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It started with the smell of smoke.
Bepo dismissed it at first. It was a common enough smell, a brand of tobacco many people on Swallow Island smoked. The smell lingering on the Polar Tang even after they had started their journey wasn’t strange. He figured it would fade after a few days, and concentrated on learning how their new ship worked, fulfilling his role as a navigator. He was determined to do his job well, so Law and the others wouldn’t have to worry about getting lost at sea. Or under it, in their case.
The smell lingered. He felt a strong whiff of it while passing Law in the corridor to the infirmary, but the smell didn’t come from him. It didn’t come from Penguin or Shachi either, and they were still the only people on the ship. Or they should have been, at least, but the smell told a different story.
“Are you sure we’re alone on this ship?” he asked Law one night. They were having “dinner”, if it could be called that. It was Law’s turn to prepare food, and as much as Bepo loved his captain, he desperately hoped they would recruit a cook soon.
Law gave him a concerned look. “I’m sure. Why?”
“I think,” Bepo said, hesitating a bit. “I think this ship is haunted.”
Shachi and Penguin laughed, but Law looked at him with a serious expression.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts. The dead are gone, and not coming back,” he said. “Let’s look through the ship, just in case we have a stowaway.”
They searched through the ship methodically, but didn’t find anyone. Not that time, and not the next. Law took his concerns seriously, but Bepo could tell he was just indulging him after the fifth time.
The hauntings, and Bepo was increasingly sure that was the case, only got more notable. Things went missing, or moved. He knew he had put a book down in one place, and when he looked back, it wasn’t there anymore.
“It’s just Law,” Penguin said dismissively when he brought it up. “You know how his powers work.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Bepo exclaimed, then deflated a bit. “Sorry. But he doesn’t usually just move things, if he shambled something away behind my back, there would be something to replace it! But there’s nothing.”
“Maybe he’s messing with you,” Shachi suggested. “Don’t worry about it.”
Bepo considered it for a while. Law wasn’t much of a jokester, but every now and then he would prank them, usually with a completely straight face, so it wasn’t impossible. It didn’t explain the smell, though. As much as it tended to circle around Law, Bepo would have known if his captain had started smoking in secret.
So, it had to be a ghost, right? But if so, what did it want?
To confuse them, apparently. It never hurt any of them. Though Bepo spent many nights keeping watch, he never noticed anything that suggested the ghost wanted anything bad to happen to them. At most it was an inconvenience, to have to look for things after they disappeared.
It was less noticeable after the Polar Tang filled up with crewmembers. So many sounds, so many smells, so many noises, Bepo barely noticed the strange goings on anymore. However, he was no longer alone in his observations.
“I put my book here, and now it’s back on the shelf,” Hakugan said, one evening a few weeks after he joined. “I only turned my back for a second.”
“It’s Captain, he likes to mess with us sometimes,” Shachi explained with a laugh, and no one questioned it.
“I looked away for a second, and someone bumped into all my skillets and now they are on the floor,” Clione complained, a few months after he agreed to be their full-time cook. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“I bet it was Captain, too embarrassed to stay and admit it,” Penguin laughed, and since Law wasn’t there to defend himself, Clione accepted it with a grumble.
“I swear I put my hairband here, and now it’s gone,” Ikkaku said loudly one morning, looking ready to kill someone. “If I find out any of you have taken it, I’ll choke you with it!”
No one blamed Law for that one.
And no one confronted Law about it either, as far as Bepo knew. They just chalked it up to one of their Captain's many weird quirks, and moved on. Bepo wasn’t convinced. Especially since there was still that faint smell of cigarette smoke, lingering in the corridors.
***
Years passed, they grew stronger, and eventually made their way to the Grand Line, then to the New World, where Law, newly appointed as a Warlord, left his crew behind to go on his own adventure.
The Polar Tang felt empty without him. They all felt his absence keenly, so much that it took Bepo a week to realise Law wasn't the only one missing.
There was no smell of smoke, no items moving around, no mysterious clumsiness in the middle of the night.
“See?” Shachi told him when he brought it up. “We told you all along that it was just Law.” He didn’t sound triumphant. He just sounded sad and worried. They all were. They knew Law was about to do something dangerous, without them.
“Law doesn’t smoke,” Bepo said, but he left it at that. If the ghost was with Law… well, it weirdly made Bepo feel a little better that Law wasn’t completely alone out there.
When their captain returned, with several new scars and an alliance with Straw Hats, they were too busy celebrating to care about or notice anything else, but as they left Zou behind, to head towards new dangers in Wano, Bepo smelled it again.
The cigarette smoke had returned with Law, and it was stronger now. It hung closer to Law than before, but still didn’t come from him. It was just there, almost protectively surrounding Law wherever he went.
A few days into the journey, Bepo went to knock on the door to the Captain’s cabin. After getting permission to enter, he found Law on the floor, surrounded by documents and maps. He looked up as Bepo entered the cabin.
“What is it?” Law asked. He seemed stressed and his tone was short, but Bepo had known him long enough to not take it personally. Instead, he walked up to Law, moving some papers out of the way.
“We’re not alone on this ship,” Bepo told Law as he sat down beside him on the floor.
“Again?” Law asked tiredly. “Do you still think the ship is haunted?”
Bepo considered it. “No,” he finally said.
The ship wasn’t haunted. Law was haunted.
But looking at Law’s tired face, Bepo wasn’t sure telling him that was a good idea. Law had lost so many people over the years. How would he react to knowing one of them was still with him, rather than having moved on?
Bepo knew his captain. Law would just blame himself for it.
“I think the only people on this ship are the people who love you,” he said instead.
Law gave him a surprised look, then pulled his hat over his eyes to hide his face. “You’re forgetting we have some of Straw Hat’s crew onboard.”
“I didn’t,” Bepo said. Law made a noise of disbelief, but he leaned against Bepo’s side regardless.
“Well,” he muttered. “It's good to be home.”
The smell of cigarettes grew stronger, and Bepo noticed a smile on Law’s lips before he closed his eyes to rest.
Law could smell it, Bepo supposed. He probably always had.
Well, if it brought his Captain comfort, who was Bepo to complain about a little haunting. He closed his eyes as well, letting himself relax in the knowledge that Law was safe beside him, surrounded by the faint smell of cigarettes.