A/N: Posting this earlier than I'd planned - specially for Namibean! I hope this chapter cheers you up ^^ And I hope everyone else enjoys it too! Oh, also - THANK YOU to the people who left reviews! Especially the guest reviewers whom I can't contact personally to express my thanks 3

CHAPTER 6

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Diary of Dracule Mihawk, #968:

Sometimes I wonder how Roronoa got to where he is today. He can be so childish. Unfortunately he's old enough to be fond of alcohol. Today he was sulking in his room and drowning his sorrows in wine – MY wine – for some reason that he refused to state. Ghost Girl must have annoyed him somehow.

… … …

Zoro shifted the shopping bags higher up on his shoulder. He was lugging at least five shopping bags and one box, and was bored out of his mind. Perona, clearly trying to make the most of the trip, had attended to his clothing needs first, hauling him into a clothing store and forcing him to pick out new clothes. He didn't see what was wrong with just rotating the two T-shirts he currently owned. Why did he need more? He could just walk around shirtless if need be anyway.

After that, they had to hunt down the items on her shopping list. Foodstuff was easy to find, and so were the basic first aid items. One by one, she ticked off the items on her shopping list and Zoro fervently hoped that they would be done soon. He was certain that they would have been done sooner had she not kept getting distracted by random "cute" things.

She had cast longing eyes at several frilly umbrellas in a store, cooed over teddy bears and other stuffed toys, debated with herself about buying a strawberry ice-cream cone, admired beribboned hairbands in an accessories store, and sighed over a pearl-studded barrette. When she squealed over what must have been the fifth teddy bear she'd seen in a shop window, Zoro felt his patience snap.

"What is it with you and stupid toys like that?" he grumbled, shuffling about and trying to figure out the best way to hold all the shopping bags and the unwieldy box in his arms.

"They're not stupid," she said, still looking at the bear. "I happen to like them. They're cute!"

"What are you – ten?"

Perona turned and glared at him. "Obviously not. What's wrong with liking cute things?!"

One of the shopping bags slipped off his arm and fell onto the ground. Its contents – bandages and various other medical necessities – spilled out. He muttered curses under his breath as he tried to pick them up. Perona knelt down to help.

Zoro said, irritably, "Shouldn't you be acting your age? Aren't you eighteen or something? I thought girls preferred to act mature instead of fussing over kid toys." He put down the box and used his free hand to reach out for the fallen objects whilst his other hand held up the bag. "Even those stupid clothes you wear are like little girls' clothes! I didn't think girls over twelve dressed like that."

He stuffed the last item into the bag and looked up, expecting her to hand him the things she had picked up. She was holding several rolls of bandages and a bottle of medicine. But she was staring at him with a frozen look on her face.

"What?" he asked.

Perona seemed to come out of a daze. "Nothing," she replied, and dropped the things she had been holding into the bag. "Don't be such a klutz!"

She didn't say anything else to him until they had gotten a few more necessary things on her list. Then, she said, "Right. We'll go back to The Drunken Squirrel now."

At that point, Zoro began to sense that something was wrong. While he was delighted to be going to the bar, he also knew that she hadn't done any of her own shopping yet. So why were they heading there before she got her stuff?

Once at The Drunken Squirrel, she dumped him there with Mihawk and set off on her own. Zoro watched her leave with a feeling of trouble brewing in his head.

"You get one beer. That's all I'm paying for," said Mihawk. He called for a beer for Zoro.

Zoro sat down opposite Mihawk. When his beer arrived, he drank half the mug at one go.

"Did something happen, Roronoa?"

"No."

"I do not believe that is true. Perona all but fled this place just now. It was as though she wanted to be away from you. Why?"

He gaped at Mihawk. "How should I know? I didn't do anything! I was like a slave, in fact – carrying around all those things!"

"As you were supposed to," said Mihawk. "After all, I told you to assist her. And I expected her to avail herself of your assistance in carrying her own shopping too. Yet… Here you are. Why did she bring you here when she wasn't finished with her tasks yet?"

"I don't know! She just started acting weird!"

Mihawk tilted his head to one side. "'Just started acting weird'. Pray tell, Roronoa, what happened today?"

Zoro took another gulp of beer, careful not to finish it all immediately. He screwed up his face in concentration and recounted the day to Mihawk.

When he finished, Mihawk looked at him thoughtfully and pushed his plate of potato chips towards the centre of the table. "So you called the things she likes stupid, and said she was acting like a child."

Zoro shrugged.

"How old are you, Roronoa?"

"Almost twenty." He reached out to take some of the potato chips.

"Do you know Perona's age?"

"Eighteen."

"She is twenty-three."

Zoro choked on a chip.

… … …

Perona had never felt so solemn when shopping for clothes before. She held up a black and pink shirt. It was so cute! But… Was it childish? Well, maybe this one wasn't so bad. It was just black with pink stripes and a ribbon at the neck. Nothing inherently childish about that.

Heavens, this is ridiculous! Why should I care what that idiot thinks?

She put the shirt into the basket and took up several other pieces of clothing with a determined air, and strode into the fitting room. Why should she care what Zoro thought of her appearance? He barely had a right to comment on someone else's fashion choices! All he wore were white T-shirts and black pants, and that ridiculous green haramaki. What did he know about style?

She tried on the clothes she had chosen. One dress didn't fit well so she tossed it aside. The black and pink shirt suited her just fine. So did a red skirt with lace edging. Then she put on a purple dress with soft ruffles. It looked very nice on her, she thought. She turned around to see how the dress looked at a different angle, and sank into a reverie as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror.

Did the frills and ribbons and lace and prints on her usual clothes all make her outfits look… Juvenile? Fashion had not been very much of a question on Thriller Bark. She had been the only one to actually bother about what she was wearing and she had gotten most of her ideas from a few old books and magazines she had found lying around. Besides, she really did like all the feminine details (even if she did mix them in with things like skulls and ghosts).

There hadn't been anyone else to advise her, so to speak, on style. No one on Thriller Bark ever saw anything wrong with her outfits. Zoro was the first one ever to express an opinion about her appearance. It would have been much more satisfying had his opinion not been that she dressed like a twelve-year-old. Perona had to admit that it stung. She wasn't old, but she certainly wasn't a teenager anymore. It stung twice as much when a comment like that came from someone who was actually younger than she was.

She twirled a lock of her hair and regarded her reflection solemnly. But what if he did have a point? What if he was right in that she had been behaving like a little girl? She recalled that Mihawk had once stared her down in the middle of a rant about the lack of household staff and had pronounced her a spoilt child. Perhaps she really did have to start considering things like that.

The two pigtails were a little childish, she supposed, but she had gotten so accustomed to the style, and it was convenient. Also, it was cute. She liked "cute". Then again… She would never tell Zoro so, but she had been contemplating changing it up a little lately. If he knew that now, he would surely make fun of her for it or worse, he might think she was doing it for him! Stupid Zoro. Well, she would do what she liked! Swordsmen with no sense of direction and no taste in fashion didn't matter. What did he know anyway?

Be the bigger person, she told herself. Be the adult. Be dignified.

She took off the purple dress and added it to the "yes" pile.

… … …

"Why the hell didn't she say she was twenty-three?" demanded Zoro.

Mihawk gave him a look. "You called her immature, assuming she was eighteen or so. How would her correcting that assumption and saying she's actually five years older than that help matters?"

"I thought women liked it when people think they're younger than they are."

Roronoa Zoro was still such a child himself, mused Mihawk. In swordsmanship he excelled beyond many older men, but his youth showed in so many other aspects. "Don't be stupid, Roronoa. Given what you said to her, it could not be very flattering."

"That's dumb," said Zoro.

Mihawk raised his eyebrows. "I should think that she'd be quite offended, and perhaps not without basis."

"Are you saying it's my fault?"

"Yes."

Zoro looked even more outraged than he had earlier when Mihawk and Perona had suggested that he needed to improve his hygiene habits. "What the hell? It's my fault that she's childish?"

"No, you're at fault for calling her childish purely on the basis of her preferences and clothing." Mihawk agreed with the idea that she was a little immature, but he based his assessment entirely on her whining and complaining. He wasn't about to tell Zoro that, though. "Even if you happened to be right, that isn't the sort of thing you tell someone you don't know that well. Especially not in the way I imagine you said it."

"Hey, I –" He stopped abruptly, mouth agape for half a second before it clamped shut.

Mihawk wondered what he'd been about to say. "Hey, I'm polite"? "Hey, I don't see why I shouldn't speak my mind"? "Hey, I know her well enough"? He amused himself for a while by thinking of what possible words could have followed Zoro's "Hey, I –". The third one he'd thought of was the most potentially intriguing, though.

He signalled to the bartender for another glass of wine. Zoro's mug of beer was almost empty, but he did nothing about that. If Zoro wanted more alcohol, then he'd have to pay for it himself. Mihawk didn't know how much money Zoro had left over after purchasing his new clothes, but he really didn't care.

Perona returned to The Drunken Squirrel just before seven. Mihawk took in her more sedate mood at a glance. More sedate and a little cold, but that was all? The deeply-offended air he had expected her to have was surprisingly lacking. If anything, she seemed to be standing on her dignity instead.

To his amusement, he saw that Zoro was eyeing Perona warily, as though he was assessing her mood. Mihawk questioned them briefly about what they wanted for dinner, placed the order then resumed his observation. He was curious as to how long it would take Perona to notice Zoro's (poorly hidden) attempts at cautious scrutiny.

The answer was: about five minutes. She soon picked up on Zoro's odd glances and gave him a look of distrust. "What?"

This should be interesting, thought Mihawk.

"Nothing," muttered Zoro, quickly turning away.

"What's with that look?"

"What look? I'm not giving you any look."

Oh, was Zoro getting flustered? Mihawk called for more wine. His two dinner companions didn't seem to notice as their conversation escalated.

"I know you were looking at me oddly! Don't lie!"

"I was not! You're imagining things. Why would I be 'looking at you oddly'?"

"That's exactly what I asked you!"

"You're imagining things," repeated Zoro. "Maybe you're so starved for attention that you imagine I'm staring at you."

Perona made an angry sound that sounded like a cross between a frustrated growl and a scream. One look at her face and Mihawk knew exactly what was coming next. Zoro realised the same thing a moment before it happened, and a moment too late.

She hissed a low "Negative hollow!" and the words were followed by the appearance of three grinning ghostly shapes that immediately made for Zoro, zipped through him, grinned, and disappeared. Zoro slumped down in his chair until he fell off it and lay face-down on the floor, mumbling about how he was worth less than a cockroach.

It was not the first time Mihawk had seen this happen (although this was the first time Zoro had been reduced to a motionless and seemingly boneless mass on the ground; usually he was just on his hands and knees) and he had to give Perona credit for having a spectacularly effective Devil Fruit power.

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