Luffy tapped a beat out on the dash board as Jean drove him to get some hay with her. They had already gotten feed at the feed store, gone back to the house, unloaded the feed, hooked up the flatbed and now they were getting round things. He couldn't remember the word but he knew it was round things of hay.
"Bales." Jean said for the third time. "Round bales." She rolled her eyes. Sometimes Misaki would forget the words to certain things too, and come up with a roundabout way of describing it. Another way she would deal with it would be to use a nickname like "whosamawhatsit" or "thingamajig". Whenever it was something she liked or was passionate about, she never had that problem. The difference between Luffy and Misaki was that Misaki liked a lot of things, so she usually only used those terms with things she deemed stupid or something insignificant, like a spoon. Luffy, on the other hand didn't care to ever remember a name to something he didn't really care about. And most of the things he cared about were... well.. actually, she didn't know what he cared about.
"Hey Luffy?"
"Yeah Momma J?" He said.
She couldn't help but grin when he called her that. She had been called mom by plenty of kids —friends of her children who just wanted to be buddies with the cool mom. Hell, she had even been called mom by a couple boyfriends of Misaki's who wanted to be in her good graces. But never had she been called momma like how he called her momma. It was like how her own daughter called her momma. It rolled off the tongue naturally, with no intention of making any kind of positive impression. It was just the way he saw her. It really made her feel... good. There wasn't really a word for how it made her feel, but she knew it was good.
"What are some things you like?"
"Things I like? Like my crew?"
"No, those are who's, not things." She said with a chuckle. "What things do you like though? Items, hobbies. Stuff like that."
"I like being free!"
"That's close, but maybe a little too broad."
"Oh." Luffy looked down in his lap. He didn't really know what she was getting at.
"Try something more specific. Do you have any favorite animals?
"Ohhhhh." Luffy grinned, making a cute little snicker sound. "Have you ever heard of an atlas beetle?"
Jean was shocked as Luffy rattled off fact after fact about beetle after beetle. She really took him for an ignoramus to be honest — with all the love in the world, mind you — but it seemed like her theory was right. He had no problem learning, just so long as it was something he liked enough. She wasn't really a fan of beetles, herself, but he was just so excited to talk about it that she let him. She wondered how similar the animals here were to the animals there. He was talking about atlas beetles and Hercules beetles after all, and those exist in this reality. Though she was aware there were bigger, scarier beasts in that reality than there ever would be here.
Whenever thoughts like that crept up on her, she shook them away. Otherwise, it would lead to anxiety over the fate of her daughter in a world like that. But Misaki had assured her that the friends she had were strong and could protect her from such beasts. The more dangerous thing about that world were the people they had to fight. Aaaaand gotta shake those thoughts off again.
Luffy was still talking about beetles. His enthusiasm was contagious, just like his smile. Jean couldn't help but listen with a big stupid grin on her face as he basically exploded with enthusiasm over some bugs. It almost made her want to go beetle hunting. Almost.
When they finally arrived at the hay field, Luffy was in awe at the size of the bales they were getting.
"The ones Misaki have been feeding are way smaller than this!" Luffy exclaimed.
"Those were square bales. These rounds will make it a little easier to keep hay around for them in the winter months. I like to stock up on them early!" Jean remarked. Luffy's eyes widened as the hay guy rolled up in a tractor to load the rounds.
"I thought we were gonna load them." He said, making Jean laugh.
"Just how strong do you think you are? Those are a good 1000 lbs a piece!"
"I could do it!" Luffy said, puffing out his chest.
"Well let the tractor load it and I'll let you try it at home." Jean said, giggling. I don't care how powerful he thinks he is. There is no way he could lift a Roundbale all by himself.
On their drive home, Luffy was a little quieter. He rested his head on his hand and looked out of the window at the rolling fields. He wondered what Misaki was up to. A part of him longed to be by her side. He knew that she was probably fine — this world was way safer than his. But there was this feeling he couldn't shake; almost like an itch he couldn't scratch. He wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but he felt like that about his crew sometimes too. Man, he missed his friends.
He knew his crew was moving in slow motion in comparison to them. Misaki said it had probably only been a day for them by now. That mystery time sure was weird. He wished he had known it would be this long. It already felt like an eternity to him.
"What's wrong, Luffy?" Jean asked, making Luffy jump a little at the sudden break in silence.
"Oh! Nothin. Just wondering what Misaki is up to and other stuff." He lamented.
"I heard she was gift shopping still?"
"Who told you that?!"
"A little birdie told me."
"You can talk to birds? Is that why I keep hearing chirping?"
"Something like that." Man, it's so cute he doesn't know what texts are. It wasn't like he would need them in the other world, so it's one of the things they just didn't bother telling him about.
When they got back, Luffy jumped out, excited to help move the Roundbales. Jean chuckled, waiting for the moment Luffy realized that he couldn't lift such large things by himself. Those rounds were a good 1000 lbs — hey wait, what???
Luffy picked up a round and plopped it off the trailer as if it were an empty barrel. Jean leaped out of the truck.
"Luffy! My God, you can't do stuff like that here!" She angry whispered.
"What? You said I could try to move it when we got back."
"I didn't think you could pick it up! Humans can't do stuff like that here! You shouldn't do stuff like that where people might see you!"
"Relaaaax I looked around first!" He said with a grin. Jean grabbed him by the ear and pulled him over to her, but he didn't move, making his ear stretch in her hand. She panicked and let go, letting it snap back to his head.
"Stop that too!" She hissed.
"It's not like I did it on purpose! You grabbed my ear and pulled it!" He said, rubbing his ear as if it hurt. It didn't actually hurt — it was more the aggression behind it that did.
"You have to be more discreet! Not everybody will be as accepting of you as me and Misaki!"
"Ok ok! I'm sorry!" He whined.
"Say it like you mean it!"
"I'm sorry!" He said, clasping his hands together and bowing his head at her.
"Better." She said. "Now let me show you the "normal" way we roll these into the barn."
After they moved everything off the truck and trailer, the boring way as Luffy suggested, Jean unhooked the trailer and they hopped back into the truck to go to lunch.
They were going to a buffet today, albeit they did tell Luffy there was a 3 plate maximum so he didn't eat them out of house and home. When they got there, Misaki wasn't there yet.
"Where is she? I'm so hungryyyy." Luffy lamented, rubbing his stomach.
"She said she would meet us here, but we are a tad early to be fair. Things went a lot faster than I thought it would with your help."
"Didn't you say you told her we were done though?"
"Well... I left a message but I didn't get a response." Jean said, laying a finger on her chin.
"That's weird." Luffy frowned.
"Well, maybe she's checking out somewhere or something."
Luffy made a face, as if he were displeased with that being a possible answer.
"Let me just call her, I guess." Jean grabbed her phone and put it up to her ear. "That's weird."
"What?"
"It went straight to voicemail." Jean said, setting her phone down. Something twinged in Luffy's gut.
"I don't like that." He said. There's that itch again. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
"She probably just forgot to charge it or something. Relax! She won't make us wait long."
"I'm gonna go find her." Luffy said, jolting out of his seat.
"Don't you leave too! Then I won't be able to talk to either of you!" She sniped.
"I've got that burnt phone thingy so I can call you." Luffy handed it to her and she put her number on speed dial 2 for him. She shook her head at him as she handed it back.
"I think you're overreacting to be honest."
"I know."
"So why are you going?"
"Instinct."