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“It’s a winter island,” Luffy almost cries, so happy to see the white shape on the horizon.
“You are not going out exploring dressed like that,” Nami warns sternly, hands on her hips as she stares at the captain dressed in shorts.
After some bickering, Nami manages to make him wear a red puffy jacket with black cargo pants and boots. She nods in approval and the captain runs off to the lion figurehead, jumping off with a yippee and landing in the snow softly.
“Come on, come on!” He waves to his crew, jumping in place.
“It’s just like back home!” Chopper giggles as he makes a snow angel.
They make their way towards the small village on the coast, Brook, Franky and Jinbe having stayed behind to watch the ship.
“Sanji-kun, you know what to do,” Nami calls as they reach the village.
“Yes ma’am, I’ll make sure to get the freshest ingredients in town!” he salutes and runs off.
“Don’t get into too much trouble,” Nami tells the guys, linking her arm with Robin’s and pulling her towards a clothing store.
“Usopp, let’s go buy supplies!” Chopper exclaims and Usopp nods enthusiastically, and then they’re off.
Luffy blinks. He looks over his shoulder with a grin.
“Guess it’s just you and me then,” he tells his swordsman.
“Guess so,” Zoro says, falling into step beside him.
They find the town centre and Luffy gestures wildly to the various food and hot drink stands.
“Hey, where are your gloves?” Zoro observes.
“Huh? They're stiff, don’t like ‘em.”
“It’s below freezing. Did you forget the frostbites you got on Chopper’s island?”
Luffy pouts and grumbles but takes the gloves from his pocket.
Zoro grabs his wrists and tucks the gloves neatly under his sleeves. “There.”
Luffy’s pout turns into a small smile at the kind gesture. “Thanks,” he says, breath misting in the cold air.
Zoro fishes a few coins out of his pockets to buy Luffy hot chocolate and a cinnamon bun. The delighted smile Luffy gives him makes his insides warm and Zoro coughs awkwardly.
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
By the time everyone has gotten back to the ship, the sky has turned to a deep blue with a few strokes of gold on the horizon.
Taking a break from cooking, Sanji taps his cigarette on the railing as he blows smoke into the cold air.
The dark shape on the horizon makes him do a double take.
“Oi, Usopp, come here for a sec,” he calls. When the sniper reaches the upper deck, he points to the shape. Usopp puts his goggles on and squints in its direction.
“That’s–” he gapes. “Marine ship at starboard!” He shouts and the deck erupts into a flurry of movement.
“Why are they here?” Chopper squeals as he runs to raise the anchor.
“It’s a paddle ship, it’s moving too fast,” Nami worries, biting her nail. “We’re stuck between them and the coast.”
Luffy grins. “Then we just have to kick their asses, right?”
“We don’t know who’s on board,” Jinbe warns.
Luffy turns when he hears coughing behind him.
“Did you catch a cold?” Robin asks the swordsman.
“Ah–” Luffy exclaims, pointing a finger at him accusingly. “You were telling me not to get sick. Stupid Zoro.”
“I’m fine,” Zoro grumbles, voice rough.
The battleship pulls up and marines swarm the deck, surrounding the straw hats. The battle breaks out and Luffy heads straight for the vice-admiral whose name he has forgotten already.
He catches the movement from the corner of his eye.
“Don’t–” Luffy shouts, distracted, and the vice-admiral sends him face first into the snowy deck with a punch to the jaw.
Wadō thumps on the ground softly as Zoro falls to his knees, hand over his chest as it constricts and his lungs fail to draw air.
Zoro hears the sizzle of Luffy’s second gear and the marine standing above him goes flying, and Zoro almost loses his breath again when the wave of Conqueror’s haki washes over him. The static sizzles on his skin, leaving goosebumps as the marines fall around them.
Nami hugs herself as she shivers.
“You have five seconds to get off my ship,” Luffy warns, eyes shadowed by the brim of his hat, the vice-admiral lying knocked-out at his feet. The marines scramble over themselves, dragging their unconscious friends as they go.
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
“I don’t get it,” Chopper mutters as he tinkers with his medical equipment frantically. “There’s no sign of infection, his tonsils are fine, no fever, nothing!”
He jumps off his chair and starts to pull books from his bookshelf. “It has to be his lungs,” he adds worriedly, because that was never good, and Sanji he could understand but why would Zoro–
“Easy there, doctor,” Robin tries to comfort him. “Maybe it’s a local disease?”
Chopper thinks back to Nami and her case of Kestia. “Maybe…”
“Let’s ask in town tomorrow,” she offers kindly and Chopper nods.
“In any case,” Chopper whirls around to face his patient sitting on the infirmary bed. “I’m putting you on bed rest until we figure it out!”
Zoro opens his mouth to argue but he takes one look at the frown on Luffy’s face and sighs resignedly.
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
“Do you have any medical books?” Robin asks the old woman behind the desk when they enter the small library in a red wooden house.
The woman’s eyes twinkle. “Sudden cough?”
“Ah–yes. Do you know anything about that?”
The woman slams an old, brown leather book with a rose on the cover on the counter.
“You’ll need this.”
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
Sanji puts the kettle on when Robin and Chopper return from town and promptly start reading a heavy book on the dining table.
“Did you find something?” Nami asks as she takes the coffee cup Sanji offers her.
“It’s this island’s folklore,” Robin says as she turns a page.
“This is–” Chopper mutters, taken aback.
“Hanahaki disease,” Robin reads aloud quietly as the rest of the crew starts joining them for breakfast, rubbing sleep from their eyes.
“What is it?” Zoro asks as Robin and Chopper keep glancing at him.
“...It’s a little hard to believe.”
“Out with it if you know something,” Zoro says gruffly.
“A person with Hanahaki is said to have a flower take root in the lungs,” she says, matter of fact. “Unless treated, the plant will grow until their lungs fill and they die from suffocation."
The Strawhats grimace at the graphic description.
“A flower?” Luffy says around a mouthful of food. “That’s weird.”
“I’m having a lot of trouble believing it myself,” Chopper says. “But the Grand Line is a mysterious place.”
“How do you treat it, then?” Nami asks, curious.
Robin looks at each of them before speaking. Zoro arches an eyebrow.
“The cause is unrequited love. Treating it requires the reciprocation of feelings or lung surgery to remove the flower.”
The room falls silent.
“You’re kidding me,” Zoro says with horror.
Usopp’s jaw looks dislocated. “Zoro’s in love?”
“Bro! With who?” Franky asks loudly.
“Fucking– I’m not– I don’t love anyone,” he says as if it was physically painful for him to do so.
“Zoro–” Nami starts.
“As if such a stupid disease could even exist,” he huffs, stuffs the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and walks out the door.
They look at each other in silence.
“Uh– phase one, denial,” Chopper quotes.
“But this is Zoro we’re talking about,” Usopp says, unable to wrap his head around the idea. He looks around at his crewmates and sees the pensive faces Nami, Robin and Sanji make. “Right?”
“I’ve got my suspicions,” Nami says slowly.
Robin nods and Sanji chooses that time to light a cigarette.
“What, no way, who?” Usopp urges.
Nami shakes her head.
“Speculating won’t do us any good at this point,” Robin says, glancing at the captain who is uncharacteristically staring at the tabletop, lost in thought.
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
At noon, the Strawhats gather in the kitchen for lunch, shaking snow from their hairs. The doctor starts rambling about fevers and infections.
“I feel fine, Chopper,” Zoro sighs, dropping in a chair, though he doesn’t look the part.
Luffy loads Zoro’s plate with food before getting some for himself.
“Now Luffy’s sharing food. None of this makes sense,” Usopp laments and Nami almost tells him that it would, if he had been paying attention all this time.
Zoro’s fork drops on his plate as he starts coughing, hand covering his mouth.
Chopper hovers nearby as the others exchange worried glances.
Zoro leans back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he looks at the mess in his other palm.
“Helianthus carnosus,” Robin muses, turning the canary yellow flower over with a spoon. “Also known as lakeside sunflower. It’s a small type of sunflower that typically grows on coastal prairies.”
She glances at Nami and Sanji and they hold her gaze silently.
Zoro stares at the flower.
“So, what do we do?”
“What was it about surgery?” Zoro asks begrudgingly.
Chopper opens the book on a page with watercolour paintings of flowers and internal organs. “I’m not too comfortable with these kinds of procedures,” Chopper says, button nose scrunched up. “But I know someone who is,” he adds, pointing a hoof to the piece of paper scotched to the fridge with the Heart Pirates denden number.
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
Sanji finds the swordsman sitting against the railing, head tipped back as he wills his lungs to work.
And Sanji doesn’t want to meddle, he never has, he never said anything about what happened on Thriller Bark or all the times there were things that could have been said, but this needs to be fixed.
“It’s Luffy, isn’t it?”
Zoro carefully doesn’t react, so Sanji takes it as a yes.
“Look, I don't know why you're being so stubborn, but Luffy loves-
“Not like that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Zoro looks at him, unfazed. “Come on, it’s Luffy.”
“So?" Sanji arches an eyebrow at him. "Didn't think you knew what love was either.”
Zoro glares at him but shakes his head. “I can’t do that to him. This isn’t what we promised,” he sighs and rubs his fingers over the scar on his eye. “I don’t want him to think he has to force himself or that this is his fault.”
Not for the first time, Sanji wonders if Luffy knows Zoro would ruin himself for him.
“You’d rather die than take that risk?” Sanji asks and it feels like Thriller Bark all over again.
“It’s not like I’m just giving up. Law will be here soon. He can just–” his face pales at the thought “–chop me up.”
“Right, whatever,” Sanji sighs and walks off, though he knows things can’t possibly work out this way.
-ˋˏ❀ˎˊ-
The day the yellow submarine pulls up next to the Sunny the crew – minus Zoro – breathes a little easier.
“I could do it, yes,” Law says when they ask him about the surgery. “But I’m not going to,” he adds and closes the leather covered book.
“Why? Zoro needs it!” Chopper cries.
“Page 275. Removing the flowers removes the love itself,” his eyes flick to Luffy and Zoro curses him – the guy is just too observant. “I’m not going to do such an invasive procedure just because he’s being a stubborn idiot.”
“Guess I’ll just die then,” Zoro huffs, arms crossed and he doesn’t mean it, he’s just annoyed at Law but Luffy slams his hands on the table.
“This is serious, Zoro! I’m not losing you over something like this, I’m not losing you at all, you have to become the world’s greatest swordsman so figure it out!”
You could hear a pin drop in the galley as Zoro sits there, eyes closed.
“Sorry, captain,” he says as he pushes his chair away from the table. Luffy stands up and he grabs Zoro’s wrist to make him face him.
Luffy stares at him. Zoro stares at a spot over Luffy’s shoulder.
“Didn’t think you were such a coward,” Luffy snarls to his face, to get a rise out of him, maybe, or anything at all.
“Hey now–,” Nami chastises.
Zoro glares at him, jaw tight. “A coward,” he repeats.
“Yeah!” Luffy shouts angrily and the grip he has on Zoro’s wrist is almost bruising. “You can’t even admit how you feel!”
“I'm trying–" he jabs a finger at Luffy’s chest "–not to fuck everything up.”
“And I’m telling you, it wouldn’t” Luffy bites back and softer, he adds, “It won’t.”
Zoro searches his face – and then he becomes painfully aware of one thing.
“Stop staring!” he shouts at the unblinking pairs of eyes sitting around the table.
They jump but make no move to give them any privacy.
Luffy glances from Zoro to his crew with a puzzled look.
“Look, just come here for a sec,“ Zoro drags Luffy out of the kitchen and onto the deck.
"I'm not stupid, you know," Luffy tells him when Zoro turns to face him.
The waves crashing against the Sunny's hull are loud in his ears. "I know," Zoro breathes. He knows, probably better than anyone.
Zoro runs a hand through his hair and sighs, defeated. “What do you even want me to say?”
“You don’t need to say anything,” Luffy says, grabbing onto the helm of Zoro’s shirt with a playful smile. “You can just kiss me.”
The wind blows. Zoro should probably be cold.
“Or are you too much of a coward for that, too?”
Luffy's face is teasing, teeth bared in a grin and ah- well, Zoro couldn’t really let that slide.
He takes a step closer and Luffy leans against the wall behind him.
Luffy’s lips are soft and warm against his.
Inhale. Exhale. Zoro’s lungs expand with the warm feeling spreading through his chest.
And later, when they return to the kitchen, with red noses and shivering to their bones, their crew looks at them with raised eyebrows.
“What were you thinking, going outside dressed like that?” Nami says, unimpressed.
“Whasn’t – thinkin,” Zoro rattles and grabs his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Did you talk?” Robin asks in a motherly way, a twinkle in her eyes.
They glance at each other.
“No,” Zoro says, simply. Luffy throws his head back and laughs.
“Then what were you doing?” Chopper asks, puzzled.
And Zoro will blame the cold for the red that spreads across his face as Luffy grins and says proudly, “Kissing.”
Luffy laughs at their shocked faces.
“Fuckin’ finally,” Sanji mutters.
“Then–” Usopp gapes, pointing from Zoro to Luffy.
”Zoro!” Chopper wails and Zoro catches the sobbing reindeer in his arms. “I was so worried!”
“I’m sorry,” Zoro apologises and pats the reindeer on top of his head.
Nami stomps over to punch Zoro, though it’s a lot softer than usual. “I’m doubling your debt for making us worry so much!”
“Damned witch,” Zoro grumbles and Luffy snickers next to him.
“Man, so it really was Luffy bro,” Franky says, still shocked.
“Of course, of course,” Brook says with a vacant look on his skeletal face as he sips his tea.
“Always was,” Robin giggles.