Naghi-Tan: Like enjoying the pain of chewing off your hangnails and cuticles! This fic was a lot of problems, but I'm in the right mood to sort them out. These two are so difficult and so interesting at the same time.
2: I Don't Think You Know Him
Because he was forced into the vacation by an apologetic manager, Sanji had too much time on his hands. The day of the trip came and went, and his phone was silent. He worried about the things he said, and the things he should have – but the night was over and time continued to move on with the weight of their troubles weighing in his gut. He spent most of the morning sitting at the table, regretting speaking out at all.
I could say shit so much easier to the other one, he thought, but this one is harder because he's so on guard and walled over. I get it. I understand why.
Once again, he was questioning his relationship with the man, and that felt familiar. It was the only thing that felt familiar. But he still wondered if Law's company was an obligation due to his involvement with the removal of the Vinsmokes – the man had feelings. Law had plenty of feelings, and Sanji could see them being held back. But he didn't know what they were or what the man was thinking.
Era differences, Sanji supposed with a heavy frown. Law grew up in times where men locked in their feelings – discussing them wasn't an option. Sanji was sure of this theory – he'd seen plenty of the movies Law had mentioned seeing lately, and Sanji had watched them and understood why Law wasn't as chatty as his other self (selves). The age gap – laughable, because Sanji was just a few years younger.
He wondered what his other self had done to capture the older man's eternal worship. Was the waiter like him? Or someone braver, someone more persistent and confident? Sanji didn't know that other man – Law never mentioned his personality or aspects, but he sometimes looked at Sanji now like he'd been struck.
This can't work, Sanji thought morosely. Realizing he was getting no where with his thoughts, he left the table. A brief linger at the window overlooking the city block, Sanji caught himself looking towards the northwest – he could see the church's towers, and could envision the cemetery just beyond that.
He got ready for the day with a shower and a quick tug on his hair into a ponytail. He then pulled on his noise-cancelling headphones and left his apartment. The city was bright and alive with activity – allowing for lesser clothes and lighter material. The costly set of headphones allowed him to ignore the calls of ghosts on the street. Sanji made his way to the cemetery by bus and foot, and found his father's headstone. Flowers left behind were withered and dry, crumbling in the light breeze. He wondered who had thought so fondly of Judge. He then found his siblings and his mother's gravesites, lingering over them in silence. There was a funeral procession nearby, and he avoided looking in that direction to avoid making any sort of eye contact with ghosts that might be looking at him.
Hands tucked into his jeans' pockets, Sanji then started looking for the name that had become his. It took over an hour of looking for his own name, but once he found the headstone, he felt a sense of frozen weight settle over his shoulders and chest. He stared down at the name and dates listed on the simple slab.
Blackleg sounds so much cooler than Vinsmoke, he reflected bitterly, mouth twisted. He noticed the faded package of cigarettes tucked against the broadside, and crouched for a closer look. He had never felt the urge to smoke in his life, but this man had. Would it have been an easier death to endure if he'd died of lung cancer than under the spray of bullets?
It took him a few moments to realize he wasn't alone, whirling around while pulling the headphones down to see Robin as she closed her umbrella with a fluff. The yards of material of her dress, flowing around her hips and flaring up to her shoulder pads seemed more majestic during the day – a woman with a permanent bloom of gunpowder and blood within her forehead, Robin was a ghost that walked without fear on the streets. She was also a welcomed friend.
"Torturing yourself early, today?" she asked him, noting the headstone.
Words ran through Sanji's mind, deciding on various responses and finding them all pitiful. Unlikeable. We're still seeing other people, Sanji thought, not daring to say the words aloud. He shrugged.
Robin nodded. "I see. The pain and the weight of expectations must have been suffocating enough for you to adventure out."
Sanji wondered if she were a mind reader – but Robin could read the emotions that flitted over his facial expressions, and felt satisfied with her guess.
"It's not fair," Sanji murmured uncomfortably. "I catch myself saying such…manipulative things and it's…I'm forcing him to look at me, Robin, and it's not me he's seeing. Then I think, Why would he? This one here," he gestured at the headstone, "Law speaks of him so highly with just his face, and I'm…I'm nowhere near the type of person that creates those expressions."
"It's not your fault – "
"It's not, but…I'm disappointing," Sanji added with frustration, looking down at himself. He wore a pair of ripped jeans over his white Vans, a simple t-shirt over that. He was gaining weight slowly, struggling to appease Zeff's last wish, but it wasn't an easy process. His frizzy hair was still managed in a sloppy ponytail, and his undercut had been shorn for the warming weather. He gave it a sporadic rub before adjusting his glasses. "I think of myself the way my family thinks – thought of me, and I just can't compare to a person like that. Someone who made that man mourn and miss…"
He sat slowly near the cement border of the gravesite, plucking at the grass with a heavy frown while Robin watched him.
Robin rested her umbrella against her shoulder. "What are you looking for from this, Sanji?"
Shielding his eyes from the sun, he looked up at her, blinking from behind the lenses of his glasses. He rolled the question around in his mind for a few moments, folding his hands to clutch between his knees. Someone to give a fuck about me, he thought to himself. He didn't dare say it out loud, fearing it was a selfish answer. He answered with another idle shrug.
Robin gave him a thin smile, turning away with an exhale of her own. "You make this difficult, child," she said low, facing the sun. "Do you know how long it's been since my life was taken from me?"
"Judging by your dress…? I dunno, a century?"
"Hmm. And here you are, at the end of another, forcing feelings I hadn't felt in a very long time." Robin turned to look at him as he looked confused. "I had thought that this…continued dance between you both wouldn't continue for this long, considering the differences, but here you both are. I've known that man longer than I've known you, and the only hope I can give you is that he is a very indecisive one. It must be his sign."
Sanji gave her a look that suggested he didn't understand. Robin reached up with gloved hands to adjust the collar of her blood splattered dress.
"Why don't you and I take a trip elsewhere to clear our heads?"
"You can do that? Oh, I don't…I don't drive," Sanji reminded her with some embarrassment. Robin began walking away, skirts rustling with her movement. Sanji glanced back at the headstone he was leaving behind, then followed after her.
"We can take a train, and you can hail a taxi, or Uber, to our final destination," she said. "Surely that's not a problem."
"You have a destination in mind?"
"I do. I don't know if it's still there, but it'll be a nice break from the system here," she murmured, leading them deeper into the cemetery.
Sanji noticed that most of the markers here were faded and old. He reached up to fiddle with his headphones, hearing a gently rising murmur from ghosts that surrounded them. She ventured up to a marker that was a simple metal engraving with numbers and a faded symbol. Surrounded by similar markers, Sanji thought that this was a mass graveyard – beyond the science of the times that could have the patience to identify and name those dead under large circumstances. She crouched, and retrieved something from the dirt just below the marker – it took Sanji a few moments to see it, but Robin had just retrieved a lump of dull metal. He took it from her fingertips with a curious look.
"Take this with you," she said. "It belongs to me."
"…Is this…?" Sanji looked at her with shock, then looked back at the item he had in hand. "Is this the bullet that killed you?"
"Neat, isn't it?" Robin smiled at him as he examined it incredulously. "This will allow me to travel with you."
"This is…your most treasured item?" Sanji asked skeptically.
"It is. The one I loved killed me with it. But that was long ago," Robin then said as Sanji's eyes widened with shock, causing him to almost drop it as she began walking away from the site, "and the feelings are long gone. I can only talk of them in passing, like a situation that was never mine to begin with. But it allows me to remember my death – it allows me to remember the feelings attached to it. Therefore, it is my most treasured item."
"It should be nice to get away for awhile," Robin conceded. "Maybe some travel will allow you to see things you couldn't see before. Clear your head. Allow you to see that there is a bigger world than this one you've grown up in."
"Yeah, but there's more ghosts…"
"True."
Robin faded away as she walked, and Sanji paused in mid-step, frowning over the area where she'd disappeared. He clutched the bullet in one hand, the other shifting his headphones up and over his head to block out the whispers. He felt reluctant to go anywhere. He was too comfortable here.
But maybe this was what he needed.
: :
The falling rain made Law nostalgic. Lightning flashed outside, momentarily causing the parking lot and wooded area enough light for him to see the needles matted on the ground. He rested his forehead against the pane, watching his breath fog up the glass. He could hear the others' behind him, talking excitedly about the day's hunt, but his mind was so far away.
It was back in the city, lingering over a dinner table with condiments that didn't look as if they were used.
I am me, he is not, he thought with despondence. How difficult is it to separate the two?
Law understood he wasn't that interesting of a person. He wasn't full of humor, he didn't think too much of today's standards – he still didn't understand what memes were. But he appreciated a good cup of coffee and he liked the digitally remastered masterpieces he could watch on demand. He wasn't stuck in his ways – open to learn – but he admitted feeling overwhelmed when it became too much. He preferred to dress stiffly, but he had a sense of sass to him as well that was subtle. True, he was an "old man" but he was still twenty-six.
He was shocked at how much younger his counterparts seemed these days.
He had such frustration inside of him whenever Sanji mistook him for that other him (the others?). Because while they took on his body and created a somewhat sloppy persona, retaining little of his natural qualities, they weren't him. Couldn't Law be seen for himself, as he is now? Law felt frustrated and upset that even as he tried to be the person he truly was, Sanji didn't see him. The younger man was looking for the one that intruded upon his life, and seemed unsatisfied when he couldn't find him(them). So it felt to Law that Sanji was rejecting him for something shinier.
Law wanted to be seen as him. Same as him, he thought with a troubled frown.
Have I lived too long?
It felt like an obligation to continue intruding onto Sanji's space – Law did feel responsible for the circumstances surrounding the kid – no, man – because he was the one that gave Sanji life. If he hadn't been there that day Sora Vinsmoke had tried to drown herself and her kids, then surely Sanji wouldn't be here today. So it was his responsibility.
He also admitted that he had lingering, leftover feelings, but he couldn't sort those out. He accepted his beloved's death – already bore the weight of the waiter's passing. All he had left was his grief, but that was lighter, now, because of time and acceptance. But the feelings he had were different.
He was a lonely man. He craved touch, but he couldn't ask for it. He was trapped in a time where the touch of another man was forbidden. He was stunned at how open it was, now. Celebrated, even. But he couldn't quite accept that, not with his background. But whenever Sanji touched him– those little gestures of weight against Law's back, the feel of his crowding (like he was seeking Law's shelter), the weight of his stare when he watched Law speak – those things Law liked. But the words couldn't leave him to express so. The waiter had taken from him privately whatever fit his bossy whim, and those moments were different from this one.
Like finding comforts in a stranger that was comparable to an ex. Or something. They had the same face and features, the same coloring – but while one was bright and strong, the other pulled at other senses Law didn't think he had. Drew out different feelings he couldn't imagine having with the other one. Positive, negative…? They were both frightening and interesting and he wasn't sure how deal with either.
He was attracted because Sanji was a product of modern times, and he wore his clothes in a way that Law couldn't see back then, and there were times where Law wondered how it would feel to touch the different lengths on the blonde's head. Sometimes Sanji smelled like the restaurant he worked at, and sometimes he smelled like coffee and wheat toast (an odd combination – Law didn't understand how the scents involved food when he rarely saw the man eat); sometimes Sanji said things that were both inviting and comforting in a way Law needed, and Law himself was a lonely man in need of physical comforts, too.
He thought about those videos a lot. He'd spent time trying to find traces of things that Sanji had deleted, interested about the content. But it made him feel guilty to acknowledge that part of himself. Like seeing tapes involving neighbors, friends – the guilt would cause his stomach to clench, but his interest to perk. Oh, the guilt…!
Product of his times, he supposed.
Come back, he found himself thinking. Come back and tell me how to feel. If this is okay.
"Are you that determined to be electrocuted?" Shachi asked him, startling him out of his thoughts. Law pushed away from the window, fixing his hair. He spied his hat sitting nearby, but he resisted reaching for it.
'Wanna go bald? That's how you go bald,' he heard Sanji tell him crankily. Law thought that it sometimes echoed with the waiter's voice, but he was sure his voice was different from Sanji's. Still present with tinges of bossiness that Law couldn't help but be grateful for.
"You're going to be struck down by the hand of God if you continue sitting there. Move away from the window."
"I'm ruminating over my thoughts," Law mumbled bitterly, "which are mine to keep. Which are mine to hold for myself – "
"Oh, come off it!" Penguin complained, lowering his phone. "So you now know my thoughts on Twitter! Big deal!"
Clicking his tongue, Law glared outside once more.
"Besides, it's how we got this gig," Penguin went on, gesturing at the television. "While it might not be much, this place is going to require sectional investigation. Without that brat here, we don't even know where the guy is."
"Why didn't he want to come?" Shachi then asked as Jean Bart opened a beer.
"Think about it, idiots. Someone that sees and hears ghosts, being treated to their torment and pain while they took their own lives? It's common sense that he wouldn't," Law snapped at them. "He's so fucking sensitive, he can't separate their lives from his…"
Penguin and Shachi exchanged looks with Jean Bart.
"Someone's sensitive, but it can't just be Sanji," Penguin mused in a whisper, but loud enough for Law to hear. His scowl turned bitter.
"Well, when you put it like that, it's understandable," Jean Bart interjected before any of them could launch into any attacks. "We were selfish as a group to assume that it was okay. For as long as we had known him, we've learned that he does feel more for a situation than any of us do. We'd lost our feelings a long time ago."
"More like…they're stuck in a roundabout," Penguin corrected thoughtfully.
"And none of us knows how to yield," Shachi added.
"What's…what's a roundabout?" Law asked stiffly, furrowing his brow.
"But Law's feelings at the moment are a concern," Jean Bart continued, finishing off his beer and neatly adding it to the tower nearby. "Because we've captured him on film and on audio ignoring the voices that approached him."
"They did?" Law replied with confusion, pulling his chair closer to them.
"At hour two and fifteen seconds, and hour three and forty-five seconds, two different individuals asked you if you can hear them," Shachi reported, pulling his laptop over his lap while Penguin rummaged into the cooler for a new can of beer. "You responded to neither on audio."
"I…probably had a lot on my mind," Law confessed with a grimace. Shachi tutted him.
"BUT our saving grace is the distant sound of a dog barking," Penguin said, pulling on his headset and directing Shachi to the audio scrolling bar. "There is a dog barking somewhere in all our mileage. Not too close, not too far."
"It could be an intelligent apparition, or just an animal abandoned by a suicidal owner and left to fend for itself," Law murmured, listening to the snippet of their conversation. Sure enough, there was a dog's barking that seemed to lack a true direction – as if echoing off from the trees. He attuned himself to the sound. "It's a big dog."
"It's a big dog," Penguin agreed gravely. "Definitely with teeth."
"Remember that time I got bit by one?" Shachi asked with concern. "Look! I've got goosebumps!"
"If it were the dog in question, then the dog surely wasn't without its master," Law murmured. "He was probably watching us as well."
"Sanji would've really come in handy. Useless bastard," Penguin muttered to himself.
Law listened to the vague sounds of the dog barking once more, then glanced outside. He exhaled low, rising from the chair. "This rain and lightning don't seem that bad. Jean Bart."
Shachi closed his laptop with a gasp. "You are going to be struck by lightning and you will die!"
"I don't think any of our equipment is prepared for that," Penguin warned Law as he rose from his chair, setting his beer aside as Jean Bart left this room to the adjoining one. "But take one of the recorders with you, at least."
"Die of pneumonia! Bronchitis! Hyperthermia! By God, you're going to drown and get electrocuted!"
"I won't venture in far," Law said assuredly, picking up his hat. "Maybe just to the first mile marker. I'll need a flashlight. You all can either wait in the vehicle or here. It's advisable."
"I ain't going out there."
"A broken foot from getting caught in a tree root you won't see until the last second! A snakebite! A mugging! Being sniped by a psychopath targeting camping sights! A mountain lion attack!"
Law and Penguin looked over at Shachi with exasperation, the man Googling all the mishaps that could happen to an individual while taking a midnight stroll through a forest during a rain storm. He looked at them and closed the notebook once again.
"Take some doggie treats," Shachi then suggested lightly. "He's probably hungry."
Law lingered over the question he had peeking out from the depths of the misery he had been thinking over. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Don't you all get tired of all the layers you're using?"
The three of them looked at him with question. Jean Bart opened another can.
"I removed mine," he confessed lightly. "Some time ago."
"I got used to the chaos," Penguin said with a light shrug. "Yeah, maybe it's not what you were going through, but I'm attached to mine."
Adjusting his glasses, Shachi said, "I put away a couple. Just using two of them, now. I don't know, man, I feel like I can adjust better using them."
"Watching you go through your shit gets me thinking I'm not ready to face it alone," Penguin added to Law. "I mean…I wasn't that great of a person. But now, I feel like I can be okay."
"Why don't you try it?" Law suggested. "Just…be yourselves."
"But you're so fucking sad all the time," Penguin said with a grimace. "And shocked and awed by all the things we're already comfortable with, and – like, I know I'll freak out."
"Like watching a dude that's lived in the senior center all his life suddenly catch sight of hentai posters and realizing that they're not just cartoons," Shachi added on an uncomfortable whisper.
Penguin ignored Law's puzzled expression towards the redhead and said, "Besides, man, I just…"
"Like addicts excusing their habits," Law scoffed, causing the pair of them to stand up with outrage, Jean Bart finishing off his beer.
"Coming from the one that introduced them to it," he commented lightly, Law scowling at him while the pair brightened with the siding. "You're encouraging them to take a step you yourself are having problems with. Maybe if you had more confidence in what you're doing, it'd give them some security. They're babies, Trafalgar. Slow steps with strong hands…"
"We're not babies!" the pair shouted at Jean Bart with outrage.
"I am offended," Shachi said, touching his chest while Penguin scowled, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. "But that's the right concept to use, JB."
"Why are you suggesting this?" Jean Bart then asked Law, gesturing with his empty can. "What's on your mind?"
Law exhaled shortly. "My adjustments to this time period, to….everything. It's troublesome. And it's because I've been sheltered under the weight of my misplaced confidence. The lack of my own strength is…it's enough to feel that both of your reasons are valid."
"I mean, we grew up in times where some of this shit was unheard of," Penguin said. "So to be introduced to it like…after such a long period of this fake confidence, it's…scary."
"We've all relied so much on our personas that are a combination of other people," Law said slowly, "that we forgot who we truly are. In the end, would you recognize yourself?"
The three of them looked at him with grim looks before Penguin winced.
"Alright, I confess," he said with a clap of his hands, "I got so used to the other you that this one just automatically depresses me."
"Penguin!" Shachi cried with horror.
"Mostly because I'm reminded of who I am," Penguin said as Law scowled darkly at him. "And maybe I don't want to be that person, anymore. I mean, when we met, I was beating dudes outside of a bar with a damn pipe for making fun of my fucking shirt, which, in retrospect, was pretty stupid at the time. Do you want that person walking around in this time?"
"Maybe it's time for you to learn control," Law suggested. 'Maybe now's the time to do it."
Penguin frowned.
"At least you weren't like Eustess," Jean Bart assured Penguin.
"Yeah, that guy…that ghost was…he was totally human, but totally barbaric like a demon," Shachi said with a wince. He hit Penguin's hip with the back of his hand. "You're not Eustess. Don't worry about it. You got good guys here who will put you back into your place if you get out of control."
Penguin sighed. "I'll think about it."
Fifteen minutes later, the trio watched Law cautiously as the man tilted his head from side to side. His body language – usually stiff and serious – turned lanky, shoulders slouching. The man removed the ever present hat, tossing it aside, and patted his jacket for his glasses.
"I feel a little chonky," Law confessed lightly, removing his jacket and investigating the pockets for his missing glasses. "Guess my middle age is finally catching up to me."
"God, even your voice turns super homo when you turn into this guy," Penguin remarked with disgust, causing Law to look at him with a start.
He cleared it a few times, then said, "What about now?"
"You are just…please don't wear anything stupid out there. You're going to die."
Shachi rolled his eyes, opening up a beer. "Listen, dude, you're venturing out into a haunted forest. Jean Bart, pictures, please."
"A haunted forest? One of those things with amusement rides and all of that? You know how I feel about slides," Law asked with confusion as the bigger man towered over him, holding a pair of pictures in his hands. "Oh. Thank you."
"No, stupid. We were hired to find a ghost in particular, this dude and his dog," Shachi pointed out as Law inspected the pictures with interest. He squinted, drawing both close to his face while Shachi watched him with exasperation.
"Wow, if I smoked five packs of Marlboro Reds a day, cut my hair and lost about seventy pounds, he and I could be twins," Law murmured with interest. "Maybe it is my evil twin. But look at his cute puppy – "
"That is a demonic creature, you fool. It'll bite your balls off."
"Well…I'd better tuck them back, then. Penguin. Help me."
"STOP IT!"
Jean Bart sighed heavily as Shachi continued giving out instructions, and Law and Penguin pushed and pulled at each other. The air in the room seemed to shift with a particular difference that was noticeable. Jean Bart had known Trafalgar Law for years, but it never ceased to amaze him how his entire persona changed when he layered himself. Gone was the serious, intense man, and in his place was a chaotic, lanky figure whose movements were carelessly sloppy and yet feline. His voice seemed to change as well, growing lighter and more mischievous.
The trio was used to this man, but they knew it wasn't the true man himself.
"I'm blind," Law then decided, rummaging through the familiar suitcase. He tossed some articles of clothing aside with disdain, pulling up a simple black shirt. He removed all of his upper outerwear to change into that, wiggling with discomfort as he pulled at the strict oval collar. "I can't see for shit. Penguin. Lead me."
"I'm going to die out there. You volunteered to strut in there on your own, you go on your own. I'll wait in the car."
Law adjusted the hoodie he then pulled on, layering Shachi's jean jacket over that while Shachi complained. Glancing around the room, he gave a light sigh.
"I thought Sanji would be here," he said morosely. "He's home, isn't he? Hiding from me. Now what'd I do?"
"Get his phone, get his phone," Shachi instructed Jean Bart from the corner of his mouth, Jean Bart retrieving Law's jacket and searching the pockets with frantic pawing.
Law snagged his sword case, swinging that over one shoulder and adjusting the fit. "Well, let's go. I'm interested in this adventure. Oof. Walk with me slowly, Penguin. I fear my pants will cause some unseemly splitting in certain areas if I move a certain way."
"Then don't move in a certain way!" Penguin snapped impatiently at him, the pair leaving the room.
"Did you find his phone?" Shachi asked Jean Bart with worry.
"Nope," the older man said heavily. "I did not."
: :
Sanji was startled to see Law's ID pop up on his phone, and his heart jumped ever so slightly.
He's hurt, something happened …! were his first thoughts of dismay, causing panic to build and lump in his throat. Then he looked at his reflection with impatience. The moving train gave him speeding pictures of a rainy night, the car quiet with passengers either sleeping or involved in electronics of their own.
"Yes?" he answered low, adjusting the volume of his headphones.
"Greetings, Mr. Vinsmoke," he heard, his blood performing a slight jump as the tone and drawl of his name caused him some distress. Moments after the greeting passed, Sanji could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, and the sound of a man breathing heavily through some heavy exertion. "Are you home?"
"No," Sanji answered tightly, eyes shifting back and forth. The difference in voices made him quite jumpy, unsure of what and how to feel.
"Why are you so upset? Now what'd I do?"
"I…nothing. Nothing – what's wrong?"
"It's been ages since I've heard your voice. A million years – here we are on some midnight adventure through a rainy wood, and…you weren't included. Are you being bullied by my friends?"
"No – "
"Did I bully you? I have vague memory of you sitting at your table, looking tiredly timid. Oh, I do want to mention, it's lovely the way you've worked so hard to put some weight on your slouchy little shoulders. Have you been working out? Why did you change the scenery? I quite liked how indifferent your surroundings were in basis to your personality. Like you were temporary yourself. A living ghost – a haunted little field mouse, trying to save the rats of NIMH – "
Sanji sighed, struggling to keep up with the change of topic and the slight shift in tone. "God, that rambling just drives me insane – can I get a word in?"
"Timmy. No, Tommy. The mouse's name? Timothy. You're not a Mrs Brisby just yet, you still invite needed protection - "
"Are – you have your layers back on, don't you?"
"I do. Those guys sent me into some haunted woods, and it's not that I'm scared of the people swinging from the tree limbs, but there are gleams lighting the darkness as well as the lightning, and – "
Sanji sighed noisily, hand to his head as Law continued to ramble. His phone vibrated to signal a text, and he swiped to see that Shachi was warning him about Law's "arrival". He responded back to him just in time to hear Law say, "I'm going to have to put my phone away, dear. There's a cute little puppy in need of my assistance. I'll send you a picture."
With the abrupt hang up, Sanji sat in his seat in rigid silence. His heart was pounding, his head spinning. He felt horribly confused. Closing his eyes, Sanji had to reflect within himself that the brief moment of happiness was there because he was recognized and remembered. The guilt followed right afterward.
It's like an ex had just returned back to town, and I'm living here with someone else, he thought morosely. His phone vibrated once, and he opened the sent picture.
The animal could barely be described as that – it was a demonic, snarling creature with red eyes, fur extended in black spikes along its spine and shoulders, blackened hands where the paws should have been braced against the uneven terrain. The foamy shadow bubbling around it didn't seem to waver against the flash of captured lightning in the thickly wooded trees. The area looked isolated, bumpy, full of threats – Sanji could see people hanging from branches, one sitting up against a trunk – missing their head.
He closed the picture quickly and shut his eyes, the imprint lingering against his closed eyelids.
He looked at his bag next to him, and reached in to make sure he felt the bullet hidden within the spiral coral of his notebook. Chewing his nail, he stared out the window of the passing scenery, wondering what to say or what to feel.
