PART 4 — Stillness Feels Wrong
The docks were busy by late morning.
Nets slapped against wooden planks. Crates thudded into place. The sea whispered and slapped and whispered again, steady and unbothered by human effort.
Luffy wandered into it like he'd been there all along.
He hopped up onto a coil of rope, dropped back down, then climbed onto a barrel and squatted on top of it like a gargoyle. He stared out at the water, squinting, lips pursed.
"…Boring," he declared.
He slid off the barrel and plopped down on the edge of the dock, legs dangling over the side. The wood was warm beneath his palms. The water sparkled. Everything was calm.
Luffy sat.
He swung his legs.
Once.
Twice.
His foot tapped against a piling.
He stopped swinging.
His knee bounced.
He frowned and grabbed his knee with both hands, holding it still.
It lasted half a second.
He let go, stood up, paced three steps, then sat back down harder than before.
"Why's it feel weird?" he muttered, scowling at the water like it was responsible.
A fisherman nearby glanced over. "You say somethin', kid?"
"No!" Luffy snapped, then blinked. "—I mean, no, sorry."
He leaned back on his hands and stared up at the sky, trying again.
The clouds drifted.
The gulls cried.
The dock creaked.
Luffy's jaw clenched.
His fingers curled against the wood.
He rolled onto his side, then onto his stomach, then pushed himself up onto his hands like he might do a push-up—
—and stopped.
His arms trembled slightly.
He stared at them, annoyed.
"…I didn't say you could shake," he told them.
They didn't listen.
Luffy sprang to his feet like the dock had shocked him and grabbed a nearby post. He jumped, caught it, and hauled himself up, hanging there with his arms stretched overhead. He kicked his legs, then wrapped them around the post and slid down, laughing.
"There!" he said triumphantly, though again, no one had asked.
Makino's voice carried from the bar. "Luffy! Stop climbing things!"
"I am stopped!" Luffy shouted back, hanging upside down.
"You're upside down!"
"That's still stopped!"
He dropped to the dock and immediately started doing pull-ups on the edge, counting loudly and incorrectly.
"Three! Five! Five again!"
A group of sailors stared.
One leaned toward another. "Does he ever get tired?"
The other shrugged. "Not in any useful way."
Luffy finished—by his own count—then hopped down and rolled his shoulders. His muscles ached now, a deep, spreading burn that made his grin strain at the edges.
He ignored it.
"Okay!" he said brightly. "What now?"
He looked around, searching for the next thing to do.
The dock, the sea, the village—everything seemed to hesitate, like it expected him to choose.
Luffy didn't think.
He took off running again.