Chapter Text
Zoro's mind had been racing for months and during that entire time he only found one way to make it stop. That is how he ended up spending all day everyday at the dojo. Master Koushirou let him spent all his time here, even through he knew that Zoro should be going to school. But if anyone understood Zoro's feelings rights now, it would be Koushirou. While Zoro was struggling with the loss of his best and only friend, Koushirou was grieving his daughter. He ended up letting Zoro basically live in the dojo only sending him away to sleep at home, so that his parents wouldn't worry.
As if that had ever been a problem to start with. Zoro is never really home enough or friendly enough with the people there for them to notice a change in behaviour.
You see Zoro parents died before he could remember, what he did remember was living in foster homes. Changing homes and families regularly. Weither it was the parents or the siblings any of them could disappear from his life any day, without a real warning. Foster homes were filled with broken and traumatized people and Zoro's defence mechanisms against second hand trauma was to not get emotionally invested. Never let them know you or your weaknesses, but also don't get close enough to them to see how they suffer. He made that mistake several times as a child, but after years it was second nature to him. He just didn't care anymore. Stopped putting in effort. Never tried to make friends or conversation. He would go out or spend all his time in his room. Being a distant and stoic child made it difficult for any of the parents to bond with him or make him comfortable at home. Therefore it had been a while since he had a place or person of comfort, to call a home.
Over the last years however, Zoro had finally found a place he loved to go to and a person he couldn't wait to see again. The place being Koushirou's Dojo and the person being the owners daughter Kuina.
From the get go Zoro was allowed to spend more time at the dojo than any of his foster parents would ever spend at an activity like it. At the time he wasn't entirely sure what that actually meant, but none the less he knew to savour every single second he was there. It started out as realising his childhood dream of swinging a sword, even if it was only a wooden kendo one. Apparently he impressed Koushirou in the try out lesson and was given the opportunity to keep on living his dreams.
He was enthusiastic and loved learning. That and what he was told was an extraordinary amount of talent, made him the best in the course very fast. After he got to that point and was beginning to get bored, he met Kuina. She was a couple of years older than him and due to having trained with her father since early childhood, she was infinitely better than him. He must have proven a worthy match however, since she kept fighting him.
Together they swore to the dream of becoming world champions in Kendo. Even though in childhood glee they referred to it has worlds best swordfighter.
Zoro was never particularly interested in school, good at it or at making friends. But learning swordfighting and becoming friends with Kuina was so very easy and he loved it. He had the motivation to go from day to day and live on to see one of them realise their dream.
Then tragedy struck. It was quick, unexpected and no ones fault. No one was even there. Koushirou had heard a loud sound at the stairway so he went over there. When he arrived Kuina was lying on the ground and had already stopped breathing.
When Zoro heard the news, all those good emotions left him. The world lost most of it's colour. He existed through what was following rather that actually living through it. He only remembers small parts. Most clearly being given her sword, not that she had ever really fought with it.
It had been just before the summer holiday between Zoro's seventh and eighth grade. He had spent the entire holiday at the Dojo and even afterwards he only went to school a handful of times. He had kept busy training, as he felt honouring the promise with Kuina was the only thing he could do. As well as training keeping his mind clear of all the awful thoughts and emotions.
Now it is late autumn. Zoro is still not attending school regularly and instead he is practicing kendo in the courtyard of the dojo, because it was the place that felt the least depressing. He is trying to concentrate on his practice, but there seems to be a kid with a very loud voice at the dojo today. The kid seems to be having fun as half of what Zoro could hear was laughter. And the laughter was getting increasingly closer, so he suspected the kid was coming in his direction.
-
Koby was running after Luffy trying to capture him, even though he knew it was impossible. Luffy was always the faster and stronger one of them. And he had so much more energy. He would probably be running around for hours. It's how this usually ended. The only way to stop him was food.
But even knowing all this Koby was chasing after him through the unfamiliar corridors of the Japanese looking Dojo. Mostly because the alternative was staying in a room with a bunch of strange kids, who could beat him up with swords if they wanted to and Koby had always been a weak and easily scared kid. He knew that, which had been the reason he came here in the first place.
It had started because due to Luffy's copious amounts of energy Dadan, his mom, sent him to do sports. But Luffy's attention span was short and no sport truly exited him beyond getting his energy out. They would also demand him to train a lot, do this, don't do that. And that's just so not how Luffy's brain works. So he ends up changing sports every couple of weeks. When he had told Koby about Kendo the other boy had decided to try and learn how to fight alongside Luffy. But in usual fashion, Luffy had not wanted to stay in the lesson and the moment Luffy had left Koby had felt so uncomfortable around the strangers that he had just run after his best friend.
Koby couldn't actually see where Luffy had gone. He just followed the sounds, because if Luffy was something next to energetic, it was happy and loud. Which meant that while running Luffy was also laughing. How he had the stamina for that was a miracle to Koby, who was currently running out of it. The laugh was what Koby had been following, until it suddenly stopped. Out of fear something bad could have happened Koby ran faster, not really looking where he went until he ran face first into Luffy's shoulder.
Luffy had stopped in the middle of the corridor staring out an opening in the wall, which apparently was made out of sliding doors. Rather than admiring the marvel that was a wall made of doors, Koby decided to figure out what Luffy was looking at.
There was a nice courtyard beyond the doorwall, some nice plants and a path across to get to another part of the house faster that through the corridors. But what Luffy was staring at was not the yard, it was undoubtedly the very focused looking boy, swinging wooden swords.
"So cool" Luffy whispered. The volume of that and his non reaction to Koby running into him showing how much in awe he was.
-
Zoro might have accidentally focused on the laughter a bit too much. First in got louder, closer. But then it suddenly stopped and since he was already listening to what was going on in the dojo he heard the thump sound behind him, followed by a barely audible whisper. Zoro couldn't understand what had been said but he turned around to the sounds.
There were two small boys, around Zoro's age maybe slightly younger, in the open space between doors. One kid with black hair and a strawhat, why he was wearing that here at a sword dojo, indoors, was a mystery to Zoro and a bit intriguing. Half hidden behind him was a smaller boy with big round glasses and pink hair, he had hidden behind the first the moment Zoro had looked at them.
"Hi there. My name is Monkey D. Luffy, what's your name?"
The one with the strawhat had said that and it took Zoro a moment to realise what he had said and then a bit longer to get that it had been a question. Luffy had a bright smile and a confident posture. He looked like he was in his element and not at all scared by the scary face Zoro had as a default nowadays.
"Zoro"
He should have just turned around and kept training but there was something in Luffy that was captivating. He just couldn't look away.
"You're cool, Zoro. I like you. Wanna be friends?"
Zoro still couldn't believe what was happening.
"What makes you believe I would want to be your friend?"
"I dunno. It's just a feeling and usually it's right."
Somehow Zoro ended up talking with Luffy for a bit. At some point the other boy was even relaxed enough to stand next to Luffy instead of behind him. He also introduced himself as Koby.
Koby was the one that asked Zoro what grade he was in and at which school. That was how they learned that they all went to the same school and the other two were just one grade under Zoro. When they asked him why they'd never seen him before, he didn't know how to tell them. How to explain all the emotions and thoughts that occupied his head at all times. Instead he stayed quiet. He ended up staying quiet for so long that someone showed up and told Luffy and Koby that it was time to go home.
Which they did, but not before telling Zoro that they would be coming by again and informing him that they were friends now. That second one was purely Luffy, even after this short time Zoro knew Koby was by far not bold enough for something like that.
-
The two boys came once a week for their beginners course, however they never actually took part in it. Instead they would run around to search for Zoro, who was always around somewhere. After finding him they would talk and play all afternoon. Zoro would show them the cool places and things at the dojo. They were laughing, playing and sometimes they even did a bit of sword fighting.
After a month Luffy and Koby had to inform Zoro that they wouldn't come to the dojo anymore. Apparently it was a waste of money to send them there if they weren't learning or training. In order to keep seeing them, Zoro started regularly going to school again and they spent all his breaks together.
Zoro didn't notice for a while but at some point he was only thinking about Kuina a few times a day. When laying in bed trying to fall asleep or when walking past the staircase in the dojo. It still hurt like hell but all the rest of the time was filled with Luffy's blinding smile, no matter if Luffy was currently around or not. It made it easy for Zoro to burry all the bad feelings deep inside and ignore them. He was happy again for the first time in almost half a year, at least most of the time.