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Sanji is an insignificant person in the grand scheme of the world, and he has always known it.
He's always been greedy, and so he's craved better than the world would give him: to live, to dream, to be free.
Sanji isn't fool enough to deny his own right to any of these things. He might not care much for kids in general, but he knows that the fault is with the world, with the cruelty of denying children the right to live, to dream, to freedom.
And yet Sanji knows better than most that none of those things can be taken for granted in this era, in this world.
When he'd been younger, dreams had come to him so naturally, so vividly even in the darkest, most hopeless of times, that it had not seemed anything remarkable to him.
Since Zeff gave up everything for Sanji, he's come to understand that it's not so simple.
Sacrifice, to Sanji, has always been something you make where you can afford to. It's a choice you make that is a risk to yourself.
Of course he's read storybooks where sacrifice means more than that, but those are just stories—sad ones, too. Sanji has always preferred the stories that end with happily ever after over stories that make him cry.
But above all, Sanji is not the the sort of person one sacrifices for—much less for whom a person would give up something that had been fundamental to their life.
Sanji dreams of Zeff's sacrifice for years.
He must have severed his leg fairly early, to minimize the damage by dealing the inury while he was still healthy, and maximize the amount of meat he could get out of it.
He imagines what it must have been like: he would have had to butcher the flesh quickly to avoid it going rotten. The remainder of his leg would have still been bleeding. He didn't even have a knife—he would have had to do it with a sharp rock. He would have cut the meat into strips and dried them in the sun—but that meant he would also have had to time it with an eye on the weather.
Sanji vomits the first time he dreams this.
He doesn't let Zeff see—he doesn't want the man to know that he struggles to handle the thought of something that Zeff had to live, which has changed his life forever.
Luckily, Zeff still has a dream, even though he's given up the All Blue for Sanji. He wants to open a restaurant on the sea for people like them, adrift in the middle of nowhere.
Zeff gave up the leg that was his greatest weapon, his career in piracy, his dream of the All Blue, all for Sanji. It's not something Sanji had ever imagined. And unlike the storybooks, Zeff doesn't treat it like a tragedy.
After they were rescued and somewhat recovered, Sanji had tried apologizing, but Zeff had no interest in his apologies.
"Help support me, I'm still learning to balance on this thing," he'd said instead, and Sanji had helped him make three laps around the room on his new peg leg. Sanji had not known what he had to give other than apologies and his labor, but given Zeff's attitude, he hadn't been sure Zeff would allow him to come with him. Sanji had made a plan in case Zeff refused him: he would find a way to stow away in whatever vessel Zeff set out in. Even if it was a small rowboat, he'd need some food stores—Sanji had figured he was small enough to fit in a bag or a barrel.
But when Sanji said he would follow Zeff to his restaurant, Zeff had not objected.
He's strict in his instruction of Sanji in his kitchen, but his lessons are always good ones.
Sanji tries to insist he's an adult—he even picks up smoking, but Zeff keeps calling him Little Eggplant and treating him like a child.
(It's much, much, much later that Sanji hears someone say in passing that to a child will always be a child to their parent, and he has to sit down and try not to cry.)
He owes Zeff too much to ever repay unless he returns the sacrifice with his life.
Luffy is the first person who tells him that that's no kind of repayment—that Zeff sacrificed so Sanji could live, and to die for him is utterly misguided.
Luffy seems a fool but he is right—Sanji knows it the moment the words seep through all his years of guilt and preconceptions.
Zeff tells him to watch Luffy—to learn what one can do, when one knows what one wants and simply goes for it, no holds barred.
Luffy has been asking Sanji to join his crew since they met, simply because he saw him feed a man who was hungry.
It's a small thing—an action born of Sanji's moral code built upon a combination of Zeff's teachings and his own experience. Zeff might as easily have been the one feeding Gin, and then Luffy might have asked him to join his crew.
But for whatever reason, Luffy is fixated on Sanji.
So Sanji tells him about the All Blue—and Luffy listens.
For the first time in far too long, Sanji starts to think about what he wants to do with his life, independently of anyone else.
Baratie had been each man for himself, and the Mugiwara crew is like that too, in a way—but also not really, because Luffy loves them, each and every one of them, for whatever reason. He doesn't care about their utility, really, though each of them have valuable jobs—except Usopp, maybe, but Sanji feels ashamed that such a thought ever crossed his mind when he learns that Usopp was named the sniper just before they'd come to Baratie.
Sanji sees himself in Usopp, in a way—Sanji, at least, gets the security of knowing that he is cook on the crew headed by a perpetually hungry captain, and as such he is valued for his work.
But the rest—as a fighter, Sanji isn't sure he's actually a match for Zoro or Luffy, with their "unbreakable spears" that Zeff had used as a teachable moment for Sanji. Maybe he is a more obviously valuable fighter than Usopp, but he doesn't know if he would feel it, if he didn't also have his cooking.
Sanji, at least, has had opportunities to train his fighting skills. Usopp is a jack-of-all-trades, artist, and storyteller from a small, peaceful town who just learned that he happens to be good with ranged weapons. Sanji has absolutely no doubt that Usopp will rise higher than he thinks possible now—because Sanji can see that for all his bravado, he doesn't truly believe in himself anymore than Sanji does.
And yet Luffy loves them both, Sanji and Usopp, no less than Zoro and Nami, who have been with him longer and who seem utterly confident in their positions on the ship and at Luffy's side.
Sanji tries to wrap his head around this sometimes, but the truth is that he can't. It's not the sort of thing he's used to—not the sort of thing he can internalize in any way.
Sometimes, the wise thing is to accept that one simply does not understand, so Sanji does this.
What he does know is that Luffy is not merely a captain who asked Sanji to join his crew at an opportune time—Luffy is a captain Sanji is proud to follow.