Zoro

Maybe I napped, maybe I didn't. All I know is I'm in my room for hours and it's dark when I snap out of my thoughts. I turn in bed, lying on my back. Outside, I can hear the cook shuffling boxes, muttering to himself. I smile when I hear a thud, scrape, and an audible 'ow' followed by muttered cursing.

The smile doesn't last when my thoughts start catching up to my consciousness. I ran away. I basically ran away and hid from a possible social situation with the cook. But I could feel the tension in the air from just being in the same room as him. If I stayed, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to hold back an argument. Yeah, that's it. It was better to give each other space for now. I didn't run, I just... sidestepped, dodged. That sounds better.

I sit up, breathing out a frustrated sigh. The cook was nice enough to offer me lunch this afternoon. Why can't I even be civil with him? I picture the cook, blonde-hair, slender, smiling… His arm around Luffy. My chest tightens and I scratch the thought from my head. Nothing good ever comes from just sitting still. I push myself out of bed and stretch, glancing over at my swords hung up on the wall. Now would be a good time to train, but after glancing at the clock I see I don't have time for that.

I leave the room, blinking at the bright lights of the living room. The cook is pushing a long box into his room. He smirks when he sees me.

"Finally coming out of your shell, marimo?"

I ignore him and head for the shower.

"Oi, you hungry yet?" he asks.

"I'm fine." I don't feel like eating right now.

"You haven't eaten since morning, right?"

I don't answer and shut the bathroom door behind me. In the shower, my thoughts are of Luffy. He'll be home soon, but not in time for me to catch him before I leave. A shudder passes my muscles at the thought of him alone with the cook. A feeling I try to ignore. This is the way things are now. I have to accept that.

I've never felt like this towards anyone else Luffy has been with before. Why him? Why the cook? As I turn off the water, a mouth-watering aroma seeps through the steam. In my walk from the shower back to my room, I catch him in the kitchen. Cooking. He doesn't even turn to acknowledge me, his eyes lost in his activity. I watch him a moment. It's the same look some of my students have. Concentration. Determination. Passion.

I change into my uniform quickly. When I enter the living room again, the shitty cook is serving two bowls of fried rice on the table. He raises a curly brow at me, eyeing my uniform.

"Where are you going?"

"Work." I say, slipping my jacket on.

"A kendo class? This late?"

"It's my other work."

He pats the table. "Well, at least eat before you go."

It feels more like a command than a suggestion. "I don't have time."

"Fine, you can take it with you." His hands move quickly, packing the rice into a small box and wrapping it in a small paper bag. He hands it to me.

"I'm not a fucking child, cook," I push the bag back into his hands.

"Don't talk to your elders like that," he mocks. His smirk turns into a scowl. "Just take the fucking bag, you damn Marimo."

"Don't call me that, fucking eyebrows."

His eye twitches. "What did you say?"

"I said your eyebrows look like curly mosquito repellents."

"So you can talk, fucking pot plant!"

"Question-mark-shaped brows, shitty cook!"

"Say anything about my eyebrows again, and I'll fucking drown you so you can be reunited with your marimo family at the bottom of a lake!"

I watch his shoulders rise and fall in heavy breathing. He shoves the bag in hands. "Just take it already!"

He turns around and starts on washing up. I grumble and leave, slamming the door behind me. What was all that? I feel like a two year old. That was probably the first time I called anyone names and bickered about nothing since I was two. I leave the flats, breathing in the cold night air deeply, letting it loosen the muscles in my chest. Something tells that'll probably happen again. I just hope we can at least keep it together around Luffy...

Sanji

I wasn't home alone for long. After a couple of hours of taking out my anger on crushing empty cardboard boxes, I hear the lock on the door click open.

"Sanji-kun!"

It's Luffy. I watch him strip off his coat and kick off his shoes, the stupid grin on his face loosening a knot between my shoulders.

"Hey," I greet him. All thoughts of shitty marimo now gone from my mind. "How was work?"

"Busy," He sighs, slumping down at the kitchen table like a deflated balloon. "Sorry I wasn't here to help you move in." He lifts his head to look around the flat. "Has Zoro gone?"

"He said he had work."

Luffy nods. "He works as a night guard sometimes at the mall. They only call him out when it's busy, but it pays more."

I raise a brow. "You two really scrape a living, huh?"

Luffy laughs. "We get by."

I butt out my cigarette in an ashtray I just unpacked. Rolling my sleeves up, I turn to the stove. "How about dinner?"

"Yes, I'm starving!"

As much as smoking calms me down, nothing really sets my mind straight as much as cooking. It's so easy to loose myself in my practice, even with an energetic, gangly limbed guy harping at me to finish quickly every five minutes. When I'm cooking, the world practically melts away around me, and it's just me and my ingredients. That's how it should be.

It doesn't take long, or at least I don't think it does, when I finally serve up some chicken dumpling noodles. Luffy wastes no time in tucking into it, appreciation showing in every inch of his face.

"Thus ish goodth, Thanji-kunth!" He speaks, noodles still hanging from his mouth.

I laugh. "Don't talk with your mouth full, idiot."

I watch him slurp down the noodles fervently. He really is hungry. It isn't long before I'm giving him seconds. It's a good thing I always cook more than I need to. I glance around the apartment. I've been unpacking all day, but there are still boxes stacked around, some half unpacked.

"Sorry about the place," I say.

Luffy swallows his mouthful before speaking this time. "That's ok. You should've seen it when me and Zoro first moved in. It took so long to unpack, we ended up making a box fort in the living room."

Box fort? That didn't seem like marimo to me. I hear his irritating voice bickering with me in my head from this afternoon.

"Are you sure it's ok for me to live here?" I ask. "Zoro doesn't seem too keen on me. I'm pretty sure he avoided me on purpose all afternoon."

Luffy shrugs it off like it's nothing. "That's just Zoro. He'll be wary of new things at first, but he'll get used to it. Kinda like a dog."

"Dog huh? You think I should give him treats to get him to like me more?"

Luffy laughs. "If it's treats you've made, I think he'll like you immediately. Your food's so yummy!"

I start listing out ingredients for almond cookies in my mind. I wonder what kind of flavours the marimo likes? With Luffy, it seems like he'll eat anything.

"Hey, I'm not working tomorrow," Luffy stands up and stretches. "If you want, me and Zoro can help you unpack."

"Tch. If you can get him to help. He's done nothing all day."

"He'll help." Luffy smiles at me confidently. For a second, I understand why. That smile will be enough to send a thousand armies to war.

I return his smile, light another cigarette. "If you say so."