Chapter 15: Morning After

  The sun was well above the horizon by the time Luffy pushed open the door to their room at the inn. Light streamed through the window, cutting across the floor in bright rectangles, illuminating dust motes that drifted zily in the warm air.

  Zoro sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, looking like death warmed over.

  He'd managed to remove his boots at some point. His haramaki was askew. His hair stuck up in directions hair shouldn't stick up. The empty sake bottles from the night before still sat on the floor beside the bed, silent witnesses to poor decisions.

  Luffy walked in whistling.

  Not loudly. Just a simple tuneless whistle, the kind of sound a person makes when they're completely satisfied with the world and everything in it. He crossed to his own bed, sat down, and started pulling off his sandals.

  Zoro raised his head slowly, painfully, like the movement cost him years of his life.

  "Where the hell were you?"

  His voice came out rough, scraped raw by too much alcohol and not enough sleep. He sounded like he'd been swallowing gravel.

  Luffy gnced at him. "Out."

  "Out where? I woke up at three in the morning and your bed was still empty. You didn't come back all night."

  Luffy finished with one sandal and started on the other. "Did what a real man does."

  Zoro stared at him, bleary-eyed and confused. His brain, pickled in sake, struggled to process this information. "What the hell does that mean?"

  Luffy looked up, completely matter-of-fact. "I smashed the restaurant owner st night. Three rounds."

  Silence.

  Zoro kept staring.

  The words entered his ears, traveled through whatever neural pathways hadn't been destroyed by alcohol, and slowly assembled themselves into meaning. His face went through several expressions in rapid succession. Confusion. Disbelief. Dawning realization. Something that might have been respect.

  "You're serious."

  "I don't joke about boobs."

  Zoro dropped his head back into his hands and groaned. Not from pain this time. From the sheer absurdity of everything.

  "What the hell have I gotten myself into," he muttered into his palms.

  Luffy grinned. "A pirate crew."

  "I can see that."

  Zoro lifted his head again, squinting against the light. "So that's why we're staying a whole week? So you can keep smashing the restaurant owner?"

  Luffy leaned back on his hands, considering the question. "Part of it. She's part of the pn. But not the whole pn."

  "What else is there? This town's tiny. There's nothing here."

  "You're here. I'm here." Luffy's expression shifted, becoming more focused. "For the next week, we're training our asses off."

  Zoro blinked. "Training? Aren't you strong enough already? You beat Morgan to a pulp without breaking a sweat."

  Luffy shook his head. "Not even close."

  He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the harbor. The morning light caught his profile, and for a moment he looked older than seventeen. Older than he had any right to look.

  "I told you before. The East Blue is a fish pond. A kiddie pool. The Grand Line is the ocean. Real ocean. With real monsters."

  Zoro listened, hangover momentarily forgotten.

  "There are pirates out there who could kill Morgan with a finger. With a thought. Guys who control weather. Guys who turn into elements. Guys who've been fighting for decades and haven't lost yet." Luffy turned back to face him. "I'm not strong enough for that. Not yet. Not even close."

  Zoro studied him. The words were serious, but there was no fear in them. Just acknowledgment. Just understanding of what waited ahead.

  "So we train," Luffy continued. "Every day. All week. You get your strength back after weeks tied to that post. I work on controlling this body better, pushing it further. And that's not all."

  "What else?"

  Luffy crossed to the small table where he'd left his straw hat the night before. He picked it up, turned it in his hands, then set it on his head.

  "I need to read."

  Zoro's eyebrows rose. "Read? You?"

  "Knowledge is power, Zoro. I want to be powerful."

  "You're a bookworm?"

  Luffy ughed. "Not a bookworm. But there are things I need to know. Navigation. Weather patterns. Ship maintenance. The Grand Line isn't like here. You can't just point a boat and go. If you don't know what you're doing, you die."

  Zoro processed this. The boy who'd charged into a Marine base alone, who'd beaten a man to death with his fists, who'd talked about grabbing big tits and fighting monsters... that same boy was talking about studying. About learning.

  "You're weird," Zoro said finally.

  "I know."

  "One minute you're an airhead who doesn't think before he acts. The next minute you're talking strategy like a general."

  Luffy shrugged. "I contain multitudes."

  "I don't know what that means."

  "Means I'm complicated."

  Zoro snorted. "You're something, alright."

  Luffy stretched his arms above his head, yawned, and headed toward the small bathroom attached to their room. At the door he paused.

  "I'm gonna shower. When I get out, we figure out a training schedule. You good with that?"

  Zoro waved a hand vaguely. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."

  Luffy vanished into the bathroom. A moment ter, the sound of running water started.

  Zoro sat alone in the morning light, head still pounding, mind slowly churning through everything.

  The kid was strange. No two ways about it. One moment he seemed like the dumbest person alive, charging into danger without a thought. The next moment he was talking about knowledge and strategy and training like a man twice his age. Like someone who'd already made all the mistakes and learned from them.

  And the thing about the restaurant owner...

  Zoro shook his head slowly. The kid had been serious about that too. From day one, talking about big boobs and swordswomen like it was all part of the package. Most guys talked that way to sound tough. Luffy talked that way because he actually meant it.

  That kind of honesty was rare.

  It made Zoro think.

  About promises. About women. About a girl with short hair and sharp eyes who'd believed in him when no one else did. Who'd kissed him in a forest clearing and made him promise to be the greatest.

  Kuina.

  He hadn't thought about that kiss in years. Had buried it under training and battles and the endless pursuit of strength. But watching Luffy walk in this morning, satisfied and unashamed, talking about women like they were just another part of life instead of some complicated mystery...

  Kuina would have liked him, probably. Would have seen through the weirdness to whatever was underneath. She'd always been good at that.

  Zoro's hand drifted to the hilt of Wado Ichimonji, resting beside his bed. White scabbard. Perfect edge. Her spirit, carried with him everywhere.

  "Still got a long way to go," he murmured to the sword. "But I'm still going. For both of us."

  The water ran in the bathroom. The sun climbed higher. And Roronoa Zoro sat with his ghosts and his hangover and tried to figure out exactly what kind of man he'd agreed to follow.

  He still wasn't sure.

  But for the first time since Kuina, he didn't mind the uncertainty.