Fear of Falling / Unconventional
AN: I'm not up to date with One Piece but was inspired to write this after my then-partner told me that there wasn't anything more added to Zoro's backstory yet after Kuina's death was featured. I sort of wanted there to be more to it - and to explore some of the consequences of it as well as Zoro's life before bounty hunting. And this was born.
It's supposed to be a oneshot but has been split into three parts.
I hope you enjoy it :)
Part 1: 9-10
It's raining. Zoro knows he shouldn't really be out here, knows that when he finds his way back someone will rat him out and he'll receive the wrath of the adults for tracking in water and mud and whatever else attaches itself to him along the way. He shivers involuntarily as freezing water runs down the back of his neck.
If he sits here long enough, he'll go numb, both inside and out. But for now he's just cold and miserable and painfully over-aware of his wet clothes clinging to his body.
Still, it's better than in there. When it rains like this, training has to move inside. And that means gathering around the edges of the room to watch the fights that Sensei and the others critique.
Ordinarily, Zoro lives for rainy days like these ones. Competition fills the air. He watches every fight with muscles coiled like a pushed down spring, just waiting for his chance to go up.
But today it was too warm in there. Too stuffy. Too many bodies. Too much noise. And even though there was no empty space because there are so many of them, there was something missing that nobody else seemed to notice.
Or rather, someone missing.
He presses his hand to the stone in front of him, feeling the cold seep into his skin. It's weird. He never touched Kuina when she was alive. He doesn't know why he's bothering now.
It feels wrong. He pulls his hand away, rising to his knees.
"Was she your friend?"
And almost falls over.
"Haah?"
There is a girl sitting on top of the memorial stone next to Kuina's, one leg dangling down, the other pulled up against her chest. Her cheek rests on it as she regards him curiously.
"She's my friend too," says the girl.
"You shouldn't sit there," says Zoro, gruffly, swiping the back of his hand against his nose – which is running because it's cold only. And for no other reason. "It's rude to the dead."
The girl has the audacity to laugh. It's a nice sound. Discordant among the grey stones, grey sky and greyer rain. "I don't think this person minds."
"How do you know?" says Zoro, folding his arms.
"I asked."
Zoro frowns. "You can't ask someone anything when they're dead."
The girl jumps down, landing beside him. "You can," she says brightly. "You can say whatever you want." She turns to Kuina's memorial and waves. "Hi Kuina, lovely weather we're having! See?"
"That's stupid," says Zoro. You're stupid, he thinks.
The girl shrugs. "Maybe. Does it matter?"
He wants to say 'yes' because she's annoying him. But the word sticks in his throat. Does anything matter? Kuina is dead. Everything she ever did means nothing now. She can't keep their promise. And there's nobody to hold him accountable for his.
He's done with this conversation. It's going nowhere. He turns in the other direction to the dojo deliberately, allowing his feet to take him anywhere but back.
"Where are you going?" says the girl, falling into step beside him. "You live at the dojo, right? It's that way." She points to the left, not directly behind them. What does she know anyway?
"It's none of your business. Don't follow me," he all but growls.
She raises an eyebrow turning around and walking backwards while facing him. Zoro's heart leaps into his mouth because there are rocks everywhere and she's not looking. She might slip and fall and hit her head and then…
"O-oi-" he begins. His mouth is dry.
He doesn't even know her name.
"I'm Ruri," she says with a wide smile. She's still walking backwards.
He feels itchy all over. "I don't care."
She pouts, pivoting on one foot to walk beside him. "That's rude."
"You're rude," he says.
She looks like she wants to argue. She puffs out her cheeks. Her mouth opens then snaps shut again.
Somehow, the silence is worse.
"Zoro," he mutters finally, scarcely audible over the driving rain.
The girl grins.
It's sunny the next time he sees her. He's just won a truly spectacular victory in training and a combination of defiance and determination brings him to Kuina's stone. He doesn't say anything; he still thinks that's stupid. But he behaves appropriately and as he bows his head to 'pay his respects', he thinks about what Kuina might have said if she'd seen it.
She wouldn't have been impressed; she never was. It would be a very unusual day if she ever had a kind word to say to him about his skills. But he would have been able to look her in the eye and know she understood.
He is keeping his promise. He may not be able to defeat her but he will be the best.
"That's not how you're supposed to do it," says a voice.
"Gah!"
He jumps backwards.
Ruri is sitting on the stone again, both legs dangling down. The sun reflects from her red hair, stark against the dark stone. She's such an obvious figure that he wonders how he didn't notice her climb up there.
"You can't say anything – you're sitting on someone's-"
With a theatrical sigh, she jumps off. "Better?"
"No!"
She smiles anyway. "Good."
With an irritated growl, he turns to walk away. He doesn't have time for this; he has training to complete.
She follows. "Where are you going?"
"Training," he says, then wonders why he bothered to answer. "Don't – why are you following me?"
She shrugs loosely. "You're interesting. It's not like I have anything better to do."
"Had enough of hanging around graveyards?" he says, in spite of himself. He should have just ignored her. Maybe if he does that, she'll leave him alone.
"I wasn't-" she begins. "I told you - Kuina is my friend."
He wants to correct her. Kuina is dead. Kuina is nobody's friend. But then, Kuina was his rival, not his friend. He'd always thought she didn't have friends since he'd never seen her spending time with the other students, never seen her by anyone's side unless it was Sensei's. Maybe he's judging her by his standards, because he doesn't have friends either, not really. There isn't time to play around when you're trying to be the best. He'd always thought they were the same.
Maybe Kuina thought otherwise.
A sour taste fills his mouth. He didn't even talk to her, did he? Their relationship was built around challenges. His challenges. They talked swordsmanship if at all. She looked down on him. He strived to prove her wrong.
He doesn't have a right to say anything to Ruri now. She probably knew Kuina better.
"So talk to Kuina," he bites out instead.
"Kuina isn't going anywhere. You are, and I want to talk to you," says Ruri.
She follows him all the way to the river, pointing out anything vaguely interesting as they walk like she's never seen sunlight on the surface of water before, like she doesn't know what a woodpecker is.
He starts out trying to ignore her but she takes every grunt he makes as confirmation that he doesn't mind her presence. Which he doesn't. Not really. Even though the world is neither quiet nor still, the normal sounds of the woodland have felt muted since Kuina died. Ruri brings them back again.
But she's still staring at everything around them with an almost frantic interest. And she's still not looking where she's going.
Zoro kicks every stone he encounters off the path. He tells himself it's because he's angry she's disrupting his training time.
A little voice in his mind supplies that it isn't.
Just in case.
He doesn't visit Kuina for a while after that. Training consumes him. When training at the dojo ends, he peels away from where the other exhausted boys lay stretched out on the ground and finds his way to the river. Nobody comes with him. If anyone tries to find him, they don't succeed.
He's found a new place to train. It took him a while to drag the boulders he has been using along the bank without destroying the area but here he doesn't have to balance over the roaring water and the sound of it crashing against the rocks below doesn't set his teeth on edge and ruin his grip.
He can still hear it if he really tries but for the most part, his muscles scream and it drowns it all else, and his mind is quiet.
"You've moved," says a familiar voice.
Zoro's spine straightens too suddenly. He takes in a sharp breath, drawing frayed strings of the rope between his teeth further into his mouth. He coughs them out, the rope and the rock that weighs it down falling from his mouth and into the water below.
The resulting splash soaks his legs and the front of his shirt. It's cold enough to make him gasp then cough again.
When he's done, he scrambles to fish his homemade training equipment back out of the water.
"Why?" Ruri adds, waiting until he's dragged himself back onto the bank.
He rounds on her with a glare that would make a lesser man want to run, mouth full of rude accusations that Sensei has spent a long while telling him should never be aimed towards a woman. In this moment, Ruri is not a girl but an irritation and he's perfectly justified.
Except that when his eyes find her, she's a little more than halfway up a very tall tree. She's not even holding on as she sits there, legs swaying back and forth. His protests die in his mouth. His heart makes an attempt at joining it. Breakfast burns in the back of his throat.
Ruri leans towards him and for a moment, he feels the ground shift underneath him like he's the one reliant on a flimsy piece of wood to support his weight, not her.
She's too high up.
She stands up, arms held either side of her like a tight-rope artist balancing on a string, and tiptoes her way towards the tree trunk.
"Hey, be – be careful!" he shouts up at her, then more quietly, less certainly, adds: "You'll fall."
She pauses, one leg extended towards the branch below. It's a little out of her reach even as she stretches further, her fingertips barely maintaining contact with the tree. "Do you want me to?"
"No!" he spits. He drops the rock he's been holding on the ground. It narrowly misses his foot but he's already rushing forwards like he can somehow catch her, like she won't break her neck if she does fall from there.
His chest burns. It feels like he's drowning.
"Then I won't," she says as though that settles the matter, and as she does, her foot finds purchase on the branch below.
She descends with casual grace and a complete lack of concern for her own safety while Zoro waits underneath, feeling like the cold from the river has risen up and engulfed him. The closer she gets, the more he thinks to himself that if she does fall, he might be able to do something about it. Maybe he can catch her. Maybe he can break her fall. Maybe if she falls on him instead, her head won't smash against the hard ground and her bones won't break and he'll be able to see her again someday and her face won't be covered by a white cloth and nobody will be crying.
She's almost within touching distance when she stops moving. He doesn't know how old Ruri is; he's never asked. But she's almost exactly the same height he is and so he assumes she's around the same age as him. Whenever he looks at her, there's unrestrained joy on her face that she seems to get just by existing. It makes her look young, like life is still a game to her.
But when she turns to look down at him now, she isn't smiling. Her face is blank. Thoughtful eyes pierce him. She looks older than she is. She steps to the side, away from the tree trunk, and drops her arms to her sides.
This low in the tree, its boughs are wide and Zoro knows that there's easily enough space to comfortably sit there. He knows, logically, that she probably doesn't even need to try to balance there. It's stable. It's safe.
But it doesn't feel that way. And when she bends her knees in obvious preparation to jump, his heart tries to launch itself out of his chest before she can.
"Don't!" he shouts, reaching out like he can stop her.
He can't.
Ruri jumps. He doesn't catch her.
She lands on her feet, knees bent to absorb the impact. As she straightens with practised ease, she raises her arms like an acrobat at a show. There is a ghost of that unreadable expression on her face as she turns to face him, like she's seeing into him.
His face has drained of its colour. He's the ghost now.
Her frown is wiped smooth with a smile. "See? I told you I wouldn't fall."
"You just-" he splutters, gesturing to the tree branch she's just vacated.
He's sweating and he wipes at his forehead with the back of his hand in the same movement. His heart is still beating too hard and the panic remains in his eyes. He frowns to disguise it with anger. Ah, there it is. Now it's real.
"I jumped. There's a difference," she says, matter-of-factly. "I planned to jump so I also planned to land and I landed just fine."
"What if you didn't?" he half-snaps.
"But I did. I knew I could, so I did."
"That's-" he throws his hands up in the air, turning away from her with a growl. "You are so stupid and careless and – and irresponsible!"
The irony isn't lost on him as he spits two words Sensei has used on him on numerous occasions. But it's different when it's not him. Nothing is going to happen to him and if it does, it doesn't matter. He's only irresponsible because he trains too much, but it's also why he's strong. He isn't strong enough so he has to train more.
He's weighed the risk. He's considered it. It's worth it.
But her? All that risk just to climb a tree? It's not worth it. What a waste, some old lady would say at her funeral. And they'd be right.
"So are you, Mr I-Lift-Boulders-For-Fun," says Ruri, eyes flashing dangerously as she brings her hands to her hips.
"That's training. I have to do it to be the world's greatest swordsman. I made a promise." He folds his arms over his chest, staring her down furiously. His heart is still pounding, but now his blood is warmed by his rage and his face is beginning to replenish its colour.
And he can forget that ever felt fear for her. Fear is unnecessary. He won't win by being afraid. Too much caution will only hold him back.
"So did I!" Ruri takes a step towards him, fists clenched, her long red hair whipping around her face with the sudden violent motion.
"You promised to climb trees?" he says incredulously, arms still folded. "That's stupid."
"That's not it and you're stupid," Ruri mutters, and she folds her arms and pouts.
"You're stupid," he replies.
"You're worse," she says, eyes dark as they suddenly seem to find the river much more interesting.
"Well, I'm not the one who-"
"I'm hungry," says Ruri glumly. She turns back to him, still pouting, but without the dark look from earlier. Now she just looks mildly put out and it's clear she no longer wants to talk about it.
Zoro hopes it's because she knows he was right about everything.
"Did you bring lunch?" she asks, sitting down cross-legged by the water's edge.
He's not sure why he sits now beside her but he does. He legs his legs dangle into the water; they're already wet and the rush of water is oddly soothing.
"No, why would I?" he says.
"Because you're going to be here all day," says Ruri. "Like you always are. And you don't go home for lunch time."
"So? I had breakfast. Two meals a day is fine," he says, and so he doesn't have to mention that it's better than he used to get, adds, "And neither do you."
"It isn't. Lunch is important," Ruri replies insistently. "I don't come see you every day but you're always here, which means you always spend lunch time here. And I'm hungry."
He wants to tell her to go home then, if she's so desperate for food. She doesn't have to be here. She wears nice clothes. She's always clean when he sees her and her eyes don't have the hollow ring of hunger to them that he remembers seeing on the faces of other street kids, on his own gaunt face in his reflection. She doesn't look like that so she probably has somewhere she can go to get something to eat.
Still, the memories are fresher than he wants them to be. So instead, he says grouchily, "What do want me to do about it?"
"Share your lunch with me," she says, like it's obvious.
"I don't have any lunch to share." Does she listen when he speaks?
"Next time," Ruri clarifies. "If we're going to be here all day then you should bring a bento. Otherwise, we won't know if a wild animal comes to attack us because we'll think it's just our stomachs growling."
"There aren't any wild animals that would attack us here," says Zoro, pulling his legs out of the river. It's time to resume training.
"Really? Are you sure?" she says, with a devilish grin.
And with a sound that's probably supposed to be a roar, she pounces. Unfortunately for her, he has incredible reflexes.
AN: Thanks for reading!
Comments bring me joy and fuel me to continue writing. Any thoughts are appreciated :)