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The Baratie is a place of strange reunions.
Throughout the last couple dozen years, both its size and popularity has grown considerably and the now-highbrow restaurant bears little resemblance to the small, cheap, run-down inn from the times of the Straw Hats' first visit, back when they were but a four-person crew. After all that time, they still somehow flock back to the Baratie — perhaps because it is the only way to include Sanji in the reunion, as the cook remains ever-faithful to the restaurant, having taken it over from Zeff, and never really leaves the place; perhaps because Luffy maintains the opinion that the meat and fish served there are truly superior to any other dish from across the four seas; perhaps because they all feel welcome at the Baratie, a place that suddenly became home-like to the crew nearly as much as their own ship. Perhaps it is a combination of another multitude of reasons, which Roronoa Zoro neither takes note of or cares about.
He doesn't like coming back to the Baratie, even though the dishes are good, the drinks better so, and he normally wouldn't mind an opportunity to see Sanji and the others again, although they have grown more and more distant over these past years. Still, there is someone else linked to the Baratie, a person whom Zoro always runs into while at the restaurant, no matter how much he'd prefer not to, and the encounter never fails to take away his appetite for the place's excellent food. He's stopped trying to avoid it, honestly, because it's just a nuisance, nothing more — and no nuisance of such small caliber could bother the best swordsman in the world, as he tells himself.
So there he is, sitting on the Baratie's vast, wooden fins, extended to host the additional guests that thankfully aren't here right now. It's way past dusk and the time for dining has ended, so everyone is inside the fish-boat already, hailing the bartended for more drinks, laughing and singing or merely clapping along to some drunken tune or other — Zoro can hear them well despite the distance. The noise thankfully blends into a low, homogeneous hum of merriment before it reached his ears, but remains vaguely irritating. It feels fitting, that he should be out here, alone, faced by the dark, open sea, while the others were partying together, cramped in the Baratie. Maybe he'd join them later, but he doubts it, somehow.
He'd prefer being all alone, actually, the way he is used to by now. Sometimes, he wonders why he even bothers to showed up to these Straw Hat reunions if he doesn't plan to spend time with his former crew anyway, but saying "no" to Luffy is as impossible as always — that much hasn't changed since their first meeting.
His three sheathed swords clutter dully against each other as Zoro shifts his position on the planked floor and crosses his legs while taking a hearty sip of some strong liquor that he took from the restaurant before heading out. He is in no mood for handling this meeting while sober as a judge.
"So," he speaks up jadedly, the little patience he had had now already gone, "any particular reason for why you're here again?"
Dracule Mihawk doesn't show a sign of hearing the question for a long while — just continues staring out at the sea, motionless, his yellow eyes glued to the barely moving water.
"No," he says finally. "None that I can think of."
Zoro doesn't need to look at him, knowing very well what he'd see, but he looks nonetheless. There is little sharpness left to Hawk-Eyes now — not when the first thing that catches the eye about him is a huge, ragged scar, splitting his face almost in half, from ear to jaw. Not when he leans forward heavily, barely keeping his balance, and his black coat poorly manages to hide the stump of his right arm, hacked off at the elbow. Not when his yellow eyes are dulled, un-hawk-like, his countenance murky, his presence not half of what it used to be. Maybe Zoro is less afraid and less respectful towards him on his own accord, now that the tables have turned between the two of them. But, doubtlessly, Mihawk is but a shadow of the man who used to be called the strongest in the world — and Zoro knows who shouldered the responsibility for that change.
"I've been at your place again recently," he strikes up once more, not discouraged by the man's laconic demeanor — not annoyed, even. He is above that now. "I haven't seen you there. Or in any of the other places I've been bored enough to look in," he takes another sip of the liquor. "But you always show up here."
He doesn't ask the question he had in mind, but Mihawk answers it nonetheless. "I like this place," the man says, turning away to cast a sweeping look over the Baratie. "It does well to keep memories alive."
"We fought here for the first time," slips off Zoro's tongue instinctively. He doesn't come here to reminisce, but the memory is too strong to ignore, as always.
He still has scars from that encounter, obstinate marks from Mihawk's pocket knife and from Yoru, none of which quite faded. Zoro is close to doubting they ever would. He dislikes these scars — physical, fleshy reminders of the most humiliating defeat he has ever suffered. They still irk him, even when Mihawk carries more scars inflicted by Zoro than vice versa, even when Yoru rests soundly at the bottom of the sea, never to be found or wielded again. It's somehow not enough to paint over the shame, not enough to uproot the remains of reverence Zoro still harbors towards Mihawk.
"That we did," Mihawk seconds.
"Well, much has changed," Zoro adds sharply, just to give in to his foul mood for a moment, "former best swordsman in the world."
Silence falls between then again, interrupted only by the faint splashing of waves against the Baratie's wooden side.
"I thought it'd be worse on you," Zoro sighs, twirling the empty liquor bottle in his fingers before putting it down next to him — a gesture of yielded resignation, "but I guess you're holding up as ever."
His voice dies down somewhere mid-sentence, it's previous deliberate ring lost between the words that can't begin to express how he feels. And even after all this time, even though knows he did the right thing, even though it was the way things were supposed to happen, what Zoro still feels is guilt — heavy and damp, like a wet cloth thrown over a smoldering candle.
"I miss Yoru," Mihawk sighs — indeed, even his silhouette looks wrong, incomplete, without the rigid lines of the cross-shaped legendary sword to it, "but apart from that, there's not much to be complained about."
"I'd say the sword is the least of your problems right now," Zoro counters impatiently. There is something about Mihawk's unbecoming carefreeness that makes him all the more riled up, like he wants to try the extent of the man's sudden patience. "Not that you'd have a way to wield it anymore, for starters."
"I had it coming, didn't I?" Mihawk asks rhetorically, with only a remote degree of interest that feels like it comes from politeness more than anything else — as if it was the weather they were discussing, or something equally insignificant. "Why else would I train you?"
"Boredom," Zoro shrugs, not really a question. He's more than suspected that much. "And conceit. It's not like you supposed I'd really make it."
"Oh?" Mihawk raises an eyebrow, full of the complacency that Zoro used to hate so much about him — and suddenly hates still. "And why would I take risks for such a meagerly entertaining pastime?"
Zoro breaths deep, forces himself to calm down the nerves rattling at him from the inside. To lose composure now would be like losing in a sword fight and he intends to do neither. "I don't know," he says. "Maybe it was a stupid thing to do."
"I don't regret it."
"I know."
He knows, bone deep, and maybe he's always known, but it makes so little sense, the recognition like a splinter in his brain — it annoys him: to know, but never to understand.
"Why?"
He's never asked — asking is caring, so he's decided he wouldn't. These days have passed, the times where he would look up at Mihawk, the trust in his eyes like a bottomless well. He shouldn't care to know his opinion any longer, but some habits prove tougher to weed out than others.
"I took everything from you — so why?"
Mihawk laughs — and in this laugh, there is a fleeting trace of the old him, still warm and alive.
"It wasn't much of an everything, was it?" his yellow eyes glisten under the rim of his hat in a manner Zoro wouldn't think he'd see again. "An empty title, a cold blade and a handful of unbearably dreary days. At least I got some kind of purpose instead."
"Purpose?" Zoro echoes, none the wiser. "But there wasn't any — isn't that the point?"
"You don't know it's the point until it is," Mihawk elaborates cryptically. He sounds vaguely annoyed, like he was tripping over his own words. "And that's when it becomes so. You'll see for yourself soon enough."
"As if," Zoro scoffs. "I won't be like you."
Mihawk looks at him, gaze attentive, but lingering always just short enough to come off as disinterested. "No," he says, a ghost of a smile still on his lips, like the memory of a past amusement only he remembers, "you already are — I made you, Roronoa, the man you've become. And when you've dedicated yourself to shaping someone the way I've shaped you, when you mold someone after your own image, knowing it's as close to a new life for yourself as you'll get, then you can't but love whom you've made."
"Bullshit," Zoro doesn't have the spark to snap anymore — what's left is only a disillusioned, angry whisper. "If there was ever anything you've loved, it for sure wasn't me."
For hell's sake — he's stronger than Mihawk now. He's proved it all too well, multiple times, proves it with every swing of his swords nowadays, with every revered mutter that forwards the news of his victory. Best swordsman in the world, they say — but still not strong enough not to crumble under the weight of his own few words, apparently.
Mihawk doesn't reply, like the accusation was beneath him to address and they both knew it. And, in spite of his own words, Zoro understands — because when you've dedicated your life to admiring someone, reforging yourself after their image the way he has done, knowing it's worth every scrap of pride and pain you can surrender, then you also can't but love whom you strive to become.
"I hope I'm around to see it," Mihawk resumes, the growing tide now almost lapping at the soles of his feet. "The day you meet someone and feel you care enough, for the first time since you can remember, that you will train them and mind them, even though you'll know what you're making is, essentially, a rival for your place. And when that will sound worthwhile, you'll understand why I don't regret doing the same with you."
"In the end, we were both desperate back then," Zoro kicks at a wave that has risen too high, sending a watery splatter across the wooden boards. "Maybe it was all for the better, despite everything."
It's a strangely peaceful resolution and he feels its weight as soon as the words pass his lips. Wherever it may have led them eventually, maybe the past was not a mistake in itself. It would be nice to believe that — but he's not Luffy to be able to do that without any issues, not when he still can hear the wet sound of Wado Ichimonji slicing through muscle and bone in his head, still almost feel the stickiness of Mihawk's blood running down his hands.
"You hated every minute of it quite outspokenly," Mihawk reminds him lightly — and for a second they're both back in the stone-laden halls of the castle at Gloom Island, trading sharp blows and words that were sharper still. The brief moment of reconciliation is over before Zoro gets to really feel its weight, but that may be for the better. Strong, he thinks, but still not strong enough.
"Not every single one," he admits truthfully, though he ones he didn't hate are now more painful in his memory than all the others combined. "I guess it'd be too good if it didn't have to end that way."
The rising tide has almost reached the lower deck level now and Zoro tucks up his legs, crouching at the ocean's edge. "I'm not sorry," he adds.
"Don't be," Mihawk nods. The water flows past his legs, meeting no obstacle as it does so.
Zoro casts a last glance over the face — angular features, sharp nose, yellow eyes — of the man whose killing he still regrets with every passing day. "Rest in peace," he mutters, picking himself up from the ground, "you deserve it."