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Sanji has always enjoyed the routine of his mornings.
As usual, today he’s up before the rest of the crew, padding quietly out of the bunks to light himself a cigarette. The smoke is calming, familiar, as he leans against the rail of the Thousand Sunny, watching the first rays of sunlight peek above the ocean’s blue horizon. They’d docked at a small island late the night before, and it’s been peaceful– for now. (Quiet rarely lasts long where the Strawhat Pirates are concerned, and Sanji finds himself amusedly resigned to it most days.)
But it’s not until Sanji starts his food preparation for the day that things really begin to go awry.
He washes his hands, hums a little tune, twirling his prized knives with a little flair that no one else will see before he begins chopping up ingredients for the day’s meals. It’s not that cooking is mindless for him– there is thought, intention in every flick of the knife, every twist of the pastries that he puts in the oven for breakfast. Choices made in every dish that he creates for his crewmates because he knows them, little pieces of his heart tucked into each bite. But sometimes when he’s making familiar things… Sanji’s mind travels elsewhere.
That’s how he ends up with a mostly-full plate of onigiri for Zoro’s midday snack, staring with abject horror at the ball of rice he’s been molding by hand.
A heart shape. A heart. For Zoro.
A noise that can only be described as twin-to-a-dying-teakettle escapes Sanji’s mouth, his gaze shifting frantically between the sort-of heart-shaped rice he’s holding and the rest of the perfectly heart-shaped onigiri already displayed on the plate, topped with little pieces of sea king meat and furikake.
“This cannot be happening,” he moans, resting his forehead on the counter, hands still cupping the half-made onigiri in front of him like an empty prayer. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Unfortunately for Sanji, the universe has decided not to allow him the time to process this earth-shattering revelation, as he hears a familiar whooping noise coming from the Sunny’s deck. Luffy, notoriously insatiable, will be breaking into the kitchen any moment begging for breakfast. While he might not ask, Sanji is simply not going to have the evidence of his onigiri-induced breakdown visible when the others inevitably trickle in this morning.
So, like any reasonable person would, he puts the unfinished onigiri on the plate with the others, before bolting to shove it into the fridge.
Breakfast passes as normal, the crew waking up one by one and sitting at the table for breakfast. The ladies of course get the best of his attention– Nami sips her orange juice, reading the paper, and Robin sips her coffee, eyeing Sanji over the rim of her cup with a knowing smile. Breakfast this morning consists of plates of meat and eggs and fruit, with freshly baked pastries and fluffy pancakes. Something for everyone, as always– and Sanji feels the twinge of pride in his chest that he always does when others enjoy his cooking.
Zoro, for all his napping, is a fairly early riser, walking in with an obnoxious yawn and shoveling food in his mouth.
“You’ve got the table manners of a caveman,” Sanji grouches, balancing plates on one hand as he smacks Zoro’s head with the other.
The other man just grins toothily at him, and Sanji smacks him again. “Close your mouth while you’re chewing, mosshead, or I’ll slam it shut for you!”
“Come eat, cook,” Zoro says, thankfully swallowing before he speaks. “‘fore Luffy gets it all.”
Sanji rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
But his heart, his traitorous, traitorous heart, skyrockets in pulse at Zoro’s words. It’s nothing different than usual, but suddenly Sanji feels different, and it sends him a little off kilter.
After the meal Zoro helps him with the dishes, another of their usual routines. He washes, and Zoro dries– their pattern for years.
And, well. Usually he gives Zoro some sort of snack as thanks.
He frowns, lost deep in thought, maybe scrubbing the dishes a little harder than he needs to. Zoro doesn’t say anything, letting the two of them complete the chore in silence, but Sanji thinks he probably notices. Their swordsman is far more observant than most people give him credit for.
It’s not until he opens the fridge to put some of the breakfast leftovers inside that he feels Zoro peek in over his shoulder.
“Onigiri?” he says, reaching for the plate that’s now in plain sight, and Sanji freezes, mind shuddering to a complete halt.
Zoro holds the plate in one hand, picking one up to inspect it. “Never seen you do them in hearts before.”
Sanji swoons instantly, clutching his hands together. “It’s because I was thinking of the ladies when I was making them.” A lie, but a necessary one.
The swordsman rolls his eyes at the dramatics, but still takes a giant bite, nodding approvingly at the taste. “They’re good, curly brow.”
“My cooking is always good.” The compliments still mean the world to him, but Zoro doesn’t need to know that. Sanji thinks he might anyway.
Zoro laughs, a low, deep sound that rings like a bell in Sanji’s chest. It’s not that it’s a rare thing, exactly, but… rarer than it used to be.
“It is,” he says, taking another bite. “But one of ‘em is all odd shaped.”
Sanji stiffens at that, eyes drawn to the half-heart he’d been holding when he realized just what he’d been doing with the onigiri shapes. But he tilts his nose up, a vain effort to save face. “I was thinking of you when I made that one.”
The swordsman laughs again at that, a big belly-deep guffaw that shakes his whole chest. “Nice to know even you make mistakes, cook,” he says. It’s probably meant to be an insult, but somehow it feels like a compliment. A little like Zoro getting to see the real process of Sanji’s cooking, rather than the polished final result he prefers to offer.
And that part hadn’t been a lie. Not entirely, anyways.
But Zoro leaves with the rest of his snack, and Sanji is left to stew in his mortification.
━
Sanji is a regular customer in the “we’re not thinking about this” department, but this time he can’t quite avoid it. It’s not the fact that he’s falling for a man– he’d come to terms with that part of himself long ago– but that he’s falling for Zoro. His taste is terrible, frankly.
His feelings for Nami and Robin are different– loving, yes, but dramatic in a way that feels a bit like a performance, one that he keeps up out of enjoyment and genuine affection for the two of them. Zoro is… well. Zoro is perhaps the person he relies on most of all; nothing quite matches the way Sanji’s heart soars when they spar, with every sharp word exchanged between the two of them. Hard to deny– as much as he’d rather stick his head in the sand– and maybe after all these years as crewmates he doesn’t want to fight it. Mostly.
But it’s definitely the mosshead’s fault that Sanji is feeling like this, with his head all fuzzy and his heart beating far too fast (like it had when he was just a boy with his first crush), and it is definitely not Sanji’s own pesky emotions causing the mess.
As punishment, Sanji decides that Zoro is going to carry his groceries today. All of them.
(He pointedly ignores the fact that this sort of grocery shopping is, in fact, something of a routine of theirs. And that he might just enjoy Zoro’s company the teeniest, tiniest bit.)
He’s grumpy about the whole thing though, and Zoro is the perfect outlet as he kicks the napping swordsman's shin.
“Wake up, mosshead, we’re going shopping!”
Zoro scowls, rubbing his good eye, and even half-asleep Sanji can’t help but admire the sharp lines of his face, the stupid-green color of his hair. He hates it. He loves it. He can’t decide, really, and thinks it might be a little of both.
But the object of his focus glares up at him balefully, squinting into the sun.
“What crawled up your ass and died today, curly brow?”
You, Sanji almost says, before he realizes exactly how bad that sounds. He can feel his face turning an interesting shade of red, sees the next question forming on Zoro’s lips and knows he has to nip it in the bud.
“I’m mad at you,” he snarls instead, grabbing Zoro’s wrist to drag him up. Zoro goes willingly, following his lead, and Sanji’s belatedly beginning to realize that they do this whole song and dance far too often for it to feel like a real threat.
Zoro just shrugs. “What’s new?”
Everything, really, but it’s not like Sanji can say that.
They make their way off the Sunny’s deck, waving goodbye to Usopp, who’s on watch duty for the day. It’s a spring island, lush with greenery– even the air smells lovely, like fresh flowers that meld with the salty sea breeze. The market is bustling this afternoon, full of vendors hawking their wares, and Zoro ambles behind Sanji as he makes his way through the rows of tables, inspecting fresh produce and spices, handing Zoro the bags as he buys them. He’s an expert haggler, of course– Nami had given him a strict budget as per usual, threatening him to stay beneath it, and he’s not about to do anything that would anger his mellorine.
Zoro glowering over his shoulder probably helps too, considering how terrifying the man probably looks to those who don’t know him.
On impulse, he buys a few bags of rice. And if it’s maybe a little more than Sanji needs, if he maybe spends a little too much time looking at the way Zoro’s muscles strain against his shirt as he hoists the bags over his shoulders, then that’s a secret he’ll take to the grave.
They’re almost done with the day’s shopping, surrounded by the scents of food and spices when Zoro nudges his shoulder.
“Vendor over there’s trying to catch your eye,” he grunts, gesturing towards a stand so colorful that Sanji can hardly believe he’d missed it before. It’s full of flowers that Sanji has never seen before, probably local to the island, arranged in lovely bouquets.
And his heart jumps at the thought, but–
“Never thought you were the flower type,” Sanji jokes, adjusting the bags he carries. “Besides, we’ve got no room to carry them without crushing them. Nami and Robin deserve better than that.”
Zoro squints at him, and Sanji feels a little exposed– as though the other knows that he’d been tempted not by the thought of getting flowers for the ladies, but for himself. But the swordsman merely shrugs.
“Suit yourself.”
So Sanji straightens his shoulders, leading the way back to the ship (because he, quite reasonably, does not trust the mosshead’s sense of direction). His gaze flickers a little to the side, where Zoro stands, and thinks a bit longingly of the floral arrangements he’s leaving behind. He loves romantic things, he really does, but Sanji is always the one doing the giving, never the receiving. That’s just his nature.
━
The rest of the afternoon is a blur of putting away the groceries, kicking Zoro out of his pantry with a grumbled word of thanks and a bottle of sake he’d been saving.
As it turns out, he’s got a little time before he has to start dinner, and Sanji’s itching for another cigarette. He makes his way to the railing again, placing the cigarette between his lips covering the flame of his lighter with his hand. Sanji sighs, leaning his head back and letting out a wisp of smoke. A long day. He’s tired, and antsy with the thought of the feelings that he’s been trying so desperately to ignore. For all that they’d practically smacked him in the face today, he knows the longing in his chest has been building for far longer than that.
Sanji closes his eyes, allowing the sea breeze to tickle his face, sweeping strands of blonde hair back from his forehead. Sometimes these little moments are what he relishes; a bit of peace in the midst of things.
“Cook,” he hears suddenly, the familiar rumble of Zoro’s voice a shock to his senses. A testament to how little he’s been paying attention to his surroundings, really. Sanji can’t quite place the tone, whether this is Zoro’s I’m-starting-a-fight voice, or whether the swordsman wants something else.
He cracks open an eye, raising an eyebrow. Lips part in preparation for a taunt, the fight singing in his blood, but his jaw drops before he can really process what he’s seeing, his cigarette falling onto the deck of the Sunny. Sanji can’t bring himself to care, though.
Because Zoro is standing before him, cheeks tinted pink, and holding out the most mis-matched bouquet of flowers Sanji thinks he’s ever seen. They’re mostly yellow, but no two are the same– some have thorns, some are bent, and some of the petals aren’t quite right, the quality being nothing that a flower shop would sell. But the stems are perfectly cut, and Sanji’s beginning to realize that it might be from the blade of a familiar sword. Rough hands, bloody hands wielding the blade– but such softness, too, in the way he holds the flowers now.
“What?” he says, eyes darting between Zoro and the flowers.
Zoro coughs, not quite meeting his eyes– the flush on his cheeks growing deeper. Sanji stares at him with equal parts awe and smugness– he hadn’t even known that Zoro could be flustered like that.
“They’re for you,” he says, holding them out awkwardly towards Sanji, as though he’s half expecting the cook to kick them out of his hands. “Robin said something about a special day. Celebrating love, with flowers and all that fancy shit. Seemed like your kind of thing, love-cook.”
And Sanji shakes his head, feeling like his world is turning on its axis. His heart flutters wildly, half hope and half apprehension, and his body feels so hot and cold and dizzy that he’s not even sure what’s up anymore. He takes a step towards Zoro, and the other man lowers the flowers, brow furrowing, and well–
Sanji simply has to kiss him about it.
Before he can stop to think about what a terrible idea this is, he grabs Zoro’s face in his hands and kisses him squarely on the lips.
He’s not quite sure what he was expecting, really– Zoro’s lips are chapped, tasting faintly of sake, and he leans into Sanji’s touch like he belongs there, like it’s something he’s been wanting for far longer than Sanji’s been aware of it.
It’s not a long kiss; Sanji’s not quite that brave, yet. He pulls away after a few seconds, searching– his fingertips trailing Zoro’s jaw as the other draws in a shuddering breath. His eye remains tightly shut, almost as if he’s afraid to open it and find out he’s dreaming.
“You better have been trying to say what I think you were saying,” he says primly, taking the flowers from Zoro’s hands. “Otherwise that might’ve been the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.”
“You’re a dumbass, shitty cook,” Zoro says, his face curling into that familiar arrogant smirk that grates on Sanji’s nerves.
Of course, his only option is to kiss the swordsman again. Just to wipe it off his face, you see.
━
Later that night the crew is gathered around a bonfire they’d set up on the decks– it’s a merry thing, as it often is with the Strawhats. Luffy, Usopp and Zoro are dancing to a beat of their own invention, though Brook’s jaunty music fills the air. The others are chatting quietly amongst themselves, sometimes calling out teasingly to where Sanji and Zoro sit.
Zoro wraps an arm around him, maybe a little tighter than it needs to be. A sign, perhaps, that Sanji is his now– and maybe the other way around, too.
(Nami had been running a bet, apparently, on who would be the first between them to break– and when. Sanji can’t quite bring himself to be mad about it, not when he’s still on cloud nine and the flowers that Zoro had given him are proudly displayed in his kitchen. He’s still not sure who won, but given how many berries seemed to make it into Robin’s pockets tonight… he’s not entirely sure her words to Zoro earlier had been completely unselfish. Not that he’d ever think so lowly of a lady, of course.)
His thoughts drift, though, to what Zoro had said to him– that he’d thought that the Love-Day was Sanji’s kind of thing.
You’re my kind of thing, he thinks, looking over with a grin that feels like it’s going to split his face in two. But that’s far too sappy to say aloud– he’s fairly certain he wouldn’t hear the end of that from anyone, including Zoro. And it’d probably be deserved, although it’s no more than he’s embarrassed himself in the past.
But there is something warm that curls in his chest at being known, and he shoves Zoro’s shoulder playfully. You know me too well. And Sanji grins as Zoro kisses him again. That’s how it should be, after all.