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It was unwise to be drinking sake on the training room’s floor at 3 am, both Mihawk and Zoro knew it. But it was raining cats and dogs outside and there was no sign it would stop anytime soon, so Mihawk had already made up his mind that he’d not be attending the meeting he’d been summoned to later that morning. They’d already gulped down three bottles, and since neither of them was capable of walking a straight line, let alone go into the courtyard and into the castle’s kitchen to grab another bottle, Zoro fetched up a large gourd of sake he kept inside the training room at all times.
Zoro had finally been allowed to drink a few months ago and he was making up for all the time and drinks lost by getting hammered as much as he could, whenever he had the chance. Mihawk noticed that booze incentivated his student quite well, so he promised that whenever the young swordsman got a strike on him, he’d give him one of his finest wines as a prize. It had only happened a few times since then, but Mihawk kept his promise and gave him a couple of bottles, joining the drinking party with eagerness.
Whenever they drank together they didn’t talk much, but on occasion Mihawk would ask Zoro something about his crew or Zoro would ask about his past or his position as a warlord in return. They were both stern and cold, but aside from that their relationship was amicable at best. However, they never spoke of anything too personal. After all, it was Zoro’s ultimate goal to defeat him and giving him too much information could become Mihawk’s downfall.
Perhaps it had been because Zoro did a really good job during that evening’s training, managing to actually hurt Mihawk by slicing the skin on his arm and drawing some blood from the wound, or the fact that Perona had left the island to go shopping for a couple of days, but they were drinking more than usual. Once the gifted bottle was finished, they’d call it a night and say goodbye, but that evening, trapped inside the training room, they kept on drinking until the rain stopped.
“Pour me another one.” Zoro slurred and extended his cup to Mihawk. Instead, he grunted and tossed the bottle at him, but waited for Zoro to give it back and poured himself another one as well.
“This will hurt in the morning… it’s a good thing that I’m not going to work tomorrow, then.” Mihawk said.
“Speak for yourself, I plan on sleeping this over for… let’s say three days.”
“That’s a nice plan.” He chuckled and drank again, tasting the burning sensation go down his throat slowly.
Mihawk would be lying if he said he’d rather drink alone, but it had taken him quite some time to grow used to his new and younger drinking buddies. Sometimes he wondered if he’d rather lock himself up in his room on the third floor or accept their odd habits and enjoy the company. If he had to pick, Zoro was more lax and he knew how not to make an idiot out of himself if he got drunk, but he wasn’t conversational at all. Perona was the entire opposite: she would get so drunk with just two glasses of wine and then she’d never shut up, but at least she kept the conversation interesting until she began to either flirt or pass out.
She usually fidgeted around the idea of getting to know the two swordsmen better, and at times Mihawk humored her and answered. Zoro never started a conversation and it was slightly annoying at times. Perona asked them bits and pieces about the past, about the things they liked, or the things they enjoyed. And from time to time, Mihawk asked back and they’d enjoy a nice conversation that would end up around midnight, when one of them would cut the conversation short, they’d say goodnight and go to bed. In comparison, whenever he drank with Zoro, they barely spoke a few words and nodded to one another, sometimes cracking a smile, sometimes not even that.
And whenever Perona asked something bothersome or too personal,Mihawk would cut her short and fill her cup to the brim and she’d know she’d overstepped the limit. Zoro never did that, though.
For all that, Mihawk quite prefered to drink with Zoro. He was less nosy.
Thus, when the next words sprouted out of his mouth, Mihawk almost choked.
“Say, Hawk Eyes… have you ever fallen in love?”
He stared at him with his piercing golden eyes, his mouth slightly agape, and remained in silence for a whole minute. Zoro would’ve felt uneasy if he wasn’t so drunk.
“I’d expect Perona to ask that. Why are you asking?”
“I… it’s nothing.” Zoro said sheepishly and drank the last drops of his cup. He hissed as he felt the liquid going down through his throat.
“Talk.”
“I… ugh. I need advice. And the one I'd ask isn’t currently around.” He said, possibly referring to one of his friends.
“I am not the best at giving out romantic advice, Roronoa.”
“No… I supposed that, but you’re better than Perona, anyway.”
To that, he chuckled and nodded in defeat. Then he sighed and raised two fingers.
“Twice.” Mihawk said, avoiding looking Zoro in the eye.
“I’d expect you’d have more stories to tell… twice in only 43 years, that’s less than I expected.”
“You asked for love, not fleeting, meaningless things, right? Then it’s only been twice. Otherwise… I don’t remember.”
“Well… I am slightly nervous about getting back with my crew. The time is drawing nearer and I… uh...” Zoro finally admitted. He was more talkative than Mihawk had ever heard him, and he wasn’t sure he could help him.
“And why is that? Whilst you still have a long way to go, you’re nowhere as weak as you were when you first arrived here.”
“Jeesh, thanks…” Zoro said, not sure if he should feel either pleased or insulted. Mihawk laughed and shook his head,
“So… if I get it correctly for what you’ve said, there’s someone in your crew you don’t want to meet. Is it the dark, raven haired one or the ginger bombshell?”
Zoro didn’t answer and instead looked away from him, almost gulping down the entire cup like it was a shot of cheap alcohol. Mihawk chuckled and then he began to openly laugh at him.
“Don’t laugh!”
“My bad, my bad. I should have seen it coming... Then, why are you so afraid to meet with your captain?”
Zoro looked away again and toyed around with the cup on his hand. He took another sip and then nodded sheepishly, as if trying to assert himself about his own feelings. Mihawk sat across from him with his legs crossed and waited patiently, expecting for an answer but not actually knowing what to say. He truly sucked with romantic advice and he had no idea how anything he said could help the young man at all.
“Luffy’s been through a lot. You were there, I don’t need to tell you any of that. I don’t know what he’s been up to for the past two years but… man, losing his brother must have broken him. I know my captain. He’s… relentless. And when given proper motivation, he’s an idiot. A decided idiot. How… How can I keep up with that? I… am afraid he will be disappointed. I ended up begging the man I want to defeat to train me...”
“You’re wondering if things could have been different if you’d been with him during his brother’s execution.” Mihawk said, not as a question. Zoro didn’t argue back, but he had the answer.
“Of course I wonder, but I know it wouldn’t have been for the best. Perhaps if the entire crew had been there with him things would have been different, but we were weak. It’s more than likely we’d have ended up dead or imprisoned. I was badly injured back then. I’d be dead weight in more than one sense.”
Mihawk leaned towards him and placed his elbows on his knees, latching his fingers as he always did when he concentrated to think. He was silent for a long while. Then, a slight smile creeped up on his face.
“You remember the first thing you did when you came here, don’t you?”
“I defeated the mandrills.”
“You begged for me to train you, idiot.” Mihawk frowned and echoed the words he had just said. His apprentice could be really stupid at times. “And I know for a fact you offered your life for your captain’s when Kuma was after your crew.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Perona talks a lot.”
“Damn her…”
“It explains a lot, really. My point is that since then, you’ve forfeited your dream of becoming the very best and carried his dream on your shoulders. You’d rather have that man become the King of Pirates and die trying than surpass me. That’s selflessness… and stupidity.” Mihawk drank from his cup one last time and decided he'd had enough. He placed it on the floor, downwards. “Perona also told me about your promise to that girl… Kuina, wasn’t it?”
He hadn’t expected to hear that name escaping from Mihawk’s lips at all. He rarely ever talked about her with anyone, Perona being one of the few ones. Zoro wasn’t even sure anyone on his crew knew about her, except Chopper and perhaps Nami. He’d never really ever told Luffy, now that he put his mind on it.
“That’s… a delicate matter.”
“So delicate that you’d rather throw away her sword than seeing Strawhat Luffy dead.”
Perona was definitely going to hear him out when she came back from her trip.
“I don’t know why I am so nervous. It’s not like he’ll care about what happened. I know he will be glad to see us all safe and sound, but…”
“It is you who feels disappointed. You hope to face him as if nothing had happened.”
“Man, I don’t even know what these feelings are. Sure, disappointment is one thing, but why am I so anxious about what Luffy thinks?”
“You asked me if I had ever been in love, so I must assume that’s what you think you feel.”
Zoro blushed from head to toe and Mihawk couldn’t keep his laughter to himself. He had a knack to ridicule Zoro, but that night he was being particularly nasty to him.
“You’re the worst person I could have asked for advice! Forget I even said anything! But I… I have never felt something like that, for anyone. Not even Kuina. I’d risk my neck for him, just to see him achieve his dream…”
“How cute.”
“Why did I think you’d be of any help?”
To Zoro’s surprise, Mihawk smirked and chuckled under his breath. He turned his cup around again and opened the large gourd one more time, filling his cup to the brim.
“I was mistaken, we’re going to need yet more sake for the next thing I'm going to share with you.” He poured Zoro yet another one. There was something nostalgic in his eyes, like some sort of yearning that Zoro had never seen before.
“Why?”
“I could actually give you some advice when it comes to that relationship in particular. I can’t say I relate to your feeling of despair and helplessness when it comes to meeting Monkey D. Luffy again, but I definitely know what it is to have feelings for an idiot and try to live up to his expectations.”
“His…? You…? What? Who?”
“Think for a while, Roronoa, it’s not that hard.”
Zoro looked at him dumbfounded, his mouth slightly agape as he tried to connect the dots, but no ideas seemed to come to mind. His brain was running fast, as if trying to remember all the data and trivia he possessed about his master. Then it clicked. Twice. He had been in love twice. And one of those had been with…
“Red Hair Shanks.” Zoro said, snapping his fingers quickly. “You! You had a thing with that guy!”
Mihawk smiled and nodded, estranged to be talking about something so personal with Roronoa Zoro, of all people. Not even Perona had made him talk about his obscure history with Shanks. As far as she knew, they had been bitter rivals turned into friends by time and a missing arm. Little did she know.
“I was very young and Redhead was even younger. We were dumb and we were trying to one-up each other at all times. It wasn’t healthy, and after the incident with your captain and the fact that he could no longer keep up with me after losing his arm, we decided it was best to stay away from one another.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if, perhaps, I had been a little bit more understanding and less obnoxious about proving myself to him and demanding him to meet my standards, things could have been different.”
“Oh.” Zoro acknowledged and nodded.
“You two have something very different that we lacked, though.”
“What is it?”
“Trust. You know he will become the King of Pirates. He knows you will become the Greatest Swordsman”. To that last sentence, Mihawk’s mocking smile returned, but he didn’t say any more. “It’s not like you’re competing to see who gets there first.”
“Hey, Hawk Eyes… can I ask one more thing?”
“Now’s the time you’re most likely to get an answer.”
He didn’t know what he could get out of questioning Mihawk like this. The swordsman blinked carefully and analized Zoro as he pondered whether to talk or keep his words to himself. There was a huge chance he was misreading the signals and everything he’d gathered from their conversation. If that was the case, Mihawk could get really mad at him for being an idiot. “...is she the other one?”
“More than enough booze for both you and I for tonight, Roronoa.” Mihawk said, taking the almost full cup that Zoro had in his hands and drinking it without asking. Then he stood from the ground and walked out of the training dojo, out into the pouring rain and didn't return. Zoro was not sure if he was blushing, Mihawk never did, but he was clearly so uncomfortable that he had prefered to walk back into the castle, completely soaking himself in the process, only to lock himself in his room as he was unwilling to talk about feelings and trust and romance any longer. Zoro chuckled and took the gourd to himself, drinking directly from the bottle.
Trust. It was such a simple, yet obscure concept for Zoro to understand. Robin had once called him the Patron Saint of Unwavering Loyalty and he hadn’t got a single idea of what she meant by that. Now he thought he understood a little bit better. Their fated and accorded reunion wasn’t meant to happen until a few months later, but Zoro was nervous, and his pep talk with Mihawk had only helped stir his anxiety. However, it felt more like yearning and anticipation this time than crippling disappointment or remorse.
Zoro let himself fall back down on the ragged training dummies and the dingling sound of his earrings rang in his ears for a few seconds. He ran his fingers across the golden bars, enjoying the cold sensation it brought to his skin. The soothing, cool feeling always reminded him of Kuina. As he did so, his fingers accidentally brushed against his most recent scar, the one he got from his injured left eye. Zoro traced two fingers down on it and stopped at his cheek, smiling.
Guess we have matching scars now, eh, Luffy?