Work Text:
sanji was having the worst day.
it had started with his usually already early waking time forcing itself onto him even earlier than usual, because he fell out of his sleeping mat. it was stormy outside, and the ship was rocking back and forth harshly on the waves as if to spite him personally on his birthday.
tired and rubbing the side he fell on, he trudged towards the kitchen to make breakfast, planning to at least take it extra easy now due to the literal hours of extra time the storm had oh so graciously granted him.
then, after having prepped the pan for his planned scrambled eggs, he took the suspiciously lightweight egg carton out of the fridge, only to curse out loud when he opened it to a sea of eggshells and a wonky 'sorry' written very obviously by luffy on the inside of the carton's lid.
thus, the breakfast plans changed to pancakes, for which he, of course, did not have the required maple syrup and so, begrudgingly, had to prepare little bowls with spoons in them that each held either strawberry jam, whipped cream or powdered sugar for his friends to choose as toppings.
in the afternoon, he wanted to read a book in the kitchen, but zoro had made it his goal to barricade the space for some reason and annoy sanji to a degree so insufferable that he, begrudgingly, felt he had to move somewhere else.
he did, and found a nice spot on deck, since the weather had cleared up,.
slowly, the strange feeling that his friends were avoiding him started creeping up on sanji as he read, hours passing without even a single disturbance.
on top of everything, none of them had acknowledged the fact that it was his birthday at all. he didn't want it to bother him, because up until he'd met luffy, he had never celebrated his birthday in the first place, but ever since his sailing with the straw hats had begun and the initial pressing of luffy for the date in a group conversation about birthdays had occurred, sanji had always celebrated it - with his found family. because they celebrated each other's birthdays, all of them, with so much joy and laughter that every time, it evoked the sappiest of feelings within sanji.
these people were genuinely the first human beings, after zeff and the cooks, to truly hammer it in that yes, the fact that sanji is on this earth is a blessing.
so why were his nakama behaving like this now?
had everyone really just forgotten?
sanji desperately tried to shove the unwanted thoughts away by focusing on his book.
evening came, and it was time to make dinner. sanji had not talked to a single person for the past few hours he'd been out of the kitchen.
therefore, his mood was still down the drain, sinking further into the dirty abyss of his imaginary canalisation with each minute that passed. he was really hoping that the act of cooking food would lift his spirits at least a bit.
when he got there, he found the kitchen to be clean and empty, but, and that was the important part, not how he left it.
while the cooking process did do wonders for his messed up chemical balance of the happy hormones, he found he had to search for a few things and in the process noticed some others that were misplaced, turning his cooking into a simultaneous clean up maneuver.
someone had used his kitchen, and they had unsuccessfully tried their damnedest to go unnoticed.
from the items he had had to move back to their original places, he could deduce that the performed action must have been baking.
what exactly though, he could not say.
he didn't want to pay it any mind, and so thought of it no further. his day had been bizarre enough so far.
dinner was fine, but there was a strangely tense atmosphere hovering over the table, as if everyone knew something sanji didn't.
once he'd finished his food, he wasted no time getting up and washing solely his own dishes, because nobody else had finished yet.
as the scalding hot water steamed over his hands, he could feel tears well up in his eyes.
nothing had happened in particular, but that only added to his dread: why was he getting worked up over nothing?
"i'm an idiot," sanji thought to himself.
he heard zoro coming up behind him way too late, and got startled by the sudden appearance - so much so that he dropped his plate in the sink with a slight yelp.
"woah, sorry. didn't mean to startle you like that. i thought you heard me," zoro said as he set the pile of dirty plates he had collected from everyone down on the counter.
"so uh," he tried, scratching his head.
silence followed, sanji picked his plate back up and began to scrub it.
"what is it, you big oaf. i'm pissed and i had a shit day, so if you wanna pick a fight, i would honestly rather finish up here instead and then go straight to bed," sanji spat.
zoro didn't respond, so sanji turned to face him.
his eyes widened, he didn't expect the genuine look of guilt on zoro's face.
their eyes met, and, feeling caught, zoro had to swallow hard.
"sorry, could you stop with the dishes for a second? we all have something for you. blame nami for making me the messenger, okay?"
he didn't wait for a reply and instead grabbed sanji by the wrist, his hands still dripping with water. while zoro dragged sanji back to the table and made him sit down, sanji finally realized that the room had actually vacated while he had been with his back to it at the sink.
sanji's mind flashed for a quick second - had he really been even stupider than he'd thought?
it dawned on him in the exact same second that luffy jumped back into the room, screeching at the top of his lungs: "SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANJI!"
behind the captain, all of sanji's family followed, singing happy birthday while zoro tried chiming in with crooked notes from sanji's side, while robin was carrying a monstrously huge cake with the help of her devil fruit's extra hands.
the cake was very obviously self-made, and personal touches from every straw hat were visible, the icing obviously having been done by luffy - the red letters wishing sanji a happy birthday contained multiple misspellings.
it was such an adorable sight, and sanji was so overwhelmed with relief, his poor heart couldn't take it anymore.
the tears came flowing without warning, but it took luffy approximately half a second to pick up on sanji's state of overstimulation. the next time sanji blinked, his captain had already flung himself onto both him and his chair, clinging to him and enveloping him in a big bear hug.
"you guys freaked me out all day!" sanji scream-cried into luffy's hair.
nami cleared her throat and spoke up: "yeah, see. let's not do that again next time, guys, and instead follow my plan." she sighed. "but now, we have to celebrate!"
"yippie," luffy screamed into sanji's ear as he unravelled his stretchy limbs from around him.
sanji couldn't believe these idiots.
though for better or for worse, the rest of the day was a dream: he got hugged at an intensity of roughly 2 hugs per second, and even zoro got mushy enough to grace him with a few beer-reeking embraces.
those totally did not make sanji's heart beat faster, no, not at all.