"Ne, Zoro?"
Internally, he groaned. Why was he being punished? He hadn't done anything bad- that he remembered, so why couldn't the universe let him sleep?
He cracked one eye. Two large, round eyes stared back from the edge of the bed. Zoro's lips turn down in a scowl. "...Are you sitting on the floor?"
Luffy inched closer, raising his head to rest his chin on the comforter. "Uhuh," he replied.
Zoro opened both eyes and looked up at his ceiling. He bit back an irritated sigh. "Why?"
The boy blinked once, twice, then tilted his head to the side. "Eh? I was waiting for you to wake up."
Zoro sighed. Only someone like Luffy could watch him sleep and not realize how creepy that would be to certain people. "What do you want?" he asked.
Luffy smiled, a full face grin that instantly made Zoro wary. "I want you to teach me how to read." Zoro blinked, narrowing his eyes at the younger boy.
"And how to write too," Luffy added.
Zoro groaned, laying his head back on his pillow and he returned his gaze up to the ceiling.
"You didn't ask nicely," he muttered, throwing an arm over his face even though he was knew there was no way Luffy was letting him fall asleep again.
"Please? Please, Zoro? Pleeeeeeaaase?" Luffy whined, tugging on Zoro's blanket.
The teenager grumbled under his breath, but slowly sat up and kicked off his blanket. It was warm, soft, and way too tempting.
"Fine," he groused, "But only if you actually pay attention."
Luffy beamed. "Yay!" he cried, throwing his arms into the air. Zoro rolled his eyes and stifled a yawn.
Luffy leapt to his feet and proceeded to hurriedly thrust a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil in his face.
"Can we do it now? Please?"
Zoro winced at the sudden onslaught of white to his eyes and rubbed his face, yawning into his sleeve. "Eh..."
Luffy made a strangled noise and shook the items like a desperate toddler. "Please? Please? Please?"
The teenager sighed once more. "Fine. Fine! Just be quiet, will you?" Luffy sat down and crossed his legs, looking up at Zoro with his full attention.
Of which Zoro knew he only had a few seconds of before the idiot got distracted by something else and ran off to go God knows what.
"So," he began, "What do you already know?"
"You're hopeless! I give up."
"Eh? Who's hopeless?"
"You."
"Eh? Why am I hopeless?'
Zoro's face landed in his pillow with a dull thud. "You can't even pay attention to that," he murmured, though to Luffy it was too muffled by the cloth to make out.
"Ne, Zoro, what did you say?" Luffy questioned innocently. Zoro once again dwindled on the idea of shoving Luffy into a closet, just for a day, so he could get some peace and quiet.
The two had been working for nearly three hours, and Luffy could only retain a small number of the letters, and even less of the words Zoro had been trying to teach him.
Along with the fact that Luffy could never identify any of his mistakes and was constantly falling asleep, Zoro was most definitely done for the day. And probably the year.
"Ace, dear; You have a letter!"
Ace's head snapped up from where he had been hunched over his desk, working on his homework. The page was filled with numbers and symbols, all arranged in one way or another to get a different answer.
Ace found it all very confusing, and really, very useless.
He nearly sprinted down the stairs, the loud thuds of his footsteps echoing down the hall to the kitchen, where Carmen was whisking eggs in a bowl and the letter in question was waiting on the counter. She shook her head, smiling to herself.
Ace dashed into the room only moments later, face flushed and eyes searching. "It's on the counter, honey," she told him, and he aimed a breathless thanks her way before snatching up the envelope and hurrying back to his room.
Deer Ace,
How are you? I am good. I live in a big house with grumpy Zoro, who is in bed all day. I like him. I think you wod like him to. Thank you for the letter. Zoro says too say it even though I say you no it. Not alot gooes on in the day, oh Zoro says it is time to eat.
Bye bye, Ace.
I love you big broter.
Luffy
P.S. I four got to say I put in a pikchur.
P.P.S. Zoro says too say sorry four my speling.
Ace couldn't deny that Luffy's spelling was pretty horrible, but he loved the letter nonetheless. He fingered the pencil marks, most of which were smudged, but the deep, dark lines showed that the writer took time carefully marking down the letters one by one.
The only thing that dimmed Ace's happiness was that, even though he was proud that Luffy wrote him, he hadn't had that ability when Ace left. It was something he learned only recently.
They had been separated only a month by then, and already Ace was missing out on things happening in Luffy's life. While one part of him knew that, really, it wasn't his fault, another part was upset that in no time Luffy would grow up, and Ace would miss it.
He sighed, shaking his head to clear his negative thoughts away. A quick rummage through the envelope gave Ace a thick square of paper, and he deftly peeled it apart to reveal a large pirate flag drawn on the page.
Luffy had written 'To big broter' in the top left corner, and signed his name at the bottom left corner, both in red crayon.
Ace smiled, and placed it carefully on his desk, on top of his abandoned homework. The letter soon joined it, and Ace retreated to his bed.
He curled up in the sheets and laid there, thinking.
...Please don't kill me. I want to live. I know it's been centuries since I updated this, and I am genuinely sorry, especially to those who left reviews at the end of every chapter for me. Honestly, I lost my drive to write. I didn't think it was possible, but writing never crossed my mind for a long time. I remembered this only morning, and decided to try and finish the saved document (it was the only one left, the one one that had yet to be erased). It's not much of a chapter, but it's better than nothing...right? Thanks for your support, and please, for those who've put together a mob while I've been away, put down your torches.