Chapter 4 Zoro and the Cop(s)Pt.2
A/N: Yea, here's the part where I get on my knees and beg for forgiveness for taking so damn long. I wanted to take over Spring break to do this so I could edit, read-over, change due to plot, and repeat until tired and tempted to just screw the whole thing over. Believe it or not, this took a lot of work on my part. Oh, and you'll have to excuse to typos in the past chapters, like lack of punctuation in certain places. I don't do it on purpose, it's just something when I transfer the chapters from disk to Document Manager. I'll check it out soon. Well, anyway, getting on with the fic.
Zoro held the front door of his house open for Nami as darkness fell over head, stars sparkling against his lawn. Nami pushed her way in, unable to fit all her bags in at once.
"So how did it feel seeing your old flame again?" Nami asked once the door was closed and the lights where turned on. Zoro pulled off his coat, hanging it on the green, wooden coat rack.
"Was I suppose to feel something?" He responded, taking off his shoes. Nami sat herself on the black couch, looking in some random bags.
"Oh come on now. You have to feel a little something." Nami argued. "You two where pretty serious in high school. You where voted 'cutest and coolest couple'. And you guys couldn't be separated until Junior year. 3 years is a long time to be dating in high school. Now you can't tell me you don't feel anything after not seeing him for a year and a half." Zoro pulled off his shirt, walking toward the stairs.
"You're right. I do feel a little annoyed, now that you mention it." Then he climbed up the stairs, intent on taking a long shower (until the hot water was out, to be more specific.), then climbing into bed, to figure out how to find Onj ma.
Sanji unlocked the door to his shared house, holding it open for Raina as she came in, yawning loudly. Turns out she and Usopp had some emergency calls to answer from the family whom where the victims of the current case they where working on, so they had to leave lunch early, and they left work late, holding him and Luffy up in the office. The group, excluding Sanji, wanted takeout tacos, so they went for some, figuring it was way to late to start cooking anyway.
Luffy and Usopp came in next, carrying the food and drinks. Usopp wouldn't Luffy hold the food in the car, afraid he may devour it before they got 5 miles within the house.
"Can someone help me with this?" Usopp asked, trying to juggle the bags and his briefcase. Raina quickly offered a hand after she pulled of her coat, hanging it in the closet. Luffy managed to get the drinks inside safe and sound, nothing gone. He pulled off his hat and tossed it in the closet.
"Luffy, I wish you'd hang up your hat instead of just throwing it in." Sanji sighed, picking up the younger ones hat and hanging it up along with his own. He hung up his coat as well, walking to the kitchen.
"So, Sanji, why you holding out on them?" Sanji turned to Raina who was at the kitchen table, pulling out various items and setting them on certain napkins, according to who order them.
"I wasn't aware I had anything to hold out." He answered, pulling the napkin with the stuff he order to him. Raina rolled her eyes, sitting beside Sanji as Usopp and Luffy cam into the kitchen.
"Do you guys want to hear the story of how Sanji and Zoro got together?" She asked, sipping on her drink. The curly eyebrow teen looked at her as he remember the conversation that couldn't be finished back at lunch. "I know it by heart, I was there." Luffy scooted himself beside Sanji.
'That'd be cool! Come on Sanji, tell us!" Luffy smiled eagerly, the prospect of a story the only thing keeping him from remembering there was food on the table. Sanji sighed.
"Fine, but it was nothing big."
Flashback wavy hands
Sanji sneezed as he entered the school to escape the early December weather that blew his way. He shook his head, throwing snow in all directions as he headed toward the far back wall of the school, going up the stairs to the library.
"I hope Raina gets here soon." The blonde sighed as he sat at an library table, removing his bookbag and coat. Sanji spent the last week at home sick with a slight cold/flu. On top of that, he was with Zeff, so not only was he sick, he was miserable. Normally he wouldn't have been stressed and been at school about 20 minutes before the actual opening, but he just happened to fall sick a few weeks before his first ever set of finals(or mid-terms).
So he was meeting with his close friend Raina ao he could salvage up any kind of notes and classwork she could offer him.
"God, being a Freshman is stressful." Sanji ran fingers through his hair.
"Don't you and I know it." A voice agreed with him behind his back. He turned to see Raina holding a stack of paper close to her coat that covered her uniform, her black hair tied in a ponytail high on her head.
"Sorry I'm late." She apologized, sitting across from Sanji. "The car stalled and Tony wouldn't stop cussing at the engine." She pushed the stack of papers toward him.
"These are all my notes from the past few classes. I photocopied them for you." Sanji took the papers, flipping through the stack.
"Thanks, I owe you one." Sanji sighed. Raina waved it away.'
"You owe me like 7, but forget about it. Just pass your finals. Here are my math graphs and stuff. You can copy them." She tossed him the sheets as he fumbled in his bookbag looking for some paper and a pencil.
"Great, know all I need to strive for are German and Intro to Computing notes." Sanji began furiously coping Raina's notes.
"Well, sorry I wanted French and Intro to Woods instead." The girl spoke sarcastically, pulling out a book.
"I know you are." Sanji responded, not looking up. Raina tossed a small tear of paper at him, and went back to her book.
"So, is there anything else school wise going on that you want to tell mw about?" Sanji asked after minutes of silence pasted and the school became steadily populated. Raina looked up from her book.
"Well, you know that dude, Roronoah Zoro, the football player?" The girl closed her book and folded her arms.
"Yea, he's lived on my block for two years. Plus, who doesn't know him?"
"Well, word has it that he's been like major crushing on you." Sanji jerked his head up from his paper.
"What... the... hell?" Sanji twitched. Raina giggled.
"It's true. Nami let it accidentally slip during dance class. She was asking me how you were and I asked why she wanted to know and she said that Zoro was asking like every 5 minutes how you were. I thought it was kind of cute." Sanji glared at the girl.
"Yea, of course a girl would think so, you hopeless romantics. I think it's kind of freaky, him not talking or showing emotions and all." Sanji began packing his stuff away as the first warning bell rang.
"Excuse me." A hand tapped his shoulder. Sanji turned to see the sophomore library aid with the maroon tinted glasses. "Hello Sanji." She giggled. The blonde grinned. "A boy came in earlier and told me to give you this." She handed him 2 sheets of paper. Sanji gave a quick thanks and stuffed the paper into his bookbag as Raina rushed him out of the library door
Sanji sat at a computer in the very back of his computing class. As he logged into the computer, he gave some thought into what Raina had said earlier.
Why of all people would Zoro like me? I didn't even know he liked guys for that matter. Sanji thought, starring blankly at the computer screen.
"Did you get my notes?" Sanji whipped his head to the side to see Zoro, of all people, sitting at the only other computer beside him. The blonde raised a curly eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" Zoro pulled off the guitar that was strapped to his back.
"You weren't here last week, am I right? I took some notes for you in Computing and German. I asked Maria the library aid to give them to you." Zoro finished as Mr.Yoma entered the room.
"So those were..." Sanji looked Zoro over.
"Class, shut your asses so I can finish my lesson and be done with you future criminals." Mr.Yoma wasn't the nicest teacher in the world. In fact, he was voted most likely to have a stick up his ass.
As the lesson Mr.Yoma was giving through power point progressed, Sanji dug through his bookbag for the papers Maria gave him. They were neatly handwritten bullet notes, the first set being German notes. At the top was a note scribbled in cursive.
Handwritten is a lot easier to read than photocopies. I hope I got enough for you. Zoro. Sanji looked up at Zoro, who was looking right back at him. The blonde smiled weakly and waved, mouthing a quick 'thank you' before Mr.Yoma came back and yelled at them to pay attention.
Later on, Sanji met Raina outside of the computer room.
"You won't believe what happened today during computing." Sanji started as they walked down the stairs, pulling a round, green apple sucker out of his uniform's breast pocket, placing it in his mouth.
"You know those papers the library aid gave me?" Raina nodded, moving smoothly through the crowded hallways. "Well, it turns out they were from Zoro. He wrote the notes while I was sick." Raina 'awed' as the two slowed down, close to their separation point.
"I told you he's head over heels for you." She smiled, nudging Sanji in the side. "You are planning to give him a chance, right?" She questioned, stopping at the junction that led to Sanji's German class one way, and to the back exit of the school the other way, which led to the woods modular Woods room, across from the modular Math department.
"I don't know right now." Sanji frowned. "I need a chance to think about it." Raina gave him the half-lidded eye 'yea, right, you asshole' look. "Hey, who's problem is this anyway?"
"Fine, but you'll be missing out on a good thing if you don't." Raina said. "I'll see you at catering." She finalized as the bell rang, signaling that their departure was just a bit too late. Sanji waved as he proceeded to German.
"You know you're late, right?" The teen mentally sighed when he heard what he thought to be a security guard.
"Yea, I know but" He turned to find Zoro standing behind him. "Oh, hey Zoro, didn't realize that was you."
"You want to skip the first half of German with me?" Zoro offered, stepping close to the curly eye-brow teen. Sanji pondered over it for a second.
"Sure, I need to ransack over some things anyway." He turned around and walked alongside Zoro to the back of the school. They sat on the top of a bench, setting their bookbags on the seat. Sanji looked over at Zoro, who pulled out his guitar
"Zoro, can I ask you a question?" Sanji asked, watching Zoro tune his instrument.
"What do I care?" The green haired teen responded.
"There's a small rumor going around that you like me. Is that true?" Sanji waited for a response as Zoro began playing a song on his guitar.
"You want to know the truth?" Zoro asked. Sanji nodded. The teen moved in close to Sanji, pressing lips against the blondes softly. When Zoro pulled back, Sanji gave a look of half shock. "Is that enough of an answer for you?" Sanji couldn't responed, just return the kiss
End flashback
Zoro pulled a sliver book out of his dresser drawer after he got out of the shower. Crossing his legs on his bed, he flipped through his high school yearbook, for his sophomore year. After Nami reminded him about him and Sanji being voted 'coolest and cutest couple', he had to look. After some page turning, he found what he was looking for.
Zoro wore his football jersey and sat on a brick wall, football sitting beside him. Sanji had his head on Zoro's chest, Zoro's arm around his shoulder. He was wearing his baseball uniform, holding a bat slung in front of the wall. Sanji was smiling, while Zoro held a neutral expression. Zoro smiled slightly. In high school, the only person he could have loved more than Sanji was Nami. But they were just missing something. Zoro thought it was for the best that they just break up before Sanji went off to the police acadamy. Sanji was thinking the same thing, so it was a mutual decision.
Zoro did think was OK seeing Sanji again after so long, but he wasn't along the path his mind was trying to run, nor was bringing up the past. He slid the yearbook back into his nightstand. He then looked at the piece of paper Raven gave to him earlier that morning.
"I guess I'll have to get started on that search soon." He sighed, falling against his pillow. His thoughts strayed once over to Luffy, whom he thought he forgot about. The thought was breif, just the fact that he didn't know who Zoro was, or didn't care. Then Zoro drifted into his usual dreamless, untroubled sleep.
A/N: Ok, just to let you know, at one point this fic may take this unrealistic pause. A log pause. It's just because I'm moving, and I won't have computer access. And I'm thinking about starting a spin-off about Zoro's and Sanji's relationship in high school. If you like the idea, let me know.
Krazy-chan: I'm thinking of doing the Zoro/Sanji spin-off, in case you're interested.
Salena-Jagonashi: why thank you.
