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The day Zoro decided to dedicate his life to Luffy's dream, the sun radiated such intense heat that his vision blurred. Due to the lack of food and water, and extreme heat stroke, the details of those days tied up in that Navy yard became a blur. A bead of sweat trickling down his forehead, his lips salty and parched, a constant “on and off” feeling.
A dazzling laugh. A promise. A future pirate king. An offer impossible to refuse. Monkey D. Luffy.
Zoro never considered himself a detail-oriented person, nor was there any need to dwell on particulars. His life as a pirate hunter was based on a continuous rythm, searching for the next pirate and in the process becoming the best swordsman of the four seas. A fairly straightforward path, until the appearance of a certain boy wearing a straw hat.
That day in Shells Town, Zoro understood that perhaps the details were worth it. A scar under an eyelid, an unruly lock of hair, a huge appetite, ridiculous sense humor, a noble heart, a raucous laugh. Yes, when it came to his captain, that sort of thing was no longer a waste of time, a stupidity.
At first it was nothing more than morbid curiosity. How the fuck was Luffy capable of eating so much? Why did he meddle in absolutely everything? Why was he laughing so loudly? Didn't he understand that if he kept falling into the water while trying to fish, he would one day drown?
Luffy broke that model of “regular person” that Zoro had engraved in his mind. Having those kinds of questions when meeting someone so peculiar was to be expected.
Morbid curiosity gave way to routine, the shift slipping away from Zoro, who didn't realize how much he thought about his captain until it was practically impossible to ignore.
Polishing his swords, training, closing his eyes to take a nap, drinking. As he went about these activities, his mind remained static, a white noise in the background as he wondered if he had already cleaned the engravings off the hilt of his Wado Ichimonji, as he counted the sets he had performed with his dumbbell.
One day sailing the Grand Line, when Zoro laid his back on the deck of the Going Merry eager to take a nap, and instead of static, there was laughter and long eyelashes and slippery hands and a straw hat... Zoro could admit that Luffy began to inhabit his mind as if he was born to do so.
Months later it was easy to accept the new normal. It was easy to share a portion of his plate for his gluttonous companion, to hunt down the biggest sea king to satisfy him, to hug him tightly when he rescued him after falling overboard. To live for and by him. To bear his sorrows. To accept his pain.
Bartholomew Kuma had vastly underestimated him. Someone like Zoro, with a will of iron, would never let Luffy die without seeing him become the Pirate King first. His and his captain's dream began as two distinct and defined goals, black and white. As the months passed, in Zoro's heart, the thought of failing to realize Luffy's dream was crushing. Perhaps the will of a pirate king and a swordsman coexisted. It is his duty to serve Luffy and assist him. His life is a minuscule price to pay in the grand scheme of things.
Now, with the breeze brushing against his skin and the grass of the Thousand Sunny caressing his back, it was all so clear. Zoro would do anything to have this forever. Anything.
"Zorooooooo!!!" A jovial voice called out. The sound of hurried, familiar footsteps transported him back to the present day. An impulse-like sound interrupted the Sunny's tranquility, and a few seconds later, the warmth of the sun's rays bathing Zoro's face disappeared. "Wake up, Zoro!!!!. Chopper wants to change your bandage. Even though you already took it off shishishishi."
The ringing that began to thunder in his ears could be nothing else but his heartbeat speeding up. Luffy's distinctive smell of sweat and grilled meat, along with his melodic laughter, were fatal to Zoro even to this day.
"I can't train properly with those bandages," he replied trying to keep a serene expression, without opening his eyes, "and I looked like a zombie. Like the ones in Thriller Bark. Tsk." he complained, clicking his tongue.
Luffy didn't dignify his sentence with a response, and his captain's uncharacteristic silence alerted Zoro that something odd was going on. His suspicions were confirmed when he felt rubbery arms cling tightly to his trunk, and his body being lifted into the air. The surprise of the sudden movement caused his eyes to widen involuntarily, and Zoro was reminded once again why not opening them was a better idea.
This smile of Luffy's was not like his usual ones. A calmer and perhaps even reserved one, where the corners of his lips were gently lifted but not showing his blinding smile. His arched eyebrows and his relaxed look were the finishing touch to one of Luffy's strangest facial expressions. Endearment.
His captain's hypnotic visage made Zoro take a few seconds longer than usual to come to his senses, but when he did, it was impossible not to be hyper-aware of the situation. Luffy had moved his arms so that one of them rested behind Zoro's back, and another rested behind his knees, carrying the swordsman not unlike a princess in distress.
His captain's steady hands, his scent of sweat and grilled meat, his eyelashes and breath. All so close.
Zoro's ears were burning, and he was secretly grateful for how unobservant Luffy could be.
"TO THE NURSERY!" his captain shouted. The moment was broken in an instant, as Luffy opted to throw Zoro over his shoulder and run like hell. The impact of his captain's bony shoulder against Zoro's sternum wasn't as gentle as Zoro would have liked, and if he got to feel some of his wounds reopen... Well, it was no one else's business.
Zoro merely clung to the distinctive red vest that appeared in his dreams and bowed his head just enough for no one to see the small smile that rested on his lips.
*
"You really don't plan to tell him."
"Fuck off."
"Look, asshole, I'm doing you a favor. If you don't want to accept it, that's your fucking problem." Barked the chef of the Thousand Sunny, lighting another cigarette and taking a deep drag, "Luffy's not the most intellectually brilliant person, but even he's suspicious about the origin of your injuries, and I'm tired of pretending I don't see him watching you from the Sunny's figurehead" Sanji added with a sour face, as if the memory of the moment left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Every muscle in Zoro's body tensed at the same time, the only sound that could be heard being the lapping of the waves against the boat and the cold night wind. Zoro regretted coming down from his shift on watch at the crow's nest. The urge for a drink couldn't have been greater than his urge to run away from this conversation with the cook. How should he have known the damn cook would be doing anything at this hour in the kitchen?
He had gone too long without responding and he had to say something to defend himself. Anything.
"What?"
Okay, maybe something more eloquent next time.
"'What?" Sanji replied in a mocking voice. "Every time I go to bring a snack to my dear Nami-swan and Robin-chan, if you're both on deck, Luffy's always going to be looking at you. Maybe if you weren't such a lazy shit and instead of being asleep you'd open your eyes once in a while, you'd look back at him."
Zoro could have sworn that Luffy sat on the figurehead to watch the sea.
"He used to be all about watching the waves. He started looking at you like you were an enigma the day we left Thriller Bark." Sanji continued to mix what appeared to be flour with water, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his curly brow as furrowed as it could physically be. His cigarette was half done and the presence of his lighter in his pocket only indicated that another cigarette was to follow. "I'm genuinely worried about your brain cells. Thinking so much must not be good for your system, and the lack of communication you have is alarming for the two of you."
Zoro had been so out of it that he had left the cook running his mouth more than he should have. "Oi, don't talk about shit you don't know. Luffy and I are as good as usual, what are you insinuating?" His patience was starting to wear thin, and Zoro was forced to tighten his grip on Shusui to keep his cool and not scream in the middle of the night. The last thing he wanted was to wake up another crew member and make this mess even worse.
"Idiot. Of course it's not the same, you're distancing yourself from him because you don't want him to know the reason for your injuries. Whether you want him to or not, he already knows something strange is going on, and your out of the ordinary behavior just adds to the weirdness of it all. Even Brook hasn't been able to distract him enough."
Sleeping in the crow's nest instead of the men's quarters wasn't "avoiding" Luffy. Just as it wasn't sitting two seats away from him at lunchtime, or spending more time than usual cooped up in the infirmary under the guise of Chopper keeping an eye on him. Maybe hearing Robin talk about her new book just when Luffy was looking for him to go fish together was just a desire to change the routine.
Zoro was never the kind of person to avoid confrontation. That was something he and Luffy agreed on. Maybe the fear of losing Luffy was stronger than his morals and values. Just maybe.
"You have to make everything clear and keep being Idiot 1 and Idiot 2 with Luffy. For everyone's sake." Finished the blond as he formed a loaf of bread deftly, perching it on a metal tray. He wiped his hands with a cloth at his side and lit a new cigarette, looking at Zoro unperturbed.
So dire was the situation that the fucking cook was beginning to sound reasonable. Must be a cold day in hell.
"I can't do it. You know what Luffy's like, and he wouldn't take it well. To take away his pain like that... It's to deny his effort in battle, it's to besmirch his honor. I didn't accept his suffering to relieve him, I did it to save him. You don't understand, cook. Luffy swore not to interfere with my dream, what kind of nakama would I be if I screw up his? I won't screw that up, not even trying to keep him from dying. He's never going to find out about this."
Sanji didn't open his mouth and Zoro began to feel his blood boil and freeze at the same time. The terror that invaded his body at the thought that he could put himself in the middle of Luffy's dream was a thousand times worse than the pain he was in.
"If you have a problem with that, we'll fix it right now" The green-haired man threatened, perhaps without a real desire to fight, but with an unshakable resolve.
The cook surveyed him silently and sighed. He took another puff on his cigarette and sat up from the countertop he was casually leaning on. "Whatever you say, moss head." He said with finality in his voice, heading towards the kitchen door. "At least cut the aloofness crap, save Luffy from getting dizzy from overthinking."
The kitchen door closed with a click and the sound of the cook's footsteps became more and more distant.
Tomorrow. Zoro would try to fix this tomorrow.
*
Embarrassingly locking himself in the crow's nest turned out to be Zoro's activity of the week. Then again, he had never considered himself someone who would run away from a problem, but this situation with Luffy was simply getting out of hand.
How could he explain to Luffy why he was doing what he was doing? How could he do so, without the words escaping his lips, without admitting that his dedication to his captain ran as deep as the blood in his veins and the oxygen in his lungs. That his loyalty was mingling with his affection and love.
That it was hard to look into his eyes and not think that he had in front of him a person for whom he would give his life, and that in fact, he already tried to do so.
Avoiding Luffy proved futile when one morning he decided to break into the crow's nest, catching Zoro in the middle of a break from his training. The weights at his side and the katanas on the floor indicated the activity the swordsman was engaged in, so he could at least argue that he was busy.
The captain entered the room so forcibly that the trapdoor continued to vibrate even seconds after he shot through it.
Zoro looked up from the floor, and found himself face to face with the steady gaze of his captain. As always, he had to make an extra effort to keep the quickening of his breathing from showing.
Luffy's trademark straw hat sat behind the back of his neck, held by its thin cord, so the unruly locks of his jet hair had free reign to point in every possible direction. Even though his hair was usually greasy looking, Luffy managed to keep an incredible volume in it, which only worsened the urge Zoro had to run his fingers through it, to stroke it and promise him the world in his hands.
Self-absorbed, he failed to notice the impatience that graced his captain's face.
"Captain," Zoro announced, clearing his throat when his voice seemed to fail him, "something wrong?"
Luffy made a grimace that could only be interpreted as agitation. "Yeah, Zoro's been really weird these days."
Perhaps Zoro was more cornered than he thought.
"What do you mean, Luffy?" Understanding what was going through Luffy's mind was the first step Zoro needed to take to get out of this.
"Hmmmn, ever since we left the Radish Head guy's island," Luffy scratched his forehead with a finger as he looked at Zoro with an air of confusion, "Zoro's been avoiding me ever since he got hurt." His captain decided to sit on the ground in front of Zoro and cross his legs, resting his elbow on his knee and resting his chin on his open palm nonchalantly. This allowed him to be on eye level with Zoro, which probably worsened the unbridled state his mind was in.
How was he supposed to string together a coherent thought when Luffy was so close that their knees were touching?
Exhaling the air he was holding in his lungs, Zoro decided that the only way to put an end to this mess was to be as honest as possible. "I'm sorry, Luffy. I guess you're right, I've been avoiding you." Hearing this, Luffy looked thoughtful.
"Zoro doesn't have to apologize, he just has to tell me why he did it. I overheard Nami talking to Robin, and they said it was weird that the Bear guy didn't kill you. Chopper says you could have died." Luffy looked Zoro in the eye, searching for something in his swordsman's gaze. "I want to know what happened with the Bear guy."
No. Never, as long as Zoro was alive to avoid it.
"Captain," Zoro began, "forgive me, but I can't answer."
No, that wasn't good enough.
Zoro couldn't stand Luffy's strangely sharp gaze. His captain needed to understand why he was avoiding him. But Zoro couldn't afford to explain. Ashamed that he had failed to be honest with the one person who deserved the truth, Zoro pushed himself off the ground and stood up, ignoring the trembling in his knees.
A few seconds later, he crouched down again, his knees touching the ground. He began to bend over until his forehead touched the ground with a dry sound. The soft gasp of surprise Luffy let out was the only thing that cut through the sepulchral silence of the room.
"Luffy. I fought for you. That's what you must know, what I need you to know. The rest must die with me. I understand if you hate me for avoiding you, if you want me to leave the crew. You are the captain and soon to be Pirate King, you don't deserve to be disrespected and kept in the dark by your subordinate. I will pay the price you see fit."
As soon as he finished his sentence, Zoro exhaled as if he no longer needed oxygen to breathe. He was afraid to inhale. Death seemed to be the only fair price.
His thought was interrupted when two strong hands pulled his arms upward. Standing suddenly, Zoro failed to find balance, and would have fallen back to his knees on the ground had it not been for those two hands holding him. Scarred and calloused, they were the hands of the man who could hold Zoro's heart and squeeze it to his pleasure.
Luffy's expression of pure anger was one of the few that Zoro did not know intimately, given the rarity in which it surfaced. Luffy could get angry, he could argue, but indiscriminate anger was rare to see on his captain's face. He snatched away Zoro's breath.
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING! ZORO!" Luffy shouted deafeningly, yanking at Zoro's arms, which he still hadn't let go of. "Zoro..." He repeated, this time at a lower volume, but with no less emotion. His scowl and glittering eyes betrayed the anger that decorated his voice. Luffy was crying.
"Zoro, you're being stupid," Luffy complained, increasing the strength of his grip to the point where Zoro felt something crunch on his wrist. "You're not leaving the crew. I'm not giving you permission."
"But-"
"No." Denied Luffy flatly, "You can leave if you want to be the best swordsman and you don't want to be a pirate anymore. But you're not leaving for something else. I won't allow it, as captain and future Pirate King."
Zoro couldn't take it anymore.
"Luffy, you don't understand. I don't want to leave, but you don't deserve me to stay. You don't deserve a nakama who hides what I hide, I-" The green-haired man was unable to continue the sentence, as his captain released his iron grip on his wrists, planted both palms in the center of his chest, and shoved the swordsman hard.
Completely out of his mind and off guard, Zoro fell backwards to the ground shatteringly. A few seconds later, Luffy jumped on top of him, in what Zoro thought was going to be a well-deserved blow of anger. Instead, his captain lunged towards his chest, landing on top of Zoro and pinning him to the ground.
Placing one arm outstretched beside Zoro's head, Luffy kept his balance, while the other hand clutched at the collar of the swordsman's sweaty shirt.
For a moment, the only discernible sound in the room was the agitated breaths of both pirates. Then, the trickle of the tears Luffy never stopped shedding falling on Zoro's cheekbones.
"Zoro... You can't leave me, Zoro. I don't care anything about Bear Guy or his fight or your secrets. I only care about Zoro, and for him to be by my side, now, and when I'm the Pirate King and he's the World's Best Swordman. And after that, I want him to be with me. Always!!!"
Emotions bubbled inside Zoro, and any human would have done the same. His lips parted, and Luffy's salty tears fell just as quickly as Zoro pronounced the words that would seal his fate.
"I love you. Luffy, I love you." Zoro confessed. "I want to travel to the end of the world with you, and protect you, and see you at the top, where you deserve to be."
After months of keeping these feelings deep inside himself, Zoro was surprised to feel no regret in revealing them. Fear, yes, but regret? Not really. It probably had to do with the fact that it was Luffy. The natural thing to do when it came to his captain was to love him unconditionally, to be by his side and fall victim to his undeniable attraction, like a moth seeking the light.
Zoro had fled for weeks, had hidden his face so that his gesticulations would not betray him, had chosen to keep quiet when he knew the words might come out on their own. But now, on this pirate ship, together with his captain whom he adored so much, he decided to fix his gaze on the one person who during all these months had already had it on him unconditionally.
Luffy's blinding smile sowed in Zoro a euphoria that he had never before in his life remembered feeling. A feeling of warmth enveloped the swordsman, perhaps it was the love he felt for Luffy, welling up from his chest with no hope of being contained, or collateral damage from the radiant smile the black-haired man wore. Whatever the case, Zoro found himself in a state of absolute peace.
"Shishishishishi, Zoro is such a fool! I love you too!" Luffy exclaimed, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand. He stood up and offered his hand to Zoro, who took it without a second thought. "Zoro and I will make a promise. And we must keep it. Shanks said that a true man always kept his promises."
Zoro didn't make an effort to hide his smile this time, anticipating the wild ideas of the idiot he loved. He nodded with excitement.
"Zoro and I," Luffy announced vociferously, "will be together, forever. We'll never be apart, and we'll go to lots of islands and get lots of treasure. We'll eat lots of meat, and there may be sake, too." He looked playfully at Zoro. "There may be secrets, and no one is going to leave the crew for keeping them to themselves. And lots of kissing."
"Kissing?" Zoro repeated, his eyebrows so high they almost brushed his green hair. Based on Luffy's behavior, it didn't seem like something he had any interest in or even knowledge of its existence.
"Yes, Makino said you kiss the one you love, every day, but you ask for their permission first" Ah. "Well, Zoro, promise?"
His captain held out a hand that seemed to vibrate with excitement, bouncing in place. The windows of the crow's nest illuminated his entire figure, giving him the appearance of an angel dressed in red. Zoro looked into his captain's eyes and in them he saw reflected all the adventures they had lived, from the days where it was just the two of them on a drifting raft, to the majestic ship that was the Sunny, with all its crew.
In those eyes Zoro saw promises to keep, secrets to reveal, and an unconditional love that neither time nor dreams could destroy.
Zoro reached out his hand, squeezing his captain's tightly.
"Promise."