6 Chapter 5: Responsibility
'Status,' Lee called out in his mind.
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Name: Lee Li
Age: 14
Titles: N/A
Lvl: 6->7 (75/400)
STR: 11->14
STA: 14
AGI:14->15
DEX:16->17
INT: 21
(AP:4)
Innate Skills:
The Dark Monarch:
*Darkness (Mastery: novice): Lvl 3->4 (4/40) -Active
*Time (Mastery: novice): Lvl 2 (1/30) -Active
*Space (Mastery: novice): Lvl 3 (2/60) -Active
Bloodline Abilities:
*Unlimited Potential: Lvl 2->3 (9/40) -Passive
Abilities/Skills:
*Teleportation (low): Lvl 4 (34/1,000) -Active
*Large Teleportation- (cooldown 11,444 hours)
*Pain resistance (high): Lvl 19 (2,001,293/10,000,000) -Passive
*Muay Thai (median): Lvl 8 (10,640/110,000) -Active
*Flame (Mastery: novice): Lvl 0->1 (8/20)
*Dark Emperor's vision (low): Lvl 1 (30/100)
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After he checked his status, Lee looked at Nami again. After the accident, she didn't move from her spot and just sat there hugging her legs. Lee didn't know what to do. He also sat there near her checking his status to see if there was any change. Even though he leveled up again, he didn't feel much change. He felt uncomfortable or anything. Maybe the change happened during the battle.
'Am I really that bad that she hates it so much to be stuck like that?' Lee asked Ai in his mind. It was also his first kiss too. He had a lot of close relations with females, but not as a boyfriend or girlfriend, well except for someone who could be considered more.
('Heh~, I didn't know you were self-conscious') Ai replied to him.
Instead of waiting for Ai to make more jokes out of his situation, Lee stood up and dusted his pants. Nami noticed his action, she looked up at him while still hugging her leg.
Nami had short straight orange hair down to her neck with brown eyes similar to Lee. She wore a white-T that had blue-collar and strips in the middle going parallel from left to right, along with her orange mini-skirt. She didn't have her shoes with her anymore, sitting there bare feet.
Lee walked toward her and squatted in front of her at the same time he tried to think of things to say to make her feel better. Before he could say anything, he heard Nami talking in a low voice.
"What?" Lee asked in response.
"I said, you have to pay me 10,000,000 Beri!" Nami shouted at him with a death staring in her eyes. Her eyes were red, seemed to be crying.
Lee was a bit embarrassed at Nami's statement. He scratched his head and replied,
"I don't have any money."
"You what? You said you don't have any money!" Nami said, then she shouted.
"You took my first kk-kiss, and now you said that!" As she said, Nami leaped toward Lee even though her leg was still hurt.
Instead of dodging her, Lee allowed her to push him down and now lay on his back with Nami on top of him. She was crying, punching his chest saying things such as he was a bastard, not a gentleman as such. Lee lying there let her do what she wanted after a while, then she stopped and just lay there on top of him. Then he slowly patted her head, even though Nami noticed his action, she didn't say anything.
'Girls are really alien species. It's really hard to understand what they are thinking' Lee thought.
('hump...!') Ai's voice appeared in his head.
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(POV)
Our adopted mother Bell-mère once told us, "Nojiko, Nami...When you both grow up, make sure to find a man who will take care of you...He has to be kind and will only think about you, Okay?"
"Why?" Both Nojiko and I asked her that question.
"It's really important!" Bell-mère said with an absolute voice.
"I will do that!" Nojiko replied to her. Then she looked at me and asked,
"What about you Nami?"
I said, "Ummm. I think you forgot to include something"
"huh?" Bell-mère was surprised a little.
I continued, "I agree with what you said, but I want to marry a guy with a lot of money so that I can build my mansion made of gold. At the same time, when I am busy drawing the maps around the world, I don't have to worry about food."
Both Nojiko and Bell-mère were surprised at my answer. It was also the last proper talk we had as a whole family. How I missed her.
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I often read about a story where the knight saved the princess as a kid, but no it now happens to me. Instead of the scene where the knight cut down the sea-kings, the things that happened in front of me were hard to look at. One pirate got kneed in the face, blew away, the others attacked their own crewmate, and now one of the pirates' chest curves in, then flew away. As I was watching, one of the pirate's arms bent at a weird angle, then the last two chests were also sunk at the moment he dropped his heels on them. I flopped down on the ground before I knew it. Like a dancer, the guy who helped moved in a weird way that I never saw before.
Then the last pirate that was screaming got shut after he flew up and kneed on the pirate's throat. He then looked around, after that he walked toward me.
'I don't know why I am nervous and also excited at the same time.'
He reached his hand out to me, I hesitated a little due to my nervousness. When I looked at his face, he had a youthfulness which seemed to be about my age or a little bit younger. There was not much distinction about his features besides his bright brown eyes. He also has a feathers tattoo on his arms all toward his back which made him look really manly. I grabbed his hand with both hands to support myself up. Then I accidentally used my right leg because I thought it didn't hurt much, but now it hurt so bad. I fell back down and actually pulled him with me.
'Then we ki-ki-kissed!!!'
At first, it was soft, then really painful on my upper lip. After that, I tasted my own blood that dripped from it.
My mind blanked out and didn't know what to think. I just sat there for a while. Then I realized that he didn't even say anything to me and also just sat there a little bit away from me.
'It seemed like he didn't care about the kiss at all. *hump*. Who do you think you are to treat a pretty lady like that!'
I just sat there thinking about all the stuff that I've been through. With the amount of Beri demanded from Arlong to free my village, I sometimes didn't know what I should do.
With Bell-mère gone, no matter how hard I tried, it seemed impossible. Then, my first kiss was stolen by a barbarian who doesn't even seem to care about my feelings. With many thoughts running through my mind, I started crying.
Then he stood up, walked toward me, and squatted down in front of me.
'Did he think I will forgive him?' I thought, then suddenly an idea popped up in my head.
"10,000,000 Beri," I said in a low voice.
"What he asked," He didn't seem to hear me.
"I said, you have to pay me 10,000,000 Beri!" shouted at him with a death stared in my eyes.
He was a bit embarrassed at my statement. He scratched his head and replied,
"I don't have any money." He stated like he didn't care at all.
"You what? You said you don't have any money!" I was really mad and shouted at him again and I said,
"You took my first kis-kiss, and now you said that!"
As I was saying that, I leaped toward to push him down even though my leg was still hurt.
"You are a bastard! Not a gentleman at all! You took my first kiss like it was none of your business! You..you...you shameless, son of a...", I continued to curse him and release all the stress that was on my mind while also pounding at his chest with my fists.
He didn't say anything back. He let me do those things to him without stopping my action. After I did, I felt much better, calmed myself down a little. Then he patted my head. For some reason, I felt like all my worries were disappearing. That was where I belonged I thought. Especially what he said.
"I'm going to take responsibility for you."
When I heard that, tears fell from my eyes again.
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'What was I saying? Going to take responsibility? I don't even know where I am right now. Since Nami appeared here without her crewmates, then she hadn't joined the straw hat crew yet. So this place is East Blue.'
As Lee was analyzed the situation with a lot of other thoughts went through his mind, Nami looked up at him and asked,
"Really?"
Lee tried to be serious with his face because he didn't want to lie to her. Even though he didn't know what responsibility he was going to take, even a lazy guy like him has a day where he takes things seriously, especially in a relationship.
"I am. I will take care of you", Lee comforted her.
"Give me a lot of Beri. Take me on an adventure around the world", Nami said as she looked up at Lee's face from his chest.
Lee was speechless. He doesn't know what his future will hold with a woman like this by his side.
Lee sat up to sit down, Nami didn't let go of him and was still hugging. She rested her head on his body.
"If we get to marry, I want you to build me a gold mansion and have healthy children," Nami said excitedly. Then she continued,
"How many kids do you think we should have? I want two boys first and a girl so that they can protect her. What do you think?" She asked again.
"umm..." Lee said, and he continued, "Are we moving too fast? I mean..."
Before he could finish his second sentence, Nami cut him off.
"Are you saying you don't want to marry me? Even though you said you take responsibility for me and take care of me. All that was a lie?" She said while glaring at Lee while hugging him tightly. Even though Nami was still small in a lot of areas compared to two years' time skip, Lee still felt the soft melons pressed on him.
"No, no..." Lee said quickly, and replied,
"I didn't mean that. I want us to get to know each other more. You see I don't even know your name yet and you also don't know about me."
Even though he knew Nami from the anime, this is in real life. He wanted to know more about her.
"My name is Nami. I am from Cocoyashi Village, one of the villages on Conomi's Island. What about you? Why are you doing here" Nami asked.
"I..." Lee paused a little, and Nami noticed that.
"You can call me Lee. As for where I came from, it's really far away from this place. You can say I came here without knowing where I am", it was the truth. He didn't even know where he was until he met Nami. Her chest told the timeline they were in. As for meeting Buggy, he could be anywhere in the world since he was a pirate.
"Are you lost," Nami asked, also to confirm.
"yes, you can say that."
"What about the weird move you made when you took down the pirates?" Nami continued.
To people who have never seen a Muay Thai, it looked really weird especially since every move was to deal a fatal blow to their opponents.
"It's called Muay Thai, a martial art from my hometown," Lee answered her.
They continued to talk and share themselves with each other until Nami asked about his age. In the world of One Piece, the people's size was really weird, even so, they are real and Nami was not as skinny as in Anime.
Lee said, "I am fourteen."
It was like a cannonball dropped on her head. To Nami, It was really surprising for her because he was as tall as her who was 169 cm. Lee didn't realize it himself, but his height grew around almost 10 cm from 159 cm to 168cm.
"I thought you were the same age as me," Nami said, but didn't tell Lee her age. At the same time, she felt guilty about forcing herself on a boy who was four years younger than her.
She knew that the relationship wouldn't last long or have a happy ending but she didn't want to abandon the feeling that she has right now. She wanted to treasure this feeling that he wouldn't ever be able to experience again. Another thing was she totally forgot about her leg pain.
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Note: I know that Nami was not exactly like what in manga or anime, but I wanted to explore a little more on her, as a personality-wise, I made some changes in order for the story to move along.
