Sanji looks at the ship's filthy kitchen. The piles of plates, massive animal skeletons almost picked clean and mess of leftover peelings and ends of one lunch would be enough to dismay any world-class chef. It was a true monster of a mess, the unnatural appetites and diets of his crew making his job strange and exciting.
A smile creeps slowly onto Sanji's face. He'd always liked a challenge.
The dishes are clean and sparkling in minutes, the leftovers put on the side for tonight's dinner. It wasn't the best dinner set a chef could work with, a dripping sea king carcass and some odds and ends most chefs would have immediately thrown in the trash.
Sanji, however, is not most chefs. He is soon preparing a rich stew and delicate salad from the remainders, grinning happily at his creations develop. It's just more satisfying, working to beat the challenges of a limited pantry than easily making something with a full one.
He knows he would get bored, irritated, stagnating at a boring, normal life. After all, he'd chosen to follow a captain to an unreachable destination and ridiculous goal to reach his own impossible dreams.
And speaking of impossible dreams… Sanji puts a couple fancy drinks on a tray and checks his reflection in the mirror. Well dressed, charming smile, perfectly curled eyebrows. Good.
He brings the tray out onto the deck of the ship to his two favourite crewmates. He exhales softly at what he sees.
Nico Robin, stretched out on a lawn chair, sunbathing. She almost glows, and the mysterious smile she sends him gets his heart beating madly.
"Thank you," she says, taking a drink, and his stomach does a somersault. This mysterious woman will kill him, so out of his league, so beautiful, so perfect.
He turns and starts his walk to the orange grove, the butterflies of his love for Robin still fluttering in his chest.
And then he sees Nami, and like every time, his mind goes blank.
She almost glows, orange in the sunlight. A caring and loving smile on her face as she gardens. So gentle, so sweet and clever, so manipulative, and so, so beautiful. Coldly cruel and burningly wrathful.
She has no need for any man, and she definitely doesn't want him. Sanji, who can't say one intelligent thing in her presence, who worships her so much he can't compete with her how an equal could, how someone she'd want would.
She's absolutely unattainable, entirely disinterested, manipulating him completely and twisting a new dagger in his heart every time she refuses him.
He's always liked a challenge.