Chapter Text
Zoro was crying.
This was nothing new to Mihawk, because he was 6 and experienced every emotion like it was the last one he’d ever have. But the timing (of course, just his luck) was awful.
Shanks, Buggy, and Crocodile were seated around the dinner table, all mid-conversation, now watching his son wail in front of the kitchen cabinets like he’d been stabbed. Perona had bolted upstairs the second Zoro’s lip trembled.
“You sure know how to pick ‘em.” Shanks commented unhelpfully.
Mihawk gave him a withering look. “Thanks.” He was standing in the kitchen with a bottle of red wine in his hand, the last item to join the spread he’d painstakingly arranged.
Zoro’s sobs bounced off the kitchen tile. He was curled up by the corner cabinet, red-faced, fat tears streaking down his cheeks. A faint mark bloomed across his cheek where Perona had pinched him.
“So…are you gonna do something about him?” Buggy asked. “Full offense, I don’t want my meal to be ruined by a toddler.”
“He’s six.” Mihawk replied, in lieu of responding to the actual question. The truth was, he never quite figured out what to do whenever Zoro started crying. His own parents had adopted the ‘I’ll ignore you until you ride it out’ mentality, which only worked with Perona, who ended up huffy and annoyed with the treatment and started demanding his attention again. With Zoro, for some reason, the inattentiveness only made everything worse.
(He had considered, albeit briefly, paying Perona to calm Zoro down whenever his tantrums occurred, but caught himself in a fit of embarrassment.)
Normally, if he gave Zoro one of those rice balls he loved so much, he would cool down enough to bite, chew, swallow, and by then enough time would have passed that he would’ve forgotten what made him upset in the first place.
Now, though, there was rice and seaweed and tuna stuck to the polished wooden floors from where Zoro had chucked Mihawk’s offering to the ground.
Crocodile rolled his eyes. “Look at him. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.” He leaned back in his chair, causing Kumacy, who was sleeping against it, to yelp and scatter off. He moved his gaze to Mihawk, gesturing to him loosely. “You ever think maybe parenting isn’t your thing?”
Mihawk didn’t answer. He stared at the mess on the floor and felt an old, familiar guilt coil in his chest.
“Why’d you even adopt, anyway?” Crocodile added, picking at the label on his sake. “You hate noise. You hate clutter. You hate…” he waved vaguely. “...children.”
“I like kids.” Mihawk responded automatically. He felt a need to prove himself, somehow. “And it gets lonely. The house is better with them here.” It felt less like the vastness of his hallways was swallowing him whole whenever he tripped on one of Perona’s stuffed dolls or Zoro’s comic books.
“If you’re lonely, I don’t know, date someone?” Shanks laughed incredulously. He was a little bit red when he said that, and Mihawk caught Crocodile and Buggy exchanging a look. “I mean, come on. These are kids. They’re not meant to just…fill a space for you–like, yes, but also, you should want them outside of that.”
“I know that.” Mihawk said stiffly. He didn’t know how else to elaborate. Zoro was still crying. Mihawk was still holding the wine bottle. He walked over and placed it on the table, as if that act alone could bring order back into the room.
The ensuing silence felt a little too much like judgment. “I…normally give him onigiri. A rice ball,” he clarified, when Buggy looked at him weird, “which is his favorite food. So. That works, usually. But…” he trailed off, looking at the mess on the floor. His friends peered around him to follow his gaze.
Crocodile stared at him. “You’ve been bribing your son to stop crying?”
Mihawk’s cheeks felt hot. “Well, when you put it like that it sounds bad, but it’s the only thing that works, okay? He likes chewing on things, I don’t know. It’s like a comfort thing or whatever.”
“He just threw your comfort thing on the ground.” Buggy said. He was quite possibly the most useless person alive.
“I’m aware.” Mihawk muttered.
“Okay. Well.” Shanks started, pushing his chair back and standing up. His knees popped as he did, and Mihawk winced in sympathy. “Why don’t we just talk to him?”
“Sure, tell the sobbing child to shut the fuck up.” Buggy said sarcastically. “That’ll work wonders.”
“Not like– what? ” Shanks paused on his way to the kitchen in disbelief. “ No! Why don’t we just ask him what’s wrong or what he needs?”
“I already know what’s wrong.” Mihawk said, ignoring Crocodile’s Shanks, this level of gentle parenting shouldn’t even count as parenting, you’re just soft and stupid. “Perona pinched him.”
“That’s it?” Buggy gaped.
“Are you sure?” Shanks asked, now having reached where Zoro was sitting, curled-up and small on the ground, with his head buried in the crooks of his arms, rocking back and forth. “This doesn’t really seem like a reaction to a little pinching, does it now, Zoro?” His voice had adapted a higher-pitched, nicer-sounding quality to it, made for talking to children.
Zoro continued crying, but Mihawk saw him shake his head. He felt a little odd, standing behind Shanks in his own kitchen while the other man was crouched down, talking to his son.
“So if it’s not the pinching, what is it?”
Zoro lifted his head up at the question, and Mihawk was surprised to see the blood on his lips from where his teeth were gnawing at them. “Dunno.” He said, voice thick and scratchy, and then went back to crying.
“Okay. Okay, that’s fine, but let’s not do that.” Shanks said. He looked a little shocked. “Doesn’t that hurt?” Zoro shook his head. “Right, right. Chewing, your dad said.” He turned his head and craned upwards to look at Mihawk for confirmation, to which he nodded. “I have other things you can chew instead! It won’t be mushy, like that rice ball of yours.” Shanks smiled, like he was sharing an inside joke with Zoro, then pushed himself up, hands on his knees.
Mihawk could see, out of the corner of his eye, Crocodile and Buggy selfishly helping themselves to the sake Shanks brought, though he expected no less. The steak had already been cut and half the sashimi was gone, the two having decided that Zoro was too boring of a topic to be fixated on, and that Shanks had it handled.
“You have apples, right?”
“What?”
“Apples.” Shanks clarified, but he was already walking over to the fridge. Yanking open the heavy doors, he rummaged through what Mihawk assumed was some fruit drawer and procured an apple. Honeycrisp, if he remembered correctly from when he bought it.
“Well, yes.” Mihawk said dumbly, because obviously . “Why do you need an apple again?”
“For Zoro to chew on?” Shanks turned the sink on to rinse it, peeling off the produce sticker and throwing it away. He pulled out one of the drawers for a knife, reached for the drying rack to get a cutting board. Mihawk watched him, feeling like an intruder in his own home.
“He just threw the onigiri on the floor. I don’t think he wants to chew on something.”
“His mouth is bleeding, Mihawk. He needs to chew on something, and it can’t be soft.”
“He likes soft food. He eats soft food.”
“Not when he’s upset,” Shanks said. “I’m pretty sure it’s a sensory thing.”
Mihawk stood motionless, stuck between confusion and shame. “That’s a thing?”
Shanks glanced over. “How do you not know your own kid?”
He struggled to come up with an answer for that, wishing desperately that Zoro would just stop. Whether it was because of his own feelings of inadequacy or because the sound was grating on his ears or because he was simply hungry, he didn’t know (and pointedly did not think about).
A moment passed. “Done.” Shanks said, ripping him out of his internal monologue. Mihawk looked over to where he was scraping the apples into a bowl with a knife meant for cutting meat.
Shanks crouched down again, making a face when his joints cracked for the fiftieth time. “Here you go, Zoro. Crunchy.”
Mihawk was rooted to the ground, as if someone had glued his socks to the floor. He watched as Shanks handed the bowl to Zoro. He received no response, so instead of doing what Mihawk would do and take whatever it was away, he simply set the bowl on the floor and waited. Two beats passed, and then Zoro hesitantly unfolded his arms, reaching for an apple slice.
Mihawk watched as he bit it. Watched his son slow his crying down to hiccups, chewing on the fruit with increasing pace. Watched as Zoro swallowed and reached for the next horribly-cut chunk.
Shanks beamed. Buggy and Crocodile came into the kitchen, then, surprised at the absence of noise. “You seriously didn’t know your kid liked apples?” Buggy asked.
“I thought he only liked mushy foods.” Mihawk said slowly. “I guess there are exceptions.”
Mihawk heard the front door unlock, open, and then nothing for a while.
There was no telltale shuffling, no bag dropped on the floor, no thud of shoes against the wall. Just the faint groan of the hinges, held open too long, and the whirring of a car passing by. He didn't call out to see who it was. If it was Perona, she'd announce herself before reaching the kitchen. If it was Zoro, he’d wait at the edge of the house like it might spit him back out. Mihawk assumed it was a teenage boy thing.
He was quiet now, ever since Kuina’s funeral. Even after he had magically returned somewhat back to normal, he was unnervingly silent, presence swallowed up by all the sweatshirts and hoodies he suddenly took a liking to.
(Mihawk wasn’t stupid. He just didn’t want to think about it. Until Zoro brought it up, he would leave the matter be–if he scared his son off to his room again, he would never forgive himself. The best thing to do was to just continue life as normal. With enough training and rigor, he hoped, Zoro would simply forget about his…emotional struggles.)
His phone lit up with a notification from Perona: stuck at work for a little longer :((((( don’t wait for me!!!!! He didn’t look up from the cutting board. The knife moved in clean, practiced strokes through the ginger root—thin slivers curling under the blade like shavings from old wood. The oil in the pan was already hot, scent rising up in warm flickers. (Both Zoro and Perona had quite a liking for ginger, citing that they enjoyed the sharp undercut of its flavor, which pleased him. Shanks always joked that they didn’t actually like it, Mihawk just conditioned them to, to which Mihawk would roll his eyes and say that Shanks’ favorite food was microwaved cheese on bread so therefore his whole argument was invalid.)
The door clicked shut. Then came a long, hovering pause, like the house itself had forgotten what to do with the person standing in it. When the footsteps did come, they were slow, careful. The creak of the floorboards was uneven, matching a limping gait.
Zoro stepped into the kitchen like the light was too bright.
His shirt clung to his back in uneven patches, soaked through with sweat in the middle and dry around the sleeves. His shoulders were sloped low from bone-deep exhaustion. There was dirt smudged along his left temple. His knuckles were raw, carrying nothing but his phone, the screen cracked beyond repair. (How Zoro functioned with that device alluded him. The first thing he did when he saw it was buy a new one for him; it was being shipped to their house in two days.) The defeat Zoro was exuding was simply unacceptable; perhaps Mihawk had been too lenient in letting him skip practice to celebrate Luffy’s birthday. It never did any good to get too addicted to rest–that was how laziness was bred, after all.
“You’re early,” Mihawk greeted, without looking at him.
“Didn’t finish.” Zoro said. He sounded humiliated, which was always good to remain humble.
Mihawk tipped the ginger into the pan. It hissed on contact. “You left.” It was posed as a question: And you left anyway?
“You weren’t there.”
“I had to get groceries.” He picked up a dish towel and wiped his hands slowly, precisely. “If you can’t manage your cool-downs, we’ll extend them tomorrow.”
Zoro said nothing–didn’t sit down, didn’t go upstairs, didn’t even open his mouth to argue. He just stood near the threshold like he hadn’t made up his mind yet.
That was fine. Mihawk knew that Zoro often took longer to gather his thoughts than most. He stirred the contents of the pan and the oil crackled.
Zoro was silent as he turned the heat down, plated the rice. He didn’t ask if Zoro had eaten that day. He already knew the answer.
(Two apples, cut into halves and then sixths. Cinnamon on one and the other left plain. It was what Zoro had eaten for breakfast every single day since he was 6. At some point, when his body had to adjust to the earlier training sessions during competition season, breakfast had also included some heart-attack inducing, brightly-colored energy drink, with 10 calories and 45 different chemicals. Mihawk had made sure to end that habit as soon as he caught wind of it.)
He reached for the fish, already deboned, since Perona complained about how finicky it was to eat fish regularly, then paused. “You’re bleeding.”
Zoro looked down at his palm, as if surprised, where a narrow red line ran across it. It was dried already, more dirt than blood. “Just a scratch.”
“That’s not the point.” Mihawk nodded to the sink. “Rinse it.”
Zoro didn’t move.
He didn’t repeat himself. Behind him, after a beat too long, Zoro crossed to the sink. The faucet squealed before the water steadied into a thin stream. He scrubbed at his hand with more force than was necessary, the runoff running from red to pink to clear. Then he dropped into a chair a moment later, his palm still wet, dripping rivulets of water onto the table.
Mihawk looked at him, plated both meals, set them down. Zoro tugged at his sleeves absentmindedly. He only wore long sleeves (and if he didn’t, bandages wrapped around the empty space), which Mihawk refused to think about the implications of. Zoro, his hard-headed, strong-willed son, would never. It was simply incredulous thinking, so he didn’t think about it. Though he was having a hard time reconciling that stubborn, straightforward image with this one, with Zoro staring at the food like it had arrived in front of him by accident.
“You need new grips,” Mihawk said, breaking the quiet. “The tape’s worn down. You’re not protecting your palms.”
Zoro blinked slowly. “Didn’t notice.”
“You did. You just ignored it.”
Zoro didn’t argue. He stabbed at the rice without lifting it.
“You’ll take tomorrow off if your shoulder seizes again.”
“I said it’s fine.” He made eye contact, finally.
“You say that when you can’t lift your arm.”
“It’s still fine.”
“Don’t argue with me.”
Zoro’s jaw clenched, like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. The muscle there was sharp, visible under his skin.
They didn’t speak again for a long while.
The room wasn’t quiet, not really—the cicadas outside had started early, the overhead fan hummed with that distinct low rattling noise, the kettle droned on softly as he brewed his tea– but the quiet between them was thick and dense. Like walking through fog that pressed inward instead of out.
Zoro finished only half the rice. The fish he didn’t touch at all. His chopsticks clicked against the bowl as he set them down too fast. “I’m going upstairs.”
“You’re not finished.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You didn’t eat at all.” I’m worried about you, he wanted to say, but the words eluded him.
Zoro didn’t answer. He was already standing, pushing the chair back so hard the legs scraped the tile.
“Zoro,” Mihawk began. There were many things that Mihawk had yet to tell him, things that Zoro was always too impatient to hear.
Zoro froze, waiting.
“You’re too slow in the afternoons,” Mihawk continued. For some reason, it didn’t feel like the right thing to say. He chalked it up to feeling off-kilter by Zoro’s silence. “You drag the weight on your left side. You’re compensating for an injury you won’t let me treat. You know where that ends.”
There was a slight pause as his son stared at the floor. His shoulders had drawn up again, tense and narrow.
“I expect better.”
Zoro didn’t look at him when he left the room.
He heard the stairs creak a minute later, then the soft click of a door closing.
The kettle whistled and Mihawk poured his tea, blowing away the steam and sipping it in small increments. He didn’t quite know where he had gone wrong this time, but it seemed like he didn’t know how to connect with Zoro anymore. Crocodile would shamelessly ask him if they ever had any connection in the first place, like Zoro wasn’t his son. In everything but flesh and blood, in every way that mattered, Zoro was his own. They had a connection, of course, it was just…lost, at the moment.
A few moments later, the front door opened again—brighter this time, loud with intention. Boots on the tile. Perona.
“I’m back!” she yelled. Mihawk heard the telltale thud of her dropping her bag on the ground. “I hate my boss so much, I don’t know how he even has a wife, like seriously, you’d think that after…” she trailed off, appearing in the kitchen like a stormcloud in a dress: pink, wrinkled, hair pinned half-cocked with two plastic skulls. “What happened this time?”
Mihawk wished he knew the answer. “I don’t know.”
She squinted her eyes at him, scrutinizing. “Where’s Zoro?”
“Upstairs.”
“Did you fight? That brat.”
“Not exactly.”
“You fought.” It sounded accusatory.
Mihawk set down his cup. “He didn’t finish training. He left early.”
Perona snorted to herself. “Of course it was about training.” Mihawk briefly felt offended, though he didn’t understand why. She padded over to the stove, lifted the rice cooker lid, and fanned the steam toward her face like a perfume sample.
“You could’ve called me,” she muttered, after a moment. “He listens to me, sometimes.” Her words sounded hollow, like they were a reference to something else. Mihawk wondered what she was thinking about.
She scooped rice into a bowl, then hesitated. Her face had gotten less easy to read over the years, and now that she was done with college applications and, per her words, had no real obligations at school anymore, Mihawk saw her less and less. His usual rule about schoolwork seldom applied to her, and he was always busy with Zoro, anyway.
“I’m gonna stay at Lola’s,” she said after a minute, still staring at the rice. “You guys are being annoying.” She didn’t wait for a verbal confirmation, didn’t even look as he nodded half-heartedly in response. Just grabbed her boots again and left the way she came in, as if noise was the only way to keep anything from collapsing behind her.
The door closed. Mihawk scrubbed dishes in the sink as if he could get rid of the smell of ginger in the air.
“You’ve packed everything, right?”
Zoro rolled his eye. Mihawk still couldn’t stomach seeing the scar over his left side, though by now it had faded into a thin, silvery line. Ace had called it cool, once, which made Zoro beam for a day straight. “Yes, dad. Triple checked, just like you asked.” The second part had an edge to it. Not loud, not biting—just dull and tired, like it’d been said too many times already.
Mihawk gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary. “Don’t give me attitude.” He waited for Zoro to react, like he used to before some unknown switch had hit, but he simply rested his chin in his hand and leaned against the window, quiet.
A bated silence passed. Zoro had changed drastically through the years, so much so that whenever Mihawk told stories about him to Buggy, who was the only person he didn’t really care about saving face with, each one felt like it was about a different person.
Zoro running amok with Luffy in the mud. Zoro starting kendo, then getting serious about it. Kuina’s funeral. Zoro after the funeral (this one he didn’t like to think about). The weird two years afterwards where Zoro never showed his arms (which he also didn’t think about, and didn’t acknowledge. He knew Zoro thought he didn’t know. He wished he didn’t.) The constant arguing in high school, which resulted in green hair. The car crash. Each version of Zoro was so different that the person in his car might as well have been a stranger.
He fiddled with the CarPlay before giving up and wordlessly handing the phone to Zoro, who took it without question, pressing shuffle on a random playlist Mihawk had saved. Usually Perona’s phone was connected, but ever since she left, he had been driving to radio static. “You’re ready?”
“It’s college.” Zoro answered. “Not exile.” It was a response as good as any.
“I meant—” Mihawk stopped. He didn’t know what he meant. “It’s a big change.”
Zoro hummed noncommittally. Mihawk focused on backing out of the driveway, harder now that the rearview mirror was blocked with suitcases and storage bins piled high.
(Perona had been so much worse. Her college was still upstate, so though it was a shorter drive, Mihawk never wanted to do it again. He had to beg Shanks to drive a whole separate car just so Perona could bring all the clothes she wanted to.
“Where are you going to find the room for all of this?” Mihawk remembered asking, gesturing to Perona’s storage bin filled with frilly dresses and fur jackets. “And this?” He then pointed to the crate overflowing with stuffed animals. “Or this?” A floor length mirror with the gaudiest decorative frame he had ever seen.
Perona had replied with a flippant, “The rooms are huge, dad.” Somehow Mihawk doubted this, since Perona had never bothered to tour any colleges before she committed, a fact she and him argued on quite a bit. “And I don’t have a roommate, remember?”
“You still have suitemates.”
“So?”
Mihawk had no choice but to concede. “Alright. If you’re sure.”
The entire hour-long drive there, Mihawk had driven with more caution than he had ever exercised in his whole life. Perona had happily sat perched in the passenger seat, texting Lola, who had also committed there, to meet up with her once she moved in.
Once they got there, Shanks in tow, Perona had realized that singles were very much only meant for one person and didn’t have extra room for much else.
It had been a very tearful goodbye to fourteen stuffed pets and twelve skirts and six pairs of shoes.)
Thirty minutes passed, the only noise being the songs Zoro queued and the quiet humming of the AC. (Both Mihawk and Zoro preferred colder temperatures, which meant the house was always kept below 70 and Perona always dragged around a pink fuzzy blanket). “You know your roommate, right?” It was sudden; there wasn’t much else to say. Words spoken mostly to fill the empty space.
Zoro turned to look at him. “I have his Instagram.”
That was a resounding no . “What’s his name?”
“Uh…Sanji.” Zoro said. He didn’t look annoyed yet, which Mihawk was extraordinarily grateful for. “He’s from Maryland.”
“Do I get to meet him?”
“Probably.” Zoro shrugged. “My move-in time’s kinda late.”
“And why is that?”
Now Zoro looked irritated. Gone was the smooth, unassuming innocence on his face just moments prior, now replaced by a furrowed eyebrow and a firm set of his jaw. “You know why.”
“No,” Mihawk replied, a little too sharply. “That’s why I’m asking.”
(It had hit him, on the ride home, what Zoro had been referencing. The accident. The accident that marred his chest, cleaved his ankles nearly clean. The accident that took half his vision and nearly his life with it.
Mihawk didn’t hold those hours in surgery against him, the terrifying minutes that crept by in the unforgiving whiteness of the hospital walls while he prayed and prayed his son would make it. The smell of antiseptic and the weight of waiting. The surgeons talking like Mihawk was a stranger. He almost died . Everyone kept saying it, over and over. He almost died. Mihawk had aged ten years in two days.
But he knew, and he knew Zoro knew too, once he woke up, that the healing process was rather tedious and inconvenient. Luffy was so, so lucky.
Zoro had been out of commission for a while after that, understandably, from both kendo and academics. It was a miracle that he had even applied for the colleges Mihawk selected for him, much less submitted everything on time. But Mihawk knew his son. Zoro bounced back quickly–with the exception of Kuina’s suicide, though he randomly seemed to recover from his horrible coping mechanism overnight, so Mihawk knew better than to pry–and he could handle it.
He had made the decision to resume his son’s training when he deemed him fit. Zoro no longer relied on his prescribed pills and his gait was steady, though the build the two of them had worked so hard to maintain had withered quite a bit.
When he had said as much, Zoro had gotten defensive, but before he could open his mouth to say anything, he suddenly deflated. Closed his mouth and his remaining eye and sighed. “Okay.” He had agreed.
Mihawk recalled reminding him he had a choice. He didn’t have to start right away, just sometime soon. Zoro hadn’t said anything, which Mihawk took as a right away . It made sense. Zoro was probably itching for a fight or two, with all that resting.
The training had left Zoro tired, more tired than it usually did. It meant that he fell asleep at odd times and barely spared his phone a glance, so it was no surprise that he ended up missing several emails, all reminding him to sign up for housing.
Mihawk had made many, many phone calls to the school after that, begging them to see what they could do. “Always cleaning up after your messes, Zoro.” He would say after he hung up.
Zoro had looked at him, then, with the type of expression Mihawk had only ever seen one other time before. He was by all means relaxed, lounging on the red velvet couch, half-asleep while Kumacy licked his hand, but his gaze had been muted, resigned, heavy. “I know.”)
Zoro turned his head back around. His voice was very calm when he said, “Don’t be an ass.”
That stunned him more than it should have. “Watch your mouth.”
Zoro exhaled, slow. Controlled. Mihawk could tell it was the kind of control that was only held together by spindles. “Every goddamn time.” He muttered under his breath.
It hit him then—Zoro was being careful. He was always careful now. Like he had to ration what he said, what he felt. Mihawk didn’t know when that started, and he didn’t know how to feel about it.
“I don’t know where you got the idea that you can talk to me like that,” Mihawk said indignantly, his old reflex, his reliance on respect and control taking over. “I’m still your father, Zoro. I asked a question. Use your words.”
He heard how condescending it sounded too late. But Zoro was finally recovered, and Mihawk didn’t even need to acknowledge his terrifying breakdown all those years back. Arguing was second nature to their relationship now, which he much rather preferred to uncomfortable silence.
“‘Use your words?’ Are you fu–” Zoro cut himself off, steeling in a deep breath. “ –Are you kidding me? You sound like a therapist.”
“And why would you need one of those?” Mihawk commented wryly. This was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Zoro seemed as though he was undergoing a sickening realization, though Mihawk didn’t know what or why. It seemed like he didn’t know much about anything, nowadays.
Zoro laughed, short and cold. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Just say it. You’ve been thinking it this whole time.”
Mihawk’s hands were turning white with how hard he was grabbing the wheel. “You’re not stupid.”
“Sure.” Zoro leaned his head back against the glass, closed his eye.
“That’s not what I said,” Mihawk added.
“You didn’t have to.” His voice was thin and far away. “You only talk to me when I mess up.”
“That’s not—”
Zoro reached over, turned the music up louder and yawned, crossing his arms and ducking his chin down to drift into sleep.
Mihawk glanced at the song playing, hearing its familiar melody, and recognized it as one that Zoro used to call his favorite, back before he started kendo. (Shanks found it funny because its audience was tailored to those of the nursing home age). He used to put on performances with Luffy and sing with all the talent a 7-year-old had, which was, to say, not a lot. With chubby cheeks stretching out into a boyish grin, he would declare the song to be the best song of all time, dad, really! I’ll listen to it forever ‘n ever!
He wondered what Zoro listened to now.
The awkward tension in Zoro’s 12x15 foot dorm room was so thick even Mihawk would be a fool not to notice.
It had taken Zoro a couple good twists to get his key to properly unlock the door, though Mihawk suspected that it was just because he could hear people on the inside and wanted to prolong the inevitable. Eventually, though, after Mihawk huffed under his breath, the hatch made a clicking sound and Zoro pushed his shoulder against the entrance, the other arm dragging in a move-in cart.
Upon walking in, they had been greeted by two blond heads, one belonging to a man older than Mihawk himself and the other presumably his roommate. Zoro and the other kid then stumbled through a poor attempt at introductions before lapsing into silence. In the meantime, Mihawk had tried to greet the older man but he simply grunted his name, gave a curt nod, and continued setting up the mini fridge. Mihawk had hoped it was for the two to share, but he thought it too presumptuous to ask.
If Zoro thought the atmosphere was uncomfortable by now, he gave no indication at all. His drawers were already stuffed and his bed was made, so Mihawk was busying himself by assembling his bedside cart. It was three-tiered but ended up just low enough to be mildly inconvenient. He hoped reaching for it wouldn’t stretch the scar across his torso too much, then wondered if it would even be used at all. Maybe it would be delegated to nothing more than a prop, like many other things Mihawk had bought for him over the years. His fingers worked the screws in deftly.
He glanced up after a minute in silence. Zoro was hanging up his jacket now–black and puffy, with his last name embroidered on the sleeve. Roronoa.
(Not Dracule, as he had told the lady at the stand, a gold medal hanging heavily on his neck. The competition merch, which Mihawk seldom let Zoro waste money on, had simultaneously been a gift for winning the statewide tournament and an encouragement to train harder for nationals; Zoro had seen the stand on the first day, when they entered the arena to check in, and absentmindedly commented that the jacket was nice.
It had been $75 as it was, upcharging for the design of the competition’s name and logo on the back. Mihawk paid an extra $15 so Zoro could add a personal touch, if only to see his own last name on the sleeve. When he envisioned it, it filled him with pride– his son, following in his footsteps so diligently.
Then the lady had asked for a last name and Zoro opened his mouth and said three foreign syllables that left Mihawk feeling distinctly humiliated, the kind of humiliation that came after a holiday spent alone. He refused to look at it and didn’t talk to Zoro the entire way home, ignoring the glinting medal in his periphery.
The jacket, zipped up neatly in its bag, sat between them like a second passenger.)
The roommate, Sanji, if he remembered correctly, was swatting away Zeff’s worrying hands as the latter adjusted Sanji’s collar (why was he wearing a dress shirt?) for the sixth time. His words were huffy and annoyed but his face was contorted in a soft smile. Mihawk felt as though he were intruding on such a private moment even just by watching.
He couldn’t remember the last time Zoro had smiled like that around him.
“You’re done?” Zoro asked gruffly. The words were softer than expected, hesitant in a way Mihawk had never associated with him. He looked behind Zoro where all his outerwear was hung up and watched as one of the zip-ups slipped off the hanger and crumpled into a pile on the ground.
“Yes.” Mihawk replied. Then added, “Go pick that up. You don’t want to be seen as a slob on day one.”
Zoro rolled his eye. Mihawk felt like lately that was all he was capable of responding with, rolling his eye into the high heavens like he wanted Mihawk to see the lack of the second one.
In his periphery, Zeff was getting ready to leave. Both he and his son were valiantly pretending like they weren’t getting choked up on every fourth word. Sanji looked dangerously close to bawling. (Mihawk checked the time. He didn’t need to stay anymore–there were only a few more decorative things left to hang and Zoro didn’t need an extra set of hands for that.)
“You don’t need me anymore, right?” Mihawk asked. For some reason he felt like the question held a lot more weight than its actual innocuous meaning.
“No.” Zoro said. Then his eyebrows furrowed, as if he just remembered something incredibly important. “How much was parking?”
“What?”
“Parking.” Zoro repeated.
“No, I know what you said.” Mihawk clarified. “Just–why are you asking, exactly?”
Zoro scowled. “You know I don’t like owing people.”
“What?”
“What?”
Mihawk felt like he was in one of those winding mazes where you would look up, down, left, right and still only see dry, towering grass. “Zoro–what? You’re my son. Why would–why would you owe me parking money?”
“You’ve asked for much worse.” Zoro muttered under his breath. Mihawk had the distinct notion that he wasn’t meant to hear that, but let the topic go so as to not argue in front of (essentially) strangers. He filed it in the back of his mind for future reference.
They had migrated to the door in the midst of their conversation. Sanji and Zeff were leaning against the former’s desk, talking in hushed tones and surreptitiously glancing over. Mihawk put one hand on the doorknob but didn’t pull it open.
He almost wished Zoro was wearing a collared shirt, like Sanji, so he could pretend to straighten it and smooth out the wrinkles and have an excuse to fuss over him again. As it stood, Zoro was wearing an old band t-shirt, one that Mihawk didn’t recognize, and was standing too far for him to reach out without seeming odd. It was a weird feeling, looking at his son and seeing someone that only existed in fragments of his memory. There was such a strange disconnect, now, that made it hard to say goodbye.
Zoro yawned, stretched slightly, his eye crinkling up in the corner like it did whenever he laughed, and Mihawk was suddenly hit with a realization that this was it. His son was officially an adult and the house was officially empty.
Who’s going to make you your favorite foods now? He thought. Will you pick up my calls, answer my texts? I hope you meet good people and better friends. Come home when you’re sick, when you’re tired. I’m going to miss you.
The words were stuck in his throat. He cleared it as if the feeling would go away. “Don’t slack off on your studies.” He said instead. “It’s not cheap.”
Zoro stared at him. Blinked once, twice. “That’s all you have to say?” He laughed again, the same way he did in the car–bitter and short.
“There’s apples in the plastic bag in your backpack.” Mihawk continued, for lack of better things to say. “Honeycrisp.”
Zoro snorted. There was no mirth behind it. “I know.” Mihawk looked at him quizzically. “Dad, I’m the one who packed them.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Zoro looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was and Mihawk shared the same sentiment. “Thanks, um, for reminding me or whatever. I probably would’ve forgotten. About them.” The words came out awkward and unused through his gritted teeth.
“Just don’t forget to eat.”
Zoro shifted his weight. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Another pause. Mihawk wasn’t sure if this was what they were supposed to be saying. He wasn’t sure if there was something they were supposed to be saying.
Out loud, he said, “What is the point of this conversation?” It came out too blunt, too harsh.
“I was trying to–” Zoro hissed, frustrated. His words were no louder than a soft-spoken whisper but Mihawk’s confusion caused them to echo loudly in his head. “–nevermind. I should’ve known you wouldn’t get it.”
“Zoro,” Mihawk began, then realized he didn’t actually know where he was going with this. “Explain.”
Zoro looked extremely embarrassed and agitated. He ran his hands through his hair several times in a nervous habit. “Look,” he said, “I just wanted to end on a nicer note, okay? Like–I don’t know. We won’t see each other for a while. I’m not trying to be, y’know, arguing with you all the time.” His face was getting progressively redder. “Whatever, forget it. Just go.”
He was slightly touched at Zoro’s thoughtfulness. “Yes.” Mihawk agreed. “I should go.” He didn’t know how else to respond. Briefly, he thought about moving in for a hug but decided against it. Zoro didn’t like physical touch.
He didn’t know how to show appreciation for Zoro’s efforts to be nicer. “Call me if you need anything,” he decided on. It felt like holding up a white flag.
But Zoro just appeared simultaneously disappointed, humiliated, and resigned at his reply, though he might’ve just been in a bad mood since he didn’t sleep for long last night. He stood by the door as Mihawk stepped out of it, one hand on the handle and one on the frame.
Mihawk waited for Zoro to say something, anything, but all he did was push the door and disappear back inside.
The door swung slowly, with a slight creak, catching itself on the arc so as to not obnoxiously slam shut. Mihawk lingered there, on the carpeted floor with fluorescent overhead lighting, for a very, very long time.