Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda.

The first time she met Luffy, the sun was dipping and the village had quieted from its usual liveliness to a dimmed pleased hum akin to what the sun provides in bright rays and warming kisses. He was alone, dirt in his unbrushed locks, and bruises dotted his small frame from shoulder to ankle in unsavory purple, browns, and blues. His clothes were torn, and yet— staring at this battered child who should've cried himself quiet, or remained a shadow beneath every adults steps— was pouting at a bone absent of any meat. Not gazing pitifully, or casting lost eyes every which way, but pouting in general displeasure at the absence of meat.

And when that small body turned towards her, and those eyes fell on her own, she knew—with every single fiber of her being—that this boy was special.

It wasn't because of this that she had hesitantly smiled at his grin and questioning for meat, and took him home, fed him, bathed him, and offered him a place to stay. The next day, she fed him breakfast and bought him clothes. She did all of that because he was a child, and every child needs love and a chance, despite if they're destined be a king, grand scholar, or merely a farmer or family man who drinks too much.

When he offered her a grin before running off to join a man calling his name the next morning (she would later learn that the man was indeed his grandfather calling to him to start training), that Making finally understood that he knew why she had done everything she did in the instant their eyes met for the first time.

("Because," he grinned with food on his stuffed full cheeks, "you're nice, Makino.")

It was later, after she had met the Hero of The Marines, that Makino had grasped what she felt in Luffy's presence, other than joy, friendship, and love, and it was freedom. It felt as if freedom was trapped in each and every fiber of his being, held back without the true love and guidance needed to say: This is okay, this is fine. Although Luffy was and always will be a willful soul, even a willful soul bound in a small child's body needs that love to blossom and a reason to be.

A reason, she knows, can be anything, anyone, anywhere, and she knew that she would never be his reason for freedom, but maybe she could be his reason to come back. That he would come back at least at the end after finding his reason—reasons—smile and say:

"Makino, I'm hungry!"

And just like that, just in that instant, she could see him again; a small boy who seen her and understood why, understood her kindness and her reasons, and would still say every time: "Because, you're nice Makino!" It would be enough to ease her worries and steady her love for such a willful soul.

Makino watched him grow from dirt covered locks to being shielded by a straw hat that had promise woven with each straw, and those large purple, browns, and blues increase with a scar stretched beneath his eye that symbolized the finding of a true dream. As she did so, Makino was unprepared for exactly the two who would free the hidden freedom locked in such a small body.

Fate is strange and cruel, and three little boys: One, lost and unloved, blood forbidden to live running amuck in his veins and staining his heart, his very soul, with hate, hurt, and pain not meant for a single child to have or experience; the second, one who knew his roots and hated the world a little more with each treat and treasure that many others would give or take greatly for, with his eyes set on every curiosity, loving and living where noble feet shouldn't; the third, abandoned and alone, even with his grandfather's love and villages care, with freedom hidden deep, deep inside, and his heart set on an impossible dream to others, an attainable destiny to him.

There were many things tying them together: Wanting love without restraints, wanting, needing, someone to say that 'it's okay' that they exist, that no, some parents' can't be there and others aren't worth the pain of being rejected, but the third little boy that she had met first? What do you tell a child who has no clue of who or where he came from? How do you tell a child who clearly wasn't born healthy ("Too small," the quiet old ladies and men would whisper to one another in the wake of a ringing laugh and splitting smile. "Born too soon.") that their parent, their mother, wanted them... when maybe, it wasn't the case.

("Ace hates his father, but his mother?" Dadan snorted around the mug of her whiskey, "she carried the brat for a whole year, if that isn't love, I'm not sure what is." And downed the sloshy brown liquid as if it was nothing more than a thick cough syrup instead of the burning alcohol it was.)

But the one thing, the one thing that tied them truly together, is that they craved freedom more than they valued their own lives. True, if one was in danger of dying, of having that sacred thing that could bring the smile to a dead man's lips threatened, they would die for that one, and they would do so without a second thought, without a regret of giving their life away so that the other may live.

However, that's not exactly true.

To die for their brother would be nothing more than their duty—their love—it would be a trade for something better. It would never be a price that had been paid.

Luffy never showed any obvious signs of being hurt at being left alone by parents' he didn't know, and a grandfather who devoted his life to a government instead of a family, but Makino knows that it hurt and tore and made him question, because somewhere between the love for a little boy, it became a love for her little boy. It's not correct, or right in any word to say that he is hers, because... Luffy was never meant to be kept, never meant to be tied to a single person or place. That's why she could never be his reason to seek, but always be his reason to come back. And that's okay, because such a soul created of and for love and freedom, who would she be to tie it down and away?

Those two boys, one stolen too soon, and the other to be a traded bloodline for a future king, were the reason that freedom in every fiber of Luffy's being was freed. Never again would he be unsure and unguided, alone and trapped. Shanks was the reason a dream was set and a promise made, but Ace and Sabo? They were his freedom. Now his crew is his reasons.

Eventually, the years went by, and then a faithful day came when those same eyes she had caught so many years before met hers again and gleamed underneath the sun.

When he waved in farewell on a silly little dingy that could have tipped over at any moment and proclaimed to the sky to reach a brother among his own crew, that Makino choked and smiled past the tears in her eyes and clumping up her throat, and said goodbye to the little boy's back that with every smile, laugh, and word said that she was kind, but never hers to keep.

But then... then he glanced over his shoulder, those large eyes meeting hers, and smiled.

"And I promise I'll come back with loads of treasure to pay off my tab! You'll get to meet my crew 'n!... Makino, why are you crying?"

She smiled while she felt the tears roll freely down her cheeks long after the small dingy faded away with a boy full of freedom, love, and a piece of her very heart, and said:

"No reason at all!"