Our Arranged Love Story

Chapter -2-

"If you don't see your worth, you'll always choose people who don't see it either. When your self esteem rises, your life follows." - Mandy Hale

"Hi Nami. Yeah, it's me Luffy. Am I calling at a bad time?" He sounded uncertain.

"No, not really... I was just about to finish drawing a map..."

"You draw maps? That's so cool! Uh... You're probably wondering how I got your number." At Nami's silence, he continued, "Your mom gave it to me during dinner. I didn't ask her for it- I swear!"

"Oh..." Nami's eyes twitched after hearing that. She'll get back at her mom later.

"Maybe it was a bad idea to call so soon." His voice gave an indication that he was hurt and disappointed which Nami didn't fail to pick up. "I'll just go to bed then-"

"No - Wait Luffy!" Nami shouted cutting him off. She was actually happy to be speaking with him so soon after thinking about it. "We can talk now."

"Really?" He seemed to be perking up.

"Yeah."

"Okay!" There was a long pause.

"Luffy? Are you still there?" Nami asked, wondering if they had somehow lost connection.

"Yeah."

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Anything's fine really. Uh... oh yeah! You didn't really get to tell me about yourself- actually I didn't get to finish..."

As Luffy rambled on, Nami blushed. Looking back, he really never got to finish introducing himself for he went on about calling her cute and unexpectedly declared that he wanted to make her happy.

"Nami..." Luffy 's tone of voice changed from carefree to serious. "I just wanted to make sure that you're serious about this marriage - our marriage. What I mean is that from what I heard, marriage is a big deal. I'm not really the type fit to be a marriage partner. I'm sometimes immature and dense to a whole lot of things. I'm not that smart and I don't really have any tangible goals in life. I was wondering if a person like you would honestly be satisfied with a guy like me..."

Nami blinked. Needless to say, she was dumbfounded. In her eyes, Luffy seemed so confident, prideful and so sure of himself, so why was he telling her this? She knew her worth and apparently he had an idea. Then again, they were involved in an arranged marriage and the fact that Luffy was ensuring that she didn't want to think twice about what they're getting themselves into, showed that he cared a whole lot for her. It was heart touching and Nami looked down to the side and smiled to herself.

"Luffy, don't be an idiot. You swore to learn how to love me, right? Listen... it's okay to have doubts. Even I had doubts but after meeting and seeing who you were for myself, I believe that I want to go on this journey with you. Y-You're sweet, funny, a little silly, straightforward and I think that that's what attracted me to you... Checking up on me about our marriage made me very happy. Thank you. In my heart, I know that I want to marry you and about getting to know each other, we will in due time... after we're married."

There was an approximate 5 second pause.

'Shishishi' Luffy laughed. "Thanks Nami. I'm so relieved! I really, really like you."

"Huh?"

"I like you," Luffy said again. "I like your spirit, you're not a coward. I like it when you smile. I like how you were able to blow away all my worries away about our situation; you're really easy to talk to. You smell nice... I like that too-"

"Wait Luffy," Nami said, stopping him. She was rendered speechless after Luffy said that he liked her but grew pleasantly embarrassed hearing him list the things he liked about her. Guys in the past only praised her body. Luffy saw her as a person not some object and she wondered how someone could be so sweet and genuine at the same time. Nami felt timid all of a sudden. She definitely needed to change the topic. Luffy was just too sweet.