not, with Sabo making it so close to his own victory that it aches.
But today, up 25 to Ace’s 24, he’s confident he can snag the win, especially when they’d put a valuable prize on the line.
“Whoever wins has to give up their biggest secret!” Sabo had declared.
It was for his own gain, and against it as well. If he loses, after all, he won’t have anything to offer besides the truth about his noble upbringing, and he definitely isn’t eager for that to get out.
Their final match is ruthless, to no surprise. They hold back no punches and dodge like their lives depend on it. Every jab is rough, every kick is brutal, and their techniques grow closer and closer to underhanded the longer time stretches on.
Thirty minutes pass like this until Ace finally collapses backwards onto the grass, defeated. He curls onto his side, his breathing heavy until he forces it back under control. Sabo doesn’t fare much better, hands on his knees as he pants like he’s been long separated from a source of oxygen.
“Heh, take… that, Ace!” Sabo gasps. “Look like I got this one!”
Ace growls. “You cheated!”
“No, I won fair and square and you’re just mad about it,” Sabo gloats.
“I almost had it!”
“And I actually had it!”
Ace continues to make strange frustrated noises while Sabo smirks. He leans over where Ace is slumped and stares at him expectantly.
“Soo, what’s your big secret?” he asks.
Ace flies to his feet, bonking his skull against Sabo’s forehead in the process. Sabo stumbles back a few feet, rubbing at the injury with a groan of pain.
“What the hell, Ace?!”
“Stop acting stupid,” Ace snaps. “I’ll tell you when I wanna tell you.”
“Hey, that wasn’t the deal!”
“Too bad.”
Sabo pouts, throwing out insults about unfairness and cheating that Ace either doesn’t hear or isn’t bothered by. Great. While he’s like this, there will be no way for Sabo to get him to relent. He could try tackling him and pinning him down until he gives it up, but his limbs are so heavy that he’s unsure he could pull off another decent blow.
So, in the end, it takes hours for Ace to finally honor their agreement.
They’re sitting around a rough looking campfire, its warmth guarding them from the cool spring air when Ace blurts out the truth, all at once:
“Gold Roger was my dad.”
Sabo’s jaw drops. “What?! The King of the Pirates is your dad?!”
“Yeah, and so what?” he snaps. “I never even got to meet the guy, and ‘cause of him my mom had to go into hiding. And then she… she died too, having me!”
Sabo’s mouth goes dry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why’s it matter?!”
It’s cool, part of him thinks. That’s the sort of parentage Sabo figures he would be able to take pride in. But, then, it’s also the type lots of people would condemn you for.
Maybe people had said mean things to Ace about his dad. Maybe he blames Roger for what happened to his mom. Maybe it’s more than all of that.
He doesn’t fully get it, and this time, he doesn’t ask.
“I guess it doesn’t,” he mumbles.
Ace raises an eyebrow. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”
“You really don’t think it matters?”
“I thought you wanted me to think it doesn’t matter!”
“I want you to but I didn’t think— it matters to everyone else!”
“So? Why do I gotta be like everyone else?”
“You don’t! But don’t you think I— doesn’t this change your mind about me?” Ace asks.
Sabo’s brow furrows. “Why would it? It doesn’t matter who your dad is, you’re still Ace.”
If he believed that children were defined by who their parents are, well… he wouldn’t have much hope left for himself, would he?
Ace falls silent, staring down at the grass.
Sabo flicks him against the forehead.
“Hey!” Ace shouts, accusatory glare on Sabo. “What was that for?!”
“Being weird.”
Ace groans, shaking his head and mumbling something under his breath that’s almost definitely an insult. Sabo shrugs, unbothered. He picks up a branch he’d collected earlier, plucking off berries from its many points.
“Hey, Sabo?” Ace asks, when Sabo’s mouth is stuffed full. “Thanks.”
Sabo swallows the food in one gulp, smiling proudly. “I don’t know what the big deal is, but you’re welcome. We’re a team, right? You and me against the world.”
There is a dazzling sheen in Ace’s eyes when he nods. “You and me against the world.”
It’s a promise made as simple as breathing and one that is only intended to encapsulate the two of them alone.
And then, they’re flung into a whirlwind the day that Monkey D. Garp drops his grandson off to stay with Dadan.