Scars run deep Ch 2
to be honest, I planned to make this longer, but after looking it over, I decided to put this much in. Enjoy.
Zoro gasped and stumbled backwards into the table. Across the left side of Sanji's face were four deep and horrible scars. The first stretched from his hairline to where the curl in his eyebrow began, the second started dangerously close to the outer corner of his eye and ended at his ear, the third cut through his sinus cavity and cheek bone and stopped at his jaw, just under his ear, the fourth and longest scar started between the bridge of his nose and his eyebrow, cut straight across his eye, and ended at his jaw, almost connecting with the third scar. What startled Zoro, though, was the eye itself. Sanji's left eye didn't have an iris or a pupil; it was just a blank, ghostly white orb. Upon seeing his reaction, Sanji looked away and cringed. Zoro quickly shook away the shock, stepped away from the table, and cleared his throat.
"Sorry." He murmured.
"You're not the first." Sanji replied. "And that's why I hide it."
Zoro took a step towards him with his hand outstretched. "Do you mind if I…"
Sanji shook his head, allowing Zoro to trace his fingers through the scars. His hand paused when he got to the fourth one.
"Is it…" Zoro began. "Uh…I-I mean can you…"
Sanji shook his head slowly and looked down for a moment.
"I'm completely blind in my left eye." He said quietly.
Zoro took his hand away "What happened to you?"
Sanji walked past him and sat in the chair on the opposite side of the table. After gesturing Zoro to do the same, he lit another cigarette that he had in his pocket and blew out a puff of smoke.
"It was while I was still on the Orbit…"Sanji began.
"The what?" Zoro interrupted.
"The passenger ship I was chore boy on before I met Zeff. Anyway, I was out cleaning tables when I noticed one of the passengers was stealing tips off of them. When he saw me, he gestured for me to keep quiet about it, but I didn't; after I was done, I went straight to the head chef and told him what I saw and the guy was confined to his sleeping quarters until we next docked."
"But it doesn't end there, does it?"
"You're not as dense as I thought, moss head…And you're right; somehow, he managed to break out of his quarters and later that night, he cornered me just as I was leaving the kitchen to go to bed. He dragged me into the serving galley, pinned me to one of the tables and pulled out a knife that he had somehow managed to sneak onto the ship. 'You should have kept your mouth shut.' He said. 'Now I'm gonna show you what happens when a nosey, chatty brat, like yourself, sees too much.' That's when he started slicing up my face."
Sanji closed his eyes tightly. His entire body shuddered as he remembered the experience.
"Then what?" Zoro asked carefully.
Sanji looked back up at him. "The other chefs heard me screaming and came out to help. They got him off me, tied him up, and locked him in the storage room. But by the time they got the treatment kit for me, it was too late to save my eye. I've been half blind ever since."
Both sat quietly in the dark moonlit room for some time before Zoro stood up and quietly walked over to him.
"How old were you?" he asked.
"I was seven." Sanji kept his eyes forward. "And I've kept it to myself since then; not even Zeff knows about these scars."
Zoro placed a hand on his shoulder, making Sanji look up at him.
"Sanji, I can understand why you hid your scars, but why didn't you say anything about them to us?"
Sanji looked back down at the table, clenching his fists tightly. Zoro felt his shoulder tense up underneath his hand and immediately knew the answer;
"You regret your decision, don't you?"
Sanji stood up and walked to the kitchen sink. He placed his hands on the counter and tightly closed his eyes.
"I know I did the right thing that day, Zoro." He said through a clenched jaw. "But ever since then, not a single day has gone by that I don't ask myself the same damn question; 'was it really worth it?'" Sanji opened his eyes and flinched when he saw himself in the sink water. Angrily, he slammed his hand across the water and turned his back to Zoro.
"I can't even look at myself in a mirror without cringing when I see them!" it was clear from the tone in his voice that Sanji was trying to fight back tears. "Believe me when I say, these scars run deeper than you could ever imagine."
Zoro folded his arms in front of his chest and tilted his head down with his eyes closed for a moment, then looked back up at Sanji to see his shoulders vibrating.
"Actually, Sanji," he sighed, "I think I have a good idea how deep they run."
As Sanji looked back at him in confusion, as he had expected, Zoro slowly turned around. He grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his shoulders to reveal a long, jagged scar across his back.
to be continued
trust me, i'm not ending it there but until then, I hope you liked what I put in now. oh, and while it's on my mind, i'm well aware that they showed what the left side of Sanji's face looked like; I'm just treating this like they haven't yet (personally, I think he looked cuter before they showed it).