CHAPTER 7
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Diary of Dracule Mihawk, entry #980:
I am beginning to come round to the idea that despite the squabbling, those two would make a good couple. Akagami once bragged that he'd be a good matchmaker. Wonder what he'd do with these two.
… … …
After the Notson Ear incident, Zoro wasn't sure if Perona would want to continue his reading lessons. She had seemed pretty mad. That last negative hollow blast had been awful. He'd felt pathetic for a full twenty-four hours and Mihawk had had to half drag him to the boat so they could get back to Kuraigana. He would prefer to not repeat that experience. Also, he was certain that Mihawk had been on the verge of laughing out loud at his predicament. That made him even more averse to a repeat performance.
To his surprise, a day later she said, "Try to read the books I got you and we'll have a go at it the next afternoon you have a break from Mihawk."
Her nonchalance both puzzled him and made him suspicious. Was she mad at him? It didn't seem like it. But then, he had never paid close attention to female behaviour. He suddenly wished he'd been more observant of Nami and Robin on the Sunny.
It was another couple of days before he had time to spare for another reading lesson. He hadn't liked to ask Mihawk to give him specific time off to learn to read, so they just had to make do with whatever time he had.
"Have you read any of the books?" asked Perona, when he entered the room they had turned into a study.
He tossed the two books onto the table and pointed at one of them. "Just a couple of pages there."
Perona looked pleasantly surprised. "Well, that's good." She seemed to not quite know what to say. Zoro felt smug. Evidently she'd expected him to say he hadn't read a thing.
His next thought was: Wait. Does she think I'm that lazy? Zoro wasn't sure he liked the implication that he was lazy. (Though why this should have bothered him he wasn't sure. Nami, Sanji and even Franky had all remarked at various times on his preference for sleeping instead of doing useful things around the ship and he had never cared a whit about their comments.)
"It's interesting," he said. It was the truth. The book was clearly a children's book, but he could hardly complain since his kanji reading ability was barely better than a child of five. But it wasn't the typical fairy story that Zoro hated – it was a story about a young farmhand who inherits a magic sword and discovers that it can cut anything except human beings. He wondered how she'd known how to pick something like that. If it was instinct, it was pretty good instinct.
"Had some trouble with some of the words, though," he admitted.
"Which ones?"
It took them the better part of an hour to get through ten pages (which wasn't very much text since about half of every page was taken up by illustrations). Perona eventually suggested taking a break. Zoro agreed. He left the room to go and find some beer. When he returned with a bottle in one hand, he found her sitting sideways in her chair with her legs propped up over one arm of the chair. She was reading.
"Aren't you supposed to be taking a break?" he said.
She calmly turned a page. "Reading a book that I like counts as a break to me."
He saw that the book was The Ghouls of the Grand Line. Hadn't she finished that book already? She was nuts. He settled down in his own seat. "Why do you keep reading that?"
"Because I like it," she replied without looking up.
"You have weird taste."
"Says the person who's married to his swords."
"I am not!"
Perona didn't respond.
Zoro let his eyes roam aimlessly around the room as he drank the beer, which he thought was excellent. Mihawk did have a knack for selecting good alcohol.
Eventually, his gaze came to rest on Perona, who seemed to be comparing passages in the book because she was turning the pages back and forth for a while. At that angle, she did look a bit older than eighteen or nineteen. He still had trouble reconciling her age with her face. It was probably her round eyes; they made her look extra youthful.
She's not bad-looking, really. And she does have nice legs.
He froze with the bottle at his lips. What… What was that thought? He shook his head as if to clear it. Well, it was a legitimate observation! No need to feel embarrassed about thinking that. If a girl had nice legs, then she had nice legs. He was quite free to make objective judgements.
Yet somehow he felt he needed to get up and leave the room. So he did.
… … …
Perona felt like she spent ten more minutes every morning now deciding how to do her hair. It was all that idiot's fault. When habit made her tie her hair in her usual two pigtails, she'd stare at the mirror and question whether it was truly too childish for a woman of twenty-three. When on impulse she tried something else – a half-ponytail, – she also ended up staring at the mirror, and wondering what that stupid Zoro would say, if he said anything at all. She really didn't want him thinking it was because of what he said. Once, she got so fed up with herself that she contemplated cutting her hair short. But the thought hadn't lasted long. She liked her long hair.
Finally having decided – yet again – on her standard hairstyle, she descended the stairs and sauntered into the dining hall. Only Zoro was there, idly turning pages of the newspaper and munching on a sandwich.
"Where's Mihawk?" she asked.
"He said something about Shichibukai business and left after eating."
"Oh." Perona sat down and helped herself to the sandwiches she'd made. It had become her habit to make simple stuff for breakfast the night before so that she wouldn't have to wake up so early. Mihawk, who was usually the first one down to breakfast, had figured this out and would bring the food up himself. If Mihawk wasn't around, Zoro would just sit there until she brought the food up.
One day I'll take breakfast up to my room and leave him to starve. Missing a day's breakfast won't kill him.
She noticed that Zoro had stopped flipping the pages and was now concentrating on one in particular. She craned her neck as far as she could to see what it was. It appeared to be some news about the Marines.
"What's so interesting there?" she asked.
"Smoker's taking charge of a new unit," he said briefly.
"Who's Smoker?"
He turned the newspaper, pointed to one of the articles, and pushed the newspaper across the table towards her. The article's headline read: WHITE HUNTER TRANSFERS TO G-5. The accompanying picture showed a tough-looking man with white hair and two cigars in his mouth.
Perona said, "Is he called Smoker because he's smoking two cigars at the same time?"
Zoro stared at her. Then he burst out laughing, startling her a little. She had never seen him laugh quite like that before – it was loud and hearty. And it made him look significantly less severe than he usually did. She thought it was a good look on him.
"I don't know why he's called Smoker," said Zoro, "but that's as good a reason as any I've ever heard. Though it probably also has something to do with his Devil Fruit."
He explained that the man had a Logia Devil Fruit that allowed him to become and to manipulate smoke. Smoker was apparently pretty formidable and had chased the Straw Hats all the way from Logue Town.
Zoro took a swig from the bottle on his right.
"Really? Alcohol at this hour? Are you crazy?" Perona shook her head at him and continued reading the article, twirling one of her curls around a finger as she read it. She looked at the picture again. There was a woman standing just behind Smoker in the photograph. "Who's that?"
Zoro glanced over at the picture. Perona saw a slight shift of expression in his face.
"That's his subordinate, Tashigi."
"His subordinate? But she looks so… Unlike him." She thought the sort of person who could keep up with a guy like this Smoker would look harder, more seasoned. This woman was slender and slight; almost bookish in appearance.
"She's tough in her own way. She knows her way around swords."
"Oh?"
Zoro either didn't have anything more to say or he didn't want to. He merely shrugged and then concentrated on his breakfast.
Perona studied the picture. This Tashigi didn't look like her idea of a tough Marine at all. But if Zoro was to be believed, then she had better-than-average skill with a sword. He didn't praise swordsmanship in others easily. For some reason, deep down, she felt a tug of something very much like disappointment. The finger that had been playing with the stray lock of hair stilled.
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A/N: This has been so long in coming! I hope no one's lost interest after the wait. ^^;