"Refuge." Roronoa Zoro X Reader

STEP 2

• • •

[Exactly one year later.]

Zoro was proud of you and himself, a year ago he knew a small lady with no interest and so little confidence in anything at all.

You worked hard because of his encouragement, after years of nothing and learned the abilities of a human being, broke barriers. He watched you grow and learn to make an impact, he nurtured you and waited for your little leaves to sprout.

There you were, coming through the door all sweaty and smelly, heaving, exhausted. Almost collapsing at the doorstep, managed to lean on the wall and kicking off the running shoes. "Hey, Grub. You're right on time for store bought sandwiches." Zoro was laid on the couch with a half eaten sandwich in his left hand and his right pillowing his head, his body facing you.

You groaned and your shoulders loosened, despite the terrible joke. "It's the third time this week, jackass." You went for the kitchen, feeling a bit disappointed. "But they gave it a good amount of discount." You heard him sitting up from the couch, you were about to open the fridge when he came into view. He smirked crossing his arms then leaned on the wall that separated the kitchen and the living room, he was waiting for you to open it and it made you groan again.

"Why the mischief, Zoro?" He always had something under his sleeve with that smirk, you were prepared for anything but it was going to suck. "Because." He simply shrugged at that, staring at your unsurprised look. Both of you stared a good ten seconds before you suspiciously broke eye contact, opening the fridge.

This bastard.

"What the?!" It was full of store bought sandwiches, almost every space of it was neatly stacked with it. "Why the hell did you buy a hundred sandwiches?! Are you about to hibernate or something?!" He couldn't help but laugh and snort, the urge to smack his head into the ground rose in you.

"How much was this? Why'd you buy so many?" Motioning your hand to it and glaring at him, he managed to calm down but still giggling. "They were," he kept bursting into laughter again when he looked at you, every time you made that face was too hard to resist laughter. "They,"

The expression on your face loosened and became slightly serious and unfazed, which made him quiet down to a chuckle and wipe that tear at the corner of his eye. "They were 70% off, 47 sandwiches was a total cost of $18 dollars." "I bet they're expired by a month." "Two months." Cringing at his correction, you closed the fridge and walked passed him towards your room.

"Oh come on, they taste just fine." Ignoring him and into your room, it was nice and cool. Making your way to the wardrobe, opening and searching for decent clothes to wear. A hot steaming shower was all you need to let the muscles loose and relax, you had a great and productive exercise for the past 3 hours.

Earlier with Ace and Garp, it was a hard first lesson of agility training. Two months later of being here, you started going fitness classes, then after four months you joined Garps 'Tough Love Club.' TLC for short. Which was very corny of a title for a fight club, people do say don't judge a book by it's cover and it was spot on.

You were worn out and exhausted by all the new lessons today, but you were thankful it wasn't tiring and painful as endurance lessons. Taking the clothes and walking out to the bathroom, closing the door and locking it. You smelled terribly sweaty, Ace insisted you'd get deodorant yet you refused because it would just worsen the natural smell, ignoring the hurtful yet helpful advice.

Setting the clothes onto the small counter, you went over the tub and started the shower. Then taking off the sweat drenched tank top, removing the thin pants and any other clothing. Your body felt incredibly icky and worn, impatient to hop in but reminding yourself it's hot.