The bar was called Party's Bar.
It was a small place. Warm inside, wooden walls, a few tables, bottles lined up neatly behind the counter. It smelled like food and sea air mixed together. Not a bad combination.
When Ronald and Luffy walked in, the woman behind the counter looked up and smiled. She had green hair tied back and a calm, kind face. The kind of person who made you feel like you'd known her for years even if you'd just met.
"Luffy," she said warmly. "And who's this?"
"Ronald," Luffy announced like he was presenting someone important. "He can skip stones four times. I brought him."
Makino looked at Ronald with a gentle smile. "I don't think I've seen you around before. Do you live here in the village?"
"Yeah," Ronald said. "With Greta. The old woman near the east side."
"Oh, I know her well." Makino nodded. "Sit anywhere you like. I'll bring you both something to eat."
Luffy was already running toward a table near the window. Ronald followed at a normal pace and sat across from him.
The bar was mostly empty at this hour. One old fisherman in the corner nursing a drink. A couple of village men talking quietly near the door. Nothing unusual.
Luffy planted his elbows on the table and leaned forward. "So what do you do all day if you don't go outside much?"
"Think," Ronald said.
Luffy squinted. "That's it?"
"And read when I can find books."
"That sounds boring."
"It's not."
Luffy leaned back and crossed his arms like he was genuinely trying to understand a foreign concept. "I run around mostly. And I train. And I eat. And then I sleep and do it again."
"Sounds simple," Ronald said.
"It is," Luffy agreed proudly.
Makino came over with two plates. Rice, grilled fish, some vegetables on the side. She set them down gently and looked at Ronald again with that same warm curiosity.
"Are you settling in okay here? Foosha is a quiet place. Some kids find it boring."
"I don't mind quiet," Ronald said.
"He thinks a lot," Luffy offered helpfully.
Makino laughed softly. "That's a good thing." She looked at Ronald a moment longer like she was trying to figure something out, then smiled and went back behind the counter.
Ronald picked up his chopsticks and started eating.
The food was good. Genuinely good. Simple ingredients but cooked well. He hadn't expected that and it caught him slightly off guard.
"Good right?" Luffy said with a full mouth, rice stuck to the corner of his lips.
"Yeah," Ronald admitted. "Really good."
Luffy looked satisfied, like he'd personally cooked it himself.
---
They spent most of that afternoon together without really planning to.
After the bar they walked around the village. Luffy knew every corner of it — every shortcut, every old broken fence, every spot where you could see the sea from a different angle. He talked the whole time. About the village, about the fishermen he knew, about a man named Shanks who apparently came around sometimes with his crew.
Ronald listened and stored everything away quietly.
"Shanks," he said at one point.
"You know him?" Luffy looked surprised.
"I've heard the name," Ronald said carefully. "Red hair?"
"Yeah! You've seen him?"
"No. Just heard people mention him."
Luffy's eyes lit up. "He's amazing. His crew comes here sometimes and they drink at Makino's bar and they're so loud and fun." He paused. "Shanks himself is — I don't know. He's just different. Like when he looks at you it feels like he actually sees you. You know what I mean?"
Ronald glanced at him. "Yeah. I know what you mean."
"I want to be stronger than him one day," Luffy said simply. Not as a boast. Just like it was a fact he'd already decided.
Ronald didn't say anything to that. He just kept walking.
They ended up sitting on a hill at the edge of the village as the afternoon started cooling down. The sea spread out below them, gold and orange under the dropping sun. A few birds circled lazily above the water.
"Hey," Luffy said after a while of comfortable silence, which was rare for him. "Why don't you want to be a pirate?"
"I didn't say I don't want to be one," Ronald said. "I said I don't know yet."
"What are you waiting to know?"
Ronald thought about that genuinely. What was he waiting for? He already knew this world better than most people in it ever would. He knew what was coming — the arcs, the enemies, the power levels, the endgame. He knew where the strongest people in the world were and roughly what they were capable of.
But knowing things and being ready for them were two different things.
"I want to be strong first," he said finally. "Before I decide what to do with that strength."
Luffy looked at him. For a second the goofy energy dropped and he just looked — genuinely thoughtful. "That makes sense actually."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. Shanks always says that power without a reason behind it is just noise."
Ronald raised an eyebrow slightly. "Shanks said that?"
"Well." Luffy scratched the back of his head. "He said something like that. I might be mixing up the words a little."
Ronald almost laughed. Almost.
"Either way," he said. "I'm not in a rush."
Luffy nodded like that settled something. Then the goofy grin came back. "Okay but when you do decide — you should join my crew."
Ronald looked at him flatly. "You don't have a crew."
"Not yet."
"You don't even have a boat."
"Not yet."
Ronald stared at him for a moment. Luffy stared back with complete and total confidence in a future that didn't exist yet.
"Ask me again when you have a boat," Ronald said.
Luffy laughed. "Okay deal!"
---
Days passed.
Ronald fell into a quiet routine. Mornings he'd wake up early, help Greta with small things around the house — carrying water, fixing a loose board on the porch, whatever needed doing. She never asked him to. He just did it.
She watched him sometimes with an expression he couldn't quite read. Like she was trying to figure out where he came from. Not literally. Just — what kind of child he was.
She never asked. He never explained.
In the afternoons he'd go outside. Sometimes he'd run along the coastal path to get his body used to moving. The legs were still short and it bothered him more than he let on, but there wasn't much to do about that except work with what he had.
He started doing basic exercises when no one was watching. Push ups, sit ups, balance training on the rocks near the water. Nothing dramatic. Just building a foundation.
Luffy found him one afternoon mid-push up behind a cluster of rocks near the dock.
"What are you doing?" Luffy asked, peering down at him.
"What does it look like," Ronald said without stopping.
"Training?"
"Yeah."
Luffy immediately dropped down and started doing push ups next to him. No questions, no preamble. Just joined in like it was the most natural thing in the world.
They trained in silence for a while. Or rather Ronald trained in silence and Luffy made various sounds of effort and enthusiasm beside him.
After they both stopped, Luffy flopped onto his back and stared at the sky breathing hard. Ronald sat up and looked at the sea.
"You're serious about getting strong huh," Luffy said to the sky.
"Yeah."
"Me too." He sat up. "Grandpa says the only way to get strong is to almost die a lot."
Ronald turned to look at him. "Your grandfather say that often?"
"All the time." Luffy said it completely without concern.
Ronald decided not to comment on that. He knew who Luffy's grandfather was. That information sat in his head like a small ticking clock.
*Monkey D. Garp. Vice Admiral. One of the strongest marines alive.*
He looked at Luffy sideways. Messy hair, straw hat, currently picking something off his knee with total concentration.
*And this kid is going to be the Pirate King someday.*
Ronald looked back at the sea.
*This world really doesn't do things halfway.*
---
About two weeks after they first met, Luffy showed up at Ronald's door early in the morning looking more excited than usual, which was saying something.
"Shanks is here," he announced the moment Ronald opened the door.
Ronald looked at him. Still half asleep. "What?"
"Shanks. His ship came in last night. His crew is at Makino's bar already." Luffy grabbed his arm. "Come on."
Ronald let himself be pulled along.
The bar was much louder than the last time he'd been there. Shanks' crew filled most of the tables — a big, loud, lively group that seemed to take up twice the space normal people would. Laughter, clinking cups, someone telling a story with big arm gestures in the corner.
And at the center of it, sitting at the bar counter talking casually with Makino, was a man with red hair.
Ronald saw him and felt something register quietly in his chest.
He'd known Shanks was strong. He knew it from memory, from everything he'd known about this world before arriving in it. But knowing something and seeing it were different things.
Even sitting down, relaxed, cup in hand — there was something about Shanks that the air around him seemed to acknowledge. Not intimidating exactly. More like — settled. Like a mountain that's been there long enough that everything around it just accepts it.
Luffy had already run ahead shouting Shanks' name.
Shanks turned and his face broke into a wide grin. "Luffy! You got bigger."
"I've been training!" Luffy announced proudly.
"Yeah?" Shanks looked genuinely pleased. Then his eyes moved past Luffy and landed on Ronald, who had stopped a few feet back.
Ronald met his gaze without looking away.
Shanks looked at him for a second with an expression that was hard to read. Then he smiled — a slightly different smile than the one he'd given Luffy. More measured.
"Friend of yours?" he asked Luffy.
"Yeah! That's Ronald. He's strong. Well — he will be. He trains a lot."
"Is that right." Shanks didn't look away from Ronald. "What's your name, kid?"
"Ronald," he said. "Ronald D. Cefiroth."
Something passed across Shanks' expression at the middle initial. Brief. Almost invisible. Then it was gone and the easy grin came back.
"D., huh," he said lightly. "Interesting."
"People say that sometimes," Ronald said.
Shanks let out a short laugh. "I bet they do. Sit down. Makino's food is worth it."
Ronald pulled out a stool and sat. Luffy was already beside Shanks asking him seventeen questions at the same time. The crew was loud around them. Makino was moving efficiently behind the counter, keeping up with orders without looking stressed.
Ronald sat quietly and took it all in.
He wasn't nervous. He just understood, in a clear and simple way, that he was sitting next to one of the most dangerous people on the planet.
And that someday — that gap between them needed to close.
He picked up the cup of juice Makino set in front of him and took a sip.
*One step at a time.*
---
*End of Chapter 2*
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