Category: Romantic Fluff

Characters: Sanji and Nami

Requested By: farrah87

Sanji narrowed his eyes slightly as he stood in the doorway of his kitchen, the cigarette perched between his teeth trailing smoke into his mildly puzzled face as he slowly and deliberately scanned his dark eyes across his workspace. Something is definitely off… That doesn't go there, and I never put that there… As he perused the scene, noticing intricate, tiny details that gradually pieced together the puzzle in his mind: during his absence, someone had definitely been in his kitchen.

It wasn't to be unexpected. After all, he had been in Big Mom's captivity for quite a long time; someone had to cook for the crew while he was away. The question was, who?

"All right! Which one of you assholes messed with my kitchen?" he roared as he whipped around, chomping down on the end of his cigarette angrily as he dramatically stomped his foot against the deck of the ship. All the crewmembers, who had been lounging about on deck goofing off as usual, turned to look at him with surprised eyes while he was practically a raging inferno of anger. They had messed up his system, disturbed the sanctity that was his place to make art, dammit, and he was gonna make sure that they had hell to pay.

"Oh, that would be Nami!" Carrot chirped, and immediately the fire that was his race fizzled out into a pathetic sizzle in a skillet. As he deflated like a balloon, blinking as he processed what the cute rabbit girl had just so happily revealed, the rest of the crew buzzed with recognition.

"That's right! Nami made such yummy food!" Chopper squealed and threw his little reindeer paws in the air. "Not anything like Luffy's food. Blegh!" Sanji's thought process screeched to a halt like a record scratch, and his eye spasmed repeatedly as he stiffly turned on the captain, who was laughing like the idiot he was.

"Yeah! I almost burned down the shi- Gwak!" Sanji interrupted his sentence as he grabbed ahold of his throat and proceeded to throttle the life out of him, absolutely enraged that the moron would even think about stepping into his beloved kitchen. The rest of the crew just cowered together like frightened sheep watching a wolf devour one of their brethren, while Luffy was a mere shredded corpse in Sanji's hands, wriggling his arms about and gasping for breath. Sanji dropped him on the door to death, mumbling under his breath before taking another puff of his cigarette and looking thoughtfully up at the door that led to Nami's work study. As Luffy drooled stupidly, unconscious, an image was forming in his mind.

Nami is handy in the kitchen, they say… It's always a chore cooking for all these morons alone. Plus… A pink blaze spread across his cheeks, and he nearly swooned imagining it. Nami in a cute little pink apron! He could just see it, her innocently turning to glance over her shoulder with her eyes sparkling shyly and her face red as she held out a spoon for Sanji to taste her handiwork. He squealed with delight, clapping his hands together as his heart thumped right out of his chest, and then raced up the steps of the ship to pound on her door. When it opened, however, he magically regained his gentlemanly composure.

"Hello, Nami," he grinned at her, and then bristled when she sharply answered "No" and slammed the door in his face. Frowning miserably at such a brusque refusal, he hesitantly knocking on the door again, more softly this time. "Nami, I wanted to know if you would help me in the kitchen," he called hopefully. There was a period of silence, and he was afraid that she was ignoring him, until the door opened again and she was standing there with a doubtful look on her face.

"You never ask me for help with the cooking. What gives?" Oh, she's so cute when she's stubborn! He thought, completely in the thralls of pure love, before he grinned widely and put his hands on his hips to bend down slightly and bring his face a little closer to hers. Her face flushed, whether from embarrassment or anger, and he hoped it was the latter.

"They tell me you cooked while I was gone, and were good at it! I can always use a hand. Please, Nami?" he asked her, flashing her his millionaire smile, and her face turned a nice shade of magenta. She looked down at her feet, muttered something under her breath, and then nodded firmly. Victorious, he spun around to dash down the stairs, ridiculous fantasies already racing through his mind while Nami just followed behind looking like she regretted it already. However, as he raced into the kitchen and put on his apron, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. All right! Time to get serious! When he turned fo greet the beautiful navigator as she walked in, his expression was that of a pure professional about to get to work. "Here, Nami. You'll need this," he told her and handed her an apron. She walked over and took it from him, tying it about her waist, and his professionalism was momentarily betrayed by his lead underside screaming in delight. She's so cute!

"All right. What would you like me to do?"

"Cut those carrots, please," he ordered, turning his face away to force himself to compose. Come on, Sanji, you're at work here. As she walked to the table and began to do as instructed, he watched her out of the corners of his eyes, going about his own business. A silence settled between them, and oddly, it was tense. Nami just stared at the table, chopping the carrots into slices, and there was a hardness to her expression that he could not place. After five minutes of brutal silence, she lowered the knife, staring at the carrot before her with eyes swimming with emotion. "Nami?" he asked aloud, turning to her, and she visibly jerked, as if roused from thought. Blushing, she hastily sliced the carrot and then carried the cutting board over to him, not meeting his eyes. Suspicious now, he watched her intently as he took the board from her and slid the carrots into the pot of stew that he was brewing.

"You baked the cake with Pudding, right?" she asked abruptly. Sanji's eyebrow shot up his forehead. Where did that come from? "Did you… enjoy that?" A pink hue had risen to her cheeks, which were slightly puffed out as she consciously avoided his confused stare. Is… is Nami jealous of Pudding? He realized, a smile slowly forming on his lips. He had never seen Nami jealous before, especially not over him. It made him positively elated. Smirking as a plan hatched in his mind, he turned around to stir the pot of stew nonchalantly.

"Pudding is quite a cook herself. It was nice working with someone of her caliber," he remarked casually. "Could you start on the onions next, please?" he added with a point to the stack of them on the counter, and she looked up at him, her eyes wide as she tried to read what was going on in his mind. She is so jealous! He thought giddily, watching as she quietly walked over to the onions and began to peel and cut them. "Oh, yes, Pudding looked so cute in her little apron~" he chimed casually, watching her out of his peripheral vision, and Nami's face flushed darkly. It was then that he felt bad at the little game he was playing, as her expression grew dismally sad. "… But, you know," he continued lowly, setting down the spoon on the counter and casually walking up behind her, "she definitely wasn't as cute as you." At his sudden appearance over her shoulder, she gasped and whipped around, and if his reflexes hadn't been what they were the knife she was using would've cleaved straight through his blonde hair. She bit down on her lip as she glared up at him, cheeks red, and then roughly thrust the cutting board into his hands.

"Here! The onions are done!" she snapped and jumped up, stalking over to the counter to grab a bigger knife and begin roughly sawing at a hunk of meat. She muttered under her breath, her face as red as the raw meat she was carving into, and Sanji watched her carefully as he dumped the vegetables into his stew. Are those tears in the corners of her eyes? Great, now I've done it. You had to be cute, Sanji. Still mumbling, she cursed as her long tangerine hair got in her way, and she grabbed a fistful of it to hold it to the back of her head; unfortunately, this made it difficult for her to cut the meat. As she was about ready to stab the slab of meat on frustration, Sanji quietly walked up behind her and gently took the waves of tangerine hair into his hands, holding up her hair for her.

"Here. This should make it easy, right?" he asked. She glared at him with blue eyes like the sea they sailed on, then snorted and went back to sawing at the meat angrily. Jeez. I hope she isn't pretending that's me, he grimaced as she hacked at it without mercy. Ugh, think, Sanji. You caused this mess. She thinks you like Pudding better! How can I prove that I don't? As he pondered the miserable grave he dug for himself, his fingers curled into her luscious locks, his eyes could not help but be attracted to that shining orange hair- and then her slim neck beyond. He focused on it, feeling a heat rising up inside of him, and before he even realized it he had leaned down and gently planted a kiss on the nape of her neck. He expected her to whip around, screeching obscenities and hacking at him with the knife, but instead she froze. He could feel the muscles of her neck stiffen under his mouth as he gently kissed her again.

"S-Sanji…" she murmured, and there was a fear in her voice, but an excitement, too, an excitement that made his blood get going. His gaze flicked upwards, his black eyes locking with her own, and she watched him apprehensively as he moved his face a little to softly kiss the side of her neck. Her head twitched in response, tilting as if to give him access to that beautiful, smooth, milky skin, and the lids of her eyes drifted down slightly and her mouth parted. Sanji loved that look on her face, that look of scared ecstasy, and he bunched all of her hair in one hand to slide his other one under her chin, tilting it upwards as he traced his lips across the groove of her neck. She let out a little gasp, and that sound made every nerve in his body sing with electricity. His eyes still locked in hers, hungry, feral, his lips migrated slowly up her neck and across her chin until at last they reached their prize, sliding over her own with a quiet but fierce passion. As he kissed her, she melted against him, trembling slightly. The entire time their eyes remained open, and in the depths of her rich brown eyes he could see everything.

When he pulled back she was breathless, shaking, and staring up at him with a mixture of helplessness and desire. It took her for a moment for her to gather her thoughts, so Sanji just held her, his arm around her waist while the other was still tangled in that beautiful orange hair. "I-I thought… Pudding…" she mumbled incoherently, but he guessed her intentions well enough.

"Pudding? Don't make me laugh. She's a pretty woman, but that's all; my heart always belonged to you, Nami." Her face relaxed a little, her mouth curling into a small smile, but he could still see the doubt there. "I shouldn't have said those things. I was just so overjoyed at the thought that you were jealous," he admitted, and he was truly apologetic. Truly, he shouldn't have been cruel like that. He leaned down over her, bring his mouth close to hers again, and murmured against her lips, "Can you forgive me, Nami? For all the hurt I've put you through? I won't ever make you doubt again," he vowed. He kept staring into her eyes, all that time, and watched as they flooded with happy tears. Choked up, all she could do was nod, and he smiled as he softly kissed her once more, more deeply and gently this time.

Nami… That whole time, all I could ever think about was you. He pulled his face back to bury it into her neck, breathing in the scent of tangerines that she carried. "I missed you," he mumbled. He really had. Though he had always played it off, he loved Nami, with every fiber of his being; he always knew that his past would catch up to him, and so he lied, to everyone and himself, pretending to be a playboy with no conception of love. It had been hard, heartbreaking sometimes, and he had come so close to just abandoning the façade and giving in to the love he felt for the intelligent, beautiful navigator; but he had resisted, fearful of what his family might do if they ever learned of the girl. Now, though…

Now, he was free to do as he pleased with no fear at all.

He hadn't spoken it aloud, but Nami heard him. She reached up with her hands, sliding her slim, perfect fingers through his golden locks with a gentle smile.

"I missed you, too. You had better not leave again," she warned him. He nodded, lifting his head to smile serenely down at her. "Now. We had better get down to business, okay? Luffy will start pounding on the door if we don't feed him soon," she joked. As much as Sanji would just like to stand there and hold her and kiss her all day, he had a job to do, as a chef. Bending down to give her one last pack on the cheek, he then retreated and returned to his position at the stove, occasionally barking orders to Nami. He couldn't help but watch her the entire time, appreciating just how adorable she looked cooking in an apron alongside him and occasionally holding her hair up with one hand.

Looks like I have a lovely new assistant, he mused to himself, because occasionally she would catch his gaze, and her face would melt into the most loving, happy smile he had ever seen her wear…