Warnings: Implied child abuse/neglect, Canonical Character Death ((I PROMISE IT'S STILL FLUFFY!))
"Are you lost, little one?" The man's voice was gentle.
He was tall, compared to certain perspectives anyway, his hair—just barely touched with grey—was pulled back into a sensible tail at the nape of his neck, and his smile was warm. Something the nine-year-old standing in front of him was sorely lacking. By contrast where the man had a thick jacket, the boy's was threadbare. The man's boots were weather-proof and comfortable; the boy's looked like they pinched his toes with every step. He had no gloves or scarf, and his hat had holes filled in with fluffy green fabric of some kind.
He scowled, his brow too heavy for a child that young, and he muttered, "The buildings move."
"Hm, that they do. Especially at this time of night." The man shifted his parcels in his arms so he could extend a hand to the boy.
Who looked as though that was the first time anyone had actually believed him, the scowl evaporating and he shot his hand out to grab onto the adult's.
"Do you know where you're supposed to be?"
"No." The scowl came back, and he looked at his shoes with a touch of color on his cheeks that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Can you tell me where you were trying to get to then?"
The boy looked like he was concentrating, or bracing himself against the wind. Or the cold? Hm, or punishment maybe? He man wasn't sure, but it took several minutes of silence before the boy mumbled that he couldn't remember.
"Well, that's alright. I have a daughter about your age. She doesn't much know where she's supposed to be these days either. I think we're all a bit lost this year." There was a sad note in the man's voice that made the boy look up at him curiously. Then he shook it off and smiled warmly again, "Would you like to come home with me for tonight? Nobody should be out on their own on Christmas Eve."
"What's Christmas Eve?" Bright green eyes, too old for their young face, blinked up at him in confusion and the man's heart shattered.
"You'll just have to come along so I can teach you."
"Are you a teacher? You don't sound like a teacher." The boy groused suspiciously, though he hadn't noticed they were already several blocks from where they'd started.
The man laughed, "You could say that, but I'm not like most teachers. The more appropriate word is sensei."
"Sensei?" He sounded like he was trying the word on for size in his mouth.
The man paused when the boy tugged on his hand. They looked at each other for a few moments; then the boy let go and for the length of a heartbeat the man thought he was going to run off into the cold, but he didn't. He folded his hands together—backwards—and bowed, so low that his back was parallel to the pavement.
Then he spoke in flawless Japanese, with a slight Hokkaido accent, "Thank you for your consideration, Sensei. My name is Roronoa Zoro, and I have no home."
"Even the rolling moss has a home in the ocean, Zoro. Come." Sensei took his hand again, leading him down the sidewalk and around several corners to a snug single-level house with a high fence.
Zoro never could pinpoint where exactly the alley where Koshiro found him was, but as soon as he passed the boulder with his sensei's name carved into it, he knew he would never forget how to get to this place. It called to him somewhere deep in his tiny soul.
Inside the home, the living room had an impressive bonsai tree, bigger than Zoro had ever seen before, and it was decorated with popcorn strings and cranberries held together with rice and ribbon. Candles ringed the base, and pair of bright red birds fit together similar to a Yin Yang at the top.
He pulled his hat off in awe—revealing the holes to actually be holes, and the fuzzy green to be his hair—and held it in his hands, frozen in the entryway. He fidgeted a little. His instinct told him to remove his boots but he wasn't comfortable doing so until he saw Koshiro do it. His jacket came next, and it was all the man could do to not gasp when he saw the state of the boy's shirt. What sort of person left their son out in the middle of winter in a tank top?!
Just then he was pulled from his thoughts by a hard, young, voice, "Why's your hair green? It's weird."
"I dunno. Why're you hiding behind the corner? You afraid?!" Zoro snapped back, baring his teeth.
The other child jumped up to their feet on the cushions. "M'not scared!"
"Kuina, don't stand on the couch." Koshiro chided, though a smile threatened to undermine his authority. The pair of them were just too cute arguing like that.
"Kuina's a funny name for a boy." Zoro wrinkled his nose.
Jumping over the back of the couch, the dark-haired ten-year-old crossed their arms over their chest and sniffed, "Shows what you know! I'm a girl!"
"Uh huh, then how come you're not pretty?"
Koshiro was fairly sure that was honest confusion on Zoro's face rather than insult, but between the sharpness of his tone and the hard edges carved into his face, Kuina didn't see it that way. She acted before he could do anything.
"BECAUSE I'M GONNA BE THE WORLD'S STRONGEST SWORDSMAN!?" She shrieked, launching herself at Zoro.
A moment of shock was all the boy had before he had to fend her off, rolling with her and kicking in a way that reminded the adult in the room of a pair of puppies. That was probably why he let it continue for a while. They wrestled and bounced, hair was pulled and elbows flew into soft spots, sure to leave bruises come morning, but Koshiro didn't step in until Zoro got a good mouthful of Kuina's arm and the girl yelped.
"Ok, ok, break it up. If you want to do more than that you'll have to take the bokken into the sparring room, and Zoro, no biting, that wasn't fair."
"How's her tackling me fair!?" The boy asked, rubbing his nose with his arm.
Kuina stuck her tongue out at him, nursing her arm, "You asked for it."
"Did not!"
"Did too! You called me ugly!"
"I did not! I said you weren't pretty!"
"SAME THING!" She huffed, her hands in fists at her sides.
He mimicked her, putting them forehead to—well, nose because she was several inches taller, "NO IT'S NOT! You're not pretty! No bows, or ribbons, or make up, or other stupid shit!"
"That stuff doesn't make you pretty! AND DON'T SWEAR OR DAD'LL GET OUT THE SOAP!"
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"
They growled at each other, lightning struck between their eyes, until Koshiro tugged on both of their collars. He gave them both a stern look.
"I said enough."
"Sorry, Sensei." They chorused.
He gave a small nod. "Understood. Now, Kuina, show Zoro where the bathroom is while I reheat dinner. There's just enough time to for evening meditation before bed. Early tonight or Santa won't come."
The girl's face lit up at the mention of the mythical man in red. She grabbed Zoro's hand and tugged him around her father towards a hall off to the left, "C'mon! If we're lucky Dad won't hog all the eggrolls!"
Dinner was the best miso soup and onigiri Zoro had ever tasted, followed by dongo rolled in powdered sugar, and hot chocolate! WITH MARSHMELLOWS! He wasn't sure he did the meditation right though. He kept peeking out at Koshiro and Kuina because he was sure he was going to fall asleep if he just sat there with his eyes closed the whole time, and he couldn't do that! Kuina would never let him live it down! After that was a bath, and a present of pyjamas out of nowhere that had a map printed on the shirt and compass points like snowflakes scattered in a random pattern on the pants. Then Koshiro tucked them both into Kuina's bed, and read them the poem The Night Before Christmas in Japanese, which Zoro thought was much better than the way the lady at the library had read it earlier. Especially now that he knew what the night before Christmas actually was.
Koshiro turned out the light, gave them each a kiss without hesitating even though he'd only just met Zoro that day, and closed the door.
As soon as he was gone, Kuina hopped back out of bed and dove under it, "Wanna see my sword?!"
"Sword?!" Zoro echoed, leaning over the edge to stare at her back.
Her voice was muffled under the mattress and blankets, "Yeah! It was my Jiisan's before he died! Dad said because I practice so hard with the bokken that I could have it for my tenth birthday!" She wriggled back, pulling something with her. "It's gorgeous!"
"Aren't we supposed to be sleeping?"
She popped up, nearly knocking heads with him, to end up nose to nose, "Do you know nothing of Christmas?! The grownups tell us to go to bed, 'cause if we don't Santa won't come, but we're supposed to stay up as late as possible to try and catch him! Otherwise how do we know if he's real?"
"Of course he's real! The guy in the story saw him! Why would he say he saw him if he didn't?" Zoro sat back, scowling. Was the Clement C whatever guy a liar too? Were all grownups?
"Well…" Kuina sat back on her heels with a slightly dusty katana case in her lap, "has he ever brought you anything before?"
The boy fiddled with the blanket. "…no…"
"How come?"
"I'unno." Suddenly he didn't feel like talking anymore.
Then she was up on the bed with him and seemed to have picked up on his change in mood. Picking on him when he was okay was one thing, but teasing him now just felt wrong. So, she flung an arm over his shoulder, and leaned on him.
"I bet it was 'cause you didn't have a place where he could climb down the chimney. Like in the book. Kinda hard to leave presents for people if they don't have a tree to put 'em under, you know?"
"You think so?" He looked at her worriedly.
"I know more about this Christmas stuff than you do yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Then I know so!"
"Okay!" He smiled, and leaned back into her shoulder with a nudge of his own. "Now show me your sword!"
The next morning it seemed like Kuina had been right, almost all of the presents under the tree were addressed to Zoro from Santa. It was like the big man in red had been saving up all those years when Zoro hadn't had a Christmas, and in his mind, the only answer could be that it was because he hadn't had a tree or a chimney before. Kuina didn't seem to get many though, so Zoro shared most of his with her, though that was mostly because he didn't really know what to do with them, and she did.
At the end of the morning, however, Koshiro had to drive Zoro back to the group home where he actually lived, but that one night set up a pattern of him wandering into the house attached to the dojo almost every day for several years. Every Christmas Eve he spent the night, whether the state said he was allowed to or not, and every Christmas Morning, Santa would have left a mound of presents, though not quite as many for just him as there had been that first year. It took until the Christmas after his twelfth birthday before he figured out how to give something back to Kuina for that first night. Only, over the years, she'd grown more stubborn in accepting things from him, so the afternoon of that Christmas Eve, he had to literally corner her in the dojo to give it to her.
"Here!" He thrust the gift forward, glaring off to the side and furiously denying any color on his cheeks. He resolutely refused to admit he'd gotten turned around looking for her.
The young teen girl blinked at him, "What?"
"It's a present, doofus, you're s'posed to take it and open it."
"I KNOW THAT!" She smacked him in the head with her bokken.
"OI!" His hands flew to the offended spot, dropping the present—the cotton balls and cleaning cloth fell out of the box when the lid popped open. "NOW LOOK WHAT YOU DID!"
"NYAHH!" She stuck her tongue out at him and wiggled her fingers, her thumb on her nose.
The green-haired boy launched himself at her, and she took off running, laughing… It was less than a week after that she'd fallen, broken her neck, reaching for that kit. Zoro went over that Christmas Eve so many times in his mind as he grew up. Every night before Christmas he meditated for her, though he never truly got to the same level of meditation then that he could any other night. If he was more honest with himself, it was because he was stewing over it rather than healing from it, but somehow he didn't want to be honest with himself… It was like admitting Santa Claus wasn't real… He just couldn't do it, and frankly, didn't want to try…
"OI! Earth to knucklehead! You awake in there?" Pink filled his vision, and slender knuckles rapped on his forehead before he had the wits to smack her hand away.
"What's the big idea?" He groused, blinking to clear his vision. "I was trying to meditate."
Perona pouted, her hip cocked out to one side and her chin lifted towards the other. "I said," she huffed, "it's a present, doofus, you're supposed to open it."
Zoro looked down at her hands, curled around a big square box with black and pink wrapping paper. Trust the gothic princess to eschew all traditional Christmas colors. He'd almost groan except he sort of appreciated the avoidance of all things red and green. After all, having to wear half of that combination all year round naturally made him a little tired of it.
He smirked with a touch of nostalgia in his eye, taking the gift. "So what is it this year? Snakes and spiders?"
"No!" She huffed again. "Just open the damn thing! Mihawk said you needed a new one."
Just to make her squirm, he took his time, meticulously slicing the tape and untying the bow, "Don't you ever call him dad?"
That time she sniffed, but didn't say anything, clearly impatient for him to open his present.
Zoro snickered, lifting the lid from the box. Inside was a brand new bottle of sword oil, a fresh supply of cotton balls, and microfiber cleaning cloths. His smile was a little warmer, memories of the past warmed by the thoughtfulness of the present.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek, "Thanks, 'Rona."
"Yeah, well… it's not like it's a big deal." But she was blushing hard, playing with the hem of her skirt.