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Just to set the record straight, Zoro doesn't care.
"Just admit it, Zoro," Nami advises from where she's reclining on a water float as she waits for Franky and Robin to finish up some early morning shopping and join them. "I know you're trying to bottle things up like usual, but it's not working and it's just getting kind of sad now."
Zoro has no idea what Nami's talking about, because there's nothing to bottle or unbottle because Zoro is completely indifferent about it. As he's repeatedly told her in the last hour since Luffy and Chopper went off with the shitty cook.
They've got a couple days to kill at this island, so Jinbe is relaxing on Sunny and Brook is doing mysterious Brook things and Usopp is floating nearby. And of course Luffy and Chopper and the shitty cook are -
Not that Zoro cares. At all.
"They'll be back by lunch, you know," Nami sighs, "and then they'll be all over you like usual. You really don't need to be so bothered about it."
Zoro scowls at her and decides to do pushups on the beach. "Why would I care if Luffy and Chopper go driving with the shitty cook?"
Nami gives him a level look like she's actually going to start listing reasons, so he quickly amends his comment to: "I don't care if Luffy and Chopper go driving with the shitty cook."
And he doesn't. It's a free ocean. And they're pirates: freedom is their whole thing! So if Luffy AND Chopper want to go driving with the shitty cook it's no business of his.
Just because usually he'd be involved if either Luffy or Chopper, let alone both, went on some adventure on a new island....
(The shitty cook is immaterial; Zoro doesn't care that it's specifically him - or rather, he doesn't care about any of it. He's just talking about usually . But it's not like he's not hung up on it or anything.)
"Zoro, it's not the beach's fault," Nami sighs and Zoro belatedly realizes that the force of his presses is kicking up sand in waves and creating a hole so deep he's now practically vertical.
He switches to pinky finger handstand pushups instead, even though they don't work very well because it's sand and he sinks. Makes it more of a challenge; good!
"Just breath through that pain, buddy," Usopp suggests from where he lounges on a striped inner tube, large garish sunglasses half covering his face. "Work through the loss and make peace with the universe."
He turns his hands palms up to the particular cloudless and bright blue part of the universe that's directly above him, touches his thumbs and forefingers together gently, and hums encouragingly.
"There is no pain!" Zoro snaps from his sand hole.
Usopp floats farther along the beach, radiating peace-and-one-with-the-universe-ishness. "We're here for you, buddy," he calls as he readjusts his sunglasses and starts to doze.
"I will let you drown you, you know," Zoro promises him and just gets a lazy wave of half-asleep acknowledgment in response.
Franky finds them soon after and surveys the giant hole in the beach with more perplexity than Zoro feels is warranted. It's not like it's a metaphoric symbol of any particular mental or emotional state or anything; Zoro just happens to be engulfed in a deep dark hole in the middle of a bright sunny tropical beach.
Despite this, Franky - deftly holding Robin's shopping bags in one hand and some greasy boardwalk hot dogs in the other as he waits for her - looks unnecessarily worried as he takes in the scene of beach, sea, floats, hole.
"Hey now someone's not looking too super," he observes in a tone that is almost a question, peering down at Zoro's exercise pit, which is now so deep it's filling rapidly with grimy sea water.
"Zoro's got a sad on because Sanji-kun stole his fan club," Nami sighs tolerantly from the sea.
"I do n - he did no - they are not a fan club!" Zoro splutters from his pit and changes to treading water exercises as the water level continues to rise and forms a tiny private marimo pool.
Franky squats down to rest a consoling hand on Zoro's shoulder and inadvertantly drips a small amount of grilled onions and condiments from the hot dogs onto him. "It's super hard to beat a guy with a cool set of wheels," the shipwright says sympathetically.
"It's not a competition," Zoro says grumpily as the onions slide off his head and into the water.
"And you're the one that forgot all the details about all of you meeting," Nami points out with significantly less sympathy than Franky.
"It was the carpark on the West side!" Zoro insists.
"Yes, and you went to the East, I saw you!"
That's true, but she doesn't know the full story. Although since the full story involves ending up in a completely different town for a while, Zoro is fine with her not knowing it. He accordingly skips straight to the most relevant part.
"That was at seven when I wanted a walk," he blusters. "I was in the right place by eight forty five when we were supposed to meet."
"Not sure about that bro, because it looked a lot more like quarter after nine when I saw you over there?" Franky suggests cautiously, arching an eyebrow as he latches onto what might be the problem here.
Zoro is too busy treading water and thus improving himself in the unflagging pursuit of his dream and / or his dedication to supporting his captain's dream to notice Nami and the blue-haired man exchange expressive glances communicating the shared assumption that their otherwise dependable crewmate had absolutely gotten the left and right sides of the clock on the town's tower mixed up.
Zoro is not too busy improving himself to feel a small shiver of self-doubt re: some similar idea, however, because the Strawhats don't use actual specific increments of time to make plans all that often, so it's possible that Zoro might have missed something, but....
"I-- no...?" he says, not quite sure now that Franky has mentioned it. He realizes once again that bottling up emotions unhealthily at least has the advantage that no one knows if you're upset for a dumb reason or not.
Not that Zoro's been upset or anything.
The swordsman, who had actually been slightly proud of making it to the correct place with only a minimum of detours, is luckily saved from further embarrassing self-revelations by a commotion on the boardwalk. It turns out to be a sudden plucky eight-to-ten-year-old (the demographic other than Princess most likely to be helped by the Strawhat gang) who vocally announces via scream that she is being menanced by some minor character-energy thugs, aka the demographic most likely to gulp, turn pale, and slink off threatening You haven't heard the last of this! when the solid blocks of danger that are Franky (with hot dogs) and Zoro (still slightly decorated with onions) come over to investigate.
Zoro mildly regrets the fast retreat because for some unknown reason he's been feeling a little tense this morning. Maybe he's allergic to something in the air here or something. He'd ask Chopper about it, if Luffy and Chopper weren't out driving around with the shitty cook.
Nami, with her usual soft spot for kids, abandons her tanning session to comfort the girl and while she and Franky get all the usual intel, Zoro relents and goes to saves Usopp, who has now gotten caught in a riptide. Which is the kind of thing that would usually happen to Chopper, but of course Luffy and Chopper are taking a drive with the shitty cook.
By the time Zoro returns to the boardwalk, Usopp clinging to him and sobbing "I'm so glad you can't tell right and left on a clock and didn't go with Luffy and Chopper or I would have been washed out to sea!" - at which point Zoro almost throws Usopp back in because a) Usopp could have easily saved himself at any time and b) Zoro refuses to believe reading a damn clock had anything to do with anything - Robin is with the group and they have ascertained the kid's problem. Zoro doesn't really listen to the explanation because he's busy trying to remember the previous night's conversation about this morning's plans - it had definitely been 8:45, he's sure of that - but the gist seems to be a pretty typical situation involving a grandmother, a family ramen shop on prime real estate, debt, the kid trying to save everything.... Basically, the usual.
The others have also already come up with a solution in which, Nami informs Zoro and Usopp, their role is mostly just to show up at a certain time and place (" Zoro just follow Usopp" ) to be first useful and then customers.
It doesn't remain quite that simple - upon arrival, they are informed that suits will be involved - but whatever. It's not like Zoro has anything else to do anyhow.
--
Frills! Cheerful pastel decor! Sweet cream soda drinks in electric colors! And best of all, outrageous prices.... It's perfect!
The scents of money, sugar, and ramen flood the air in a tantalizing tapestry of profit and as Nami surveys the hastily but charmingly redecorated restaurant, she feels justifiably proud of both her plan and the result of its first stage.
Of course, it's one of the perks of being a Strawhat to have access to a genius builder, as well an imaginative handyman with an eye for color, but it's still remarkable how in only a couple of hours, the group has turned this dusty hole-in-the-wall ramen-ya into a glamorous one day pop up maid cafe complete with ruffled aprons, short hems and all the trimmings. Nami is confident that no one in the town will be able to resist, especially once she adds in her secret weapons to expand the usual cafe appeal to the widest possible set of demographics.
The grandmother is certainly delighted, assuring them that she will keep the new color scheme forever, and the granddaughter is adorable in her own loose-fitting version of the uniforms Nami and Robin are sporting. The Today Only! ramen-and-omurice sets are also sure to be a success as soon as Sanji (Secret Weapon 1) arrives to help out on the egg-and-rice side of things.
Which should be any minute now, so with Franky established at the door to welcome in customers and hand them off to Robin for seating, they're open for business!
Usopp, who had choked upon seeing the menu prices - which are perfectly justified; Nami knows her own worth - is opting for the moment to help by drumming up business outside the shop rather than eating. She can faintly hear him calling to passerbys ~ " One day only! The beauty that launched a thousand ships! The taste that took a country by storm! Don't miss your chance to experience the charm that has won over royalty from here to the Grand Line!"
Nami grins a little to herself. Well, that last part is true, at least.
Zoro (obviously) isn't trying to help at all, having done some of the initial grunt work but otherwise being too busy still pouting from the Chopper / Luffy thing (and this once Nami can't even tell which of the two he's feeling more possessive about). But he slouches obediently in the central booth, and that's good enough because this is about looks not personality and Nami just wants him visible to encourage more patrons, even if he's eschewing the recommended drink set and has, despite the fact this is a cute maid cafe, managed to find a bottle of hard liquor somewhere.
He grunts as Luffy (Secret Weapon 2) and Chopper (Secret Weapon 3) burst in excitedly and make a beeline for the grumpy lone figure in the booth. Both stop just barely short of scrambling all over him. Behind them, Sanji enters, catches sight of the cafe uniforms, and has to take a moment to sink to the ground and thank the gods. (Nami likes that in a man as long as it leads to something useful, which with Sanji it always does.)
"Zoro! Where were you this morning!" Chopper exclaims. "We waited for a really long time!"
Zoro looks momentarily confused, badly disguised pique melting away. "Wasn't it at a quarter to nine?"
"Yeah, but you weren't there!"
"I knew he read the clock wrong!" Nami groans and mentally adds on an extra service charge for being an idiot as Luffy laughs uproariously at his swordsman and an embarrassed blush spreads across Zoro's cheeks, thereby turning him into Secret Weapon 4.
"If the damn marimo is going time blind as well as direction cursed I may have to do something drastic," Sanji growls from the floor where he's still pulling himself together.
Nami thrusts another suit at the cook before he can realize that his current position puts him at eye height with her exposed knees. The last thing they need is blood on the linoleum.
"Sanji-kun," she warbles, "can you help out in the kitchen just a little during the lunch rush?"
She tunes out the gushing agreement after confirming the response starts with "A thousand times of course!!♡!!!♡!!" but gives Sanji an honest smile of gratitude. At least he likes to be useful, unlike a certain green-haired idiot who - judging by the way Luffy keeps trying to sniff him - probably still smells vaguely like hotdog toppings.
The kitchen has a clear line of sight to the tables, which means Sanji won't be denied a view of what he repeatedly and rapturously announces is his ultimate pure moe fantasy of Nami and Robin in demure ruffles - and even more importantly for Nami's purposes, also means none of the customers will be denied a view of him . But even if there were no women involved, Nani knows the chance to cook would still have Sanji beaming just as happily as he is now. Eyes alight, he ties on a slightly less frilly apron and instantly starts cooking up rice alongside the ramen-boiling grandmother, who is clearly even more pleased about the gallant, sweet-tongued blond invading her kitchen than about the new decor.
To be honest, the maid uniforms actually cover much more than what Nami usually wears, but she knows very well the power of suggestion and a few well-placed ribbons - just look at Franky, who seems bizarrely indecent wearing the apron he had begged for instead of a suit, especially when he turns around to reveal he's also still wearing the usual speedo. Robin seems to be enjoying it, though - or maybe what she's enjoying are the periodically horrified expressions of the customers as they notice him - so Nami doesn't have the heart to scream at Franky to dress more decently (e.g. in fully visible speedos).
By the time Luffy has also been wrangled into a suit and comes back, Zoro has appropriated another bottle from somewhere but is drinking with noticeably more enjoyment as Chopper hangs on him and enthusiastically admires the cafe furnishings. Nami doubles Zoro's tab just on principle.
"Nami!" Luffy stops by her to eagerly ask not why most of his crew is currently working at a maid cafe, but the question that is always closest to his heart: "Does this place have meat???"
"No! It has excellent locally refined mazesoba ramen featuring strong rich flavors and a matching thick, chewy texture, and also traditional rice omelettes bursting with a perfect balance of sweet and savory tang plus the depth of man's wholesome love for that most sacred and noble pinnacle of all heavenly sights: gorgeous blushing maids!" Sanji yells from the kitchen all in one go.
(The grandmother nods approving at the descriptions and they exchange some sort of cook bonding smiles that later will result in her loading up Sanji with as many noodles as he can carry to take with them. They last Luffy through lunch.
Nami does not bother to point out that neither she nor Robin are blushing.)
"Okay, I'll have ramen and maid omelettes!" Luffy agrees happily because he doesn't care as long as it's food.
"Fine, fine. Now go cheer up Zoro," Nami directs, because she has a business to run. "He was lonely."
Luffy, who at some point between blinks has already managed to appropriate a huge bowl of ramen, treats this news with far more concern than he does actually important things like tropical cyclones or enemy armies. Eyes widening, he cradles his noodles and immediately rockets back to the table, this time coming even closer than before to landing in his swordsman's lap.
(Obviously if he ultimately does end up there, Nami is planning to up the service charge for the other guests.)
"Luffy, why don't you decorate Zoro's omelette for him," Nami says sweetly, to increase the odds.
"I didn't order--" Zoro starts to object and then gives up in the face of Luffy's suddenly sparkling eyes.
"It's a Special Service ," Nami winks and all of the other customers immediately and vocally order that, too, despite having no idea what it is. Nami makes up a cute pose for it and adds on a hefty special service tax.
Meanwhile, as soon as Sanji delivers a trio of perfect, lemon-shaped omurice, the cheerfully yellow egg layer draped elegantly over the sauce-pinkened rice, Luffy grabs a ketchup bottle. Barely stopping to inhale his own omelette and a second round of ramen - and to proclaim their deliciousness with such heartfelt fervor that several other tables order what the guy in the hat is having ( Nami gives them the regular set but ups the price because it's now a Yonko-endorsed dish) - he goes to work diligently creating an artistic ode to his swordsman. Or in other words, a stick figure that looks rather disturbing until you realize a lot of the lower lines are swords.
"There!" he says proudly. "There's Zoro and that's his haramaki and oops-" An extra blob of sauce collides with the sketch, obliterating the stick figure in a fatal and tomato-y explosion.
"You killed Zoro," Usopp observes from the other side of the booth, pausing in escorting more customers to their table to put a hand over his heart in memorium of the sauce-exploded figure.
"Nami! Another one!" Luffy demands and Nami is more than willing to add it to the tab.
"I want to try, too!" Chopper decides excitedly, already looking a little wild-eyed as he polishes off his second glass of sugary melon cream soda. Several customers coo at the reindeer's enthusiasm and Nami adds on a cuteness service charge to their bills.
"Sanji-kun, two more omurice on Zoro's tab and six more rice-ramen drink sets, please," she requests, passing him the order sheets.
Sanji's enjoying himself so much with the omelettes that he barely remembers to reavow that it is his eternal pleasure to provide her (or even the shitty swordsman on her behalf) with whatever she could possibly desire. But once he's over that and settling down to shape the rice, he finds time to scrutinize the booth where Zoro is still loudly complaining about being exploded while Chopper and Luffy giggle at him.
"Has the damn marimo stopped pouting?" the cook mutters as he passes over the dishes for Luffy (extra large) and Chopper (slightly sweeter).
Nami watches Zoro relax as both Luffy and Chopper start waving their hands wildly in the middle of some story about the morning, and rolls her eyes. "Now that he's the center of attention? Of course."
"In some ways, he really may be the most simple one of us all," Robin observes fondly, easily handling the six other plates of food by simply using six extra arms, three on each side like a waitress version of an ancient goddess.
"Does he really not remember that we all agreed to meet in the car park and his shitty ass didn't turn up?" Sanji asks disgustedly.
"At this point I think he's just blocking it out so he doesn't feel stupid," Nami sighs.
"He is stupid," Sanji reminds them with finality and since neither of them can really argue with that, they go out to deliver the food.
--/
By the time Luffy has failed to draw a discernable Zoro and then eaten the mishapen evidence three times, Sanji has fully established himself in the kitchen, Brook has drifted by briefly to tweak the background music, and Franky and Usopp are coordinating their considerable people skills to draw in so many customers that the line snakes down the road almost to the beach. The grandmother / granddaughter duo are already popular locally, and Nami and Robin know just how appealing they look, but Nami's Secret Weapons have also had the desired impact as well.
Which all combines to mean that by this point, word has spread that not only does the limited time pop up have extremely attractive maids , it has a beaming blond in an apron making outrageously good snacks and - equally appealing to certain other clientele - a devastatingly cute fuzzy mascot high on sugar AND two pretty guys in suits sitting practically on top of each other as they argue about the placement of ketchup. It's all just as Nami had planned.
By mid-afternoon, even deducting the cost of the plates of omurice and ramen bowls Luffy has devoured, money is overflowing and it's clear grandma will save her shop.
Nami accepts enthusiastics hug from both grandmother and granddaughter and Robin (but not Sanji), and sighs in relief that everything has worked out. Just to be on the safe side though, she decides on maybe asking Brook and Jinbe to give the moneylenders who were taking advantage of an old woman a little talking to about what it means to be under the protection of Strawhat Luffy's pirates. (She doesn't want their other two nakama to feel left out of the day's good deed, after all).
Everything continues to go smoothly, a little pocket of simple and easy achievement inbetween all their recent big adventures. And when, at the end of a long day and hours after Chopper wins the coveted sitting-in-Zoro's-lap position by dint of falling into a sugar coma and toppling over sideways, Nami is presented with one final Sanji omurice special in the shape of a heart and decorated with Luffy's best ketchup drawing yet, she doesn't even mind that once again, Luffy's made her into a fish with legs.
"Well done," Robin praises, smiling as she folds up her apron, and Franky and Usopp echo the sentiment with tired but heartfelt thumbs up.
Zoro hefts a sugar-and-ramen-drugged Chopper over one shoulder and gives Nami his own version of an approving hug - in this case a slight, crooked smile. You'd never guess now that he'd spent the whole morning pouting like a child, although a glance at Usopp is all Nami needs to know that the rest of them will absolutely take every future oppprtunity to remind him of it.
Unaware of this unspoken consensus, or maybe just used to it, Zoro reaches out to snag Luffy by the collar and turns to leave as in the kitchen, the grandmother pushes so many wrapped packets of noodles into Sanji's arms that Usopp has to juggle the overflow. Next to them, the granddaughter swings on one of Franky's large arms while Robin laughs softly.
They've all had a nice day.
"We'd better get back to Sunny," Zoro announces, "it's already...." he squints at the time piece on the cafe wall... "almost midnight."
Given that it is in fact just after midnight, Nami sighs and makes a mental note to buy a clock, just for practice.
"Nami makes a good waitress," Luffy laughs from where he's being half-herded, half-dragged toward the door, "but a better navigator!"
Nami laughs back. "I should hope so!"
"Nami-swan is the perfection of all things and can accomplish anything with utmost poise and grace, although I personally would prefer she be waited upon hand and foot and her every wish granted instantaneously and I naturally humbly and eagerly volunteer to act in that capacity whenever the opportunuty arises - Usopp! the seasoning box is slipping!" Sanji mumbles slightly on auto-pilot behind towering bundles of ramen amd toppings.
"Yeah, bro, we all agree on that and for our Miss Robin, too," Franky says heartily, sending Nami a warm grin and Robin a wink. The granddaughter giggles as he raises her up extra high.
Gazing around the restaurant one last time, a memory rises unbidden. Nami pointing to a little cat statue in the corner of a shop window and saying "It's waving at us!" and Bellemere answering "Right, it's waving good luck inside."
"Then it can't be waving at Nami," Nojiko pouted, still upset from Nami having stolen her dress earlier and returning it torn from climbing trees.
Nami had still been young enough to be worried that might be true - maybe she's still young enough, somedays - but Bellemere had squatted down and gathered them both in her arms and said sternly: "Are you crazy? Both you kiddos have brought me so much luck! In fact, finding you was the best luck I've ever had. It was so lucky that even if I never have any luck again, I'll still have come out on top."
Nami remembers wondering at the time if that was true, and much later crying, sure that it wasn't. She still wonders now. But she thinks that today, at least, Bellemere would have been proud of all of them.
Reaching the door, Luffy turns back and waves at Nami and the others to follow, luck and laughter shining all around him.
It's maybe how Bellemere had felt, the way Nami feels now watching her crewmate family. But she is, after all, not a cat but a cat burglar. They've all brought her luck the likes of which she'd never dared dream of, but if she has to, she'll steal all the luck left in the world to give back to them.
She doesn't need any of it, because her nakama are all the good luck she will ever need....
("Nami-sw~an! Robin-ch~an! When we get back to Sunny, allow me to fix you both a final soothing herbal tea before bedtime--"
"Sanji, I'm hungry, too--"
"I actually once discovered an ancient tea that gave you wing-- not that way, Zoro!"
"Shut up! I know where I'm - wait, that way?"
"Sanjiiiii--"
"Eat the marimo if you're so starving."
"What the hell did you just say?!?"
"Uh, anyway, Franky, I think you can take off the apron now...."
"Oh, I don't know, it's rather charming on him, isn't it?"
"SUPER FASHION STATEMENT!"
"Sanjiiiiii, foooooood....." )
....even if most of them are still kind of idiots.