Chapter Text
Gol D Roger Enterprises has a beautiful lobby. The floors are a smooth white marble that echo the sharp tap of his dress shoes, and the ceilings are so high the sunlight reflects through the glass windows and makes it feel even larger. It’s nicer than Barto & Cav had been, where his makeshift cubicle had been set up in the corner away from everyone with ‘important’ jobs, and the group themselves rented out the cheap part of one floor of an old office building.
He’s tempted to spin around and just take it all in, but he doesn’t want to seem young and inexperienced. This company is worth as much as, if not more than, the Germa 66 Corporation, Sanji thinks smugly, and while Sanji’s only a secretary for one firm in the whole enterprise, he’s doing this on his own. Without the support of any Vinsmokes.
Being a secretary and managing so many tasks is theoretically a bad fit for someone like him, but if he can handle this, he’ll be able to handle his own restaurant and kitchen. It’s experience that he doesn’t have yet, having just turned twenty, but he’ll earn it. He has time.
Sanji remembers recipes like he remembers to breathe, practicing and writing and memorizing them until flavor profiles are second nature and ingredients are his first language. He’s going to own his own restaurant some day, and even if he can’t be formally educated in restaurant management or the culinary arts, he’s going to do it and prove to himself that he can feed everyone.
He balances the large box he’s holding carefully, the weight causing his arms to burn in a way that isn’t unfamiliar—it happens when he lifts too much at the Baratie, when he is buying their fresh market produce and seafood, when he puts himself in charge of the wok and the heavy cast irons—but isn’t pleasant either, causing chronic family-induced injuries to ache. Niji’s strikes are the most memorable, ingrained in him even years later.
He unfortunately doesn’t have a good way to bring all his belongings to this new company other than in this one trip, since the acquisition was so sudden and Sanji doesn’t have a car. His room in the Baratie is a twenty-minute walk away, and he needs to set up his new desk and give a good impression to his new coworkers. People don't usually think of the secretary as much, but he's going to show everyone he can do more.
The acquisition is beneficial for him, from the pay increase to the company name he can put on his resume. Being a secretary isn’t his goal, but he doesn’t have the qualifications for much else. Since he refuses pay at the Baratie—he’s taken so much from Zeff already, he’s not adding to his debts from the damn geezer after he’s already calculated it’s impossible to pay him back—he needs income to open a restaurant of his own, to move out.
Sanji fiddles with the small notebook in his pants pocket.
A series of reminders litter the crumpled pages, and Sanji flips to the latest page.
Straw Hat and Co.
Employees: Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Mikan Nami, Sogeking Usopp, Nico Robin
1. Pick up badge.
He can do this. There’s a set of electronic gates blocking passage to the elevators, and near the gates is a security desk with three security personnel, one woman and two men.
She’s pretty, as all women are, with short dark hair and glasses, a nervous flutter to her movements despite the serious look on her face. She isn’t wearing anything that identifies her.
“Hello,” he greets smoothly, offering the security woman at the desk what he hopes is a charming—albeit strained from the weight of the box—smile. “If everyone here is as lovely as you, working here will be a wonderful experience.”
“Your name, kid?”
Kid? He flushes pink. His beard hasn't grown in yet, that's all. “I’ll be the new secretary for, ah,” he glances at his open notebook page, “Straw Hat and Co.”
She either doesn’t notice his flirting or is unimpressed with him, as her face remains serious when she asks him for his identification and taps away at the computer keyboard when he provides it. “Vinsmoke Sanji,” she reads. He cringes as he re-pockets his ID card. “They’ll print you an official badge when you’re up there. Here’s a temp.”
He shuffles the box so the weight is all on his other arm, fumbling to take the temporary badge she is offering, brushing his fingers against hers gently. He flashes her another smile that she ignores. “Thank you so much, my beautiful guard. This building is safe because of your watchful eye!” He glances at the male security guards, expression falling to an ugly grimace. “And you, too.” They glare at him. “I guess.”
“They’re on the nineteenth floor. Stop by Nami’s office first; she’s on the right as soon as you exit the elevator bank.”
“I appreciate your guidance! I hope I’ll see you later!”
The woman rolls her eyes but offers him a small laugh. “Maybe, kid.”
Sanji pouts. He isn’t a kid. He’s been working jobs other than the restaurant since he was sixteen. It’s fine, though. He has instructions. Nineteenth floor. Nami’s office.
Nineteenth floor. Nami’s office.
He spins around to head toward the badge scanners that will let him past the electronic gates. Nineteenth floor. Nami’s office. Nineteenth floor. Nami’s office.
Something large and heavy rams into him.
“Mr. Roronoa!”
“Sir!”
His box, embarrassingly, goes flying.
He hears the clatter of his supplies scattering across the floor, the ringing in his head from colliding with whatever boulder had been waiting to pummel him.
Fucking scalding hot tea burns his skin through his dress shirt—what the fuck, Sanji chose a good outfit for his first day, a crisp pale blue with a sharp black tie the same shade as his pants, so he could look decent and mature, so he would seem like he belongs, and now he’ll have to change or dry off before they take his badge photo—and despite the heat of the tea he shivers, feels the material rub against his sensitive skin.
“Shit! This was a good shirt!”
“The hell’s wrong with you, Cook?” a gruff voice demands, and Sanji feels heat on his cheeks and anger in his veins, more than the weight of the man with glasses askew laying on top of him.
“Are you two okay?” Security makes no move to help them, thankfully. Sanji ignores them.
“Wrong with me?” He gains his bearings from where he’s landed, sprawled on his ass and surrounded by office supplies. His stickers, his colorful sticky notes, his themed paperclips, his small stapler. His lunch, in its thankfully unbroken container. The large, hulking mass of hot man on top of him. “The fuck’s wrong with you!”
Security tries again. “You both—”
“‘M’fine.” The man, huge and heavy, relieves some of the weight he’s pressing on Sanji by shifting, muscled thighs trapping Sanji further.
Sanji squints at him, then finds himself laughing, almost maniacally because he's humiliated and in pain—landing on his hip has him gasping, but seeing the green interspersed with bits of black and gray, well fuck, he's a delicious morsel of avocado toast isn't he—as he laughs and laughs. "Your hair!"
It’s not the same shade, much softer, much nicer, and yet the absurdity of it. Someone else has green hair. He’s seen the photographs of his new coworkers—seen and read and memorized the articles about Straw Hat investigator and hitman Roronoa Zoro—but seeing him in person. . .
And Sanji knows this man with his green hair isn't from Germa, isn’t Yonji, and it is exemplified by the color of his singular eye, not the harsh and toxic blue of Sanji's own, but a stunning amber, a brown made soft by the bright light of the sun shimmering into the Gol D Roger lobby through its large windows. Behind the glasses he wears, he looks softer.
Beautiful.
“Fuckin’ moron.” The man, though scowling, is careful as he pulls himself from Sanji, kneeling next to him. “Why’re you here, brat?”
“You’re paying for my shirt,” Sanji spits, forcing his gaze from the man’s eye down to his massive, built body, where his muscles are so large he could crush Sanji if he wanted to, where his waist may taper but his thighs are just as thick as a man lifting heavy weights (more than Sanji’s weight, as Zeff likes to remind him of his thin build) and doing squats would look.
“What.”
“My shirt, grass stain," he insists. "It needs dry-cleaning.” He’s a bit self-conscious of his frame. He hadn’t minded how his shirt looked this morning, but seeing the frankly obscene fit of this man’s shirt and leggings. . .
Just, fuck. Fuck.
Those are the kind of arms that could pin him down easily, could rip his shirt open and touch him in front of everyone, pluck his hardened nipples and press a hot tongue to one tip as those large, rough hands run down his sides and pull at his belt and strip him in the public lobby so every employee and guest could watch him cry and beg to be defiled. He wants it. He wants Zoro to take him in front of everyone, with the large glass windows capturing them in all their glory.
Sanji blinks the fantasy away. His appreciation for beauty gets the best of him, sometimes. And this man, Zoro, is—
“Spilled on yourself.” He’s not looking at Sanji.
Huh. Sanji stares, words passing through his ears, flashing before his eyes. “Excuse me?”
He feels unnecessarily small as his new coworker stands, his hulking body towering over Sanji, shadowing him as no one moves to help either of them from the fall, though they’re watching. “Didn’t run into you.”
“Like hell you didn’t!” He isn’t as graceful as he’d like, when he stands, and he’s horrified to see their height difference, the top of his head just passing this man’s shoulders. The magazines didn’t say this!
Roronoa Zoro, his face sculpted beautiful and stoic, is thirty-six years old and experienced in the world, missing an eye, as muscular as any powerlifter could be, despite working in corporate. He’s their fucking hitman, unofficially, after all.
(He’s going to grow to Zoro’s height, too. He doesn’t care that he just turned twenty last month and missed years of nutrition and sunlight. He’ll stretch and work out and beat this bastard.)
“Do you need your idiot head checked?”
"You ran into me." Zoro is unaffected, like he is the one in control of the situation despite being the one who fucking caused it, fiddling with his glasses and not looking at Sanji. Sanji tries to maintain his professionalism. This is a new job. A new work environment. A new building.
“I did not!” Sanji scowls, pulling himself to stand as well, poking at Zoro’s very well-defined pectorals, trembling as he thinks of Zoro doing the same (and Sanji’s damn shirt is near-transparent, the pale blue suddenly a horrible idea as his nipples are peaked and obvious, for Zoro, because of Zoro). “At the very least it takes two people to—”
“You’re short.”
A snicker, from one of the security guards watching.
“What?” Sanji doesn’t think he heard correctly. He couldn’t have. Short?
Short?
“He is, isn’t he?” From the other guard.
Sanji sees red. “I am not!” He’s a respectable height for someone malnourished as a child and who starved and was homeless for a while. He’s just not a damn gorilla. Zoro being huge and buff with pecs that can strangle Sanji is the outlier. Assholes. They’re only agreeing with Zoro because he’s older and worked here longer. Sanji will show them! “For someone so tall, shouldn’t you have seen me? You fucking. . .” The green of his hair catches Sanji’s eye again. “Mosshead!”
Zoro grunts, mouth curving. “Couldn’t see past your midget height, shit cook.”
Midget? He bites back the scream at the back of his throat, spinning on his heel to grab his scattered supplies. When he bends, he feels the heat of Zoro’s presence, and then those large arms are wrapped around him, large fingers stroking down his sides, careful of his size, graceful as they touch his belt and pull him back to standing.
Oh wow. He's a lot bigger than Sanji, isn't he? Those calloused hands could unbuckle his belt and undo his pants, slide down his thighs as they pull his pants off of him, they could grab his ass and spread his cheeks and circle his—
Sanji stands there, dumbly, as Zoro shoves Sanji’s strewn supplies into the box for him. The situation catches up to him midway through the fantasy of Zoro’s large fingers pressing into his hole and spreading him like the desperate virgin he is. Fuck.
“You have one fucking eye! And glasses!” Sanji spits, glaring. He’d simply turned in place and this asshole thought he could run into Sanji with his, his damn huge muscular body and, and his stupid little breakfast tea. “Did you lose another fight with Mihawk?” The urge to stomp his foot into Zoro’s chest is maddening. “You’re clearly at fault because you can’t even see!”
“Walked into me.”
“You rammed into me!”
“Screw you, shortie.”
“Well, fuck you!”
“No one wants to fuck you!”
(A memory, forgotten: “Guess I should be happy puberty for you isn’t those weird porn magazines,” Zeff grumbled, kicking at Sanji’s legs as he dove to hide the magazine covers featuring the latest feat of Straw Hat Roronoa Zoro. “Your taste in role models is off. You’re never gonna look like that when you’re built like a damn string bean.”)
“Go fuck yourself.” Sanji scrambles to pick up his supplies, shoving Zoro away from manhandling his things, the hair on his arms rising, the anger in his blood making him heat with fury. He hates this man with his green hair and his massive body and of course he works in this company for attractive rich people who make it onto the covers of the magazines Sanji’s been seeing for years. “A molding cactus has more brain activity than you.”
For a moment there is silence. Sanji has won. And then. Zoro looks fucking smug, pushing up his glasses on his nose. “You know me.”
“What?”
“Asked about Mihawk, eyebrows.”
Sanji’s mouth feels dry. “So?”
“You know me.”
How is that what he took away from Sanji’s cursing?
Sanji snarls at him. “I know of the Straw Hats. Not some mossy moron who needs his glasses checked.”
(An instant, lost to time: Zoro had been on the cover of a News Coo when Sanji was nearing his sixteenth birthday. He’d been bleeding from a gaping wound at his chest as they reported how Zoro had physically defended one of their child clients against her abusive father and his hired help. Sanji had been instantly smitten. Honorable and kind. Willing to give up himself to protect someone else. Zeff had smacked him on the head and told him men don’t appreciate other men like that, stop being such a pansy ass.)
“You know me,” Zoro repeats, and his grin is wolfish. It shouldn’t be so charming. Sanji feels like prey to a brutish, green-haired monster. Zoro could do anything to him, and Sanji would let him.
“I just said I didn’t,” Sanji insists. “The algae from your head is seeping into your ears.”
Zoro looks down at Sanji, his remaining eye intense with something that makes Sanji’s toes curl in his dress shoes and his stomach churn with heat and—
And everyone is staring at them.
Sanji shoves everything into his box as quickly as possible, embarrassment making his hands shake. Fuck. Fuck. So much for a good first impression.
Fuck. Zoro isn’t going to be his boss, is he? Sanji doesn’t want to pull out his notebook while Zoro is watching.
He would remember if Zoro was going to be his boss. Right?
He’d gone through the archives at the library. He’d only been distracted by the Roronoa Zoro magazine spread with the glossy pictures and rugged, stoic quotes for fifteen minutes.
“You idiotic. . . Marimo!” he screeches anyway, staring at his damp sticky notes and his now-sticky paperclip container. He forgets where they are, for a moment, only remembering his frustration, the first impression he needed so desperately and has now destroyed. Fuck.
Zoro gives him a short bark of laughter before bending down and leaning his face dangerously close to Sanji’s, and Sanji’s breath catches. He hasn’t had a man this dangerously attractive this close to him, ever, that he can remember, and heat is steaming from his cheeks even though Zoro is separated from him by Sanji’s stupid box. His humiliation increases more as he realizes Zoro can see him blush.
He knows.
“Not very original,” Zoro says, looking down at Sanji and over the rim of his glasses, “for a curlybrowed bastard.” Zoro turns around quickly, like he can’t even look at Sanji for that long.
Sanji kicks the back of Zoro’s leg with maybe half of the strength Zeff has taught him, annoyed at how Zoro stands stable. He almost seems pleased, if anything, tips of his ears turning pink.
That asshole! Happy that Sanji seems weak? Sanji will kick him at full strength, then, see how he likes it!
He’s stuck following Zoro through the electronic gates, since Zoro is massive and Sanji can’t brush past him like this. He feels like a dumb child following their elders, and he hates it. He wants to kick Zoro so badly, show Zoro that he’s strong.
But Zoro doesn’t talk, ignoring him as they wait for one of the three elevators to make their way down to the lobby. The security guards simply watch.
The hall with the elevators is shiny with glass that never shows fingerprints and floors that never show scuffs. Sanji catches his reflection in a panel by the elevators and corrects his posture before the thought has time to turn self-deprecating. He needs to look put-together and mature, so he gets treated like he belongs, even in his wet shirt, even with a box full of sticky secretarial supplies.
Zoro gestures for Sanji to enter the elevator first. He feels pathetically small when they both squeeze in, Zoro’s bulk taking up so much space Sanji can’t breathe. Zoro hits the button for the twenty-second floor and stays silent, not even looking at him. The fluorescent lighting causes a glare on Zoro’s glasses so Sanji can’t even tell if Zoro’s sneaking a glance.
(Why would he want to?)
Sanji shifts the box in his arms, a new soreness overtaking him from landing on his back. He wants to change his shirt, needs to feel good and clean again. Zoro says nothing.
“I’ll be working with the Straw Hats,” Sanji offers, to break the silence. He glances up at Zoro’s stoic face, the set of his jaw, the soft plumpness of his lower lip. He seems more subdued with his glasses. His scarred left eye is so serious, and Sanji wants to know the story so badly. He’s wanted to ask Zoro about his scars, his dedication. All the times he’d planned his first words to Roronoa Zoro, and he’d never expected them to be curses.
Zoro only blinks.
“Maybe I can fix your schedule so you don’t clobber innocent secretaries with breakfast,” Sanji spits, annoyed.
He grunts, and Sanji supposes that’s the end of it, until Zoro lowers his gaze toward Sanji. “Not strong enough for me.”
Strong enough? “I can kick your moronic barbarian ass—”
“Your kindergarten kick?”
“I barely tried, you avocado asshole. Just let me at you when your security team isn’t watching!”
“Not worried about a short secretary.” He has the gall to fucking smirk.
This broccoli bastard! Sanji is about to shove his box into Zoro and kick him when the elevator doors open. He gestures for Sanji to walk out first, and Sanji sneers, shoving past him and stepping out to greet his new coworkers.
It’s not what he’s expecting.
Polar Tang Associates, the sign reads.
Zoro is striding confidently toward the glass doors past the elevator bank, heading toward the offices. Do they share a floor?
Or. . . is Zoro getting rid of him already?
Sanji’s heart twists in his chest, plummeting into his already churning gut. Oh.
It makes sense. He’s just a secretary. He’s nothing to the Roronoa Zoro who mutilates his body for others and saves people unflinchingly, like Sanji always dreamed of. This is the Roronoa Zoro, who lost an eye and won’t explain why, even though it was likely heroic and pure.
Sanji's nothing but a secretary who wants to be a cook.
It makes sense, but it doesn’t stop the stinging behind his eyelids, when he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to will the emotions from himself. He’s a secretary, after all. He can’t pick a fight with a founding Straw Hat member and expect to get away with it.
He’d taken a while to get accustomed to the constant new tasks of being a secretary. He knows he’d only gotten his job at Barto & Cav because of his last name, but he’d worked to prove himself in spite of it. He’d been able to keep up with their demands, sticky notes and reminders everywhere so he wouldn’t forget. He’d gone through five notebooks at that job. He’s never been fired so quickly before, even in those retail jobs that realized he couldn’t remember their instructions ten minutes after he’d received them.
“Are you lost?” Sanji jokes, rushing to keep pace with Zoro, to ease the burden of his hatred toward Sanji. The cold, air-conditioned air on his damp shirt makes him shiver, makes him feel small. He straightens. “The sign says—”
“No.”
Sanji’s stomach drops further. Oh. “But I’m supposed to work with the Straw Hats. And you're—”
“Yeah.”
He stands there, feeling small and stupid in his wet shirt. He didn’t even make it to orientation.
“Our dear Investigator.”
One of the most beautiful women Sanji has ever seen, tall and tanned, with sharp features, sharp everything, from her pointed heels to her shoulder-length hair and straight bangs to her sleek black dress, nods at Zoro fondly.
“H-Hi,” Sanji chokes.
“I see you’ve located our new secretary, Mr. Vinsmoke.”
Zoro turns to stare at Sanji, expression unreadable.
“I’m not a Vinsmoke,” Sanji corrects quickly. She raises an eyebrow and says nothing.
He’s not a Vinsmoke, but he can’t change his name without the paperwork in Judge’s mansion. He doesn’t have money. He’s been stuck, and he wants to say his name doesn’t mean much, doesn’t mean anything, but the intensity from this woman’s gaze and Zoro’s disappointment is cloying.
He doesn’t want to remind Zoro that he wants to fire Sanji, so he turns up the charm and politeness. The desperation.
“I’m so sorry for our rude behavior, my darling.” Sanji steps in front of Zoro to smile at this ethereal beauty. The box shakes in his arms. “I found Mr. Roronoa in the lobby and he directed us here. Are the Straw Hat offices on this floor?”
The woman laughs, soft and calming. “Yes, ‘Mr. Roronoa’ can have some difficulties with directions. Considering his stubborn behaviors regarding personal safety, it could be due to anything from a chronic head injury to a parasitic brain worm.” Despite the lightness of her tone, her eyes are as sharp as the rest of her.
“Green hair is a parasite to the brain,” Sanji mumbles under his breath, glaring at Zoro to make sure he hears.
“Shut up, you weird love goblin.” Zoro snatches Sanji’s box from him, cheeks pink. The relief on his arms is immediate, and he bites back a sigh of gratitude. He’s not grateful to Roronoa Zoro. “The offices move.”
Before Sanji can fight for his supplies, the woman places a hand on his shoulder. She is taller than Zoro by several inches, only heightened by the heels she wears, and Sanji turns up his head to smile at her in adoration. Zoro can carry his things for a while.
“I’m Nico Robin,” she says, calling an elevator to take them down. “I’m both a researcher and one of the defense attorneys under Luffy.”
Sanji’s fingers itch to pull out his notebook and take notes. Luffy. Luffy. A coworker, he’s sure, but which one? They’re an unconventional law group, considering their boss isn’t actually a law partner. From what he's heard, the boss chooses the cases and wins over clients and jury with passion. Everyone else does the actual research and investigating.
“Sanji,” he says, “though an intelligent woman such as yourself already knew that.” He kisses her hand gently and ignores the rage he feels emanating from Zoro behind them. “Luffy is. . .?”
“Your boss.” Zoro is annoyed. “Damn lovesick moron.”
Sanji frowns at the hostility, but he covers it up with a chuckle and continues to chat with the woman. He forces aside his shame and decides to pull out his notebook, writing that the offices are on the nineteenth floor when she hits the button, noting her job titles, her name—Robin, he repeats to himself, Robin—scribbling that someone named Luffy would be his boss.
(Not Zoro, thankfully.)
Before they step off the elevator, the woman glances down at Sanji’s shirt. “Do you have a spare, Mr. Vinsmoke? Nami is our public media relations manager as well as our unofficial HR, and it would be inappropriate to wear—”
“Shit!” Sanji hurriedly steals his box back from Zoro, temporary relief from not holding it forgotten. His face is so hot it runs down to his chest. How could he have let this beautiful woman see him in such a depraved state?
Zoro snickers, and Sanji presses the cardboard against his damp shirt, humiliated. He feels like a wet child under the chiding gaze of his superiors. “You okay there, dartbrows?”
“Fine.” The box is rough against his skin, and his face flames as he feels Zoro continue staring at him, gaze more intense than ever, his one eye peering over his glasses. His nipples peak harder at the attention. “I’ll get another shirt,” he says. Of all the days to not wear a suit jacket. He hadn’t wanted to be overdressed, and he’d been sure the dress shirt and tie would be enough. “I could never soil a lady’s eyes with my. . .” Zeff would be so disappointed in him. Had Robin noticed? “Thank you for—”
“Shut up!” Zoro grabs Sanji’s arm and starts dragging him toward the offices, Robin laughing behind them as Zoro doesn’t even look at Sanji. “Fuckin’ dumb cook. . .”
“Let go of me, you brutish ass!” He struggles to keep hold on the box while being manhandled, thankful that this isn’t attracting too much attention. Maybe this is normal for the Straw Hats? The cubicles they pass are empty. “Hey!”
“Got a shirt.”
Zoro’s strength is nothing to laugh at, and Sanji knows he could hold his own in a different setting. He aims a kick at Zoro that he dodges while holding Sanji’s arm, pulling them both in the direction Zoro wants.
“You. . .”
Sanji blinks. Zoro leads them to a private office, slamming the door behind him. Zoro’s words catch up to him.
Shirt. For Sanji. It’s a kind gesture, unexpected and somehow not. This is the Zoro Sanji has been reading about for years, thoughtful but blunt, kind while rude. Sanji can’t help the pleased flush to his cheeks, the way his body reacts.
“Oh.”
Zoro isn’t in dress clothes, like Sanji. He’s in sinfully tight pants sculpted to his body like leggings, with a short-sleeved shirt that does little to hide the bulging muscles of his arms and chest. Instead of dress shoes he’s in combat boots, and he wears a dark green haramaki that is definitely hiding weapons. He’s their hitman, after all.
But Sanji can’t wear a shirt like that with his tie. He—
A dress shirt smacks his face, and he nearly drops his box again.
It’s white, worn and clean, and it smells like Zoro when he’d landed on top of Sanji, like sweat and musk and the spiciness of oils and herbals. The material is soft, expensive. Sanji fumbles with his box, and Zoro grabs it from him, shoving the shirt back in Sanji’s face.
His expression is surprisingly soft, and his cheeks are pink. “I’ll put this on your desk.”
“Wait—”
“Change.” Zoro’s face is red now. His eye pauses at Sanji's chest, and then he turns and stomps from the office. Sanji doesn’t get the chance to protest before Zoro is gone.
Weird.
It’s a nice office, with large glass windows and a desk facing the door rather than the sun. The walls are adorned with weapons, newspaper and magazine clippings about the Straw Hats.
There is nothing about Zoro, though. No articles, no certifications.
Sanji stares at a clipping where Zoro stands in the background, face hidden behind someone else’s shoulder, looking into the distance. He touches Zoro’s hidden face and frowns, thinking of the articles talking about Zoro’s quiet and reserved nature and how that is so unlike the Zoro Sanji’s met, then hastily unbuttons his dress shirt to change into Zoro’s.
When Sanji is nine, and Reiju is in private lessons and Judge is busy, his brothers include him in a game.
It’s the first game they’ve wanted to play with him in years, especially after their mother died and Judge decided his third son was worthless and favored them more as they bullied Sanji.
“Really?” He trots along after them, eyes shining. “Yes! Of course!”
Sanji excitedly follows his brothers to their back conservatory, with its large glass windows and sliding glass doors, and he wonders if they’ll be playing in the garden with the flowers, or with the butterflies, or the bees. He doesn’t like bees. Ichiji knows that.
“Stand there, Sanji.”
“Okay!”
Ichiji holds his head in the frame of a sliding door, Yonji keeps Sanji planted there. He realizes this isn’t the type of game he wants to play very quickly—“I don’t want to play anymore, Yonji. Can I go?”—and Niji slides the conservatory door shut repeatedly on Sanji’s head until Sanji’s crying and begging fades to bloody, unconscious silence.
Judge’s experimental pharmaceuticals don’t help him with the aftermath. A private doctor is forced to examine the swollen, disoriented Sanji who can't even tell them what happened.
Traumatic brain injury.
The private doctor later admits to Judge that Sanji would suffer from permanent short term memory loss. It's common in head trauma victims. Though it is quite unfortunate that little Sanji had tripped down so many stairs, he says. Perhaps your drugs could help. With time it could improve, possibly even go away.
It doesn't.
Judge thinks, rightfully so, that Sanji is more of a failure for this.
New memories become hard for Sanji to forge, and he can’t continue the private tutoring that his brothers undertake, because the lessons are meant for little prodigies, and Sanji can’t recall lessons from hours before, let alone days. Despite their wealth, they don’t invest in specialized lessons or care for Sanji. Instead, Judge pulls Sanji out of classes and locks him in his bedroom, forbidding him from leaving the mansion. He receives daily experimental tablets and injections to see if they can help.
His brothers think Sanji’s forgetfulness is funny. And the beatings and games worsen the more Sanji’s memory shows it isn’t improving.
Niji leads him to the woods surrounding their house and leaves him there, just to see him get lost and hurt and cry, then get reprimanded by Judge for leaving the mansion at all.
Yonji tells him they’re playing a game that Sanji likes, then beats him until he passes out. The next day he doesn’t remember why he’s so injured so they tell him stories of what he’d done wrong to hurt himself. He's clumsy. He's stupid. He trips on things. He asked a servant to hit him. He got reprimanded for going to the kitchens. They all make sense, but they don't.
Ichiji watches him with disdain, giving him reminders that he tries and fails to follow, leading to harsher punishments from Judge for leaving his room at all.
He’s told he already ate when he hasn’t. He’s told he didn’t take his medications yet when he has.
He’s told he’s a useless stupid failure regularly, though. And that is what sticks.
Reiju makes the difficult decision to sneak him away when Niji convinces twelve-year-old Sanji that he’s forgotten to visit their mother and she is dying alone. Sanji, in a panic, scrambles to where the infirmary was, only to find that she had died several years before.
“They’re so mean, Reiju,” Sanji whimpers as she roughly sits him down. The hurt of losing his mother aches harder than before, because for that briefest moment, he’d had a semblance of hope. She could protect him. She still loved him. No one else does.
Maybe Reiju.
“They can’t help it,” she admits, as she wipes his tears with an old towel, “Father’s drugs destroyed their brains before they could fully develop.”
Sanji tries to nod, but it hurts his head, and when he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe, he forgets why he was crying in the first place.
(Perhaps it is a good thing. Perhaps it is the world’s pity.)
“We need to get you out of here,” Reiju decides. She straightens him up and takes his hand, and he doesn’t know what prompted this but Reiju knows what’s best for him. Sanji’s brothers are mean. “I’ll walk you to the edge of the woods, and then you can hide somewhere in town.”
Sanji wants nothing more than to leave the Vinsmoke Mansion. He rubs his eyes. “What if I get lost?”
“You can’t be a baby forever, Sanji. You won’t grow up or be strong if you stay here.”
Sanji doesn’t know if he agrees, but Reiju is smart and is the only person left who cares about him. Will Father miss me at all? “Will you visit me?”
“No.” Reiju pulls out Sanji’s yellow raincoat from his closet and helps him slide it on. His body aches, but he doesn’t remember what he did to get injured this time, and Reiju won’t tell him. “You can’t come back, and we won’t look for you.”
He slides on his rainboots and buttons his coat, and he nods resolutely. “Do you think that—”
“Father will be happier without you,” she says, and her tone turns as sympathetic as she can be, which is a soft monotone. “But you’ll be happier without him, too.”
Sanji continues to cry as Reiju leads him through the woods on that stormy night. She kisses his forehead and wishes him luck, tells him to be a better boy and stop crying, and Sanji trips on his walk toward a town he’s never seen before, forgetting very quickly how he had gotten there, wondering how he could get back to the only place he’d called home.
Sanji stares at his new badge, the awkward smile on his face, the scrunch to his curly eyebrows, and the incredibly large, baggy dress shirt hanging off his shoulders. He’d known as soon as he uncrumpled Zoro’s shirt that it wouldn’t fucking fit, but the alternative was the tea-stained, damp blue shirt he’d been wearing, and—he checked his notebook before deciding it was necessary—Robin had already warned him to change.
Zoro hadn’t even wanted to stay in the same room as him, bolting as soon as he had the chance.
He takes notes on—he glances at his notebook again—Nami’s instructions for the job, the expectations he’ll have to meet, his hours, his benefits.
“Zoro’s scared off the last two secretaries, not counting Usopp, who insists he wasn’t a secretary at the time,” Nami continues with a wave of her hand. If Sanji had thought Robin was beautiful, Nami is an angel incarnate. He’d forgotten how to speak when she’d called him into her office, and even now he is struggling. “Zoro isn’t your assigned executive, but he’s the one who needs the most help. You’re basically his underling.”
Sanji nods and writes that down. Priority. Focus on Zoro’s tasks because he needs the most help.
A pause. “You take thorough notes.”
“Oh.” Does she sound suspicious? “I wouldn’t want to forget anything a goddess like you tells me!”
“Despite your age, we absorbed you from Barto & Cav specifically because you wouldn’t need training. We don’t have anyone to train you,” she continues, not even looking at him. “We have obvious non-disclosures you’ll need to sign, and you aren’t allowed to bring or discuss any work outside of the office.”
“Of course, Nami-swan!” he exclaims. The chances of him remembering his work once he steps out of the office are unlikely, though he won’t be telling her, or anyone, that. “I would never want to disappoint—”
“I’m serious,” she repeats, finally deigning him worthy of a glare. Her eyes are a warm brown, but they’re just as intense as the other woman’s stare had been. “We’re taking a chance on you despite being a. . .” She makes a disgusted face. “Vinsmoke.”
Sanji’s heart races. “I’m not a—”
“You’re our newest member, but that doesn’t make you any less important in keeping Luffy’s business running. Any sign of negligence, any reason for me to fire you, and I will not only do that, I’ll leave you swarming in debt and legal fees so deep you’d wish you’d never stepped foot in here to steal Zoro’s shirt.”
He does not doubt the strength of her threat, writing down the work policy and underlining it twice. He ignores the comment about Zoro’s shirt, the way the collar is so loose on his neck it only stays up because of his tie. He doesn’t have an undershirt and he feels exposed, like a young dumb intern they are all stuck with.
“Could I possibly ask, request, from someone as lovely as you”—she gives him an impatient look—“that you and the others just call me Sanji?”
She raises a perfect brow. “Why.”
“I’m not a Vinsmoke.”
“Are you saying that our researcher did her job wrong?”
Sanji backtracks immediately. “No, no, of course not! I’m sure you’ve been keeping track of the news. Vinsmoke Judge only has three living sons. I’m not. . . I’m not one of them.”
She taps her nails on her desk thoughtfully. “Robin’s research is never wrong, and you’re legally registered on your banking statements as Vinsmoke Sanji. We can call you just Sanji, but it doesn’t negate your ties to the Vinsmokes and the fact that we’ll need to make sure you don’t betray our information to your family or the Germa 66 Corporation.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Nothing’s a guarantee, Sanji.”
“They’re not my family,” he insists, clipping his ‘Vinsmoke Sanji’ badge to a sagging chest pocket on his oversized shirt. “You can count on me!”
“Yes, well.” She glances at something in her notes, frowning. “Do you need accommodations? There’s a note from Barto—”
“Ah, no!” Sanji laughs. Bartolomeo had been kind to him. He’d defended Sanji when his work was poor, when everyone thought he was too young to be there. “I’m fine,” he says, too quickly, then forces a laugh again, annoyed that he’s now awkwardly laughed twice. “I mean. I’m good. I-I’m used to working hard.”
“Right.” She rolls her eyes. Sanji glances back down at his notebook. Nami. Nami. “I’ll grant you this. Your ‘hard work’ did something to make Zoro livelier than usual.”
Sanji can’t read her tone, but he’s not sure this is a good thing. Zoro is known for being gruff and reserved, only exacerbated by whatever happened with his left eye, but Sanji definitely did not see that kind of man in the lobby. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Nice shirt,” she says again, and she waves him off, but not without a smirk that lights up her eyes. “It’s Zoro’s spare for meetings.”
He leaves her private office with several folders of paperwork and notes—one highlighted that specifies that in-office relationships are expressly prohibited, as though anyone would want newly twenty-year-old Sanji—then heads to the central office area to find his desk. He doesn’t expect a private as their secretary, as he probably will oversee greeting floor visitors as well, but the setup is much nicer than his previous job.
At the center of the area are several cubicles with their own desks, and along the edges are the private offices. He can see where Zoro’s office is, located diagonally and a few doors down from his own desk, the door slightly ajar so Sanji can see the green of Zoro’s hair.
(Not that he’s staring!)
He’s sure the other surrounding offices are for the Straw Hats he’d noted during his own research of the company.
He loops the space and notes that some cubicles are empty and clearly not being used, and there are also a few large conference rooms with sign-up clipboards on the doors. There is a locked room with what looks like file cabinets, a break room with a small kitchen and dining table—he places his lunch in the back of the refrigerator there—and a copy room with a large printer. Sanji assumes this will be his second home in the office, and he notes the copy room’s location relative to his desk is a quick walk.
As usual, he jots this information in his notebook, ensuring he doesn’t forget the important details that have not yet become muscle memory to him. Copy room. Break room. Conference room.
His memory has improved over time, something the private Vinsmoke doctor had found possible but unlikely. Sanji equates this success to being raised away from further abuse, though he's always been careful not to show that his forgetfulness is worse on days Zeff kicks him. He doesn’t want Zeff to think he’s weak. Zeff shows his affection physically, and Sanji longs for those moments, however rough they may be.
He moves his box of supplies from his desk and starts reorganizing how he wants it to look. He needs his sticky notes to be easily accessible near the phone and computer monitor. He needs his paper clips near the stacks of papers he’ll have to organize. He has a system in place so he doesn’t forget things. He’ll be successful here, even more than he had been at Barto & Cav.
He sets up a picture frame of him with Zeff when they celebrated Sanji’s fourteenth birthday and Zeff had gotten him his own chef’s hat. He repositions how the computer monitor is situated relative to the front entry to the Straw Hat offices. He puts his snacks in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet.
It is in the middle of arranging his magnets that he remembers he’s forgotten to do something.
He stares at his newly set up desk, looks at the time on the screen of his computer monitor, and frowns. What is he forgetting?
He pulls his notebook from his pocket, flipping to the last page he’d written on.
Nami is public/human relations and an absolute goddess!
Ask Usopp for help since he was a secretary before.
Organize the office calendar first thing.
Focus on Zoro’s tasks because he needs the most help.
Ask Nami about additional tasks to do.
First thing. First thing.
Shit.
Sanji flips through the papers he’d been given to find his corporate login and password. The office calendar shouldn’t be too hard to do first, and then he’ll be set up for success. He can’t fail at his first task already. It’s only nine in the morning.
He can do this.
He’s barely opened the shared office calendar when a large shadow engulfs him.
Sanji looks up at Zoro, hating how this angle makes him seem even larger. The green of his hair is mixed with a bit of gray, Sanji notices. It's very attractive.
He decides he’ll wear his blazer tomorrow, to make his shoulders seem wider.
“Secretary Curlybrow.” He smirks, and Sanji resolves to only call him Mosshead or something equally as annoying. “Meeting with Mihawk. Ten. Put it on the calendar.”
Ten with Mihawk. Ten with Mihawk. Sanji’s hand is already moving, pen out, notebook open. The calendar isn’t set up yet for him to put it on directly. Fuck. He should’ve started with that instead of making his desk look nice. “Ten with Mihawk,” he says aloud, giving himself time to finish writing.
Zoro’s eye flicks to the notebook. “You write everything down?”
“Yeah,” Sanji stares at his notebook. Is it weird? Does Zoro think he’s acting like a child? “Can’t trust an idiot Marimo with just words.”
“Hm.” Zoro pushes his glasses up on his nose, so the light makes his eye unreadable. “Alright.” He slaps a folder onto Sanji’s desk. “Before that, print the draft contract in this folder. Three copies.” Three copies, he underlines. “And call accounting. Need the revised numbers from last quarter.”
Sanji writes it quickly, stomach tightening with the familiar twist of fear of a task slipping away the moment he stands. Draft contract. Accounting. Mihawk. “Anything else, my algae-headed executive?”
Zoro’s stare is flat—oh, shit, that is not how Sanji is supposed to address executives on his first day, especially not Zoro—and then his lips curve into the smallest smile. It does something that lightens his face, softening the harsh point of his eyebrows, making him seem delicate. “Green tea, no sugar.” His voice is gruff, almost annoyed, almost fond. His cheeks have a pink flush to them. “Some shitty secretary spilled mine.”
He watches as Zoro disappears into his office, heart fluttering in his chest, and he almost smiles at making Zoro look at him like that. Zoro’s words catch up quickly, though, and Sanji’s face flames.
“Wait! You spilled your own tea, mossy jackass!”
Zoro’s office door slams shut and Sanji glares at it, willing it to open again so he could yell at Zoro. Then he stands and picks up his task list.
Calendar. Mihawk. Print outs. Accounting. Clearly Zoro does need the most help. He’ll show Zoro, he decides smugly. He’s going to be Zoro’s best secretary, and he’s going to be so necessary in Zoro’s daily tasks he’ll regret ever thinking Sanji was shitty at anything.
Sanji knows his skills. He’s a great secretary. He’s going to be Zoro’s best.
(Zoro will want him.)
The calendar will take the longest, so he decides to focus on the print outs, because he can call accounting while adding Mihawk’s appointment to the calendar. He clutches his notebook and Zoro’s files to his chest and makes his way.
The printer in the Straw Hat copy room is more advanced than the one from Barto & Cav, but Sanji is sure he can figure it out. He loads up the papers Zoro gave him into the printing tray at the top, then sets it to print one copy, to make sure it works correctly.
The first print job is rampant with errors, half off the page and too small simultaneously.
He tries again, forcing his hands not to shake. Zeff taught him that. Steady hands will make the job better, regardless of what goes wrong. He’s careful to properly zoom in on the page, recalibrating it to copy correctly.
The second attempt works.
Relieved, he prints another three sets, so Zoro can have his three and his original, and Sanji can keep a copy as well. He'll clip them with his colorful paperclips. The green ones, Sanji decides with a smirk. He carries his warm stack of papers to his desk, then logs back into the computer.
He’s about to start on the calendar when the beautiful orange-haired goddess slaps a stack of folders on his desk.
“Sanji.” Her smile brightens her face, the whole office, the world. “Could you scan these into storage? I also need you to fax copies of the first folder to Beatrice at the News Coo. It’s about our latest success. You wouldn’t want to ruin our reputation, would you?”
Sanji shakes his head quickly, accepting the new work with a smile. “Not at all”—he can’t glance at his notebook without making it obvious he’s forgotten her name—“my beautiful mellorine.”
“Luffy’s not coming in until lunch, probably, but could you heat up one of the frozen lunches before he gets in? It’ll keep him tame.”
Frozen lunches? Sanji makes a mental note to cook for the group for tomorrow. No one should be eating frozen lunches when they have a chef for a secretary! “Of course!”
“Thanks, Sanji!” She winks at him. “Maybe you can last longer than the other two.”
“Oh,” he flusters, “yes, I’ll—”
“You’re already getting more out of Zoro than any of us,” she says, and she doesn’t sound offended, necessarily, but she doesn’t sound too happy either. “Maybe we just needed some young blood to fire up our idiot old swordsman.”
What? “I’m sorry?”
“Remember the policy!” She’s gone into her office before he can say anything more, and he smiles dopily at her door before sitting up straight.
Okay. He needs to scan the folder files and fax the first folder’s contents to someone. He writes it down quickly. Nami. Right. Her name is Nami.
Lunch for Luffy. He can’t get on his boss’s bad side, like he already has with Zoro.
It’s a bit longer of a task list than he had with Bartolomeo on most days, but he can handle it. The calendar still takes priority. He looks at his list. Mihawk meeting at ten. He puts in the information and blocks out the time as busy, then sends it to Zoro. He can’t hear if Zoro got the alert since the door is closed, but that’s one step down.
He’ll have to input the other meetings from the sheet he’d gotten during his introductory meeting with Nami, too, since just one meeting doesn’t make a shared calendar functional.
He’s halfway through his third calendar entry when a dark-skinned man with the longest nose Sanji has ever seen starts hovering.
He keeps typing anyway, ignoring how his small desk starts feeling more crowded. He forces himself to finish the line he’s typing before giving this man any attention. He can’t skimp on his duties when a beautiful woman gave them to him!
“What.” Men don’t deserve his pleasant secretary tone.
“You’re the new hire,” the man announces, stroking his chin like this is something to consider in a grand scheme. It’s dramatic enough that Sanji doesn’t take him seriously, especially considering the lack of beard. Sanji at least has some hair on his chin. “Your great boss Usopp will need to show you the ropes.”
“Usopp.” The name is familiar, and Sanji pauses in his work to flip through his notebook. Nami had mentioned him. He’s not Sanji’s boss. “You were a secretary here.”
“Barely.” Usopp’s chest puffs up. “I was—”
“Nami told me to ask you about some of the—”
Usopp laughs loudly enough that Sanji stops talking. “I was hired as a secretary, but I stopped after having to deal with our crazy swords guy, here.”
He hears the phrase crazy swords guy and his mind supplies the strong older man with green hair. Swords explain the gash that bisects his chest on the magazine covers. Zoro seems like he could be a swords guy. He’s built so ruggedly. Sanji licks his lips and pushes away the fantasy of a shirtless Zoro carrying Sanji into the bedroom.
“I’m a negotiator now.”
Sanji eyes him doubtfully.
“Okay, I help with negotiating. I’m the last resort, but I always win for us when I’m brought in!”
Sanji nods and continues typing into the shared calendar. Usopp keeps watching him; he can feel it. “Why are you hovering?” Sanji asks, without looking away from the screen.
Usopp makes an offended noise. “I’m supervising Zoro’s newest victim. As your senior in age and experience, it’s my duty to you.”
“I’m not that young.” The look Usopp gives him shows how little he believes that. Sanji scowls at him. Twenty is a respectable secretary age. Sanji may not know how old everyone else is, but he works hard and he knows they won’t notice his inexperience with life once they give him a chance. “I’m an experienced secretary,” he insists. “I can do the job.”
“Not doubting that!” He raises his hands like he’s surrendering. “You already got Zoro to smile, I hear.”
“If you call him dumping tea on me and then making it seem like my fault smiling.” Sanji slides his notebook a few inches to the side and types a note into the calendar for Zoro. Then he clicks save, just to be sure, even though the system autosaves. Tea. Tea. . .
Tea?
“Did you fight him about that or something?”
Sanji pauses. The details of the morning are already beginning to blur. He doesn’t remember exactly, but he doesn’t think he did. He doesn’t feel the pleasant burn in his thigh or calf muscles from landing a good kick, and Zoro is a hulking, muscular, beefy man that Sanji would really need to work to pin down. He’d easily let himself be pinned down by those hulking arms, those powerful legs, that intense gaze—
“You did, didn’t you?” Sanji jolts, embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming about Zoro’s body. Usopp looks happy, though. “Whatever you did, keep doing it. He hasn’t been the same since he lost his eye.”
That gets Sanji’s attention, his heart skipping a beat. No reports ever confirmed what happened that led to Zoro losing his eye, and Zoro had changed so much afterward, per the papers. “What happened?”
Usopp leans in conspiratorially, and Sanji immediately understands that he’s the office gossip. “Well, it was during Marshall v Portgas, our case defending Luffy’s brother. Zoro took it really seriously, but there were some underhanded tactics outside of the courtroom, and he was forced to—”
“Wait,” Sanji interrupts, ashamed, “should you be telling me this?”
Sanji has too many of his own secrets he wants permanently buried. He respects that Zoro probably doesn’t want the new secretary knowing all of his. Zoro seems private, quiet. And he already hates Sanji.
Usopp frowns. “Well—”
Sanji scrambles for a conversation shift. Anything to avoid spilling Zoro’s secrets. Sanji didn’t earn them. “What’s it like working with the Straw Hats?”
Usopp’s face turns serious, and he looks at Sanji in a way that’s both open and completely unreadable. “We’re going to be the family you didn’t know you needed.”
He stops typing and looks at Usopp, gauges how serious the statement is. He has the chefs at the Baratie. He has Zeff. He has shouting and chaos and garlic and onions and home in that room above the restaurant, two doors down from Zeff’s bedroom. He doesn’t need anything more.
He doesn’t deserve anything else.
“Alright,” Sanji pretends to agree, keeping his tone light. He doesn’t want to get on the bad side of his new coworkers, but he does have a lot of tasks to manage before he’ll have to take minutes in the upcoming meetings, so he doesn’t want to fall behind. “I’ll find you at lunch, then.”
“Make sure to heat up the frozen steak for Luffy before he arrives,” Usopp instructs. Sanji bites back his urge to protest. No one should eat frozen food when a chef is in the office! It feels like a familiar thought, but he doesn’t know why. “I’ve been here long enough to see what happens when it isn’t ready.”
“Oh, but—”
“And everyone’s going to give you tasks,” he continues, steamrolling, “but mine are the most important.”
“I don’t think—”
“Robin gave me these to give to you.” He plops a few manila files on Sanji’s desk. They sound heavier than they look.
“Robin?” Sanji repeats, scrambling to remember who Robin is. His brain offers a blank white space.
“Can you see if any of these prove Caesar’s ‘expert witness’ status is bogus? We need to show he’s made some bad calls.”
“Sure,” Sanji says, stomach tightening. Robin. Robin. “But what are these?”
“Fax what you find to Polar Tang. I’ll see you at lunch,” Usopp says. “And don’t forget the steak.”
He’s gone before Sanji can get his thoughts together. He stares at the small collection of manila folders and writes the new task in his notebook, then flips back to where he’d noted that Robin was the beautiful woman who brought him here.
He’ll have to prioritize this task for her. The beautiful women of this company are going to be the death of him!
Noting down who Usopp is and heart racing with the looming presence of another assignment that could slip through his memories like smoke, Sanji stretches and gets back to work.
He can’t disappoint Zoro.
Zeff notices Sanji’s deficiencies almost immediately. He’ll ask Sanji to do something and be forced to yell at him when he doesn’t do it; he’ll remind Sanji of a task and see Sanji start it, then ask him to do something else and confuse Sanji with too much to do, so he ends up doing neither. Zeff has to teach him, repeatedly, what ingredients and recipes and cooking really mean.
He’s rough about it. Finding a ‘snot-nosed brat digging through his trash’ hadn’t been on his bucket list when he’d planned to open a second restaurant, and he’d made that clear when Sanji had started following him, confused and sad. His tone eventually started sounding fond, and he had been obviously relieved when it seemed like Sanji forgot what he’d said in his fit of frustration and lack of experience with children.
But Sanji doesn’t let himself forget.
Sanji reminds himself every day that Zeff feels that way. He owes Zeff more than the world, and he won’t allow himself the ease of forgetting, though he will allow Zeff the peace of thinking it’s something Sanji lost, because they both were starving and desperate and hurt when Zeff said it a second time.
Zeff spent his savings to help Sanji find a good doctor for his memory. He had to go back to working in one restaurant instead of overseeing two, had to deal with Sanji forgetting to turn off a stove and burning down the place, making them lose the financial stability they’d had in their back pocket, making them live on the streets for a while. He’d lost his leg for Sanji, and he won’t give Sanji the details of if it had been a sale or cannibalism or something else.
Ultimately, when they are able to get on their feet again, Zeff, Sanji, and Dr. Kureha determine several methods to help Sanji with memory. Making reminder lists has proven the most helpful, but the occasional quiz from Zeff about ingredients (with physical punishments when he answers wrong but rewards through further kitchen lessons when he answers right) help in solidifying the knowledge he wants most. He has several cooking timers spread in his room so he can locate the one ringing to see something he needs to do. He has his notebooks.
Dr. Kureha says his memory is better than it's ever been.
It’s just.
(Not good overall.)
Not where Sanji wants it to be.
Zeff wants Sanji to move out, but Sanji doesn’t have the qualifications to earn money on his own. He refuses to take Zeff’s money at the restaurant after everything he’s already taken from Zeff, so he lies and tells Zeff he gets paid well as a secretary, the only job willing to hire someone without even an elementary school education.
Sanji knows he could study and force himself to memorize things for exams so he could get the qualifications for more, but if he does that he spends less time in the kitchen. High school education isn’t necessary for his own restaurant. Being a secretary pays the bills.
It's not a bad life, honestly. Really.
And Sanji's memory isn't reliably good or bad. He forgets names and faces unless he sees them repeatedly, but sometimes he forgets them anyway, on bad days. He forgets what he's doing in the middle of his tasks, on bad days. He forgets people he’s known for years, situations he’s regularly lived, experiences he shouldn’t forget.
He nearly always forgets where he puts his keys, so he has to create routine. He can't bring himself to learn to drive, in case he hurts someone and forgets, or he loses his car, or he loses track of his destination. There are little things in his life that he does and doesn’t do to accommodate what he lost from that game he played with his brothers, but he has Zeff and he survives.
He overall has more good days than bad ones, because Zeff is there for him, and the Baratie is home, and he's always welcome to cook there. The other chefs are supportive if not ignorant because Zeff won’t let them comment on Sanji’s deficits, and while Sanji yearns for friendship and romance and something beyond just his restaurant, he remembers Zeff’s words and Judge’s words and Sanji’s own words to himself.
He can’t want more.
So he doesn’t.