Finding Myself (One Piece Fanfic)

Chapter 31: Memories (Part 1)

They deserve it though. Nobody makes fun of my brother.

About two weeks ago we had the luck of running into Makoto, a timid blue-haired boy. Unlike our long hair, Makoto's blue hair was very short, the bottom half being buzzed. Makoto was a year older than us, and he was taller than Sato and I. He had a big head, which Sato had not allowed me to mention. I also was not allowed to mention his big round eyes, which were too big for his too big head. When we first met him he was dressed nicely with a bow tie and the front part of his hair was gelled back. I figured had thought he was a man stuck in a kids body. I figured he wasn't allowed to play, since he was picking up sticks for his grandparents.

I had been fully prepared to beat him up, like all the other boys that make fun of Sato, but then he did the craziest thing. He complimented Sato's hair. It was then instantly confirmed. Sato and I were going to make Makoto our friend.

Well. I was going to make Makoto our friend. So far, it's worked out well.

"Do you think he'll show up, Mitsu?" Sato asked, his voice smooth and a slightly higher pitch than me.

I grinned at my twin. "Definitely!" Grabbing one of my favorite sticks, I plopped down on one of the blankets we had dragged here. Swiping my hand across the dirt, I cleared the last picture I had drawn. Then, I began drawing Sato and I. Maybe next time I would add in Makoto.

My twin sat down next to me, resting his head on my arm as he looked at the picture I was drawing. "How can you draw so good?"

I shrugged my free shoulder, grunting an non-logical 'I don't know'. Then I looked at him, a sour tone in my face. "How come you can cook?"

He smiled in response and answered as I had.

I puffed my cheeks out in annoyance, glaring down at the dirt I drew on. "At least your talent can come in handy one day. If I want to join a pirate crew, there's no way they'd want an artist."

Sato blinked at me, then grinned. "Then they don't deserve you! We'll make pur own pirate crew! Just you and me! And maybe Mom, but only if she wants to be a pirate again."

I giggled, "Who'd be the captain? I'm already the artist, so I'd have to focus on that completely. You don't have the skills to be a captain." Sato's grin dropped into a frown before he sighed in agreement. "And mom, if she did join, hasn't been a captain before for many reasons. She doesn't like that responcibility."

Our conversation paused at the movement of branches. Light encased our fort as a figure crawled in, his shirt getting caught in the branches.

"Makoto!" I greeted, watching as the blue haired boy untangled himself before rearranging the branches. After he took a little longer than necessary with fixing the bush, he situated himself across from my twin and I.

"Sorry-Sorry I'm late." He flushed, his gaze dropping to my unfinished drawing. "Grandma needed me to grab some medicine for gramps before I left."

"That's okay!" I cheered, grinning happily at our new friend. "You're here now! Ne, ne, let's play a game!"

..................

"Um..." Makoto looked down at the stick he was holding then at Sato and I. "Why are we pretending to be pirates?"

"Because pirates are awesome!" I answered, throwing my arms in the air to elaborate effectively. Then I looked back at Sato, who was growing at me waiting for me to help tie his eye patch. He has a weird obsession with adding in an eye patch when he played as a pirate.

"But- But aren't they bad?" Makoto asked, his face flushing once more and he took a small step back.

Sato and I blinked, both of us sharing a look of confusion. "Bad?" We asked in unison looking back at Makoto.

"Well marines are the good guys. They save people like us from the bad guys, pirates." He answered, his voice much smaller.

I put my finger to my lip in thought. Pirates are bad. Mom was a pirate. Did that make mom and Uncle Shanks bad?

That didn't make sense, they were the best people I knew.

"It's okay, we- we can play pirates if you guys want." Makoto quickly added having seen our faces. "But shouldn't we have some kind of good guy playing too? Like a marine?"

Sato wrinkled his nose as did I. Never did we think of adding a marine into our game. It would ruin our perfect pirate game.

"Well, to pirates, marines are the bad guys." Sato reasoned. "So if we had a marine in the game they would be a bad guy."

Before Makoto could respond we heard another voice call through the forest. "Sato! Mitsu! Come on back home! Dinner is ready!"

"Okay Ka-san!" I yelled back, knowing she would hear me. Then I frowned in disappointment as I looked back at Makoto. We didn't get to play that long.

I grabbed Sato's hand then looked at Makoto. Mom wouldn't mind if I invited him back for dinner. She was very happy when she met him earlier.

"You wanna come for dinner?" I smiled, offering my other hand, which made the shorter boy flush.

"Oh-uh yeah- yeah. I'd like that, and I don't think grandma would mind." A small smile was flashed as he slowly met my hand with his.

"Great!" I grinned.

.............................

Makoto had stayed for dinner before he returned home. After our friend had left, Mom declared it bath time for Sato and I.

Carefully she pulled the leaves and branches from my hair then she pulled Sato's hair out of the ponytail. Somehow Sato always managed to stay cleaner than I, maybe it had to do with me drawing in dirt. Mom made sure to check the water once more before ushering both of us into the warm bubbly water.

Like usual, the first thing mom did was wash our hair. Sato frowned as the long strands fell into his face.

"Okaa-san." He closed his eyes as she ringed his hair. "Why can't I cut my hair?"

She smiled at Sato, gently running her fingers through his hair. "Your father made a big deal about the hair in his family." She said, a twinkle in her eye. "He always told me his family never cut their hair, that it was something they avoided if they could."

I closed my eyes as my mom began scrubbing my hair, having to put a little more effort into me as I had more dirt than my brother. "He always made it clear if he had children, they would need to continue with the long hair tradition. It was very important to him."

Sato wrinkled his nose as he glared down at the water. "But why? Can't I cut it once? People think I'm girly with long hair."

"Sato." My mom said carefully, looking at my brother fully as she gently lifted his head to look at her. "They're just jealous that you have beautiful hair. Besides, having long hair doesn't make you girly. If anything it makes you more of a man, since you're able to have the confidence of having long hair."

When Sato stayed silent, I smiled at him and nudged his shoulder. "I don't think you're girly, Sato." I whispered to my twin, who managed to smile at me.

"Thanks, Mitsu."

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End of Chapter 31!

I'm hoping I'm writing this well... So since this is in a child's POV, I'm trying to write a little more on how I think child mitsu/katsu would think. Which is why she tends to ramble a bit more in her thoughts, which I believe Katsu does still. On that note, what are your thoughts so far?

This is not edited.