Another short one, but I really enjoyed this one, and as songs are in focus, I spent waaaaay too long on writing that one chorus, but you know, it was a lot of fun :) Hope you enjoy reading.

FOR ANY ANIME-ONLY'S (or anyone who is not caught up to the manga) PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER!

Story set: Timeless (but references things from Whole Cake Island)


A song for the living and a cup of tea for the dead

Sanji was perhaps the one who liked having a musician the most, apart from Luffy that is. Sanji had always been the first to wake, but now that Brook had joined, the musician almost always woke up right after Sanji. He would stand on the deck of the Sunny and play songs on his violin, and if Sanji knew the song he would hum along. Brook would then join Sanji about half an hour before the rest of the crew came for breakfast. Sometimes Zoro would be tending his swords in the background or if Usopp had had a late night he would come for a cup of coffee. Sometimes they would be joined by one of the girls, and if they were lucky, both of them, but today it was just Brook. Sanji had tea ready for the skeleton and he poured a cup for each of them.

"What was the first song you played?" Sanji asked Brook. The song had seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Glass of Smoke," Brook answered taking a sip of his tea, "It's quite an old one. The song was written in North Blue back when their old king had been overthrown in a rebellion. The new family ruled for quite some time, but I don't think they do anymore. What was their name... Vinsmoke, was it?"

"Doesn't ring a bell," Sanji lied, but now remembering the song quite clearly. The song had lyrics too, what were the words to the chorus again?

With gold on their heads

The North will be forever safe

Even with guns and bullets of lead

The glass of smoke shall never cave

It had been many years since Sanji had last heard the song, but now that he had heard the melody and recalled the words, he was pretty sure he could sing it if asked to. Not that that would happen now that he had claimed to not know the song.

Sanji didn't like the song. It spoke of a cruel rule as if it had been something great. Although, in his family's defence the king whom they had overthrown had been a dickhead, so removing him had probably been a good thing. The generation of Vinsmokes who had ruled after were good people, but their children and their children after them had let the power go to their heads and everything had just gone back to being absolute shit. Thankfully that era was over. Sanji wanted to change topic, but Brook continued talking about the Vinsmoke Family and Sanji silently prayed that no one would walk in.

"I have never met anyone from the family myself, but there are tales of their beauty throughout the seven seas."

This caught Sanji's attention, "Their beauty?" He had never heard of this before.

"Yes, it was rumoured that everyone born a Vinsmoke was inherently beautiful. The women would have twenty men a day asking for her hand in marriage and the men would have women fainting in the streets if they walked by."

"Sounds unlikely," Sanji mused, but he presumed that his sister did grow up to be quite the beauty and his brothers were certainly desired, but whether that be for looks or power, one could only wonder. But now Sanji was suddenly curious as to what other weird rumours floated around. Rumours were usually quite pointless to share, because very few of them were rooted in truth, but Sanji could actually judge which of them were true or not. "What else do you know about them?"

"Well, unlike many royal families who had armies fighting for them, the Vinsmokes were soldiers themselves. They had an army, but they were frontiers. Apparently they trained their children in combat from a very young age."

"Sounds brutal," and true, Sanji thought, but he guessed that a fact like that would be hard to keep hidden anyway.

"I think my knowledge falls short here... Although..."

"Although?" Sanji pushed, he was quite curious now.

"I heard something five years ago, when I had my shadow stolen by Moria."

"Oh?"

"Well, apparently this generation has five children, but it seems that one of those children has been separated from the family, whether by choice or not, I do not know. But Moria was quite interested in acquiring a shadow from this child, since the Vinsmokes were renowned for their fighting abilities. I don't think he got him though."

Sanji could have laughed so hard at that. Who would have thought that Moria had desired his shadow, unknowingly caught it and then proceeded to put it into a penguin? Sanji quickly turned his back to Brook, pretending to prepare more tea, but in reality just hiding his big smile. He would never have thought that speaking of his family again would be any fun and here he was.

"I would love to meet that child though," Brook suddenly said, "I want to know what happened to him, but that may never come to pass."

"Nothing is impossible," Sanji simply said, "More tea?"

"Yes please."


Tomorrow I'll upload the first chapter that was based on a request. I'll switch between requests and my own original ideas as long as there are requests to be taken, but if there isn't I already have quite a few chapters written and even more ideas that can quickly turn into stories.

Fave if you enjoyed reading, follow for more and leave a review with your thoughts or any other food related headcannons, you want me to turn into a chapter :)