One Piece (Love Story) [Part One]

Chapter Twenty Two [Rewritten]

-Chapter Twenty-Two-

"You don't say" Zoro deadpanned as the Dugongs now swarmed around Luffy.

"They think you're their master now" Vivi explained to the still confused rubber man.

"Right everyone, after me—now punch!" Luffy ordered. "No like this!" he frowned before quickly brightening once the sea critters corrected themselves. "Yeah, now harder and shift—left, right, yeah!" he grinned, eagerly punching his arms outwards while watching as the Dugongs perfectly copied his every move as instructed.

"I think it already went to his head" I pointed out.

"Of course, it has" Zoro scoffed with the roll of his eyes.

"Right, all set, let's go to Yuba" Luffy smiled.

"Hey, wait a minute" Zoro quickly stopped him, eye twitching as he motioned to the crowd of Dugongs behind our captain. "You're not bringing them with us."

"Luffy, you can't!" Nami scowled as she placed her hands on her hips.

"Luffy, they're water creatures—they won't make it!" Vivi stressed once she saw that the captain wasn't really listening.

"But look at them, they're so cute—how could you say no to those faces?" I suddenly defended before squealing at the adorable sight of two Dugongs whining as they rubbed their heads against Luffy's legs as if begging to come with us.

"It's going to break my heart to say no to them, but we can't let them come along" Nami whispered as she hurriedly huddled close to Vivi in an attempt to look away from the adorable sight before she could fully fall victim to it.

"I agree, but how are we supposed to get them to stay?" the princess asked.

"I know!" Chopper piped up, rushing over to the supplies we had packed.

"What are you doing?" Sanji asked, raising a questioning brow the moment the reindeer started to sniff at the bags.

"What exactly are you looking for?" I inquired, quick to realize that the doctor was looking for something in particular amongst our bag of supplies.

"Here, all you guys can have this—but only if you stay here, okay" Chopper promised as he finally pulled out a rather large piece of meat. "Ah! Somebody, help!" he cried out, startled the second the Dugongs picked him up in their excitement and started to carry both him and the food he held off.

"Chopper!" Usopp shouted.

Soon after we got everything settled and said our final goodbyes to the group of Dugongs who now waved us off. I chuckled as Sanji struck the back of Luffy's head with a frying pan the moment he spotted the captain trying to steal back some of the food we had given the sea critters.

"Hope you all enjoy the food! Bye!" Luffy waved as we finally set off, now leaving he group of Dugongs and the ship behind as we made way for the desert.

"I'm going to miss them" I hummed out, taking hold of Zoro's hand and mindlessly intertwining our fingers.

"I'm sure they'll be fine" he said, giving my hand a squeeze. "Especially with all that food we gave them..." he grumbled under his breath.

"All you guys...food...now do you get it...?" Nami sadly mumbled.

"No, they said they wanted to go with us—why couldn't we let them?" Luffy huffed.

"Agreed, they would have made for some cute company" I said, quick to take the captain's side much to his delight.

"We don't have the food and water to take care of a group that big, morons" Nami stressed, glaring the two of us down. "Honestly, I don't know what we would have done if Chopper didn't persuade them to stay" she sighed.