Okay! Like I said in one of my chapters in 'Bite Me, Love Me', I'll be posting one of the few fics that I just want to put out on display for all to see! And my co-host for this fic is Brook! You'll see him next time. Anyway, enjoy the new fic!

Prologue

The sun started to descend, making the sky an orange-red color as the leaves show the beginning of autumn coming. A black luxury car drove up to the sidewalk, where two young men were standing, waiting with only a suitcase each.

The elder, eighteen, of the two was wearing an orange hat, which shadowed over his eyes, seemed to follow their driver's movements as he got out and walked around to grab their bags. The younger, fifteen, of the two, who has a strawhat with a red band around it, seems to be looking at the emblem on the side of one of the doors that has the simple illustration of the universe with a shooting star going across it.

The elder started to head in as the younger looked back at the building behind him, an old apartment building of red brick and vines crawling up the forth story.

The teen was about to enter when he heard a pair of running feet heading towards him. He looked to see a child, no more than nine, stop and panted as if he ran a marathon. "Zoro?" He said as he headed to the child and stopped just a foot away before kneeling down. "What are you doing here?"

Once the child caught his breath, he glared his green eyes angrily at soft, dark brown. "Leaving without saying good bye! That's the best you can come up with!?" He shouted.

"That's a bit harsh, since you didn't want to talk to me the other day."

The boy, who had light green hair and his clothing consist of a gray, oversized tee shirt and worn out jeans with holes in them, looked away. "That's because everyone else mattered more than I was!"

"Liar… did you picked that up from Usopp?" The teen said with a small smile.

"That's not funny!" The boy said as he faced the other. "And I wasn't lying! You baka!"

The teen sighed and moved his hat up to clearly face the boy. "You don't want to face the fact that I'm going, I understand that… Or at least I thought I did…"

Zoro, the boy, bit his lower lip as he tried to keep the tears from falling. "Why? Why, of all people did it have to be you!?" He yelled at the teen. "There's no way a moron like you could pass that test! That's crazy! Even for you! You'll just end up never coming back!"

"How would you know that?"

"Who doesn't know!?"

"You… Zoro-chan…" He giggled, making the boy's face turn red with frustration.

"I told you to never call me that! You damn moron! Why should you and your brother be sent up to space and not use those bastards that have the stupid training go?!"

The teen sighed. "I don't know… whatever it is, the old guys don't seem to be fit for it."

"But why you!" The boy was loosing his fight to keep the tears back. "Why pick the idiot of all the other people to go?"

The teen embraced the boy and sighed deeply. "Zoro… No matter what happens, we're still friends no matter where we are." When he heard a soft hiccup, he continued. "I want you to promise me on a couple of things… one is to make sure everyone is okay, even if you don't get along, keep in contact as much as possible. They're your nakama too you know." He felt the other shake a bit, as he rubbed the other's back. "And I also want you to take care of something I treasure…" He backed up, grabbed his hat revealing the black, windswept hair, and held it out to the boy. "I want you to take care of Boshi, it will give you luck just like it did with me… I won't be needing it where I'm going…"

The boy absentmindedly held out his hands to hold the worn strawhat that holds more memories than one could imagine.

"Can you do that for me?" The teen said softly.

Not trusting his own voice, he nodded while not making eye contact with the other.

"I'll miss you Zoro, but this isn't good-bye, remember that."

The boy shook slightly to not cry or whimper that would cause him to bawl out.

Then a woman of eighteen, dark, black hair and stunning light blue eyes, came around the corner and looked relieved and saddened as she waited for the conversation to end.

"L-Luffy…" The boy said. "I'll promise to do that… only…" A couple rogue tears went down his face as he faced the teen. "If you promise you won't forget and come back!"

Luffy, the teen, smiled and hugged the boy again. "You do the same to not forget, okay!"

The boy, despite himself, hugged back and bawled at the other's chest, which the teen joined in while he was laughing.

After a long moment of bawling, Luffy went into the car, looking at the back window to see the boy and the woman and waved.

The boy waved, holding the hat in the air as he waved back as the black car went out of his sight.

'Dear Luffy,

We're doing this writing activity where we have to write to anyone we want to write to in a letterform. I thought it was stupid at first, but then I heard about the progress on the teacher's radio. So, here I am writing this letter. You've been gone for three weeks now and by the sound of it, everything is okay where you are. Though you're probably bored out of your mind. Things are doing okay at the orphanage, just not the same without you. Sanji and Nami were adopted a week ago and doing great. Robin and Franky are busy with college and Usopp and I are just doing what we can around the place. Usopp misses you, you always believe in his tales and now there's no one to react the way you do. And you know me, I'm not the kind of guy that would do that for anything… That's all I have to write down, get back soon, okay!

Zoro'