Sol Invictus
Chapter Eighteen: A Scullery Tab
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After he closed the door behind him, Sanji stood silent outside the room for a very, very long time. He was deeply stung, yes, but more than that, he was simply puzzled. Luffy had been badgering him to join her crew without reprieve for every day that she had been here, ever since she'd had tasted his dishes for the first time, so it couldn't be that she thought his cooking skill was inadequate. She had been eager to fight together with him, so it couldn't be that she disdained a violent cook. And even when he had first mentioned boarding her ship, just earlier, she had looked as if he'd given her the whole world on a platter, so he doubted that she thought his strength insufficient – not after the battle they had seen through together.
Why the refusal, then? Where else could he be lacking? As still and solemn as if he had been carved of marble, he rooted himself in place and brooded endlessly over this until he was startled into movement by footsteps on the staircase.
Perhaps this rejection would not have struck him so profoundly if squaring his debt was the only intention he had, but his motivation was far more selfish than that: in truth, he wanted to join her crew. Because he was still beholden to Zeff, he could not simply leave, and so he had instead found a neat, easy excuse to resolve his internal conflict by deciding to square up that debt through serving Luffy instead. Though he could have left what Zeff owed for Zeff to deal with, he had done all sorts of mental acrobatics just so he could justify going with the little lady captain.
Even he could not explain clearly why exactly he was doing this. There were many little things about her that he appreciated, of course, and a sort of draw that couldn't be conveyed in words, but when he pondered the reason for his actions, what came to mind was none of those things.
Instead, what truly convinced him was the vivid memory of last night, when Sanji had been sitting alone on the deck, stargazing, and Luffy had come to find him. With none of her usual exuberant bustle, she'd settled down at his side and simply looked up at the night sky with him. It had been quiet, and peaceful, and she had not mentioned taking him as her chef at all, and this silent invitation had engendered in him the overwhelming desire to tell her of a dream that felt as far away as the moon above them — to tell her about All Blue.
So he had, and she'd listened, her huge round eyes focused only on him. Emboldened, he'd turned more animated the more he talked, earnestly answering her fascinated questions and listening in turn to the declaration of her own dream, the two of them busying the night with their cheerful chatter. Throughout that entire conversation, neither of them even once doubted the existence of All Blue or Sanji's ability to find it, if he just tried, because Luffy spoke of dreams like she believed their realization was only a matter of course.
When he asked why she wanted to be pirate king, she'd had laughter in her eyes and only this to say:
"I want to be freer than anyone else! Nobody has more freedom than the Pirate King, right? I wanna explore the whole wide world with my crewmates, all the land and sea and sky."
She had spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the horizon, and lifted her face to greet the moon and all the stars. Under the dim light, her features were dark and fathomless, and her skin looked as soft and white as if she had been born of sea foam. Her eyes were lit with the pearly glow of euphoria, more brilliant than all the celestial bodies hanging in the sky, and she seemed to him to be a spirit, the trappings of mankind long discarded.
In that moment, he'd thought her more beautiful than anyone he'd ever seen.
And he had been happy.
All throughout his childhood, he had been conditioned to never accept anything given to him without first considering what he would have to offer as compensation. For everything he received, there was almost always something demanded of him in return. And then, upon his escape, the first act of kindness he'd experienced was such a devastating sacrifice — was it surprising that he felt gratitude so deeply? That he'd developed such an obsession for repayment?
And yet, how could he relinquish this sort of joy so easily?
Determined, Sanji set out to find Luffy's crewmates to puzzle out her sullen response — only to be given an answer so obvious and straightforward that it made him want to kick himself:
"To say that you want to join the crew because you're indebted to her… isn't that basically saying that you're not joining out of your own free will?" said the swordsman, the only free Straw-hat pirate Sanji could find. "Hearing something like that, how do you think Luffy, who values freedom above all else, is going to take it?"
Sanji closed his eyes and did not reply. Chewing on the foot of an unlit cigarette, he slouched over the back of his chair and worked his mind furiously. The swordsman paid him no mind and only continued drinking. For a long moment, nothing was spoken between them.
Still unable to think of a solution, Sanji finally sighed and opened his eyes. "Then… how shall I repay her?"
"Listen, don't worry about debts," the swordsman answered, knocking back another mouthful of the sake that had bribed him into this discussion. "Luffy really doesn't care about that kind of thing at all."
"Then what kind of thing does she care about?" Sanji asked instead.
The man pondered this for a moment. "The only things that really get her worked up… food, adventure, and people, I guess." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "And of course, becoming Pirate King."
"… Ah."
Sanji suddenly stood up. His chair toppled and had to be caught by the swordsman, but he didn't notice, his mind already having gone far away.
I'm a fucking idiot, he thought. Of course. Of course. She already told me everything I needed, and it took me this long to think of it.
Without another word, Sanji hurried out of the dining floor. For a chef as skilled as him, and all the ingredients at hand, a problem which could be solved with food was not a problem at all.
"Little eggplant, how many times have I told you to knock?" Zeff called out, not bothering to turn from her desk.
A corner of Sanji's mouth briefly lifted then fell. He said, "It's important."
She kept her eyes directed out the window, refusing to turn around. "If it's so important, why haven't you said it already?"
"I'm leaving with her."
"Good," she replied shortly.
"Zeff…" Sanji began. He remained silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts, and then continued, "Tell me this honestly. What am I to you?"
Zeff kept looking straight ahead and said nothing. Sanji waited and waited, watching her with a neutral expression, until he determined that she would not say anything and then he resumed speaking.
"For me… yes, I do feel that I owe you very much. You know this only too well. I know that you hate that I'm like this, and that's why you treat me more harshly than anyone. But I think you also know that it's not only that… and if you don't, I'm telling you now. You're not just a benefactor to me, or a saviour, or a debt I have to fulfill; I see you as my mentor, in the kitchen and on the battlefield and for every other little thing I've ever had to learn, and I think of you as— as the only parent I have in this world. My most important person, and my only family." His chest feeling lighter now, Sanji dropped into a formal dogeza and finished, "Sorry for all the trouble until now."
In silence, he picked himself up and turned to leave the room. It was only when he had one hand already on the knob, prepared to twist, that Zeff finally spoke.
"Idiot. All the other dumbasses here are your family, too," she said gruffly. "Don't get killed, Sanji. Stay healthy. And don't shame me out there. You're a brat, but… you're my brat after all."
Sanji's breath hitched. These few words, from this woman in particular, were enough to crumble his calm exterior. His eyes teared up so much he was afraid to blink, lest they spill over. "Zeff, I…"
"Get the hell outta here," Zeff barked. "I'm gonna be pissed if you change your mind."
This made him grin a little through the tears. She was right; too much talking would only sour his departure. Sanji closed his mouth, catching all the unnecessary words he might have said between his teeth. He took a moment to scrub his arm across his face until his eyes returned to being a clear blue. "Thank you," he told her, with sincerity. This was all he had left to say. "For everything."
He exited the room, the corner of his mouth still hooked up, only to see Patty coming down the hall towards him. They nodded at each other, for once foregoing all shouting and bickering. Patty thumped Sanji on the shoulder as he slid past.
Sanji was halfway down the hall when the larger chef burst through Zeff's door, hollering, "OWNER ZEFF—" followed by, "Are you… Owner are you crying!? I bet it was that brat—I'll go teach him a lesson!"
"Who's crying, huh? Who's crying!" Something crashed violently into the wall. "You wanna die? I'll show you crying!"
"I saw wrong please don't kick me," Patty shrieked, before he was cut off by a fearful yelp. A chorus of pained shouts and more crashing echoed behind Sanji.
His grin grew huge, but he continued walking away from the familiar scene. He had a crew to join, after all.
This was the indisputable truth: Sanji owed Zeff his life, her leg, and her future as a pirate.
This, too was the indisputable truth: Zeff owed her own life to Luffy. Indeed, she owed it thrice.
By paying Zeff's debt to Luffy in her stead, pledging himself to serve the little captain would have squared Sanji's debt with Zeff and allowed him to peacefully leave Baratie, bound to a new ship and a new life debt. Only — this had never really been a viable option, as Luffy clearly took exception with duty-driven membership. And Sanji himself deeply desired to board Luffy's little ship and join her on the ocean blue, but his obligations had not been fulfilled, and he would not step a foot off of this restaurant until he had satisfied them.
But he knew what she wanted, the thing she desired more than anything. She had told him so herself: she wanted to journey through the land and sea and sky.
In his own way, he could give that to her.
The land, the sea, the sky, one for each debt. He already had one taken care of, and the other two only needed a bit of ingenuity and a heavy helping of finesse.
Sanji rolled up his sleeves and began work.
Luffy tramped into the dining hall grumpily, roused from her sulk by a hunger pang so severe it made her shake. Even though she knew she needed to refill immediately after waking up, since Gear Second always drained her dry, her obstinacy had kept her curled up in bed for too long.
She was frustrated. And angry.
Not at Sanji, but at herself.
Luffy had clearly acted in a way that made Sanji decide he could use her to assuage the guilt he felt towards Zeff. This had never been the other Luffy's problem, which meant it was all on her, it was her own damn fault and she'd done something wrong and now she hadn't the faintest clue how to fix things.
How could she accept into her crew a man who didn't really want to be there? If he left Baratie like this, that would mean his motivations lay not in the boundless future shared by the crew, but in the shackles of his past; she wanted a ship of dreams, not a ship of prisoners.
Even worse was the way she had reacted to him. As a captain, and the one who took the protagonist's place, she should have been able to say something motivating or inspiring enough that he would begin to forget about his 'debt to her' or whatever. Maybe that was an unreasonable thing to expect of herself, but at least she should have said something. Instead she had turned away from him and huddled under the sheets to mope.
But so help her, she was only human. She was only human, and she was stupid and stubborn and she had felt lost and so, so disappointed. How could she leave without Sanji? But at the same time, how could she leave with Sanji when his desire to join her was so half-hearted?
What had she done to make things turn out this way? She had no idea how to make things right anymore. And to top it all off, she was agonizingly hungry.
"Here," said Zoro, pushing a platter with small hill of food towards her. Without noticing, she had wandered towards his table and plopped herself down in front of him. Her hand immediately reached out and grabbed a spoon.
"Nami and Usopp?" she mumbled, shoveling rice into her mouth.
"Stocking the ship. I wanted to help out, but they wouldn't let me." He clicked his tongue and leaned back into his chair. "They're being unreasonable. We'd be done by now if they'd have let me carry the heavy stuff."
Luffy eyed the swathe of bandages that bound Zoro from shoulder to hip. She didn't think they were being unreasonable at all.
"I don't think they're being unreasonable at all," she told him.
"I'm fine," he harrumphed.
Luffy only glanced askance at Zoro's wound again and didn't comment. Her eating pace slowed as more and more of the platter revealed itself under the food, until there were only stray crumbs dotting the porcelain. Even when she was finished, Luffy just sat there with her head down, moodily chasing a rice grain around the large plate. She was still hungry.
After several minutes of the sullen silence, Zoro sighed. "What?"
She looked up at him, her lower lip drawing up and out. "Sa~nji," she whined, stretching the vowels out.
"The curly cook? What about him?"
Luffy stared wordlessly at Zoro, her face turning more and more mopey. He raised a brow and stared back at her until he realized she wasn't about to say anything else.
"Stop pouting," he finally grunted. "We'll find a cook at the next island."
She scowled at him. "No! It has to be Sanji."
Zoro sighed again, picking up a nearby jug of sake and taking a swig from it. He made a face when it turned out to be empty and tossed it back on the table. "Why are you so insistent about this guy?"
"He's the best." There was no need to think about it, either: this was merely the truth.
"You don't know that — there are a ton of other cooks out there, at least one of them has to be better than him."
"I do know," she replied. She offered no other explanation, and he didn't seem to expect one either.
Zoro went quiet for a moment, and then he said, "If he's so great, then he'll find a way to resolve this mess before we leave."
"What?" Luffy asked, confused.
He nodded his head, motioning to look behind her. Luffy turned around.
The double doors to the kitchen swung on their hinges. Sanji entered the dining hall on light feet, a large plate on each hand and one balanced precariously on his head. Each plate was loaded heavily with its own beautiful array of food, meat glistening under the light of the restaurant, colourful vegetables arranged artfully to complement. He spotted Luffy looking at him with wide eyes and grinned back, stepping towards her as if dancing. With a final twirl and flourish, Sanji bowed at the waist and grandly presented his bounty to her. "I apologize for the wait, my lady."
"Huh… Sanji…?" Luffy stared stupidly at him, her voice lilting in bemusement. Not that she was complaining, but this seemed an odd reaction to her earlier childish fit.
"Yes?" he asked blithely, looking for the world as if this was something that happened regularly. Without further explanation, he began to arrange the trio of dishes in front of her.
Luffy looked at the food, and then at Sanji. She looked at Sanji and then at the food. She looked again at the food and again at Sanji. At last, she finally came to a conclusion:
"...Huh?"
"I promised you a feast, I believe," Sanji replied.
And then, nothing. Luffy continued staring incomprehensibly at the blond, who only looked placidly back at her without a word.
Somewhere in the corner, Zoro's frustration finally got the better of him. Voice dragging with exasperation, he said, "Luffy, just eat it already."
She didn't need telling twice. Luffy was already hungry, and despite her bafflement, the food really did look and smell better than anything she could dream up. Her hand once more reached automatically for utensils and she began to dig into the first plate, a familiar – fantastically delicious – steak salad. Just like the first time she had eaten this dish, Luffy found herself perking up discernibly with each bite, the new plate revitalising her body with a rush of energy that the whole pile of food earlier simply couldn't provide.
It was like a magic dish. She looked at Sanji with wide eyes, amazed by this man all over again, and when he smiled at her and nodded to the food, as if reminding her of it, she grinned back and kept digging in.
Both men watched her eating for another moment, and then Zoro noted, "That's the one she was eating last time."
"Yes," Sanji agreed. "It's called 'Landbound'."
"If you've finally named it, I guess that means you've decided to add it to the menu."
"That was the original plan when I created the recipe. But it's not going on Baratie's menu anymore."
"Why?" Zoro asked lazily. "It'd do well. Luffy even said it was the best thing she's eaten."
"That's precisely why."
During their entire conversation, Zoro hadn't bothered looking at Sanji – who was, in any case, too preoccupied with watching Luffy's dynamic expressions to pay much mind to anyone else – but now his black eyes flicked up at the chef's face. "What does that mean?"
By now, Luffy had finished with the steak salad and was reaching for the next plate, a fragrant roasted peking fish piled atop of rice fried with scallion, watercress, seared scallop, and other fillings.
"That one is called 'Seaboard'," Sanji told her, completely disregarding Zoro.
Without even a hint of decorum, Luffy shoved a spoonful into her mouth. "Mmm!" she managed to say, before she was overcome with the need to keep moving her hand to her mouth. While the first dish had been an exploration of things fresh and green, mellowed by the intense, subtle umami of the beef, this next one brought her diving straight to the heart of the ocean in a tidal wave of flavour, the undertow of spices giving the rice an impossible depth.
She ate and ate until her spoon scraped the plate; in the background, Zoro scowled at Sanji for ignoring him. Seeing that Luffy was finished eating, Sanji immediately leaned over her shoulder to replace her spotless plate with the last dish. He didn't move away afterwards, instead keeping close enough for her to feel his body heat on her arm.
"This last dish is called 'Skyward'," he said, in a soft voice. "Please enjoy."
Obediently, Luffy put down her spoon, picked up her fork, and eagerly set to work. This final course was a satay salad, a high pile of cucumber and roasted bell peppers, avocado and marinated tomato, vegetables upon vegetables framed by barbecued duck skewers, drizzled over top with coconut peanut sauce.
With just the first bite, her tastebuds were sent soaring: the tang of the salad lightly fluttering in her mouth, with the savory duck swooping in to give the dish substance, left her stunned at how sweetly delicious it was. Luffy's eyes crinkled up with delight. If flight had a flavour, it had to be this.
Sanji continued to look at her, searching her face with such intensity that the weight of his gaze felt more solid than even the hefty weight of his food in her belly. Apparently satisfied with what he found, he unbent himself and shifted so that he was no longer quite so close, finally allowing himself to relax into a comfortable slouch. Zoro watched him, perhaps sensing that the long-awaited explanation was to come. Luffy glanced up at Sanji too, her fork moving slowly so as to make the experience last.
With a peaceful look, Sanji began to speak. "In order to leave Baratie, there is a debt that I must repay, and only through Luffy may I repay it in this lifetime. But as a mere cook, I have just two things to offer her: my life and my food. Since she has already rejected one of these things, I can only give her the other.
"Landbound. Seaboard. Skyward. These are the masterpieces of my career as a chef. In each of these dishes I have attempted to capture the essence of its namesake, so that with every bite the diner may experience a microcosm of the experiences that may be had in each earthly realm. Of course, I say 'diner', but these recipes are devoted entirely to Luffy, one for each debt Baratie owes to her. If she will have them, they will belong to her from now until the end of time and she may share them with whomever she so desires. And whether she accepts them or not, my own knowledge of the recipes will go to the grave with me, and I will serve these dishes to no one without Luffy's express permission."
This having been said, Sanji reached into his jacket and withdrew three rolls of paper, each tied neatly with a string. Under Luffy's puzzled stare, he dropped to a knee and presented the recipes.
"Will you have them?" he asked, looking at her expectantly.
Luffy blinked at him. Would she have them? Would she have these few sheets of paper? Even if the dishes made from these recipes had been the best things she'd ever eaten in her life, they wouldn't mean anything without this particular chef to make them. She doubted that anyone else could do justice to the culinary adventures that they were supposed to be.
And what would happen if she did accept his offering? Receiving these recipes as payment for debt would be akin to acknowledging that there was a debt to be repaid in the first place, which was exactly the opposite of what Luffy wanted. But then, Sanji had said that only Luffy settling this debt would allow him to leave Baratie. Disregarding her desire for Sanji to join her crew—a want so deep and so strong that it had even made her ignore her ravenous hunger until she felt she would faint a second time—she also wanted for him to be able to pursue his own dream, instead of staying prisoner to a debt that didn't exist. But then she would be considered his benefactor in Zeff's place, and…
Conflicted, Luffy glanced wildly between the scrolls in Sanji's hands, his golden head bowed before her, the empty plates on the table, and her own knees, before finally turning her wide, perplexed eyes to Zoro.
Zoro looked steadily back at her and asked, "Was the food delicious?"
"Yes," she replied instantly. "The best."
"Do you want to eat it again?"
Without having to think, the answer burst from her mouth. "Of course!"
"Then what are you waiting for?" Zoro said, idly flicking his sword in and out of its sheath. "Just do whatever you want. It's unlike you to think so much about something like this."
"Oh," Luffy said dumbly, her lips parting in surprise.
That… that was right. Zoro was right. Instead of worrying about what the consequences would be, she should first consider this:
What did she want to do?
What did she want to do…? Certainly, she wanted to eat these dishes again. She didn't want them to die with Sanji, his best work never again able to be appreciated once she left. And most importantly, she didn't want Sanji to be stuck in Baratie forever. Spelled out like this, the answer was simple.
Luffy reached out and took the recipes.
Sanji looked up. In a fluid motion, he unfolded himself to his full height and a large, slow smile took his face. "Thank you," he said.
"Now you can't say that you owe me a thing," Luffy told him, waving the three recipes at him threateningly. "And you're never allowed to say anything different."
"Yes," Sanji replied, blue eyes laughing. "I won't."
There was a pause and the two of them just looked at each other expectantly. Neither of them spoke a word, Sanji waiting for Luffy's cue and Luffy still somewhat baffled over the whole situation. It was Zoro, impatient with the both of them, who finally broke the impasse.
"It's a shame," he drawled, the side of his face resting on a hand as he watched Luffy's scrunched up expression. "We came all the way to this floating sea restaurant and we still don't have a chef."
Luffy turned her befuddled frown at Zoro, but Sanji took the hint and burst into action, rapidly pacing back and forth and crossing and then uncrossing his arms. "The real shame here is that my ingredients are so limited," he replied theatrically, looking to Luffy with an exaggerated expression of indignation. "With such a small selection available to me, these dishes can only have a limited sublimity of flavour. If I could find All Blue — now, then I'd really be able to discover the pinnacle of culinary creation."
"Too bad you can't just join a pirate crew and go find this 'All Blue'," Zoro deadpanned, his intonation flatter than the table surface he was half-slumped over.
"It's a travesty," said Sanji, looking intently at her — and then Luffy finally got it.
"That would be really terrible," she agreed, her whole face blossoming with barely contained excitement. "We definitely can't let that happen."
Sanji raised a brow. "Oh?"
"Zoro!" she hollered. Zoro answered her call with a wicked grin and stood from his seat in his usual predatory way, eager to get a move on. "We're gonna steal this restaurant's soup chef for our own!"
Sanji's other eyebrow shot straight up. Luffy turned to him solemnly and told him, "This is for your own good," before stretching an arm around his waist and throwing him over her shoulder. Ignoring his grunt at the impact, she ran out to the deck of Baratie with one arm thrust triumphantly into the air and the other wrapped tight around her new chef.
From where they stood on the deck of the Merry, Nami and Usopp paused what they were doing to stare at Luffy. From where they stood on the docks of the Baratie helping the Merry stock up, so did the various cooks.
"Hi," Luffy said, skidding to a stop and grinning at the stunned group. "We're kidnapping your soup chef."
The first thing to be blurted was a dumbfounded, "Huh?" followed by, "Soup chef?"
Luffy lifted her kidnapee into the air like a trophy and brandished him. Sanji dangled bonelessly, looking very unimpressed with the whole thing. "We're kidnapping him!"
Carnie, standing at the forefront of the crowd of chefs, gave her a blank look. Bland as anything, he said, "Okay. You do that."
"Good riddance!" added Patty, his voice echoing out of some open second floor window.
From aboard the ship, Nami called, "Luffy, are you okay now? If you're feeling fine, let's get going while it's still bright."
People were already beginning to return to their chores. Nobody seemed particularly concerned that Luffy was staging a kidnapping.
Luffy pouted, disappointed with the lackluster response. She pouted all the day down to the docks and she pouted on the way up the gangplank to the Merry, Sanji dragging behind her and Zoro strolling along behind him. She pouted until she got halfway up the gangplank, and then, realizing something, her pout broke into an impish grin.
"Oh no," said Usopp, who had been watching her dejected trek.
Luffy turned back to face the crowd of chefs and said, as provokingly as she could, "Is that all you have to say? After all, I'm taking your best chef."
"Oh no," said one of the chefs below.
The response was immediate. "Best?" Carnie repeated, disbelievingly. His brows began to crawl up his forehead.
"Who the hell are you calling our best chef!?" Patty roared, shoving his head out of a window.
"You heard me," Luffy jeered, waving Sanji around in the air again. He made a face like he was considering motion sickness, and Zoro retreated several feet back. "I'm taking your soup chef. Your most talented chef!"
A huge fork suddenly shot out of Patty's window. Luffy jumped back; it buried itself tine-deep into the wood where she had just been standing.
For a long moment, nobody dared to speak or move. The audience watched closely, wary of violence.
In the still silence, someone abruptly smacked a palm against their forehead.
"Oh!" they cried in realization. "Sous chef! She meant sous chef!"
As haughtily as she could, Luffy sniffed, "Soup chef, sous chef, he's still the number one chef here."
This appeared to have exactly the effect she had been waiting for. A large butter-knife speared into the place she had just been standing.
"Men! Charge!" Patty hollered, throwing more oversized utensils at Luffy. She whooped with laughter and scuttled all the way up to the deck of the Merry, Zoro close on her heels. The crowd of chefs burst into activity, some of them drawing their own oversized eating utensils and others shaking their heads and turning back into the restaurant.
She deposited Sanji onto the deck and leapt onto Merry's figurehead, chortling at the swarming chefs who had decided to back Patty up. As far as mobs went, this one was tiny, but Luffy had been wanting to be chased by a mob since Orange Town; she therefore found great pleasure in watching the group barreling towards her while brandishing weapons.
Up above her, on Baratie's highest floor, the doors to the only veranda flung open. Zeff stomped out of her room to scowl at the rowdy scene below. "Settle down, you idiots!" she yelled.
Immediately, all of the Baratie chefs dropped their weapons and, like chastised children, looked down at the floor sheepishly.
"My mob," Luffy whined. Her complaint went unheard, drowned out by Sanji's voice.
"I'm off," he called, his face tilted up towards Zeff.
"Get going already," she barked; instead of riling Sanji up as it would have normally, this only made him smile.
For a long moment, the mismatched pair of mentor and son simply looked at each other and the wordless conversation being held between the two swelled, filling up the vast space that separated them. Zeff broke contact first, and, without warning, tossed down a small object that smacked Sanji in the head and dropped near his feet. A frown began to tug at the corners of his mouth at this sudden display of violence, until he saw that Zeff's lips were curled into a secret smile.
"See you," she said.
Looking stunned, Sanji replied, "See you." Then, shaking himself out of his reverie, he turned to the Baratie cooks and said, "And all of you fools as well!"
A great, wet cheer rose from the gathered chefs on the restaurant deck; many of the men could be seen wiping their faces with their sleeves. "See you Sanji!" they roared, their collective cry sending shallow ripples across the surface of the surrounding waters. Sanji looked out at them and smiled fondly.
Luffy stepped next to Sanji and touched his sleeve. "Are you sure?" she asked.
He looked back at her, one side of his mouth kicking up into a roguish smile. "Definitely," he said, without hesitation. He pressed a bit closer to her, bringing his face so close she could feel his hot breath against her ear, and whispered, "Just so you know, those three dishes I made for you... Their collective name is 'Captain's Orders'."
She peered up at Sanji with wide, round eyes, understanding dawning on her face. "You—"
"I always meant for you to be my captain," he told her, his voice steady and his face as calm as the still waters of a lake.
Luffy beamed, a happy, dazzling thing, and threw her arms around him.
And like that, they were off.
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Notes—
this chapter is unedited because i wanted to get it out as soon as i finished it. i know i promised feb 2019, but it's my birthday (well, a couple hours past) and i want u guys to congratulate me and praise me for various things, including how pretty i am and ur feelings about this chapter. im shameless but i dont care because it will make me happy
the title of this chapter is a three-word anagram. be the first to correctly guess what it is and u get a prize :) i'll fix the chapter to its true title once someone gets it [9.22.2018 edit: i'll say it now so people stop guessing it, but it's not crystal blue]
ok sanji. i'm done with you. i am done. zoro got like 1 chapter in his intro and i've spent 10 chapters on you. that's like two years, you inconsiderate punk, do you understand how long people have been waiting to move on to nami? do you? no you don't because you are a fictional character and this is my own fault because i have no self-control and bad work ethic. you're the worst. peh!