Shakey hands reached into his breastpocket and pulled out a well worn carton of cigarettes. Voices mumbled inside his ears, as if people were whispering secrets to him, but those people never really existed outside his head. They talked too low, usually, for him to understand what they were saying, but sometimes their voices would raise and he'd catch part of a conversation on home decoration and the alignment of the single couch he had in his apartment.
He paid the voices little attention, as his brain was currently occupied with more pressing matters- a forced marraige between him and a member of another well-off family. He didn't understand why his father had come such a long way to take him back in the first place, when he had run away as a child.
It had been years since he stopped running around in his friend's gang, kicking the asses of those that needed kicking, and saving people or sometimes, on occasion, entire cities. He just wanted to live quietly in his shitty little apartment with his shitty little voices inside his head, lamenting over the loss of the love of his life and being pathetic overall.
He hadn't heard from the Marimo in some time, since the announcement was made that he was to be married, but the blond could really use his hard way of loving right about now. He wondered if Zoro was angry with him. Of course, it wasn't his fault or decision to be married, so it wouldn't make sense to be upset with him, but that's the only thing Sanji could think of. Otherwise...otherwise maybe he might've been a bit happier right about now.
Sanji looked down at his phone. He found himself scrolling through his contacts, hovering over the name "Marimo 3" .
"Do it." Whispered some of the voices.
"Don't." Whispered some others.
"Do it," whispered the inner voice that belonged to himself, and Sanji found himself opening a new message line. "You miss him. You need him." He typed out his message. Just three letters. He didn't want to show the Marimo how much he missed him.
'Hey', it spelled out. He pressed "SEND" before he could change his mind, and held his breath. Would he get a reply? He didn't think so, but he waited with bated breath anyway. He waited for an eternity and a half before his phone pinged at him, signaling a text back from a certain someone.
The reply was just as simple as the text Sanji had sent out, but it made his breath catch in his throat and his happy expression fell.
'Whose number is this?'