Why did I wander
Here and there and yonder,
Wasting precious time
For no reason or rhyme?
Isn't it a pity!
Isn't it a crime!
My journey is ended,
Everything is splendid;
Meeting you today
Has given me a wonderful idea -
Here I stay!
- George Harrison, 1971
April 1971 - Chisai Shima Town - Sanji's Apartment
Sanji's alarm went off blindingly loud within the dark room. Sanji grabbed the infernal thing shutting it off with much more force than necessary. He was still is in a terrible mood, but as he looked outside at the beautiful sunny morning that was dawning, he decided not to spoil his day. He rose from his mattress, a rumpled mess, picking his way across his ever messy apartment floor towards the shower. Sanji removed his final item of clothing and twisted the old shower knob, the old pipes groaning to life. Once the room was nice and steamy, Sanji stepped into the shower and relished in the self-indulgent feeling of the hot water loosening the stiff muscles in his neck and back. Once he had scrubbed down, he grabbed a towel that may or may not have been clean, dried off and headed stark naked towards his closet.
Sanji's small apartment that resided over Tiny's, the restaurant and bar where he worked, would be a surprise to most who knew Sanji Vinsmoke. To look at him one would think his home would be as put together as he was, but this was not the case. Except for his clothes which were ironed and hung in his closet, his shoes which he polished regularly, his kitchen which was spotless and his knives that were as sharp as could be, the rest of the apartment was a shamble. Under-tended plants wilted on the windowsills, his mattress on the floor was a tangle of sheets in need of a wash, ashtrays in need of emptying were strewn haphazardly about the apartment, and books and records were stacked perilously around the room. Old newspapers and magazines were scattered about, cobwebs and dust bunnies adorned various nooks and crannies, and the worn curtains that fluttered in the morning breeze were in dire need of replacing.
Once Sanji was clothed, wearing a blue button-down shirt tucked into a pair of flared trousers as was the fashion of the time, he continued with his morning routine. He grabbed a record, put it on and made himself coffee in the old French Press that had belonged to his mother. As Art Blakey and the Jazz Messenger's Moanin' drifted through the apartment Sanji, pressing the hot cup of coffee to his lips, felt at peace, sure that nothing could spoil his day now.
At 8:30 Sanji straightened out his tie and headed out the door for school. His apartment was very close to the school; it only took him ten minutes to get there walking at a relatively leisurely pace. Tapping out the melody of Moanin' on his leg as he walked, Sanji looked at the shoreline ahead, the same as he had done for as long as he could remember. He had never known anywhere else than Chisai Shima, literally the Small Island, and he would probably never leave.
Suddenly Sanji was snapped from his reverie by the sound of a bike bell chiming. Sanji who had been walking in the middle of the empty narrow lane almost lept out of the way so much did the sound surprise him. He was horrified to find that is was a grinning Roronoa Zoro sweatily biking past him and giving him a small wave before pedalling around a corner.
"Idiot Marimo! Watch where you're going !" Sanji yelled after him.
"Same to you eyebrows !" he heard Zoro call out faintly followed by a deep, rumbling laugh that slowly faded away.
Sanji kicked a loose pebble in frustration and continued on his way. A few minutes later when he arrived at the school gates, Roronoa had already locked up his bike and was welcoming students through the gate like a model teacher.
"Mr. Roronoa why are you all sweaty ?" a little 12-year old asked.
"I live on the other side of the island." he explained to the curious student, "I took me a while to get here."
The Chisai Shima native frowned, confused.
"But there's just forest and fields on the other side of the island," he said reflexively.
Zoro just shrugged before urging the student to get to class, who turned to his friends, a gleam in his eye. The new teacher must be some kind of wild man, with his scars, and living in the forest, hunting for his food like a panther in the wild.
Their imaginations running wild the middle schoolers ran into the school building, excited for the period when they would have gym class with the scary but mysterious Mr. Roronoa.
As Sanji passed through the gates, he gave a curt nod to Zoro who grinning back at him said,
"Hey there again eyebrows, hope I didn't scare you too much back there."
Sanji wanted to roll his eyes. He knew he had odd eyebrows, and that nickname would stick.
"Whatever Marimo head, why don't you go change, you stink of sweat," Sanji said, crinkling his nose in disgust.
Zoro gave himself a quick sniff, and by the time he looked up, Sanji was striding away from him as fast as his long legs could carry him.
"Bye eyebrows !" Zoro called out loudly causing Sanji's ear to turn pink and his stride to get faster.
As he entered the school building, he could still hear Zoro's deep laughter from the courtyard.
Over the next few weeks, almost every morning Sanji ran into Zoro biking to school which meant that almost every morning Sanji arrived at school fuming and grumpy, hurling insults at the green-haired teacher who gladly insulted the blonde man back, often well within earshot of students which only made Sanji angrier.
One very sunny day Zoro had yelled his favourite monicker for Sanji, "Eyebrows," across the courtyard so loud that soon other faculty members were calling him Eyebrows. The final straw for Sanji came when a student had drawn a pair of eyebrows on the board with Sanji's name underneath. Upon seeing this Sanji had quickly erased it, and a soon as his last class finished, decided to hunt down the Marimo Head and put a definitive end to their escalating shenanigans. They were grown men, after all, the least they could do was be civil to each other.
After ten minutes of searching Sanji finally found Zoro, hearing his baritone coming from the nurse's office, now converted to a counselling office. Sanji was about to barge in and yell at the man when he overheard the conversation occurring from inside the thinly walled room and decided not to interrupt.
"I don't know what to do !" a female voice blubbered.
"Whatever you tell me in here stays between us so long as whatever it is doesn't harm you or anyone else. I promise you nothing you say will leave this room." Zoro said in a calm tone.
Sanji decided at this point it was best not to listen, so he took a walk around the corner and waited.
A few minutes later a tearful senior girl exited counsellor Roronoa Zoro's office and departed, but not before thanking the man profusely and hugging him.
Sanji was surprised by this, and once the girl rounded a corner, he went to Zoro who had retreated into his office.
Sanji knocked on the door.
"Come in."
He found Zoro at his desk with a map of the town folded out on top of it.
"Hey, Eyebrows! What can I do for you ?" he asked jovially.
"I have a name you know," Sanji said, feeling more and more irate.
"Sorry."
Zoro looked at Sanji expectantly, waiting for him to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say. Sanji instead turned his attention to the map.
"Looking for something in particular ?" he asked.
"Health clinic, or a pharmacy. Can't find one on the damn map," he grumbled.
"Why, you sick or something ?" he asked, though he didn't believe for a second the tanned man got sick very often.
"No."
Zoro didn't offer up any more information much to Sanji's dismay and annoyance.
"There's a clinic and pharmacy here," Sanji said designating a spot on the map with his index finger.
"Thanks."
Zoro circled the spot with a pen, grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the address. Sanji seeing he wasn't going to get anything else out of Zoro turned to leave. Zoro grabbed his hand, surprising Sanji.
"Sorry, I'm a bit preoccupied, why did you come here ?" Zoro released Sanji hand.
"Oh, umm, nevermind. Bye."
Sanji left the school and made his way to work. Sanji had gotten the part-time job in order to sustain his hobbies: cooking, smoking, reading, and music. He worked as a cook at Tiny's, the bar and restaurant that he lived above. He had known the owner, Ryo Taniguchi, an enormous mountain of a man of Russian ancestry since he had been little, and after an evening of drinking and complaining about how expensive his various habits and hobbies were, Tiny, as he was nicknamed, offered him a job.
That evening after prepping, Sanji took a break, and since Tiny didn't allow smoking on the premises, he decided to take a little walk. Chisai Shima's town centre was not very big, so when Sanji rounded the corner to see Zoro walking out of the clinic he had pointed out he wasn't surprised, but what he witnessed next made his blood boil.
The senior high school girl Zoro had been talking to earlier exited the clinic; Sanji was close enough to see her unmistakably clutching in her hands a wheel of birth control pills, and another box labelled "emergency contraceptive." The girl hugged Zoro and waved goodbye. Zoro looked up from he was standing to see a furious Sanji stomping towards him.
Sanji grabbed his hand and dragged him to an alleyway before unleashing his fury on Zoro.
"What the hell was that! Birth control pills, emergency contraceptive! You didn't... with a student!" Sanji hissed, unable to form complete sentences.
Zoro's face became hard and steely.
"Of course not. Who do you think I am !" he yelled in turn.
"Then what on earth were you doing after school hours with a student, and why did she have that ?" Sanji fumed.
"I can't tell you that. I gave her my word."
Sanji scratched his head in frustration.
"Look, I promise I won't say anything to anyone if you have a reasonable explanation. Otherwise, I'm going straight to the Principle."
Sanji looked down at his watch. His break was coming to a close, but there was no way he was postponing this conversation.
"Come with me," Sanji demanded. "My break is over. I have to work."
As they walked to Tiny's Sanji pulled out a cigarette. He needed to calm down. As soon as he lit up, Zoro started coughing.
"Tch... Seriously !" Sanji rolled his eyes and put the cigarette out.
"Thank you... You know smoking is bad for your health." Zoro said quietly.
Sanji rolled his eyes again.
Sanji dragged Zoro around the back of Tiny's into the kitchen, grabbed the large man a chair, and pointing to it waited for Zoro to sit in it.
"Explain," Sanji said as went to wash his hands.
"You really can't say anything to anyone though. What this girl said was in confidence..." Zoro trailed off.
Sanji didn't say anything.
"She's fairly certain she's pregnant. Her boyfriend is a senior at the school," he started. " She came to me for counselling on what to do. She didn't want her father to find out, and since she is legally an adult, I told her there were other options than having a child if that is what she wanted. I went to the clinic with her for moral support. That's all."
Sanji studied Zoro's face. His serious, dark eye, stern mouth, and stiff square jaw, as if by staring at it long enough he would be able to tell if Zoro was being honest or not.
"How do I know you are telling the truth ?" Sanji spat out once he decided that Zoro's face couldn't provide him with a definitive answer.
Zoro sighed, his expression one that Sanji hadn't expected; hurt.
"You're just going to have to trust in my integrity as a teacher and a counsellor... and a decent human being."
With that statement, Zoro stood from the chair and left, leaving Sanji feeling a complicated mixture of angry, humiliated, and upset.
Over the next few days, Sanji didn't run into Zoro on the way to school, and when he did see the man on school grounds, there were no teasing nicknames or grins, just civil nods or the occasional hello.
Every time Sanji saw Zoro teaching or interacting with students the more he realized his error in judgement at jumping to conclusions about the tanned man. So, after about two weeks of the cold-shoulder from Zoro, Sanji swallowed his pride and went to find Zoro.
Sanji arrived at the counselling room and knocked. After a minute without a reply he tried the handle and finding it was unlocked, let himself into the room. He found Zoro asleep in his chair, limbs splayed, his head hanging over his muscular chest, snoring lightly. Looking at him like that Sanji realized he was younger than he sometimes appeared. He didn't seem to be older than 30. Sanji turned around to depart but stubbed his toe on the desk leg, crying out in pain briefly and waking up the green-haired man.
"Mr. Vinsmoke," Zoro addressed him formally, "what are you doing here ?"
Sanji pivoted around to face the man.
"I came to apologize... For jumping to conclusions and all... and not trusting you," he said quietly, looking Zoro straight in the eye.
Zoro's stern face broke into a handsome smile.
"Apology accepted."
Sanji exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"Good. I'm glad. It's too weird to have you call me Mr. Vinsmoke."
"Eyebrows then ?" Zoro laughed.
"How about just Sanji. You know the other staff are calling me that now too." Sanji laughed.
"Your foot okay by the way ?" Zoro glanced at Sanji's foot.
Sanji scrunched up his face a little.
"It's nothing, just a stubbed toe."
Zoro pulled out the other chair in the office usually reserved for the students he counselled.
"Sit. Till the pain goes away." Zoro offered.
Sanji sat down unceremoniously, and the two colleagues chatted the afternoon away till Sanji checking his watch realized he had to be at work within 15 minutes.
"I'll walk with you. Home is that direction anyway." Zoro offered.
"You really live on the other side of the island don't you ?" Sanji said, semi-incredulously.
"Not quite the other side, but close enough, yeah," Zoro admitted.
They walked to Tiny's in companionable silence, and once they reached the little restaurant, they said their goodbyes.
"Hey, if you aren't too busy, I'll take you up on that tour of the island some time," Zoro said over his shoulder as he biked away.
"Sure! Bye Marimo!" Sanji called out, and once again heard the melodious rumbling sound of Zoro's laughter drift away into the night sky.
Author's Note:
- I realize the age of majority in Japan is 20 (as it was back in 1971), but for the purposes of this story, let's just assume that the girl in trouble is 18 and that this is the age of majority.
- Any Jazz fans in the house should check out Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (if you haven't already) !
- I realize this fic has been very Sanji-centric up to this point! Don't worry Zoro will get his time in the sun, I promise!