Chapter Text
Luffy was impatient to find his soulmates.
He’d wanted to find them ever since he was old enough to know what the ring of hollow circles marked around his wrist meant. Getting to know Shanks and his crew, seeing their soulmarks filled in with each others’ colors, had just built up the fire more by showing him it was possible. That was another reason to be a pirate, even!
Really, he was a little disappointed Coby wasn’t one of his. He’d already waited ten years to start searching, and Coby was great! Luffy would’ve liked it if they were soulmates.
It made more sense after Coby said he wanted to be a marine, though—if he couldn’t be on Luffy’s crew, no wonder they needed different soulmates. They’d just have to be friends instead.
Still. Luffy had an itch in his bones, after having waited and waited and waited forever to start finding all of his people. At least some of them had to be close! He couldn’t find his whole crew on his own, after all! And most of them were older than him, or at least the same, which meant they'd been waiting at least as long.
(Only one of Luffy's marks had come after he was born—it branched off from the ring that the rest of them made, on the inside of his wrist and just a little closer to his hand than the others, and it had come when he was ten. So they could only be seven, too young to be a pirate for a while. Luffy still really hoped he'd get to meet his littlest soulmate soon, though. It didn't matter if they couldn't sail yet, he wanted to know them without waiting until they were grown up!)
“Why do you care so much?” Coby asked hesitantly, as they were sailing for that Marine base they needed to visit. “Most people don’t find their soulmates, you know.”
Luffy frowned. “How can people not care?” he threw back, his left hand rubbing at his right wrist. “They’re your own people. How can anyone not want to look for them?”
Him and his people belonged together. He’d always known that. Sure, there were other people Luffy had chosen, and his soulmates probably had chosen people and family of their own. But his soulmates were his already, and he was theirs. He knew, wherever they were, they were waiting for him just like he’d been waiting to find them. Why would he be happy staying alone and ignoring them?
Coby shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it in a long time, I guess,” he said. His hand went to his neck and then his chest, where he’d told Luffy his marks were. “I…I didn’t really think I’d get to have good soulmates. Or that they’d be happy to have me.”
Luffy frowned harder. “That’s not right, Coby!” He already knew some people didn’t want to find their soulmates—that they thought their soulmates would make them worse, somehow. Like finding out who they were as part of their circle would be a bad thing.
But those people were dumb. “If your souls fit together,” Luffy said, crouching on the bow to look at Coby, “then you’ll make each other more you, right? And you’ll fill in each other’s missing places, just like crews do on ships. So even if you weren’t great, you’d still make each other better!”
It was stupid to think anything else. It was especially stupid to figure that anyone whose soul fit into yours could be bad, when you weren’t bad at all.
Coby smiled a little, looking away. “Maybe. Maybe…I’ll find them in the Navy?”
“You might!” Luffy bounced upright again, turning to watch the sea. “Maybe I’ll find someone at this Navy base!”
“I really don’t think you should try, Luffy.”
Luffy just laughed. Maybe this base was too soon, but he wasn’t going to stop looking. After ten whole years and a trip in a barrel, he was due to find at least one soulmate soon, right?
If asked, Roronoa Zoro would have disagreed with this idea. Granted, he was currently preoccupied by things like hunger, thirst, rope burns, and possible heatstroke, due to being tied to a pole in a Marine courtyard; the sentiment would still have been sincere, though. He’d figured for a long time that looking for soulmates was a waste of energy regardless of your odds, and the idea of waiting ten years for a chance had definitely never occurred to him.
He’d been waiting and working for more important things.
He’d only ever had the one soulmark, sure, but one was more than enough for him. He was already bound to something in life, after all, and it didn’t need a mark to be real: his promise to his rival came before anything or anyone else. If his soulmate wanted to mean anything to him, they’d have to fit in with that priority—but either way, he couldn’t waste his time looking for them when he could be working toward his dream, any more than he could waste time “settling down,” or “making friends,” or keeping track of where he’d been last week.
So instead Zoro kept training, and fighting, and collecting bounties, in pursuit of that dream, and honestly stopped noticing the blank mark on his wrist a long time ago.
Until today, tied up by the Marines like a criminal, when he was suddenly faced with a crazy kid who wanted to turn him into a pirate.
“I mean, I haven’t made up my mind yet,” the kid said with an easy grin, shoving his hat back on his head. The blank marks ringing his wrist were clear and distinct in the sunlight. “You’ve got a pretty bad reputation, it seems like!”
“Like I’d join a pirate crew anyway, brat,” Zoro said, teeth bared right back at him, and hoping he didn’t think to walk around behind Zoro and get a glimpse of his wrist where it was draped over the pole. Judging by his weird determination, that would make him even more of a pain—and if there was one thing Zoro was less interested in than being a pirate, it was sharing his mark with one.
“Well, we’ll see!” the kid chirped. “I’ll see you around, bounty-hunter guy.”
And then—without looking at Zoro’s wrist—he hopped over the fence.
Whatever. Hopefully he wouldn’t come back. Zoro only had, what, twenty more days to last in this place? Survive this, and he could get back to keeping his promise.
He let his head fall and decided to sleep a little more, so he could put all this behind him quicker.
Luffy had a good feeling about Zoro!
He’d had it from the second he saw him, really. He was just exciting , with his bandana and his grin and his not being worried about being tied to a post for a month. He was cool! It was like a little spark had lit up in Luffy’s chest, when he saw him, and it said, Him! He’s gotta be crew! He’s gotta! He could maybe even be a soulmate, though Coby might be right about having to wait a little longer to find them.
On the other hand, though, Coby had also thought Zoro would be a bad choice for crew. He’d had some good points, too—apparently he was scary, and he was a pirate hunter, and he was tied up for some reason. He could’ve been a bad guy, even if Luffy liked him already!
Now, thanks to Rika, Luffy knew he’d been right about that at least. Zoro was a good guy, and he was going to be on Luffy’s crew. So he could be a soulmate, maybe, too—if Luffy was really lucky.
But that didn’t even matter, for now! The important thing was that Zoro being crew meant Luffy had to look out for him. Which included punching the idiot son in the face for him, if he was gonna be a jerk, and definitely included finding Zoro’s swords. They were Zoro’s treasures! What kind of pirate captain didn’t protect his crew’s treasures?
Plus, Zoro was still being stubborn about the crew thing. Finding his swords would probably help.
But which of these swords were Zoro’s?
Wait. What was going on in the courtyard?
Zoro, freshly delivered from a hail of bullets, gritted his teeth.
Survive, and I can keep my promise…but die here, and it’s all over!
He’d made up his mind. Dishonoring Kuina’s sword with piracy would be bad, but abandoning his promise by dying here was worse.
And…maybe Luffy wasn’t such a bad guy, even if he did plan to be a pirate. He’d helped him eat the kid’s onigiri, and apparently had punched out the idiot son for Zoro? And Coby seemed like an honorable kid and he liked Luffy a lot, clearly. So…maybe this could work out.
Also, he’d just saved Zoro and Coby’s lives with whatever that freaky stretching trick was. There was that too.
Anyway, it was enough of a chance to be worth it. So Zoro accepted his swords from the kid, and gave his service instead—with a warning.
“I’m going to be a pirate, like I promised—not like I really have a choice now, anyway.” Not with Marine swords pointed at him from every side. “But listen! I have one dream, and it’s to be the world’s greatest swordsman. If following you ever makes me lose out on that dream, I expect you to fall on your own sword to make up for it!”
The kid’s eyes had darted away from Zoro’s face even while he was talking, to—oh. To his right hand. Yeah, the backs of both his hands were facing Luffy right now, with the way he was holding off the Marines. His mark was on full display.
Zoro saw him grin even wider, eyes lighting up, and bounce on his feet a little. Oh, no. Dream on, kid. Zoro just finished explaining that he had commitments, and goals. He’d known for half his life that he definitely wasn’t accepting any potential soulmate who couldn’t fit into that and work with it—
“World’s greatest swordsman?” Luffy repeated, openly beaming. “That’s perfect! I can’t have anyone less than that standing next to me when I’m the King of the Pirates!”
Oh no.
Something shifted and cracked a little in Zoro’s stubborn walls of resolution.
He was starting to like the guy.
Luffy couldn’t stop grinning.
He had crew. A crew member of his own, and he was cool, even if he was unconscious right now, and as soon as Luffy got him some food (he had to be hungry, since he hadn’t eaten for ten days) they could take Luffy’s ship and head out to sea. Luffy and his crew! He was a real pirate captain now!
But even more than that, he couldn’t stop bouncing his steps a little, even carrying Zoro with his arm draped over Luffy’s shoulders. Because every time he glanced to his right, he saw Zoro’s right hand, with a big clear soulmark right on the back of the wrist.
He had been right. He really was lucky, huh?
“Eeeeee,” he said quietly, still grinning. “Ee hee hee…”
“Are you okay?” Coby said from Zoro’s other side, glancing over worriedly.
“Sure I’m okay. I’m just happy!” He jumped a little as he walked, jostling Zoro.
Koby glanced away, smiling a little. “I guess that did go pretty well…”
“It went great. Can you believe I found my first crewmate already, Coby? And my first soulmate? And we fixed the Navy here, too, so you can join them now!”
The other boy looked at him, startled for some reason. “Luffy—he might be your soulmate, but you don’t know that, right?” He bit his lip. “I mean, the place matches one of yours, but other people could have wrist marks, too…”
Luffy shrugged. “Sure,” he admitted happily. “But I’ve got a really good feeling about it. I’d check right now, but that’s rude.” Shanks had said so.
“Well, yeah, that’s rude! Soulmarks are for life, you can’t just mark someone without their agreement, Luffy!” Coby was looking shocked again, but in that way where he was starting to laugh, too. He’d started doing that a lot more over the last couple days.
“I know, so I won’t, ” Luffy repeated patiently. “I’ll just have to wait until Zoro’s awake again. And full!” Distracting him while he was hungry would just be mean. And anyway, Luffy was pretty hungry himself.
But their marks weren’t going anywhere! He could wait a little longer, he guessed. Now that he knew it was Zoro he was waiting for.
Zoro, half an hour later, found himself a free man with a full stomach, and surprisingly okay with the fact that he’d signed his life away to a crazy, childish, unstoppably optimistic force of nature. Because…Luffy might be crazy, was the thing, but he had confidence. He had a dream, and he was going for it, and he wasn’t letting anyone stop him. Once you got that, he actually made a refreshing amount of sense.
He was fun, too.
So when he saw his new captain’s eyes land on his wrist again, Zoro thought about it, but he didn’t see any reason to put off the subject any longer. (Coby had been staring at both their wrists, anyway, off and on through their whole meal.)
He flexed his wrist, instead, resting it on the edge of the table so that the blank mark was facing Luffy. “Got a question?”
Luffy perked up, eyes sparkling, as he hastily swallowed his last mouthful. “Yeah! I’ve been waiting to ask for forever. That’s your soulmark, right? On your wrist?”
Zoro grinned lazily, and held his hand out a little farther. “Only one I’ve got,” he confirmed. “Why, you wanna test it? It’s clear you’ve got plenty on your wrist.”
He laughed. “Yeah, of course! If you’re my first soulmate, that’s a really good start to collecting our crew.”
“Our” crew. Well, that was true whether Zoro was his soulmate or not, really. They were not going to have boring days ahead, huh?
So he held out his wrist, palm inward, and bumped it against the back of Luffy’s wrist like some kind of off-kilter fistbump—
OH.
Something burst out at him, from the point of contact, or maybe from Luffy himself—not an object or a sight, but a feeling— a rush of clean, bright, unbreakable joy that swept through Zoro and wrapped around him, for a second, like an old friend’s embrace. He felt a mind behind it, full of laughter and excitement, and felt that mind seeing him—
And then the contact ended, and he was left looking at Luffy with his jaw hanging open. Luffy looked equally shocked, but also overjoyed— of course he is, you felt that, right? when is he not?
(Okay. So. Maybe being soulmates would make a difference beyond just being on Luffy’s crew.)
“That was so cool,” he breathed, eyes full of stars. “You’re so cool, Zoro!”
“I mean…I don’t think I did that.”
“No, but—you!” Luffy made a fist, excitedly. “You’re so strong. I mean, I knew you were cool already, but I didn’t know how much.” He grinned at Zoro, bright and warm and full of faith. “You’re awesome!”
Zoro stared, still reeling, at this joyful, uncomplicated, absurd spirit that had just touched his…and threw back his head and laughed .
“Um…what just happened?” a timid voice asked. Zoro wiped his eyes to see Coby staring at them both. Right. There were other people in the room.
“Heck if I know,” he said honestly. “Some kind of soulmark thing.”
“It was like… pow! ” Luffy said, making an excited motion with both hands. “Our marks touched, and it was like Zoro was right here for a second!” He poked his own chest. “It was super cool, Coby—oh! Zoro! We’ve got colored marks now!”
He held out his hand. One of the circles on the back, near the center, was no longer blank. Instead, the outline had been filled in with vivid, solid, unmistakable grass-green.
Zoro grinned at the sight. “Figures,” he said. Holding up his own hand, he looked at it for the first time.
“Ohhhh,” Luffy breathed, grabbing his wrist to look more closely at the circle of bright, rich red blazoned on its back. “That’s my favorite color!”
“Nice,” he said approvingly. “Hey, lemme see yours again.”
Luffy held it closer, and Zoro poked it. There was no reaction like there had been at the first contact, though he thought there might be a little zap of static. Mainly the green mark just sat there, though—big and bright and practically glowing, just like the red on his own wrist.
“Well,” he said, finding himself grinning again, “no one’s gonna miss these things.” But that was the part he had been prepared for—if he was following Luffy, might as well not hold back, right? And what other people saw, or didn’t see, was the least of his concerns.
“Hee hee! You’re right.”
And then the Navy busted in. Time for him and his…soulmate? captain?
Friend?
Time for Luffy and Zoro to leave, anyway.