By Duzzie

Word Count: 233

Three O' Clock

A/N: This was just a short thing to relieve my writer's block, and help me get back on track after three weeks of not writing or typing.

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At three he is up before anyone else to prepare the dining room.

He tries not to think about his dreams that never move; the ones that only float farther away as the sea slowly carries them. The Baratie is quiet in the dawn of morning, and Sanji likes it that way, it is a soothing lull that keeps his thoughts at bay.

"One day," he thinks, "one day, I'll have my own kitchen." And in that kitchen, he'll cook fish from the All Blue, and be the world's best chef. What silly dreams the sea carries away, he must tell himself sometimes.

And at other times, Sanji must tell himself to keep believing, because the All Blue is out there, and it is the only true thing in the world.

Yes, it is the only true thing, if there is one.

When the Baratie opens it immediately fills with people, and Sanji is busy doing his job, until a beautiful woman catches his eye.

It is fifty minutes past two when Sanji starts to flirt with the Marine officer's date. He doesn't know that ten minutes from now, the sea will have brought the small grains of his dreams back to him.

He doesn't know that he'll meet the bright-eyed chore boy and become a pirate.

Sanji's vision fills with orange, and somewhere, a clock strikes three. Too late, fate has come.