SEVEN

"Negative captain. Until now he hasn't made a single move, even his underlings are still nowhere near the subject." A hatted man with a rectangular nose, big black eyes, and blond hair said as he casually leaned on the door of the fire exit. The man looked suspicious with his black clothes and mysterious aura.

"He must be plotting something somewhere. Anyways, do not be too at ease, we will never know when will that bastard start moving again." The man with white robe said.

"Got that captain." The other man replied. He then saluted and turned his back from the so-called "captain," but before he completely got away, he stopped on his track when he heard captain's grunt. He instantly faced the other man and grinned widely.

"Try calling me "captain" again and the next thing you will see is the floor." Irritation was evident in his voice. His eyes were as sharp as a hawk's, lips were thinner than usual, and the aura around him became darker.

"Fine. I won't." He smiled. He somehow found this situation funny, cause his ever expressionless captain was becoming more expressive, even though most of his expressions were different levels of anger or irritation. Well, whatever, it was still a progress. "I'll get going, DOCTOR." He added just to tease the other man.

"It's Sanji." Chopper mumbled as he tried to stop his uncontrollable sobbing.

Zoro was confused. He could not understand a single thing Chopper was saying, he did not know whether he should be apprehensive or not. His breath got caught in his chest, his breathing became shallow and unsteady, his stomach was churning, and cold sweat ran down from his neck to his back.

As he sat there, staring at Chopper, his memories with Sanji flooded his mind like a wave that violently threw itself to the sharp rock formation at the isolated part of a beach.

He remembered it vividly. The first time he met him.

Zoro was having a bad day. Seemed like his luck had been seeped out of his system. That morning, he was late for school for the nth time, coincidentally, his professor's patience also ran out. As a punishment, the Zoro had to run errands for him, resulting to another bad luck. As if on cue, his employer for his part-time job called him, saying that the store was going under a difficult situation and that they have to cut down on costs. With that statement, he already predicted what was about to happen. Unfortunately, being jobless also means that he was also now homeless. His employer was kind enough to let him stay in the spare room at the restaurant while he was looking for a room to rent.

"What a day." The green haired man sighed while he was helplessly sitting on a bench at the dark side of the park. He had been spending all his extra hours looking for an affordable room and he still had no luck. He would just try his luck again tomorrow, since it was already dark.

He was hopeless. It was hard to find a flat, it was even harder to find one which he could afford. Being jobless was not helping. He should really look for a job. He picked a rock and threw it in the pond in front of him, scaring the swans in it.

He stayed at the park for a bit longer than he was expecting just staring blankly at the pond when he heard a loud mocking laughter. He irritatingly looked around to find a skinny man wearing a black and blue hooded jacket and ripped jeans surrounded by three men who looked like clowns that were starred in the cheapest gangster movie you would ever see. Their bandana scarf was hanging from their necks, their body covered with tattoos, even their faces were decorated with various types of piercing. They also have weird hair colors, the tallest and bulkiest had red spiky hair. The one on his left, who was the shortest, had orange curly hair. And the ugliest of them all, had rainbow-colored hair. It suited him quite well, it made him looked like a clown from a horror movie. They looked scary enough, but not enough to scare the green-haired man.

"Hey! Are you fucking deaf you son of a bitch?! Hand me your money or We'll beat the crap out of you!" The redheaded man who seemed like the leader of this little gang, shouted at the face of the blond man. Still, the blond did not move or utter a single word. Though, Zoro could not tell what the skinny guy was thinking, he was quiet sure that he should not interfere. It's their fight, not his.

Being too tired, he decided to just ignore the little show in front of him and he just leaned back on the bench and closed his eyes. The cold wind was slowly bringing him to dreamland when a loud thud woke him up.

He looked around, his vision was a bit blurred but he could tell that there was a fight. As soon as his vision adjusted, he saw the three gangsters lying on the ground groaning, while skinny was casually smoking as if nothing happened.

It had been a week since then but Zoro could not shake "skinny" out of his mind even though he did not know what he actually looked like since it was dark and his face was covered by his hood. He could not really pin-point what it was that made him too hooked on him. Did he suddenly turn gay just by seeing a stranger?

The green haired man just sighed and continued looking at the flyers on the bulletin board, hoping to find a place to stay. He read each and every piece of flyer there was, until he saw the flyer he was looking for. It seemed like the owner was looking for a tenant to occupy his extra room in a very cheap price. All he needed was there, a room and a bathroom. That's it. And there's a kitchen too, that's a plus but Zoro could not really imagine himself in the kitchen. The first and last time he stepped into the kitchen was when his sister and him were making pancakes for their parents.

He shook his head to take the unpleasant memory out of his mind. Then he looked back at the flyer and dialed the number in it. After a few rings, he heard a low and husky voice on the other line.

"Hello?" The man said. Somehow, Zoro's heart skipped a beat. He did not know why but he could sense his heart beat going faster and faster. "Hello? Who's this?" The man on the other line spoke again. Zoro took a deep breath to calm his rebellious heart before he answered.

"Ugh. Hello. Ah- shit." Zoro felt irritated. He did not want to mess this up. It was his only hope in finding a shelter.

"Yeah. Shit." The other guy said. He voice sounded impatient and irritated.

"So-rry. I mean, your flyer. Ugh, fuck!" What the hell?! Zoro was getting angrier at himself.

"Yeah! Fuck! If you can not talk clearly, I'm hanging up!" The man was about to hang up when Zoro gathered his scattered brain on the floor.

"Sorry. I mean, I saw your flyer on the bulletin board. I'm interested in it."

"You know what, you need to be more articulate than that. Well, never mind. If you really are interested, you can drop by at the address indicated in the flyer this weekend, so I can show you the room. Will that be fine?"

"That's fine." With that short answer, the line had been cut off and Zoro cursed himself for being an asshole.

Days passed by quickly and now Zoro was looking left and right, well, actually he was looking everywhere. He had been walking around the neighborhood for an hour and people were starting to look at him suspiciously. He looked at the flyer again and finally gave up. He now regretted why he did not ask anyone to go with him.

After a few minutes, he found himself in front of a brown door with numbers 1111 on it. He rang the doorbell twice before a blond skinny man with curly eyebrows greeted him. The man looked familiar but Zoro could not remember where he saw the man. And of course there was that unidentifiable feeling again but Zoro chose to ignore it.

The man, whose name was Sanji, toured him around the house while discussing the Do's and Don'ts inside the house. Well, even though Sanji was pretty meticulous in terms of cleanliness and stuff, Zoro decided to agree. How could he complain, especially when Sanji promised to cook food for him, but Zoro must do the house chores in return.

After preparing and signing all the needed documents, Zoro bid his goodbye and told Sanji that he'll move in the next day with all his stuff.

And just like that, the two started living together, though their first months of living under the same roof hadn't been that great. The two of them often fight over little things and Zoro's feelings did not really help him to get along with the other guy.

Zoro could not put a name in what he was feeling, not until when he and Sanji got into a serious argument about something he could not recall. As a result, Sanji started ignoring him. They seldom see each other and if they did, Sanji would just glare at him and not even utter a single word before leaving. It made Zoro irritated, angry, and confused. Normally, he would just ignore these kinds of things, but he was not really normal, so he tried talking to the other man.

He pestered the blond with apologies, angry remarks, and apologies again. Sanji, finally got tired of it and faced Zoro.

"Do not talk to me!" Sanji shouted. "It's all your fault! Since you started living here, everything went wrong! Why don't you just leave me alone?! Leave my house!" He added.

Zoro was confused but anger prevailed. "I do not know what you are talking about, but HELL NO! I am not gonna live this house! We have a contract and I even paid you with my allowance!"

"If it's money you want, then I'll give it back to you! Ju-just get out of here! Get out of my life!" Sanji was on the verge of crying, but Zoro's anger was keeping his mouth active. He grabbed Sanji's shoulders and pinned him on the sofa.

"I am not going anywhere until you explain it to me. What the fuck did I do to make you this desperate to get rid me?" He stared intently at those blue orbs and tried to read his emotions. Instead of making things clear for Zoro, Sanji's emotions only made him more confused and angry. It was as if Sanji was scared. Was he scared of him? Did he do something that scared the other man?

Tears started flowing out of Sanji's eyes and rolled to his cheeks. Then Zoro snapped. He aggressively let go of Sanji and cursed loudly.

"Fuck! What the hell is wrong with you?! I haven't done anything to you and there you are! Crying like a little girl who lost her candy! But I won't still leave! If you are so desperate to get rid of me then tell me WHY THE FUCK YOU ARE CRYING?!" He shouted.

Sanji was too surprised because of his sudden outburst, tears stopped flowing and his mouth hung open. But Zoro was too tired to continue this stupid argument. He clenched hi fists and turned towards his room. He was angry with Sanji, but he was more angry at himself. Maybe he really did something stupid that scared the man, but he had no idea what it was.

He was about to open the door to his room when he heard Sanji's voice. It was merely a whisper but Zoro heard it clearly.

"Zoro, I-I like you."