Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Usopp whines, ruthlessly casual in old track pants and what might be Luffy’s beat-up shirt.

Sanji snorts, giving himself a moment to feel horrified at the sheer number of ciabatta loaves Franky is trying to shove into the backseat of his van. “You think everything’s a bad idea.”

“I’m serious! You know how Luffy gets.” Usopp doesn’t even bother to lower his voice, despite Luffy literally hanging off his shoulders. “If you’re not here then it means we’re responsible for feeding him and you know how that turns out. We’re already banned from half the city, man.”

“It’s twelve months,” Sanji returns flatly. He steps aside to let Zoro pass, carrying an icebox bigger than he is with the kind of ease that usually sets Sanji’s teeth on edge. Not today, though: today the sun has blessed them, the waves are on their side and he’s twenty-four hours out from the biggest decision he’s ever made. 

Nothing is going to sour Sanji’s mood.

Luffy makes some kind of mewling sound and presses his face into Usopp’s back. Sanji half-expects him to make a last-ditch plea to get him to stay but to his surprise Luffy has been perfectly reasonable about the whole thing. “If this trip is important to Sanji then it’s important to us, right, Usopp? Besides, it means he’ll come back with even more cool recipes for us to try.”

“Unless he dies.” Zoro wipes his hands on his shorts after wedging the icebox into the precarious triangle of empty space in the van. He’s expressionless. Worse, his shorts are lime green.

Usopp looks horrified. “Why would you even say that?”

Zoro shrugs, the corner of his mouth slanting down enough for them to know he’s in a piss-poor mood and has every intention of making it their problem. “My money’s on someone gutting him like a fish before he even makes it off the plane.”

Nami leans over the backseat to snap her sunglasses over her face with a weary sigh. “Some thoughts are inside thoughts, Zoro.”

Sanji thanks every god that has ever existed for Nami’s continued brilliance and intelligence and beauty and everything Nami has ever done ever, because it’s about the only thing that stops him from dropkicking Zoro down the fucking hill.

“Bold of you to assume Zoro has thoughts,” Usopp mutters, not nearly under his breath enough, and Sanji bites back a snigger at the way Zoro’s face scowls. Then, Franky is sticking his head out the front window and yelling at them to get their asses into gear before he leaves without them.

He never would, of course, but it gets them scrambling into the back all the same.

Half an hour later, crushed to death between Luffy’s damnably pointy elbows and Zoro’s hulking mass of fury, Sanji lets himself settle into the complicated tangle of feelings he’s been hauling around lately. There’s the sharp ache of knowing he’s going to miss this – miss them – more than he’s willing to admit out loud. But threaded through it is something else, something lighter: the quiet thrum of excitement for what comes next. He’s been grinding himself into the dust for the past few years, stacking double and triple shifts like some kind of masochistic jenga, bailing on parties and dodging sleep at every turn. But now, he’s got a plane ticket with his name on it. A whole new city. New kitchens, new people, new chances. 

Everything he’s been chasing, right there on the horizon.

“Move over.” Zoro’s foot grinds down onto his, sudden and mean. Sanji briefly considers returning the favour but Nami’s watching them like a hawk from the front seat and also nothing is going to ruin this day. Sanji crams himself into Luffy as much as he can, which in turn sends Usopp spiralling into a very loud monologue about his incurable claustrophobia.

"Wind down the window, then," Nami sighs unsympathetically, likely tangled up in her own private agony over her looming proposal. The idea that Vivi and Nami won’t end up having a disgustingly adorable wedding is so unthinkable, so cosmically absurd, that only the tiny gremlin-like creature piloting Nami’s insecurities would even dare to consider it.

Usopp splutters something incomprehensible but it turns out to be a moot point anyway because Franky steers the van around the next turn and Luffy just about bounds out of the seat with excitement.

“The water looks amazing!” he crows. The ocean's dappled with light, blue as far as the eye can see. The windows are wound down in quick succession and the smell of the ocean hits Sanji like a punch to the chest.

“I’m going to miss this,” he hears himself say, which probably makes no sense to anyone because –

“There are beaches in Australia, bro.” Franky guides his van into the parking lot like someone with a death wish.

“Not like this,” Sanji says and immediately regrets it, because explaining himself would require too much vulnerability for today. What’s he even meant to say? Every dumb, sunburnt day on this scrappy patch of coastline has been a miracle that he’s still not sure he deserves.

The tide is out, which means they find themselves covering more distance than usual and they divvy up the tasks accordingly. Zoro and Franky are on the heavy lifting, with Luffy on dragging the snacks and Sanji on making sure the snacks remain unconsumed. Nami appoints herself the navigator and Usopp drags the collection of bodyboards behind him, ninety-nine percent eyebrows and five percent crippling-fear-of-crabs.

It’s fall so it’s not like the ocean will be that enjoyable, but it doesn’t stop Luffy and Franky from running into it the moment they’ve put the icebox and umbrellas down, not even bothering to shed their outer layers.

Nami tsks and Sanji helps her spread out the picnic blanket, letting his fingertips trace the threadbare patches with something that feels suspiciously like affection. “Aren’t you going to miss this?” he asks her.

She shakes out her ponytail and sets up her beach chair, finding her tanning lotion buried under Usopp’s five hundred hairbands. “We’re not going away forever, Sanji.” It’s maybe the kindest way she could phrase it but he knows what she truly means. It’s time to grow up, to stop clinging to whatever this is and start living up to whatever nonsense Sanji’s always rambling about – legacy, potential, blah blah blah. He knows it, deep down in the softest parts of himself, but that doesn't make it easier to wrestle with the weird, aching cocktail of emotions that independence drags along with it. 

“Aren’t you gonna swim?” Zoro demands. He’s stripped out of his shirt and is just standing there, arms folded across his chest in his stupid fluorescent shorts. “You’re the one who wanted to come all the way out here, the hell was the point if you’re not gonna swim?”

Sanji sniffs irritably, dropping down beside Nami to help her with her tanning lotion. Two years ago he would’ve made some lewd comment and counted the moment as some kind of gift from heaven, but he’s Facetimed Vivi more times than he can count, he’s got Nami’s wedding Pinterest board bookmarked on his phone and those days are long gone, man.

“Bother someone else, Mosshead.” The stop ruining my life is implied. 

Zoro narrows his eyes before stalking off, slamming himself into the sea like it’s wronged him.

“What is his problem.” It’s not a question, because Sanji doesn’t actually care, but still. What the fuck, man.

Luffy lets his wet, soggy body flop onto the picnic mat, which sends Nami shrieking to find a dry corner. He peers up at Sanji through his mop of a fringe, plastered over his forehead like a third-grade art project. “Be nice to him, Sanji. Today’s really hard for him.”

Which is ?? Sanji doesn’t even know what to say about that, because he doesn’t have enough of a scope on Zoro’s private life to understand the context. Zoro and Nami have already had their heartfelt goodbye, probably, and Zoro had won his last match last night by a landslide. He passes his classes without even trying. He has a perky little job at the university CrossFit club (which doubles as a hobby horse arena, go figure) and their local café knows his order by heart (double Espresso, triple on Wednesdays).

The hell does he have to worry about?

“Luffy! Get off the mat!” Nami kicks at him from across the mat and Luffy laughs, rolling onto the sand with unbridled glee. There’s a mischievous set to his mouth that Sanji doesn’t like at-fucking-all, and sure enough before he can think of an excuse to flee Luffy jumps on him, sticky and sandy and loud.

“Come swim with us, Sanji! Let’s go, let’s go!”

It’s objectively disgusting but Sanji can’t stop the laughter from bubbling up. “Okay, okay.” He shrugs off his shirt, toes off his sandals and tackles Luffy to the ground.

Several hours later, staring down at the gift Franky has given him, with the stereo pumping some awful 80s mash-up and far too many jello shots nestled in his tum, Sanji's genuinely starting to rethink the whole concept of missing people.

“Uh… thank you?” He doesn’t know how to articulate his hazy thoughts in any kind of polite way, which his therapist would probably consider a distinct lack of progress. The button-up shirt in his hand is emblazoned with tens of Frankys, picture-perfect grins on display.

Sanji is way too drunk for this.

Franky beams. “Now you’ll have a piece of me wherever you go.”

Robin leans into the conversation with a careful sip of her frozen margarita, winding her arm around her boyfriend. It’s one of Usopp’s concoctions, which means it’s probably illegal in half the states and almost unbearably delicious. Sanji has many, many dreams of lobotomising his curly-haired friend to peel the mixology expertise from his brain. She explains, “Someone was giving away a screen printer on Facebook.”

“Ah.” Sanji bundles the shirt up back into the wrapping paper, also covered in hand-drawn Frankys. The 80s mashup has transitioned into some kind of power ballad and even from here, in the noisy thrush of the kitchen, Sanji can hear Carrot giving it her best shot.

They’re at Robin’s, because she lives off-campus with her fancy (sad) inheritance and has the only space big enough to host an over-the-top going away party. Sanji has counted eight bubble machines and has given up on trying to keep track of anyone. Everyone Sanji has ever kind-of met is here and then some. He suspects someone leaked it on DenDen.

“Thanks, guys.” He means it. Robin and Franky are the kind of people you call in your lowest moments, like when you’re abandoned on the freeway because your ex-girlfriend thought practical jokes were a love language, or when your crippling sleep paralysis has kept you up all night and you accidentally bake an entire tray of despair because caster sugar and salt look the same, okay?

He gives them a combined hug, which really just means that Franky hoists him into the air and squeezes him until he physically cannot breathe. Robin pats at his back sympathetically, pressing a sweet kiss into the hollow of his cheek.

“Don’t forget to write,” she says seriously and most people would assume she means an email, or hastily scribbled message on DenDen, but Sanji knows she keeps a stack of postcards in her bookshelf from the friends she’s made around the world. It would be an immeasurable honour to add to them.

The moment is, in typical fashion, interrupted by Luffy streaking past them with an expression that sends Robin trailing after him, nursing her margarita with a wry smile. Franky claps at Sanji’s arm, says, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” and follows suit.

It’s not stellar advice, because Sanji is yet to meet anything Franky wouldn’t try.

He carries the button-up shirt to the upstairs en-suite, threading messily through the crowd. His stomach is not feeling particularly impressed, made worse by the flashing red and green lights someone has set up in the stairwell.

He needs some fresh air.

Upstairs is marginally quieter and he slips through Robin’s bedroom door to the small bathroom. His backpack is still on the floor from when he'd thrown it earlier, his phone and notebook splayed against the olive tiles. There are fairy lights wound through the fake plants seated by the corner bathtub and a tragically dying bubble machine puttering away in the corner. It’s quintessentially Robin and Sanji never wants to leave it.

The shirt gets chucked inside the backpack, along with Luffy’s gift (a new, thick leather notebook to store his ideas) and Usopp’s (a small bottle of homebrew that Sanji knows will not make it through airport security), and the detritus of Sanji’s day-to-day existence. The rest of his meagre belongings have already been packed away in boxes, stacked neatly in Luffy and his brothers’ garage, awaiting his return. It’ll be the next winter by then, and the gang will be organising bonfires and experimenting with sticky s’mores and Sanji will have a hundred new recipes and experiences to draw upon as he enters the final year of cooking school.

“You’re missing your own party,” Ace drawls, leaning against the door frame. His hat is tilted so far back on his head it’s in danger of disappearing and his shirt is unbuttoned, loose. He looks properly smashed. Smells properly smashed.

Sanji wants to say something about how the party seems to be doing just dandy without him but his stomach is doing something funny and his head has devolved into a weltering mash-up of nausea and strobe lights. “Weren’t you in the pool?”

Ace glances down at his damp jorts (jorts!) and shrugs. “Came looking for the birthday boy.”

“S’not my birthday.”

Ace shrugs again. Takes another mouthful of whatever he’s drinking and caresses the door jamb, silver rings catching the dull glow of the fairy lights. “It could be.”

“That doesn’t even make sense?” Sanji tries to laugh, maybe, but his stomach decides to make an impromptu visit to his mouth and he gags instead, clapping his hand over his face with a shaky groan. “Man, I feel yuck. Yucky. Yuck-ee, you know?”

“C’mere.” Ace pulls him to his feet, catching his elbows to steady him. This close, the orange glow of the room lights his freckles up like constellations. Luffy has freckles too, fairer but scattered in a perfect mirror image of his brother, a fact Sanji has always found strangely charming.

“You guys’ve got the stars on you,” Sanji says nonsensically, trying to explain how much he fucking loves Luffy. It’s not possible: it’s like trying to catch the sun, or – or whatever it is Kaya’s novellas are always banging on about. He’s so distracted by this singular mission that he only has about three seconds to notice the flash of silvery tinsel caught in Ace’s hair before Ace is kissing him.

It’s maybe the worst timing ever, not in the least because Sanji is as straight as an arrow but also because Sanji’s stomach chooses that exact moment to give up on life and make an immediate, harrowing exit. He shoves at the meat of Ace’s shoulder, right as he vomits over the older man’s handmade leather sandals.

Ace makes some kind of yelping noise, stumbling backward in a very appropriate level of shock. His face has gone pale, eyes drenched in horror, and on a normal day Sanji would feel sorry for him but right now his stomach feels like it’s on death’s door, so. Another time.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, clawing at his own mouth like it’s betrayed him which it has. He lets himself slide bonelessly down onto the floor, clenching his fingers around the cold lip of the sink pedestal. Behind him, the bubble machine gives one final breathy moan before stopping entirely.

“What the hell is going on.”

Sanji would recognise Zoro’s voice anywhere, because only Zoro could sound like he’s deeply regretting every moment of his own existence whilst being simultaneously livid at everything Sanji has ever done. And the thing is, Zoro’s not usually this bad? He’s prone to a good grump or two, sure, but he’s usually pretty steady; Sanji only really sees him go off when he’s fresh off a brutal match or someone’s dumb enough to come for Luffy. But lately? Lately it’s like he’s running hot all the time, like there’s a grudge lodged under his skin and Sanji’s the poor idiot stuck trying to read the instruction manual in a language he doesn’t even fucking speak.

He twists his head enough to peer at Zoro’s shoes – dunks, white, perfectly unvomited on – and mumbles something utterly intelligible, even to himself. He half-expects Ace to slip away into the night but the poor guy is shucking his shoes off into the sink, as if a quick dip could possibly save them now. They’re his special sandals, made by Sabo, before he departed on his annual constitutional, or whatever it is Philosophy students do when they become too maudlin.

Sanji will feel awful about this later.

“I’m not doin’ good,” he announces to the room at large. If he concentrates really hard he can almost forget the feel of Ace’s mouth on his. If he concentrates harder he can pretend the past ten minutes never even existed. 

He watches Zoro weigh the moment up, his dark eyes skittering between Ace and Sanji with something akin to suspicion (probably closer to revulsion but, like, the room now stinks of puke so Sanji can hardly blame him) before jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Out.”

It’s an uncomfortably lengthy moment before Ace makes a guttural sound, like a wounded animal, and Sanji watches his bare feet pad back into the hallway. He lets himself uncurl over the tiles, stretching his body to its full potential. He croaks, “Are his shoes okay?”

“Who cares.” It’s not a question. Zoro sits down next to him, handing over a water bottle like he’s just been carrying it around. There are smears of neon paint over across his face, over his shoulders – probably Luffy. Sanji is close enough to see the pulse jump in his throat when Zoro swallows. “Everyone’s looking for you.”

If it were Robin Sanji would mewl and put his head in her lap until he felt better. If it were Nami he’d wax poetics about her orange hair or razor-sharp wit. If it were Usopp he’d crack terrible jokes and listen to even more terrible stories until the ruckus in his gut ebbed. But it’s Zoro, so he forces himself to sit up and drink the damn water. “Why?”

“Are you thick? It’s your party.”

Sanji skulls the water until his breaths stop feeling like fire grating in his mouth. “Should be your party, since you’re so glad I’m leaving and all.” It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but in his defence his brain is still a little discombobulated.

The other man’s head snaps around so quickly someone should check him for whiplash. The warmth of the fairy lights is clashing with this green hair something terrible. “Is that a fucking joke?”

“Your face is a joke,” Sanji snips in return, which also doesn’t make sense but it does feel more in line with their normal dynamic.

Something complicated and awful happens to Zoro’s expression, before his face falls sharply and he gets to his feet. “Guess it’s lucky you won’t be seeing it for a while.”

Sanji watches the door slam behind the other man, spluttering Zoro’s name and wait, but he’s too worn-out and poorly and whatever to bother chasing this problem down. He drags his fingers down his face, letting his nails catch, as if the sharp sting can rewire his brain.

Getting up and moving is a trial and a half, a fucking marathon, but he manages to dunk his head in the sink, where Ace has kindly left the water running to pool despondently on Robin’s floor. He scrubs a lavender-scented towel over his face until the room stops spinning.

He’s never having a jello shot again.

Downstairs, the party is still in full swing. He spots Koby and Helmeppo having a dance-off on the sofas, Paulie in a heated discussion with a fake potted palm, and somewhere in his peripheral he’s pretty sure Tristan is trying to put the moves on Carrot. He ambles his way outside, where the pool is dotted with partygoers in various states of undress.

There’s a net of fairy lights thrown haphazardly over the small deck, where Brook is sitting on a kitchen stool, guitar in hand and someone’s Peppa Pig microphone at hip-height. The deck is bracketed by his closest friends, his longest comrades, and the wobbly smile Kaya gives him is enough to make him pause mid-step, his heart sinking in his chest because this is chalking up to be the exact kind of sentimental mess he wants to avoid.

“The man of the hour!” Usopp grabs his shoulders and shoves him down to where Nami is perched on a cushion dragged out from the living room. Her eyelashes are already wet and sticky, mascara smudged one on cheek in the shape of a moon. She squeezes his hand immediately, leaning into his shoulder with a soft hiccup.

Brook clears his throat, flashing the peace sign and a grin shaped by an earnest, lifelong love, equally shared between music and his friends. His long fingers strum the guitar with practised ease. “We ready, crew?”

“Stop!” Sanji says immediately, already mortified, already covering his flushing face with the hand not gripping Nami. “I said no singing!”

“Shishishi!” Luffy yanks them both into a headlock as Kaya starts passing around dollar-store sparklers like contraband. There’s a burst of chaotic laughter, giggles, shrieks and someone howling a whole damn sea shanty in the distance. Nami is laugh-crying beside him and Sanji’s bracing for impact by the time Brook launches into the first few bars of We’re Going to be Friends.

To Sanji’s absolute horror, everyone starts singing along. To his even greater horror so does he, right around the moment he realises he’s crying.

“Fall is HERE!” Yamato bellows at knee-height, off-key and glowing, linked at the elbow with Perona, their sparklers flirting real dangerously with Usopp’s hair. Somewhere in the chaos, Ace reappears, barefoot and loud, his hands cupped around his mouth.

People might be singing from the pool. They might not be. Sanji can’t tell, because he’s too busy crying his stupid heart out. Nami wheezes beside him, teetering between a sob and a snort as Brook shifts seamlessly into the Titanic theme song, kicking the stool clean out of the way. God knows where the microphone has gone.

Somehow, without noticing, he ends up with one arm around Nami, the other around Usopp, all three of them swaying off-key beneath a sky lit by malfunctioning sparklers. His chest feels like it might crack open.

He’s never felt so absurd, or so loved, and he doesn’t fall asleep for a long, long while.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

Despite his best intentions to wake up early, wash out his face and prove he’s totally ready for this adulting business, Sanji is woken at the eleventh hour by Ace’s toes digging into his ribcage. He groans and tries to wedge himself further into the warm mess of bodies around him, but Ace is relentless and also there’s a ghastly ringing noise far too close to his ear.

“The fuck,” he mumbles, becoming increasingly aware of how uncomfortable his body is. He feels like his spine has been yoinked out and shoved back in crooked. His hand flails about for the source of the godawful sound, finding his phone. It’s his fourth alarm, and he shoots upright in a panic. This, of course, has the unfortunate effect of making his brain slam against the confines of his skull and he wails, clutching at his own face.

“Here.” Ace, saint that he is, drops a couple of ibuprofen into his hands. He chews at his mouth for a moment before taking the plunge. “Look, I just wanted to apologise for last night.”

“Mm.” Sanji dry-swallows the ibuprofen like some kind of animal, violently aware of how rancid his breath is and how badly he Does Not Want to have this conversation. 

Ace rubs at the udder of the cow onesie he’s donned, looking deeply uncomfortable and also just. Sad. Sad, sad, sad. “You know I’ve been uh… you know it’s been hard. Since.” He can’t seem to bring himself to finish and Sanji is, if nothing else, a benevolent guy so he nods with far more gusto than his hungover brain is prepared for.

“S’fine. Really. It was a silly little – it’s fine.” He thinks he means it; he can’t really begrudge the guy for having some kind of mid-life crisis after a spectacularly bad break-up. Lord knows Sanji’s gotten up to some questionable antics in his life. There’s a reason the group doesn’t speak of Viola anymore. “Shit, sorry, we’re gonna be late!”

He hurls himself up the stairs, where Nami has a hair dryer going at full blast, Robin flitting around her to pack any last-minute items into Nami’s very chic, colour-coded travel bag. She manages to throw him his backpack whilst handing him someone’s clearly-used toothbrush – he doesn’t have time to care.

“How badsh the shtraffi’?” he bites out around the spearmint toothpaste. It tastes like a nice fresh kick to the mouth first thing in the morning and he, a kicker of mouths, would know.

Usopp’s already tap-tapping on his phone, squinting at the map he pulls up. “The good news is the tunnel’s looking pretty clear.”

It’s a small mercy: the tunnel has screwed them over more than once. Sanji glances at his own phone to see a truly staggering number of memes sent from Brook and a bunch of emojis from Franky that he doesn’t have the time or brain space to parse through right now.

“Leaving in two,” Nami calls out as he’s trying to change into the soft tracksuit pants he’d shoved in the bathroom for this exact moment. There are pink feathers in his hair from Perona’s silly boa and, when he finally gives himself a proper once-over, he realises there’s lipstick smeared across his cheek.

Yeah, he doesn’t really have an answer for that one.

They bundle into Franky’s van, Usopp-and-Kaya (Kusopp?) and Luffy and Robin and Nami with her carefully organised suitcases and Sanji with his backpack and duffel bag. Usopp’s eyes are bloodshot, heavy-lidded, and he’s already snoozing on his girlfriend’s shoulder before they’ve navigated out of the cul-de-sac.

Sanji would sleep too, if he could get past the crazed jittering in his stomach, the buzz running riot under his skin. He’s well and truly nervous now, and he sticks his head out the window lest he overthink the whole thing and demand Robin turn the van around.

Luffy, in a characteristic show of being forever attuned to his friends’ emotions, links their arms together at the elbow and pads at Sanji’s shoulder. “This will be the best adventure, Sanji.”

“I hope so,” Sanji mutters.

Luffy’s grin is blinding, particularly in the face of a gruesome hangover and the most terrifying decision Sanji’s ever made. “I know so.”

“Make sure you message us when you land,” Robin reminds him from the driver’s seat, because Franky couldn’t get out of work today and anyway, it’s kind of fitting that it’s the original crew driving them, Sanji’s ragtag group of friends that have carried him through the past few years of hell.

Nami doesn’t look up from her hands, clasped around Vivi’s future engagement ring. The box is made from oak, hinged in brass, and Sanji knows that inside lies a dainty white gold ring, with a single turquoise gemstone. Her fingers are white-knuckled, intractable, and Sanji bumps his shoulder against hers in what he hopes is a display of support. She musters up a thin smile.

There’s some janky jazz duet playing on the radio when the van screeches to a stop on a street corner, hovering just long enough for Zoro to jump in with an almond croissant that immediately finds its way into Luffy’s mouth.

“You’re coming?” Sanji doesn’t know why he sounds surprised. Zoro and Nami have a whole thing going on made up entirely of silent, extended eye contact and hushed tête-à-têtes at, like, 2am. Sanji knows because he’d walked in on one such conversation a few months back and Nami had tried to peel the skin off his bones in retaliation.

“Of course he’s coming,” Luffy answers around the truly appalling amount of dough in his mouth. The fact that he chokes slightly is neither here nor there.

Zoro doesn’t say anything, just whacks his friend on the back until death isn’t so imminent and stretches out on the peeling back seat, headphones on and eyes closed.

“Luffy, please chew,” Kaya sighs.

The drive to the airport isn't long enough, and also feels like the longest forty-five minutes of Sanji’s life. He presses his forehead against the windowpane and watches the traffic blur by, tuning out Luffy and Robin’s animated discussion about decomposition. Usopp keeps snoring, Kaya keeps scrolling, Nami keeps twisting the box around in her hands like it’s the answer to a puzzle no-one else understands.

Vivi’s put in a good word for him with her dad, whose brother’s restaurant in Australia is set to become Sanji’s new learning ground for the next few months, before he packs it up and jets across to New Zealand for a brief spell before the final trek home. He just has to figure out how to make it all work.

He pulls out his phone several times, his fingertips hovering over Zeff’s name in his contacts before tucking it away again. Saying goodbye to these guys is one thing, but saying goodbye to his quasi-adopted father-figure-slash-boss-slash-literal-lifesaver is a whole other level that his heart just isn’t ready to contend with yet.

It’s a shame he couldn’t find a card for thanks for taking me off the streets and making me believe in myself again. great bisque.

“We’re here.” Robin turns the radio down to concentrate on wrangling the sharp merge into the Departure zone, finding a spot far quicker than Sanji’s nerves like. They hadn’t actually discussed the logistics of this part and so Sanji had just kind of lowkey assumed that he and Nami would get dropped off at the curb because airport parking is depressingly expensive, but everyone spills out of the van like it was never in question.

“You guys don’t have to do this,” Nami says for the both of them, perfectly level, but there’s a shine to her eyes and nowhere near enough intimidation in her voice. Luffy just ruffles her hair and helps Zoro drag her luggage out because Nami has been called many things, but under-prepared has never been one of them.

They make their way into the airport in relative silence and must look like quite the bunch: Nami with her flaming orange hair in an elaborate up-do that seems unlikely to survive the trek, Luffy with his hands flailing everywhere and his always-present straw hat bobbing about with gusto, Zoro with his green mop and thousand-mile stare, Usopp with his dark curls and mismatched trainers because the poor guy was probably running around like a lunatic this morning, holding hands with Kaya’s absolute serenity, Robin’s perfect manicure and genial smile, and Sanji bringing up the rear feeling like he’s going through an excruciatingly slow meat grinder.

“Let’s see, let’s see.” Robin props her sunglasses atop her head to peer at the flight board once they’re inside. Their flight seems to be on time, which gives them a few hours to kill once they’re through security. “Ah, what serendipitous timing we’ve had today.”

“I still can’t believe you’re leaving for a whole year,” Usopp says to Sanji amongst a series of sighs. He links their arms together, giving Sanji’s shoulder a little pat. “You’re gonna knock their socks off, kid.”

“I’m older than you.” Sanji’s laugh wobbles precariously as Luffy all but tackles him, peppering loud kisses on Sanji’s head. Nami and Robin share a hug, pressed top to toe – Nami’s weeping a little and Sanji can’t hear what Robin whispers but whatever it is makes Nami cry harder.

It’s not ideal for Sanji, who is a sympathetic crier at best and an over-emotional muppet at worst, and as such he’s not even remotely surprised that his own eyes are welling up in response. He squeezes Luffy with everything he’s got, burying his face in the sharp junction of the younger man’s shoulder. It’s true that Sanji met Zoro first, in a particularly brutal muay Thai match on a particularly brutal night which ended in a particularly brutal stalemate that neither have lived down, but it’s Luffy who has held their ragtag group together through thick and thin ever since. Their own personal lodestone, a tuning rod that Sanji is going to have to navigate without.

“Please, please take care of yourself,” Sanji whispers and he means take care of them take care of me and Luffy gets it anyway, because he always has, his fingers pressing a trench into Sanji’s back, every single one of them a solid promise.

“Don’t forget to book your return flight,” Usopp warns, waggling his eyebrows over Luffy’s bony shoulder. “Don’t think you can escape us, man.”

Sanji snorts into Luffy’s collarbone, pulling away long enough to scrub at his wet, wet eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says and means every goddamn word. Luffy snorts and wheels him out of the way to grab Nami, and Sanji in turn finds his face in Robin’s capable hands.

“I can only begin to imagine how much more beautiful you’ll be when I see you next,” he says because god knows he has to scrape together some sense of his personality, lest he devolve into an embarrassing heap of tears, snot and anxiety.  He can see Zoro and Nami in his peripheral, heads bent at funny angles to whisper to each other in between Luffy’s overzealous affection.

Robin’s thumbs soothe at his temples, down the arc of his cheekbones. She says, utterly calm, “Almost 90% of koalas have chlamydia.”

“Oh. Uh. Thanks?”

“It’s non-transferable to humans.” Her lips quirk into a smile, fond and weird and so brazenly Robin that Sanji lets himself get lost in it for a minute, leaning the weight of his cheek into her cupped hand. “Take care of yourself.”

“Group photo!” Usopp is fiddling with his phone, squinting at the screen while he tries to figure out how the timer works. It’s not like anybody brought a tripod so he props his phone up on the windowsill, adjusting it a few times before declaring it bearable.

Sanji’s pretty sure the photo is fucked up; Nami’s face is red and blotchy, Robin’s half out of frame because she’s bodily dragging Zoro into the group, and Luffy can’t stay still long enough to be captured in any way that doesn’t make him look like a rubbery cryptid, but Usopp seems thrilled about it all. It’s very authentic, if nothing else.

“We should probably start checking in.” Nami wipes at her eyes, sniffles. Sanji hasn’t seen her cry this much since the last time they waved Vivi off.

There’s a little commotion happening, some feverish murmuring that Sanji can’t make heads or tails of before Luffy smacks another kiss on his head and Robin gives his arm a gentle embrace. They bumble off together with Usopp and Kaya, and Sanji can feel his heart breaking in real time.

He doesn’t realise Zoro hasn’t left with them until Nami jerks her thumb over her shoulder at the shitty kiosk some twenty metres away. “I’m just gonna – drink.”

“Oi.” Sanji cocks his head at the other man, who does not seem to be leaving. “You lost already, Mossy?”

Zoro does not, in fact, look lost. He looks like he’s trying to decide whether to deck Sanji or storm off, neither of which seem like particularly compelling options to the blonde. His arms are crossed tightly across his broad chest. A muscle in his jaw jumps.

“Eh?” Sanji cuts himself off at the small box Zoro practically throws at him, and he almost doesn’t catch it before it hits the carpet. It’s wrapped in smudged newspaper and some twine, which is already starting to fray. “What’s this?”

Zoro huffs, looking pointedly at anywhere-but-Sanji. It’s kind of rude but also very on par, so Sanji doesn’t take it personally. “Don’t… it’s for later. It was Robin’s idea. She thought… she said you might want something. From us. To remember.”

“Robin is so thoughtful, isn’t she?” Sanji tucks the gift into his backpack and finds Zoro is still there, just – standing. He looks like he’s about to snap Sanji in half. “Earth to Mo –”

“Can you just shut up for once.” Zoro kills the distance between them, seizes him by the face and kisses him. Sanji gasps into his mouth, too shocked to stop himself from grabbing at Zoro’s shirt. Zoro’s fingers are tight at the hinge of his jaw. And then he’s dropped, Zoro stepping back with hands that get shoved into his pockets and disaster written into every tense inch of him. Sanji stares at him, abso-fucking-lutely staggered.

“Zoro?” He clears his throat and tries again. “What –”

Zoro, true to form, whirls around on his feet and leaves. Doesn’t look back. Doesn’t so much as fucking pause , but his head is down and his shoulders are hunched and Sanji has kicked his ass enough times to know what defeat looks like on the other man.

“Holy shit,” Sanji mutters. His mouth feels foreign, like it doesn’t belong to him. His heart’s pounding so hard it’s rattling his ribs. His brain feels scrambled, like he’s been yanked out of his own life and dropped on some strange, alien planet where nothing makes sense. 

He nearly jumps out of his skin altogether when Nami touches his elbow. She’s bearing a takeaway coffee in her other hand and a cautious look on her face, her mouth pursed just enough that Sanji figures she witnessed – whatever that was.

What the fuck.

“We should check in,” she says as she gently leads him to the line and away from the crisis unfolding inside of his ribcage.

Sanji follows her motions like he’s on autopilot, each movement mechanical. His mind just. Static. Fried beyond repair. He watches his passport pass through a series of hands and doesn’t think to flirt with the curvaceous ticket agent even once. It’s not until they’ve gotten through security and dumped themselves into a dingy corner of the food court that he finally lets himself speak, his voice coming out low, almost frantic. “Did you see that?”

Nami sips her new coffee carefully, having dumped her previous atrocity at security. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, probably trying for cryptic. The problem is, Sanji knows that Nami has goddamn eyes. 

He wants to argue, to push, but something in him is stuck frozen at the kind of Pandora’s box that conversation would unravel. The thing is… Nami doesn’t look shocked? Which is ?? Has she just been living in some fucking twilight zone where she, what, isn’t fazed by Zoro kissing Sanji, like it doesn’t irretrievably impact the very foundations of their very specific dynamic?

Sanji is, frankly, fucking terrified to find the answer to that so he busies himself with tidying up the sugar packets and trying to focus on absolutely anything except the past forty minutes. His skin is prickling still, like the ground’s been yanked out from under his feet and the only one who thinks this is fucking insane is him. “Do you, uh, know when you’re gonna do it?”

Nami winces now that the spotlight is back on her, abandoning her probably filthy coffee to smooth the edges of the ring box instead. “We’re going to dinner with her dad tomorrow, so maybe after that? What d'you think?”

Sanji’s about to answer (any time, literally any time, Nami could propose in a garbage heap and Vivi would think it was the sweetest moment ever) when his phone goes off, startling him badly. “H-Hey.”

“Eggplant.” Zeff’s voice sounds heavy and thick, like it does when he first wakes up. Sanji should know: he’s usually the one doing the waking. “I trust you won’t do anything stupid over there.”

It’s embarrassing, really, how quickly Sanji is reduced to a sad little sniffle; there’s something about the way Zeff manages to sound proud and cautious and every inch of the parental figure Sanji has come to see him as. He ducks away from the table, his phone wedged between his shoulder and jaw, as if Nami hasn’t seen him cry a million times before.

“Can’t promise anything,” he says, trying to be lighthearted about it all, as if Zeff’s hasn’t always been able to read like a book. A predictable, cliched book. “Make sure you stick to your diet, yeah? I don’t want to hear a single fucking word about your cholesterol.” 

Zeff half-groans, half-chuckles, sounding unbearably fond and making a little part of Sanji’s heart ache. “You’re too young to be acting this old. I want you to have fun.”

Sanji’s well aware that he and Zeff have completely different ideas of fun, and that Sanji’s favourite hobby is decimating any hope of a work/life balance, so he picks his words carefully. “You can call me anytime, yeah? Remember I put Sydney’s clock on your phone, so you know what time it’ll be for me.”

“Always taking care of me,” Zeff sighs, “It’s time you took care of yourself, for once.”

“That’s the plan,” Sanji returns cheerily, despite it absolutely Not being the plan. He glances back to Nami, who is trying to mime something to him that looks a hell of a lot like a bird hurtling to the ground at breakneck speed. “Oh… I think we have to start boarding? I’ll let you know when I land, okay? And I meant it – Evan knows what to do if he sees you snacking on those shitty butter chips!”

Zeff mutters something under his breath – an insult, realistically – but Sanji knows better. Zeff’s always had a knack for scraping the rawness out of him, ever since he was a scrawny, sharp-tongued kid whose feet could thankfully outrun any trouble his mouth stirred up (and boy, that was a lot of trouble). That’s never changed, although he’s not that dumb kid anymore. He’s not really anything, actually  – not grown, not whole – just stranded in this aching, funny little stretch between childhood and whatever the hell is meant to come next.

“Fly safe, Eggplant,” Zeff says, voice rough but softer than Sanji's heard it. 

“You too,” Sanji croaks, which makes zero sense but it’s the best he can do without getting teary. He’s eternally grateful that Zeff ends the call first, because he can’t quite get his hands to move. He’s still standing there when Nami comes up to tug on his sleeve, her brow furrowed kindly.

“We should probably head towards the gate. You okay?”

Sanji warbles at her a little as she pulls him along the tacky carpet, rubbing at his eyes to prevent any tears from leaking out. They linger by a corner kiosk long enough for Nami to nick a candy or two, and for Sanji to shoot off another warning message to Evan, who has stepped in as Zeff’s sous chef and babysitter for the next twelve months. Evan is quick to reply and eager to please, happy to become Sanji’s accomplice and keep Zeff in line for a chance at a lifelong position at the Baratie. 

It looks like their flight has just opened for boarding, with a line long enough to gut the airport hallway, and they tack on to the end of it with little fanfare.

“This is going to be the longest flight of my life,” Nami mutters and Sanji’s not sure if she means in a literal or emotional sense, but both options check out. 

He thumbs open his phone and finds Zoro’s name in DenDen. Chews his fingernail. Types, deletes, types again. When he finally sends should we talk about it he gets a whole eighty-two seconds to watch three dots appear and reappear, appear and reappear, before they disappear again entirely and Zoro goes offline.

Sanji stares at the screen, mind blank, before snapping his phone shut.

Well. That’s that, then.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

By the time they land in Sydney, some thirty hours later, Sanji's sure of approximately two things: one) he absolutely never, ever in his life wants to fly budget again and two) this is the worst idea he’s ever had.

“What were we thinking?” he hisses to Nami, who is trying to exit the plane with the patience of an overtired, overstimulated parent. She tugs him along the aisle, pushing past people to get them out into the jetway. 

“You’re delirious and anything you say right now makes no sense,” she tells him, pushing up onto her tiptoes to scan their surroundings properly. Sanji barely notices what’s around them, his stomach a roiling pit of anxiety until they hit the entry checkpoints. 

It takes far too much energy and time to convince the person checking his passport that yes, he has the right visa sorted and yes, he’s aware of all the associated labour laws, and by the time they let him through the little gate he feels like he’s lived twelve lifetimes. He spends the next fifteen minutes trying to connect to the airport wifi and set up the eSim Nami had organised, fatigue making his movements slow and bumbling. He’d spent the flights drifting in and out of fitful, tense naps before giving up entirely and watching a season or two of a K-drama that he’s still not sure he understood correctly. There was time travel, maybe. 

“I can’t wait to hit a bed,” Nami mutters. She’d made the fatal mistake of popping a Xanax on an empty stomach and too much anxiety, and it’s done nothing but make her tetchy. They amble through the appropriate hallways, blinking in tandem at the unrepentant fluorescent lighting. 

They’ve barely made it through to baggage when Vivi slams into Nami with all the grace of a linebacker, peppering kisses into her orange hair. Nami bursts into immediate tears and the biggest smile Sanji’s seen in months, clutching her girlfriend back as they fall to the floor. 

“Oh dear,” Vivi’s father says from behind, his mouth curled in a benign smile. Sanji’s not met Cobra until now, and he wastes no time in making a good impression, hyper aware that he owes this whole trip to the other man.

“Sanji, sir. I just wanted to say thank you for entrusting me with your brother’s place, truly. I promise I will take great care of it.” He shakes Cobra’s hand with his patented Please Trust Me handshake, which Cobra seems to appreciate. 

“Ah, he’s just excited to get some fresh meat in. Alright girls, let’s get crackin’ before the traffic really takes off.” He makes a potentially rude gesture, throwing Sanji a wink that he has no idea how to interpret. Vivi makes an embarrassed noise, but her face is flushed and her grin is brazen, and it only warms further when she takes Sanji’s hands in her own. 

“Thank god you’re here,” she says with a wicked laugh, “Finally someone who can make a proper cassoulet!”

“It’s good to see you,” he returns and he means it. He means it for himself, who’s pieced together a friendship with Vivi through scattered snapshots over the years, and he means it even more for Nami, who looks like a mammoth weight has finally been lifted from her chest, like she’s found her way back home at last.

Cobra turns and guides them toward his car, a tiny little hatchback that somehow manages to pack a pretty decent punch. It’s a stroke of luck, considering Nami seems to have brought every damn thing she owns with her. Cobra handles it like a champ, nodding amiably. 

“Oh, we should let them know we’re okay.” Nami fumbles with her phone, peering down at the screen with her other hand tightly gripping Vivi’s. Sanji lets her handle it: he’s not sure he’s ready to reckon with Zoro’s stupid existence just yet.

He cannot think of a single goddamn reason Zoro would choose to kiss him, and any reason that does come to mind can kindly fuck right off.

He pushes the thought aside, forcing his focus back to Cobra’s questions about the flight, forcing a reply that feels as tokenistic as anything. He squeezes between Nami and Vivi, who, without missing a beat, manage to keep their hands entwined behind him. 

The concept of Sydney has rung in his ear for months, months, seeming like nothing but a distant promise of reinvention. It sounds ridiculous, but even the afternoon air seems different to back home – warmer, saltier, almost humming with energy in Cobra’s little car. They slip easily into the stream of traffic, joining a tide of SUVs and sedans, and humming blue buses. There’s a stretch of road and a glimmer of the ocean in the distance, and the city unfolds in fragments around them, in billboards with brands Sanji half-recognises and doesn’t recognise at all, flashes of eucalyptus trees between glass and granite, and a blue sky that seems to stretch on forever. He stares up at it with bugged eyes, feeling like he’s in some kind of fever-dream.

Considering the past thirty hours he might actually be.

“I’m so tired,” Nami mumbles into his arm. Vivi tries to pat her and ends up with Sanji’s collar instead.

“Some of the best restaurants in the game,” Cobra waves gestures across the harbour as they  coast down a sloping road. The ocean water glitters like scattered coins, broken only by the yellow and green ferries ambling across the harbour and leaving streaks of white in their wake. Every corner has a fresh little surprise to catch his eye: a mural bursting with colour, a flourish of purple flowers that blanket the footpaths, the sudden shimmer of the Opera House appearing through a gap in the buildings like some kind of vision.

He can’t find it in himself to speak for most of the drive, watching mutely as the soft pulse of the city wraps itself around them and Nami settles in to doze off against the car window. He can feel his phone buzzing in his pocket with all of the built-up messages from during their flight but he doesn’t have the energy to sort through that just yet.

Instead, he tunes out Nami’s snores and lets his own vision blur, his head lolling back against the headrest while Cobra expertly navigates them. It’s possible that he drifts off to sleep, or that he experiences a total blackout in his tired brain, or that he just well and truly dissociates because one minute he’s staring at the ceiling of the car (which has smears of mascara on it? Somehow?) and the next they’ve parked.

“Thought we’d grab some lunch,” Cobra says over his considerably-sized shoulder.

“Oh,” Sanji breathes. The restaurant looks like a jewel cradled by the sea itself: sunlight spills across an open-air deck, littered with expansive round tables and pert linen napkins. Pale timber accents blend seamlessly with the soft hues of the harbor beyond. Bougainvillea vines twist lazily up the stone walls, scattering bursts of magenta. Even from where they are, Sanji can make out floor-to-ceiling windows inside, framing postcard views of bobbing sailboats and the curve of the skyline. “Wow. Wow.”

“Not too bad, ey?” Cobra jostles him with an elbow and a smug grin, because he’s brought them directly to Sanji’s home for the next six months, and a pretty consistent and lofty spot amongst worldwide rankings. It’s the Coral & Stone, and he is way too under-dressed for this.

Nami hisses something in his ear but he’s too busy wrestling an internal crisis to decipher what she’s saying, and so instead he lets Vivi push him through the mammoth doorway, her hand at the small of his back. Nobody pays them any mind as they pass, the quiet hum of conversation and soft clink of crystal carrying on all the same. Waitstaff carve a pattern over the stone floor, locked in a dance that only they know, and Sanji can’t help but feel like he’s stepped inside a seashell or a conch or something for all the muted pink he can see. 

Everything is warm neutrals, sun-bleached wood, brass: sheer linen curtains sway in the gentle breeze, bringing with them the scent of citrus and herbs and salt. The kitchen is open in the background and Sanji’s eyes dart to it immediately, seeking out the chefs moving with calm precision. It’s immediately, strikingly different from the Baratie and its rich mix of reds and mahogany, velvet and gold.

“This is gorgeous.” Nami pauses to trace the curve of a handmade plate-slash-bowl. “I want like 500 of these.” It’s possible she pockets one.

The only thing that links Baratie to Coral & Stone is a commitment to making seafood the star of the show, which he appreciates. He painstakingly crawls through the menu, pondering over everything from a spanner crab tart with lemon myrtle pastry to bunya nut scallops and a lemon aspen dessert that teases a river mint sugar scrub. There’s a 12-course degustation menu and an al carte menu and he stares both of them down until they’re burned into his eyeballs while Cobra orders for the table. 

Sanji tries coral trout crudo with preserved fingerlime and it tastes like the reef at sunrise, like Luffy laughing on the beach in the summer. There’s a saltbush gnocchi that he bribes Nami for and finds almost too rich, tossed with Moretan bay bugs kissed by flame but damn, he knows Robin would go wild for it. Tempura-fried oysters arrive at the table topped with smoked seaweed salt and all Sanji can think about is how to recreate them for Brook, who’s never met an oyster he hasn’t demolished.

Towards the end, their waiter deposits a dark chocolate mille-feuille on the table that has Vivi and Nami fighting over the last bite and Sanji subtly googling what the hell wattleseed is. Vivi wins on account of being faster with a fork and also a total flirt, and Nami’s so lovestruck she doesn’t seem to mind anyway. Cobra watches it happen with a gruff fondness that reminds Sanji so fiercely of Zeff that he has to excuse himself to text the old man. 

He snaps a photo of the menu – gold lettering on linen and how the fuck do they keep it clean? – and sends it off, with a bunch of emojis that Zeff won’t actually bother to decipher. He’s not 100% sure on what time it is back home, but DenDen has something like 30 notifications and he clicks into it with a smidge of trepidation.  There’s a string of selfies from Luffy, face split by his characteristic grin, and about ten requests for his favourite recipes. The idea that Luffy’s going to try to recreate any of them is horrifying, really, but also not Sanji’s circus or monkey right now. Robin has sent a farewell message in the form of a limerick about riptides, and Franky a bunch of blurry pictures of planes in the sky, barely identifiable, each one followed by was this you?

The group chat is a cacophony of congratulations on surviving the trip and well wishes, and a brief argument between Usopp and Brook on whether or not tuberculosis still exists. There’s a single DM from Zoro, and Sanji’s thumbed it open before he can think it through.

Felt like my last chance. glares up at him in stark black type, sharp enough to split him open. A jolt of panic punches through his chest and he snaps the phone shut. He’s still gripping the phone too tightly when Cobra’s voice cuts through. 

“You right there, mate?”

Sanji nearly jumps out of his goddamn skin, blinking up at Cobra before forcing a crooked half-smile. He clears his throat and shoves the phone deep into his pocket, like it might burn him if he holds it a second longer. “Yes, sir. Sorry about that.”

Cobra’s concern is still written plain across his face, but he clearly chalks it up to jetlag. “I was gonna ask if you want to see the kitchen while we’re here. He’s got a sec if you’re up for it.”

It takes Sanji’s frazzled brain a moment to parse through whatever Cobra is offering and then he rolls his shoulders back, grateful for the opportunity to focus on anything – anything – other than whatever disaster is unfolding inside of his own brain. “Yes sir, that’d be amazing!”

He’s been in countless kitchens before, of a wide breadth of size and age, and yet when they reach the kitchen all he can do is stand there, wide-eyed. It’s a veritable cathedral of polished steel and soft stone, with warm wood accents and the same pink hue travelling through from the dining space. 

The chefs move around like a seamless wave, fluid and silent, communicating without words in a way Sanji’s rarely witnessed. The crew at Baratie are incredible, top-tier, but the kitchen is a total frenzy. You need to shout to be heard (hell, he’s often the loudest). But here, all Sanji hears is the soft thud of a knife against wood, the sizzle of butter in a hot pan. A scallop crisps to golden perfection, a handful of herbs is crushed with care… there’s no yelling, no slamming plates, no sense of urgency whatsoever.

At the center of it all stands a man a good few decades older than Sanji, his dark features sharp and eyes keenly tracking their entrance. Tattoos snake down his forearms and there’s a small snapper cradled in his large hands. His thumb gently traces the fish’s silvery spine as he looks up at Sanji with a little frown. Despite the bustling kitchen around them, this small pocket of calm feels miles away from the chaos, like standing in the eye of a strangely slow, taffy-thick storm.

“Where’s this from?” Jinbe asks, his voice unexpectedly low. He continues caressing the fish with the same kind of quiet reverence.

Sanji blinks, thrown off. His hands fist and unfist, itching for a cigarette to counter the sheer nerves all up in his grill. “Uh… local? Line-caught, I presume.”

Jinbe nods and sets the snapper down on a clean board, his mouth soft and difficult to decipher. “You can tell,” he murmurs, “By the way the flesh gives, but doesn’t tear. There was care given here.”

He meets Sanji’s gaze and the kitchen noise seems to dim even further, like they’re on a whole other planet. Sanji almost doesn’t want to breathe, and doesn't want to break whatever weird spell is happening here. “We treat every plate like we’re finishing someone else’s story. We don’t disrespect the ending.”

Sanji nods, because it feels like anything less would feel like a lie in front of this guy. He’s only just met him but he’s already pretty fuckin’ sure Jinbe can see into his soul or something. 

“You might hear a lot of noise in other kitchens,” Jinbe continues, handling his knife like it’s a blessing, “Chaos. Shortcuts. That’s not what we’re about. Everything we touch here has had a life before it’s reached our hands. The fish, the herbs, the salt in the air... all of it. You don’t waste that. You savour it, each and every time.”

“Yes, Chef.”

Jinbe nods, more to himself than anything, and holds the knife out, handle first. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t really need to: Sanji can feel the order in the air, pushing down on his shoulders. He ignores the apprehension crawling up his throat, washes his hands and gets to work, letting Zeff’s lessons from forever ago wash over him like a second heartbeat. 

Sure, he’s in a new kitchen, in a new country, surviving off of two hours of sleep and, sure, he’s surrounded by seasoned chefs but he’s been working with food for his whole life and he was made for this.

The fish gleams up at him with eyes clear, its gills a flushed pink. He takes to it carefully, no showboating or wasted motion, just angling his blade behind the gills and using clean, swift cuts to remove the scales with minimal bruising, the silvery scales catching the kitchen light like snow. His fingers work to draw the guts, with Jinbe a gentle weight at his side. 

When it’s finished he sets the knife down and meets Jinbe’s steady gaze, not giving himself space to second-guess his methods. He almost fucking dies when Jinbe, ever so slightly,  gives a single approving nod and hands Sanji an apron.

Cobra slaps his shoulder, says, “You might not be fish food after all, mate.”

Somewhere, a knot he hasn’t named begins to loosen.

“Don’t be late.” Jinbe turns, unbuttoning his own apron with a practised flick of his wrist as he murmurs some instructions to the tall, bearded chef on his way out. Cobra gives Sanji a grin that’s far too bright for the depth of Sanji’s exhausted daze, and he hugs the apron to his chest.

It’s possible he’s so damn knackered that he’s seriously considering using it as a makeshift pillow and just passing out right here and now on the floor, but his heart’s punching weirdly against his ribs and there’s something else lacing the tiredness now: a lick of anticipation. Of recognition.

If this is how Jinbe runs his restaurant he can’t wait to soak up every piece of advice the old man has.

“C’mon,” Cobra swings his arm around Sanji’s shoulders and herds back towards the dining space, like herding a baby lamb. “Let’s get you set up.”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

“Oh.” The stale air hits him like a wall.

Behind him, Nami winces and lays a careful hand on his shoulder. It’s really very generous of her, considering his shoulder is probably coated in god knows what at this point. “To be fair, I did warn you you’d be better off staying with us.”

She’s not wrong: she’d asked him several times if he was sure, if he was definitely sure he wanted to rent an apartment and had made several very pointed remarks as to his budget, so Sanji doesn’t really have anyone to blame but himself. It had seemed important, at the time, to minimise his reliance on Nami and Vivi, in some effort to protect their honeymoon period as well as to facilitate whatever foray into independence he’s still clinging to.

Now, he frowns at the dim light from the hallway, which casts long, jagged shadows on the cramped space. 

“Home sweet home?” he sighs. It’s a far cry from what he'd imagined when he'd signed the lease all those weeks ago. The walls might have been white once upon a time, but now they’re an off-yellow colour and actively peeling in spots. He’s trying to be extra mature here and ignore the dust clinging to every single fucking surface, and he hopes someone out there appreciates the effort it’s taking him.

Nami, bless her soul, tries to make the most of it and leads him on a makeshift tour, which only takes around half a minute and ends in them gagging on a smell so rank Sanji doesn’t even want to know what it's from. The living room’s barely big enough for the tattered couch, and there’s no sign of the expansive windows he'd been promised when he first viewed the listing. Instead, the only window is a tiny, narrow rectangle at the far end of the room, which looks out onto the street below. There’s a cafe below the apartment that he knows is going to be the death of him if the way the noise carries around the space is anything to go by.

The only saving grace is the sagging mattress on the bedroom floor and a few basics in the pantry. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us? We have plenty of room.” Vivi looks like she’s tempted to drag him out regardless of his answer, but Sanji musters up a winning smile. 

“You’re too kind, Vivi, but I wanted the authentic Sydney experience, didn’t I? Besides, it’s so close to the restaurant! I’ll be so busy I’ll hardly be home, please don’t worry about me.”

Nami and Vivi exchange dubious looks that do absolutely nothing to hide their uncertainty about leaving him here alone, but he’s nothing if not persuasive. Finally, Nami says meekly, “I guess it has character?”

Sanji snorts; it has character, sure, but it’s the kind of character that gets killed off before the title sequence rolls. He takes in the kitchenette, which is little more than a stove, a sink and a countertop that’s seen better days. The fridge is humming loudly in the corner, in a way that he knows will really bother him soon. He can’t cook here, not properly, and that alone sits in his gut like a stone, uncomfortable. 

It wasn’t like his place back home was some kind of mansion, but his loft had the kind of space that made him feel like he could actually breathe. It wasn’t extravagant, not at all, but it was his – it was a place where he didn’t feel trapped by the walls, where the air didn’t feel too tight. Even with the occasional (frequent) chaos that came with having Luffy as a neighbour it still felt like a place he could really settle into, one he could carve out a life in. 

But here? 

Here it already feels like he's just. Walked into someone else’s life. Someone else’s grimy, miserable life. 

“Will you be okay?” Nami hovers back in the doorway as Vivi twines their fingers together. It’s all too easy to forget how soft Nami can be sometimes; her brusque exterior masks the constant thrum of concern that underlies everything she does for her friends, and Sanji feels a spike of gratitude for her presence. For all his talk of adventure and new lands, he genuinely doesn’t know if could pull this off without her. He takes her other hand and squeezes it, only dodging the urge to kiss it dramatically by an inch or so. 

“Of course! In fact, my night could only be made better by the pleasure of your company, my dear.”

Vivi giggles and Nami gags, and it’s a done deal. She seizes the opportunity to disappear into the night with her girlfriend, back into Cobra’s car waiting below. 

It’s well after nightfall by the time Sanji pads out onto the tiny balcony, caged in wrought iron. The tiles are warm under his bare feet and the breeze coming in carries a salty edge, his new normal. He wedges himself in at the end of the balcony with his knees pulled up and his third cigarette in his mouth, and more loneliness in his silly little heart than he can reasonably stomach. It’s a new kind of loneliness, at least. Not painful. Just… wide? Like the silence has grown a body of its own and is hanging out beside him, an unwelcome stranger.

Back home, warm nights like this were sticky, suffocating. The kind of humid air that clung to your skin like it had nothing better to do. When things were at their worst (i.e. when Sanji was drowning in his own self-inflicted cruelty) and when the days blurred together in a mess of exhaustion and cracked fingertips Luffy would drag him up onto the rooftop, to their little own escape, a brief reprieve from everything that threatened to swallow him whole.

Sometimes Zoro would tag along, bringing his earphones or cheap beer or a box of takeout dumplings to share and the three of them would lie there, backs against the worn shingles, arguing about everything and nothing. Brooke’s music. Cooking. Luffy’s ever-present quest to befriend every living creature in a hundred-mile radius. Zoro’s tireless mission to be a thorn in Sanji’s side. Kaya’s weird, weird uncle. The usual, really. One night in particular comes back to him now, feeling way too fucking relevant all of a sudden for Sanji’s liking. It had been late, late in the summer last year and the air had been thick and unmoving around them, just awful. He’d come back from an especially humiliating bad date, the kind where the woman had made him delete her number right in front of her, which really was the final blow in a series of unfortunate decisions across the summer break.

They’d been drinking cheap, shitty spirits obtained from god knows where or who and Luffy had stretched his legs out until they half-sunk over Sanji’s, nattering about the constellations above. Sanji had mumbled something about the date, something full of self-pity, probably, and Zoro had snorted, had said, in a quieter voice than Sanji had ever heard from him: “Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong place.”

Now, it feels like a warning. Like a premonition. 

what the hell are you talking about? He types it out in a rush, but immediately deletes it. No, that sounds wrong. Too blunt? Definitely too much. His mind races. He types again when tf did you have a first chance?? but the words feel too big again. Too cruel. He deletes it.

He sets the phone down and picks it up again, repeating the cycle like it’s a ritual he can’t break. He’s just. Stuck in this indecision, this terrible middle ground between needing answers and wishing it would just disappear. His friendship with Zoro has always been different to the others, sure, but never unsure. It’s been too sharp, too charged, too spotted with blood (literal) and fire (figurative) and a spiny thicket of emotions that nobody outside of their bubble has a chance in hell at wading through, but consistent in its ferocity. 

Both of them would agree that they're friends, but friends in the way hurricanes befriend coastal towns. Friends in the way they’ve memorised every single one of each other’s weaknesses and actively hunt them for sport. 

Frustrated, he hauls himself up and yanks the fridge open. He paces once, twice, then drops like a stone beside the shitty mattress on the bedroom floor, back against the wall. His thumb hovers over the phone screen before he finally powers it off, giving up completely. He doesn’t know when he drifts off, but he dreams of clattering plates and Luffy’s laughter ricocheting off wooden beams, of ocean wind tangling through his hair and the sharp smell of citrus and salt. Nami’s voice floats in from somewhere, arguing with Usopp about tangerines, and Brook’s flinging himself across the table to avoid whatever Robin is telling him about bone density.

Zoro’s there too, of course, arms crossed and smirk lazy. He says something Sanji doesn’t quite catch, but dream-Sanji scowls anyway, automatic, like muscle memory. 

The ship creaks beneath him and suddenly it’s raining outside. Water’s dripping through the floorboards, but nobody notices except him. Nami disappears through the wall, Franky in a puff of smoke. Brooke turns into nothing with a weird melancholic guitar note, papers scattering behind him. Even Zoro fades, mid-sigh, as if he’s been caught on a breeze.

Sanji turns to Luffy, heart in his throat, but Luffy’s already walking away, oblivious. Sanji calls out, but the dream doesn’t let him move, and he wakes like he’s been punched in the chest. The sun isn’t even fully up yet, which feels like a personal attack, frankly. His back is doing its best impression of a half-stale pretzel, half-glued to the floor like a tragic sticker someone gave up on peeling. 

The apartment still reeks of dust and whatever long-dead creature previously called the walls home, but Sanji’s too tired to give a damn. He pulls together a cup of instant coffee that tastes like scorched regret and… dirt, actually but he drinks it out of spite anyway while the street below his balcony reluctantly comes to life.

Different accents than home, different brands on the shop signs, but he can still spot the same rhythms, echoed around the world. The same people trying to start their day without losing their minds. He watches as a girl with long blue hair drags a few cane chairs out onto the footpath. A man in the tiniest shorts Sanji has ever seen jogs past with some type of poodle, earbuds in, face locked in focused calm. The blue-haired girl ducks back inside the cafe and Sanji can hear her yelling at someone, or something, through the dipulated linoleum tiles. 

DenDen is quiet, with only Brook’s dirty joke about tax reform unread. Sanji takes a moment to read through the news, first his usual local sources before hunting down an Australian site, figuring he should know what’s happening around him. It’s not that different from home: people being sad, people being mad, smatterings of people being glad. It seems the hottest topic on anyone’s lips is a competition about birds, with tawny frogmouths the crowd favourite. 

He’s halfway through trying to decipher where the hell the bin is (maybe it’s hidden? Hell, maybe it’s conceptual?) when Nami’s voice cuts clean through his door, far too energetic for someone who definitely spent the night reacquainting herself with her girlfriend. “Yo! You wanna get breakfast or what?”

He absolutely Does Not want to make contact with the outside world, not in this lifetime or the next, but the alternatives aren’t looking too fresh and he knows himself well enough to figure he needs human company. If he stays in this box any longer he’s going to have a mental breakdown or, worse, cry. 

Vivi decides they’ll have more fun on the bus, which sounds awful but Sanji lets her goad him along anyway. She gives them both a bus card and shows them how to top it up while they’re bustling along on the seats, guiding them painstakingly and patiently through each individual step. 

Nami’s the picture of summer in her denim shorts and cropped top, her hair braided to keep it off her shoulders. She’s makeup-free and hopelessly in love, glowing in a way Sanji hasn’t seen in years. He knows it’s been hard for her to stay away from Vivi (flights aren’t cheap, time’s nobody’s friend) and he honestly doesn’t know how she plans to leave again in a year. It feels impossible. Not when she’s this radiant already, lit up from the inside like a struck match catching gold.

“Oh, we’re here!” Vivi jumps out of the bus to a bustling, open street. There are cafes in every direction and more acai bowls than Sanji can count. He’s pretty sure only half the people he can see are wearing shoes.

They opt for a small table out on the street, under a white umbrella shielding them from relentless lavender flowers. There’s a bunch of dogs fluttering about underneath the tables and loud, grating laughter ballooning up into the sky. Sanji can kind of see through the windows and he squints at the chef who ducks in and out of sight with the quiet intensity of someone trying not to think too hard. 

Nami is giggling at something Vivi just said. There’s a crinkle in the corner of her eyes that wasn’t there a few years ago and the way she tilts her head back, unguarded, full-throated, it makes something warm and cosy settle in his chest. Like watching a storm roll out to sea after days of thrashing against the coast.

As they wind towards finishing college life’s going to start pulling them all in different directions – careers, countries, relationships – and so for this small hour he’s just so fucking happy to be here with her, radiant and messy and somehow still his friend. 

When the smoked trout lands in front of him, perched on a slice of golden sourdough, dotted with pickled lemon and a side of avocado so green it might actually be photoshopped, Sanji barely pauses before digging in. He’s ravenous, for actual food and for a scrap of culture, and lets himself really savour the first few bites. The flavours hit sharp and clean: smoke, citrus, butterfat. Balanced like a well-thrown knife. Simple, yeah, but done with intent. It’s what he’ll always admire about some of the greatest chef’s he’s worked with: they possess the quiet sort of brilliance that doesn’t need to show off.

“Are you excited for your first shift?” Vivi laces her fingers under her chin to smile at him from above her granola bowl.

“You’re gonna kill it,” Nami promises, without even waiting for Sanji to reply, with the kind of inherent faith in his skills that never fails to knock him for six. The way everyone is wholly dedicated to supporting each other’s talents has been a constant thread in their friendship group, pulling it together time and time again. 

“Thanks, ladies.” He lets himself laugh, just a little, brushing off the nerves flickering at the edges of his vision. He knows he’s a good chef; Zeff loves him but sentiment doesn’t stand a chance in Baratie . You earn your space or you get the hell out of the way, and Sanji’s more than earned his. The nerves skittering around his chest definitely aren’t about skill. They’re about figuring out the social minefield of a new kitchen and all of its strange little rituals, the weird in-jokes you don’t get yet, the guy who gets twitchy if you touch the knives on the second shelf. It’s about finding all the little rhythms that turn a group of strangers into a team. It's not unlike joining a new pack of wolves, except they probably all know how to brunoise. 

It’s such a lovely, lovely start to the day that of course his brain takes a running leap at fucking it up.

“Is Zoro… has he been seeing anyone?” It kind of comes out of nowhere and also very much doesn’t, and he stutters it before the embarrassment can catch up. Even still, the back of his neck goes suspiciously, depressingly hot. It’s the kind of casual, gossipy question that’d fly under the radar if it were about anyone else in their friend group, because god knows Nami trades in drama like a mercenary and everyone knows everything about everyone at this point, but Sanji has never asked a single pointed question about Zoro’s personal life before.

To be fair, he hasn’t needed to? Zoro has always been an open book and it’s not like he has the time in his schedule to be out there flirting up a storm. On some vague objective level Sanji figures he must’ve dated someone at some point in his life. He’s not a monk. He’s probably not a monk? But in practice it’s like trying to imagine Luffy doing his taxes... theoretically possible but functionally impossible. 

(Sure, there’s probably some unhinged demographic out there who are probably into all that stoic grunting, but Sanji’s pretty sure there are therapy courses for that.)

Nami gives him a look so flat it could be used to level furniture. “Are you serious?”

Sanji scoffs under his breath and tries to play it off, his mouth twisting unhappily. “I was just – I mean – ugh, it’s fine. Forget it.”

Vivi makes a tutting noise at her girlfriend and touches Sanji’s forearm, like she knows how close he feels to bolting the fuck out. Out of the cafe, out of the street. Hell, out of the stratosphere. “Is there a reason you’re asking?”

Nami is impossibly, infuriatingly self-satisfied, her voice almost mocking. “Yeah, dear, is there a reason you’re asking?”

Sanji’s whole face burns and he slams back the rest of his pineapple-mint juice, taking his embarrassment and frustration out on his poor sourdough. It’s possible he just crams it into his mouth, and he bids them both adieu and gets the hell out of dodge before Nami’s smug smirk smugs all the way off. There’s signs pointing to the beachfront and even if there wasn’t Sanji’s pretty sure he could find it by smell and sound alone, because it sounds like seagulls are having a field day.

When the beach finally comes into view it is, frankly, absurd. Insane. The water looks fake, like someone’s gone and picked an over-edited filter. Vibrant turquoise curls over white sand, dotted with towels, umbrellas, sunbathers and surfers. The bus empties quickly, a stream of people in thongs and wide-brimmed hats marching toward the sea with startling ambition.

Sanji finds a spot on a bench above the main strip and takes up position, watching the thrum of activity before him. There’s a surf school out in the shallows – bright foam boards bob in the waves like pastel crayons while kids kick and squeal. The poor teacher looks just about ready to drown them herself. A couple of lifeguards dawdle past in red and yellow, tuttering at a bunch of teens trying to bury each other in the sand.

A pair of guys are leaning against the railing next to him, arguing animatedly over whether the water was “totally fine” or “fucking feral.” Their accents are thick, fast and both everything and nothing like Sanji’s heard in movies. He finds himself smiling, kind of wishing he could ask them what the water’s actually like without sounding completely alien. 

He takes out his phone and aims it at the sea, framing the surf perfectly. In his hands, the photo looks flat, like a stock photo. Empty of the wonder he feels and full of the falseness he fears.

Back home, he’d have sent it to the group chat with a dumb caption, without a second thought. first bondi sighting. do i look more tanned already? Robin would’ve replied with a sun emoji and a gentle ribbing about SPF 100. 

It’d just be different, that’s all. 

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

He spends the rest of the day wandering about the neighbourhood, ducking in and out of cosy little shops and gawping up at behemoth trees, a snack in hand. When he accidentally bumps into someone battling a stroller into submission, they shoot him an exasperated look rather than telling him any kind of life story. When he goes to buy a few apples and some more sugar the shopkeeper hits him with a flat “How’s it going?” but the kind that clearly means do not answer, and absolutely do not make it weird. She does help him pick out the correct coins though, so that’s something.

Nami texts him something non-committal at some point, clearly not apologising and also clearly not feeling like she needs to apologise, which is both fair and still somehow kinda crappy. 

Thankfully, the air does shift into something cooler as the day stretches on, but the sky's the same mesmerising blue shade when he finally makes it back to Coral & Stone. He’s opted to walk instead of catching a bus, which means he’s got a nice fine sheen of sweat by the time he arrives, which if nothing else helps to slick his hair back a little. The restaurant is quiet, the calm before the storm, although he’s pretty sure a storm here would be very different to a storm at the Baratie, both literally and figuratively. Jinbe’s nowhere to be seen and one of the waitstaff sends him to a tall, lean guy with a goatee and a long ponytail that should probably be in some kind of hair net. He’s stern but patient and he guides Sanji through the kitchen like a proud father.

The kitchen hums like a living thing around them, steady and deliberate. It smells of salt and fire and bright green herbs, like the Baratie and Zeff and home. Aladine’s sleeves are shoved up, his arms bearing scars of years in kitchens. He rumbles, “You screw around in this kitchen, you’re not just wasting food, you’re wasting everything that came before it. Ocean, land, farmer, fisher. Every bloody sunrise it took to get that on your board.”

They pass into the line, a long, open stretch where gleaming copper pans, burners, and flat-tops glow with heat. The chefs around them continue to work wordlessly, communicating with glances and gestures, and don’t seem to notice Sanji coming or going. If they’re curious about him they’re keeping it very, very locked down and Sanji can’t help, in turn, to be curious about that. 

“Every plate’s a conversation with the guest. We plate proud, and we plate clean.” Aladine taps Sanji’s shoulder and points toward a tucked-away table, decorated in the same fashion as the restaurant itself, with crisp salmon linen and hand-made pottery. There are vases of flowers on the table, little bursts of colour amongst focaccia and steaming soup. “You can’t get through the night running on fumes. You respect your body, your team, and the hands that made your food.”

“Yes, Chef,” Sanji returns automatically, his mouth watering despite all of the snacks he’s jammed in today – there’s nothing like fresh focaccia and he lingers by the table to sample the piece Aladine provides, smeared with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

“This place’s half the soul of the kitchen.” Aladine edges open the door to the massive, insanely massive cooler with a little creak. A welcome breath of cool rushes out and Sanji lets it envelop him for a second, chasing the chill. The cooler’s scent is dense with brine and citrus, alive and reverent. Inside, soft lighting spills from strips along the ceiling, giving everything a gentle golden glow. There’s a row of glass jars along the wall, with pickled sea blithe tangled like mermaid’s hair and shriveled red bush tomatoes. There’s a wild fennel pollen, dried and dusted into fine glass vials, as light as breath. 

Sanji trails his fingers over the trays topped with muslin cloths, hiding house-cured fish. In one corner is a fermenting rack, filled with experimental magic like quandong vinegar and a pepperberry kimchi that Sanji takes a mental note of to try. 

On the far end of the cooler there’s a chalkboard leans against the wall, listing notes: ‘Current ferments: Salted sea figs (tasting next Thursday!)’ and ‘Do NOT open the second jar of bush banana until it stops hissing.’

It’s not unlike the cooler at the Baratie; every jar and tray is a snapshot of a place, a season, someone’s hard-earned labour. It feels like stepping into a library of edible memories, each one waiting for the right dish to bring it back to life. Sanji lets himself stand there a while, taking in the quiet beauty of it all, the weight of responsibility, and the sheer privilege he has of doing it justice.

He can’t help the jolt of adrenaline when the first ticket comes through. It’s a tale as old as time, familiar and addictive and still his favourite feeling in the world, which probably says something a lot about his life experience so far. The chefs around him move like clockwork: sharp, measured and absolutely zero wasted motion. It’s clear that this is not about slapping ingredients together – it’s about slipping into the rhythm of a space and syncing up with the unspoken pulse that keeps kitchens alive.

Sanji’s temped in enough kitchens to know that joining a new crew can be a weird mix of freefall and choreography. One minute you’re scrambling to figure out where the salt is, the next you’re plating scallops like you’ve been here six months. Sanji tails Aladine like a shadow, cataloguing names, memorising hand gestures, and making mental notes about who sharpens their knives properly and who is probably just pretending (Braeden, definitely Braeden). He trills politely at everything: Aladine’s silent nods, the quiet thumbs-ups from the prep crew, even the dishwasher’s deadpan joke about mussels being shellfish bastards that Sanji has heard a thousand times before.

In a breath of fresh air, he finds that there’s no posturing, no dick-measuring contest and they might actually be… nice? Just a bunch of professionals doing what they’re best at and doing it really fucking well. 

It’s disorienting, in the best possible way.

By the time the final plate’s cleared, Sanji’s neck hurts, his legs are lead, and he’s starving but, somehow, he doesn’t feel like he’s hanging on by a thread. There’s a racket of laughter behind him as he slips out the service door and he can’t fight the smile tugging at his face. For the first time since he’s touched down in the country he feels something close to normal, to who he’s meant to be. 

He hasn’t had a cigarette since he started his shift and he lights one now, exhaling nice and slow so that he can really savour it, like it’ll give him a second to process how grounded he feels, given he’s half-way across the world from everything he’s ever loved.

Well. Almost everything.

“You sure you wanna sneak away from close?” There’s a red-haired person – Fresco – who sticks their head out the door to peer at him, a grin on their freckled face. “It’s when all the good gossip is.”

Sanji smirks and crushes the cigarette under his boot. “Oh yeah, anything worth hearing?”

Fresco takes a thoughtful bite of their hastily-scrambled together sandwich. “Let’s see. We’re pretty sure Hatchan’s in a gang. Aladine’s tryna catch him out, but he’ll see. Also, he can’t really talk ‘cause his missus is a whole other story. She used to be a pastry chef in Melbourne but quit after a sugar sculpture collapsed mid-service. Sworn off sugar forever actually.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Oh, and Cru’s brother owns a wine bar in Paddington but don’t listen when he invites you. Total prick. How’s your first night?” 

Sanji considers it, letting his hands find his pockets. “Just… finding my footing.”

Fresco laughs. “Don’t worry, man. None of us know what we’re doing either. We just chop fast and pretend.”

Given the sheer talent Sanji’s witnessed tonight he knows that’s factually untrue, but he warms at the olive branch anyway, recognising the reassurance for what it is. He lets Fresco lead him back inside, where the chefs greet him with a small cheer. They’re exceptionally tidy and their stations are gleaming, but there’s still work to be done in every which way, half-familiar and half-mythical. It’s daunting, sure, but it’s also kind of beautiful. Kind of like home. 

By the time he makes it back to his crummy little apartment the sky is velvet above him and the moon is fat and inscrutable. The streets are still alive, despite the hour; there are people spilling out of pubs with raucous laughter and chatter echoing through the air. He lets the sounds settle in his chest, warm and strange but ultimately good.

He’d nabbed some anchovies and garlic at the shop and sets about boiling pasta in a dented saucepan (the only saucepan, actually), letting the aroma fill the musty space until it smells like comfort instead of loneliness. Like the quick, low-cost dishes he’s whipped together for his friends a hundred times over, usually at midnight in the crux of finals week, when everyone’s operating on minimal sleep and maximum distress.

He eats it on the mattress while googling cheap bed frames and the nearest IKEA. 

The group chat has gone well and truly feral, with dumping stories from their day, little snapshots into their lives. Luffy has sent no less than fifteen blurry snaps of a pigeon that he swears looks like a dalmation and Nami’s already threatened to block him. Brook drops voice notes here and there, sometimes actual notes and sometimes bars of a song he’s ironing out. Zoro, predictably, hasn’t sent a thing. It’s not unusual, because he doesn’t usually pop up in the group chat unless there’s a match on or he wants to chew Sanji out, but Sanji still finds himself staring at the screen like a message might magically appear anyway. 

Robin, Franky, and Usopp have sent him DMs, all checking in to see how his first full day went.

tomorrow’s a step forward he types back. And, yeah, maybe it’s just the quiet satisfaction of feeling cared for but for the first time since landing in Sydney it actually feels kind of true. 

For the first time the idea of waking up here doesn’t feel completely terrifying, which is probably the nicest thought he’s had in months.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

He starts to fall into a rhythm, or at least he cobbles together a schedule that feels relatively predictable. Sometimes he catches a bus to the restaurant and sometimes he walks, but he always walks back, smoking like a banshee and painstakingly revisiting every moment of the day in his mind. He makes sure his hair is pinned back and his nails are clean and he doesn’t smell like smoke because Aladine detests the scent. He meets Porsche at the cafe downstairs at some point and develops a crippling addition to their candied egg quiche and crisp spearmint teas.

The Baratie is a floating restaurant and thus seafood is its bread and butter, but Sanji’s quick to realise that what he doesn’t know he doesn’t know. Luckily for him, he’s never had any trouble finding an intrinsic enthusiasm for figuring out everything there is to do with food, and for all of the hustle and bustle within the kitchen, Jinbie never misses an opportunity to show him a new trick, or finesse a technique Sanji’s sworn he had down-pat. It’s humbling and exhilarating all in one, and he’s yet to finish a day’s work where he doesn’t feel like a bumbling, fumbling newborn. 

Sometimes Fresco entertains him with idle chatter or local ghost stories, delighting in the horrified noises Sanji makes whenever something particularly gruesome happens in their tales. 

Zeff’s always favoured a nose-to-tail approach, but Coral & Stone takes it to a level Sanji hasn’t yet encountered. Nothing is ever wasted: every single scrap of bone or shell that crosses the kitchen has a second life, treated as raw material for something new and beautiful. Fish trimmings are sorted into a low, slow stock, steeped with herbs and used for sauces or the base of a shellfish bisque.

Oyster and scallop shells are meticulously cleaned by the team and sun-dried out the back, before being finely crushed and worked into curing blends and smokes. Sanji gets a certain kick out of sorting vegetable trimmings, helping to ferment them and add flavour to bases for dressings, glazes and seasonal pickles. 

When herbs start to wilt they’re dried and ground, sprinkled over meals like a whisper of the land where they grew. The kitchen breathes a cycle of use and reuse, and sometimes, when Sanji is feeling particularly sappy, it feels like gratitude made visible. 

Nami and Vivi drop by sometimes and drag him out for breakfast or lunch, until he starts to maintain a little shortlist of favourite cafes and restaurants. He gets to know the elderly couple who run the corner shop, who recommend new haunts for him when he pops in for last-minute bread because he somehow always forgets how quickly his awful pantry turns into a breeding ground for mould. He signs up at the gym down the street, squeezing in workouts after his shifts at the restaurant or on those long, sleepless nights that hit him out of nowhere every now and then. 

He finds a local kickboxing group and decimates everyone he faces, his competitive streak firing like muscle memory, and sets his sights on jujitsu, eager for the feeling of carving a place out for himself with each punch and grapple.

In his (limited) spare time he chips away at making the apartment vaguely liveable. He puts together a new bed with the help of Nami’s frankly terrifying biceps and Vivi’s cheerful, reassuring lies about it’s “totally not lopsided.” He gets the fridge and cupboard stocked with his favourite ingredients and staples, some of which he recognises and some he learns to love. He even manages to scavenge a few dining chairs from the side of the road that only look mildly cursed.

He has Sundays off and Usopp calls him at 9:30pm sharp to watch a film from his collection, which he boots up on his projector and sets Sanji up somewhere on the laptop. They’d tried a whole bunch of different movie-watching apps but Usopp’s internet connection is spotty on the best of days and he’d claimed the projector just ‘hits different’. Sanji doesn’t mind either way, and Kaya joins them more often than not once her shift at the pet shelter has finished. Sometimes she sticks around after the movie has finished to regale Sanji with all of the nonsense the dogs have been up to; Sanji’s grown particularly fond of a labradoodle-cross dubbed Bucket, who has a nose for adventure and crows.

He buys the absolute tackiest postcards he can find and sends them off to Robin, sometimes scribbling a half-baked note on the back and sometimes leaving it blank, just to keep her guessing (and because he’s lazy). After his first month he checks the rusty little mailbox and finds a return postcard waiting for him. It’s a sepia-toned snapshot of their beach with Robin’s perfect handwriting on the back, quoting Walt Witman and putting his attempts to shame. He can’t help but smile at it anyway, like he can’t decide whether to be impressed or exasperated by her ability to make even a simple postcard seem like a personal masterpiece. 

(Sometimes he stays in bed for too long, his thumb scrolling idly through photos of his friends, both in his own gallery and through the group chat, his eyes snagging on green hair and an unreadable expression. Sometimes he opens Zoro’s message and reads it again – for the fourth, fifth, twenty-ninth time – like it might say something different if he just looks at it hard enough. Like it might make sense.)

Luffy calls him night and day, and uses DenDen to send him photos of every cat he sees. Sometimes Ace is in the background and Sanji chats to him a little, mindful of dispelling any awkward tension. It doesn’t always work, but he can tell it’s appreciated. Sabo is still off exploring the world and they take to fantasising what he could be up to, and all the fascinating people he’s met by now. 

In the quiet of his apartment, when he’s feeling particularly homesick, he even wears Franky’s shirt.

He’s fallen asleep in it when there’s a banging at his door that is way too frantic to be Nami and also way too fucking early in the morning. He’s so befuddled by it that it takes him a moment or two of just – staring at the wooden rectangle until his brain realises what’s going on.

“‘Ello?” he mumbles, trying to wipe the sleep from his eyes and the moth from his foot as he stumbles to the door, opening to find Porsche tapping her foot impatiently.

“Oh, thank fuck,” she breathes and pushes herself into his apartment, as if she’s done this a million times before. She absolutely has not, except that one time she couldn’t get the smoke alarm to stop and he had to go smack it a few times for her. “You’re a cook, right?”

Porsche has lovely blue hair and a habit of wearing tops that look like they’re one breath away from catastrophe and so, yeah, maybe Sanji’s brain does a little static burst when he sees her. But then she opens her mouth and she keeps opening her mouth and, like clockwork, any fleeting appreciation he has for her figure is swiftly drop-kicked out the nearest window. “We’ve talked about it extensively, yes. Are you okay?”

“I have a family emergency and I need to go, like, now, but I’ve texted Foxy like, twelve times and he won’t answer! I need you to cover the cafe for a few hours until he can figure it out, is that alright? It’s not like it’ll be hard, you already work at that fancy restaurant and everything and besides, it’s like Monday morning and we never have anyone come in on Mondays. I’d owe you my life, honestly.” It comes out in one breathless, feverish plea and Sanji barely has time to blink stupidly at her before she’s pressed a kiss to his forehead and spun out of the apartment doorway. “You’re a lifesaver, babe!”

“What?” Sanji blinks again, like he’s having an aneurysm. Hell, maybe he is. Maybe it’s like when you have a stroke and you smell burnt toast but with an aneurysm you just hallucinate your downstairs neighbours hoisting their cafe onto you in the wee hours of the week.

By the time he’s actually parsed through what has happened the weight of Porsche’s decision slaps him clean across the face and he stutters, shoving his feet into sneakers and flying down the narrow stairway. His hair catches a few cobwebs along the way but he doesn’t have time to freak out, because he needs to find Porsche and tell her this is a terrible fucking mistake. 

The stairway connects him to the cafe kitchen downstairs – which, really, is a grill, an oven and a stretch of tiles – and he bursts through the door to find the cafe completely and utterly deserted. Or, at least, it would be if there wasn’t a trio of customers at the counter looking like they’re waiting for a root canal.

He has the sense to check the clock on his phone and finds it’s a tick past seven, which means the cafe has only just opened for the day. It’s a small mercy, but a real fucking small one.

“Ah, hello!” He slaps on his best Customer Service grin and gestures grandly to the cash register, which looks like it’s been beamed in from some dystopian future and is definitely not intimidating. “Wow, what a glorious morning it’s been, right? What can I get started for you?”

“Flat white.” The customer sounds bored and also impatient and also Sanji’s worst nightmare, because what the fuck.

“Flat white,” he echoes, grin straining at the edges while his heart attempts to escape through his ribs. “Absolutely, great choice. A classic.” He sidles towards the coffee machine which is an industrial beast bristling with knobs and steam vales and somehow manages to be even more terrifying than the register. 

He’s never touched a commercial coffee machine in his life. 

The customer is clearly sensing an imminent disaster and is watching him with something that might actually be concern, or mild pity. Sanji dials his charm up to eleven. “Just a moment, sir. Can’t thank you enough for your patience, truly.”

He ducks into the kitchen and allows himself thirty seconds of sheer panic. If he breaks the machine Porsche is out of a job. If he doesn’t break it but does make the world’s worst flat white someone will be calling poison control. (Really, the only saving grace about this whole thing is that Australia probably has a great poison control line, what with all their poisonous critters. Or is it venomous? He can never remember.)

Later, he’s going to blame the panic. Later, he’s going to cuss himself the fuck out. But in the heat of the moment he finds Zoro’s number and hits it so hard it’s a miracle he doesn’t break the screen.

Zoro is half-asleep, his words slurring together in a confused jumble that Sanji steamrolls right over, demanding, “How d’you work a coffee machine?”

There’s a distinct pause while Zoro collects his thoughts and pivots. “Curls? The fuck?”

“Don’t play games with me, just tell me how to do it!” It’s possible he’s hyperventilating. He can hear the customers tittering outside the door, impatience lacing their conversations with one another. 

“You know how to use a coffee machine.” Zoro sounds confused. Is confused, probably, considering Robin has a beauty of a machine that they’ve all used and also this is the first time they’ve talked since Sanji left.

Since Zoro just up and kissed him and ruined everything forever.

Sanji squeaks. “Not like this, this is a machine on steroids! You’ve got that little cafe in the gym, you must’ve used it before!”

Zoro’s response is indignant and miffed. “The fuck do you… I’m a trainer, Curls, not a – a coffee-maker.”

“It's a barista, you mouldy-headed idiot!” He ends the call with a huff and scrubs both hands down his face, pacing the tiny prep area like it personally wronged him. The hysteria bubbling in his throat hasn’t gone anywhere, so he jumps up and down a couple of times like an exorcism might help. He throws a few hook kicks to the air, just in case. 

He’s been the sous chef at Baratie since he was sixteen. He’s cooked nineteen-course tasting menus. He’s survived Zeff’s wrath and served food to hidden critics who could eviscerate a restaurant with one well-placed tweet. He can handle a stupid, over-designed coffee machine and a few cranky customers. 

He slams the door back open with a grin that’s maybe more grimace than charm, and promptly falters. The lean, dark-haired man behind the counter is steaming milk like it’s second nature to him, unbothered. The customers have drifted into a loose, smiling formation, not a trace of mutiny in sight. 

It’s horrifying, actually. 

“I was just…” Sanji trails off as he inches closer, his eyes locked on the absurd wizardry happening in the guy’s careful, tattooed hands.

“You can’t let it smell your fear,” the guy says coolly, not sparing Sanji a glance as he foams a bunny on top of some guy’s coffee. The recipient, a burly, suit-wearing machine built like a freaking tank, beams like he’s been handed a piece of treasure when he takes it. Coffees are handed out in a mishmash of disposable cups and keep cups, the man moving with the ease of someone who could do this in his sleep, face blank as he nods mutely to each customer. Sanji doesn’t even know if the mystery man has charged them, but he doesn’t have it in him to ask.

After the cafe has quietened, Sanji exhales. “Thanks, man. Are you a barista?”

“I’ve dabbled,” the guy sighs, wiping his hands on a tea towel that has definitely seen better days, then rubbing him on his even rattier jeans. “Law.”

“Oh, you’re a lawyer? Or you… you’re a barista for lawyers?”

Law snorts and gives Sanji a pointed look. “It’s my name. I see you’ve joined the ranks of poor bastards hoodwinked into covering for Porsche.”

The speed in which Sanji’s face heats up in embarrassment should be documented. “N-No, that’s not – I offered, thank you very much!”

Law flicks his spotty hat off the coffee machine, slaps it back on his head like it's the least annoying thing he's had to do all day, and stares at Sanji like he's just found a particularly unremarkable amoeba on the bottom of his shoe. A brain-eating amoeba, maybe. Naegleria fowleri all up in Sanji’s grill. “Well, I'm sure you have your reasons,” he says finally, voice thick with skepticism. He moves to the front of the counter before thinking better of it and slipping back around to make his own coffee, clearly under the impression that Sanji's skillset might be a bit lacking.

“Wait!” Sanji grabs his arm, still flaming red. “Can you… can you show me, actually? I'll pick it up in a sec. I'm a chef, you know.” He tacks the last part on like some sort of salvation, hoping it’ll somehow justify the hot mess Law’s witnessed.

Law raises an eyebrow, and lets out a long, tired sigh. He proceeds to show him where the beans are, how to grind them, how to pull an espresso, how to purge the steam wand and how to make microfoam. When Sanji finally gets it somewhat right, Law slaps a lid on both cups.

“No bunny?” Sanji jokes, before taking a careful sip. 

Law’s mouth quirks minutely – minutely – but Sanji takes it as a win. The coffee is delicious, beyond anything that Sanji has ever tried and he stares down at it in staggered awe, this little masterpiece in a paper cup. 

“Holy shit,” he breathes, feeling something unfold within him. He’s going to make so much coffee. “Thanks, man!” 

Law waves him off on the way back to his table, to where he’s balanced a long, thin black bag that Sanji would recognise anywhere, in any universe. It’s been in his own apartment more times than he can count, from Zoro dropping over in the dead of the night to sleep, away from Luffy’s rambunctious snores. 

“Hey, you – it’s kendo!” 

The look Law gives him is assessing and dry as he swings the bag onto his shoulder. “Well spotted.”

“My friend kendos. Kendos? You’ve probably seen him, I think he does stuff on Youtube sometimes maybe?” Sanji realises he’s babbling and tries to rein it in, but it’s too late anyway. His dignity is long gone. “ Anyway. Thanks for the lesson, and uh, for saving my ass back there. I’m Sanji, actually. I forgot to say.”

“Nice shirt,” Law deadpans before heading out the door, waving a lazy peace sign over his shoulder. Sanji sags back against the wall, letting the coffee roll around his mouth for a minute or two. 

He pulls out his phone, planning to check if Vivi has Porsche’s number but instead finds himself blinking at a string of messages from Zoro. He opens them carefully, eyes widening with each link to a video tutorial for a frankly ridiculous number of coffee machines.  The last message reads: Don’t know what brand you need. and Sanji stares at it for a long moment, his chest tightening. It’s a fucking weird thing to feel – this warm rush of something uncomfortably close to appreciation – but it hits him anyway. He doesn't respond, because they don’t roll like that. Besides, what could he even say? ‘Thanks’ feels inadequate and anything else feels like they’re skating too close to a conversation he’s desperate to avoid, which is why he doesn’t fucking talk to Zoro anymore.

(He knows, on some level, that it’s grossly unfair of him. He knows he’s being an asshole. But what the fuck else is he meant to do? He can’t find anything to say that isn’t your last chance for what and have you wanted to kiss me this whole time? so yeah, he’s doing what he can to stay sane.)

Instead of spiralling further, he takes a deep, steadying breath and flicks the steam wand. “You and me are going to make magic together.”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

From then on, coffee weaves its way into his everyday life and a new world opens up. He’s never cared too much about coffee before but he’s quick to work out that the cafe culture in Australia is a whole different ball game and maybe he just never gave a shit because he didn’t know the rules. Porsche is exceedingly patient with him and lets him play around on the coffee machine in between customers, like it’ll make up for leaving him floundering. She’s a handful, but she’s a great barista and more importantly she loves to show off her talents.

He makes mental notes of every detail – every subtle hint from the customers, every trick Porsche casually tosses his way, everyone’s preferences filed away like precious little secrets. 

He masters the fine art of lattes and mochas, figures out the difference between a macchiato and an americano, and has a real moment of confusion over what the hell a flat white actually is. By the time he’s making long blacks that should probably come with a warning label, he starts to feel like he’s getting the hang of it. Porsche spends hours painstakingly teaching him the fine art of a pour-over, only for Law to slouch in, huffing with disdain, and completely rework the entire process. Sometimes Law brings his colleague, Chopper, who is so thrilled by every single mediocre coffee Sanji manages to scrape together that Sanji might develop an actual complex. He’s exceedingly sweet, though, so Sanji sneaks the little guy cookies whenever he can and they both pretend Law doesn’t notice.

It takes him a few days to make a cold drip that doesn’t taste like a boot and even longer to figure out the difference between batch brew and single origin. But somehow, in the middle of all the chaos, he starts to feel like he might actually belong in this madness.

Before he even realises it two months have slipped by, and somehow, against all odds, he’s woven together a little life for himself. He still bugs Zeff at every opportunity, sending snapshots of his latest attempts at Coral & Stone and bombarding him with links to articles on high cholesterol, like a digital lifeline to bridge the distance between them. They don’t talk on the phone often, but every few weeks Sanji gives it a shot, only to spend the entire call biting back the lump in his throat and trying not to let his voice crack. He knows Zeff misses him more than he lets on, more than the old man would ever admit, even to himself, and he can’t help but nurse a strange cocktail of guilt and empathy. 

Sometimes, when his mind drifts, he wonders what it would be like if Zeff and Jinbe ever met. It’d be wild; the two of them filling up a room with their energy, creating something bigger than the sum of its parts, and that’s when he considers flying Zeff out for an impromptu visit. He knows the old man would never allow it, though, and Jinbe is already taking on a lot of extra responsibility just caring for Sanji.

Jinbe continues to be insanely indulgent, sharing his ideas for future recipes and drawing from Sanji’s strengths. Over the past month in particular the anxiety that was sharp at the start of his tenure has ebbed, replaced by something fonder. His sense of belonging grows stronger with every dish served and every order sent out. He doesn’t feel like he’s just a visiting chef anymore: he helps hold the tide and honour the table, joining a lineage of chefs, a web of connection.

Sometimes, when the sky is clear and the wind is particularly sweet, he sits out on his little balcony and tries to tame the local magpie with little scraps of meat.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he whispers, the gristle on the very tip of his outstretched finger. The magpie is getting braver and has come as far as eating right next to Sanji’s hand, but hasn’t yet conquered plucking it from the blonde’s fingers. 

The magpie cocks his head at him, trilling a little before hopping a step or two closer. It examines the gristle before Sanji’s phone goes off, startling the poor thing so badly it flops off the railing altogether and takes a moment to find its wings. 

“Ah, shit.” Sanji sighs and chucks the gristle over the edge, wiping his fingers unceremoniously on his pants before answering the call. It’s Nami, flushed and panting, with the sunset painted behind her. 

“I did it!” she shouts, her voice bright and triumphant, just as Luffy stumbles into the call. He looks like he’s half-dreaming, his hair wild and unkempt, and Sanji has this sudden, irrational urge to reach through the screen and squeeze his cheeks, just to feel something familiar. The ache in his chest catches him off guard. Is it normal to miss your friends this much? He doesn't even know anymore. The line between homesickness and melancholy is getting blurrier by the day, but he keeps reading about that being a normal part of your 20s, so.

“What’d y’do?” Luffy yawns, the little capture of him on the screen jostling about. Sanji’s intending to translate Luffy’s babble into something coherent but he doesn’t have to: Nami is beaming, her eyes wide and bright in a way that Sanji has never seen before.

He grins. “She said yes!”

“SHE SAID YES!” Nami screams, disappearing off the screen entirely to pump her hands in the air. Sanji catches a flash of trees in the background. 

“WOOOOOWWWWW!” Luffy yells, dissolving into laughter before heaping himself back onto Zoro’s bed, which is instantly recognisable solely for not being covered in laundry like Luffy’s.

“When’s the wedding, dear?” Robin appears with far too much grace for a joint call with her rabid friends before dawn. She rubs her eyes and turns to whisper something to Franky, who shouts something in the background that sounds suspiciously like “SUPER!”

Nami laughs, just – absolutely cracks it, tears spilling out of her eyes. “God, don’t ask me that right now! I’m still processing! SHE SAID YES!”

“Nami,” Robin inquires gently, “Just where is Vivi?”

“Oh god, I left her there!” Nami shrieks, her expression shifting from exuberant to horrified in an instant. “I was so excited to – hang on, call you back later!” She ends the call, her little video blanking out and leaving the rest of them staring at each other in delight. 

“Shishishi!” Luffy howls, starfishing. He has way too much energy and always has, and Sanji is temporarily so glad that he’s 14,975km away so that he doesn't have to shoulder the aftermath. It’s a flash in the pan, but it’s there. “Nami and Vivi are going to have the best wedding!”

“They better let me make their cake,” Sanji huffs, to himself more than anything. 

“I must say, Sanji, I love your shirt.” Robin lays herself back down in the bed, her head resting on Franky’s enormous bicep. Franky erupts into pleased, booming laughter as Sanji looks down at his Franky-shirt, his cheeks dusting with embarrassment. 

“We miss you too, bro!” Franky says, always the first to wear his heart on his sleeve. There’s a joke in there about Sanji wearing Franky on his sleeve, but Sanji’s too sheepish to make it. 

“Oh, Franky, can you print us too?” Luffy jolts upright with a shit-eating grin. “That way Sanji can have a whole set of us!”

“Alright, alright, very funny,” Sanji sniffs and has half a mind to hang up right there and then, but group calls aren’t as common these days, with everyone juggling exams or new jobs or, in Franky’s case, a whole new fixer-upper car that he managed to find on Facebook Marketplace for more than it was worth. Speaking of: “How’s the car going?”

Franky heaves a sigh, waving his free hand in the air in a so-so motion. “Man, these old cars are built to last but finding spare parts is like finding treasure or something! And then the second you find it some schmuck comes along and takes it – you gotta be a pirate or something to get anything out here!”

Sanji laughs, doing the mental math to work out that it’s exactly 3:10am in the morning back home and Luffy is the only human rolling about in the bed. He genuinely debates saying anything, but he’s basically got everyone’s schedules engraved in his skull by now and – “Mossy’s out late.” 

Luffy makes a show of looking around and shrugs. “Dunno, he’s hangin’ out with Ace.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re hanging out,” Franky snickers from somewhere near Robin. 

It's a bit like being punched in his solar plexus, maybe: he recoils, the sensation sour and sharp, like he’s touched something he never should’ve. 

“Sanji, love,” Robin interrupts, all sugar and strategy. “Why don’t you tell us what’s been happening at the restaurant?”

It’s a mercy toss, clearly, because he must look like a complete idiot sitting there with his mouth open. He snatches it up anyway. Takes a beat to reboot his brain, then launches into a ramble about Jinbe and Aladine, about how he’s been asked to help create the tasting menu for the coveted Christmas lunch – the highest honour you can score at Coral & Stone. He talks until his words run dry: about the cafe, the corner shop, his favourite shakshuka shop up the road, how the sun’s an actual menace, how the ocean tastes different, how he keeps forgetting tax is already included and he never remembers to bring a shopping bag, how he still hasn’t seen an interesting spider which feels like a bit of a rip-off. He tells them about Porsche’s emerging throuple situation and Chopper’s favourite snacks and how he still isn’t sure if he’s doing the right hours but the immigration department hasn’t come for him yet, so it must be okay. 

He keeps going and going, because the alternative is circling back to Franky’s implication, and that is simply not on the table right now. Eventually, Luffy drifts back to sleep, snoring wildly, and Franky starts dozing off, and Robin has stayed with him right through to the very end, when he can’t think of anything else to say. Usopp jumps onto the call at the last minute, looking like a bat fresh out of hell. 

“Nami and Vivi are engaged,” Sanji says, leaning sharply into the flicker of happiness the news brings. Usopp lets out an excited crow, immediately demanding details about the wedding menu, as if Sanji’s managed to plan it out in the past twenty minutes.

Usopp, of course, has wild ideas for the drinks menu and soon they’re off, swapping thoughts and gossiping like school kids, their excitement feeding off each other. Robin logs off somewhere in the middle, bidding a fond farewell, and Sanji stays on, sketching out a menu with Usopp that’s going to knock everyone's socks off.

When Usopp finally has to go, the magpie cocks its head and watches Sanji amble back inside, slithering into his bed. There’s a container of leftovers on his bedside table and Luffy's notebook filled with recipe ideas, jottings and suggestions and he pulls it into his lap to write down Usopp’s ideas before they evaporate.

Franky’s comment eats at a little corner of his brain long after the night is done, when he’s elbow-deep in washing dishes and the idea can’t get the fuck out of his head. Before he’s second-guessed himself he drags his phone out of his pocket, typing out heard you’re dating now quicker than his sense of reason can digest. 

The sheer torture of watching the little dot beside Zoro’s name flicker from red to green almost makes him want to throw the damn phone out the window. This is a ridiculous, petty move, and he knows it. He knows it. But Zoro’s response is as swift as it is brutal, cutting straight to the point: You heard wrong.  Which is infuriating and clearly a sack of shit, so Sanji does what any self-respecting man would do and calls him. It rings for long enough for him to chew himself out but right when he’s about to throw in the towel Zoro accepts the call.

“Isn’t this costing you a fortune?” Zoro drawls, sounding far too casual for the cocktail of emotions Sanji’s got going on in his head. 

“About the same it’d cost you to get a brain implant,” Sanji snarls on autopilot, then promptly wants to arrange his own brain implant because what the fuck. What is wrong with him. “Interesting conversation with Franky. Didn’t think he was your type.”

“Franky?”

“Ace. Thought you didn’t like beefheads, huh?” Which – he knows he’s not being fair to Ace, even as the words spill out of his stupid, asshole mouth. Ace might be a couple of beers short of a picnic but he’s always been incredibly generous with all of them, taking Luffy’s friends under his wing without a second thought. He’s also uproariously funny and is able to put together a killer grilled cheese like nobody else, so Sanji is well-fucking-aware that he’s being a right proper dickhead about this.

Sanji can hear Zoro’s inhale, slow and pointed. “What are you on about?”

Of course, Sanji’s brain decides to take a nosedive into even more absurd scenarios, and his mouth, being the traitor it is, keeps running. “Jumping him while he's all sad about Marco? Getting that desperate, are we? Who – ”

“What the fuck is this?” 

Sanji’s frustration bubbles over, and he tugs at the hem of his shirt, smearing soap everywhere, still too wound up to get a grip on his temper. “Is it because he kissed me? Is that what this is? Some fucking pissing contest?”

“You have no – wait, what do you mean he kissed you?”

“Lot of that going around lately!” Sanji snaps, purely on autopilot, and then swears angrily because that’s not – even he can recognise that was a cheap shot. He forces himself to take a breath, bunching his shirt in his hands. Suddenly, he’s not sure why he even called in the first place. He regrets making the call. Hell, he regrets breathing sometimes. “It wasn’t – he was just really drunk.”

Zoro’s silent on the other end. Sanji thinks he can hear a TV in the distance, low and familiar. His brain is racing ahead, already preparing for whatever Zoro might say, some hollow excuse or some awful truth. He can’t decide what would be worse. His whole body’s coiled like wire, and he wants to hang up so badly. Eventually, Zoro says: “I didn’t know.”

Sanji snorts, dragging his hand over his eyes, getting bubbles in his fringe. It’s grown distinctly uncomfortable and he lets the silence drag itself on for as long as he can before the bitterness metastasises in his chest. “Story of your life, I guess.”

There’s a beat or two, Zoro’s voice coming through strained. “Did you…?”

Sanji’s head jerks back like he’s been slapped and the concept is so fucking bizarre that it takes half a minute to realise what Zoro’s even asking. When he does, the question makes his skin crawl. “With Ace?” His voice cracks. “Christ, no. I chucked up on his shoes and he apologised.” 

He doesn’t say you know i'm straight.  He doesn’t say i don’t like men and you fucking know that. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t say any of that, and he doesn’t know why his chest has gone tight, like someone’s squeezed all the air out of him. “Just. Don’t mess around with Ace,” he says finally, his voice worn, as if the words are being forced through a cracked dam. 

If Zoro pushes, Sanji’s got reasons lined up like plates on the pass: he’s looking after Ace’s best interests (true), Ace is still in love with Marco (also true), they’d be a disaster together (this one is less plausible, but he can sell it if he needs to) and he’s trying to protect Ace’s virtue (probably true).

But Zoro doesn’t push.

He just says, quiet, “Okay,” and it feels like the worst thing he could’ve said. Calm, trusting, and Sanji feels it settle wrong, like relief curdled into guilt. He leans back, hard, and stares up at the ceiling like the peeling paint might offer some kind of divine intervention.

What the hell is he doing?

He doesn’t have a plan here and it’s become desperately, wretchedly clear that he needs one. It’s like some stupid, stupid part of him has been set on fire and now he’s stuck watching it all burn down, powerless to stop it without torching everything else too, like Zoro kissing him has tripped some fatal guideline somewhere and they're never going to claw back from it.  

This is why he doesn’t talk to Zoro. It never leads anywhere good or safe.

“You should go back to sleep,” he says eventually, voice low and careful, because he can’t trust himself with anything else right now. It’s nearly four in the morning over there. He knows Zoro won’t go back to sleep.

“Okay,” Zoro says again, soft, like a secret and Sanji hangs up before the sound can take root in his brain and live there.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

If Vivi and Nami were dazzling before, their engagement has turned them into something unreal, like a living fairytale, golden and full of promise. Sanji watches them sometimes and feels a tug in his chest, not jealousy exactly, but a kind of quiet awe. There’s something about the ease between them, the certainty, the way Vivi looks at Nami like she already has everything she’s ever wanted. 

He gets tasked with coming up with canapés for their engagement party and a draft tasting menu for the Christmas party, which he works on in bits and pieces, in the tiny scraps of spare time he has. He uses Fresco as a testing board, because the kid’s got a sense of smell that defies science.

So far he’s looking at a bush honey pudding and a classic pavlova, with paperbark-wrapped lamb and a chai whisky that Usopp’s whipped up a recipe for, but the rest remains elusive to his brain.

“Wassat meant to be?” Fresco leans in close for a good whiff, their nose wrinkling in what Sanji hopes is a pleasant reaction. It’s hard to tell, sometimes. 

“Smoked roe emulsion. I’m thinking if I pair it with the fish skin crackers it’ll – what the hell is that?” He's so surprised by the container of legs and antennae that Fresco is carrying that he pauses with his spoon mid-air and gets a whole drip down his arm. It’s not pretty.

“Mm, a nice fresh batch.” Fresco grabs a scampering ant from the fray and pops it into their mouth, making an obscene gesture, a flash of the ant on their tongue before it disappears. “Yum.”

“Fresh batch,” Sanji echoes, watching Fresco lid the container. The ants continue scuffling about angrily while they place the container far, far out of reach. Sanji’s used to cooking with a variety of animals, but he’s not tried ants and he’s not itching to. “I hope it bites your tongue.”

Fresco grins, unrepentant. “Oh, it did.”

There’s a mountain of carrots to julienne, and Sanji tackles it with methodical precision, each slice falling into place while the kitchen comes to life around him. He loves this part of the day, when everyone else starts to drift in. Fresco chats to him intermittently, but it’s not until something they say actually manages to snag Sanji’s attention that he pauses.

“Wait, what?”

Fresco shrugs, casually shucking a crab as if it’s no big deal, leaving a neat pile of legs on the benchtop. They’re somehow the tidiest chef de partie Sanji’s ever worked with and, also, they know where the best burger joints are, so they’re a pretty great person to have around, overall. “Think he won it with honey ants, yeah, so don’t knock ants ‘til you’ve tried ‘em.”

“No, I mean – did you say there’s a coffee competition?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure Robbo’s cousin was in it last year. You can ask him if you want.”

Robbie talks like he’s on a caffeine drip, his words spilling out like a race against time, and Sanji would rather shave his eyebrows off than subject himself to that. So, instead, he waits until he’s back in his dingy apartment at three in the morning, knees pulled up around his chin, and googles it.

It turns out there’s a whole Speciality Coffee Association, running local competitions that funnel into the National Barista Award. It also turns out the local competition is coming up, and the 'Click to Enter' box is a little too tempting to ignore. Sanji opens the entry form, stares at it for a beat, his mind a whirlwind of ideas and panic, before he takes a deep breath and dives in.

He tells Vivi the same morning, once he’s grabbed a couple of hours of sleep and the world doesn’t feel quite so daunting anymore. 

Vivi, who has never been anything but exuberantly happy for anyone ever, throws her arms around him and gives him a welcome little cuddle. “That’s such a great idea, Sanji! Do you have any idea what you’ll do?” The engagement ring sits pretty on her finger, catching the lighting overhead. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear and ink smudged on her nose, and the sun is casting a glow over the garden they’re in. There’s a group of older women doing Tai Chi on the lawn, but the corner they’re in feels like a peaceful little sanctuary. 

“I’ve got some ideas, but I’ll need to test them out.” He sips at his own coffee thoughtfully, letting his eyes wander. It’s little moments like these that make here feel a bit more like home, small moments of stillness tucked away amidst the chaos of the city. 

“Just… don’t overdo it, yeah?” Vivi says, nudging his shoulder gently. There’s a wrinkle of concern at the corner of her mouth. “You’re taking on a lot.”

Sanji shrugs, but it catches a little on the exhale. There’s something sharp and awkward about being looked after, and he’s never had quite the right skin for it. Luffy’s always joked that he short-circuits when people care too much and, annoyingly, he’s probably right. “Yeah, well,” he mutters uncomfortably, “Not here to fuck spiders, am I?”

It’s Sapi’s go-to line whenever he rolls into Coral & Stone with his morning catch, grinning like a lunatic, and it’s ridiculous enough to draw a proper laugh from Vivi, bright and unrestrained, just the way he likes it.  There’s a beat afterwards, like Vivi’s weighing up what to say – or what not to say? – where Sanji kind of almost but not really considers exiting the conversation, because he’s Not here for an intervention, but eventually she blows a bubble and musses up her hair. 

“This is one of my favorite spots in the city,” she said, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I try to come here whenever I can… it helps me clear my head.”

“Do you need to clear your head? Is everything okay?” 

Vivi smiles at him again but it’s watery around the edges, enough to make Sanji squeeze her hand. “Yeah nah, I’m fine! Everything’s great,” she tacks on quickly. “We just… have to figure things out, you know? Nami’s got her study and her internship and I’m still helping dad out. We’ve been looking at a partner visa, but… we’re still working it all out.”

Which is… a lot, and Sanji bumps their shoulders together, heart gone soft. He’s nothing but a true romantic at the end of the day. “You’ll figure it out. You guys are solid. I know you’ll be okay, whether she moves or you move or you meet somewhere in the middle. She adores you, Vivi. She’d move mountains for you.”

Vivi chuckles weakly and dabs at her eyes with her free hand, giving a sniffle. Sanji lets her have the moment, stroking his thumb idly over the back of her hand until she’s ready. “Let’s talk about you.”

“Let’s not,” he says immediately, the tension coming flying in from nowhere to slap him in the face. 

Vivi looks briefly offended and then immediately horrified. “No, I just meant how are you adjusting to the city?”

“Oh! The restaurant’s amazing, of course. Jinbe is an incredible teacher, they all are, and they’ve all been so nice. It’s honestly better than I thought it would be… but also sometimes harder than I thought it would be?”

He means the gruelling hours and the quiet cultural gaps, the small things that don’t quite translate properly and the way he sometimes feels like a visitor in his own life. He means the way he misses his friends, a constant throb nestled deep in his gut like a splinter: a dull ache on some days, worse on others, but always there. 

He means knowing that all of this has an expiry date and that he’ll have to say goodbye to the people he’s met, the routines he’s carved out, the little pockets of suburbia he’s grown attached to. The slow, strange comfort of it all.

He doesn’t say any of it, but Vivi seems to get it anyway. “Moving countries is massive, Sanji. It takes time. But from what I hear you’ve been killing it with Jinbe. He and dad reckon you’ve got what it takes to open your own place in a few years.”

The pride that stirs in his chest is warm and a little startling. He’s a damn good chef, he knows it, but he hadn’t thought he’s doing anything out of the ordinary, not really. Jinbe can be tricky to read sometimes, but he does treat him with something that looks a lot like respect – calm explanations, sharp eyes and the kind of trust that’s earned more than given. “That means a lot to me,” he settles on finally, because it’s fundamentally true. 

“I guess we just have to be patient with ourselves,” Vivi says, leaning back on her hands as she watches a kid boot a soccer ball across the park. “We’re all figuring it out as we go. For Nami and me, it’s about making a life together, even with this great big ocean between us. But for you… I don’t know. Maybe for you it’s about finding your own rhythm here. Seeing where you land.”

Sanji lets out a low breath, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “You make it sound so poetic.”

“I’ve been hanging around you lot too long! God, I’m starting to sound like Brook.”

“Well, I'm glad you're locked in now. Your company’s pretty hard to beat.”

She snorts and shoves him lightly, the tension from before gone, and her smile isn’t as wobbly this time around. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Oh?” He throws her a lascivious wink for the drama of it, smirking. “It’s not too late to run away together, you know. We have great style.”

She laughs, shoving his shoulder. “Ugh, you’re so annoying,” and he laughs back, earnest and grateful, grateful, grateful.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

He spends the next few days sinking his teeth into competition prep, sketching out ideas in his many, many notebooks and testing out variations on the cafe’s poor unwitting customers. He sells his experimental brews at half the price and leaves a little printed QR on the counter code for feedback, which he crawls through obsessively into the wee hours of the morning. So far he hasn’t hit the right notes, and usually he finds enjoyment in trying to weave together the right recipe but right now he feels like he’s running on fumes.

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack, man,” Usopp yawns, already half-asleep as he carefully tucks his hair into his bonnet. His hoodie reads World’s Okayest Bartender, his last Christmas gift from Brook. “Is that your sixth cup or your twelfth?”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Sanji mutters, barely glancing at the screen and giving Kaya a little wave. She’s already tucked into their bed but offers a sleepy smile. “It’s eight.” He scowls at the cup in front of him before downing it in a single gulp, wincing as the bitterness hits the back of his throat like regret. 

“How’d it go?” Usopp tucks himself into bed next to his girlfriend, positioning his phone kind of between the pillows so Sanji can catch the vague outline of both of them. “Let me guess… notes of desperation. Undertones of rage. Finish is burnt toast and emotional repression. Pairs well with a midlife crisis.”

“Okay, get out of my kitchen.”

Usopp laughs, his shoulders shaking. He's  always laughed like that: full-bodied, gleeful, unashamed. It’s Sanji's favourite part of him. “I’m just saying, you’ve got the technique but you’re trying too hard, man. Coffee’s like a cocktail – it needs balance. You’re chasing intensity when you should be chasing clarity.”

Sanji sighs and lets himself lean on the bench, rubbing at his eyes. They feel like they’re filled with sand and reproach. “I don’t want clarity. I want to win.”

“Well, tough titties. It’s all in the cup anyway.” Usopp shrugs. “You trying to impress the judges or you trying to punish yourself? 

Which is – the question sits with Sanji far longer than he wants it to. He exhales through his teeth, and tosses up whether or not he has time to grind a fresh batch before he needs to leave for the engagement party. He’s spent the day ducking in and out of Coral & Stone, checking and rechecking the recreation of his canapés so obsessively that Fresco has banned him from the kitchen for the next twelve hours.

“Did you even sleep?” Usopp suddenly sounds suspicious, leaning close to the phone screen like he can try to peer into his friend’s brain. “‘Cause I love this obsessive streak of yours, we all do, but dude. You can’t create magic if you’re burning yourself out. I’ll sic Luffy on you.”

It’s a pretty valid threat, and Sanji finds himself grimacing. “I just… want it to be right.”

It’s Kaya who responds, sounding like she’s already got a foot in dreamland. “You’re not a machine, honey. You don’t have to beat it into submission. You’re allowed to rest and come back to it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sanji sighs, switching the grinder off. He’s got to leave soon anyway. “You’re right, as always.”

He bids them both goodnight and pauses to scratch down the highs and lows of this afternoon’s test run, pouncing on the moment of stillness to feel out every single ache and pain his bones are carrying around. 

The group chat’s been a flurry of video messages, screengrabs of everyone congratulating Nami and Vivi, sending their best wishes in the only way they can, declaring how much they wish they could come. Sanji can’t help but wish the same. It feels odd, throwing such an important event without their usual crew to fill the space, like a vital piece is missing.

If Luffy were here he would’ve bulked up the protein options and stocked up on extra canapés… and a clear perimetre would need to be set, because Luffy’s a hurricane in human form when he’s had a drink or two. Usopp would’ve been on playlist duty, filling the room with songs to get everyone up and dancing, or to hide and Kaya sharing a laugh. Brook would’ve brought his guitar and a few sweet ballads, coupled with a truly outrageous number of dirty jokes. Franky and Robin would’ve clocked Sanji’s self-destructive streak from a mile out, banning him from working the moment they walked in.

And Zoro? Zoro wouldn’t have said a word. He would’ve just appeared in Sanji’s doorway like he has a thousand times before, wordlessly dragging him from the kitchen and forcing him to take a breath.

It’d be different if they were here. But instead it’s just – Sanji, running on far too much espresso, anxiety and pure delusion at this point. Nami and Vivi deserve a miracle and instead they’ve got him, but damn if he isn’t trying to make the most of it. 

Their engagement party is at Coral & Stone, because what’s the point in your uncle owning a fancy-ass restaurant if you can’t use it as the backdrop to celebrate the love of your life? 

Someone’s strung up fairy lights across the exposed rafters out the back, twinkling like stars against the dimming sky. There’s a beautiful grassy patch and an expansive deck that boasts a few little tables and a sleek marble bar. In the background, the steady rhythm of ocean waves crashing against the rocks below blends with the hum of quiet conversation and clinking glasses, adding a peaceful, almost ethereal soundtrack to the evening.

Sanji’s menu is, objectively, a triumph. There are delicate stacks of salmon with shaved fennel. His meringue is perfect, so delicate it practically sighs against the jewel-like mini tarts bursting with fruit and flecks of mint, floating around on hand-forged platters that gleam under soft string lights. The little crescent moon tables are draped in cream linen, their edges fluttering in the sea breeze. Cobra’s hooked them up with a jazz quartet and their notes weave between the murmur of conversation and the gentle movement of crystal glasses. 

The guests are a blur of linen shirts and carefully curated tans, all floating somewhere between old, old money and new influence. Sanji picks out a few faces he half-recognises – chefs he’s stalked on social media and some guy who owns a chain of boutique gyms and won’t stop calling pate ‘protein-forward’. Porsche is around somewhere, probably talking everyone’s ears off.

He drifts through it all like smoke, checking temperatures, repositioning platters and somehow pretending he isn’t completely knackered. His feet ache. His head aches. His hands smell like garlic somehow and it’s possible the hem of shirt is stained with juice. He’s pretty sure his left eyelid has been twitching for at least an hour and sure, he could sit down, technically. There’s a quiet little corner that smells like basil and possibility.

He won’t, though. Beneath the fatigue and pinched spine and muttered curses at the guy double-dipping in the tapenade (seriously, what the hell?) on the steps… he loves this. Conjuring a whole mood from butter and citrus is like nothing else he’s ever felt, crafting something fleeting and beautiful. And, yeah, maybe part of him is using it to avoid thinking too hard, about the distance between here and home and all of the voice notes he hasn’t listened to yet and the video messages that make his heart hurt, but he’s too tired to look into it right now.

“You did good,” Jinbe says quietly as he places a hand on his shoulder. It’s not flashy or grand because Jinbe doesn’t roll like that, but it lands like a stone in Sanji’s chest all the same. He grins, instinctive and crooked, the kind that’s trying to deflect just how much it means to him. The exhaustion pressing into his bones doesn’t magically disappear, but the compliment sinks deeper than he expects, anchoring something loose inside of him. “Zeff was right about you. He calls to check on you, you know.”

The words are a bit like a sucker punch; Sanji’s breath catches sharp and ugly and then his eyes are stinging before he can do a damn thing about it. A sound slips out – small and involuntary – and he turns his face into Jinbe’s sleeve like it’ll somehow stop the reaction.

Jinbe just chuckles, gentle and unbothered, his hand settling in Sanji’s hair and ruffling it with the kind of gruff tenderness that Sanji’s grown accustomed to. It’s a bit humiliating, yes, but also grounding, stabilising in a way that makes everything better and worse all at once. “You’re a bloody smart kid, and he’s done right by you.”

He has, and Sanji knows it like he knows the back of his favourite knife. Zeff, with his impossible standards and impossible kindness, who pulled him out of ruin and turned the wreckage into something useful. Without him, Sanji wouldn’t have survived long enough to meet the people who give a damn. He’d still be out there, hungry and alone, angry. Lost in the hollow, endless place that used to live behind his ribs.

Instead he’s here. Crying into his mentor’s sleeve at the end of a long, perfect night. Still tired and still not sure where the hell he’s going next, but fed. And safe. And known.

“Sanji!” Nami croons, a glass of something objectively fatal in her hand. She’s decked head to toe in metallic silver; the drapes of her dress leave little to the imagination and she’s literally and figuratively glowing. Her hair is dotted with pearls and some of the curls have come loose to hang around her face – Sanji breaks away from Jinbe to fix them with a tutter. “The food is SO good! I can’t stop eating the little – oh, Sanji, look! I’m gonna wife her up.”

On the makeshift dance floor Vivi twirls in giddy circles with a friend, her gold suit catching the light with every movement. Nami looks completely smitten as she gapes at her, nearly sloshing her drink as she claps her hands together, all wide eyes and open joy, bursting at the seams with it.

“You guys are so cute,” he says and for once he’s not even trying to flatter. He swipes her cocktail without ceremony and spits it right back out. It tastes like bubblegum and bad, bad decisions. “Christ, what the – I need to sort this out.”

Nami cackles and plants a noisy kiss on his cheek in thanks, then bounds off into the crowd with a reckless shriek. She catches Vivi mid-spin and they collapse into each other, laughing, before spinning in tandem, Vivi’s hair flying loose around them like a ribbon caught in the wind.

Sanji watches them for a moment, love distilled down to its most joyful parts, and for a brief, happy little heartbeat the world feels as golden as Vivi’s suit. Then he remembers the misery in his hand and goes to slam the drink down on the bar. “This is disgusting. God, have you never made a cocktail in your life?”

“Bepo’s sick,” Law counters frostily, which means fuck-all to Sanji, but in his determination to give Nami and Vivi the most perfect night Ever he jumps over the bar and elbows Law cleanly out of the way. The other man stutters a little but gives in pretty quickly, accepting defeat. A quick precursor of the bar contents confirms Sanji’s suspicions: Law might manage a decent coffee, but liquor? Absolutely not.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Sanji asks, flashing a well-practised smile as he slides a perfectly serviceable mojito across the bar to a woman in a navy dress. He tosses in a compliment about her shoes for good measure, earning a quick, pleased laugh. He’s no Usopp, but years spent watching the sharpshooter behind the bar have taught him a thing or two about charm on demand. As he starts shaking up a pair of martinis he glances sidelong at the other man. “Why do you look like Christmas threw up on you?”

Law looks down at his scrubs, in clashing shades of red and green, aggressively festive in the worst possible way. His scowl deepens. “Shachi left his socks in the – actually, no. I don’t owe fashion commentary to a man who wore a vest over a mesh shirt.”

Sanji nearly fumbles the shaker. “That was one time! And it was vintage.”

“So’s trench foot. Doesn’t mean I want to see it.”

Sanji kicks him out of the bar.

He spends the rest of the night meticulously assembling the basics, pausing now and then to snap a photo for Usopp whenever he’s particularly proud of a drink. He gets into the groove, leaning on years of experience to make his movements efficient, slipping between tasks like clockwork. Still, there’s a slow-dragging fatigue creeping into his bones, and he knows it’s not going to let go of him until sometime tomorrow. 

It’s worth it. It’s always worth it – for the quiet pride that comes with watching everything slot neatly into place, mirroring whatever blueprints are in his head. Across the room, Nami and Vivi remain inseparable, their joy so tangible it seems to spark off into the air around them. They move together like orbiting stars, like Kaya’s many, many romance novels.

The party winds down around midnight, with the last of the guests drifting out into the warm night. The space exhales around the clean-up crew, who start to sneak in like particularly well-ironed ninjas. Sanji’s limbs are heavy, achy in the way that says it’s been a job well done. He’s too tired to celebrate, but not too tired to feel the quiet satisfaction humming beneath his skin. He sticks around for a bit, dumping himself in a pile under the frangipani tree to watch the clean-up crew skitter around. 

There are three scraps of paper tucked into his shirt pocket, numbers scribbled in different handwriting, the paper soft and crumpled from sweat and movement. One belongs to a Swiss exchange student named Elena, who had laughed at his jokes and promised to show him the best late-night tacos in the city. She’d been sharp, funny, and only mildly tipsy, so there’s a decent chance she’s actually given him her real number, which is more than he can say for most nights out in his life.

He knows he’s not going to call her, or any of them. There’d be no point – he’s leaving in three months, and nothing meaningful is going to come out of a date or two. It’s just not how he’s wired. Commitment has never been a slow burn for him: it’s a five-alarm fire. It’s been his fatal flaw from day dot, and he knows the intensity of his affection tends to send people running before he can even properly open his mouth.

“I’m gonna be the best wife you’ve ever had,” Nami warbles, draped across Vivi’s shoulder with the gravity of someone making a royal proclamation. They’re the last ones standing, waving off their guests with increasingly sloppy fare. Cobra hovers nearby, doing his best to keep them upright, hands fluttering awkwardly at the edges of Nami’s dress. “I’m gonna – oh I’m gonna wife you so hard.”

Sanji snorts and Vivi bursts into giggles, her hand pressed to her mouth as she smothers her fiancée in kisses, the two of them collapsing onto the decking in a heap of tangled limbs and love, laughing into each other’s mouths and hair. Sanji watches them for a moment, then sends a quick, amused glance toward Cobra, who looks long-suffering at this point.

Hey those don’t look too bad! Usopp’s message pops up on DenDen and he forwards one of the photos to the group chat. Watch out – Sanji’s trying to take my job!

There’s a laughing emoji from Brook and a heart from Robin, both instantaneous because it’s morning over there now and everyone’s getting up and ready for the day. Luffy sends through relentless messages crowing about Sanji’s skills and how much he misses his cooking, and Sanji’s too tired to do anything but feel inordinately pleased at it all. 

SEND US VIDEOS OF THE PARTYY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brook demands with his usual cheer, and Sanji flicks through all the photos and videos he’s taken, some of them shakier than others. His favourite is the photo of Vivi and Nami he’d managed to snap, with Jinbe unintentionally photobombing in the background, his eyes gone wide at the alarming amount of shrimp clutched in Koza’s hand. He flicks through a selfie of himself for good measure, throwing up a peace sign with the bar lit up behind him. 

You look happy :) Robin sends to him and he huffs a laugh, low and breathy, lighting a cigarette as he steps outside into the early morning air. The city’s quiet for once and for the first time in days he doesn’t feel like he’s vibrating out of his own skin.

think i might be, yeah :) 

Maybe he’s finally reached the stage of delirium where it looks like peace. Maybe it doesn’t even matter what he’s feeling – joy, contentment, delusion, or something messier in between. For now, it’s enough to feel a little lighter than before, and he lets the stars guide him home.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

It all comes to a head a few short weeks later, because of course it does. Sanji’s been chugging along far too pleasantly so really, it's on him. The second he lets himself enjoy life, the universe decides it’s time for a little reality check and the worst part, the worst part, is that he should’ve seen it coming.

The city’s tilting into Christmas and the city’s gone full throttle: massive, slightly grotesque baubles are hoisted into place across pedestrian streets, giant faux-tinsel choking the posts, and an endless loop of festive jingles echoing through the shops like a slow-moving curse. He catches a ceremony in the city centre with Porsche, recently ejected from the throuple situation and theatrically mopey, where they watch a colossal Christmas tree rise in the middle of the QVB like something out of a fever dream.

On paper, everything’s coming together. He’s nailed down a draft Christmas menu, to Jinbe’s relief. He’s managed to incorporate Franky’s suggestion of seared prawns with a bush tomato glaze, Nami’s yabby salad and Usopp’s experiment: a non-alcoholic drink with native lemon aspen, white peach, coastal tea and a kiss of mineral water that Fresco dubs “pretty decent”. Nami and Vivi are trading Pinterest boards and floral ideas like they’re building a tiny kingdom. Jinbe is easing towards the end of the year with the kind of quiet, satisfied calm Sanji envies a little more than he’d like to admit. 

He’s finally gotten more than three hours of sleep in a row.

“I’m going on a cruise with my family, but we should be back in time for New Year’s,” Bepo’s saying, his huge hands wrapped around a takeaway hot chocolate that smells like it once heard about cocoa from a distance. The coffee cart inside this particular gymnasium is a fucking tragedy, and an ongoing vexation in Sanji’s life since they always somehow end up here. He’s even tried to give the barista tips, but nothing ever improves and he’s taken to bringing his own coffee in a dented little Thermos Vivi found for him.

“That sounds… awful,” he replies honestly, lobbing Bepo’s abandoned (probably stale) marshmallow at Penguin and Shachi, who are making out far too aggressively a few rows ahead. It’s borderline illegal and all the marshmallow does is bounce off Penguin’s ridiculous hat. Shachi flips him off without breaking stride. 

“Hm, I thought you’d like the sea,” Bepo muses, but honestly, Bepo thinks everyone likes everything. He’s this strange mix of hypersensitive yet perpetually friendly and Sanji’s spent more time than he cares to admit trying to figure out exactly how he became Law’s ride-or-die. 

He sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t like the sea with screaming children, buffet food and everyone asking if I’ve met a nice girl yet. There’s a difference.”

Bepo hums agreeably, because Bepo always hums agreeably. “Wait, have you met a nice girl yet?”

“Oh god,” Sanji mutters. “All I’m saying is you can’t escape anyone. You’re stuck in a floating hotel with recycled air and kids doing shitty memes in the pool.”

“But the dessert buffet is great!”

The gym smells like sweat and lemon-scented floor polish, the kind of sharp sterile mix that makes Sanji instinctively want to crack open a window. Spectators are scattered across the bleachers, rows of parents and teammates and colleagues and friends, and the occasional baffled bystander who’s clearly wandered in by mistake. They’re sitting kind of near the back, Sanji’s long legs kicked out and crossed at the ankle under someone else’s chair, his Thermos balanced on his knee.

“He’s gonna win,” Bepo says beside him, whispering like they’re in a church. 

Sanji hums, noncommittal. He’d feel guilty for his lack of enthusiasm, but he’s got the community coffee comp tomorrow and he’s starting to get the pre-challenge jitters. Maybe he should’ve practised more? Everything’s just been moving so fast lately – parties and prep and fleeting glimpses of potential futures. It doesn’t help that he’s becoming increasingly aware that in a couple of months he’s going to have to say goodbye to whatever he’s created at Coral & Stone and start all over again, and sure, he’s always known it’s a temporary gig but now that the deadline is approaching he’s suddenly less and less sure about leaving.

He feels like he’s only just started.

The referee calls hajime and the match begins with a burst of energy, the last match in what’s been a long trek towards nationals. Law’s stance is narrow, textbook-perfect, every step measured like he’s solving a puzzle rather than fighting someone. Which is fair – if anything Law’s shown him that kendo’s more about precision, and less like the messier, brawling style Zoro’s always favoured, both in kendo and when they’d spar in alleyways on slow days, sweaty and sun-drenched, snapping at each other between blows. Zoro fights like a storm: loud, fast, forceful. 

Law fights like a scalpel. 

“You ever think he’s a bit terrifying?” Sanji murmurs, mostly to himself.

“He’s just focused,” Bepo replies earnestly. It’s possible he’s holding a little handmade flag with a crudely drawn face which Sanji really only recognises as Law due to the hat.

Law doesn’t waste effort on anything he doesn’t care about and technically neither does Zoro, but Zoro manages to be loud and feral about it, somehow. It’s an element of his life that’s been lacking since he came to Sydney – the chaos of that particular version of Zoro, reckless and grinning and irritating as hell, burned into his memory like the sear of a pan.

It was Usopp, not Zoro, who’d let it slip that Zoro barely missed qualifying for his own nationals last week, his first real loss in years, and apparently somehow managed to cop a brutal black eye for his efforts. It hasn’t come up in the group chat at all, which is a whole other level of bizarre considering Zoro’s matches usually drum up a bunch of chatter. 

It feels pointed, maybe. 

Sanji’s written and rewritten more messages than he’s proud of, each one stuck in his Notes app purgatory. He can’t find the right balance between heard you got the shit kicked out of you and why the fuck didn’t you tell me?? and honestly? He’s not convinced he wants a reply anyway.

Law wins, because of course he does, and Bepo cheers so loudly Sanji might need the rest of the night to recover. Shachi throws his hat somewhere and Penguin lovingly fetches it for him, before the crowd starts to break apart and really celebrate. Someone’s brought a confetti cannon and Sanji gets a blast of it in his hair, which is doubly annoying because he wasn’t planning to wash it for another day or two. Getting his hair routine right has been trial and error, adjusting to the softer water and figuring out the right products.

There’s a local news reporter or two floating about the gymnasium and one of them nabs Law for a photo opportunity (which he’s clearly thrilled about, if the twitch of his eyebrow is anything to go by) and Sanji takes the moment to flip open his phone and photograph Law being photographed, just for future ammunition.

He stares down at the photo for a second, confetti stuck in his hair and a world of emotion stuck in his head and he’s sent it off before he can think better of it, before he can calculate what it’ll cost him. sucks they kicked your ass. was looking forward to this guy creaming you at worlds

He hopes it stings. He wants it to sting, because then at least he’d get some proof that Zoro exists anymore. And then he immediately, immediately wants to lock himself in the cooler at work because what the fuck is going on with him.

“Are you alright?” Bepo asks on the way down to see his friend, pausing to assess whatever panic is blatantly locking Sanji up right now.

“Fuck,” Sanji hisses, frantically trying to hit unsend. It doesn’t work, because DenDen hates him and wants to see him suffer. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He lets Bepo drag him down to the floor, trying to unsend through multiple means, tearing through his DenDen message settings like a man possessed. Bepo and Law talk, maybe; everything is a roar in his ears and he frankly wouldn’t notice if the gymnasium caught fire. 

Actually, it would be better for all of them if the gymnasium caught fire.

It’s 2:00am over there. Zoro’s probably asleep, which means – 

He hits Luffy’s number before his brain can veto the decision – which, apparently, is half his problem in life – out of panic-induced muscle memory and an innate awareness of Luffy’s persistent insomnia. The phone rings twice and then Luffy picks up with a cheery, “Sanji!” and pie crumbs falling from his grin like a personal confetti cannon. His fingers are clearly sticky with whatever sugary crime he’s clearly committing in the kitchen. 

Sanji doesn’t give him an inch. “I need you to steal Zoro’s phone.”

Luffy blinks at him a few times, propping his chin up in his hand while he guides another forkful of cherry – cherry?  in winter? – pie through. “Why?”

“I sent something and I need you to delete it. Is he asleep?”

Luffy’s grin widens incrementally. In the background of his screen Sanji can see Law and Bepo exchanging concerned looks, as if they’re seriously considering whether or not they made a mistake in befriending him. Sanji can’t really blame them at this point. “What kind of something?”

“The kind of something that makes someone show up at your doorstep and punch you in the jaw.” 

“Ohhh.” Luffy looks delighted, and wolfish, and like he’s about to say something that’s going to send Sanji’s blood pressure through the damn roof. “A feelings something.”

“It was not – that’s not – no, fuck. It was just – it was petty and stupid and I didn’t mean to send it. Luffy. Can you get the damn phone or not?”

Luffy makes a show of thinking about it before he snaps his fingers and throws his fork into the sink, where it rattles too loudly for Sanji’s poor rattled nerves. “Leave it to me! I’m really sneaky!”

“You are not sneaky!” Sanji hisses after him, unreasonably taut because this is shaping up to be such a bad idea. He doesn’t know what the alternative is, but he’s already regretting this course of action immensely. “You’re the opposite of sneaky! You knocked over three chairs just entering a room – Luffy!”

Luffy takes his phone along with him, which means Sanji gets to a front row seat to his own anxiety eating him from the inside out, his whole body gone tense. Luffy is half as sneaky as he’d like to be, scuffling against the worn carpet and bumping into what could be a pile of laundry. There’s a thin scrap of light from Zoro’s window, a mediocre strip of yellow that offers absolutely nothing in the way of help, and Sanji watches Luffy’s face scrunch up as he tries to figure out how to turn his phone torch on.

“This thing never works,” Luffy complains and maybe he thinks he’s whispering, or maybe his perception of noise has been so badly warped by his own internal volume knob that he genuinely has no idea how loud he is.

The bedside lamp flickers on. Zoro’s face cycles through the entire emotional alphabet: confusion, realisation and then a deep, soul-weary exasperation that is wholly unique to his roommate, leaving Sanji to cycle through the five stages of grief at high speed, crash-landing somewhere around despair and staring at the screen like it’s personally betrayed him.

“Luffy,” Zoro sighs, long-suffering. “Go back to your own bed.”

“Sorry, Sanji, I don’t think I can get it now,” Luffy says, oddly sincere about it, tilting his head apologetically. Across the room, Zoro frowns and takes a few seconds to register who Luffy’s talking to and how – and then he sees Sanji on the screen and his mouth makes a funny downturn motion, like this is the worst thing he could’ve woken up to.

Sanji doesn’t know what to make of it. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other on camera since – well, and what the fuck does Zoro's expression mean?

“Uh,” he flounders, “I just thought… hey, have you met Law? You two’ve probably crossed paths in the kendo world, right?” It’s the only thing that comes to mind and, honestly, the sheer madness of the situation is almost worth it just to watch the horror dawn on Law’s face in real time. Law immediately goes for an exit, grabbing Bepo like he’s about to drag them both out of a burning building but before he can escape – and before Sanji can salvage even a shred of dignity – a second head pops into frame beside Zoro.

“Wassat?” Ace yawns, his voice groggy, and it’s like a cabinet of china crashes through Sanji’s ribcage. Everything comes to a screeching, clattering halt. Ace freezes when he catches sight of the screen, and even Luffy pausing in his sprawled cling means something’s off. But Sanji’s gaze locks onto Zoro, and Zoro – 

Zoro’s jaw is tight and Sanji knows, knows, that Zoro’s unease never shows up loud; it creeps in behind the eyes, clenches at the corners. He’s seen it before, but never aimed like this, and never at him.

He does the only thing his panic-addled brain can manage: he shoves his phone into Law’s hands with such force that the other man kind of stumbles and nearly drops it. It’s either that or Sanji’s going to kick his phone across the gymnasium, or smash it underfoot, or kick Zoro clean across the jaw.

“Curls –” Zoro tries but Sanji has long-ass legs for a reason and he puts them to use, heading anywhere-but-here. 

He bursts through the fire exit, the warm air hitting him like a little slap to the face. His brain is a void, silent and hollow, save for the deafening memory of Zoro’s expression, its self-inflicted guilt, and the churn of something ugly and mean crawling up his throat.

He knows, logically, it’s none of his fucking business what Zoro does, who he spends time with, who he – whatever. But. He can’t synthesise whatever the hell is happening in his head with action, with fact. None of it makes a single fucking lick of sense anymore and Zoro had agreed it wouldn’t be Ace. Not someone they know, not someone they’ll will have to see every damn day, someone who’ll always be there, intricately linked to both of their lives.

It's with a shot of horror that he realises they're never going to come back from this.

“You left this.” Law drops the phone into Sanji’s lap, closed and infuriatingly blank. He kicks the cement underfoot, his face pinched. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to be involved in this mess, and Sanji can’t really blame him. “That the ex?”

“What? No. No, there’s no – ” Sanji’s voice falters uselessly, his face already burning with mortification he can’t seem to outrun. “They’re my friends.”

Law grimaces like the air tastes bad, like Sanji is speaking in riddles. “Right. Well your friend talks too much. He said not to let you do anything stupid.”

Sanji scoffs loudly, sharp and acrid. Stupid? He’s already in the stupid. Knee-deep and sinking, at this rate. “Yeah, well, maybe he should mind his own goddamn business.” It’s not fair to Luffy and he knows it, Luffy who was only trying to help, but he can’t temper the rancid bitterness he’s got broiling. “Sorry I ruined your night,” he manages finally, because if he doesn’t say something the bile might actually strangle him.

Law snorts, deadpan. “Don’t overestimate yourself.” It’d probably sting if he didn’t follow it with a quick, almost absent squeeze of Sanji’s shoulder on the way back to his own friends – friends who aren’t burdened with whatever fucked-up curse that’s taken over Sanji’s life.

He can't quite choke down the anger: he's pissed at Zoro, yes, but he's more pissed at himself for buying into whatever the past few months have been, for letting it consume even an iota of his brain. For letting his guard down, even for a goddamn second, to entertain the thought that Zoro’s message had been anything other than a dark joke, a twisted experiment, designed to trip him up a bit, unravel him. Make him look like a fucking idiot.

They've always dug at each other’s insides and sometimes their verbal tiffs have spilled over into physical brawls, and maybe they’ve been at each other’s throats for years, but they’ve never been cruel to each other, not truly, not like this.  If it was a joke he hopes Zoro got a real good fucking laugh out of it, because he is done. He turns his phone off before a message can snake its way through, because right now he’d rather burn his own eyes out than listen to a single goddamn thing the other man – anyone, actually –  has to say on it.