II.

Sanji wasn't sure what he looked like as he stretched since he still wasn't used to what this body must've looked like at any given time, but he felt like a lazy cat the way the futon welcomed him with it's comforting textures. He'd never felt a bed so comfortable and inviting before. Before he had never even thought about sleep that much, he was too excited in his old life to just lounge in bed and was always ready to start cooking as soon as he could. But since that morning, it was like his catnip and in some instinctive way he was drawn to it. It was a wonder he wasn't purring, instead he let out a groan, prying his eyes open again and peering at his ghostly friend.

They'd gone back to silence for a little while, ghost Zoro feeling the need to wander around as if looking for something and getting fairly frustrated at the lack of ability to move anything to search properly. As he constantly walked back and forth, sending some distinctly withering looks back at Sanji, he was back to muttering in Japanese under his breath that had Sanji wishing he had a Japanese to English, or preferably French, dictionary. Since he couldn't understand a word his ghostly companion was saying anyway, Sanji felt the need to imagine Zoro bickering like a stubborn old man which seemed to fit, oddly enough.

Instead, Sanji just observed him. Obviously, no matter how fucked up this situation was, Zoro had gotten the shorter end of the stick with becoming some sort of ghost. Had he died or something before Sanji had invaded his territory? He was dying to ask, but the language barrier here made him a bit anxious. There was a lot of information Sanji needed to be able to cover with the moron, but without a legit way of speaking to one another, it seemed impossible.

"Hey," he called out, a chill running down his spine as he still wasn't used to this gruff voice like he was used to his old one. "Zoro."

Zoro seemed to cringe slightly before growling in annoyance at the way Sanji rolled his tongue on the 'r' on purpose, more than what was strictly necessary. He stopped, looking from where he was in the corner in a pile of stuff, looking – which from where Sanji was, it looked like nothing more than a few bags and books he'd hoarded there – and turned towards the man currently in his body before making his way over and scowl down at his own face. Sanji couldn't blame him, he would probably get irritated seeing his face around too with someone else behind the controls. And he thought having a moss dick was weird.

"What." The way Zoro spoke was so plain and simple, nearly emotionless like he'd just tried reading it off a piece of paper. "Get. Pants." He gestured to another forgotten article of clothing.

Bossy ghost, wasn't he? Well, he had his reasons, though Sanji didn't particularly want to move from the spot he was nestled in, just to put some pants on. Despite putting up with it for the sake of being lazy for the moment, this guy's body heat seemed to be naturally through the roof and pants were just not something he was prepared to handle yet. A bit out of pure defiance, because why should he do what the world wanted him to do, when the world just did awful and odd things to him, but also because he just didn't want to. Even putting on the rest of his clothes felt like such a drag at the moment, maybe he'd fallen into a depression? Did the shock finally wear off? Regardless, he ignored the order.

"So what is all of this? Do you know what's going on here? Did you die or something?" Sanji didn't feel like it was an unnecessary question to ask. On his own, he would've assumed this scar across his torso had something to do with it, but it was pretty healed, he doubted it was nothing recent.

"Mm, not dead. Why..." Zoro pursed his lips as he trailed off. It was quite amusing how his face literally lit up like a fuse with the frustration, but melted when he tried to concentrate and form the sentence. "Why is… aho Sanji, me?" He shrugged, moving his arm out to the side a bit in a confused gesture. "Don't know. Put pants on."

"I'm lying on your bed, in your boxers, inside your body and your biggest fear is someone's going to find you pantless? Pretty bashful coming from a guy who sleeps butt naked."

"Oi," Zoro hissed, followed by an explanation in his native tongue. Sanji was, of course, only able to draw the word 'sake' from it all – what an alcoholic.

"What did you say?" Sanji's eyebrow arched and he sat up in the bed quickly. He wasn't any type of Japanese expert by any means, but being born equipped with a sailor's mouth himself, he was able to easily pick up on the colorful tone in his direction. "Speak English!"

"Learn Japanese!"

"Buy me a dictionary, asshole!"

"Get pants!"

Tch, this man's obsession with peeing and pants! He didn't even seem like the bashful type, dammit, he slept buck ass nude. Annoyed, Sanji scooted off to the side and grabbed the pair of pants with his toes – he was so exceptionally skilled, might he add – and brought them back to him to start pulling them on quickly, jumping up to his feet when he was done and gesturing down at them like a little shit.

"There, happy?" he spat, eternally cringing at the way the ghost's mouth seemed to pull into a smirk and he realized how he might have easily been provoked into doing something he hadn't initially wanted, but wanted to simply shut the bastard up. Still, determined to continue his rebellious streak, he dropped back down onto bed. "Your ass is covered."

Zoro nodded. Yup, happy. *"Arigato."

Sanji knew enough from some weird song about a Mr. Roboto to know that meant thank you, but he wasn't about to go welcoming him. Now that he'd been disturbed from whatever odd lazy fest he'd been sucked into by this new body's traits, his mind was back to what was important – getting out of here and finding his own body. He glared when Zoro approached him, even if he knew he probably couldn't do a thing.

"You want home. To be Aho… again. Yes?"

What the fuck was an aho. Surely he didn't mean the certain insult that sounded roughly familiar. "I need to get home, to change back. You want to be back into your body, don't you?" This wasn't rocket science, surely he didn't care for this situation and stilted conversation any more than Sanji had.

"I do. BUT." Why was it necessary to say that louder? Was it childishness, or was he purposely wearing that shitty expression because he liked it. "You are Zoro. Strong."

Oh here we go. He was one of those types, full of themselves to the core and wanted to make sure it was obviously known. "Handsome."

Sanji narrowed his eyes. None of these compliments Zoro was apparently sprouting about himself made any difference and really were just pissing him off-

"Poor."

Fuck. Well, he wasn't expecting that, but it probably should've been obvious. Sanji face palmed. Dammit, this ruined everything. He didn't exactly get sent here with a bunch of whatever currency was here. And if he wanted to go home as soon as possible, even if he could afford it by selling all of Zoro's shit, he couldn't exactly leave him there homeless or something after they switched back – assuming it worked that way and he wasn't stuck this way forever.

He looked back up at Zoro who, having crossed his arms around his chest, simply looked on as unimpressed as ever. How come the guy who could barely even speak seemed to know the main problem before Sanji did? Well, it was probably his fault for forgetting for a moment that his lack of English skills didn't mean he lacked every other possible skill. Still, it rubbed Sanji the wrong way that Zoro was right and he didn't really want the guy he was turned into to be right about anything.

"Do you have… anything saved up at all?" If they could just get some money saved up, he could pay Zoro back once this was all over. Hopefully. Maybe. That could be discussed later, he just needed to find answers back at his home already!

Zoro's shoulders sagged, glancing down as he tried to think, then nodded, looking back at up at Sanji.

"One thousand." He knew numbers? That was great! And a thousand, as in dollars?!

"Dollars?!"

"Yen." Zoro stuck out his tongue, his expression as plain as ever. A fucking kid, that's what he was.

Sanji stomped his foot down, kicking the first pillow off the ground and launching it through the damn ghost for some sort of stress relief. "Can you be serious for one moment?!" Did they have vacuum cleaners in Japan? Sanji was willing to eventually resort to ghost buster methods if need be.

Zoro shook his head, his earrings jingling softly as he gestured from himself to Sanji in an attempt to explain something. "Ghost," he called as he pointed to himself then pointed towards Sanji before speaking again. "You me." Then he dropped both of his hands to his side. "We screwed."

What colorful random language this guy knew. Sanji could totally just picture him being the one guy in language class who spent his time looking up the curse words or funny body parts or phrase translations. But he could see somewhat where Zoro was coming from. To quote the bastard, they were screwed. What could a Japanese ghost and a French cook stranded in another's body in a foreign country accomplish, even together?

For once, Sanji was envious of not getting the ghost position. No chance for a women's bathhouse peep show and, if they were ever going to do anything or try to gather some funds, the person with the actual working body would have to do it all. Meaning, Sanji. That would be fine and all if he could find some kind of chef position without needing to know the slightest bit of Japanese. Or he could ask Zoro what his usual job consisted of, but he was slightly anxious of what that job might be. This was, after all, Japan.

It didn't help that Zoro was staring at him patiently, waiting for Sanji to just go ahead and ask what they should do so he could poorly explain some kind of master plan. At least Sanji assumed that's what would happen and it wouldn't surprise him. He took a deep breath, letting his body relax for this perhaps not so shocking development.

"So then, what do you do for money around here?"

Zoro's face brightened slightly at the opportunity to explain. Yup, like a kid – a kid with a face that could make children cry, that is. Sanji followed him a few steps as they moved over to a small pegboard that Zoro had mounted up on his wall, covered in a few different papers covered with Japanese script, but also a photograph of a traditional looking building. He tapped at it twice, though not too roughly. He stopped his finger right before it met the photograph so that he didn't faze through it, having learned from getting stuck through several things that morning.

"Work." No shit. "Swords. Fighting swords." Zoro smirked, lowering his chin a bit. It had to have been an area of expertise for him. "Sword fighting."

Sanji, yet again, was cocking his eyebrow. Only in Japan was sword fighting a legit job, though it didn't surprise him if it didn't pay a lot. He couldn't imagine the demand for a samurai was that high any more. Still, he'd humor Zoro a bit about it since he seemed to enjoy it by just announcing what it was.

"So…" Sanji paused, softening his face, then turning it slightly to the side. "You're a ninja."

"Baka yaro!" Zoro was quick to bare his teeth; it must've been a little more annoying than the cook had anticipated which was just fine by him, of course. "Not ninja!"

Sanji rolled his eyes. "Alright, no ninjas. So where is this place, where do you work?" Sanji carefully took the picture off of the board and examined it more closely. He hadn't looked outside of Zoro's apartment window just yet, but he couldn't believe he could live so close to a place that looked so peaceful. Hopefully it was just a walk away so that they wouldn't get lost.

"Tomorrow," Zoro explained. "Rest day."

Sanji nodded, pinning the picture back up. "In that case, back to bed I go."

"Oi."

"Shut up, it was a joke. I'm not going to just lay there trying to sleep while you hover around and stare at me." That thought alone gave him chills and he went to draw back the blinds and let in the light – taking in a street view of being on the ground floor between two apartment complexes where tons of bikes were racked up beyond the barrier that made his tiny patio. He decided not to comment on that, turning back around towards the ghost.

"Jeez, don't you feed this body anything? It's starving," Sanji huffed, glancing over to the tiniest kitchen area he'd ever seen.

There was a fridge that barely made it up to his waist in height, a microwave oven contraption with buttons that were all the same color and text he couldn't read as well as a portable plug in skillet. Other than a few bowls and cups piled up in the sink, there wasn't much in dishware either. How did this guy live? Sanji wasn't going to judge anymore, he decided, and just crouched down to open the fridge.

"Wait-" Zoro, who had turned away a second to do something else noticed where Sanji's focus was and said what he needed to, seconds too late. "Empty."

Sanji furrowed his brows. That was a bit of an understatement. All there seemed to be in the tiny fridge was nothing more than a few beers. Otherwise, there was nothing, absolutely nothing at all. No wonder this guy was a fucking ghost – he didn't eat, he survived off beer! Silently, he closed the appliance and stood back up.

"So I guess we'll be going out," Sanji muttered. "Where's your wallet?"

Zoro didn't protest, he was trying to seem oblivious and guiltless in a poor way like a child that had been caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing. Like, oh how suddenly it happened and he'd forgotten he was totally out of food for, you know, living. He gestured to the compact entertainment center with its tiny laptop sized television. On the top of it was a crappy wallet that was barely holding together for now.

Sanji, being curious about the persona he was now going to have to take on, took it in his hands and opened it inside to check it over. How cruel was it that the currency in this place sounded like it was worth so much, but actually turned out to only equal a few dollars or so. He also snorted at Zoro's ID picture – as flattering with that scowl as he was in ghostly appearance, or on Sanji's face when he had the freaky chance to look at his face in a reflective surface, the look wasn't really flattering on a photograph. He made sure to grab the flip phone by the futon, too, that had somehow been unearthed earlier.

"Okay, you're the native here, show the way." Sanji made his way to the door, after he finished making sure whatever he'd pulled on that morning was decent, and grabbed the nearest pair of shoes. Zoro nodded and waited for him before leading him out into the complex and out the front door. He would've led him faster, but apparently Sanji, behaving like a stereotypical tourist, was taking too much time looking around.

First thing that hit Sanji when they stepped out onto the real Japanese streets were the cicadas. He'd heard a few before in his lifetime, but never this excessive. It gave him chills down his spine, since he himself personally didn't have the strongest tolerance against bugs, but not seeing any in the nearest vicinity made him calm down slightly, looking around and taking in his surroundings. The sky was blue, the plants alive and it was hot. Very hot. Yup, still summer even here.

Around Zoro's apartment building – which Sanji took a few minutes to try and visually memorize just in case for later, since there were other buildings and rooms with balconies all around them - were flowers which he couldn't help but step closer and take in. Surprisingly, it gave him more of a homey feeling about it.

"What are these called?"

"Flower." Thank you captain obvious.

"...You're useless, you know that? Pick a direction to go already."

Zoro, however, didn't seem to like the vision of his body leaning forward, smelling flowers when it could be eating. Sanji hadn't asked about it, but from the way he'd been adamant about peeing that morning and now stubbornly hungry, he wondered if Zoro still had some kind of weird connection to the body and its needs. This stuff was definitely still fucking weird.

Still, Zoro turned and pointed to a direction as he gestured Sanji to follow, so with a hand resting in his pocket, Sanji enjoyed the walk, taking in all the sights he possibly could on their way. And then a second time. And a third.

"Native my ass! We went that way, now we'll go this one." Sanji gritted his teeth, turning and scanning some signs since they were now at least a bit out of the apartment building area. He pointed to one sign with a small picture of what appeared to be a train or subway. "Do you ride the train or do you walk?"

"Food walk. Work subway."

Sanji groaned. Of course it couldn't be simple that they were both in the same direction. He was torn. He didn't like being out in public that much – certainly not now that he could actually see a few people walking around and towards the subway station. He felt exposed. Sure, it was stupid to think anyone was purposely staring at him, though Zoro's body did have green fucking hair, but in a new body like this it felt like wearing a huge sign that read 'not normal'.

And since the ghost guy next to him was in denial about his navigation skills, this was yet another problem Sanji was going to have to face. It would make more sense to go on ahead to the next stop for today, find this work he'd have to start going to and make funds, instead of trying to let Zoro take him the next day and get them both lost and late. He stood there a moment, his knuckle at his chin while he tried to decide and he hadn't even noticed. Speaking of ghost guy, there was a lack of ghost guy.

"Hey! You bastard!" he hissed out, looking around and spotting him across the street. Quickly, he looked both ways before running over to catch up to him. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"Store." Zoro's expression was determined and he was headed toward the building with a somewhat colorful sign and a few advertisements in the window. "Do not talk."

Sanji stopped for a minute, glaring at the back of the bastard's head before following further. Bastard, what the hell was that supposed to mean? He wanted to make a plan about what they should be doing and how they were supposed to go about it and already he was annoyed? Well tough luck, idiot, Sanji didn't want to be there like this anymore than Zoro did, but they would be stuck with one another. He gritted his teeth. Fine, let him do what he wanted. Sanji might have been out of his element here, anyway.

Zoro got to the door and stopped, instinctively reaching to open it, but pausing the minute his hand went through the handle with no resistance. He scoffed at it and then phased through irritably. Sanji came up behind him and opened the door to let himself in, his eyes widening a bit at what he saw.

Well it wasn't what he expected. He would have rather gone to a grocery store or something like that to stock up on food and try and make it work, but if they only had so much money to their name at the moment, a convenience store like this couldn't be too bad. He nodded slightly to the cashier who greeted him happily, grabbed a basket and followed Zoro to the back where they had some premade things displayed. The inner cook part of Sanji cringed at the thought of some sort of convenience store prepared food, having heard enough horror stories from around the world, but picked up the nearest thing in it's plastic container anyway to investigate.

This language barrier was still a bitch.

"We like onigiri," Zoro pointed out to a few triangle shaped containers to the side.

Sanji put down what he was looking at first and side stepped over to investigate them. Rice balls? Least that's what they looked like. Well, it wasn't the worst quick lunch or dinner until they found a real grocery store, he supposed. Hesitant to find the better looking ones, and mentally apologizing to Zeff wherever he was for doing something like this, he put a few in the basket, counting the prices as he went so they didn't go over.

Before the ghost idiot could point him somewhere else, he turned to look at another area of the store. He was in the convenience store of another country. There would be something wrong if he wasn't at least a little bit curious to see everything that they could possibly have there. Everything was so colorful or had some kind of mascot on it. It kind of reminded Sanji of a candy store, everything looked appealing and calling out to him to try, he could commend it on that.

Suddenly he wasn't as hungry anymore, if the English translations of some of these were correct.

"Chocolate covered squid?" he whispered, louder than probably necessary, without hiding his disbelief. What. Why.

Zoro, who'd followed him like a bored puppy dog, looked over his shoulder and nodded. "Too sweet. Bad."

He pointed to a bag of chips towards the top. "Those."

Sanji couldn't tell exactly which bag he was referring too, as they were both a bit crazy. One was pepsi flavored chips and Sanji was a little more than sure a soft drink flavored chips probably weren't the healthiest choice for them if they had to be hard working. And certainly not the one beside it, fried chicken flavored chips, according to the imagery. It was all a bit intimidating.

"No." Sanji shook his head and turned to continue adventuring.

He was relieved to find the freezer section, where he was going to get any kind of drink that wasn't straight up alcohol, selections of fruits and some vegetables he could work with and place into his basket. That and a rice bag, since this was Japan after all and rice was a huge part of its diet, he was ready to go and silently approached the checkout. Sanji probably looked foolish, setting change quietly and slowly onto the counter so it made the exact amount but he didn't care. Zoro could go sit outside or something.

After they left the store, they seemed to walk for hours, mostly since Zoro took the lead. Sanji didn't mind, he could eat and walk when he needed to and at least this way he was able to get a look at the scenery. Japan was beautiful and the area they were in certainly wasn't somewhere big like Tokyo, probably more off to the countryside, but stunning all the same. And hot, very hot, though his fault for lazing around until mid to late day before doing these errands.

Zoro had been right, this body and its taste buds thoroughly enjoyed the rice ball. It was a match made in heaven and it wasn't one of Sanji's proudest moments. He was walking along behind Zoro, to wherever the hell the man was taking him and unwrapping the carefully crafted things, sampling himself a bite cautiously only to want to literally shove it into his mouth moment he'd had a taste. Who knew something like bad eating habits alone could be left in a body for him to take.

Sanji halted his walking, his eyes becoming alert as a wave of cool washed over him. Confused, he looked up, not too surprised to see Zoro missing from in front of him. He turned around to look for the idiot in another direction and stopped again, finding Zoro was unnecessarily close to him, analyzing him for who knows what reason.

Sanji let out a 'tch' and took a step back, focusing instead on better things, like opening a second rice ball, or onigiri as Zoro had called it.

"You're quiet."

Sanji shrugged. The cicadas were pretty damn soothing at this point.

"You were pretty clear you didn't want me talking," Sanji explained, licking one of his, or rather Zoro's, fingers then quickly stopping because just the thought of that had him grimacing. Still, it didn't matter and a lot of things he'd never do in his own body, especially with eating etiquette, he could in Zoro's.

Zoro crossed his arms in front of his chest, watching him without much protest. "No."

Sanji ignored him, tired already of his hot and cold attitude. One minute he doesn't want him talking to him and the next minute he says that wasn't what he meant. They might have had a bit of a language barrier here, but Sanji was really trying to listen to what Zoro said to try and understand him, making sure the message was well received. There wasn't a more obvious way to say shut up, was there? Unless, of course, it was because it hadn't been said to his face.

Still ignoring him, he sighed and moved to sit down at the side of the road on the curb to properly open another onigiri. These things were addictive as crack and they weren't even that complicated of a snack. He slightly broke into it just to examine the contents he'd tasted and was able to distinguish and make sure there weren't any he couldn't pick out.

Apparently, Zoro didn't take well at being ignored by his own body, especially since it was his only link to the outside world. He moved with Sanji, sitting down and waving his hand in front of his face. 'Oi', he always said that, what did it even mean? Sanji had let it slide a few times, but now, while ignoring the words he didn't understand, he got a little curious, he still wanted to know what the idiot was going on about. It was kind of like the way he'd say hey to grab attention, but this sounded more fitting. Maybe he should use that more often. Sanji's eyes widened and he made a sound of disgust, though, when the bastard purposely put his ghost finger in his snack. "Oi." He tried it out, giving him a death glare.

Zoro met it with the same exact one, which from an outer perspective would've looked ridiculous the way their faces were exactly the same. "Pay attention," he said the words so easily to that, it must've been something a former English teacher had to say excessively. "Eyes watch us. I'm ghost. You crazy."

"You're crazy," Sanji corrected without thinking.

"You're crazy," Zoro spat back, he could repeat it too, he wasn't stupid.

Sanji huffed and turned his body away. He was so annoying and stupid and an eyesore! Bastard is what he was. He wasn't sure why it pissed him off so much, but it just did, especially because for a minute he'd been right. Sanji should've realized that was why he'd tried to silence him, he feared the reputation of his sanity. Surprisingly, he heard Zoro sigh and he turned enough to spot him run his hand down his face.

That was probably the first not pissed off, on edge, annoyed thing he'd seen him do unless he'd just not been paying attention. Zoro lowered his hand and met his eyes for just a moment until looking away.

"Sorry."

Sanji was a little surprised. Sorry? If he hadn't done anything wrong, why was he apologizing? It didn't make that much sense. Maybe it was the only other word he knew at the moment and just wanted to say it? Regardless, Sanji's face softened. Or maybe he was apologizing because he knew he hadn't been able to explain fully what he'd meant, and didn't mean to be frustrated about it.

Sanji looked down and carefully wrapped up what was left of his onigiri and placed it back into the grocery bag. "Don't worry about it. We're both stressed, out of our bodies and got fucked over today."

Zoro just nodded, running his fingers through his hair as he got up. Sanji was about to do the same when something down the street caught his eyes.

"Oi," he used it again, he'd have to in order to be more like Zoro anyway, right? "That's where you work, isn't it?" Why hadn't he noticed the view just down the road from where they were before?

"Hm, yeah."

"You said that was a subway ride away."

"Yes."

"We walked a whole subway route? Are we lost? What the hell is the matter with you?!"

What an idiot, why was he letting this ghost guide him around!? Even if he was a native, it would seem that Sanji would be in a lot better luck to just go find a map somewhere and struggle with the names of places himself. Who knew how they were going to walk back now, or rather, they'd have to take the subway now. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he vowed to himself, no matter what happened, he was not letting Zoro try and show him around again.

*Thank you