It hits Nami as she puts the tea into the pot without remembering to warm it first. She swears under her breath, not that anyone was in the kitchen with her to hear.
She should be doing this right by now. At least her tea is drinkable now. For some reason, after he'd left, she hadn't been able to make a proper cup of tea. It was either too lukewarm or too scalding hot, steeped too long or steeped not long enough, not enough tea leaves or too many tea leaves. She'd been making her own tea for years before she'd joined the crew of the Sunny, but Nami had lost the knack of it.
Or she'd gotten too used to a really good cup to start her morning. One perfectly brewed cup, because the tea is brewed at exactly the right temperature because someone had remembered to warm the damn pot.
Nami sighs and leans her forehead against the kitchen cupboard. It's such a tiny thing, and yet... She brushes it off. She is capable of making herself a drinkable cup of tea... and she is peckish.
She starts to rummage through the pantry for her favourite brand of biscuits but realises that she'd forgotten to add it to the grocery list for the birds to deliver. He'd been back on the ship, of course, but he and Luffy had been recovering from... Nami's knuckles go white on the edge of the cupboard. She forces herself to relax. They'd recovered, that's what mattered. But she hadn't wanted to bother him, so Nami had quickly dashed off a list.
She could only blame herself, of course. She'd forgotten to put it on the list. But he wouldn't have forgotten. It was such a little thing, and yet...
Nami spots the oranges on the counter and mentally shrugs. Oranges are good for diets, and after all, scurvy is never a good look on any girl. She probably could still handle a knife well enough to peel off its skin - she had grown up on an orange farm.
Sanji finds himself having a smoke break around this time of night more often than not. The first time had been an accident - he'd been stressed out reorganising his kitchen. There was some weird toxic shit stuck to some of his pots, and someone had thrown half his girlie magazines into the trash, something he'd only realised after he'd dumped the toxic waste into that same trash can. Normally, he'd know exactly what was in his trash. He was a chef, and it was his kitchen. But no, something felt... off.
Then he'd seen the slight figure slip into the kitchen, and his sensitive nose had picked up her light, citrusy scent. Not that he'd needed it to identify her - something about his Haki was always keyed to her. He couldn't turn it off if he'd tried. Sanji knows this because he has tried.
That night, he'd watched her fumble around looking for the teacups he'd just reorganised, adding just a little too much tea, putting in too much hot water, and forgetting the milk until after she'd scalded her tongue. He'd wanted to go in to help her, but...
It just wasn't the same between them anymore.
The next night he'd tried an experiment, working in his kitchen all night. She never came in. He'd ended up with a perfectly organised kitchen and a need for several cups of strong coffee in the morning, but no one to share a midnight tea with.
She, he noticed, was just as cranky.
He'd tried offering her a pot of tea, but she'd waved him off. She always does these days. She'd say she didn't want to bother him. He likes bothering, but every time he tries to tell her that, she never takes him seriously.
So Sanji takes his smoke breaks.
Nami knows where the knives are. At least she did when he organised the kitchen. He's always so meticulous about his prep station. After Hurricane Luffy blew through, though, she couldn't be sure where anything in the kitchen was. When she opened the drawer and saw them neatly lined up there, though, she let out the breath that she hadn't even known she'd been holding in.
She pulled out the smallest utility knife and began scoring the lines in the orange peel. Her hands are clumsy, clumsier than an orange farmer's daughter should be. The knife is dull, dammit. What the hell did Luffy even do to it? Sanji would never-
Just one split second.
One split second of distraction, of thinking of him and-
"Fuck!" Nami swears loudly as she drops the knife and fumbles for a kitchen towel. The blood pours out of her finger and gets all over the pristine counters in little scarlet dots. It blooms like red poppies, big, small, perfectly round and splotchy, and it hurts like a bitch.
"Damn it, Nami, get your act together," She whispers to herself. Despite her best efforts, tears well up in her eyes, but she lowers her head and bites hard on her lower lip, determined not to let them fall.
Still, the blood continues to well on her finger, overflow the clean cut edges of her flesh, and drip onto the pristine countertop.
Plop. plop. Plop.
Dammit. Get a hold of yourself, Nami-
"Nami-san!" Her bleeding hand is unceremoniously yanked away from her. Startled, Nami looks up to see the last person she wants to face at that moment.
And the one she needs the most right now.
"S-Sanji-kun," Nami coughs uncomfortably, turning her face away. How embarrassing. Surreptitiously, she tries to wipe away her tears with the hand he isn't holding captive, but only succeeds in smearing her makeup. "I-I'm fine, I just need to find a bandaid. I'm sorry about your countertop-"
"Fuck the countertop," Sanji snaps, "Why were you so clumsy?"
Nami stiffens. What is his problem? Glad for the excuse, she gets ready to yell back, when she finally sees the deep furrows between his brows. There was no anger or blame, only worry and concern for her well-being. She looks away again.
Right. It's Sanji-kun.
Embarrassed, uncomfortable, she turns away and tries to wipe the makeup smeared on her other hand on her pants.
He notices. She notices that he notices. Of course he does. It's Sanji-kun.
But this time, he doesn't say anything. And somehow that wounds even deeper.
A couple weeks, a fiancee, and a long-lost royal birth family, and it's like I don't even know him any more. Deep in her heart, though, Nami knows that it wasn't really those things. Not really.
Maybe a little bit of it is Pudding.
It was the slap she'd given him. Sanji, not Sanji-kun. And maybe Sanji had come back to them, but what about Sanji-kun?
"There," Sanji finally lets go of her hand, and Nami blinks, only now realising that her finger was neatly clean and bandaged. He'd been so gentle, she hadn't even noticed. Of course he was.
"Thanks," She manages, awkward and unfamiliar. She doesn't see him clench his jaw at the weirdness, but she does see him move towards her abandoned teapot and orange. "Oh, I'll get that. I'm sorry, I guess the knives were-"
"Nami-san," His quiet words cut her babbling off like his knives hadn't cut her orange. When he didn't say anything, though, the tension in her heart thrums to an unbearable pitch.
Make this stop already. I just want my Sanji-kun back.
"I'm sorry," They both blurt at the same time. Astonished, Nami finally properly looks at him for the first time tonight. The surprise on his face mirrors hers, but there's also pain and regret in his eyes as he looks at her.
"Why are you apologising?" again, they speak simultaneously. Again, they stare at each other.
We must sound insane. Struck by the absurdity of the situation, Nami feels the giggles bubble out of her like champagne after a popped cork. She tries to hold them back, but they tumble out anyways, until even Sanji starts grinning as well. There they sit, tittering uncontrollably at each other like a pair of fools, and all Nami could think was -
Thank goodness. Sanji-kun's really back.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," Nami finally manages to stop giggling long enough to catch her breath.
"Here," Sanji murmurs. Nami looks up as she feels gentle pressure wipe away the tears that had gathered at the corner of her eyes and the smeared makeup under them. "There are your beautiful eyes again, Nami-san."
She blushes. Sanji-kun hasn't been away for that long, but she's lost all her immunity. "Stop it," She bats at his hand holding her chin half-heartedly.
Instead of letting her go, though, he holds her chin so that she can't look away, "What are you apologising for, Nami-san?"
"I'm… I'm sorry for this," Nami mumbles, "For this … crap between us. I…"
He just waits patiently for her. Sanji always has had infinite patience when it comes to her.
Finally, she admits what she's been holding onto in her heart, "I'm sorry I didn't believe in you. That you would come back to us." Nami hangs her head in shame, despite Sanji's hold on her chin. His touch is as gentle as always.
"You shouldn't have. I was ready to leave," Sanji admits
In shock, Nami jerks her head up again, "Why?"
"Well… It wouldn't have been so bad to be married, Pudding is beautiful and...," Sanji starts, but he trails off when he sees the tears gather at the corner of her eyes again. Her temper, he can deal with, but not her tears. He sighs and reaches to wipe her tears again, but she turns away from him.
"I didn't want to hold you guys back. You, Luffy, everyone."
Finally, some honesty. Nami deigns to look at him again.
"Idiot. We can't do this without you." She wants to pound her fists against his stupid chest, to wrap him in a warm hug, to have him hold her back. Instead, she takes the tissue from his hand to wipe her tears again.
"I can't do this without you. My dream includes you. And yours better include me, Sanji-kun - how else are you going to find the All-Blue without the world's best navigator?" She glares at him. She can see the tiny smile he's holding back, and for some reason it makes her heart tingly, so she looks away again.
"I would have given up my dream for yours, Nami-san."
She doesn't realise that he's reaching for her until his knuckles rub feather-light over her cheek. This time, the touch is heartbreakingly tentative, like he's not sure if he has the right to touch her. Fed up with this stupid dance they're doing around each other, she grabs his hand and lays her cheek against his palm. She savours the warmth against her skin for that infinitesimal second.
He's really back.
She scowls up at him, "You deserved that slap for leaving. I'm not apologising for that."
That startles a laugh out of Sanji. But before he could say anything else, she lets go of his hand and bounces up on her tiptoes to brush a butterfly-light kiss over his cheek, the same one she slapped.
"But you deserve that for coming back, Sanji-kun."
AN: *Cough* Been a while since I've written for our favourite eggplant and citrus. To be precise, it's more like been a while since I've posted for them, but you know SaNa week - I just have to show up for our favourite navigator and cook. And yes, am still alive, am still working on stuff (Work, blahblah three months. Back on the writing train now). This is part of the SN server gift exchange for SaNa 2022, specifically for Maryame, with the prompts "Leaving" and "Comforting" - I hope you enjoyed this blurble! I was already playing with this concept of present tense when *the chapter* came out, so I'm happy to have this impetus to wrap it up and give it to someone who loves this couple as much as I do. I have one more fic coming out today for another giftee on that server, so please look forward to another one soon!
