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Sanji didn’t typically sit down for breakfast with the rest of the crew, too busy slinging eggs and bacon and other various proteins into Luffy’s bottomless gullet. But when everyone else was finished and the kitchen was clean, he usually took a quick ten minute break to enjoy a cup of coffee, a plate of leftover scraps, and a brief look at the morning newspaper.
Normally, Sanji liked reading the paper; but on this particular morning it contained an article detailing the recent elimination of Sir Crocodile from the Seven Warlords that was so full of inaccuracies Sanji felt compelled to take a smoke break halfway through reading it.
“Honestly,” Sanji huffed, glaring daggers at the offending article as he flicked his lighter open. “Haven’t these idiots ever heard of journalistic integrity?”
“What are you talking about, shit cook?” came Zoro’s voice from the kitchen, where he was currently on floor mopping duty.
“This stupid article!” Sanji said, grabbing the newspaper and curling it up before chucking it towards the kitchen, where Zoro caught it single-handed. “I mean, where do they come up with this crap? Are they just throwing buzzwords into a hat and pulling shit out?”
He turned around in his chair to look at Zoro, who was frowning at the newspaper as he flipped through the pages. “Which article?” he asked, and Sanji raised an eyebrow.
“The one that says ‘Sir Crocodile Eliminated from the Seven Warlords?’” At Zoro’s blank stare, he added. “Right there on the first page?”
Zoro spread the newspaper open on the counter but continued to frown down at it, as though not quite understanding what he was looking at. Which struck Sanji as odd, given that it was printed in giant bold letters across the top of the page.
“What’s the matter, shitty swordsman?” Sanji said, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Can’t read with all that moss between your ears?”
Zoro’s gaze snapped to him, glaring hotly. “Fuck off, twirlybrow. Not my fault reading is so hard.”
At that, Sanji barked out a laugh.
“Wait, is reading actually hard for you?” He grinned, sharp and a little mean, which Sanji figured was fine because Zoro would just meet him in kind. “What’s the matter, you didn’t have enough space left in your brain after cramming it full of workout routines and sword facts?”
“No, idiot,” Zoro shot back, rolling his eyes. “Because of my dyslexia.”
Sanji froze.
The what?
“Your what?”
“My dyslexia,” Zoro repeated, far too calmly considering the absolute bombshell he had just dropped into their conversation. “You know, the thing that makes it hard for people to read?”
For a long moment all Sanji could do was gape at him, head spinning as he was forced to grapple with this new reality in which Zoro—apparently—had dyslexia, and Sanji had just made fun of him for not being able to read.
“Wait. Wait wait wait,” Sanji stuttered out when he finally found his voice again, heart beating a rapid staccato against his rib cage because what the fuck. What the fuck. “When—you—I—but—since when have you had dyslexia?!”
Zoro raised an eyebrow. “Since always. That’s how it works, cook. It’s something you’re born with.”
“That’s not what I fucking meant jackass, I know that!” Sanji snapped, trying to ignore the rapidly rising pitch of his voice as he grew more and more distressed. “What I meant was how long have you—I mean, when did you—why didn’t you say anything about it before now?!”
Zoro frowned. “Did I not?”
“No!” Sanji trilled, near hysterical.
“Oh.” Zoro rolled his eyes again. Sanji wanted to hit him. Right after he found a paper bag to start hyperventilating into. “Well, I have dyslexia. There, happy?”
“What? No, I’m not happy!” Sanji yelled, shoving up from his seat at the table and stomping over to face Zoro across the galley counter. “Fucking shit mosshead, why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Zoro shrugged. “Never really noticed that you didn’t know, I guess,” he answered, and Sanji nearly screamed. “Why are you so worked up about this?”
Sanji stared at him.
“Why am I—what the hell do you mean, why am I so worked up about this?!” he demanded, feeling like he was losing his goddamn mind. “Why are you not? I made fun of you for not being able to read! When you literally can’t fucking read!”
“Hey, I can read, it’s just hard,” Zoro protested. “And annoying.”
“Marimothatdoesnotanswermyquestion.”
Zoro squinted at him. “I didn’t realize it was gonna be such a big deal to you,” he said, and then after a moment added, “Would you not have done it if you knew?”
Sanji was going to kill him.
“Would I not—fucking of course I wouldn’t have done it if I knew!” he all but shrieked. “God fucking damnit Zoro, you might be a shitty, sentient moldspore of a swordsman but if I had known you had fucking dyslexia I would never have made fun of you for not being able to read!”
Zoro blinked at him. “Oh,” he said, tilting his head to the side like he was somehow confused by this. Which apparently he was, because the next thing he said was, “Really?”
At some point Sanji would be able to stop gaping like the world’s dumbest goldfish, but at this rate the conversation was going, it wouldn’t be any time within the next year.
“What—what the fuck do you mean, ‘really’?” he asked, not sure whether to be angry and stunned. He knew the relationship he had with Zoro wasn’t exactly conventional, built as it was on a foundation of heated rivalry, frequent barbed insults, and the more than occasional scuffle—but Sanji had thought there was an understanding between them that at the end of the day, they still had each other’s backs. Sure he was mean to Zoro, but only because Zoro gave as good as he got. Sanji didn’t actually want to hurt him.
“Do I—I mean, do you—do you really think I’m the kind of person who would make fun of you for something like that?” Sanji asked, tasting bile in the back of his throat at the thought that maybe all this time, Sanji hadn’t just been being mean to Zoro; he might have been being cruel.
Zoro brought one hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s not you specifically, cook,” he mumbled, the tips of his ears flushing pink as he cast his gaze somewhere off to the side. “It’s just… I dunno. Other people do it all the time, so I guess I just assumed maybe you would too.”
At that, Sanji blinked.
“People who know you’re dyslexic still make fun of you for having trouble with reading?” he asked incredulously.
“Sure,” Zoro said. “Not so much nowadays ‘cause it doesn’t come up that often, but it happened all the time when I was a kid.”
Sanji frowned. “But… why?” he said, feeling as though he was missing something. He was no stranger to the cruelty of children, but he’d always assumed his brothers to be an exception, not a rule.
“I dunno. I think they thought my not being able to read very well meant that I was dumb, and it’s easy to make fun of someone for being dumb because what are they gonna do? They’re dumb. I don’t think most of them even realized that I knew I was being made fun of.”
“And that… didn’t bother you?” Sanji asked.
Zoro shrugged. “Back then it did. Kids would make fun of me and then they’d try and pick fights, but once I got strong enough to start hitting back that shut them up pretty quick. Now…”
He sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck again. “Now I’ve been dealing with it long enough that it just kind of… is what it is, I guess? I’m not gonna waste my time trying to correct people’s idiotic assumptions. I know that I’m not dumb, and it’s not my problem if people think that I am just because I can’t read well.”
He said it casually, in the same kind of tone one might use to comment on the weather, but Sanji couldn’t help noticing the way Zoro still wasn’t quite meeting his eye, and the slow crawl of pink that had spread from his ears to the back of his neck. It caused an unexpected pang to run down Sanji’s spine, filling his stomach with a curious mix of embarrassment and empathy. He might not have had dyslexia, but he knew well the pain of being thought of by others as somehow less than, and the struggle of trying to pretend that pain didn’t keep you awake at night.
Not that he was going to share that with the mosshead, but at the very least Sanji felt he owed Zoro a sincere apology for being such a shithead about it.
Sanji cleared his throat. “Okay, well. For the record, I’m sorry for making fun of you. I don’t think you’re dumb because you’re dyslexic.”
Zoro’s eyebrow arched so high it nearly hit his hairline, and now feeling horrifically awkward because sincere apologies really wasn’t how he and the marimo did things, Sanji felt compelled to add, “I think you’re dumb for a bunch of other reasons.”
The eyebrow dropped marginally, and one corner of Zoro’s mouth lifted in the hint of a smirk. “There it is.”
“Like how you only shower once a week,” Sanji said, and Zoro scoffed.
“I take a swim in the ocean every day, that’s good enough!”
“It is not good enough, you moss-for-brains ogre, you need to start taking proper baths—”
“Water’s water! Why does it matter if it’s from a shower head or the ocean?”
“Oh my god,” Sanji groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “See, this is why I think you’re dumb, you sentient fucking houseplant—”
“Oh that’s rich coming from the guy whose brain bleeds out of his nose every time a pretty girl so much as looks at him—”
“I’ll bleed your brain out of your nose!” Sanji yelled, launching himself over the counter. Zoro met his roundhouse kick with a drawn sword, and from there the fight went on in their usual manner, spilling out onto the Merry’s deck while they continued to shout at each other about shitty swordsmen and stupid love-cooks, the awkward air between them successfully dispelled via the comfortably familiar language of insults and violence.
And if Sanji started making it a habit to read the morning paper out loud when Zoro happened to be in the galley while he was taking his morning break, well. That was Sanji’s business, and nobody else’s.