In the galley was pinned a sheet of paper artfully negotiated from Nami's stack by Usopp, who had written all numbers from thirty to one in decreasing order on it with as many coloured markers as he could put his hands on. Every day after lunch, one of the kids was entrusted with a black marker and allowed to cross out one more day. While the proceedings had to be carefully monitored as Luffy tended to get a little overenthusiastic, the ritual was generally acknowledged as a good thing. Anyone reaching despair or dangerous levels of frustration only had to look up at the paper to be reminded that there were only n more days of this torture left. As this only seemed to happen to Sanji, placing the countdown sheet in plain view in the galley was a stroke of genius, if Usopp said so himself (he did).
In truth, most of the crew had been expressing concern for Sanji. Luffy was easily distracted and spent most of his time playing with Usopp and Chopper or sitting on the figurehead staring at the ocean (a characteristic that seemed to be built in); with tactful teaching from Nami (repeated whacks on the head), he had learned not to whine for food all the time. Luffy was easy enough to deal with, and if one didn't take in consideration the regular bathing disasters, Sanji didn't have to deal with him that often.
Zoro was another business entirely, and it wasn't clear why. His adulation for Sanji had reached its peak early on and stayed there. It was pointed out that Sanji had allowed the later developments of late-night meetings in the galley and sharing a hammock, and therefore had no right to complain about anything. Then Chopper meekly suggested that maybe the endless teasing that Sanji got from most of the grown-up crew didn't serve to improve his mood, and it was something like a revelation. As the quality of the food tended to suffer from Sanji's bad moods, the decision was made not to tease him anymore about Zoro's unwanted affections. Too much.
Usopp, who was starting to suspect that Sanji had picked him as the new target of kicks that should rightfully have been directed at Zoro, went a step further and tried to get the green-haired kid to lay off Sanji's case a little. One long and lazy afternoon, by the cunning artifice of telling tales about the adventures of the Straw Hat crew (he had an endless stock of those), he carefully outlined the main facts in the relationship between Sanji the Sea Cook and Roronoa Zoro the Pirate-Hunter-Turned-Pirate.
It had the expected effect, only more. Zoro, not one of nature's most chipper kids, became outright broody. He refused to talk to Sanji any more than strictly necessary, went to sleep on the couch every night without even being told to, and spent most of his days alone in the anchor deck. After Chopper voiced his concerns about this unhealthy behaviour, Robin made a stealthy check and announced that he was training most ferociously and could now pull a quite decent handstand.
Strangely enough, it didn't seem to make Sanji any happier with the world. Instead of that... well, he was doing his best to hide it, but he was quite obviously worried. In turn, the good spirits of the rest of the crew were considerably dampened; Usopp, seeing this turn of event, decided that since he'd only told Zoro the truth he could not be blamed for the kid's attitude, and therefore kept his mouth wisely shut about it.
The day count was down to three when, to everyone's relief, Chopper announced an hour after breakfast that an island was in sight. Anticipation rose. Sanji spend most of the morning making a list of everything he needed to buy should the island be inhabited, or find if it wasn't. Luffy bounced excitedly and noisily from one end of the ship to another until Nami screamed at him to be quieter - at which point he endeavoured to bounce excitedly and silently, which was just as annoying and a lot more dangerous.
An early lunch made of the last of the perishable supplies was just ready when they got to the island, and it was decided that they'd eat before docking. Considering the general excitement (originating mainly from Luffy), that didn't take long, and by noon Sanji was ready to head to the middle-sized town for shopping purposes.
Nami dropped the bomb just as he was about to head off.
"Sanji-kun, why don't you take the children with you? Chopper wants to check out some interesting-looking plants in that forest over there and Usopp has to repair Merry again. I'm sure Zoro and Luffy would enjoy seeing the town."
There was more protest from Zoro than from Sanji, who had long since understood that he couldn't escape Nami's will if he tried. Usopp waited until the grumbling cook, holding each kid by a hand and seemingly ready to murder the first idiot to make a comment, was out of sight before he questioned the wisdom of Nami's move. The answer was scathing.
"They need to sort this out. I'm not taking three more days of this. So unless you have a better idea or want me to explain to Sanji-kun what happened to make Zoro behave like that, shut up now and go do something useful."
He did.
Summer on a Spring island was definitely one of the best times and places to be, Sanji decided. It was warm with a nice cool breeze, and girls all around him were wearing light dresses and tight shirts. It made a walk in the market a feast for the eyes, especially since the current local fashion seemed to be all about partial transparency.
Shopping for food was, after cooking, Sanji's favourite activity, especially when he could take his time and walk leisurely in the alleys of a market such as this one, surveying vegetables, meat, fish (he always paid extra attention to how many different sort of fish were available), spices and fruit, talking to shopkeepers about prices and preparation and the weather, and falling in instant love with a beautiful woman or ten.
By all rights, this place was paradise. And he'd got there dragging a kid in each hand, which more or less defeated the whole point of being in paradise.
Life really sucked sometimes. And to top it all, Zoro was sulking.
It was stupid. When Zoro had stopped his nightly visits to the galley the day after they'd run out of milk, Sanji had chosen to take it as an unspoken compliment to his cooking skills, and decided that it was a very good sign indeed, since it showed that the kid had been coming for the drink, not Sanji's presence.
He'd been somewhat surprised, when he finally went to bed, to see Zoro huddled under a blanket on the couch. Which could mean that the nightmares were finally gone and Sanji was getting his hammock back to himself at long last; but it had taken Sanji ages to fall asleep. Long enough to hear the thrashing and the groans, to see Zoro sit up, clutching at his ear pendants before he glanced Sanji's way, shook his head, and laid back down. Long enough to have to tell himself four or five times that if the idiot had decided that he didn't want help there was no reason why Sanji should give it.
It went downhill from there. Sanji would have been happy with the sudden change, but something was very obviously wrong and he couldn't begin to figure out what it was. The only things he was certain of were that the nightmares had definitely not got better, and whenever Zoro wasn't showing off how much he didn't care about what Sanji was doing or where he was, he looked downright miserable.
It was disturbing. And did not make for happy shopping.
A commotion at the other side of the market place brought him back to the here and now, but he refused to pay attention to it. In the current circumstances, it was best to do the shopping quickly and go back to the ship as soon as possible. Possibly then he would be able to sneak back out. He tugged impatiently at the hands of the kids as he took a long stride away from the noise, and as if in response there was a loud murmur of wonder from behind.
Suddenly suspicious, Sanji looked down from the first time since he'd left Merry. Zoro was still here, deliberately looking away. Luffy...
In truth, Sanji should have known better than to think that holding the rubber brat's hand would be enough to keep him in tow, but he'd been distracted. Which didn't really explain how he hadn't noticed that his captain had stopped at an enticing food store and just let his arm stretch as Sanji walked away. The boy was now in the middle of a fascinated crowd, apparently enjoying the attention very much as he went through the usual business of explaining that he was a rubber man. Sanji gave a loud sigh, and let go of Zoro's hand.
"I'll be back in a moment. Don't move," he ordered in a voice that hopefully indicated all the nasty things he could and would to to the brat if he did, and followed Luffy's arm into the middle of the crowd. When he finally got there, he could only hope that the shopkeeper was making good business thanks to the entertainment and had decided to give the kid free food, because if Sanji had to pay for all of this Nami-san was not going to be happy with him. How Luffy could eat so much in such a small amount of time was still a wonder even to him.
"Oi, brat," he said in a mildly threatening tone. "Get up, we're going." Trying to explain to Luffy that he was being a pain had never worked before, there was no reason why it should now.
"Bu' Shanchi," the boy started with his mouth full, spitting a few bits of meat in the process. Having noticed that he was wasting part of his loot, he swallowed before continuing. "I'm hungry." The supplicating eyes were a good trick, that thankfully only worked up to the age of ten or so, but Sanji wasn't falling for it. He glared down Luffy's 'lost puppy' look, opened his mouth-
"Oh, this boy is just so cute! Is he yours?"
Sanji whipped around, the command gone directly from his ears to his muscles without stopping at the brain. She was about twenty-five, with a heart-shaped face, black hair cascading beautifully on her naked shoulders, a chest worthy of Nami-san's and waist he could wrap his hands around, and she was smiling at him, her light green eyes twinkling with amusement and interest. In him.
"Mellorine" he answered weakly, knees gone to mush and heart-eyed, feeling that his day had finally come.
Despite the impulse to show Sanji that he wasn't taking any order from him, Zoro did as he was told and stayed in place. And stayed. And stayed. Until he had the feeling that he'd been standing there for hours and finally turned around to look at the food stall where he'd seen Luffy stop earlier.
There was no-one there. Well, there were people, but none he knew. Luffy and Sanji were gone. Frowning, Zoro looked around the place, but couldn't find them anywhere.
Sanji hadn't come back for him. Zoro cursed himself for not having expected it, knowing what he knew now. But he'd prove to them that he didn't care about the man. He'd go back to the ship himself, and get there before them too. And in three days, when he was a strong fighter again, he would show Sanji.
Fully determined, Zoro looked around himself one more time -just to be sure- and headed back towards the sea.
This new development was heaven and hell combined in a delicious torture.
The woman who had first talked to him was called Alya, and her interest hadn't seemed to wane when he'd presented her with his best compliments and a flower. She'd been shopping with her twin sister and a friend, a blonde goddess with hair down to her waist and endless legs, and all four of them had ended up on the terrace of a back-alley restaurant for a drink.
Ciara gave Sanji a perfect view of her cleavage every time she reached for her glass. Her sister crossed and uncrossed her legs, her thin silky dress opening just enough to let him peek at the smooth skin underneath. Eri licked her lips absently after each slow mouthful of her cocktail, eyes half-closed as she enjoyed the leftover taste, and when she wasn't drinking she always seemed to have a finger on her moist lower lip.
This was perfection, except that there weren't four of them but five, three of which seemed to have an unending interest in the absolute cuteness that was... Luffy. While the drinks were obviously on Sanji, the girls were smothering Luffy with meat, pies, cakes, ice-cream, that he all wolfed down enthusiastically without paying any attention to all the cooing overhead.
The girls, sadly, were not paying any attention to Sanji's own cooing. From time to time one of them would turn around and ask him a question -about Luffy, of course- before returning her attention to the evil attention-stealing brat. Sanji was starting to consider getting himself a Devil Fruit power whenever he had the chance. The only downside of that plan was that it would make the crew have more people unable to swim than people able to save them, which could turn out to be a problem. Still, it was tempting.
Or maybe, as he'd thought when they asked him if he was Luffy's father, he should get a brat of his own. It seemed to attract girls like nothing else did. But here they were, in his presence, gracefully accepting the best drinks he could offer them in this place, but apart from that totally ignoring him. Because Luffy was so cute and sweet and funny.
Sanji wasn't sure what he'd done, and didn't know or usually care if there was some higher being in charge of this world, but this was a very cruel joke indeed. Idly, he wondered if they would have liked Zoro so much, and froze as his brain sent him a long string of insults.
He'd left Zoro at the market. And he'd left the market when he should have been shopping. Judging by the position of the sun, it had been hours. Nami-san would be worried. He couldn't stay here any longer.
Still, between his endless apologies and the ladies' numerous attempts at a last pat on Luffy's wild hair, it took him about half an hour to get back to the market, where Zoro was most definitely not. Holding Luffy by the collar this time, Sanji tried to think of the best course of action, but was distracted as a group of teenage girls walked by him, pointing at them and whispering between themselves.
The first thing to do, quite obviously, was to bring the kid back to the ship, or he wouldn't be able to get anything done. Then he could go and look for Zoro. And maybe, just maybe, when he'd found the damn brat it would still be time to shop, and Nami-san wouldn't be too angry at him.
Zoro wasn't lost. Temporarily disoriented maybe, because he was more or less sure that it hadn't taken them so long to get from the ship to the market, and he didn't remember any twisted, narrow, grey alley, but he was going to find Merry eventually.
As long as he was rid of those guys, but they didn't seem to want to let him do that. He looked at them defiantly. True, he'd accidentally walked into one of them, and they'd both fallen over in a painful heap. Zoro had apologized. Sort of. But obviously it wasn't enough for the guy or his friends, who were now forming a circle around him and looking down at him threateningly.
"So how are you going to repay me for that, kiddo?" the one he'd bumped into asked. Zoro glared back at him without answering. He'd apologized. There was nothing more he could, or wanted to do. And he wasn't scared.
He just wanted to get away and go back to the ship.
"Oi, kiddo, don't ignore me," the guy said, taking a step towards him. Zoro stepped back and walked right into one of the other guys. There were dangerous-looking grins on all the faces he could see, and he knew without a doubt that this was going to get nasty. If he wanted a chance to escape he'd have to create it himself.
Zoro took a step forward, turned around, and threw his most powerful kick at the pair of legs that was blocking him from the alley. It was caught easily, in one hand, before it connected, and suddenly Zoro found his balance gone as the guy held his foot and lifted it higher, higher, until Zoro couldn't do anything but let himself fall on his back.
They all snickered at him, and he snarled.
"Ah, there you are," a familiar voice drawled from a few meters away. "The hell you doing here, little eggplant?"
"Oh look, your sugar daddy is coming to the rescue," the one who seemed to be in charge told Zoro with a smirk. "I'm sorry, mister, we're not done with him yet. Come back later."
Sanji took a long drag from his cigarette, and for a moment Zoro wondered if he'd do what they said. They were obviously no match for him, but Sanji didn't care what happened to him anyway, so why should he try to stop them? "I don't think so. Zoro, come here. We're going back."
Zoro had barely twitched in Sanji's direction that he was grabbed by the collar. "You want to fight us for him, mister?" said the one holding him. "We're not done, he said." From the corner of his eye, Zoro saw a knife being pulled out from a pocket. Sanji's eyebrow rose. "Fight?" he asked disinterestedly. "How old are you anyway?"
"Sixteen," the boss answered proudly, "and if you think you can hurt any of us, you have another thing coming, mister." There were loud snickers around him as the gang changed positions. Zoro saw Sanji smirk. "Definitely old enough to get a good beating," the cook mused, then looked straight at Zoro. "Don't move," he said simply. Zoro froze.
The first kick went a mere centimetre over his head and sent the guy who'd been holding him flying into a wall. There was a gasp from the other idiots, but before they could attack or run Sanji was on them, kicking indiscriminately and fast, so fast that Zoro could hardly follow his moves, until the world around him slowed to a halt and his attackers were all laying around him unconscious or gasping in pain.
"You alright?" Sanji asked carelessly. The relief that Zoro had been feeling changed back to the aimless anger he'd been feeling since Usopp's revelation.
"What do you care?" Zoro snapped back. Sanji, surprised, took a step back.
Usually the answer would have been easy. "I don't, but." But Nami-san said she wanted you back on the ship. But Luffy wants to know. But you're not going to skip out on doing your fair share of work for a change. A downright lie, of course, because if nothing else they were nakama, and it was practically written in the job description that they couldn't not care.
They were both very fine with that little piece of manly denial. But this Zoro didn't know that, and maybe that was why the question stung a bit. Sanji knew he should just ignore it, wait the next three days out and sigh in relief when things finally went back to normal. That was the easy way out of this impossible situation.
It was the cowardly way, too, and Sanji was anything but a coward. If he didn't want to feel like he'd let himself be beaten by a six-years-old, he'd have to actually deal with the problem, and deal with it now. He stepped up to Zoro, crouched, and in one movement grabbed the kid behind the knees and threw him over his shoulder.
He ignored the gasp of surprise, then the muffled cries of protest as well as the pound of tiny fists on his back and the looks he got from everyone around him as he headed back to more populated areas. He only stopped walking when he got to the ice-cream store, and turned around so that Zoro could see the possibilities, despite being upside down.
"You get two scoops," he said callously, and didn't wait for the grumble of "I dun want any" to add "and if you don't choose right now I'm going to pick them myself and do believe that if you dare to drop your ice-cream on the ground you'll lick the whole street clean. Now. What. Do. You. Want?"
"Rspbrry'n'chclt" Zoro mumbled in Sanji's jacket. The cook raised an eyebrow in surprise. He would never have expected Zoro to go for something this refined, but ordered the raspberry and chocolate ice-cream anyway, and gestured to the bewildered old man behind the counter to add as much whipped cream and toppings as he could.
Balancing both Zoro and the huge ice-cream cone as he walked up to the nearest bench was easier than he'd expected, and he managed to drop the brat there without too much trouble either. Still he didn't feel like this was much of an achievement. The hardest part was yet to come. But at least Zoro didn't need more incentive to start eating his ice-cream.
Sanji sat next to him and smoked in silence for a while without ever taking his eyes off Zoro. It was a great way to make people talk, and this Zoro hadn't even had ten years to learn to shrug the tension off. Predictably, the ice-cream was still half-alive (but Zoro already had red sticky streaks all over his cheeks) when the kid paused and looked in the distance.
"Why were you looking for me?" he asked accusatively. Sanji rolled his eyes. "Because you wouldn't have found your way back to Merry by yourself in a thousand years and you still moved away from the spot I'd told you to stay at."
"You also said you'd come back in a moment," Zoro grumbled. It was a good point, that Sanji had hoped would be overlooked. No such luck.
"I got... distracted," he admitted. "When you're older, you'll understand..." he trailed off, forced himself to remember who he was talking to, and reformulated his thought. "Nah, you probably won't, in this case. The thing is... I really didn't mean to leave you back there for so long."
"You could have left me," Zoro said rather gloomily before licking at the melting ice-cream half-heartedly. "Then you'd all have sailed on and you'd be rid of me." Sanji blinked. He still had very few clues about what the hell was going on, and this was somehow turning out to be all his fault. Oh, joy.
"Why would I want to do that?" he asked despite the knowledge that he had half a dozen answers ready for that question at any given time. Zoro looked into his ice-cream cone like he usually would with a mug of ale or, more recently, milk.
" 'Cos you hate me," he mumbled.
Sanji stared straight ahead. Gods, he didn't want to be having this conversation. But he had to, as a man. "Alright," he said before taking a deep breath. "First, I want you to swear on your honor as a man that you will never use what I'm going to say against me in any way."
Zoro was so surprised by the demand that he actually looked straight at Sanji for the first time in days. It took him a few seconds, but finally he nodded. "I swear."
At least there wouldn't be any problem on that side. If there was one thing Zoro always tried his best to do, it was keeping his promises. Still, Sanji would have much rather been somewhere else. "Good. I don't know where you got that idea," he got out in a rush, and grimaced, "but I don't hate you."
"Usopp said-"
"I thought you knew better than to believe anything Usopp says without checking the facts with someone else." So that was the problem. This was not technically an offense worthy of punishment, but the next time the long-nose tried to do anything funny in Sanji's kitchen, he was going to get it, and get it good. "What did he say?"
Zoro looked down, like he was trying to remember exactly. "He said that we were always fighting. You and me. That sometimes he thinks we're going to kill each other over nothing."
"That wimp," Sanji cursed under his breath. "Well, that's true enough. Though I don't think Luffy would let us kill each other. He can be bothersome like that."
Zoro kept staring at the pavement, his posture the very picture of defeat. Sanji sighed. Oh, Usopp was going to pay for putting him in that situation. And Zoro too, once he was kickable again without making Sanji feel like he'd done something awful to an innocent puppy.
"Listen, brat. The Zoro I know is rude and unpleasant and lazy and selfish and overall a total moron, and there's been days when I've wanted to murder him in his sleep and throw his corpse overboard. No doubt he's had the thought too. When we annoy each other too much, we fight. The moment you're back to normal we're both going to pretend that all of this never happened, and Usopp and the others will do their best to make sure we never forget, and we'll blame each other and fight and possibly destroy half the ship in the process. That's how it works. But we don't hate each other, though I have to say I like you a lot more as a kid." He took a deep drag of his cigarette, but it was mostly for show. He was drowning in a sea of sentimentalism already, with the certitude that Zoro would never say a word of it to anyone, so how bad could a few more drops of water be? "I'm sorry I forgot about you earlier," he said, and that had a ring of truth to it he hadn't expected. Maybe he really was getting into this responsibility thing.
Zoro, still looking at the ground, was nodding slowly. "Okay," he said after a moment, and looked back at Sanji with an intense expression on his face. Sanji let out a chuckle, and for once didn't resist the impulse to mess with what little of Zoro's hair was messable. "Now get the ice-cream off your face and let's move on. There's shopping to do before the stores close, and you'll have to carry a lot of bags to apologize for making me run after you all around town."