The Redheaded Thief

The Past

"Hey!! Thief!!" The echoes of screaming made their way toward them, leaving the two confused a bit at that, soon enough they saw a girl running away toward them, an orange haired girl, her hair was short, and she was wearing a skirt and a simple t-shirt as well as simple heels, not too high, but still had some height to them. She seemed to be clutching something in her chest, a bag of some sort. A bit after that, they both noticed there was a group of bandits running after her, Zoro just sighed as she passed both of them and Luffy looked at Zoro, grinning "I will handle that."

It was one of the times Luffy took stuff casually, not even bothering as he walked to the bandits and stopped them, defeating them in a matter of seconds. Luffy was always a ridiculously strong guy despite his size, he was always rather small, but with his grandfather coming to train him from time to time and Luffy going to Martial Arts training because he liked it, Luffy was even stronger than him. Though Zoro's goal was to be a swordsman, not a fighter like Luffy. 

"You are pretty strong!" the female said, finally stopping and catching her breath as she held the bag close to her chest "Thank you" she said, happily "My name's Nami! What's yours?" she asked happily "I'm Monkey D. Luffy!" Luffy said, grinning "But you know, stealing is wrong." 

A pretty obvious thing, as it could seem to anyone that the bandits were the one trying to steal from Nami, but for them both it was obvious the girl was stealing from the bandits.

"Uhh.. Whatever do you mean?" Nami asked, trying to act like she didn't do anything, but she was clearly nervous for being caught in the act, both him and Luffy looked at her, unimpressed by her act. 

"Ugh, okay, fine! But they had a lot of money they use for bad things, and I need money! Not my problem" she said as she looked away for a moment. Luffy just laughed at what she said "You're interesting! How about you'll be my friend?" 

That was about the time another person was added to the team, the "crew", in a way. They were always meeting every other day or so, sometimes they would visit her house where her adoptive mother would happily greet them and make them food with what they had. They didn't have much, but she always happily gave them food she made. 

Until an incident happened where they had to bring down a gang threatening Nami and her family. 

That was roughly 3 years ago. 

The Present

The day started out normally as he woke up to the sound of Luffy screaming for him outside his window, grumbling as he opened an eye, sitting up lazily before he heard the door open, and the sound of sandals rush up to his room. His dad probably let him in the house just so he'd stop making noise outside of his house this early in the morning. 

Not like Mihawk wasn't already up from 5 am in the morning gardening in their back garden. Sometimes he really wondered if the man was a vampire, and it wasn't helping he always wore a sunhat when he was gardening.

Luffy entered without even knocking at the front door, as he usually does. He never cared for manners, or personal space, it was like it didn't exist in his dictionary. 

"Zorrro! Time to wake up! It's college time~" Luffy called happily, which made his heart flutter, but he only let out a groan, hoping his cheeks weren't pink. "Yeah, I know Luffy, hold your horses, college isn't getting away" he said, rubbing his neck and yawning loudly as he slowly stood up, ignoring the small tug at his chest, it was usual, at this point, he got used to it, even when he doesn't know what it is, he will try his best to ignore it.

He got ready as Luffy sat on his bed, moving his legs up and down, like an excited kid "Is your dad making breakfast?" he asked, curious. That made him chuckle softly "Yeah, but I thought you wanted to go to college" he teased, which made Luffy frown "Food is always first! I'm hungry" the thought made Zoro shake his head with a laugh "You are always hungry, I bet you ate first before coming here." 

"No, I didn't!"

Pause

"Alright, yeah, I did. But it's not my fault I like food!"

The day went about as normal as it usually would for them, Zoro got dressed and then they went together to the kitchen to eat, Mihawk, knowing already that Luffy would stay, made some extra meat for him to enjoy without many words towards the other. After they at Mihawk gave him lunch boxes to have at college "Don't forget we have training after school, don't be late" he said coldly "Yeah yea" Zoro said, yawning again, rubbing his eyes.

No matter how much he tries he can never get enough sleep, but at least he can catch up with naps.

The first familiar face they encountered when going toward college together was Nami, her hair was longer, and her smile was brighter than usual. She happily ran over and hugged Luffy tight, she also grew just a few inches taller. She wore a red short skirt with black knee height stockings, a blue crop top and a jeans jacket. And of course, she never gave up on her casual heels. "Luffy!!! Good seeing you!" she called out happily at that and Luffy laughed loudly as he hugged her back with a full smile. It was almost hard to believe they knew each other for only a year before he moved away for 2 years out of the country. They were like brother and sister.

This being said, whenever he saw someone as close to Luffy as he was with him, or stronger there was... A weird feeling in his chest, an ugly one he couldn't get the word for. Even when he knew that Nami was like a sister more than anything, he was feeling a weird heaviness, that is until Luffy poked him out of the distraction "Zoro didn't sleep enough?" "When do I ever?" he asked, grinning a small smile toward the other, the sunshine he missed.