Snack Time #1: "Firestarter"
"So the pot calls the kettle black, huh? Stinkin' Marimo bastard."
Zoro heard the words dripping of sarcasm before he could even enter the training room. But even unseen, there was no doubt who that voice belonged to…
"What are you on about?" He spat, slamming the door of the training hall shut. Marimo? What the hell?
Even though he had expected to see the guy - he had asked him to come after all -, Zoro still sported a wrinkly, sour frown as he lay eyes on Sanji, the prick standing in the middle of the hall, tapping his feet in his ridiculously short gym shorts. Zoro should have been the one waiting, not that prissy fucker…
"What do you mean, 'what'? I thought you were a no-show, you fuckface! It's been an hour!" Sanji impatiently pointed an index finger to his wrist.
"Five minutes, tops," Zoro scoffed at that. The guy wasn't even wearing a watch, how would he know? "You were here too early to mess with me."
"Who do you take me for? A five-year-old like you?" Sanji gave the shitty bastard an ugly scowl, watching as he dumped his bag on the floor. It didn't look like an ordinary sports bag, as long as it was. Not big enough for this stinkin' asshole Zoro's dead body, though. That wouldn't do.
"Huh, I could have sworn you were three and a half," Zoro huffed with a shit-eating grin. That shitty…!
"What did you just say…?!" No, the bag would be big enough for a clump of minced meat… "You stinkin' piece of-!"
"How did you even get in here?" Zoro interrupted.
He looked right and left, inspecting the unfamiliar terrain. A small hall, with cold grey walls and a red, hard mat covering the floor. Zoro had never been in the kickboxing hall before. It was in the exact opposite wing of the gym of where he usually trained. But since he had seen light streaming out of its door, after finding the main entrance unlocked as well, he figured the fighting grounds were already chosen. Who else could have been there at eight (and definitely not nine) in the evening than that crazy motherfucker?
The kendo hall was much more to his liking, however. Wooden and paper walls, familiar tatami under his feet... Zoro's kind of terrain for a good fight. But he was in the curly bastard's home field now. That spelled disadvantage. Dammit.
"Duh!" Sanji wasted no time dangling the keychain for Zoro to see. "I have the keys?" Nooo, he had spread his wings and flown in through the fucking roof windows! How did that shit-for-brains think he had gotten in?!
"How?"
"How?!" Sanji couldn't believe his ears. He had already had a notion that the green brute had only one braincell, but for even that to be rotten and moldy? "Well, unlike a lazy piece of shitty ass like you, I actually come down here to train. Every damn day, you hear me? So I asked for the keys. Didn't wanna just stand outside like some fucking loser while you wouldn't show your ugly mug-"
"This place is crap," the asswipe interrupting him again was one thing, but insulting one of his favourite places there was?! "The kendo hall is way better than this sorry excuse of a training grounds," the fartface had the guts to add. Why that slimy sack of horseshit...!
"Kendo, huh? You mean fiddling sticks in a room that doesn't even have walls? Seriously?" Sanji at least expected mud wrestling to be the damn gorilla's forte. But kendo? What the flying fuck even...
"Let's move over there," Zoro demanded.
In contrary to the avalanche of piss that was Sanji's words, Zoro came down to the gym every damn day, too. Hell, being here was his day job! A not very well paying one yet, but yes, he had a day job as a children's kendo instructor-in-training. So of course he had a set of keys, too, which was why he had picked the gym in the first place. That haughty piece of crap, thinking he's so much better...
"Huh?!" Aaand the blond bastard started screeching. Nothing new there. "Like fuck we are! You don't get to decide, Mr. I'm-Late-For-My-Own-Fucking-Funeral! We're staying here and you're finally gonna fight me, you permanent shitstain! I'm not letting you run away!"
"Who's running away?!" Zoro was starting to get mad now…
"You are, chicken shit!"
"As if!" Was the damn bastard drunk again? "You ran away twice now! Or have I hit you too hard and you forgot?"
"Riiight, that's what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night," Sanji scoffed. He won't listen to this motherfucker's heaps of bullshit, after his cowardly act the day before, and making him wait for a fucking hour! "Oh, wait, don't tell me! I already know why you were late! Mommy needed to change your diaper before you left! Yeah, you shat yourself really hard, 'cause you know I'll be kicking your sorry ass up into space to be the new satellite around the world!"
"That's. It!" the shitty green asshole growled and threw his jacket off onto the ground, obviously thinking it looked cool. He was so full of shit Sanji felt like gagging. "You're gonna regret that!" the dipshit took on a wide stance. Fucking finally... "You damn bastard! Shut the hell up and fight me!"
"About time, asshole!"
Their first clash was already a hard one. They lunged at each other almost at the same time, Sanji's kick to the head parried by Zoro's fist on his shin, then pushed back. Damn, Sanji's momentum wasn't enough to break through; he kept forgetting just how monstrous the damn Marimo's upper body strength was. Fine, then, other leg now. Let the asswipe taste his spinning kick!
Zoro blocked that, too, but with a lot more effort than he would have liked to show. The bastard's leg against his lower arm felt like an iron rod, and it was on fire. So the guy had decent kicks, okay, but he sucked bad with using his arms. As far as Zoro could see, at least. It looked almost like he held them back on purpose. Was he an idiot? If he was trying to 'go easy' on him, Zoro would have to force him out of his bullshit act, right?
The pressure again's Sanji's leg eased rapidly, and he had to keep himself from turning around as his kick fired over Zoro's head. Yeah, you'd better duck, you shitty son of a plankton. The closer he was to the floor, the better. Sanji would make sure he ended up there, half-dead. Oh, wait, would you look at that. The rancid caveman wasn't as lame on his feet as Sanji had thought; Zoro jumped right back up and swung his right fist at his face. He must have been a real headcase if he thought he could beat him in speed. And Sanji would show him why…
The curly bastard raised his arms, sure enough, but not in defense, as Zoro had at first thought. Sanji's arms swung to the side and his palms went straight for the floor, a split second before he could hit his face in. Damn, Zoro now cursed himself for putting so much in that puch. All of his body weight was in his front leg, the supporting his outstretched arm and upper body. And the one the blond son of a bitch moved to kick out from underneath him in the next moment…
Tripping the brute asshole up could have earned a spot among Sanji's favourite hobbies. He grinned as he watched Zoro land face-down on the floor beside him, grunting curses.
"Aww, is that all you've got, shitty Marim-? Oi!"
Sanji yelped, somersaulting back to avoid Zoro catching his wrists. And good thing he did, too. Zoro swore he would have flung the damn fucker against the wall if he had gotten his hands on him… No, to hell with that. That was what the shitty eyebrows was aiming for, like last time; to rile him up. Oh, Zoro won't give him the satisfaction of losing his cool. Sanji was much-much easier to piss off, anyway. The bastard must have had a serious ego trip to think he could play games with him…
Sanji's heels had barely collided with the hard mat when Zoro rolled back to his feet, and stomped ahead for a punch in no time. To counter, Sanji's shin crashed hard into the numbskull's arm. But however he strained to put more weight into his kick, Sanji couldn't move it back an inch, and so his momentum was broken completely. Shit.
"What's the matter? Tired already?" Zoro grinned into his face, that damnable bucket of cocky cockroach shit.
"Says who, you disgusting chunk of dried vomit? Your arm is shaking reeealy badly! That must hurt!"
"Do you ever shut your trap?" the green bastard huffed. "Getting real fed up with your big-ass words and nothing behind them."
"Oh yeah?! Eat this!" Sanji gritted his teeth, pushing harder.
They struggled to overpower each other for a long minute, standing almost completely still. Sanji noticed Zoro's other hand shooting out to grab him just in time. Using the strength of the asshole's arm, Sanji whipped his leg back in the opposite direction to replace the one on the floor, and he swung himself into a handstand with zest, to pull in both his knees and shoot his heels right into the asswipe's gut. He landed a full hit, of course, sending the shitty scarface stumbling back, coughing.
Zoro slid back on the mat. His and instinctively moved to the ruin that were his abs. Damn, he couldn't let those legs anywhere near his vital spots, or he would be toast, he regrettably had to admit. As he straightened back up somewhat, his foot brushed against fabric on the floor… Sanji was already spinning and jumping forward to attack him again, on feet to palms to feet...
Sanji felt victory in his pocket already. The fuckface was wide open, so why not knock him out with a boom? On his hands again, Sanji picked his legs up in the air and whirled his left one forward, to give even more force to his right one that followed. He aimed for the musclebrain's head again; his obviously weakest spot.
Ugh, Zoro parried again, fuck him! But something was off. That wasn't his arm…!
Zoro could hear the wood of his practice sword creak under the pressure of Sanji's roundhouse kick. That was close. Shifting his hold, he had to push back with both arms on the hilt to hold the damn bastard in place, too.
"What the shit, you stinkin' cocksucker?!" Sanji screamed out. More and more blood was rushing to his head, boiling hot. "Can't fight without your shitsticks, huh?! You shitty cheater!"
"Huh, what's that? You're saying," Zoro shifted his weight to his front leg, "that it's too much," then pressed forward, his whole torso tight, "for you to," he gripped the sword hilt harder and, "take?!" Zoro struggled, but took a step forward, pushing the loudmouth back and back, until he forced him to flip back from his swing.
"Hah!" Sanji spat, on his feet again. "Go ahead, then, come at me!" he spread his arms and gestured with his fingers mockingly. "A measly piece of wood won't save your ass, you shitty sore loser!"
Zoro didn't need much convincing to strike again. He was coming on so fiercely that Sanji thought it better to evade than to parry. It was almost like someone flipped a switch from nuts to berserk in the shitty fuckface's head. His moves were nothing like the boring forward-slashing Sanji sometimes caught glimpses of through the kendo hall windows when the showers were broken in the north wing every other week or so. Zoro's every step, slash and swing looked so well-calculated and precise…That asshole was a whole other person with that pathetic sword in his hand. Not as if that would improve the shitty asshole's chances any. Ha! He still hadn't seen the best of Sanji yet…!
Each time Sanji evaded, Zoro had to double his focus to be able to follow all of his jumping around. He couldn't recognize any pattern how he coordinated his kicks, and yet the curly bastard always had a swing of his own to spare at each of his sword-strikes. Good. Just what Zoro was hoping for. He had been craving a decent fight…!
The training hall grew brighter and brighter as the rays of the rising sun shone in through the glass roof. And still Zoro and Sanji were at it. The kendo practice sword was lost somewhere in the far corner of the room, and their discarded shirts were in disarray along the blood and sweat smeared mat, while they themselves were on their knees, pushing against each other with hands linked and arms straining, neither of them wanting to let go.
"Had enough yet…? You… you shitty pile of… of shit?!" Sanji was panting hard, but kept his eyes straight at the green asshole's hideous face.
"Hah…! You fucking wish…!" Zoro blinked away sweat that was dripping down from his damp hairline. "You bastard...!"
However, both of them whipped their heads to the side to a noise intruding on their silence. A grinding, smashing kind of sound that still shifted into a melody; the loudest and most destructive Prodigy song available. And it was coming from Zoro's bag on the floor.
"Oh hell no…".
"What the fuck is that?" Sanji wrinkled his nose, letting his arms down just as Zoro's started to descend.
"My alarm," Zoro admitted. "Damn. It's four thirty in the morning…?" he scrambled up from the floor to turn the obnoxious music off.
"No way. No fucking way. You've gotta be shitting me..." Sanji could only stare after him in shock. Now that they mentioned it, he really was starting to feel tired as a motherfucker.
"Nope, not shitting you," Zoro threw his now silenced phone back into his bag.
"I… have work in, like..." Sanji had to count on his fucking fingers, he was so drained. "Three hours? Holy shit. Fuck..."
"Don't even remind me," Zoro walked back to where he had left Sanji and sat down on the floor. "I might as well just stay here..." he sprawled out on the floor. The first class of brats would start at seven… Yeah, no, he would skip his pre-class training routine, or he might fall asleep in standing…
"What for?" Unsure why exactly, but Sanji followed the green asshole's example and lay back onto the flooring. He could have fallen asleep right then and there… Resting his head on the mat, his eyes were caught up by the humongous scar on Zoro's bare chest, rising and falling. Had that been there up until then…?
"I work here," Zoro replied matter-of-factly.
"Huh. As a janitor? With how much you love shitty sticks, you probably wipe the floor like no other..."
"Ha-ha," Zoro's laugh was half a cough. "Fuck you too, you bastard."
"Hey..." Sanji's voice spoke up from next to Zoro. It probably was the only thing keeping him from falling asleep. "Admit it. The time I jumped up on your sword and kicked you in the kisser was pretty cool."
"Tch! You were just lucky. 'Cause when you tried to pull that the second time, I flung you against the wall, sword and everything. You spat pieces of paint… Haha…!"
"Stop fucking laughing, you shitty clump of algae!"
However, Sanji's chuckles were bubbling up, too, as he smacked the idiot on the ar with the back of his hand. God, even that one move made his arm feel like lead.
"Whatever, wall-licker!" Zoro swatted back. His hit was so weak it just made him laugh even more.
"What the shit is that supposed to be, you no-brainer…!"
Sanji watched some birds flutter and bounce on top of the glass roof, chirping for morning. There was quiet otherwise. And there was a twitch. A soft, small one, right from beneath Sanji's palm. It was only then he noticed that his hand wasn't lying on the mat…
Zoro was startled awake by how fast Sanji moved beside him. Ah. Was that his hand…? He glanced to his side, but only saw Sanji's back turned towards him. Huh. Maybe the bastard was thinking of napping here, too. What the heck, he was wearing heart-patterned boxers. Yep, those gym shorts were still ridiculously short. This idiot made Zoro feel half a pervert… Again.
"Oi," he extended his arm just a little bit, to nudge Sanji's back.
"What?" Heh. The prissy blond twitched from it. "What do you want, assface?"
"This fight…" Zoro closed his eyes and breathed out. And found himself smiling. "We should do it again."