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Perona stared at him in what Zoro was pretty sure was abject horror. Her already porcelain face blanched to a sickly white. It was a novel expression on someone who often boasted herself as an aficionado on all things creepy and Zoro fought back a teasing grin.
Blood was still dripping down his face, dropping to the floor in little plips. The only sound between them as she continued to stare, jaw gaping like a stupid pink fish.
"You fucking…" Her voice stalled, already coming out shrill and panicked like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "You fucking cut it out?!" she shrieked, bordering on hysterical.
Zoro waved his hand casually, the other lazily gripping Wado's hilt at his side. The blade was still stained red from his little stunt. His face stung again at the reminder.
"It's not that big of a deal."
The horror on her face shifted to something far more akin to rage. It reminded Zoro of Nami. The way she would glare at him whenever she brought up his debt, like he was the stupidest person in the world.
"Not that big of a deal?!"
She laughed and despite the off-putting noise it still sounded patronizing. honestly, an impressive feat if Zoro was being honest. Nothing about her turkey gobble should have been able to carry her scorn but here they were.
"Mihawk is going to fucking kill you." she sneered. "If that getting infected doesn't do you in first, God knows you're not going to bandage it."
Zoro shrugged in response, resisting the urge to wipe at the steady stream of red still dripping down his cheek. It really wasn't as big of a deal as Perona was making it, people lost their eyes all the time.
Probably.
"Mihawk should be happy about it,” He rebutted, watching with mirth as Perona's rage only grew in response. “ He was the one that said I needed a reason to practice my observation haki.”
Perona seemed to deflate at that, knowing a lost cause when she saw one. She cocked her head to the side, pouting her lip, and twirling an obnoxious pigtail around her finger.
Scrunching his brow, and ignoring the sharp strike of pain it sent through the left side of his face, he watched her quizzically. She opened her mouth, about to speak when the sound of a door closing caught both of their attention.
It said something about how unnervingly familiar he'd become with both Perona and Mihawk's presence that Wado was left sitting in her saya. Abandoned in favor of staring wide-eyed down the hallway that Mihawk was apparently in.
Exchanging a glance with Perona was all it took to know that she was thinking the same thing.
"And now we leave!" Perona chirped. He jolted slightly as she grabbed his arm and started herding him in the opposite direction, but didn't fight her more than what was standard.
It didn't take long for the ghost girl to find a suitable empty room to shove him in. The elaborate, and if you asked Zoro incredibly gaudy, furniture covered in dust from non-use. He grimaced as it transferred to his pants when he was pushed down onto an aged loveseat.
He huffed, finally allowing himself to smear some of the blood on his chin to stare at. The dark violent red staining his tan skin. It wasn't an unusual sight, the jagged scar stretching from his collar to his hip bared proof enough of that, but he guessed he could understand how it would come across as unsettling. Especially to someone not used to it.
Speaking of not being used to things. His vision was half as wide as usual, the dark creeping to the bridge of his nose. Trying to scrub at the damp blood on his palm he blinked, with just one eye, as his fingers missed their target.
In the back of his mind, he registered Perona's pacing come to a halt, the clack of her boots coming to an end and plunging the room into silence. "Yeah, loss of depth perception." She grumbled. "Kind of losing an eye 101, stupid."
He raised his head to glare at her, an insult already brewing on his tongue but choked as her face came into view. All the anger (but it had always leaned more towards exasperation hadn't it) had drained from her body, leaving her to slump exhausted against an opposite chair.
She laid against it like a puppet with its strings cut, shoulders slumped and legs tossed over the armrest in a way Zoro was certain she'd reprimanded him for before. Something about it being uncouth or barbaric, he'd mostly blocked her out.
He clicked his tongue quietly, lathing it along the front of his teeth. With a sigh, he fully looked up. "Are you okay?" he tried, cursing the uncertainty that lingered in his voice. This wasn't something he and Perona did. It wasn't something that he did.
her head jerked up to stare at him in disbelief for the second time that day. "Am I okay?" she stressed, leaning forward in her seat.
Zoro felt his stomach flip uncomfortably at the sight. Maybe that had been a bad idea.
"You're sitting there with your literal eye cut out and you're asking if I'm okay. Ridiculous." She turned back away from him, her arms curtly crossed across her chest.
Her expression twisted as she stared at the wall. Zoro barely kept from leaning to look at it better.
The silence that sat around them was stuffy. not unlike the rush of the sea over his ears when he jumped in after Luffy or chopper. briney and overwhelming, an unseen strength sitting behind its rolling waves.
"Is it still in there?"
"Huh-" a rivulet of blood splotched onto his pants, soaking into the black material.
"Your eye. Is it still in the socket?"
He sat still feeling the empty split open cavity now on his face. The dark spot was still present. Always would be, he reminded himself, his vision permanently impaired.
Shifting Zoro leaned back into his seat, lazily tossing an arm over the back. "Yep. just kinda-" He flicked his wrist, miming the swing of a sword, popping his lips when the imaginary blade would have met his face. "schlorped right out of there."
Perona's nose crinkled as her whole face screwed into a grimace.
"Oh, that is so not cute."
Their eyes met again sparking twin grins to spread on their faces. A quiet chuckle bubbled up in Zoro's chest, quickly boiling into a full barking laugh. Perona followed right behind him, her own rolling giggle filling the room as she doubled over on herself.
The pain that rang from his eye was momentarily forgotten as his breath wheezed, effectively spent. He watched content, slumping further against the velvet cushions, as Perona dabbed at her eyes. A ditzy grin still stretching her mouth.
"I can't believe you actually cut your eye out, you dummy."
She slid her legs off the chair, the soles of her platforms clunking against the polished floors.
Zoro yawned, scratching at the crown of his head. With a push he hoisted himself up to his feet, not offering Perona a hand just because he knew it would annoy her.
Predictably she puffed her cheeks, hands propping themselves on her hips as she joined him standing. She stomped to the door muttering about rude swordsmen and their etiquette- or rather lack thereof.
He rolled his eyes as she stopped at the door, flipping a corkscrew over her shoulder to lazily stare back at him "Okay but seriously, you should probably bandage that.".
Before he could deliver his no doubt scathing reply, a yelp jolted out of his throat instead. The silvery, cold, feeling of one of the ghost princess's hollows passing through his chest as his knees met the floor.
For the third time that day, Perona's laugh floated down the hallway. Slowly drifting out of range as she happily made her escape.
Raising to his feet and cracking his neck, Zoro scowled. His own boots slamming against the ground as he chased her out the door.