ZoNa Summer Festival!

Theme: Yukata
Rating: PG-14 / T
Word Count: 1,669 words

It was another humid night, but Nami blamed her crew's adventurous spirit for the unbearable heat she was enduring. Even as she stood in front of the open refrigerator, she felt very little relief. The navigator in her yearned to get back out on the sea, where the ocean's breeze could cascade over the Sunny, making the mid-summer evening much easier to bear. Instead, they were docked at an island that was celebrating the longest night of the year with a grandiose festival and the Mugiwara crew just had to attend.

That's why she was dressed in such an extravagant yukata at such a late hour.

Well, that, and it helped her survive the heat.

She hadn't even turned the lights on when she entered the kitchen. The fridge's bulb illuminated its shelves well enough for her to pick out an iced cold can of beer, her hand swiping it up swiftly as if it were some hidden treasure. Once the frigid metal met her skin, Nami inhaled deeply due to the stark difference in temperature. In a good way.

She'd do just about anything to feel that chill run over her entire body.

The kitchen was empty, but even if it wasn't, Nami would have done anything in that moment to feel some kind of relief. She adjusted the collar of her yukata until it moved off of her collar bone and fell upon the curve of her shoulders. The upper swells of her beasts were able to meet the chill released from the refrigerator yet it wasn't enough. She needed something stronger!

That was when she had an idea: Nami took the chilled can in her hand and rolled it over her chest. "Ah!" She whispered a slight sound of shock when the condensation along the metal splashed down on her skin. She thought that the cold touch might make her freeze, until her head fall backwards almost instinctively, exposing the entire length of her neck. Quickly, she guided the beer can along her jugular and up to the edge of her jaw.
"Mmm." Her relief was so instantaneous, she moaned aloud. She didn't only think of her satisfaction, she released a noise of pleasure into the room.

"Nami?"

For once, she genuinely believed she had said too much.

Craning her neck to face the doorway, she saw a large, stocky figure entering the room. Before her mind could even comprehend who had joined her in the kitchen, she asked in a shy voice, "Zoro?"

It was indeed the swordsman, evident in the heavy way he walked towards her awkward stance at the refrigerator. Nami felt her heartbeat thumping against the cold can in her hand. Despite how embarrassed she was to be caught moaning over it, she couldn't dare move it off of her body or she'd be burning up once again.

However, of all the people to find her, Zoro was the least interested in what she was doing to herself. When he finally reached her side, he perused the selection of alcohol in the fridge and took his sweet time doing so. In order to stick his head right inside it, he was forced to place his hand on Nami's back so he could edge around her without knocking her over.

That large palm of his was like a heating pad resting against her obi.

"Agh, Zoro." She whined rather childishly. It felt like the warmth in her decorative belt was being trapped within her outfit and the only logical thing to do to alleviate herself was to tear back the fabric of her skirt so that the bottom half of her yukata was open now too. Essentially, without her obi keeping her festival outfit on, she'd be nude in front of the swordsman just to find some kind of relief from the heat.

"Hot?" He asked her when he finally settled on his drink. As he pulled back from the fridge, she noticed that he hadn't removed his hand from her back.

Growing exhausted from the humidity that was plaguing her, Nami groaned, "Yeah, aren't you?"

He didn't answer her with words. Instead, Zoro gently rattled the can in his hand to show her that he was craving a cold one just as much as she had been. She watched as he cracked it open with one hand and took a few hefty swigs of his beer like the fanatic he was. Curious to see if she could pull off the same trick, she pulled her can out of the crook of her neck-

"Here." Was all he said to warn her before he placed his cool, half empty beer against her exposed thigh.
Nami, so startled by his indirect touch, backed herself up against the counter. The edge of it met her backside - underneath his still present hand - and compelled her to arch her body until the lining of her yukata pulled farther and farther apart over her breasts. "Wh-What are you…?"

There was a question to be asked, but she was enjoying the coldness of his touch far too much.

Since she couldn't dare to fight him off, Zoro seemed to take that as a wordless kind of permission. His fingers grabbed onto her thigh and raised it up to his waist without any formal warning. The moment he stepped in between her legs, a swirl of something sinister rolled around deep in her belly.

Nami found her need to be cooled down suddenly replaced by a darker desire to feel the heat of Zoro's skin on hers…

Until the sudden crackling of fireworks went off outside, reminding her that there was in fact a world outside of the kitchen.

"Zoro, the… festival. We have to go back." It was her weakest rebuttal if she ever heard one. Tone passive, language soft, she knew she was fighting him off with an ounce of believability. It was the craze of the humidity, she told herself, that was causing her common sense to evaporate. But when Zoro's broad chest was directly in front of her, peeking out of his own navy blue yukata and threatening to compress her against the kitchen counter, why on Earth would she push him away?

Why wouldn't she want to see what he had in mind?

Why would she repel him when he took another sip of his drink and moved in closer, bringing his lips to hers so she could have a taste of that cold, refreshing beer?

Another boom outside forced her to throw her eyes wide open, and Nami realized that there was no beer to taste, no man to manhandle her. It took her a moment to focus her vision, but she quickly realized that she was waking up in the Women's Quarters and that the setting of the heated midnight kitchen was nothing more than a dream.

"W-What?" Nami sputtered as she sat up right. The jarring difference in what she understood to be reality hit her like a ton of bricks, and her clouded mind began frantically looking around the room for the swordsman who had been with her moments ago.

"Nami?" A rather serene-sounding voice called to her while she flailed. Immediately, she knew that it wasn't Zoro, and her disappointed took over her. Nami slowly turned her neck so she could acknowledge her roommate Robin in the sitting area of their bedroom. Startled and concerned, she quickly added. "Are you all right?"

"Y-Yeah, I just," - all within a single moment, Nami went from disappointed, to sad, then angry, followed by furious and finally, she landed on being disheartened - "had a really weird dream."

"Did you want to talk about it?" offered Robin, closing her book to offer her undivided attention.

Nami rubbed her forehead as she grumbled, "No, it was just really strange. But, it did remind me of one thing."
"Oh?"

"We need to buy yukata." Nami explained and she could feel the blush rising up in her cheeks as the words left her mouth…

Mouth…

Lips…

Zoro's lips had been so close to reaching hers before she woke up…!

"I-In case we go to any festivals on a summer island, or something."

"Sounds like this strange dream was rather helpful, then." Robin said, her tone hinting that she might have been amused by the conversation they were having. Then, she picked up her book and resumed to whatever passage she had been reading before she had been distracted.

Meanwhile, still sitting under a bundle of sheets in bed, Nami eyed her friend with bewilderment. 'Helpful' didn't seem like the right word to use. Not after it made her think about her crew mate - one of her oldest ones, at that! - in such a perverse way. Summertime was always coupled with spells of humidity, some even dry enough to make her feel faint. Even a summer-born child such as herself felt that there were sunny days that were insufferably hot!

But she'd never dreamt of nearly stripping herself naked in front of anyone before in a meager attempt to cool off, and she most definitely didn't dream about doing so in front of Roronoa Zoro.

It must have been because of that escapade with the ice cubes! He had shown her a side to him that had caused some kind of reaction in her. Something about the fiendish way he toyed with her and fought with her and took control made her feel...like she enjoyed that kind of behavior, especially when exhibited by him. Arguing with Zoro and pushing his buttons could almost be considered a past time for her. However, this reaction she was having to that one moment with him by her tangerine grove was nearly too much to take.

Nami threw her sheets off of her body and rose from her bed with a sigh. She felt defeated as she admitted out loud, "I'm going to take a cold bath." She knew she needed one if she had any intention of genuinely cooling herself down.