Our last sail

15. The shocking truth

"Luffy": talk

"Sabo": whisper

"ACE": shout

"Gomu Gomu no": the skill's name

'idiot': thinking

<Joyboy>: voice of all things

-Into the story-

When Marco arrived at the island after his patrol, he caught a familiar sight of a certain boy sitting on the cliff. The phoenix then decided to land near the boy, which caused him to be surprised. Ace's eyes were wide open, which made Marco to laugh at his silliness.

"Hello, there, yoi" Marco greeted

"Wh-what are you?!" Ace asked.

"How rude, you should greet others first before you want to ask them anything, yoi"

Marco said while giving Ace a small smile which caused the younger to blush. Marco found it was quite cute to see Ace like that. But then he noticed that Ace was sad about something. The kid had been looking down for a while now. He couldn't stand seeing his little fire sad, so Marco decided to ask

"Hey, kid! You look sad. Do you want to talk about it? I don't mind listening to your problems"

Ace then looked at Marco's eyes to see if he could trust the man in front of him. He knew this man was also a friend of those kids, but something in him told Ace that he could trust those people. Even if he didn't want to, they had risked their lives to save him. He was angry at himself for being so weak, he didn't want a kid to save him, and didn't want to be saved either. He wasn't worthy. That was what he had been thinking, but then he looked back down and asked the man.

"What would you think if Roger had a son?"

Marco had been waiting for this question when he saw Ace. According to Luffy's story, Ace had been questioning his existence since Ace was a child, and he never tried to find anyone that actually knew about his dad to ask. The boy had also asked random people who didn't know a thing about Roger. Because of their answer, Ace had always thought that he didn't deserve to live. Marco then spoke up while letting his eyes close and sat down next to Ace.

"If Roger has a son, I would like to know more about him, yoi. I have always had respect for his dad since the day we met, so I think he can also become a great person like his dad. It sucks that the government always spread the wrong information about that man, yoi. He was the man of freedom, he always seeked for the adventure. Roger wasn't some kind of monster they had told their people about, yoi."

Ace was surprised to see someone who talked good about Roger. He had been waiting for something like that boy should be dead like his dad, or he would grow up and become a monster like his old man, but he didn't expect something like this. Ace looked at Marco with wide eyes. He was shocked about what the man had said, that he didn't notice some tears had fallen down his cheeks, which also caused Marco to panic. Marco had always been in trouble in situations like this. He didn't know how to comfort others when they were crying, so he did the only thing he knew. Marco pulled Ace into a warm hug and swiped away those tears from his eyes. After a while, Ace spoke up.

"It's true that you met Roger?"

"Yes, my captain was his friend and rival, yoi. We usually met each other just to fight or trade things, sometimes we just partied until the next day. Those days were good memories, yoi" Marco gave Ace a sad smile.