This fic is for the Christmas Zosan Drabble exchange, I'm New Year's Eve and the last in the exchange! I hope you all enjoy this! Thanks so much to Elke for being my Beta! 3
Sanji adores romance. If romance was a religion he would be devout, he'd pray to the gods of romance every hour and attend every service and sermon. He is SO into romance. His flat is completely filled with romance films, they surround his TV and fill up his shelves. His bookshelves are crammed with books with epic romances, he just loves love.
For the longest time Sanji had idealised who he would end up with, every new girl excited him with the possibility of being 'the one'. And he would treat all of his ladies with the utmost love and care. He bought them dozens of red roses, heart shaped boxes of chocolates and he did romantic things like sing to them outside of their windows.
Of course all of those relationships had eventually ended in one way or another. But he'd expected that sooner or later he'd be right about one of these ladies and he'd get his happily ever after with a wife, kids, a dog and a white picket fence. That was what all of the romance movies sold him.
He's not entirely sure when it had started happening, perhaps from the moment that he met him. Zoro had always been able to get under his skin like no one else ever had done, he'd mocked him about Sanji's multiple failed relationships and love of romance. But throughout all of that Zoro had been a constant in his life. Sure he had the rest of their friends, and they were all amazing, but... Zoro. Well, Zoro was different.
Zoro was his opposite in almost every possible way, where Sanji was refined Zoro was coarse and gruff, where Sanji made grand gestures Zoro had quiet comments and where Sanji fell in love over and over Zoro remained stoically single. The whole idea had hit him out of the blue one day, he'd been dumped (again) and he'd been thinking that Zoro wouldn't be so calm if he was in Sanji's position, if some girl had broken his heart.
The reaction had been instant. Sanji had recoiled at the very idea of Zoro being with a girl, of falling in love with someone. A tidal wave of 'no! MINE!' had crashed onto Sanji, leaving him in no doubt about his feelings. He didn't want to see Zoro like that because he didn't want Zoro to be with anyone... anyone but him. It had taken him long enough to quietly freak out over his feelings and the fact that he was having them for a man and Zoro of all people but after enough time he had quietly accepted it. He'd be a hypocrite to deny love when it stares him in the face after all.
The marimo of course remains obstinately oblivious to Sanji's feelings but Sanji can deal with that. Sanji wants to confess his feelings to Zoro in the most romantic way possible, it needs to be perfect. The best thing about it is that when Zoro says yes Sanji can lord it over him that romance really works.
New Year's Eve is the perfect night for Sanji to enact his plan to sweep Zoro off of his feet. They'll have their magical first kiss on midnight and it'll be a beautiful new beginning for them. All he needs to be sure to do is to implant the idea of a New Year's kiss into Zoro's mind.
"You've gotta have someone to kiss, marimo. It's New Year's Eve." Sanji says seriously as he slinks up into Zoro's space. Zoro is standing in Sanji's living room with a mug of Sanji's special hot spiced wine in his hand and wearing what has to be the most ugly christmas sweater in existence. It's covered in reindeer that look like they're suffering from leprosy. And yet Sanji still wants to have sex with him, if that isn't true love he doesn't know what is.
"Yeah, yeah. You've been going on about kissing and good luck at New Year's all night, worry about your own kiss, not mine!" Zoro grumbles, shoving Sanji in the shoulder.
Sanji scowls at Zoro. He's so unbelievably dense.
Sanji's big plan is to have his first kiss with Zoro be at midnight, just the two of them secluded and quiet. Where he can kiss Zoro magically and tell him how he feels, he's got it all set up to be movie magic perfect. Zoro is going to be romanced off of his stupid feet tonight, he won't know what hit him.
"Oi, Robin. You doing this dumbass New Year's kiss thing?" Zoro asks, oafishly chugging his wine and wandering up to Robin. The blood drains from Sanji's face. Seriously?! Zoro's going to ask Robin to kiss him?!
Robin's beautifully arched eyebrows raise a little at Zoro's question and Sanji spots her perfectly blue eyes flick to him over Zoro's shoulders and she smiles a slow catlike smile.
"Indeed I am, I'm a big believer in participating in cultural traditions. I'm going to kiss Chopper for New Year's." Robin smiles serenely at him.
"Oh, okay." Zoro shrugs, as if he couldn't care less. Idiot.
"I'm going to kiss Chopper too! There's an uneven number of us and Chopper deserves a doubly good New Year, the rest of you can pair up, sorry Sanji!" Nami says quickly, shooting Sanji an apologetic smile that leaves Sanji no room to protest. Ordinarily he would protest, however for once it's not the ladies that he's trying to kiss but Zoro, so this works with his plan nicely.
Franky sits forward on the sofa, helping himself to a handful of tortilla chips.
"Hey Brook." Franky calls, crunching a chip between his teeth.
"Wanna pair up for old dude New Year kisses?" Franky asks, shovelling a few more into his mouth. Sanji silently approves, then all he needs is for Usopp and Luffy to pair up, he's pretty sure that Usopp won't ask Zoro as he's a total chicken so he just needs luck to be on his side and for Luffy to ask Usopp and not Zoro.
"Hmm. I don't know..." Brook considers, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
Sanji's eyes widen. Shit no! No one can kiss Zoro but him, these bastards have to pair up!
"Can I see your panties first?" Brook grins.
"HELL YEAH!" Franky yells, leaping up.
"No! Don't-" Nami calls, but before she can get any further Franky has ripped off the jeans that the others had only just barely persuaded him to wear tonight, revealing his time worn speedo. Franky juts his ass in Brook's face and the two share a dirty old man high five.
Sanji spares a moment to consider what the hell has gone wrong with his life to put him in this situation. Nami seems to be similarly evaluating her life choices as she groans in despair, having to put up with another evening of Franky forgoing half of his wardrobe. Robin just looks amused at the whole situation as always.
"Hey Luffy, I don't want Sanji to fall in love with me, as many men have of course, how about I kiss you for New Year's?" Usopp asks Luffy, who is currently stuffing his mouth with an entire pizza that Sanji made for him.
"Sure, but why?" Luffy asks around a mouthful of food and continues shovelling it in his face.
Sanji tunes out as Usopp sighs and repeats the same spiel that Sanji's been giving everyone all night about how kissing someone at New Year's brings you good luck and so on. It's sort of a true thing, as far as superstitions and legends go, but it's not something he really believes in. He just wants an excuse to kiss Zoro.
"So, looks like you're out of options marimo. You're gonna have to kiss me." Sanji grins, leaning towards Zoro.
Zoro quirks an eyebrow at him in amusement and shrugs.
"If it's that or put up with your bitching and sulking all night from not getting a kiss, then sure." Zoro agrees and Sanji just resists the temptation to dance around victoriously.
"Franky, goddamnit, put your jeans back on!" Nami yells, grabbing up the offending article of clothes and hauling them at Franky. The others are all distracted so Sanji takes the opportunity to pull Zoro out onto the balcony by his elbow.
"Hey, what are you doing you stupid love-cook?" Zoro grouses as Sanji pulls him out into the cool, crisp night air.
"I want to watch the fireworks out here and I don't trust you to not wander off and get lost between now and midnight and leave me kissless at midnight." Sanji points out.
It's only half true of course. He doesn't trust Zoro not to get lost, even in Sanji's tiny apartment but mainly he wants him out here so that he can put more preparation work into seducing Zoro. He pulls the patio door behind them shut which shuts out a good deal of the yelling and shouting coming from inside.
Sanji's first instinct is to pull out a smoke but he doesn't want to taste like cigarettes when he kisses Zoro, he knows that some people don't like that so he wants to avoid it if he can. He reaches down into the cooler that he'd set out here earlier and pulls out two really nice expensive beers and hands one off to Zoro.
Zoro turns the bottle around in his hand, noting the quality. Zoro might lack culture sometimes but he can appreciate good alcohol as long as it isn't wine, Zoro wasn't perfect unfortunately and wine was entirely Sanji's expertise.
"Hiding the good stuff for yourself then cook? That's not like you." Zoro murmurs, cracking the bottle open on the railing of Sanji's balcony.
"I had a fucking bottle opener for you, you peasant." Sanji snaps, opening his with the bottle opener like a civilised man.
Sanji looks sideways at Zoro as they lean on the railing together in a comfortable silence. When he first met Zoro he loathed him, but as time wore on from the forced proximity of having the same friends the two of them had found a balance. They still annoyed the shit out of each other but it was more for fun than any real hostility. They fought each other for fun and deliberately pissed each other off for fun.
They had passive aggressive prank wars. Zoro broke into his house once and scrawled curly eyebrows on every picture of a person in his flat, from pictures of his old man (on glass of course), to on Sanji's books. Thankfully he did it with a pen that Sanji could easily wash off but it took him HOURS to do and even now he'd still open a cook book from time to time and find Nigella Lawson with a curly eyebrow.
Sanji went on holiday one time and took Zoro's car keys with him and daily sent him pictures of Zoro's keys in all of the exotic locations that he went to. He also paid for balls of marimo to be sent to Zoro regularly just because it annoyed him, though of course he denied it with the most innocent of expressions whenever Zoro accused him of being the one behind it.
It's great and in all honesty the type of long running warfare and competition the two of them have requires far more thought than Sanji has ever had to put into gifts for a lady. He really knows Zoro, he has to in order to piss him off as much as he does. He's got no doubt that Zoro deliberately dinged Sanji's balcony railing just to hack him off.
Sanji doesn't want to change any of that with this romantic endeavour, he just wants to add a new layer to it. In the distance the first few fireworks start going off, despite the fact that there's several minutes until midnight. He needs to stop stalling and get going with this.
"You know," he starts thoughtfully, "I think I'm going to really give up on chasing Nami and Robin. I'm not really interested any more."
He takes a sip of his beer and is startled when he feels Zoro's warm skin on his own. The marimo's hand has come up and pressed itself to his forehead.
"I think we need to take you to the hospital cook, you've gone delirious!" Zoro says seriously.
"Shut UP asshole!" Sanji snarls and kicks Zoro in the shin, making the other man break out into loud obnoxious laughter.
"I'm serious." Sanji pouts, glaring forward at the fireworks and only momentarily considering giving up on this whole endeavour. He softens after a moment though, Zoro's just messing with him, that's half the reason that he likes him after all.
"How come? You've never taken any of their hints to leave them alone before, why now?" Zoro questions, chugging gracelessly at his beer in a way that he knows pisses Sanji off.
"Time to move on is all. And you know, maybe I've got my heart set on someone else." He shrugs, as if this is the most casual conversation in the world. Honestly though Sanji is far from casual and relaxed. Inside his own head all of Sanji's internal panic alarms are ringing, if Zoro reacts badly to that idea then Sanji knows that he can stop this before it goes too far and things can remain as they are without him having to confess anything embarrassing to Zoro at all.
"My condolences to the poor soul." Zoro says darkly, a grin pulling at his perfect thin lips.
"Sometimes I wonder why I even talk to you." Sanji complains.
"Cause I'm the only one who puts up with your bullshit." Zoro laughs, thumping his fist into Sanji's shoulder. Sanji glares at the other man and kicks him in the knee, that is about as close to warm fuzzy affection that the two of them get, but Sanji appreciates the gesture anyway.
In the living room behind them Sanji can hear the others counting down to midnight and Luffy is yelling that he wants everyone to have a good year and that he can't possibly pick just one person to kiss. Sanji doesn't care, all he's focused on is the countdown coming from inside and the calm way that Zoro's setting his beer down on the table and turning to face Sanji.
His heart hammers in his throat and for a few moments Sanji doesn't want to go through with this, Zoro is so good looking, for all that Sanji teases him to the contrary. His skin is bronzed and his hair, though stupidly coloured, is perfectly Zoro. He has these dark eyes that just set Sanji alight from the inside out and... shit, he's panicking.
"Happy New Year, I guess." Zoro says, his voice deep and rumbling in a way that sets a good portion of Sanji's blood heading south. Goddamn, no one has a right to a voice that can do that to him. It's just not fair.
"You can't wish someone a happy New Year before midnight, idiot." He reprimands without even thinking. It's just a reflex now.
He steps a little into Zoro's space and feels the heat coming off of the other man. He looks into Zoro's slightly amused dark eyes and he can smell the slight hint of sweat and steel that are just so completely Zoro. He nervously chews on his bottom lip, this is it.
In the next room the count goes down to two and then one. He leans in towards Zoro and before he knows it Zoro is being thoroughly kissed.
Only... not by Sanji.
Luffy had barrelled between them and smooched Zoro right before Sanji could. Zoro yelps in shock and Luffy pretty much shoves his tongue down Zoro's throat. With a wet smack Luffy disengages from Zoro and spins on his toes and plants a kiss straight on Sanji's mouth too.
"I gotta get everyone before midnight is over! Everyone's got to have a perfect New Year!" Luffy yells and sprints back inside.
"WHOA!" Franky yells from inside, accompanied by another sloppy sounding kiss.
"Augh!" Zoro exclaims and spits off of the side of the balcony.
"Don't be so gross marimo, don't spit off of my balcony!" Sanji reprimands him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Ugh, Luffy slobber.
"You can tell me off when YOU have a mouthful of Luffy spit and don't do that. Eugh, I think he licked my goddamn tonsils." Zoro exclaims, wiping at his mouth.
"Well, it looks like you got your wish then, everyone got their New Year's kiss. Even if everyone got it from Luffy." Zoro laughs, looking inside to see Luffy kissing a bright red Brook firmly on the mouth.
"Oh joy." Sanji grumbles flatly. Now how was he going to get an opportunity to kiss Zoro without having to explain himself if it went wrong? And furthermore their movie magic perfect moment was ruined. There was good alcohol, mood lighting and fireworks exploding in the background. But he hadn't got his kiss with his love, Luffy had gone and kissed them both instead! It was ruined!
"Sanji?" Zoro asks and Sanji realises that perhaps too much of what he's feeling is showing on his face right now. He shakes himself and forces a scowl onto his face, just for appearances.
"Why don't you idiots and the ladies go onto the roof to watch the fireworks, I've got cooking to do." Sanji grouses and makes his way back inside his apartment. He heads into the kitchen, smoothly passing by the ruckus from his friends in the living room.
Alone at last he presses his forehead against the cool metal of the fridge freezer and thinks. His evening has not gone as planned. Right now he was supposed to be in a lip lock with Zoro having effectively swept the other man off of his feet and won a victory for romantics everywhere, as well as proving to Zoro that romance was superior.
He needs to get started on dessert, perhaps he can salvage this after all. He opens the fridge and stares at the desserts that he had started preparing earlier. Maybe this is just the setback before the final payoff, maybe he needs to prove that he can rescue this romantic evening from the mess that Luffy made of it. Maybe this is more rom-com than strict romance but he can do it, the charming hero always fails amusingly at first, right? So this is all part of the order of things. Now he just needs to woo Zoro with his craft, that's what he'll do.
He pulls out the desserts. Zoro's is green of course, a bright brilliant green. He's made it from condensed milk and avocado and it's topped with a thick layer of solid cold mint chocolate. Sanji just needs to decorate and serve it, it requires less last minute alterations than Usopp's and Franky's who both need sauces heating. Custard and a cola chocolate sauce respectively. The ladies have lovely tarts all set up which just need whipped cream with them and some decoration, Brook's green tea mousse also just needs a dab of whipped cream to be done.
Once he's whipped the cream he pipes a rosette of it onto the solid chocolate layer of Zoro's dessert and presses a mint leaf into it, bitter and cold, just how Zoro likes his treats. To his shame he spends less time on the desserts for the girls and even less on the other boys, he just wants Zoro to enjoy it.
Sanji plans to wind Zoro up a little before he gives him his dessert though, so when he walks out to the balcony and steps onto the bottom step of his fire escape he puts on his most surly expression.
"Oi, asshat! Get down here, I've got work for you to do!" He orders with a yell to be heard over the fireworks.
Zoro's scowling face appears over the edge of Sanji's roof and with a fair deal of bitching Zoro follows Sanji inside. Sanji picks up the perfect glass dishes that Robin and Nami's tarts are in and hands them to Zoro.
"Go give them to my lovely ladies, I'll bring some for the idiots." Sanji orders and shoos Zoro away as if he's just getting in the way. He's able to grab Usopp and Franky's dessert in one hand and balance Brook's in the crook of his elbow, he still needs one hand to get up the ladder after all. Luffy's dessert is more or less an entire cake to himself, so that he doesn't steal anyone else's and he's gonna need to carry that on it's own.
He pops up onto the roof and dishes out the desserts, Robin and Nami enthusiastically thank him for theirs as do the boys.
"Where's miiiiine?" Luffy whines miserably, bouncing on the roof in agitation, no longer interested in the gorgeous fireworks in the night sky when there is a possibility of dessert in his near future.
Sanji returns to the kitchen, he has Zoro's dessert hidden in the fridge so that it's a surprise. He collects Chopper's eton mess, a veritable explosion of meringue, sickly sweet strawberry sauce and cotton candy flavoured ice cream.
"I take it that big cake is for Luffy and his bottomless stomach?" Zoro's voice says from behind Sanji.
"Yeah, go take it up, I'll be right behind you." Sanji nods, pleased that Zoro is actually trying to be helpful on his own. He makes sure that he's just carrying Chopper's sundae glass so that he and Zoro will have to come back for their desserts, he wants to surprise Zoro with his in private, then he can try to rescue their romantic moment.
He follows Zoro, misty eyed with his fantasy. He'll present Zoro with his specially made dessert just for him, they'll be alone and he'll quietly tell Zoro that he made it with him in mind. Then he imagines that Zoro will tease him a little, then he'll try it, hesitant at first. Zoro will just melt, maybe he'll groan in pleasure and wouldn't that just be nice. He's just starting to imagine what he and Zoro will say to each other when Luffy drops down onto the balcony.
"CAKE!" Luffy yells excitedly.
The dark haired boy explodes towards Zoro, grabbing the cake dish from his hand and knocking him over in the process. Zoro's back slams into Sanji's hands and in an effort to salvage the dessert and stop it from going everywhere he raises it up high as Zoro's mass drags him to the ground. He clips one of the chairs on the way down and hears a smash of glass and realises that the dessert will be ruined, there's no way he can serve Chopper that now, what if there's shards of glass in it?
He lands ungracefully on the floor with Zoro's elbow knocking the wind out of him as it hits his stomach.
"LUFFY!" Zoro snarls angrily as he disentangles himself from Sanji and rolls onto his knees.
"Oops, sorry!" Luffy squeaks and hastily rushes back out onto the balcony and up the ladder with his cake.
Sanji rolls onto his side to inspect the mess of the dessert. As he moves though he feels a sting of pain from his palm which sends a sharp jolt of panic running through his system. There's cream everywhere, including all over his hand. The floor is littered with meringue and ice cream and the sundae glass has a big chunk missing out of it's side. Wincing Sanji gently dabs his hand on his already cream splattered shirt and feels a distinctive pain in the fleshy heel of his hand.
"No, no, no." He whines, looking down at his palm.
On his palm dark red liquid blossoms, running stained rivulets through the cream.
"Sanji... tell me that's sauce." Zoro says from above him, his voice serious with worry. Sanji looks up at him with hazy vision from damp and scared eyes as she shakes his head sharply.
"I'll kill Luffy." Zoro snarls darkly and yanks Sanji to his feet from a hand under his arm. Sanji stumbles to where he's led, which turns out to be his bathroom. Zoro turns the tap on far too high and shoves Sanji to sit on the edge of the bath whilst he gently rinses Sanji's palm off.
"I don't need your help." Sanji protests weakly.
"I don't need your permission. There's no glass in this, you're lucky." Zoro notes, peering and poking at the cut on Sanji's palm.
Zoro releases Sanji's hand and the cook pulls it back to himself protectively, his hands are his most important thing and injuring them is just not something that he's ever okay with. If this cut were anywhere else on his body he wouldn't be fussing like this over it, but his hands are special.
His hand is clean now and he can get a good look at the injury himself. The cut runs diagonally along his palm, from the base of his thumb and pointing down towards his wrist. It's about two centimetres long and thankfully not that deep. The cut is clean and sharp, as Zoro said there's no glass in it and it's a smooth cut, it'll heal well.
Now that he's sure that his hand isn't going to have to be amputated or anything Sanji finds himself becoming a little calmer. The cut is still bleeding so he holds it over the sink, although his outfit is ruined with cream and sauce he'd rather not make it worse than it is. He's going to have to dry clean all of this if he wants to stand a chance of wearing it again, he quite likes his blue silk shirt that he's got on and would hate to throw it away.
Zoro does not look anywhere near as calm as Sanji is starting to feel, he's pulling apart Sanji's first aid kit with a furious expression on his face. Sanji knows full well that Zoro tends to transmute worry into anger and right now Zoro is angry for him which means that he's also... worried about him. It's usually Sanji patching up Zoro's minor scrapes that he doesn't want to bother Chopper with (but probably should), so this is quite the reversal.
"Okay, this will sting." Zoro warns him, crouching at Sanji's feet and taking his hand back. He swabs an alcohol soaked cotton ball across Sanji's cut, making the cook inhale sharply through his gritted teeth.
"Don't kill Luffy." Sanji says quietly as Zoro dabs at the cut a little more before throwing the used cotton ball in the sink.
"He made you cut your hand." Zoro growls angrily and unwraps a sterile butterfly stitch, gingerly pinching Sanji's skin together and applying it.
"It was an accident." Sanji reasons.
"Your hand." Zoro repeats with a snarl.
Zoro lets out a shaky breath and resumes his first aid, his fingers warm against Sanji's skin.
He supposes that for all his devotion to romance films he'd be remiss if he didn't notice that this is a romance film trope too, only in this situation he thinks that he might be the girl, though sometimes it's the girl soothing the tough hero in a vulnerable moment. He can't help but laugh, all of his plans for genuine romance moments have failed and yet he's ended up with one anyway.
"What are you laughing at?" Zoro demands, glowering up at him.
"All of my plans were ruined but this is still like one of my romance movies." Sanji blurts out with a giggle.
"I said those films were gonna rot what little brain you had." Zoro grouses, finishing with Sanji's hand and packing his unused supplies back into the first aid kit.
"You have no romance in your soul." Sanji chides him, kicking him lightly in the leg.
"I know enough to know that you've been trying to have some kind of sappy moment with me all evening." the other man says matter-of-factly, as he stands up and casually puts the first aid kit away, like he hasn't just said something to raise Sanji's heart rate sky high. Zoro knew about his plans all evening?
"What?" Sanji balks in horror.
"You're not exactly subtle. Come on, we'd better clean that glass up before some idiot steps on it." Zoro sighs and leaves the bathroom. Sanji sits on the bath, shellshocked and wide eyed.
Zoro... Zoro knows. What's he gonna do? Zoro didn't say no but he didn't say yes either. Has he really been that obvious? Will Zoro still be... whatever it is they are now with him?
Nervously Sanji catches Zoro up in the kitchen where Zoro is dumping Chopper's dessert in the sink and dampening a cloth to clean the floor.
"So... has this just been you... gallantly suffering my ineptitude and hoping for me to go away?" Sanji asks anxiously.
"Pretty sure that I've been gallantly suffering your ineptitude since I met you." Zoro laughs without even turning around to look at Sanji.
"Oh." Sanji says in a small voice. So he'd been bothering Zoro all this time then.
Zoro turns around and squints at him suspiciously.
"I didn't say no, idiot. But this romance shit ain't ever gonna work with us. This is how things with us end up, you're a mess and you're bleeding and nothing went to plan or we end up fighting. If you think this is gonna be soft focus and roses then I'm not gonna do this." Zoro says firmly.
The mossy bastard sighs and looks anywhere but Sanji.
"But... if you want... me and not any of this romance shit then... we could... do that. I suppose. As long as we still fight and you won't break up with me for pissing you off. Uh... assuming that you were actually asking me out." Zoro adds, looking back at Sanji sharply with a sudden air of uncertainty.
"I was, yeah." Sanji answers quickly.
"See how I actually answered that quickly, rather than just telling you something important and wandering off like you did? Shit head." Sanji adds angrily.
"Quit your bitching cook, I said yes didn't I?" Zoro snipes, punching Sanji in the shoulder.
"I hate you so much, I also made some dessert just for you." Sanji sighs, opening the fridge and getting out Zoro's neon green dessert along with a spoon.
Zoro blinks at it in surprise and hesitantly takes the dessert from Sanji's uninjured hand. He breaks through the solid chocolate layer with the spoon and scoops it into his mouth, as Sanji had long ago taught him to just eat food when he's given it.
"You made this... for me?" Zoro asks curiously and has another spoonful.
"Yeah." he agrees.
"I'd kind of hoped that I could give it to you after I kissed you, but that... didn't go to plan." he adds unhappily. Zoro is right, this whole romance thing is ruined.
"That's... actually really sweet." the other man says slowly, looking down at the dessert.
"Oh no, it wasn't supposed to be, I didn't add any extra sugar." Sanji panics, swiping his finger along the edge of Zoro's dessert to taste it. It tastes right to him, not sweet and in fact slightly bitter with the dark chocolate. Has his taste gone awry?
"I meant you, idiot." Zoro laughs at him.
"Oh." Is all Sanji has time to say before Zoro pulls him in to a slow and gentle kiss.
"Happy New Year, idiot cook." Zoro says quietly against Sanji's lips.
"Happy New Year, shitty bastard." Sanji agrees and kisses him again. Zoro tastes of mint and chocolate, Sanji considers that a victory for romance.