Prologue

Sanji was starting to get used to his apartment being filthy, and he fucking hated it. For god's sake, when was the last time he'd bothered to do laundry? He couldn't even remember. He used to keep things so clean, but now he couldn't even manage to walk across the living room without tripping over a half-finished book or a dress shoe that hadn't quite made it to the closet. There was a layer of dust a mile thick on top of his coffee table; if it were anyone else's home but his own, he would assume the owner had died ages ago. Then again, maybe he had.

His kitchen, heartbreakingly, was in no better shape than the rest of his dwelling. The counters were covered in papers and unopened mail rather than pots and pans; hell, someone could steal his dining room table and he'd probably go weeks without noticing its absence.

With mild reluctance, he tugged open the refrigerator door; and for what must have been the millionth time that month, he was met with nothing but a few meager containers of leftovers. Enough to live off of for a few days, but nothing extravagant; nothing worth his time. He shouldn't have expected any different.

It didn't help that walking to the nearest grocery store would entail a half hour long trek through the torrential downpour outside. With a twisted frown, his eyes flickered to the kitchen window; there was no sign of the rain letting up in any reasonable amount of time, either. Figures.

But really, he should have been thankful; plenty of people had to put up with far longer trips to get food those days. How many grocery stores did their locality even have, anymore? He could only think of two off the top of his head. And one of the two was hardly ever in possession of proper produce, so it hardly counted.

Even as a chef, though, the grocery stores were the least of his worries. Overpopulation and budget cuts across the board left the world with little comfort, in general. Funds were too low to sustain most of the institutions people had grown used to; the downsizing of prisons, hospitals, schools, and such were unavoidable. But the world had found a way to function with less of those, as it turned out; and the shift hadn't been as difficult as one would have expected. The walks were longer, sure, but most people could use the exercise anyway. That was the running joke amongst the locals, at least.

Compared to when Sanji was still only a child, life had changed quite a bit. For one thing, people relied a hell of a lot more on one another than they used to. Hospital trips were reserved almost entirely for those that were truly ill; some wouldn't even make an emergency room visit after suffering a damn bullet wound, opting rather to get a friend to fix their wounds instead. In that same vein, people relied on each other for more mundane issues as well. It wasn't too long ago that Sanji had been feeding at least ten families in his apartment complex out of his own home kitchen, for instance. Why? Because he could, he supposed. That was just how things were. Sometimes the others would give him gifts in return for his services; that was where the books that had overtaken his living room had come from. How many of them had he actually read, anyway…? He could only remember what a handful of them were even about.

Criminality was handled a tad differently, too... well, perhaps that was a bit of an understatement. Gone were the days of keeping criminals behind bars; most of them, at least. The only offenders that were kept imprisoned those days were the really dangerous ones. Instead of keeping them for months or even years in jail like they had when prison space was more abundant, there was another strategy to dealing with lawbreakers.

Which was, quite simply, to execute a random citizen for their transgression.

Those who went against the law were encumbered with documenting the passing of the people they'd essentially sentenced to death for their shitty decision-making. According to the legislators that had instituted the fucked up system in the first place, there was a method to the madness; the goal was to teach immoral citizens the true value of life. This was achieved, apparently, by forcing them to face the person that was suffering for their wrongdoings. So, for a month, they wrote about the person who was going to die for them. They'd write about their life, their faults, their dreams, their jobs, whatever struck them as important. If they refused, they and their martyr would die on the spot. Not that that ever happened, as far as Sanji knew. Who the hell would choose death over writing a damn paper, after all?

That said, there were almost never any repeat offenders; the few that didn't learn the first time around were never given a second chance to repent. Rather than sacrificing another innocent civilian in hopes of moral rehabilitation, they were promptly killed for their second misdemeanor. No month to reflect on their life, no documentor to do them justice. Just… death. It was no wonder habitual outlaws were practically nonexistent.

There was a lot of room for death, but that was the point, wasn't it? It horrified the public to the point where people practically forced each other to behave perfectly. And it certainly helped a bit with the overpopulation issue, morbid as that was. Funny how people never liked to talk about that part, though.

As far as Sanji was concerned, the whole system was batshit insane. But hell if it didn't work; crime had declined steadily every year since the law was instated. Just as they'd hoped, people were far more afraid of misconduct than they ever had been before; after all, your martyr could be anyone. It could be your lover, or your own damn child, for fuck's sake. Statistically it was far more likely to be a stranger, but very few were bold enough to take the chance.

And if you were pegged as a lawbreaker, you might as well give up on being treated equally by society ever again; the government strapped a band around your arm, and suddenly you were the fucking monster who took someone's child away. Even if all you did was steal a bag of candy, you were below human for the rest of your life as far as everyone else was concerned.

It may have been a functioning system, but it was a miserable one. Finding joy in cooking was all Sanji could do to keep from drowning in the fear that had overtaken so many others. And there was no shortage of mouths to feed either, evidently. So that was a plus.

But even so, could he consider himself to be happy? If the clutter and disarray around him was any indication, then… well, no, probably not.

But that was a problem for another day, he figured. For now, his only goal was to buy some damn food. That would be a good start, wouldn't it? Finding happiness could wait a day or two.

Making his way back across the living room, he sighed inwardly at the mess that overtook his couch. His coat was in that pile somewhere… at least, he thought it was. Brushing a stack of fallen papers aside, he cracked a half-smile when his fingers grazed over familiar fabric. Promptly throwing the jacket over his shoulders, he took a brief moment to appreciate the warmth it offered. It would be short-lived, however, undoubtedly to be lost to the wind and rain outside.

Reaching for the doorknob, he stopped in his tracks when he heard two soft knocks from the other side. Strange, he wasn't expecting anyone. His mind reeled, trying to compile a list of who could possibly be bothering to visit him in the middle of such a shitty rainstorm, but he came up empty. All of his friends made a habit to call before coming over, if only to make sure he was actually there first. So then, who the hell was on the other side of his door?

Another two knocks, louder this time, shook him out of his musing. He yanked the door open by sheer reflex, and a short breath caught in his throat as his eyes hung on the drenched man before him.

He was umbrella-less, soaked to the bone, and sporting a cryptic expression that Sanji couldn't read for the life of him. He looked small somehow, though not in size; he was Sanji's height if not slightly taller, but his presence was infinitesimal. Maybe it was in the way his shoulders were hunched; from the weight of the rain or something else, he couldn't quite be sure. Not unlike a stray puppy, he couldn't help but think.

Was there value in life? As the stranger in his doorway stared back at him with bloodshot eyes, Sanji was as unsure as he'd ever been.

The man said nothing; silence hung between them for eons. But the black armband the man wore, a government-sanctioned symbol used to warn the public of such "monsters", said more than the man himself could have.

"Can I help you?" Sanji asked, if only as a last ditch attempt to pretend nothing was wrong.

"I'm… Zoro," he started, voice low but completely devoid of any perceptible inflection. "I've been assigned to accompany you for the last thirty days of your life."

"Ah, really...? Come on in, then. Watch your step."

A/N: I only have an outline of where this is going, so let's take the journey together, I guess. o wo;;