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English
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Anonymous
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Published:
2025-08-02
Updated:
2025-10-26
Words:
21,404
Chapters:
22/53
Comments:
312
Kudos:
405
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7,754

But I Do

Anonymous

Summary:

Luffy’s not exactly predictable.
The crew's not exactly chill.
And Nami’s trying very hard not to kill them all when they seem focused on shaking up her straightforward view of the world.

Featuring: feelings-math, questionable advice that's terribly interpreted, and a whole ship working to define "different."

Notes:

Posted anonymous just because I have no intention of writing other One Piece stories and don't want to disappoint anyone hunting my profile

I saw a post somewhere, probably tumblr, that tossed out the idea of Luffy liking Nami but not realizing it would be something to say or act on. (more or less. The post worded it better, thus why the idea wormed its way in my brain.) Anyway, I thought that would be a nice flip of the "Nami falls first and pines" kind of fics I've mostly seen and enjoyed. Luffy's version of pining isn't like most, it's just sort of "background fact of the world." However, if asked/challenged point blank... something like the following would happen.

Chapter 1: A Straw Hat Dinner Tale

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The stars were twinkling over the Thousand Sunny as the Straw Hat crew gathered around the dinner table, plates piled high with food courtesy of Sanji’s passionate (and slightly theatrical) efforts. Luffy was already elbows-deep in meat, and the rest of the crew was loud, happy, and thoroughly entertained by Usopp’s latest, definitely-mostly-true tale.


“So then,” Usopp declared, eyes gleaming, “I swung down from the mast with a rope—a FLAMING rope, mind you—and landed right on the sea king’s head! One shot from Kabuto—BANG—and it went down like a bag of bricks!”


Chopper gasped, clapping his hooves together. “Usopp, that’s amazing!”


Zoro snorted, halfway through his third bottle of sake. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week, and I hang out with Luffy.”


“Hey!” Luffy said through a mouthful of meat.


“Please,” Sanji scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Usopp catching a sea king is about as likely as Luffy catching feelings for Nami.”


Chuckles bubbled up from around the table at the thought of the captain showing romantic interest in anyone, Nami or not.


Then Luffy tilted his head in confusion and said, “But I do like Nami.”


Chaos detonated like a cannon blast.


Sanji dropped his plate with a crash, eyes bulging. “WHAT?!”


“Wait, wait, wait,” Usopp sputtered, “Back up. BACK. UP.”


Zoro raised an eyebrow, expression unreadable but attentive.


Brook, ever the instigator, chuckled. “Yohoho! What a revelation! My heart would be pounding... if I had one!”


Chopper looked like someone had just told him the sun was a lie.


Nami, meanwhile, sat frozen. A muscle twitched in her cheek. Her fork was hovering in mid-air.


Robin sipped her wine calmly, smiling just enough to be dangerous. “Well now. This dinner just got interesting. Please do elaborate, Captain.”


Luffy blinked at all of them. “Why are you guys acting weird? I like Nami. Duh.”


“LIKE like?” Usopp pressed, voice cracking. “Like write your names together in a heart kind of like? Or like her because she’s on the crew kind of like?”


“I like all of you guys,” Luffy said cheerfully, clearly not seeing the trap he’d just walked into. “You’re my friends!”


There was a collective sigh among the Straw Hats as the world righted itself for a moment.


Then the captain continued with a shrug. “I like Nami different, though.”


And boom. It was back to short circuits across the crew.


Zoro just covered his eyes with his hand and muttered, “We’re gonna be here all night.”


Sanji stood up, fists clenched, a vein visibly throbbing on his forehead. “What the HELL does ‘different’ mean?! Luffy, I swear to the All Blue—”


“I mean, like—” Luffy paused, counting on his fingers like he was listing snacks. “She’s awesome at stealing money. That pays for our food. That’s cool.”


Nami made a small choked sound, somewhere between flattered and horrified.


Luffy nodded solemnly. “She punches really hard,” he added, as if that explained everything.


“THAT’S a good thing?” Usopp squawked.


“Yeah! She only punches me when I deserve it,” Luffy said, totally serious. “Which means she cares. Right?”


Robin laughed softly. “An... interesting metric for affection.”


“Oh! And she takes good care of my hat,” Luffy said with a wide smile. “Like, really careful. She even fixes it when it gets beat up. That’s important.”


Nami was now experiencing an emotional whiplash cocktail: flushed, flustered, touched, mortified, baffled. Her eyes darted around the table, as if looking for a trapdoor to escape into.


“I—Luffy, that doesn’t mean you like like me,” she managed to say.


“I like all you guys like friends,” Luffy said with a shrug. “But I like the way I feel when Nami’s there. That’s just... different.”


Silence.

Real silence.

Even the ocean seemed to pause.


Robin put down her glass delicately. “Well, I was planning to read tonight, but this is much more entertaining.”


Chopper slowly slid under the table, squeaking out, “I can’t handle this.”


Usopp was frantically whispering to Franky, “Are we in a romance manga? Is this a love story?! Did we switch genres?!”


Sanji looked like his entire existence was being restructured. “I—I need to sit down,” he muttered, already sitting.


Nami, pink-cheeked and visibly overwhelmed, opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Luffy, you—” She stopped. Bit her lip. “You don’t even know what that means .”


“Probably not,” Luffy nodded agreeably. “But it’s true.” Then, casually, he reached for a piece of meat and added, “Anyway. Are we out of juice?”

Notes:

Full disclosure: I have seen up to Alabasta in One Piece. So I only know like 10% of the Straw Hat story via actual canon things. LOL There are crew in here that I literally only know from reading other stories. I hope I do them justice, but if they're OOC.. I'm okay with that. They're little fictional people based on other people's versions of them that's based on the original. I did my best, and hey, free story.

Also, I was 25 chapters in when I realized I completely forgot Jinbe (Jimbei? y'all spell his name like ten ways). So he's not here. If he's the final Straw Hat to join, you can pretend this is set before he officially signs on the crew. Or that he's got, like, special fishman business for the events of this story. Or that he just noped out of the shenanigans more effectively than Zoro. Whatever floats your boat. ;)