One Piece One Shots

No Monster to Me [Zoro x Reader]

How long had you been aboard the Going Merry?

The question popped in your mind as you let your fingers caress the smooth surface of the upper deck's wood railing. It was really easy to lose track of time with that crew.

It was nice knowing you had a place you belonged to, though. It had been a while since you had felt that way. And yet, you couldn't help but wonder why Luffy had been so eager for you to tag along, even more so after you had told him you had eaten a Devil Fruit.

He kept saying his brother had eaten a similar one. You would have to see that to believe it.

Those fruits... they weren't exactly easy to find. You had spent years trying to find another user, hoping that their existence would help you stop feeling like an abomination.

At least that was what the people from your village used to call you.

A monster.

At first it stung. Having the people you had been raised with treat you differently just because you had accidentally eaten a freaking fruit –even when you hadn't done anything to give them reason to do so.

You had never burnt anything, not even unintentionally... but they couldn't see past your powers. You were no longer the sweet girl that used to talk to everybody on your way to school, or the girl that would buy at the local shop really early in the morning so your mother wouldn't have to leave the house during the colder seasons. Not anymore.

Your parents... you thought about them constantly. You wondered if they were better now that you were gone. Even though they had pleaded you to stay, you just hadn't had it in you to take it any longer.

You could have ignored anything that people threw your way, but when they also turned against your parents... those times where the only ones when you had had to resist the urge to reduce the whole village to ashes. And yet, you hadn't freaking done anything.

You couldn't just give in and prove them right. So you left.

It was hard trying to remember how you had met the Strawhats. Had it been in Arabasta? In Pirate Island? You couldn't remember. But you were so... grateful. They had received you with open arms, they had welcomed you in their lives. They had taken the time to meet the person behind the fire.

Well, at least most of them.

It took Zoro a while before he even began to trust being around you.

You couldn't exactly blame him, though: A woman he didn't know suddenly appeared in his life, saying she is a walking volcano, proved it, and his captain asked her to be his new crew mate without even considering if he had anything to say against it. Had it been the other way around, you wouldn't have slept in weeks, knowing someone so potentially dangerous was sleeping right behind door number three.

But he had started trusting you. You were even becoming... friends. Friends. You didn't have many of those.

"Whatever," you let out with a sigh, breaking the silence that had settled around you and shaking your head softly.