All night the house was quiet, even until the morning hours. This was a few days after Perona and Zoro made a visit, everything seemed relatively normal, as normal as the house could ever feel without Shanks. Mihawk, expecting yet again another guest, went to check the fridge for food. The guest this time would be the boy Shanks practically considers his own son, Luffy.

The little boy of age nine, went from person to person for being watched. Sometimes it would be a cramped house with Dadan, his grandfather Garp, the other times it was reluctantly Shanks as Garp never quite approved of him.

       Mihawk, almost in the kitchen, even in the doorway of it, spotted something off. He spotted a shine in the corner of his eye near the front door. Curious, he went to inspect it and not quite finding it at first. On the coat rack was the item in question.

      Hanging from one of the pegs, loosely tied on by strands of red hair, was a wedding band, that of Shanks'.

Mihawk, at the sight of this, kept calm knowing Shanks could be a bit strange, always assume everything about the situation, not just the worst or the best.

Behind the ring was a folded note, which was slightly opened to balance on the coat rack.

Didn't want to lose it. Keep it until I come back.

Love you.

The contents of his letter, that was all of it, nothing more and nothing less. He said he'd come back and that was enough to drive away the dark creeping shadows that tried to devour Mihawk. The light slowly started to reveal itself in shimmer of sparks.

In such a happy streak, without even realizing it, he opened the curtains that blocked out the sun's shine, now filling the house with life as before Mihawk was practically dead on the inside.

    A few hours later, the door rung and behind was a smiling Luffy and an emotionless Ben. Ben was a really close friend of Shanks, their relationship with each other was odd though who's to say both involved weren't.

      "Scary Hawk!" Luffy shouted with a running hug to the leg. The boy was notorious for his nicknames, not caring whether they were offensive or not, spoke his own mind whenever he pleased. Unsurprisingly this got the boy in trouble a lot.

       "Your not as gloomy, last I saw you." Ben noted Mihawk's eyes no longer dulled but, almost shined in their natural gold.

      "I would like to speak to you about that, preferably in private."

       Ben, at the other's words, motioned for Luffy to shoo into the house. Luffy didn't hesitate to, as he made it his goal to try and find secret passage ways. There were none, unless the door in Mihawk's closet counted as it opened up into another closet.

       "Today, he left this." Mihawk dropped Shank's ring in Ben's hand without much explaining.

       "What is this about?" He questioned though, too smart to come to a certain conclusion.

       "He left a message, to keep it until he returns."

      "I see." Ben responded with a puff of smoke from his cigarette. "Definitely something he would do." Though sometimes lifeless, Ben smiled knowing the annoying red head was okay.

     "He could have made it less easy to misconstrued by not leaving knots of his hair with it."

      Ben laughed whole heartedly at the comment, knowing full well Shanks wouldn't have thought about getting the wrong idea.

      "I'll come get him tomorrow morning for school. Thanks, I know it was more of Shank's thing but you'll do fine. He's easy to entertain." Benn gave back the ring and left with a wave, planning to return with morning's shine to get Luffy.

The house filled with many harsh and fast steps and the many oohs and aws from Luffy as he looked at every location as he's done multiple times before.

"Hey! Scary Hawk! I found a spider!" Luffy ran towards the owner of the house with a spider cupped in his hands, presenting to the other.

"Looks as if I'll need to call pest control before Shanks returns. Place it outside."

Luffy quickly ran outside and placed it on the ground, giving it a wave and a weird parent like speech as it crawled away.

Mihawk remembered something about Shanks, upon seeing the spider and remembering Shanks' fear.

"Mihawk there was a creepy scary no good demon creature with a lot of legs in the bathroom and I really have to piss!" Shanks ran and jumped onto Mihawk's bed, scared such as a child.

"What did it look like, besides your utter nonsense you call a description." Mihawk asked, sort of unpleased as he was calmly reading a book before he retired for the night.

"It doesn't matter what it looks like! Kill it! So I can pee!" Shanks further complained about the small creature.

Mihawk, giving up on Shanks to stop wining about the spider, went to get rid of it.

"Brown recluse." Mihawk muttered as he came back into the room.

Those words did not make the red head feel any better.

"Is it dead?! Like super dead? Like did you hear it crunch with the sound of death?! Sometimes they pretend they are dead and run after you when you aren't looking!"

"Unless it possesses abilities to rise from the dead, no." Mihawk replied bluntly and sarcastically, as much as he possibly could.

"I don't wanna go back there! Can you go with me? Please?" Shanks, unashamed, begged until Mihawk eventually but unwillingly complied.

Later in the day, as Mihawk watched Luffy, which he honestly barely did seeing as the boy was off adventuring, it was time to force Luffy to sleep.

"It's too scary in there by myself." Luffy complained about his temporary room, in which was practically his own since only he sleeps in there.

"Scarier then me?" Mihawk asked, seeing as his nickname from the boy was 'scary hawk.'

"Way scarier! Please let me sleep with you, Shanks always slept with me!" He was nine, though being alone sometimes still frightens him beyond belief.

Mihawk said nothing as he walked to his own room and settled underneath his silky covers.

Luffy stood in the doorway to Mihawk's room, practically begging him without words.

The other simply turned over on his bed, not saying no to the boy.

Luffy took this as a yes and hopped into the bed, making himself comfortable within seconds. He almost forgot to take off his prized hat as he quickly placed it on one of the bed posts.

"I see you still have his hat."

Luffy's hat once belonged to Shanks. The hat was a simple one, made of straw with a red ribbon around it but, it was everything to Luffy, even as it began to wear it's age.

"Uh huh! I have to keep it safe!" Luffy smiled as he hugged his stuffed animal.

"A stuffed animal?"

"Yeah! It's name is Chopper, it's a funny looking raccoon isn't it? Shishishi." The boy laughed at his stuffed animal's weirdly designed self as he nuzzled closer to Mihawk. "When will Shanks come back?" Luffy asked but, much more sad then his attitude from a few seconds ago.

"Sometime soon. I do not know myself yet, I know he will. I will inform you when he does."

"Thank you." Luffy thanked through the silent tears he shed as he soon fell asleep.