I groaned into my pillow as Sugar barked to wake me up. It was around lunch time, which I gathered from the yummy smell of macaroni and cheese, but that meant I've only slept for about two hours. I rolled my eyes when Sugar jumped on top of me and began barking again. "Okay, okay! I'll get up you evil mutt!" She snorted and was gone the next second. I rolled my eyes and jumped to my feet. After stretching, I left the empty girl's room and headed towards the smell.

I heard loud chatter behind the wooden door and decided against going in. I wasn't hungry yet and also kind of not ready to face the others. Luffy has told me I hadn't done anything wrong, but the thoughts of leaving were still haunting me and I felt really bad for it. I turned left and sat on the floor. The hot sun was burning my skin and the air was too dry for me to normally breathe, but I handled it and closed my eyes. Red dots appeared among the darkness and I shivered even though I was sweating buckets from the heat. The vision of bloody hands hasn't left me, I was still scared and sad, but it wasn't as bad.

Footsteps were walking in my direction, so I ignored my fast breathing and smiled at the moody looking swordsman. "Wipe that stupid grin off your face, you look horrible." He groaned and kicked the air. "Besides, don't think I don't know what you're doing. Trying to seem all calm and shit." He scoffed and nudged me with his leg to move over, so he could sit beside me.

"I'm not trying to fool you, more like fool myself." I shook my head and he raised one eyebrow.

"S'that so?" I nodded and let out a shaky sigh. "Because I gotta say; you really impressed me last night. I mean, like, you were braver than I gave you credit for. Not much, but still... You were brave, I guess." His arm twiched as if he wanted to lift it. "Oh, to hell with it!" I suddenly felt his big palm on my head, tangling and ruffling my hair as if I was a dog.

"If you wanna bother someone like this, why don't you go to Sugar?" I glared at the man with lidded eyes.

"Don't act all bitchy now, I was trying to be supportive." His hand left my hair. "And this sorta wasn't even my idea... Luffy said you're planning to stay for good."

"I hope to, unless I chicken out first." I chuckled.

"Well, you won't have to, because I'm going to teach you how to defend yourself." My eyes widened and I stared at him looking uncomfortable for a good minute before I replied.

"H-how?"

"As I said, you were pretty good with that knife last night. Captain said he could train you personally, in fact he insisted that he promised you, but I thought you would have more of a chance with weapons than just fists." I bit my lip and hugged myself to stop the shivers from spreading. This was supposed to be a good thing. They were right, but I couldn't shake of the memory of blood on my hands.

"I-I don't think I can."

"That's crap and you know it." I flinched at his loud tone. "You wanna be a pirate? Get over those few drops of red and start acting like a savage!" He threw a knife in front of me. It was a different one, but the resemblance was undeniable. I backed away, further into the railing and whimpered. "Oh, Jesus!" Zoro exclaimed and grabbed my arm to get me to stand up. I hardly resisted, so he shook me with both arms and told me to wake up. "It's not scary, okay?" He put the wooden handle in my hand. "Pretend like it's a spatula or a whisk or something."

"That's the worst advice I've ever heard." I dropped the knife and refused to look at it, or Zoro. He let go of me after a moment with a dragged out sigh and turned around.

"Fine, I give up then. This wasn't even my idea, but the assholes made me do it! I was sure you didn't have the guts for this from the beginning anyways, and after I was trying to bring up your confidence too." He spit on the ground and pulled out his white sword, letting it shine in the sunlight. It was beautiful, I couldn't deny it, but I was also dangerous. I wonder how many people he's hurt with it. "You're an ungrateful brat, you know that?" I could see a little bit of his face reflecting in the sun. "I'm dissapointed." He smirked. "I wonder how Luffy's gonna take this." I noticed mischievousness in his eyes and broke the eye contack.

"Why are you saying this?" My voice was cracky and I felt a lump in my throat.

"You should remember to close doors whenever you decide to spill your heart out to someone, or someone else might overhear, and use it against you." He turned his head and his smirk disappeared. "That's your first lesson. I'll be waiting for you in the training room tonight when you change your mind."

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Hiiiiiii!
I know this is kinda short, but it felt right to end it here. The reason I'm not updating so much anymore is because I'm working on a writing project for school every week now. I'll still update this at least once a month, don't worry. And if it makes you feel better, maybe I'll post the story once it's finished. I hope you liked this chapter! If you did vote and comment.

XOXO
~ChocolateLuffy ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶