Night and Day

A Post-Piracy Sanji Side Story

By Aoikami Sarah

Chapter Seven - Vacation Home

After three weeks at sea Sanji and Harmony had become fierce game players. Everything from cards to dominos to Mah Jongg had been mastered to ease the tension between them. One early evening after dinner Harmony looked over the 13 Mah Jongg tiles standing up in front of her and bit her lip. "If I play this hand I'll eat a ton of points," she muttered. "If I play that hand I'll be totally screwed because you have all the damn green dragons!"

"Do not," Sanji lied. Four green dragon tiles and an almost full hand of winds were standing up in front of him.

"Sanji, there's none out," she said indicating to the discarded tiles. "And there's only a little bit of wall left. You have them. I'm screwed."

"You never know," he said calmly. 'I'm so totally going to own you,' he thought.

Harmony picked up another tile. "North Wind," she called and discarded the tile.

"Mah Jongg."

"Ahhh!" She leapt up and pointed at him as he turned his hand around for her to approve of. "See! You did have all the damn green dragons!"

He shrugged. "Best six out of ten?" Harmony narrowed her eyes. Many of their games ended this way with a tense competition between them. Whichever one lost was always sore about it. In moments she would screw her mouth up into a tight pout and make for the other end of the ship to cool off. However, this pattern was interrupted tonight by the call of 'Land Ho!' coming from one of the frog-man sailors. Harmony's expression changed instantly and she gave Sanji an excited smile before running out to see for herself.

When he finally arrived at the bow, Harmony was leaning against the side, staring through binoculars at a small, greenish conical island in the distance. "Sofserv!" she shouted. "I'm sure of it!" She turned to him and hugged him tightly. "Isn't this great!"
Relieved that they had finally reached their destination and that she was showing him affection again, Sanji simply nodded and gave her a quick squeeze back before she ran off to her room to make herself ready for arrival.

.x.

As it got closer to shore their ship started following a strong current to the south east, curving away from the island. "Be careful!" Harmony shouted to the fish-men as they wrestled with the rigging. "The current wraps around the island. You need to press hard to port!"

Finally, the ship anchored safely and Sanji and Harmony disembarked. As the dingy touched the beach Harmony leapt out and splashed through the waves with her skirt pulled up. Sanji secured the boat carefully and followed his impatient friend up the beachhead and into the thick jungle before them. In the near distance a mountain that looked more like an eccentric hairdo spiraled up from the canopy.

"Weird mountain," he muttered. "Weird current. No wonder no one can find this place. Even if they got close to it, if they didn't know what they were in for they'd just keep going."

"Come on!" Harmony shouted, waving for him to catch up.

The trees started clearing out about five hundred feet from the beach and small huts could be seen here and there off of the path they were treading. Harmony walked quickly, stumbling in her high heeled shoes in her urgency. Sanji was beginning to wonder how it could possibly be that this city-fied young woman could have grown up in a hut. Finally they reached what looked like the village center. Some buildings appeared to be fairly normal but most had thatched roofs and bamboo construction. There was a large building on a bit of a rise to the west, a schoolhouse to the east and what looked like a few more houses and huts spread around the clearing.

There wasn't a soul in sight. Harmony's shoulders drooped.

With the sun setting and darkness approaching Sanji started to get a bad feeling about his friend's home. Had they all left? It didn't look as if it had been abandoned very long ago if so. Then he heard something rustling to his right. "Harmony," he whispered. "I think they're hiding."

She perked back up. "Of course!" she shouted. "Weda! Rebecca! Clive-sensei! Dama-obaachan! It's me, Harmony!"

A wave of voices came to life around the small town. "Harmony-chan!" an older woman's voice shrieked. A woman with skin a bit darker than Harmony's and a large head of kinky brown hair raced from one of the buildings, followed by nineteen other people – the inhabitants of Sofserv.

"Dama-obaachan!" Harmony cried back and let the woman pick her up and spin her around, cooing and crying over her in joy.

As night fell everyone gathered at the largest building in town, a sort of community meeting place. Sanji could feel the eyes of the villagers checking the stranger out. Each inhabitant gave the prodigal daughter a hug and talked with her briefly. About half of them were adults old enough to be her parents or grandparents. Sanji kept a close eye on the younger males as they interacted with Harmony. The only one that made his toes curl was a shy, young, blue-haired man who politely bowed to her.

"Hare!" she cried and hugged him tightly. "Wow, I would have never recognized you!"

"Well, I was eleven when you saw me last," he chuckled.

When the rest of the villagers had gone home for the evening, Sanji and Harmony sat on the reed-mat floor and formally met with Dama, the village elder and Harmony's mother's mother.

"Where is Richard?" Dama asked her granddaughter.

Harmony made a sad face. "He's been gone for a long time," she said, hiding the truth for now.

Dama shook her head and gave her condolences. "And who is this…?" she asked, her head turning slowly toward Sanji.

"This is Sanji," Harmony said. "He's a five-star gourmet chef who works for me at the hotel I own. He's also a great fighter and a former pirate of great renown!"

The cigarette Sanji had just put in his mouth hung loosely. "Uh, yeah. That's me." He gave the older woman a sheepish smile. "A pleasure to meet you, Dama-san."

The village elder's mouth curled up into a tight smile. "What a nice young man."

'Ok, when we left Largo I was 'head chef, Sanji',' he thought, remembering with a shudder the acerbic orchestra leader he had been introduced to. 'Now I'm 'five star gourmet fighting pirate chef, Sanji'.' He hid the face he was making behind his hand as he lit the cigarette. "I should go and make sure the guys have the ship secured for the night. We sort of left in a hurry," he said with a smile as he stood. "I'll be back."

When he had gone Dama raised a brow at her granddaughter. "Now," the old woman began, puffing on a pipe. "Did you really dig up an Eternal Pose to come all the way here just to get my approval on this young man?"

Harmony blushed bright red. "I stumbled upon the pose, and I've always wanted to come home to visit, but yes. I did," she admitted and bowed her head respectfully. "What do you think?"

Dama let the smoke from her pipe curl around her head a bit. "It's too early to tell," she said flatly. "Perhaps in a week I'll know better."

The shocked expression didn't last long on Harmony's face. She realized that Dama didn't disapprove, but wanted them to stay for a while before she gave her blessing.

More to come…