Chapter Text
“Well, separating the seeds from the pulp is probably going to take the full morning. And the seeds will need to dry all day, pretty much. Or maybe we’ll have enough room in the oven to dry them out while we make the purée with the pulp… I guess it depends on what we decide to work on first. I need to finalize the list of dishes tomorrow with the old man.”
Zoro listened to Sanji ramble on as they got ready for bed. He was interested in what he was saying, honest, but he couldn’t help but be plagued by the thought that it was already close to midnight, and Sanji wasn’t someone who fell asleep quickly. If the cook was going to be asleep enough to sneak out of the apartment, Zoro needed him to pass out ASAP.
As if Zoro had willed it with his psychic powers, Sanji yawned, breaking up the rest of his ramble. “Whatever. We’ll figure it out in the morning.” He finished taking his watch off to set it on his nightstand before shimmying under the covers.
“You will, and it’ll be perfect” Zoro affirmed while yanking his shirt over his head and throwing it on the ground. “As long as you make pumpkin onigiri,” he added with a smirk, turning off the lamp on his nightstand and trying to wrangle back some covers that Sanji had sanctioned away.
Sanji struggled to keep the blankets in his hold. “Hm, you know, I hadn’t thought of that. Hopefully I’ll remember that dish tomorrow in our planning…” he tried to bluff. When Zoro had finally made it into bed and gathered some allowance of a blanket, Sanji changed tactics to entrap him in a hug that involved all of his limbs.
Zoro tried not to let out any choking sounds in Sanji’s death grip. “You better, or else you won’t have a boyfriend come New Year’s Eve.”
“Good. I’ll just kiss some other lady at midnight instead.”
Zoro managed to get his hands around the collar of Sanji’s pajama shirt, flipping them so he was straddling the cook. “Won’t be able to with the fat lip I’m about to give you.” He raised his fist back threateningly to punctuate his warning.
“What if I don’t want you to be my boyfriend anymore, anyway?” Sanji blurted out before Zoro could follow through on his punch. It successfully distracted him enough for Sanji to roll them over, tangling them further in the blanket. Eventually, they somehow ended up with Zoro on his back and Sanji’s head resting on his chest – his legs weaved between Zoro’s.
“The hell you just say?” Zoro asked with annoyance. He had half a mind to push Sanji clear off the bed.
“Relax, mosshead,” Sanji answered through a yawn. “I just said that so I didn’t get punched in the face. Can’t have a black eye for Christmas photos, you know.” He nuzzled his face against Zoro’s skin, and it was warm.
Fighting tactic or not, it still made Zoro’s head feel more jumbled than it already was. Sighing in frustration, he let Sanji hold on to him, but he placed his own arms behind his head. For a split second, he considered just falling asleep and telling Perona to forget the whole plan.
It wasn’t until a beat later that Sanji pinched his side to get his attention again.
“What?” Zoro grumbled, his eyes firmly shut. “I’m sleeping.” His eyes stayed closed until Sanji flicked him in the middle of the forehead. When they opened, they were angry as they stared back at Sanji’s eyes through the darkness.
“It was a joke,” Sanji pouted, which Zoro didn’t think he had the right to be doing right now, so he pointedly ignored him.
“I’m gonna make you so much onigiri tomorrow, c’mon, forgive me,” the cook tried again, still pinching at Zoro’s sides. “I’ll make you so much you’ll have to be with me forever and ever.”
Zoro tried and failed to stop the smirk from inching its way across his mouth, thinking of ways to milk the cook’s groveling.
He sighed dramatically. “What’s the point in being with you forever and ever if you don’t want me to be your boyfriend anymore?”
Sanji pressed his cheek further into Zoro’s pec, making his words sound squished together through his lips. “Well, there are better things than being a boyfriend…”
“Huh?” Zoro asked, half not hearing and half not understanding what he said.
“N-nevermind… I’m tired. Can’t we just sleep?”
Normally, Zoro would absolutely not let him yield, but glancing at the clock on the wall made him rethink his choice. It had finally struck midnight, and he needed Sanji to be asleep enough to somehow wriggle away from him in just 2 hours.
“Fine,” he grunted. “But only because it’s Christmas Eve.” Slowly, he removed his hands from behind his head to wrap one arm around Sanji, using his other hand to run his fingers through his hair. Blondie would be passed out in 5 minutes if he had any say in the matter.
Sanji sighed contentedly, and Zoro felt him smile against him.
Zoro stared at a flickering streetlight for a moment before turning into the alley where the back entrance to the Baratie was. He felt like he was doing something very wrong with how he had to sneak away from Sanji, rummage through his drawers for the key, and quietly close the front door behind him. Caught out of context, he’d look like a common thief or someone looking to have an affair, and it made him feel a little queasy – like the eggnog he’d had just hours before was curdling deep inside him.
Turning the corner, he almost froze when he saw a black-clothed figure leaning against the door with their arms crossed. He felt silly when he realized it really was Perona, and she’d chosen to dress up like a burglar from the black boots to the black beanie on her head, all brought together with a black, skin-tight jumpsuit. Her hair was fastened in two low pigtails that provided the only splash of color. He hadn’t seen her wear such muted clothing since her pet hamster died in the seventh grade.
“You’re late,” she grumbled at him as he joined her on the back steps.
“I kept getting stopped at every red light on that way,” he tossed back at her indifferently. Moving toward the door, he started to fish the key out of his pocket.
Perona snorted. “I watched your car circle the block, like, 5 times.”
Zoro snapped his head toward her, hoping the shadows hid the blush on his face. “Well, what’s with the getup? We’re not robbing the place! We’re just… sneaking in and taking something back…” he spoke more slowly with each word he added to that sentence.
Perona held her arms out and did a quick spin. “Would it kill you to feel a fantasy?”
Zoro left the key in the door to fully turn to her and hiss in her face. “This is not a fantasy to me! This quite actually feels like a nightmare!” He watched her eyes soften as they looked toward the ground, her lips moving slightly to form a quick “sorry.”
When Zoro turned the key and unlocked the door, he opened it slowly – making sure to look around to see if the place was empty. All he could see through the dim haze of the emergency lights was dormant stoves and clean counters, which was a good sign for them to keep inching their way through. He ushered Perona inside before closing the back door as quietly and gently as possible.
“It really looks spooky at night with no one around,” Perona commented, pulling a knife out from its block to admire it with an amused expression.
Zoro grabbed it from her to put it back in its place. “Don’t touch too much. The geezer will know,” he ordered, holding on to her shoulders and pushing her toward the fridge door.
“Puh-lease. You’re just being paranoid.”
“And you’re being awfully loud for a burglar,” Zoro grumbled when they reached the refrigerator. The doors were about 2 feet taller than him, and he knew from placing the bowls inside earlier in the day that they were as thick as Perona’s tallest platform boots. He really felt like he was breaking into a bank safe at this point. Pulling on the latch, he opened it slowly for Perona to step inside.
When they were both past the door frame and surrounded by vegetables, meats, and cheeses, he closed the door firmly behind them. He had to play Sanji’s reassurances in his head that they were not locked inside, but it still set his already frayed nerves on edge when the latch clicked loudly under his hands.
“Ugh, it’s cold in here. Let’s get this over with,” Perona moaned in complaint, darting toward the bowls of pumpkin seeds and guts and, hopefully, wedding ring.
They had about 20 bowls to go through, and Zoro could already feel his hands go numb from the thought. Tugging his hat tighter over his ears, he reluctantly got started on the bowl closest to him. The lid popped off with ease and immediately let out the smell of fresh, cold pumpkin – making him feel like he was back in Mihawk’s living room. If he could rewind time, he would’ve never brought the ring with him. He would’ve never showed it to Perona in that kitchen.
“Found it!”
Zoro almost tipped his bowl off the shelf in shock. “You did?!” he asked Perona, not even hiding the desperation and relief in his tone.
“Oh…” she laughed back at him, turning to give him a look of embarrassed apology. “N-no, it was just a seed.”
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Zoro saved his energy to turn back to his own searching, sparing Perona an angry retort. Back to his bowl, he gingerly reached his hand inside and then his other one to feel around as best he could. The stringy bits of pumpkin were a little hardened from the chill of the fridge, so it took some effort to dig through them thoroughly. It felt like the coldness of it all was striking directly into the bones of his fingers.
“Here!” he heard Perona yell a second time, and again he looked over to her with near tear-filled eyes.
She examined something small in her hand, and Zoro waited for her with bated breath. “It’s another… seed,” she concluded once more.
“You’re genuinely going to give me a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry! I’ll be extra sure before I say I’ve found it from now on!” Perona whined, clearly also upset she hadn’t instantly found the ring. “My hands are already so cold. I want to find it soon.”
That, Zoro could understand. “I know. I do too. We’ll find it,” he tried for optimism, and it won him an appreciative smile from Perona. She turned back to her bowl with new vigor.
Zoro was finding it difficult to keep track of the time, but it had to have been 20 or 30 minutes by the time they reached the halfway mark. His hands were stiff and slimy, and his nose wouldn’t stop running, which was potentially more annoying than his hands. They hadn’t found much of anything in the pumpkin guts besides seeds, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open and focused. Thinking about Sanji sleeping comfortably in their bed made his legs ache.
Perona yawned loudly beside him. “Halfway,” she tried to speak with determination, but Zoro heard how tired she was. When she smiled at him, he could see small bags forming under her eyes, and it made him feel sentimental. Even though it was partially her fault they were here, it was also her idea to search the bowls at night and hopefully keep the secret from Sanji a little longer.
Starting a conversation was not much of Zoro’s forte, but he could manage it in desperate situations such as these.
“I’m nervous about the proposal,” he managed to squeeze off his tongue, despite how bitter it felt.
“I know,” Perona answered curtly, not even a moment’s hesitation when it took Zoro so long to admit his fears in the first place. He pouted at her angrily before staring back at his bowl.
“Jeez, Zoro, that’s normal. It’s good! Means you really want it,” she added, flicking a seed at his forehead and giggling when it made him flinch.
Zoro scoffed and brushed the seed off his head before turning back to his task. “Does it?” he asked. Squinting, he stared intently at some pumpkin that was slipping through his fingers and back into the bowl.
“Well,” she backtracked a bit, pausing in her actions to think before starting again. “Okay, maybe not for everyone, but for you it does. You’ve been planning this for a while. It’s normal you’d be nervous about it going well because you’ve put a lot of effort into it. It takes courage to show someone how much you care – to be vulnerable like that. I mean, you do love him, right?”
Zoro scrunched his face, not one to admit that kind of stuff to other people. Instead of a verbal response, he settled on shrugging his shoulders and nodding his head enough for Perona to catch it in the dim lighting.
“Then it’ll be perfect, and you’ll feel so dumb for worrying your big head off,” she exclaimed, nearly splattering pumpkin on the ceiling from raising her hands above her head.
“What if he says no?”
Perona’s grin faltered a bit at Zoro’s question and her arms drooped slightly. He was probably making her uncomfortable with the way he was finally looking her in the eyes.
“Sometimes I think it’d be better to just stay the way we are, and I didn’t ask him to marry me. What if I’m taking things too far, and I end up losing him? I’d rather have something than try for more and end up with nothing, you know? Maybe I’m risking too much.” He had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from continuing on.
Perona sighed, turning to her bowl to slowly sift through its contents. What he was hoping was that she’d call him stupid and then he’d pinch her or something and they’d be back to normal. There was too much tension still left in the frigid air, and he was starting to feel the small room get even smaller.
“You know how Mihawk adopted me?” Perona spoke up suddenly, whisking Zoro away from the dark hole he was sinking into.
Zoro thought for a moment as he closed the lid on another bowl that had no ring. “Um, as the story goes… you showed up at his doorstep one day and refused to leave, so you didn’t, and he eventually adopted you officially.”
Perona giggled at his summary, which made him feel a little lighter on his shoulders.
“Something like that. It’s not important why I ended up at his doorstep, but I was practically at my wit’s end. I just needed somewhere quiet to get myself together and figure out what I was going to do next, and this big creepy mansion out in the middle of nowhere felt right.”
Zoro snorted at that. It felt right that she, as an 8 year old, would think a creepy mansion was the place to go to for shelter.
“Did Mihawk ever tell you that I actually snuck in through a window, and he didn’t notice I was there for three whole days?” she asked, side-eyeing Zoro with a teasing, proud look.
“Bullshit,” he scoffed at her with a smile. He was trying to focus on searching through his next bowl, but this felt equally important to him.
“It’s true!” Perona laughed. “It wasn’t until a few years later – when he was wine drunk on New Year’s Eve – when he told me he thought he was being haunted by a ghost until he found me.”
“And you didn’t get that confession on video?”
“I was busy watching Beyoncé on the T.V.!” She groaned, slouching over. One of her pigtails fell in her bowl, and Zoro helped her get it out.
“Anyways,” she huffed. “When he found me, I was a total brat–“
“You’re still a total brat.”
Perona shoved her studded boot into the back of Zoro’s knee. “I told him to stay on his side of the mansion, and I’d mind my business on the other side. So long as he made sure to leave out some food for me every day, that is.”
Zoro shook his head and stifled a laugh. It wasn’t the first time he thought Mihawk had his hands full with him and Perona as children.
“And, well, you know how Mihawk is. He mostly kept to himself too, but I’d notice small things like my bed sheets being cleaned even though I didn’t know how the washing machine worked, and I opened my closet one day to some new dresses.” She glanced over at Zoro. “You know… those things he does without telling you.”
“I do,” he answered with a nod of his head. Back when he first moved in, Mihawk had his door painted with a big, green dragon over it, despite it not matching the rest of his décor. It made it a lot easier for Zoro to find his bedroom… because there were so many other doors.
Perona talked some more as the pumpkin underneath her hands squished. “So as the days and weeks went on, I started trying to interact with him more. Little by little, I’d ask him what was in the paper that day, or I’d trim his rose bushes before he could get to it. I just considered it a small thanks that he didn’t try to kick me out, but I still wasn’t looking for him to be my dad or anything. I’d always glare at him or stick my tongue out – telling him that we’re just roommates and nothing more.
“Then came the day that school was supposed to start, and I found out one morning that he had enrolled me without asking.” She squeezed the pumpkin even harder. “I was so mad, Zoro! Seething! I threw my dresses out the window, trashed my room, drew on the walls with markers…”
Zoro froze, his eyes wide and staring at her. “You didn’t.”
“I really did,” she nodded, but her face held a bit of shame. “I screamed at him ‘you’re not my dad!’ and told him I was running away, and you know what he did?” Perona glanced back at Zoro, and he shook his head.
“Nothing. He didn’t make a move to stop me, and that hurt for some reason. I couldn’t understand why that hurt so bad. But I packed my little bag, and I started for the door, and I was just about outside when he called out to me.”
“What’d he say?” Zoro asked. He’d had his hands submerged in pumpkin for so long at this point, it was actually starting to get warm.
“Be careful,” she whispered, her voice cracking a bit from emotion. “He told me to be careful, and that’s when I realized… he was taking care of me. And I wanted him to take care of me too, but I was too afraid to say it because…”
“Because you were scared he’d leave you,” Zoro finished for her. Things were starting to connect in his head.
Perona swallowed thickly, nodding her head up and down slowly. “After that, I busted back through the door and said ‘you may not be my dad, but I want you to be!’ And you know what? He smiled at me.”
“Ew.”
“I know. It was terrifying.”
They both laughed a bit with their breaths clouding the air in the fridge.
“But!” Perona wiped a tear from her eye, immediately regretting it when some pumpkin juice got on her face. “Years later, I realized that he was trying to teach me a lesson. He was teaching me to go for what I want, no matter what – even if it’s scary and I’m afraid I’ll get hurt. He raised you the same way, doofus. You oughtta start paying your dues back to the old man.”
As if she hadn’t just given him the most salient older sibling advice since they became brother and sister, Perona clicked her tongue and placed the lid back on her bowl to turn to a new one. Her cheeks had been tinted pink since they’d walked into the fridge, but they were even rosier now, and Zoro decided not to tease her about it out of mercy.
He had to admit that she was right. Mihawk was always encouraging him to be the best, to set his sights on his goal and never give up. However, he never thought to apply it to something other than his swordsmanship, and he had to give it to Perona for realizing it first before he did.
“I guess I’ll let Mihawk pick out his own suit for the wedding,” he mused out loud with a smirk.
Perona laughed, fully out of her nose in that not cute way that Zoro grew to appreciate. “Careful now, he’ll take the spotlight from you.”
Zoro just shook his head, knowing that no one would be able to tear his gaze away from Sanji once he was walking down the aisle.
Desperation crawled back up his spine as they reached the final bowls in the refrigerator. It wouldn’t take them long before they were out of them completely, and while he was exhausted, Zoro wanted time to move a little slower. He wanted to keep searching for as long as it would take to find the ring safe inside a pumpkin bowl.
“It’s just… it’s just seeds…” Perona blubbered away, turning the contents of her bowl inside and out one last time.
Zoro wasn’t having any more luck. His last bowl didn’t even have that many seeds in it, and yet still there was no ring to be found. And now that there weren’t any bowls left, he felt the frayed edges of his hope itch across his skin. Wherever the ring was, it wasn’t in that fridge with them, and they were only a day away from the Christmas-Halloween-Engagement Party.
“Where the hell is it?!” Zoro finally shouted, slamming the lid on his bowl with more force than necessary.
Perona chewed on a nail and looked around nervously. “I don’t know… ugh, we looked everywhere. Are you sure you didn’t have it in your hand when you pulled it out of the bowl?”
Zoro whipped around to glare at her, his breath coming in quick and seething between his teeth. But when he saw that Perona’s nails were chipped, he bit back the angry yell that almost escaped him. There were pumpkin guts under her nails, and he knew she hated that feeling. He knew she wanted to find the ring too. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he exhaled a deep breath before walking toward the door.
“Let’s just get out of this stupid fridge, and then we can–”
Zoro almost threw himself back into the fridge when he saw what was waiting for them outside. Zeff, wearing pajamas and the meanest mustached scowl possible, was standing with his arms crossed like someone had just broken into his prized kitchen.
I’m dead , Zoro thought to himself – a bead of sweat already making its way down the back of his neck. I’m without bride, and I’m dead.
“The hell are you doin’ in my kitchen, you cabbage-headed cretin,” Zeff drawled out slowly, and Zoro felt like he’d just been caught by the sheriff in some old western he fell asleep watching. And even though that wasn’t the case, he raised his hands above his head in surrender anyway.
He felt Perona’s hands clinging to his back as she hid away from the angry chef in front of them.
“Jeez, why’re you here at this hour? You live here or somethin’?” Zoro rushed out before his brain could think of anything sensible to say. He couldn’t help but return the confrontational jabs that Zeff always threw at him.
“I do, actually. Right upstairs. You’d know that if you ever paid attention and stopped drinkin’ all the booze I got in stock!”
Zoro hoped his fingers weren’t shaking above his head. “Right… sorry. Um, I forgot one of the pumpkin bowls at Mihawk’s and didn’t realize it ‘til real late. Perona and I offered to bring it here so the cook could sleep. Which is something you really oughtta be doing too since you’ll both be up early to start cooking tomorrow!” He felt Perona make a thumbs up on his back, signaling that it wasn’t a terrible lie like saying he was tenderizing the pumpkin meat earlier.
Zeff squinted his eyes as if he were trying to take in every fine tuned detail of Zoro. “I’ll believe you if you agree to get out of my kitchen faster than my boot can connect with your ass.”
Zoro didn’t hesitate, immediately turning to run. He knew that Zeff’s words weren’t an empty threat – he’d have to be in a spine brace for the party if he didn’t hurry. Perona yelped as he pushed her to leave out the back door from where they came. And to his pleasant surprise, the night air didn’t feel as cold after all that time spent in the refrigerator.
He finally stopped running and dragging Perona along once they were safely out of the alley and a block down the street. They both stood there, hunched over and panting until they could settle the panic in their veins.
“You sure you didn’t have the ring when we were in the kitchen back home?” Zoro asked Perona again.
“P-pretty sure…” she huffed out. “Maybe while Sanji and his demon lord chef father are cooking tomorrow – er, today – they’ll find it…”
“That’s not how I want him to find it!” Zoro groaned, contemplating bashing his head into the street lamppost.
“Ergh, I know, I know!” Perona curled the ends of her hair around her finger nervously.
They both stood there quietly as the city sounds of nighttime played around them in the distance. Zoro stared at some gum stuck to the sidewalk as he tried to think of what to do next. He half-wondered if he needed to go out and buy another ring as a replacement if they couldn’t find the original. He wouldn’t have time to get it specially engraved like the first one, but maybe it was enough for Sanji to say yes and he could get a remake later.
He could hear the exhaustion in Perona’s voice when she spoke up again. “You wanna go back to Mihawk’s in the morning to see if it fell out in the kitchen?”
Zoro looked past her at the beginning signs of sunrise over the horizon, and it was like he could feel the bags form under his eyes. “Worth a shot,” he conceded, and they both turned to part ways for a couple hours of sleep before they were back on search duty.
Most mornings, Zoro fell back asleep quickly after waking up to Sanji’s early alarm. In some instances, he’d been able to sleep through it completely, which was peak performance in his mind. However, today was a rare day he decided to get up at the same time as the cook, and he could feel his body object to every movement he was making away from their bed.
By the time he finally made it out of the bedroom, Sanji had a coffee mug in hand and eggs frying in a pan.
“Couldn’t go back to sleep?” Sanji glanced at him quickly with a hint of worry and confusion in his eyes before turning back to the stove.
Forgoing a verbal answer, Zoro plopped down at the kitchen table, resting his head in his hand as he watched Sanji move about the kitchen – his eyes having a hard time staying in focus from the sleepiness that clouded his vision. He was able to catch the soft smile Sanji threw his way, and that made him feel a bit better despite the circumstances.
“You need me to cook you lunch or dinner for later? Something you can heat up while I’m gone?” Sanji asked while throwing some salt and pepper in the pan.
Zoro laughed softly at that, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine. I’m actually going back to Mihawk’s this morning.” A deep yawn expanded in his chest.
“Oh?” Sanji dumped the contents of the pan onto two plates and went to boil some water in the tea kettle. “What for?”
“Um…” Zoro stalled for a moment, trying to wrack his brain for any excuse that was even just a little bit plausible. “Gonna help him trim the rose bushes.”
Sanji raised his eyebrows in excitement. “That’ll be nice! Are they still in bloom this time of year?”
“...yes…” Zoro’s heart thumped in his chest, hoping Sanji didn’t know enough about rose bushes or believed the ones at his father’s house to be built different because Mihawk was built different.
Sanji scurried out of the kitchen to place some eggs and hot tea in front of Zoro before grabbing his own plate to eat off of. Instead of sitting down, however, the cook remained standing – nibbling off his plate in small bites. With his trained eyes, Zoro could see the telltale signs of a nervous Sanji before him.
So he kicked the chair that was in front of him, making it ram painfully into Sanji’s midsection.
“Asshole,” Sanji grumbled and glared at Zoro, but the nervous fidgeting of his legs stopped. “What was that for?”
To add fuel to the fire, Zoro merely shrugged his shoulders and sipped his tea.
Unconventional methods or not, it got him what he wanted. Sanji sat heavily in the chair across from him and started eating in earnest. The silence between them wasn’t for Zoro to break, and so he waited and focused on surviving the dangerous game of footsie Sanji was trying to win underneath the table. It was about 2 minutes before Sanji groaned at the ceiling and slumped against the back of his chair.
“What if we run out of forks?”
Zoro paused with a mouth full of eggs and his eyebrows furrowed. “Huh?” his mouth hung open at the risk of losing the chewed food within.
“At the party tomorrow. What if we run out of forks and then we have to eat with our hands and then we run out of napkins and…”
Zoro almost choked from laughing with his mouth full.
“It’s not funny! It happened to me in a dream once!” Sanji pouted. Grabbing his fork, he shoved the last of his eggs in his mouth to chew on angrily.
Zoro stood up and grabbed their empty plates, walking over to Sanji before heading to the sink. The cook stared at him like a viper ready to bite him in the jugular, and Zoro leaned into his space anyway. Their eyes were locked together – Sanji’s squinted slightly in suspicion and Zoro’s relaxed, confident.
“You just worry ‘bout the cooking, as usual, and let me take care of the rest, twirlbrows.” Sanji’s body, turning rigid at Zoro’s words, relaxed when he received a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll pick up some extra forks on my way home as backup,” he called back to him over his shoulder while placing the dishes in the sink. As well as an extra ring , he thought to himself while the warm water and dish soap covered his hands.
Meeting Perona at the front door of Mihawk’s house felt like déjà vu, except it was daytime and she was wearing a teacup dress instead of something straight out of The Matrix . He wished the morning fog outside would swallow him up before he reached the door, but no luck. Perona turned the key, and they were inside kicking their shoes off before either of them uttered a word to each other.
“Please tell me you found it in your pants pocket or something stupid last night,” Perona mumbled, dragging her feet toward the kitchen with Zoro.
“If I had, I wouldn’t be here,” he mumbled back.
When they were fully in the kitchen, there weren't any signs that anyone lived there, save for a plate of scones that were sitting in the middle of the quartz island countertop. At first scan, there wasn’t anything else shiny and silver atop the counters that lined the walls and surrounded the oven, stovetop, and refrigerator. Zoro reached for a scone first before beginning his in-depth search.
“You make these?” he asked Perona. They were lemon, he discovered.
Perona shook her head, swallowing a nibble of one. “You tell Mihawk we were coming?”
“No,” Zoro answered. They shared a moment of eye contact, which meant something along the lines of “you know how he is.”
“So, we were standing over here,” Zoro continued after shoving the rest down his windpipe. He moved toward a strip of countertop that connected the stove to the fridge, and it was completely barren, save for three tin containers where things like flour, sugar, and pasta were kept. He moved them aside to check around in case the ring was hiding behind one of them, but he didn’t see anything.
Perona popped open the sugar container to peek inside.
“There’s no way it’s in there,” Zoro scoffed, moving down the counter to look behind a bread container.
“Leave no stone unturned!” She glared at him before sticking her finger in to place a few grains of sugar on her tongue. Closing the lid, she put the container back exactly as it had been before, and it made Zoro wonder how many times she’s practiced that exact maneuver throughout their childhoods.
The ring wasn’t behind the bread container, or the toaster oven, or the tea kettle, so finally Zoro got down on his hands and knees to check around the floor. All he could see were the crumbs he and Perona left from their scone snack.
Sitting up on his knees, he felt like he wanted to be buried underneath the floorboards. “It’s gone. Worst Christmas ever.”
“Oh, stop that,” Perona chided, sitting next to him on the floor. Her dress billowed out around her, hiding the fact she had any legs at all. “A proposal doesn’t have to be about a ring. It’s about love.”
Zoro answered her with a curt “bleh.”
“Are you giving up?” she asked him more forcefully, and it sparked a knee-jerk reaction within himself.
“Of course not.”
Perona smiled at him, blinking her eyes slowly. It put his nerves on edge, and rightfully so, because it wasn’t a moment later until she was digging her nails into his skull and yanking on his hair.
“Then pull yourself together! Are you not a man?!” She shouted into his eardrums.
Zoro, caught by surprise, yelped before trying to shove Perona’s face away. As much as he tried to push, she someone kept her death grip on his hair, and they were both screaming at each other to fuck off as they rolled around on the kitchen tile.
Perona released her grasp suddenly, and Zoro rolled backwards on the floor from the momentum of trying to pull away. When he regained his senses, he discovered she was actually being held back by a single loop of Mihawk’s arm around her waist. If she growled any harder, he was sure foam would start dripping down her chin.
“You were supposed to share the scones, not fight over them,” Mihawk sighed, his grip on the flailing Perona unwavering.
“That’s not what’s going on!” The siblings shouted in unison – Zoro on the floor still and Perona in the air.
Perona beat him to the punch. “Zoro made a mistake, and I’ve been trying to help him fix it, and it’s been so tiring and stressful, and I didn’t get any sleep last night, and now he’s just giving up! All I did for him, and he’s just gonna give up like nothing matters!”
“That’s…” Zoro paused for a moment, tying to figure out what exactly he wanted to say to that. “That’s a lie! Mostly… It’s complicated!”
Mihawk mumbled, and Zoro almost didn’t catch what he said, but furrowed his eyebrows and pouted when he realized he’d said “it’s always complicated with you two.”
He placed Perona back on the ground, turning her gently toward the door. “Go to your room for a moment.”
“Huh?! I’m not some child! You can’t just–”
In one swift movement, Mihawk grabbed the sugar container off of the counter and placed it in her hands. “Go,” he repeated with another gentle press on her back. Perona’s mouth was wide open, but eventually her small, stubborn steps carried her out of the kitchen, leaving only Mihawk and Zoro inside.
Suddenly it felt dangerous being on the floor while Mihawk was left standing, and so Zoro quickly rose to his feet to confront his father. He could feel a lecture coming on about fighting with his sister or how the kitchen was no place for a sparring match, and he tapped his foot waiting for it to be quick and to be over so he could run off to find another ring.
But instead of talking, Mihawk leaned on the kitchen island and lazily extracted a scone to take a bite. He stared at Zoro as he chewed slowly, and he even blinked .
“Am I dying today?” Zoro asked, confused.
“That’s up to you,” Mihawk responded, and while he didn’t smile, Zoro could still hear the humor in his tone. “Will you explain to me where the lie was in your sister’s statement?”
Zoro felt his nails dig into his palms as his fists balled up tighter. “She made everything about her! It’s my problem, and I didn’t ask for her help!”
Mihawk continued eating his scone, like saying “and water is wet” with his eyes at the obviousness of Zoro’s explanation.
Zoro swallowed, realizing he was going to have to come clean to the guy, and he was probably the last person he wanted to admit a failure to.
“I’m proposing to the cook tomorrow during Christmas dinner, and I brought the ring here to show Perona when we were carving pumpkins. I lost it in the kitchen. We’ve spent all night and all morning looking for it, but it’s gone. I–” His eyes froze on Mihawk’s hand, the scone held gracefully between his fingers.
Mihawk wore rings everyday, and usually multiple at a time. While he had some he wore for special occasions or to match with his clothes, there were a few that seemed to never leave his fingers – not even when sparring back at the dojo. And Zoro had spent enough years looking at his hands, studying his movements, that he recognized them as if they were his own hands.
And there was one extra ring, out of place from the others.
“What is that?” Zoro asked, his mouth going dry.
“Scone,” Mihawk answered without hesitation.
“No.” It took everything in Zoro not to throw the nearest kitchen utensil at him. “I mean, what is that on your finger? That ring. I’ve never seen it on you before.”
“Oh, this?” Mihawk mused aloud, unbothered. He flexed the hand that the ring was on in front of his face. “Found it on the counter last night. Thought it was charming. It has these little waves carved on the inside, you know.” He side-eyed Zoro casually, the ring shining under the light of the kitchen chandelier.
“Yes,” Zoro gritted through his teeth. “I do know. Because it’s mine . I need it to propose to Sanji today.”
“That so?” Mihawk continued to drawl, like a cat playing with a mouse.
Zoro held his ground, patiently waiting for Mihawk to grow bored and give him the ring. He would’ve preferred a lecture at this point.
Sighing, Mihawk crossed his arms. “If you want the ring back…” his eyes wandered from his hand, to the ceiling, and to the counter until he finally locked onto Zoro’s in a vice grip. “Then you’ll have to defeat me in battle.”
Zoro was pretty sure a trap door opened beneath his feet. That was the only way to explain the sinking feeling in his stomach as he plunged deeper and deeper into the unease crowding around him in that kitchen. The world regarded Mihawk as the best swordsman alive, and while Zoro had the privilege of training under his wing since he was a child, he was still years away from actually besting him in a one to one fight. If he was truly withholding the ring from Zoro until he was skilled enough to beat him, Sanji was going to have to wait a few more Christmases for a proposal.
“What is this, the Middle Ages? Just give me the ring!” He shouted, exasperated and tired.
“What’s it matter anyway, this ring?” Mihawk captured his gaze again. His words were quick and sharp, like little jabs meant to slowly crumble Zoro’s foundation. “You could get a different one. Propose on a different day. So what?”
Zoro chewed on his lip, his eyes feeling tired and dry around the edges. All of a sudden, this was feeling like some moment to prove himself. He’d been working toward one goal all year, and this was like the last puzzle before approaching the final boss (aka Sanji on Christmas day).
Zoro took a deep breath in.
“I chose silver because it represents balance. New beginnings and endings – the end of one day and the start of another – it represents how I feel complete when I’m around the cook. I’m challenged every day to be more for myself and for others when I’m around him.” He stared at his hands, not able to meet Mihawk’s eyes out of fear that he wouldn’t be able to finish his piece.
Despite his nerves, he smiled. “The waves… well, he likes the ocean or whatever, so there’s that, but they also represent our relationship. Danger, unpredictability, opportunity, depth – every day is like a new adventure, and I don’t shy away from it when things get difficult. I embrace the chaos. He makes me so angry; he makes me feel .”
Were those thought streams connected? He was rambling now, surely, but it came from something deep within him, and Mihawk had to be following along to something with how his gaze hadn’t wavered the entire time.
“I’m proposing on Christmas Day because it reminds me of the first family Christmas we had together, and that was one of the best days of my life. I wanted to capture that moment and have the ring be a reminder to the cook that I want him as part of our family. As much as I am his, he is mine, and we’ve made this life together.”
He looked back at Mihawk now, bravely straightening his posture and adjusting his feet to be firmly planted on the ground.
“You’ve always raised me to go above and beyond for the things I want, to put my best effort into everything that I do. If you want me to fight you for it, I will. If you want me to work the rest of my life at the dojo for free for it, I will. Because I want this. I want that ring. I want to propose tomorrow and tomorrow only .”
As much as he’d like to say he rendered Mihawk speechless, it was difficult to tell for a man who spoke so little in the first place. Still, there was something new in Mihawk’s eyes – something pensive and reflective. Zoro painfully ground his teeth together in uncomfortable anticipation.
Delicately, slowly, Mihawk pulled the ring from his finger to set it down on the counter.
“Then you’ve mastered all that you need to know.”
He walked out of the kitchen and took the tension in the air with him. Zoro’s head was fuzzy with the last few minutes replaying on a loop, and he surprised himself with all that he’d said out loud. Damn that old man for wringing everything out of him like that. Still, it was great content for his proposal that was definitely back on track, so he queued some things for later and lunged forward to swipe the ring off the counter.
If Zoro thought his exhaustion from the past 48 hours was going to pull him into a deep, rejuvenating sleep, he was wrong. Somehow, despite it all, he was left tossing and turning all night in nervous anticipation for Christmas morning. Sanji came back home late and smelling like pumpkin, and it made their bed sheets smell like it too, even after he showered. He was beginning to associate the scent with a sense of foreboding.
Especially now, as he helped set up the long table with all of the dishes he and Zeff had worked so diligently on to make yesterday and place the finishing touches on this morning. It took 3 tables to fit everything, as if they were feeding a small village. And just as Sanji had instructed, Zoro made sure to line everything up in order from drinks and appetizers, to entrées and desserts.
Over on one drinks table was an assortment of non-alcoholic and alcoholic selections, including pumpkin eggnog, pumpkin cider, pumpkin and rum horchata, and pumpkin cheesecake martini. Zoro had no doubt in his mind that the martini glasses were meticulously decorated and styled for the ladies.
Next to the drinks were the appetizers, portioned into small bites for easy snacking before the main course. Scattered about the table was brown sugar spice pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, sausage, pumpkin and arborio soup, pumpkin, spinach, and feta salad, roasted garlic and rosemary pumpkin hummus with carrots and pieces of bread to dip, and lightly-salted pumpkin fries. With the appetizers and the drinks, they were up to 10 pumpkin dishes.
The second table was for entrées only, and Zoro had to strategically align the platters so that everything fit together. There was pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage, pork and pumpkin chilli, pumpkin risotto, stuffed pumpkin with rice, fennel, apple, pomegranate seeds, and pecans, pumpkin mac and cheese, pumpkin spice marinated chicken, pumpkin bacon carbonara, pumpkin curry, and of course, pumpkin onigiri wrapped tightly in seaweed. It took everything in him from stealing one before the other guests arrived.
The final and second largest table was left for the desserts, which he hoped would distract the guests enough for him to have more onigiri to himself. There was the traditional pumpkin pie, along with pumpkin snickerdoodles, pumpkin crème brulée, pumpkin praline bars, pumpkin tiramisu, and pumpkin parfait.
When he finished placing everything down, Zoro wondered if he’d ever eat pumpkin again after today.
“Oh good, I’m starving!” He heard Luffy shout behind him, and if it weren’t for years of training in the art of “stopping Luffy from doing that,” he would’ve failed to save the dishes from being eaten prematurely. Wrapping his arm firmly around his best friend’s shoulders, Zoro slowly guided Luffy away from the food tables.
“Hey, Luf. Glad you could come,” he smiled at him. It wasn’t hard to let the joy shine through his voice because his mood had already improved tenfold since he’d arrived. It was almost like he felt foolish for feeling so nervous just seconds before.
“Not everyday your two best pals get engaged,” Luffy shouted back at him, causing Zoro to smother his mouth with his hand.
“It’s still a secret!” he hissed at him. “It hasn’t happened yet, so you gotta be quiet a little longer!”
Luffy stared at him with wide eyes, waiting for Zoro to remove his hand. As soon as he had the freedom of speech again, he quickly blurted “gonna need one onigiri to keep my mouth quiet.”
“Onigiri?” Zoro flinched as if he’d been punched in the sternum. “But that’s my favorite–”
“Sanji!”
“Fine! Fine, you can have one,” he grumbled, rushing to steal one off the table. “You better hope you don’t fall asleep tonight because I will end you.”
Luffy laughed while taking a giant bite. “Zoro’s mad ,” he teased through the rice in his teeth.
While dealing with Luffy, Zoro was distracted by the fact that more of his friends had arrived – Brook, Jinbe, and Chopper all greeting Sanji and moving to set up the speakers with Christmas tunes. In the blink of an eye, he was helping Nami with her coat and listening to Usopp tell a story while Robin helped Franky bring in some wrapped presents. He tried to ignore them, focusing instead on the speech he’d made in his head the night before.
Relief found him once again when his sister stepped through the door – the glitter in her makeup twinkling in the light. Their father was close behind, fully donned in a wide-brimmed black hat and black suede coat that ran the length of his body down to his ankles. Zoro checked to make sure his fingers didn’t have any extra rings that didn’t belong.
He tried to hide how fast he was bouncing his leg up and down underneath the table cloth as he sat with his full plate of food. Everyone else was nearly finished grabbing their portions, and only Zeff and Sanji were left until the room would be filled with the sounds of chewing and silverware clinking against porcelain.
Should he propose before everyone started eating or after? What was the best way to grab their attention? Would he still be able to eat if Sanji said no? Then all the food would go to waste, and he’d hate him even more…
The sound of silver on glass made Zoro’s thoughts pause in their stampede. He turned his head to find Sanji standing at their table, a pumpkin cheesecake martini in one hand and a fork in the other that he used to ring everyone's attention. He may have just given Zoro the best opening yet. Absentmindedly, he fiddled with the ring in his pocket while he waited for Sanji to finish whatever he was saying.
“First of all, Merry Christmas, and thank you to everyone for coming! Nami, Robin, Perona, your presence here is the best gift I could’ve asked for on this day.” He raised his glass to them, and the women giggled softly in return.
“I do hope you all enjoy the food. 25 different pumpkin dishes may feel a little overdone now, but the idea will be worth the hatred we collectively gather for pumpkin after tonight.”
“I would never hate something Sanji makes!” Luffy shouted before Nami kicked him under the table to be quiet.
Zoro wrapped his fingers around the ring box, steadying his feet to stand up. Was the cook done talking yet?
Sanji smiled at Luffy before continuing. “Speaking of, this idea wouldn’t even be possible without the lovely tradition we’ve started with Zoro’s family.” He gestured toward them with his drink and a nod of his head. Perona blushed modestly when eyes turned toward her and Mihawk. Then, he looked down at Zoro, which made his heart pound harder than it already had been.
“I know we have a bunch more ideas for the years to come, right?” Sanji asked him with a tender smile.
“Uh, yeah,” Zoro responded, half-distracted by the recitation of what he wanted to say still playing in his head. Should he stand now? His muscles felt like gelatin.
“The possibilities are really endless,” Sanji trudged along.
Honestly, he was just being annoying at this point – either shut up and let the people eat or announce something actually worthwhile. And with that thought, Zoro answered the cook with a “uh-huh.”
“Like, we could keep doing this forever.”
Zoro gave Sanji the stink eye then, all patience gone and out of his body. “Yeah,” he played along some more but with palpable annoyance in his tone.
Sanji’s tender smile turned into a mischievous grin. “So you agree? We should get married and do this forever?”
Zoro’s face went slack with shock, and he felt like his soul left his body. Did he hear that right? Or was it his racing mind playing tricks on him? The ring was still in his pocket – no one had mentioned anything about marriage yet, so why did it sound like the cook was talking about it?
He watched in horror as Sanji started to slowly get down on one knee next to him, pulling a ring box out of his pocket and holding it out in front of him. His eyes were full of hopeful thrill that made Zoro realize that what was happening was very real and very not according to plan.
“Will you marry me?” Sanji spoke more quietly now, talking to Zoro only. From across the room, Perona gasped.
“No!” Zoro roared, the immediacy of his statement catching everyone in the room off guard.
Sanji, overtaken by shock, wasn’t able to block Zoro from pushing him hard enough to throw him flat on his back on the ground. In the same movement, Zoro stood up from his seat, the sound of his falling chair crashing behind him from the force of it. Distantly, he could hear the mumbled confusions of everyone else in the room, but he was more focused on the stupid idiot still on the floor in front of him.
“No! I’m supposed to propose tonight!” He whipped his own ring box out of his pocket to show the cook as well as everyone else around serving as witnesses. “ You will marry me !”
“Huh?!” Sanji, finally out of his stupor, shouted back. With a look of fury, he got on his feet to stare eye-to-eye with Zoro, his lips snarling. “Too bad! I’ve been planning this for a year!” He jabbed a thumb toward himself. “I win!”
Zoro’s eyes bulged in anger. “I’ve been planning this for a year too! Get your own idea!” He pushed at Sanji again, who tried to ram his knee into Zoro’s gut in return. Taking the hit, he felt the air leave his body as he grabbed Sanji’s leg to try to disrupt his balance. He succeeded, throwing a right hook that Sanji barely dodged and side-stepping the returning kick aimed for his head.
“Marry me, mosshead!” Sanji borderline screamed while throwing his entire body weight onto Zoro, sending them tumbling to the floor and clawing at each other.
“ You marry me , dartbrows!” Zoro grumbled with his hands gripping the front of Sanji’s shirt to slam him onto the ground.
Unbeknownst to them, the guests resumed their eating – their joyful chatter in complete contrast to the two fighting fiancés smothering each other on the ground. Luffy was already leaving his seat for a second helping, and Nami was on her third martini. Perona wiped a tear from her eye as she and Franky blubbered on together about young love, with Chopper running around to show everyone the winter cherry blossoms he brought to celebrate the occasion. Brook switched the songs from Christmas to party, and Usopp retold the story of how Zoro and Sanji first met to Robin and Jinbe who were listening with a smile. Over in the corner, Zeff popped open one of his top shelf wine selections, pouring a glass for Mihawk by his side.
And Sanji poked Zoro in the eye.
And Zoro bit Sanji’s shoulder.
And the snow fell gently outside, gathering in white fluff and signaling the start of their new life together.