Chapter 4: Perdition
"Are you okay?" Conis asked with clear concern in her voice.
"What?"
Looking around everything seemed strange and somehow it was rather confusing. The place. Sounds. Smells. Sensations. Nothing seemed to be in place... and much less her...
"You have bad face." Again the same tone of concern in this voice.
How could she speak with this tone after being doing it with …?
'One moment.'
Watching carefully to Conis could see that something was different. Certainly something was wrong here.
"Oi, Robin. You okay?" Asked Luffy surprised to notice the strange look to was launching his nakama to Conis. "If you like, Chopper could see if you are sick, what do you think?"
The voice of her senchou achieved that she got away her eyes from Conis and focus on the faces of her nakama that were looking at her between curious and confused, before returning to Conis again. This one was still in front of her with the same worried face that she saw when she opened her eyes.
'Open the eyes?... A nightmare then?'
The possibility was such that Robin let out the air that did not know that she was holding. She knew that Zoro could not have cheated her of that way. Not after what they had been said and of what they were feeling one for other one. Everything had been a misunderstanding provoked by her feverish imagination.
"I'm fine, senchou-san. Do not worry." Robin smiled to them with her natural unconcern. "Maybe be because of the trip or guess I have more hungry that I thought."
Among Robin's smile and the words of meshi was enough to Luffy also wad remembering that he was to the step from starvation and that already he could not wait much longer to try the succulent plates of Heaven they were preparing between Pagaya and Sanji. According to Usopp what Robin could have was an altitude sickness that was affecting her in the shape of bad dreams, because he already understood that despite appearances... Skypiea was giving something of fear.
Despite the soothing words of Robin, Chopper could not avoid worrying about his nakama because he had seen in her was an improper enough behavior. He did not have any doubt that anything had been the one who provoked it... but if Robin said everything was fine...
To Robin it had not escaped the furtive looks that Chopper was throwing to her in his attempts for find out if really she was so well as was assuring them or if only she was giving them the answer that they were expecting to listen. Seeing that her glass was empty, though she did not remember the moment in which it had happened, Robin decided that the better thing would be to continue acting like always.
"If it is not a great inconvenience I would like to take another glass. It is a delicious drink." Once again her tone of voice was enough to make to see to the others the things according to her own point of view. As it should be.
The opportunity to be helpful, even for something as insignificant, seemed to have given new life to Conis that prepared to offer her quickly the glass that she had been asked her.
"Oh, of course that is not any trouble." Conis assured her politely. "Right now I filled your glass."
A common gesture repeated hundreds of times but that just now provoked something very different to Robin. When Conis gathered Robin's glass there was a slight contact between their hands. Light, yes. But sufficient to provoke that the pacific nature of Robin's eyes had been changed by them to the cold of the steel reflected in them. That look managed to provoke in Conis a sensation of jumpiness that made her move back instinctively as act of survival.
Seeing those feelings reflected in the face of the mecchen, Robin seemed to take sense of her actions and recovered almost at the moment the calm look that she always was showing to the whole world.
Luffy had concentrated on Robin's strange behavior, but the protests of his own stomach were leading it to thinking about the answer that there had given them Robin as the truth.
"Arigatou." Once again the voice of Robin was warm and friendly.
Conis offered one of her best smiles as she departed to fill the glass. "Please, it's my pleasure."
Conis's words managed to puncture Robin in the inside but this time managed not to leave it to see anybody. She could not allowed that the others should see the way in which certain things were affecting her since herself was not even sure how to bring about all this.
It was in this precise moment the chosen for Zoro to do his reappearance and to return from the bath. And without intending, one to one they were remaining looking fixedly at him while he was returning to sit in the same armchair that had occupied before the incident.
"Oi, could you bring another drink for me?" Zoro's question sounded as normal as could be expected. "At the second ..." muttered looking askance at Luffy but nobody seemed to have heard nothing of his words.
Conis had recognized the voice of Zoro and she prepared to serve him a new glass, expecting for this time not to commit any type of accident in which it was returning to involve one of her guests.
"Of course, just now I was going to serve one to your nakama so- Oh!" When Conis turned, for not to be speaking to him of backs since it was a lack of respect that she could not show, she could see that something had changed in Zoro.
The truth was that everyone could see it.
That gesture of surprise brought a shiver to Robin and the whiteness of her face had become so evident that it had to be hidden very quickly not to raise suspicions among those present.
"Zoro...?"
The curiosity of the tone of Usopp's voice attracted Zoro's reticent attention, but before someone of his nakama could say something to him it was his own senchou the one that went forward them.
"You forgot the shirt in the bath, Zoro." He said him laughing.
The look that Zoro threw him was trying to provoke a hole in Luffy's head but being so innocent and unconcerned as he was, he had not even noticed Zoro's intentions. Unlike the others.
"I do not want to talk about it." Dry, simple and direct. Perfect in order that they were catching and left it running the topic.
Staying outside of the events that had Zoro with the others, Robin could not look away from Conis and look how to the girl it seemed impossible not remove her eyes from the naked chest of the kenshi. She needed to hide her right hand so that no one could to see how the knuckles turning white.
"Come on, Zoro." asked him Luffy with this pitiful tone of voice with which he always sought to extract the words to his nakama when they were trying to leave him in the dark on some topic. Here what more he was interested was to be able to separate his mind of thinking about the time that still it was lacking them to be able to eat. Besides that surely the history had a point. "Sure that it is not so bad."
Zoro knew him enough to know that Luffy would not give himself defeated until he was achieving his objective, it was the one that was. And now his objective was this.
'This way it is how you ended up being a Mugiwara, Zoro.'
"But first I am going to need that drink." Zoro's look once again fulminating to Luffy. "And this time I prefer drinking it in a habitual way."
On having given her course to be able to act, Robin saw as Conis came to her taking in her hands both glasses. One for her and the other for Zoro. With one of her grateful smiles Robin accepted the offered glass but she could feel as really she wanted to separate Conis of Zoro's side because the vision of these two together, even for something as innocent as to offer a glass to him. Not after having seen them…
'How you could have done this to me, kenshi-san?'
Zoro's hand stopped just before taking the glass that Conis was offering him and Robin thought, for an instant, that he had been capable of feeling her feelings against the girl but to whom Zoro threw his look went to what it was doing in these moments Luffy with the intention of avoiding a new incident with his drink. Luffy received that look with an innocent smile as if he had not made anything wrong at all … and, maybe, for him, it had not done it.
Seeing him free of danger Zoro accepted the glass that, before Conis could answer to Zoro's 'arigatou', he had already drunk it in a single shot.
Nothing bad. Quite innocent... but, everyone here thinks this way?
Unfortunately for Robin, she had seen like in the moment in which the glass had given to Zoro their hands, their fingers managed to touch lightly as if it was a chance fact. But she knew the truth. She had seen them as she saw just now. A And if all that was not enough she saw as Conis was remaining opposite to Zoro listening to his experience in the bath and the why of his current state shirtless. She should be been grateful because they were not telling their meeting or, is it what they had decided that it would be their own bouken of Skypiea and that it was not concerning for anybody more except the two involved?
"The first thing I did was try to clarify the spot with a bit of water but when I push the water dial the jet went out for me with too many pressure and I finished for wet all the shirt." Zoro put the glass on the table that was in front of him, going very, very close to Conis's legs for Robin's taste. Even she was thinking about seeing that, once again, there had been a friction between them. "Of course now the problem had worsened and as I could not wear the shirt all damp I looked for the breath dial to fix it. Of course there was one of warm air perfect for the work."
"Totally logical." added Usopp while he was playing with the dial tone.
Leaning against the back of his armchair of clouds Zoro's face did not appear to support that opinion.
"What happened then?" Asked an anxious Luffy to his nakama.
Once begun the history was stupid not to finish it in spite of knowing the reaction that he was going to obtain.
"So that the air went out with so much force that my shirt already must be on its way back to Jaya."
The laughter of the three nakama could be listened in the kitchen as if they were all stuck there. Sanji decided to go out to see if his two angels needed something of him before he was serving the meshi to them. And if this something was to be himself so much better.
"You three should have learned to behave in the presence of two sweet and lovely mecchen and stop riding so much noise and riot." Sanji reproached them entering to the lounge. "I do not have to remind you that we are guests and our duty is to know behave-" it was at the time when he saw Zoro without shirt exposing him to Conis and his own advices went out flying of the room. "¡¡¿¡¡WHAT THE HELL THINK ARE YOU DOING, MARIMO PIECE OF BAKA!!?!! YOU ARE EVEN WORSE THAN LUFFY, AND NOW THIS IS SAYING A WORLD."
"Oi, oi." Luffy complained to the treatment showed it. "Not that always I was putting the leg in the mouth."
"EXACTLY IT IS WHAT YOU DO!!!!"
Conis could not avoid laughing at the way to behaving of the boys.
Forgetting Luffy for the moment, already then he would have too much of his senchou when he was bringing the meshi, he returned quickly to the main issue. Zoro.
To Robin almost gave her an attack to see as Conis, in an unconscious way?, smoothes the dress to the height where the back loses its name. Everything what she saw were small gestures but of great importance if they were joined by a person with some idea of what was happened between them two.
"I do not want to know what could have happened to you it nor imports the most minimal thing for me. Here the only thing that matters is that these are not ways to behave in the house of a beautiful mecchen as Conis-chwan that nicely invited us to eat her delights."
'Sure she likes to be eaten.' Robin thought to herself in a not very nice way.
"And if what you want is to eat the first that you will do is that this marimo is going to cover him. Nobody wants to see you half naked, baka." Sanji said flatly. "We will end up by losing the appetite."
To the threat of not being able to eat Luffy reacted with the speed with which it was expected of a real senchou, the bad thing was that he was doing it because it was meshi. But a beginning is a beginning.
"Zoro go to Merry and put on a new shirt. It is an order." The seriousness of Luffy's voice left speechless everyone present.
Zoro was cured of fright and now the last thing he wanted was to discuss and then fight with Sanji. By standing Zoro went towards the exit. Yeah, towards the correct exit.
"I back right now." Zoro announced unconcernedly.
"Hurry." Luffy it was urging him while the same thought it was going through the heads of Usopp, Chopper and Sanji.
'Already we do not see him at least until tomorrow.'
"The best thing would be that someone was accompanying him..." Sanji said before looking at Luffy. "... if we want to eat as soon as possible."
As expected Luffy reacted following the advice or warning that would help to the meshi was served as soon as possible.
"As your senchou I order that one of you should accompany Zoro."
Before someone of them could answer him they were intercepted by the look that Zoro threw them and that it threw them backward in their intentions, both to Chopper and to Usopp. With Sanji was not necessary because even died would be going to accompany him when he had a new mecchen to shot. But when he had achieved his goal to be able to go away without a carbine…
"If it is not an inconvenience I could accompany him." Conis's shy voice broke that silence created by Zoro's killer look.
Of course that idea was not doing any grace to Sanji the fact that a beautiful and charming girl like Conis was to accompanying, alone, to a half naked Zoro.
"Well, we must take in mind that already she has experience guiding Zoro." Usopp said, managing to extract a new lethal look to Zoro but this time being he the only one in receiving it.
Thankfully for some, and unfortunately for other, Robin intervened.
"It is not necessary anyway because I had to return to the Merry too." Robin's voice was sounding like always but it was the previous look that she threw to Conis what attracted Chopper's attention.
"This is a nightmare." Zoro said while he was standing. "Whatever, I do not care what you do."
With these words Zoro left the room.
"Oh, my dear Robin-chwan!! What a way to sacrifice herself for her nakama! I will be counting the seconds in which the cruel Destiny should keep you removed from my side." He could not be done to the idea of losing one of his mecchen. "I keep your part of meshi like I will with Nami-swan."
Robin left his glass on the table on the opposite Conis for a few seconds before eternal turn to the exit.
"Arigatou, kukku-san. Now we return." She said goodbye over her shoulder. And this time her nakama could believe those words.
Luffy and the others saw Robin left the room and took the opposite direction to the chosen by Zoro. Only they needed to wait for a couple of seconds to see him to appear after the way thought by Robin, but not before throwing them a look of warning from the threshold without stopping his step. But what had tried to be an advice in order that they were not laughing was exactly the detonator of their laugh.
Despite of being getting down the stairs towards Angel's Beach he continued being able to listened the laughs of those who he still had the nerve to call nakama. While he was cursing for the low he saw that Robin, a few meters in front of him, had detained and seeming to be waiting for him.
On having come up to where she was, Zoro turned towards the house and could see that from where they were in these moments already they could not see it and, in the same way, neither from the house they could see them.
Zoro was smiling at the intelligence of that onna. Not only she had managed to find a credible excuse to be able to accompany him to the Merry, where they could be alone, but also she knew the exact point in the stairs from where already they could allow controlling.
"Mmmmm … seems to me that someone has something in mind that I like."
The sound of the slap resounded with so much force that the echo should have come up to the very same Blue Sea.
Continue in Chapter 5: Do you love me?
______________________________________________________________________
A good span of time from the previous chapter but here the following one is. Already you see first a bit of sugar and now a bit of pain … it is difficult to imagine Robin giving a sonorous slap, a one of those who leave the mark of her hand on the cheek of the poor recipient, in this case Zoro? You can see as everything can get worse ... Zoro's situation ... my english ; DD
My reviewners:
Ktomson: And my own excuses for being late in bringing this chapter. It is true what is said of that a woman knows what she likes.; D
Surprise? Well, I suppose that a bit if it has been, though I hope that Robin's last action it was not so much. Even she might have remained short.
You write and I read. You read and I write. ^^
Wintersprings: Here a clear example of which any action carries a reaction … but if it must be of equal intensity but of opposite sense, still was not he ended for Zoro?
Spriterx: Thanks for leaving yourself to fall down hereabouts. I hope that you have fed the wait with other interesting fics that exist hereabouts. ^^
I guess you could say that even in Heaven there is a place for the thorns.
Greetings and some late, but heartfelt, Congratulations for this New Year.