Author's Notes: First and foremost, let me say a very big THANK YOU VERY MUCH to Vampire-Otaku1...whom without, this story would NOT be in existence at all!!! This story was inspired by her wonderful "Unrequited Interest" (if you haven't read it, please go back and read it BEFORE reading this!!!)

After reading that story, the characters would not shut up! They just kept it up until I had to write down what they were telling me...

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, VAMPIRE-OTAKU1!!!

Also, I do not own any of these characters!!! They all belong to the great Eiichiro Oda!!! I'm just using, and abusing, them... (ducking kicks and sword swings). For the sake of the story!

WARNING: Ahoy, FOUL LANGUAGE ahead!!! You have thus been warned!!!

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Chapter 1: Aftermaths

One moment of weakness. One moment of letting his guard down, and he had kissed the one man on the entire ship who was the least likely to understand...and would be the most likely to kill him.

Sanji's mind flooded with horrible images of what he had seen in his lifetime.

Male pirates who had come to work on the Baratie, who had made unwanted advances towards other male cooks. The angry looks. The stares. The suspicion that was cast on their every word and actions...until the inevitable. They would disappear. Whether it was on an outgoing ship, or overboard, he didn't know. However, it was dangerous in the world of pirates and marines to express such feelings towards another man...

And now, Sanji had pissed-off the one man on the ship who could probably kill him right where he stood.

Shit, thought Sanji to himself as his trembling fingers lit a cigarette that he had placed between his lips.

How could he have allowed himself to lose control of his feelings? How could he have been so stupid to have misread Zoro's angry barbs and actions as some type of affection for him? And, how could he now stay on the Going Merry with the rumors and side-glances that would undoubtedly start now that he had kissed Zoro.

Placing a hand over his eyes, Sanji felt the tears start to well up.

"FUCK!!!" He thought. "It's all over now. I'll have to find another crew. Another way to reach All Blue."

And then a dreadful thought hit him.

"What if word leaked out about what he had done? Even if he did find another crew, would they react like Zoro?"

As he felt his dreams crumbling into oblivion around him, Sanji wept.

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Zoro, still shaking from the fury that was still boiling in his veins, swung the weights before him as if he were twirling a chopstick.

"Fucking Cook," he quietly swore to himself, "fucking pervert...fucking son-of-a-bitch!!!"

It was true, Zoro thought to himself, he HAD on a few occasions been struck by the coy glances that the cook had thrown his way, and how his graceful and slender frame had caught his attention whenever he fought against his opponents. Or, how the blonde's agile body could contort himself into all sorts of positions...

"BAKA!!!" Shouted Zoro as the speed of his swings grew faster, and the directions of his aim more careless. "Fucking Cook!!!"

"Watch what you're doing!" Yelled Nami as the weights barely missed her head by a few centimeters.

Realizing how close he had come to harming one of his nakama, Zoro froze and put the weights back down on the ship's deck.

"I didn't see you there," came Zoro's awkward substitute for an apology.

"Well, it's lucky that I saw you," Nami replied, still a bit miffed at the near miss, "otherwise, I'd be unconscious, and the rest of you would be aimlessly drifting around in this ocean."

Zoro didn't respond, still caught up in his mind with his angry tirade at Sanji. Sensing something wrong with the green haired swordsman, Nami tried to catch his attention.

"Zoro?" No response. "Zoro?!" Finally the man looked at her, "What's wrong?"

Still seething, the swordsman spat out a sharp, "Your fricking Ero-Kokku kissed me!!!"

"And?"

Zoro was slightly taken aback by Nami's question. However, he quickly regained his composure...

"'And?' He's a fucking pervert!!!"

"Because he kissed you?"

"Yes!!!"

"Because he finally got up enough courage to show how he's felt about you all this time?"

"What?!?"

"Because, despite his being raised around pirates and knowing how violent SOME of them can be when another male shows interest in them...He still went ahead and showed his feelings for you?"

"I...oh...BUT I'M NOT...I don't..."

"Zoro," Nami quietly spoke, looking directly into the green-haired man's eyes, "I don't know how you REALLY feel about Sanji. However, I know how much courage it would have taken him to show you how he felt. If the pirates he grew up with are anything like those that I..." Nami swallowed as she seemed to remember something from her past, "I KNOW the amount of fear that he must have had about showing you how he felt. I just hope that you didn't do anything stupid."

Then, quickly turning, the orange-haired navigator walked off.

Left with only Nami's sobering words echoing in his brain, the confused swordsman could only utter one word.

"Fuck..."

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Rushing through the kitchen door, Luffy hopped up on the table and started lunch-time with his familiar wail.

"Sanji, I'm hungry!!!"

However, this time the blonde figure didn't move. His head still resting on the table, as if it's owner was just taking an afternoon nap.

"Sanji, I'm HUNGRY!!!" Came a plaintive cry from Luffy, as he started to shake the other man's shoulder. "Wake up, Sanji!!!"

Instead of waking up, the blonde cook's body shifted, slumping down to the floor.

"SANJI!!!" Yelled Luffy, his shout reverberating throughout the ship.

Sanji lay on the floor, next to a puddle of blood that had accumulated underneath the kitchen table. His eyes half closed, face and hands ashen and pale. Only the faintest rise and fall of his chest gave evidence that somewhere in that shell, someone was still in residence of that body.

Luckily, the first to arrive after hearing Luffy's scream was Chopper. Quickly accessing the situation, the reindeer rushed out to retrieve his surgical equipment, as he left it to Luffy and the rest of the crew, who arrived one after another, to lift the bleeding man onto the kitchen table.

Zoro was the last member of the crew to arrive. Seeing the cook lying on the table, blood still slowly pulsating from a sliced open wrist, he could only once more utter that word that he had been saying so many times today.

"Fuck..."

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Author's (Chapter) Ending Notes: I hope you guys liked this. (And, I especially hope that Vampire-Otaku1 liked it!) Mahalo and Aloha!