The bell rang for lunch. Sanji quickly fished his and Zoro's lunch out of his bag and walked out the classroom. He took one last look at Zoro's new desk, got replaced in the middle of class by the janitor. There are a couple bags and goodies on the desk. The people that set up the trap in his desk and the wire had turned themselves in. And almost the whole class is punished to clean the classroom from head to toe and clean anything else that has graffiti on it. Punishment for writing on Zoro's desk. The straw hat's don't have to do that because they didn't participate in that, neither did Sanji. Lucky them.

Sanji walked to the headmaster office and knocked on the door. He walked after getting permission and saw Zoro doing what seems to be work. "Lunch time." Sanji says to Zoro. Zoro looks at him then at the clock. Zoro gets and takes the paper he was working on, giving it to Sengoku. Zoro walked back to Sanji who grabs his hand walk out.

"Bring him back after lunch." Sengoku yells after them.

"I will." Sanji says. Zoro's grip on his hand isn't as tight as it was that morning but he could feel Zoro tremble with fear every time they passed someone. He brought them to a secluded area, just the two of them. They sat down across from each other. Sanji had hid them in the forest area from the video where Zoro was feeding the wildlife after getting his lunch dumped. He handed Zoro his lunch with his reusable fork.

They ate in silence but Sanji couldn't be more happy. There Zoro sat, in front of him, at school, eating lunch. He didn't think it would happen with how Zoro was trying to avoid school and everything having to deal with it.

But looking at Zoro he saw how sad he is. It made him sad. "I'm sorry, I forced you to come to school." Sanji sees Zoro looking up at him. "Bonney told me too. I didn't want to force you but..."

"It's fine." Zoro says back, then looks down at his lunch he barely touched sadly, "it's... I had pictures of my twin sister and I. They both got ruined." Zoro says.

"Sorry." Sanji says.

"You don't have to say sorry. It wasn't your fault. I have more but those were my favorite ones." Can't change anything about that. So Sanji decided to change the topic.

"What have you been doing in the office with Sengoku?" Sanji asks, curious.

"Reading and doing tests. He wanted to check to see where I am, what I missed."

"Eh? That's it? I thought you would be doing something cooler... WAIT!" Sanji shouts shocking Zoro who ate his lunch. "You and Sengoku were speaking a different language. Since when?"

Zoro swallows his food. "Since when have I known another language? Since I was younger. Since when have we been able to talk to each other? Since I enrolled. He knows my dad." Zoro says handing the empty lunch box back to Sanji and a silent thanks. Sanji nods, he got that Sengoku knew his father, and the rest of his family.

"I think I remember your sister mention you, your sister and mom all speaking the same language." Sanji says packing their empty lunches aways. "She also said you were bullied."

"She really ran her mouth off." Zoro says frowning. "Surprising. Perona is usual the loud one while Bonney is the silent one." Zoro mentions. He looks at Sanji then away at a random patch of grass. "But I was bullied. From kindergarten till..." cants say till he he meet Luffy and the others cause he was bullied not to long ago, "they stop after I finally stood up for myself. Beat the crap out of all the other kids who made fun of my hair or eyes." Zoro says with a smug grin. Sanji could see a younger Zoro, cursing and throwing the middle finger at the other kids. It made him smile. "I lost my friends when they learned that I was attracted to boys."

"You got bullied then too." It's not a question, he knew Zoro must have.

"Not as bad as the lube, I guess. It was all petty stuff, like throwing water on me from the window on the top floor, putting thumbtacks in my shoes, trying to trip me while I walked, or putting a vase with a flower on my desk." Sanji made a face at the last one. Zoro noticed his confused face. He rubs the back of his neck. "Right that's not known everywhere... when a student dies most people put a vase of flowers on their desk, like you would if you went to a grave. But put it on a student who is still alive it's basically telling them to go kill themselves." Zoro explains. Sanji was appalled by that. That was almost as worse as saying it out loud, or writing it on the desk.

"How did it stop?" Sanji asks, he doesn't remember Zoro getting bullied in middle school.

"I moved schools." Zoro adds, "half way through the school year." Sanji nodded. After that he must have met Luffy because of Smoker and Ace dating at the time. After that it's history. Luffy and Zoro get into trouble, meeting more people like Nami and Usopp, eventually him. All of them becoming friends.

After lunch Sanji dropped Zoro at Sengoku's office before heading to class himself. As class settle down for class that is about to start, his old friends approached him.

"Sanji can you please help us?" Usopp asks. Sanji just stares at him. "We really want to apologize to Zoro. But we haven't been able to. We need help." Usopp pleads.

"I don't know how I can help." Sanji says. He doesn't really see how he can. He already forced Zoro to come to school he doesn't want to force Zoro to talk to someone he doesn't want to talk to. If Zoro doesn't walk to talk to them then that's Zoro's choice. So far, he's gotten the hint from Zoro that he doesn't want to see them.

Nami pulls Usopp back and steps up. "Look, Sanji, we're sorry. We didn't mean to be so rude to you too. We were all upset that after going through so much already that you didn't let us know that Zoro was in trouble, and that Zoro didn't tell us. We know we over reacted about it now. And we want to fix it. We've been trying but we can't so can't you at least help us?" Nami pleads, tears gathering in her eyes. Sanji was upset with them, yes, but he wasn't an asshole but even then...

"I don't know how I can help." Sanji says again. "Zoro has told me he doesn't want to see you."

"Why not? Yes we didn't talk to him but we didn't bully him." Nami asks, her tone almost a shout.

"You may not have bullied him but you also didn't help him when you saw that he was. None of us did. We aren't his first friends. The middle school he was in before he transferred to ours bullied him too." That's all Sanji says.

Sanji closed his shoe locker as he tap the toe of his shoes on the ground. He hadn't seen Zoro. Sanji walked back and forth trying to spot the moss head. Because of the crowd of students that were cleaning the school as punishment and those who wanted to get the hell out of school he was swept away. He was a little worried. Just because everyone knows what really happened doesn't mean everyone is now sorry about it. There is such a thing as victim blaming. Where people blame the victim for not being able to protect themselves or any other reason. Not everyone can, and Zoro did his best.

Sanji stopped. He saw that familiar green hair he loves now. Zoro sat in front of his locker changing his shoes. "Marimo~" Sanji lilts. The cook physically sees a shiver run down Zoro's spine. He looks at the cook horrified.

"Don't ever to that again." Zoro says. He puts his indoor shoes back in the locker, a very clean locker.

"The locker is clean." Sanji points out.

"The janitor had the students who did it clean it out, and scrub it clean, disinfecting whatever was growing. I heard it was a vicious cycle of cleaning and throwing up, only to clean more, then throwing up." Zoro says as he lets the cook lead the way.

The cook did notice how Zoro's mood has improved. So with a smile he said, "I'll drop you off at work like I always do." Zoro just gave him a smile. A perfect way to end the school day, walking with his boyfriend.

They walked in to see Elliot sweeping the floor. He looks up to see Zoro in his uniforms. "Woah woah woah. Is that your uniform?" He asks a smile on his face. Zoro nods.

"Yeah, why?" He looks down at his clothes.

"It looks different on you." Elliot says. "So you went to school today, how was it?" He asks.

"It was a lot better than I thought but I did spend most of the day in the headmasters office. Oh and..." Zoro's face turned completely red. He turns his face towards Sanji. "I can't believe you kissed me in front of everyone."

"You were so nervous it was the only thing I could think of." Sanji explains. Elliot laughs.

"Man, I wished I went to the same school. It sounds so fun." Elliot wipes the tears that formed.

"I can't believe you did that in front of everyone."

"Why? Did you not want me to show affection in public?" Zoro looks at Sanji shocked.

"I don't really care about what other people think but I know you do. I thought you would want to keep it a secret from others." Zoro says, pink dusting his cheeks. Sanji cheeks go red.

"I don't mind them knowing." he says rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"I'm going to go change." Zoro says running to the back. Elliot looks at Sanji. He seems like the type.

"Don't have to answer, you could ignore me but... have you told your family? About dating Zoro?"

"It's just me and my dad." Sanji looks down at his feet. "He doesn't know. I don't know how to tell him." Sanji says.

"Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and tell them the truth. If they truly cared your happiness should be a priority rather than who you're dating." Elliot says.

"We have this relationship with other, it's hard to describe but it works for us. I have never had to talk to him about who I was dating. Anything with romance really."

"That's why you haven't said anything now?"

"I'm afraid of how he'll react, and if it's bad I don't want to burden Zoro."

"How do you think you'll burden Zoro? If that does happen he might be the only you could talk to. Plus he's your boyfriend, he'll listen and help with what he can."

"Thanks, but I still don't think I'm ready."

"This is you and your father. It's your choice. I just hope it doesn't hurt Zoro. Have you talked to him about it?"

"Yeah, he knows." Elliot smiles. Good, there should be no secrets.