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“I have a suggestion!” Usopp announces eagerly to the very sleepy and slightly drunk Straw Hats sitting around the fire, causing them all to groan in unison.
“I’m not playing Truth or Dare ever again,” Sanji declares, his voice almost breaking as he remembers the last time they played that, which causes Luffy to laugh and fall backwards off his chair.
“Oh no, it’s nothing like that, promise!” Usopp reassures Sanji quickly and he visibly relaxes, only for the Sniper to add, “Well, it’s not exactly like that, at least.” Sanji throws Usopp a murderous glance but the Sniper simply acts like he doesn’t see and smirks at Nami. Zoro behind him takes quite a few swigs of his beer before setting the bottle down and asking, “What is it then, Usopp?” The Sniper just rubs his hands together in excitement and moves closer to their circle before announcing in a low voice, “They call it ‘AMA’–“
“Who does?” Chopper cuts in with an awed expression, already completely hooked. Usopp grins at their ship doctor and elaborates, “the great warriors of the sea who used it to find the best way to work together on their journeys. Some also call it ‘Ask me anything’ or ‘Nothing but the Truth’.”
“Yo ho ho, this might be interesting,” Brook sing-songs and glances at Nami and Robin before tentatively asking, “May I see your–“ Before he knows it, a loud bash interrupts him and Nami towers above a struck down Brook, glowering at him furiously. “Ah, Brook, questions like that aren’t part of this game. That’s more for Truth or Dare, I guess… ,” Usopp explains apologetically and rubs the back of his head. The musician just groans quietly and gives the Sniper a thumbs up. “Understood, Usopp-San.”
“How does this game work then, Long Nose-Kun?” Robin pipes up and looks at the Sniper with that enigmatic smile of hers and a glass of wine in her hand. Usopp is more than glad to take the lead again and clears his throat before eagerly finishing his explanation. “You’re allowed to ask every person present basically anything you want,” he pauses for dramatic effect, “and they have to answer truthfully. No exceptions.”
Sanji scowls and throws the Sniper another menacing glare, raising his leg for emphasis. “That sounds a lot like Truth or Dare, if you ask me!”
—
“Okay, next question.” Usopp turns to Sanji, who takes a sip from his jug. “You’re into Zoro.”
Sanji chokes on his drink and coughs violently while Luffy starts to laugh loudly, patting Usopp on the shoulder approvingly. After Sanji recovers from the initial shock, he angrily glares at the Sniper. “That’s not a question!” He’s very much aware of Zoro's presence behind him, making him feel even more anxious and uncomfortable in this situation than he already is. Usopp just grins innocently before pointing out simply, “So you agree it’s a fact.” The grin on his face turns into a smug smirk and Sanji’s cheeks turn red from embarrassment and anger. The Sniper merely laughs in his face, causing Sanji to grit his teeth. “Do you want me to kick you?” he hisses and steps closer to the other. Seeing as Usopp keeps laughing, it might not have been as menacing as he would’ve liked it to be, though.
“Usopp, you’re asking the good questions here!” Franky exclaims suddenly. “Sanji! I am super ready to hear your answer!” The shipwright seems to be quite drunk already, waving his half-finished beer around in the air with glazed-over eyes and Robin chuckles quietly before taking the glass out of his hand. She throws Nami a meaningful glance after, smiling knowingly, and the Navigator winks in return. “Yo ho ho! Sanji-San!”, Brook throws in and Chopper giggles while jumping up and down next to the musician who’s already unpacking his violin, eager to start playing. Zoro just listens to their chatter in silence, arms crossed in front of his body and eye closed, seemingly unbothered by the fact he’s the subject of their conversation – well, partially the subject.
After finally composing himself, Sanji takes to glaring at them one after another – with the exception of Nami and Robin, of course – not quite sure who to focus his anger on but eventually settling for the Sniper, who’s still triumphantly smirking at him. It is his question, after all. He clenches his fists and grinds his teeth in frustration before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in order to calm himself.
“Nami-Swan~!” Sanji suddenly calls out and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, “Why don’t you ask me something? Seeing as this wasn’t really a question in the first place.” He throws the Sniper a threatening glance. “Ask me anything you want, Nami-Swan~! Anything at all!” Nami merely chuckles at that and glances at Robin and Franky before saying, “Alright, Sanji-Kun!” Sanji is instantly taken aback by the way she winks at him, clutching his heart and already half-forgetting what just happened, only for her to abruptly turn away from him in order to look at Zoro. There’s a mischievous glint to her eyes when she asks, “Zoro.”
“Huh?” Zoro joins the conversation at last and opens his eyes groggily to look at Nami. “You’re into Sanji?” At least Nami-Swan has the brains to make it sound like a question, Sanji thinks, before mentally slapping himself because that’s obviously not the problem here! What the hell is it with all of them and their weird questions about the stupid Marimo and him tonight? Sanji finds himself gaping silently at Nami – did she really betray him like that? – who winks at him and smirks slyly and Sanji has to control the urge to gush over her beauty again, when–
“Yes.”
Sanji whips his head around immediately and stares at Zoro, completely dumbstruck. “You what now?” Zoro merely shrugs and empties his bottle. “You heard me, Shit Cook.” Sanji is shaking with barely contained fury and bites down on the cigarette in his mouth. How can that oaf act this indifferent? “Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is, Cook,” Zoro adds and rolls his eyes at Sanji standing in front of him who’s seething with rage.
Just before the blond can fire back, Usopp punches the air triumphantly and grins. “Mission successful!” At that Sanji whips his head around again to gape at the Sniper and at this point he's not sure if maybe a concussion due to constant head-whipping might be the explanation to all this insanity. “Mission?” he asks hesitantly.
“I’m sorry, Sanji-Kun. We just couldn’t deal with you two lovebirds any longer. It’s time for you to finally get over this… whatever you have and act like the grown men you are. Honestly, watching you two constantly eye fuck each other is getting a bit much. This is just a little push from us,” Nami explains apologetically and Robin and Chopper nod along.
Lovebirds? Eye fuck? A little push? Sanji looks around the circle and finds all the other members avoiding his gaze and even Franky has the decency to look somewhat sheepish. “That was all a setup?” Sanji asks incredulously, entertaining the possibility of a concussion more and more with every word he hears. “Shishishi,” Luffy laughs and goes to pat Sanji on the back. “Nami and Usopp came up with it yesterday and I kinda wanted to see what happens.”
Sanji turns his gaze towards his laughing captain and can’t quite believe the words tumbling out of his mouth. “Excuse me, what?” Why the hell were they all so obsessed with Zoro and him? There’s not even anything to be obsessed about, for God's sake!
Luffy’s totally oblivious to the inner struggle of Sanji and grins proudly at Usopp. “Yeah! And it worked out, didn’t it? Now you can be totally gross in love instead of totally annoying in love!” He laughs at his own joke and Sanji keeps staring at him, getting more dizzy by the minute. Slowly Luffy’s words sink in and hold on, “What?!”
Sanji whips his head around yet again to stare at Zoro. He narrows his eyes and hisses, “You take that back.” Zoro just huffs and closes his eyes, not responding to Sanji. “There’s nothing that needs working out here, am I right, Marimo?”
There’s tense silence after that for a few minutes and Sanji can feel his breaths getting shorter. “Zoro-San…”, Brook starts tentatively but Zoro interrupts him and sighs in annoyance, “Honestly, you really are the Prince of Dumbass Kingdom. Do you want me to spell it out for you?” Zoro opens his eye and takes a look around at all the others. “Or for them?”
“No, I don’t want you to spell it out because there’s literally nothing to spell out, you Idiot!” Sanji wonders when and how his night had gone so terribly wrong. He certainly didn’t expect for it to turn into an intervention about his enormous and, quite honestly, pathetic crush on Zoro and frantically racks his brain for a way to get out of this situation without losing his dignity. Just be cool, he tells himself. They can believe whatever they want, that doesn’t mean they have proof. “So if we just could move on now, that would be–“
“I’m into the Cook.”
Nami giggles in barely contained glee, high-fiving Robin and Sanji’s left speechless once again, his mind completely void of any words. This has got to be some kind of cruel joke. Distantly, Sanji can make out their cheering and yelling but around him the world is spinning and when he tries to scowl at Zoro, he feels his knees tremble and his throat tighten. This is insane. Sanji tries blinking repeatedly in order to get his body in working order again but it seems like this worst-case scenario managed to defeat even him. Goddamnit, that damn bastard is the most tactless person he’s ever known. Why would he say something like that so matter-of-factly, making the whole situation even worse than it already is? And the fact that even his precious Nami-Swan and Robin-Chan were in on this whole inhuman prank on him makes him feel sick.
Chopper is the only one who eventually notices Sanji’s distress and immediately reaches out to him once he notices that his breathing turned ragged and the colour drained from his face. Just then, though, Sanji regains control over his body and abruptly storms off, leaving the rest of the crew behind in confusion.
—
Nami hits Zoro on the head. “Go after him, Idiot.”
Zoro grumbles and rubs his head, staring up at her defiantly. “He’ll come round.” The Navigator huffs exasperatedly and puts her hands on her hips as she gives him her best warning glance. “Zoro. Deck. Now.” Reluctantly, Zoro gets up from the ground, knocking over a few bottles on his way up, and rolls his eyes at Nami. “Alright, Ma’am.”
Sluggishly, he makes his way out of the kitchen and onto the deck of the Sunny and the closer he gets, the heavier his legs feel. He might not look like it but something about Sanji's reaction earlier upset him. There’s definitely something wrong.
“Oi. Cook,” he asks in a low voice before hesitantly taking a step towards the other. He finds Sanji standing at the railing with his back towards him, frantically smoking and gripping onto the ship. At his voice, Sanji's body tenses up and Zoro stops dead in his tracks. “What do you want?” he finally grits out after minutes of silence, still not facing him, and Zoro is a bit taken aback at the contempt in his voice.
“To talk. You ran away quite abruptly there, Cook.”
Without a warning, Sanji turns around and Zoro thinks his eyes appear slightly red. Sanji's body, however, trembles with anger as he spits, “There’s nothing to talk about! And to be honest, I’m disappointed in you that you’d even take part in a stupid and childish prank like that. I thought you had higher morals, at least, bastard! You don’t play with somebody’s feelings like that.”
Zoro furrows his brows at that and only Sanji’s agitated heavy breathing fills the silence between them. He looks at the shaking form in front of him for a few heartbeats and suddenly it clicks in Zoro’s head and it all makes sense. His bizarre behaviour earlier and his red eyes and shaky breathing now. He really is Prince of Dumbass Kingdom.
“You’re stupid,” he says and Sanji feels the anger flare up inside him again at the rudeness of Zoro. He just basically told him his feelings and all that idiot could respond with is a half-assed insult? “Who said I was joking?” Zoro goes on and steps closer and Sanji’s mind goes blank once again as his body freezes. “I’m. Into. You,” Zoro repeats his earlier sentence and shrugs. “Guess I do need to spell it out for you.”
The blond’s heart stutters as he gapes at Zoro standing in front of him, wearing a very Zoro-like grin, and his hands fall limply to his sides. But that was– They called it a mission. He just suspected that it was all a stupid joke. Could it really be that…? Zoro takes the opportunity of a baffled Sanji and closes the remaining gap between them in a few swift steps. Zoro only sees Sanji’s widening eyes for a brief second before he presses his lips on the other’s, praying that he put the pieces together correctly. Otherwise he’d end up getting kicked all the way back the East Blue for this.
He takes Sanji’s moving lips against his as a correct deduction on his part.