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Sanji doesn’t know exactly when they started adopting children.
Was it with Tama and Momo, who were the first to be offered a place on the Sunny? Was it much earlier, when little Chimney invited herself to Ennies Lobby? Maybe adopting orphans has always been part of pirate nature – or at least, theirs. Do orphans find each other, in such a way that they form a sort of unconscious family, recognizing and protecting their peers when they cross paths? Sanji likes to think so, even today.
Sanji doesn’t know when it all began, but he does know that, in a way, Luffy, Nami and Robin are Momo’s adoptive parents. Luffy and Zoro are Tama’s. He and Zoro are Toko’s.
What Sanji always knew is that one day, one of these children would set sail with them, first in a long line of outcasts, and that among them would be his.
He also suspected that, if there was to be another parental figure by his side for his first lost child, it would be neither Nami nor Robin, but one of the men from East Blue. His connection with his captain, with the swordsman or the sniper has a particular color, a balance that couldn’t exist with the women of the crew. And Sanji is well aware that his nurturing nature makes him a perfect counterpart to these carefree boys who know how to put magic in hearts while he makes it for bodies. He’s all the more aware of this as they drown himself in this magic: freedom, ambition, imagination. Everything he thought he’d given up, these men inject back into him, a daily remedy for the painful scars that mark his soul.
Sanji has sometimes fantasized about having children – because it’s one of those romantic things you do with a female partner – but he doesn’t want to pass on his cursed genes, let alone risk an innocent being inheriting the traits his genitor held so dear. And it’s all right: genetics are powerless in the face of love and human connection. After all, Zeff adopted him because he saw himself in him, because Sanji is more like Zeff than anyone else.
Sanji knows that you’re never totally ready to have children. Even when it’s planned. Even when you know everything about how to take care of them. So he’s not surprised when she happens upon him.
*
He and Zoro are arguing on a forest path. They’re on their way to the Sunny amid the autumn leaves, and Sanji regrets not being able to share this romantic atmosphere with anyone else. The adventure is far from over, for there is always something to discover in this world, and if they are older and less naive, little has changed between them.
Sanji may feel more grounded, more peaceful, but the fire within him is still powerful and explosive. Zoro may be less unreasonable, less hard on himself, but his iron will is intact.
Zoro almost turned in the middle of the straight line they were following, and Sanji caught him before he disappeared into the woods. Naturally, the swordsman got annoyed with him. So they’re elbowing each other while exchanging their usual pleasantries.
The verbal joust threatens to turn into a fight when they sense a presence ahead. Nothing to worry about, just a tiny thing, a being standing in their way.
They stop and look down, intrigued.
She must be between eight and ten years old. Her clothes are worn, her skin scratched, her nails dirty. Her long auburn hair curls in all directions around her round face, and her big green eyes stare at them, as if in wonder.
Then she smiles broadly and chuckles into her hand.
“You two are so funny!”
Zoro and Sanji glance at each other, both skeptical and offended.
“We’re not funny, we’re fighting,” remarks Zoro sulkily, as if he can’t afford to terrify a lost little girl.
She drops her hand and smiles even wider – Sanji thinks she’ll hurt herself if she keeps this up.
“Yeah, but you’re just pretending. So it’s fun!”
Zoro lets out a wounded-animal growl, but Sanji allows himself a chuckle. She has a point, after all: arguing is their favorite game. He’s much more concerned about what a scruffy little girl is doing in the middle of the forest.
“What about you? What are you doing here?”
He asks on principle, but he already has his answer: no decent adult leaves a child in this state, and even Wano’s poorest parents managed to make their offspring look presentable. Loved. The little girl in front of him, despite her playful expression, doesn’t seem to dispose of this primary need.
“I spotted the sails of a pirate ship on the coast. I smelled adventure, so I came to see!”
They don’t need to look at each other to know who this line reminds them of.
“All alone?” asks Zoro, without an ounce of astonishment in his voice. “That’s brave of you, kiddo.”
Behind the compliment, Sanji hears the same worry that lurks in his own gut.
“Well… I don’t have anyone,” hesitates the child, twiddling her fingers. “If I could, I’d have left this place a long time ago…”
This time, they glance at each other in alarm.
“Really no one? Even adoptive family…”
“… or friends your own age…?” completes Zoro.
She shakes her curly head, an upset pout on her face.
Just as Sanji wonders what they can do with this child, a violent gurgle shakes the space. All his questions forgotten, he is about to react when Zoro breaks into his raucous, precious laughter.
He stares at him, scandalized by his attitude in front of this hungry little girl, but the swordsman has his hand pressed to his forehead, and he is strangely charismatic, tall man dressed all in green laughing like a child in the middle of a fiery-colored forest. Sanji shakes his head to clear his thoughts.
Just as he’s about to hit him, Zoro surprises him again: he gives him a quick, discreet, almost imperceptible and strangely affectionate look, then crouches down and holds out his palm to the kid.
“You wanted to see the pirate ship? We can take you there, it’s ours. That stupid cook will even fix you the best meal of your life,” he adds, pointing at Sanji with his head.
Sanji blushes at the remark.
“Who are you calling stupid, marimo?” he growls, without his usual snarl.
The little girl’s eyes widen in wonder.
“You’re pirates?! That’s amazing! I’ve always dreamed of being a pirate!”
They can’t help but giggle. She takes Zoro’s hand, and they go on their way, arguing as the girl laughs about their banter.
They soon realize that she’s at the end of her rope. She stumbles over her own feet, and Zoro’s long strides are of no help. The swordsman grabs her for the umpteenth time before she falls, then asks softly, grumbling:
“We’re never gonna make it this way. Would you mind if I put you on my shoulders?”
Sanji knows from her expression that Zoro has hit the nail on the head. She stares at him as if he were the third wonder of the world, and Zoro glows at the gaze of this child reaching for her dream. He lifts her by the armpits as she giggles, then wedges her against his skull. Sanji can’t help but find them touching.
By the time they reach the ship, she’s told them all about her daily routine, simple and heartbreaking at the same time: a life of wandering in the forest, eating berries and hunting small animals, sleeping in tree trunks and burrows – but she’s getting too big for that, and doesn’t know how she’ll manage this winter.
She prefers to ask tons of questions about their travels. Sanji answers them with gusto, while Zoro pushes away the slender fingers playing with his earrings. They don’t miss a chance to rival each other on their exploits, and when she learns that he can fly, she stares at him with the same inspired awe Zoro has wrung from her. Something bubbles up in his gut, which Sanji identifies as joy.
When they reach the boat, Zoro immediately yells:
“Hey, Luffy! We’re bringing in a lost animal!”
“We need Chopper!” completes Sanji.
“Hey! I’m not an animal!” protests the little girl, slapping Zoro’s green skull with her hand.
Sanji bursts out laughing. He likes this kid.
What follows is a blurred mix of cries, gestures and surprise on all sides. She melts at the sight of Chopper’s adorable form, screams in fear at the sight of Brook, but bursts out laughing the next moment. On the doctor’s advice, Sanji prepares a full but light meal for her, made with ingredients her stomach is used to. She cries as she eats. He has to sit down in order to cope, and Luffy tells him about a similar scene with Tama and Zoro.
Sanji can’t help but give the swordsman an affectionate smile, and throw in a jibe about his well-hidden sensitivity. Then the girl gives him a hug, and it’s his turn to resist Zoro’s teasing as his eyes wet with tears.
The little one doesn’t have a name, or she won’t give it. They don’t insist. They spend three days with her, while Nami completes her surveys of the island.
Every time she falls asleep, it’s hidden in the cellar, out of sight, in a place that reminds her of her burrows and tree trunks.
Robin tries to convince her to try a real bed, but the child is wary and needs to be anchored in a familiar context to rest well, according to Chopper, so they let her. They make her nibble a lot, in small quantities, to slowly compensate for the malnutrition. Sanji calls her “Souris”, the French word for mouse, and she gives him a slap on the thigh when she learns it’s an animal. Zoro laughs. The nickname stays.
By the time they have to leave, they’ve all come to the same conclusion. So when Souris gathers them in the galley, they know what she’s going to ask.
“Please, I want to go on an adventure! Take me to the sea with you. I’ll do anything!”
Sanji receives a blow to the heart at the wording and takes a step backwards. He bumps into a wall – Zoro – who puts his hand on his shoulder as if to steady him while grumbling:
“Not even able to stand on your own legs, tsss…”
The decision is Luffy’s, but Luffy can’t refuse an adventure to anyone, least of all a little orphan girl with whom he shares so many aspirations. When he accepts, Sanji relaxes imperceptibly, and feels the hand on his shoulder do the same.
Then the little girl turns towards them and throws herself into their arms, forcing them to maintain a contact they would ordinarily have broken.
*
Sanji makes it a point of honor not to treat Souris the way Zeff treated him. Over time, he’s come to understand the tough love that cured him of the horrors of his childhood doesn’t have to be copied. He can do better. Differently.
So he lets his sensibility express itself at her side, and he floods her with validation, smiles and joy. He treats her like a real princess. Zoro pretends he spoils her too much and makes fun of him, but he does nothing to stop him. She clings to the swordsman just as much, and gets into the habit of training with him, when she’s not perched on his dumbbells singing along to Brook’s melodies or curled up against him during naps.
Souris insists on sleeping in the cellar, so Franky installs a retractable hammock and a few decorations whose cutting-edge technology fascinates the little one. Sanji finds her there at dawn, awake and ready to ask thousands of questions about their journey, life and the mysteries they have yet to unravel. She goes shopping with him, although she’s not much interested in cooking, but she casts a look of wonder on everything, eager for novelty and experience. He buys her pretty clothes, which Nami approves of, but soon discovers that she prefers cargo pants, brassieres and open shirts, more practical for moving around in. He blames Zoro, who finds the whole thing hilarious. Souris laughs as they fight, stars in her eyes. At her request, Zoro starts teaching her swordsmanship, Sanji Zeff’s combat style – without as much success, to his great disappointment.
It only takes a year for these visible changes to be verbalized in a way that shakes Sanji’s tender heart, and perhaps even more so that of the swordsman.
In the meantime, they have adopted another child, much younger, with a very different history. He has already identified, by his own standards, who his current parents are. Nami has become “Mama” – they all think it’s hilarious, except for her. Luffy “Papa” and Usopp “Dabada”, for some obscure reason no one tries to understand anymore.
Sanji feeds everyone with equal affection, but he’s less concerned about the new kid. He didn’t take on this responsibility, and the little one isn’t of the same nature as Souris: he found himself adopted before asking, before considering for himself what kind of dynamic he could fit into. Everything was natural, in the right order.
Souris… Souris is different: she chose them. And if they both persist in their heated rivalry and false arguments, she has created a bond between them that forces them to look at each other a little more often. To laugh together more. To share moments they wouldn’t have been open to before.
Sanji likes the swordsman a lot, even if he finds it hard to admit, so he’s grateful.
That day, they gather for a sugary breakfast. Sanji places a stack of chocolate pancakes in front of Souris that rivals Chopper’s.
“Thanks, Papa.”
The little girl’s voice echoes through the galley like an obvious truth. Luffy continues to chew, but there’s a slight, tender silence.
Franky is the first to wipe away a tear. Sanji quickly joins him, snotty-nosed, frozen next to Souris as his eyes overflow with liquid joy.
Sanji has never called anyone “Dad”. His genitor was a scumbag whose aura of authority never allowed this kind of familiarity. He wanted respect, he deserves only indifference, and the “Otô-san”, this “Father” of his childhood, has disappeared in favor of a clean break from this cursed family that Sanji has disowned.
Then there was Zeff, and their confrontational relationship never gave way to anything but falsely mean nicknames, like what he currently has with Zoro, come to think of it. By the age of nine, Sanji was already using the word “shit” for everything, and Zeff was no exception. The first time he called Zeff by his name was when he left. A moment that spoke a thousand words. Despite what they share, despite how he perceives this stubborn old man who saved his life to pass on his dream, he’ll never tell him he’s his father at heart. They don’t work that way, and Sanji has no desire to change anything in their dynamic. It’s not as if Zeff doesn’t know, anyway.
Souris has no accent when she pronounces the few French words Sanji knows from his upbringing. She’s mastered them perfectly, born into a culture that taught her r’s scraped in the back of the throat and vowels articulated with the lips rather than the jaw. Although she’s copied it from the way her adopted little brother names their captain, it moves Sanji even more through this term so… foreign to his ears.
He splutters amidst his tears, which he tries to wipe away with one hand. Souris stares at him in surprise, as if she’s afraid she’s made a mistake, but Sanji smiles through his sobs. Hesitating on the words, as if certain he can’t pronounce them because no one has ever taught him, he replies:
“You… You’re welcome, ma chérie.”
The crowd bursts into tears; Souris hiccups as well, laughing stupidly, and Luffy smiles through his full mouth. With him, only Zoro doesn’t cry, but Sanji catches him hesitantly gesturing towards him, as if ready to get up and join him.
“Sanji-kun, I’m so happy for you!” cries Nami before throwing herself into his arms.
She squeezes his shoulders and takes his skull in her palm, like a sister or… or a mother. The lump in his throat doesn’t loosen, and he keeps Nami against him without thinking a second about her chest pressing against his torso. Others stand up, patting his shoulder blade, cuddling him as if he’d just received Souris’s adoption papers, and maybe he kind of has.
When Zoro discreetly exits the galley, Souris grimaces and takes off after him. “Papa” slipped out; Sanji guesses she wants to restore the balance.
When he comes across them again, they are in the middle of training, and Zoro is now “Tô-chan”. Sanji has to turn around to swallow his tears.
He later learns the swordsman himself has claimed this childish appellation, far from the distant marks of respect his samurai culture might demand. If Sanji hadn’t been convinced all along that Zoro would make a wonderful father, he would have been convinced right away.
*
Souris doesn’t physically resemble either of the men, with her big green eyes full of wonder, her auburn curls that Usopp teaches them to style, and her direct affection that’s more reminiscent of their captain.
However, the more time passes, the more she takes on the traits of her tô-chan, much to Sanji’s dismay. Her frown, her toothy grin, her brutal retorts that always hit the mark… Even her musculature is developing beyond the norm, to such an extent that Chopper tries to limit her training.
But Souris loves to fight, and she makes a point of ignoring the doctor as well.
Sanji has the satisfaction of realizing that, on the other hand, at maybe eleven-something, she has adopted many of his values. She doesn’t like to cook, but she never lets anyone starve, so much so that she’s taken to bringing them all the empty stomachs she comes across on her way, with the guarantee that her papa will feed them – and Sanji does so with a pride more radiant than ever. She refuses to hit women, which makes Sanji laugh and annoys Zoro prodigiously. Sanji has explained to her that, given she is, a priori, a woman herself, she lives in a society working against her. He also told her that his chivalrous ideals are a little outdated, and that he won’t love her any less if she doesn’t act according to these values from another time and another way of thinking…
But Souris has the soul of a samurai, and the way of the warrior and that of the knight have similarities both Zoro and Sanji have always refused to consider. Souris, who is not inhabited by their conflicting natures, embraces these shared virtues and magnifies them.
However, while Souris has inherited some of Sanji’s character traits, above all she resembles Zoro. Everyone notices, from the crew to strangers on the street. If Souris ever has a wanted poster with her name on it, Sanji knows she’ll be Roronoa Souris, and while it annoys him, he can’t help but be relieved she won’t be associated with the name Vinsmoke.
Meanwhile, he and Zoro are also fighting over the child who adopted them, which she finds hilarious.
Which is why, the first time she does it, Sanji gets angry and blames the swordsman.
“Marimo!” he shouts as he emerges from the galley, Souris’s palm in his, his leg on fire. “What have you done to my daughter?! Is this a new way of mocking me?!”
Zoro, a bottle of alcohol in hand, raises a surprised eyebrow and immediately retorts:
“First of all, she’s not your daughter, she’s mine too. Secondly, I didn’t do anything to her, she’s been off drawing with Usopp and the others, so why don’t you ask th…”
He cuts himself off as he notices the state Souris is in. One corner of his mouth turns up comically. He first chuckles, then, unable to contain himself, bursts out laughing.
“Okay, fine, she is your daughter, ahahaha! But ma chérie, why did you decide to do such a ridiculous thing to yourself?!”
Zoro stole Sanji’s “ma chérie”, much to Souris’s delight, while Sanji growls he has paternity over the pet name and Zoro is forbidden to use it, especially with his terrible accent. Souris laughs even harder, always noticing how funny they both are.
This time, however, she senses that something is wrong, because Sanji is hurt and genuinely angry. Not at her, of course, but she can read their expressions, feel the trembling in the cook’s hand, and Sanji tries to calm his own nervousness so as not to shock her further.
Yet it’s Zoro’s remark that angers the child. In a rare moment that reminds Sanji just how much of his daughter she can be, she runs at Zoro to kick him in the shin and screams, on the verge of tears:
“I just wanted to look like Papa!”
On her face, badly drawn with thick crayons, two swirls extend her eyebrows.
*
It takes all Sanji’s patience to calm the little girl down, which doesn’t help much with his own nerves. Souris forces Zoro to humbly apologize, sitting cross-legged with his hands on the floor in front of her, but Sanji can’t help thinking that she did it for him.
He ends up asking her why she suddenly wanted to take on this characteristic.
“Everyone says I look like Tô-chan, so I wanted something from you too!” she explains, soothed, with her big, wonder-struck smile.
Sanji has to fight an urge to vomit, mixed with a warmth that invades his guts. It’s the most touching, ridiculous and offensive thing his daughter could ever have done to him. He remains frozen on the Sunny’s grass, unable to express the bubbling of contrary feelings that overwhelms him.
“Hey, cook.”
Zoro snaps him out of his stupor. He places himself against the rail, still on the ground, and beckons him closer. Souris is already wedged between his powerful legs, her head against his chest. Sanji is inwardly moved by the image they project.
He sits down beside them, lighting a cigarette to calm his nerves. Zoro gives him a hesitant look, but he hugs his daughter and says softly:
“You know, there’s some things your papa doesn’t like about himself.”
Sanji is speechless and nearly drops his cigarette. The pain in his chest twists and struggles to hit his ribs and heart.
“I know,” agrees Souris.
The impact hits him from inside. Zoro gives him another uncertain look, and decides to place his hand on his knee.
“You also know that I only make fun of his eyebrows as a joke, right?”
“Of course, but I didn’t do it as a joke!” defends Souris, who has trouble understanding what he’s getting at.
Her big green eyes wet with tears. Sanji sees this as a priority and puts his palm on her head to reassure her. Zoro gives him a contrite smile, as if to apologize for what he’s about to say.
“Well… The cook’s eyebrows are one of the things he doesn’t like about himself, and that’s why I take the liberty of making fun of them. But if you take it seriously, it could…”
The swordsman hesitates again, even though he’s said too much for Sanji not to have to pick up his tattered heart, shattered by the knowledge that Zoro has seen through him so deeply.
“It could hurt him.”
The powerful hand grips his knee so tightly that Sanji feels physical pain. Zoro wants to convey a mountain of secrets with this gesture, perhaps more than Sanji believes him capable of.
Souris watches them in turn. She seems to understand there’s something else going on between them, something they hadn’t identified and which her empathetic gaze sees as obvious.
Stubbornly, however, she makes a point of clarifying:
“Well, I don’t think it should. That means we have to love his eyebrows even more than we already do, okay, Tô-chan?”
She stands up with a smile and stretches as Zoro rubs her skull over the cook’s hand.
“Okay.”
Sanji, too moved to react, raises his head in shock. The little girl steps aside and says:
“Well, I’m gonna wash my face so I don’t hurt Papa’s feelings.”
Sanji has to take a deep breath of smoke to swallow his tears. Zoro is still clinging to his knee like an anchor. The cook can’t resist a joke to lighten the heavy atmosphere between them, as if too many secrets have been revealed.
“So… you like my eyebrows?” he says, giving Zoro a facetious smile.
The swordsman responds with a grimace. Then he turns his head away and growls:
“Shut up, dartbrows.”
Sanji elbows him without force.
*
“Pretty brows, got ten minutes?”
Zoro has been assaulting his eyebrows with alarming regularity ever since he and Souris decided to love them even more. Not to mention the fact that he now addresses them with thinly veiled courtesies, to which Sanji reacts with more violence because he doesn’t know how to accept compliments that touch on what he hates about himself – especially if they come from his best rival, which makes Zoro even more smug about it.
Sanji throws his dishcloth at him, but follows without a word. The swordsman guides them into the passageway behind the aquarium, and Sanji can’t resist asking him if he’s lost.
“Honestly, maybe,” admits Zoro.
He realizes this is indeed very serious: usually, Zoro doesn’t even know he’s lost.
The blue light of the water tints his skin an unusual color. He suddenly looks like one of those powerful fish-men they fought in their youth. Sometimes Sanji finds it hard to fathom how much time has passed, but since Souris, he feels strangely grown-up. At other times, the little one allows him to reconnect with stolen parts of his childhood, and he appreciates the time he spends with his crew more than ever.
Sanji can see on Zoro’s willing face the sort of doubt that comes over him when he looks at him too long, too insistently or too transparently, since the day Souris painted her eyebrows. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to hear what the swordsman wants to tell him, but he forces himself to wait, to listen, like when he felt his hand on his knee and it anchored them both in a bubble of comfort that refused any form of conflict.
“I’d like to be a father with you.”
Sanji gasps, swimming in both blue light and incomprehension.
“That’s already the case, marimo…”
Zoro corrects:
“No, no. Not… We’re fathers separately, right now. Like Luffy, Nami and Usopp are parents separately. I want us to be fathers together.”
Sanji feels this liberating pain that thumps in his chest and leaves his legs shaking.
“Zoro… Do you know that it means… being a couple? You want… to be a couple with me?”
Sanji is in a relationship with several other people in the world, but he doesn’t have children with any of them. They have their own lives, sometimes their own families, and while he’s three times a stepfather, he’s not raising any of the children his partners have had without him. He shares their happiness every chance he gets, and he’s just as happy that no one wanted to reproduce with him. He doesn’t want to and he never will.
He knows that one day he might adopt one or more other orphans, who will be his own, and maybe someone else’s at the same time, or several others’ at the same time. But what Zoro is proposing is different, and he wonders if it really has anything to do with their shared paternity.
“Yes.”
The laconic answer doesn’t surprise him, but he doesn’t know what to make of it. Zoro sees right through him and explains:
“Look… I don’t know how it happened, but it happened. Since we’ve had Souris, I’ve been seeing things in you that I didn’t before, and I like it. I love watching you two, you’re beautiful. And I want to be with both of you. I don’t want her to be your daughter and mine too. I want her to be our daughter.
The swordsman tilts his head and touches his forehead with his hand, as if reflecting on his emotions requires a particular effort on his part. Perhaps it does: Zoro compartmentalizes everything, prefers to be rational but act on instinct. It’s normal for him to find it hard expressing impressions he doesn’t usually take the time to identify.
Sanji swallows and moves closer to him, at least to show that he’s not angry, that he’s not going to trample all over his feelings.
“But marimo… you… well, you know that in general, people get together because they love each other? Not all of them, of course, and in lots of different ways, but…”
“I know,” cuts in the swordsman in a calm tone. “That’s why I’m asking you. Because even if you don’t like me, I think we can build something together. We have proof of that with Souris. And you have some unusual relationships, with your poly-something thing, so I thought… maybe…”
He scratches his head, as if searching for the vocabulary Sanji is just beginning to master, but doesn’t finish his sentence.
Then Sanji realizes that Zoro hasn’t spoken to him about his own feelings. He has avoided this part of the conversation entirely, circling around it, arguing otherwise. The feelings are locked up with the rest, somewhere, and only instinct and rationality have passed the lips of his best rival and co-parent.
Sanji, whose heart has been broken so many times in so many beautiful and horrible ways, feels it fill with a well-placed sense of pride, a grandeur he never thought he possessed. Then his first instinct is to worry, and he stammers:
“Zoro… what happened?”
The swordsman stares at him for a moment, then looks away again, as if unwilling to risk burning Sanji with his gaze. The gesture confirms the obvious, and Sanji insists:
“Since when have you been in love with me?”
He takes another step, showing that he’s comfortable with the idea. He knows fire. He’s not afraid of being burned by his peer’s gaze. Zoro understands his movement and plants his pupil in his own. He’s regained his usual composure.
“I told you: it’s since Souris.”
Sanji suddenly remembers the little moments they shared with their daughter. The way their unacknowledged complicity expressed itself around her, Zoro’s gesture towards him the first time she called him Papa, his hand squeezing his knee, already telling him that magnificent and unsettling truth he wouldn’t have dared imagine in any of its nuances…
Zoro confirms his conclusion:
“I fell in love with the father you are.”
Sanji bursts into tears before he can even think of holding them back. Zoro laughs gently at him.
“Tss… Here we go… There’s a reason I didn’t want to be so blunt.”
Then, instead of stopping his gesture and stepping back to respect his privacy as he usually does, he takes the last step between them and wraps his arms around him. Sanji feels his large hands against his shoulder blades, warm and soft through the fabric of his vest.
He gives up all decorum and lets himself go in the embrace, squeezing the back of the man’s neck with his elbows.
“How do you expect me to reject you after a speech like that, you shitty swordsman…?!”
He kicks his shins with little conviction. Zoro sneers and takes the opportunity to add:
“Tell me if you’d let me kiss you one day.”
“Why would I need to tell you now that I know you want to?” Sanji protests weakly, trying to regain his composure. “I’ll do it if I want.”
“You’d never dare make the first move. Here’s the proof: I made this one.”
“Yeah? Then it’s my turn.”
Six months later, Sanji overhears Zoro explaining to Souris that in his language, which rolls the r’s and cuts words into syllables rather than letters, Souris, Suri, Three sound almost the same, “Juste like what the ‘san’ means in Papa’s name”.
It takes him three seconds to walk to Zoro, tip him backwards and kiss him like he kisses all the loves of his life.
Souris claps her hands in delight, then bursts out laughing and exclaims:
“You two are so funny!”
*
The second time she does it, Sanji can’t get angry.
Souris is fourteen, and Nami and Robin have offered her a make-up session. They rarely wear any, but they have enough to satisfy the curiosity of a teenager in the midst of exploring her appearance and how others perceive it.
The youngest on the ship have been pushed aside by Usopp, who keeps them busy with face paint. In view of his latest experiments with make-up, Sanji has preferred to entrust his daughter to experts, but he delves into his memories to draw drag-queen faces, guided by Usopp’s artistic skill.
Zoro has fallen asleep in a corner. They take great pleasure in matching him with the children. Then Luffy asks for his turn, and Sanji begins to feel too lonely to refuse participation. Usopp, who knows how taboo the subject is for him, simply paints his lips red and draws little flames on his temple.
When Souris joins them, wearing make-up like a grown-up, confident in her mismatched cargo pants and haori, her katanas at her side, Sanji takes a blow to the heart. He rushes over to hug her, tears welling up in his eyes.
“My baby has grown so muuuuch!!!”
“Aaah! Papa, don’t rub me! You’re gonna put red everywhere!” she grumbles, but he can feel her smile through the protest.
Her short auburn curls float around her face, over her temples, and Sanji only notices the addition on her left eyebrow. The one that twists inward, clearly visible in the middle of her forehead.
The marking is light, the line drawn with care, almost natural thanks to the high-quality pencil used.
He assumes it’s Robin’s work. He can’t be angry at Robin. Nor at his daughter, who just… just wants to look like him.
Her growth spurt brings her closer than ever to her swordsman father, and while she takes a lot of pride in it, he’s already heard her talk about dyeing her hair blonde, or who knows what other whim, an attempt to connect with a part of her that’s very much present, but invisible.
Souris is not as innocent as Luffy, but like Sanji and their captain, she can read hearts. She knows that Sanji’s relationship with invisibility, with the notion of disappearance, is… complicated.
She tackles the subject first:
“Looks better this time, right?”
He shakes his head and lights himself a cigarette.
“That’s not the point.”
Souris exhales at the same time as he does, in a mimicry he noticed too late. He hopes she’ll never pick up his morbid habit, but her deep breaths, when she’s anxious, give her the nonchalant air he adopts before starting a fight. He doesn’t need a stupid eyebrow to see himself in her, even when everything else about her exudes Zoro’s quiet strength, Zoro’s innate assurance, Zoro’s unyielding ambition, Zoro’s rugged beauty, Zoro’s love.
Souris is their daughter. What she has inherited is what she has absorbed because her own nature, her own personality, have made her permeable to it.
But if Souris is his daughter, she also has a right to know. So Sanji takes her aside and helps her put together the pieces of the puzzle that her emotional intelligence has already begun to fathom.
He names the Vinsmokes, whom she’s bound to hear about one day, summarizes the horrors they’re responsible for, avoids her gaze when she guesses what he might have been exposed to as a child, tells her about the clones and what his monster of a genitor tried to turn him into.
“Do you understand why I don’t want you to look like me now?”
They sit against the rail at the stern, and he strokes her pretty auburn curls with his hand full of dry paint. He knows she doesn’t care.
“But Papa… I don’t agree with this!”
He gasps. He’d thought his explanation would be enough.
“I don’t care where you’re from or who these scumbags are! I don’t know anyone else with this feature. You’re the one I see every day. You’re the one who feeds me and listens to me and loves me. That’s what I associate your curled eyebrows with. I have the right to want to look like the man to whom I owe who I am!”
When she’s unsettled, Souris doesn’t cry anymore, she gets angry. The realization makes Sanji chuckle and keeps him from bursting into tears, even though he knows he’ll probably break down in Zoro’s arms later tonight, when no one can see him. The swordsman will call him a crybaby in his teasing tone, but he won’t let go until he’s calmed down, and he’ll respect his silence if Sanji doesn’t feel like telling him why he got so upset. Then they’ll go on deck to fight.
Sanji promised himself to be honest with his daughter, to show her you shouldn’t blame yourself for being vulnerable, so instead of responding to her anger, he takes her in his arms and holds her close.
“But you don’t have to be like me, ma chérie. Not that way. We’ve got lots of other things in common, don’t you think?”
She nods and grunts, drawing a sniff from him. They both chuckle. Then she gets out of his embrace and goes to kick her tô-chan in the shins to wake him up and show him her awesome make-up. Zoro bursts out laughing, finds the make-up ridiculous, and owns himself another kick.
When they rejoin the rest of the crew, Souris whispers something in Usopp’s ear. He draws her a black mustache and a goatee, only too happy that she still wants to play these childish games. Then she turns to them, sticks out her tongue at Sanji and flashes him her wondering smile.
“I have no idea why she thinks she doesn’t look like you,” comments Zoro beside him. “She’s your spitting image.”
Sanji tips him back to kiss him passionately, smearing his lipstick on his mouth. Zoro spots the traces of green on his pale cheeks, realizing they’ve covered him in paint during his nap. He blames Sanji, and the two of them spend the next ten minutes smearing each other with paint, the rest of the crew taking over to turn the situation into a full-scale battle.
*
The third time she does it, Sanji’s anger is gone.
Souris has just turned sixteen, she’s of age, she has the right to do what she wants. He already expects her to leave them to start her own adventure, and the anguish of that departure generates relief with each new freedom she explores at their side. In his early thirties, he feels old when he watches her flirting around with people her own age, flower in hand, and protecting the meek and innocent with her katanas.
She still doesn’t hurt girls, she still brings them the hungry ones who cross her path, she still kicks her tô-chan’s shins.
She doesn’t have a single scar on her broad, muscular back, she only cries within herself, she loves to piss off her papa.
Sanji is proud to be her father, and has learned to be proud of the decisions she makes for herself, even when he disagrees.
That day, she returns from an afternoon out in town with Nami and Jinbe. She’s grown out her pretty auburn curls, which a distinctive black bandana holds in place on her head, and a line of dark pencil highlights her big green eyes. The whole ensemble gives her a mysterious, seductive air, that of a pirate in full possession of her powers.
When she turns to her fathers to tell them about this beautiful person she’s met who’s allowed her to kiss their hand, he doesn’t immediately notice the difference, lost between the locks on her temple and forehead.
Zoro, on the other hand, takes only a few seconds. He observes her, gives her a disapproving look, then bursts out laughing.
“Ahahaha! That’s ridiculous! You look like your father!”
Sanji kicks him in the shins, but Zoro ignores him, taking Souris in his arms.
“It suits you, ma chérie. You’re beautiful.”
On Souris’s face, as if matching her auburn curls, are inked two curled eyebrows. The drawing is precise, and he can even see the details of the thin hairs blending together in a soft line that perfectly reproduces their finesse.
Sanji stays frozen, unsure of how to react now that anger is no longer an option. He simply smiles, flattered, and leaves Souris in the hands of her tô-chan.
It’s when he sees the large, matte hand caressing the youthful face that he suddenly notices them. He holds out his finger, hypnotized by the golden glow of the three long metal drops hanging from his daughter’s left ear. They make him forget the curled eyebrows now tattooed on her forehead.
Sanji makes them ring with his index finger. Zoro stands back in surprise. He widens his single eye, which begins to glow with the reflection of the signature earrings. Then a hoarse sound, like a strangled laugh Sanji hasn’t heard in years bursts from his throat.
In a reflex he didn’t know he had, Sanji grabs the distraught face and wedges it against his shoulder. The world doesn’t need to see such precious tears.
He whispers a jibe to Zoro, who hits his chest with a weak punch, but gratefully accepts his embrace.
Souris makes her earrings chime proudly, raises her curled, severe eyebrows, then bursts out laughing.
“You two are so funny!”
She gazes at them with her wondering eyes. Sanji promises himself that the day she actually leaves them, he’ll tell her one last secret about her first name. In his native language, Souris is also the imperative for “smile”.