Love Between the Living and Dead

Learning New Things

As the sun started rising, Luffy jumped off the branch he'd ended up on after walking across the trees all night and made his way back through the park and to the entrance. He was bouncing on his toes as he walked, excited to be seen again today. If Zoro showed up. Luffy knew it hadn't been a dream because he couldn't anymore.

He walked straight across the creek, omitting any bridges. As he walked, he became less and less excited, the feeling being replaced by dread of Zoro not showing up. He could understand if the other had thought Luffy was a dream and didn't really exist. He assumed even he wouldn't have easily believed something like this was reality back when he was alive. He chewed on his lips and climbed up the much shorter tree than the others and sat on his usual branch to wait. He and Zoro didn't really set a time for their meeting, but he had an endless amount of time on his hands, so waiting in the place he usually stays at for a while was no big deal.

People arrived at the park early. One of the usuals went on her daily run almost right after the sun came up. Luffy watched someone drop off a box of puppies and leave them next to the red bench Luffy sometimes sat on. This wasn't a rare occurrence. Luffy would watch the puppies get picked up by bystanders or someone professional and be taken away. He went up to the little puppies t see them, and everytime they ignored him, though it happened whenever he went up to them, it hurt.

He waited on the branch patiently, but also nervously. No one is fifty one years had seen him, and the thought of Zoro not coming and Luffy risking being invisible for the rest of his existence wasn't a pleasant thought.

Zoro woke up next to his bowl of puffy and swollen cereal in the warm milk on his desk. Chopper had left it alone, surprisingly. Zoro thought last night had been a dream. A very interesting dream, and had decided he wasn't going to the park today, since he had to unpack more, but when he saw the window open with the car accident he'd looked up last night still on his computer when he turned it on, he realized it hadn't been a dream, which made him surprisingly very happy.

He quickly threw on a tanktop and shorts and barely grabbed his phone as he ran down the stairs and out the house, not locking the door behind him. He sprinted to the park as fast as he could and finally slowed as he entered the park entrance. He looked around quickly, not seeing Luffy at first until he looked at a large group of people and saw Luffy's slightly noticeable glow separating himself from the alive people. He was looking over the shoulder of someone, trying to read their book, but couldn't read the whole page.

Zoro called out his name, making Luffy's head perk up and smile as he looked around, finding Zoro quickly and silently running over to him. Luffy tried to make his grin a little smaller since he looked a bit crazed and walked with Zoro as they tried to get out of earshot from the other park visitors so Zoro wouldn't look crazy, talking to air.

"I'm glad you came!" Luffy said happily as he lead them down a random trail.

"I'm glad you're real or I'd feel like I've taken some hard core drugs," Zoro said flatly. "I almost didn't come because I thought it was a dream."

"What made you come then?" Luffy asked as he walked backwards like the night before. Zoro had trouble paying attention to their conversation because he was so fascinated with Luffy's feet going smoothly and silently through the underbrush.

"I had Googled your accident last night," Zoro said. He wasn't one to usually to sugarcoat his words and was pretty blunt, but Luffy wasn't offended, just confused.

"What's a google?" he asked curiously. He assumed it was something that had been invented after his death. He'd never been able to ask or learn what had been made after he died. He was so curious about the shiny boxes people loved to look at. He was excited to have someone to ask all of these questions he's been dying to learn the answers to.