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On very few occasions Nami handed her mikans to her crew mates to enjoy the fruit in its most natural form. Usually she gave them to Sanji to make juices, marmalades, pies, essential oil (ever since she discovered she could make her own perfume with it) and even flavoured alcohol. He always came up with something new to make with tangerines, and always consulted with her what she thought of his ideas.
Everyone on the crew knew how important those trees and fruits were to Nami, so they cherished it every time she shared with them. But it was quite an event when she wandered around the ship with a basket under her arm, distributing mikans to each of them. Zoro would never admit it, but mikans were his favorite fruit, a good balance of sweet and citric although you could always find some tipping more to the edges of those sensations. It was exciting to him, to peel the orange skin and discover what sensation was waiting for him in those segments. Sometimes he’d notice Nami had given Chopper and Robin an extra mikan, she usually divided pretty evenly among them but she always gave him three of them. If there were 7 or 4 or 1 of the fruit for each one, she would, every time without fail, hand him three of those round bright colored things. It made him stare at her for some hours afterwards, trying to understand what went through that mind of hers. But he was yet to question her about it.
By now he guessed she knew that he paid attention to her, but to ask her directly about it was something else. To let her know he’s spent countless hours since they met wondering about her in silence, was something else. To voice things and bring them into a fragile existence was different than having a vague idea, a dull throb that came like tides and sometimes illuminated the heart with a bit of a twisted, very paralyzing hope.
Zoro was someone that most often than not left things for luck to work out, he acted on instinct and spontaneity and he knew that somewhere along their journey, he would have to make everyone aware of his intentions. Time is a strange thing, but he believes in it just like he believes in nature and the way the sun starts to set and the moon is already there, without anyone noticing until the sky darkens and the stars shine brightly beside it. His feelings are like stars slowly brightening one by one, until his sky is unbearably stark with lightning and the stormy clouds need to come and intervene, to cover them a bit, to let his eyes close comfortably, to let his heart beat like how one of a centered swordsmen should. But conventions are just conventions, and what should and should not be done are things we suspect and build upon our biased perceptions of the worlds around us, and in reality all those things can be changed and shift within the lives that are intertwined. So of course Zoro wonders a lot, how it will be as they get older and meet more people and fight and almost die countless more times than they already have.
When it was windy, sometimes he would go train near the mikan orchard so he’d be surrounded by the smell of their leaves. By accident he discovered that if he left the mikan’s peels in his training room, then they would exude a faint smell for a few days. He started to notice when Sanji was working with the tangerines, so he could sneak in when he wasn’t looking and take the fruit’s peel with him to then place them in calculated points of the training room. At the beginning he would often forget he even put the peel’s there after weeks had passed, so he learned quickly not to let them rot so no one would notice the foul smell.
However, there was someone on the ship who paid attention to the swordsman more than they would like to. Someone whose throat would close when the night came, for it was harder to ignore the longing, pulsating painfully through her veins. When Nami couldn’t control herself, she would hope foolishly that one of the reasons Zoro spent most of the nights at watch in the crow’s nest, was that he was also longing, looking out the window how he liked to do.
On one of the rare occasions she was at the night shift, she started to feel this pungent smell of rotting mikans hanging in the air. Since it was cold and the windows were all closed, and Nami was the best acquainted with every possible aspect of mikans, from their smell to form to stages of growth and renewal, of course she noticed. She went around the room and found several peels tucked at corners, between weights and on top of the beams supporting the ceiling. She was intrigued, and her heart was beating so so fast. She sat down, surrounded by the remains of dozens of tangerines. Only one person could have done this, and she could, of course, feel his smell in the room as well as her smell, although a bit distorted by the foul touch of decay. Decay that contrasted the rising wave of emotion that was washing over her. Nami spent the whole night processing what she discovered, and trying to unfold all the possible things that came with this information. She only ever gave three tangerines to Zoro, so he must have gone after discarded peels to have that many in the same state of decomposition. Why would he do something like this?
Nami thought of her own reasons. Three tangerines so she would not hand him more, so she would not hand him less. So despite their fights and mutual worry and protection, she could always give something constant to him, besides the fact that the straw hats were always going to be together. Besides the unknown, unanalyzed and undefined but definitely unique sentiment that she felt towards Zoro. She would be constant in her affections, even if no one but her knew. She would let everything else to luck like her friends always did, but she would be constant in letting herself feel for the swordsman. There were few things in life that Nami didn’t fight, and she did fought those feelings for a long time, but she was also smart and soon realized there was no use getting mad over her own beating heart. She would let herself love like her mother had. She would let time bring what was meant for her, to her, just like it brought her friends into her life and heart. Just like it brought the swordsman into her soul, and perhaps, if she was lucky, would also bring her into his soul.