Chapter Text
The holidays were always a busy time for the restaurant. People wanted to catch up with friends, celebrate with colleagues, exchange gifts with relatives and a meal at a fancy but not unaffordable restaurant fulfilled those needs perfectly. Then there were the people who dropped in without reservations either to fuel shopping trips or to reward themselves after shopping trips.
Add all that together and you had a busy time at Baratie. Sometimes there was hardly time to breathe.
So when Sanji spotted a group of waiters standing by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching something, he naturally gravitated over there himself to see what it was that everyone was so distracted by.
“What are you three looking at?” he asked.
Two out of the three of them jumped, Sanji’s silent footsteps having failed to alert them to his presence.
Gin, who held a similar sneaky skillset to Sanji, simply replied, “That kid.” And stabbed at the glass with his pointer finger, leaving behind a fingerprint on the glass.
Sanji sighed but followed the finger anyway. Sure enough, there was a kid waiting outside of the boutique on the corner. He looked to be around eight or nine years old and was bundled up in a brown coat with a red hat that had reindeer ears poking out of it. He was wearing a red backpack that was comically large on his back and gripped the straps of it tightly like it might vanish if he didn’t hold it in place. It looked like he had the remnants of some kind of purple facepaint on his nose. With the reindeer ears on his hat, Sanji wondered if he’d been aiming for Rudolph. He looked cold. Cold and deeply uncomfortable.
“He’s been waiting out there for forty minutes,” said Gin.
Sanji raised his eyebrows at that.
“Poor kid,” remarked one of the other waiters, picking up a handful of menus. “I bet his mom’s going on quite the shopping spree.”
“I know that feeling,” remarked another, before heading towards a gesturing customer.
That left Sanji and Gin still standing there, looking through the glass.
“Forty minutes, huh?” said Sanji.
Gin gave a slight nod. “Yeah, looks like he’s getting pretty restless.”
“It’s cold out. I hope his mom comes out soon.”
“Didn’t see a mom,” said Gin. “Looked like he arrived on his own.”
Sanji turned his gaze away from Gin’s grim face and back to the kid, just in time to watch him enter the boutique.
“Shoplifting, I bet,” said Gin almost under his breath.
Sanji heard but did not respond right away. Gin was more observant than most. It came with the life he had lived before Sanji had caught him breaking into the pantry, half-starved. He was also quick to jump to a worst case scenario and that was something he still had to work on.
Sanji frowned. “A little kid with reindeer ears on and facepaint?”
Gin shrugged, “You remember the costume, not the kid. It’s not a bad tactic.”
At that moment, the door to the boutique slammed open and the reindeer kid barrelled out of it, hurtling down the road at top speed.
“See?” said Gin, adding a low whistle. “Kid’s fast. Good for him.”
A baffled employee appeared in the boutique doorway, calling after the kid. The complete absence of rage on her face told Sanji that if the kid had been shoplifting then the shop staff were none the wiser. He turned to share this observation with Gin, but the man was already heading over to the bar.
-
Nobody stopped Sanji as he took a plate piled high with fish and rice outside. Smoking was not permitted anywhere near the kitchen, so Sanji had to go around the back of the restaurant to get his nicotine hit. On particularly busy shifts, when he didn’t get his full lunch break, he’d take his food out there too. The rest of the staff were accustomed to it by now.
So nobody really batted an eyelid at the plate he was taking now. Nobody had noticed that he was subsiding almost exclusively on light fish dishes. If they had then they hadn’t questioned it.
And they hadn’t noticed that it wasn’t entirely for him.
Today, Sanji heard the purring of a cat before he’d even rounded the corner, which was odd because she was normally silent until she’d verified that it was him bringing food and not another staff member with a bag of garbage to throw in the dumpster.
The moment she came into view, he realised why.
The kid from earlier was crouching on the ground in front of her, body almost completely obscured by his backpack. The cat rubbed herself against his leg and the hands stroking along her back.
Sanji cleared his throat. The kid fell over, startling the cat, who scrambled back under the dumpster. The kid scrambled in the opposite direction, wide brown eyes scanning for the easiest escape route. Not finding any way past Sanji that wouldn’t allow him to be grabbed, he dived for the other dumpster, hiding his face behind its grubby yellow side.
His face but not his body. His body and backpack remained in full view. Did he not know how to hide properly?
“You alright, kid?” asked Sanji, leaning casually against the wall.
“I’m not lost and you don’t have to call the police and – and – so leave me alone, you bastard!”
He was shaking.
Sanji raised an eyebrow but didn’t move. “Right, right.”
A loud, rumbling growl sounded from the kid’s stomach. Mortified, he clutched at it and began to squeeze it into submission.
Sanji sighed, seating himself on a nearby step. “You hungry, kid?”
“N-no! I’m not hungry at all.”
Sanji simply looked at him. The kid looked back, miserable but resolute. Sanji sighed.
“Ah, that’s a shame. I was going to offer this to you… I suppose I’ll just have to throw this plate of food away since nobody wants it…” He began to approach the dumpster with deliberately slow, sad steps.
Of course, there was no way he was actually going to scrape a plate directly into a dumpster. There was no way he would waste a plate of perfectly good, untouched food. But the kid didn’t know that and Sanji saw the alarm and the longing on his face.
“Wait!” cried the kid, emerging from the dumpster only to shrink back behind it as soon as Sanji’s gaze landed on him. There were tears beading at the corners of his eyes.
Sanji felt his heart clench. He paused patiently. “Would you like it?” he asked softly.
A fat tear rolled over the kid’s cheek and splashed down onto faded red boots. His lip quivered. “You were really going to throw it away?”
Sanji nodded solemly. “Customer changed their mind,” he lied. “If there was somebody who could eat it, they would be doing me a big favour.”
“O-okay,” said the kid meekly. He held out his hands, one foot behind and twisted to the side like he was mentally preparing to flee.
Sanji held the plate out, allowing the kid to close the gap and take it from him rather than stepping into his personal space.
It was snatched from his hands and the boy promptly retreated to the other side of the dumpster. Once there, he crouched down, shovelling fish and rice into his face like he hadn’t seen a good meal in months.
Sanji returned to the step and sat there. Outwardly, he was more concerned with fishing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and getting his next nicotine hit, but he watched the child from the corner of his eye.
The cat came back out from under the dumpster, rubbing the length of her body along the kid’s knee. Without a pause, the kid cut some fish for her and dumped it on the ground next to him. A compassionate kid then.
Now he was additionally distracted, Sanji could get a good look at him. This close, it was clear that what he and Gin had assumed to be facepaint was actually a mottled pink and purple birthmark. Pink seemed to be the boy’s favourite colour – the hat was pink; his shoes, now that Sanji really looked, were pink; his shirt too, a muted peachy pink with a skull and crossbones on a small pocket on the right side of his chest. Everything the boy wore was worn and grubby but he didn’t appear emaciated.
Perhaps lost then?
“Hey kid,” said Sanji conversationally.
The kid jumped like he’d forgotten that Sanji was there. He looked over at him guiltily. “Did you change your mind?” he asked. “I didn’t eat all of it yet.”
Sanji shook his head. “No, no, that’s all yours, kid. I saw you earlier outside the shop. What are you doing here?”
The kid swallowed too quickly and started to choke.
Startled, Sanji turned to grab a bottle of water only to realise he didn’t have one. It didn’t matter; the kid swung his backpack over his shoulder and produced a large bottle that was almost empty. As he finished it, the cat took the opportunity to grab the last piece of fish on the plate and slip away under the dumpster.
“I-I’m not doing anything,” said the kid finally, eyes wild. “Leave me alone!”
Sanji held up his hands in mock surrender. Ash fell from the tip of his cigarette, narrowly missing his dark dress pants on its way to the ground. “I never said you were.”
“I’m just waiting,” the kid insisted.
“Waiting?” Sanji prompted. “For your parents?”
The brim of his hat shaded his face, hiding his eyes. His lip wobbled. “No… I’m waiting for… I’m waiting for my brother. Yeah, he was supposed to pick me up after school but he hasn’t come yet.”
“Ah,” said Sanji.
Days were short this time of year. Nights were long and cold. Their breath formed fog in front of their faces already and although he had a coat, the kid’s hands were reddened from the chill. Sanji checked his watch. It was almost eight in the evening.
“What time was he supposed to come?” Sanji asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
The kid shrugged. His fork sat on the plate unmoving. There was still some rice left. He picked it up and started to push it around. “He didn’t say.”
Sanji didn’t like the way that sounded but he did not respond, waiting for the kid to take another mouthful and chew slowly.
“I don’t think he knows where my school is.”
At this Sanji raised an eyebrow. “He doesn’t know where your school is?”
The kid tensed at that. “He – um – he doesn’t normally pick me up from school and he hit his head really hard so he might not remember some stuff. An’ he has to work too. But it’s okay! I don’t mind waiting.”
“Right,” said Sanji.
The kid stuffed the two forkfuls of food into his face in quick succession. It occurred to Sanji that once he finished, he might bolt.
“Do you know the phone number of anyone who might come to get you?”
The kid nodded slowly. “I think I do.”
“Would you like to use the phone in the restaurant? You can sit and wait inside for your family to come.”
The boy hesitated. A gust of wind howled along the alleyway, bringing with it a wet slap of drizzle into their faces. It would rain for real soon. Sanji hadn’t brought an umbrella.
“… Okay,” said the kid.
Sanji grinned. “Alright. Finish that up and we’ll go inside.”
-
“Eggplant, where the hell have you…” Zeff rounded on Sanji the moment he stepped back into the kitchen, only to trail off as he watched a figure that was very much not his adopted son duck behind the legs of the source of his ire. “.. been?”
“I was taking my break, you shitty old man,” Sanji replied with bite to the words but not to the tone. He stopped the kid from shrinking further back with a hand between his shoulder blades.
The kid was shaking.
“Oh my God, Sanji has a kid!” cried Patty from across the kitchen.
The kid flinched at his voice.
“Owner Zeff’s a grandpa?” responded Carne from the walk in fridge.
“Chopper,” began Sanji, shooting a death glare in Patty’s direction, “has lost his brother and is here to use the phone so you two can shut your faces.”
The fridge door closed with a clang. Patty’s mouth did not. Sanji grabbed Chopper’s hand and ignored them both, leading the boy through the kitchen and into Zeff’s office. Zeff slipped in behind him and stood at the door.
Only once the door had closed and the sounds of the busy kitchen faded did Sanji release Chopper’s hand.
“There you go kid. There’s the phone.”
Chopper looked between Zeff and Sanji uncertainly.
“Go ahead, little sprout,” said Zeff. His voice was gruff but it was also soft. Sanji remembered that tone well. “You have to press the star before you dial but it should ring right through after that.”
Sanji nodded encouragingly and the kid quickly rounded the desk and hopped up onto Zeff’s high backed chair. He looked comically small there and not so comically concerned.
Following Zeff’s instructions, the kid keyed in a number and Sanji resisted the urge to hold his breath.
It rang.
And it rang.
The ring echoed in the silence of Zeff’s office. The two chefs exchanged a grim look. Sanji started a mental checklist of the things he would need to prepare if they were about to be housing a child for the night.
“Zoro!”
There was a voice from the other end of the phone but it was so distorted that neither Sanji nor Zeff could hear what was being said.
“You took forever to answer and you said you were picking me up from school hours ago… I wasn’t worried at all, you idiot!”
The kid’s voice told a different story. The voice continued to speak while the kid sniffled and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.
“I’m at Baratie. It’s the seafood restaurant with the ship on the sign. It’s only a fifteen minute walk from my school. You walk straight when you’re coming from home then you turn left at the fire station.”
Sanji stepped closer, making a show of rearranging some fake flowers in a vase. He could just about catch the voice on the other end.
“Right, I’m at your school now. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
“Zoro, I said it takes fifteen,” said Chopper. “Are you sure you know where to go?”
“So, I’ll run,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, right at the police station.”
“No, left at the fire station! There isn’t a police station.”
“Chopper, I’m standing at your school gates and I can see the police station down the road. Are you sure it’s not a police station.”
“Yes! It’s a fire station! It’s red and it has ‘fire’ written on it and there’s a big red fire engine outside. The police station is on the other side of town.”
“Your school is right here!”
“That’s not my school!”
Colourful curses crackled at the receiver. Sanji and Zeff shared a look.
“Shit, sorry. Okay… I’m at… a different school. Fuck, it’s 8pm. It’s… google says I’m forty minutes away. Can you stay at the restaurant until then?”
The kid turned big brown eyes up at Sanji. “Can I?”
“Of course, kid,” Sanji replied, coming closer.
Zeff gave an affirming nod.
“Sanji says it’s okay,” Chopper reported to his brother.
“Is that the restaurant manager?” asked the brother. He sounded slightly breathless.
Sanji motioned for Chopper to give him the phone. Chopper blinked up at him for a moment, but passed the phone across obediently.
“Yeah, that’s me. Hi,” he said.
Zeff grumbled something about dish boys from the door.
“Sorry… about this,” said the person on the other end of the phone. Now it was pressed against his ear, Sanji could hear his sharp inhalation with every other word. He hadn’t been lying; he was running. “I don’t have – my credit card – but I’ve got a – twenty in my pocket. If he says he’s hungry… can you give him something… healthy and I’ll pay – when I get there – if that’s enough.”
“Yes,” said Sanji, adding, “Of course,” instead of biting back that he was not going to let a kid go hungry in a place where they had so much excess food. This person didn’t know that. This person didn’t know he was talking to a man who knew what it meant for a child to be hungry. This person believed they were talking to the manager of a restaurant with a reputation for fancy food.
“Thanks,” said the person on the phone, punctuating their statement by terminating the call immediately.
The dial tone beep assaulted Sanji’s ears. Irritation instantly rose in the back of his throat but instead of releasing it with a scathing comment, he let it go with a click of the tongue. He had just had a cigarette and he knew that this kid’s brother had technically thanked him but the ungrateful bastard still rubbed him up the wrong way and made him need another smoke break.
He looked imploringly at Zeff, who sighed.
“Alright kid,” said Zeff in his gruff, grumpy old man voice. His eyes were soft. “You can stay here while you wait for your brother but it ain’t free.”
The kid’s eyes widened. Sanji saw the flash of fear pass through him and sent Zeff a very pointed look.
The old man continued, unperturbed, “Your job is to sit there and listen for the phone and if it rings, you’ve gotta open the door and shout for me. Got it?”
The kid sat bolt upright. “Y-yes sir! I’ll listen really carefully!”
Zeff gave an approving nod. “Good kid – make sure you do. It’s loud in the kitchen. I don’t wanna be missing any phone calls. If you need anything, you shout for Sanji. Don’t wander around the kitchen; it’s not safe. Alright?”
Suddenly a large number of tasks the man had given him in the restaurant over the years of his youth flashed to the forefront of Sanji’s mind. And made a lot of sense.
“Yes!” said the kid seriously.
As seriously as Sanji had taken counting tickets from fulfilled orders.
“Eggplant,” said Zeff, snapping Sanji from his thoughts. He gestured towards the door with his head. His hat knocked into the wall. “I want you back in the kitchen in five minutes. Understand?”
-
Forty minutes passed. The brother didn’t come.
An hour passed. The number of guests at tables started to dwindle. The kitchen chaos began to wane. It was still busy; there were still customers present; but Gin had just seated their last table and the evening would be winding down from this point on.
By the time an hour and fifteen minutes had passed, the kid was beginning to get antsy. Patty had made the boy a fancy dessert – strawberry flavoured and pink like his shirt. He had also fashioned a Baratie neckerchief into a bandana for the boy since he was, after all, working for Zeff this evening. That had garnered a laugh from the kid but it had been an awkward one.
Now, perhaps made worse by the sugary dessert, Chopper was doing nothing but fidgeting in his seat and tapping his fingers against lacquered wood of Zeff’s desk.
“Why don’t you give that brother of yours another call?” suggested Carne, finally, as Sanji set down a class of orange juice in front of Chopper.
Chopper looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Can I?” he asked Sanji.
Sanji nodded. “If you want to.”
Chopper watched him for a moment longer as though waiting for him rescind his permission, but when Sanji only nodded, he picked up the phone and dialled the number so quickly that Sanji wasn’t sure he’d got it right.
Sure enough, the phone didn’t ring.
“Try again,” said Carne.
“Dial it a bit slower this time,” said Sanji.
A dark pink blush spread across the kid’s cheeks. Without looking at either of them, he dialled again.
“The number you have called is not available. This phone may be switched off or out of service. Please try again later.”
Chopper’s face immediately paled. Without asking, he tried again. Again the message played.
Sanji and Carne exchanged a look. Carne slipped back into the kitchen.
Chopper dialled the number again with shaking hands.
“Hey, maybe his phone just ran out battery,” said Sanji softly. “Or maybe he just doesn’t have any signal.”
Chopper gripped the hem of his shirt tightly. “Yeah,” he said, “maybe.”
He was biting on his lip. Sanji heard his breath catch. He desperately wanted to reassure the kid that his brother was coming, that everything would be just fine. But he remembered empty promises. Empty promises and pretty words could do just as much as harm as the truth.
So he ruffled the kid’s hair and picked up a stack of papers from Zeff’s desk that he had absolutely no reason to read. He then sat down on one of the soft chairs in Zeff’s office and looked over the papers.
Chopper pretended he wasn’t crying. Sanji pretended he didn’t hear.
-
“Eggplant.”
Zeff stood in the doorway at the back of the restaurant, just out of range of the driving rain. A storm had rolled in and the restaurant was almost empty.
Sanji stood outside, one hand clutching an umbrella he’d found in Zeff’s office, the other shakily holding a cigarette to his lips. The temperature had dropped sharply. He hadn’t wanted to head back inside to get a coat.
“Hm?”
“You don’t look busy.”
Sanji scowled. He was always busy. It had just been an exceptionally stressful evening this evening. There was something about hearing a child stifling sobs that rubbed raw his nerves. He’d tell Zeff so, but something told him that the older man knew this all too well.
“Look up the number for social services,” said Zeff.
Sanji turned sharply to look at him.
Zeff continued, “He can sleep in your room tonight. You’re on the couch. Listen out.”
“He might still come,” said Sanji quietly.
For a long moment, Zeff didn’t say anything and Sanji thought that his words had been taken by the storm. But their eyes met and Zeff heaved a sigh.
“Look up that number. If he’s not here by closing, I’ll give it a call.” He took his tall hat off and ran his hand through greying hair. “Didn’t think I’d ever be doing this again.”
Then he turned, closing the door behind him with a soft click, and Sanji was left out in the rain. While talking to Zeff, he’d moved his hand slightly too far. His cigarette had been extinguished.
-
Like all of the worst customers, Chopper’s wayward brother fell through the door five minutes before closing. All but the last lingering table had left the restaurant by this point and Gin was in the process of settling their bill with them when the door slammed open, wrenched out of the stranger’s hand by the wind.
The stranger himself stumbled in as though carried by great momentum, coming to a stop after two or three strides. His fingers scrabbled for the door handle, only seeming to realise after a second or two that he was no longer holding it.
“Tch.”
Gin was over there before the door had even closed.
“Sir, the restaurant is closed. I’m gonna have ta ask ya to leave.” The manners were there but the mannerisms left something to be desired.
Sanji couldn’t fault Gin for it this time though. The person who had just entered stood just slightly further in than the doormat and dripped water all over Baratie’s beautifully clean floor. This guy did not match their usual clientele at all. In fact, he was a closer match the sorts of people Gin had been dealing with before he’d come here.
He was wearing nothing more than a blue tank top and black sweatpants, all of which were soaked through and plastered to his skin. Half his face was obscured by a swollen dressing, from which water was still leaking down his face. He had three earrings hanging from one ear. His face was flushed, his breathing fast. He had mud splashed up one side to his ribs.
He rested his hands on his knees and braced himself there but spoke before he’d caught his breath.
“Is Chopper here?” he gasped.
Gin turned, grim-faced, and met Sanji’s gaze. With a sigh, Sanji approached.
“Are you the wayward brother?” he asked, giving the man a once over.
Chopper’s brother looked up him, swallowed, did nothing but snatch another couple of breaths. Sanji was not sure he liked the look of him.
He tried again. “Zoro, was it?”
“Yeah,” said the guy, standing up straight. His chest was still heaving. “That’s me. Is he here?”
Zoro was around Sanji’s height. One of his eyes was covered by the dressing, but the other one regarded Sanji sharply. His no-nonsense, no-hassle tone rubbed Sanji up the wrong way instantly. There was not a hint of apology in this man’s entire demeanour.
“Do you know what time it is?” Sanji asked incredulously. His voice rose slightly too high. He saw Gin turn from the only remaining table and give him a pointed look.
“No,” said Zoro. “Yeah, I’m late. My phone fucking died. I couldn’t find this place anywhere – couldn’t make it more obvious, could you, Curly?”
“Curly?” spluttered Sanji. Oh, that was it. He was going to show this ungrateful asshole a whole new world of pain. Potentially construct him whole new asshole via kick to the groin.
“Zoro!” came a cry from the other end of the restaurant.
Gin was right; Chopper was fast. The next moment, a pink blur had barrelled into Zoro’s stomach, knocking him backwards. Zoro steadied himself with an elbow against the door and wrapped his other arm around the boy’s back, effortlessly lifting him up.
“Chopper!” His relief was palpable.
“You said you’d be here hours ago and then you didn’t come and I tried calling but you didn’t answer and I thought – I thought – you-you…” Chopper cut off with a loud sob, arms and legs wrapped around his brother, face buried in the man’s sodden shirt.
“I know, I know,” said Zoro with surprising softness. He shifted Chopper’s weight from one arm to the other, a visible wince crossing his face. His now freed arm rubbed at the boy’s back as he cried. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I scared you.”
Even though he had dissolved into full blown sobbing and there was snot dripping down his face, Chopper still responded, “I wasn’t worried at all, Zoro, you bastard!”
Sanji raised his eyebrows. Passing them by, Gin gave a low whistle. The departing group of customers from his table were scandalised.
“Right,” said Zoro. “Of course not.” He continued to hold the kid, rubbing at his back. Resting his chin on top of Chopper’s hat, Zoro’s attention turned to Sanji. He looked suddenly exhausted. “What do I owe you?”
“Huh?” said Sanji. He was about to point out that Baratie was not a babysitting service for inattentive moss-men, when Zoro added:
“The food. You said you’d feed him. That was you, wasn’t it?”
For some reason, that put Sanji off guard. He watched as Zoro attempted to reach around Chopper to get into his pocket and failed.
“Yeah, that was me but it’s-“ Sanji started, but Zoro wasn’t listening.
“Chopper, I need you to get down for a moment – I can’t-“ Chopper shifted in his arms, presumably to help his brother set him on the ground and this time, there was no missing the sharp hiss of breath from the green-haired man. He bit down hard on his lip.
“Zoro?” said Chopper, hopping down. He gripped his brother’s leg and peered up at him anxiously. “Are you okay? Did I pull out your stitches? Oh no, doctor!”
“Shh!” said Zoro, bringing his hand down on Chopper’s hat slightly too hard. “It’s fine, Chopper. I’m fine. Just bit my lip – that’s all.” Sure enough, there was a thin dribble of blood making its way from the corner of his lip. His tongue darted out and swiped it away. “Where’s your backpack?”
“Oh! I left it in Mr. Zeff’s office. I’ll go get it now,” said Chopper and scampered away, pausing once in the doorway to glance back worriedly.
Zoro had already turned back to Sanji. “So how much?” He stuck a hand in a pocket and produced a single note, which drooped and dripped on the floor. Pulling a face, he held it out towards Sanji anyway.
Sanji held up his hand. “No. You don’t need to pay anything.”
Zoro raised his one visible eyebrow and winced again. “You didn’t feed him?”
Sanji bristled. “It’s nearly eleven pm, dumbass – of course I did. But you don’t have to pay.”
Zoro frowned. “How much?” he repeated. “If he ate here, of course I have to pay. We aren’t some charity case.”
For a moment, Sanji just looked at him, looked over him, with his wet and muddied clothes, the obvious dressing over one eye. His complexion served to hide the dark circles but the exhaustion showed nonetheless. His bare arm was muscular but there was no fat on his body. It would have been attractive – the man’s musculature was work of art – but his one visible eye was slightly sunken and a little glassy. He swayed as he stood like his legs were unsteady.
Sanji knew what hunger looked like.
Zoro drifted over to the side, leaning against the host’s station like it would help keep him upright. He grabbed a menu with no regard for neatness or courtesy. “What did he have?”
Sanji sighed. “He helped me taste new menu items, if you must know. You won’t find a price there.”
“Tch,” said Zoro, looking far too pissed off for a man who had just got out of paying for a gourmet meal thanks to the kindness of Sanji’s heart. He looked down at the menu one more time, expression unreadable, then folded it and stuffed it back in the tray with the others, upside down.
Sanji reached over him, plucked it out and put it back the right way.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said a little more scathingly than he’d intended.
“Tch,” said Zoro again, looking very pointedly away. A moment passed before he mumbled, “Thanks… for watching Chopper.”
“He’s a good kid,” said Sanji. “Deserves good things.”
Zoro’s shoulders lifted. He shivered but did nothing to alleviate the cold. Now that Sanji was this close, he could see another yellowed bandage poking out from the neckline of his tank top. His face was still flushed, even though his breathing had returned to normal since entering.
He wondered briefly what unpleasant fate had befallen this guy. Clearly some sort of accident. Chopper had said something about a head injury earlier, hadn’t he? Perhaps Sanji should cut his brother some slack.
… But he’d also left a kid out alone since the school day had ended.
Zoro cleared his throat. When he spoke again, it was much softer. He stared out at an empty table with glassy eyes. “Yeah, he does… Look, I’m… It’s not normally like this. I-“
He was cut off when Chopper came running into the dining room with his backpack hugged to his chest. “I got it!”
He didn’t quite stop in time and bashed the bag against Zoro’s leg. Zoro sighed tiredly, running a hand through his wet hair. He was still leaning against the host’s station.
“Alright, let’s go home,” he said. “Do you know the way from here?”
Chopper nodded vigorously. “Yup!”
“Put your hood up,” said Zoro, tugging the reindeer antlers off of Chopper’s hat. “It’s pissing it down outside.”
He held the reindeer antlers in front of Chopper as the boy opened his backpack to stuff them inside. The hat stayed on his head so the hood would only go up halfway. Zoro reached into the hood and squashed the hat down, tugging the hood up until his face would be shielded from the water.
“Zoro! Now I can’t see!” whined Chopper.
Zoro ignored him, pushing off the host’s station and taking a step towards the door only to pause and take what was very obviously a shaky breath to regain his balance.
“Wait,” said Sanji, surprising himself.
Zoro paused, turning to look over his shoulder.
“Just sit down a sec,” said Sanji. “Old man Zeff said he had some things he wanted to give to Chopper – to thank him for his help today.”
Chopper beamed. “Really? Is it the pink dessert? Zoro, you’ve gotta try the pink dessert – it was so delicious!”
Zoro had looked like he might be about to protest, but upon seeing Chopper’s expression, he sighed, staggering backwards and leaning against the wall. “Oh really?” he said.
“Yeah, Patty made it for me and he gave me a drink with a fancy straw and everything.”
Sanji gestured to a nearby table that had not been wiped down yet. “Take a seat. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He wasn’t. He didn’t even have to leave. He had made up the idea that Zeff wanted to reward the boy. He’d intended to rustle up some leftovers himself. But the moment he began to walk away, the old man himself appeared in the doorway. In one of his hands was one of the paper bags they routinely gave to customers requesting to take their leftovers home. In the other was the large umbrella that Sanji had used earlier. Patty followed closely behind him with a two plates of risotto.
“There’s my taste-assistant!” said Patty, as though he hadn’t known exactly where Chopper was.
“That’s Patty!” said Chopper, nudging Zoro’s arm.
Zoro didn’t notice. Zoro was busy looking between the two chefs with an eye that didn’t quite seem to comprehend what he was seeing.
Dodging around Zeff, Patty presented a plate of risotto to each brother.
Zoro’s eye widened. His eyebrow drew downwards. He opened his mouth, clearly about to tell Patty that he hadn’t ordered this. Then he swallowed, all words lost to the culinary delight in front of him.
Sanji knew all too well that the Baratie risotto was mouth-wateringly good. It smelled delicious. It tasted even better. He headed over to the waiter’s station and grabbed two sets of clean cutlery.
“Lucky you, you’re here just before we close,” said Zeff gruffly. Sanji heard him set the bag on the table. “Someone’s gotta eat these or they get thrown away. Can’t serve anything except fresh food here. If you want it, it’s yours. Chopper’s earnt it.”
As Sanji returned to the table, Patty passed on his way back to the kitchen, giving him a wink. Pausing to nod back, Sanji set a place in front of each of the brothers, giving a little flourish as he did Chopper’s.
“Your cutlery, Sir,” he announced.
With a bright smile, Chopper picked up his fork immediately, even though he couldn’t have been too hungry. Zoro looked down at the plates and frowned. He fished in his pocket for the bill he’d presented to Sanji earlier but before he could hand it to Zeff, the old man threw the umbrella into his lap.
“Don’t try it,” Zeff growled. “I’m not selling leftovers – what kind of business do you think this is?” Punctuating this with a final tut, he turned to walk away.
“Zoro, it’s really tasty!” said Chopper. He had rice stuck to his nose. “I didn’t know rice could be so tasty!”
Zoro stared after Zeff’s retreating back, mouth slightly agape. A furious growl emanated from his stomach and he flinched before picking up the fork in defeat.
Sanji made a show of starting to tidy up the table that just been vacated by their last paying customers and watched as the green-haired man took an experimental forkful and stuffed it into his mouth. He thought for a moment that Zoro’s eye misted over but the overhead lighting glinted oddly off of him and it was impossible to tell.
Each bite the man took grew in size and speed until he was shovelling food into his face with all of the ferocity of a wild tiger.
Beside him, Chopper laughed.
It was the best sound Sanji had heard all day.