Sleep still eluded Sanji. But as the morning drew on, a myriad of visitors came and went that made him forget how tired he was. His old man visited with Patty, who drove him there. Zeff questioned him extensively on meal-times, and whether or not he was keeping food down this time, before giving him some breakfast in a plastic tub and leaving as abruptly as he came.
Chopper, of course, was a constant. As was the spectre of the lady, who now returned to her routine of getting out of bed, floating out of the room, and returning to hover over her bed once more.
In the afternoon, his friends burst into the room with a bang, bringing balloons and 'get well soon' cards and gifts into the room. Usopp had even brought him his phone and his notebook that he'd left behind in his bedroom. Sanji was touched by the sentiment, but hid it under complaints that Luffy and Usopp were making a racket as usual and showered the girls with compliments and praises of love. Even Chopper managed to hang out with them during his lunch break.
They were there for a good two hours, before a nurse entered the room and told them they were being too noisy and would have to leave if they didn't shut up. A few minutes later, the same nurse returned with a grumpy looking doctor that promptly told them to leave.
Usopp and Kaya left first. After a few dangerous minutes of Luffy being too loud again, Robin decided to leave and drag the overly energetic boy with her. Vivi left soon after, quite flustered and apologizing to Nami, who only slapped her on the arm and told her 'it's not like that'. Sanji didn't get it.
"Thank god," Nami said with a breath of relief as she went about clearing up the mess they made. "Its fun being with that lot, but tiring."
"You mean it's fun being with Luffy, but tiring," Sanji corrected.
Nami laughed. "Of course."
Sanji settled into his bed. She was right though. Now that it was just the two of them left, Sanji felt like he'd just done a whole shift at the Baratie. Nami pulled up a chair and sat beside him.
"So, how are you feeling?" She asked in a sing-song voice.
"Could be better. I'm dying for a smoke too."
Nami chuckled. "How are you coping with… you know."
Sanji hummed. He knew what she was asking about. Sanji still felt a little uncomfortable talking about it with people, but Nami had always been the one who was the most accepting about it in a genuine way.
He sat up, Nami startled and Sanji assumed it was from the sudden solemn expression on his face.
"I think I'm being haunted again," he said.
Nami blinked.
"Haunted?" she exclaimed, then her voice rose. "Again?"
Sanji shook his head. "It's a long story, but… I think I know why he's haunting me."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're gonna have to give me some context here."
"Do you remember that guy I told you about? Zoro?"
"Who now?"
"That guy you saw the other day, when you picked me up from the hospital. The one in that room?"
Nami's face cleared with realization. "The one you said… The one that you can see in your dreams?"
Sanji looked down at his hands. "Well… I think it's a bit more than that."
Nami didn't answer, he silence prompting Sanji to carry on. He took a deep breath.
"I pulled my stitches because he appeared to me again. It wasn't a dream. I swear it wasn't a dream..."
Sanji remembered the tight, solid grip on his wrist again.
"How can you be sure?" Nami asked slowly, carefully.
"It's different. In the dreams, he's still. A spectre. But that night, he moved. There was contact, and that's not a normal thing."
Sanji wanted to get up and pace, but knew he didn't have the energy for that right now. He settled for grabbing his pen from the table and spinning it between his fingers.
"Spectres and people don't just interact like that. Even seers can only do just that. See or sense. There's never an interaction. When there is… That's something else now. He's not just a spectre anymore, he's becoming something else."
"Something else… As in something more dangerous?" Nami asked, her brown eyes wide and glistening.
Sanji nodded. "It's possible, yeah."
They didn't speak after that. Sanji mulled his thoughts in his head as he flipped his pen and waited for the facts to sink into Nami's mind.
"Alright," she said, breaking the silence. "So, you're being haunted, and by 'again' I assume this has happened to you before and you stopped it."
Sanji bit his lip. He didn't bother telling her that his first haunting hasn't technically ended either.
"So… You want to stop this spectre too?"
"Excorcise, I guess, would be the correct term."
Nami took a deep breath, linking her hands together and tucking them between her knees.
"Shit… That's… That's like something in the movies, Sanji," she said.
Sanji gave a dry chuckle. "I know…"
"So how are you gonna do it?"
He looked up at her then. Her eyes glinted with determination. Sanji wondered if it was fine to involve her like this.
"Zoro lapsed into a coma because someone tried to kill him last year," explained Sanji. "They didn't do a very good job of it. But they did manage to cover their tracks. The police couldn't find anyone guilty for Zoro's attempted murder."
"That's why he's a vengeful ghost," said Nami, gasping in her revelation.
"Spectre," Sanji corrected. "But yeah. That's probably what's keeping him here. If I can find out who did this, turn him in, maybe Zoro can finally rest and quit keeping me up at night."
Nami nodded and the pair retreated into their own thoughts again. Sanji swallowed and busied himself with checking his phone. The uncertainty of telling someone about his abilities started to settle in, and the feeling of insecurity began to wiggle it's way through Sanji's gut. What did Nami think of him now? Did she really believe everything he said?
She turned to him, her delicate face creased in a frown. "How are you going to find Zoro's killer?"
Sanji hadn't thought that far ahead, and thus had no answer for her. Nami leaned forward, placing a hand on his arm.
"Let me help," she said.
Sanji shook his head vigorously. "There's no need. It's my problem, I should deal with it myself."
Nami's frown deepened and she slapped him over the side of his head.
"Don't be stubborn. Let me help you. You're stuck here for the next few days anyway, right? I'll snoop around, see if I can find out anything about this. What was the guy's name again?"
Sanji didn't answer. Nami gave him an incredulous look.
"If you don't tell me, I'll find his room again and find out myself."
Sanji sighed. "Alright. It's Zoro. Roronoa Zoro. He got admitted into the hospital September last year."
Nami nodded. "Good, that's all I need. I'll see where I can go from there."
"You don't have to help me," Sanji insisted. "We're trying to track down a murdered. It's dangerous."
Nami stood up and placed her hands on her hips. "Yes, and you're trying to get rid of an evil spirit who won't even let you sleep. Ghosts or spectres or whatever, I can't help with. But I can deal with the living, so let me at least cover that part."
She gathered her bag and her helmet before hugging Sanji goodbye and leaving to start her investigation. There was nothing else Sanji could've said to change her mind. Nami could be as stubborn as him sometimes. Still, he couldn't help but feel relieved that he had someone to talk to about this now. Someone living.
Insomnia started to take its toll of Sanji. He was never short on company, with Zeff visiting every mealtime, and his friends popping in whenever they could. Not to mention the spectre that continued her routine on the bed beside Sanji. But as the days wore on, his conversations shortened and the delay time between his responses grew. Even his friends, who were normally buzzing with energy enough that it rubbed off on him, were beginning to share the same worried look on their faces that his old man expressed.
Sometimes sleep did find him and held him in its grasp for no more than an hour each time, before he startled awake and glanced around the room like a trapped animal.
Sanji sighed and slumped forward in bed, cradling a headache in his hands. He didn't have nightmares anymore. Whether that was because he hadn't slept long enough for them to start, or whether it meant the spectre had moved from terrorizing his dreams to haunting his waking life, Sanji wasn't sure. He also wasn't sure which instance he preferred.
He glanced at the clock on the table.
3:45
Taking a deep breath, Sanji pushed himself out of bed. His legs wobbled, and his stiff muscles ached as he moved, but he stretched them out and meandered outside into the corridor.
When he couldn't sleep, Sanji visited Zoro. He didn't always enter the room, especially when Koshiro was sleeping. But tonight, Koshiro wasn't there. Zoro slept alone, the monitor beeping beside him the only clue that he was still alive.
Sanji glanced up and down the empty corridors. Where was Koshiro? He supposed the guy couldn't sleep in the hospital every night. Hospital chairs didn't make the most comfortable beds. But now, with his only source of distraction for his insomnia gone, Sanji was a bit amiss of what to do.
He paced the length of the window to the room, watching the green-haired teen slumber away, unaware of the damage his spectre was causing. Sanji contemplated going in anyway, reading the clipboard again for more clues. But the bloodied man had appeared twice to Sanji in that very room, and he wasn't sure he could handle the spectre on his own.
The clipboard looked more and more tempting from the other side of the glass. With no one around now, Sanji could read through Zoro's details extensively. He could find a clue, a first lead to help solve this mess. With anxiety drumming away in his chest, Sanji entered the room.
The slow, steady beeping of the machine filled the quiet atmosphere of the room. Sanji closed the door behind him with a soft thud.
"Um… hey," he greeted uncertainly. He wondered if he should've even introduced himself if he was just here to snoop around. If Zoro were even listening, he wouldn't recognize Sanji's voice anyway. But he supposed he'd been talking to Koshiro enough that maybe he was a familiar voice now.
"Er, it's me again. You know. I don't need any introduction," he trailed off in awkward laughter, met by silence. Sanji's expression flat lined.
"Oh, Sanji, how are you? I haven't seen you in a long time," He spoke again, putting on a voice. Then he switched back to his normal voice. "Ah, you know. Just banging about. Can't sleep."
"That's terrible! I wish I could give you some of my sleep. I haven't been able to wake up in forever!"
"No way! Aren't we just definition of irony?"
He paused, glancing down at the green-haired guy. The beeping monitor imitated the chirping of crickets. Sanji slapped a palm to his forehead.
"God, I really do need sleep. I'm literally talking to myself..."
Deciding not to waste anymore time, he reached for the clipboard at the end of the bed. He skimmed through the details he'd already read previously, pausing to read the latest entry updating Zoro's condition.
"Continuing to be unresponsive to stimuli," Sanji read under his breath. "Nothing new there."
He sighed, reading on to find Zoro's personal details on a final sheet of paper.
"Blood type AB, no allergies or medications… Birthdate: twelfth of November, huh?" he said with a chuckle, glancing back up at Zoro.
"So you're a Scorpio? No wonder you're such a pain in the ass. November's in a few months, you better wake up if you don't wanna miss your birthday. Let's see… November nineteen ninety-three. So this year you'll be…"
Sanji paused to do the mental maths in his head.
"You'll be eighteen…"
A heavy feeling sunk into Sanji chest. Imagine missing your eighteenth? Sanji was still half a year away from being eighteen himself, but he'd already spoken to his old man about using the restaurant space for his birthday. He always considered it a big event, and now he realised it was one he took for granted, considering there were others like Zoro who wouldn't be able to celebrate theirs.
With a heavy heart, Sanji folded away the clipboard. When the plastic clanged off the metal rails of the bed, the ringing sharpened again. Out of the corner of his eye, a shape appeared.
Sanji jolted backwards. The bloodied man was there, stood beside the bed. The room filled with the scent of steel, and the sound of constant drip drip drip. The spectre's head turned slowly. Dark, soulless eyes moving from his physical form to Sanji.
"W-woah, wai-wait a minute," Sanji stuttered, holding up his palms. His stomach churned and his hands trembled as he held them up.
"Z-zoro. You're Zoro, r-right?"
The spectre moved, rounding the bed. Panic flared in Sanji's chest.
"Look, listen, I-I'm trying to help you. I know why you're angry, I know why you're still here, and I can help!"
The bloodied man stepped closer. Sanji backed up towards the door.
"I can help you! Listen to me!"
A crimson hand reached into the cuts on the man's side. Three straight lines like giant scratch marks. Fingers squelched into the wound, blood and flesh spewing out. His hand pulled out, fingers replaced with five long blades, glinting under the bright hospital lights.
"Fuck," Sanji muttered and stumbled out of the door in a frantic rush. Peering back in through the window, the apparition was gone.
Cursing under his breath, Sanji rushed back to his room. He shouldn't have even tried to talk to the thing. If he couldn't even get coherent responses from the spectre of his own mother, how was he supposed to communicate with that thing?
Sanji folded himself under the covers of his bed, placing a pillow over his head for good measure. He closed his eyes again. Although he knew he wouldn't sleep now, not with the image of the bloodied man still fresh in his mind, he could at least fool himself into thinking he was safe, as he tried to clam the rapid beating of his heart. There had to be an easier way to do this.