There were days when Chopper questioned his sanity. Nearly all of them involved Zoro.
“Zoro! Why are your bandages off?!” Chopper cried.
Zoro’s bare torso was bisected by sutures that ran from sternum to navel – tiny stitches Chopper had spent close to an hour placing to ensure a nearly invisible scar and keep the wound closed when Zoro inevitably started popping them from working out too soon.
“Had to take it off to bathe.” Zoro sounded almost proud of himself for the excuse.
Chopper knew for a fact that Zoro only bathed on alternate Tuesdays. He thought a dip in the ocean worked just as well, and he had to do that anyway every time Luffy fell overboard accidentally on purpose. Sanji was the only one who could get him to bathe more regularly, though it was never on anything resembling a schedule.
Sanji, himself, took an inordinate number of baths, even more than Nami. Chopper suspected he was trying to hide the smell from his cigarettes. Chopper hated to tell him that all his scented shampoos and colognes did nothing in that regard. He really should quit smoking. It was bad for him, even if his lungs did somewhat repair themselves now. Maybe it was time for another lecture. Chopper had some new sketches he’d been working on about the negative effects of smoking, and he’d made sure to tailor the presentation toward how smoking made someone less attractive to women in hopes of enticing Sanji to quit.
But Sanji was his own case study in psychological and physiological problems, and Chopper had Zoro to deal with right now.
“You weren’t supposed to get the stitches wet,” Chopper said. “And I already bathed you while you were unconscious.”
Zoro’s smug expression disappeared. Then he reached out and patted Chopper on the head. “You did such a good job, too. You’re an excellent doctor.”
Chopper knew Zoro was buttering him up to get out of trouble. He should have stayed stern and firm, but his body already wanted to dance, and holding it back was getting harder by the second. “Don’t say such nice things to me, asshole!”
He danced and clapped and blushed anyway. At least he got the “asshole” out.
Living with Dr. Hiriluk and Kureha hadn’t really prepared Chopper for living with humans and half-humans. People were much more complicated than his studies had led him to believe – socially and emotionally, anyway. There were intricacies in what they did, what they said – or didn’t say – and how they interacted with one another, and especially how they interacted with him. Mostly by acting as though absolutely nothing was wrong when something very obviously was.
Zoro was the worst. He could have blood gushing from his body or his guts falling out and he’d just shrug it off with an “I’m fine.” Then he’d be unconscious for days because he was very much not fine, and Chopper would have his work cut out for him.
Sanji was just as bad. “I’m fine,” he’d say while looking like a crumpled accordion. His body modifications meant he didn’t get as hurt as he once did, but still! He was not fine!
“I’m alright,” Robin would reassure Chopper, calmly soothing him as if he were the one with a sword sticking out of his shoulder instead of her.
“It’s nothing that can’t wait,” Jinbe would tell him with his face swollen to the point he couldn’t see.
“Nothing some milk won’t fix!” Brook would chatter as another tooth fell out, his skull resting atop a partially disassembled pile of bones.
Nami would set her jaw, glare at the wall, and lie through her teeth. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Franky would wave a detached leg at him. “All’s super, little doc-bro! Nothing a few screws won’t fix.” Which was actually true in Franky’s case, and Chopper worried less about his injuries and more about how tight he wore his speedos if he wanted children in the future.
“I’m dying!” Usopp would wail, the complete opposite of the others, though none of it was true. “I have sepsis, and internal bleeding, and arthritis, and gangrene, and a hernia, and this paper cut.”
At least Luffy had the decency to be unconscious before he arrived in Chopper’s infirmary.
Chopper suspected there was a competition among the crew to see who could pretend to be the least hurt. His fur bristled whenever one of them brushed off the severity of their injuries. He had eyes! And a nose! And he was a doctor!
He’d written to Kureha once, early on, to ask if this was normal behavior. She’d written back: Don’t ask stupid questions. Just hogtie them to the bed.
Chopper hadn’t resorted to hogtying – yet. But he was getting closer every time Zoro did something medically dumb.
“Zoro! Your foot won’t heal if you’re skipping rope!” Chopper wailed, flailing at the swordsman as he jumped up and down in a cast on the upper deck.
“Impact exercise strengthens bones,” Zoro grunted as his cast thumped against the deck again.
“Not when it’s broken!”
Sanji appeared at Chopper’s shoulder, holding out a cotton candy-flavored drink. “Bet the idiot’s just jealous of my perfectly functional feet.”
Zoro glowered at Sanji. “Can still kick your ass in a cast, cook.”
Sanji deposited a tall cucumber-lime drink on the deck near Zoro. “You can’t even scratch an itch in it without swiping one of my wooden skewers.”
“Zoro! You’re scratching inside your cast with a skewer?!” Chopper exclaimed.
“It itches,” Zoro said without remorse.
“It could break! Or cut you! Or you could get a splinter, and it could get infected!”
“Yeah, marimo. You could get infected.” Sanji smirked at Zoro before walking toward the library with the remaining drink on his tray.
The second the door closed, Zoro started jumping faster and harder.
Chopper flailed so violently his drink sloshed over his hoof. “Zoro! Stop jumping!”
He couldn’t say life with the Straw Hat crew was boring. He would have preferred a little less fighting for his life and more time searching for medicines and techniques to add to his encyclopedia of knowledge. He’d run into a few new and noteworthy things, though, including Miyagi’s recovery drug on Wano and the plant spores that removed moles of both the animal and dermal varieties.
Hanahaki disease was new to Chopper, too, until Zoro came down with a cough that he tried to hide, then passed off as allergies.
“You’re not allergic to anything but milk,” Chopper pointed out.
“A cold, then.” Zoro brushed him off. “I’m fine.”
Zoro was not fine. Especially when he started coughing up entire bloody spikes of flowers.
“Wah! Zoro! Why are you coughing flowers?” Chopper cried when he found him in the men’s quarters surrounded by a fallow of flowering perennials. “Someone call a doctor!”
“You’re the doctor,” Zoro pointed out between one expulsion of bloody flowers and the next.
“Oh, that’s right!” Chopper hustled Zoro out of the men’s quarters and up to the infirmary, leaving a trail of petals in their wake.
One thorough examination, a lot of fretting, and a ton of research in his medical texts later, Chopper finally diagnosed Zoro – who had escaped the second Chopper’s back was turned, forcing Chopper to hunt him down in the crow’s nest.
Chopper watched Zoro lift weights between hacking, body-wrenching coughs and wondered if it would be ethical to tranquilize him. Then he shook his head and waved his hooves. “Stop weightlifting while you’re dying!”
Zoro paused between reps, his feet surrounded by a field of fetid flowers. “That bad, huh?”
“Yes! You have hanahaki disease. It’s fatal if we don’t do something about it.”
Zoro’s weights clanked against the floor as he set them down. He coughed up another bloody spike with a scowl. “Not gonna die from some stupid flowers.”
“Come with me back to the infirmary so I can explain your options,” Chopper told him. Mostly because if they stayed in the crow’s nest, Zoro would start lifting again and Chopper might cry.
Once they were behind the closed door of the infirmary, with Zoro perched on the edge of the bed and his arms wrapped around a bucket to expel perennial spikes into, Chopper explained the details.
“Hanahaki disease is a fatal disease caused by unrequited love. You have three options: you can tell the object of your affection and hope they return your feelings; you can have surgery to remove the diseased growth, but then you’ll permanently erase your feelings for that person. It may also remove your memories of your former beloved or your ability to ever love again. The third option is to die – and I don’t want you to die!”
Chopper spent a few minutes sobbing in Zoro’s arms while Zoro petted and comforted him. Then he gathered himself with a hard sniff and wiped his eyes. He straightened his hat and asked, “So, what do you want to do?”
Zoro stood immediately, went to the door, and opened it. “Aho-cook,” he called across the galley. “I’m in love with you.”
Sanji stopped whisking, cigarette smoke curling overhead. “You couldn’t have announced this while I wasn’t trying to keep a hollandaise from breaking?”
“Chopper says I’m dying of some flower-puking disease because of you.”
“That’s likely the most romantic thing you’ll ever say to me,” Sanji said, shaking his head.
Zoro frowned. “That mean I can stop dying now?”
“Yes, dumbass. You can stop dying now.”
“Okay. Good.” Zoro closed the door again and turned to Chopper. “Am I cured?”
Chopper put a hoof to his forehead and sighed. “Knowing you two, probably. Sit down so I can listen to your lungs.”
He doubted he would ever understand the mating rituals of humans.
Chopper had just finished confirming that Zoro’s lungs already sounded like they were clearing up, when Zoro stood and reached for the door again. “Where are you going?”
“Back to training.”
“You’re still coughing up blood and flowers!”
“I’m fine,” Zoro said, and strode out of the infirmary, leaving Chopper to stare after him.
There were days Chopper questioned his sanity.
Pretty much all of them involved Zoro.
End