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The afternoon sun beat down warmly on the deck of the Going Merry, casting a glow over the ship as everyone gathered near the main mast to listen to Usopp recount another one of his great tales.
“And then!” Usopp shouted, standing on a barrel with his arms thrown wide for the final, dramatic flourish. “With nowhere left to run, I unleashed my ultimate—whoa—whoa!”
His heel caught on the lip of the barrel, causing him to lose his balance. His arms pinwheeled wildly as the barrel tipped and threw him directly into Nami.
“Wha-AH!”
Nami felt the impact send her flying backward toward the stairs. Gravity took over with terrifying speed as the world dissolved into a dizzying blur of handrails, oak steps, and a relentless series of rattling collisions with each step. One particular collision resulted in a loud crack.
However, by the time she hit the wooden deck at the bottom, Robin’s hands had arrived to cushion the landing.
For a second, the whole ship felt like it was holding its breath.
Nami instinctively tried to prop her weight on her right hand, but a flare of jagged pain shot up her arm, forcing her to clutch her wrist with a sharp hiss.
Zoro, who had been napping quietly against the mast, was already kneeling beside her and preparing to invade her space so he could inspect the damage.
“Chill, sword boy,” Nami muttered, holding up her uninjured hand. “You are the last one on this boat I need playing nurse. If anything—” The words died in her throat the second her gaze connected with his.
Zoro’s eyes were wide, completely stripped of their usual unflappable indifference.
“Hey…” she whispered, her voice softening instinctively at the look. “…I’m okay.”
Usopp immediately scrambled down the stairs, his face pale and contorted with guilt. “Nami, I am so, so sorry! I didn’t mean to—my foot just caught and—”
“It’s fine, Usopp, I—” Before Nami could finish reassuring the sniper, Zoro moved.
In a single, violent blur, he turned on his crewmate. His hand shot out, catching a fistful of Usopp’s overalls and yanking him upward until his toes barely grazed the deck.
“She could have broken her neck,” Zoro snarled, his voice dangerously low and vibrating with raw fury.
“I-I know! I’m sorry, Zoro, I was being careless, it was just a mistake—” Usopp stammered, his hands raised defensively as he felt more than saw the terrifying scowl of his crewmate.
“Zoro.”
Luffy’s voice cut through the tense, heavy air, carrying a serious warning tone rarely heard from their captain that commanded the entire deck to freeze.
Zoro blinked, the aggressive haze that had taken over rapidly clearing from his eyes. He looked down at Usopp, who had his eyes squeezed tight, waiting for a fist to connect with his face.
The harsh tension melted out of Zoro’s shoulders as he released his grip on Usopp’s shirt, letting the sniper drop back onto his feet with a soft thud. Usopp collapsed to the floor and crawled backward to increase the distance between him and the swordsman.
Sanji had already stepped between a stunned Zoro and the shaken sniper, his posture rigid.
“Take a walk, Mosshead,” Sanji said flatly.
He took a large drag from his cigarette, pulled it from his lips, and tossed the glowing butt onto the deck. With a sharp twist of his ankle, he ground his shoe down over the spent cylinder, extinguishing the ember as a silent warning.
Zoro took a deep breath, his broad shoulders dropping as the adrenaline bled out of his system. “Sorry, I… I don’t know what came over me,” he said calmly. His voice had dropped back into its usual steady register.
The swordsman turned back to Nami. “You okay?”
She nodded quietly, noting a sadness in his eyes she hadn’t really seen from him before.
“Good,” he whispered. “Usopp, I know it was an accident. I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”
From the ground, Usopp was still shivering, but found his voice through his nerves. “…It’s okay, man. I really sh-should have been more careful. Are you okay?”
Zoro could feel everyone looking at him, all of them knowing the answer. Given how calm and collected he was in even the most extreme scenarios, it was obvious that today’s reaction had something deeper driving it.
“I’ll be fine. Just need some space.” He glanced over at Chopper, who had been lying next to him by the mast before the commotion. “Get her looked at, would you?”
Chopper shook himself from the shock of the witnessed events. “Right.”
The reindeer quickly jumped into professional mode, scurrying over with tiny hooves pattering frantically against the deck. He dropped to his knees next to Nami to inspect her swelling wrist.
Luffy blinked, his face instantly resetting to its regular childlike smile before bouncing over to Nami, leaning down with a wide, toothy grin.
“You okay?” he chirped, tilting his head with innocent curiosity. “If not, do you think Chopper can give you a cool robot hand now?”
Nami narrowed her eyes, a dangerous vein throbbing against her temple as she shot him a glare. “Watch it,” she growled, while raising her uninjured fist. “I still have one good hand left to punch you with.”
Chopper carefully probed the tender skin of her injured hand around her joint. “Her wrist is definitely broken, but thankfully she seems otherwise uninjured. Can you stand? If we head into the galley, I can set it and wrap it properly. We will have more room there.”
As the crew’s attention turned to Nami, Zoro quietly removed himself and climbed up to the crow's nest, where he often went to get space from the crew.
After Nami agreed to transition to the galley, Robin stepped forward to help her stand. Supported by her friends, Nami allowed them to walk with her.
Just before stepping inside, she paused to glance back over her shoulder one last time. Her eyes drifted upward to the silhouette of the crow’s nest, a sad look lingering on her face.
Robin squeezed her arm in understanding. “We will give him some space for now, but we know our swordsman didn’t mean it,” she whispered.
Nami nodded, grateful for her friend’s calm reassurance as they walked inside.
——
The heavy wooden door of the galley creaked open. Before anyone else could fully step inside, Sanji was already moving straight for the liquor cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of sake and poured a generous amount into a wide tumbler, sliding it across the table to Nami with practiced precision.
“For the pain,” he muttered, his usual flirtatious tone entirely absent from his voice.
Nami’s fingers wrapped around the glass before it had even finished sliding to a stop. “Thanks,” she murmured. She didn’t hesitate, tipping her head back and downing the burning liquid in one fierce gulp as Chopper examined her other hand further.
Without a word, Sanji took the empty glass and refilled it, his jaw tight as the rest of the crew began to settle, finding seats in the heavy silence.
Usopp was the first to break the quiet, shifting nervously in his chair across from Nami. “So… are we going to talk about it?” he asked, wringing his hands together.
Luffy tilted his head, hopping up to sit casually on the edge of the kitchen counter with a blank expression. “What do you mean?”
Sanji shot him a venomous glare. “We’re talking about Mosshead, genius. Now get your filthy ass off my counter!”
Luffy hopped off the counter casually, only to sit on the table instead, nearly causing Sanji to have an aneurysm.
“I’ve never seen him react like that before,” Chopper whispered, ignoring the two. His small hooves clicked against the tabletop as he frantically unpacked rolls of gauze from his medical kit.
Sanji leaned against the counter, crossing his arms with a scoff. “Yeah, well, I always knew Mosshead was a brute. Why are y’all so surprised?”
“Uh, because Zoro is the most level-headed of all of us?” Usopp fired back, throwing his hands up as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.
“Usopp’s right, that was really unlike him…” Nami whispered, watching Chopper slowly begin to wrap her wrist.
Robin adjusted her posture at the table, her calm eyes sweeping over the quiet crew. “I too agree it was entirely out of character. Though I know I haven’t been on the crew long, do any of you actually know much about the swordsman’s past?”
A heavy, lingering silence settled over the room as the crew members exchanged uncertain glances.
Suddenly, Luffy threw a hand up in the air, grinning brightly. “Oh! Oh! I know this one! He wants to be the world’s greatest swordsman!”
Sanji let out an exhausted sigh, striking a match to light a fresh cigarette. “She means his upbringing, dumbass.”
“I agree with Robin,” Chopper added softly. “His reaction seemed heavily aligned with what I’ve read regarding trauma responses.”
Nami nodded slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the table. She kept her mouth shut, refusing to voice the heavier truth—that she had recognized those exact warning signs long before Chopper had even spoken up.
“So should we… go talk to him?” Usopp suggested, glancing upward toward the crow's nest above them.
“I think we should give him some space,” Robin replied smoothly. “Perhaps someone close to him can check on him later. I would offer, but he doesn’t seem to trust me much.”
Sanji exhaled a thick cloud of gray smoke toward the ceiling. “So, Luffy?”
Usopp winced, immediately shaking his head. “No offense, but Luffy isn’t exactly the greatest at deep talks.”
“I’ll do it,” Nami announced, her voice cutting through the murmurs with sudden, quiet resolve. Every head in the galley turned to stare at her.
She raised an eyebrow at their collective shock, her grip tightening around her glass. “What? It was me getting hurt that set him off. Besides, other than Luffy, I’ve known him the longest out of all of you.”
Usopp blinked, shrugging his shoulders. “...Fair point.”
Around the table, the rest of the crew offered quiet nods or indifferent shrugs, the tension in the galley finally beginning to thaw.
————-
Hours later, the moon was full, casting a silver light across the waves. The reflection off the calm sea left a shine that made the night particularly beautiful.
Zoro stood at the stern near the small grove of Nami’s tangerine trees. His forearms rested on the railing, his eyes remaining unfocused as he looked out over the dark horizon. A deep, persistent scowl shadowed his features—not born of anger, but of restless introspection. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since the events of the afternoon, skipping dinner and instead retreating to the quiet corners of the ship.
Soft footsteps broke the silence.
Nami approached with a thick wool blanket draped snugly around her shoulders to ward off the evening wind, which whipped across the deck even with the calm sea and clear skies. Her left wrist was bound tightly in white gauze and a splint.
Silently, she walked up to the railing and settled into the space next to him.
Zoro didn’t turn his head or acknowledge her presence directly. His gaze remained fixed on the horizon, watching the pale disk of the full moon stretch across the water.
The silence stretched between them, heavy with the thoughts of this afternoon’s events.
“How’s the wrist?” his low voice finally cut through the wind.
Nami looked up at him, noting the tension still lingering in his shoulders. She offered a small, reassuring smile.
“Chopper says it’s a small fracture,” she answered softly. “He assured me that if I keep it in the splint and avoid punching any of you for a couple of weeks, it’ll heal right up.”
“Well, good luck with that while stuck on a boat with us idiots.”
She giggled, resulting in him releasing the tension in his shoulders a bit, but she could tell his discomfort was not dissipating. After thinking a moment, she decided to hold her bandaged arm out toward him, offering it for him to inspect with his own eyes in the hopes it would ease his worry.
Zoro hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes flickering down to the white gauze as he instinctively assessed the gesture for any hint of a trick. Once he realized the offer was genuine, he reached out, and she let his calloused fingers gently wrap around her hand to inspect the binding.
“Can you wiggle your fingers?” he asked, his voice low. “Any numbness in the fingertips? Can you make a loose fist without the bone grinding?”
Nami blinked, momentarily surprised by the precision of his questions and how they mirrored the ones Chopper had asked her in the galley earlier. It suddenly occurred to her that years of handling heavy swords and nursing a lifetime of related damage had made him intimately familiar with this type of injury.
She slowly moved her fingers as instructed, watching the way his brow furrowed in concentration. “No numbness,” she answered softly. “Just a dull ache.”
“Good,” he murmured, his thumb brushing lightly over the back of her knuckles as he delicately turned her hand over to check the alignment of the splint.
His movements were surprisingly practiced and tender, and as Nami watched him carefully manipulate her hand, a sudden wave of awareness washed over her. His warm hands against her skin in the cold night air and the softness of the gesture made the moment feel surprisingly intimate. Her chest squeezed tight, her body betraying her thoughts and causing her breath to catch in her throat as a flush warmed her cheeks.
Zoro instantly sensed the shift in her energy. Not understanding what had caused the abrupt change, and fearing he had somehow hurt her, he slowly withdrew, placing her hand down gently onto the wooden railing.
The sudden absence of his hand left her oddly hollow in a way she wasn’t expecting. Nami, staring at him under the pale moonlight, mindlessly traced the sharp, familiar lines of his face.
She realized she enjoyed the way he kept studying her face like an intricate puzzle, tracking every micro-expression, every shift in her eyes, searching for the details others usually missed.
For as long as she could remember, survival had meant deception. She had spent her life lying, bending truths, and manipulating until it was as seamless as breathing. It was armor woven from smoke. Most people—and men in particular—wasted endless energy trying to break through it, battering against her walls with demands, flattery, or brute persistence, only to find themselves wandering a labyrinth of her own design.
Zoro didn’t waste his breath on any of that.
He didn’t push, he didn’t pry, and he certainly didn’t fall for the theater. He simply listened. He watched the subtle shifts in her posture, the calculated cadence of her voice, the heavy quiet between her words. He observed the world with a razor-sharp stillness that missed nothing. And through that relentless, unflinching attention, he understood her better than anyone.
After a few minutes, she slowly realized she had been staring, and that he had been letting her.
The prolonged intensity became too heavy to hold, and this time Nami broke the contact first. As she looked away, she hoped the slight tint to the tips of her ears could be blamed on the cold breeze instead of her thoughts.
Zoro slowly shifted himself so his back rested against the wooden railing, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked out across the deck. Nami turned to lean her front against the railing, looking in the opposite direction toward the quiet ocean. She pulled the thick wool blanket tighter around her shoulders, tucking herself into it against the chill, her posture drawing inward as the memory of the day’s events began to resurface.
“You know...” she started, her voice barely louder than the wash of the waves against the hull. “Back before I met you guys, I was traveling with—well, scamming—a different crew for a while. One night, we were all drinking at a crowded, rowdy bar.”
“Some local thug got angry and pulled a gun on one of the guys I was with,” she continued, her gaze fixed on the silver reflection of the moon. “I didn’t even like the guy. He was rude, sexist, and practically a stranger. But something about the stubborn, unflinching way he just stood there—completely unfazed, staring right down the barrel like it was nothing—it hit me out of nowhere. It reminded me of Bellemère.”
Her fingers absentmindedly twisted the edge of the blanket around her good hand.
“When it happened, my chest tightened up so hard I couldn’t breathe,” she whispered, the raw honesty of the confession slipping out easier the more she spoke. “The whole room felt like it was tilting sideways. Even though that man meant nothing to me, just seeing that scenario play out... it triggered something inside me. It brought back this sudden, terrifying feeling of complete and utter lack of control. Like the ground was just dropping out from under my feet all over again.”
She turned her head to look at him, her dark eyes meeting his as she finished describing the physical panic of that long-ago night. The air between them grew thick with an unspoken, shared realization—the tight chest, the world tilting, the terrifying loss of control—mirroring the symptoms she had witnessed ripple through him just hours earlier when she fell down the stairs.
A long, heavy silence settled over the stern, broken only by the gentle creak of the mast and the wash of the sea. Zoro stared straight ahead, his jaw tight as he digested the quiet confession, connecting the dots of her past to the sudden, blinding terror that had gripped him today.
Finally, without looking at her, his voice cut through the wind as a rough, barely audible whisper.
“You don’t mean nothing to me.”
Nami’s mouth curved into a soft smile. The lack of denial also acted as a quiet admission that she had read the situation correctly. She turned her gaze back to the horizon, and they stood side by side, listening to the waves roll by in a comfortable, healing silence.
“It was so long ago.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “It creeps up on you...”
Another long pause.
“Can I ask… what caused it? Like, was it me, or…”
He let out a deep sigh.
“The stairs.”
She looked at him, confused.
He let out a chuckle, recognizing how silly that sounded.
“You fell down the stairs… I knew someone who died that way.”
Nami hummed in understanding. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head.
Nami pushed off the wooden railing. “Let’s head back inside then. Sanji left a plate of food out for you and put me in charge of making sure it gets eaten.”
The thick wool blanket slipped slightly as she turned toward the stairs and began walking slowly back toward the warmth of the galley.
“I’ll tell you someday,” he murmured as she walked away.
She paused mid-step, her slippers freezing against the deckboards.
“Yeah?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder.
“Just not today,” he replied, his gaze still fixed where it had been wandering in thought.
Another quiet pause settled between them, holding the weight of a promise made.
“Okay,” she whispered softly.
And with a quiet, small smile, she continued on her way, with him following a few feet behind.
———
The next day, the wind died down entirely, leaving behind a sun-drenched afternoon. The combination created a peaceful energy across the ship. Nami had set up her map table right beside Bellemère’s tangerine trees, as she often did, carefully charting their upcoming coordinates while enjoying the warmth.
Just a few feet away, Zoro was fast asleep under the cool shade of one of the trees, his swords resting safely beside him and his head pillowed on his arms in his usual spot.
“Dammit!” Nami hissed for the umpteenth time, having messed up yet another ink line due to the limited, awkward movement she possessed in her bandaged hand.
“I thought you were drawing a map, not fending off a sea king,” Zoro said lazily without opening his eyes, his hands clasped behind his neck acting as a pillow.
“You try writing with a broken hand.”
“That’s the difference between you and me. I wouldn’t.”
“Psh. You think you could put down those swords when injured? Even I know that isn’t true.”
Zoro cracked open an eye, a faint, lopsided smirk touching the corner of his mouth as he turned his head slightly toward her. He didn’t bother arguing, knowing she had made a strong point.
Nami gritted her teeth and attempted to draw another straight border line on her map, but her bandaged fingers betrayed her once more. The pen slipped sharply from her grasp, sending a thick, dark blotch of ink splattering right across the center of the parchment.
She slammed her forehead down against the wooden surface of the desk in defeat, letting out a long sigh of frustration.
Zoro let out his own quiet sigh, watching her struggle with an amused yet understanding glint in his eye. He pushed himself up from the roots of the tangerine tree and walked up behind her chair, leaning in to peer over her shoulder and assess the damage.
“What are you trying to draw?” he asked, his face leaning into her space, causing the scent of steel and salt to wash over her.
“Well, the current drift from the last island is throwing off our baseline, so I was trying to map out the secondary current lines, but the ink keeps—”
“Is it important that we have this today?” he cut her off gently.
She looked up guiltily, her shoulders slumping. “No, but...”
“Hand it here,” he murmured, extending a hand palm-up toward her pen.
Nami paused, her pen hovering over the parchment as she looked at him with a mix of surprise and mild skepticism. “Cartography isn’t exactly a sword technique, Zoro.”
She watched as Zoro squinted at the complex grid lines, his brow furrowing with sudden, intense concentration that looked entirely out of place for a simple sketch.
“I have steady hands and a decent eye,” he replied flatly, his dark gaze meeting hers with quiet assurance. “Besides, I think I figured out how to fix this… unless you prefer to keep smearing ink until the parchment falls apart.”
She slowly handed the pen to him.
Holding the pen, he turned toward Nami and made direct eye contact, pausing for a beat to make sure she was watching.
Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the pen out over the railing, and they watched it arc gracefully through the air before splashing into the blue sea below.
“Problem solved.”
She stared at him, absolute murder in her wide eyes, while a thoroughly pleased look spread across his face.
“You asshole!”
Nami launched herself out of her chair with a furious squawk, lunging at him with her bandaged right hand cocked back to deliver a swift, punishing smack. Zoro caught her elbow mid-swing with ease, his smirk widening as he used the momentum to gently spin her around.
“Hey, easy, navigator,” he lectured playfully, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he held her arm firmly in place. “You go swinging that hand at me while it’s broken, and Chopper will put both of us in the brig.”
“We don’t have a brig, idiot,” she hissed, trying to yank her arm free. “And that was a high-grade writing instrument!”
Zoro didn’t budge an inch, holding her arm gently but securely while enjoying every second of her indignation. “Not a chance. You’re a menace to stationery when you’re like this. I’m keeping you contained.”
Realizing brute force wasn’t going to break his iron grip, Nami narrowed her eyes, leaned forward without a second thought, and sank her teeth cleanly into the thick meat of his palm.
“Ow! Son of a—” Zoro yelped, instantly releasing her hand and jerking his arm back with a sharp hiss, staring down at the distinct row of teeth marks pressed into his skin. He cradled his hand, glaring at her in mock disbelief. “What is wrong with you? Are we going to have to put a muzzle on you now?”
“That’s what you get for throwing my tools into the ocean, you idiot,” Nami said, her anger instantly melting into a bright, victorious laugh as she stepped back.
Zoro grumbled something about her having rabies under his breath, rubbed his bitten palm, and ambled back over to the shade of the tangerine trees to resume his interrupted nap. Nami watched him settle with a final huff before turning back to pack up the remaining supplies scattered across her map desk, recognizing that she wasn’t going to get any mapping done today.
As she carefully slid her tools back into her bag, her gaze drifted back toward the sleeping swordsman. The harsh afternoon light filtered through the emerald leaves above, casting soft, shifting shadows across his face, and a quiet wave of fondness pulled at her chest as she admired the steady, reliable line of him.
Her fingers brushed against a thick, square block of charcoal she kept tucked in the corner of her bag for rough field sketches. Pausing, she picked it up, turning it over in her palm. The chunky, ergonomic shape instantly caught her attention; it was wide and solid, designed to be held in a loose fist rather than pinched between delicate fingers, requiring zero wrist tension.
With a small, conspiratorial smile, she pulled her blank map journal back out of the bag, flipped to a clean page, and began quickly, effortlessly sketching.
With the sketch finished to her satisfaction, Nami carefully closed her journal and packed the rest of her supplies away into her leather bag. Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she didn’t head straight for the galley. Instead, she walked quietly over to where Zoro lay beneath the tangerine trees. Even with his eyes closed and his breathing deep, she knew the swordsman was entirely aware of her presence, tracking her every movement like a sleeping predator.
Without a word, she reached down and slid a small, folded slip of paper onto the ground right beside his hand, anchoring it securely with a smooth river rock she kept in her bag as a paperweight so the ocean breeze couldn’t snatch it away.
A few moments later, the heavy oak door clicked shut as she vanished safely inside the ship. Only when the deck was completely quiet did Zoro’s hands reach for the parchment. His fingers found the stone, brushed it aside, and unfolded the paper.
There, captured in bold, sweeping charcoal strokes under the shade of the leaves, was a detailed portrait of himself fast asleep.
At the bottom of the drawing was an arrow gesturing to turn it over.
Flipping it over, he found a message. Written neatly on the back were the words: ‘this man owes me a new fountain pen - PLUS INTEREST.’
A smirk touched his lips as he placed his hand back on his chest, the paper tucked comfortingly underneath his fingers, as he drifted back to sleep.