Archive of Our Own

By the time Zoro realizes that Mihawk's words about his tendency to overestimate his powers had a grain of truth, it's already too late. He remembers both the cold look and the dismissive attitude Mihawk gave him after one of their first training sessions, especially humiliating to Zoro's dignity. 

“Your haste might backfire on you,” Hawkeye said, and Zoro didn’t pay much attention to it. He had a goal, he had to keep up with his own ambitions, with the team, with Luffy. “If you don't learn how to take steps instead of scratching the surface, there's nothing for you to do here.”

The sound of his mentor’s words echo through his mind as he senselessly presses both palms to the torn wound on his face, feeling blood and bits of skin trickle down his wrists to his elbows and fall into the dust of the ruins in the forest.

He’d been through worse pain, and the same man who was now teaching him swordsmanship, willpower, and sobriety had literally slit him open, leaving a huge scar that he wasn't the least bit ashamed of, but he couldn't deny that he was in severe pain. It was even more horrifying when Kuma appeared and showed him how his captain felt, protecting them all. Zoro doesn’t regret it and never will, although that morning on Thriller Bark undoubtedly left its mark on him, physically and mentally. 

Now he's just terrified. His whole face is burning so much he can't help but groan and hiss in pain, Wado is on the ground, humandrills are all around squeaking and hollering, and he feels humiliated. It hurts to even wince, a bloody veil covers his eyes, and he's sure he looks awful enough for the stupid monkeys to stay away. He knows it's a serious injury. It doesn't take a doctor to understand that such pain won't go away without a scar, but still he forces himself to tear one bloody hand from his face and find the fallen sword. He hates leaving his blood on the hilt, but this action alone makes the humandrills quiet down, and he counts it as a win. Forced, stupid, but a win.

He still holds one hand to his face as he grins at the monkeys, breathing shallowly, and doesn't even flinch when he hears Perona's scream of shock. He usually hates it when she interferes with his training and always lets her know about it, but right now he's keeping quiet.

Humandrills leave them hesitantly, and Perona shows him the way to the castle, spinning aimlessly next to him as he stumbles over rocks and the roots of dense trees. She doesn't ask questions, and his head is bursting at the seams, torn by pain and the piercing thought, I've lost to myself.

Perona helps him to the kitchen, the nearest room with running water, alcohol, and where she can heat a needle to stitch the nightmare that is the left half of Zoro's face. He can't allow himself to make any sounds in front of her, but he's still bleeding a little and the cool air burns his naked flesh like hot iron. Perona washes off the blood with warm water, and the horror reflected in her eyes makes Zoro's heart sink.

“What is it?” he asks hoarsely.

She purses her lips, and Zoro notices that she's almost as white as the sink behind her.

“Don’t you feel it?”, she asks.

“Feel what?”

Her eyelashes flutter as she reaches for his left eye, and Zoro has a hard time resisting the urge to pull away. After all, she's the one with the most experience stitching and working with flesh.

“Right now your eye is closed,” she says, then Zoro feels her touching his eyelid. It feels weird. “Now it’s open.”

He doesn't understand what she means for just a second, and then realization hits him like a tub of icy water. Eye open, eye closed, he doesn't see the difference. Moreover, he can't see anything with his left eye at all, the complete darkness as closes his right eye only confirms this.

His left eyelid won’t move either, and Zoro knows that Perona pulls her fingers away only because the weird feeling is back for a moment. He gives himself a second to take a breath, ready to burst into anger if Perona starts to sympathize with him, but she speaks first.

“Your eye is screwed. It's red from blood like someone scratched it very deeply,” he hears her swallow before turning on the fire on the stove to disinfect the needle. “What happened?”

He still doesn't like the way she's being so soft with him. “Nothing.”

“Don't lie!”

“Mind your own business!” He snaps back, stretching the wound on his cheek and immediately slamming his mouth shut so as not to make a sound that would betray his pain.

“I'm going to mind your business as well!” She kicks the leg of his chair heartily, and Zoro finally looks up at her with his only seeing eye. “Next time, I'll punch you in the head and your poor eye will roll on the floor of this kitchen, you idiot! There's blood all over your face, I'm covered in blood because of you! So I'm asking you again, what happened?”

Zoro has to admit that her screams turned out to be more effective than caring, especially for such a hysterical girl like her, and it made him grit his teeth. Besides, he didn't want her screeching to be heard by Hawkeyes.

“I was training Observation Haki.”

“And?”

“With humandrills. Blind training is very good for a swordsman, so I closed my eyes and tried to rely only on it.”

He doesn’t look Perona in the eyes because it’s obvious what he will see there, so he stares at the wall behind her, trying to keep his back straight. The bitterness on his tongue has nothing to do with the pain of the wound. To his surprise, Perona says nothing and turns away to prepare the needle, though her movements are too abrupt. 

“He told you to take your time with Observation Haki,” she generously pours alcohol from the bottle into the nearest clean cup and dips the needle into it. “You idiot, you wouldn't even see your nose with how bad your Haki is now.”

“You don't know shit,” Zoro snaps and immediately meets the serious gaze of Perona’s huge dark eyes.

“Really? I think I’ve seen enough evidence,” she takes out the needle, and Zoro closes his good eye for his own peace of mind. His head is buzzing. “What's the use of hanging around here if you don't listen to Hawkeye? I can already imagine what he'll say when he sees you like that.”

“Like what?” Zoro almost flinches when Perona makes the first stitch intentionally painful.

“He already thinks you're ridiculous, and now in his eyes you're just pathetic.”

It hurts Zoro more than he wants to admit. Perona tends to exaggerate in her words, he’s already figured it out, but she's right, and he's not ready to see the disappointment on Mihawk's face again. It's going to be a stigma that Zoro doesn't want to deal with.

So he mutters, “He thinks you're ridiculous too.”

“It’s not me who he teaches to use swords, and then finds wounded and half-blind after a fight with not even humans. It even sounds pathetic. Did you really think you could blindly compete with aggressive monkeys with a skill you've been practicing for one month?”

Zoro keeps silent. There is nothing to say except empty insults, and he has not yet fully comprehended the loss. He didn't even realize the risk he was taking before the fight, and it turned out that he wasn't as lucky as he thought. Now he was facing the two most unpleasant things he could have in his life here: the chance of Mihawk rejecting him and kicking him out of the castle and the prospect of no longer knowing how to fight with swords. 

He shoves the second thought further into his head so as not to disappoint himself more. He's going to adapt – he always has – but it's going to take time, more time than he ever planned on.

In an attempt to discover new powers in himself, he became weaker in just one evening.

– – –

As expected, Mihawk refuses to train him. When the man says it, the words knock out Zoro’s breath like a punch in the guts, and he feels like a child who couldn't manage to go to the market and lost all the money along the way. It's pathetic, he thinks. 

However, Perona is partly wrong in her harsh statements. Although Mihawk is clearly unpleasantly surprised when he first sees Zoro with half of his head covered with a bandage, he asks him about what happened and still gives him a chance. Roughly, briefly, in his usual cold manner, he forces Zoro to straighten up in place.

“If you still want something from me, change your attitude to learning. This is the last time I'm telling you this.”

This time Zoro listens. At Perona's insistence, consisting mainly of shouting and insults, he takes two days off from training, obediently letting her change bandages and check the stitch regularly, and then returns to push-ups and squats. He tries to control the number of approaches to prevent sweat from seeping through the gauze and spoiling Perona's work. He doesn't like it, it's not his style at all, but he remembers Hawkeye's words. If he goes down with a fever from infection, he will waste even more time.

His swords are always clean, even when he's not using them. As a meditation and routine, he rubs Wado, Kitetsu, and Shusui several times a day until they shine, and feels lousy every time he finishes.

A week after losing his eye, he tries to use observation Haki and immediately writhes from awful pain in his head, as if someone had hit his brain with a sledgehammer right from the inside. The hint from his body is more than clear, and Zoro accepts the need to wait. It's gnawing at him from the inside. 

What he finds absolutely unbearable in all this is the loss of balance and the realization that his own eyesight is deceiving him. 

Neither Mihawk nor Perona ever comment on this, but he sometimes misses when he wants to pull out a chair for dinner. His entire left shoulder is covered with small bruises from bumping into every other corner of the castle, and a bruise from the kitchen table has already engrafted on his hip. He gets up in the middle of the night to take a sip of water and misses the bedside table. As time goes by, he picks up more and more broken glasses from the floor, and this is what makes him feel a gaping emptiness inside for the first time in a while. 

Zoro begins to doubt that he will be able to fight the same way as before. 

He pushes this idea away as soon as it arises in his head, and never again allows even an approximate thought in this direction, but he also knows that things do not appear groundlessly. He has promises and goals, he will strive forward no matter what, but his whole body is covered with bruises that he inflicted on himself, and the number of times he missed objects and grabbed the air with his fingers has already exceeded the permissible limits.

Two weeks after the incident his swords almost beg for him to pick them up, so he grabs them and goes to the darkest room of the castle. There’s no one to fight there and it's a sad setback, yet he grits his teeth and closes his eyes, trying to move without losing his bearings. If he can do it without seeing anything at all, then having one eye will already be a huge relief.

Perona doesn't know about Zoro's training for at least a week, and then he comes into the kitchen late at night all disheveled and sweaty and bumps into her sitting at the table and sipping cocoa from a huge mug. When she looks at his wet, messed up bandage and starts yelling, Zoro thinks that Mihawk, who is resting in another wing of the castle, also finds out about his training.

That's why Zoro is learning how to make bandages on his own. They're not as neat as Perona's, but he's never cared about aesthetics enough. He also does not look in the mirror, never examines the pink scar, content with a crooked reflection in random surfaces like a sword blade. He knows that there is no infection, because there is no new pain and he is still not lying in bed with a fever.

The three of them have dinner together from time to time. Mihawk cooks something simple, briefly notifies them about the meal if they catch his eye and the evening passes in silence, Mihawk drinks wine and uses silver cutlery like a real aristocrat, Perona sighs softly, but eats as much as she considers decent, and Zoro invariably misses his mouth with a fork. He frowns every time, annoyed, and knows he's being watched. At least they're polite enough not to comment on it, but an evening together quickly becomes frustrating for him.

As promised, Mihawk doesn't invite him to practice, he doesn’t even ask how he's doing. He is often with Zoro when they are both in the castle, but each time they either remain silent or talk about completely extraneous things, quickly and uninterestedly.

Zoro is fine with that, he's not used to long talks. He quickly comes to terms with the fact that his eye is no longer functional, but the consequences are much more difficult to accept. When he manages to stand firmly on both feet again and perform basic attacks without falling to one side, he doesn’t consider it an achievement. If it becomes a reason for joy for him, he will never do anything really special.

More than once he thought about how he will appear in front of his team in this form. While everyone else is honing their skills to become stronger, never to let the horror they experienced on Sabaody happen again, he risks returning without an eye and with a level worse than it was before they parted ways.

Luffy won't say anything bad to him, he knows that. Their captain cares about them endlessly, and skills are secondary for him, but Zoro will be damned if he allows someone to become the protector of the crew instead of him. He knows someone who could handle this task, and Zoro's pride rises every time he even thinks about the cook combining the duties of both feeding and protecting them all, including Zoro. In fact, the idea that the cook can protect him like some kind of princess makes Zoro sick.

Thus he starts practicing Observation Haki again. His head hurts a lot less now that his body is used to the absence of an organ. At first he is completely lost, but then, with hours of training in the dark, the silhouettes of the dusty furniture in the room start to become clear enough for him to boldly arm himself with all three blades again. He takes his time and finds that it works.

When he approaches Perona with a request to borrow her Negative Hollows, she looks at him like he's an idiot.

“I won't be an accomplice to your depression, not right now,” she replies. “I don't know if you might want to kill yourself.”

“Don't talk shit,” Zoro snaps. “I’m asking you, it means I'm ready.”

Perona is clearly not convinced and she folds her arms over her chest in a stubborn gesture.

“No.”

“Yes, I'm asking you.”

“I'll call Mihawk.”

She says it like Zoro must be afraid of Mihawk. Or like Mihawk cares.

But he knows that expression, he's seen Nami's exact same expression countless times, and he supposes he knows how to work with it.

“I'll help you with something, too,” he says, standing in front of her and looking at her from under his brows. “I don't know, what do you want? To decorate your room? Something like that? I can help.”

There is a flicker of primordial horror in Perona's eyes. “I would never let you near the design of my room in my life, you monster! You're sleeping on a bare mattress and you have dust on your bedside table, you can't be trusted to decorate the interior!”

Zoro frowns. “How do you know that… Have you been following me with your ghosts?

”Of course!” She says it like it's obvious.

“Have some shame!” He barks back but quickly regains his composure. “Now you have to apologize for this and lend me your Hollows.”

In response, Perona just laughs loudly and sarcastically. 

“No way. I'm done with you.”

There's a pause, and Zoro realizes that she's thinking about what he said because she's not leaving. There is resentment on her face and her hands are tightly pressed to her body, but she stands still, so he doesn't leave either.

“What exactly do you want to do?” She finally asks, and Zoro has to remind himself that if he wants to reach a new level of training, he really needs to answer her questions sometimes.

“I want to use Observation Haki on them.”

“Again? Didn't you realize that everything that happened back then happened precisely because–”

“I know,” he interrupts forcefully. “That's why I'm not going into the woods right now, though I could.”

Perona looks at him with an undeserved degree of condemnation. “No, you couldn't. You'd get lost halfway and you'd be torn apart by rabid monkeys.”

This time Zoro openly bares his teeth.

After a while, they both stand in a small wasteland near the castle, close enough to its walls that the humandrills still shied away from approaching. Perona sits on one of the rocks, her lips pursed as she watches Zoro stretching. He can already do squats on one leg without losing his balance, but the shadow of severity still does not leave her face. Finally, Zoro gives her a look and she releases her Negative Hollows.

“I won't have mercy on you,” she says, and Zoro nods. 

The empty smiles of the ghosts immediately flash before his eye, and as soon as he manages to turn on his haki, one of them already floats through his chest. He doesn't even feel pain in his knees when he falls on a shattered stone and begs to get rid of his other eye. 

The training lasts a long time and is hardly successful. The sky over Kuraigana is hidden by eternal fog and clouds, and Zoro cannot navigate by the sun, but the skin on his knees and the gradually increasing irritation, mixed with disappointment from each missed attack, makes it clear to him that more time has passed than he expected. 

He dodges one ghost because he can see it with his good eye, then another flying up from behind because Haki tells him to, but the third one appears as if from nowhere, and Zoro finds himself back on the ground, even if only for a second. He gets up and continues, bites Wado’s hilt until his ears are buzzing and breathes deeply through his nose as Perona moves her ghosts again.

At least an hour and a half after the start of their training – Zoro understands the time because he sees a single candle in the kitchen window, which means that Mihawk has started cooking dinner – his haki stops helping him.

“Fuck!” Kitetsu cuts through the air with a whoosh, chasing away the ghost that just passed through Zoro and made him hang his head in a dejected groan. It's not his style to get so angry during training, but Perona's Hollows keep changing his mood, and constant blunders where he used to always hit get on his nerves. “Fuck! Let’s do it again, come on!”

He doesn't see Perona jump up from her seat to his left, and turns around abruptly when she starts screaming again, more hysterically than usual.

“No way! I've had enough! I've had enough of your shouting and falling, I don't want to see you miss and swear over and over again! You can't use Haki for that long yet, so leave your swords and my ghosts alone!”

“Shut up!” He yells back but quickly regrets it when he sees that Perona's posture is changing, and what he considered to be simple whims takes on a touch of desperation.

This change only lasts for a second, and then she stomps her foot.

“I'm leaving! Don't come near me anymore! You ungrateful jerk!”

And before Zoro can shout back an insult at her or tell her to shut up again, she runs away to the castle, three ghosts flying after her, smiling meaninglessly. Zoro wipes the sweat from his forehead and swears softly under his breath. He's not done for today yet, and if Perona doesn't want to help him anymore, he'll find a way to continue training.

The cooling wind tells him the night will come soon and the sweat on the back of his neck is drying sticky. He’s getting calmer as he walks through the trees, no longer willing to sprawl on the damp earth and rocks, and holds his swords tightly in his hands. If Luffy were here, he wouldn't have stopped him. If the cook were here, Zoro wouldn't have to humiliate himself in front of Perona and ask her to participate in his training. Instead, he could just say a few teasing words, and the cook’s foot would already be flying at his head. Until this evening Zoro had no idea how much practice he was missing away from the domestic scuffles with the cook.

He thinks about where the cook and the others might be now when he finds the meadow where his eye was taken away, and stops, confused, when he sees no one behind the dark trunks and among the crowns of the trees. The branches creak softly under the onslaught of the wind, and the bare raspberry bushes at the edge of the clearing hide only emptiness and other trees in the depths of the forest.

It seems like humandrills have chosen another place to stay for tonight. It's not what he wanted, but it won't stop him from continuing. He exhales through his mouth, ignoring the chill that has dispersed in the cold air, and bites Wado. He squints into the darkness to make sure there are no monkeys and then checks it with Haki. The territory is clear, and Zoro closes his eye before swinging the swords in both hands and striking the empty meadow.

A short walk and the absence of Perona gave him a short break, and now he is pleased to note the renewed strength. He practices the blows one by one and hears the branches and bushes snap as the impulse reaches them. 

It's a pity that he has no one to fight with, he thinks. His feet practically don't trip over particularly large boulders in the clearing. If the cook were here, he would give Zoro a real challenge, wouldn't spare him for a second, and Zoro grins toothily at the thought. For a couple of times long legs in black trousers would aim at his head, and Zoro would easily parry them with just one sword – he's doing it now, imagining the opponent he won't see for a while.

Inevitably, the cook would duck to knock him down with a kick to the ankles, and Zoro takes two steps back, exerting extra effort to keep his balance due to the bump behind his back. His head starts to spin but he doesn't pay attention to it and continues to move, fending off invisible attacks, attacking himself and thinking only of the whistling blades cutting through the air and strong legs eager to knock him to the ground and burn him with flames from the sole.

For the umpteenth time that evening Zoro comes to the conclusion that if the cook were here, he wouldn't be giving him attentive or sympathetic glances like Mihawk or Perona. He barely even deigned to look at him for more than two seconds on the ship, and each time those seconds were filled with sparks that made Zoro's blood boil in his veins. He was more than happy with that look, and he didn't understand how Nami and Robin could stand the sickening sweetness with which the cook looked at them for whole minutes.

If the cook looked at him like that, dreamily and lovingly, Zoro would open the scar on his chest and let the organs fall out. 

In front of his closed eyelids, a black flaming foot aims directly at his neck, and Zoro turns around to swing the blade from beneath. 

If the cook looked at him for more than two seconds after one inevitably knocked the other to the ground or the deck of the ship, Zoro would jump overboard and intentionally inhale the water.

He takes a big step to the side, trying to focus on the cook's next imaginary hit, but sees in front of him only memories of the quickly breathing chef with his sharp gaze and heaving chest mixed into one blurred image. Zoro imagines how he raises his leg for the last kick, and rushes to attack first.

Dry raspberry bushes scratch his bare arms and chin as he falls into them quite ungracefully. It's humiliating and embarrassing, and he feels the blood rush to his neck when he realizes that he's lost his balance after all and has almost forgotten about using Haki. It doesn't help that two yellow dots are looking directly at him from the opposite side of the meadow when he opens his eye.  

Climbing out of the thorny thicket turns out to be even more unpleasant, especially when Zoro realizes that Mihawk continues to stare at him in silence, and the dry raspberry branches scratch his skin under the bandage, which has loosened from intense jumping and swinging. He holds back a grimace of pain, pursing his lips, and straightens up, finally raising his single eye back at Mihawk.

“I didn't think I'd have to save you from plants, too,” the man says, casting an indifferent glance at the crooked bushes behind Zoro.

“You didn't save me from shit,” Zoro snaps, trying to hide the embarrassment that appears on his chest and neck with a bright blush.

“Indeed. Are you done with this shame?”

Zoro glares at him but doesn't respond. Mihawk doesn't need his response, he turns and walks off into the darkness of the trees, and Zoro frowns.

“Are you going deeper in the forest?” 

Mihawk doesn't even turn around when he answers. “I'm going back to the castle, and I advise you to follow. The girl noticed your absence and told me you could have gone to where you were injured, but you wandered almost half a kilometer away from it. Keep up.”

Zoro blinks in confusion, looking around. This is exactly the place where he lost his eye, but he doesn't have time to argue because Mihawk has almost disappeared into the darkness, and Zoro hurries to follow Yoru's glimpse.

The way to the castle is quiet, Zoro keeps a short distance away, thinking only about how hungry he is. Perona must have already had dinner, not hesitating to grimace at Mihawk's delicious but simple meal. Zoro is usually completely satisfied with his cooking, even if it's not nearly as delicious as the cook's.

And again his thoughts return to the cook. Zoro doesn't like it, it distracts and shames him in front of people he respects. He bumped into all the jambs in the castle and still sometimes skids to the left as he walks past the trees behind Mihawk, but this is something he knows he will adapt to. He doesn't want to adapt to the thoughts about the annoying cook.

He'll just take what's left of dinner and empty a whole jug of water. If he had been allowed to drink alcohol, he would have ended the evening with a bottle of wine from Mihawk's locker, because the man doesn’t keep sake. Again, Zoro is learning to adapt.

When they come out to the gloomy castle, the sky is dark blue and the wind blows the skirts of Mihawk's coat. Zoro thinks that they will part ways at this point, at least he hopes to avoid an awkward conversation about his training in the woods, but Hawkeye, of course, has his own plans.

“Take a shower, change your bandage and come to the library. If you can find it.”

With that, he leaves Zoro alone, disappearing into the corridors of the castle that he hasn’t learned in almost three months of living here. Nevertheless, he does as he is told, overcome by an unwillingness to bring the conversation with Mihawk closer, but relieves this feeling with simple discipline. 

When he appears on the threshold of the library, his stomach rumbles too loudly and too plaintively, his hair has long dried after a shower, and the bandage, fresh and white, fits snugly against the pink skin on the left side of his face. Mihawk is sitting in an old armchair among the bookshelves, several candelabra on the wall and a candle on a round wooden table light up the entire room and the pages of the book he is slowly reading. On the same table, Zoro sees a bottle of wine, a glass, as well as a generous portion of rice with meat and a glass of water. He stops in the middle of the room, waiting.

“Sit down and eat. Your dinner is cold,” Hawkeye says and turns the page.

Zoro nods and decides that this is his personal little reprieve. He moves the second armchair closer to the table and starts rattling his fork. The rice is really already cold and the sauce has frozen, covered with a thin film, but he doesn't care much about it. He cleans up only a couple of rice grains that occasionally fall off the fork. He’s busy chewing loudly when Mihawk's voice attracts his attention.

“How's your eye?”

Zoro looks at him, cheeks full of rice and meat, and he swallows before starting to pick up the last crumbs from the plate.

“It’s okay.”

“When can you take off the bandage?”

Zoro has no idea. He was never a medic, and Perona's knowledge is limited to the ability to stitch wounds. None of them even has antibiotics in case recovery goes wrong. So he just shrugs, puts the last portion in his mouth, and pushes the plate away from him.

“Whenever I want, probably. Thank you.”

“You're welcome. What will it change?” Mihawk continues, looking at him, the book folded on his lap.

Zoro knows the answer to this question. “Nothing,” he says simply. “I’ve lost my eye.”

Didn't Perona tell him about it? Or did Mihawk specifically want Zoro to admit it himself? Either way, he doesn't care about it anymore, and Mihawk stares at him for a long few seconds before closing the book, noting the page. 

“Do you think you’ve become weaker?”

Zoro looks at him, not getting what kind of answer the man is waiting for. There's no point in lying, but he's not going to admit anything out loud. Not when words make up goals.

“You refused to fight me. You think I've become weaker.”

“I've never said that,” Mihawk replies calmly, the gleam in his eyes is cold. “And I set you a condition that you have to comply with in order to get a chance to fight me again.

”I'm complying,” Zoro says dispassionately, and even he understands that this can hardly be called the pure truth.

“You're getting distracted,” Mihawk says and pauses to take a sip of wine from his glass. It remains in his fingers. “I thought you said they taught you discipline in the dojo.”

Zoro has nothing to say to that. He sits, staring steadily at the book on Mihawk's lap and feeling the blush return to his neck.

“Are you distracted by your injury?” Mihawk asks. Zoro's blush deepens, but he remains silent. “Roronoa.”

“It distracts me that I have to waste so much time to relearn what I've been doing since I was eight years old.”

It's not exactly a lie and it seems to be enough for Mihawk.

“And you're letting it piss you off and drop you into the bushes?” He raises one eyebrow, and Zoro is frankly ashamed. “I knew a man who was a swordsman and lost his arm, but he never took it out on someone else or came even close to the anger that has already consumed you.”

”And where is this man now?“

”A single blow from him now would send you flying out of the castle window into the thick of the forest, breaking all the trunks along the way. Do you know how he recovered?” When he sees that Zoro is silently waiting for an answer, he continues, not taking his eyes off him. “He understood that his emotions were only his own, and he knew how to control them.”

Zoro frowns. He knows how to control himself, holds himself perfectly in any fight, the thought of bloodlust or impulsiveness has left him so long ago that he doesn't even remember how it feels. He meditates all the time to regain control, he has excellent discipline, and yet Mihawk looks at him as if he tore off Zoro's skin and saw something that Zoro himself continues to ignore.

“You should have handled this before,” Mihawk remarks almost dismissively.

Zoro has. Firstly, because Luffy always found adventures for them when it came to kicking someone's ass, and Zoro easily blew off steam, and secondly, because the cook constantly annoyed him and Zoro never had to hold back around him. His voice is even and controlled when he speaks.

“I always had someone on the ship that I could just fight with.”

Luckily, Mihawk doesn't ask for a name or other details. Instead, he just glares at Zoro with predatory eyes.

“And are you equal?”

No matter how much Zoro wants to indulge his ego, to say that he has always been better, he understands that this is far from the truth. Especially now that he knows that if their entire crew were facing an enemy like Kuma right now, Zoro wouldn't be able to protect them.

“We were.”

This is the closest thing he can say to acknowledging the problem, and he doesn't like this tone, this line of thought and this perspective in general.

“Would they stop fighting you just because you lost an eye?”

”Hardly. No.”

The cook is noble, Zoro can admit this, but he is especially supportive only to women, to strangers in need, even to others on the ship, but never to him. If the cook refused to fight him out of pity or neglect, Zoro would force him – not for the sake of training or a stupid quarrel, but to the death and for honor.

So maybe the rollback can really be overcome. The cook would not allow him to admit his weakness or delay the rehabilitation of his skills. It surprisingly makes his heart feel lighter.

Mihawk is silent for a long time, as if watching Zoro's thought process, and when it seems to him that something is changing, he speaks again.

“That man I told you about was my equal in everything,” he doesn't react to how sharply Zoro jerks his head up. “I refused to duel with him after he lost his arm. Would you be angry?”

”Yes,” Zoro replies immediately.

“And he was laughing. None of his team knew if he was in pain, although anyone who looked closely would have found out. It's humiliating to hear such a thing from an equal. But then he laughed and never once forced a single person to deal with his anger and pain about it. Even I do not know if he was angry at me. Or at his loss.”

Mihawk looks at him expectantly, as if he's waiting for some kind of revelation in Zoro, besides the fact that he hasn't become weaker in the eyes of others. Zoro looks back at him, then nods and then opens his mouth to dispel his doubts completely.

“What do you mean?”

Mihawk's gaze turns from piercing to irritated, as if Zoro has failed at some task that he has come up with but has not voiced.

“The girl is worried about you. If you're not able to distinguish between who's on your side and who's your opponent and you're just going to jump on everyone, I have nothing to teach you.”

Zoro stares at him with wide eyes. “Are you defending her?”

Mihawk gives him a look like Zoro isn't the most gifted of puppies but definitely a very annoying one. He opens the book again and puts the glass of wine on the table.

“If she's not bothering you, then she's bothering me. I prefer to avoid it.”

Fair. Mihawk doesn't kick Zoro out, but continues reading, indicating that the conversation is over. Zoro stays in his chair, thinking about everything he has heard and examining the edges of the glass of water that he drained in one sip. The candle flame on the table twitches slightly, causing the shadows to dance on the glass and walls.

For most of his life Zoro hadn't had to consider other people's feelings, and even on the ship Nami and Robin had never been sensitive enough to take his swearing seriously. Nami would take his outburst as a reason to slap him on the back of the head and run errands for her to change the ship's course. The cook would pick a fight with him because Zoro dared to piss the girl off, and that would be the end of it. 

Perona, on the other hand, lived under the rule of a crazy warlord and her closest associates, not counting zombie toys, were a pervert and a mad doctor. That she genuinely cared about Zoro must be new to her, too.

It's not difficult for him to apologize. He knows where to look for her, and he'll do it as soon as he leaves the library, but before that, he still has one question for Hawkeye. He looks at the man, the yellow light from the candle makes him look softer than in the cold light of day.

“How is your... friend now?”

Mihawk's posture doesn't change. “He's fine. He's still very strong, just like before.”

“How did he regain his powers?”

Finally, two yellow eyes meet with Zoro’s one. “It was hard for him. He's stubborn, but not arrogant. When he knew he had blunders, he never considered it shameful to accept help. Except for this, he did all the same that you do.” 

Mihawk looks at him, and the silence quickly becomes too meaningful. Zoro begins to feel uncomfortable, so he just nods, avoiding knowing eyes, collects the dirty dishes and quietly leaves the library.

– – –

Something changed imperceptibly after Zoro apologized to Perona, briefly but honestly. She was pouting her lips while he was talking, but in the end she yelled at him and threw a newly made toy rabbit right at his head. Zoro didn’t dodge, picked up the fallen toy and silently waited for the end of her screams. 

After that he learns to focus better by combining meditation and thoughtful, measured sword blows, always using Haki too. He immediately drives away thoughts of his possible weakness, remembering Hawkeye's words and the stern look the cook would certainly give him if he found out about such dilemmas.

His gradual progress affects his mood and the atmosphere in the castle, and more and more often he notices that Perona is hanging around with him because he no longer swears and does not hammer blades at everything in the area. He discovers that he doesn't mind the company. Of course, Perona still annoys him when she unexpectedly lets her ghost fly through his chest and then laughs loudly and floats away into the depths of the castle, but this is barely something he remembers for long. 

What he does remember is Perona's attempts to sit him down in the armchair in her room for a couple of hours and listen to her girly chatter about the fabrics she found on the upper floors of the castle and about the yarn she shoves into his hands, as if now he has to hold it like some spinning wheel. After the first attempt that Perona arranges, taking advantage of Zoro's confusion, he barely restrains himself from throwing her colored yarn on the floor and leaves her room, muttering irritably that she clearly tends to forget who he is.

He spends more and more evenings in the castle, not only because a frosty and snowless winter has come to the island, but also because he decides that the usual workouts should not be neglected. This is how he gets to lunch and dinner with all three of the inhabitants together more often and remotely notices how good and constant nutrition helps him. 

Now Mihawk often cooks for them all, leaving the kitchen at the same time every day with his own plate in his hands and silently nodding behind his back for Zoro and Perona to take their plates. The dishes are still simple and consistently tasty but Zoro misses the variety that has always been on the ship thanks to the cook. Perona starts whining that she wants desserts.

“At least some pudding!” She waves her hand with a spoon between her fingers, looking at Mihawk with her huge eyes. Her beloved teddy bear is on a nearby chair, slightly askew.

“There's nothing healthy in puddings,” Mihawk replies dryly, looking into his bowl of soup, the smell of meat for it has been all over the castle since morning.

Perona glances at the bottle of wine in the middle of the table, which Mihawk will certainly open after the main course.

“I don't recall you being an ardent fan of a healthy lifestyle. And desserts are necessary for the mood.”

“I'm in a great mood.”

“So selfish! Think of Zoro!”

Zoro didn't expect to be dragged into this conversation. “I don't eat sweets.”

Perona turns sharply to him, her expression looks like Zoro just said that he kicks newborn kittens and drowns puppies in a bucket of water. 

“You know what? It explains a lot about both of you. A hypocrite and a peasant.”

Zoro is about to start arguing, but Mihawk interrupts him, still unperturbed.

“If you want to make desserts, the kitchen is at your disposal. Get out of there before lunch and dinner, the rest of the time is yours. And it should be clean after you leave,” he gives her a serious look, and Perona snorts.

“I don't have hygiene issues, unlike some people,” she squints at Zoro.

He glares at her, finishing his dinner. “Neither do I.”

“Liar.”

“The fuck do you want from me?”

“Language, Roronoa,” Mihawk says, and Zoro is more surprised that he pays attention to their bickering than he is concerned about the remark.

“You're defending her again!”

“I'm not defending any of you parasites, I'm just reminding you of the rules,” Mihawk calmly replies, shifting his gaze to Zoro. Not only did he forbid him to drink alcohol, he also watched his speech when they all got together. “Besides, she has a point.”

Zoro puts the spoon in his bowl. It all reminds him terribly of the complaints he was constantly hearing from the cook. “I'm washing up. What else do you want from me?”

Both Mihawk and Perona look at him like he's an idiot, and if he's used to that from Mihawk, Perona's expression is just annoying.

“Actually, a lot. I'm surprised you're familiar with a razor. Although, I suppose you shave only because there is a blade in the process.”

“It’s none of your business what I'm doing. I'm not you, and I'm not going to spin around in front of the mirror for half an hour every morning and choose a perfume for the day for another half hour!”

Perona's mouth opens in amazement, which satisfies Zoro enough. The grin leaves his lips immediately when Mihawk speaks again.

“She’s right. I’m done smelling your sweat every day, so you need to fix that. Then, your nails, do you ever take care of them?”

Zoro looks at him as if the greatest swordsman in the world has just grown a second head. What is he even talking about? Zoro already spends an unreasonable amount of time showering, much more than he did on the ship, and now he's being asked to take care of his nails?

Something must reflect on his face, and Perona moans dejectedly. 

“You filthy pig, who raised you? Even humandrills have better hygiene!”

Zoro snaps at her immediately, “Why would I do that? I'm not a girl to think about nails or hair or whatever else you want me to take care of. It's enough that I clean my swords.”

“No, not enough,” Mihawk's voice is cold. “Is your goal to become the greatest swordsman or to make your swords great?”

Zoro looks at him again, feeling trapped in a strange way. “Both? Would be nice to have both.”

“Then learn to think not only about swords, but also about the hands that hold them. And the teeth, too.” 

Zoro restrains himself from the urge to shout that he has been brushing his teeth regularly since the cook forbade him to approach the table with bad breath. Instead, he spits out, 

“Men don't take care of their nails.”

And he knows he's right. In the dojo no one cared about such small things, the boys did nothing but practice with swords, dumbbells and endlessly ran around the territory. Zoro remembers how Kuina used to cut her hair into a neat hairstyle, she never shaved it off like the guys. She was a girl, and for her own reasons she wanted to see herself beautiful in the reflection. Zoro didn't care about his beauty.

Still, for some reason, he feels strangely uncomfortable when Mihawk glares at him like he's studying him and thinking about something Zoro can't reach. Finally, the man gets up from the table.

“Follow me, I’ll show you something,” he starts walking out of the dining room and doesn't turn around when he speaks to Perona. “Wash the dishes and leave the wine on the table.”

“I'm not your maid!” Perona predictably shouts at his back, and then turns to Zoro with the same fire in her eyes. “Why are you still here? Go!”

So Zoro goes, muttering something about how the two of them got into a terrifyingly annoying duo. Fortunately, Hawkeye doesn’t walk quickly, and Zoro joins him on the stairs. The man's back is straight, his gaze is stern as usual, but the lace shirt, too pretentious, in Zoro's opinion, smooths out his detachment.

“Where are we going?” Zoro asks as they walk down the hallway. He is sure that he has walked here many times, yet the doors seem unfamiliar to him.

“To my room.”

“Why?”

“I’ve already answered this question. Don't bore me with your stupidity.”

Zoro falls silent and follows Hawkeye into the next hallway, and only there they both stop in front of a massive wooden door. Mihawk easily pushes it and goes inside.

“Don't touch anything unless I tell you to,” he says, and Zoro would roll his eye at how much he likes to be bossy if it weren't for his curiosity to find out what the room of the person whose skill level he's trying so hard to comprehend looks like.

Mihawk lights one candle after another, and meter by meter colors begin to appear in the room – mostly dark, burgundy and something close to purple on the fabric, dark wood where Zoro sees a bed frame, a table and several closets. There aren't as many things here as he expected. He's not an interior expert but it's a lot less terrifying than the pink monstrosity in Perona's room. 

There is a floor mirror in the corner of the room, the gilding has almost completely peeled off its frame, and Zoro frowns when Mihawk gestures for him to go there. He does as he's told and looks at his reflection for a couple of seconds while Mihawk is busy with something behind him. Zoro's bandage is clean, he changed it before dinner. The white T-shirt has become a little grayish and stretched at the collar, but there are no holes in it and the fabric feels soft, so he blinks and turns around to watch Hawkeye instead. 

Of course, he notices it immediately.

“No. Look in the mirror.”

Zoro frowns. Firstly all this talk about hygiene and manicure, now this. He doesn't like where this is going. “I'm not going to preen myself in front of the mirror.”

“No one is forcing you, but I'm tired of your stubbornness, Roronoa. Do you remember who I am?”

It's a weird change of subject, and the frown doesn't leave Zoro's forehead. However, simple questions require simple answers, and Zoro would gladly adopt this tactic if he didn't want to acknowledge Hawkeye's obvious merits out loud. After all, sooner or later he will take his place, and before that, Zoro doesn't want to waste words, even if they are true. He nods briefly.

“Do you know that to get the warlord title you have to be a real threat?” Mihawk emerges from the shadows and comes to Zoro, tall and statuesque, steps are smooth, like those of a predator.

“You're telling me things I already know.” 

Zoro will never admit it out loud, but Mihawk is not just some swordsman for him. Of course, he's his mentor, even if they took a break, but before that he was always a role model. More secretly than not, Zoro has admired Mihawk's skill and agility ever since he heard stories about him in his home village.

Mihawk gives him a long look, then turns his gaze to the mirror and takes a step closer to it, with a slight movement of his head ordering Zoro to come closer too. He reluctantly follows, confused with the small distance at which Hawkeye allows him to be out of the fight. He smells good, Zoro notes. He gets completely puzzled when Mihawk raises his hands to the light.

“Show me your hands,” he says, and Zoro hesitates before doing so. “If you're going to act like an idiot, I'll kick you out of the room and never give you another chance to see what I want to show you. Compare what you see.”

Zoro frowns at the task and looks first at his hands, tanned and scratched, then at Mihawk's, pale as tiles and completely untouched by scars. This must be strange, given his fencing experience, but in the end it only confirms the elusiveness that helped Mihawk get his title. 

“Your mind is busy with wrong things. Focus,” the man slaps him down.

Zoro tries again. Mihawk's hands are bigger because the man himself is almost two heads taller than Zoro. His skin also seems softer. Zoro's knuckles have cracked more than once from the winds, sun and salt water, and he knows that his palms are rough and covered with calluses. He turns his hands over, and Mihawk does the same. He also has calluses, they’re unavoidable with their vocation, but that doesn't make his hands any less graceful. They are definitely still ordinary male hands, but Zoro sees how different they are from his own.

Mihawk bends down his fingers, and Zoro sees his nails. Trimmed and clean, without burrs and skin that Nami calls cuticles. Zoro looks at his nails, and they are almost indecent in comparison. He swallows before lowering his arms and looking up at Mihawk.

“So what? We are different, I can see that.”

“Have I become a lesser man in your eyes because I know how to use manicure supplies?”

Zoro hesitates. He usually doesn't care a bit what other people do with their appearance. He's pretty sure he saw the cook plucking his fancy eyebrows and teased him just to see how quickly he loses his temper. Other people's habits are none of his concern at all.

Zoro himself is another matter. And his role model too. Did Mihawk's achievements decrease just because he has soft skin on his hands and clean nails? Zoro admits that he would make himself a fool if he says yes, so he remains silent, and Mihawk continues.

“Look at yourself in the mirror.”

“I've already looked.”

“One more time. What do you see?”

Zoro feels stupid. He mumbles gloomily. “My fucking face.”

“You have earrings. Did you try to make yourself pretty with them?”

”Hell no,” Zoro replies sharply. His earrings are his symbol. His highlight, if you will, and he never considered them an accessory.

“What do you see in the mirror?” Mihawk emphatically repeats. Zoro remembers his warning. He's here for a reason, so he looks again.

His eye conveys all the severity even through reflection, and the furrowed brow looks messy. He never had thick eyebrows, but a lot of small hairs make them wider than they actually are. The skin on his forehead is already grazed by a fine wrinkle from constant frowning. He has a cut on his nose from a childish fight, but it has become almost invisible under the sun which often left a reddish tan on his skin. In the never eding twilight of Kuraigana his small scar became more noticeable, and is not sure about what he feels about it. It's as if he remembered something distant and insignificant but it touches his heart like a needle.

There is a trace of dirt or dust on his cheek from the room where he worked out today. Apparently, the shower didn't wash everything off. Lips, dry from constant licking and wind, are pursed into a thin line. No stubble visible, he takes good care of it. His hair is in disarray after drying out on its own, some strands are longer than others since he always cut them himself and didn’t always use a mirror for this.

“Do you see a man?” Mihawk asks, patiently watching him through the reflection all the while. Zoro nods. “Now look at me.”

Zoro puts aside his awkwardness and looks. Mihawk's face is slightly asymmetrical, it’s clear in the mirror. His skin is clean and there are nearly no wrinkles, except for a few under his eyes and on his forehead, almost the same as Zoro's but deeper. His black eyebrows are neatly styled and are nothing like Zoro’s wild bushes. Zoro looks more closely. Mihawk's eyelashes are long and black, but some of them are unusually glued together, and Zoro realizes that it's mascara. His eyes widen, but he doesn't say anything. As if hearing his thoughts, Mihawk blinks, and to his horror, Zoro sees a thin layer of dark shadows on his eyelids. All the time before he thought that Mihawk just had sunken eyes and a gloomy look, the new revelation stuns him.

“You’re… wearing makeup?” 

A taut string of Mihawk’s lips curves into a sharp smile. He walks away, leaving Zoro completely lost, and appears in front of him again with a small box in which Zoro sees things of the same shapes that he has seen several times in Nami and Robin’s room. He hardly knows what they're called but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the greatest swordsman in the world, the man Zoro reveres and respects, has a makeup bag. His jaw falls down.

Mihawk hums and snaps the box shut. Having put it down on a small table near the mirror, he turns to Zoro and folds his arms over his chest, looking down at him with his usual piercing, confident gaze. A look that brought the marines and many pirates to their knees, a look that is gracefully emphasized with makeup.

“Tell me, Roronoa, am I still a man despite the fact that I wear makeup?”

His very tone does not imply the possibility of a wrong answer, and Zoro admits that he has lost this battle. He closes his mouth and looks away. 

“Why do you need this?”

“What?”

“Beauty. You're already good enough just because you fight well.”

Mihawk looks at him closely. “Are you saying that a certain ability is all that people are? Don't you have a personality other than wielding swords?”

Zoro flushes as he realizes that Mihawk is right to ask him such questions. He avoids meeting his eyes.

“I don't want to wear makeup.”

“You don't have to,” Mihawk waves him off irritably. “I showed you this not because I want to waste my supplies on you. I show you this to make you understand that your masculinity or courage should not be based solely on your ability to fight and should not crumble at the prospect of simply taking care of yourself. You have to be yourself to the fullest in any state of the body, because the ego is not defined by neglecting one part of us for the sake of another.”

Zoro feels like he's been getting too many lessons from Mihawk lately that don't relate to fencing. It's not what he asked for, and it's certainly not what he's used to hearing, but he listens anyway. Not only because it's the worldview that led Mihawk to the status that Zoro was going to win back from him, but also because his words make sense. He may be stubborn, but he is a simple man and doesn't like to deny the evidence.

“Besides,” Mihawk continues, “you're a human being, and one day you might want to like someone. It's not necessary, but a pleasant appearance combined with decent handling of a sword plays into your hands.”

Zoro exhales softly. He takes a side look at himself in the mirror. Half of his face is bandaged, and when he takes off the gauze, his scar will be visible to the whole world. He doesn’t hate it, it was the result of his blunder which he successfully covered up with new successes.  

From the point of view Mihawk showed him, it would be an ugly sight. But Zoro wears the scar from Mihawk without hesitation. He can wear this scar with pride, too, if he proves that it was just a passing stage on his path.

It's inspiring, but his brain returns to Hawkeye's words. Has he ever wanted to please someone? With his skills, probably, but not with his appearance. Is he good-looking enough to please someone at all?

“I’m not handsome. No one ever commented on how I look,” he feels his neck flush.

Of course, there is an exception to his statement. The only person who constantly talked about his hair, face and bare torso. Zoro is afraid to think about the cook being in such a vulnerable position. What would he say if Zoro dressed himself up?

“It's not for me to decide how handsome you are,” Mihawk says indifferently. “But I've seen a lot of ugly creatures, and you're not one of them. If it starts bothering you, I think the ghost girl won't mind stitching your face any way you find beautiful.”

Zoro blinks, and the residue of fragility, so rare for him, evaporates. He looks incredulously at Mihawk, who stares back at him with his usual calm. His jokes are so similar to Robin's, Zoro thinks, but it's not the subtext that bothers him more, it's the fact that this man is actually capable of joking.

“I'll survive,” he says gloomily, already ready to leave. He hesitates before straightening his back and looks into Mihawk's all-seeing yellow eyes. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Mihawk simply replies. “I hope you will save this castle from whining about the fact that smelling good or washing dirt from under your nails is not manly enough.”

Zoro glares at him but the man has already turned away from him, and Zoro takes advantage of this to leave the mysterious dim room.

The next day, tweezers appear in the bathroom, and Zoro doesn't touch them for another week before attempting to work on his nails in the middle of the night. He does a good job with burrs but leaves the idea of cutting off the cuticle when he cuts himself for the third time. He washes the blood off his fingers and looks at himself in the mirror. He'll need to take off his bandage soon.

– – –

The winter months mean not only that all three inhabitants of the castle are forced to spend most of their time inside, but also that their already meager meals become even more repetitive. Mihawk periodically disappears from the island and reappears with bags on a boat, which Zoro is forced to carry to the kitchen while Perona's ghosts laugh teasingly all along the way to the castle.

He doesn’t complain. Mihawk has finally resumed personal training with him and Zoro is absorbing more knowledge than in all the previous six months. His scar is still pinkish but he has managed to master all the attacks that were unavailable to him due to poor coordination and has developed his Observation Haki. Recently Mihawk has been gradually and not too gently demanding that he combine Observation and Armament Haki. 

Because of the cold which Zoro tolerates normally but Mihawk clearly dislikes, their training has become quicker. If something doesn't work out fast enough for him, Mihawk says he doesn't want to waste time on manual labor and leaves. If Zoro gets distracted or annoyed by Perona's comments, Mihawk leaves in silence, which is especially awkward. 

When moments like this occur, Perona faces gruff cursing from Zoro and sticks her tongue out at him, saying that he is a real blockhead if he allows himself to blame her for his own mistakes. He would like to throw something heavy at her, but she prudently attends their training only in her ghost form, so Zoro knows that it is useless.

They don't complain about his smell anymore since Zoro really got into the habit of taking a regular shower – once every two days seems to be quite regular to him – and washing his face with more than just cool water. Perona tries to force the use of perfume on him but he doesn't want to let the smells distract him during the battle, and besides that they disappear anyway after an intense workout and even more so after a shower.

Despite the literal coldness of the castle and the natural detachment of two of the three residents, Zoro does not feel lonely. He's never been bothered by loneliness and has been doing great on his own when traveling before meeting Luffy, but he finds that he doesn't mind the company. He still doesn't try to talk to either Perona or Mihawk about some regular topics that sometimes pop into his head, but he doesn't leave when Perona asks to stay with her while she makes cupcakes or pies before dinner.

Recently such requests have decreased. Zoro realizes this when one morning, when he is going for a run along the forest, Hawkeye stops him.

“Where's the girl?” His voice is flat. 

Zoro blinks stupidly. “I don't know. Probably sleeping.”

He looks at Mihawk, expecting him to say something, but he remains silent. Zoro stares back. 

Perona, of course, was clearly an owl, but she had been disappearing into her room too often over the past few weeks. Less often she cooked desserts that Zoro was forced to try every time, not wanting the food to go to waste, and more often she left early after dinner, yawning and covering her mouth with her hand.

“Is she okay?” He sees Mihawk’s face and realizes that neither of them will get an answer to this question. Mostly because they never paid enough attention to the girl to ask. Deep down, Zoro feels a pang of shame.

“I think she might have become paler,” Mihawk admits distantly with detached confusion.

“We all became paler here,” Zoro reasonably notices and adjusts the swords on his side. “Maybe she’s having, you know, ‘these days’?”

Mihawk looks at Zoro as if there are clues to the female physiology written on him but he is not ready to receive this knowledge. “You had women in your crew. Is she?”

“I have never paid attention to that,” Zoro tries to defend himself, feeling awkward. 

Mihawk stares at him in silence for a few more seconds, then turns on his heel and heads down the stairs.

“Go check on her,” he says matter-of-factly, not even looking at Zoro as he disappears behind one of the arches.

“I’m not her babysitter!” Zoro shouts back. The echo of his voice is silenced along with his outburst of rebellion. He grumbles and walks back down the hallway, banging his swords and lamenting why he's the one who has to deal with this when Mihawk is the one who does nothing but read books and drink wine all day. 

Zoro finds Perona's room on the fourth attempt, using Haki as much as possible. He knocks on a tall wooden door and enters after hearing a quiet voice at the other side of the door. Perona is in her bed, surrounded by toys and pillows that she collected from all over the castle and sewed pillowcases from all the fabrics she found there.

“Oh, hi. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

She looks almost the same as usual, just without makeup and braids, no wounds or anything else that could be disturbing. Zoro ignores her sarcasm.

“Are you okay?” he asks directly.

Perona gives him a weird look, and her lips twitch. 

“Is that why you came to me? You thought I was feeling unwell but didn't even bring breakfast? Fool.”

It gets on Zoro's nerves, but he holds himself together. “Are you on your period?”

Perona's eyes widen, and she abruptly sits up and throws a pillow at him. 

“Mind your own business, you freak!”

Zoro easily throws the pillow aside, frowning. He enjoys this conversation even less than she does.

“Hawkeye and I thought that you've been looking weaker lately, this is why I'm asking. If you say it's okay, I'll leave.”

He doesn't know what it is that he said that makes Perona purse her lips so hard that they turn white, and outright anger reflects on her face.

“I’ve become weak?” She throws back the blanket to jump to her feet and probably threaten Zoro as usual by poking him with a long nail. “You and that sullen bastard, both of you think so much of yourself! Who taught you that it's polite to ask a girl such questions–”

She doesn't finish her tirade as she suddenly sways in place and sits back on the bed so as not to fall. There is a mixture of embarrassment and fatigue on her face, and he sighs after a pause.

“I just want to sleep.”

Zoro glances at the window and folds his arms. “It's almost noon, you've probably been sleeping all day.”

Her offended expression makes him grin the same way Perona's lips usually do when she teases him.

“I feel tired, can't I sleep?”

Zoro doesn't think that's typical of her. In fact, her condition is hardly typical for anyone, but he doesn't know much about medicine. He looks up at the ceiling.

“The doctor on my ship would tell you that it's unhealthy,” he thinks aloud. “But since you're saying that everything is fine, I'll just tell Mihawk that you're being lazy.”

“Say whatever you want!” Perona snaps back, but when Zoro turns to leave, she continues. “I know something's wrong, my hair is coming out every time I touch it, soon I'm going to have to wear an ugly buzzcut like you to hide the bald spots,” she looks genuinely upset as she says this. “This has never happened when I was on Thriller Bark.”

Zoro is by no means paranoid, but it would be unpleasant if Perona's condition suddenly turned out to be a symptom of some deadly disease, so he turns around and looks at her again, more seriously now.

“Did something change? I mean after you’ve gotten here from Thriller Bark.”

Perona looks at him like he's an idiot. “Naturally. I no longer have my army of servants, I have to constantly be around you and Hawkeye, two people with an allergy to fun and talks, I have nothing to do except sewing and baking. And we don't even have any normal products! I never complain to Hawkeye, but his cooking is so monotonous that I'm going to hunt humandrills soon!”

Zoro raises his eyebrows in surprise. Perona is clearly embellishing, she did complain about food several times, it just didn't really change anything. Zoro doubts Mihawk was actually listening to her back then.

Perona also doesn’t look too dejected so he could chalk it up to some kind of permanent sadness or missing Thriller Bark. Sure, she spent a few days crying about Moria and that pervert she considered a friend, but that was a long time ago and she's already recovered since then. Now she is just pale and tired and obviously suffering from dizziness.

He remembers everything he could have heard from Chopper.

“Maybe it's really about nutrition,” he suggests, repeating the words of the little deer from a conversation with the cook that Zoro overheard many months ago. “I heard a lot depends on it.”

“Then why are you two okay?”

“We're not the ones who lose our blood every month,” he replies. It makes sense but Perona looks furious again, and he rushes to save himself from another flying pillow. “I'm just saying that we can start with that. Hawkeye will listen to you if you ask him to change the meals a bit.”

Zoro says this because he is sure of it. He noticed a long time ago that Mihawk is more lenient towards Perona than towards him and deep down he thinks it's the right thing to do. After all, she wasn't here for daily intense workouts and she must have tried to avoid being alone in the cold castle as much as she could.

In response to his words, Perona just snorts and gets out of bed. She's still wearing her nightgown, and the first thing she does is go to the mirror, almost identical to the one in Mihawk's room but decorated with homemade bats and bows. She pulls a comb out of nowhere and gets down to business, untangling the wisps with her fingers.

“I don’t know what exactly to eat,” she admits. Her voice is calm now, and Zoro puts off the thought of leaving, instead leaning back against the door and folding his arms again. “I tried to make desserts but didn't notice any improvement. I don’t know how to treat diseases, Hogback has always been there for us in such cases. Do you have a doctor on your team?”

Zoro sees her looking disappointed at the wisps of pink hair left between her fingers and on the comb.

“Yes, Chopper. Maybe you've met him.”

“What does he look like?”

“Like a deer,” he says, and Perona gives him a curious look. “He was probably avoiding you. He doesn't really like getting into fights.”

“Hm,” she throws the comb on the bed and starts doing her hair. “You and your crazy friends better learn this from him. Especially the long-nosed one.”

Zoro smiles faintly, thinking of Usopp. “He can be interesting whenever he wants.”

Perona rolls her eyes, braiding one half of her hair into a long braid. The room is quiet for a few seconds, and then she speaks again.

“Tell me about your team.”

It's not a question, but her voice sounds strangely restrained. Zoro is not a master at detecting shades of emotion just by the tone and he pretends not to notice how her shoulder line has tightened too.

Previously, he would have been wary of such an interest in his friends, but now he knows Perona well enough to understand that she doesn’t enjoy real fights. She knows how to protect herself and how to cause a lot of trouble, she has a brave heart but she has no passion to fight. 

So he tells her about Luffy and Nami, Robin and Usopp, Franky and even Brooke, though she's already heard a lot about him. He even tells her about the cook, perhaps even more than about the others because somehow he constantly appears in the story. Zoro is hardly a talented storyteller and his descriptions are very dry, but he doesn't skimp on insults when it comes to the cook, spitting them out with a confident smirk.

He stops in the middle of a word when he sees Perona's strange look at him. She does her eyelashes, her face is too close to the mirror, but Zoro sees that she looks carefully at him through the reflection.

“What?” he asks, perhaps a little too sharply.

“Nothing,” she says simply and goes back to work. “You just know so much about him.”

“I don't know shit about him,” Zoro immediately retorts and frowns. It is not true. He knows as much about the cook as the others, that's his responsibility. Maybe he knows a little more, like how the cook smells, but that's solely because his cigarettes stink from the other side of the ship and all his clothes are probably soaked in the smell of oil from constantly browning vegetables. “Just that his eyebrows are great targets for the Marines' guns.”

Perona doesn't seem convinced. She puts down her mascara and picks up her lipstick. 

“He probably works hard to keep your crew healthy.”

“He's not a doctor. Chopper does this, remember?”

“You told me yourself that a lot depends on food. I've read a lot of books, in many of them cooks had to take care of the vitamins in the seafarers' food,” she suddenly stops, only her upper lip stands out red on her pale face. “What if I don't have enough vitamins?”

Zoro looks back at her sullenly. It's so easy for her. Zoro knows that they would barely escape scurvy if it hadn't been for the cook's cooking, and he had to admit that the cook was trying his best to please them all in terms of taste preferences. It's a huge job, Zoro knows because he's washed the dishes after their meals many times, and deep down he respects the cook for the dedication with which he provides them with everything they need so that they see Chopper as little as possible in his work role.

He watches Perona walk around the room, looking for her clothes and shoes, and the wrinkle between his eyebrows deepens.

He always took it for granted, but now he remembers that the cook really knew what each of the people on the ship loved. It was his job to keep this in mind, as it was Zoro's job to protect them at all costs, but he couldn't help but notice how easily the cook did it. The feeling in Zoro's chest is almost too much like admiration, and he's glad that Perona orders him out the door so she can change.

The corridor of the castle is colder than its rooms. He stands against the wall, staring gloomily into the darkness, where the candles in the candelabrum have burned out. Perona's words lead him to a disappointing but inevitable conclusion – the cook provided the entire crew with everything they needed so professionally that no one even noticed his labors. Or maybe it was just Zoro who didn't notice. The cook even adjusted the diet for him, and while everyone was getting a piece of sweet pie for dessert, a glass of yogurt flew into his face, not too sweet for his tongue and always delicious.

Slowly and inevitably, it dawns on him how much the cook cares about them all, including him. This makes him feel a strange warmth on his cheeks and near his ribs. 

Perona saves him from humiliation by his own thoughts as she leaves the room, clicking her heels, and looks at him with big black eyes.

“Have you had breakfast yet? I'm a little hungry.”

Zoro pulls away from the wall and follows her as she starts to move. “I've already eaten, and I have plans.”

“I was thinking of going to the library and looking for something about dizziness and sleepiness. Maybe I’ll find some recommendations.”

Perona starts her monologue out loud, and at some point Zoro stops paying attention to her. He has things to do, and they part ways when they walk down the stairs.

Later that day, sitting at the dining room table, Perona brags to him that for breakfast she ate warm pancakes, mysteriously standing on the kitchen countertop. Zoro glances at Mihawk, but he's busy calmly reading the newspaper and doesn't seem to be listening to them at all.

The next time Zoro drags sacks with food from the boat he notices that they are heavier than before, and then for lunch and dinner all three of them eat as much meat and vegetables as they haven't eaten in the six months they've lived on Kuraigana. 

This must be really good for health, because over time Perona becomes noticeably more animated, and Zoro notices that his shoulders have become wider. He knows whose merit it is, but expressing gratitude to Hawkeye through words seems strange, so he does what he’s used to do – washes the dishes after each meal, sometimes switching with Perona, and it seems that everyone is satisfied.

– – – 

It doesn't take too long for Zoro to almost completely forget that half of his face is split and re-stitched. He learns new ways with swords slowly but steadily and with confidence, although he still can't even touch a hair on Mihawk's head, no matter how hard he tries. The forest near their training field in front of the castle is felled by Zoro's constant flying strikes, and humandrills don't dare get close to them when they fight.

Surprisingly, the monkeys have become less violent. Not because they stopped repeating Zoro's techniques, sometimes covering one eye, but because they started watching Mihawk and Perona work peacefully in the garden. As soon as the frost turned to pleasant coolness and the wind became a little warmer, Mihawk, under the pretext of training, made Zoro single-handedly clear a large plot of land which then turned into a neatly fenced garden.

Zoro didn’t expect Mihawk to have a love of botany but he quickly realized that many of his ideas about the man did not correspond to reality in the end. He sees encyclopedias about plants and thin books with gardening tips in the library, and Perona happily circles among the rows when Mihawk, as usual gloomy, digs up the ground for beets.

Zoro is nearby, practicing his blows. He notices a bunch of humandrills in the undergrowth, their stupid eyes glued to Mihawk and Perona, and Zoro realizes that this kind of activity is probably new to the juveniles. He practices his most common attacks, focusing on technique and not wanting to disturb the animals who have finally seen peace.

He doesn't let himself get distracted when he hears Perona's voice.

“Hey, Zoro, do you like fruits or vegetables better?”

He glances at her and sees that she is holding some kind of a book of garden plants in her hands, the worn sun on the cover clearly signals that Kuraigana wasn’t yet all foggy and cloudy when it was written.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I've never seen fruit grow,” she shares aloud and picks up the bags of seeds that lie near the freshly dug garden bed.

“It's unlikely that we'll be able to grow them here so quickly,” Mihawk says dryly. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, and his shoes and fingers are stained with dirt. “Some berries may take root.”

This upsets Perona a little but she quickly remembers how much baking can be done with strawberries, and the serenity returns to her face. Mihawk tells her to water the ground, and she surprisingly agrees without indignation. Humandrills in the shade of trees spin and stamp their feet strangely, imitating the way Mihawk uses a shovel. Zoro catches himself almost smiling.

He focuses on his training again while Mihawk and Perona are working in the garden and talking quietly about something. He's surprised at how calm he feels.

Of course, he thinks about his crew, but this feeling is difficult to name or put into words, so all he can do is remember and believe that everything is fine with them. They're all strong, they're all trying for their captain, and there’s no need to worry about them.

He also knows that he is not the only one whose thoughts are occupied by people outside of Kuraigana. Later that day he sits in Perona's room because she asked him to keep her company, and he didn't care where to clean his swords. Zoro has already learned all of her favorite toys, and although he still refuses to greet them the way she does, he doesn’t resent if a smaller copy of Kumashi appears on his armchair.

“Do you think Hawkeye has any friends?” Perona asks. 

She is embroidering something, a white cloth on her lap, and she quickly pierces it with a needle. Zoro doesn't look up from Kitetsu's blade, checking for any nicks.

“He's not a very friendly guy.”

“You aren’t either.”

She doesn't say it as an insult, but as a simple fact that Zoro can't disagree with. He is well aware of his character and how hostile he can look, he just doesn't see the point in fixing it. Nevertheless, there is a hint of envy in Perona's words, the one does not arise from malice, but from a sincere desire to experience something that a person has never had.

He doesn't know how to react to this, so he doesn't say anything. Perona changes the color of the threads and continues, humming to herself some melody that Zoro has never heard. He rubs Shusui with the oil he borrowed from Mihawk and thinks about how he hasn't listened to music for so long. Brook appeared in their lives for such a short period, but they all quickly got used to the clear sounds of his violin. Zoro sighs through his nose.

His hands are covered in oil and he's wiping them on his trousers. “Do you think there's a radio here?” 

Perona, noticing this, grimaces. “We should ask Mihawk. I know he has a Den Den Mushi in his room, I heard him talking to someone. Maybe the radio is there too. Are you bored of sitting in silence all the time too?”

Zoro shrugs. “So he does have friends after all.”

Perona hums in agreement. “He writes letters to someone. Not very often, but I've seen him with a postal seagull a couple of times. I wonder who he's writing to.”

Zoro can hardly imagine a person who could keep up correspondence with Hawkeye long enough without losing their mind. Or it could have been business mail – after all, Mihawk was a warlord. Neither Zoro nor Perona are crazy enough to ask him directly.

“Why don't you write to your friends?” Perona asks, and Zoro feels suspicion rising in him.

“Why would you care?”

“Just asking. You're obviously worried about them, even that cook. His real name is Sanji, right? I saw the wanted flyer.”

At the mention of the cook's name, Zoro frowns even more and leans back in his chair.

“They don't write to me, I don't write to them.”

“How stupid. They don't know where you are.”

“I do not know where they are either,” Zoro raises an eyebrow.

“Ask Mihawk, he probably has connections.”

“No way, I won't bother him with such a small thing,” Zoro is almost indignant at such a suggestion.

“Why not? He wouldn't turn you down.”

Zoro stares at her. “Do you really think I’m the favourite one here?”

“I don’t think you’re the favourite one anywhere,” Perona teases him. “If he has someone to whom he writes, he will understand your desire.”

It sounds so reasonable and simple that Zoro almost forgets that the idea of writing letters had never occurred to him. He barely writes letters. It is so rare that he can't remember the last time he's done it, and he has his reasons.

“If you want, I'll help you,” Perona offers, and Zoro can tell by the enthusiasm in her voice that he's unlikely to be able to refuse. “If I had someone to write to, I would certainly do it. And I'd like to maybe talk to your friends at least.”

She smiles dreamily, raising her head to the ceiling, and Zoro admits without much pleasure that he doesn't want to upset her. 

So he finds himself seated at a small wooden table on which Perona's rubber bands and cosmetics are scattered, there’s a small pencil in his hands that she found in the kitchen countertop and brought to her room. His mind goes blank when she puts a piece of paper in front of him, slightly wrinkled at the edges, and hangs over his left shoulder so that he doesn't even see her. It's a little unnerving.

He has no idea who to write to or what to write. “So?”

“Let's decide who you want to write to.”

Zoro practically growls, feeling awkward. “I don’t know, it's your idea, you decide.”

He quickly realizes it was a mistake when he hears a giggle in his ear. “Then let's write to your cook! He will be delighted with your letter!”

She bursts out laughing, and Zoro thinks about never coming back to her room again, no matter how tearfully she begs him. 

“He’s not my cook, he’s a perverted idiot and nothing more. I’m sure all the women on his island are already done with him.”

“Maybe let's ask him about that,” Zoro doesn't see it but he hears Perona's smile, and there's too much schadenfreude in it for her to be innocent. “Start writing, ‘Dear Sanji…’”

Zoro turns to look at her so quickly that she has to jump back to avoid bumping his head. Fright appears in her eyes but passes when an annoying smile returns to her lips.

“Don't tell me what to write, since you're going to look over my shoulder," Zoro snaps. Who does she take him for?

“Okay,” she raises her hands in a conciliatory gesture and slowly comes closer to watch as Zoro begins to write.

“You know who this is, shitty cook. I feel bad for all the women wherever you are, they all deserve better than your dumb twirling around them…”

He writes slowly, he knows it. He hasn't held a pencil in his hands for a long time and he understands that the loss of an eye affects how smoothly the lines go. He can feel Perona getting more and more confused.

“Zoro,” she says, “you got half the letters mixed up.”

Here it is. No matter how hard Zoro tried, it didn't go away with age. Maybe it's because he didn't really put enough effort.

“I know,” everything is always right in his head, words are made up of sounds and add up to sentences. Before the piece of paper, however, he gets lost among the letters. 

He feels even more awkward than when he sat down at that damn table. Perona runs her finger over a couple of written sentences.

“Look, here you've swapped "o" and "e", and here you've put three "l". You know what, just tell me what you want to say and I'll write it down for you. But I'm not going to cross out what you've already written.”

She unceremoniously shoves him off the chair, and Zoro barely realizes what has happened as he is already seated on the soft feather of her bed, and Perona is in front of him, with her back to him and a pencil between her fingers. 

“Go on, I'm ready.”

Zoro looks at her suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

She turns over her shoulder to him, unimpressed. “What do you think? I'm helping you. And maybe I'm starting a correspondence, it's very interesting.”

Of course, she isn't just doing this out of sheer goodness. Zoro closes his eye to sigh softly and starts dictating. If Perona agreed to this, then it's not his problem how many times she has to cross out a word or phrase just because he doesn't know how to formulate it. After he stops talking, she writes something else, and then with a big smile she hands him a sheet of paper.

“I haven't said that much,” Zoro remarks, picking up the paper.

“I added a little bit of myself,” she sounds very pleased.

Zoro scowls at her and begins to read, slowly but carefully.

“You know who this is, shitty cook. I feel bad for all the women wherever you are, they all deserve better than your dumb twirling around them. I'm wondering how many people have already kicked your ass just for your terrible temper.

I haven't heard anything from the others. I hope they got nicer islands than mine, though I'm not complaining. I hope you're not having too much fun there because you because I want to have a good laugh at you when we meet. I won't say any names, but I have a good mentor, I don’t waste my time and train a lot to knock you down at our first meeting so that you don't think you can compete with me anymore.

I saw the news. It wasn't fair. 

If you don't write back it means that you let the sea monsters devour you on the way to the island, which is lame.

Z.

Hello! If you noticed that the handwriting at the beginning of the letter has changed, it's because of me, Perona. We've met before, and it wasn't a particularly good experience, but I'm here with your friend and his mentor, so I think we're doing better now. I've heard so much about you and your friends, are you really that annoying?

I also heard that you are a great cook, could you recommend me a recipe for strawberry pudding? Unfortunately, none of the two bastards I live with likes sweets. Of course, it's their loss, they hate having fun and enjoying the little things, but I'm sure I can cook something for them if I get advice from a professional.

Please write back as soon as possible!

P.”

Zoro finishes reading and decides that the letter is okay. There are almost no names, and no locations either. He hopes that the cook will understand that he is talking about Ace's death. He doesn't really like the way Perona spoke up for him about the cook's culinary skills, but he doesn't comment on it. Instead, he gives her the letter back.

“You know, he may well send you a whole canvas of declarations of love just because you asked him for a recipe. You might regret it.”

Perona looks back at him, folding the letter. “Why is that?”

“That's how he is. He chases every skirt like crazy.”

Zoro has never understood this behavior of the cook. It isn't even the obvious difference in their types – Sanji’s type doesn’t have a dick and balls – but the fact that he couldn't wrap his head around how any adult can chase someone like a lonely dog. Even the memory of it deepens the wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Really?” Perona says distantly and the next second she winces. “I don't want him to fall in love with me.”

“He won't fall in love. He'll just be annoying and overly refined, but no more. Unless, of course, you give him the green light.”

Perona's face turns into an even more bizarre grimace. “It must really annoy you.“

“That's not the word I would use,” Zoro agrees.

Finding Mihawk is not actually a difficult task. Unlike Perona, he is not inclined to wander around the castle and explore new rooms, so after several wrong turns and some shouts, they find him in the library. There's still some time before dinner, and he's immersed in some thick novel. When Zoro and Perona come in, he doesn't look up from his book, even though they all know he's noticed them. Zoro casts a questioning glance at Perona, and it takes her a second to shove the letter into his hands and push him forward.

Mihawk looks up at him, slightly irritated.

“I'm busy.”

“We know, but we have,” Zoro cuts himself off, “I have a small request. I've written a letter and I want to send it.”

Mihawk's eyes drop to the folded letter. They didn’t even make an envelope for it, Zoro realizes. Mihawk raises his eyebrow gracefully.

“What's it got to do with me?”

“I don’t know where this person is now,” Zoro says and holds up another glance from the yellow eyes with dignity. “I thought maybe you could help me figure it out.”

He feels his face getting warmer and he knows that Perona is peeking out from behind him. A traitor. Mihawk looks like he can't believe the audacity of such a request, but his voice is calm.

“To whom is this letter?”

Zoro only hesitates for a second. “To someone from my ship.”

“The one you used to fight with?”

It was a long time ago, but Zoro remembers their conversation as if it was yesterday. “Yes.”

A few more seconds pass, and Perona whispers to him in surprise, “You told him about your cook?” 

Zoro uses all his discipline not to turn around and tell her to shut her mouth. Finally, Mihawk moves and returns to reading the book.

“Leave it on the table.”

Zoro looks wary, and Mihawk, who seems to understand his concerns, frowns in annoyance.

“I'm not going to read your letters, Roronoa. Leave it here and get out or take it with you. Dinner will be ready in two hours.”

Finally, Zoro carefully puts the letter on the table, away from the almost empty glass of wine and the burning candle, and with a slight hint of anxiety decides to entrust Mihawk with this case. He didn't even ask who exactly to send the letter to, but Perona was loud enough in her boorishness that questions were probably unnecessary. 

Zoro doesn't understand why his neck and ears are so hot when he leaves the library.

– – – 

He's not sure if Mihawk sent his letter since the man doesn't give him any confirmation, and Zoro doesn't want to ask. Nothing would change if this letter just burned in the dining room fireplace while Zoro was sleeping or exercising outside. He feels a little sad at the thought, but he locks it so deep inside himself that it becomes easy to ignore.

That's why he's so surprised when one morning he wanders through the woods after training at the edge of the forest – the monkeys no longer bother him, they're too busy gardening – and sees a seagull flying over the trees with folded papers tied to its back. The fact that there is more than one letter makes him use all his Observation Haki skills to find a way to the castle. 

It takes a while, but he still gets to the gate fast enough to see a strange-looking seagull, too dark for an ordinary postal seagull, sitting on a large piece of broken wall and screaming loudly. It's strange that Mihawk didn't come out to meet it, usually he’s always the one to meet the bird.

Zoro approaches it and it descends onto a smaller stone so that he can untie the letters. He checks the initials on the envelopes – R.S. and S. – and doesn’t ask why a single bird brought letters from two different people. He is too intrigued by the fact that the cook seemed to have responded to understand the mail system that Hawkeye uses.

He's not going to look for Mihawk all over the castle for several reasons, including that bothering him in his own room seems like something Zoro might regret. Instead, he leaves a letter with unfamiliar initials on the dining room table and is just turning around to leave when he sees Perona.

“Good morning,” she says hoarsely.

She's wrapped up in her knitted blanket, her hair is pulled into an untidy bun, and she looks sickly as she walks past Zoro towards the kitchen. She doesn't even see the letter in Zoro's hands.

“Are you sick?”

The last time someone from Zoro's entourage was really sick, it was Nami and things couldn't have been worse. He looked back at Perona as she coughed, covering her mouth with her palm.

“It looks like,” she disappears behind the wall in the kitchen, and Zoro hears her pouring herself a glass of water. “I think I caught a cold, the weather this week is terrible.”

“Do you think you have a fever?”

Perona sighs and coughs again. “Probably. Yesterday Hawkeye and I were sitting in the library and I felt weird, so I went to bed. And today I woke up with a cough and a sore throat.”

Well, that was quite bad. As far as Zoro knows, there are no medicines in the castle, let alone any possible medicinal herbs on the island. Chopper would probably come up with something but Zoro's knowledge is limited and he can only frown when Perona walks past him again, now with a glass of water in her hand. She notices the envelopes and a dull curiosity appears on her tired face.

“What is this?”

“Mail. The cook answered. And the envelope on the table is for Hawkeye.”

Perona just nods and hobbles out of the dining room, she doesn't even have the strength to fake the joy of receiving an answer to the letter she was so eager to write. Zoro watches as the rustle of her blanket fades away – she leaves without saying a word more. She must really have a fever. 

And he doubts that a simple glass of water is a great helper for colds. He still has no idea where Mihawk is, so there's no one to ask for advice. He himself was extremely rarely ill. He hardly considers a runny nose or sore throat a problem, but he remembers Chopper’s words to drink a lot of water and inhale steam in this case. He looks into the kitchen and, after a moment's thought, leaves his envelope next to Mihawk's letter.

When Robin got sick, no one was really worried because Chopper said there was nothing serious about it. Robin was smiling and acting exactly the same as always and was completely healthy within a couple of days, but all the time before that the cook was running around her like a patrolman, offering chicken broth, chamomile tea and calendula decoction. Robin gratefully accepted everything he gave her, and Chopper happily clapped his hooves, approving of the cook's traditional medicine.

Zoro knows that there is a cellar in the castle, which Mihawk uses instead of a refrigerator. He doesn't know where he is, so it takes him about half an hour to walk around the entire area closest to the dining room and kitchen and finally find a wooden door in a dark corner of the kitchen, which he had never paid attention to before.

He barely knows how to distinguish types of raw meat and takes the only thing that reminds him of a bird's body, hoping that this is the right choice. Pots fall on him when he opens the cupboard near the stove, and he hisses, rubbing the top of his head. It's not the best start, and he thinks about how the cook puts up with it three or even four times every day. 

Zoro is as far from cooking as possible and he is only allowed to wash dishes in the galley. If he touches the stove on Sunny, the cook will chop off his hands before Zoro even realizes what happened. But now he has no choice, and he washes the potatoes he found on the bottom shelf of the cupboard. There's a lot of it, and he doesn't know how much it takes to cook enough soup for the pot he put on the stove.

Eventually, he gets it sorted out. The potatoes are peeled and sliced, far from being as perfect cubes as the cook knows how to make, but Zoro tried to make them the right size to make them comfortable to chew. Functionality is more important, he believes. He even finds onions, and he has heard that they are very good for the immune system. Of course, when someone is already sick there is no point in developing the immunity, yet he still cuts the whole head, squinting when his eye starts to water. How can the cook work so much with onions if they bring so much discomfort?

When the onion is sliced and set aside and the water is already boiling, Zoro realizes that the meat is too cold and a kitchen knife cannot cut it. He grits his teeth and does the first thing that comes to his mind – he forcefully cuts off half of the frozen body, deciding that no one needs a whole chicken in the soup, and douses the meat with boiling water from a pot. Now he needs to heat up the water again, and he's already done with the whole cooking thing.

The cook always made it so easy. He could chop vegetables, watch the boiling oil in the pan, control the level of dough rise in the oven, and drag Luffy away from the refrigerator all at the same time. Zoro knows this because he's watched him the few times he's stayed to take a nap in the galley before lunch or dinner. The rain was drumming outside the window, and he was relaxing, surrounded by warmth, the smell of cooking food and the measured tapping of a knife on a cutting board. He was at peace back then.

Now, half of his T-shirt is soaked from the tap water and his fingers are cold from butchering frozen meat. If Mihawk comes and sees what a mess his kitchen has become, Zoro is risking his head.

Nevertheless, he manages to chop the chicken into more or less even pieces and the water boils again, so he feels a certain degree of relief when he throws the chicken into the pot and puts the potatoes and onions there. In his opinion, it looks quite unappetizing, but this is his first soup in his life and he believes that he did at least tolerably. He will not tell the cook about this experience in the next letter.

Remembering the letter, he returns to the dining room, casting one last warning glance at the lidded brew. The envelopes are where he left them, so Hawkeye hasn't shown up yet. 

A letter with a single initial evokes more emotions in him than he expected. It seems that he really became more melancholic on the eternally foggy island in the company of two people with a passion for everything gothic. He keeps his face completely blank and opens the envelope. He's only seen the cook's handwriting once or twice in his life, but it's definitely him, with the tilt and the letters flowing into each other so that Zoro already knows he's going to be reading for a long time.

“Lovely Perona,

I am sorry that you have to deal with that moron and I sincerely hope you have more joy than disappointment in your life there. Of course, I remember you, and I have to say your power has made me laugh when your creepy ghosts flew over the dumbass’ chest! I’d love to see it again, although I can’t comprehend how you could find a common ground with him. I bet you torture him every day! 

Expressing your interest in baking is one of the best things your precious soul could show me, so I’ve made a small compilation of different recipes with strawberries and fruits in the other paper. I’d love to know the results of your efforts, women who cook win my heart in an instant. 

Now pardon me, I need to answer this idiot, too.

Fuck you, weed’s relative. I’m doing great despite living in literal hell and it’s more than you can ever withstand, so don’t even start to pick a fight over this. I’m enduring so much shit every day that your ass could never understand, and if you think you stand a chance against me after all this, you just prove your absolute absence of brain.

And what about your handwriting? Are you five years old and you can't write? Are you saying that you forced the beautiful Perona to take dictation? You're just as tough as ever. Take care of your head so that I can hit it hard when we meet.

The news was terrible. I hope everyone is in good places, I haven't received any mail either. Why did you suddenly decide to write to me? Did you miss me? Or were you worried about me? No need, I'm fine. I wasn't the one who got beaten up right before starting this journey. 

So if you have something to say, say it.

S.”

By the time Zoro finishes reading, his heart is beating strangely fast in his chest – he got too emotional about such a trifle. He leaves the paper on the table and goes to check the soup. 

The cook is safe. It's not that he is worried about him – Zoro would cut him in half if he heard this question in person – but it's good news. One problem less to think about. Even the numerous threats that the cook was able to fit into such a short text cause Zoro only relief. It's strange and unusual, and he puts it down to the fact that he just got so bored on Kuraigana that a simple letter entertains him so much.

The chicken is raw in the cut, although the potatoes are almost cooked, and after tasting the broth, Zoro realizes that he forgot the salt. There are only four ingredients and it has caused him so much trouble. Pouring a few pinches of salt into boiling water, he wonders how the cook survives with his urge to cook on his island. He said it was literal hell, does it mean he’s not allowed to cook? To Zoro's logic, heaven for the cook consists of two things – cooking and women. Therefore, hell is either a ban on visiting local cuisines, or the absence of women on the island. The latter would be so funny, and Zoro smiles while stirring the soup. 

He's still alone when he reads the letter a second time and tastes the soup again. This time everything seems to be okay. He folds up his letter and tucks behind his haramaki to take a bowl and pour his first self-made dish that doesn’t make him want to vomit into it. His stomach rumbles with hunger but he knows that Perona is feeling worse right now, so he puts the bowl and spoon on the tray and goes to her room.

The soup is almost cold when he finds her door, slightly annoyed by how the corridors have changed their location again. His hands are busy and he can't knock, so he chooses to shout.

“Hey! It’s Zoro! I'm coming in now!”

He waits a second, hears a hoarse cough, and opens the door with his elbow. Perona lies on the bed surrounded by pillows, two blankets pulled up to her nose, and she looks at Zoro with unhappy eyes when he enters the semi-darkness of her room. 

“Why didn't you open the curtains?” he asks, relying only on the candlelight from the hallway and the dim candelabrum on the wall to place the tray on her bedside table.

Perona doesn't answer, just looks at the warm soup and spoon in confusion, then looks at Zoro.

“Did you cook this?”

“Yeah.”

Perona looks at the soup again and blinks. “Is it edible?”

“I can bring it back to the kitchen if you don't want it.” 

“No need,” she replies calmly. Her face becomes unreadable. “Are you sure Mihawk didn’t force you?”

“I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon. The mail arrived and he didn't even come out to meet the bird.”

“Right, the mail,” Perona sits up in bed and takes the tray on her lap. “Will you tell me what your cook told you?”

“How many times I have to repeat, he's not mine,” Zoro tsks and plops down in an armchair near the bed. “He's acting like a jerk as usual. I brought you the letter.”

“Will you read it for me?” She asks, shoveling the first spoonful of soup into her mouth. Zoro hopes she doesn't start spitting it right away and is pleasantly surprised when she raises her eyebrows in amazement. “It's not perfect, there's not enough salt and spices and the potatoes are too soft. But it's much better than I expected. Thanks, Zoro.”

Her gratitude sounds so sincere that Zoro doesn't know how to respond. Does the cook feel such a surge of quiet pride every time someone thanks him for lunch? If Zoro's soup received a commendation, then the cook's dishes should at least be paid for. Zoro realizes that he doesn't remember ever praising the cook for the food. Of course he recognized his talent and skill, but he never thanked him for a full stomach.

Zoro has to admit that this is not exactly the kind of attitude that a cook deserves, but he doesn't understand why it began to bother him.

To distract himself, he takes out the letter and puts it on the bedside table. “Read it if you want. He answered you, too.”

“Really?” A spark of curiosity flashes in Perona's eyes, and although she clearly feels weak, she quickly finishes the soup, wincing at the pain in her throat, and grabs the letter. Zoro stares at the empty bowl.

“You know, you and him are quite alike,” Perona says after reading the letter. She leaves it on the table and, yawning, wraps herself in blankets again. “It's so obvious that you care about each other but you're too proud to admit it.”

Zoro takes the letter and stands up to take the tray. “I don't care about him. And he most likely hates me.”

Perona rolls her eyes, though it's barely visible behind her fluffed bangs. “Oh please. I can't believe you're that dumb,” she yawns again, then lets out a bad cough, and Zoro decides it's time to leave. “I don't want to get involved in your endless stream of mutual insults. Next time thank him for the recipes.”

Zoro turns to look at her at the door. “Do it yourself.”

“No,” she stirs in bed. “He's not as cute as I thought. I'll try to write to your doctor.”

She won't find friends like that if she chooses them only according to how cute they are, Zoro thinks, but doesn't say anything. Perona needs peace, and he still doesn't know if she has a fever. He's not Chopper and has already exceeded all his own expectations in the medical field, so he leaves her room in silence and returns to the kitchen.

He expects to see it empty, believing that Mihawk has decided to spend the day alone – he sometimes has such moments – and stops in surprise when he sees a tall figure in a white shirt standing near the table in the dining room and reading a letter.

“The mail arrived this morning,” Zoro says pointlessly, walking past Mihawk into the kitchen. “You weren't there, so I took it.”

Mihawk is still busy reading the letter but Zoro isn't waiting for an answer. He washes the dishes, then wipes them dry and puts the plate and spoon back in their places. The soup pot is covered with a lid. He doesn't remember covering it.

Mihawk looks up at him when Zoro returns to the dining room.

“Have you received a reply to your letter?” His voice is quieter than usual, and Zoro notices dark circles under his eyes. This time it's not eye shadow.

“Yes. It came with yours. Thanks for sending it.”

Mihawk doesn’t answer. The more Zoro looks, the more he notices, almost white skin is covered with a thin layer of sweat, usually pink lips look pale. Zoro doesn’t comment on this.

“Did Perona make the soup?” Mihawk asks.

“I did.”

If he is not hallucinating, surprise flashes in the yellow eyes. Mihawk slowly folds the letter and puts it in his pants pocket. “You didn't clean up the leftover chicken.”

Right. Zoro completely forgot about it, and Mihawk hates the mess in the kitchen. Zoro has no excuses, so he just waits for the verdict. It's never anything serious, and yet he's confused by Hawkeye's lack of reaction this time.

“Perona is sick,” he explains, watching warily as Mihawk slowly takes his place at the head of the table. He holds himself steady and calm, but Zoro sees a hint of unhealthy blush on his cheekbones. He remembers that Perona and Mihawk were in the library together yesterday, and adds two plus two. 

The greatest swordsman in the world got a cold from his guest – what a sensation. However, Zoro is not the kind of person to mock those he respects, with rare exceptions, so he decides that if Perona hasn't been poisoned by his soup, then it won't kill Mihawk either. 

Under Mihawk's gaze, Zoro goes into the kitchen and pours two bowls of soup. He's hungry too, after all. He also picks up the saltshaker and returns to the dining room. Mihawk's face is impenetrable as Zoro sets the bowl in front of him.

“Perona said it's a little bland, so here's the salt. I didn't find any spices.”

He sits down on a chair next to Mihawk, as always, but gets stopped. “Get away from me, you may get ill too.”

Zoro obeys in silence. The soup is really underdone, worse than Mihawk would have made and nothing compared to the cook's dishes, but it warms and saturates enough for Zoro to decide that this is a passable first attempt. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Mihawk adding a pinch of salt to the soup after the first spoonful and not commenting on the taste in any way. The blush on his cheeks is no longer so disturbing, although it is obvious that he still has a fever.

“You haven't been sick in a long time, have you?” Zoro asks, chewing on the chicken.

He knows this because it's clear to anyone that Mihawk doesn't look like a person who remembers what it's like to be ill. He has experienced terrible storms and all kinds of weather, and to fall victim to a simple infection from one of the two strangers on the island is a big surprise for him. The lack of medications only confirms this.

“Since I was your age,” Mihawk replies.

They fall silent, and Zoro suggests that Mihawk might feel physically uncomfortable talking. Zoro admires this man for the statuesque and graceful way he carries himself even with a fever. If Zoro was a random swordsman who got lost on Kuraigana in search of a duel with Mihawk, he wouldn't have noticed that something was wrong. A casual swordsman would probably run away from a single glance of the dangerous eyes of his world known opponent. 

Perona looked weak, but Mihawk just looks a little paler than usual. Anyway, Zoro realizes that they both will need his help for some time. It will take the great Hawkeye at least a day to overcome his fever, and Zoro knows from Chopper's lectures that peace is the best medicine. 

“Don't bother me today,” Mihawk says after Zoro has collected the dirty dishes and washed both plates and spoons. There's still soup left for one more meal for all three of them, and he tries to remember how regularly the cook gave it to Robin back then.

“There's still lunch and dinner ahead. Perona has a fever too, so you can both rely on me.”

That's a bold statement, Zoro knows. He's actually saying that he can provide them both with safety and food for a day, if not more, which can't help but be insulting to a swordsman of Hawkeye's level. However, the man just gets up from his seat and calmly walks past the waiting Zoro.

“If you cook something, leave it in the kitchen. You can take lunch to Perona, but don't bother me.”

Zoro nods. He would never suggest bringing food to Mihawk's room and he's glad Mihawk shares his reluctance. He's already thinking about midday sleep when he hears Mihawk's voice.

“Roronoa,” Zoro raises his head. “Thank you.”

And he leaves. Zoro would have felt a twinge of annoyance at this ostentatious pathos at any other time, but for some reason now he doesn't feel it at all, just the warmth in his chest and the way the cook's letter touches his skin under his haramaki. Once again, Zoro thinks about how much he learns on Kuraigana.

He writes an answering letter that evening.

“Hey, shitty eyebrows. Shut up about my handwriting, it’s just how I write.

Perona told me asked me to tell you she says thanks for the recipes. She also said you’re a filthy pervert and she doesn’t want to talk to you anymore. Both she and my teacher got ill today, so I’m playing you and making them something to eat. It’s okay.

I actually don’t know how the post bird seagull found you, I didn’t tell anyone your location, I don’t even know your location don’t even know where the fuck you are. My teacher dealt with it. 

Tell me what I can cook when someone is sick so that they won’t vomit and I won’t burn the kitchen. I only know about chicken soup because you made it for our friend I heard it could help. They drink water, and as there’s no medicine here I’m the nurse. It sucks, but it's an experience. Didn’t know that seeing people eating your food feels so nice. 

You said you’re going through hell. What, no pretty faces and long legs to drool over? Finally some restrain for your horny ass.

I know there are mistakes. Shut up. I’m waiting for the recipes.

Z.”

– – –

Zoro's life on Kuraigana is relatively peaceful. He found the pace Mihawk demanded, and began to leave the training field more and more often without being scratched by Kogatana or, when he was lucky, Yoru. Most of the time he still trains alone or carries all kinds of trash that Mihawk asks him to remove from his and Perona's garden. When the time has come to dig up a field of potatoes a few months after planting them, Zoro turns out to be the one carrying the canvas bags on his back while Perona and Mihawk watch over him, sipping carrot juice. 

They offered it to Zoro, too, but he quickly realized that such a drink was not for him. It is a surprise for him that Hawkeye is actually able to absorb anything other than endless bottles of red wine and an occasional glass of water after their workouts. 

“I've heard that carrots are good for eyesight,” he says once in the middle of the day while Perona tries to put a glass of juice in Zoro’s hands again. “You could use some.”

His face is completely unreadable but his voice is more teasing than mocking, and Zoro just winces. He isn't bothered by the jokes about his lost eye, he just never expected Mihawk to joke with him at all.

Zoro finds his place and settles in even if he knows he will leave eventually. There is a small stack of letters in his room, in the nightstand. Perona no longer takes part in their correspondence, but Mihawk starts sending three letters instead of regular two, so it seems like she’s finding new friends. She also decorates two white shirts that she found in a closet on the upper floors of the castle a long time ago and gives them to both of them. In Zoro's opinion, the modest weave of floral motifs with black thread is still much more ornate than anything he's ever worn, but at least his shirt doesn't have the ruffles, unlike Mihawk’s.

The cook finds out about it from the next letter and Zoro receives a predictably angry tirade about how Perona is a real talent, what a huge heart she has and how Zoro deserves only dirt from under her shoes. He also threatens him with violence if Zoro thinks to get rid of Perona's gift, and he doesn't need to know that he kept it. He can't think of a case where he would need such a fancy thing, but he also doesn't want to upset Perona, so he just thanks her for her work and carefully folds the shirt before hiding it in the same nightstand as the letters.

He strangely enjoys writing to the cook. It still takes him a lot of time and he constantly makes mistakes, but except for that one first letter the cook never mentioned his spelling or uneven lines again. He somehow understands every letter and takes every bait that Zoro leaves to irritate him. It makes him smile when he reads his answers. 

They discuss workouts, Haki, and people around them, avoiding calling names because none of them is sure how safe it is. Zoro learns that the cook rushes all over the island to find as many recipes as possible that will help their crew in the future. He doesn't share them with him, but he gives recommendations when Zoro asks and even when he doesn't.

In fact, their letters are so vague due to the fact that they cannot allow the interception of mail that they no longer have a choice but to talk about themselves. Therefore, the cook has to read about several varieties of tomatoes that Perona particularly liked and Mihawk’s ridiculous taste in music. A lone wolf with milky white skin and an unhealthy passion for black and burgundy likes to drink wine to the sound of a cello, how unexpected. 

Zoro walks to the castle after his afternoon workout, sweaty and thinking about what he can tell the cook in his next letter. The rare sun is shining in the sky, the dawn fog has already cleared, but the air is still cool, and the wind is chilling his bare back. He looks down at his feet and almost recoils in surprise when one of Perona's Negative Hollows floats out of the ground and laughs hysterically, almost worriedly.

“Shit!” He curses and looks around. “I fucking told you not to do this!”

No one answers him. The ghost's huge eyes stare straight at him, then it flies away, and when Zoro doesn’t follow, it turns to him to make an incomprehensible sound. Zoro arches one eyebrow, a habit he's pretty sure he picked up from Mihawk, and follows the ghost.

It leads him to a room on the third floor, which Perona has equipped for her own little atelier. There are fabrics, clothes, jewelry boxes and a button lying around, and Zoro is once again glad that he is rarely invited here. Perona stands near the window, casting a shadow on the floor of the room and looking at him with her deep black eyes.

“There's someone on the island,” she says, and her hollows laugh in agreement with her voice.

Zoro frowns. “Mihawk could have gone out for a walk.”

“I know what Mihawk looks like, you green jerk, it's not him. I was flying over the forest and saw someone making their way through the trees.” 

Zoro's shoulders tighten. They do not encounter outsiders here, with the rare exception of ships that were washed up on the shore and which immediately sailed away when the opportunity arose.

“Are you saying they're close?”

“Maybe? The second I saw them, I sent my ghost after you because I didn’t want you to stumble upon them in the woods.”

“Who do you take me for?” Zoro snaps but Perona looks unbothered. She reflects his posture.

“We don't know who it is.”

“I would figure it out.”

“Really.”

“Do you think whoever it is can handle my swords and then maybe your Negative Hollows? Perona, you're being silly.”

“No, I'm not being silly, because you're here now, and this someone is only five minutes from the castle. Let's go downstairs and meet our guest together before Mihawk gets mad.”

Zoro looks at her in confusion. It seems that what he initially mistook for fear was actually great curiosity. He almost forgot how much trouble Perona had caused them on Thriller Bark. Her body goes limp and falls onto a pile of fabrics near the window, then her identical ghost replica laughs happily as she flies past Zoro.

“It's been so long since I've used my Hollows on someone new! Imagine how it would offend me if you fought them alone!”

“So you just didn't want to miss the fun, huh?” Zoro hurries after her after a short pause, drawing his swords. Excitement, which he would never be able to confuse with anything, rises in his chest. Perona is right – someone new really could be entertaining.

They slow down closer to the entrance to the castle, and Zoro focuses on his Observation Haki, trying to find an unfamiliar figure in the forest, but it appears difficult to do behind such thick walls. The gates to the castle have been open since he returned from training. Zoro and Perona exchange glances.

“I'll fly up behind them and distract them, and you find shelter outside.”

She soars into the air with a couple of her ghosts and disappears, flying through the wall into the cool clearing in front of the castle. Zoro walks closer to the gate. There is still no one in front of him, Perona’s silhouette and her ghosts are receding by the second, and he looks outside to assess the situation. There is not a soul there and he goes out into the sun, squinting his one eye.

There is no sign of Perona or the intruder. Zoro frowns and moves forward, closer to the edge of the forest, simultaneously covering Shusui and Kitetsu with Armament Haki as much as his concentration allows. Finally, having completely stepped off the cobblestone path, he sees a tall man in the shadow making strange, inconsistent steps towards him. Negative Hollows circle around him but can’t make him kneel.

It's not good. Zoro became immune to Perona's power only after a thousand prayers to be crushed like a cockroach, and the only person who took the ghosts like a mere breeze was Mihawk. If this man is as strong as he is, Zoro and Perona might have to fight him seriously.

“This is ridiculous! Why are you laughing?!”

Already ready to attack, Zoro freezes. Perona doesn't sound in danger or injured, the shrill notes in her voice just express an extreme degree of irritation. A second later, he hears the reason for her anger, too – a bubbly, sincere laugh coming from the silhouette that Zoro can now see even without Haki. 

“What kind of fruit is this? I've heard about your ghost friends, but no one’s told me what they can do,” the man holds his chest as if he's in pain from Perona's multiple attacks, and yet there is a smile on his face and he looks up at the girl, who’s red with rage.

Zoro feels like he's seen this man somewhere. He decides not to guess.

“Hey, you!” He shouts and prepares to attack again. Haki spreads across his swords and Wado hums in its scabbard. “What are you doing here?”

The man slows down and looks at Zoro. He doesn’t seem surprised by the hostility at all, and his eyes widen when he sees Zoro's swords ready to slice him to pieces. He continues walking with the same joyful smile.

“You’ve learned Armament Haki yet? Well done,” he's too close, and Zoro glares, ready to spring, but Perona sends three of her ghosts at the stranger again — a deadly bolt of sadness, as Zoro knows. The man only bends slightly, a thin wrinkle appears between his eyebrows. “Oh. You're strong, Perona. Did Moria teach you that?”

“Stop throwing names around like you're so cool!” Perona screams as her Hollows float up to her in frustration.

The man finally raises his hand and giggles awkwardly, looking from Zoro to Perona above him. At first, it's unclear what this gesture means, but then Zoro sees that the man's other sleeve is empty, and a long black cloak covers the absence of it. Zoro blinks.

“I admit, maybe I wanted to brag a little in front of you. But I said all things right, didn't I? You two are bragging too, meeting me and already showing me all your tricks.”

Zoro looks more closely. The man has red hair, a tanned face and a sword on his right side, but most importantly, three old sun-hardened scars cross his left eye. 

He recognizes him. A living legend who stopped the war by just appearing, the man who gave rise to Luffy's idea of becoming a pirate, a yonko, equal in strength to Mihawk himself even without one arm, stands in a clearing and laughs in the face of two threats. Zoro lowers his swords, his mouth opens involuntarily.

“You're Red-Haired Shanks,” it's not even a question, but Shanks nods anyway.

“So you know me after all,” he says in a pleased voice. “Did Luffy tell you about me?”

“I knew about you before Luffy,” Zoro mutters, still slightly shocked by who their sudden guest is.

“Wait, so you’re the one who Hawkeye has been writing to?” Perona asks and goes down. Ghost heads peek curiously over her shoulders.

Shanks looks slightly embarrassed by the question. He laughs deeply, and there's so much good-natured confidence in that laugh that Zoro feels awkward about drawing his swords.

“I’m not sure if I’m allowed to answer that. Anyway, I was a frequent guest here even before you guys arrived,” he looks around, puts one hand on his belt, and takes a deep breath, his broad chest heaves, and Zoro notes that this man is Mihawk's equal even in height and physique. “Believe me or not, this is the first time I've seen the sun shining over Kuraigana. What else has changed here?”

Shanks goes forward, and Zoro doesn't move even when he walks past him. He gives off a strange aura, as if his whole being screams about the power that is contained in this body and boils there like magma. Zoro follows, exchanging a glance with Perona.

“Have you laid out a garden here?” Shanks puts his hand like a visor and peers away from the castle, to where the ground is darker, dug up, and there are no weeds. He immediately turns there. “No way, now it's a real resort! Whose idea was this?”

He looks over his shoulder at them, smiling slyly, and the rays of the sun play in his dirty red hair. Zoro is mesmerized by this man almost as much as he was mesmerized by Mihawk from the first moment he saw him in the newspaper. But if Mihawk was a cold and forbidding moon, Shanks is more like an overpowering, fire-breathing sun. Zoro sees why it was this man who inspired Luffy to become a pirate.

His admiration must not have shown in his eye, as Shanks acts scared when he looks at him. “Take it easy, Zoro, I was just asking.”

“It was Mihawk's idea,” Perona replies. She floats over the ground, studying Shanks with an attentive gaze. There are obviously some calculations going on in her smart head, but so far she has been silent about them. “Zoro and I just help.”

Zoro gives her a sidelong glance. “I’m the only one who just helps, don't try to shift the blame for half the spoiled potatoes off yourself onto Hawkeye. He told you not to overdo it.”

Shanks' eyes sparkle with curiosity. “What did you do?” 

Perona is silent. When they stop in front of a small garden where strawberries grow in rows, she is still sulking, so Zoro responds for her.

“She poured over several rows of potatoes, literally caused a little flood,” he casually waves his hand at a potato field a little further away. “Hawkeye told her that there’s no point to water things when the ground is already wet after the rain, but she didn't listen.”

“When I checked, the ground was already dry,” Perona replies matter-of-factly and twirls her pigtail in her fingers. She probably regrets that she didn't bring her favorite umbrella with her.

Shanks looks at them both with such joy that Zoro gets scared that he lowered his guard too soon and the man is actually crazy. 

“Hawkeye is gardening with you, that's the news!” He pauses to look for a crate that they usually use as a place to temporarily rest, and sits on it. “Tell me more about him. Has he cooked for you yet?”

Zoro crosses his arms, and now Perona answers. Her arms are folded too, and Shanks looks absolutely delighted by the resemblance between them.

“We all cook for each other sometimes, Mihawk more often than us. Although I make desserts,” her eyes suddenly light up and she excitedly leans closer to Shanks. “Do you like desserts, Red-Haired?”

Shanks, a little taken aback by such assertiveness, smiles in surprise. “I guess? Do you?”

“Obviously,” Perona straightens up, pleased. “I'll make you a pie if you stay here tonight.”

Shanks' eyes widen. “Does he really let you run his kitchen? I tried several times, and each time I was kicked out of there in disgrace.”

“It's because you're even more of a fire hazard than Roronoa,” a cold voice says from behind them. “I see you've already met everyone.”

Zoro turns around and sees Mihawk, standing a few meters away from them, looking at their small company from under the brim of his hat, his arms folded over his chest. It’s just silly how much manners they started to share.

“You were late, what else was I supposed to do?” Shanks slaps his knee and stands up, smiling broadly at Mihawk. “Your kids almost killed me.”

“They should have tried harder,” Mihawk says indifferently and turns to return to the castle, completely ignoring the word that Shanks used for Zoro and Perona. “Perona, help me set the table.”

“Why me?”

“Because these two stink. Again.”

And that was the end of the conversation. After all, Mihawk is in charge of this island, and Zoro has no choice but to take a shower if he wants to be allowed into the dining room. And he really wants to — it’s the first time in his life that he sees the man he has heard so much about, and the man also treats Hawkeye so informally that it can’t help but be interesting.

His curiosity turns to confusion when he arrives at the dining room before Shanks, sees four plates, no Perona, and Mihawk in a shirt she made especially for him. Most of the buttons are undone as usual, and if Zoro looks closely, he can notice a slight make-up on Mihawk. It’s not news, but combined, it makes Zoro frown slightly.

“Is it a special date today?” He asks, and Mihawk looks up at him. Yes, there are definitely a little more eyeshadows on him than usual. He looks elegant.

“No.”

”You look more dressed up than usual,” Zoro squints his eye. “You were talking about Shanks when you mentioned your friend that lost his arm and then recovered on his own, weren’t you?”

Mihawk pauses. “I was. Maybe you two have something to talk about.”

Zoro shakes his head and takes his seat. “There's nothing to talk about. I recovered on my own, I don't need his advice.”

Mihawk's gaze becomes more attentive and he crosses one leg over the other. “He's older and has more experience.”

“If I need advice on how to handle a sword, I'll ask you. I do not know him,” Zoro replies firmly.

Another pause. They hear Perona's heels tapping on the stairs, and the steam from the plates fills the room with a wonderful smell.

“He would be happy to help you if you ask. It's not just about swords.”

A strange feeling hangs in the air, and Zoro feels like he misses something important. 

“What else is it about?”

“Who do you think found out where to send your letters?”

Zoro's eye widens for a second, but he immediately pulls himself together. He is not thrilled that someone else knows that he’s been writing letters. Moreover, it seems that Shanks knows exactly where to send the letters, which means that he is aware of the cook's location. This puts them both at risk, but Zoro tries to dismiss these thoughts. The cook is not a weakling, he can protect himself. 

Zoro also has to remind himself that the person who is currently sitting in front of him and happily eating dinner is a yonko. He listens with interest to Perona's stories about Thriller Bark and teases Mihawk when she brags about embroidering the shirt that the man is wearing. Shanks must hate the government, otherwise Mihawk wouldn't have let him get so close to him.

Sure, Mihawk still looks annoyed, it is probably the emotion he was born with, but despite the permanent eye-rolling, he still pushes the salt shaker closer to Shanks when he can't reach it and pours him a glass of carrot juice for the same reason he made Zoro drink it. Because it's good for one’s health.

Something in Zoro's chest warms when he realizes that this is familiar to him. He knows all about healthy food because it was what the cook used to give him. Everything Zoro ate on the ship was perfectly prepared, and if something didn't seem spicy or salty enough, the right bottle would immediately fly into his face, he didn’t even have time to voice his request. As strange as it might be to admit it, he and the cook often understood each other without words.

Of course, compared to the cook, Mihawk is more patient. If Zoro and the cook had been in the dining room, the fight would have started half an hour ago, and the cut pieces of the tablecloth would already be smoldering on the stone floor. Shanks teases and laughs, but Mihawk is silent. He says something from time to time, but Zoro doesn't listen. He only knows that there isn’t any more violence in their relationship, they seem to have overgrown it.

Zoro finishes his second course, ignoring the white noise of voices in the room. He wouldn't want to give up fighting with the cook. It brought him great pleasure when the cook wasn't acting like an idiot in a serious moment. Will they ever be able to fight not only to let their emotions out? By agreement? Zoro admits that it can be enjoyable, but only when they get old, become as stern and mature as the two men at the table.

Mihawk must miss Shanks when he leaves. Does Zoro miss the cook?

His face quickly turns red, and just at that moment Perona looks at him.

“Are you all right? Do you have a fever?”

Two more pairs of eyes immediately turn to him. Zoro looks from one to another. Finally, he says stiffly, “I’m okay. Just got a little distracted.”

“Yeah, it happens,” Shanks says a little worriedly. “Are you sure you didn't choke on a pea or something?

Zoro glares at him. “I’m fine. Anyway I don’t think I’ve missed anything important.”

For some reason Shanks gets excited by this objectively rude answer. He turns to Mihawk and slaps his palm on the table.

“He’s just like you when you were his age!”

The same horror shows on Zoro and Mihawk’s faces. Mihawk, however, quickly becomes nonchalant again. He pours some for Shanks and then Perona too when she puts her glass closer to him.

“You didn’t know me when I was his age.”

“Right,” Shanks’ eyes glow when he looks at wine poured to the top. “It only means you have been edgy for so long that I can’t even recall,” he takes a generous sip of wine, and Zoro casts a sour look at his own glass of water. “Ah, young blood. By the way Zoro, who’s that person you’re writing letters to? Your special friend?”

There’s a clear hint in Shanks’ voice and Zoro feels like a trapped hare, the feeling he prefers to burn down at the very start of it. He stares back long enough to make Perona laugh. Shanks glances at Mihawk.

“The boy isn’t really into jokes, is he?”

“This is a dumb joke,” Zoro snaps as Mihawk shrugs next to him. “I don’t ask questions about your letters!”

Mihawk's expression changes instantly, and even Perona becomes quieter, but Shanks doesn't seem to notice. He's still playful and Zoro has no doubt that the wine plays a role in this, but his gaze becomes more serious.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have guessed things,” he says and it sounds genuine. Then gets up from the table. “Actually, I think I want to explore the castle. I'm sure you all have changed a lot here, am I right, Hawkeye?”

Mihawk looks as distant as possible when he turns away from Zoro and looks up at Shanks. 

“We need to clear the dishes first. You and I will get on with it.”

He doesn't look at Zoro or Perona when he says this, but his words sound like a clear order for them to get out of the dining room. It looks like Zoro has ruined everyone's mood, but he can’t bring himself to care. His heart is pounding strangely and the blush on his cheeks has been there for too long. He mutters a short thank you and leaves the room to get some sleep and clear his head of all the mess it has become.

There is a pen and a small stack of paper on the table in his room. Zoro thinks about writing a letter to the cook, but realizes that he can't tell him anything that's on his mind without feeling embarrassed. “Hey cook, Mihawk had a guest today and was so incredibly attentive with him that it reminded me of you and me when you serve the table on the ship” – Zoro would rather kill himself than put it into real words on paper sent to the cook. 

Zoro sits down on the cold bed and takes off his boots. He knows that he and the cook don't really hate each other. It was clear from the letters and the attitude that Zoro simply ignored because of the incredible pain in the ass that the cook was. They were friends, he could admit it in his head. Mihawk told him that he considered the one-armed swordsman whom he refused to fight a long time ago to be his friend.

If a man like Mihawk can show that he missed his friend, then what's stopping Zoro?

He knows the answer: basically, missing someone means having a weak spot and constantly being distracted by the desire to see the other person. Zoro would like to see their whole crew again, Luffy, Nami, Usopp and all the rest. But he felt that it was a different deal, it didn't make him frown and think over his actions in advance. 

The pen and paper on the table must have a magnetic effect as they inevitably attract Zoro's attention. Another reason why he can't write a letter to the cook is because it will have to be taken to Mihawk, and then it will get to Shanks, and Zoro isn't in the mood to do all that right now.

Shanks leaves on the next day but promises to return. His hair is messy and he smiles widely, waving goodbye to them, and Zoro feels a little bad that he reacted like a child to a simple tease from such a kind person. 

He stops writing letters, pushes his doubts and feelings as deep into himself as possible and trains without a break. His shoulders become even wider, he confidently covers his swords with Armament Haki and the fights with Hawkeye become more intense. He sees Yoru more often than before, although it is clear that Mihawk still doesn’t make any effort and wins anyway.

If Mihawk gives him a strange look when Zoro receives two letters in a row, he doesn't show it.

In the darkness of his room, sitting on the windowsill, Zoro brings the most recent letter closer to his face to make out the letters on a rare moonlit night.

“You piece of brainless moss, I just hope your dumb ass lost the letter on the way and not that you forgot to answer me. Or died. If you died, it would be so pathetic, I don’t even want to think about it. So embarrassing. 

And if you are just done with me, then, first of all, fuck you, and second of all, don’t be a child and tell me that in my face. Not a single psychic could read your stupid mind and I sure don’t want you to expect me to track your train of thought.

If your letter had actually just got lost on the way, then, I guess, some of the insults above can be softened. Not taken back, though, you deserve them all with your huge ego and two inches of gray matter inside your skull.

Recently I’ve learnt about the effect that broccoli has on cognitive processes, and as you definitely lack them, I’ll cook some for you when we’re back. Ironic, how green you both are. People here refer to you as “that one green idiot” when we talk and I never correct them. There are some good cooks here too and we’ll see if I bring them to call you 'that one broccoli idiot' instead.

It’s been more than a year, did you know this? I haven’t even realized. Don't flatter yourself that in the next few months I'll forget about the promise to kick your ass. In fact, be prepared.

And explain yourself.

S.”

Zoro finishes the letter and raises his eyes to the moon, a frown appears on his face. Seems like the cook misses him too, it’s nice to know. Zoro decides that this time he will write him back.

– – –

Zoro usually leaves the cook's letters in the silence and darkness of his room and doesn’t allow himself to think about them during the day. This is how he trains his discipline and so far he's doing a great job of it. Perona occasionally asks him how the cook is doing, and he briefly replies that everything is fine. Sometimes, when the cook asks him to say hi to Perona, Zoro just shows her the letters. 

There's nothing personal about them except the incessant nagging and insults, but Perona is already used to it, so every time she just rolls her eyes and hands him the letter back.

“I can sense his blue balls through the ink, this is not cute at all, this is actually very gross,” she tosses her loose hair from her shoulder behind her back. She changed her hairstyle and the crown disappeared from her head some time ago. “Tell him that I'm glad he's alive and thank him for the latest recipes he sent. The carrot cake was good.”

The carrot cake would have been really good if Perona hadn't gone overboard with the powdered sugar. Mihawk, however, seemed to like it. Judging by the way he elegantly wiped his moustache and lips with a napkin and dryly said that Perona's skills were getting much better, he was actually delighted.

Mihawk never asked Zoro about his letters, especially after the incident with Shanks. He always silently accepted them when Zoro brought a sealed envelope and just as silently left them on the table in the dining room when the answer came. They also never discussed it again, but what Zoro understood was the unspoken rule was “do whatever you want, but don't waste my time in training.”

That's exactly what Zoro is doing right now. He misses the target, which he hasn't done for a long time – since he lost his eye – and he feels a heat on the back of his neck. Mihawk's gaze is sharp and disapproving, and Zoro is glad that Perona doesn't see this shame, too busy flying around the forest with her ghosts.

“You're not focused, Roronoa,” Mihawk easily deflects all three of his swords with a single Kogatana movement. “If this is how you fight now, I don't understand how you dare to have so many unreasonable ambitions.”

He suddenly swings Kogatana again, expressing his annoyance, and Zoro feels a burning from the cut on his shoulder. Little cuts like that are barely a problem, they heal even without a scar, but it's humiliating. Zoro grits his teeth and fixes his stance. Sweat pours from his forehead onto the cold ground, and his overgrown bangs cover his only eye.

He received a letter from the cook this morning. As usual, full of insults and calls to a fight at the first meeting. It is left lying on the bed in his room, and yet it bothers his heart at the most inopportune time.

“You’re so fucking dumb it’s unbelievable, I am so sorry that Perona has to deal with you. I told you a thousand times that you don’t mix milk products with pickle, do you want to shit all over the castle? Let your teacher and Perona cook and don’t come close to the fridge, I clearly see that the alcohol wasn’t the reason for your stupidity.

Anyway, your letter was so ridiculous that I nearly choked on my dinner when I was reading it. Thanks for at least making me laugh. Here it's just as fucked up as it was. I've found a common language with a couple of people, but the rest bring me more fatigue than joy. 

About that leg wound, I already regret telling you about it. Don't take me for a weakling, it's already healed, and you anyway look worse with all your body literally torn and stitched together. You moldy orange, I'm surprised you say you wash. If you also have clean hands, I might reconsider my views on you, maybe even say thanks to your teacher.

Did you really start washing up like normal people? I remember how you scared everyone with your dirty face, and imagine, I used to blame it on your eyes. For a jerk like you, they're surprisingly clear. If you really gained more muscle, as you say, you can scare children twice as effectively, like a real demon. If it weren't for your gross personality and dirty mouth, who knows, maybe more people would like you.

Sometimes it seems to me that this island has a strange effect on me. I feel like a centipede has got up my ass and is forcing me to conform to the worldview of the local fools. If you were here, I'd die laughing if I saw them jumping on you.

Don't die there.

S.”

From the moment Zoro read it, he hasn't stopped blushing. He also doesn't understand why he's blushing. His heart is pounding like he's run a marathon, and he knows it's not because of sparring with Mihawk. He feels a heat on his cheeks, as if he has a fever from which he treated Perona and Hawkeye a few months ago, but he knows he's not sick.

The cook's words won't come out of his head. Did he really pay so much attention to notice his eyes? Did he look into his eyes long enough to tell that they were, as he said, clear? Did he think about them when he saw Zoro scaring the townspeople away?

Zoro knows the cook’s eyes. It goes without saying. They're blue, everyone on the ship knew that. Luffy and Usopp have brown eyes, and so does Nami. Zoro's train of thought stops when he realizes he can't remember such details about the others. It's okay. He has to protect their safety, not their eyes. 

Zoro didn’t tell the cook that he’d lost his own eye more than a year ago. There was no point, what would the cook say?

“Roronoa!” Mihawk calls him again, pulling him out of his head like he's stepping out of a warm room into an icy pool. In the next second, he attacks and Zoro barely has time to cross his swords in front of him so as not to get another cut. “This is inappropriate behaviour. Is that what I've been teaching you all this time?

”No,“ Zoro answers immediately and throws everything else out of his mind. Again. “I'm ready to continue.”

“No, you're not ready,” Mihawk cuts off, takes a step back and hangs Kogatana around his neck. He didn’t even break a sweat. “What makes you so distracted? You're not here at all.”

Zoro meets his stern gaze and realizes that he doesn't want to tell the truth. Even if he were, he doubts that Hawkeye would consider that a sufficient reason to act so irresponsibly in the training which Zoro begged for on his knees. Therefore, he chooses the option that seems most plausible to him. 

“Hair. They get in my eye.”

It still sounds pathetic, but at least it's not as pathetic as it could be. Mihawk looks at him coldly. 

“How do you think people with long hair fight? Don't bother me until you get your act together.”

Zoro watches him leave and realizes that Mihawk didn’t buy his words one bit. He looks up, clouds cover most of the air as usual. He doesn't see Perona and her ghosts.

He has an idea, but it's so tiny and so new to him that he almost throws it away when he returns to the castle and stands in front of the mirror in his bathroom. He has a blade from a razor and no comb, and his bangs have really grown too much. At any other time he wouldn’t have allowed himself to walk around like this and would have cut off his hair himself, but now he hesitates. He doesn't know how much time has passed since Mihawk left him in the middle of the lawn but he hopes that Perona has already returned to the castle. After all, lunch was coming soon and she wanted to make another sweet mash.

Mihawk told him that wanting to look nice is not embarrassing. Perona will agree to give him a nice hairstyle if he asks, if he says he doesn’t want hair strands of different lengths to stick out in different directions. It's a small step, Zoro understands, but he's not used to thinking about his appearance so carefully.

The cook turns out to have noticed how Zoro's eyes looked, and he definitely noticed how his hair looked. Zoro certainly wasn't going to put in as much effort as Mihawk with his makeup and sharpened nails, but a regular hairstyle wouldn't hurt, he decided.

He catches Perona as she flies down the hallway humming some melody. Her new skirt rustles when she notices him and stops abruptly, her pale hand clenching on the handle of the umbrella.

“Don't scare me like that!” she screams when she realizes who is standing in front of her. “Get out of the way.”

“Come with me.”

”I have my own things to do. I want to–”

“I know, but I'm asking you to come with me. It's important.”

Perona looks at him in such a way that it's immediately clear that she doesn't believe a single word he says. She lifts her chin, still floating in the air, and looks down at him.

“Is it?”

Zoro frowns. “Stop being so stubborn. I can’t ask Hawkeye that, so come with me.”

This arouses Perona's curiosity and, with a grunt, she silently flies through the wall into Zoro's room. Negative Hollows behind her immediately begin to grumble.

“It's so awful in here,” she whines. “Have you ever changed the bed linen?”

“I didn't call you here to investigate my room,“ Zoro huffs irritably and goes to the table mirror by the window. The blade is still between his fingers. Perona closes her mouth and looks in his direction in surprise.

“You have a mirror?”

“Yes? Is there a problem?”

Perona flies closer and looks at the reflection with him. Her eyes are really too round and he gives her a sidelong glance.

“It's actually the opposite. Maybe you're not such a terrible beast.”

“You and the cook are so similar in some ways, it makes me sick,” Zoro mutters. He puts the mirror on the table and sits down in front of it. The chair creaks on the stone floor. “Give me a proper haircut.”

He puts the blade on the table and glares at Perona, suppressing a quiet uncertainty. This is new to him.

Judging by Perona's dumbfounded face, for her too. She looks from Zoro to the blade and back to the mirror, and her face contorts.

“I’d laugh at you if I didn't know that you're probably feeling really awkward right now, but Zoro, you know that you need scissors for a haircut, right?”

She scolds him, ignoring his angry mutterings in his own defense, and disappears from the room for a minute to get a pair of scissors. When she returns, flicking them in as a threat, she is still wailing.

“You boys are such dorks. Tell me the truth, did Mihawk put you up to it? Or Sanji did?”

Both, Zoro thinks and bites the inner side of his cheek. Perona stands behind him, and he sees her curious gaze through the mirror.

“It just distracts me during fights,” he says in a restrained voice, and Perona predictably lets out an exhausted groan.

“I don't believe it. You know what? Keep your secrets, I'll find out sooner or later anyway,” the ghost over her shoulder laughs approvingly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Do you remember what I was like when I got here?”

“Dirty, smelly and rabid? I remember.”

Zoro ignores her taunt. “I need normal short hair, a buzzcut. Just make it neat, that's it.”

His voice is firm, and despite his doubts nothing terrible happens when he voices his desire. Perona nods, running her fingers through his hair to evaluate the starting point and shakes her head.

“I won’t manage to make a princess out of you,” she murmurs to herself, then looks up at Zoro's reflection in the mirror and he already knows that nothing good can come out of her mouth. “Tell me, what did Sanji tell you? And don't lie to me, I'll find out anyway if I want to.”

“You like to mind other people’s business, don't you?” He asks in a deliberately low voice. This doesn't scare Perona in the least, and she gets down to business, tilting his head with a light press to his temple. “He said he got hurt in his last letter. Said he was running through the woods and it seems like the branches cut his leg a little or something. I asked about the wound but he just swore at me. And this is his thanks for the concern.”

Zoro frowns at his reflection. He feels the hairs falling on his shoulders and sees Perona's focused face. His own lips are pressed tightly together. The cook was right, he really doesn't look friendly.

“He also said something about my eyes,” he says, and it sounds terribly awkward to him. He doesn't want Perona to see his blush, but she doesn't seem to be particularly surprised by his words. “He doesn’t know that I’ve lost one.”

There’s a pause, then Perona moves his head again and asks.

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

Zoro doesn't have a definite answer to this question. “Didn’t see what would change if I did.”

“He told you about his leg,” she says, and Zoro stares at her in silence. “And you were worried about him. Do you think he'll be upset if you tell him?”

“He'll find out anyway. It's just that it's probably going to be an unpleasant surprise, since he said my eyes aren't that bad.”

Perona straightens up behind him and appraises him in the reflection. “You really have nice eyes. Eye. It’s not something extraordinary, of course, but it's quite normal.”

“He never said anything about how extraordinary it is,” Zoro glares again. Perona returns to work, the scissors clicking on the back of his head. 

“It's just that you pay so much attention to it,” Perona comments calmly, and Zoro feels the strange feeling that made his heart beat unevenly this morning come back. “What else did he say?”

“Called me a demon.”

She laughs quietly. “Coming from him, it’s almost a compliment.”

Now it’s Zoro’s turn to laugh dryly. “He wouldn't have complimented me even if his life depended on it. He would never comment on a man's appearance in a positive way. Although he also said that the island has a strange effect on him. Who knows, maybe in a few months I'll see a completely different person.”

“What a joker you are,” Perona clicks her tongue and tilts his head to the shoulder. “Look at you, not only did you ask me to cut your hair, you also told me to do it neatly. Not even mentioning how you began to fight. You've changed so much and you think your cook hasn't?” With the next snap of scissors she almost cuts his ear, Zoro sees in the reflection. “Sorry. Maybe something will come out of this.”

She gestures for him to turn around to face her, and when he does, she is met only by the doubtful gaze of a single gray eye.

“What do you mean?” He asks. It's uncomfortable to look at her face when she's working with his bangs, and her cleavage is right in front of him, so he closes his eye.

“Both of you will have changed by the time you meet again, so maybe you two will be just fine together. Maybe you'll have a chance.”

Zoro feels like in a fog. “Chance to what?”

She backs up to look at him attentively, and they stare at each other for a few seconds, and then her eyebrows go up.

“Oh. So you’re not there yet.”

“Where?” Zoro starts getting annoyed by not getting a single thing she says. As if wanting to make him suffer, she keeps silent. “What are you talking about?”

She exhales heavily and continues to cut his hair. It takes her a little more time, then she runs her hand over his head and, satisfied with the result, hides the scissors in a small purse on her side. When she speaks, her tone is tense.

“Zoro, don't tell me you haven't realized yet that you have feelings for this guy.”

It feels like a gong has just sounded in his head and the echo fills his ears. Time slows down as he digests the information, and the thought flashes through his mind of how stupid it was to answer Perona's questions about the cook in the first place. 

“No.”

Perona's face expresses a strange mixture of several conflicting emotions at once, and he sees that she is also not happy with the direction the conversation has taken.

“What do you mean, no? You keep talking about him when you talk about your crew, he sends you recipes of his dishes and you really cook them,” she lists. “He's the only one you write to, and you even talked to Mihawk about him! Zoro, you remembered what he said about your eyes! For so long, you didn't care what Hawkeye and I told you about your appearance, but once Sanji did that, you're already asking me to give you a pretty haircut!”

Zoro looks at her in silence. He has nothing to say to that but he knows she's wrong about something. She must be wrong about something, otherwise Zoro would be fucked. What kind of feelings is she talking about? His reaction to the cook was excessive from their first meeting, but that doesn't mean he felt anything for him from that day on. What are the criteria for these feelings?

A lot of questions are swarming through his head but he has no idea how to put at least one of them into words, so he only blinks stupidly. Seeing this, Perona throws up her hands.

“What else can I expect from you! Of course you're the last one who realized this! Even Mihawk saw that, even Shanks! And he's been here for less than a day.”

“Mihawk what?”

“Leave me alone, you're wearing me out,” Perona dusts off the few green hairs that got on her dress and turns away from him to fly towards her room. “Clean up your mess here and maybe think about my words. I don't know. It’s up to you.”

Zoro looks after her until she disappears into the stonework and then stares blankly at the bare wall for a few more seconds. He runs his hand through his hair. It has never been cut so nicely before. 

Perona called him out for not even understanding his feelings for the cook and said that everyone knows about them. Zoro's heart is no longer threatening to jump out of his chest but his head has turned into a real mess. So many thoughts and revelations about his own emotions feel so alien that he makes the easiest decision he can – he leaves everything as it is. If it's really something important, sooner or later everything will fall into place by itself. 

Zoro has never sorted out feelings and it isn’t the time for him to start. Blowing his hair off the table, he thinks about the fact that he has no idea where to find a broom.

– – –

Perona really never talks about it anymore. In fact, Zoro becomes so lonely in what Perona considered to be a whole enlightenment for him that he starts to think that the strange conversation between them never happened. 

He is firm in his beliefs and in his decisions, so he doesn’t pull all she said into pieces and doesn’t try to analyze it. He also hardly understands what feelings the letters he sends to the cook and receives back arouse in him. If asked, he would probably say that nothing really changed since that day when he had his hair cut.

Zoro knows for sure that he misses the cook as much as he misses all the members of his crew. He will never admit it, though, because then the cook will inevitably become conceited and so annoying that Zoro will have to ignore him for another month. He also starts to suspect that he might actually care for the stupid cook and his stupid eyebrows.

It also fits quite naturally into the framework about the role he has assumed in the team.

He thinks about it, half-asleep, sitting in the warmth of the library late in the evening in the quiet company of all the inhabitants of the castle. He was going to put his feet up on the table and take a proper nap in an overstuffed chair, but Mihawk gave him a warning look and Zoro had to turn around and put his legs on the armrest instead. Wado, Shusui and Kitetsu are pressed against his chest and he hears Mihawk and Perona flipping through their books on either side of him. His eyes have been closed for a while, he curled up comfortably, and his breathing is even.

In the safety of his mind, Zoro dwells on the fact that he knows more about the cook than about the others. He also knows more about him than others do, and it would make him smirk if he wasn't feeling so lazy right now. He learned more details about the cook during their correspondence than during their entire adventurous journey that they had. Of course, he already saw that despite the horrible temperament, the cook had a kind and brave heart and actually knew how to be polite and pleasant, that he loved kids and that he was stubborn enough to never give in to Zoro in anything. Zoro likes that, likes their equality, too. He wouldn’t want to know so much about someone who could be weaker than him.

He wonders how the cook’s fighting skills have changed now that he's already spent a year and a half on an island full of people he had to run from without a break. He still hadn't revealed who exactly these people were, and Zoro had to admit that, despite his curiosity, it was wise not to reveal their location. Surely, after so many months of constant jogging, his legs must become stronger. He already knows how to set them on fire, and Zoro didn't even have time to ask him how it happened before their lives turned into a sequence of terrifying events and they found themselves separated.

Zoro has become taller and wider, so surely the cook has gained weight too. It would suit him. In Zoro's opinion, he was too thin, although graceful in his slimness. Mihawk, while being older and having more muscles, possesses the same grace and still looks very lean. If the cook ages like fine wine by forty, Zoro would love to see it.

The crease between his eyebrows smooths out and he feels someone covering him with a blanket. The footsteps as someone moves away from his chair are too heavy and steady for it to be Perona. He hears her sigh to his right.

“Why is he always so gloomy?” Her voice borders on a whisper. “He's sleeping, why be angry now?”

Mihawk's armchair rustles softly as he sits back down. “Maybe he's dreaming.”

“He's always like this. He only smiles like a madman when he cuts trees in the wood with his swords. You're both so sullen, it's sickening,” she complains, and Zoro tries his best not to give off a small satisfied smile. “Although I saw you smiling once.”

“It can't be.”

“It can! When Shanks was here.” 

There's a pause for a second, and Zoro barely breathes, waiting for Mihawk's answer. But Perona speaks again instead.

“But this is different, right?”

“Indeed.”

That's it. They both return to their books, and Zoro doesn't know how much time passes. Long enough that he doesn’t want to get out from under the warm blanket or even open his eyes to go to his room and go to sleep there. He's almost completely relaxed when he hears Perona's quiet voice.

“Listen, have you read this?” By the rustle of the pages, she's showing the cover of the book to Mihawk.

“Yes.”

“This is so bad, don't you think?”

“An ordinary romance novel.”

“You mean they're all like that?”

Zoro comes up with a great idea – he activates his Observation Haki and sees Mihawk shrug his shoulders slightly.

“More or less. Didn't you read a lot back on Thriller Bark?”

“I did, just not things like... this.”

Even with his eyes closed, Zoro can see the puzzled displeasure on her face. He's almost curious about which book they're talking about. Mihawk waits patiently for Perona to continue.

“I'm tired of reading about how they argue, then she gossips about him with her sisters, and he talks about her with his friends, and then they argue again,” Zoro sees Mihawk's silhouette raise a finger to his lips, because Perona has become louder in her indignation. She drops back to a whisper. “I've had enough arguments in my life, and I know it's a waste of energy.”

”In certain cases it’s not like that,” Mihawk replies shortly and calmly. 

“In what cases?”

Zoro is curious too. He suspects that Perona, like him, hardly often witnessed a normal romantic relationship.

“In this book, this woman is stronger and more stable than all the women around her, and it would be out of character for her to simply accept what her future love interest offers her.”

“It would be more logical to just tell him to shut up and leave,” argues Perona.

“Then you wouldn't have been reading this story. Which means she's interested in him after all. Engagement is not always about gifts and courtship. Read more carefully how she describes him to her sisters.”

Perona chuckles. “Basically, as an arrogant and rude snob.”

“She also says that he has a talent for riding a horse and that his hair has grown back since they first met.”

“She doesn't want to see him.”

“Really? Perona, read carefully, then you will get rid of half the stupid questions.”

Perona pouts, and Zoro doesn't need haki to know that. His breathing is steady and he hasn't moved an inch in his posture, but he feels his lazy thoughts about the cook merge with what he's heard about Perona's silly novel. It had been a long time since he had felt the blush on his neck and ears, but apparently fate favored him, since he hid in the shadows so that the other two people in the library could not see his skin getting pink.

Surely Perona couldn't have planned this conversation just for him to hear? She hadn't talked to him about the cook in weeks, hadn't even asked him to say hi. Everything told him that she’s lost her interest. 

Then it was a terribly blatant coincidence. The frown returned to Zoro's face. 

“I still don't understand how long this is going to last,” Perona mutters after a few more minutes. “Now he fishes her out at balls. Didn't he say that he despises her?”

Zoro hears Mihawk sigh softly and put down the book. He doesn’t use Observation Haki anymore, realizing there’s nothing to actually look at. “Do you really want to talk about it so much?”

“I just want to understand why it's being portrayed as great love. I know they're going to get together eventually, but I just don't understand why it has to be so difficult.”

“And how should it be instead?” Mihawk asks, and his voice is so soothing that Zoro would fall asleep if he wasn't so tense.

“My experience of what I've seen is hardly relevant,” Perona says. “Doctor Hogback, for example, put the soul of a random girl in the corpse of an actress he was in love with and forced her to serve him. Is this love?”

Silence rings in the air, and Zoro realizes that Mihawk is not at all impressed by the actions of his former colleague's henchmen.

“No,” he finally says. 

“What is love to you?” Perona asks, and it seems to Zoro that the air in the room has changed.

“This is a personal question, Perona,” Mihawk grows colder in his attitude.

“I don't need the details. You can just compare it using the example of this book. Actually, it's even better this way, I'll just find out the rest of the plot and not waste any time.”

There is a long pause. Is Mihawk in love? Or was he in love? It's such a wild thought that it almost makes Zoro feel hot. To love is to be vulnerable, everyone knows that. How could Mihawk be so sure in his strength if there was someone he couldn't take care of personally? Unless that person was already dead, Zoro can't imagine anyone who could be Mihawk's lover.

“Well, it means that sooner or later you will be better off together than separately,” Mihawk says shortly. Perona slowly flips through the pages of the book, biting her thumb.

“Even if you're completely different?”

“Not completely, of course. Complete opposites, contrary to the saying, do not attract. There should be a common view on some things.”

“And how is this different from friendship?”

“Love and friendship are not mutually exclusive, they must coexist, I think. It's about trust.”

Mihawk's every sentence causes irreparable damage to Zoro's mind. Firstly, all these words are so beautiful that Zoro is embarrassed to just listen to them. Secondly, the fact that Hawkeye himself speaks like that about someone is shocking enough. Thirdly, all of his words are completely consistent with what Zoro thinks of the cook, and it makes his stomach flip.

“She doesn't trust him yet,” Perona comments on her book. “And you?”

“What?”

“Do you trust him?”

“Absolutely.”

Zoro's frown deepens. Does Perona know who Mihawk is talking about? All this time she knew Mihawk's lover and didn't tell Zoro anything? It's so unlike her. He hears her close her book and put it on the armrest. Her dress rustles – she must have curled her legs under her.

“Do you miss him?”

“It happens.”

“Will he come again? While Zoro and I are still here?” Perona asks.

“Maybe. I don't think his visit was successful last time.”

Zoro tries to combine all the information he has heard. The only person who visited them during their year and a half on Kuraigana was no one but Shanks. If Zoro's eye was open, it would pop out of its socket. He makes a tremendous effort not to give away his reaction to the sudden news. And Perona talks about it so calmly?

“We can talk to Zoro. He's a stubborn jerk but he's not stupid,” Perona argues, and Zoro holds his breath when he realizes that she and Mihawk both turned to look at him. “Who knows what's in his head.”

Zoro almost expects her to tell Mihawk about the incident in his room, but she keeps silent and gets up to put the book back in its place. She yawns and stretches, snapping her spine.

“I'm going to sleep. “

“Go ahead, I want to finish the chapter,” Mihawk says indifferently. “I'll wake him up when I leave too.”

Her goodnight wish is drowned out by the sound of blood in Zoro's ears when he and Mihawk remain alone in the library. He expects the man to say that he knows that Zoro is awake, that Mihawk will start another long edifying dialogue with him, valuable as always, but Zoro is just not ready for a lecture at the moment. 

Mihawk is silent. For a minute, two, and more, there is no sound from him, and gradually Zoro relaxes his shoulders. A clear thought is forming in his head.

Hawkeye Mihawk, a powerful corsair and the strongest swordsman in the world, seemed to be deeply and mutually in love with the emperor of the sea, Red-haired Shanks, who stopped the war by simply appearing. This is quite unexpected and difficult news to digest. But the realization that follows hits Zoro even harder.

Mutual respect, strength, reliability and all the other big words he has had in his mind for so long and which he heard today lead him to one and only conclusion. He's in love with Sanji.

– – –

It turns out that Zoro's gloominess hardly plays a role in Shanks' decision whether to come to Kuraigana or not. This time, he even stays longer than for one or two dinners and on the third day the laughter of Shanks and Perona becomes more or less omnipresent in the usually quiet castle. 

Shanks is already in the kitchen when Zoro arrives for breakfast, sitting at the table next to Mihawk, leaning his single arm on the back of a chair and chatting incessantly. He smiles at Zoro, his teeth gleaming from the fact that Mihawk most likely makes him brush them twice a day. They probably don’t even kiss until Shanks does something with his bad breath in the morning. Zoro dismisses the thought as quickly as possible. His eyes shift from Shanks to Mihawk's back, who is putting food on plates.

“Roronoa.”

It's morning, and Zoro yawns on his way to his seat, but Mihawk's call makes him shut his mouth and scowl as he silently goes into the kitchen to pick up the plates. Mihawk usually doesn't make either him or Perona set the table, but the whole castle and probably even the humandrills know that the last few days are a special occasion.

The special occasion in question continues to smile broadly as he takes his plate. His happy presence in the room is almost overwhelming, and Zoro looks away when Perona appears and Shanks looks like he's about to physically light up.

It's amazing how Mihawk isn't the least bit bothered by this. His behavior is no different from usual, except for a little longer stern glances in Zoro's direction, but Zoro already knows his problem and tries not to accidentally glare at Shanks every time he gets lost in his thoughts.

He was thinking about approaching Shanks during one of his training sessions – the man spends an amazing amount of time outside, strolling past the beds with Perona, Hawkeye, or alone – and asking him to have a fight. His eyebrows immediately went up when it turned out that he wasn't the only one with such an idea and that Shanks actually didn't mind and was even ready to start first. Barely had they stood in front of each other as a wave of air flew between them lightning fast, and Mihawk, with a stern expression on his face, stopped them before they could even begin. 

The hint was clear, and if that upset Zoro, he didn't show it. Whether Mihawk was territorial or just didn't want to put any of them in danger – although, objectively speaking, Zoro hardly posed any danger to the yonko – remained a mystery. It all ended up with Shanks saying goodbye to Zoro with a smile and following Mihawk to the castle. Both of them were nowhere to be seen all day until dinner.

Zoro doesn’t think it’s weird to write one more letter to the cook that afternoon.

“Here, I’m compensating for that one time I didn’t write you back. Stop complaining about it in every second letter, curly moron.

My mentor has a guest. This is the second time this guy's visited us, and I didn't tell you about the first time because there wasn't much to say. But you know him, he's fucking strong and famous. I can't say the name. Maybe I'll tell you more when we meet, if you're curious.

He's also very nice to me, knows how to get out of any awkwardness. You would’ve yelled at me a few times already, and I’d have yelled back so that you wouldn't feel that you’re privileged or better or something. He's a terrible cook but my teacher doesn't complain. He even sets the table for him, can you imagine? It's strange to see my teacher so polite patient for someone who isn't me or Perona. She's fine, by the way, she gave me another shirt, and I'm not sure where to put it. I don't think she'd mind if I gave one to you.

This guest of ours also drinks like he has two spare livers. Every time I see him slurping swill, I think about the fact that I've actually been a teetotaler for almost two years. What are the advantages of this in general? Maybe there's less swelling, but what else do they say about it? Clearer mind? Better concentration? Stable erection? I didn’t suffer much when I was drinking, anyway. Wouldn’t call it pointless, but my mentor can be cruel a hypocrite when he wants, this is what I’m saying.

Just thought about telling you this, so shut up if you don’t like this letter. Write back.

Z.”

At dinner that evening, mashed potato with chicken tastes great, and when Zoro and Shanks both ask for more, Mihawk just waves them to the kitchen, this time not wanting to bother and serve them. Perona eats her meat contentedly, watching them while her ghosts frolic over her like a bunch of disembodied dolphins.

“You know, I asked Hawkeye if I can watch you train,” Shanks says softly as he puts Zoro's mashed potatoes on a plate. “You want more? You need to eat well.”

“That's enough,” Zoro mutters. He still isn’t used to such friendliness. “You've already seen me train.”

”So what? I want to see how many times Mihawk rolls his eyes when he fights you.”

Zoro puts the lid on the pot as Shanks finishes helping himself too and opens the pan with the meat. “Did he roll his eyes with you too?”

A smug smile appears on Shanks' face. “Never during fights, only after. It was well deserved every time, and I tried my best to be as annoying as possible.” 

“What are you two whispering about?” Perona shouts from the dining room, and one of her ghosts flies through the wall, hovering over their heads with a smile and sticking out his tongue. Shanks laughs.

“I never asked, did you give your ghosts names?”

The weather is windy outside, but the sun is shining – if Zoro were more sentimental, he would say that it likes being where its red-haired heirs are – and the blades of Shusui, Kitetsu, and Wado shine as Zoro checks them out, sitting on a rock in front of his usual training spot. Mihawk hasn't arrived yet. Zoro stretches his neck and arm muscles. Soft footsteps on the trampled grass make him turn his head and squint at the sun.

Shanks' shirt is unbuttoned in the same manner as Mihawk's, although the latter's clothes are undoubtedly many times more pretentious. There are suspiciously tooth-like bruises on his collarbone, which he doesn't even try to cover up. His sword is left somewhere in the castle, and he gives Zoro a small smile and sits down next to him.

“Is Hawkeye late?” he asks. Zoro shrugs his shoulders. “It's okay, we can wait.”

The silence is too awkward for Zoro's liking, but Shanks looks like he doesn't even notice it, exposing his face to the rays of the sun and smiling serenely, his eyes closed. Mihawk once said that Shanks would be happy to answer any questions Zoro had if he had the courage to ask them. Zoro looks at the man next to him and doesn't know where to start.

This pre-workout meeting looks almost intentional but Shanks isn't trying to get him to talk or bother him in any way. Zoro doesn't know what to ask. It's not that he doesn't trust the man or respect his judgment, it's just that they have too many subtle similarities that it becomes concerning, and in addition Zoro has never been good at using words properly. 

So he lowers his head and kicks a small stone with the toe of his shoe.

“Shanks,” he pauses and knows that the man is listening, though his eyes are still closed. “When did you learn to use Haki?”

“Around your age, I think. Maybe I was a bit younger than you, but that's about it.”

“You hadn't lost your arm yet, had you?”

“No,” Shanks answers simply. “When I did lose it, I had to get used to living with it, but in general Haki helped me rather than hindered me. In your case it was different, right?”

Zoro nods. “It's over now. I handled it.”

“I know. I heard it from a trusted source,” he glances at Zoro briefly and winks. “It's good that you had time to do it at your own pace.”

“I was in a hurry at first. Mihawk made me slow down.”

“He likes that, yes. But did it help?”

“Yes.”

It was one of the first lessons Zoro learned on Kuraigana, and since then he has become much more restrained in many ways. He stretches out his legs, and Shanks continues with a smile.

“When Hawkeye and I first got into a fight, I still didn't know how to use Conqueror's Haki, so when I first used it on him, he was shocked,” he laughs, and Zoro can't help but stare.

“Have you known each other for so long?”

Thoughtfulness appears on Shanks' face, as if he is busy with calculations. “About twenty years, I think, even more. Is that considered a lot?”

“That's longer than I've been alive,” Zoro mumbles back. A friendly nudge in the shoulder makes the corners of his lips twitch. “And for how long have you been, you know. Together?”

A blush rises from his chest higher, but Zoro wouldn't ask if he didn't feel an inner need to know. Mihawk and Shanks were eerily similar to him and the cook in some ways, and it makes his heart flutter, and a newly written letter lies in his bedside drawer, burning through the wood with feelings that Zoro, he hopes, hides well. The cook doesn't need to know about them.

“It’s more complicated than you think,” answers Shanks cheerfully. “It was so hard to see if he even liked me that way, you know what I’m saying? I thought I was alone in this, my crew supported me, of course, but you can’t make a person fall in love with you. I thought I was so slick,” there’s a nostalgic smile on his face and Zoro absorbs his words like a sponge. 

Will he ever be able to talk about his unrequited feelings so confidently? To accept them as a part of himself, as he accepts his scars, and to share them with others so openly, as if it does not show vulnerability. Coming to terms with feelings is one thing, but accepting their one-sided nature and even more so being so carefree about them is a completely different level of courage.

Zoro is in love, and he finds confirmation of this with every memory of the cook and with every new letter full of curses and care, hidden under a thousand layers of grumble. Every time Zoro feels something ache inside of him when he reads rude reminders to eat well and promises to check his physical form the first day they meet. He began to wait for the reply letters even more zealously than before, and humbly blushes under Mihawk's attentive gaze, handing him a new letter.

It would be odd to talk about it with Mihawk. Zoro could definitely trust him, but he mustn’t forget that this is the person he will defeat one day, even though they have managed to develop a certain bond. Mihawk clearly saw everything but he didn't want this conversation any more than Zoro did. That's why he suggested that he should talk to Shanks instead. Shanks is less familiar but at the same time more accessible for a heart-to-heart conversation.

He knows what it feels to be in Zoro's place.

“You're not just asking, are you?” Shanks glances at him.

His eyes are deeper and warmer than Mihawk's, a pleasant shade against his tanned dry skin. With a heavy heart, Zoro risks his vulnerability and takes a step into the abyss.

“I have someone on my mind,” he says as calmly as possible. “You know it already.”

“Yeah. I’ve been readressing all your letters,” Shanks nods.

“Thanks for that,” he doesn't ask where the cook is. If he still hasn't told Zoro himself, then there's no point in asking. “He’s a cook from my crew. A good one. We also bicker all the time and have kicked each other’s asses more times than I can remember."

Shanks looks at him to show that he’s listening, and doesn’t say a word when Zoro takes his time to formulate his thoughts.

“I guess I like him quite a lot. He’s a huge pain in the ass and calls me a moron and seaweed all the time, but he’s strong. Not only that,” he frowns when he hears himself. “Mihawk mentioned this before, about equality, and I realized that it was very important to me. He’s also kind and can be smart when needed. Recently he even started showing he doesn’t want to beat the shit out of me all the time.”

“A great catch,” Shanks replies thoughtfully and looks ahead again. “What seems to be the problem?”

Zoro sighs softly, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “The problem is that he drools over every woman he sees.”

It hurts him the most. This means the inevitability of rejection if he ever bumps his head hard enough to confess. Shanks chuckles.

“It makes it a lot harder, yes,” he admits and his voice is not so cheerful anymore. “But, you know, I like women too. Maybe you’re not doomed.”

Zoro shakes his head. “He's unstoppable at this. If I were a woman,” he pauses for a second and doesn't elaborate on this thought. “It's hopeless, isn't it?”

It's stupid to shift responsibility for your hope to another person, but Mihawk was right – Shanks is more experienced than him. Zoro doesn't like living in riddles.

“I can't know that,” Shanks says seriously. “He may have got his own bats in the belfry. You two can meet in a couple of months and your lives will change once and for all, or it may take ten years and nothing will change. Do you like loving him?”

Love is a strong word, Zoro thinks, but doesn’t correct him. 

“He can become my weakness,” he says bluntly. “I've already gotten used to how I feel about him and it won't stop me from fighting him as soon as he pisses me off enough.”

“We all have weaknesses, haven't you noticed? Be aware of your weaknesses but trust people you love. Tell me, Zoro, is he capable of defending himself?”

A large cloud covers the sun. The wind is strong enough to carry it further across the sky in just a few minutes. Zoro looks at the two circling eagles above the forest in the distance. 

“Yes,” he says confidently. “Not as strong as me, of course,” he doesn’t feel the spark of proudness he was trying to summon. “He’s strong. And brave, and kind. He was going to sacrifice himself for Luffy instead of me, stupid knight. His leg was broken and stuff… I knocked him out.”

“He's pretty determined. And he seems to be a good person.”

Fortune has blessed him with a lot of good people around, and Zoro knows he should be grateful. He tries to show his gratitude by protecting them all, but the cook is just another case.

He's a kind man, and thinking about him now, Zoro feels a new wave of a strong feeling rising up inside him. His heart has made a choice for the first time in his life, and he feels almost proud, realizing that of all the people in the world, it turned out to be the cook. Sanji.

The solution is easier for him than he expected. If he has to wait, Zoro will wait. If Sanji finds a wife, Zoro will do everything to be genuinely happy for him. Maybe there's already a wife, and Zoro doesn’t want to lie – it’s hard to feel genuine joy. A pang of jealousy is unexpectedly searing.

“It’s going to hurt,” he says and shrugs not as nonchalantly as before. “I'll get used to it. Would you tell Mihawk if you knew that he didn't love you? That it would ruin your friendship?”

Zoro will remain silent for the rest of his life if the confession means that the fragile understanding that has been cemented between them for almost two years will be destroyed. Knowing the cook, a man, and even more so a man like Zoro, will not make him feel anything but disgust. Maybe pity too, which is even worse.

“I actually did,” Shanks says, looking at him again. Zoro looks back at him incredulously and sees the little wrinkles at the corners of Shanks' eyes when he smiles again. “I chased him like he was a trophy, and he was just noble enough to reciprocate my feelings after a lot of years. But at first we really were just friends. Do you want some advice, Zoro?”

He asks sincerely, ready to accept no as an answer if Zoro wants to shut himself in. This willingness, this self-confidence in any outcome – power combined with strong feelings that Shanks doesn’t try to suppress, is evident, and Zoro finally understands why people respect him so much. He wants the same confidence. He nods.

“Live, feel and fight. The rest will come sooner or later,” says Shanks and leans back against the stone wall of the castle. “Never deceive yourself. If you love, then love, if you see that you are loved in return, don’t run away and don’t reject it. You already love him, and it's already moving you forward. Besides, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't wait for a wedding invitation in my old age.”

Each new phrase settles in Zoro's head like layers of snow, and he begins to realize that his love is not a tragedy. He can live with it, he wants to live with it. It's not the hope he expected, but it ignites in him anyway.

“So I can only wait?”

“It's not up to me to decide,” says Shanks lightly. “Try to test the waters. I know where your cook is now and trust me, a lot of people change their minds there. And pay attention to details, Zoro. You know, I've heard people say that flashy fanaticism about women is one big attempt to hide attraction to men.”

Zoro winces, but Shanks' humor really makes him feel better. They sit in silence for a few seconds, this time it's light. The wind blows the cloud away from the sun, and they have to squint again.

“Thanks,” Zoro says shortly.

“You’re welcome. I'm just fulfilling a request.”

Of course. Zoro knew this even before he opened his mouth about half an hour ago. 

“He's not just late, is he? He's probably not even in a hurry.”

Shanks laughs. “Don't blame him, he sees your suffering, and like any responsible adult wants to help you. He's become so much softer with the two of you that I can't even believe it. I guess I should say thank you too.”

Mihawk appears a few minutes later, his back perfectly straight, and Yoru sways slightly on his back. He exchanges a long look with Zoro and his face relaxes as Zoro bows slightly in gratitude.

Shanks sets sail the next morning with Zoro's letter in his pants pocket. He lifts Perona up and circles her goodbye, laughing loudly to her screams, then jokingly slaps Zoro on the shoulder, winks, and gives Mihawk a long, juicy kiss on the cheek, which Mihawk withstands with a ridiculously stoic expression on his face. Even if Zoro finds it lovely, he doesn’t say it.

Shanks' small boat sails away, and Zoro watches him disappear in the fog, wondering if he will ever be able to kiss the cook like that.

– – –

It’s sunny as always on Sabaody, high humidity creates an unpleasant greenhouse effect, and Zoro's mood is far from elated. The cook shouting directly into his ear does not improve the situation, the unlit cigarette miraculously doesn’t fall out of his mouth. 

“Dumb green head, how much more trouble are you going to get your clumsy ass into? How has the wonderful Perona tolerated you all this time?”

The stream of exclamations doesn't subside, and it's easy to ignore them when Zoro is busy finding his way to the ship. They’re on a market and the locals cast puzzled and annoyed glances at them – few people like such noise on the streets. Zoro walks past them, ignoring their displeased faces.

The cook and Zoro have already had a fight. Pride and anticipation from the upcoming skirmishes reared their heads immediately as Zoro realized how much stronger Sanji had become. He surely had learned a lot himself, especially in the last year, and now using Haki wasn’t a problem for him, but nevertheless he came out of the duel with scratches and bruises which the cook had inflicted with his precise fiery kicks. They burn on Zoro's skin as if his very body is glad to be reunited with the other man.

“I wouldn't be surprised if Perona was actually dictating the letters to you all this time,” the cook won’t shut his mouth. “If it weren't for the ridiculous number of mistakes in every second word and a hundred misspellings in every letter, I would really believe so.”

Zoro gives him a warning look. 

“I told you not to mention it. I was writing the best I can.”

”So you are listening to me after all,” Sanji's left eye glitters as he narrows it like a snake.

The fact that Zoro's heart beats faster when he feels the cook's presence next to him doesn’t negate the fact that Sanji is obnoxious. 

“And you were nicer when we were apart,” Zoro hides a hint of uncertainty behind a smug smile. They didn't discuss what words they exchanged in their letters and Zoro wouldn't have started this conversation if the cook hadn't mentioned their separation first. “Did you suddenly forget how much you missed me?”

Sanji's face falls, his pale skin turns pink with anger, in stark contrast to his blond hair, and Zoro can barely contain his laughter.

“Who put this into your head?”

Zoro shrugs and walks on. He won't pursue this topic because it's risky and he doesn't want to say anything unnecessary that would give the cook the wrong – in fact, the right – idea. 

“How were your two years, curly?” He asks lightly, feeling the cook behind him stray a step from the pace. It's funny how he's still mad at the nicknames Zoro gives him.

“None of your business,” the reply sounds sullen, and Zoro hears the click of a lighter. The wind brings him the smell of cigarette smoke. He hasn't smelled it in so long. The tobacco Sanji smokes hasn't changed, and Zoro lets his insides twist in nostalgia. 

He accepts this feeling easily, as a given, as another part of himself. No one needs to know, but he's almost happy to fight with those long legs again, listen to lectures and inhale warm blue smoke. The spark of defiance that constantly burns in his chest is just as dear and it's a part of their relationship that he's not going to give up.

“Where have you been?” Sanji asks after a short pause and kicks Zoro’s ankle to get his attention. “We need to turn left.”

Zoro doubts this but turns left anyway. There are fewer people in this street than in the market and they can freely walk next to each other. Sanji's hands are in his pockets, and he's biting the end of his cigarette.

“On Kuraigana. You don't know where it is.”

“No. Who else was there?”

”Perona,“ Zoro says and watches the cook's reaction. To his surprise, he doesn't automatically become a lovesick jerk at the mere mention of a woman's name. Has something really changed? “A lot of human-like baboons.”

“What a match, special for you.”

“And Hawkeye.”

Sanji chokes on smoke and coughs. Zoro's smirk is self-satisfying as he stops to look at the cook's suffering.

“Mihawk?” Sanji asked with a restrained voice.

“Yeah. He taught me a lot.”

“You want to take away his title.”

“He's aware,” Zoro answers briefly and repeats his question. “Where have you been?”

“I won't tell you.”

The fact that Sanji’s sharp, immediate response gives off a stab in Zoro’s chest doesn't show on his face in any way. It's impassive again as he looks at the cook, still standing in the shadow of the street. Sanji takes a drag and blows a stream of smoke to the side, avoiding eye contact. This makes Zoro frown.

“Why?”

Sanji's eye immediately lights up with a righteous anger when he looks up at Zoro. His acceleration from calm to rage is still less than a second.

“Because. It wasn't a pleasant experience.”

He sounds defensive, not defeated, but Zoro suspects something is wrong anyway. The cook was in hell, he said it himself, but what exactly did he mean? Of course, he's always been able to defend his dignity, but Zoro also needs to know that he doesn't need help…

“Stop it. You look stupid when you try to think,” Sanji interrupts his train of thought. He pauses once more, his gaze lingering on the scar across Zoro's eye, and finally speaks. “I've had to defend my masculinity so many times that it's almost humiliating.”

Zoro raises his eyebrows. “That's it?”

“That's not enough?” Sanji barks back. Zoro is calm when he starts walking again. The cook pulls him by the belt when he goes the wrong way, getting a mutter in response.

“I've been through it too, so what? This is new knowledge. Your experience cannot be exceptionally bad and useless.”

Sanji stares at him with wide eyes, as if Zoro has grown two more heads, and doesn't answer or ask any more questions. The street ends, merging with the bigger one, the bigger one then leads to the square, and they are still silent, but Zoro feels the cook's attentive gaze on him every now and then. He's nowhere near as secretive as he thinks he is, and Zoro has trained his Observation Haki well enough to trust his intuition.

Perona and Mihawk made sure he looked pleasant enough, getting ready to reunite with the crew. His kimono is ironed, his haramaki is washed, and he keeps his promise to take a shower every two days at least until he returns to Sunny. Perona has cut his hair again, so he knows he looks neat. He has more scars, but also more muscles. He still doesn't give a damn about beauty and cleanliness, but he knows what discipline is, and he knows that Sanji cares.

He remembers Mihawk's words, pleasant appearance combined with decent handling of a sword plays into your hands.

When he casts his usual frown at the cook, there’s confusion on his face, he clearly ponders upon something, staring off into the distance. It’s ok. He's noticed the changes, Zoro knows that, and that's enough.

They meet Luffy a few minutes later, then Perona’s Negative Voids free them from having to fight an entire squad of Marines, and Zoro grits his teeth. It was both timely and not at all.

Forcing Perona to accompany Zoro to Sabaody was one of the worst decisions Mihawk had ever made. Sure, she helped with navigation – mostly with screams and her ghosts, but it worked anyway – but she also knew too much about Zoro, about his desires and emotions.

Right now, she's terrified of the wild look Sanji gives her, and before he can open his mouth to spit out some more nonsense about real women, three ghosts pass through his torso and he prostrates himself. Zoro's face is expressionless as he watches the cook, who had such high hopes a few minutes ago, stand on all fours and ask to be turned into a dung beetle.

Perona's piercing gaze makes Zoro raise his head.

“Seriously? Him?” she mouths. Her whole being shows extreme disappointment which he might share.

He has heard somewhere that the heart wants what it wants and he is fully convinced of this, watching Sanji immediately blossom at the sight of Perona, forgetting about all the questions that Zoro's appearance gave him. It's hardly pleasant, but it bothers him less than he expected. It seems that Mihawk's endless calm training really wasn't in vain.

That's why Zoro just shrugs at Perona's question. He's not going to argue that he has feelings for the cook more in spite of than because of his character, and he's fine with that.

“I told you it’s helpless.”

Before any of them can react, the marines begin to get up from the ground, confused by their sudden change of mood, and Perona sighs and permeates them with her ghosts again. She follows as Zoro, Sanji and Luffy run towards the ship.

“Hey, mosshead,” Sanji calls out as he runs, not even sparing Zoro a glance. Zoro doesn't look at him either but feels his chest getting warmer. “Have you been letting a girl deal with your problems all these two years? Like right now?”

So, everything is as always. The peaceful feeling is replaced by a sharp outburst of indignation, and Zoro is ready to yell at Sanji in response, to say something about curly eyebrows or a goatee, for some reason black, although the cook is blond, but Perona swings an umbrella and gives them both a slap on the back of their heads.

“For what?” Zoro whines, still running. Luffy laughs next to them.

“A preventive measure,” Perona replies angrily and turns to Sanji. “I've had enough of your bickering on paper, can’t you be normal? I thought you were better than that jerk, but you're exactly the same! At least Zoro is smart enough not to hit on me!” 

“I’m just admiring!” Sanji objects, although he's clearly upset that Perona is mad at him. “It's not my fault that mosshead is too dumb to appreciate a woman's beauty!”

“I have my reasons for this!” Zoro shouts and casts a dangerous glance at the cook. It's just impossible how quickly he can piss Zoro off.

“Of course there are reasons,” the cook parrots. “What could be the reasons not to adore the female sex?”

“The most obvious, asshole!”

Perona hits them both again. They’re almost there and in a couple of minutes they stop at the slope that leads to Sunny, the quarrel is already forgotten. The ship looks great in the sunlight, and the colorful dots of their friends are moving on the deck. Luffy is glowing with happiness and jumps onto the ship as if it were a trampoline. Zoro and Sanji catch their breath as they hear Chopper and Nami squeal in delight.

Perona and the cook are on Zoro's left, so it takes him a moment to notice that they're talking quietly about something. Perona does most of the talking, her face serious, her eyebrows furrowed, and she menacingly wags her finger in front of the cook’s face – it would be an incredibly funny sight if it weren't for how unusually attentive the cook was listening to her. His eyebrows don't curl into a fancy heart and his nose doesn't bleed, despite the fact that Perona talks very closely to him, and Zoro tilts his head in confusion.

He can't hear what they're talking about, but suddenly Sanji’s bright blue eyes widen and a bright blush appears on his cheeks. Zoro turns away – there's nothing else to look at, the cook just finally realized that there's a woman in front of him.

On the ship, Usopp and Chopper strangle Luffy in their arms, and Brook bursts out laughing all over the bay. It'll be time for them to leave soon if they don't want more trouble. Seeing the whole crew together is a huge relief, but Zoro feels a brief pang of sadness when he realizes it's time to say goodbye to Perona. 

Mihawk dismissed him with a serious expression and a nod in response to his farewell, having previously prepared a three-course meal for him and left a jar of sword oil on the table in his room. Perona put effort and used one of the cook's recipes that contained just enough sugar to make Zoro like it. She also knitted him a scarf which he had already left on the ship. Maybe one day they'll come across a winter island and he won't freeze from the icy wind on the waves.

Stingy words of gratitude are already on the tip of his tongue when he turns to the left again, but all he sees is an even redder cook and Perona, who looks at him with calmer, almost omniscient eyes.

“Are you done chit-chatting?” Zoro asks dryly.

Sanji gives him a look bordering on horror and shock, and turns away from both of them when Zoro raises one eyebrow. His frantic gaze immediately catches on to Nami and Robin on the ship, and although relief clearly appears on his face, it is noticeably muted by the residual effect of Perona's words, whatever she told him. Sanji breaks into an enthusiastic smile and rushes onto the ship, it almost looks like he tries to escape from Zoro and Perona.

Zoro watches him go and can't bring himself to feel happy. He is glad to meet everyone, it warms his heart, but it still hurts to see such a lively rejection of his feelings.

Perona floats closer, and Zoro feels their shoulders scratch. Normally he would pull away, he's not a big fan of touching, but now it feels good.

“See?” He says quietly. “He chases every woman, just like I said.”

“I explained to him exactly why you don’t do the same,” she says calmly. Zoro immediately tenses up.

“What?”

“Don't worry, I didn't give away your secret. Just hinted that not everyone likes women this way, and it seems that it hit a nerve. He got speechless,” she giggles briefly. “Who knows where he's been these two years, really? Even I’m curious. And then I asked him to look after you on the ship because you tend to get into trouble.”

Zoro remembers Sanji's red cheeks that made him look like a tomato with bangs and a blue eye. He often blushed in front of Zoro today. 

“I don't need his protection,” he tries to make his voice sound firmer but he's not doing well. Perona's smile is confident and kind.

“Liar. I think you've already dealt with that part of your pride, no? About protection, help, and everything else?”

Zoro squints at her.

“How do you know?”

“I know a lot. Anyway, if you ask me,” she looks at the ship, twirling the umbrella in her fingers, “I don't think what you're feeling is hopeless. Give him time, that's what I think. Maybe he'll see that you don't doubt your feelings and it'll help him. But remember that it took you almost two years to come to terms with this, and this despite the fact that you already knew that you like men. Imagine what kind of effect he will have to endure.”

”You can't be sure,” Zoro mutters and regrets a bit that his kimono doesn’t hide the redness of his chest.

“Don't be sour, Zoro,” Perona says cheerfully, and a ghost behind her laughs approvingly. “I'm only saying what I see. I'm sure Mihawk will bless your wedding one day, and I want to be there too.”

She doesn't realize how much unexpected hope settles in his heart after these half-jokes, and Zoro doesn't know how to thank her for that. He feels lighter, the cloud of jealousy and grief that has been hanging over him almost completely disappeared. The words of gratitude seem alien, he is not used to so many sincere and strong emotions at the same time, he is a simple man. Therefore, he looks up at her and hopes that she will understand him without words.

Perona doesn't look at him. Her shoulder is still pressed against his and her eyes are glistening wetly as she looks at the horizon.

“Idiot,” she says gently. “You're going to ruin my makeup. Stop getting on my nerves, go to your cook and friends. Tell them I said hi.”

A soft smile appears on Zoro's face, he looks down and already knows where he will land on the ship. Determination fills him as he takes one last look at Perona.

“Tell Hawkeye that we'll meet soon. And don't forget to write to me. Ask Shanks to deliver your letter.”

If Perona shouts something back at him, he doesn't hear it, the wind is too loud in his ears as he jumps onto the ship. Chopper screams that the Marines are getting closer, and none of the Strawhats has time for sentiment anymore. Sanji stands at the stern, clutching a new cigarette between his lips and looking as focused as possible. His skin, still charmingly pink, betrays his train of thought, and Zoro wonders if he really needs to wait for him that long.