Deeper Than the Sea
1: Zoro Roronoa
Luffy D. Monkey hummed contentedly as he walked down the hallway, hands deep inside his pockets. His first day of school! What could be more exciting?
…Actually, in all honesty, it would have been a lot more exciting if he hadn't gotten up at five in the morning and come here at six just to wind up wandering around aimlessly for over an hour with no idea where to go. Well, there was only one thing he knew to do when he didn't know where to go…
"Hey, you!" he called to a random person walking down the hallway. The person—a chubby boy with glasses who looked to be a couple years younger than himself—looked at him.
"I don't recognize you…" the chubby boy said cheerfully before Luffy could say anything. "Are you new?" But he did not wait for an answer. "Then you'll need to get to your homeroom. What's your homeroom?
Luffy stared blankly.
"Homeroom?"
The boy looked him up and down.
"Wait a second…" he said slowly. "Where are your books? Where's your schedule?"
"Oh, my schedule's in my pocket," Luffy told him cheerfully. "Should I get it out?"
"But where're your books?" the boy asked again.
"What books?" Luffy asked, cocking his head to the side with curiosity.
"You came without any textbooks?" demanded another boy who came up beside the first. Luffy stared at him.
"Do you have your hair up in a bun?" he asked the second boy, his curiosity evident. Coming from anyone else, that would have been a blatant insult. Coming from Luffy, it was unclear exactly how the question ought to be taken: he asked the question the same way he had asked what a homeroom was. The boy with the bun, however, turned bright red.
"Why, you…I should tell my father you said that! He'll fail you, I know he will!"
The first boy shot the second a disapproving look before he took Luffy's arm and began to lead him down the hallway.
"Ignore him," the boy said. "He's suffered a lot of bullying because of that hairstyle, and at some point he discovered that people would back away if he threatened to ask his father to fail them—his father's the English teacher, you see—so he's been talking like that ever since. I tried to tell him that it just makes people respect him less, so he's trying to break that habit at the moment. I'm Coby, by the way, and this is Helmeppo. What's your name?"
"Luffy," Luffy replied. "So what were you saying about books?"
Coby stopped and looked around at Luffy suspiciously.
"I'm going to ask you a strange question…but have you ever been to a school before?"
"Nope!" Luffy chirped proudly. "I'm home schooled."
"That explains a lot," Helmeppo muttered to himself audibly. If it was meant as an insult, Luffy failed to notice—or perhaps he simply ignored it. Coby wouldn't have put it past this strange boy to let insults slide by as though he didn't notice, regardless of whether or not he did.
"Well, you see, in school, you need textbooks," Coby explained patiently. "That way, since everyone has the same textbook, the teacher can just tell the whole class to open to a certain page, and everyone sees the same thing. Right?"
"That makes sense," Luffy nodded. "So where do I get textbooks?"
"In the library," Coby smiled. "Follow me, I'll take you there."
Coby resumed walking, leading Luffy by the arm. Helmeppo ran up to fall in step beside Luffy.
"Since you're new here, there're a few things you ought to know," Helmeppo said. Luffy looked at him curiously.
Neither saw Coby give a small grin—he recognized that Helmeppo now regretted having brought up his father earlier, and was attempting to make up for it.
"First of all, what grade are you in?"
"11th," Luffy replied.
"Then you're not in too much danger," Helmeppo nodded approvingly. "But I'll just warn you anyway. If you ever come across a senior—that means 12th grader, just in case you didn't know—who goes by the name of Nami, no matter what you do, do not borrow money from her!" Luffy stared. "Look, this might sound stupid to you right now, but just trust me on this. For example, there's this other senior called Zoro. He forgot his lunch money once in the first week of freshman year, and borrowed a dollar from Nami for a snack. Unfortunately, he forgot to pay her back for a few months, and at that point she'd piled up the interest so high that he couldn't pay it back without losing all his lunch money for the rest of the month. So guess how much he owes her now?"
Luffy stared.
"Four hundred seventy-two dollars and sixty-four cents," Coby supplied. Luffy's jaw dropped.
"Why's it so awkward?" Luffy demanded. "Why not just say five hundred-"
"Four hundred."
"Yeah, that's what I said. Why not just four hundred and twenty-seven dollars? Why all the cents?" Helmeppo moved to correct him, but Coby cut across.
"She adds a dollar for each time he insults her, and along with that one cent for each word he uses in the sentence." Luffy blinked, uncomprehending. "Well," Coby explained, "For example, they had an argument in the hallway last week. Zoro said 'You'll drop into hell like the devil you are,' so Nami took a dollar each for 'dropping into hell' and 'devil,' and nine cents because the sentence had nine words in it."
Luffy burst into laughter. Coby noted with surprise that though they were leaving the high school building, Luffy displayed no surprise, as newcomers generally did, that the library was located outside of the high school. Perhaps he had visited before?
No, Coby suddenly realized as they made their way down the dirt street. If this boy had been home schooled, then he'd probably only ever used a public library. So it would seem only natural to him that the library was a minute's walk from the high school.
"This is serious!" Helmeppo was trying to convince him. "Never, ever borrow money from Nami! Here, repeat after me: No matter what the circumstance…" He urged Luffy to repeat after him with a wave of his hands.
"No matter what the circumstance…" Luffy repeated hesitantly.
"No matter how I am persuaded…"
"No matter how you are persuaded…"
"No, no, no! I said to repeat after me, so if I say 'I', then you say 'I'!"
"No, no, no! You said to-"
"He didn't mean you to repeat that," Coby supplied. "He was talking to you."
"Oh."
"Well, let's start over," Helmeppo sighed. "But remember, this time when I say 'I', you say 'I', okay?" Luffy nodded. "Okay, repeat after me: No matter what the circumstance…"
"No matter what the circumstance…"
"No matter how I am persuaded…"
"No matter how I am persuaded…"
"I will never, ever borrow money from Nami Mikan."
"Her last name's Mikan? That's a strange-"
"Just say it, would you?"
"Okay." Luffy paused. "What was I supposed to say again?"
"No matter what the circumstance, no matter how I am persuaded, I will never, ever borrow money from Nami Mikan!"
"Oh yeah. No matter what the circumstance, no matter how I am…" He trailed off, looking at Helmeppo questioningly. Obviously, the rest of the sentence escaped him.
"No matter what the circumstance…" Helmeppo started again through clenched teeth. He was starting to wonder if he should just leave this kid to Nami's mercy. It was obviously taking far more effort than he had bargained for to persuade him that he should not borrow money from the spawn of the devil, and it probably wasn't even worth all the trouble anyway. Judging from the evidence so far, the boy would forget his pledge within a few minutes (if it even lasted that long) of making it anyway.
"No matter what the circumstance…" Luffy repeated, and unlike Helmeppo, he did not seem at all annoyed that this was the fourth time that he was repeating the same phrase.
"No matter how I am persuaded…"
"No matter how I am persuaded…"
"I will never, ever borrow money from Nami Mikan."
"I will never, ever borrow money from Nami Mikan."
Helmeppo breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"Great. Now just make sure you remember what you just swore."
"What?"
"Never to borrow money from Nami Mikan! Make sure you remember that!" Maybe this kid was one of those slow learners? Or maybe it was A.D.D. or A.D.H.D.? He just hoped that his sanity was in tact—W. G. High School was already overrun with enough people with questionable sanity, and most certainly did not need another!
"Oh. Okay."
Helmeppo sighed. His mind was screaming at him, alarm bells going off all over that this boy would be sure to forget this within a few minutes, if not seconds, but he shoved it aside. He could do nothing else without resorting to violence, and he was seriously starting to doubt that this boy was worth the trouble, anyway. He didn't look like the type to go around borrowing money in the first place.
"Anyway, next thing. There're these three seniors—Zoro Roronoa, Wiper Shandora and Smoker Taisa—don't ever go near them unless it can't be avoided."
"Why? Their names sound cool."
"They are cool. They're the height of cool, all three of them! Zoro's always calm and collected and like an unmovable rock, and he's never been defeated in fencing during high school by anyone on but the coaches and this one other girl. Smoker's a no-nonsense fighter for justice—we all think he'll major in justice in college—but he can be terrifying when he wants to be, and no one dares approach him; his little sister's in your year and she's a stunning beauty, but no one dares approach her because of Smoker. Then there's Wiper. He's probably about as popular with the girls as anyone can get, but he's never gone out with anyone and only interacts with a close-knit group: his twin sister and a couple friends, and that's it. But Wiper's displayed violent tendencies. He pulled a knife on another student once. You don't want to cross him, or he might beat you to bloody pulp."
"Or slice you open, if he happens to have a knife on him," Coby added. "It's sort of a mystery why he hasn't been expelled yet."
"And Smoker won't stand for you doing a single thing wrong. One step out of line and he'll be on you like a panther. He doesn't tell—especially since the disciplinary system at W. G.'s a bit messed up—he follows his own sense of justice and locks you in your own locker. And Zoro's just…really, really bad-tempered and violent."
"Oh, and no matter how sick you feel, never, ever, ever go to the school doctor! Dr. Hiruruk's nice and all, but he'll just make you worse if-"
"Hey," Luffy interrupted, pointing at the large building that they were about to walk past. "I know I shouldn't be interrupting when you're talking to me and all… But we just passed the library."
"Oh yeah…" muttered Coby, turning a little red. It struck him as odd that Luffy knew the location of the library. Maybe he had come to visit once, after all? But then why couldn't he find his way to homeroom?
Once in the entrance, Coby expected Luffy to look around in amazement at the tall bookcases and countless number of books—pretty amazing for such a small school—but the boy simply walked on as though it were nothing special. This was odd, Coby felt, because he'd already been there for an entire term, and the library still amazed him every time he entered.
"No way!" A girl's voice suddenly pierced the quiet. Luffy, Coby, and Helmeppo all turned to stare.
"Oh, yeah, way!" replied a second girl. "He was totally all over her."
Coby leaned a bit to the side to whisper into Luffy's ear, "Those two are cheerleaders. From the college sect. That one"-he pointed to the first girl-"is Porche Baton. And the other"-he pointed to the second-"is Lily Sun. Stay out of their way if you can. They're really obnoxious gossipers, and since they're in the college sect, they think they're better than everyone else—especially the high school students." After a pause, Coby decided to elaborate just in case. "As in, as opposed to the elementary and middle school students. I don't know if you know, but there's an orphanage sect, and that's got an elementary and middle school…" But Luffy was listening to the conversation with interest, and didn't seem to care. Oh well. Maybe he already knew.
"See," Helmeppo explained in a whisper, "there're these two guys, Foxy Silver and Bellamy Hyena, and they each started a fraternity. But then those two fraternities sort of grew to accept each other. Of course, being fraternities, girls aren't usually accepted. But Bellamy decided that girls were okay some time back—Lily's one of those girls—and Foxy hasn't done anything like that yet, but Porche's his girlfriend. That makes her as good as a member."
"And then, what? The next day she was on a date with some other guy?" Porche was exclaiming, oblivious to their audience.
"Yeah, but forget that! She was totally just trying to prove that she's not really interested in Ace. God, can you imagine what'll happen when Alvida hears about this? She'll be furious!" Lily sounded gleeful. "She's been trying for years, and Ace hasn't even realized she exists!"
"But, wait a sec… I mean, Kai and Ace are together on the baseball team, right? You never know, it could've been one of those boy-to-boy sort of things…"
"They were, like, standing there for five minutes, hugging like there was no tomorrow! I mean, did you see them? He was stroking her hair!"
"But it's not like they were making out or anything… I just can't see what a hot guy like Ace would see in someone as ugly as Kai. She's just…"
"I know! He could so do better than her. Do you think he thinks of her as, like, a boy or something?"
"I could so see that. And didn't you say she went out with Quint last night?"
"Oh yeah. Not that it was any good, she's not interested at all. Sarquiss and I were at the Spicy Bean, thinking we'd catch some time alone, and then Quint and Kai just, like, came walking in. And the whole time, Quint kept making moves on Kai, and every time he did, she'd flat out reject him!"
"Told you. If she's not in denial about Ace, it's got to be something else. I bet she's a lesbian."
"Shh! You know how Kuina gets if she hears anyone being even remotely biased against blacks or Hispanics or homosexuals or anything like that! Do you want to end up being sent to Mr. Red again?"
"I wouldn't mind so much. He's hot."
"Ew! He's, like, in his late thirties! And married to that lady that runs the orphanage sect!"
"So? He's still good to look at."
Luffy looked from Helmeppo to Coby. They had dragged him behind one of the chairs, and were now listening intently. "Um…shouldn't we be going to get my books, or-"
"Shh!" Helmeppo hissed at him. "When you get a chance to eavesdrop on Porche and Lily, never miss it. They could say something important!"
Of course, which part of their conversation was supposed to be important baffled Luffy, who knew perfectly well that Ace and Kai were the questionable sort of 'just friends,' and that Kai's 'date' with Quint Five had been arranged for the single and only purpose of her asking the guy if he would kindly please stop stalking Ace, because his attempts to pick Ace's dorm lock were getting a bit annoying, and it was starting to seriously grate on Ace's nerves. The rest didn't sound important at all. Sure, he would have enjoyed hearing about Shanks…if the conversation hadn't been about how 'hot' he was.
But Porche and Lily were rolling from topic to topic with amazing speed. Luffy was sure that he had only tuned out about two sentences, and yet they were already on a completely different topic.
"You think that's interesting news? I've got better."
"Oh? Do tell."
"I found out that Miss Nico isn't 'Miss' after all."
"Oh. My. God. She's married?"
"Uh-huh." Porche sounded extremely smug.
"No way."
"Yes way."
"You mean, like, really married? Like, they're living in the same house and all that?"
"Uh-huh. But that's not even the best part. Try guessing who she's married to."
"I've no clue. She's so…serious. I can't imagine any decent guy liking her."
"Right? I thought so too. But she's married to Sir Crocodile."
There was a scream that made all three occupants hiding behind the seat leap out of their skins. "No way! But, he's like, the best adult guy there is! I mean, Brad Pitt looks like a loser next to Sir Crocodile, and that's really saying something."
"I wonder how she did it?"
Lily snickered. "Maybe she knows how to make up for her dull personality in bed…"
Porche giggled. "Miss Nico? No way."
"It's not even 'Miss Nico.' It's 'Mrs. Crocodile.'"
The pair went on giggling and talking, but they were now walking away from the bookcases to check out whatever books they'd chosen.
"No way," Coby whispered.
"Miss Nico? And Sir Crocodile? There's bound to be something there."
Coby was thoughtfully silent for a moment. "Well, we always have to keep in mind that she could be wrong. She didn't name her source, and she's been wrong before."
"Um…" Luffy interrupted the serious discussion. "Sorry, but can we stand up now? And maybe go get those books you said I needed?"
Coby and Helmeppo stared at him a moment, as though they had only just realized that he was there. Then they stood up quickly.
"Oh, yeah!" said Coby hastily. "This way!"
Luffy was led through a door and up a flight of stairs. There was a door at the top of the staircase, and he just managed to catch a glimpse of a smaller room lined with books before a blur of color flashed past the door, and a bunch of clangs and shouts distracted him.
"Aren't libraries supposed to be quiet?" asked Luffy.
"Not this one," snorted Helmeppo. "Downstairs, no one bothers being quiet, since it's an electronic check out system and no one's around to keep people quiet. And up here… This girl Kuina works up here, with the older, more valuable books and the selling of textbooks and all, and she's Zoro's—he's one of the guys I told you never to cross earlier—Zoro's greatest fencing rival, so they frequently have duels up here."
There came another crash, and a muscular young man came rolling out onto the landing at the top of the stairs. A young woman with short dark blue hair leapt out a mere moment after him and pinned the man beneath her foot, pressing her fake sword to his neck.
"I win," she announced cheerfully.
"Yeah, yeah," grumbled the green-haired young man beneath her foot. "Now would you let me up so I can get to class?"
The woman who was probably Kuina spun around and returned into the room, humming contentedly to herself. The man sat up and scratched his head as he stood.
"You're cool!" Luffy commented, walking right up to him. "Let's be friends!"
Coby and Helmeppo stared at him wide-eyed from behind. Helmeppo was muttering something like, "I told him crossing Zoro was a bad idea…" as Coby waved wildly, trying to gesture to Luffy that he should turn and run for his life while he still could. Luffy did not even seem to notice.
"If you're mocking me, I'll punch you straight into next week," Zoro growled.
"I'd like to see you try," Luffy snorted. "You couldn't even knock me out."
At this point, Coby and Helmeppo gave up attempting to gesture to Luffy that he should back away slowly, opting instead to duck into the safety of the storage closet that was located on the landing halfway up the stairs.
"I suppose you're going to run away from me?" Zoro scoffed. "A scrawny kid like you couldn't do anything."
"I don't run away," Luffy said matter-of-factly. "I fight."
It was impossible to say which had leapt at the other, but the next moment, Luffy and Zoro were a pile of punches and kicks. Coby and Helmeppo peeked out of the closet to see no more than a blur of colors as the two boys attacked one another. But what they could not see was that the boys were so well matched in strength that neither was being very badly hurt, since fists and knees and feet and elbows that meant harm were often caught before they met their mark.
Luffy and Zoro might have gone on fighting that way until they dropped with exhaustion, but the sound of brisk footsteps coming from the bottom of the staircase made them freeze. Luffy's knee halted abruptly on its way to Zoro's stomach, while Zoro's fist heading for Luffy's face froze mere millimeters away from Luffy's nose.
The footsteps were brisk and loud, indicating that the one walking was considerably heavy. There was a rhythm to them that suggested that the person had a limp.
Coby and Helmeppo ducked right back into the closet, and didn't even stop there—they pushed their way to the back, grabbed mops and brooms to push in front of them, and then finally dropped to the floor and began throwing buckets and rags and bottles on top of themselves.
"It's Dad," Helmeppo muttered, eyes wide in terror. "He'll be furious when he sees I'm not studying in homeroom…"
Coby quickly shushed his friend.
A similar state of panic was taking over the pair on the upper landing.
"Quick," Zoro whispered, eyes wide. "Get inside—it's Mr. Morgan!"
The two teens darted into the room in a mad, frantic scramble just before a large, muscular, intimidating man who lacked half his right arm came marching around the mid-way landing.
"Wha-" Kuina began in surprise.
"Shh!" Zoro whispered frantically. "Mr. Morgan! He'll expel me if he finds out I've been fighting again!"
Kuina rolled her eyes and went back to dusting the pile of old books.
"I need a reason to be here," Zoro whispered, gesturing wildly. "I don't think he's going to fall for the I've-been-reading-Shakespeare thing again."
"Actually," Kuina said, barely managing to hold down a laugh, "I don't think he fell for it the first time. The fact that it was Romeo and Juliet might have made him just a bit suspicious. The fact that you were holding it upside down was just a dead giveaway."
Zoro glowered.
"You're not helping." He turned to Luffy, who was listening with his arms crossed beside Zoro. Neither seemed to realize that they had been in a violent fistfight only moments before—a small detail that amused Kuina to no end. "Come on, can't you think of a reason to be here?"
"I need my textbooks," Luffy replied without missing a beat. "I don't have any."
"You're new, I suppose?" Kuina smiled. "What grade are you in?"
"11th."
"Do you know what electives you'll be taking?"
"Electives?"
"The classes that you can choose from. You need to take at least two. But I suppose you haven't chosen yet?"
"No one's asked."
"Okay; then I'll just give you the textbooks you'll need for normal classes, and you can come back if you decide to take any electives that require textbooks, all right?"
"Great!" said Luffy enthusiastically. When Kuina went into the room behind her desk to get the books, Luffy turned to look at the figure standing in the door.
Mr. Morgan was glaring with his thick, robust arms crossed over his chest.
"What are you doing in the library, Mr. Zoro?" the intimidating man demanded.
"He came with me," Luffy told the man cheerfully. "I'm new and I needed textbook, and Zoro's my new best friend, so he came with me to the library!"
"Oh yeah," Zoro agreed, nodding maybe a little too enthusiastically as he slung an arm around Luffy's shoulders. "Best friends do everything together!"
Mr. Morgan's look could only be described as a vast ocean of suspicion and accusation that contained infinitely more accusation than suspicion.
"Here're your books," Kuina said, returning with a pile of five books. Mr. Morgan's eyebrows shot up as though it were the most shocking thing in the world that Luffy's claim had had any truth to it. "But I'm afraid we don't allow you to borrow textbooks—you have to buy them. So I'll need to add it to your tuition fees. What's your name?"
"Luffy," Luffy told her.
"Your full name," Kuina clarified.
"Oh. Luffy D. Monkey."
None of them noticed Mr. Morgan, at the door, furrowing his brow and muttering under his breath. "Monkey… Monkey. I know I've heard that name before. Where've I heard that name before?" Kuina sat down in front of her computer and began to type something when Luffy suddenly remembered, "Hey, this is about money, right?"
Kuina looked up from the screen and raised an eyebrow. "Yes."
"Oh. Then Makino said that everything has to go under the name Shanks Red."
"R- Red? Shanks Red?" Mr. Morgan asked from the doorway. Luffy looked up at him curiously.
"Yeah, that's my guardian's name."
"A- ah," Mr. Morgan said with a sudden (and obviously fake) smile. "Well then, Mr. Monkey, Mr. Roronoa. I hope you have a very nice day." And then he was gone.
Zoro's arm instantly retracted as he, Luffy, and Kuina stared after Mr. Morgan.
"What was it about your guardian's name that sent him running?" asked Zoro.
"Maybe because he thought anyone who's red is about to die of fever?" suggested Luffy.
"Or maybe it was actually your name that got him. Monkey. You actually do resemble a monkey, so maybe the thought of teaching a primate made him sick enough to run away."
Luffy burst into laughter. "Didn't he run away at your name? After all, Zoro sounds a lot like Zorro, and Zorro's supposed to fight evil tyrants like him."
Zoro smirked. "Oh yeah. And Zorro's son actually rebelled against the teacher in The Legend of Zorro, didn't he?"
"He probably thought you were going to pull some Zorro moves on him and throw him out."
"Actually, I would do that if I thought I could get away with it. No one likes that guy, anyway."
"Great! I don't like him. When you decide to rebel against him, tell me and we'll do it together, okay?"
Neither Zoro nor Luffy had been aware that their voices had been steadily amplifying as they grew more and more absorbed in their conversation, and so were rather surprised when Kuina cut in.
"Quiet in the library," Kuina warned them, amused by their expressions of shock as they looked at her, as though they had completely forgotten that she was in charge of keeping quiet and order in this place. "You should probably be getting to class soon, Mr. Monkey—or can I call you Luffy?"
"Luffy's fine," Luffy replied without any apparent thought as he looked at the pile of books. "Am I supposed to carry those around all the time?" he asked.
"Until you're assigned a locker, yes. Do you want to buy a book bag, too?" Luffy nodded enthusiastically. "Okay; they're all the same style, but you can have blue, red, black, white, or green."
"Red," said Luffy without a moment of hesitation. Kuina went back into the back room and brought him the bag, putting his books into it for him.
"I noticed that you didn't have anything with you at all, so I took the liberty of giving you a pencil box containing pencils, erasers, and pens. Call it a gift from me to the first friend Zoro's made in ten years."
"Hey!" protested Zoro. "I never said he was my friend! And I've made friends! Like Johnny and Yosaku!"
"He helped you after you two had a fist fight, you had a nice little conversation, and you two seem to get along perfectly," Kuina snorted. "If that doesn't make him your friend, I don't know what does. And Johnny and Yosaku are your fan club—not friends."
"Yep!" Luffy told him cheerfully. "We're friends now, so you're part of my gang!"
"Wait, wait, wait. Back up. What gang?"
"I'm starting a gang! It'll be a secret gang that no one knows about except our close friends—like Kuina, since she's your best friend—and we'll have a secret hideaway where we can have fun and everything!"
Zoro stared.
"Wait—you're not like those guys like Bellamy and Foxy and Buggy and all that, who start creating their own exclusive fraternities?"
"But isn't a fraternity supposed to be all boys?" Luffy asked. "I don't care whether people are girls or boys. We're just going to get together and have fun, and no one else'll find out."
Zoro turned this over in his mind.
"I think you mean a secret society," he said slowly. "Not a gang."
"Secret society sounds so complicated," Luffy said. "It's a gang, and that's that."
"Great," said Zoro, lifting his dark green book bag onto his shoulder. "You have fun, then."
"Hey, you're a member, too!" shouted Luffy as he ran after Zoro. But he didn't forget to wave to Kuina as he left the room. "Bye, Kuina! Thanks for everything!"
Kuina smiled as she went back to dusting the old books. She could hear a string of 'am not's and 'are too's from down the staircase, and she never doubted that Zoro would concede to Luffy within the next ten minutes.
Indeed, ten minutes later Zoro had conceded to Luffy, but that was the least of his concerns at that particular moment.
"Where are we?" Luffy asked Zoro.
"You don't know where we are? What do you mean you don't know where we are?"
"What? Hey! How am I supposed to know? I've never been in this building before! How can you not know your way around here? I thought it was your fourth year here!"
"I know my way around! I just thought that you knew yours, so I was following you! And for your information, this is my fifth year here."
"Fifth? I thought you're supposed to graduate high school after four. Why haven't you graduated?"
Zoro opened his mouth to reply, and then frowned in thought.
"Actually, I don't really know," he said, sounding sincerely shocked and puzzled. He thought for a moment, and then his face cleared as he remembered. "Because they didn't give me a diploma."
Luffy gave Zoro a long look. "Yeah, I get that. Why didn't they?"
"Didn't I just say I didn't know?"
"How can you not know why you didn't graduate?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?"
"Because it's your graduation! You're pretty stupid, aren't you?"
"Says the one who didn't know he was supposed to have textbooks!" Zoro glared.
"Well, I've never been to a school before."
"What were you doing, then? Dancing around in the fields and smelling the flowers?"
"Sometimes, yeah." Zoro would have gaped at Luffy's response if he hadn't gone on without a single pause. "I'm hungry. I need food."
Zoro rolled his eyes.
"Then go to the cafeteria."
"Which way is the cafeteria?" asked Luffy, looking left and right. Zoro looked around as well.
"Well, I don't think it's here…I think it had a roof…"
"It did," Luffy nodded. "At least, I think it did. And…" He peered over the edge of the sudden cliff that seemed to go all the way around the ground that he was standing on. "I think I've solved the mystery!"
"What mystery?" asked Zoro curiously.
"The mystery of where we are!"
"What mystery? I know perfectly well where we are!"
"Didn't you just say you didn't?"
"No, I said that you were supposed to know."
"Okay, where are we?"
"In the school."
"Wrong!" Luffy informed him cheerfully.
"What do you mean, wrong?" snapped Zoro. "Where else would we be? We're in the school!"
"No, we're on the school."
"No we're- What do you mean 'we're on the school'?" Zoro demanded incredulously.
Luffy pointed over the cliff beside him.
"Look. The ground's way, way down under us, there're no walls around us, and there's no roof on top of us, so either we're on a cliff or we're on top of the school." He paused for a moment. "Do you think we're on a cliff?"
"No…" said Zoro slowly, looking at his feet. "See? I think this ground is too smooth to be natural."
"No, look!" said Luffy, picking up a rock. "There wouldn't be rocks on a roof, right?"
"I've seen people chucking rocks onto the roof fairly often."
"From five floors down?"
"No, out the windows."
"…Was that more of that 'sarcasm' thing that you were talking about earlier?"
"No, I was serious."
"You throw rocks up onto the roof out of windows?"
"When classes are particularly boring, yeah."
"No wonder you didn't graduate."
"Hey!"
"So we're on the roof then. How do we get down?"
"We could jump," Zoro suggested.
Luffy looked down.
"Do you think it'd be safe? We're about five floors above the ground."
"Probably. Are you actually scared?"
"Of Makino when she finds out I jumped off a roof again? Yeah! Last time I jumped off a roof, she didn't let me have meat for a week! I need meat!"
"…She wouldn't let you eat just because you jumped off a roof?"
"Yeah! Isn't it barbaric?"
"…Maybe we should see if we can find any stairs first."
"Yeah, maybe we should," Luffy agreed.
They walked around the edge of the roof. Unfortunately, it was a sheer drop on all sides, and the roof was completely flat except for the stones.
"So how do we get down?" asked Zoro.
"How should I know?" Luffy retorted. Then there was a long pause during which Zoro stared at Luffy. He could almost hear the gears turning in the boy's mind; he waited to hear what logic his new 'gang leader' was working with. Then Luffy finally spoke. "How did we get up here in the first place?"
Zoro thought for a moment.
"I don't really know. Do you?"
"I wouldn't have asked if I did."
Zoro shrugged. Luffy shrugged back. Why did it matter how they'd gotten onto the roof anyway? They wanted to get down.
"Okay," Zoro finally said. "Here's what we'll do. I'll hold you by the ankles and dangle you off the edge of the roof. We probably ought to be able to get you down far enough that you can open the nearest window. You'll go in, then I'll jump down and you have to catch me."
This plan worked as far as Zoro dangling Luffy down by the ankles. The window that he was lowered in front of was locked, and when he knocked, the people in the classroom stared at him as if he were a ghost. He saw the teacher stare for a few moments before she collapsed on the floor in a dead faint and the students ran out of the room, screaming.
"Pull me up, Zoro," Luffy called up to his friend. "I think they're scared. Probably they thought I was a thief or something because they don't know me."
Zoro hauled Luffy back up, muttering something about 'stupid cowards.'
"Let's try another window," Luffy suggested. "This time I'll dangle you down."
"Are you even strong enough?" asked Zoro dubiously. Luffy's eyes narrowed.
"Want to fight me again?"
"Fine, fine," Zoro grumbled. "Just don't drop me."
This time the room was empty, but the window was open. Zoro managed to tumble in, and then held out his hands and caught Luffy by the ankles as the boy fell, unceremoniously dragging him in. If anyone else had been on the scene, they probably would have commented that it was amazing that Luffy didn't bruise or complain from this rough treatment.
It was only after they were out in the hallways, once again with no idea where they were, that Zoro stopped to speak again.
"So, what'd you say your first class was?"
"Um…" Luffy dug through his pockets and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. He pulled it open and looked at it a moment, then, "Not this." And it was crumpled up again and tossed over his shoulder. He went digging again, brought out another crumpled piece of paper, looked at it, crumpled it up and threw it over his shoulder again. It was the eighth sheet of paper that he finally gave a triumphant, "Ah ha!"
"Wait a minute," Zoro muttered, leaning down to pick up the crumpled papers behind Luffy. "What are…?"
He trailed off as he stared at the first sheet blankly. Then the second, then the third, then the forth, until the seventh. And then he looked up, brandishing the seven sheets in front of him. On each of them was written a single word in a childish scribble: "MEAT."
"Luffy?"
"My first class is physics!" Luffy announced triumphantly.
"Yeah, yeah, that's nice," Zoro said dismissively, "but what are these supposed to be?"
Luffy spared the seven sheets of paper a glance.
"Shopping lists."
"Why do you have seven shopping lists?" Zoro demanded.
"Because I never remember to throw them away." Luffy's voice was distracted, for he was very busy inspecting his crumpled schedule.
"But why is meat the only thing you need meat every time you go shopping?"
Luffy was not listening.
"Ooh, look at this! It says 'ysilguE!' That sounds like a fun class!"
"Hey, listen to me when- 'ysilguE?'" Zoro looked over at Luffy's paper. Unfortunately, though a senior, Zoro was not at all capable at reading upside down; not even a word as simple as 'English'. "It does! Why do you get a class like that? We never got that in junior year!"
"What class do you have next?" Luffy asked curiously.
Zoro thought a moment, then shrugged.
"Well, that's not very helpful," huffed Luffy, and like a bolt of lightning, his hands were digging through Zoro's pockets. "Hey, these pockets are big—and full!"
And before Zoro even had time to open his mouth in protest about Luffy invading his privacy in the first place, both his pockets were inside out and the contents had clattered to the floor. Luffy stared down at the scattered junk on the ground for a moment.
"You thought my lists were strange, and your pockets were filled with these things?" demanded the younger boy incredulously.
"It's my privacy, and none of your business!" snapped Zoro, but Luffy was not listening.
"A few used staples…a needle…a rock…a couple balls of thread…a crumpled shopping list…" Luffy was throwing each unimportant object into the garbage can nearby as he listed them off, but at this point stopped to look at Zoro with a look that clearly said, "Hypocrite!" before he went back to listing. "A watch that doesn't have hands…a piece of…something." He looked at Zoro questioningly.
"Of a broken plate," Zoro told him, picking up offending object and tossing it into the garbage can. "I wondered where all this stuff had gone!"
"What, did you mistake your pockets for a garbage bin or something?" asked Luffy. His tone was not insulting, simply questioning, so Zoro let it go, though if it had been anyone else, he would have made an attempt to hurt them seriously with the pocket knife that he was putting back into his pocket.
So Luffy and Zoro worked together, gathering the shell, safety pin, wood splinter, pieces of bright pink confetti, used light bulb, unused staples, hairpin, rubber band, plastic leaf, stick, former mud ball ('former' because it had broken into clumps of dirt), piece of cardboard, plastic R magnet, kitten stickers, photo of a puppy, and scraps of meat into the garbage can. Or rather, Zoro attempted to put the smelly, discolored scraps of meat into the garbage, only to have Luffy snatch them away with a cry of, "Meat!" and shove them into his mouth.
"Er…Luffy?" Zoro addressed him hesitantly, returning the magnifying glass and small bottle of some sort of liquid to his pocket. "You might not want to eat that…it looked sort of…grey."
But Luffy had already swallowed, and was looking at him oddly.
"Why should it matter if it's grey? It's still meat."
Zoro searched for the answer to that. Kuina had something about…what was it? Food poisoning? But how could it be poisoned when he didn't remember putting any poison into it? Unless poison was something that just appeared without anyone doing anything… No, that couldn't be right. When someone was poisoned, someone else had to put the poison there. Unless it was suicide, but that was a different issue. Poison didn't just appear out of nowhere, and he had no memory of putting poison in the food, hence it must not be poisoned. All that time spent in the library was probably just confusing Kuina.
"Eh, never mind," Zoro shrugged. "Doesn't make a difference."
But then Luffy started to choke.
"What is this meat?" he managed to demand between chokes. "It tastes horrible!!"
Ah, thought Zoro. This must be why. But it still wasn't poison. It just didn't taste good.
Or was it poison if it didn't taste good? No, that wasn't right either. He could remember eating some horrible-tasting food that didn't make him sick or kill him. Hence it wasn't poison, and hence poison was not something that didn't taste good. Yep, Kuina was just really confused.
But then Luffy dug into his other pocket and brought out a handful of what was, unmistakably, (fresh) meat, and began to stuff his mouth with it.
"You carry meat around in your pocket?" Zoro didn't bother to disguise the disgust in his voice.
"You carried it too. Only yours was yucky." This time, the muttered, "Hypocrite" that followed was audible.
"So, what is your next class?" asked Luffy, as they began to walk in a random direction down the hallway after he had swallowed.
"No idea," replied Zoro promptly.
"Then how do you know where to go all the time?" Luffy was extremely curious to know. Gramps, and even Makino and Ace always told him that it was extremely important to know where he was going to go, or else he would get lost.
"Whatever class I find first," Zoro replied, looking at Luffy as though to say that it was only natural. Luffy nodded, apparently receiving this information as if it was only natural. Of course! That was much more logical. The schedule didn't tell him where to find any of the classes, so it would make sense to go to the one that he found first.
"So, now we just wander around till we find our first class?" he asked, just to be sure.
"Of course," Zoro replied, again giving Luffy a look as though to say that it was simply normal.
"Okay, let's go then!" chirped Luffy. And so they headed for 'class'.
Luffy and Zoro did not go far, however, before they found themselves completely lost again. Well…actually, lost and cramped. And unable to move, in Luffy's case.
"That's it," Luffy growled after several unsuccessful attempts at getting himself out of the tight, stuffy space that he was crammed into. "After we get out of here, I'm leading."
"You're leading?" Zoro repeated in disbelief. "You got us into this mess in the first place!"
"Me? I was following you!"
"Well, you could have told me not to go into the doorway!"
"How was I supposed to know it would be so small behind it? You were blocking my view!"
"If I could see you, I'd hit you for that."
Luffy snorted.
"You mean if you could reach me."
You see, the 'doorway' that Zoro had led them into that they should not have entered happened to be the doorway of a closet. Now, ordinarily, even after Zoro had entered and stuffed himself into the bottom shelf in search of a staircase or something similar that would allow him to continue on his hopelessly lost way, Luffy might have noticed that this was not a doorway that led to anywhere. However, the bell had sounded just then, and he had jumped a foot into the air and bolted into the closet, somehow leaping up onto the top shelf as though a troop of soldiers were after him (which, in his mind, they could very well have been).
But as anyone in the school knew, the sounding of the bell meant that a class had ended, so the hall had filled with people in a matter of moments. One of those first people in the hallway had, incidentally, seen only the open closet and not the two teenagers inside, and so closed the door. So now Luffy and Zoro were stuck arguing through the shelves that lay between them.
Perhaps the saddest part was that there was a doorknob on the inside of the closet door, for it had once functioned as a small bathroom. The toilet and sink had been removed when it was remodeled into a large closet and shelves fitted in, but no one had thought to remove the doorknob on the inside. However, this doorknob fell on the shelf that was second from the bottom and third from the top; neither of them could reach it.
Actually, Luffy and Zoro were arguing more out of boredom than any particular resentment. If anyone had asked Zoro, he would have said that they had been stuck there for at least an hour; if anyone had asked Luffy, he would have replied, "hours and hours and hours!" The fact of the matter was that they had been stuck for barely ten minutes, and already they were going out of their minds with boredom.
But after ten minutes, even arguing becomes boring when you know that you're only doing so for lack of anything better to do. So the two boys fell silent. Zoro had removed the pocketknife from his pocket, and had begun carving patterns into the mop handle on the floor nearby; Luffy, having the misfortune to have landed in the empty shelf where there was nothing to play with, started tapping on the wall. It was precisely 42.47 seconds before he realized that if he hit hard with his fists with a certain rhythm, he could make it sound like he was playing the drums.
"Would you just stop that up there?" Zoro burst out after enduring about forty more seconds of banging that echoed in his ears and gave him a headache.
"But I'm boooooooored!" came the whiny reply from above. Zoro growled.
Obviously, he had a choice between banging in his ears and whining above his head. Both gave him a headache, and given the chance, he would have gone as far away from the sounds as he could. However, given that the fact that they could not go anywhere was what was resulting in the horrible noises, he knew that his best bet was to just hope with all his might that someone opened the door soon.
When Zoro did not reply to Luffy's whine, the banging soon resumed.
Zoro growled to himself and glared angrily at the mop on the floor. He stabbed his pocketknife into the mop and then crossed his arms. It was time for a nap.
When Zoro awoke, it took a moment before he realized what had woken him. His brows furrowed when he realized it.
There was silence. Complete silence. But he could have sworn that he had woken up to the rhythmic banging suddenly falling out of rhythm with a sound like a 'snap' and then a cry of surprise and then a 'thump' accompanied by a grunt and another 'snap' before there had been silence.
"Luffy?" he tried. There was no reply. Zoro frowned. Had he imagined the sounds? But if he had, why were they so vivid and complicated? If he had imagined it, he was quite certain it would have been something more like 'bang' 'thump' rather than 'snap' 'ah!' 'thump' 'oof!' 'snap' '…'.
Zoro was perplexed. Had someone opened the door, and then Luffy left without him? No; he had spent a few hours with the boy at least, and knew that he would not leave him stuck in a closet. Then had he fallen asleep? The thought seemed puzzling, for Luffy had seemed like a ball of energy that never required refueling. But then again, everyone needed rest, and boredom could put even the most energetic to sleep. It was a proven fact, if Mr. Wapol's—what did he teach again?—classes were any indication.
Zoro was about to go back to sleep when his tiny space was flooded with blinding light.
It took a moment before he realized that the flooding light meant that the door had opened. It took another moment before he realized that the open door meant that he could leave. And then another moment passed before he realized that he had to move if he wanted to get out.
Zoro rolled out from under the shelf above him, stood, and stretched. It felt absolutely wonderful to be able to move freely again.
And then it suddenly occurred to him that someone must have opened the door. The door couldn't open on its own after all. No, wait—could it? Well, he supposed if something were propped up against the wall next to the door…and a bunch of other things propped up against the wall in a line beside that, going all the way down the hall…and then a great, strong gust of wind blew and knocked one over and they all went down like dominoes and- No. Wait. There only had to be one stick next to the door. Then a gust of wind could blow it down, and it could hit the doorknob and make it turn… But would that make a doorknob turn? No, probably not. Okay, then a string…a really, really, really long string…could be tied to the doorknob…really, really, really tightly…and then someone walking down some other hallway could accidentally trip over the string, and pull it…and it would be tied so tightly that the doorknob would turn! That was it!
But wait a second. Had there been a string tied to the doorknob when he'd opened it? Maybe…but no, he didn't think so. Maybe it was an invisible thread? One of those things used in movies? That would make sense, since the one who tripped over it and accidentally pulled it wouldn't realize that it was there either. But invisible threads weren't really invisible…were they? He thought he recalled someone—maybe it was Kuina…but no, if it was about movies, it was probably Johnny—telling him that invisible threads weren't really invisible. Just thin enough that they were hard to see. Did that mean that they couldn't be felt, either? No, they'd have to be solid, or else those people 'flying' in movies would fall down. Okay, he hadn't felt anything like that when he was opening the closet, either, so that was ruled out, too.
And…why had he been doing this again? Oh yes. Whether a human was required to open the closet door. Well, sticks and strings were ruled out, but maybe a gust of wind that was really, really, really, really strong could turn the doorknob and open-
"Roronoa!"
Zoro jumped out of his skin and winced. Yep. It was a person who had opened the door. And if he wasn't mistaken, that voice… Then again, it would make sense that the janitor would be the one to open a supplies closet, wouldn't it?
"Hello, Ippon," Zoro muttered, slowly turning around to face the glaring janitor as his mind whirled, working overtime to find a way to get away without attracting to much attention to himself. And his eyes widened at the sight before him.
The school janitor, Ippon Matsu, was holding up a mop. The handle must have been smooth once, but it was now ragged with lines and curves carved roughly in no particular design. To top it off, a pocketknife was stuck clean through the middle of the handle.
Oops. Yes, maybe he should have considered that the mop would be Ippon's. The guy had already been trying to get him expelled at every corner. This would be the last straw.
"Hello?!" Ippon demanded, his voice near tears. "You've ruined my mop! Do you know how much these things cost these days? I can't ask the principal to buy another one!"
"Erm, yes, let me see that," Zoro mumbled, snatching the mop from the distraught man's hands. He made to wrench the pocketknife out of the handle.
"Oh no you don't!" Ippon screeched, making to pounce on Zoro.
Uh-oh.
Ippon had realized what Zoro was doing. The only piece of evidence that it was Zoro who had ruined the mop was the pocketknife. Ippon had made several attempts to set up Zoro so that he would be expelled in the past, so the principal would not believe him unless he presented some sort of solid evidence. The fact that it was Zoro's pocketknife was only a minor detail, for Ippon could have stolen or found it; the fact that it was sticking clean through the wooden mop handle with no sign of a struggle to get it into that state was a dead giveaway. Not many people had that kind of strength.
Zoro stepped quickly out of the way when Ippon pounced at him. He tugged and tugged, but the knife stuck fast. Ippon was leaping to his feet, a menacing glint in his eyes.
Oh well. Better than being expelled, Zoro shrugged to himself.
SNAP!
Ippon froze. He stared at the mop broken clean in two as Zoro hastily picked up his fallen pocketknife.
As Zoro began to run for his life down the hall, folding and pocketing the knife as he went, he heard a shrill scream of horror behind him. He began to run even faster, eyes wide with terror.
He knew when he was in for it. But in this case, he probably could get away if he wasn't caught… Yeah, that sounded about right.
Wait—where was Luffy? If only that idiot were there, he might have some sort of chance. He was really good at making up excuses on a second's notice—and real excuses that no one could deny, too.
Zoro cursed under his breath.
Where's that moron when you need him?
"I am going to skin you before I split you limb from limb, and then I'll drop you into a giant pot of boiling water before I kill you!" came the shriek behind him that said that the janitor had regained control of his mind and was beyond the point of 'rage'. "I curse you Roronoa! I curse the day you were born! May you live a sad, miserable, weak, lonely life for the rest of your days! May you be expelled! May you die a sad, miserable, slow, painful death!"
This was followed by the clanging and clashing of something obviously large and heavy being pulled out from somewhere—presumably the closet.
Zoro chanced a look back at the end of the hallway. It was always best to know what your mortal enemy was going to try to kill you with, after all. He turned pale.
Ippon was brandishing a vacuum cleaner—no, the vacuum cleaner. It was the newest model from some big company whose name he couldn't remember, and was basically a pipe without the big box attached to the end. The students had been crowding around it to look at it at the end of the last trimester. It was extremely strong, and the gap that sucked was about three times as large as a normal vacuum cleaner's. The pipe was larger as well, so as to perform the functions usually performed by the box that this model lacked. Worst of all, it was battery powered.
At the end of the last term, some freshman had pulled a prank on Ippon while he was vacuuming. Ippon had turned on the freshman and turned the vacuum cleaner on him as well—and had latched it onto the back of his shirt. The horrified freshman discovered that the vacuum was too powerful for him to pull away, and after about half a minute of sucking, his shirt had ripped right off his torso to be sucked up by the vacuum cleaner—just like that.
That had been a simple prank. Ippon was beyond furious with Zoro at the moment. Zoro remembered his threat about skinning him, and went even paler. He looked down at his skin. It couldn't…could it? He looked up. Ippon was getting closer and closer.
Nope, this was one risk Zoro was not willing to take. He turned on his heel and ran like he was the gingerbread man.
Zoro paused.
No, wait—the gingerbread man had run right into the jaws of a fox. Bad comparison. No, he ran like he was a rabbit- No, too cute. A cheetah? Cheetahs did the chasing. A…squirrel? Absolutely not. No way was he climbing any trees. A cat? Too sly and cunning to be running like he was now. A peacock? Yuck. How about-
"Roronoa!" A sudden 'vroom!' joined the voice.
Zoro didn't need to look over his shoulder to know that Ippon was almost on him, and had turned on the vacuum. He turned pale as a ghost, and forgetting all about the simile, ran for his life like there was no tomorrow.