Drinking Buddies and the Feeling of "Home"

As Zoro finished his simple, brutal, yet deeply impactful explanation of "Haki," the last traces of hostility and defiance toward him in the guild completely vanished.

What remained was only pure respect, curiosity, and... the natural affinity people felt toward the strong.

Fairy Tail was a guild that revered strength and comradeship.

With the misunderstanding cleared up, the atmosphere quickly returned to its usual rowdy warmth.

"Come on, Zoro! A toast to the birth of my new drinking buddy!"

Cana was unusually excited. She threw an arm around Zoro's shoulders and shoved an oversized mug filled with rum into his hand. She had discovered that this green-haired man not only had an unfathomable tolerance for alcohol, but also shared her exact taste for strong liquor. He was practically the perfect drinking buddy she had been searching for all these years!

Zoro accepted without hesitation, clinked glasses with Cana, and drained it in one go. A deep bond of "drinking friendship" began forming between them at a visibly rapid pace.

The others in the guild also began accepting this new member in their own ways.

Levy carried her little notebook around like an endlessly curious child, pestering Zoro with question after question as she tried to learn more about Haki and the other world. Zoro grew impatient with her questioning, but since she was a small girl, he still answered her now and then.

Elfman Strauss came over, showing off the muscles he was so proud of, and shouted, "A man communicates through muscles and alcohol!" Then he tried to arm-wrestle Zoro. Naturally, Zoro effortlessly pinned his arm to the table with two fingers, leaving him unable to move and giving him a profound understanding of what a "real man" was.

Even Lucy, who had been quite badly frightened earlier, gathered her courage and approached with a glass of juice. She was fascinated by the Grand Line and all the strange islands Zoro had described, and hoped that one day she could write his adventures into one of her novels.

For the most part, Zoro still maintained his lazy, indifferent demeanor. He either competed with Cana in drinking or leaned against a pillar and dozed off. Yet his heart was not entirely unmoved.

He could clearly feel that this guild called Fairy Tail was unlike anywhere he had ever been.

It was noisy—one might even call it chaotic. One moment, people were drinking with their arms around each other's shoulders; the next, they might start fighting over a single wrong word. Tables and chairs seemed to be disposable goods here.

Yet beneath all that noise lay an incomparably pure and warm atmosphere.

He could see that the pink-haired kid named Natsu kept glaring at him with unwilling eyes, yet when Lucy was about to be hit by a flying chair, he instinctively rushed over and shielded her with his body.

He could see that the exhibitionist named Gray was always arguing with Natsu, yet whenever Erza lectured them, the two would stand together in tacit understanding and obediently take the scolding.

He could see that everyone here, regardless of strength or personality, regarded one another as their most important "family." They cheered for their companions' victories and grew furious over their companions' injuries.

This feeling...

Zoro swirled the wineglass in his hand, the amber liquor rotating within it.

This feeling reminded him of the Thousand Sunny.

It reminded him of that idiot captain who shouted about wanting meat all day, that curly-browed cook who argued with him all day, that navigator who loved money more than life yet was utterly dependable, that sniper who loved telling tall tales, that ship's doctor who was so kind he seemed foolish...

Though they showed it differently, that instinct to value their companions' lives above their own...

Zoro looked at the people before him. Some were fighting, some drinking, some chatting, some grinning stupidly... The lines of his ever-tense, Asura-like face unconsciously softened.

The corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, into a tiny curve.