"SHANKS! SHANKS! SHANKS! LET ME JOIN YOUR PIRATE CREW! OWW!"
'BONK'
A thick book slammed into the back of Luffy's rushing head.
Cain strode out from behind him, stepping forward to apologize to the two people standing on the ship's deck.
"Sorry, Uta, Shanks. We didn't interrupt anything, did we?"
The sky was still dim with early dawn, the sun yet to rise.
Uta stood beside Shanks, feeling the cool sea breeze while the rest of the crew slept soundly in the cabin.
When she saw Cain, Uta skipped lightly across the deck and smiled. "Not at all. You actually came at just the right time! The sun's about to rise, just like we agreed last night..."
"Then let's go." Cain's gaze shifted to the towering captain behind her.
Shanks grinned broadly and waved them off in his usual easygoing tone. "Go on, go on. Doing everything stiffly isn't very pirate-like at all."
Cain nodded in thanks.
Just as he turned to leave with Uta, he saw Luffy glue himself right back onto Shanks's leg.
With a helpless sigh, Cain grabbed Luffy by the ear and dragged him away by force.
...
"I'M TELLING YOU, STOP CLINGING TO SHANKS ALL THE TIME!"
On the way up the hill to the village's iconic windmill, Uta finally couldn't help complaining to the boy.
Cain kept flipping through the book in his hands, speaking without even looking up. "Uta, saying that to Luffy is useless. With his personality, you need a different approach if you want him to actually listen."
Uta shot him a sideways glance, her voice dripping with mock annoyance. "And you're any better? You listen to what people say, sure, but ignoring them to read a book doesn't look very polite to guests either."
At that, Cain snapped the book shut, stuffed it into his bag, and scratched his head awkwardly.
"Sorry, sorry. Reading's just become a habit for me."
"Hmph. But seriously, there are way too many windmills in Foosha Village." Uta paused, turning to look at the massive wooden structures rising all around them.
Cain followed her gaze and laughed. "Well, it is Foosha Village, after all. Hah, saying that does sound a bit redundant."
He pushed open the worn wooden door of the tallest windmill and led the other two slowly up the winding stairs.
By the time they reached the observation deck, the morning sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon.
"Watching the sunrise here really is different from watching it out at the sea!" Uta leaned against the wooden window frame, her eyes shining bright.
A puzzled look crossed her face.
"But it's still the exact same sun rising and setting... so why does it feel so different?"
Cain answered at once, his tone earnest. "It's like what I told you before about color. At sunrise, red makes up the largest proportion of light. The sunlight drives away the darkness, so it feels especially warm. And at sunset, that's the afterglow it leaves behind before disappearing for the night, so it pours out all its brilliance like a flame. If you compare it through color theory, it's like red plus yellow equals orange..."
"Haha, Cain, the things you say really are boring and interesting at the same time!" Uta laughed until her eyes curved into happy crescents.
Beside them, now that the sun had fully risen, Luffy immediately wanted to sprint back down to the harbor to ask Shanks about joining the crew again.
Uta immediately stop him.
She clearly had no desire to let him keep pestering her dad. After thinking for a moment, Cain suggested a distraction.
"How about this, Luffy? Why don't you and Uta have a contest?"
"A CONTEST?!" Luffy's eyes lit up like fireworks.
"That's right, a contest!" Uta immediately jumped in. "If you win, we'll help ask Shanks about letting you join the crew! But if you lose, you're not allowed to keep bothering him anymore!"
"OKAY!" Luffy agreed without even thinking.
Uta turned around, clasped her hands behind her back, and smiled sweetly at Cain.
"Then you can be our judge!"
Cain froze for a second.
He swallowed, then instinctively pushed up a pair of nonexistent glasses and straightened his posture.
"No problem! I guarantee fairness and impartiality!"
...
An eating contest.
"W-WAIT A SECOND! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!"
Cain was crouching in the dirt with a thick rope tied around his neck and a bamboo muzzle strapped over his mouth—the exact kind used to stop vicious dogs from biting people!
He looked miserable.
"Sorry, Cain. We wanted to find a real vicious dog to act as an 'obstacle,' but you said that'd be too dangerous, so we had no choice but to let you fill in as the judge!" Uta laughed brightly.
She and Luffy sat side by side at a long wooden table piled high with giant drumsticks and juice pitchers, while Cain remained leashed to a post right behind them.
"Exactly, exactly! If Cain's the judge, he can join in too! Isn't that great?" Luffy mumbled, already reaching for a massive drumstick.
"HOW IS THIS GREAT?! HOW DID I TURN INTO A DOG?! AND I HAVEN'T EVEN SAID START YET, SO WHY ARE YOU EATING ALREADY?!"
Cain shouted furiously through the bamboo slats.
He yanked off one of his shoes and hurled it straight at Luffy's head, neatly interrupting his bite.
Even reduced to a 'contest dog', Cain still clung to his sacred duties as judge.
He cleared his throat and announced, "Ahem. The contest... BEGINS!"
Uta and Luffy immediately started wolfing down the meat in front of them.
Cain grumbled inwardly.
'Well, it's only the three of us out here, so no one will see this anyway...'
Then he paused.
'Wait... why is everyone from the crew here?'
He spun around and saw the Red-Haired Pirates pouring out of Makino's tavern one after another, all of them gathering around the table to watch the spectacle with great interest.
A wave of sheer shame rushed to his face, his cheeks turning just as pink as his hair!
Midway through the contest, Uta glanced at Luffy's pile of bones and pushed her juice pitcher toward him.
"You can drink mine too."
"THANKS!"
Luffy grabbed the pitcher and gulped it down, while Uta took the distraction to finish off her last drumstick.
When the countdown ended, Cain, overwhelmed by equal parts shame and exasperation, finally snapped.
He tore the bamboo muzzle from his mouth, flung it to the dirt, ripped the rope from his neck, rushed over, and smacked Luffy hard on the back of the head.
"YOU IDIOT! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LISTEN TO THE RULES! I SAID THIS WAS AN EATING CONTEST, SO WHY WERE YOU DRINKING?!"
"BUT DRINKING COUNTS AS EATING!" Luffy protested with pure conviction.
In his mind, anything that went into his mouth counted as eating.
But for nine-year-old Uta and a bookworm like Cain, 'eating' and 'drinking' were two entirely different things.
Cain pressed a hand to his aching forehead, sighed heavily, and finally declared the result.
"Ahem! Since Luffy didn't understand the rules just now... this round counts as a one-to-one draw!"
...
Time slipped by quietly, and before they knew it, the Red-Haired Pirates had already stayed in Foosha Village for half a year.
The contests between Luffy and Uta went from the first match, to the second, to the third, all the way to the hundredth.
And over that long span of time, Uta had grown much closer to both of them.
"No."
...
"NO! THAT'S TOO DANGEROUS!"
...
"NOT THAT ONE EITHER!"
Cain planted a hand on Luffy's head, his tone carrying a distinct hint of gritted teeth.
"Did you forget there's a Lord of the Coast in those waters? You want to take Uta out rowing there? Are you asking to get eaten?!"
"OW!" Luffy covered the fresh bump on his head and glared in protest.
He kept coming up with wild contest ideas one after another, but every single one was far too lethal, and Cain mercilessly rejected them all.
In the end, it was Judge Cain who finally proposed a safe alternative!
"How about you two try drawing?"
"Drawing?" Luffy and Uta widened their eyes at the same time, full of curiosity.
Cain smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Draw the thing you know best and like most."
Not far away, Shanks had just returned from stocking up in the village and happened to see the scene—three children gathered together, chattering excitedly, their faces full of pure delight.
The corners of his mouth lifted, his sharp eyes softening.
'Looks like Uta's really having fun here.'