Zoro seems so OOC in this chapter. ^^ Sanji is, too…

Zoro stared at Tashigi's face, overwhelmed by their proximity. Kuina was in his mind, as she was when he ever crossed blades with Tashigi, but this time Kuina's image seemed in the background, sort of as if Tashigi was no longer playing it up. It was now hard to believe that all that time ago in Loguetown he had looked at Tashigi and, for a fleeting moment, had thought to himself, Kuina. Tashigi was a different person entirely. Having Tashigi around… almost smoothed over the tragedy that had been Kuina's death.

Tashigi's eyes were wide as Zoro continued to do nothing but stare down at her. His blade, which was still behind her head, was frighteningly chilling on the back of her neck. Shigure- where was Shigure? It took her a moment to realize that it she was still clutching the hilt in a downward position, nearly vertical to the deck. Why was she still holding it? She didn't know, but she couldn't drop it.

"Um…Zoro," she said quietly. Zoro's mind was still working. It didn't feel right. It was as if he was forgetting about Kuina so he could focus on Tashigi. He saw Tashigi's mouth move, but couldn't hear her say anything. They stood in an awkward silence until a hand popped out of nowhere and pushed Zoro in the back of the head, forcing Zoro's lips on Tashigi's. Laughter erupted from the far side of the deck and Zoro was quick to break the kiss. "ROBIN!" he roared, sliding his sword out of position and whipping around to face her.

"Yes, swordsman-kun," Robin said, smiling mischievously.

"I am going to kill you!" He held up Wadou Ichimonji and Kitetsu III fiercely. Robin only smiled and let her eyes wander to Tashigi's wide ones. "Are you alright, Tashigi-san?" Tashigi shook slightly before nodding and sheathing Shigure. "Ah… thanks for sparring with me, Zoro…" she said. Zoro didn't look at her. He stormed across the deck, opened the door and disappeared into the ship, slamming the door behind him. Tashigi stood awkwardly before everyone else before muttering a good-night and heading back to the women's quarters.

"Shishishi," Luffy giggled when they were both gone. "That was great, Robin!"

"Was that Tashigi's first kiss?" Nami asked, tilting her head to the side. "She looked overwhelmed."

"Zoro looks mad," Usopp observed with wide eyes. Sanji was red-faced with anger. "Tashigi-chan is much too beautiful and delicate for the likes of that moss-headed freak!"

"Calm down, cook-san," Robin said gently.

"It was kind of sweet," Chopper said with sparkly eyes.

"Well," said Brook, shrugging. "Let us hope the best for the new couple, then." He laughed, apparently seeing something funny about the situation that no one else got.

OOO

Tashigi snuck out past Nami and Robin late at night to sit on the railing and look up at the moon. It was confusing- she hadn't been as, say, mad as she should have been when Robin forced Zoro to kiss her. She felt like she needed guidance in the situation. Hina might have helped, but the closest to Hina she had was probably Robin. In other words, getting guidance wouldn't be easy.

Suddenly, a hand was on her shoulder, but for some reason she wasn't frightened.

"Should you really be sitting there? You're clumsy. You could fall." Zoro sat down on the railing beside her. "Come on. We have to discuss it sooner or later."

"We could pretend like it didn't happen," Tashigi suggested.

"It did happen," Zoro said.

"I know, but… what is there to discuss? You want to avenge Robin?" Zoro looked the other way.

"Yeah," he sad stiffly. "But…"

"But?" Zoro sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You remember (A/N: back in chapter four) when I told you about Kuina, the swordswoman that looked like you?" Tashigi nodded and waited for him to go on. "Well, it was a hard loss. Looking at you, I always saw her. But when we were sparring tonight, I didn't think of her once. It was almost like I was trying to get the image of her back in my head; that's how confused I was. But the image wouldn't come back. It was all you." He finally looked back to her. "Maybe it's not so weird to you, but it is to me. I can't forget about Kuina. My goal is for Kuina." There was an awkward silence.

"Kuina… would have liked you, I think," Zoro said. "Maybe she wouldn't have joined the marines like you did, but she would have liked you." After a moment, he asked her, "Does Smoker believe you're in danger here?" Tashigi looked down into her lap and laced her fingers together. "I'm not sure," she answered. "Something weird's going on. The marine officers are all acting too… weak in the situation. Believe it or not, Smoker and Hina are some very strong marines. I honestly think that if they want me back, they would have gotten me by now." Zoro made a "hm" noise and leaned back. "In that case, maybe we as pirates should be concerned. Not very concerned. But concerned to a degree."

"Maybe they just don't want me," Tashigi chuckled. "I am a bit too klutzy for them to handle sometimes."

"When you say 'them'," Zoro said, "who are you talking about?"

"Smoker-san and Hina-san," Tashigi answered, as if it were obvious. "Well, most of the time it's Smoker-san, but Hina-san shows up so much that it seems like she's responsible for me, too. Don't you have someone you depend on?" Zoro snorted.

"I depend on no one," he said. "I can take care of myself. That just must be something you learn in the marines."

"That's not a very good attitude to have," Tashigi said. "Every child depends on his mother."

"Wow. Deep. Really," Zoro said sarcastically. He looked down at Shigure on Tashigi's belt. "You know, your sword kinda favors Kuina's style, too. It's really strange." Tashigi fingered Shigure's hilt. "Do any of your crewmates know?" she asked. "About Kuina?" Zoro smiled. "No," he said. "Just you. But I still don't trust you," he added, patting her on the head. Tashigi smiled back. "So we'll forget about earlier today, then?" she asked. "It won't ever happen again?" Zoro smirked mischievously and winked.

"Ah, maybe," he said. Tashigi swatted at him playfully and he chuckled. "I'm going to bed, blueberry head," he said. "You should go to sleep, too, before you fall off that rail." Tashigi stuck her tongue out at him. "Night," she said, looking down at the bottomless black and blue waters. "Zoro."

Tashigi woke late the next morning. Everyone was already out on deck but Sanji and Zoro. Zoro must have still been sleeping. She was going to pass by the kitchen and ask Sanji if he had some leftovers from breakfast. Right before she put her hand on the knob, though, she heard Sanji yell, "Seriously!" and then laugh hysterically.

"It's not funny, curly brow!" yelled Zoro's voice. "Quiet before someone hears you!"

"I just never thought it would happen," Sanji chuckled. "The infamous Roronoa Zoro coming to me for girl advice because he's in looooove."

"Shut up," Zoro said weakly. Tashigi looked through the window at them. Sanji was smirking, leaning against the countertop with his arms crossed while Zoro sat backwards in a chair at the table with his head resting on his folded arms.

"Anyway," Sanji said, returning to his job of chopping up some vegetables, "How much experience have you had with girls, none? You're not an easy type to work with, but I'll help you for the sake of the poor lady. If you're gonna be in here, though, at least get to work and help me make lunch. " Zoro got up and took a knife himself, surprisingly obedient. "Alright, so when do I tell her?" he asked.

"Tell her?" Sanji repeated. He took a wooden spoon from the drawer and hit Zoro on the wrist with it.

"What was that for, dartboard!"

"Zoro, it's way too early for that! You have to be subtle about it. You could smile, for one thing- well, depending on if she would get creeped out or not- why won't you tell me who it is? Give me two guesses."

"No," Zoro said. "Just- aren't you supposed to, I dunno, give her a gift or something?"

"That's a good idea," Sanji said, scraping onion slices into a bowl. "But I'd be better off helping you if you told me who it is."

"Fine, fine! It's-" Tashigi leaned forward to hear when Luffy flew out of nowhere and crashed into her, swinging the door open and throwing both of them to the floor. "Hehehe!" Luffy said, popping back up to his feet. "That was fun, Usopp! Hey, Sanji, I'm hungry! Zoro, are you cooking, too? Good; we'll have more food!" Sanji set his knife down and came over to help Tashigi up. "Luffy, you've got to stop barreling into people like that! Tashigi-chan could have gotten hurt!"

"Oh?" Luffy said, looking up at Tashigi. "Hehe. I didn't see you there."

"I'm fine, Sanji," Tashigi said, adjusting her glasses. "Thank you." She hurriedly excused herself and went back out onto the deck, forgetting all about asking Sanji for leftovers. After Sanji had finally gotten Luffy out of the kitchen and closed the door, he turned to Zoro and smirked. "I saw that look on your face," he said. "Tashigi-chan is beautiful, Zoro. Maybe you're smarter than you look." Zoro covered his face with his hand- it was turning red. "Shut up," he said again.

"Oh, I'm just glad it's not Nami-swan or Robin-chan," Sanji said. "Then maybe we'd have a problem."

"Can't you just pick one?" Zoro muttered. "You're a real creep, you know that?"

Tashigi was confused for the rest of the day. She trained by herself, slower than usual, afraid to perform Shishi Sonson in case Zoro appeared on deck. She had such a strange feeling inside of her. First everyone was saying that Zoro was in love with her, and yet after the… fighting incident… he had seemed angry, and now he was going to Sanji for girl advice. Maybe Luffy misunderstood Zoro? The captain hadn't said that Zoro had straight-out mentioned Tashigi being the girl he was in love with.

Tashigi shrieked and dropped Shigure with a loud clang. What was she thinking? She didn't care! She was a marine; these were filthy, money-grabbing pirates! With shaking hands she retrieved Shigure and looked down to the lower deck to check for any sight of Zoro. The coast was clear, and she started downstairs.

Zoro came out of the door to the deck very confused. Sanji's advice sounded mainly like the stuff he tried to win Nami and Robin over with all the time. Did he not understand that that sort of thing didn't work with Tashigi? The first mate sighed loudly and scratched his head, moving over towards the railing where he planned to sit down and try to sleep his thoughts away. Maybe he'd be over the klutzy marine when he woke up.

Nami and Robin watched the both of them from the opposite deck in the comfort of shade and a couple of tropical juices from Sanji.

"Should I be mischievous again?" Robin asked, flourishing another arm from her own.

"Go ahead," Nami said with a chuckle.

"Alright, then. Here we go." An arm sprouted instantly from the center of Tashigi's back and reached up to give her a hard shove right in the head. Zoro looked up at her screech and his eyes widened visibly as he saw her trip on the stair. He hurried forward and threw his arms out as she fell, catching her safely and tightening his hold. Tashigi's glasses bounced off her forehead and clattered onto the deck. Zoro looked down at Tashigi. She was blushing wildly, eyes wide, and her arms were wrapped around him, her hands clutching the back of his shirt scaredly. He blinked and let go of her quickly.

"Are you crazy!" he yelled, pointing at the staircase. "You could have been killed! Put your glasses on!" He picked the glasses up and shoved them back at Tashigi. The man listening to the transponder snail listened carefully as muffled laughter entered through the transmission.

"You sure are concerned about her," Nami said, winking.

"Shut up!" Zoro said. "You should all be, too! What if she had died or broke a bone or something!"

"Zoro, relax," Tashigi said. "I'm fine. I fall all the time… it was only a few stairs." Zoro's eyes widened again, and then they narrowed. Without another word, he stormed off and slammed the door behind him, heading straight to the men's quarters.

"Should someone go give Zoro some food?" said Chopper at dinnertime, looking around. "I don't think it's good for him to exert himself with training the way he does and not eat.""I already tried," Sanji said. "Marimo called me a pansy and slammed the door in my face." Tashigi looked down at her plate guiltily. "I think," she said, attracting the attention of everyone else, "that it may have been me that made him angry."

"You didn't say anything, though," Nami pointed. "It couldn't have been you that made him mad; he's in love with you anyway."

"Yes," Tashigi said quietly. "Yes, but sometimes it's the ones that you love that hurt you the most…"

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Usopp said, waving it off. "Why, I once loved someone- she was beautiful, valiant- but our love could never be, for I, the great captain Usopp, am a warrior of the sea. I promised her my return someday to claim her, and then our own adventures would continue…" he rambled on into a story and Tashigi found herself actually listening to it along with Chopper. Usopp's story went on to tell how he had fought sea kings, the roaring tide, and villains whose cruelty was unimaginable, while every day the woman was on his mind and served as his motivation. Tashigi leaned her chin into her hand and let Usopp's words linger in her mind as he spoke them aloud. Was this what being in love was? Then maybe… well, Tashigi did think about her re-match with Zoro every day while training aboard Smoker's ship. Zoro was indeed the one who drove her forward… But if Zoro was, as Luffy claimed, in love with her, did he feel the same way? She let the fact of Zoro and his crew being pirates slip away as she thought.

Tashigi's mind traveled back to Bell Island when she was walking back with Zoro from Bell Cove, and how he had told her about his childhood friend Kuina. She was his motivation; the thing that kept him on his way to reaching his goal… so maybe she was just a reminder of Kuina to him? She tried to remember what he had said about Kuina. She had died. Tashigi favored her greatly.

"And so my flight around the word continues," Usopp nodded. "I, the great captain Usopp, have yet to return to my love." Tashigi remembered suddenly and sat straight up, causing the table to shake slightly as her knees bumped the underside.

"Um, you okay, Tashigi?" Nami asked.

"But she died the next day, tripping down a flight of stairs." Tashigi realized that she had messed up.

"I fall all the time… it was only a few stairs." Tashigi excused herself and left her plate on the table, barely touched. She headed out onto the deck and followed her gut feeling to the ladder to the crow's nest and climbed up, pushing on the trap door.

"Go away," Zoro said through the wood.

"No," Tashigi said, hitting the door again. "Open this door. I have to talk to you." After a moment, the door rattled and Zoro pulled it open, turning his back on her to pick up a book he pretended to be interested in as she pulled herself into the actual room.

"Look, Zoro," she said, dropping the door shut. "I'm really sorry about what I said earlier, and I'd be pleased if you would accept my apology maturely. I didn't realize that what I was saying hurt you."

"I'm not hurt," Zoro scoffed, turning on her. "It made me mad to think that you could have died up there, I saved you, and you don't even care!"

"I… appreciate that you helped me," Tashigi said awkwardly, "but you… I have to say, you overreacted…"

"Overreacted!" Zoro demanded. "I lost someone very important to me in the same way it almost happened to you!"

"Stop yelling at me!" Tashigi said. "I'm a grown woman, Zoro! Your friend was only a child; it was different!" Zoro fumed, but ran out of words to say. He settled down onto the couch. Tashigi waited a minute for him to cool off and then sat beside him. "Zoro, did you love Kuina?" Zoro's gaze shifted to her, and then he looked at the ground. "I don't know," he said. "I thought she was pretty, I remember. She made me feel happy. She served as motivation. I'm not sure if it counted as love." Tashigi nodded and looked down at the floor as well.

"Do you love Smoker?" the question was sudden and it made Tashigi confused. "No," she said. "I think Smoker-san and Hina-san have some sort of relationship… he's more like a father." (A/N: But I am also a TashigixSmoker fan if Zoro and Tashigi never happen ^.^)

"I see," Zoro nodded. "Not into his type, huh? He's a huge guy. Makes him look kind of dumb, in my opinion."

"Smoker-san is not dumb!" Tashigi raged, jumping to her feet. "I say nothing about Luffy, so don't you dare start on Smoker!"

"Is that your way of calling Luffy dumb?" Zoro asked. He looked up at the ceiling. "Well, Luffy is pretty dumb sometimes." Tashigi's eyes found Wadou Ichimonji by Zoro's side and she changed the subject. "You said the Wadou Ichimonji was Kuina's sword."

"Maybe I told you too much, then," Zoro said, taking the katana from its place. "Why do you appreciate it so much?" Tashigi adjusted her glasses. "I have an appreciation for all the well-crafted katanas," she said. "I think that one's special, though. You seem to hold it dear to you, and it's clearly lasted the test of time." Zoro nodded and another silence started.

"We owe Robin a lot more revenge now," Tashigi smiled lightly. "It's… exciting, being onboard with you pirates." Zoro leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling again. "It was exciting back when it was just me and Luffy," he said. "I think it gets more exciting every time we pick someone up. They're all trouble in some way." Tashigi chuckled. "I can tell," she said. "Do you want me to get you some food? You really should eat." Zoro opened one eye and smirked at her. "You sound awfully worried," he said.

"Dream on," Tashigi answered. "I do like the freedom on this ship, though. Able to move around and do whatever whenever you want…"

"All you do is train," Zoro pointed out.

"Yes, but all you do is train," Tashigi said. "I have rest time, too, onboard here. On the marine ship, it's a whole lot different. Someone like you would be surprised," she looked down into her lap. "I mean, it's okay and all, but it's like Smoker doesn't…think… about how his words affect people. He can be rude, and I don't want to say anything… and Hina, she infuriates him with the way she talks… maybe what I'm trying to say is that Smoker's short fuse is aggravating."

"I have a short fuse, too," Zoro said.

"You're different," Tashigi said, waving it off. "I can see the reason that you're mad most of the time."

She removed her glasses to rub the lenses. "I just wish I knew why I'm so comfortable here and not there." Only a brief silence passed before they both turned to each other and said something.

"What?" they both said. "You first." Tashigi cleared her throat. "I was going to ask you if, er," she tapped her fingertips together, "if what I heard from Nami and Robin is true… they said," she laughed nervously, "that you were…in love with me…" When she got no response, she forced a laugh. "Isn't that… funny?…"

"No," Zoro said, willing himself not to blush. "It's… something to think about."

"What?" Tashigi repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Luffy was the one who proposed the idea, alright?" Zoro said. "I told him not to spread a rumor around, but somehow he did anyway. I don't know." He stood up and crossed the room to pick up a weight. Tashigi followed him curiously.

"But I heard you in the kitchen this morning asking Sanji for girl advice," she said. All color seemed to leave Zoro. He put a finger in her face. "Don't you dare tell anyone about that," he said. "And how do you suppose I was talking about you, anyway? Maybe I'm in love with Nami."

"Well, you don't seem to like Nami very much at all," Tashigi answered, eyeing her nail job.

"I don't really like any of the girls aboard, including you. Maybe it's you who's in love with me!"

"You're ridiculous," Tashigi said. "That's no attitude to have."

"I'm not in love with you," Zoro growled in finality. Tashigi nodded, considering, and then said, "You seemed awfully embarrassed when Robin forced you to kiss me."

"That wasn't a kiss," Zoro said. "I can't even remember it. It bothered me because Robin is a cheat and I still don't trust her much."

"If you say so," Tashigi said, ruffling his hair as she passed him. "Night, Zoro."

"Goodnight," Zoro said stiffly. He shut the door hard after she descended and sighed loudly, running a hand through his hair. "That was close," he muttered.

Next Time…

She touched a hand on his shoulder shyly. "I mean, justice is always changing. Mine just changed, and a lot more than you'll ever know."