Chapter Text
A dish slips from Sanji's soap hands and buttered fingers when his eardrums explodes with Luffy's strident voice, as if the captain has been yelling in his ears instead of outside the kitchen while sitting upright in his swimming float and playing some new way of tag with Chopper.
Franky had enforced a sun bathing day, together with an actual bath, powered by his inflatable pool and supplied by his water hose by means of providing a good, enriched and safe environment for the hyperactive ball plague that was their captain, an experiment that was doomed, as Sanji colloquially put in his answer, "and prayers, i don't know what you expect" for the “thoughts?” question Franky had inquired a few hours ago.
Mostly, Sanji was all out for a ladies day full of bikini tops and small tongs and sunbathing. The possibility of a day with him working as their cheerful waiter was the cherry on top. May God protect him from his curious and traitorous eyes and overwhelming height on them while they're sitting to accidentally stare at the, ahem, ahem, twins of the girls, as a gentleman, there would be no bigger shame. But, in this case, the lack of said summer clothes in the actual small sized female portion of the crew, meant that his position on the matter was overwhelmingly against it. Against his best wishes, Franky immediately put himself aside to conclude his asinine summer project, and in a sum of a few hours, put down a overexcited Luffy and a equally joyful Chopper by the poolside in children's anti drowning t shirts.
Sanji grabs both ends of the metal sink, putting himself together after the major assault in his eardrums. The voice of his comrades outside do nothing to prove all his worst fears wrong: Luffy had, somehow, magically found himself drowning in a children’s pool. His Captain found fit to prove the saying “doesn't matter how deep the water is when you’re drowning”, of course, the saying having an actual deeper and profounder meaning, in contrast to Luffy’s water pool.
“I’m gonna dieeeeeeeeeee,” his captain’s voice cut the non silence around him, Chopper crying in despair and begging for help _and_ a doctor, as if the man was really on the verge of dying and he wasn’t a shitty doctor, instead of the opposite.
“For fucks’s sake, Luffy!” Nami yells in a maniac motion.
Sanji doesn’t have to be outside, or even look outside his window, to know that Nami was hauling one of the four Emperors of the Grand Line by the ear. Maybe it had to with Nami’s cavalier atitude of screaming “stop stretching your ears, i’ll kill you goddammit,” in her overly casual and gently manner while she makes one of the most powerful man on the sea yelp and whine like a cry baby. Or maybe it has to do with the green phantom pleco complaining out loud about a “sea witch” and her “devil ways”.
Sanji left Wano with his heart pumping blood on his chest on a ratio he was pretty sure it was not possible, and for sure, quite unhealthy. Not that Chopper could ever know that. The fight against Queen — and Sanji was still sore that Queen was a man, instead of beautiful and lovely lady, even if that surely meant Sanji's demise — had left him with more questions and philosophical conumdrums than average. Since you're facing life and death in a fight, some character study ends up happening without you wanting or not, but Sanji wasn't expecting his whole worldview to collapse while he tries to pick up his scraps.
Something had changed in Sanji after Wano. His body wasn't the same, and Sanji had spent some hours tucked away on the kitchen and hiding away at night to perform some experiments. If he puts his hand on boiling water, he could not feel anything. Maybe a slight warmth, but nothing more. He tried to make a small cut on his finger, like if mimicking a cut by accident like he was a twelve year old again, an experience that may happen on the kitchen regardless of your prowess, except him, still, but wasn't successful. So, in a crazy fit of despair, he tried to chopped off his finger, which ended up ruining on of his kitchen knives. He still had to buy a new one. He wasn't sure if he was grateful for that or otherwise horrified with the results of his chopping accident.
He remembers Reiju folding bars like were soap, Sanji punching his brothers and hurting his knuckles and breaking bones instead, and Sanji retracts upon himself more and more as each experiment passes. He likes to think he crew doesn't take notice, but he can hear the whispers behind him and he can notice the fidgety air the crew have around him.
Alas, besides the forced body modification he was apparently going through, he has other motives to avoid the crew outside meal time: Zoro.
Zoro was a pest. Like a fungus that conquered the whole specimen and now the host was doomed to die or something. A fucking bacteria that one could not escape of, with his wandering and judgy eyes, as if he could fucking see your shitty soul.
Then, other times, Zoro seemed to be a slug. As if he had no functioning brain cells and spent most of his time existing, his mind wandering through the mystery of the unknown. You would look at him and see the embodiment of no thoughts, head empty. Sanji didn't know a person could be so disconnected from reality before staring Zoro's monolids eyes.
Luffy was a case apart. He was more like a distracting himself with a butterfly flying human being than a staring at nothing and not existing for fifteen minutes like Zoro.
Zoro wasn't a novelty. There was nothing good or exciting about Zoro. He was like a chair on the scenario: you knew it was there, but you didn't care enough for it.
Except that the week before they left Wano, on one of the last commemorations they went through - they went through many festivities. The longest one had been on an island that decided to dedicate a whole month to Luffy after they saved the village from oppression and Nazi pirates, two years ago. That was certainly a crazy time - and Sanji made an effort to actually participate. He was used to cooking and serving, not being on the other end of the spectrum. Regardless, as much as he wanted to prance around with girls, his duty as a cook might have sent him into a food frenzy, so much so that he went to hundreds of stalls to sample the local cuisine. Which, of course, wasn't a problem. He was even able to ignore his current hey-body-changes-that-aren't-puberty situation and let the problem to future Sanji deal with - current Sanji hated that guy - and have some fun. Drunk fun. Let future Sanji deal with the details. Current Sanji hated that guy. If he went to sleep earlier, none of his Zoro's related problems would've happen.
So eventually, when he finally got to meet a lovely lady, a wonderful woman with big green eyes, smooth tanned skin and silky green hair, he may have fallen in love and made a fool of himself.
"I would throw myself on the pits of hell if that meant I could stare at your brightening eyes once more," he remarks, passionately. He hoped his breath didn't smell like wine, despite his tongue bathing in it not a long time ago.
"Aren't you a smooth talker," he had both of his hands on top of hers, holding her like a lifeline, both sitting on a yakuniku place side by side, their sides touching the counter.
If he left those hands, lives would be lost and histories would never be told. Their future children would be non-existent, and Sanji wouldn't have a mini miniature version of that beautiful lady calling him papa, a little girl laughing and hugging his leg, while Sanji cooked a birthday cake or something, and the gorgeous lady stayed at the table, eyeing their beautiful family.
"I would never, miss," he smiles. "Your eyes shine brighter than the moon."
"If you weren't so drunk, I might have considered," there was a slight flush of color at the tip of her nose and on the sides of her cheeks.
"Your beauty has inebriated me," he muses, kissing the top of her hands. He was ninety percent sure it was her skin and not his own hand. He was too drunk too care.
"Really? Are you sure it was that and not the bottle of white wine I just watched you drink?" she said amusedly.
That and the unknown quantity of liquor Sanji may have ingested while tasting the food during the whole day.
Sanji watch her lips move in a tunefull melody, barely being able to hear the words out of her mouth. He could pick up lip reading. It seemed like such a useful skill. Not only he could actually understand people without shaming himself and make them repeat themselves over and over again, but he could stare at the ladies mouth without seeming like a pervert. A win-win situation.
The place around them was full. The straw hat crew was at a nearby table, but Sanji only had eyes for the woman before him. He touches her tanned hand, watching her blush even more. He got closer to her, enough to whisper on her ear, “I understand Morpheus' sin when I look at your soft skin, your beautiful hair and your plump lips. I too wouldn't be able to restrain myself for a second and would look back if I knew that I could see your marble face again.”
She giggles.
"Okay, okay, Mr. Enchanted Prince," she pursed her lips in a smile, separating their hands slowly. Sanji pouts. "Cute. Find me again when you're not so drunk. I might not even charge you."
Sanji feels his heart race as he watches her leave. "I love you," he yelled. "I'm sure we're soulmates. You should take me more seriously!"
She waves with her back turn and heads towards the unknown. "I'm gonna marry you someday! This is happening."
He hears her laugh, and that's that.
There's a whole commotion behind him, but Sanji is now heartbroken and has no intention of participating in whatever fight might break out. Not his circus, not his monkeys.
Sanji puts an elbow on the counter, while supports his head on his right hand. He could feel a hangover from a mile away, and the night wasn't even finished yet. He should not have drank that much wine. But he got distracted talking with the bartender, a gorgeous lady with a ponytail and a scar over her eye. A beautiful woman should never have a scar on her face. Sanji offered to kill whoever did that, and secured her she deserved everything good in the world and he wish he could be the man that would offer her that. She flirted a little, mostly filled his cup with an expensive wine, and when he least noticed, bam, a whole bottle was gone. Maybe more than one, he wasn't really sure. Then a gorgeous miss sit next to him, the bartender got to serve a new client and Sanji is in love once more.
Regardless, his night was now ruined and he was not staying in a beautiful lady's house, or a nearby - but still romantic - motel room.
"This piece of meat is mine!!!!" a voice yelled across the place, sauntering around and fucking off everyone's shitty eardrums.
Not his circus, not his monkeys. Though that voice did sound-
"Luffy, please, don't--" but before Nami could even conclude her phrase, Luffy had punched a man twice his size and then ate a big, juicy piece of meat in front on said victim.
His circus, his monkeys. His circus, his monkeys.
Sanji pockets his cigarettes and light. He lights his cigarette, put between his lips and inhale the smoke. Fuck. Nothing beats the rush of drinking and smoking a cigarette afterwards. Sanji immedietaly put his hands on his trousers pockets, preparing to fight. He approached the table, cigar in his mouth, closed off expression, and watches the guy that was bullying his captain.
"Hey." He says, waiting for the big oaf to turn around.
"Me?" The man raises his eyebrows.
The moment the man stares at him, Sanji has his leg up in a standing split and kicks him on the chin, the impact throwing the man out of the place, while some people yell around them.
After that, it doesn't take too long to become a brawl. It takes even less so to finish it. Then they are kicked out of the yakuniku, carefully dragged to the middle of the street by what appeared to be security guards, the other shops stared at them and immediately closed their doors and windows.
Nami sighs. She takes both hands to stroke her temples, taking some time to recompose herself. When Sanji is ready to dancily praunce around her, she closes off her hand onto a fist and punches both him and Luffy. Then they are nursing what will become a bump on their heads.
"I've got to escort this creature to his room and find Brook and Chopper. Robin, Jimbei, Usopp and Franky are at the ship already, and as always, Zoro went no contact. "
"Maybe he got lost in a turf," Sanji theorizes, hopefully.
"Great. So that's the reason why you're the one who'll look for him." She smiles forcibly at him.
"What? Nami dear, I--"
"Sanji. You annoyed me enough today. Are you sure you're gonna do that again?"
A wide-eyed Sanji lowers his head, one hand on the back of his head scratching his hair. “I'm sorry, Nami swan.”
"Go find him. NOW."
So Sanji found himself with the allegedly innocuous task of locate a non-local turf between the green. He had a good observation haki, but he was too drunk to focus and actually make it work. He still have the den den mushi he used to communicate to Zoro, but as always, useless moss head didn't have it with him, something that Sanji gathered the moment he heard the high pitched voice of Chopper crying asking where they were, when they would come back, and is Zoro in an alcoholic coma yet and if he is Sanji should- He feels Zoro's presence maybe some meters down. He sighs. Shitty marimo could't even have the decency to get lost further away. No. He had to make Sanji find him in minutes and not escape his task at all. He still had to herd the moss ball to the ship.
Fuuuuuuck. Sanji is there in minutes walking through the steepest street. Sanji was too distracted to notice he was getting closer to a back alley, and the stalls were further away from that space, leaving the place unusually private. When he goes to the alley to tell Zoro to hurry the fuck up he saw a image that knitted itself on the inside of his eyelids. Zoro was grabbing a guy's collar, too close to comfort, like he usually gets, especially with Sanji and his habit to butt heads. Sanji, as a nice crewmate, prepare to warn him off his presence, maybe kick some low-life thief before herding his sheep back to the ship, like a over enthusiastic border collie, crouching down, butt up, pretending invisibility and then jumping into herding. He hears a deep voice, mumbling something he can't her and a familiar accent he can't place. Then Zoro smash his lips with the man's ones, the the man's hand goes to Zoro's nape, kissing sounds all around him, Sanji opens his mouth in surprise, an eternal vowel, the deep O, mouth open in shock, watching Zoro, the scene makes him feel nauseous and feel some weight drop to the bottom of his stomach, though that also can be all the amount of alcohol that he drank. Sanji blinks, confusedly watching a Zoro, the proudest man he ever known, drop to his knees. Except he can hear a zip opening and- nope, he's out of here.
Sanji immediately turns around, look at the street in front of him and decides the best approach is get the fuck out of here. So he starts running, except he is on the steepest street in the world, so Sanji founds himself on all fours at some point clawing the tarmarc as if his live depends on it, to barely climb to the middle of the thing after what feel like days of battle. Some time later he would be back on the ship saying he couldn't found moss head. He hoped and yearned, oh god. And that was that. He may have ignored and, um, not looked said moss head in the eye for the past two weeks, but who's counting? Not him. When he got to the ship, he had more pressing matters, like his eventual demise by execution due to body changes that make him a freak, or the equivalent of a chrysalis to a butterfly, except in this case it's more like a normal person to a monster that eats children. So between the forced body modification and Zoro not known romantic inclinations as he's apparently into sucking and not eating out, the world was not the same anymore.
Said moment has been on his mind for weeks. The past okamaland memories go through his mind as a bee buzzing on his ear, and he's this close to have a panic attack, already prepping to shove his head between his knees before a waterfall of anxiety washes over him. To think there was someone like that so close to him. So Zoro was that. Like that. Sanji can't take his mind of it. Sanji imagines that is the novelty of it. It's a huge discovery that the local life plant can reproduce and actually wants to, so it's normal that he was a bit shocked by it. A bit shocked meaning figuratively sucker punched and he was still with a purple eye from the surprise. Fortunately, not literally. He did scratch his elbows during the crawling though - except his Vinshitty factor, that's how he's calling it, immediately healed the thing after a few minutes.
So. Maybe Sanji had some concerns, and more pressing matters to attend. So, Zoro's routine disrespect for girls wasn't a top priority at the moment. Still, maybe if Sanji didn’t have his hands full, both literally and metaphorically, he would kick the moss head’s teeth in. Nami dear was a lady that deserved the proper respect, and it pissed him off that he would refer to her in such a vulgar manner. Their navigator as more of a sea goddess than a sea witch. His soap hands went on scrubbing the fallen plates, noticing in a glowy manner that the porcelain hadn’t crack.
Of course, not that dear Nami needed him interfering in the first place. Like music to his ears, Sanji hears a punch being thrown and never felt more enammoured with the woman. Women that could kick his ass, that was his type.
Or weak damsels that demanded to be protected.
Sanji was a man of many tastes. Most of them inborn.
Which is why, when he put his feet into the new island they had docked, a small round strip of land inside the nameless patch of sea and land they were into, Sanji felt weaken in his knees when he heard the sentence:
“Zoro will be coming with Robin and me, Sanji with Luffy, Usopp with Chopper while Brook, Jimbei and Franky watch the ship. We’ll meet here after we’re done.”
He felt his vision weakening, darkness this close to consuming him and taking him to it’s black insides. He begs, begs for love. “Why, Nami dear? I would love to go with you, so why don’t we leave the direction challenged green one behind while I fulfill his duties and help you out?”
Why not avoid to show said moss head to the public eye? God knows what he would do in the meantime this time. Zoro could be a lot of muscle, but not a lot of brain. No he's not jealous who's saying that. “Zoro can carry more bags. Sorry, Sanji.” Nami said, despite not seeming to be feeling sorry at all.
“Fuck that, I’m not going to be your pack mule. Take the bozo with you, I’m gonna stay behind to protect the ship.”
“Who the fuck you are calling bozo?” He felt a vein in his forehead throb and was pissed enough to stare at the residencial live plant. He hated that guy.
Nhe nhe, I'm Roronoa Zoro, the pirate hunter, I pirate hunt, except I probably only started doing that by accident cause I'm too dumb to rub two braincells together. Sanji exhales smokes, nicotine flowing through his veins. Come, sugar, come. He needed that patience.
“Oh, you’re right. I guess you prefer number four now.” Zoro looked at him, crossed arms and lips curving in a challenging smile. That’s the most the numb skull had said to him in a while, because of, again, hem hem, avoidance, hem, hem, reasons. Sanji’s eye twitched.
Sanji was on top of him in a matter of seconds, his legs covered in his new clean black slacks up in the air this close to break Zoro’s skull. Except the moss head had some instincts and was quick enough to counter Sanji’s attack with both of his swords in a perpendicular motion, surprisingly not getting on his knees with the strength of the attack.
What. That's a totally normal and regular way to put things into perspective, Sanji muses. He does not imagine Zoro on his knees, except he does, and he's kicking the shit out of him once more, as per his ever fantasy. Fucking Zoro for ruining this for him. He couldn't even dream about having him on his, shudders, knees, after that. In a normal, regular way, I'm-Better-Than-You-And-Will-Kick-You-Way. What a waste. But Sanji persevere. Zoro was going on his knees for him. Not like that. Now that's awkward.
“Enough, you two! We’re staying only to fill the food stock and Chopper’s meds. So go, now!” Nami yelled in a annoyed manner, and with a shove, she forced both Sanji and Luffy in the direction of the food stalls and markets.
Sanji mumbles. “I can’t believe this.”
Luffy watches their friends walk away. ”Neither do I. This is so boooooooooring.”
“No! I mean Zoro.”
“What about Zoro?” Luffy asked, a finger up his nose.
“He is an algae plant infesting the ship, and if that’s not enough for you, I can’t even,” he complained. “And now he is to steal the woman of my dreams!”
“You say every woman is the woman of your dreams.” Luffy muttered.
"I have a lot of dreams! And most of them are about women. Apart from the one where I have the body of a crab,” he remembers, looking wistfully at both of his hands. “The pincers are not fit to cook. I keep trying to hold the macaroni, and it keeps flowing from me. And then I try again, and all I can do is cut the shitty macaroni over and over until there’s nothing left. Like my romantic life. All gone and done for.” He scowls. Maybe that dream was onto something. To each their own, to think his brain would translate his romantic failures to cooking metaphors.
“I’m hungry. Let’s buy some food. Saaaaaaaaanji.” Luffy whines bouncing on the sole of his feet, as the ball energy he is.
He sighs. “Shitty captain… alright, alright. Let’s go.”
“Come around, come around! Can I interest you in these fresh apples? It’s the good stuff!” A voice dances in the air, a man with a mustache waving with calling motions to Sanji and Luffy. “Don’t listen to him, buy mine! I have the best apples. Three for ten berries.” A man with a goatee pushes the other, now getting into Sanji face as well. “Then I do four for ten.” The mustache forces his lips in a big smile, both hands crossed as in a prayer. “Fuck you, Gary!” The goatee man gets into the mustache’s face, both faces closes to each other, noses almost touching while goatee man’s finger nudges the shoulder of Mustache’s. “No one care about your damn apples, Stu!”
“This client is a man of culture! No one care about your goatee, you damn goat!”
”Shut the fuck up, you mustache mule!”
Both men start a brawl, and the stallholders around them keep whistling and making bets on which one would win the client for the day. An old fat lad murmur something about the cutting sexual tension, and Sanji never wanted to know less about a situation ever, so he forces a curious and overexcited Luffy already into a mid battlecry away from the stalls.
Elbows deep In the middle of the fair Sanji nudges Luffy along with a hold on the back of his neck, like a mom herding it’s kittens. Close to the end of the stalls, an antique shop calls Luffy’s attention like a jingle of keys. Luffy push his face into the glass, his nose and cheeks squished against the window. Inside the shop, a small old lady is knitting a sweater in a rocking chair while humming a familiar song.
“I’m going to deliver Binks’ Brew… We are pirates, dividing the seas… The waves are our pillows, the ship is our roost. Flying the proud skull on our sails and flags.” Her voice was scratchy, as if she didn’t used it for a long time.
Luffy looked up suddenly, now facing the old lady. He immediately ran to the inside of the store, hand on his straw hat, escaping Sanji.
“Owwww grammy! Do you know that song too? I thought it was only known by pirates!”
The old lady reacts without raising her head, quickly throwing her knitting needles in the direction of Luffy’s head, both ending up in the door behind Luffy, that Sanji just went through and let it close behind him. Sanji widened his eyes, noticing the needles close by ear. When he looked at his captain, he had just desviated his head, the needle this close to drill into his face. A drop of blood drips from Luffy’s cheek, a superficial scratch. Luffy diverted, but not quick enough to avoid the totality of the attack.
“Who’s there? Marines? I told you I don’t do business with the governament! Marines these days, can’t even let a poor old lady live her retirement years in peace!”
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy. I’m a pirate. Nice to meet you!”
Sanji slaps his forehead. Now a dangerous individual knew how they were. Granted, the individual was a blind old lady that had a cat purring in her lap, but still. Nami had insisted they lay low after Wano, drilled into them night after night until they got in any island.
“Ruffles? I don’t know any Ruffles.”
“Lu-ffy! Luffy!”
“Ruffy, I don’t do business with pirates either.”
“So who do you do business with? Townsfolk?” Sanji asked, his hands fumbling with his lighter while he held a cigarette between his dry lips. Luffy and his capacity to spike one’s anxiety. “Not too much clientele then, this is a small town.”
“The townsfolk don’t come near here. And put that cigarette out in my store, boy.”
Sanji stops mid-lightning, wide-eyed. How did she know? He hasn't even lightened yet.
“Why? There’s a curse or something?? When? Where? Tell me all about it, grams.”
“Oh, I see. So you’re an adventurer, huh?”
“No, I already told you, I’m a pira—” Sanji steps on his foot with all his strength. Luffy yells in pain, jumping on one while holding the other, moaning out loud. “That hurt, Sanji!”
“Stop the fussing, boy, I know you’re both pirates. Haven’t seen a haki this great in years…”
“You know what haki is?” Sanji asked, surprised.
“Of course I know what haki is, you imbecile! What do you take me for? I won’t tolerate disrespect from a pirate that isn’t at least seven decades in the sea!”
“Who the fuck lives that long? White beard?” Sanji complains.
“So you were a pirate, grammy? You were? You were? Tell me!”
“Stop the over excitement, I’m too old for this happily aura. Tone down a bit.”
Understandable. Have a great day, Sanji wants to say and push his captain by his annoying arm, but Luffy cuts him off before that.
“What’s your pirate name? It’s Goldie? Because you're old? And a gramma?”
Sanji is prepared to get stabbed by a dangerous ninety year old lady or something. A lady's age is not to be revealed. A desperate yell is heard out the store, a man with both hands in his bald head, as if he is holding into any hair he has left so it doesn’t leave. He invades the store, immediately graps both Sanji’s and Luffy’s neck and start apologizing.
“I’m so sorry, ma’m, I’m so sorry, they are tourists, they don’t know any better!”
What is happening right now? Sanji muses in a frown face.
The lady let out a loud laugh, shoulders trembling and mouth full open, she wheezes.
“Simon! So here you are, boy! You told me you were bringing me dinner. It’s already past lunch time.”
The man is eye wided, mouth open in shock, as if he just remembered his misgivings. “Right away, ma’m. I’ll just take these two gentleman outside.”
“Hey! I want to hear the old lady's history!” Luffy complains, while the man, accusedly Simon, forces them both out the store.
When they are miles away from the store, the man finally breaths. He is breathless and folded while he hold his everything onto his knees.
Luffy fold his arms, in a grimace.
“What’d you do that for? I wanted to know her story!”
“Shhhhh! Are you insane? No one can bother beauty gramms and get out alive! Last man that went into that store, Achilles, oh what a brave man, died with a knitting needle in his heel. Oh, poor man, indeed.”
“She had already threw those! I’m going back—”
“Did you survive the needle attack? Hey, Wait!” He holds Luffy by his hem. “I said wait, you pig!”
“Hah? Who do you think you’re calling—”
“That woman is Maria Bonita, a famous bandit! It’s not wise to bother her. She has fits and attacks people. You’re lucky she wasn’t in one of those.”
“She has fits? Like what? She throw tantrums?” Sanji asked.
“It’s complicated. Her son escaped the Island a few years ago with her family treasure, but it was stolen by pirates. Rumour has it he was executed by the thief on a island nearby. When she hears about pirates and remind about her old times and her lost son, she throw fits. Do you see?” he pointed around her store. “There’s no stores or houses in a one kilometer base. Why do you think that is?”
“No material to build,” Sanji said.
“You are cowards,” Luffy answered.
“We’re not— okay maybe we are, but hear me out.”
“No, I’m tired of hearing this coward conversation. I’m going to talk to the old lady, she is ten times funnier then you.”
The man had balls, at least Sanji thought so, as he threw hands and tried to punch Luffy in the face, just to Luffy avoid the attack without even stepping aside, barely moving at all.
The man fall on his knees, and it’s already breathless.
“You don’t know anything about grandma! She suffered enough! No pirates should be bothering her anymore!” He punches the terrain under his hands, anguished. “Curse be La Blanca lady!”
“Blanca??” Luffy asks.
"Lady?" Sanji asks at the same time.
The man closes his eyes, anguished. His expression shifts to one of determination. “Do you pirates even know where you are right know?”
“A small island in the New World?” Luffy says.
The man look at him as if he is stupid.
“No. This is Mako Island, the island with the infamous port, Tolo harbor.”
“Mako Island is in a rough patch of sea close to the Calm Belt. I have no idea how we ended up here following the log pose.” Robin said, in her infinite brunette beauty and wisdom.
Later that day, when he was prepping for dinner after the crew’s late lunch, Luffy mentioned what they head deep into the small town to Robin, and the archaeologist immediately got into a thoughtful aura around her. She then sent Franky into the library with overespecifics instructions in how to find a particular book.
“I thought the sea current was weird, but didn’t think we would end up that far. I guess it’s not a problem, since we had to restock food anyway.” Nami answered, taking the seat besides Robin and crossing her arms over the table, her chest in contact with the wood table and Sanji never wanted more than be an inanimated object in his life. Maybe he could turn into a table if he was lucky enough. For sure there was crazier devil fruits out there.
“It’s famous for leading ships into circles around the islands.” Robin kept turning the pages occasionaly licking the tip of her fingers. Sanji was also fine being a book.
“Islands?” Nami inquired, her breasts even closer to the table. Oh, to be a tree that is cut down to make a table that have beautiful women on top of it. What that wood could see... he had wood as well, mostly in the mornings.
“It’s an archipelago. You might have heard of it under other names, like ‘twins archipelago’, ‘twins islands’ or, as it’s popularly known, ‘bazoomba island’.” Sanji eyes were stuck on Robin’s lips, his mind replaying over and over, dear Robin sweet lips pronouncing “bazoomba”.
“Bazoo— WHAT?” Brook yelped while tuning his violin, getting an octave high off. Sanji could relate.
“Bazooka? That sounds fun,” Luffy said, chewing the doughnuts Sanji had brought earlier for Nami, who unfortunately decided to throw to the human garbage can, cause she was getting too ‘fat’ because of Sanji’s "over feeding" her because of his "moods."
Unfair, because Sanji wasn't moody. Sanji was fine. Perfectly fine. Zoro, on other hand… Zoro was a moody bitch. Zoro was sullen. Zoro was nasty. Zoro was drinking a cup of water and had been dropping said beverage out his mouth like a heaten, water drops sliding through the hollow of his throat, and when he finishes, put the cup onto the table, licks his lips to wet them with saliva and drink remanescent water drops and pass his hand throughout his mouth as if to clean. Sanji had no idea why the man was that seriously lately. He was already different when they entered the New World, and no one calls him on it. Sanji bakes three dozens of cupcakes one day and is asked if everything's okay by five different crew members. The unfairness of it all.
And he was fine. He may turn into a heartless monster in a few years, or even months, because of gene manipulation apparently awaking, but that's was neither here or there. Maybe his efforts all along to become stronger were worthless since he was apparently physically gifted all along, dormant but there, preying on him. Maybe not like his brothers but still a non-human too strong freak, a experimented one at that, not one like it made itself like Zoro, but he was fine. Really. He could even say it out loud and his voice wouldn't even crack. Maybe biding Zeff's morals and thinking he got strong because of that wasn't the reality of things. Maybe Zoro was right and he was a fourth placer. Maybe he did not deserve to get here. Maybe he's a failure, a impostor, but psst, who cares about that? His murderer of a father may have kidnapped him for his own nefarious purposes making it clear that no matter what, no matter how long it passes, how far for he runs, he can’t outrun them if they want something from him, but, again, he was fine. Great, even. Zoro on back alleys on other hand- okay, no, not going there. Impostor syndrome? Trauma? PTSD? What is that? Chopper just invented new words.
Sanji wonders if Zoro pissy mood was somehow related to that, for his own role in Sanji’s impeding doomed future as his executioner. Or he was getting over said mysterious fuck. Or anything else, really. Zoro couldn't care less about him. Too good for him, too great for the good for nothing shitty cook. Nevertheless, he’s way too snappy to Sanji lately. That was a path of thought Sanji didn’t want to go on. But alas, again, probably not. The man couldn't care less about him. Or anyone, really, even if he apparently was into some dick sucking now. Zoro “I returned from hell just to kill you” while a beauty hangs of his arm, proves he is right. Zoro don’t care about people, just goals. About beautiful, gorgeous, women that apparently like to cling to him, hugging his stupid big strong arms, head into his dumb big pecs. Fuck him. Sanji couldn’t care a less what Zoro thought about at all. Sanji didn’t even know if he has any thoughts at all in that moss head of his, which he probably doesn’t, not that Sanji is caring. Because he doesn’t care. Zoro looked down on him ever since the first day he got into the ship. Damn moss head. Nhe nhe nhe whining, swordsman pride, nhe nhe nhe I have big and shinny bulging sweaty rough muscles therefore I deserve respect, nhe nhe nhe, I have huge, enormous pecs so obviously I am better than you, nhe nhe nhe you’re just a stupid cook, nhe nhe nhe.
They hadn’t discussed Sanji’s call in Wano. Or anything that happened in Totto Land. Or the fact that Sanji had saw Zoro allegedly lost in an alleyway and the image was it’s stuck in his head to this day. Okay, again, not thinking about that. Not that Sanji owned him anything anyway.
Sanji blinks, noticing he had tuned out the conversation. He had been drying the same knife for maybe ten minutes now in a preposterous suggestive motion. Okay he was just cleaning up and down, that doesn't mean anything- fuck why everything sounds gay now? Maybe algae brain was an infectious disease. He takes other knife, the flannel in his hands in a motion of sliding up and down the blade, now over conscious.
Nami's exhales, two fingers on the bridge of her nose while she ignores Luffy’s antics, and her chest goes up and down. Sanji wanted nothing more than be the air in her lungs.
Maybe that one was weird. Still, it was pure love, therefore the sentiment couldn't be creepy. The was Zoro’s fault, clouding his brain with his mossyness and his stupidity. Fuckin’ alley.
“No, bazoomba. Boobs. Boob Island. Like tits,” Franky said. “You know, I wasn’t even interested in going out before, but now I feel like it’s a must. I can’t pass this chance on. How many perverts— I mean, what man gets the chance to step on tits?”
“None, if you want to have a working jaw. No violence towards the ladies. That’s uncouth.” Sanji warns.
“Hey, bro, don’t kinkshame.” Frank complains. Brook nods in solidarity.
Just, how. What.
“How the fuck is that a—”
“I lost interest in this conversation already,” Zoro said while he sat up, turning to leave as if big boobs weren't interesting in any particular manner. Maybe for a man that had a chest as big as a woman's perky breasts it wasn't. Chopper copyingly agreed and went behind, non wisely, child admiration or something. “Gonna nap,” he said, back turned to the kitchen, hands on the door knob. The little reindeer pumps after him.
“You’re gonna miss dinner,” Nami complained.
“I’ll eat later.” Zoro answers. Sanji pauses drying his knife with a cloth.
No he won't. Doesn’t he know Luffy? The shitty swordsman was eating here, now, with everyone else. He could be a plant but he couldn’t photosynthesize yet. As far as he was aware. And no one, not even algae based plants that played with swords would go hungry on his watch.
Fine, he may have been avoiding to look Zoro in the eye for unmentionable reasons, goddamn alley-wall, no he wasn’t concerned about Zoro’s opinion on his future execution, what do you mean it seems that you are. “Oi, Moss head,” Sanji is still rinsing the dishes from the last lunch when he talks and Zoro simply opens the kitchen door, walks through and ignores him. Damn marimo.
He was putting razor blades in his food. Even better, he was going to make marimo salad. Who knows, maybe cannibalism was an option. Maybe Zeff was onto something.
“So it’s not Bazooka? Booooooo, that’s booooooooring,” Luffy shows tongue as a nine year old would while pointing a thumb down, as if that settle his opinions on the matter.
One day Luffy will know the nice pleasantries in life, and others women’s female bits, and will mature. Maybe then, he'll even kick Zoro out of the place. A man could only hope.
“Stop,” Nami forcibly shuts Luffy’s mouth up, holding both stretched lips in her hands. Sanji wanted to be Luffy’s lip- okay maybe not so much. He wouldn’t go that far. “So they have a particular current?”
“Like a whirlpool, as if the island is the eye of the vortex,” she point in her book to Nami, that looks surprised a she reads whatever was written into it. Sanji keep washing the dishes, trying to pay attention to the conversation and occasionally looking over his shoulders. “Ships keep circling the island until they get in eventually.”
“Both islands are circular?” Nami asked.
“I guess they had to take the bazoomba from somewhere,” Robin had a hand on her lips, her mouth stretched in a smile with her blue eyes advertising her fun. Robin saying bazoomba. Play repeat. “So in this archipelago they have these two big islands close to each other, side by side, and some nameless small islands around. You see that one in the map?" She pointed. "Cape of Good Hope? That's where we are now. The port is just on the other side of the island. ”
“So we’re not in the port? Mako Island and Cubagua Island, huh,” Nami read out loud. “I don’t think I ever heard about these islands. Not surprising in the New World, I suppose. They aren’t under the world government law, I imagine?”
“They are not. That may be the reason why the man Luffy met called Tolo Harbor infamous. It’s a common terminology to islands without government or pirate protection, since they tend to attract the worst type of pirates: opportunists, murderers, assassins, bandits, dealers.”
“Pirates are the worst,” Usopp bob his head in agreement, trying to look over Nami’s shoulder to see the book. The crew stares him. Nami raises an eyebrow, Luffy fold his arms in a grimace and huffs, Jimbei gawks and Sanji dries a knife with a kitchen flannel while glaring the long nosed man. Usopp opens and closes his mouth, as if he was trying to justify. “I meant like.” The crew gawked, waiting. “Actually I don’t know what I meant. This is very awkward now.”
Nami shakes her head. “Mako Island is big. There’s just two autonomous administrative divisions?”
“These around may have some local name, given by the local population, but yes, mostly, on this side of the archipelago it’s divided into Mako Island, the island’s port Tolo Harbor that it's in Cape of Good Hope which is practically the capital.”
“If there’s so many awesome islands why did we end up in the lamest? Let’s go to this big one!”
“The wind currents are random and the whirlpools only go in one direction, Luffy.” Nami said.
“If you want to explore the island, our next stop it’s Tolo Harbor, the current it’s going to lead us directly.” Robin pointed at the island right beside them.
“But I want to go to the bigger one!” Luffy pouts.
“We disembark in Tolo Harbor and go to Mako Island.""
“Cape of Good Hope,” Nami muses. “I don’t know, I just think I heard this name somewhere.”
“Naaaaaaaaaaami! Let’s go already!” Luffy complained.
“Wait a moment, would you?!” Nami chew the tip of her finger. “In curious about the other one. If the currents are always making a orbit, how do we get there?”
“Tricky, indeed,“ Robin answers. “It’s just a theory at this point, but I think there might have some sea current linking the two islands. This map is an old one, after all.”
“Guess we’ll find out, huh” Nami said. She gets up and put a hand on her waist, while the other points to the horizon. "Alright. Let’s set sail, boys.”
The men cheer loudly.
It was still dark when Roronoa Zoro opened his eye. The weather was way too hot for his liking, and it was a surprising discover as in a few hours ago they were on a nice tropical breezy part of the ocean according to Nami, though he supposed it was no surprise as this was the new world, after all.
It was on them if they not expected the unexpected. He was in the crow’s nest, been training and stretching for hours while waiting on for the next time they land. According to Nami, it wouldn't take much longer to get to Tolo Harbor, still, it was Usopp’s turn to watch, which never meant good things, since he was prone to distraction when he was on one of his inventive moods. Zoro remembers the long nosed man complaining about Zoro being awake there, he was, quote unquote, “disrupting his idea process” so he went to the galley to fend for some food. It was after dinner time, so the annoying cook had probably locked the place up, mostly to avoid Luffy’s nightly barbarian raids. Still, he was hungry, he missed dinner and maybe, if he had luck, the cook might have forgot to lock it for the night. It wouldn’t be the first time. If the “mellorines” stayed close enough, Zoro could actually see the man’s brain cells shrinking. Sanji eyes pratically become heart beacons everytime Nami open her mouth or Robin babbled something. Stupid cook.
He had been weird lately. Zoro wonders if this is related to the Wano incident. Maybe the wedding. Probably. Or not. The cook probably had already get over Totto Land, as mad as that makes Zoro. He hadn't even apologized.
Would the cook by nervous, then? He said it wasn't necessary, butt Zoro made a promise regardless. If it ever happens, Zoro will deal with it. After all, Zoro had promised, hadn’t he? Why Sanji was making such a big deal out of nothing? He wasn’t going back on his promise, yet, he could see the way the cook flinched when someone mentioned Wano, and Wano’s party, as if the word was now prohibited. As if the pervert cook, of all people, was going to turn into a sea monster in the blink of an eye and Zoro would somehow miss it. As if Zoro would let his crew mates in danger.
The lack of trust pissed him off. Everything about him pissed Zoro off.
He rubbed his hand over his head, his hair still wet and greasy from the overtraining. It was getting longer, he probably should shave once more the same buzzcut that growed out in a week and left him looking as a turf, in the cook’s words. He pulled the knot of the trapdoor once, getting no result. He got on his knees to get leverage to open the thing and tried once more, trying to hold out on his strenght to not break the knob. It wouldn’t be the first time, the things were way to fragile to deal with Zoro’s hands, reason why the cook forbade him of getting closer to it.
Zoro listened to footsteps on his left. It was the cook, he could tell by the way his obnoxious leather shoes hit the pavement. His senses were amplified as always, even without the use of Haki, especially once he got his training going and got his body full on adrenaline.
“Oi, what do you think you doing?” He felt the smell of smoke way before the blonde lit the cigarette, using a matchbox. The putrid smell of smoke always cling to the man, getting first in the places before him. That's the most he said to Zoro in days.
Zoro didn’t look behind his shoulder, or gave the man an answer. He scowled, pratically hearing Sanji’s temper flare up, and diverting the attack of the man’s legs on his skull without much movement of his body. What? Little babie was gonna be mad now?
“I asked you a question, sea weed head.”
“A stupid one.” Zoro replied, finally looking over his shoulder.
“Do you want to die? What the fuck are you doing here anyway? Is not your turn to the watch,” Sanji complained, taking his cigarrette off his lips.
Zoro should know that the sixth sense of the cook would point up to someone trying to invade his kitchen. “His kitchen” being a debatable phrase, as it was a community space, or at least should be. Still, he shouldn't be awake that hour. Sanji had been overworking himself lately, after all. Maybe Chopper onto something.
“I was training. I know you never heard the word before, but it’s something that those who aim for greatness do, to accomplish certain goals.”
That threw Sanji of a loop, and after a few seconds of confusion, he took great annoyance to Zoro’s words. Zoro prepared himself for another kick as the cook surprisingly clipped him around the ear with a forced smile on his lips, forcing him on his feet.
”You will stop missing dinner. You will listen to me, will follow the schedule of this ship, and stop treating my kitchen as your personal adega and storage room, eating with everyone when everyone is eating. You have three main meals. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. I always make something in between those three. You are not supposed to be hungry right now, but you are, because you are an incompetent oaf incapable of following instructions.”
“Let it go, now, curly,” he said, this close to snapping, feeling as old as a chastised child. What the fuck was with that temper? Don't look him in the eye and he does is to shit on him? Fuck that guy.
“You will not mess with my job. Everytime i have to make an exception for you and make lunch, I lose the whole inventory I did for the week, which screws my planning for the month, and as all of the meals are planned to each one of you, to your tastes and your dietary needs, I always get short on ingredients because of a non planned meal made because of your hazy stupidity. Just because you don’t have an **important** role on the ship, doesn’t mean you can keep messing up mine.”
Fuck his role and fuck him, Zoro thought, annoyed. He may not have a role such as navigator or cook, but he was the first mate and that meant something. He was the man who was going to make Luffy the pirate king. He was the man that promised to kill mr. royalty curly eyebrows himself. Zoro grabbed the cook's arm taking his hand of around his ear, feeling sore. Fortunately he pulled on the cartilage not the lobe where his three earrings hang. Small mercies, he fancies. Zoro scowled, staring the cook and regretting letting his swords on the crow’s nest.
“Go fuck yourself. Touch me like that again and I’ll break your face. I’m not kidding.”
Sanji kept glancing at him, but Zoro had his fill for the night. He fast walks to the crow’s nest, watching Usopp snoring on the observation room. He looked around him, trying to find anything on the floor to throw at him, a completely normal thing to do, as Usopp and Franky always left his tools around the ship where you could least expected it. His stomach growled into the night silence and Zoro gave up, laying on the big wooden seat on the crow's nest, close enough to the telescope. Curly may have been acting weird, but he probably would cook him something regardless, as he couldn’t let anyone go hungry on his turn. He should be grateful Zoro was giving him a reason to actually work, as he apparently was stuck into a loop of checking and rechecking the pantry for the last two weeks. Zoro never saw him as that obsessed with work before, only when he was stuck in a whirpool of his anxiety fits. Regardless, he dissociated for a while, stuck on his head.
Wasn’t the first time he watched the ship from here, and considering Luffy’s stubbornners of letting him out of watching duty every night, probably not the last. He turned on his back, his front facing the yellow wood. Robin had argued more than once about putting some padding on the seats there, but Zoro was used to sleeping on the floor, enough that he never back her up on her meetings requests, even if he would be the one who would benefit the most from it. He closed his eye for a few minutes, before giving up on a nap and sitting up on the window seat. One could argue that the window seat was actually the top head of the wooden benchs and he should not be sitting there.
So far he avoided the worse of the cook’s tantrums, but as how far that would last, he could not know. He went on overfeeding his beauties, enough that Nami complained to him, as a way to deal with his anxiety. Zoro went by ignoring the man as long as possible, except when they were name calling each other, as usual. Chopper was concerned, enough to babble to him on a daily basis. Zoro, apparently, was the only one acting normal regarding the cook. It was not new, he never see to fit with the man anyway, so it was just easy. Sanji got way worse after the events on Wano, and Zoro was simply not having it. It was like a whirpool was happening inside the man’s head, and he had to make it everyone’s problem with his fussing around, nosebleed while sun bathing too close to Nami or isolations overwork fits. Zoro had made a promise, and he was going to fulfill it. It was simple as that. Why Sanji was stuck in his head about what happened was a mystery to him. There was no reason for him to be concerned about. That is unless he doubted Zoro capacities of being objective and acting on his word, and that was an unacceptable thought. Even the shitty cook should know better than that.
Even before Zou and Sanji's subsequent departure to the tea party and all the revealing information they learned after, reading people was something Zoro got quite good at living as an orphan in island full of a culture of fighting men, be swordmen or wrestlers. Shimotsuki island was a small place that harbored Hizuru village and other bigger townlet. Zoro was abandoned at a children’s home when he was four, and he did not remember much of his life before that.
He knew his father’s name, Arashi, and that’s the extend of it. The Roronoa surname came from him, and he could barely remember his mother’s face. He did not knew her name, and after he ran from the children’s home he was living at seven, he never looked back, leaving any chance of finding out something about her behind. Who needs memories anyways. The matron of the children’s home he lived at always complained about Zoro’s behavior. Accordingly to her, Zoro was a beast in the corpse of a child, she would guffaw at how he was one of their worst cases, and they had a pyromaniac boy there. As if parentless kids were nothing more than words written on a chart. Cases, she would say.
He still remembers her bubal nose and her nasal voice, and how she had a disgustingly sweet odour. Zoro hated sweet things. She would watch the older kids pick on him as he was a scrawny thing, and go on her merry way to gossip with the other caretaker women that lived there. He was always cleaning his runny nose on his shirt sleeves as a child, trying to stop the constant non stop bleeding nose from flooding. He always had a broken nose and a black eye, and the caretakers would stare at him asking in a disinterest manner what happened. He knew better than point fingers, and always replied that he tripped over his feet, fell from the stairs or something similar. Goddamn stairs.
He tried to leave the place more than once, but the townfolk would always rat him out to the guards, and they always came back to take him by his ear kicking and screaming.
The moment he set eyes on the cook he thought “that’s a well-bred chap” as that wasn’t that hard to figure out by the way he behaved. It wasn’t just his accent or how he would drop foreign words in a foreign language in a moments notice and dress up like he was going to a beauty contest . It was in the way he held himself, the witty comebacks and the awed looks at the group, mostly Zoro and Luffy, when they behaved in a “uncouth” manner.
Luffy and Nami have a south east accent when they speak, and Luffy would drop a few words in his sleep, as “bife” and “comida” that made Zoro wrinkle his nose in confusion. Nami was a completely different case, as she never talked in the dialect of her village around them, even after they rescued Cocoyasi.
Sanji’s funny request to be called Mr. Prince by the ladies and the fact that he had a royal rare ass type of blood should have clued them in sooner, but the cook’s nobility only was revealed after Totto Land.
Zoro was a simple man, a pirate and a swordman. He didn’t need any more aliases. He wear the truth as clothing, his life a open book. He could see the same commoness in Luffy and Usopp. Raised in small villages, growing up in a forest. They both had ordinary embossed on his faces.
Nami wasn’t much better growing up as a burglar but she could pretend and fit in, and she was a cartograpy genius. Nico Robin was the sole survivor of a nation of researchers, a highly academic group, so she grow up surrounded by books and historians, and could read and decrypt a dead language. Chopper may be a reindeer that eat a devil fruit that granted him self-consciousness and human traces, but he was a doctor nonethless, and smarter than a regular human person. Franky was an amazing carpenter and a genius shipbuilder. Brook was a true musician that could play any instrument that he wanted. Jimbei was a ex-shichibukai, envolved on fishman politics and social science.
Zoro only had one role on the crew as Luffy’s firstmate. Keep his ground on fighting and hold the fort as his captain moves forward.
He couldn’t hand over anything more to Luffy. He didn’t have it anything left. He couldn't cook or navigate, read poneglyphs or talk about government politics, or fix the ship and create weapons on a whim, or even aim a target and shoot with a shotgun. He could only give Luffy what he already have: The man owned his body, his soul. And he was proud of choosing him as his captain every day. He said he would be a pirate and he never looked back at that decision. He was a man of his word. And he gave Sanji a promise, yet there was Sanji, bathing in self doubt, avoidance and overexertion as a way of coping with his broken head. Zoro never came back on his word. He embraced the truth and wore as a blanket, and his promises were like living breathing things, too important to him in a way other things aren’t. Fuck Sanji for making him sound less than that. For not believing him. An important role in the crew, he said. Fuck the anxiety-in-a-trench-coat man named Sanji. Zoro wondered for a minute, does Sanji’s anxiety and inability to trust Zoro and commit with believing in him reflects the view of him on the crew in general? Zoro pondsrs, maybe was somehow his fault. Zoro blinked. No. He wasn't in the wrong here. Sanji was the problem. Sanji and he's too active, overthinking ass of a mind.
There was something about the cook that got on his nerves. It wasn’t about his prickly spoiled atitude or royalty. Doesn’t matter how hard Zoro fought to be on top, there was some air around the cook that always exude “i am better than you” and Zoro spend a long time of his life being regarded as dirt on people’s fancy leather shoes to deal with that once more.
He would see Sanji’s sneer and remember his days when he was on the run from the children’s home he lived, always ending up meeting some kid or two that looked at him and pointed and yelled at their parents about how a crow boy of the Hizuru’s children home was out.
His ratty shoes, shaved head in a exaggerated buzzcut, everything indicated him as a kid from the local orphanage. The city folk called them crow boys as they survived of leftovers, donations, the all of them, and could identify one over a mile away.
The cook’s shitty attitude made him feel like the chastised boy he was growing up. And he hated him for it.
He didn’t know how long he spent staring at the crow’s nest windows, lost in thought, as if he were out of his body. He may have even fell asleep at some point. When he blinked it was sunrise and the crew would have breakfast not long after that. The idea of seeing the cook after the ear clipping he’d given him today pissed him off, also, where was his evening snack? Dick. Alas, Zoro supposed he couldn’t trust Luffy to bring his breakfast to him, and god knows the other men in the ship were too scared of Nami to consider breaking a rule that she agreed upon. Nami herself was out of question, she would mouth him off of skipping the group meals and he didn’t want to ask the other woman in the ship. He may have gotten closer to Nico Robin, but that didn’t mean he still felt that comfortable around her. Her age remembered him too much of the caretakers of the children’s home. Better keep her at arms lenght.
Despite delaying his entrance to the kitchen as long as he possibly could, he was still the first of the crew to reach the table to breakfast. Surprisingly, since Luffy would woke up and invade the place at any time that food was involved. The man used to smell food and sleepwalk.
Sanji kept moving around the kitchen leaving the plates on the counter without gazing at the table at all. His movements where fluid and precise, as if he was dancing through the place. At a moments notice Luffy launched himself down the kitchen upper opening landing flat on his back. Sanji glanced at Luffy, then at the ceilling, rolling his eyes.
Luffy stands pretty quickly, going for the sit at the head of table. Sanji stare pierces him as Luffy starts to baunch the silverware on the table.
“Oi, Sanji, serves us already!” Luffy big smile lighting the kitchen up. If it meant eating food, Luffy would wake up at dawn. Zoto shudders. Sometimes, he even ate while sleeping. He still have a faint scar on his knee.
“It’s not even breakfast time yet. You'll be waiting for Nami dear and sweet Robin and the others.”
“The ‘others’ meaning fifty percent of the crew if you don’t count who’s already here and ignore the birds.”
Instantly, some cutlery and pan drop, the sound of cluttering dancing in the room, in a clumsy display. Zoro was baffled.
“What was that??” Luffy asked, confusion splashed on his face. Zoro realized the captain had a cluster of drool at the corner of his mouth and leftover rice on his cheek. He chose not to mention to the man.
“I didn’t know that Zoro could count.” The cook looked genuinely surprised, big eyes wide open and mouth open in stupor.
Zoro clenched his fist, ready to punch the stupid cook in the face if he made more snide remarks. He might even make an exception today and cut him with a blade other than his swords. That kitchen knife looked pretty sharp. Kudos to Sanji for that. He knew his knives. He was with one hand on the hilt of his sword until the door opened with a bam. “Arara, we started soon today, huh?” The voice and the presence of Robin invaded the kitchen.
Zoro shake his head in a aggravated manner, sheating his sword.
“Robin, my belle vixen, the coffee will be served in a minute. Sit down and ignore those swines. I worked very hard this morning to prepare a balanced breakfast for you and Nami chéri, le plus grand émerveillement de ma vie~”
“What,” Luffy said in confusion, scratching his head with a fork, until Zoro slapped his hand.
Leave it to the love cook to comment how he only prepared breakfast because of the women. What a bozo. He was a bigger clown than Buggy and that was saying something.
Zoro understands maybe thirty percent of Sanji’s musings when he starts dotting on the girls in the crew, so he shrugs his shoulders at Luffy. He got up and headed for the counter, one hand ready for the toast plate, only to a irritated Sanji slap his hand as if he was a annoying fly.
“I will serve in a minute. Don’t get your dirty paws on the food before that.”
He almost made back to his seat at the table without a calling out. He could be the bigger man. At last, he said, “Guess you can take the waiter out of the restaurant, but can’t take the restaurant out of the waiter.” Being the bigger man it's overrated, after all.
Sanji fumed hissing, preparing to jump the counter and land a kick to Zoro’s jaw, one shoe already on it, but Robin smiled at him, and he hold himself off, getting out the counter as a chastised kid by his mom. He sighs then states at Zoro with a smirk. “I’m a chef, not a waiter. Thought i’m not surprised a moss head like you wouldn’t know the difference.”
“Do you want to take this outside?” He complained, ready for a good ass beating.
“Are you afraid of getting lost? Go by yourself, algae head.”
"You fourth--"
"Food! Food! Meat! Meat" Luffy chants, his cutlery pumping over the table. Zoro decides to try to be the bigger person this morning once more and not kill their cook. Mostly because Luffy was starting to drool again and that was taking all of his concentration. That's concerning. He would bite someone. Also Luffy may have been a captain for once and put the "no fighting in the kitchen rule". Granted, it was Nami's idea, but Luffy agreed, while eating a banana and drawing some shit in a paper to show Chopper.
“Luffy, wipe your mouth.”
“Huh?”
”Is Zoro having manners? It’s doom’s day, I’m sure of it,” Nami beamed entering the kitchen taking her usual seat side to Robin, that was sit besides Zoro, in Luffy’s right arm. Sanji would sit on Luffy’s left once he finished serving the crew.
The cook waltzed through the kitchen taking all the food trays on both arms, distributing the beverages through the table and serving the two waiting women. He slaps Luffy's and Zoro's hands that tried to serve themselves, until he poured coffee to both women and left them to it. Zoro was the first to serve his own coffee and have some toast with jam after that.
“Don’t call him out Nami dear, he may revert to his usual green ogre self.” The cook yelled from his back. At the same moment the rest of the crew walk in, taking their usual sits.
As if the yellow elf had any saying in reverting to a worse version of himself. His fluttering to the women was annoying enough, and then, after the two years they all spend scattered around the world the perv came back way worse, not that Zoro ever thought that was even possible.
“Fourth place is bold today”, Zoro said, forcing a tiny smile on his lips. He was going to milk Sanji’s reward poster until the day he died. He was an atheist, but thank god for Jimbei.
“You shut the fuck up,” he yelled over the counter pointing his wood spoon to Zoro. Smiling to Nami, he murmurs in a pleasantly sweet voice, ”We have toast, eggs, pie and anything you want Nami dear.”
Zoro raises an eyebrow. Wasn't he making toast? Why did he have a wood spoon? "Why do you have a wood-"
“Eating sweets so early in the morning will make me bloated. But thanks, Sanji. If is still there at lunch i will gladly take a piece of pie later.” Nami smiles.
“It’s like you don’t even know our captain,” Franky retorted in a jolly way. “Sanji, bro, this cola chicken wings are just--”
“Superrrrr!” Luffy and Chopper completed, dragging the Rs. Franky pointed his fork at them to answer while chewing.
“Well, yes, but actually no. I was gonna say divine and blessed. But they are superrrr delicious! How did you do it?” He poured a glass of cola, swallowing the beverage and now directing his gaze to Sanji's eyes.
Sanji slurped his mug of coffee.
“Chef’s secret. But you can ask for them whenever. They are really easy to make.”
“You are so bad, Sanji~,” Nami said while pouring more coffee for herself. “You should write a book of recipies, then the whole world could replicate your delicious food.”
“Some secrets are better hidden, going to the grave. My recipies are much like that, Nami dear.”
“I guess you would know all about hiding secrets,” Zoro murmured out of the corner of his mouth, taking his fork to his mouth.
The kitchen was covered by an uncomfortable silence. The crew have tense faces, all except for Luffy, that kept eating his eggs without a care in the world, humming to himself.
Jimbei sniffled.
“Thanks for the boiled fish, Sanji. I know it’s not how you usually do.”
The cook smiled politely, waving his head at Jimbei.
The silence continued for a few more minutes, until Zoro got tired of the heavy weight in the air and stood up, having finished his plate in a matter of seconds. He probably could have eaten some more, but he also wanted to get as far away from that table as possible.
Zoro walked back to the crow’s nest in silence, and no one followed after him.