Asphalt cracked under rubber tires as Nami pulled up by the alleyway behind the Baratie and killed the engine. Judging by the amount of people Sanji could glimpse going to and coming from around the corner, it looked like business as usual for the family restaurant.
Sighing, Sanji dismounted Nami's Waver and unclasped his helmet. He hoped nobody noticed that he was gone practically all night, and even if they did, he hoped they merely chalked it up to him staying over at someone's house rather than getting into trouble.
He turned to Nami and beamed at her. "Thanks for the lift, my lovely mellorine."
Nami shrugged. "Let's call it even for nearly getting yourself killed protecting us last night."
"Ah, that was a deed that did not need repaying, my dear Nami-swan," said Sanji, taking a flourishing bow.
She rolled her eyes at his antics, before her face dropped a serious expression.
"Listen, Sanji. There was another reason I picked you up from the hospital…"
Sanji frowned. He didn't like where this was going.
"Your dad somehow managed to find out what happened last night…"
"You're kidding."
Nami shook her head. "Usopp texted me, saying Carne texted him saying that your dad was pretty furious and was just leaving for the hospital just this morning. I though you might have wanted to avoid the confrontation at a public space."
Sanji sighed again, reaching in his pockets for a fresh cigarette. His pack was already running low.
"Thanks, at least I dodged that bullet," he said. "But the old fart's more like a heat-seeking missile. I bet he'll still chase me up about it."
"Want me to stick around?"
Sanji shook his head. "It's fine. The old man'll get to me one way or another. Besides, you've already done so much for me, my sweet flower!"
Nami laughed, waving away his affections and starting up her scooter again.
"Whatever. Just take it easy, okay? I'll text you later."
Sanji waited by the pavement until her sparkling, white and blue Waver disappeared around the corner. Lighting up, he spent a few extra minutes outside to smoke alone. Was his old man still at the hospital? Was he rampaging through the streets looking for him now? Or was he back at the restaurant, hacking away at vegetables, biding his anger until Sanji walked in?
Only one way to find out.
Stubbing out his cigarette, Sanji entered the restaurant through the back entrance they used for deliveries.
"Sanji?" Carne greeted him in the kitchen, yelling over the busy din of the breakfast rush. "Where's Chef Zeff?"
Sanji gave the kitchen a once over. No sign of Patty either, maybe he gave the old man a ride.
"I came back alone," he answered, walking over to the changing rooms and pulling out his uniform.
"Woah woah wait, you're working now?"
Sanji only nodded, and continued to get changed.
Carne snickered. "We heard you got beat up pretty bad. Loose a fight?"
"Fuck off."
"Listen, you don't have to work today if you're beat. You know Chef Zeff wouldn't let you do that anyway."
"How many chefs have you got in the kitchen?"
"What? Don't try to change the subject."
"How many?"
Carne frowned. "There's four of us. Simeon and Falks are due in at one."
"Have you packed up breakfast?"
"We're just in the middle of doing it."
"Lunch prep?"
"We're doing that too. What are you getting at?"
"It's eleven thirty-eight, and you've only just started packing up breakfast, and you haven't even finished lunch prep. You're going to need me, so shut the fuck up and let me work."
Tying up his apron, Sanji pushed past Carne and immediately busied himself with slicing up the vegetables for salads. He tried to drown out Carne ordering the other chefs to clean up breakfast faster, until the older man appeared beside Sanji with another tub of onions.
"Alright, but if you think you can avoid the old man by working in the lunch rush, you've got another thing coming."
Sanji scowled, but resigned himself to focusing on the slicing vegetables.
For the first hour, Sanji was tense with anticipation of rounding the corner and bumping into Zeff, face red with anger. But after business started to pick up, Sanji lost himself in the rhythm of work. He moved fine, pausing only when he felt his side ache, but other than that, his stab-wound didn't seem to bother him much.
As the kitchen filled with the aroma of cooking, and comforting yells and curses of the chef's rose with the stress of the day, Sanji almost forgot about the whole ordeal, or the fact he was in the hospital earlier that day. That was until he heard the back door slam open and a distant but gruff voiced grumbling 'where is he?'
Sanji retreated as deep into the kitchen as possible, squeezing himself between two line chefs who were arguing over the chowder. Trying his best to ignore the tall, plump man he could see wobbling into the kitchen out of his peripheral.
"You've left that to stew for too long," he spoke to the line chefs. "The vegetables are gonna come apart. Take it off the heat."
A heavy hand grabbed the scruff of his uniform and dragged him out, cutting him off mid-sentence. Sanji resisted flinching and forced a blank look on his face as he turned to Zeff, looming over him, sneering with flared nostrils.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Zeff seethed.
"Cooking," Sanji answered lamely. He noticed the chefs around him have gone silent, feeling the fear radiate from them.
"Get out," Zeff's tone was dangerously low, and when Sanji didn't answer or budge, he yelled, "Get out, NOW!"
This time, the whole kitchen rendered silent. He didn't have a choice. Sanji left the kitchen, trying to ignore the smug look on Patty's face as he passed him. He stopped once he reached the stairwell between the exit and the back entrance to the kitchen, knowing that this was probably private enough for the old man to confront him.
"What the fuck, Sanji?" Zeff didn't even wait for the door to close behind them before he started. "I get a call from the hospital, saying you've been admitted, and I drive all the way there just to find out you left before you even got discharged properly?"
Sanji frowned. "I got discharged. They said I could go."
"No they didn't! Your little doctor friend was all in a state saying you've disappeared."
Sanji opened his mouth to retort, but realised that Nami probably lied so she could smuggle him out of there. He didn't want to shove any blame on her.
"It doesn't matter. It wasn't anything big anyway, I just got in a fight."
"You got shanked!" Zeff was pacing now. "Who the hell gets up and starts working after having a knife run through them?"
"I was fine! Even Chopper said so. Besides, I hate hospitals."
"That's no fucking reason to just up and walk out of there! And I suppose you were just gonna waltz back in here without telling me you got in a fight?"
"I've been working since I got here, haven't I?"
"You shouldn't have been!" Zeff sighed, running a wrinkled hand over his face. "What the fuck do I do about you, little eggplant?"
Sanji faltered at the nickname and a small pang of guilt pulled at his stomach. He might not act it, but the old man was such a sap. Zeff probably just worked himself up with worry.
"Alright," Sanji began to reason. "I shouldn't have left the hospital without being discharged, and I should've called you about it. But what's done is done, and I'm fine now, anyway."
Zeff gave a dry laugh. "Yeah right. You think I'd just let you get away with it that easily?"
He reached over and yanked the apron from Sanji's uniform.
"You're banned from my kitchen until I think you're better, and if I see you in there, even in the larder, then I'm kicking you out. Now get your ass upstairs and fucking get some rest."
With nothing else to say, Zeff turned and disappeared behind the kitchen door. Sanji groaned and kicked at the wood before stomping up the stairs to their flat above the restaurant. Just when he had finally gotten his mind off the horrors of the hospital, Zeff took that one distraction away from him, and now he was left to his own thoughts again.
Shutting the door behind him, Sanji felt all his energy drain out of his body.
"I'm home," he called out softly, dragging his feet along the floor as he shuffled to couch and collapsed into the cushions. He didn't feel this tired before. Surely just a few hours of work couldn't have taken it out of him already.
A shadow moved before him and he felt the draft of someone passing him by. Sanji looked up from the couch and saw a shape disappear down the hallway. He stared at the empty spot. The flat was so quiet he could hear the distant chattering and clattering of business in the restaurant downstairs. If he listened close enough, he could make out the old man's voice yelling at some poor sod.
Taking a deep breath, Sanji closed his eyes and resigned himself for a short nap. A metallic clang resounded from his bedroom. Sanji's eyes flickered open, met with the sight of the empty flat. His glance fell on the clock hanging on the wall, watching the hand slowly tick by the seconds. Another clang, then a thud.
Sanji's heart drummed in his chest. These things shouldn't surprise him anymore, but somehow they still managed to catch him out. Rolling off the couch, he made his way to his bedroom. It looked just as he'd left it last night, but on the bottom of his drawer, a can of deodorant rolled to a stop beside a pen and his notebook that had landed open on its pages.
Sanji's eyes flickered to the open windows, but it was a breezeless day outside. Shaking his head, he picked up his belongings from the floor and placed them neatly back on the drawer and on his desk beside it. He turned back to the door.
A man appeared at the doorway, cut up and covered in blood. Sanji yelped and backed up into his drawer, knocking everything to the floor with clatter. The man was gone. Sanji stared at the empty doorway, breathing heavy, and cold sweat breaking out of his skin. His heart thumped so hard against his chest it hurt.
"No, no, no, no," he muttered, rushing to his door and slamming it shut. He stared at white plywood. What fuck was that? Could that really have been a spectre? Was he just imagining things? Not bothering to change, Sanji leapt into his bed and buried himself under covers and pillows.
In the darkness, he screwed his eyes shut and forced his beating heart to still. He willed himself to stay hidden, no matter what noises he heard, no matter what presence he felt. If he couldn't see the spectres, they couldn't affect him. It was a childish tactic, but it was one that worked in the past. He wasn't going to stop using it now.
He forced his mind to think of other things, dragging out a string of thoughts that ranged from cooking, to schoolwork, to his friends, to various other memories that seemed useless to recall. Anything to take his mind off what he'd just seen. Somewhere along the line, the thoughts stopped, and Sanji dropped off into the realm of sleep, the bloodied man peeking out at the corner of his dreams.