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Sanji has to admit, the marimo had definitely picked up a flair for theatrics. Rising up out of the water like some sort of insufferably Zen, green-haired mini-leviathan, heralded by the splinters of what was once someone else’s ship sliced cleanly in half. Not that Sanji is particularly impressed or alarmed or anything. Zoro turned debonair super-villain? Please. More likely the last two years had done absolutely nothing to mitigate Zoro’s atrocious directional impairment or his stubborn inability to accept his very real flaw, and this fact is comforting and infuriating all at once.
But if Sanji has to admit something else, watching Zoro emerge from the depths of the ocean like an avenging moss-headed dumbass, it would be that he is suddenly worried (just a little bit though, don’t blow it out of fucking proportion). He is suddenly worried that these past two years apart might have rotted away the tentative understanding he and Zoro had awkwardly cultivated before they were blown away to all corners of the globe by a giant, asshole teddy bear.
The undermining of whatever dysfunctional dynamic they had going on is really a legitimate concern, Sanji thinks. They had managed to co-exist relatively peacefully and with minimal property damage only because they had practiced, nonstop, everyday. Practiced hating each other the way only nakama can, practiced screaming and fighting and hurting until it became habit, like smoking, or routine, like training. They had acclimated to the blistering, homicidal rage. It had become life as usual.
And then, for two years, they didn’t have each other to kick around or slice open. What if they were out of practice now? What if they had forgotten how to be all right after a fight? What if they are no longer used to each other?
Because marimo is not exactly the most socially-accomplished of creatures, and two years is much, much longer than the time they’ve actually spent traveling together. Birthdays were missed, damn it. He’s already twenty-one now, and Zoro is too. He spent his last two birthdays in hell, and god knows how Zoro spent his. They were nineteen last time they spoke, last time they fought, last time they shared a table, and now they’re twenty-one. How did that happen? How is that okay? He didn’t even get to bake birthday cakes.
Zoro would tell him that he is being an overly sentimental idiot. At least, Sanji thinks Zoro would, but maybe Zoro wouldn’t anymore. Maybe this two-years-later Zoro would, terrifyingly enough, agree with him. Maybe two-years-later Zoro has reached the point of emotional maturity where he could openly talking about things like feelings without using his fists.
God, Sanji thinks, transfixed in horror. Imagine. A thing like that.
But then he hears Zoro deliver some hackneyed line about fate and being the angel of death. And then he sees that exasperating green haramaki. He can’t ignore the rush of relief that sweeps over him along with the familiar surge of irritation. He rolls his eyes, everything sliding back into focus.
“I got on,” Zoro intones, “the wrong ship,” and he says it with such chilling, incongruous intensity that Sanji wants to batter his skull in with his heel.
But that’s okay. Actually, that’s more than okay, because there’s really only one way he knows how to deal with Zoro, and that is to be royally pissed off. It’s a definite relief to still be able to feel that special brand of unadulterated hatred only Zoro can inspire in him. Glad to know that Zoro hadn’t transformed into an inexplicably pleasant person when he wasn’t looking.
“Hey, marimo!” he calls out, the insult coming easy. “Stop trying to act cool. It’s time to go.”
Zoro finds him in the crowd and Sanji does not miss the way the veins in Zoro’s temple instantly begin to pop. It’s their old routine, well-rehearsed and perfected to custom. Two years later and nothing’s changed; things are right where they left them in the towering rubble that once was sanity and the prospects of a functional, nonviolent relationship. And he had been worried. That makes him smile, but only for a second, because he remembers that he’s busy being annoyed.
The first words in two years that Zoro says to him are: “You’re late.”
Without missing a beat, he snaps, “At least I didn’t get on the wrong fucking ship.”
“The directions given to me,” says Zoro, who has a newfound predilection for absurd, dramatic pauses, “were sub par.”
They glare at each other for a long moment, and despite Zoro missing an eye and Sanji covering his right, everything is exactly the same. They fall into step, no hesitation.
“You want a hug, marimo?” he asks.
“Hell no,” answers Zoro.
It’s like they never left.
“Good,” he says. And because he feels like he’s going to smile again, Sanji turns on his heel and stalks away. He knows that Zoro will follow. They’ve practiced this too.