AN: Since I have been having bad writer's blocks, I wrote a middle school short story that is quite innocent (rated T).
I hope you guys enjoy the story, and please do review upon it with any opinions, critiques, or just simple approvals. I will appreciate it.
Thank you~
Sanji favored routines over the unexpected, the random occurrences, the sporadic outbursts. He wasn't necessarily a traditionalist but he preferred to know the upcoming circumstances than being surprised by an unforeseen event. That is why all of his life he played alongside familiar habits, everyday duties; and if something ever were to disturb the peace of his mundane patterns, he would eliminate it out of his way as soon as possible.
But when a strange boy transferred into his class, there was a sudden ripple in Sanji's long lasted serenity.
. . .
There were snickers from the male members of the class. They were amused by the new kid who stood in front of the classroom, who held a rather indifferent expression even though his hair was dyed green and three golden earrings were dangling from his left ear. It was bizarre for anyone in middle school to appear so punk, and aloof about the fact that he was shocking their old lady of a teacher into rambling stutters. However, to Sanji's distaste, the girls seemed excited at the sight of this green haired punk. Words like 'bad-ass', 'mysterious', and 'cool' were floating around the air, buzzing nosily in Sanji's ears.
"He's really muscular, isn't he?" the girl behind him whispered to her friend who sat next to her. They both squealed with delight.
Sanji raised his eyebrows towards the kid in the front, realizing that indeed his arms were quite bulky for a middle school, snot nosed kid. It triggered something in the blond, like this adrenaline, blood rush to crave for a fight. But his logic, which usually won the battle of intuition versus the mind, told him that he should befriend this 'Zoro' since he had a reputation to maintain.
The old lady told Zoro to take his seat next to Sanji since it was the only available spot in the class.
With composure and an air of affability, Sanji greeted Zoro with a smile, "Hey."
The green haired boy buried his head in between his arms, as if saying: Don't talk to me, I'm taking a nap.
Sanji twitched, just a bit, but he wasn't offended yet. Perhaps the other boy did not hear nor see his attempt in being friendly. So, he tried one more time after class, calling after the boy who darted away after the loud ring of the bell, "Hey, wait up!" To Sanji's surprise, though he did yell across the room, the green haired kid actually stopped in his tracks.
He tapped Zoro on the shoulder with a grin, but the moment of satisfaction shattered when the boy turned around with a nasty glare on his face. "Leave me alone, Curly," he snapped.
That left Sanji befuddled. Curly? What was he—
With hesitance he reached for his eyebrows, which was his only understanding of what Zoro could've meant.
Zoro's lips curved into a wicked smirk, "You curled your eyebrows for too long, Curly-brow."
The blond's face immediately flushed with embarrassment but mostly anger as he pulled his lips back threateningly, snarling, like a wild animal who relied upon its instincts. "Bastard, I'm going to kick your ass," he growled, as he pounced on the green haired boy. The kids began to gather around them like moths to a flame, curiosity around chaos, as they cheered with glee with each punch and kick.
. . .
After that day, there was not a single period alone where they did not argue or pick a fight with one another. Most of the times neither of them even had a real, valid reason to fight. They just did, over the smallest things that aggravated them, or perhaps that was just an excuse to release steam that have been built up in their adolescent bodies.
Ever since then, as in the time Zoro happened in his life, Sanji had bitterly lost his reputation as the teachers' pet, had received detentions countless times, and received his title as a rebel. The worst thing about all of this was the fact that girls were now afraid of being anywhere around him .
But in all honesty, half of the times was Sanji creating a fuss, making up excuses to pick a fight with the mossy boy. He didn't even understand why.
"Oi, let me get that pen," Zoro asked, as he impatiently reached for the pen without waiting for an answer from Sanji.
The blond slapped his hand away, "Don't touch my stuff, marimo."
Zoro twitched in annoyance, "Why the hell not, you weren't using it."
"I just don't want you to use my things," Sanji responded. He jerked his legs up to fold them on top of one another, but in doing so he accidentally kicked Zoro in the shin with the steel tip of his shoes.
Zoro recoiled by pushing his chair back, creating a scraping sound against the white tiled floor. Then, with a tightened fist, he punched Sanji's arm, "You shitty eyebrows, kicking me out of nowhere like that, I didn't even do anything."
In a logical sense, it would have been better to have explained his situation in a calm manner by saying that it was an accident, but Sanji felt his aggravation being provoked with each word the other boy spoke. He swung his leg for the second time to kick Zoro's other shin, "Shitty marimo!"
"Dartboard bastard!"
Zoro countered with equal amount of power and persistence as Sanji, fists with legs, neither willing to back down. However, since they were both so busy fighting among themselves, they did not notice their orange haired, voluptuous, hot tempered, young teacher hovering over them, with veins prominent on her forehead. "THAT'S ENOUGH!" she bellowed, causing the two boys to flinch and instantly freeze with fear.
She guided them outside of the class, in the middle of the hallway, before proceeding with her lesson back inside the room.
"This is entirely your fault, marimo," Sanji mumbled as he crouched and leaned against the wall. A sickening feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, anxiously waiting for the punishment that was to come.
Zoro argued, "It wouldn't have ended up like this if you had just gave me that pen."
Un-freaking-believable.
They were still fighting even after getting in trouble for fighting. "I don't understand, marimo, why do you bother me so much? I mean, why can't you just leave me the hell alone?" he asked out of irritability. He simply wanted his structured routines once more, like how it used to be before the first day Zoro transferred into his class and next to his seat, because ever since then not a moment of peace had existed, and Sanji missed that peace terribly.
Zoro did not respond.
In curiosity, the blond turned to his side, realizing that the boy's already tanned features were darkening, a dark crimson streak emerging on both sides of his cheeks; and without a second thought, Sanji asked, "Are you blushing?"
"No." A stiff and an aloof response.
Sanji continued to mock him, "You're blushing! Are you embarrassed?"
In a quick motion, so fast that the blond could not even react, Zoro's arm shot up to grab his necktie and place his fuming face in front of Sanji's. "Shut up, shitty eyebrows." Their breaths mingled and the tips of their noses scarcely touched. And because Sanji felt obligated to be on the even grounds with the green haired boy, he also grabbed the front of Zoro's shirt.
"Marimo," he chocked out.
Zoro harshly threw the blond on the ground, ripping the curled fingers of Sanji's from his neck.
With a heavy thud, the blond landed on his ass, causing pain to shoot up his spine. "Bastard, that fucking hurt!" he shouted.
Full of pride, Zoro crossed his arms in front of his chest. "It's your fault, blondie," he mocked in the same voice Sanji had mocked him earlier.
Again, to get even, Sanji stretched one of his legs out to trip the other boy. He grinned when the brute bastard fell to the floor in an ungraceful manner. But unexpectedly, Zoro was silent when he stood up to brush the dirt off from his black pants, his expression shadowed because he was staring at the ground instead of Sanji.
"Did that hurt, marimo?" Sanji cooed.
The green haired boy raised his head to meet Sanji's eyes, with an expression that was full of mockery itself and a malicious grin that sent shivers down his spine. "No, you didn't hurt me. Your kicks can never hurt me, you know why? It's because you are fucking weak, shitty blond."
And although Sanji should have been used to the back and forth arguments between them already, that one just got the best of him. His face flushed in mortification, and in a complete blind rage he kicked Zoro in the stomach and sprinted down the hallway towards the library. Before walking inside, he slid down against a wall to calm himself down.
Shit.
He didn't understand why it was affecting him this much. He was used to Zoro's insults by now, hell Sanji was much worse than him, the way his imagination went with his verbal abuses. But it hurt to hear the other boy call him weak since Sanji always believed them to be equals, on the same ground, neither above or below the other. He considered Zoro as a rival because he respected the boy at least that much, for his strength and tenacity, but it crushed him to hear that the respect was not reciprocated.
"Oi Sanji!" a familiar voice called out from behind him.
It was a long nosed boy with a growing afro, Usopp, one of his closest friend from another class. "Hey," he greeted but immediately felt sorry for sounding so dismal.
Usopp raised an eyebrow in confusion, "Something wrong?" Since the blond didn't feel like talking about Zoro, he merely shrugged in response. The long nosed boy swiftly changed the topic, "I never thought you would be the type to skip classes."
"I'm not skipping, I just got kicked out of the class," he responded with a pout.
"Oh," Usopp droned out the word. "Another fight with Zoro," he identified the problem straightaway. "What happened this time?" Before Sanji even had a chance to open his mouth, the bell rang, indicating that school was over. "Sorry Sanji, talk to me after school, I have to get my stuff," Usopp told him as he ran back to his classroom.
"Ah, wait!" Sanji wanted to tell him that he likely had detention today, but Usopp was long gone. So instead he headed back his own class to face the wrath of his orange haired, sexy but terrifying teacher, who was sitting by her desk when he opened the door to walk inside.
"Oh ho, look who decided to show up."
The blond gulped, "I'm sorry, Ms. Nami."
Although he was in a dire situation, at the sight of her breasts neatly propped on top of the desk, like one of those erotic porno magazines he sometimes sneaks into his bedroom, he lightly grinned.
"I can't believe you think this is funny." She crossed her arms right beneath her breasts. "You and Zoro will have detentions again," she told him in a firm tone that basically shouted 'no excuses'. "Zoro is in Mrs. Nico's classroom at the moment, I want you to stack up the chairs while you are waiting for him."
Sanji nodded.
He heard the tiny clicks of Nami's red heels leading outside the classroom, heading towards the teacher's lounge that was two doors down. She usually took breaks after school, to chat with the other teachers and to have a light snack.
As the blond began to stack up the chairs, he wondered about what to say at Zoro's entrance. Usually they acted as if nothing had occurred after a fight, but never before did Sanji sprint away after an insult like a pansy, which he truly regretted now since it showed weak character which only further proved Zoro right. As he stacked away the last chair, he felt the emptiness of the room, and it felt strange to be alone somewhere where it was usually compacted with noisy classmates.
The door opened, and Sanji tightened as well as held his breath.
"Hey Sanji, didn't know where you went so I thought I should check here," he heard Usopp's voice. When Sanji turned to look in his direction, he saw a slingshot in the long nosed boy's hand, which he carried as a habit now because he was bullied back in elementary school.
The blond relaxed his shoulders. "Sorry Usopp, I have detention today."
"Thought so." He fondled his slingshot before aiming it towards the chalkboard, pulling the rubber band as far back as where his eyes were. "I made a new weapon yesterday," he told Sanji with a childlike grin.
"Fire away," the blond grinned back.
At the release of the rubber band, the whole chalkboard instantly became covered with chalk dusts and the air surrounding it became white like smoke. "I call it chalk fume," he announced it proudly. "The effects of this weapon are sneezing and shaded vision."
"I think it's more like oil to the fire," Sanji added, barely audible.
Loud footsteps were heard outside of the classroom, approaching the door, and Usopp's face became three shades lighter. "Crap, if Ms. Nami finds me here, she will skin me alive. Bye, Sanji!" he quickly said his farewells as he ran out the door like a madman, or someone who had committed murder. It left Sanji laughing to himself, but that laughter was short lived when he noticed the person who had walked inside the room. "Marimo," he murmured far too loudly.
Zoro himself seemed surprised from seeing Sanji. "Curly brow."
The air surrounding them felt constricting, painful to breath in, and Sanji's stomach did many flips as he racked his head for the subsequent words to say. "Shitty moss, I have detention thanks to you." He wanted to smack his head repeatedly against the chalkboard, but he couldn't help it, it was just a word vomit to insult Zoro.
Oddly, unexpectedly, Zoro's features lightened into a smile. "Shitty cook," he insulted but sounding relieved.
"Oh, you boys are here," Nami gleefully interrupted the two.
Zoro's eyes became two slits as he glared in the direction of the orange haired woman. "Witch," he mumbled under his breath. She conked him on the head with her fist, in which he groaned as a response.
Then all of a sudden, she gasped in shock as she stared behind Sanji's head. "Who did this?"
The blond immediately knew what she was talking about without even turning around. It was the mess Usopp made before running off, making Sanji appear to be the culprit instead. "I can explain—" he calmly began, contrasting his inner turmoil which was panic.
Nami separated her words carefully, "Sanji, did you do this?"
He swallowed the thick saliva in the back of his throat, about to take the blame for his long nosed friend since he did encourage him after all. Zoro interrupted the two, "Witch, do you really think this suck-up did all of this, just to piss you off?" he was incredibly sarcastic but also reasonable.
She considered what he was saying, just for a moment, before giving him two more hits on the head, causing Sanji to flinch in heavy empathy. "One for calling me a witch and the other for creating this mess. Clean this up while I'm gone since I have a meeting to attend to. This room better be spotless by the time I come back," she demanded in a strict tone of voice before walking out of the room for the second time.
Zoro headed outside of the classroom right after the teacher.
"Oi, where the hell do you think you're going?" the blond shouted after the boy, standing uneasily without knowing what to do next.
"What the hell do you think?" the green haired boy grumbled before abusing the door by slamming it loudly, presumably in a bad mood because of those triple conks to his head by the orange haired teacher.
Sanji was left befuddled, but instead of distressing over where Zoro went, he sat down to quickly jot down on his journal. Well, it wasn't a journal, it was a life recorder. Instead of writing about the day or his feelings, he wrote lists and simple procedures, like how his day went or some recipes he created out of thin air. Lately though, he had been documenting his strange relationship with Zoro. Most of the content was filled with the bad traits of the boy, but today he decided to create a new topic.
Good traits of Zoro: I can easily mess around with him. He smells good (pine cones). He backs you up when you really need him to, randomly.
He paused.
It was strange that the green haired boy had took the blame for him. He doubted it was out of kindness since they weren't friends or anything, so there was absolutely no reason behind Zoro's actions other than maybe instincts. Yeah, instinct, he concluded. As he was putting his journal back into his backpack, a huge wad of paper napkins were placed on the desk next to his. Sanji realized that Zoro had went to the bathroom and the janitor's closet to get a bucket full of water, a mop, and paper napkins to clean the chalk dusts.
"Writing about me, Curly?" Zoro asked, casually.
How did he know? the blond wondered as he began to panic, his pulse racing and his eyes widening.
When the green haired boy noticed Sanji's expression, his mouth curved into a cheeky but amiable smile, "I was just joking, Sanji."
That made the blond's eyes widen even further. Zoro had never called him by his actual name in the past, so this was certainly a pleasant first.
Zoro's face immediately flushed once more. "Bastard, stop standing there looking like an idiot and help me clean Usopp's mess, or that old witch will come back to beat the shit out of me again," he began to ramble. "That coward, causing a mess then running away. I saw him sprinting down the hall, it was so obvious that he did something to feel guilty for. Now I'm stuck doing this—"
Sanji smirked at the boy's panicky chatter. "Yeah, yeah, I'll help, marimo." He soaked some of the napkins in water. "By the way, thanks for taking the blame earlier," he expressed his gratitude as he ran the wet napkins across the chalk filled board.
"Whatever," he responded, and although it sounded emotionless and cold, his mouth was arched into a tiny smile.
The blond's arms were extended to reach every part of the board in order to not leave a single spot unscathed, and copying Sanji the green haired boy took the other end of the chalk board to clean. Being that he still lacked in height, there was a single spot which was the upper left corner that he could not reach no matter how he used his tippy-toes and jumped up and down repeatedly. In frustration, he threw the napkins in hopes for it to hit the only white spot.
"Dammit," when none worked.
"Stay still," a voice whispered into his ears as the radiating warmth pressed against Sanji's back. The blond stopped moving, stopped breathing as well, when Zoro's outstretched arm easily wiped the speck of chalk off. In that instance, Sanji felt the other boy's heartbeat as well as the pace of his quick breaths.
"You know, marimo, you're not half bad," the blond found himself saying after the pressing body of Zoro's parted from his own.
The green haired boy cleared his throat. "I thought you knew that already, Curly," he sarcastically remarked before dipping the tip of the mop into the bucket of water.
"Oi, oi, don't turn my rare compliments into one of your arrogant self boosts, bastard," Sanji told him with a playful flick of some chalk remains toward the other boy. "Hah, take that."
The chalk dusts landed on Zoro's shirt. "Bastard, this is my favorite shirt, I can't believe you did that!" he growled in response with a quick reaction to wipe the dust off.
Sanji's eyes grew wider as he clasped his mouth like a middle aged lady, "Sorry, didn't know."
Surprisingly, quite alarmingly actually, Zoro erupted with laughter, "I don't fucking care about my shirt, Curly. God, I'm not a prude like you." He began to wipe the floor with the mop.
"Yeah, you're definitely the barbarian in this relationship," Sanji grumbled. By 'relationship' he meant 'rivalry' but it sounded wrong he pretended to occupy himself with cleaning once again, but luckily Zoro was to dense to realize anything except for the insult. The green haired boy collected chalk particles in his palm before throwing it at the blond.
"Hey! This is a black overcoat, it can stain, you bastard!" Sanji shouted, causing Zoro to snicker in response. The blond reddened because the 'prude' remark was partially, completely true. In embarrassment, he himself scooped a handful of chalk dust to throw it back.
This time it exploded on Zoro's face. Sanji's satisfaction swelled.
The green haired boy coughed a few times before having his vengeance on Sanji by throwing some on his face as well. And soon enough, both of them were engaged in war, causing a further mess than cleaning up. Sanji didn't know what occurred but they had both discarded the chalk powders to brawl physically instead. Zoro guarded entirely as Sanji gave some strong blow, wanting to prove that he wasn't a weak opponent, wanting to change Zoro's mind, wanting Zoro's respect to be on equal grounds.
However, when Sanji knocked Zoro off his feet, he realized that he was being weak by taking that comment so seriously.
Only weaklings would overreact at being called weak.
A strong person understood that they were strong, without validations from anybody else. Sanji was being a weak character by trying to prove to someone else that he was strong.
He exhaled a heavy sigh as he helped Zoro up. "Sorry for attacking you so viciously, I kind of wanted to prove your earlier comment wrong," he told him honestly since he didn't feel like lying through his teeth.
"That comment about you being weak?" Zoro asked with widened eyes. Sanji nodded. "Curly, that was out of spite. Anyone who can knock me off my feet are strong in my eyes," he replied honestly, as well, creating a further blush upon his dark features, his cheekbones especially.
Sanji's face also brightened, it was endearing but also embarrassing to have the acknowledgement from a rival whom he respected heavily. "You ass, tricking me like that, but thanks." He even waved his hands in front of him, trying to hide his grin, reminding himself of his tiny friend, Chopper. But he stopped when he noticed Zoro's strange expression, a dark wave over his eyes with heavy eyelids, and a twitch of his mouth, a look of... yearning?
And he seemed to be leaning forward, nearing Sanji who was frozen in place, who was too confused to move.
The distance between them narrowed and there was a sound of thud created by the mop hitting against the floor, and the blond was hit with a sudden thought. He is going to kiss me! But that was preposterous! This was Zoro, his green headed mossy rival! His classmate! A boy! But all of those swirling thoughts came to a halt when their lips met, a mere touch of skin, but so clumsy and tender and awkward. Sanji gasped lightly.
He had not the slightest clue what was happening. His lips were motionless as Zoro continued to experiment with his supple lips, playfully sucking on Sanji's bottom lip and pressing his tongue through his teeth.
But it only lasted for a few seconds before Sanji abruptly pushed the other boy away, with such force that caused the two of them to stumble.
"W-What—" he began to stutter, unable to think clearly nor speak coherently.
Zoro's eyes remained affixed to the floor, as if he could shoot lasers and burn a hole through the ground by that action. Neither of them spoke, the room was silent, and the only thing Sanji wanted to do was bolt and that was exactly what he did.