Giri: Okay, I think it was obvious that the previous chapter wasn't the end of the story. I was unsure at the time whether to make it longer. Well, I decided to do a bit more...and a bit more...so now I've got this story I'm kind of addicted to! - Haha.

I understand that Vivi's comment was a little OOC. Sorry. In this story Vivi is Nami's only and bestest friend, who cares (and worries) a lot for her - like she does. She makes up for what Nami lacks - a caring and compassionate heart.

Also, this story swaps between Zoro and Nami's thoughts and views on each other. Each thought will contradict the others...for example, what one might suggest, the other might see it as a threat.

...Also...Nami comes from Japan - but will never admit it.

Japanese

It was another hot afternoon. An afternoon where people end up stripping off in front of the sprinklers because sanity had dried up and blown away in what little wind there was. Or one of those afternoons where everyone is inside with their air conditioners and the power 'suddenly' goes out, and those people who are in the supermarkets are laughing because they're still cool.

Zoro sat on his front lawn in the shade of one of his trees blooming magnificent red flowers in the afternoon heat. He picked idly at the emerald green grass, randomly grinning at the bloodstains and when the fancy took him, looked across his yard to the next door neighbour's. It never failed to amuse him, the way someone could chew down a four foot fence, mow an innocent guy over and still manage to do the garden as if nothing had happened. And he loved how the orange haired kid stepped outside and stopped, as though she had walked into a wall of fire – already a sweat had broken out on her forehead.

Nami could not believe how stinking hot it was. She wanted to turn around and walk back into the safety of her air conditioned house, but the conifer man was there. Sitting on his lawn and looking completely senile out there in the quivering heat. Waiting, no doubt. Waiting because he had nothing else in his life to do, obviously. Who in the modern world had the time to sit and pick at the grass under the shade of some tree and grin at the mess on his own front lawn?

Nami couldn't name anyone; sighing in frustration, she walked across her lawn and entered her neighbour's via the new opening she had created yesterday.

No greeting. No gesture of notice. Nothing. The demoness just stalked over to him and blocked his sunlight – it was a hot day, now it was god damn freezing. How in the world can someone emit that kind of aura!

Zoro looked up. "Hey."

Nami looked down and shifted her weight between her legs impatiently.

"Uh…you're in my sun," Zoro stated flatly.

Jerk, Nami thought stiffly, fighting the overwhelming urge to kick him while he was at ankle hight. "So," she said coldly, "is that all you can find in your closet?"

The green man made a confused face. "Closet? What do-?"

Nami turned on her heads letting off a mouth full of steam as she did. "Honestly, you're more gullible than I thought." She went back across her own yard and disappeared around the side of her house.

Zoro's colourless eyes watched her go. "My closet?" he grumbled to himself as he stood up and dusted the grass tips off his dark trousers. He crossed his lawn and followed the demoness. "Her closet! I didn't think it was legal to go around practically nake-!" Zoro leaped of the mad woman's drive way as the mini red sports car zoomed out of the garage and screeched to a stop.

Nami chuckled to herself as Zoro leapt of his feet and landed in a startled heap in the dirt. It was priceless. Utterly priceless! She watched the outraged man stand back up, dusting the back of his trousers, and most likely muttering something because his lips were taught and faintly moving. A deep ravine had cracked along his normally impassive face. He was frowning.

Zoro threw open the door and glared into the car, "You're bloody mad, you know that, woman?" He sat himself in and roughly grabbed his belt; he looked back across to the crazy driver. "What?"

"Mistreat my car, moron," Nami snapped, "and you're paying for the damages." She grabbed her own seatbelt in more or less the same fashion as Zoro did, before gripping the steering wheel and continuing her sixty kilometre speed down the driveway and out onto the street.

Zoro felt himself clutching onto the dashboard so that it and his head wouldn't collide. The car came to a sickening stop and he was jerked forward, the safety catch on his seat belt stopping him from flying out the windscreen but giving him a nasty rope-like burn. He turned to Nami grinning maniacally next to him. "We're at the stop lights already?"

She looked at him – was that road rage in her eyes? "Unfortunately."

Between the two came a tension as they waited for the lights to change from red to green, Zoro thought this as the best opportunity to roll down the window and stick out an arm and head.

Nami, on the other side, had done the same. Because from here to the city there were no more lights and no more annoying pedestrians; just a twenty minute stretch of concrete that she could do in ten.

Nami tightly swerved behind the semi-trailer and slid neatly into an empty parking space, she engaged the parking brakes with a satisfied grin and unbuckled her seat belt. She flipped down the sun flaps to adjust her wind swept hair and placed across her eyes a pair of dark sunglasses. Gleaming with expense.

"You alive?" She asked the man beside her, his head still outside the window.

Zoro felt a rough nudge on his shoulder; the force practically had him falling out the window, he spun around. "Yeah," he unbuckled his seat belt, "a little speed doesn't kill anyone."

Nami raised her eyebrows at him and stepped out of the car. Zoro ran a hand through his hair a couple of times and stepped out, coming around the side of the car to stand beside the one who was going to pay for the lunch. The two looked at the cultural Japanese restaurant, outside its front were various small statues of animals and carvings and such.

A foul taste was rolling unpleasantly around on Nami's tongue. "Going in?" she hissed at the green man.

Zoro looked at her, hating the fact her face was hidden by the dark shades – how in the world was he to know what devilish thing she was thinking up next if he couldn't see half her face? "Sure. Got a problem with that?"

"No problem at all, green Japanese man," the woman snapped back. She opened the glass front door and ducked under the thick velvet red curtains.

Nami stepped in to the smell of steaming rice and raw fish that was alive not two minutes ago – heartless Japanese. She almost punched out the door man who smiled and bowed with a semi-enthusiastic "irashaimasen". Instead her fist collided into Zoro's shoulder.

Zoro ignored the physical assault the bloody woman had launched from the cover of the red curtains. He was a man; nothing anyone did could hurt him – though she must've hit a nerve because his right arm had gone limp. He then received a rather frightened "Irashaimasen!"

Nami followed a waiter to a…a table. She looked down at the tiny table located at ankle height and then at disgust to the little cushions. She looked at the serving man, "I sit here do I?"

"Hai, hai, hai," the waiter replied bobbing his head up and down, grinning a cheesy smile.

Crap, Nami thought taking up a futon and sitting down on it, this is going to give me deep vein thrombosis. She crossed her legs and removed her sunglasses. Across from her, Zoro was taking his seat looking comfortably at home. He looked at her with a smile.

Damn, Nami continued her process of thought, now he's trying to be nice. She watched with detachment as the waiter laid a menu onto the table and fled from her glare. She picked up the menu. It was written in Japanese…and she could read it – but she didn't want to. She took a fleeting glance at the man across the tiny table hurriedly reading the many kanji. She groaned in frustration and then looked at the price, it was in yen. Nami did a quick conversion.

Zoro looked over the menu in time to see the orange head slam her face into the table. Nice reaction, exactly what he wanted; he folded the menu and placed it calmly back onto the table. "Chosen what you'd like?"

She rolled her face towards him and bared her teeth.

Thousands of pinpricks ruptured from his skin as he turned to look at something other than the eyes of doom. He looked around the restaurant, surely she didn't murder in public. The waiter appeared and asked for his order.

"I'll have everything in this column," Zoro replied casually, his eyes wide and his mouth pooling all the extra saliva. "And she'll have everything on this side."

The man left.

Nami banged her forehead onto the table a few more times. Japanese! Zoro was speaking fluent Japanese, the wing-whang. She growled, "What did you order?"

Zoro scratched idly at his front teeth. "Relax. Not much."

"What…" she repeated tersely, "did you get, conifer man?"

"If you can't be bothered to listen," Zoro drawled back unemotionally, "then that's your problem."

Nami bit back her rage and chewed heatedly on her tongue. "Forget it," she muttered, looking over at the happy couple sitting in their futons a few feet away. Boy, didn't they look stressed. She felt sorry for the poor woman; she was dating a rotten jerk.

The woman across from her thought likewise. "Look at that poor man," she said to her partner quietly, "with that horrid orange woman."

Zoro heard this and grinned down at his clasped hands resting on the table and watched as the food started appearing. He felt his mouth watering as various dishes of tempura were promptly placed in front of him, and then sushi, sashimi, onigiri, yakinori. "Domo," he said cheerily to the waiter. He clapped his hands together and touched the tips of his fingers gently to his forehead. "Itadakimasu."

Nami sighed and was about to do the same when the whole table erupted into a frenzy of hands, Zoro grabbed his own chopsticks in one hand and snatched up hers in another. The air filled with hungry grunts as the green man stuffed whole sushi down his throat. Nami looked on, taken entirely by surprise. She glanced around the restaurant – apparently everyone else was doing the same, except their eyes landed on her table, and then to the pig making all the noise, and then to her, and back again, obviously trying to figure out some sort of relationship between the two.

She was too mature to be embarrassed, no, she was completely appalled. 'Zting!' There went her sanity. Snapped like an E-string on a violin – just not as strong. In complete rage she picked up a bowl and tossed it at Zoro's head.

Zoro deftly caught it. "What was that for?" he demanded harshly.

"Stop eating little a bloody pig!" Nami growled lowly.

"No, I'm not. So shut-up," he kicked out at her from underneath the table, right in the thigh where it would hopefully hurt. He sucked up his ramen whilst he watched her expression change from rage to insanity.

Nami could not believe what the jerk had just done! Kicked her! In a fit of fury she launched a counter attack and she knew where to aim.

Zoro felt his eyes water; he slouched forward a bit giving the woman across from him his most murderous glare. "You're…" he hissed, "not supposed to have…shoes on."

Nami grinned evilly. "Do you think I give a damn?"

Zoro straightened himself, trying to look like his was recovering even though certain parts of him were sting ringing from the assault. "We're sitting on tatami mats, Nami, you uncultured woman!"

"Tatami my arse," she snapped back, her fists were clutched tightly on the edge of the table and her knuckles were becoming white. An angry fire burned in her eyes.

Zoro resented it but considered slowing his eating down; after all, he couldn't get the money mad because she may not pay for the meal he had almost devoured – her portion too. He decided to leave the kicking competition to when they were some place private.

Nami watched the man sober down and take on a normal consumption speed. Now that she had nothing to argue about, she turned to the last plate of sushi. She hated to admit it, but it was probably one of the best tasting sushi she had ever had. She picked up a small ceramic cup and gave it a smell, "Sake?" she asked normally to Zoro.

He looked up from slurping down some sort of clear soup and nodded, "yeah." He picked up his own small cup and tasted it. "Hm, good stuff," he leaned backwards and swallowed its contents, then went back to slurping his soup.

Nami took a sip…and another, and another. She found herself reaching for the pitcher and pouring out another cup. "It's amazing," she started, placing the pitcher back onto the table.

Zoro poured himself out another cup, too. "What is?"

"That the hospital let you out on the very next day after a serious operation," she swirled her cup around. "It wasn't the average scratch, if you know what I mean."

"I know," Zoro replied, "I was there…" he took a sip, "under the machine." He watched as Nami smiled slightly into her drink. Was that supposed to be humorous?

"I probably should say that I'm sorry…"

"For mowing me down? Sure."

"For kicking you in the…what?" Nami blinked her big auburn eyes at him.

"Incredible," Zoro said, shaking his head. "You have no remorse whatsoever for what happened yesterday?"

Nami frowned slightly. "No. Why should I?" She finished her drink before continuing. "Here you are, perfectly healthy, eating, drinking…talking. You're not dead. You seem to not be physically or mentally retarded. And whatever painkillers you were prescribed with yesterday are evidently effective," she smiled, "and here I am paying for your lunch. So then in every aspect we're even. I have no reason to feel bad for you, or regret what I did."

Zoro felt the corners of his mouth twitch. "I respect that," he said, draining his cup with a wide swig. "Ahh!" He sighed loudly. "Yosh, I'm finished eating!" He stood up and stretched, "I'll let you handle the bill." He fled to the car.

She had dreaded this moment. The waiter came and laid down the bill.

Zoro leaned against the red sports car, soaking in the skin burning sun when the orange haired woman stepped stiffly out of the restaurant. Her shades were back on and an ugly twisted snarl made up the lower half of her face. She stalked up to him, slammed him against the car and spat into his face, "We're going to go some place private and out of law enforcer's eyes," she said, her voice shaking darkly, "where I'll rip another hole in you."

She spun on her heels, went around the car, opened the passenger's door and waited for Zoro to enter. He did so, trying to dodge her bloodthirsty aura without prevail.

Nami slammed the door loudly closed, the window rattled in pain and the handle whined for mercy. The demoness stormed back around and got into the drivers seat. "You'd better hope we don't crash," she snarled, throwing the car into reverse.

Zoro pressed himself firmly into the car seat with a grimace.

Giri: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! REMEMBER! If at any stage you feel Nami/Zoro/Vivi etc. are OOC please tell me!

Ja!