Chapter Text
Perona had spent some days in Thriller Bark trying to gather some of the remains of what was once her room, but her chambers and the Wonder Garden had been completely blown away when Bartholomew Kuma attacked the victorious Straw Hat Pirates two years ago. Fortunately, she was able to find some of the remains of her friends and servants and she gave them some sort of burial, or at least she thought a shallow grave was better than being left to rot in the open air. At least, some of them were still partially there to bury. The other zombies were not so lucky.
When she finished the job, Perona went back to her little boat and cleansed herself with sea water and rushed towards Kuraigana without making any more stops until she finally reached home. She needed to clean herself, because Perona felt she smelled of dirt and rotting flesh. When she docked on the northern shore, she tied up her boat and ran towards the castle as if someone was chasing her. In part, she wanted to see him as soon as possible, but she also wished she found him later on when she wasn’t feeling so gross and dirty. But as far as Perona could see, Mihawk wasn’t home at the moment. From the corner of her eye, as she rushed past the livingroom and the kitchen, he wasn’t there. Then, she ran towards her bathroom and stripped herself whole after she locked her bedroom door.
Perona wrapped herself in a clean towel she had left in a pile of discarded clothing inside her closet and pushed the bathroom door with her foot, only to find it looked nothing like she had left it a month ago. The tiles were spotless and clean, and the drawers for towels and supplies were new. The leaks she couldn’t fix had been mended, the rust had been removed from the pipelines and the broken sink she had barely managed to stick together with plaster and glue had been replaced for a new one. There were even white, pale flowers in elegant vases placed by the windows and aromatic potted plants, which gave the bathroom a very nice smell. She frowned. Mihawk would never do all that, but it seemed it was the only plausible explanation.
There would be time to wonder why or how Mihawk had done all of that in barely a month, but for a moment, Perona had other priorities to attend to. She filled the tub and readied her soap, jumping into the water the moment it got into the right temperature. She quickly bathed herself, making sure to remove every inch of dirt from her hair, her nails and her skin. When she was done, she dressed in some fresh clothes and gathered her belongings, searching for any clues that could tell her of Mihawk’s whereabouts.
Perona deduced he couldn’t have gone to a nearby town to do some groceries since the bags they usually carried around to make the trip were still inside the pantry where she’d left them from the last time. He wasn’t in his room and he wasn’t in the orchard either, Perona noticed with some help of her reckoning Hollows she had sent to look after him. Just as she thought he might have been summoned to Mary Geoise for a meeting with the government, she walked by the room where Mihawk kept Yoru whenever he wasn’t carrying the sword on his back. The black longsword rested on its spot, which meant the swordsman couldn’t be far away from her.
“Hawk Eyes?” She called, entering the room where the sword rested. Her footsteps echoed in the cold stone, but it was the only noise she could hear at the time. Nobody answered back. “Hawk Eyes, where are you?”
She walked outside the room and back upstairs, then she walked back down and knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer. Perona couldn’t sense him being inside, so she kept moving for what felt like hours. He wasn’t in the library, in the sparring room, in the guests bathroom or the dining room. It could only mean he was either hiding somewhere he didn’t want to be seen, or he was somewhere Perona hadn’t thought before. But he had to be somewhere around the castle… so she kept searching.
“Mihawk!” She sang his name when she reached the lower floor, raising her voice towards the grand staircase in hopes her voice would reach him, and waited in silence for a few seconds.
“You came back.” Mihawk called back, popping from behind her and startling Perona greatly. There was a certain ring of hopefulness and happiness in his voice the Ghost Girl did not forego, but decided not to dwell too much on it. It was probably her imagination.
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you!”
“I was working on something. Here, come with me.” Mihawk jerked his head towards the back of the castle. Perona stood idly for a few seconds, confused, since she remembered that part of their house was not only abandoned, but mostly in ruins and they had not even started to remove the debris to make the rooms on the west wing usable. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
She blushed like she had never blushed before, because Mihawk had never complimented her that way, calling her beautiful. It was nice for a change. She then followed him down the dark, empty hallway, which he had managed to clear and rearrange in a few days.
“You fixed the bathroom in my room.”
“Yes. I saw you had done some repairs and I knew I could help.”
“You didn’t know if I was going to come back. You didn’t have to.”
“I knew you were coming back. This is your home, isn’t it?” Mihawk opened a large door for her and it almost took Perona’s breath away. How had he managed to fix everything in one single month, she didn’t know, she didn’t care. But the fact that he had done this for her meant more than all the words he had never told her.
Perona walked in, enjoying the weak rays of sunshine that entered through the three large windows in the back. The room was shaped as half an hexagon, the three windows that went from floor to ceiling being at the north and two stone walls to each side. The wooden door from which they came from took an entire wall of the room on itself. Inside the chamber, Perona saw Mihawk had also fixed the sewing machine she’d bought a few months ago and had placed a rack for materials besides it. In front of the machine, he had placed a mannequin for her to take measures and try the clothes she designed. Inside the room was a wide drawing board with a bunch of colored pencils and brushes and scrolls of paper were rolled beneath it. On the back, against one of the stone walls, was a large bookshelf with blank journals and new books Mihawk had bought for her, of many topics she might have mentioned once or twice she was interested in learning.
“Y-you… you did all this?”
“Yes. I remember you said you wanted to try new things, so…”
“Hawk Eyes, this is…” she felt tears gathering around her eyes, and a bright smile split her face in two as she looked at all the details she managed to find. The more she looked, the more attentive Mihawk turned out to be, pampering her with a gift as great as her new studio.
“I knew you would come back.” He repeated, and the girl noticed his hand twitched and lingered in the air as if the swordsman planned on holding her shoulder but regretted his decision right before he touched her.
“I had to… I… listen… I need to tell you something.” Perona felt her heartbeat rushing like it was going to drill its way out of her chest. She couldn’t keep her embarrassment down, but she had so many things she wanted to tell him in that very moment that it felt wrong to keep them quiet. There was no way she could ever pay him back for such a gift and she wasn’t creative enough as to find a way to thank him that would suffice.
“You like it?”
“Of course I like it, but it’s not that…” Perona sighed and, just as he had doubted before, she fidgeted with her fingers and hesitated whether she should touch him or not. But in the end, she did. She stretched her hand and held his fingers, coiling her index finger around his and then the others did the same. To her surprise, Mihawk followed through and held her hand for a while.
“Mihawk, I think I’m in love with you.”
Perona breathed in deeply, waiting for some sort of reaction or harsh words coming against her, but he only gave her silence. She didn’t dare to look him in the eye, but at least it was reassuring he didn’t let go of her hand.
“I’ve felt something very strong for you, for a long time. At first I didn’t know what to call it or how to feel about it, but… I came back because I wanted to be with you. I didn’t like it. I don’t like feeling like this and you don’t know how much this means to me… I… I love you.”
And strangely, even if Perona expected him to turn his back on her and walk out of the door, he didn’t. Mihawk simply leaned down and hugged her, burying his nose in her rosy hair and placing a single kiss on the top of her head.
“Wh... Why?”
“We’ll sort that out later. For now, I’m just glad you’re back.”