eye to eye.
Pairing: OPLA!Monkey D. Luffy x Reader
Word Count: 781 words
Warnings: None
He’s been staring for five minutes now.
Five minutes and thirty-three seconds, to be exact. Twenty-seven more seconds and it’ll be six minutes, and you don’t know if you can handle six minutes of him looking at you; everyone on this ship has fallen prey to those big brown eyes, and you are certainly no exception – how many times have you scraped off the last portion of your meal onto his plate, or let him trail after you and chatter away while you did inventory, or sat on the figurehead with him despite your fear of heights because of those eyes? The answer is more than once, and you know you’d do it again in a heartbeat as you finally look up from your newspaper.
“You need anything, Luffy?”
“Nope,” he says.
He continues to stare at you, that achingly wide, sunny grin on his face. You blink. He does too.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“... Well,” you say slowly, more befuddled as the seconds tick by – surely, it’s now been over six minutes – “do you want something?”
(There is always a ninety-two percent chance that Luffy wants something, concrete or not. Seventy percent of the time it is concrete, and the thing he wants is food.)
Luffy shakes his head. He props his elbows onto his knees and rests his chin in his hands, and you swear you see his eyes sparkle underneath the tattered brim of his straw hat.
“I just like looking at your face,” he chirps.
The force of those few words is enough to stop your heart in your chest. It stutters in place, then starts again, jumping with glee.
“H-Huh?”
“I like looking at your face,” he repeats as if you didn’t hear it the first time.
You lick your lips, grappling for something to say in response to such a strange answer. “It’s … it’s not much to look at,” you finally say, curling up out of habit. “There’re better faces out there.”
“But I want to look at yours.” Luffy jabs a finger towards you. You shrink back a bit, cheeks beginning to warm. “And there’s lots to look at, like your nose and eyes and stuff.”
You wonder if you should take that as a compliment. But Luffy doesn't do compliments; he only does the truth, and maybe that makes what he’s said infinitely more valuable.
"Thanks for noticing," you reply, awkward but fond. He nods happily, and you find yourself adding, "I like looking at your face too."
It's not a lie, nor an attempt to return the favor. You do like looking at Luffy's face. You like the wild, coal-black curls framing it, the perpetually goofy smile, the scar, the eyes that turn into dark honey in the sunlight. The eyes that look back at you and promise freedom and joy and everything good the world has to offer.
"You do?" He sounds very pleased and scoots closer. "That's great! We can look at each other."
"Won't that get boring after a while?"
"If it does, we can go and eat something."
You snort, face now very hot as you move to sit cross-legged. "You're funny, Luffy."
And so you look at Luffy, and Luffy looks at you, knees touching and the room still with a few rare seconds of contemplative silence. A few seconds, because that is all you can take before you dissolve into giggles, half flustered and half entertained. (This is how you often are around him nowadays.)
It isn't long before Luffy joins you, and the two of you end up lying on the floor, cackling until you're out of breath.
"Ahhh! That was fun," Luffy gasps once he can speak coherently again. "Now let's get something to eat!"
"You're bored already?" you ask in between gulps of air.
"No, but I'm hungry." With a grunt, he rolls back and catapults himself onto his feet, then picks you up and sets you down to stand before tugging on your arm. "Let's ask Sanji to make us a snack."
You nod, and soon enough, the floor of the Going Merry thrums with the sound of two scruffy pairs of shoes running over it, laughter bouncing off the walls as Luffy's hand grips yours. It's the same way he holds your heart, tightly but kindly. You squeeze back.
Three words balance on the tip of your tongue. You swallow them.
One day, you think. One day, he will look at you like he did today, and you will tell him how much a person like him means to a person like you.
But right now, you're going to ask Sanji to make you and Luffy something to eat.
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