Anddddd Chapter 3 is up!

Not much to say except characters may seem OOC at some times. Trying to keep everyone as in character as possible.

Hope you like it!

Previously...

Zoro narrowed his eyes. And now he's avoiding me. Even if it's been a while since I've last seen him, I know Luffy would have dragged me to go play cards with him. What the hell is going on?

After Luffy and Usopp had left the cabin, Zoro changed his food soaked clothes and headed out again. Closing the door behind him, he leaned against it while trying to decide what he should do next. Since he had just over a half hour before lunch, he decided that he would take a quick nap, and that his training could wait for later.

Zoro strolled across the deck, walking straight past the group that was gathering to play cards. He saw Brook sitting on the bench attached to the mast. He looked like he had been drinking tea, but fell asleep in the middle of it.

Making a b-line for his favourite spot where he liked to nap, Zoro plopped down, his katana clattering on the surface next to him. He figured that overthinking this thing with Luffy, whatever it was, probably wasn't a good idea. Knowing him, this whole situation would blow over soon. Lounging on the comfortable grass, with the sunshine on his face, and the sound of water cresting against the side of the ship, Zoro let himself relax. His head drooped forward, and his one eye slowly started to slide close.

About fifteen minutes later, Zoro was rudely woken from his slumber when he heard loud voices on the other side of the deck.

"OW! My cards this time are SUPER! I am so winning this one." Franky's voice boomed throughout the ship.

Usopp laughed nervously, "He-he-he…yeah, so are mine."

"It's not a good thing to lie during a game, Usopp."

"EH?! How did you kno-Hey, no fair, you can't use your ability during the game. That's cheating!" Usopp swatted at his shoulder where an eye had appeared.

Smiling her small smile, Robin shook her head and giggled quietly. Suddenly, a hand stretched out and tried to take some of Franky's cards.

"HEY! Luffy, what do you think you're doing?" Franky held his cards away and out of reach.

Luffy's retracted his arm and tilted his head to one side, confused.

"I thought the point was to take as many of the good cards as possible."

Eyes bulging out of his head, Usopp yelled, "THAT'S NOT EVEN HOW YOU PLAY! LEARN THE RULES ALREADY!"

As their loud conversation continued on, Zoro's eye twitched slightly and he snapped his head around to tell them off.

"Would you people keep it down, I'm trying to take a nap!"

Usopp muttered, "Yeah, well what else is new?" And everyone started snickering.

Zoro snarled and replied, "You son of a—"

"OH YEAH! Zoro, I thought you were going to go train or something." Usopp said, quickly changing the subject. "Now that you aren't, you wanna join us?"

Stopping the clever comeback that he had in mind, Zoro paused and thought. It's almost time for lunch anyways. Might as well play a couple of games.

"Yeah, whatever. Why not." Zoro shrugged his shoulders and got up slowly.

Franky put his cards down. "Yosh, we'll start a new game. And Luffy, this time you better play the actual version, or we're kicking you out."

Picking up his katana and sliding them back in the loop on his robe, Zoro walked over towards the group. He slid down the side of the railing, and sat down in between Robin and Franky. In the middle of the circle, a pair of hands were expertly shuffling the cards, using all sorts of fancy moves a dealer would make at a casino.

"Whoaaa Robin, that's so cool!" gushed Usopp.

"Robinnn~" Luffy whined, "Let me try."

As his arm stretched out to grab the deck, it accidentally whacked Robin's hand, and the cards were knocked out and flew in every direction.

Usopp sighed, "Good job, Luffy. You better pick them all up."

As Luffy ran around collecting them all, he saw one card had landed on Zoro's lap. Luffy stretched his arm out to retrieve it. When he flipped it over, he saw that it was the Ace of Spades. Zoro tried to search Luffy's face for any kind of reaction, but found that Luffy wasn't even looking at him. Luffy handed the deck of cards back to the pair of hands, and sat back down, hat covering his eyes. Even though the others hadn't seen what card it had been on Zoro's lap, they sensed something weird had happened. Besides the sound of cards being shuffled, there was an awkward silence.

Franky looked around the circle at everyone's uncomfortable faces, and was about to speak when the kitchen door banged open and Sanji called out, "Nami-swannn Robin-chwannn it's time for lunchhhh!"

Then seeing the others, he said, "Oh, right. You losers too, it's lunchtime. And DON'T YOU DARE USE YOUR GOMU ROCKET AGAIN, LUFFY," before slamming the door shut.

Luffy immediately brightened up and ran (normally this time) into the kitchen, dragging Usopp with him. The others followed behind.

Everything was the same as two years ago, when it came to eating. Sanji was serving the food, and Franky and Brook were seated at the benches on the side instead of the main table. Nami was yelling at Luffy whenever he stretched his arm out for other people's food, and Robin was chuckling on the side. Chopper was listening with his mouth wide open while Usopp told his story of Boin Island adventures during the past two years. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to listen as well.

"Now, listen to the tale of the manly Captain Usopp! You should have seen how many wild insects and plants there were! It was amazing! And there were these seeds called Pop Greens that Heracles'n sensei trained me how to use. I'll show it to you guys later when we get the chance!"

"Who's Heracles sensei?"

"It's Heracles'n sensei. He's just some guy who lives on the island. Anyway, there were these HUGE man-eating plants, but there were also these plants that were made of food! After I ate lots of it, I became so fat that I looked like Luffy when he uses his balloon technique."

"Yohohoho Usopp-san you got that fat? That would be funny to see," Brook chuckled.

"Ahahaha yeah, but because of that, I trained and ran so much that I get to look as fit and manly as I am now," Usopp straightened and proudly showed off his muscles.

"You don't even know what a lot of running means, Usopp," Sanji muttered. "I endured hell for two whole years, running and running and running…." He stared ahead in horror, remembering the terrifying creatures that had chased him nonstop everyday.

Usopp laughed. "What are you talking about?"

Sanji turned away, shivering from the memories. "Maybe I'll tell you guys later. Right now I can't…" he trailed off into silence.

"Okay…" Turning to Chopper, Usopp asked, "So what happened to you?"

Chopper brightened, saying, "Oh! I landed on an island with a really big library, and studied everything I could about medicine! And I've perfected almost all my transformations except for one!"

Brook spoke up, "And I've really been working hard on my music! Luffy-san, the song I played for you earlier was one of my greatest hits "Bone to be wild"!"

Luffy, who was stuffing his face with food, couldn't speak and just grinned and nodded at Brook.

Brook turned to Zoro, "So what about you, Zoro-san?"

Zoro put down his drinking glass and replied, "I just trained. A lot." He avoided talking about being trained by Mihawk. He didn't want to tell the others about how he had begged him on his knees, and how embarrassing that had been for him. Even though it had all been for Luffy.

"Oh. I see. Yohoho," Brook said awkwardly.

Nami changed the subject. "I was up on one of the sky islands, actually. I learned all about weather science and created some new techniques on my clima-tact!"

"You were in the sky? That's so cool!" Franky exclaimed. "I have made some SUPER modifications to the Sunny! You should definitely check out the modified soldier dock system later!"

As Chopper and Usopp bombarded Franky with questions about the new weapons, Nami turned to Robin.

"So Robin, I heard that you were actually with the Revolutionary Army! How did that happen?"

"I trained with them during my two years. Oh! And about that, Luffy, I need to tell you about someone I met in the Revolutionary Army."

Nami nodded. "Okay then."

Everyone in the kitchen turned to look at Luffy, the last remaining person who had not spoken a thing since he had started eating. Usopp was about to open his mouth to ask Luffy about his adventures, when the words caught in his throat and they all remembered one thing. Not just them, but everyone in the world knew what had happened to Luffy while the Straw Hats were separated. Right now, Luffy seemed completely oblivious to the stares and looks his crew was giving him. He just kept on eating and eating while the silence dragged on.

"The eyes are the window to the soul"

As Zoro stared at Luffy from across the table, he thought about this particular phrase, and how perfectly it fit Luffy. When people first met Luffy, they would take one look at him and think he was some weak idiot teenager incapable of being serious at all. His eyes were so blissfully ignorant, accompanied by his too-wide grin. Many people just thought this of him, as a happy-go-lucky kid with just the one layer, nothing else underneath. Zoro had to admit this is what he had thought of Luffy at first as well.

After spending time with Luffy, although this was the side Luffy showed most of the time to everyone, Zoro knew there was so much more. When he was serious in battle, his eyes would show concentration, pure determination, strength, and the will to live and protect everyone he loved.

Watching Luffy eating, avoiding conversation, with his eyes downcast so that no one could see them, all of Zoro's annoyance and confusion about Luffy's actions just exploded. He abruptly stood up, toppling the chair he was sitting on, and slammed his drink down on the table, breaking the glass.

"LUFFY! WOULD YOU JUST. SAY. SOMETHING!"

Everyone's eyes widened and they turned to stare, mouth-agape at Zoro. It was extremely rare to see him lose his temper like this, and especially at their captain.

Seconds past, and Luffy still had not moved from his position, although he had stopped eating. Zoro glared furiously at him, before grabbing a bottle of booze and walking out of the kitchen.

He stormed into the aquarium bar and slumped down onto one of the couches. What the hell was that? That is so unlike me. I have almost never lost my temper like that before. I was just really pissed off from all the mixed-signals Luffy keeps giving off.

As his thoughts rambled on, he noticed someone enter the aquarium bar and stand in front of him. He looked up to see Sanji.

"Hey marimo-head, I don't know what's going on here but Luffy's looking for you." Sanji said before going back to the kitchen.

Zoro sighed. Yeah, it figures.

He got up from the couch and walked towards the door when he saw another person walk in again.

"Oh, Zoro. I didn't know you'd be in here. I thought you'd be in the crow's nest." He took a deep breath.

"I need to talk to you."

UGHHHHHHH.

It's extremely hard to keep Luffy in character in this kind of situation. At least it's finally time for Luffy to do some explaining to Zoro.

This is like the last chance for you readers to tell me whether I should do it platonic or romantic. You don't even have to type much, just "romantic", or "platonic" in the review box is fine. It would be really helpful!

Thanks for the reviews so far, and I hope I get some new ones!