Zoro was different. He had always felt it, a certain line separating him from those around him. When he was young, he couldn't help but feel as though something was missing from his life. It was almost like he was missing something, even though there was nothing to miss.
He was four years old when he discovered Kendo, and that feeling of missing had receded the moment he picked up his first bamboo sword. Not a day passed since then when he was seen without his sword.
Yet that feeling of missing something was still there.
Zoro was seven years old when he was asked by someone at his orphanage why he always had a sword at his side. Zoro cocked his head slightly, and answered with a question of his own.
"Why wouldn't I have a sword at my side?"
Zoro was nine years old when he defeated the master at his dojo. Everyone looked on in shock, wondering how exactly that was possible, so nobody noticed the expression on his face and the thought that confused him endlessly.
"Why am I only using one sword?"
Zoro was ten years old when he started using two swords. He earned his nickname 'Demon' because he was rather quickly leaving everyone around him behind. Nobody was strong or stupid enough to challenge him, but Zoro kept on training, with a single thought.
"I need to be stronger..."
Zoro was eleven years old when he met a blond haired boy with curly eyebrows. It only took until lunchtime for a fight to break out between the two. Students and teachers alike tried as much as they could to get the two to stop. But no one actually approached them, because that would be a death wish. No one, except for a certain orange haired from the year below. And he never understood why, but Zoro yelled at her.
"What the hell, Nami?!"
Zoro was twelve when those around him simply stopped trying to get him and Sanji to stop fighting. Only Nami could do anything to get them to stop, but far too often (by the teachers standards) she left them alone. Zoro almost couldn't remember life without the curly cook to fight, because even though he used two swords and the cook only ever kicked, they were evenly matched. Until one day, when the cook shouted off-hand.
"Why are you using two swords?"
Zoro was thirteen when he was strong enough to use three swords, and he couldn't even imagine why he hadn't tried it before. He and the chef were almost constantly together, but he didn't notice it until a classmate asked
"Are you two twins?"
Needless to say, the answer was a resounding No, but the two hesitated before saying so. Simply because life without the other would be so much more boring.
Zoro was fourteen when he was forced to go to a shooting range by his school. The whole trip was ridiculously boring, but he found himself shocked to see a boy, two years younger than him, using a slingshot at the shooting range and hitting the target dead center every time. The rest of the people there were ignoring him for the most part, and Zoro was about to do the same before he got into an argument with the curly cook, and ended up hitting the poor boy who happened to get in the middle of it. And Zoro had no idea why, but both he and the chef flinched slightly and said.
"Sorry, Usopp."
Zoro was fifteen when the teachers decided that it was time that he and Sanji stop fighting.
It didn't go very well, and if Nami hadn't been passing by, it would have gone a lot worse. But they were still glaring at each other, and the teachers were about to do something about when a lady with black hair and bangs stepped into the room, saying something about there being no one in the front so she came back here. Then she laughed at the sight of the three teenagers and commented about how close they seemed, which resulted in a sound of surprise from all three of them.
""Robin?"" "Robin-chan?"
Zoro was sixteen and he was very, very bored. He never stopped training, and the feeling of something missing had receded over the past couple years, but it was still there. He had accidentally mentioned it to the cook, and he was sure that the bastard would make fun of him for it, but instead the blond idiot had stared at Zoro in shock as he said, "You too?"
Zoro avoided him for a couple days after that.
He felt a bit lonely during those days. Zoro would never admit it, but that blond idiot was the only one his age that would talk to him. Not that age mattered, anyway. Nami and Usopp and Robin were all friends, but there was nothing really tying any one of them together.
Zoro was seventeen when a little boy with brown hair hid behind his legs in the middle of the road. The amusing part about it was that the boy was hiding the wrong way. The unamusing part about it was the crowd of boys about the same age holding sticks and stones. Zoro couldn't stop the question leaving his mouth.
"What's wrong, Chopper?"
At the end of the day, the was a crowd of beat up thirteen-year old boys, a happy brown-haired thirteen-year old boy, and a smirking green haired teenager walking down the road.
Zoro was eighteen when he graduated high school and was kicked out of the orphanage. Living on the street was a very real possibility, but Zoro didn't care. He left town and started wandering, and all his friends disappeared to do whatever it was they wanted to do.
Zoro was nineteen when a local cop tried to arrest him for something he didn't do. He decided against killing the guy, as Zoro didn't want to dirty his swords, but this was bound to be a problem. He tried talking, but nothing was working.
Suddenly, a boy bounced in front of the cop, staring at Zoro.
A moment passed.
The boy smiled.
And that feeling that had been tying Zoro's head in a knot, that feeling that something, someone was missing, fell away. The poor cop didn't matter, the fact that he was lost didn't matter, the fact that he was different didn't matter.
Just the fact that Luffy was by his side, smiling, being Luffy, that was all that mattered, and Zoro smiled, and laughed the hardest laugh he was capable of.
The boy, Luffy, spoke up.
"Be my nakama!"
Zoro smiled the freest smile he ever had, and replied.
"Yes, Captain."