Angel's True Face (One Piece)

Confession?!

A few days had come to pass after the war and the crew had all been staying inside the palace since then. The crew had sleep for a while but began waking up one by one. The only one left was Luffy, who was being looked after by Chopper and Vivi as the others were off doing different things. Meanwhile, Iris

was sitting outside in the garden of the palace while writing. She didn't seem to notice the guards of the palace stealing glances at her as they passed on patrols. It was only until... "Oi..." Someone had spoken causing Iris to look over her shoulder, looking towards Zoro who was standing behind her. "...What are you doing?"
"Oh, Zoro!" Which she smiled up at him. "I was just thinking about everything that's happened and writing about it." She was informing him while holding up the book she had been writing in.
"How much are you going to write?" He had asked her, since he noticed half of the book seemed to be written in already. He found it hard to believe since he wasn't one that would be able to write more then a page of anything let alone half a book.
"Well... I decided that I wanted to write the story of our adventures together. It'll begin from when I first joined the crew to the moment Luffy becomes King of the Pirates." It was being explained while the quill was moving across the pages. "Of course, I can't write it all as one book or I'll be impossible to carry, you know." A joke had been thrown in as Iris spoke. "That's why I decided to finish a book at the end of major events."
"Like?"
"Like from first meeting each other to leaving Nami's home island. Everything that happened in between I wrote down in a book already." It had then been when Iris began to explain how everything was happening. "Then I moved onto things that happened at my island all the way to arriving at Reverse Mountain. That became a second book. A third one was with Laboon and Whiskey Peak to the end of Little Garden. Then I got to a fourth book when Nami had gotten sick to when Chopper joined us." She had written a lot and it was impressive.
"Then I take it that there's the fifth starts from when we traveled across the desert and the war?" Zoro had pretty much understood what she was writing about now.
"Right!" He could see the spark in Iris' eyes as she had been speaking about this. "I won't ask you to read it."
"Why?" He was pretty shocked at her saying that.
"It's not that I think your stupid but you have difficulties with reading, right?" Although Zoro never once mentioned it, he was clearly shocked at hearing that Iris knew about this. "Remember when we first meet?" Of course he did, they all remembered. "I explained that I was really good at observing people, thanks to being an assassin. I read a lot of books about body language and human psychology to become like this. I notice things that many wouldn't." Even though he didn't exactly understand all of it, Zoro was reminded again about how amazing and beautiful Iris was. "Is something wrong?" Although, it seemed that she was a little dense to those types of things.
"Listen, I have something I want to say." Hearing this, Iris had placed the quill into the ink and leave it along side the book that was being written in. "This won't change anything between us as friends and crewmates even if you don't agree." Iris had come to stand up, waiting as she faced the man that seemed to be a little different then normal. "I'm not exactly good at this type of thing either, so I'll just say that I want to be more then friends." He had told her, which was a confused but Iris didn't seem to understand as she tilted her head to the side slightly. "What I'm saying is that..." Zoro was rubbing the back of his neck, clearly nervous. "...I'm in love with you." It was then when Iris just looked at him blankly as if she was still progressing what he had just told, however, once she seemed to have understood what he had said, Zoro's eyes widen as he watched her entire face had gone red in an instant.
"Y-Y-You can't just suddenly say those things!!" It had been a while since Iris had raised her voice but she was clearly stunned and confused about all this. "I-I-I mean that it's just s-so sudden! A-And I've never... I've never through about such a thing before!!" It was really clear that she was flustered which wasn't something that's been seen before. But it was after a bit when Iris began calming herself, although she was still slight red as she stood there. "Please... Please give me some time. I want to give you a sincere answer and I feel that as I am now I can't." She didn't know how to reply and honestly, something inside of her was saying to accept it. However, she knew that she needed to think about it for a while.
"That's fine..." And Zoro seemed quite pleased that she didn't flat out reject him. But there was a silence that hovered over them both.
"I-I think we should head back to the others." That was until Iris had broken it by saying that.
"Yeah, you're right." And the two of them headed to the room that the crew had been sleeping in since they arrived at the palace. It wasn't long before they entered... "Oh, Luffy, you're awake." Only to find their Captain had finally awoken after all this time.
"Lu, good morning." Iris pocked her head from behind the swordsman to get Luffy with a smile.
"Oh, Zoro! Iris! Long time no see!" He responded to them both, but then came to realise what he said. "Long time no see?" Then got puzzled as to why.
"Ah, HEY!" Chopper had suddenly shouted upon seeing Zoro walking over to a jug of water that he began to pour. "You better not have been out training again!"
"What? I can do what I want." The doctor had gotten it right as he ran towards Zoro shouting.
"No mean no! I'm a ships doctor! Don't take your bandages off." But it didn't seem to matter as Chopper's was being ignored.
"They make it hard to move."
"Then don't move!"
"Long time no see? Long time no see?" Luffy still seemed confused as to why he had said that earlier,
"Of course you would feel that way, Lu." Iris was walking over towards the confused rubber head. "You have been asleep for three days." It had been explained.
"Three days!? I was asleep for three days!?" It seemed that even he was surprised at this fact.
"That's right."
"I've missed 15 meals." Luffy had suddenly calculated that.
"Why are you so fast are calculating that!?" Nami asked him this, since he wasn't fast at math for anything else.
"And you counted five meals a day!" Usopp seemed to noted this.
"I though it would be more." Although, Iris had a different mind set on that.
"So the captain is awake?" The doors had suddenly bursted opened due to a large woman with curly blonde hair. She was wearing a dark red tunic, with a orange lining, that hasd a white stripe. Under her tunic was a light blue shirt with white buttons. "Dinner's in 30 minutes. Does he mind waiting?" The was asking as a man were pushing in a large crate of fruit into the room
"WHA-!?" Zoro was completely shocked upon seeing her.
"Oooh! The Old Tube Guy! You're alive!" Luffy was just as shocked at seeing her.
"I-I knew you were really into that kinda shit!" It seemed that both Luffy and Zoro had mistaken something.
"No, everyone! This is Terracotta. She's Igaram's wife and the Palace's top chef!" Vivi had been the onto to explained this.
You all took care of Princess Vivi and my husband!" But it was still a bit confusing since husband and wife looked so similar to each other.
"You're kidding me... a couple can only be so much alike..." Zoro noted how disturbingly similar she looks to Igaram.
"I've heard you eat a lot. Do you think you could snack on this fruit until dinner time?" The woman, Terracotta had asked as she was personally overseeing the banquet to thank Luffy and the other for rescuing Vivi and her husband. Having heard of Luffy's legendary appetite, she had brought the large amount fruit for Luffy to tide him over before dinner.
"Okay." However, he scarfed the entire lot in a split-second.
"WAS THAT SIME TRICK!?" Zoro and Sanji had both shouted this question as only Luffy would be able to do such a thing.
"Old Tube Lady, I'm gonna eat three days worth of food!" Luffy had come to inform her of this.
"I was hoping you'd say that! I've been a chef for 30 years! I won't lose to some youngster's stomach, so eat all you can!" And it seemed that Terracotta was looking forward to the challenge of feeding Luffy.

It wasn't long before the banquet had come and the Straw Hats had all moved to the hall where it was located. Other then them, the king, Igaram and Chaka had joined, sitting at the head of the table...
"Absolutely no manners..."
"The Grand Dinning Hall should be quieter than this!" As the palace guards were standing on the side watching in disbelief as the Straw Hats gorge themselves, but they had a reason.
"Eat fast or he'll-" Zoro was trying to tell the others as the reason for them eating as fast as they could was due to Luffy's bad habit of eating food off other people's plates. Even when it was on someone's fork. He had used his arms to send them across the table grabbing all and any food he could get.
"Dammit Luffy! You just took that off my plate!" Usopp stood on the table shouting at the Captain in anger.
"Don't stretch!" Nami, sitting beside Luffy punched him right in the face shouting.
"Oi, Oi, you shouldn't eat that fast!" Sanji was speaking to Chopper beside him, who was sucking down pasta.
"There's plenty more!" Vivi was holding onto a plant beside the doctor smiling.
"Take this, Luffy. My Supper Tabasco Star!" Usopp pulled out some sauce that he placed onto a ball of rice.
"You shouldn't be doing that." Iris was speaking beside him watching. But then not long after Luffy had grabbed it and placed it into his mouth. Moments later the boy was spiting out fire. Causing Usopp to laugh upon watching and he didn't seem to be the only one. "Oh my, Eyelashes." Iris noticed the caramel at the table laughing on the other side of Usopp.
"Where did you come from!?" Who had shouted that upon seeing Eyelashes stuffing his face beside him. The banquet continued on with more food being delivered,
"What do you call this dish?" Sanji started to get recipes from the servers.
"This is Kenafa. You put the noodles in the oven and..."
"Yummy! Iris, try this!" Nami was telling the woman across her.
"Alright." Which she dug into the dish that was being spoke of by the navigator. "Delicious!"
"Is it?" Iris had turned toward the one that had spoke, Zoro
"Y-Yeah..." but when they eyes met memories of before came back and they looked away.
"Here's the next course!" Even more food was brought out and before long it was pretty much gone.
"Owd man, youb da kigh? Ho, yo mas he Bibiz fad. Wight?" (Old man, you're the king? So, you must be Vivi's dad. Right?) Luffy was speaking with his mouth full and only just came to realise that the man he had saved was Vivi's father, the king.
"Well, we can just talk after dinner..." And with that being said Luffy stopped trying to talk and stuffed his face even more.
"Can I get some more beer here!?" Zoro called out holding out his mug.
"We need some water over here!" Sanji was panicked as he had a chocking Chopper beside him.
"What a boisterous meal..."
"I can't stand to watch... it's too disgusting!" The guards were all still unable to believe what was happening but the most shocking thing to them was Vivi who was laughing as she watched all this.
"I'm amazed Princess Vivi is able to laugh at all this..." however, soon even the guards couldn't help but laugh as the banquet gets even more raucous. It eventually involves the nose chopsticks. Everyone in the hall were laughing in enjoyment. However, there was something that Nami seemed to have noticed about the pair were sitting across from her. The were being a bit odd towards each other. They glanced towards one another but then as soon as their eyes meet they turned red slightly red before looking away. A smirk came across her face.
"Hmm... I see."