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Sanji learns afterwards that it's Robin who first spots the ship, perched in the larboard shrouds and lending an over-literal hand to Franky in inspecting the rigging.
The Thousand Sunny took the fall from Wano's heights as well as it could have—which means two days later Franky is still going over every beam and every rope for unseen damage.
The rest of them, on seeing an unfamiliar sail creeping up from over the horizon, would yell for the others. Robin, unruffled, crosses her hands over her chest and sprouts a dozen mouths all over the Sunny to tell people, quietly and calmly:
"'Ware sail at three o'clock."
In his workshop, Usopp yelps; on the deck, Luffy throws down the ball he's been bouncing against the foremast and cheers, "Adventure!"
He isn't put off at all by the ball bouncing back up and whacking him in the forehead.
In the galley, Sanji nods politely to the disembodied mouth emerging from a cabinet door and dries his hands. Midafternoon on a beautiful day means it's just about time to bring out a snack. He's got a pitcher of fresh lemonade in the fridge, sugar-rimmed glasses chilling in the freezer, and a batch of dango finishing up their quick simmer. He hadn't left Wano without cornering the palace head cook and a dozen street vendors and shaking them down for their best recipes, and he's determined to get them all locked into muscle memory as soon as he can.
Sanji sticks his head out the galley door, spots Brook on the deck opposite, and hollers over, "Tell me when they start firing!"
Brook lifts the bow from his violin for a moment to wave, and Sanji returns the salute. With luck he can get the dango shocked in the ice bath and ready for their skewers and syrup dunking before the inevitable fight.
The dango are all prepped and Sanji's pouring out the cooking water, steam billowing up from the sink to curl the ends of his hair, when Robin appears again, this time unaccompanied by the wafting scent of flower petals.
"Sanji," she says, the tone of her voice indicating that this is no time for games, "perhaps you'd better come take a look. Nami says you'll recognize the ship approaching us."
"I'll come this instant, my dear." Sanji does a last check to make sure nothing will spill or burn without supervision and rounds the corner of the galley, untying his apron as he goes.
Robin stops him as he's rounding the table, one hand up in warning.
Voice low and very blunt, she says: "Nami says the ship is from Germa."
Sanji feels his eyes go wide, his shoulders up, his step hitch. He corrects himself after a moment, and nods.
"Thank you, Robin," he murmurs. It's a kindness to let him know in private. Robin acknowledges him with a quiet nod of her own.
Out on the deck, Luffy's yelling cheerfully about a rematch and Nami is radiating quiet malice, holding her telescope like it's a quarterstaff.
"May I?" Sanji asks her, and she passes it to him, lips thin.
The ship's nothing but a smudge on the horizon to bare eyes; in the telescope, the view resolves itself into black sails and Germa's ensign clear on the flag snapping at the top of the mast. The ship snail's eyestalks rise slowly into view before it, undulating with the motion of its body.
"Well, that's conclusive," Sanji says, and passes the telescope back. He digs in his pockets for cigarette and lighter.
The lighter catches right away. The first drag is a relief: a reminder he's out here on the open sea with his crew, not alone in the dark with syrup rain matting down his hair.
"I'll go take a look, shall I?" he says with a pleasant smile, and tries not to take notice of Nami's face as he kicks off.
Why would Germa be here? Hard not to think about possibilities on his way towards the horizon. They changed their minds and want to kill him. They changed their minds and want him back. Judge is dead, one of his brothers is dead, Reiju is dead. They want to ally with the Straw Hats in some new war. They're moving operations into the East Blue and Zeff is dead.
Halfway to the ship, Sanji throws out his observation haki. There's only one ship and it stays stubbornly alone, no extra sparks of life hiding behind a convenient bank of fog or the horizon's curve. Fifty-odd lives aboard the ship, most of them identical, the dull gleam of Germa's cloned soldiers.
They're accompanied by one bright, familiar glow, that clicks into place in Sanji's mind just as a small pink figure leaps off the deck towards him.
"Reiju!" Sanji calls, and pauses to let her reach him. This high up, the breeze is sharp and cold. Sanji double-checks the buttons on his blazer; no need to let the wind steal his tie.
His sister is a streak of lightning through the clear sky. She stops elegantly on a dime four feet away from him in the air.
"Sanji, hello. I'd hoped to catch up with you," she says, her eternal smile steady as ever.
"What for? Big news?" Sanji says it lightly, occupying himself with stubbing out the end of his cigarette and tucking it away. As though his pulse is thumping along at a normal pace.
"Not if you don't count Judge renewing some annoying acquaintances, which I don't," she says. "No; I was sent on a mission alone and when I heard your ship was in these waters, I hoped we would get the chance to speak."
Sanji musters a real smile at that. "It's good to see you too."
Reiju looks good, or at least less drawn than she did in Totto Land. Her Poison Pink suit still strikes at Sanji's heart, as do the tattoos on her legs. They're hard to resolve into his mental image of her, static for a decade. Maybe her mental image of him locked fifteen years ago, too; Sanji hopes not.
"Would you like to come back to the ship and talk?" Reiju indicates the snail below. "It's just me and the crew. We'd have privacy "
He tries not to grimace. "Ah. How about you visit the Thousand Sunny? You didn't get the chance to meet most of my crew."
"I don't think I'd be welcome."
"Of course you would. I'll make sure. And…"
Sanji hadn't expected to see her again for another decade. Germa 66 had appeared out of nowhere and faded again as quickly as a nightmare. Robin and Brook had asked him some quiet, probing questions after his return, and then Chopper had fussed over his neck after the raid on Onigashima, but the others had left well enough alone. Sanji had hoped that everyone would forget his interval in Totto Land, and that it would sink without leaving any trace of its passage on the ocean's surface. But still. But still.
"You're both my family," he says at last, firmly. "You and my awful crew. I'd like for you to meet everyone."
Reiju's polished smile doesn't move an inch. "You can't mean that."
"I do. If they're too much we can hole up in the galley. But… I think they'll make you laugh."
A faint shrieking, like the call of a juvenile cranegull, comes from far below. It doesn't pass, but gets louder, till Sanji turns to look. The Thousand Sunny's sailed up closer to them and the whole crew assembled on the deck—with the exception of their captain, who appears to have gotten bored with waiting and decided to slingshot himself right at Sanji.
"AAAAAAAAHHHH—HI SANJI! HI PINK SANJI!"
Luffy slams into Sanji, knocking all the air out of him and immediately looping his arms half a dozen times around Sanji's torso and arms.
"The dango was good!" Luffy adds, too-loud, directly into Sanji's ear. He hooks his chin over Sanji's shoulder, the brim of his hat knocking into Sanji's skull.
"They weren't ready—" Sanji gives up with a sigh. "Did you share?"
"Yyyyyes," Luffy says, in the voice that always makes Sanji imagine him as a little kid trying to get away without washing his hands before dinner. In this case it probably means, everyone else got at least one so it's fine I ate half the batch myself, right? It's a distinctive voice. Sanji hears it a lot.
Sanji looks back at Reiju. Her head's cocked to one side and her smile's grown sly at one side. Honest amusement, if you can read it. It's a relief to realize that he can. "Told you so," he says.
"So you did."
"Hey, Sanji's sister, are you here because we need to beat someone up for you?"
Trapped in Luffy's python embrace, Sanji can't even kick him properly for that. "Her name's Reiju, you rude goddamn chore boy," Sanji scolds him. "And no, she's here for a visit."
Luffy extends his neck, snaking his head around Sanji's to stare solemnly at Reiju for a long minute. He doesn't need haki or his fifth gear to see into your soul; those huge dark eyes do it all on their own.
Whatever he sees must please him, because he grins and says, "Oh, okay. Are you coming for dinner, Reiju? Sanji's the best at cooking!"
"I'd hate to disturb your plans," she demurs—but a fist unrelated to Luffy's manhandling has abruptly seized Sanji's heart.
He blurts, "I never got to cook for you back home. I—please stay for dinner. Reiju."
Sanji doesn't know what Reiju's reading on his own face right now. Too much, probably.
"Then who am I to refuse such a generous offer?"
Luffy unwinds himself from Sanji, leaving his arms draped over Sanji's shoulders. He turns his head on his long, stretched-out neck to peer right at Sanji. "Hey, Sanji, I don't think you're big enough to slingshot off of, can you kick me back to the Sunny?"
"Captain, you know nothing makes me happier than kicking your ass," Sanji tells him.
"I like your sister," Luffy confides as Sanji's winding up, not nearly quiet enough to count as a whisper.
"Me too," Sanji whispers back, punts Luffy ten feet up for the set, and serves him directly down to their ship with a flaming roundhouse kick.
Luffy flies true, hollering with joy the whole way. Sanji watches him bounce against the deck and back up again into the rigging, rubber limbs instantly tangling with the shrouds. Franky shakes a massive fist up at him from the aft deck.
"I'll be interested to meet your crew," Reiju says, watching the clusterfuck. "They're so lively."
"That's the nicest way you could've put it. They're a bunch of fucking clowns, ladies excused. Shall we?"
Reiju paces him on their own, more sedate descent, floating as Sanji staircase-steps his way down the sky. The Sunny swells under them. Chopper and Usopp are hanging off an upper rail, watching Franky tug at Luffy's arms. The wind carries snatches of their laughter up to Sanji.
"Do you have a favourite food? " Sanji asks. "I'll make it for you. It—I should know it already. It's fucked that I don't know it."
"Poison."
Sanji misses a step and catches himself with difficulty. "'Scuse me?"
Reiju's smile has never been more of a shield. "Armored stonefish skin. Scorpion tails. Belladonna jam on ergot rye. Rat poison, Sanji. I'm not cruel enough to ask that of you."
They land on the Sunny's deck, Sanji with the solid tap of his dress shoes, Reiju perfectly silent in her padded boots. The jets on her ankles turn off with a faint click.
There's a plan forming in his mind. It relies on his crew, and on Reiju giving him a chance—but. But.
Before he summons the horde, Sanji turns to her. "Nobody leaves my kitchen hungry. You'll get the best dinner you've ever had. And that's a promise."
He stuffs his hands into his pockets against the indefensible urge to reach out. And fills his lungs.
"OI," Sanji yells at his crew. "COME BE NICE TO MY BIG SISTER."
Luffy unwinds his double-knotted legs in an instant. The rest come in a wave, Franky and Chopper enthusiastic behind him, then Nami and Robin, the one suspicious and the other unreadable; Usopp trails after Brook bounding up from belowdecks. Jinbei waves a greeting from the wheel, conscientiously waiting for the anchor to lower before leaving his post. And, finally, Zoro—slow to descend the ladder from the crow's nest, eye sharp and judging all the while.
Sanji surveys his crew, their eager and hostile and apprehensive faces.
"Nami, Robin, dipshits—this is my sister, Reiju. She's come by for a visit, so we're all going to be on our best behaviour, yeah?"
"We've met," Nami says, icily.
Nami, being a paragon of elegance and warmth and perspicacity and everything else good in the world, could never act in any way that's at all untoward. Sanji chews on his tongue.
"Right," he says at last. "I guess you would've."
Reiju and Nami smile at each other through the crowd. The Sunny creaks around them. The silence is broken by Chopper, who pushes around Brook's legs to throw his hooves up in excitement.
"Yes!" he cheers. "Sanji's sister! You saved Luffy from that poison! I have so many questions."
Chopper is Sanji's favourite crewmate, definitely. The little brother he never wanted, possibly. He makes a note to add maple bars to the week's dessert menu.
Sanji unfreezes enough to make the introductions, and his crewmates even mostly behave themselves.
Then he reaches Brook, who sweeps Reiju a wide bow, and gets out, "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about showing me your—", before Sanji punts his head off his shitty skeletal body and through an open porthole to the library.
(In perfect simultaneity, Luffy, Chopper, and Franky all cheer: "Goal!")
Sanji ends on, "And over there is Usopp; don't believe anything he says."
"Oh, Sanji's the best chef this side of Paradise, and all the ladies think he's terribly handsome," Usopp says immediately, the little shit. "Flower petals strew his path everywhere he goes. He never screams when he falls out of his bunk in the middle of the night, either. Or when he sees an itty-bitty little spider."
"You're real fucking funny, longnose. Don't go anywhere, I got a question for you. The rest of you, play nice. Reiju needs special food so we're going to take over the galley tonight; it's a sandwich picnic night for the rest of you, alright?"
Luffy and Chopper immediately start up a chant for sandwich picnic night. Sanji's got the wicker baskets and red-checked blankets tucked away for exactly these occasions: half the fun of a picnic is in the props.
With zero conviction that the others aren't listening in, Sanji murmurs to Reiju, "Alright if I leave you with them for a while so I can start putting dinner together? Only Luffy bites and he's up to dates on his shots, promise."
"You don't have to do any of this for me," she tells him again, quietly.
"I want to. Ain't that enough?" Sanji sighs. "If the others get too rowdy, come to the galley. Or find Jinbei or Robin—they should be more restful."
Usopp, hovering anxiously, follows Sanji's beckoning hand up to the garden. Behind them, Chopper flips open a notebook and begins what sounds like an extended interrogation.
"I didn't do anything," Usopp says. He darts a look over to the side rail. Sanji isn't asking.
"You sure didn't," Sanji agrees. "I need a favour from a brave warrior of the sea."
"Sea kings defeated, treasures found, and princesses rescued a specialty," says Usopp cheerfully. "Wait, I don't think your sister needs my help, though."
The garden's a pleasant spot, shaded by Nami's trees and cluttered with gardening tools. There's a battered elephant-shaped watering can they've had since they were sailing on the Merry; these days it's got blobby little mink figures painted around the rim.
Sanji shakes a smoke out of his pack. "I need a couple things," he says. "First, a handful of whatever pop greens you can spare from your garden, but just the toxic ones."
Usopp raises his eyebrows. Nobody does disbelieving better than Usopp. "Most of them are the toxic ones. Also, who are you trying to kill? I thought we liked Reiju."
"We do. And Reiju likes poison," Sanji says pleasantly. "So I'm going to make your dinner the way you like it and pack it up away from the toxic fumes, and then I'm going to make hers the way she likes it."
"I like that order of operations."
"Thought you might. I also need something for a main, so I'd consider it a favour if you could do some fishing this afternoon—you know how I'm always yelling at you to throw back the messed-up fuckers with the spikes and polka dots? I would love a messed-up fucker or two today."
"Ooh," Usopp says, brightening. "I have just the thing, actually. And it will require zero work, which is—"
"—The best amount of work," Sanji says along with Usopp, and laughs.
It's Usopp's turn to beckon Sanji along; Usopp leads the way to the side rail and points down at the rope they hang the lobster trap on.
"So, I didn't tell you this before, but last week I developed future sight. I can see the future, Sanji. It could be a totally unique side effect of observation haki. I'm basically a miracle."
Usopp lays a hand on his breast, the picture of sincerity.
Sanji hides a grin behind his cigarette. "And what have you seen, o great prophet?"
"A lobster trap with at least one mean spotty fucker in it with your name all over it," Usopp says promptly. "I left it there for you because I knew you would need it today. You should bow to my foresight, honestly."
He eases a foot back towards the garden. Sanji shakes his head.
"Did we not have any shellfish to cook the last three days because you were scared of a lobster?"
"I don't know what you mean I can't hear you I'm very busy right now," Usopp calls back, rapidly in retreat.
Sanji shakes his head and turns to pull the trap up himself. There are two fuckers in it, locked in deadly battle—a short-spined deathcapod in one corner of the ring, and a western blue-ringed octopus in the other. The detritus of a perfectly normal tripod salmon scattered around the trap suggests that after splitting lunch, the two fuckers turned on each other.
The deathcapod hisses at him when he pulls the trap over the railing. Perfect.
He ambles back towards Usopp with the dripping trap.
It's a pleasure to watch Usopp in his garden, hands sure on his secateurs. He still defaults to nerves plenty, but Usopp came back from their crew's long separation settled in himself, quietly confident in a way he had never been before. Sanji settles back against the rail to watch him work.
"Oh good, you got it. What did you get?"
"Nothing but an innocent sea-kitten, promise." Sanji says, and makes as if to open the trap. "Wanna see?"
Usopp squints at him. "I'm not coming near that thing."
Sanji shrugs. Worth a shot. He finishes his smoke as he watches Usopp work.
At last, Usopp sits back on his heels and hands up a basket filled with pop green pods and a handful of things that would look exactly like fiddleheads but for the evil neon spotting all up their lengths.
"Thanks, Great Captain Usopp," Sanji tells him, with one last pleased huff of the citrusy garden air. "Let me know later what you want for lunch tomorrow, yeah?"
"I get to pick?"
Sanji grins down at him. "You're officially my second-favourite today. Don't tell anyone."
"Cook poison more often!" Usopp yells after him. Sanji waves a hand, and goes to beg a square foot or so of spare planking from Franky.
When he nudges the galley door open with a shin to drop everything off, he finds the table covered in the remains of his long-forgotten dango. The trays are picked clean and the syrup bowl is empty of everything but a handful of wooden skewers. Sticky finger- and hoof-prints on the dining table suggest that some of his customers ignored the skewers entirely.
The lemonade's still waiting in the locked fridge, though, so before anything else Sanji goes out to deliver a round of drinks.
Horrifically, when he gets to the lawn, he's confronted with the sight of Reiju leaning in towards Zoro, tongue delicately touching her upper lip in a way he hates to recognize. Zoro's hand is on Wado Ichimonji's hilt, less in an I'm going to attack you way than in an I don't know what's going on and I need to hold my teddy bear about it one.
"He's got diseases," Sanji announces loudly as he approaches with his tray. "Wait, no, no diseases, he's disgusting in a non-toxic way."
Zoro shoots him a disgruntled look. "I showered this morning, asshole."
"And is that cologne," Reiju asks him, "or a natural musk…?"
This is the worst thing that's ever happened to Sanji in his life.
"Here. Lemonade. Go. Sit. Drink." He shoves Zoro away with a drink and a knee to the ass, and casts desperately around for a safer presence. "Have you talked to Jinbei yet, Reiju? Our charming helmsman. Speaks to whales. Very soothing presence."
He steers Reiju towards Jinbei, relaxing now in one of the extra-large beach chairs they keep around for him and Franky (and, occasionally, for Luffy in his fourth gear).
"Hm," Reiju says, and licks her lips again. "There is something to an older gentleman. And such a strong one, too."
"NO," Sanji yowls. Jinbei, the perfect gentleman, sits up to observe them both in concern.
And Reiju laughs. Sanji's ready to leap off the Thousand Sunny's side and free himself of this pain, and then it hits him like a blow to the solar plexus: this is the first time he's heard Reiju laugh in thirteen years.
It's all he can do to hand around the lemonade. "Don't," he instructs Jinbei—Reiju—he doesn't know. Sanji waves his arm around to encompass the two of them, the deck, the whole world possibly. "I'm glad you're having a good time but—just—don't."
He distributes the rest of the drinks as fast as possible before retreating to the galley. On his way back in, Franky gives him an I'm happily taken but damn look from under his sunglasses. Sanji responds with a middle finger held passionately upright. He's in hell.
The sandwiches are simple to make, at least. The point of a picnic spread isn't novelty, it's the delight of having as many old favourites on hand as possible. Sanji hauls half the contents of the fridge out onto the counters and gets mixing, chopping, and spreading. He packs two wicker baskets full to the brim: egg salad, cucumber, Bestland coronation chicken, cheese and onion for Usopp's occasionally plain-but-strange tastes, meatloaf for the sake of giving Franky something at least a little burger-ish, triple-decker club sandwiches too wide for any non-rubberized mouth for the captain. It's not work that requires anything like conscious thought from him, so Sanji's mind goes whirring along as his hands move.
By the time he's got all the pickles and mustards put away again, Sanji's got a plan of action. He pulls out the last of their gorgeous Wano peaches, all blushing pink and perfectly shaped. A small cross cut into the tail of each one and a quick blanch, and their skins slip off with no effort on his behalf. The peaches get sliced and tossed with a little sugar and warm spices; Sanji carefully sets the pits aside in their own bowl. Pie dough next. Hand pies seem like just the thing for a picnic on the lawn. Sanji reserves a small ball of the dough as well, running through a mental catalogue of all his tart pans.
He peers out the door once the hand pies are in the oven, tops washed with egg and sprinkled with crunchy sanding sugar. Things seem to be going alright—or, at least, nobody's looking actively murderous or about to drown. Zoro, leaning back against a tree again, opens his eye and meets Sanji's gaze across the lawn, steady and reassuring. When he gives a thumbs up, Sanji returns it with gratitude.
Reiju, too, notices Sanji lurking in the doorway. She's talking with Chopper and Robin, looking perfectly composed: probably discussing awful ways to die, how to prevent them (Chopper), and how to speed them up (Robin). She gives Sanji a smile, perfectly steady, perfectly composed, and totally unreadable.
He smiles back, and when he returns to his work he leaves the door cracked open.
The hand pies come out to cool, and bottles of white wine, cola, and more lemonade go into the fridge to chill. They'll all share the third basket.
Then it's time to wipe down the counters and the sticky dining table, put away the picnic spread, and prep dinner for his guest.
The main problem when it comes to cooking with poison is not Sanji poisoning himself as he works. If he can't keep his hands out of the way of a deathcapod's spines he deserves to lose them. It's contaminating his kitchen.
The jewel of Sanji's galley is the Adam tree cutting board Franky gave him to inaugurate the Sunny's galley with. Doesn't slide. Doesn't fuck up his knives or scar. It even refuses to absorb scents from his ingredients, which means Sanji can slice a melon on it without the melon picking up a faint taste of garlic. He still has a specific cutting board set aside for fruit, he's not an animal, but all the same.
Sanji isn't chancing his good cutting board against the risk of neurotoxins and whatever Usopp's pop greens are capable of. He slides it away and sets in its place the plank he just begged off Franky—a decently wide piece of Water 7-imported bluebeech, good enough it won't add splinters to his cooking, cheap enough Franky won't be mad when Sanji breaks it into pieces and sets it on fire for disposal.
The first order of business is disentangling his two fuckers in the lobster trap, dispatching them, and setting them up on the stovetop. The rule of thumb for seafood is that lobster cooks quick and octopus cooks slow; Sanji just hopes it holds true even for venomous deep-sea lobsters.
He's got the greens prepped by the time the deathcapod's ready, and then he can leave the octopus to its long simmer and get a head start on dessert.
It's a meditative process, whacking peach pits with his kitchen hammer (clearly labeled to keep it from being mixed up with any of Usopp or Franky's non-kitchen hammers, not that it always stops those fuckers) to get the seeds out. Works off some aggression.
There's a snail ship anchored within walking distance of the Thousand Sunny, and his big sister's on board.
Hard to treat this like just another dinner.
He keeps an ear out for the sound of the galley door. He's got his head in the fridge, digging out a bundle of herbs wrapped in a tea towel, when it finally swings open.
It's not Reiju in the doorway, but Robin.
"Darling Robin! Did you want anything? Cup of coffee?"
"Just a moment of your time. But I wouldn't say no to coffee."
Robin sits herself at the bar as Sanji flits between stove and cupboards, preparing her coffee.
A change has been working within Robin ever since the crew slid back out the Gates of Justice. When she first boarded the Going Merry, Robin was amused but detached. These days, Robin wakes up every day ready to be quietly, personally delighted by the world. And Sanji—Sanji loves to delight her. To that end, he presents her with her coffee today in one of Brook's Soul King cups with the skull on each side and a crown picked out in gold on the saucer. They're bootlegs so the skulls are more than a little wonky, but Brook insists it just adds to their charm (and he wasn't getting a cut of the merch profits anyway so it's no skin off his nose, so to speak).
Robin does laugh on receiving her coffee. Sanji nearly swoons.
"That's better," Robin tells him. "You were looking a little tense, Sanji."
Sanji touches the knot of his tie. Is it still sitting well? It must be. "I'm not sure what you mean. Did you have a good talk with Reiju?"
"I did." Robin stirs cream into her coffee. Sets the spoon down with the quiet tick of metal on ceramic. "She's a young woman in a difficult situation, but she's strong. I wouldn't bet against Reiju."
Sanji unrolls his tea-toweled herbs onto his makeshift cutting board. "I'm glad to hear it," he tells Robin.
"And I'm relieved to see you both so solicitous of one another. But that doesn't make seeing her easier, does it?"
Sanji's breath catches in his throat. He sets down his knife. He's liable to get blood in the herbs if he keeps working like this.
Looking down at his bladeleaf parsley, he says, "You're very sharp, Miss Robin."
"Thank you. That is not, however, what I asked."
"Sharp and ruthless. Yes," Sanji says, like yanking off a bandage that's crusted onto his skin. "But difficult doesn't mean not worth doing."
Robin turns her coffee cup in its saucer, tilting Brook's portrait back and forth. "It's good you understand. But don't twist yourself into too many knots—I believe she is finding today just as difficult. And as rewarding."
"I did throw her to the wolves, didn't I?"
"I would worry; the wolves haven't bitten too deeply. Or been bitten." Robin drains her cup. "Thank you for the coffee, Sanji."
"Of course."
Sanji leans a hip on the counter to watch Robin leave. The galley door creaks again as it shuts; he's always forgetting to ask Franky to oil it.
He washes out the cup and saucer before he returns to his herbs. Out the galley window, the sun continues its day-long swim through the ocean of the sky, front-crawling towards its home port.
When the last piece of Reiju's dinner is almost done in the oven, he goes out on deck to collect the empty lemonade glasses. Everything seems just about shipshape. Some of the crew's scattered, but most of them are still hanging around. Franky's knitting something violently purple with his small hands while Chopper watches; at his side Robin's holding his yarn in one pair of hands and a book in another. The captain's splayed out on the figurehead, chin propped on its mane and fingers dangling in the water far below. Sanji is spared from having to go remind him not to drown himself by the sight of Jinbei on his broad seat at the wheel, close enough to dive after Luffy if needed. Reiju is with him, wearing a thoughtful frown like she no longer feels the need to present a smiling face to Sanji's crew. It's weirdly heartening for such a serious expression.
She's not making eyes at Jinbei, either, which means earlier was definitely just to yank his chain. That's a relief. And something for Sanji to never, ever think about again.
He circles around the lawn collecting glasses—Chopper licked the sugar rim clean off his, Sanji notes fondly as he sets it on his tray—before heading on up to Reiju.
"All good?" he asks them both.
"Certainly—Miss Reiju and I were discussing our few mutual acquaintances." Miss Reiju, Jinbei says, and not Princess. They must have had a good talk.
"We've both been to Totto Land," Reiju adds; "Jinbei worked for Big Mom while Judge was discussing the terms of our alliance."
Sanji stoops to collect their empty glasses, set neatly out of the way behind the ship's wheel. "She sure collected interesting acquaintances. Have you, uh, heard the news about Big Mom?"
"Oh, yes." Reiju's grin is swift and satisfied. "Jinbei told me all about it."
"You'll get some fun stories if you ask around the crew—I was busy with a dinosaur at the time and missed the excitement myself. Mind if I steal a moment with Reiju? Thanks, Jinbei."
Jinbei, the most polite man ever to board the Thousand Sunny, gets up and ambles Luffywards. Looks like he's going to give him the Don't Drown, Captain lecture again. One day it'll penetrate Luffy's skull. One day.
"Hey, uh. How are you feeling, after a couple hours of the chaos? I've got the galley set up for us, but we can brave the crowd if you're feeling wild."
Reiju looks at him. She's an inch shorter than him these days, even in her boots. Sanji's not used to looking down to meet her eyes.
"I came to see you," she says quietly, and that does seem to settle that.
"Ten minute warning, then." Sanji shifts the heavy load of glassware on his tray. "I hope the idiot squad hasn't been too much. They're a lot to deal with. Jinbei might be the only real adult on board."
"It's good to see the crew you've pledged yourself to. And Jinbei… I'm glad I spoke to him." Reiju looks off towards the figurehead, where Jinbei is shaking a finger at a damp Luffy. "He left the Big Mom Pirates. Brave of him."
"I'll say this for Jinbei: he knows exactly who he is, and why he does what he does."
For a moment, the two of them watch Jinbei in silence.
Sanji shakes his head. "Well. Come on by in a minute and you can tell me all about how everyone else embarrassed themselves in front of you."
He retreats to the galley, and the glasses on his tray don't rattle at all.
Reiju's dessert comes out of the oven to cool. All the drinks come out of the fridge; Sanji reserves a bottle of wine for the galley, and packs away the rest with the hand pies in a basket.
One day Sanji will get Franky or Usopp to make him a dinner bell he can ring, but for now he calls out to everyone like he's always done.
"LOVELY LADIES. IDIOTS, FREAKS, AND DIPSHITS. SOUP'S UP."
He passes the heavy picnic baskets to Franky and Zoro and the picnic blankets to Chopper, and watches the resulting bustle on the lawn with pleasure from the galley doors. Just for a minute, before he slips inside to get Reiju's dinner plated up.
Sanji's got too much nervous energy to give a meal its due right now, and anyway he doesn't want to make anything new till he's scrubbed and bleached the entire galley, so instead of a second place setting, he just puts a wineglass and an ashtray across the table from Reiju's place.
The galley door somehow doesn't creak when Reiju enters.
"Reiju! Please, sit, I'm getting everything laid out now."
The Thousand Sunny's dining chairs are all fastened to the deck, so Sanji can't draw Reiju's back politely like he would in the Baratie, but he does his best.
"How was your introduction to the crew?"
Unfolding her napkin into her lap, Reiju says, "Your navigator hates me."
Sanji flinches minutely. He can't defend the one against the other.
"As she should," adds Reiju. "It's a good thing for them to defend you."
"Not against you."
Reiju shrugs.
"How about the others?"
"Perfectly foolish, all of them. It took very little time to see why you like them."
Sanji laughs. "That's my crew. How're you feeling? Ready to eat?"
"Of course."
Sanji beams, and twirls around the galley counter with Reiju's dinner and the wine.
He lays the plate at her setting. "For the lady, spicy seafood pasta à la neurotoxine and a medley of fresh-picked pop greens in a simple sauté. Dessert to follow.
"For accompaniment," he adds, "the kitchen presents a crisp Sabaody white—only toxic in large enough quantities, I'm afraid."
"This is very elaborate."
"Ain't nothing," Sanji says, waving off the compliment. He pours Reiju's wine and his own before taking his seat. "Table for twenty on no notice and five conflicting dietary restrictions, that's complex. Anything less is dead simple."
"All the same. I've never had toxins prepared with such care—at least, not openly. I usually absorb poison directly without eating it."
"Oh?"
Reiju picks up her fork at last. She lifts a fragment of deathcapod from its pasta nest, and a trickle of purple smoke emerges from it. She inhales the smoke.
"Delicious," she says.
"Huh. Do you get nutrition from that?"
"Just a little." Reiju contemplates her fork for a long moment before taking a bite. "Damn."
Sanji laughs, relieved. "That's the reaction I was hoping for. Let me know if it needs any adjustment—I was flying blind."
Reiju takes another bite. "Not at all."
It's always a pleasure to watch someone eat his food, to see their appreciation for his work and to know that he is in a small way contributing to their health. He takes a drink to avoid staring too obviously. The Sabaody white is one of his favourites: well-rounded, notes of apricot, a little gingery on the finish. Refreshing with any seafood but perfectly able to stand up to a cream sauce.
"Y'know," Sanji says thoughtfully, "I really wish you could meet some of the people we've met on our journeys."
"Most people aren't happy to have a snail ship arrive at their docks."
Sanji tilts a hand over: half well, what are you gonna do? and half their loss. "Think a ship snail could make it up Wano's waterfalls? They're not easily scared over there."
"Oh, certainly."
"Well, you really should one of these days. I think you'd get a lot out of meeting the royal family. And Kaido's son. Hell of a guy."
"In what sense?" Reiju sips at her wine; a spark of triumph lights within Sanji's heart as her eyebrow lifts approvingly.
Sanji says, "Meeting him was like… reading a copy of Noland the Liar where Noland lives. Makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about stories. Hell of a thing." He slouches down in his seat, stares up at the ceiling. "Hell of a rack on him, too."
Reiju laughs. "I haven't thought about the Noland stories in years."
Sanji raises his wine to her in a toast. "While you're touring the whole Grand Line, you should visit Jaya. Met a guy there who swears he's Noland's descendant. I even believed him."
"You have had adventures. Where else have you been?"
"Most of it's ended up in the papers, though I'll thank you to not pay attention to any of the illustrations. Alabasta… Fishman Island… Dressrosa might make for a good vacation spot, now Doflamingo and Caesar Clown aren't a problem any more."
"Caesar Clown?" Reiju asks sharply. "What was he doing in Dressrosa?"
"Real bad shit. Real… real shitty experiments, messing with kids and devil fruits. He was on the run from Big Mom—did you hear about him in Totto Land?"
"Something like that," Reiju agrees, and takes a drink. Her expression doesn't invite further questioning.
"Well, wherever he's got to now, he's not a problem for Dressrosa any more. I'd ask what you've been up to yourself, but… I don't want to press for more than you want to say."
"Yes, I think you've had adventures more suited for discussion in polite company." Reiju bows her head to her plate, turning a strand of pasta on the tines of her fork. "I would say much the same since you've left, but Judge has been ramping up his scientific work steadily since. Especially since the cloning really began to take off. That must have been about eight years ago now."
"Hard not to notice. All the soldiers looking just the same, and the labs…"
Reiju says, with precision, "My belief is that Judge grew tired of making soldiers the slow way, and wanted a method of growing them at scale without any second party's interference."
"Four fucking blues and the fifth a-fucking-bove."
Sanji leans over and tops up both of their wineglasses. Reiju watches him do it with a wry twist to her mouth, and clinks her glass against his when Sanji is done.
"Four fucking blues," she agrees, and drains half the glass. "So you see, Germa doesn't make for very pleasant conversation."
"I want to hear it anyway. If you want to tell it, that is." Sanji turns his glass by its stem. The maker's mark on the bottom catches the light as he does. The Sunny's wineglasses come from Water 7, almost as famous for its glassblowers as it is for its shipwrights. It's a miracle they've survived this long.
"Well, I don't. I'd rather spare you."
"I wish you wouldn't," Sanji says, and there doesn't seem to be anything more either of them can say after that.
If they were normal siblings Sanji could say, right here, out loud, I don't want you to be lonely. He can imagine Nami saying it to her sister. Franky or Luffy to their brothers, more violently.
But they aren't normal siblings, and the gulf of the things they couldn't say to one another stretched as wide as the Grand Line even when they spent all day in classrooms and training halls together.
So he doesn't.
There's something else Sanjii could say that would lift the mood. It would fix everything, if he could only figure out what it is. He bites the inside of his cheek and tries to think of it.
"Did you know," Reiju says, slowly, "that Judge cried at your wedding?"
Sanji nearly draws blood. "What?"
"He felt thwarted by Big Mom. If I have to be fair, we did think we were about to die."
"And you were trapped there watching him lose it, huh?" Sanji stretches out his legs under the table, crosses one ankle over the other. "Tell you fucking what. Doesn't every child dream of their father weeping as he watches them walk down the aisle?"
"You would know better, I'm sure."
Sanji pushes his wine away to prop his head up on an elbow. He laughs. First a chuckle, then a full-throated laugh that pushes its way up from his belly. When the laugh's died back down to a bare snicker, he says, "What a thing. What a fucking thing. Thank you for telling me. I don't think I'll ever forget that."
As a child, Reiju used to watch Ichiji for his reactions and mimic them in public, but she was honest with Sanji in private. As an adult, she's polished so smooth most of her real feelings slide off her face before they ever have a chance to form. But now, her eternal smile grows a little wider, and it reaches her eyes. It changes the shape of her face.
"Neither will I, I think," Reiju tells him.
She slides her plate to the side. There's a bite or two of food still on it. Sanji isn't going to say anything about it.
Reiju leans forward across the table. "I admit I'm curious about what you've contrived for dessert."
"Of course!" Sanji bounces up to his feet. "Plating won't take a moment, excuse me. Kitchen's short-staffed today."
Dessert's been cooling out of sight on the galley counter this whole time. Sanji lays it on a plate, garnished with a perfect corkscrew curl of tangerine peel.
"For our private diner tonight, I present: caramelized peach-seed tart, with what I hope is a delightful touch of cyanide. Now, I can do you a cup of tea, or we can stick with the wine."
"I'll stick with the wine." Reiju's smile is amused. "It hasn't poisoned us yet."
"That's the spirit. I think."
Sanji had learned to make nut tarts under Patty's iron fist years and miles ago on the Baratie. He still makes them in nearly the same way he was taught, but today he'd pushed the caramel close to the edge of scorching to reinforce the bitter notes of the peach seeds, and added a thin layer of marmalade to the crust before filling it. Sanji watches Reiju discover the marmalade on her first bite and bites his lip to keep his proud smile from growing too wide.
He lights a cigarette to keep his hands busy. Reiju picks at her tart in contemplative silence; if she's concentrating on the food, that can only be a compliment to the chef.
Only a few bites in, Reiju puts down her fork.
"My compliments to the chef. I've never had poison prepared so well."
"Pleasure's all mine."
"This whole lovely dinner," she says, "and you haven't eaten a thing."
"Very funny."
Reiju's smile tilts towards pleased slyness. "A bite won't kill you, you know."
She nudges the her dishes towards him: the last of her dinner, the tart.
Sanji looks at Reiju.
Reiju looks at Sanji.
"Fine," he sighs, lays his cig in the ashtray, and goes to get a fork of his own.
Even at room temp the seafood pasta's delicious. Red pepper flakes and mild seafood balance the rich sauce. He chews the deathcapod meat slowly, memorizing its flavour: buttery, a touch brinier than the non-toxic lobsters he usually works with. Peppery effervescence on the swallow, like his body is reacting to an allergen. That's something to remember and account for next time. If there is ever a next time.
Usopp's plant that isn't a fiddlehead tastes oddly and sharply of tomatillo—the surprise turns into relief that Sanji hadn't tried more than a very fresh, simple sauté. He would have definitely gone in the wrong direction if he'd tried the heavier seasoning he'd thought about.
Sanji takes a long swallow of his wine to refresh his palate and pulls the tart in.
The crust snaps pleasantly underneath the fork; the peach seeds, caramel, and marmalade sing together. It doesn't taste like it could kill him. It tastes like Sanji used small almonds with particularly tannic skin and was too lazy to blanch them. He should have been more insistent about making a pot of tea to go with dessert. Coffee would drown these flavours, but black tea would complement them perfectly.
When he looks up again, Reiju is watching him like he's the best play she's ever seen.
"Your review?" she prompts him, a hand under her chin.
Sanji laughs. "I'm damn good at this."
"You are. It's… I'm glad that you were able to learn. And that I could see it."
Thirteen years since Don't tell me about that. Sanji isn't going to cry in front of his sister. He just isn't.
"I'm glad I could cook for you, for once," he says, hoping his voice won't break with it. "All of it is thanks to you."
"It's not. Don't say that," Reiju says, sharp. Sanji knows that tone: a blade turned inwards.
So, he does what he has so far failed to do. Sanji stands up from the dining table, and, formally, hands on his thighs, he bows. His hair swings down to cover his face.
"Reiju. Please allow me to thank you. For your help. For saving me. For allowing me to live."
"Don't thank me for an eleven-year-old's whim."
Sanji bites his lip, willing the water out of his eyes, the lump from his throat. He tells his knees, "That whim was the best thing anyone's ever done for me. I'll never forget it. All I can do is try to live up to it."
"You already did."
He is not going to cry in front of his big sister. "I wish you had as much freedom to chase your dream," he tells her instead.
"I don't have dreams. I have obligations." Reiju speaks quietly. Very correctly enunciated. "I can't leave. You must understand. You couldn't let us die either."
Sanji takes two steps to Reiju, and kneels at her side. Her hands are clenched, very tight, in her lap.
Sanji has always been the emotional one, the failure. Couldn't keep up. He had to construct an identity outside of his place in the matched set of Vinsmokes just to find a way to live with himself.
From another angle, that's a freedom that Reiju was never granted. She had to be perfect as the eldest and the only girl, Ichiji always snapping at her heels, Niji and Yonji always ready to laugh at any weakness. Sanji dragging her down.
"I hope he dies," Sanji tells Reiju's knees, conversationally. "Or someone hits him the head hard enough to make him forget the last forty years of his life and he goes to farm ship snails for the grain trade in the Yellow Islands. Or he does us all a favour, picks a fight with the Celestial Dragons over their ugly goddamn bubble helmets, and takes Marie Geoise down with him."
Reiju laughs, a little like a sigh. One of her hands lifts from her lap; she tucks Sanji's drooping hair behind his ear. "You're dreaming too big, little brother."
"You have to." Sanji looks up. "You have to believe you'll be free one day, you have to do something to work towards it, or… or your heart stops beating in your chest. It turns into a dead thing."
"You'll have to live for me."
"Fuck that!" Sanji grabs Reiju's hands. Gives them a hard squeeze. "Do what you have to—all four seas know I've bided my own time paying my dues—but the minute you can, take your freedom. Please. For you. For—for what she wanted for us. I can't be human enough for five of us. Sorry," he adds, around the tightness in his throat. "It's selfish of me. I need you to be human too."
Reiju tips forward, perfect posture broken at last. Her forehead meets Sanji's. Blonde and pink hair falls in curtains around them. It's just the two of them. Quiet voices nearly swallowed by the Sunny's familiar creaking and faint shouting from the lawn.
"It's too hard," she confesses.
Sanji has to let go of her hands to swipe at his eyes. "Do it anyway. Sorry. Once you start you're not allowed to stop. And you started years ago."
"Will you come back if I do?"
"To Germa? To live? No. But," says Sanji, "when you throw Judge out on his ass and crown yourself queen or prime minister or something, I'll come for a visit and cater the reception."
His eyes feel heavy, like he's already spent an hour crying.
"Deal," Reiju says, decisive like the leader she is.
And adds, more quietly, "You know, it was a relief when we thought you were dead."
She holds up a hand when Sanji opens his mouth. "I… it proved something. A worldview. Judge's. If you and M—our mother died because of weakness, then the only way to live was to be like him. So that was all I had to do."
"Hah. And then I turned up alive."
"Alive and proof of Judge's dishonesty. He couldn't even kill one small boy. So who really was weak?" Reiju dabs at her lashes, careful of her mascara. "It complicated everything."
"And you still had to act like everything was simple."
"Yes. I'm sorry."
"Don't fucking say sorry for being a human fucking being," Sanji says, heated. His head tips forward into Reiju's knees without his consent, and adds in a mutter, "Sorry if I cry on your shitty tattoo."
"It is shitty, isn't it?" Reiju says. And then, "Hm."
"What?"
"I may… have misestimated the dosage. I don't usually do that."
Reiju pushes Sanji back with a cool hand on his forehead. His lungs seize.
Sanji coughs, hard and hacking like a smoker thirty years older than him. When he reels back from Reiju, she yanks him back in by the shoulder, the hand on his forehead unmoving.
When the coughing slows and he can open his blurry eyes again, his mind is clearing, and there's purple smoke seeping from his mouth to trickle up towards the ceiling boards.
"'A bite won't kill you,'" he croaks at Reiju.
"And so it didn't."
Grey smoke follows purple. "Oh," says Reiju, "I believe that's nicotine. Interesting."
"Alright, thank you, stop there," Sanji says, and this time Reiju lets him sit back on the floor. He can feel a withdrawal headache coming on like he hasn't had a smoke all day. He pulls out his pack, lighting up cross-legged on his galley floor.
"May I?"
"They're bad for you." But he offers up the pack anyway.
"They're bad for you," Reiju corrects. Sanji reaches over to light her smoke. She inhales wrong on the first drag, coughs, and tries again. She's perfect on the second try, like she's been bumming smokes off her little brother for the last decade.
Reiju tips her head back to blow smoke up at the ceiling. "I see why you like smoking."
"You're not the only one in the family who can appreciate a poison," Sanji agrees, and stands. He eyes the table. "You going to finish your dessert?"
"I'm afraid I'm not in the mood right now." Reiju looks over at the table; she makes a little moue. And she says—like a bad dream, Sanji can see it coming—he could recite it along with her if he felt like being rude, like he has to dozens of customers before—Reiju says, "Actually, could I get a box?"
Sanji laughs. "Yeah, yeah," he says. "One shitty fuckin' box coming right up."
He has to drop down to the cupboards under the sink to find something small enough to house a single-serving tart. The larger containers catch his eye while he's there. "Hey," he calls over to the table. "You want the rest of the seafood for tomorrow? I got half a messed-up lobster and three-quarters of a mutant fucking octopus cooked and ready to go, and nobody to eat 'em. Wouldn't take a moment to turn them into something."
"Well, if you're offering," Reiju says, sounding completely bemused.
The western blue-ringed octopus, already cut into bite-size pieces, goes into a salad sharp with lime juice, hot peppers, and the last of the pop greens; the deathcapod meat gets torn up and tossed in mayo with celery and chives. There are still some rolls left over from Sanji's earlier sandwich-making; he splits and fills them.
It all makes for a pretty big packed lunch, salad and lobster rolls and, of course, Reiju's leftover tart. Sanji ties the box up for transport in one of his newer cloths, a pretty blue one bought from his soba cart's neighbouring stall in Wano's Flower Capital. He'd traded lunch for a discount, and both of 'em had come away happy.
"There," he says at last. "The salad will get better as it marinates, so eat the rolls first."
He turns to set down the packed food and startles.
At some point during the cooking process, Reiju migrated from the table to the galley bar seating. She's on a second cigarette, Sanji's crumpled pack and ashtray at her elbow.
"Thank you for letting me watch you cook," she says.
Sanji waves it off. "It's nothing."
"It's not. But I take your meaning." She nods at him, polite, visibly tired. "Dinner was excellent. But I shouldn't take up more of your time."
"Already? You sure?"
"I am."
Half of Sanji's heart says, But there's so much left to say—. The other half sighs, very quietly, in relief. However much Sanji cares for her, they aren't easy with each other. Maybe won't ever be.
He surveys his thoughts. Is there anything he wants to say before she goes? Anything she wants to hear?
Did you know what the raid suit would do. Impossible question. Unfair to ask. How could she have? If she had, how could she refuse Judge? In twenty-four years, Sanji only knows of two orders she's refused, and both were for him. Plain greed to ask for a third.
He shakes his head and opens the galley door for Reiju instead. It's a warm, still evening, just a scatter of early stars showing themselves. Across the water, the distant ship snail looks tired, eyes shut and waving half-heartedly on their stalks. The structure atop it is already little up for the night, looking like a scale model of the castle back on Thriller Bark.
The crew is still scattered around the deck, taking advantage of a rare warm, calm evening. By some miracle, nothing appears to have been broken, exploded, or tossed into the sea while Sanji's back was turned.
Chopper's napping on Zoro, who's napping on a picnic blanket. Brook and Franky up by Luffy, Brook noodling on his neon-green guitar and Franky snapping along. Usopp painting his nails while Nami supervises, hands propped carefully on the arms of her lawn chair. And Robin in the tree swing with a glass of wine, speaking quietly with Jinbei.
They stop at the starboard rail. Sanji sets the box of food down on the railing, and says the one thing he has left to say.
"She was stronger than him. You are too."
Reiju puts her hand next to Sanji's on the box. "Maybe one day I'll believe that."
"HEY," Luffy yells from the figurehead. "THANKS FOR VISITING, REIJU!"
"It's rude to shout, asshole!" Sanji yells back.
Reiju shakes her head at him. "Thank you, Captain Luffy!" she calls over. "Thank you for caring for my brother!"
With no further ceremony, she steps up into the air. She nods over to the crew.
"I'm glad you found them," she says to Sanji, quietly.
"You'll find your own someday. Just… don't let your heart freeze over and stop beating before you do."
"It's a nice dream."
"Yeah. It is." Sanji dredges up a smile, as sincere as he's able. "You know, the dumbasses do improve on acquaintance. You're welcome back anytime."
Reiju surveys him. "You mean that."
"I really do."
"I might take you up on it."
"Whenever. I mean it. Just follow the trail of destruction. We're usually in the paper, unfortunately."
Reiju laughs as she kicks off into the sky. She doesn't look back as she goes. A comet, fast and sure.
Sanji leans on the rail, watching her figure shrink with distance till it's nothing but a pink speck settling down on the deck of the snail ship across the water. A petal fallen from a tree, and coming to rest.
It doesn't take long for someone to sidle up to him. Sanji looks over and wins a bet with himself (nosy, not mad at Reiju, not mad at him, has a favour to collect): it's Usopp.
Usopp leans against the rail, looking out towards Reiju's ship, not asking any questions. Just hanging out.
"Nice nails, Great Captain," Sanji says atlast, because they are: vivid green, zagged with black and an occasional startling swipe of orange, perfectly crisp. Usopp's got the steadiest hands on the ship.
"Hey, thanks. Want me to do yours? We're having a mani-pedi night."
Sanji stretches a hand out over the water, inspecting his nails. He's careful to keep them even and his hands moisturized, lest he hit Zeff's age and end up with craggy red knuckles like his. "I think I'd chip them in a day washing all the fuckin' dishes, honestly."
"You're underestimating the great manicurist Usopp's nail art skills. And Nami's topcoat. I don't know where she got it, but it's unchippable."
"Well… why not. Gimme like twenty to clear out the kitchen first? I need to burn a cutting board before I poison someone unintentionally."
"It troubles me when you resort to arson to express your feelings, young man," Usopp sighs, affecting a croaking grandpa sort of voice.
"Fuck off and die," Sanji suggests, and turns his face away so Usopp doesn't catch him trying not to laugh.
Usopp tugs Sanji in before he can step away from the rail, broad arm around Sanji's shoulder. Sanji braces for a probing question about his colour-coded siblings.
Eyes shifty like he's making a back-alley deal, Usopp mutters out of the side of his mouth, "Say, if I catch some fish tomorrow, would you simmer 'em in miso? Like we had in Wano? Maybe with some mashed potatoes on the side?"
This time Sanji does laugh, bright and loud. "I would kick you out of the Baratie for asking for that demented combination, but fuck it. Sure."
"Anything is gravy if you have an open heart," Usopp says. "Alright, I've got big plans for your nail art and you don't need to hear me argue with Nami about them. See you when you're done setting stuff on fire."
Usopp waves and heads off. There's a burst of laughter from Luffy's group; Jinbei turns to look up at them for a moment, and returns to his conversation with Robin. Nami's trees rustle softly with the movement of the Thousand Sunny; a leaf tumbles down to land on Chopper's stomach. Someone should wake the kid up and send him to bed properly.
Sanji turns back towards the open galley door, patting down his suit pockets and only finding his lighter.
Damn it. Reiju stole his cigs.