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The laughter of the festival was loud and cheerful, yet a far away echo for the navigator of the Strawhat Pirates. Nami had downed two sake herself before she had eventually become one with the shadows and vanished into the night and towards the Sunny. Soon the festival was just a background noise.
Despite a couple of days passing since the recent events of the war against Kaido and Big Mom, Nami had it all too clear in her mind. That moment when Kaido had dared to make them all freeze.
Strawhat is dead. As the memory washed over her, the shiver came back and the raising of her pulse, followed by the fury she had felt that night. Nami started to rush towards one of the nearby houses, as she felt the memories crawling under her skin. The alcohol she had been drinking wasn’t much, but mixed with post-traumatic memories and the fear that hadn’t left her body ever since, Nami felt herself shaking.
The navigator pressed her hands in front of her face, trying to shake the situation off. Don’t think about it any more, he is alive and well. Everyone is celebrating, and you are stuck in the past. The one thing you didn’t want to do.
“Don’t tell me you’re drunk”, a calm but mocking voice, interrupted her thoughts. As Nami looked up to the person with the moss-green hair, she couldn’t help but frown.
“Very funny, Zoro”, she said and made herself sit up straight.
“You’re acting strange. I’ve noticed it since Luffy and I are up and running again”, he said and gestured for her to make space so him and his swords were able to sit down. Nami did, but didn’t look at him.
The swordsman had always been good with noticing it first when something was wrong with her. Since the moment Luffy and the others had taken on Arlong for her and made her become an official part of the crew, Zoro kept on noticing details that the others seemed to miss. Sanji was the one that often enough made sure Nami was comfortable and had eaten well, but the fine details of her body language was something only Zoro seemed to pick up first. Zoro and her often enough fell into arguments, but in quiet moments like this, he was her shoulder to lean on.
Nothing that Nami had ever truly admitted to him or said out loud. It was almost an unspoken vow between them. Not even after the two years they had spent apart, and that night they had got drunk. Eventually, it had led to the fact that Nami had smooched the swordsman for the first time since a heated make out session in Alabasta, after tricking him into owing her more money. None of this physical closeness had ever let to problems on ship. Robin had eventually got the truth out of Nami after a long and deep conversation that the navigator indeed had more than just friendly thoughts about the swordsman, but with their hectic life and the constant rise of their bounties, Nami had never really taken the chance to really talk things out.
“I can’t shake off the feeling, since that night we all thought Luffy was dead. I mean, there was a moment on the field where I thought I had lost you both. And when Kaido said it, I just snapped. And if it wasn’t for Marco, I might as well have been lying on the ground”, Nami confessed with a sudden burst.
“Chopper mentioned that you had lack of sleep over the last nights”, Zoro said.
“Yeah. I mostly sleep during the day now, if at all. It just all still feels too real. I know that the New World would be different. But this-”, she pointed to the sky. “What we did here, has impacted history. Nothing will ever be the same. I thought I left the monsters behind when I left Arlong. But this energy always comes back to me, it just has a different face. Hody, Big Mom, Kaido- it’s all the same. They scare me not because of who they are, but because of what they think they can do to people like us. Put us in boxes, belittle us, have power over us”, Nami pressed her hands into fists. “And all I could do at that moment was to yell into his face. To tell them that he was a liar.” Nami felt tears burning in her eyes and gulped.
Zoro didn’t react at first, but simply sat there with her in silence before he turned his gaze towards her. “Nami, you’re a woman that screamed at an emperor in the moment of defeat. It takes fucking courage to have the audacity to do that, so why are you making yourself so small?”
Nami took a moment to take in his words, but her heart felt it right away. The change of perspective and acceptance of her own courage. There was no Haki, no weapon, no devil fruit she could have used at that moment. All she had done was expressing her emotions – her unleashed rage over a lie. She had stood her ground against one of the four emperors, where others would have crumbled.
But Nami did not crumble.
“Sometimes it’s not about the defeat of the monster itself. Sometimes the winner stands in the room by standing their ground. And sometimes the winner is seen leaving the room. There is no right or wrong-”, Zoro couldn’t finish his sentence when the navigator had pressed her lips on to his. A kissed mixed with tears and desire.
For a moment, the swordsman was perplexed, but eventually he pulled her closer and into a deepening kiss. Lips met, melting into the emotions that couldn’t be captured by words. There was a sense of urgency when Nami pressed her body closer to Zoro’s, wanting for him to understand that this kiss almost didn’t happen if it wasn’t for the Phoenix of the Whitebeard crew who had guarded her from Kaidos wrath.
As she let go, her gaze was still on the swordsman. Gratitude, conflict and desire all mixed inside her light brown eyes as she wiped away her tears.
“Thank you”, she eventually said with a smile.
Zoro turned his gaze away from her, hesitating what to say next, still perplexed by the closeness.
“I want your monsters, just as you want mine, Nami. No matter how many faces they show or shape into. From here onwards, that’s what we do. Share and defeat them, okay?”
His gaze was deep, trusting and reassuring. Zoro wasn’t a man for words most of the time, but in moments like this there was no irrational, light-headed lost nature left inside the swordsman. There was simply reliance.
Nami smiled as she placed a hand on Zoro’s.
“Share and defeat them, I promise.”
And for the first time in a long row of days and weeks of the past month, Nami felt hope. Against the monsters and towards a future where she and the swordsman would find a way to make this work.