Part 5.2

"Sttaaaahhhhhhh." Fork said non-committedly, taking a single One from the dice he had rolled and leaving the rest. He was satisfied apparently.

Ginger Powder just sighed and replied, "Come on man! Put on your man pants here and don't wimp out! The name of the game is Greed, not playing it safe! If we wanted to play it safe we could've played Yahtzee!"

"Huurrrrrrrduuurrrrr."

The ugly man sitting directly across from me on the crate we were using to play dice looked like he had swallowed a mouthful of glop. "That's sick man. That's real sick. You know what that game does to people. I hate Liar's Dice!"

The two continued to bicker to each other, and I took that as a sign to take my own turn at the dice game they had introduced me to. I wasn't that good at it because I wasn't that lucky, but it was fun to play anyways. These two guys had offered to join the midnight shift with me and they had even offered to relieve me if I wanted to take a nap. They said that captains get all kinds of stuff going for them, and it was the crews duty to help them. I thanked them, but it was really awkward at first. They quickly discovered how poor of a conversationalist I was in actuality.

They seemed to think I was some sort of perfect captain or something. No clue who gave them that impression. They gave the biggest face fault I had ever seen when I told the two that I was born in Impel Down and really didn't know that much. The one with the full body skeleton tattoo, Fork thanked me for letting the two of them be confidants on such a matter as my ignorance.

It wasn't really a secret. I bet there's all kinds of public records detailing my life.

When they found out I was actually ignorant about a lot of subjects due to my incarceration, they took it upon themselves to inform me about anything they thought was important. The subjects were all over the place. Their beliefs on the conflicts between the Revolutionaries and the World Government, Doctor Vegapunk, how several islands had gone missing completely in the South Blue, 'auction' houses and how to use them to make a profit, log poses, the Seven Warlords, good places they'd been to resupply, pirate customs like 'parley', and much more. Currently they were teaching me dice games common for people to play on long voyages. They'd already taught me Yahtzee, and now we were playing Greed.

Greed was played with five to six dice and had a few fun rules. Like how only fives and ones counted for points unless if other dice numbers came in threes. There was also the rule about how you could just keep on rolling for more points as long as you had dice that counted, but if you had nothing you lost all your points for the round. While playing, Ginger Powder was always going for more points while Fork was much more conservative. The two seemed to fight all the time, but they were still friends. Even when Fork told Ginger Powder he had an octopus penis and a raging school girl fetish.

If someone had told that to me, I probably would've done something violent. I don't know, maybe throw them into the sea or shoot them. I'm not sure to be honest, something like that. Insults were usually preludes to violence, which is why I do my best to be polite unless if I actually want to pummel someone into red. I've done it before. If I hadn't pummeled that guy into paste, he would've gone after me again, and a kid can't take chances.

Maybe it was a friend thing. Do friends get away with stuff?

Do I have any real friends?

I watched Fork and Ginger Powder play fighting. Afterwards they would both forget about it and move on, unlike me. If someone fought me like that, I would've held a serious grudge. Maybe I would slap them in heavy manacles and thrown them overboard. Or maybe have them 'walk the plank' as Fork was so fond of saying.

Maybe the whole thing with friends was because of that sappy bullshit I had heard one guard tell another guard once back in Impel Down. When a person has a friend, the friend becomes one of the most precious things in that person's life, so precious that they would sacrifice their own life to save their own. I'm not like that. I value my own life more than anybody else's. There's nothing that I would die for, even if there's plenty of things I don't mind living with. Does that make me a bad friend?

I hope not. Somewhere down the road I wouldn't mind being friends with someone the same way Ginger Powder and Fork were.

I rolled the dice in the cup onto the crate. I fist pumped.

"Lucky! Three ones and a five, that's a thousand and fifty points! Yup, I'm done here."

Ginger Powder groaned because that put me ahead of him while Fork marked down my score on a sheet of paper. I glanced up to look at the moon while Ginger Powder grabbed the dice. We had been traveling for a while, but the navigators told me that it would still be a while before we made it to Diz-Harmony. They said that since we were traveling by Eternal Pose, we were traveling outside of the known currents into waters not often traversed. They said that with weather and unknown currents there wasn't a good clue on how long it would be before we made land. That was the main reason we supplied so much, in case it took ridiculous amounts of time. It was necessary however so it really didn't matter.

I hadn't really told anyone this, but I was having the time of my life sailing. I was sometimes grinning non-stop beneath my mask. It was just so awesome doing all of this stuff instead of being stuck in my cell or being tortured back in Impel Down. Being tortured sucked, and really didn't have any good points. Unless if you were a masochist, then it's all good points.

If I remember correctly, I think that there's even a protocol in Impel Down where if they find a masochist they don't torture them as a form of torture or something. Lack of human contact can do weird things to people. I would know.

I spent a long time just wandering around Level Five before I found Gurry and settled down. I went weeks without seeing anyone except for the monsters the Frozen Hell produced. I think I remember seeing a giant frozen solid somewhere, but that may had been my imagination, I have a big one after all.

I was distracted from my bout of wondering by Ginger Powder's cry of defeat. He had a lot of points going for him but he was greedy and ended up losing them all. A lesson is in there somewhere.

We played all night, just the three of us and the dice, interrupted constantly by Ginger Powder and Fork winning. It meant we hardly made any progress with the game.

I didn't mind.