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Hi, he writes.
Just making sure you and those other bastards haven't drowned or something dumb like that. I'm fine.
Here's some seeds for an herb I've only seen in Wano before. It's called Fairy Green. Makes everything taste like toasted marshmallows.
Take care, old man.
S
Luffy finds a dragon at the bottom of Sanji's teapot and Sanji won't tell him he sees only the wet tangle of black leaves in a halfhearted swirl. His attention is on the dishes from dinner waiting in the sink, and the pie crust for tomorrow's dessert.
"I see it, why can't you?" Luffy asks anyway, knowing.
"I see it," says Sanji.
At dinner, Robin had complimented his custard, though she is not fond of sweets, and Nami had seconds despite lamentations for her diet. You've outdone yourself, Nami had said. And after the table was cleared, Luffy had latched himself onto Sanji's back, hanging off Sanji's shoulders, demanding he get more of the roast next time, as is his right as captain. Sunny's figurehead remained bare while Sanji's kitchen was filled with Luffy and Luffy's dreamy reminiscing of that one barbecued dino-steak Sanji had made for them back on Little Garden.
Luffy has given him back the ocean and Sunny is sailing fast and fearless towards an unknown dawn. Not that long ago, Sanji would not have thought this life could be his to live again.
Sanji should be moved. Sanji should feel pride, and love, enough to obliterate everything else to leave behind a rare, perfect bloom of a moment. Something for Sanji to harvest and feed to the darker demons, who are always crying in hunger. But instead Sanji's heart is suspended, stubborn and still, curled tight between his ribs.
It will be one of those nights.
"I bet you could get lots of good meat from a dragon too," Luffy is saying now.
"Yeah," Sanji says. "I bet."
"Do you think Usopp can shoot one down for us next time?"
Sanji turns on the faucet, the temperature set just below scalding, and lets the running water run over Luffy's voice. He's thinking, there are still a dozen crates of tea leaves taking up room in storage. The people of Wano had been overly generous, their gratitude too large for so mundane an act as deposing a despot. But then again, tales of the Strawhats' exploits were foreign to Wano’s shores until recently.
The leaves are pressed into dense bricks, stamped with a heron, the family crest of a small tea farm owner. They have a dark, woodsy smell that's seeped into every corner of the hold. The flavor is potent. Sanji cycles resignedly through his mental rolodex of recipes. He's already baked cookies and biscuits with them, smoked fish, churned the leaves with cream into fresh butter, tried his hand at gelato. But it's been weeks and they are only just breaking into the second crate.
He shuts the water off, watching the last of it swirl down the drain with a gurgle, the leftover suds fizzing. Some time while rinsing the dishes he had heard the door closing, though he chose to ignore it.
He picks up the thread of conversation anyway, says, "I could make you a feast from a dragon."
To the silence, he continues, "It would be the best you've ever had. A rotisserie spit as big as a house." In the years since Germa and the Baratie, he thinks he can approximate the general size of land houses. "The fat dripping and crackling onto the coals. A stew so spicy you'd breathe fire yourself. And steaks, still bloody. The heart with perfect char. Do you want some tea, Luffy?"
He rolls his sleeves back down, tries to massage the wrinkles out of his fingers. Maybe he should take Franky up on his offer to install a dishwasher. Maybe it would not diminish his worth. He stands still for a long time.
"I'll make tea," he says at last.
He knows flesh and tendon and bone, and the dismantling of. Disparate components, no greater meaning on their own. There remains for him a wonder in how they hook together to create motion. A sum so lovely. Resilient and brave. Chopper and his textbooks could not tell him why the warmth of blood is such a comfort, why the sight of the sunset cascade of Nami's hair feels like slow strangulation.
Nami has one hand on her cocked hip, the other tapping a finger against her lips. Sanji, clutching the serving tray close to his chest, marvels once again at the anatomy of perfection.
"We can sell them on the next island," Nami says.
"But they were a gift."
Nami looks at him and the shock slams into Sanji. He has no explanation for the sudden failure of the devotion hardwired into him, parallel to his own will. It is impossible that there could be anything truer, deeper, more natural to him than the complete forfeit of his being to Nami's happiness. No. If Nami says they will sell the tea, they will sell the tea.
"I'm sorry, Nami-san," he says. "You are wise and prudent, as always."
"But?"
He bites his tongue.
Nami studies him. "The crates are just taking up so much room," she says slowly, as if she's afraid of startling him. "And no one really drinks it."
“I know," says Sanji.
He knows. Robin prefers coffee and Nami prefers a green tea and Brook prefers a tea that goes with milk and the rest of the men won't touch anything without enough sugar or alcohol content to rot the teeth or liver. So Sanji himself has settled into the routine of three cups of tea, three times a day for the foreseeable future. He cannot bring himself to brush off this gratitude that no one else seems to want.
Nami puts a hand on his shoulder and Sanji can't look her in the eye. She's perfect, he thinks. Perfect, wondrous Nami who deserves all the ocean and the sky, who came for him, fought for him. The only word he ever needs is yes.
"But it meant a lot to them," says his voice. "I can find other uses."
During the celebration feast in Wano, Sanji saw the old woman come into the kitchens with her bare arms red up to her elbows. The last cow had just been butchered in the alley outside, and the blood was still fresh, bright. There was a smear of it on her forehead from where she had brushed away her hair. Her clothes made vibrant with it. But Sanji recognized her worried frown. The sight of it bit into the softest part of him and left its fangs behind and now the wound festers.
Nami's hand slips from his shoulder, to his hand. In so many ways, Sanji reminds himself, in all the ways that matter, she really is the best and brightest and kindest of them all.
"It's important to you," she says. "We'll hold onto them, Sanji-kun."
But the expectation is there, he’s sure. He will have to think of something else.
In his kitchen, Sanji watches the flame lick up the side of the stock pot, briefly engulfing his and Luffy's reflections, before settling into a tight blue ring.
Many times he's pressed Luffy about his stay on Amazon Lily. More often than not it was an exercise in futility, but he did manage to glean some details about the island, though more about the food than the women. He recalls Luffy mentioned a snack they gave to young recruits after a training session: an egg that looked like it was carved from marble, but with a soft, golden yolk inside.
When first asked what it smelled like, Luffy had only said, "Good." When interrogated further with a foot on his face, Luffy had elaborated with, "Tea?"
The memory resurfaced for Sanji this morning, after he put his spent cigarette out in an empty teapot. He had checked for dragons first, but found none.
Now, in the lull between lunch and second lunch, he counts out the eggs, one by one, into the boiling water. He turns to Luffy, happily munching away on a plate of candied bacon.
"Think," says Sanji, pulling up a chair. "God knows your brain is the size of a pea, but try. What else can you remember?"
"Sanji," Luffy whines around a mouthful of bacon. "I already told you everything!"
"Describe the taste to me."
"Good," says Luffy.
Sanji counts to five and almost lights a fresh cigarette before remembering he already has one between his lips. Soldiering on: "Salty? Sweet?"
"Both?"
Sanji nods. He knows one of Amazon Lily's major exports is star anise. The label on the jar in his spice cabinet has twin snakes entwined on it. What else? Soy sauce, definitely. A good complement to the sweetness of star anise and it fits what else he knows about Amazon Lily's cuisine. But was it dark or light, or a mix? He'll have to play around with a few combinations. And how do you get the marbling? He has an idea and scribbles that down too.
"And you said it smelled like tea?"
"I guess," says Luffy. Finished with his bribe, he starts to pick his nose. Sanji sees this out of the corner of his eye and is about to scold when Luffy says, "I'm bored now, Sanji! Why does it even matter?"
"Because," Sanji starts in reflex, but his mouth opens around empty.
He stops in the middle of a calculation for the soy sauce ratio to account for both taste and color. Searching for an answer, he instead becomes excruciatingly aware of everything else. His hunched shoulders, bowed head, one hand splayed to keep the notebook flat, the other clutching the pen. Luffy's empty plate across from him and Chopper's sudden, distant laugh. The words on the page, in his small, cramped script, all flourish abandoned for speed in his eagerness, seem so pathetic now. He lifts his hand, lets the notebook fall shut. He feels Luffy’s gaze grow heavier on him.
Why is he thinking so hard? Isn't the answer always the same? Because you shouldn’t waste food. Because you take pride in what you do. Because you deserve the best. That’s why it matters. But has the endless recycling of this answer diminished its meaning, found it wanting and unworthy of his captain? Has Sanji’s insistent devotion become just something else to get through?
Sanji is glad for the timer that tells him he needs to transfer the eggs to the ice bath. He is glad for the busy work that means he can move his hands instead of his mouth, at least for a little while. He is glad not to have to face Luffy and spit out gravel and dirt.
"Anything you make will be good, I mean," Luffy says from behind him. "It always is."
"Of course it'll be good," he says through the tightness in his chest. "Shithead," he throws in for a play at normalcy.
But good is work, is effort and time and strain. His head is heavy and he's a different kind of tired. What's worse, he's aware that he's tired. He hopes Luffy won't dig deeper. He hopes Luffy won't part the curtain to see Sanji sunk deep in the viscera of whatever this feeling is, to see Sanji close his eyes in weakness. But Sanji suspects Luffy already knows, even if Luffy doesn’t understand.
And that makes Sanji want to confess, to explain. Sometimes-- he would enrobe the word in soft smoke, sharp edges hidden-- it's just that sometimes, I--
Luffy moves in that way that he has, like the earth has stopped spinning and the stars are falling and you’re still the only thing that matters. He puts his arm around Sanji’s shoulders, like he is an extension of Sanji’s best self, and Sanji remembers how much he had missed this weight when he was gone, how he had trembled as he wondered how he would live the rest of his life with a phantom limb.
Luffy says, "Lunch soon, right?"
"Peppershark stew. And a side mountain of meat, just for you, captain."
Luffy smiles at him, and Sanji, remembering Luffy's skull beneath his heel, and the cold rain on Luffy's emaciated limbs and gaunt face, manages to unearth one for him in return.
After Whole Cake Island, Sanji adds Carrot to his list.
Dear Carrot, he writes.
He stops there. What does he possibly have the right to say? I’m sorry someone you loved is dead because of me? I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life?
Self-indulgent and selfish, and he knows it.
He settles for, Take care of yourself. I know we’ll see each other again some day.
He wraps up a batch of chocolate cupcakes for her, for good measure.
The next letter is easier. He’s been writing it for years.
Hey shithead,
There’s no way you’re dead so I’m still waiting to hear from you.
You don’t deserve these cookies but what the hell.
S
The shell makes a satisfying crunch when it meets the back of the spoon. It crackles beneath his fingertips, in pieces but holding together. The egg inside is still soft. It’s his fifth test batch but Sanji is still careful to be gentle.
Next to him, Robin is working on six eggs at once, and reading a book. Her many hands do not falter once in their delicate work, though they are red from dipping into the ice bath. The rattle of ice and the dry scraping sound of a page turning accompany the rhythmic tapping of spoons and splintering of shells. The kitchen is still warm from brewing star anise and cinnamon and tea with the brininess of soy sauce. He had added sugar to the marinade this time too, and some slices of ginger. The overhead lights spotlight just the table where they are working, the rest of the kitchen in soft, comfortable shadow. It's a practice Sanji picked up from Zeff, who found focus and discipline any way he could at the helm of a ship full of castaways and undesirables.
"Thank you again, Robin-chan," Sanji says, and he means it.
With her help, it will take him less than an hour to finish this batch. The eggs will be left to sit and marinate overnight, and that will be it. The dishes from dinner are done, washed, dried, and put away by a tag team of Luffy, Usopp and Chopper. In the end, they had broken only two glasses. And Jinbe had bundled off the week's soiled tablecloths, aprons and rags to the laundry room when he came in for his second dessert of cut snow pear, the skin ribboned off. Nami slipped him an inventory of what was in the hold, and assured him she had triple-checked her work. This means that Sanji has already planned out tomorrow's meals, prepared midnight snacks, drank his three cups of tea, and washed and scaled what felt like half a Blue's worth of fish, all hours ahead of schedule.
Sanji realizes he can still hear the crew bustling around the ship. The drumming of running feet on Sunny’s lawn, the muffled clang of weights from the crow’s nest, Brook and Franky composing a song for violin and ukelele.
It is still early and without the sound of his own work-- knife against a cutting board, the scrape of a potato peeler-- adding to the backdrop, the time is foreign and strange to him. Suddenly, he feels displaced.
"I believe that's the last of them," says Robin.
"Oh," he says.
Sanji stands when she stands, on reflex. She brings her six spoons to the sink to rinse, and a line of arms ferries the heavy pot of tea eggs from the table into the fridge.
"Can I help with anything else?"
Sanji shakes his head numbly. "Thank you," he says again.
She sprouts another hand to pry the spoon from his fingers. He lets her. He lets her tuck his hair behind his ear, and it's with her real hands, hands attached to the rest of her, which means she is close enough for Sanji to feel the warmth of her, to feel the press of her presence. The sky in the window behind Robin still holds vestiges of orange and rose, and at that sight, a sinuous darkness unfurls inside his chest.
"It’ll be good for you to get some rest," Robin says.
Her hands are out like she's ready to catch him. He is disappointing her. The realization almost staggers him. He has become her burden.
He nods, his tongue too heavy to offer reassurance. Her eyes on him make him feel grotesque, like his nose is too big, or all his teeth are about to rot and fall out, or his neck is stretching and stretching to the floor, long and thin, coil of flesh with his head at the end.
"Please," he whispers. "Don't worry about me."
A smile. That's all he needs. His mouth swerves into place, somehow. She returns it, though it's less real than her hand on his arm, Sanji can tell.
"All right, Sanji," she says, gentle, magnanimous.
Alone again in the kitchen, his hands find his face, slide into his hair, his elbows sharp against the table. His heart, bullied into action, races.
The oven, he says to himself. He gets up. He turns his back to the still setting sun, treads viciously on his long shadow. He will scrub the oven.
Eggplant, the letter says.
Don't make me hunt you down and kick your scrawny ass. If you're going to write shitty letters like that, save yourself the ink and me the headache.
Things are fine here. You think we can't take care of ourselves, just because we're not Strawhat? You don't have enough space in that coconut you call a head to worry about both us and your own crew. It's a lot of work keeping everyone fed and healthy on a ship. Especially in the New World. Focus. What kind of meals are you cooking up with all those new ingredients? I bet your soup still tastes like dishwater.
We saw your new wanted poster and bounty. I don't know what this Vinsmoke nonsense is, but I don't care. If that's the reason why you haven't written in weeks then I really will have to come kick your ass.
A little while ago, a pirate crew came aboard demanding food like they own the place. A foul-smelling lot, and not even the first to try since Krieg. Some things never change. The rest of the cooks wanted to kick them out but I beat the thought out of their heads. In the end, Patty and Carne said it's what you would have done too.
Don't you go forgetting where you come from just because you got some new name now. What the hell kind of name is Vinsmoke anyway?
Here's a spice blend I've been developing for a revamped spicy seafood dish. If you've still got some sense left in you, let me know what you think.
We planted the Fairy Green in the herb garden. Better not be an invasive species.
Be good,
Z
"It's not really about the tea," says Zoro. He's coming off the last shift of night watch and has come into the galley to grab a snack and to torment Sanji.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," says Sanji, shoving the letter into a drawer. "And it's too early for your cryptic bullshit."
But Sanji does feel a little self-conscious now as he goes about steeping his first pot of tea for the day. Fucking Zoro.
"What is it about then?" Sanji prods, exasperated that he has to hold up Zoro's end of the conversation as well, but hoping for a distraction. He is cold and prickly all over.
"How should I know?" Zoro says. He disappears into the fridge that Sanji's left unlocked. Sanji's left to fume in disbelief until Zoro reappears with a cold turkey leg in hand. "You tell me."
"What is there to tell?"
"You're being weird. The other day you made Luffy eat like three dozen eggs. You're drinking more tea than you’re smoking cigarettes. Don't tell me it's nothing."
"It's nothing," Sanji says out of spite. He feels the comfort of familiar anger brewing inside him, making his throat hot. It's a relief. "What do you care?"
Zoro shrugs, tearing into the drumstick. Sanji expects him to leave now that he's gotten what he came for, but Zoro instead sits at the table and puts his feet up. Sanji doesn't have time for this. He turns his back to Zoro and lets the anger propel him into work.
By the time the sun has fully risen, Sanji's done an entire Baratie's worth of dirty dishes and the table has all but disappeared under the pancakes, fruit-filled crepes, cinnamon rolls, fresh bread, sausage, and poached eggs. And though Zoro has not moved, he's at least been hidden from Sanji's sight line by a pyramid of blueberry muffins.
"Do you mind, marimo?" Sanji says to the pyramid, setting out the syrups, butter, and milk. "If you're going to be in here taking up my air, you might as well make yourself useful."
To Sanji's surprise, Zoro grabs the silverware and sets the rest of the table. That he sets it correctly is an even bigger surprise. Sanji can tell that Zoro is getting ready to say something, and Sanji can tell it's going to be something extremely uncomfortable.
"Can we just not," says Sanji, at the same time that Zoro says, "You do this every morning?"
A pause.
"Are you stupid," says Sanji. "For lunch, and second lunch, and dinner, and snacks too."
"And the meals are always different."
"Of course they are."
Sanji nestles the last butter dish between two bread baskets before facing Zoro full-on. With Zoro, Sanji's first instinct is always fire. It's the explosive release of years of bottled up something, though Sanji would never name it. But Zoro doesn't seem to care how unfair and immature it is of Sanji to repurpose their friendship this way. Zoro only answers in steel.
The steam from the coffee percolating on the counter rises behind Zoro's head. Sanji feels the fire rise inside him as well.
"I see," says Zoro. Simple as a knife.
And this is so like Zoro that the anger inside Sanji goes supernova in an instant, leaving behind only a cold hollow of dark. Sanji wants to laugh, or hyperventilate, he can't tell. Maybe he is still raw from reliving memories of a time when he was one big open wound instead of a child. From being caged again and knowing that this time, he didn't have the fight left in him to break out. And even if he did, what then? A lifetime more of worry, of trying, of wondering if it is enough?
"It's a lot," Sanji says, thinking of Zeff's words, of the way the old woman in Wano, dried blood still on her forehead the next morning, had waved her son on to load another crate of tea leaves, and another.
Is it enough?
Luffy bursts into the galley, arms already outstretched to grab a sausage in each hand, Usopp tripping in after him. Sanji looks away before he can read the response in Zoro’s shoulders.
Hey, he writes.
First of all, my soup is the literal mana of the fucking gods.
Secondly, are you trying to kill people with this spice blend? Luffy threw himself off the ship because he'd rather drown than live with the inferno in his mouth. It's good though. At least, I like it. Was that a 10:1 ratio of skull-and-crossbones pepper to garlic powder or just 9:1?
I know Vinsmoke is a shitty name. I'm sure by now you've done your research because you're a nosy old geezer. I should have told you. Not that it matters. I stopped being a Vinsmoke the day you took me in. I should have told you then. Sorry.
It's bad, I know. Anyway.
There isn't an anyway. There's nothing left for Sanji to write that could possibly make this better. But he should try to think of something, he should try harder. Zeff deserves that much.
But maybe Zeff doesn't want it from him now. Anyway. Anyway.
S, he signs wearily.
They reach an autumn island next. Sanji returns from his shopping trip to find that Franky had surprised him by installing an industrial-sized dishwasher in his kitchen.
"There's a gentle setting too, for all your fancy tea sets." Franky beams at him. "You can set different settings for each rack, see? And the rinse cycle is super, it won't leave any streaks on the glasses. I know how much you hate that. What's wrong?"
"I didn't ask for this," says Sanji.
"Hey," says Franky. "Why don't you sit down?"
Sanji shakes his head but his legs obey.
"Are you ok?" Franky asks.
"Don't," says Sanji. He doesn't remember dropping his head into his hands until he feels his own voice reverberate in his palm. He straightens. "Not now. I need to-- it's lunch. I got it."
"I didn't ask about lunch, dude," Franky says. "I asked if you were ok."
"Explain," Sanji says, pushing himself up. He gestures sharply towards the dishwasher, hating the shine of it. He can't bring himself to look, and isn't that just pathetic. "What are you trying to say?"
Normally, Sanji would find it comical the way Franky raises one massive hand, and from the palm of that hand extends a smaller hand, reaching out to press down on Sanji's shoulder until Sanji sits again. Normally, Sanji would laugh or at least threaten a cola ban in token protest. Normally, Sanji would not be fighting this hard to keep from burning down the world.
"All right, you got us," Franky admits. "We all thought we could chip in more. You do so much, we just thought we could make it easier."
"We? You all think I can't do my job?"
Franky, to Sanji's horror, only looks hurt.
"We're afraid you work too much," says Franky. He towers over Sanji.
This is all I have to give, Sanji wants to scream. Just take it, take it, please.
Franky itches his metal nose, continues, "Especially after--"
Sanji doesn't get to hear the end of that sentence because a fish twice the size and weight of him comes out of nowhere to slap him into the far wall.
"--hell was that," finishes Franky. "Zoro?"
"What?" comes Zoro's voice from the vicinity of the door. "He asked me to fish."
Sanji, struggling to heave the floundering, slippery, wet mass off of him, can't decide if he is furious or thankful for Zoro's sudden entrance. Furious at him for slapping Sanji with a fish, yes, but thankful that it saved him from an unpacking of his entire self. Who knows how the pieces would fit back together, after.
And it was true, he did ask Zoro, whose turn it was to guard the Sunny, to do some fishing instead of napping the whole day away. He had hoped Zoro would score some pike he could grill up for Usopp.
"Just, someone hand me a knife," he manages, narrowly avoiding a tail fin to the face. "And I'm not the one cleaning all this water up."
He points Franky towards the mop, sparing Zoro in his gratitude and probably against his better judgment. Sanji settles behind the counter, brings the knife down. As the fish stills, so do his nerves, though he feels the electricity thrumming just below the skin of his face and in his throat.
“It’s just another tool,” says Franky after a while, rainbowing the mop back and forth, back and forth. “Like your knives, or your mixer, or– your garlic press. That’s all.”
Sanji’s next cut filets the fish from gill to tail, the knife edge kissing all down its spine. He nods. He doesn’t mean to be difficult, or ungrateful, never. But.
The dishwasher still looms, taking up so much space with its metal bulk, but Franky does not mention it again and Sanji does his best to ignore his own reflection in its glass front.
Zoro, arms crossed, watches from the door.
Thank you for the cupcakes. They were delicious. I’ll be watching out for news of the Strawhats.
I am very happy to have met you all. Please be careful.
Another autumn island next, uninhabited save for a colony of bear-ants, followed by a spring island where Chopper discovers a new plant to cure an allergy to cherry blossoms, then a winter island where the women carve their own likeness into the sides of mountains and drink their own blood chilled in snow when they come of age. The last summer island is shrouded in eternal night and its inhabitants harvest light from bioluminescent phytoplankton just beyond its shores. Each island is a stepping stone to the Strawhats’ next grand adventure.
He packs them tea eggs for every expedition and drinks his tea, three cups at a time.
Asshole, the letter reads.
I don't know what you said in that last letter to Owner Zeff but he's been quiet and moody for days.
Look, I'm not going to pretend I understand the first thing about your relationship or how you feel about the rest of us here on the Baratie, but you know what? I don't fucking care. Just in case you forgot, you're OUR shitty eggplant. I lived through your puberty, you stinking brat. I deserve a lifetime award for that shit.
Yeah, we know about this Vinsmoke thing. Bet you anything Judge can't julienne a carrot as good as me.
Pull your head out of your ass for once.
P
P.S. Carne says you suck.
P.P.S. Fairy Green coming in nicely but likely invasive. Fuck.
Old man, he writes frantically, knocking over his cup.
I'm sorry.
By the time this letter reaches East Blue, the corner will have been dyed a warm sepia, the S of his signature slashed through by a ring of evaporated tea.
“This isn’t my area of expertise,” Chopper tells him. His little hooves knead at the front of his white doctor’s coat. “But Sanji. We’re worried.”
Sanji has been allowed to keep his smokes, which, more than being called into the infirmary, is a red flag as big as the Red Line.
“About what, Chopper?” He smiles around his cigarette, but feels like he is just baring his teeth. He settles for a tilt of his head instead, which he knows makes him look honest and inquisitive.
Chopper’s chin trembles, his hooves going to the brim of his hat to pull it lower, almost over his eyes.
Sanji looks down at his hands in his lap. Wonders why they are still there, why they aren’t reaching out to bury in Chopper’s fur, bring him close to Sanji’s heart.
“Sanji.” Chopper rallies, though his voice is thick and wet with tears. “I have some questions to ask you. I need you to answer them honestly.”
His hands have come up, belatedly, but now they freeze in the space between them. His fingers curl inward, until his hands are fists. He drops them.
Chopper is off his chair and by Sanji’s knee. “Please.”
The first week on the Baratie, when the crater left behind by Sanji’s physical trauma was slowly being filled with something more insidious and Sanji had refused to eat, refused to be anywhere near the kitchens, Zeff had knelt by him, just like this. Not touching, but close enough so that Sanji could see him even with his head bowed.
Zeff had had questions for him too, asked so gently and in a timbre so unfamiliar that Sanji had no choice but to listen.
“I'm sorry,” he whispers.
Zeff had tried so hard with him, had put in so much goddamned work, spent years of his life fighting Sanji, fighting for Sanji, sweeping away the pieces of his own broken heart, and look where Sanji is now. Back to square fucking one, with his youngest crewmate looking up at him, begging him, in tears. What is he doing? What is he doing?
"I can be better, Chopper," he says. "I promise. I’ll get better."
"Not alone," says Chopper, his face wet but still steel beneath the salt. "Together."
His knives he still washes by hand. This is a concession he does not have to make, and that makes it easier.
Because he is not good with machines, Franky spends the better part of an afternoon teaching him which buttons to press and in which order and how to enter the emergency kill code in case it all goes haywire and the dishwasher rises to overthrow its human overlord and murder them all. This last part he wheedles out of Franky because he knows everything that comes out of Franky’s workshop is more than meets the eye.
Despite Sanji's suspicions and misgivings, Franky's joy was practically bubbling out of his ears as he ran Sanji through the instructions for the fifth time.
“That’s great, Sanji,” Usopp says after Sanji successfully sets this dishwasher on heavy wash. “Now you’ll have more time to play with us!”
“I don’t play,” Sanji scoffs. “I’m not a kid.”
Usopp laughs. “Sure, sure,” he says. “But it’s still great.”
If pressed, really pressed, Sanji will admit that he has always liked Usopp’s smile the best. Nami and Robin’s are radiant, of course, flawless, of course, and he could bask in their glow until the end of time, but Usopp’s smile, crooked and toothy, is the most honest thing about him, and that honesty is not easily given, Sanji knows, and it reminds Sanji that there is no need to hide on this ship. Their ship.
“I never played,” Sanji says. “There was never anyone around to– so, it’s just. Not something I know.”
Before Sanji’s whole world can unravel in the torturous silence that follows, Usopp leans forward to flick Sanji’s nose.
“Ow! Hey!”
“You’re still a kid, Sanji.” Usopp grins. “A big one.”
He chases Usopp out the door. Chopper dive bombs onto his head the moment he steps out onto the deck, and it’s two against one, and he’s going to make them eat crow for dinner.
Most of the crew leaves on the Mini Merry to explore the shallow reefs of the latest island, leaving Sanji the entire length of Sunny’s deck to stalk in peace. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy the chaos of his crew, but sometimes the thought of another round of Luffy-slingshot or Luffy-wrecking-ball or Luffy-skydiving fills him with a bone deep exhaustion.
But only sometimes, he reassures himself.
Brook is the only one who stays behind. He wonders if Brook ever feels the same. Fifty years alone at sea is an unimaginable horror to Sanji, but maybe there is something in solitude that Brook misses.
“Hey,” says Sanji as unobtrusively as he can. “Can I get you something to eat?”
Brook, who is standing by the railing and staring at the tiny speck of Mini Merry on the horizon, turns immediately to Sanji with a flourish of elbows and dancing feet.
“How about you and I have a tea party, Sanji-san!”
“Sure,” Sanji says, pleased. It’s about time anyway, and the company would be a nice change to his otherwise lonely ritual.
In the kitchen, Brook stops Sanji from reaching for the tin of West Blue blend.
“Ah, not that one, Sanji-san,” Brook says. “Maybe the one from Wano today?”
The thing with talking to a skeleton is that there is no way to tell from Brook’s face whether he is being serious or teasing or waiting expectantly for a joke to land. Sanji fixes Brook with a hard stare and Brook’s eye sockets stare right back, round and dark and fathomless.
“I would love to have some with you,” Brook insists.
“You don’t have to,” says Sanji.
“It is not a chore, truly.” If Brook looks like he is smiling, it may just be Sanji’s wishful imagination. But maybe not. Maybe it is true.
Maybe it is true, Chopper had said, and it had sounded so beautiful it almost snapped Sanji’s heart right in half. Nothing so declarative or presumptuous, just hope he can hold in his own hand like a talisman.
“I’ll put the water on.”
They make a pot for two and Brook drinks and sighs a satisfied sigh. It’s weird to see his skeletal hands wrapped around the grooved, earless cup, as if for warmth, instead of pinching a delicate handle, but Sanji couldn’t bring himself to serve this tea, or any tea, in an improper vessel.
Because origins and traditions matter to him, don’t they? You can always change where you’re going but never where you’re from.
“Sorry,” he says, realizing he’s been silent long past the borders of polite.
“No need for that, Sanji-san! I am very skilled at carrying on a conversation all by myself!”
“Do you still do that a lot? Talk to yourself?”
Brook takes a slow, measured sip from his cup, so slow Sanji wonders if he’s overstepped his bounds and committed a grave offense.
But, “Yes,” Brook says at last.
Sanji frowns. “You don’t have to hide that kind of stuff from us, you know?”
“Oh, but I don’t!” Brook laughs, high and free. “You hear my violin everyday. Why, don’t you remember the argument I had last night? That bariolage made my blood boil– ah, though I don’t have any blood!”
Sanji watches Brook relive the apparently mighty feud he had with himself yesterday, sawing frenetically at an imaginary violin. He did hear Brook play last night, and remembers it was indeed peppery and bold and, most notably, loud. The music had filled even Sanji’s kitchen and he found himself chopping onions in time to each staccato. But like all the other times Brook played for himself, the final cadenza was all soft notes and gently cresting crescendos. Like a hand through your hair, or a smile like a cradle. Sometimes Sanji will have to step out of his kitchen, straining to hear the end.
“It helps?” Sanji asks.
Brook holds his invisible bow still, looks at Sanji for a long moment.
“I am my oldest friend,” he says. “I must always be kind.”
Then, “Ah, my tea is getting cold!”
Sanji, he reads, his heart running itself ragged.
Just Sanji, no eggplant or brat or punk or dumbass. He closes his eyes and covers the letter with his hand. Breathes in deep, fills himself up with the salt air to push out the dread, the fear.
Now. Now.
Now.
He lifts his hand.
Sanji,
Yes, you should have told me, so I could have kicked that Germa bastard’s ass a decade ago. Strawhat would still be waiting his turn because I would still be kicking his ass a decade later.
I’m not good with words. Things would be a lot easier if I were. Sorry.
I regret a lot of things, but I never regretted you. Not once and not ever. That’s it.
That tea you spilled on your last letter reminded me of this tea-poached cod recipe. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Write soon. And I mean that.
Z
And maybe it is true.
The moonlight cuts in from the big bay window, the moon herself bobbing in and out of sight in the corner as Sunny rocks.
The ship and the waters are calm in the deep of night, but he’s not tired yet. He’s preparing another batch of tea eggs. He finally got it right, the balance of sweet and savory, the delicate marbling, the rich, jammy yolk. They’ve become a snacktime favorite of the crew, appealing to everyone’s palettes. He’s still tinkering with Zeff’s poached cod. They’ll have to get more tea leaves soon.
He thinks of writing to the old woman in Wano, now that their lines of communication are open to the rest of the world. To tell her all the wonderful meals he’s made with her gift, her gratitude. How it’s made his daily work something with meaning. How it was enough.
But tonight, he writes, Hey,
Let me tell you about this tea egg recipe I’ve just finished.
Zoro and Jinbe have taken to meditating on deck, mostly for the challenge, Sanji suspects. If you can center yourself while Usopp’s explosions and Luffy’s screeching and Franky’s bursting resound all around you, then you can center yourself anywhere.
“Join us,” Jinbe says, his voice hinting at the captain he used to be, but still warm.
The short ribs are in the oven, slowly braising. The rice on the stovetop is on its way to developing a nice scorched crust, which he’ll scrape up later and add boiling water to and call it dragon scale soup.
Zoro opens his one eye. Hands sprout from Sanji’s back to push down on his shoulders.
Better is a work in progress. Better is a striving.
Sanji joins them.
"Sometimes I don't love anyone," Sanji had said once. To no one, but still. It was the act of speaking that mattered, when for so long he had been suffocated. An act of carving out a space to allow the darkers demons their freedom. Moments where he exists and owes nothing.
"Sometimes I don't even feel bad about it."
But then come the moments of weak-kneed wonder. Once, land so flat it looked vast and boundless as the ocean, the sun at an angle that cast Sanji's shadow taller than all of Sanji's greatest fears, taller than Zeff with a gun to his head, taller than Kuma with hand outstretched, taller than the man who would use his body for death, and in that moment Sanji had felt unconquerable, like no bars could hold him.
There is a dragon in his teacup, a tiny thing. He can’t wait to show Luffy.
Sanji's heart is full.