Milkbean69

-  When it comes to you, every ounce of self-control Sanji has honed over the years seems to go flying out the window. He can't control the way his eyes follow you around the ship, and how his heart skips a beat whenever you bless him with a loving smile. He has no power over his body when you pat the seat beside you or extend your arms towards him for a hug. And worst of all he loses any ability to think clearly whenever you're around, particularly the situation is turning dangerous. 

- Which is exactly what happens when he loses sight of you in an all-out brawl against some marines trying to take the crew in. It's messy and chaotic and the straw hats are all trying to run in different directions and work out how to get back to the ship without leaving anyone behind. He's been sprinting at full speed for about a minute when Sanji turns around and realises he can't see or hear you anymore, ending up in a winding alleyway all on his own. 

- He wants to be your knight in shining armour. To calmly retrace his steps until you're back in view and he can whisk you away to safely. He wants to be the brave hero you deserve. But the second he realises you're not by his side, and you might not be safe, it's like his brain shifts all its energy into pumping out adrenaline. His heart is aching and his lungs are burning and his chest is getting tighter and tighter until he feels his knees buckle underneath him and suddenly he's on the floor with his head between his legs struggling to take a breath.

- He knew this would happen. He never deserved your affections and now you'll know it for certain. If you're even still free and alive enough to hate him. A sob claws its way out of his throat at the thought of you being hurt, echoing off the walls as its followed by another. Sanji can't lose you. You're the light in his days, and the beat in every song, and the seasoning to his cooking. He's nothing without you. He doesn't know how he ever existed without waking up to your eyes and your lips. 

- That's the picture he tried to focus on in his mind as he forces his back against a brick wall until he's standing on his feet. He thinks about the warmth you emit as you cuddle closer to him at first light. The feel of your fingertips tracing over his spine as you make the most of every precious moment before he has to slip out to the kitchen. He tries to remember exactly what it tasted like when you kissed him this morning. With each painstaking detail, he forces himself to walk in the direction you should be in, gaining speed, knowing this is all he can do to get himself back to you. Even if he doesn't deserve you, you deserve to be safe. 

- Despite his momentary collapse, it doesn't take him until he's kicking marines out of the air and grabbing your hand as you both run towards the ship. It's obvious from even a cursory glance that he's been crying, and later that night he'll tell you all about how he fell apart, and watch in reverence as you tell him you still love him and that you always will no matter what his inner critic thinks. But for now you settle for throwing him a wink and sighing out in your dreamiest voice, 

"My hero."

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- It could not be more obvious to everyone that comes across the straw hats that the swordsman views himself as your personal bodyguard, and you as his one and only. He volunteers to explore with you no matter how many times Sanji points out that he never gets to stroll around with you. He takes the seat by your side, even if it means physically removing someone from that chair. He looks to you whenever a decision needs making, or his day is getting tough, or even if he's just concerned that it's been too long since he last looked at you and he might have wandered off too far from your grace. 

- So when a pirate who Zoro turned over to the marines back in his bounty hunting days seeks him out for revenge, it's obvious you are the most effective target. The escaped criminal seeks out your crew, observing you for a short while before revealing himself and demanding a re-match as penance. Not with the swordsman that captured him, but with you, so Zoro can learn how it feels to lose something. 

- Zoro has to pretend that he doesn't understand why you're the one this creep has challenged to a fight, like his whole heart isn't aching and burning with rage at the thought of you getting hurt because of something he did in his past. He has to stop his expression twisting into the deep displeasure the whole situation gives him, naturally looking to you to see if you can start to grasp the gravity of the situation for him.

- You look completely unsurprised that this pirate has challenged you. After all, if Roronoa was any more obviously in love with you, you'd have a wedding ring by now. You know the swordsman dotes on you, and worships the ground you so frequently walk beside him on, and you know that when he's ready he'll address all of those feelings. But he's not there yet, so you don't push it, just holding his gaze as he tries to work out how he can keep you safe without forcing himself to admit the depth of his longing in front of the whole crew. 

"Here." It's only one word, and yet it leaves every member of your crew staring, open-mouthed, in disbelief at Zoro. Even your pirate challenger finds himself taking an instinctive step backwards, the weight of the action enough to thicken the air around you. 

Roronoa stands with one hand extended towards you, holding his sword for you take. His favourite sword, the one draped in white, that never leaves his side and only you know the whole story behind. He knows this sword will keep you safe. Won't let anything happen to you. It's as close as he can come to stepping in for you without admitting exactly what you mean to him, but you realise it anyway. It's not something you thought you'd ever get to hold, even with Zoro's devotion to you, your eyes fixed on his as slowly you take the weight of it in your hands. 

"Thank you." You can barely get enough air in your lungs to say the phrase, wanting nothing more than to take this as your chance to finally reassure him that his love is not unrequited. That you'd do the same for him. That you like how close he is to you, no matter what.

But there'll be time for that later, for now you've got a swordfight to win. 

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You'd done it. It hadn't even hurt anymore, not really. Not unless you sat still too long in the dark, or got lost in your thoughts by yourself. 

But right now? Celebrating on this new island that smells like smoke and sugar, alochol on your tongue and a smile on your face, you could almost forget it completely.

There's music somewhere down the cobblestone streets, rising and falling between the buildings like it's breathing, and the people you helped save are already pulling Luffy into a dance he definitely doesn't know the steps to. Nami's laughing. Usopp is telling someone a version of events that has already become mythology. Even Robin has the faint curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth as she accepts a cup of something warm from a grateful elder.

You tilt your head back and let yourself feel it; the particular exhaustion that follows a battle well fought, the loosening of tension in your shoulders, the easy warmth of knowing everyone is safe and accounted for.

Well, almost everyone.

"Hey." Nami appears at your elbow, cup in hand, and her voice has dropped the celebratory edge it carried a moment ago. "Have you seen Zoro?"

You scan the square, but you already know what you won't find. With a shared glance, the two of you went to round up the others to begin the search.

The search takes two hours.

Sanji mutters colorful things under his breath as he checks the third tavern. Luffy makes it into a game until Usopp reminds him it isn't one. You say very little, which is nothing unusual when it comes to searching for Zoro, because you've learned that silence is better than spiraling, better than letting your imagination construct scenarios where something has actually gone wrong this time.

You find him sitting on a low stone wall at the edge of the market district, three swords resting against the wall beside him, arms folded, looking for all the world like he sat there on purpose.

He's surrounded by the remnants of a fruit platter, all of it, gone.

The crew converges slowly behind you as you approach first, the way you always do when you're trying to look more relaxed than you feel around him. "Zoro, “there you are! And you seemed to have helped yourself to some fruit. That’s good, at least you’ve been fed.”

He looks up and immediately you can tell something is different. You can't name it yet, but you know. It lives in the quality of his attention, the way his eyes find your face and then don't move. Like they've made a decision.

"You've been missing for two hours," Usopp says. "Everyone was looking. Are you okay, what have you been up to?”

"I wasn't lost. Just went exploring and found found this fruit all cut up and ready for eating. Felt like a shame that someone forgot it around back here, so I sat down and ate it. Wouldn’t want to be rude and refuse food.”

“Food that you took without asking or any confirmation that it was for us to eat?” you question him, sharing confused glances with Sanji and Usopp about the swordsman’s logic.

“Yeah, of course,” he says deadpan. 

Behind you, you hear Luffy exclaim something about the empty platter and the unique fruit skin that was left, and then Nami's voice, sharp and climbing: "Where did you get this?"

The island's doctor — a compact, brisk woman who clearly has no patience for pirates or their nonsense regardless of the fact that the crew saved the island — explains that the fruit is rare. Not a Devil Fruit, she clarifies, more of a botanical anomaly. Indigenous to these hills. The locals know not to eat it on its own. 

The effects are temporary — a few days, perhaps a week at most — but they are not subtle. She calls it an amplifier.

"It doesn't manufacture emotion," she says, peering at Zoro with an expression caught between professional interest and personal exasperation. "It removes the filtering mechanism. Whatever was already present becomes —" She pauses, searching for the word.

"Unmanaged," Robin offers quietly.

"Yes. Precisely."

Zoro says nothing, which isn’t surprising but he’s been looking at you since you entered the room.

Not at the doctor who examined him, and not at Nami, who is reading the woman a list of grievances on his behalf. Not even at Luffy, who has perched himself on a medical cabinet and is vibrating with the effort of not asking if he can have some of the fruit.

At you, making you become very interested in the patten on the floor. He’s been like this since you’ve found him, and it’s such a 180 from the normal dynamic the two of you have, it unsettles you. Well, it makes your heart flutter, but also unerves you to be on the recieving end of his sole attention.

"Zoro," Usopp says carefully. "Do you feel... different?"

A beat. “No," Zoro says, while not look away from you. "Clearer. Better than I have in a while honestly.”

—

The first thing you notice is the weight of his presence.

You've always been aware of Zoro the way you're aware of weather, but now you feel him the way you feel heat. Directional. Specific.

You're coiling rope on the deck three mornings after the island when the sensation starts at the back of your neck, a familiar particular prickle of being watched. You glance up without thinking to see Zoro leaning against the mast with his arms crossed and his eyes already on you.

You hold the look for a moment longer than you mean to, and something shifts in his expression — not softening exactly, more like settling, the way a compass needle finds north and stops moving.

You look back down at the rope while your heart does something embarrassing and you choose not to acknowledge it.

He's just standing there. He does that, fuck that's normal behavior. Stupid heart, getting all worked up over nothing.

When you look up again a few minutes later, he hasn't moved. You smile at him, and turn back to your task, not seeing the way something shifts in his jaw. He exhales through his nose like he's been holding something and has just decided to stop.

The crew notices before you say anything about it.

Nami notices first, because Nami notices everything and files it away for later use. She finds you in the galley the evening of the fourth day and sits across from you with the deliberate casualness of someone who has already decided what the conversation is going to be.

"He followed you to the storage room today," she says.

You pour tea. "He was probably just walking."

"He turned around when you turned around."

"Coincidence! The ship’s only so big.”

"He did it twice. Every since he ate the fruit, he’s laser focused on you. I’d say it’s romantic if he didn’t look so serious and scary half the time.”

You say nothing, choosing to focus on the steam rising from your cup.

Nami tilts her head, and her expression is gentle. "You know what the doctor said. It amplifies what's already there."

"I know what she said. You know that I tried for months to see if there was something there.”

"So."

"So there wasn't anything there." You say it evenly, the way you've practiced, trying to keep a lid on your frustration. "He barely registered I existed six months ago!”

Nami is quiet for a moment. “You know I never believed that,” she says finally. “He just showed he cared in different ways. I mean, before he would always watch you. At first I thought it was just — his spatial awareness or something. But he always knew which direction you were in, or what you might be doing. We joked about it at first, but I think we all just stopped noticing because he was subtle about it."

You don't have an answer for that, staring at your tea until it cools, lost in your thoughts.

Then Zoro starts choosing you in ways that are too deliberate to explain away.

Not dramatically, or with declarations or gestures you'd have to respond to if he were Sanji. Zoro doesn't work that way and the fruit doesn't change his nature; only turns up the volume on it. It's still him, still the same movement, the same reserve, the same refusal to perform anything.

But in the evenings, when the crew gathers on the deck and there are eight different places to sit, he positions himself beside you, in the specific way that leaves no reasonable gap for interpretation. Close enough that his arm presses against yours and he doesn't move it, making you acutely aware of his warmth. 

You don't move either, allowing yourself the grace to enjoy this moment. 

Later when you're in conversation with Usopp and he's laughing about something, going on the way he does, you feel Zoro arrive before you see him. He doesn't insert himself into the story. He just stands at your shoulder, present, but not really participating. And Usopp, to his credit, finishes his thought, but his eyes cut once to Zoro and then back to you, and there is something uncertain but amused in his expression. He shoots you a wink before scurrying off, letting the two of you do whatever weird song and dance this was.

The crew adjusts, almost too easily, around Zoro’s new protective edge he has around you, but ou don't know how to.

The first time you should have questioned this edge, you almost do, barely holding yourself back.

Nami announces she's taking a small group into the next port town — shopping, information, the usual. You're already thinking about what you need when Zoro moves into your peripheral vision.

"Stay on the ship," he says. It's not loud, or even harsh in the way his tone can come across occassionally. It has the flat, final quality of something he's decided.

You look at him. "I was gonna go with Nami."

"I know." Something in his expression dares you to push back. Not cruelly, but there's a certainty there that sits in your chest like pressure.

"The town is fine," you say, slower now, unsure if he thought you were incapable of protecting yourself, or your nakamas.

"You don't know that." He interjects, his tone slowly getting sharper while his gaze intensifies.

"Nami's going. Usopp and Chopper too.” You protest. Maybe Zoro’s right about you staying on the ship, because you’re quickly approaching dangerous teritory with the vice-captain. The rest of the crew has suspicously disappeared when it was clear that this might have the potential to go awry, but you didn’t take the hint.

"Nami can handle herself differently." His eye doesn’t waver, instead almost softens, looking honest and sincere, throwing you off from the arguement. "Stay. I can teach you more self-defense that you were asking me for.”

You want to argue, the argument is right there, logical and justified, sitting on your tongue.

But the word 'stay' is in Zoro's voice, and he's looking at you like you're something he's already decided belongs near him, and you have spent months wanting him to look at you like that in any form —

"Okay," you say. You hear yourself say it and something uncomfortable turns over in your stomach. But then his expression shifts, and there is something in it that looks almost like relief, and you tell yourself it's fine.

He just worries, that's how Zoro is. At least he cares.

Nami comes back with gifts and gossip and finds you on the deck with Zoro's sleeping weight to your right, his head tipped back against the railing, while you watch the horizon. You give him a quick smile, encouraging her to come closer, both lowering your voices in consideration to the swordsman, despite his almost infamous ability to sleep through mostly anything.

Nami sets a small wrapped package in your hands, something she bought for you without being asked, and her eyes move to Zoro and back.

"How was it?" you ask.

"Good, you would have liked the market." Her voice is carefully even, still wearily eyeing Zoro, before solely focusing in on you. "There was a stall with the fabric you mentioned wanting, so I got you a sample. Unfourtanelty we ran into Smoker back there so we’re getting ready to leave, but hopefully at the next island, you’ll be able to get it!”

Something small and sharp sits behind your sternum. "Oh," you say. "Thanks anyways, Nami. I’m sure it’ll all be okay soon enough!”

She looks at you for a moment longer than the conversation requires, but doesn't say anything else.

—

You're not unhappy, that's what you keep coming back to, in the quiet moments when you're honest with yourself. 

You're not unhappy. He's here, and that word carries a weight you can't fully argue with, because for months his presence was something you observed from a careful distance, something you'd trained yourself not to want too directly.

And now he's here, beside you, watching you and choosing you with a consistency that feels like gravity, like something you could lean into.

It feels, in the weakest and most private part of you, like everything you quietly wanted.

But there is a smaller, steadier voice underneath all of it that’s been getting louder for three days. 

It sounds, you think, like the version of yourself that made peace with his indifference. Not because she wanted to, but because she refused to be diminished by someone who didn't see her.

It asks, very quietly: Is this him? Or is this the fruit?

And then, softer: Is there a difference, if you can't tell?

And softer still: Does it matter, if he's controlling where you go? If it is nothing like what you imagined like?

You don't answer, wrapping Nami's fabric sample between your palms and feel the warmth of the swordsman beside you, and you don't answer.

First and foremost, ZORO likes you because you’re you. But let’s not act like he doesn’t like the meat on your bones.

He likes the way your ass ripples every time his hips meet yours. He likes to slap and squeeze it. He marvels at the fact that his hand is so huge, yet he can’t engulf you entirely.

Same goes for your stomach, especially if you got a navel piercing.

Your wide hips give him a solid grip. Your love handles softens the bruising grip he has on you.

Manhandling you is easy. He can flip and bend you in however he likes. He doesn’t train for nothing.

He’ll hike your legs onto his shoulder just so he can paw at your thighs. He’ll do that anyway but the position leaves more room for him.

If you’re busty, his hands find your titties often. He pinches and flicks at your nipple while eating you eating you out. He doesn’t move your thighs from crushing his head, he likes that shit.

The last sound you remembered before everything went black was the ocean. 

It had thrashed violently against the hull of the enemy ship—the one that tore you from the Straw Hats—while your captors argued over how much bounty your life would fetch. You remembered the smell of cheap rum and metal, the press of ropes biting into your skin, and the frantic thought that if Zoro realized you’d been taken, he would come for you.

And then a quieter, more frightening realization: If he came, he wouldn’t stop.

You drifted in and out of consciousness after that, only catching glimpses of chaos. Shouting, heavy footsteps, something wet splattering the floor, the slow crack of wood splintering under tremendous force. 

At first it seemed like a dream when the hatchway swung open and moonlight cut across the room, illuminating a silhouette framed by smoke and destruction. Sapped in red, the overwhelming, metallic scent of death choking your nose.

It was only when he spoke your name that you realized this was real.

Zoro carried you out of that bloodied hold as if you weighed no more than a piece of driftwood. He said nothing as he stepped over the bodies of the men who had dragged you away. His silence was more unnerving than rage would have been.

But you knew he had raged. You could see it, evidently. 

He didn’t call out for Luffy, or Sanji, or anyone at all. He must have come here alone.

You tried to ask where he was taking you, but your throat only cracked with the attempt. Still, he glanced down at you, with a dark expression.

“Save your strength,” he murmured. “We’re leaving.”

He found a small emergency vessel with a single oar and a torn sail and placed you inside it. The night wind was cold, but he pulled off his coat and draped it around your shoulders without breaking eye contact, as if afraid you would vanish if he looked away for even a heartbeat.

The sea turned quieter as he rowed. Moonlight brushed the water in pale ribbons that shimmered each time the oar cut through. You drifted in and out of sleep again, lulled by the rhythm of Zoro’s movements, his muscles rippling as he worked to get you as far away from that hellish place as possible.

The second time you woke, he was carrying you in his arms again, stepping onto the coarse sand of a small island you didn’t recognize. Its shoreline curved steeply into thick, wild greenery, illuminated by the first light of dawn. Mist curled low to the ground, softening the world into a watercolor haze.

Only then did he speak again.

“This place isn’t on any map,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “No one will find us here.”

Us.

The word struck like a pebble dropped into deep water, sending ripples through your exhausted brain. As you came to fully, you parted your lips to question him, but he tightened his hold just slightly, guiding you toward a narrow path swallowed by foliage.

The island was eerily quiet. Leaves rustled only when Zoro brushed past them, his swords clinking dully against his hip. Eventually, the path widened into a clearing where an old cabin stood—weather-worn but still standing, its wooden beams bleached by sun and salt.

Zoro pushed the door open with his foot.

Inside, the cabin was simple: a single bed, a table whose legs were uneven, a small window letting in angled morning light. Dust motes drifted lazily, disturbed only when he set you down on the mattress.

Your voice was hoarse as you finally managed a question. “Zoro…why aren’t we heading back to the Sunny?” His broad shoulders stiffened, as he froze on the spot.

“...I can’t take you back yet,” he answered, each word chosen carefully. “You’re injured. You’re shaken. And the others…they can’t keep you safe the way I can.” He sat at the edge of the bed, his weight digging deep into the mattress. His shirt had been changed from the blood-soaked one earlier, but you couldn’t tear the image from your mind.

“You don’t know what I found on that ship,” he said, voice lowering. “What they planned to do to you. They were willing to hurt you to get to us. To get to me.”

Your breath stalled.

“They had no idea what kind of wrath they invited,” he continued. “But I don’t want to fight the whole damn world just to keep you alive.”

He finally turned and touched you suddenly, knuckles brushing your cheekbone first, then the soft underside of your jaw, tracing the dried tear track as though memorizing its shape. You quivered slightly, bewildered by the action. To say he wasn’t usually like this…was quite the understatement. 

“You scared me,” he whispered. Zoro rarely admitted fear. The confession cut deeper than any blade.

It frightened you, too, as his strong hand drifted further down, fingertips sliding the length of your throat. Under that touch, you swallowed thickly, nervously. Surely he knew how this made you feel, but still, he carried on:

“I thought I’d lost you. And if I had…” He swallowed, eyes darkening. “I wouldn’t have stopped until everything that took you from me burned.”

Your heart throbbed in your chest, heavy with a feeling you didn’t want to name. “Zoro…take me home. Please. I can’t stay here. The others must be worried, they at least deserve to know I’m alright, don’t they?”

The hand on your cheek went still. He’d frozen again.

“I’m not taking you anywhere,” he spoke carefully. “Not until I know you’re safe. Fully safe. And that means away from enemies, away from danger…” He hesitated, dark gaze locking on yours. “Away from anyone who could hurt you. Even unintentionally.”

He wasn’t talking about strangers anymore. You began to realize it. He meant the crew too…

Your breath shook with a sharp inhale, as the truth dawned. “You kidnapped me.”

Zoro exhaled slowly, eyes half-lidded as if the word didn’t wound but annoyed him. “I rescued you,” he corrected. “Remember? And now I’m keeping you alive. If that feels like kidnapping, then so be it.”

You pushed yourself upright despite the ache in your limbs. “You don’t get to decide that!” His jaw tensed. “Someone has to.”

There was a silence then that stretched, grander than the ocean between you and the Sunny.

Eventually he rose to his feet, fingers brushing dry blood on his sleeve. He looked at it, then at you, eyes softening in a way that made your stomach do loops. “I’ll get water,” he murmured. “And food. You need rest.”

Standing, he reached the door before pausing and looking back. The early sunlight caught his face, highlighting the slight tremor of emotion behind his expression. Desperate and devoted. “Don’t try to run,” he said quietly. “Not because I’d be angry.”

Zoro gazed right into your eyes, sharply and seriously. There was an almost…mania there. You could see it as he spoke: “...Because I can’t lose you again. And I won’t. I refuse.”

The door clicked shut. The lock slid home. He sealed your cage, and you were helpless to stop it.

Truly, then, it dawned on you. This grim reality. 

You were alone on an island no one could find. With a swordsman who would cross oceans full of corpses to reach you. And there was no telling whether that devotion would save you—

—or destroy you both.

Looking towards the person standing in front of you, you’re quite surprised to see the same face you’ve lost a few hours ago:

“Sanji?”

The man gives you a wide smile, clearly glad that you’re okay and the blast didn’t mess with your head too much. His hold on you doesn’t let up, even when Sanji knows you can stand on your own. Long fingers are digging into your arm right beneath your armpit.

"Fancy meeting you here, gorgeous,” he answers. Despite taking active part in the carnival-turned-carnage, his breathing isn’t laboured. Truthfully, he hasn’t broken a sweat. “Good thing you’re in one piece, ‘cause your boyfriend almost cut my head off."

Your eyebrows furrow when hearing the word ‘boyfriend’. It’s the notion that a head might have been cut off that has your mind trailing towards the only person besides Sanji willing and able to achieve such a feat.

"Who? Zoro?” Whether you’re asking for confirmation or are simply shocked, you’re not quite sure yourself. “He's not my boyfriend,” you add. The sureness of your tone doesn’t stop your face from getting significantly warmer.

Sanji can’t help but smirk. Your sudden nervousness doesn’t escape his attention. "Does he know that?” he asks. The teasing undertone hides behind candid words, almost flying over your head. “I don't think he got the memo."

You were about to ask Sanji for an explanation when a knife flew right in front of your nose. Right, inquiries into your alleged boyfriend can wait a minute or two.

Several fights and close calls later, you see a head of green hair in the corner of your eye. Part of you yearns to admire Zoro’s skill and fluidity but the more reasonable and less lovestruck part wishes to keep your limbs intact. Besides, getting gravely injured just to ask a man if he has feelings for you is… embarrassing. You’re an adult, not a school kid anymore. Those things can wait for the right moment.

Surprisingly, Zoro seems to be of a different mind. The moment you enter his field of vision, he’s calling out to you. His voice cuts through the clashing of swords and the painful grunts of the surrounding battlefield. Fighting his way through the horde of circus pirates, Zoro is making his way towards you. It would be like a scene from a movie, if the risk of actually dying wasn’t equally real. Death, however, doesn’t seem all too interested in the famous pirate hunter. He’s marching on without halting or slowing down, as though he isn’t a person but an icebreaker cutting through the frozen seas.

He calls out to you again, now much closer than he was before. You turn around, only to be met face-to-face with another one of Buggy’s pirates. Before either of you can raise your weapons, something glistens right behind him. In a quite grotesque manner, the pirate splits in half diagonally, along a clean line from his left shoulder to right hip. The corpse falls to the ground, turning brown dirt into a black, dense pulp.

Then you meet Zoro’s gaze. There’s some blood on his clothes but seeing as its a small spatter, it can’t be his. Brown eyes are piercing yours in an almost human way, as though the man is trying to put the beast inside him back in its kennel. It’s both terrifying and beautiful, as all beasts are. You remember Sanji’s words – he could have ended up no better than the dead pirate at your feet, should you turn up with as much as a bruise. Zoro has always been protective of his friends, yes, but there is a substantial difference between offering to die for someone and the willingness to kill anyone for them.

Zoro lets out a gasp that sounds like your name. “Where were you? Are you hu–”

“Are we boyfriend and girlfriend?” you interrupt. Truly, no better time than the present.

The once intense stare suddenly becomes vacant. It would be a hilarious image if the conversation were about anything else. “What?” he asks quietly, not sure if he heard you correctly.

“Right, I should phrase that differently.” As gross as it may be, you kick away the sliced corpse separating you. Zoro stands idly while you step closer to him. His eyes are glued to you, studying even the smallest movement. “Do you think of yourself as my boyfriend?”

The tiniest wrinkle between his dark eyebrows blears his otherwise blank expression. “What kind of question is that?”

Oh, Zoro, you’re really not making this any easier.

“A ‘yes or no’ kind,” you explain. “Unless you want to indulge me with specifics,” you add, shrugging. Although he’s not the kind of person to go on and on about their love for someone, it would be very satisfying to have this calm and collected warrior profess his hopeless yearning for you. Maybe one day.

Zoro swallows nervously, his larynx slightly bobbing up and down. “Then no.” He looks away from your face, pretending to be scanning your surroundings for more enemies. “I don’t even like you like that.”

Zoro’s nonchalant attitude can be heaven-sent but right now it’s the biggest tell he could have. For a man so unbothered, he seems awfully nervous.

“That’s not what Sanji said.”

The man meets your gaze again, only to roll his eyes. Of course, Sanji was going to milk that situation as much as he could. He saw Zoro lose his grip on emotions, making Sanji believe that he sees you as more than a friend. When, obviously, that isn’t true. You’re his good friend, that’s all.

“According to him, you almost cut his head off when he showed up without me,” you continue.

His fist flexes around the sword. A sudden surge of anger makes him want to punch holes in brick walls. Sanji is a lucky man not to be in the vicinity, or Zoro might do well on his threat. The swordsman can only do what he does best: look for a ‘friendly’ explanation of all the lovesick things he’s doing for you.

“Because he’s irresponsible,” he explains. At least in his head, it makes sense. “This place is crawling with Marines and pirates, so we should stick together.”

Your lips curl into a smirk. “Then maybe you should be the one keeping an eye on me.”

“I’m not your babysitter.”

As though he’s uttered some ancient prayer, you suddenly found yourself surrounded by more pirates. Your first thought is to turn to Zoro, come up with a strategy. It appears that he already has a strategy, a quite simple one at that: defeat everyone. His sharp swords slice through skin at a terrifying speed, as well as depth. You find it almost impossible to keep up with him but that’s hardly a concern. Zoro parries attacks before you notice them. His large frame stands like a defensive wall between you and Buggy’s goons. A few times, he’s pushed you away right before dodging another swing of a deadly weapon. Even if you wanted to help him in the fight, you couldn’t. And yet Zoro was the one who claimed not to be your babysitter just a few minutes ago.

When the pirates joined their unfortunate, sliced friend on the blood-soaked dirt, you continued the conversation:

“Yes, you’re not a babysitter, because I’m not a baby. Yet you always hover around me, even when I don’t need help.”

Zoro meets your gaze. There’s something strangely intense in the way he’s looking at you, as though he’s been itching to reveal long-hidden thoughts. Whatever dilemma he's solving in his head, he decides to fight his urge a little longer. The ferocious burn of his gaze dims, it’s place taken by Zoro’s typical blankness. The previous passion, however, still lingers in those brown eyes, almost imperceptible to anyone else. A famed warrior is losing a battle against himself.

“You’re slow and weak,” he states. Zoro pretends to ignore the blood and dirt sticking to the sais in your hands. Deep inside, he’s already studied the evidence of your fighting and sustained injuries. His ‘friendly’ feelings convince him that the result is completely his fault. “I’m just making sure you don’t die.”

“But you were more than willing to kill Sanji if something happened to me,” you point out.

The man doesn’t as much as blink while delivering you his judgment. “I don’t like him.” The heaviness of his tone reveals that there is much more to that statement than simple dislike of someone’s personality. It is the disdain for what someone represents with themself, the amalgamation of traits that Zoro lacks and how he thinks others view Sanji; it isn’t a dislike of who Sanji is, but who Zoro isn’t and can’t be. Some would call it ‘jealousy’ but Zoro can’t be jealous. He would have to be in love with you. How preposterous!

“So you do like me?”

Zoro sighs heavily. He’s clearly not enjoying the direction in which this conversation is going. You’re trading way too close to what he’s unwilling to admit even to himself. “I guess you’re alright,” he mumbles after a moment of silence.

You can’t help the frustrated groan brewing in the back of your throat. Zoro gives you a questioning look. Is his thinking you’re ‘alright’ such a tragedy?

“I’ve given you numerous chances, Zoro,” you say. The wrinkle between his eyebrows only deepens. “Help me out a little or do I really have to do everything myself?”

“What are you–”

Zoro doesn’t get the chance to finish his question. Your lips meet his in a clumsy, albeit passionate kiss. His moment of surprise dissipates quickly as he answers your pecks with even more ferocity. Zoro’s arm circles your waist much too low to be considered ‘friendly’ in any capacity. He pulls you closer to himself, chests colliding in a long-overdue embrace. The two of you crane your necks in a quite coordinated way, constantly searching for a deeper, even more intimate, angle.

Little do you know, Sanji and Nami witnessed the entire conversation. They may have been too far to hear your words but definitely close enough to see the searing kiss that befits a bedroom more than a battlefield. Nami is finally freed from the frustration of seeing your ‘friendship’ with Zoro. Truthfully, if this farce had gone on one day longer, she was willing to cause a scene, reveal your feelings for each other and leave you to deal with the aftermath. Her moment of serenity doesn’t last long, however. Sanji, a teasing smirk adorning his face, suggests that maybe they should follow suit. Nami only lets out a frustrated groan and mumbles something about ‘ruining a nice moment’.

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