Amuleto da Dama Pintada

The night air in Wano tastes like salt and charcoal. I know this because I have been breathing it for three years, standing on the dock behind the restaurant, watching the moon drag the tide across the bay. My hands are wet with dishwater. My hair is tied up in a scarf that keeps slipping. The fog is rolling in, thick as cotton, and I know what that means.

I should not be smiling. But I am.

The kitchen door bangs open. Otsuru-san sticks her head out, her face flushed from the steam. "Sumire! The grilled fish order is up, and we have a crowd tonight. Where are you hiding?"

"Not hiding," I say, and I am not lying. Hiding implies I want to be found. I just prefer not to be seen.

She gives me a look. The kind of look that says she knows exactly who I am and why I am out here staring at nothing. But Otsuru-san is good people. She took me in when I had nowhere else to go, when my father's letter arrived telling me I was no longer welcome in the Kano estate. She did not ask questions. She just handed me an apron and pointed at the dishes.

"Big group of pirates," she says, wiping her hands on her apron. "The Straw Hats are here."

The water in the basin goes still. My hands stop moving.

I have not seen him in seven years. Seven years, four months, and eleven days. Not that I am counting. I was twelve when he left Foosha Village, shouting at the sky that he would become King of the Pirates. I was hiding behind a tree, watching him climb into that tiny boat with his ridiculous straw hat. I wanted to call out. I wanted to say something. But my voice got stuck in my throat like it always does, and he sailed away, and I went back to the estate where my father pretended I did not exist.

Otsuru-san is still looking at me. "You coming or not?"

I dry my hands. I adjust my scarf. I tell myself I am fine.

The restaurant is loud. That is the first thing I notice. Loud and hot and full of bodies. The Straw Hats have taken over three tables pushed together, and they are a disaster. A green-haired swordsman is asleep in the corner with a bottle in his hand. A cook with curly eyebrows is flirting with every woman in the room, including Otsuru-san, who swats him away like a fly. A skeleton in a suit is telling jokes that make no sense. And there, at the head of the table, is Luffy.

He is bigger than I remember. Broader. His hair is still black and messy, his eyes still dark and empty of anything resembling thought. He is laughing at something the skeleton said, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open, and he looks exactly the same and completely different all at once.

My heart does something stupid. It jumps. It stumbles. It lodges itself somewhere in my throat.

I grab a tray of grilled fish. I walk toward the table. My legs are working, which is a miracle. The floor is sticky under my sandals. The smoke from the grill stings my eyes. I am three steps away when I trip over nothing.

The tray tilts. The plates slide. The grilled fish is going everywhere.

I see it happening in slow motion. The way the porcelain catches the light. The way my hands reach for something that is already gone. The way Luffy turns his head at the sound of crashing ceramics.

And then his hand is there.

He catches the plate. One hand, wrapped around the edge of the porcelain, holding it steady. My hand is still on the other side. We are both holding the same dish, our fingers inches apart, the fish untouched.

I look up.

He looks down.

His eyes are brown. Warm brown, like the earth after rain. He is frowning slightly, not in anger, just in confusion, like he is trying to figure out why this stranger is holding his dinner.

"Thanks," he says. And then he takes the plate and starts eating.

That is it. That is all. He does not recognize me. Why would he? I was a child hiding behind trees. I was nobody. I am still nobody. Just a girl with purple hair and a dead mother and a father who wishes I had been the one to die instead.

I back away from the table. My face is burning. My hands are shaking. I make it to the kitchen before I let myself breathe.

Otsuru-san is at the counter, chopping vegetables. She does not look up. "You okay?"

"No," I say.

She slides a cup of tea toward me. "Drink this. Then take the next order out."

"I cannot go back out there."

"You can and you will." She finally looks at me, and her eyes are kind but firm. "You have been hiding in this restaurant for three years, Sumire. Hiding from your father. Hiding from your past. Hiding from the girl you used to be. Maybe it is time to stop."

I want to tell her she does not understand. I want to tell her about the amulet hidden under my clothes, the one my mother pressed into my hands before she died, the one that lets me become someone else when the fog rolls in. I want to tell her about the nights I spend as the Painted Lady, slipping through the alleys of Wano, leaving food for the hungry and medicine for the sick. I want to tell her that I am not hiding. I am protecting. The girl I used to be is dead. The woman I am now has a purpose.

But I do not say any of that. I drink the tea. I pick up the next tray. I go back into the dining room.

Luffy is still eating. He has gone through four plates in the time it took me to drink one cup of tea. The cook with the curly eyebrows is watching me with narrowed eyes, like he senses something off. The swordsman is still asleep. The skeleton is telling a story about a whale.

I set the tray down. I turn to leave.

And Luffy grabs my wrist.

His grip is gentle. Surprising. For a man who can punch through mountains, he holds me like I am made of glass.

"Hey," he says. "Have we met before?"

My heart stops. My brain short-circuits. Every word I have ever known evaporates from my memory.

"I," I say. "No. I do not think so."

He tilts his head. Studies my face. His eyes travel from my hair to my eyes to the scar on my chin I got from falling out of a tree when I was seven.

"You smell familiar," he says.

The cook chokes on his drink. The skeleton laughs. Otsuru-san calls from the kitchen that the fish is running out.

I pull my wrist free. I walk away. I do not run, but it is close.

That night, when the restaurant closes and the fog rolls in thick enough to hide a ship, I stand on the dock again. The amulet is warm against my chest. The Painted Lady's robes are folded in my bag. Somewhere in the city, a child is coughing. A mother is crying. A family is hungry.

I put on the robes. I pull the hood up. I step into the fog.

And I wonder if Luffy will still be here tomorrow.