CHAPTER FOUR
Trois Bleu
Early afternoon, the next day
"Ah, you really did come," Sanji called out, waving to Isshin in greeting. While they had been drinking together at Porthau's bar the night before, he recalled telling the other man that he should come try the lunch menu, since Trois Bleu only served it two days a week.
As he briefly caught a glimpse of Isshin outside, just before he stepped through the restaurant's double-doors, Sanji realized that the world's current strongest swordsman appeared far more menacing in the high noon sun. His black garb, in such stark contrast to the brightness of the outdoors, together with the mask hiding all but his rigid mouth, made him seem like a nightmare exposed to the light of day. Almost, except maybe for that silly feathered headdress.
Isshin shrugged indifferently. "You told me to try it," he said simply, stepping inside.
As the chef sat him down at a table in the back corner—the same table he had sat him at every night for the last four nights—he expected him to follow a similar ordering pattern. Each day, he had eaten whatever Sanji recommended. Even the night before, when he only greeted him briefly, he noted the man in black had ordered exactly what he told him to. Since it was a lunch menu, the daytime food was a lot less elegant than the dinner entrees, but certainly not any less scrumptious.
"I think you might enjoy the special we have today," the cook told him, as soon as he was seated.
"Yeah, what is it?"
"There's an excellent bakery here on the island..." Sanji started, slipping into a spiel about the fresh-baked bread that was made especially for his restaurant, and how it was absolutely mouth-watering and exquisite. As he spoke, Kitty happened to step out of the kitchen with an armful of plates boasting the enormous sandwiches, which were loaded with a decadently fried piece of fish and a variety of trimmings, and Sanji beckoned at them with enthusiasm.
When he was through, he looked at Isshin expectantly, waiting for him to nod his head and agree to order it. He was surprised when he was met with silence.
"I'll have this," Isshin finally told him, pointing to another item on the lunch menu that involved a simple grilled piece of fish served with a risotto.
"An excellent choice," he smiled carefully, trying to mask any semblance of the surprise he was feeling. "We'll have it out shortly."
Sanji was a bit startled in the difference between Isshin's demeanor today, compared to the night before. Had he always been so abrupt? Come to think of it, he did have the impression that he was mostly unfriendly, but they had chatted for hours at the bar, so that couldn't be the case. Sanji tried to speak to him a few more times, but he was unable to get much of a conversation started.
Frustrated, he realized that it didn't matter. He had no idea why he was actively trying to speak to the man, anyway. After all, he had made up his mind that he found Isshin's presence distressing and difficult to take in. If all he needed was service, then there was no reason he should make any further attempts to speak to him.
No matter how hard the cook searched, there was no sensible reason that he felt inexplicably compelled to keep talking to him. Maybe there was something wrong with him, which compelled him to try to communicate with such difficult people.
A tavern near the harbor of an island in the New World
Over twenty years ago
It was the first time Usopp had tried to match Zoro and Nami drink-for-drink, and Sanji was pretty sure it was going to be the last.
The more inebriated he became, the most insistently the long-nosed man tried to convince Sanji to join the obviously slanted competition.
They all sat at a square table, with Nami to Sanji's left, Usopp to his right, and the insufferable marimo directly across from him, moodily taking swigs in almost perfect sync with Nami's beautiful—but equally large—sips. And poor Usopp was trying his best to keep up, but he was clearly a lost cause.
"It's a drinking game," Usopp insisted, hooking a muscular arm around Sanji's shoulders. "It's no fun if you don't play."
"I think you've misunderstood the 'game' part of it," Sanji replied, smirking as he took a long drag off of his cigarette.
"What do you mean?" Usopp asked, inexplicably laughing, as though the cook had said something hilarious. He removed his arm from Sanji's shoulders and slumped back in his seat.
"It's not a game if you're just trying to out-drink us," Nami said, laughing and leaning forward to clink her glass with Usopp's, to which the long-nosed man eagerly complied. "You need to have rules set up, so the loser drinks more."
"Ehh, why aren't we doing that, then?!" Usopp exclaimed. He turned to the cook again. "Oi, Sanji! You'll join if it's a game, right? Come on, you have to!"
"You don't even know what the game is," Sanji replied.
"Tch, it's useless, Usopp. He won't try if he knows he's going to lose," Zoro taunted, his eye fixed on the cook as he spoke,
"Oi, what the hell is that supposed to mean, moss-headed bastard?" Sanji shouted, angrily clamping his teeth down on the end of his cigarette.
"You're bad at games," the swordsman explained simply.
"Where are you even getting this from?" Sanji asked angrily. He turned to Usopp. "When did he see me play a game?"
"You played chess with Robin a few times," Nami pointed out.
Sanji's face darkened. "That's different—I can't beat the amazing Robin-chwan at chess!" he exclaimed. Then he faced forward to glare at Zoro. "Besides, didn't you lose to Robin-chan at chess, as well?"
"No."
"What?" Sanji yelled shrilly. "How the hell could a moron like you beat Robin-chan—"
"I never played her," Zoro interrupted. Sanji's face turned an angry shade of red as Zoro shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know how to play chess."
"Bastard..." Sanji said through gritted teeth. He jumped to his feet, preparing to kick the swordsman from across the table. The grinning marimo was already standing as well, hand clutched on the scabbard of one of his swords.
"Robin beat Zoro at othello," Usopp burst out suddenly.
"See, Robin-chan did beat you," Sanji shouted, raising a leg.
"Oi oi, come on, you guys, we're going to play a drinking game!" Usopp said with alarm, jumping to his feet as well and placing a hand on each of their shoulders—or at least, trying to. He managed to grab Zoro, but then he stumbled forward and nearly fell on the table. Zoro roughly pushed him backward until he ungracefully landed back in his chair.
"Well, Nami? What's the game?" Usopp asked eagerly.
A mischievous grin crossed the navigator's face, as she pensively twirled a red curl around her finger before brushing it behind her bare shoulder. "I think I know just the game. Sanji-kun, could you do me a favor?"
"Of course, Nami-swaaaan," he replied eagerly. His heart skipped a beat as she leaned in to whisper something in his ear—a request to ask the bartender if he had four cups with dice.
An hour later, Usopp was laying down face down on the table, presumably unconscious. As it turned out, the biggest liar on the ship was incomprehensibly bad at liar's dice.
And Sanji wasn't faring much better. His face was flushed red; the cook was far more drunk than he would have liked to be.
Really, he hadn't intended to play at all, but Nami had sort of sucked him into it. As the group of four left the tavern—with the passed-out Usopp slung over Zoro's shoulders—Sanji found himself having a very, very hard time managing the walk back to the Sunny.
Nami seemed alright, but then, she always tended to be fine, no matter how much she drank. Sanji never could figure out her secret, but he was enthralled by the way the slender woman could put away alcohol.
"I'm going to bed!" Nami exclaimed, as soon as they set foot on the ship. "Make sure you give him some water when he wakes up, okay?" she said, winking at Sanji as she nodded her head in Usopp's direction.
"Of course, Nami-swan," he called out, his legs not quite moving the way he wanted them to as he tried to dance around her.
As Sanji headed to the kitchen and Zoro (still carrying Usopp) started to walk away, Sanji unthinkingly called after him, "Come back up here when you're done."
The swordsman didn't make any gesture indicating that he had heard him.
Sanji's brow twitched slightly in annoyance. Well, he had only intended on making them something to eat; and why the hell should he feel compelled to stay in the swordsman's company, anyway. He had only been thinking that if he went to sleep after drinking that much booze without something in his stomach to absorb it, he would wake up with one hell of a hangover—although granted, he was probably going to anyway.
Sanji busily loomed over a pile of ingredients, unable to stop himself from grinning slightly in embarrassment as he kept fumbling over simple tasks. He had originally planned on making something a bit more elaborate, but he had quickly assessed that it likely wasn't practicable.
He turned on a burner and placed a pan on it. And stumbled in surprise when he realized Zoro was right next to him.
The drunk cook would have probably lost his balance but for the swordsman's strong hand, which reached out and grabbed his shoulder firmly until his feet were securely planted on the ground again.
Dropping his arm back to his side, he looked up at Sanji skeptically. "You really think you should be cooking right now, ero-cook?"
"I'm just making sausages," he replied, his good mood unbreakable even by the aggravating swordsman. "I got them in town earlier, along with some fresh baked bread, so I thought we could eat some before he went to sleep."
Zoro shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that sounds okay."
"We should bring some for Usopp, as well," Sanji continued. "He'll be in bad shape tomorrow."
"He may not be able to eat," Zoro smirked.
"Well, he definitely won't be able to keep much down," the cook replied, grinning widely. A bit too widely; he definitely needed to eat something to calm the giddiness in his head.
As he sliced the soft, fresh bread, Zoro took a cautious step closer to him. "You got that?" he asked gruffly, as if trying to mask some kind of concern.
Or maybe it was just his imagination; it seemed unlikely he would be, after all.
"What kind of question is that?" he scoffed indignantly.
"I mean, if it's cutting, I can do," Zoro offered begrudgingly.
"Tch, I could've drank ten times as much as I did tonight and still handle a kitchen knife better than you, shitty marimo," he replied with a glare.
And sure enough, the sausages were exquisitely cooked, and the bread was perfectly cut and served decadently warm. Even if the path he walked wasn't straight, he securely held the plates as they headed to the table, and set them down with his accustomed flourish—even if it was just for the swordsman this time.
And when he sat again, his head spun.
"Ugh, why did I play that shitty game," he muttered as he started to take a long swig of water.
"I told you, you're bad at games," Zoro replied.
"You have no basis for that!" he said, voice raised.
Zoro shrugged, lip almost twitching into a smile, to Sanji's chagrin. "I've seen you lose most of the games you play, though."
"The hell? I can't even remember playing any games, except when he fought that shitty noro-noro bastard," he said, vaguely recalling the Davy Back Fight that they had all participated in, right after they had left Skypiea.
"That doesn't count."
"Why the hell not?" Sanji asked, furrowing his brow.
"Because I helped you," he replied smugly.
"Bastard, I helped you," he emphasized.
"Sounds like something someone who loses would say," he said with a shrug, sticking a large bite of sausage in his mouth and chewing it obnoxiously, cheeks bulging.
"I'm too fucking drunk to deal with this shitty marimo," the cook muttered to himself in annoyance. Suddenly he noticed a hand reaching across the table toward the third plate. His head snapped up in surprise.
"Oi, that's the plate I'm bringing to Usopp," he scolded. "Are you Luffy now? Don't take anything from it."
"He's not going to care about anything but the bread," Zoro replied, snatching one of the plump sausages.
Sanji sighed, pausing to take another long sip of water. "So, you like it?" he asked, nodding at the sausages.
"It's okay," he replied, his mouth now full again.
He clenched his jaw. "If you want something else, I'll make it."
"Nah, this is fine."
Although he was a little bit annoyed, he still felt inordinately cheerful—too cheerful to allow himself to get as pissed off at Zoro as he usually would. In fact, he found himself engaging in a conversation with the swordsman that left him full of laughter.
As they headed back to the men's quarters, Zoro holding a jug of water and Sanji holding a covered plate of food for Usopp, he found himself overtaken by laughter once again over an idle comment the marimo had made. He merrily slid an arm around Zoro's shoulders, a gesture they all frequently practiced with one another when they were having a good time.
However, realizing he had not done that to Zoro many times before was actually a little bit sobering. He stopped laughing for a moment, glancing over at Zoro, who was grinning widely as he chuckled.
The green-haired man seemed unfazed; in fact, Sanji wasn't entirely sure why he himself wasn't. Probably because they didn't often get along this well, he realized. He held his arm there for a few seconds longer, and then casually pulled it away.
Suddenly, he felt a wave of irritability pass over himself, as he wondered again why the hell he had felt compelled to ask Zoro to join him in the kitchen.
By the time Sanji had roused Usopp enough to get him to drink some water and eat a piece of bread, Zoro appeared to be passed out. Yet as Sanji walked past him to get to his own bed, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was being watched.
Sanji's home
Two days later
For two days a week the Trois Bleu was open for lunch and dinner, and for some perplexing reason, the swordsman Isshin came for both meals on both of those days. In all his years, Sanji couldn't recall a customer ever coming so many times a row. He was a little uneasy about it—but it's not like there was anything to be done.
Isshin had remained mostly standoffish toward him, although during dinner the night before, they had started a brief conversation that was more reminiscent to the way they had chatted at Porthau's Bar. Granted, it was a little bit adversative in nature, but it seemed like he and Isshin had a lot that they didn't entirely agree on; or maybe the other man just had a bit of an antagonistic nature. Must be a swordsman trait, Sanji thought sourly.
But today, the restaurant was closed, so the man clad in black would have to go elsewhere. Sanji tried his hardest to push him out of his mind, as he spent his day mulling around at home.
After he ate his supper, alone, standing at the high counter-top of his kitchen, he took a glass of wine and a book outside to his patio, his reading glasses perched on his nose. This was the repetitive, drab way he usually passed his evenings. It was dreary, but it was familiar; it was much simpler to get through the days when there was no change. After all, there was no way of knowing whether a change would bring happiness or remorse, so he figured it was best to merely maintain the status quo.
As the sun was just starting to set, he noticed the outline of an unmistakeable figure strolling near his house, and he felt his stomach twist in a knot. For a moment, he wondered with alarm if the man in black had been seeking him out; maybe he was being stalked.
But as Sanji stared at him, he realized Isshin had not so much as glanced in the direction of his house.
And then the cook found himself seized by a strange and uncontrollable impulse. Rising to his feet, Sanji set his book and his glasses down next to his wine glass and rose to his feet, leaning over the edge of the patio. "Oiiii!" he called out loudly, waving his hand in the air.
Isshin stopped abruptly and turned, regarding him for an impractically long moment. Then, a bit slowly at first, he started to walk in the direction of Sanji's house.
"Isshin," he nodded in greeting, when the other man was in earshot.
"Evening, Sanji," he nodded, grinning slightly—that mouth, that was the only indication of any expression the man had. Once again, Sanji felt a little uncomfortable by the way he pronounced his name; it made the hair on the back of his neck rise.
"What are you doing around here?"
"Ah, just making my way back from town," he said, indicating in the direction he had been walking from.
"Headed back from town?" Sanji asked, tilting his head to the side slightly. The direction the man had pointed in was definitely not the direction of the town, but maybe he had just gotten turned around on his walk back.
The man in black nodded again, now walking toward him. "Yeah, I had to get something for dinner."
"That so. Find anything good?"
Isshin grinned wryly as he approached the patio. "Well, I found food, if that's what you mean."
Sanji couldn't help but let the corner of his mouth tug slightly upward. "Oh? Not to your liking? That's a shame if you had something bad. There's a lot of excellent food around here."
The other man's mouth turned grave as he stepped onto the stairs that led up to the patio. Sanji was a little taken aback, actually, but he wasn't sure why. It's not that he necessarily didn't want him to come—he just didn't expect that he would.
"It was food," he repeated simply. "Had to eat somewhere, after all." His head turned slightly, and Sanji assumed that he was taking in the layout of the patio.
Sanji couldn't help but glance as well. His patio was relatively sparse—only two chairs and a small table, where his glass of wine and book were currently sitting. Really, it was kind of pointless to even have the second chair, but maybe it could come in handy tonight.
"You want a drink?"
Instantly, he wondered why the hell he said it; but by the time the words had escaped his lips, it was too late to do anything.
Once again, there was a long, reluctant pause in response to his invitation to do something with him, just like a few nights before. But then he grinned, and said, "Sure, I'll take whatever you've got."
"I've got sake."
"Sounds good."
Sanji disappeared inside for a moment, and when he came back out, Isshin was seated in the other chair. Once he had handed Isshin the drink, Sanji took a seat and glanced over at Isshin curiously. "So, where did you wind up eating, anyway?"
"A yakisoba stand on the roadside—just on the edge of the town."
Sanji raised a hand to his mouth, stroking his goatee lightly. "Ah, I know the place. They aren't that bad, actually." Then his brow furrowed slightly. "Hmm, but if you have a palate for finer foods, you would be better with some of the restaurants in town."
"A palate for finer foods... Tch, I wouldn't say that."
"You keep coming to Trois Bleu, though... Our dishes definitely fall into that category."
The man in black shrugged. "I can eat anything, it's just I got used to eating a certain style of food when I was younger, so I kind of can't help but eat it when it's there."
Sanji raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Were you from a wealthy family, or something like that?"
Isshin scoffed, trying to hold back a grin. "Not at all. Besides, I just said I was younger. I wasn't a kid or anything."
"Not a kid and not from a wealthy family... Well, that means you must have lived with a cook, or something like that." Suddenly, Sanji smiled teasingly. "Ah, was it a girlfriend?"
The man in black turned toward him. "Tch, nothing like that," he muttered, frowning deeply.
Sanji held back a chuckle. But it was obvious that whatever the reason was, Isshin didn't really want to talk about it. "I won't pry anymore. It was just a curious comment, that's all."
"There's no story behind it, really. I ate a lot of meals like that for a long time. And then I didn't have them anymore... for a long time," he said gruffly. The gravelly intonation of his voice, which sounded partially etched in by age, seemed to reverberate through the air.
"You know, when I read the papers about you, I sort of assumed you were a young kid, starting to make a name for himself," Sanji said, his gaze fixed on the horizon in the distance. "But I can tell that's not true. You sure as hell are talking like an old man right now." Suddenly the cook realized just how casually he was speaking—surprised at himself, he abruptly sat up a bit more rigidly, glancing over at Isshin apprehensively.
But Isshin just laughed, a low, rumbling, and slightly haunting laugh. Even though he didn't sound displeased, it definitely sent a chill down Sanji's spine. "Hah, well I'll take that as an insult from one old man to another, then, Sanji."
Crow's Nest
Over twenty years ago
Just like the first time, it mostly only happened at shitty hotels, although every once in awhile, when one of them just couldn't hold back that much longer, they'd steal away to a part of the ship where they were likely to be undisturbed—deep closets in the cover of night sort of thing.
The very last time they did it had been in the Crow's Nest, though. Zoro had been on watch that night, and when Sanji had suddenly appeared with a lustful look in his eyes, the swordsman sure as hell hadn't turned him away.
After they had satiated their craving, they laid together for a few moments, staring up at the ceiling in silence. Once Sanji felt his breathing return to normal, he wordlessly sat up, reaching for the clothes that were haphazardly thrown around him.
Strong fingers suddenly wrapped around his wrist, squeezing tightly. "You don't have to go right away," Zoro murmured lowly. Sanji turned around to look at him expressionlessly; Zoro was still laying back, one arm over his face, shielding his eyes.
"If I fall asleep, who knows how late it'll be before I go," he replied soberly, pulling his arm free as he attended to lighting a cigarette before he continued finding his scattered clothes.
"Tch, no one'll notice if you don't go down there. You're usually the first person up anyway, so when everyone wakes up, they'll just assume you're already in the kitchen."
"Are you saying you want me to sleep up here with you, marimo? It's one thing when we're stuck together in a hotel, but..." he trailed off, his brow furrowing slightly.
"Don't read into it too much, ero-cook," Zoro replied roughly. "I don't care what you do."
Sanji took a long drag off of his cigarette, pensively staring out of one of the windows at the inky ocean spread out before him. He wasn't really bothered that Zoro may not want him to go right away, actually. He didn't particularly want to go, either, but he felt like it was expected that they'd part after they did it.
After all, if the casual sex that had been occurring with increasing frequency started turning into intimate late-night conversations and sleepily spooning together, waking up in each others arms, that would mean this was something different entirely. He was pretty sure neither of them wanted that. And, he reminded himself, it was different when they got a room together—they didn't have a choice but to spend the night together after that. They paid for a whole night, usually; it'd be a waste to leave before the night was up.
Sanji's dangerous train of thought quickly derailed as a cough racked through his body. When he was through, he resumed picking up his clothes and getting dressed.
"I'm leaving, then," he told Zoro, cigarette loosely dangling from his lips. Now fully dressed, he opened the trapdoor and started to descend the ladder to the deck below. He paused for a moment, though, when he realized that Zoro had propped his body upright slightly, and a tumultuous gaze was fixed on him.
Sanji raised a curled eyebrow, momentarily locked by the intensity of the stare.
"What?" he finally snapped.
The swordsman averted his gaze, but he didn't speak, and the cook had nothing left to say, so he finally shut the trapdoor and left the swordsman alone to the night-watch.
He didn't sleep well that night. Even though he should have been able to rest easily after doing it so many times, for some reason, the seemingly meaningless conversation started to churn in his mind over and over, and he wondered if some of his conclusions may have been slightly hasty.
But in the end, it never mattered. The next day, the two men argued over Chopper's warning for Sanji to stop smoking. And two days later, Zoro was gone forever.