Never Lose You

Chapter 4: I can't think of him

He's shivering again. He's having trouble in breathing again. He's so full with sweat again.

It looks like he's having another nightmare. He clenched his fingers against the bed cover so hard.

I wonder… what did those shitty psychopaths do to him that gives him this kind of suffers?!

Zoro hit the wall with his fist in anger. Then he walked out from the room, Sanji's room.

Sanji was still moving his head just like he's trying to avoid something in his sleep. His cold sweat trickled down on his cheeks. He bit his lower lip so hard. Something in his nightmare was going to reach him…

"STOP IT!!!" Sanji suddenly sat up from his sleep. He panted. He tried so hard to put a wall on the boundary between nightmare and real life. But still, it was so hard for him. Those memories chased him whatever he did.

He quickly turned to the table beside the bed. His hands tried to find something in the middle of his calloused mind. Finally he found it; a bottle of medicine that he thought could help him to remove those memories. He opened up the bottle and poured some of the tablet inside his mouth. Then he pushed them into his throat with some water that he drank. He panted.

Those memories went away from him for a while, but then came back to him.

He was pouring the tablets into his mouth again when Zoro got in the room with a plate of food and a glass of water for him.

"STOP THAT!" Zoro quickly put the plate and the glass on the nearest chair. He hit Sanji's hand so hard that the bottle of medicine was thrown away to the ground.

Sanji looked at the bottle in panic. Then he tried to reach another bottle of the same medicine on the table, but Zoro swept all of the bottles away. The sound of breaking glasses could be heard on the air.

"You can't help yourself with that fucking useless thing!" Zoro shouted on him. Sanji said nothing, still looked at the broken bottles on the ground. He suddenly crawled to the tablets on the ground. When he almost reached them with his hand, Zoro kicked them and pulled his body up.

"Those tablets can't help you!" Zoro punched him on the cheek that made him thrown to the bed and said, "YOU! You're the one who can help yourself!"

Sanji's visible eye opened so wide. Tears flowed from it but it still widened.

Zoro sat beside him. Sanji started to mumble, "You don't know what happened… You don't know… You didn't see them… You didn't feel what they did… You don't know how much it hurt… You know nothing… You…"

Zoro grabbed Sanji's head from left and right side. He looked at Sanji's eye that showed how much fear in it.

"Of course I don't know if you don't tell me," Zoro said.

Sanji's eye widened. "Okay, I don't want to know it either. Just forget it, okay?" Zoro looked deep into the eye.

"It's not that easy! I feel every single thing that they did!" Sanji shouted as his tears flowed again.

"Then just think of something else instead of those single things that you felt!" Zoro shouted back, still forced Sanji to face him.

"I can't!"

"Then just think of something that you can see and feel right now!!!" Zoro shouted loudly that Sanji stopped making any sound.

Zoro's lips opened slowly,

"Me…"

Sanji's mouth opened a bit.

"Just think of me right now, can you?"

Sanji bit his lower lip, and then suddenly closed his eye.

"Why? Why do you hate me? Why do you hate me that you can't even look at me or think about me?" Zoro asked.

Sanji's lips shivered, "I don't hate you."

"Then WHY?"

"When I try to think about you, it just hurt me as well! Thinking about you just makes me hurt so much…" Tears flowed down again, "I can't think of you!!!" He shook his head.

Zoro's eyes widened now. He loosened his grab on Sanji's head. He clenched his teeth and bowed his head down.

"I… I'm sorry…" Zoro now remembered something that he had decided not to remember anymore, the night when he slept with Sanji and the morning after that, "I'm sorry Sanji… I don't know what I can do for you now… to make you stop hating me…"

"I don't hate you!" Sanji looked at him, "I don't hate-"

Zoro kissed him.

"Zoro I…"

"Ssssh…"

Zoro put a finger on his lips. He trailed kisses on Sanji's cheek, neck and back to the lips.

"Zoro…"

Zoro put Sanji's head on his chest and hold him tightly. "You'll never meet them again. I promise you, I'll protect you, forever."

Sanji cried again on Zoro's chest as he grabbed Zoro's shirt. Zoro caressed him on the head and kissed his forehead.

I really hope we can be like this forever… I don't need your promise, I just want to be in your warmth like this, forever… because this makes me feel protected.

I love you, Zoro.

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6 chapters more… Ding dong ding dong…