ZoLu Imagines |【Zoro x Luffy】🔥

Stray Cat | 5 🐈

A knock on the door made Zoro and his new friend feel curious, it was very rare for him to have any visitors over, and even his cat knew that more than Zoro himself, given that he was always on his doorstep.

The last visitor he had over was a friend of his for New Year's which was three months ago. Ever since then, he hasn't had anyone stop by his apartment.

Being a man of few words, friendships didn't come natural to Zoro, so he was unsure who might be at his door.

"It's the landlord..." He softly spoke, looking down at Luffy with all sorts of thoughts running through his mind.

"Did you break anything while I was gone?" The man asked, to which the cat shook his head, lowering it to the ground.

"Are you sure you're not hiding something? You have to let me know or I'll be in serious trouble with this old man." Zoro saw how heavily the cat was breathing and immediately suspected of him.

"Oh man, I'm so screwed..." Taking a steep breath in, Zoro quickly opened the door, ready to assume responsibility for whatever his cheeky cat might have broken.

"Go hide somewhere, if he doesn't suspect you live here, I might be let off the hook. Go on." Expecting the cat to put up a fight and go against his orders, Zoro was prepared to carry Luffy to a hiding place in his bedroom closet or so, however, before he could take a second look behind him, the cat was gone in the blink of an eye.

Having him hide away, Zoro felt it was safe to open the door.

"Good mornin'." His landlord greeted, slurring his speech halfway. The grumpy elder was a man with a round beer belly, grayish hair with little to no brown streaks covering his head.

He apparently owned one shirt as he was always wearing the same shabby, sleeveless tank top that exposed his bulging stomach, accompanied by a pair of ripped jeans.

Zoro knew he himself drank many bottles of alcohol, especially on the weekends, but he had never seen a man in such a messed up state as his careless landlord.

"If I'm not mistaken, rent isn't due until the first of next month, mister." He replied, wanting to keep their conversation quick and short.

However, the drunk man started to laugh, waving his hands around.

"That's- hic! Not what I came 'ere for, Zor- hic! Zoro." His Language was barely understandable to anyone around him.

"Even my cat can speak more accurately than him... 'My cat'. Heh, sounds strange." Zoro smiled subconsciously at the ground, wondering where his cat could be right now.

"Hey! Pay attention to yerrrr elders, idiot boy!" Zoro flinched, nodding at the man with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

"I came here to give you one of these- hic! Bottles. Merry New Year's! Wooooooo!!" He burst out laughing in front of Zoro, handing him a bottle of liquor.

"Thanks... You shouldn't have." Zoro parted ways with the man who swayed from side to side, being too imbalanced to walk in a straight line.

Zoro headed back into his apartment, locking the door behind him.

He started to whistle, calling out for his cat to see if he would come out of his hiding place.

Unfortunately, three attempts in, and no sign of the shy kitty anywhere, so Zoro walked into his minimalistic kitchen, putting his bottle of rum into a cabinet he uses as a storage unit for all of his liquor bottles.

"You can come out now!" He called out, knowing that the cat would eventually pop up from somewhere around his house.

Surprisingly, he had found a good hiding spot, as Zoro was having a hard time finding it. He didn't seem to be in his closet, under his bed, or behind the couches.

Having checked all of the basic hiding spots Zoro could think of, he began to get serious about his search for the cat, so he walked around his apartment, calling out to him.

Nothing seemed to be working, not even calling him out by his name, this made Zoro believe that he had escaped the house.

"Where did he go..." He placed his hands together, standing in his long hallway, deciding to try one last thing.

"He's gone, you can come back now!" His voice echoed throughout the halls, as he concluded that the cat was long gone by now.

However, as if magic, he saw a pair of soft paws walking towards him.

"Luffy, there you are, buddy. Were you hiding in my room the entire time?" He bend down, caressing the cat's face as it pulled away from the man.

"Is he really... Gone?" Zoro nodded, wondering why Luffy had taken so long to come back outside.

"Sorry if I scared you, he just doesn't allow pets in this apartment. But don't worry, you'll be fine." Luffy shook his head, backing away slowly.

"He's a very bad man, Z-Zoro." The cat stuttered, memories flashing back into his mind.

"What do you mean?" Zoro asked, seeing the way the cat's eyes darted at the door, growing uneasy.

"Growing up homeless, I used to sleep wherever I could find warmth in the streets," he explained. "One night, a man noticed I was sleeping beside his garbage cans and I don't know why he did it, but he started kicking me in my stomach, so much that I broke two of my ribs. That man is your landlord, master." The painful backstory Luffy told Zoro was making him furious.

"What a scumbag, I can't believe he would do something like this to a poor harmless cat." He spoke.

Suddenly, the cat went deadly quiet, parting his lips to mutter something in silence.

"I didn't hear what you said, sorry, can you repeat it?" Zoro requested, placing his finger beneath the cat's chin.

"I wasn't a cat when he did that to me, sir..." The cat  admitted, sadness tracing his face.

"I was a 14-year-old boy." Shocked by his revelation, Zoro took the cat in his arms, embracing him.

"I wish I could've met you when you were human, I would have defended you back then."

~~~