Oen Puece Goda. Author notes bottom.

(Author notes the not bottom: I've made a little mistake when I wrote the ending. As you've read in my previous chapters I've written a friend character in Zoro's flashback, and named him Ace. In the present, Ace is supposed to be the musical's lead actor. I didn't wanna change that, cos Ace would be great in filling in the position, so just take it that this Ace and the Ace in Zoro's flashback, as two different people. Again, I'm so careless, gomenasai!)

Zoro checked in for a room at Sabaody Sheraton Hotel seven days ago, but he had only slept in for a few nights, while the rest are spent, rather platonically at Robin's house. He had only used this place to rest and shower and probably be alone with himself. One of those seven nights, Perona had slept over too, so there was no surprise at all as to why he found her in the hotel room late that night.

"Oh, you're back," she said, unusually casual, as she folded a few garments on the bed.

Zoro gave her a crooked smile, and placed the old white guitar in his hands against the wall, by the curtain. "How did you get in?"

"You gave me the extra keycard, remember?"

"Oh." He wasn't exactly sure what else to say to her, so he threw himself on the leather chair and gave out an audible, tired sigh. He wished he could just fall asleep so easily, like how he used to back then, but too many things were running in his mind, he wasn't even sure how to define them. "I thought you'll spend the night with your theater friends."

"I just wanna pack my things early. Besides, I'll see those idiots again tomorrow, anyway."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Barbecue thing. Do you wanna come too? The guy who did our choreo – Luffy – had this huge appetite for meat, though, so I'm not exactly sure if we could even eat anything. But we'll come for the fun, so that's okay. And it's just a casual celebratory party so yeah, what the heck." She said all these really fast, and Zoro was a little bit relieved that she sounded more like her usual bubbly self now. "So are you coming?"

"Dunno. Do you want me to be there?"

There was a slight change in the expression on her face when he asked so, but he pretended not to notice. He figured out that Perona really did knew what's going on anyway – she wasn't at all stupid, she was one of the top scorers of her class with only minimal effort, anyway. Imagine if she really put her heart and mind into studying.

"Zoro, d'you plan to go back to Kuraigana tomorrow?" She inquired again, now keeping her folded clothes in a pink oversized handbag, as if she was really ready to leave the next morning.

"Probably," he glanced at the white guitar, "there's something I need to do first."

Perhaps he didn't notice, because as he took a second look at the white guitar lying against the wall and got lost in little thoughts messing with his head, but the pink haired sweetheart turned slightly to look at him, and she took a little hint. She never wanted to question what was with the sudden procurement of the guitar anyways, because she was too lazy to make things more complicated than it already was. It was best if she leave things the way they were.

She wondered if her boyfriend had ultimately realized that he deserved Nico Robin more rather than a girl like her, a stubborn, rebellious young girl with nearly bizarre, out-of-the-mainstream dreams. She cared for him, she truly did. She wasn't really the kind to be affectionate, or show affection at all, but she really did care about him. She wanted him to be happy.

Zoro sighed, and crawled onto the bed. Perona had been quietly tucking his belongings inside the pink bag, that he thought something must've bothered her. Then again, he felt sorry for the girl, who had to be the victim of the whole situation. He never meant for things to happen that way – what would you do if you're living your dreams in a play written by your boyfriend's old flame? He was surprised that Perona had never made a big deal out of the whole thing, no matter how childish she appeared to be. She must've been the one having the hardest time, of all.

He threw his arms around her shoulders, and pulled her closer from behind her. "I'm sorry for everything," he told her, so low it's almost a whisper. He knew hugs are annoying to her, but he knew she secretly needed one, especially from him. "I'm really sorry," he repeated.

"Don't be so dramatic, you idiot," she replied with a shaky voice, though it was meant to be a joke. But she let him hug her, anyway, and she sadly loved that.

"To seven days of full house audience! Aw!"

"To sold out tickets!"

They all gathered at the backyard of the Powerhouse Headquarters at Groove 25, Sabaody, their production's headquarters, with their cheerful smiles and their merry spirit, and the giggle squad's giggles, with their cups filled with either ice cream soda, Cola or fruit juice raised above their heads, to celebrate the success of their musical theater show. Lucky for them, the life of the party, Luffy hadn't arrive yet, so they were all determined to have at least one piece of barbecued chicken wing before the one with the monster appetite actually show up.

"To the best producer and junior producer ever! Bon Clay and Robin!" Vivi raised her cup as well, and everyone else cheered and applauded, while Bon Clay gotten a little teary-eyed and jumped flamboyantly to hug the blue-haired actress with an, 'aw, you! Don't make me cry!'

"To the best cast ever," Robin followed, though she was usually the one who would rather observe the lively crew. "To the amazing Vivi, Ace, Sanji, and Perona," she continued, smiling. "Thank you for the effort."

Taken aback by the compliment, Perona took their attention by raising her glasses as high as her soprano, kid-like voice. "To the best musical composers ever, Nico Robin and Cutty Flam!"

"Suuuper!" Flam interrupted, before everyone else had the chance to catch something subtle between Perona and Robin.

"To the ones whose names not mentioned!" Ace, their handsome main actor raised his cup, as a joke.

And they all drank on that. They enjoyed the meal and their random live music, but someone else was not present, not yet. "Oi, Nami, where the hell is Luffy?"

"Is this the place?"

"Yeah, oh shimatta, I'm late!"

"Well, you're directions are confusing."

"Left and right are two different things!"

Zoro sighed as he let the boy with the straw hat on the passenger's seat ramble childishly as he turned off the engine of his car. It was luck for the rest, but it was a little hell for Zoro to have found Luffy on at Sabaody's Grand Hall earlier that day, when everyone else was already off carrying the props back to the headquarters. "You know, your crew members suck for not noticing that you're missing."

"Oi, oi, my crew members might be idiots but they're awesome," Luffy defended, while looking not serious at all. "Anyway, we have loads of food, so come and join the party for a bit!"

My intentions exactly, Luffy.

Luffy jumped out of the vehicle and held his nose up high upon the appetizing scent of meat being sweet, juicy, tender marinated meat grilled over charcoal heat, it was easy to detect that he's the glutton of the group. Zoro, on the other hand, was more focused on taking out the old white guitar from the back seat. "Oi, c'mon! Oh? Are you going to sing?"

"No, just… Returning this to someone." He clutched the guitar at the neck tightly and smiled.

"Ne, I thought you're going to sing. I was about to ask you to join our production team. Maybe you could be one of our musicians or something. So what d'you think? Join our production team! Do you poop?" It turned into an aimless rambling, but it was Luffy, after all.

"That smelled good," Zoro said simply, putting an end to Luffy's ramble, and he watched the straw hat boy darted off to the backyard immediately, where everyone else was. Great, he was now alone.

He closed his eyes and thought of what to say to Robin. All he wanted was to return the guitar, that's all. And say goodbye, perhaps. And then he'll be off to Kuraigana. And things will be back to normal.

No, not really.

He thought this was a good idea, until he wondered if Robin would appreciate the white guitar better. Sure, he had it fixed. But would it still be played? She couldn't even remember when she had last played the guitar.

It was like their relationship. It was so long ago. They couldn't even remember when they stopped trying to keep up with each other. They couldn't even remember when they had last fought. And like the guitar, he would probably want to fix it, what was wrong.

"I don't think it's completely useless."

"Oh, hello. You're the one who brought Luffy here, right?" A ginger-haired girl with pants too low and a tank top one size to small appeared from nowhere, snapping him out of his wandering thoughts. "Thanks for bringing him here. I hope he didn't cause you too much trouble…"

"It's fine. He won't shut up, though."

"Yeah, he's a bit too talkative and annoying, but you can't help but love him anyway. Oh," she noticed the guitar in his hand, "you're a musician? You wanna join our production crew?"

"Uh, no," Zoro replied quickly. "I just wanna return this to someone."

"Wait, you're Perona's boyfriend, aren't you? Thought I'd recognize you. Do you want me to call her? I think she's doing the barbecuing with Flam, oh, hey, why don't you just join our party for a while?"

Zoro grabbed Nami by her arm before she managed to leave for the backyard. "No, actually, I'm here just to… Um… Could you just call Nico Robin for me?"

She shrugged, probably surprised that this man knew someone else in the team besides Perona, but maintained a smile. "Okay, I'll go and call Robin for you." She said and left hurriedly, giving him some time to again, think of what to say to Robin.

Yeah, you can do this, Zoro. Give her the guitar back and just drive the fuck back to Kuraigana. All this will end. All this will end soon.

"Zoro?"

"Uh, Robin."

It was still awkward, no matter how hard they both tried to be casual. He held the guitar in front of him, in a motion so that she would take it.

"I just wanna return this to you. I fixed it."

She smiled, and took the guitar. "Sounds as good as new?"

"I… dunno. Go ahead and try."

So she held her fingers on the G-chord and strummed. A warm smile followed after. "Thank you. But you don't have to, really-"

"Nah, I wanted you to keep it in the first place. Makes me feel a little bit weird if I take it back."

"Thank you, Zoro. And I'm sorry. For the other day. I don't want you to think that I wanted to give this away because… It's just…"

"It's okay. I know."

"High school will always be the best time of my life."

"Mine too, Robin." He gave her a reassuring nod. And that very moment, he felt like all the knots in his life went untied. She did felt the same too. They never knew of this until they have finally released it, that piece of burden, that what-if-we-never-gave-up-on-each-other question. The seeking for a reason as to why everything went wrong, wouldn't bother them anymore. They finally realized that things just happened, and the self-blaming upon it should stop. Because he had forgiven her and she had forgiven him, and that he was okay with her and she was okay with him, now. It didn't work out and no one should be blamed, nor felt guilty.

"Do you want to join our party?"

"I actually need to get going. I'm driving back to Kuraigana today, and it'll be a long drive."

"Oh. Have a safe journey back home. It was nice seeing you again."

"You too."

And so she watched him enter his vehicle, which then sped out and left the Powerhouse Headquarters' garage. She stood there for a couple of minutes, all by herself, even though the man she loved was out of sight now. For the first time it felt like life was being nice to her.

It kinda felt like closure.

"Yo, Nico Robin! Where have you been?" Cutty Flam jogged up to the woman, whom he just noticed after scanning the whole backyard for her. He had a piece of chicken wing in his hands.

"Just looking for my cellphone," Robin said nervously, as the lame excuse popped up. "I thought I left it in my car."

"Flam! Robin! Smile for the camera!" Caimie suddenly appeared with a Polariod camera in front of them, and took a picture of them. "Lookin' swag as ever, nice!"

"Not swag, Caimie, it's suuuuuper!" Flam corrected her, as she skipped away to take pictures and candids of other crew members. He turned back to Robin. "Oh, anyway, if you want chicken wings, you better get one fresh from the set. Cos Luffy's licked the plates clean already so you better hurry up!"

"Noted," she replied, "I'm not really that hungry though. Do you wanna dance instead?"

"Wah, Nico Robin offered me a dance? You're really super!" He took her hand and pulled her to join in where other crew members of theirs had fun showing off their dancing skills. The song 'Jelita', by the band Kyoto Protocol featuring Liyana Fizi, was played loudly, and some of them even sang along to it. Vivi, Ace, Luffy and Nami managed to come up with an impromptu dance routine that fits the chorus during the first time the song was played, and the rest learned it and joined in together during the repeat of the song.

Robin wasn't really much of a dancer, but she tried to join in, and everyone think she did well. Flam liked the fact that the skirt of her knee length dress flared as she spin around, so he just spin her around most of the time.

But she laughed, and she really did had fun, and it was great.

"And you said you're glad this production is over! You had crazy fun out there," he sort of confronted her when the song ended. Luffy yelled 'again! Again!' in the background as a request, and they all complied to it because oh, they can keep Luffy busy while they go and get their share of barbecued goodness.

"I had no idea we had genius choreographers," she replied, catching her breath and chuckled a little while at it. "I'm a little sad that this crew will be taking a break until the next project. Maybe we could cast the same actors again. Vivi and Ace had loads of chemistry, and we could fix Sanji. And Perona, she was good, really-"

"Robin, about Perona-"

"I know. I might be a little to mean this time, but I promise next time would be better. I think… I resolved my issues with Zoro. We're good now."

"Yeah, but, Robin…"

"Hmm?"

"They're not together anymore. Perona just told me that they ended things last night. On good terms, if you're curious-"

That came off as a surprise for Robin. Her eyes widened at the mention of that news, and she was all speechless. A single Roronoa Zoro just stood in front of her nearly half an hour ago and all she did was to acknowledge the closure for their relationship, and the assurance to abandon their affection towards each other, if it still exist, even. She even watched him drove away.

"Robin?"

She only shot him a cold glare that probably meant, 'why didn't you tell me earlier? I would've kissed him on the spot' or something equivalent. But not a single sound managed to escape from his mouth.

Her cellphone suddenly rang, the annoying marimba tone, and the name that appeared on the screen surprised her more once she checked to see who it was. She didn't know what to say, the timing was so messed up, but she was curious of why did he called her. Was it because he had forgotten to say goodbye? Was it because he wanted the guitar back?

So she answered the call, in the middle of the supposedly 'dance floor', where the dancing clan danced to the chorus of 'Jelita' again, so tidily but with so much enthusiasm and enjoyment.

"Uh, Robin. I was wondering if… The barbecue party, is it still on? Cos I'm kinda hungry now and I'm too lazy to drive back to Kuraigana."

There you go, the end! Did you like it? Did I mislead you that much? Did I?

Please circle your choice of answer: No, you ain't foolin' me | I've predicted that after all | Plot twists at the very end, you monster! | You sir have broken my kokoro | Kokoro is broken, cannot review

Anyways thank you so so so so much for reading this until the end, thank you for the lovely reviews and thank you for giving me yet another fun experience of keeping up with a multi-chapter story. And if I disappoint you with any mistakes in the story, like bad dialogues, or horrible setting, or any gaps, or the predictability of the plotline, or the dull scenes, gomen and let me know where I can improve yeah? Let's all give Zoro a kiss, shall we? We've done too much hating on him in this story I presume. Gomen, Zoro-kun!

Special shoutout to Kiz who mentioned the doge reference aww yis!

So I think that's it. I'm not planning to write anything any moment soon, but I have like six or seven ideas in my head so I might write something in a few months? Supernova's Spiderweb will be on hold because writing fighting scenes are really hard and I need to do my best so it might take me a while to improve. Hit me a PM if you wanna talk to me, or visit my tumblr (url: cempakaaa) and send me an ask, anything, basically. So I'll see you guys when I see you guys (:

OH WAIT WHAT A SHORT (NOT SO) EPILOGUE?

"Robin, I'm-"

"Fufufu. You're blushing, Zoro."

"Robin, I've never done this before so..."

"So this is your first time?"

"I-I'm nervous."

"Don't worry, Zoro. You'll be fine."

"But-"

"Just relax, okay?"

"Okay."

"You're ready?"

Zoro nodded.

Robin lifted her hands into the air, signaling an 'OK' towards Usopp, who was on the laptop. Vivi and Nami giggled as they stood a few feet away from Zoro, forming a line, while Ace and Luffy were behind the two. Robin was beside Zoro, her heel tapping along the bass drum intro of the music, and her body bending forwards very slightly, anticipating Zoro's next move.

And then the music started. The 'Jelita' song that had been played for nearly ten times for the sake of that new dancing routine.

Robin, Nami, Vivi, Ace and Luffy started to dance in synchronization - Robin messed up a little but that's okay, she wasn't much of a dancer anyway - but Zoro froze like a statue. And for that, he had gotten a little boos and laughter from a few crew members who weren't so busy chomping the barbecued sausages, fruit cubes and egg-and-ham sandwiches at their little party.

"Come on, Zoro, it's really easy!" Robin said again, pulling his hand. Nami, Vivi, Ace and Luffy were, as always, nailin' it.

"C'mon, Zoro! You're such an embarrassment!" Perona said loudly, sitting by the barbecue set in her long, bubblegum pink socks, a pair of ballet flats and a plain flare black dress, looking childishly adorable as always. She laughed at him for a couple of seconds, and Zoro's cheeks turned awfully tomato red by that comment, but then she was just smiling a genuine smile.

In which he replied back with a genuine smile too.

"So," Flam said, as he took a seat beside Perona, "you're gonna be okay with that?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna be okay with that. Besides, I'm tired of relationships. Too damn emotional." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You know, Flam, you don't have to own someone to love someone, you know."

"Yeah, someone told me that before."

"It's nice to see him happy. Look at him, smiling and dancing like an idiot. He's really embarrassing, really-"

Flam was too busy sobbing.

"Flam, are you crying?" She nudged him with her elbow.

"I'm not crying, you baka!" Flam replied, wiping tears from his eyes.

Perona scoffed him. "Baka."