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Every now and then, Luffy decided he wanted to help in the kitchen.
It only happened on days when the rain kept him penned inside, Usopp and Chopper already lost in their own projects and too busy to spare him a glance.
That afternoon, a steady gray rain began to fall. Sanji had just rinsed the plates from their tea and was turning to dinner when the dining room door swung wide, and the captain stepped in, cheeks puffed, sulking silently.
He clambered onto the counter across from the kitchen and asked if there was anything he could do. Sanji passed him the heap of snow peas he’d set aside for just such an occasion. That day, Luffy’s task would be tugging the strings from their pods.
Since he’d done the task before, Luffy picked up a pod without a word—grudgingly, even though he’d been the one to insist on helping. He sat quietly, scraping at the seam with his fingernails.
Clumsy as he was, and prone to snacking besides, Sanji never let him near the knives or the stove. That left only the simplest chores.
Whipping cream by hand until his arms grew tired, or plunging dirt-caked vegetables into a bucket of water—chores fit for a child, really. But they demanded patience, and in that way Luffy always kept his head down, focused wholly on his hands.
Sanji didn’t bother filling the silence. He only shifted his gaze back to the potatoes he’d left half-peeled and took up the knife again. Across the counter, they worked without looking at each other, without a word exchanged.
No one else was in the dining room. In the hush of the cabin, the rain alone filled the silence—steady outside, with the occasional tap against the windowpane.
By the time he’d peeled seventeen potatoes, Sanji lifted his head. Across the counter, Luffy was scowling in concentration, wrestling with the snow peas. The strings refused to come off cleanly in a single pull.
A smile tugged at the corner of Sanji’s mouth before he caught himself. He dropped his gaze, feigning focus on the peeler in his hand. From the small pot on the stove came the bubbling sound of water beginning to boil. Too soon, he thought; he should have waited.
He reached for the tin of tea from the cupboard and fished out the teapot he had washed after their snack. Then he measured two spoonfuls of leaves, enough for two cups. Turning off the flame, he poured the hot water into the pot, then into both empty cups, letting them stand. A few minutes later he tipped the cups out, set the strainer in place, and let the dark tea flow. He placed one of the steaming cups before Luffy, who was still glaring down at the peas.
“Thanks!” Luffy grinned, snatched it up, and took a sip—only to yelp, “Hot!” The silence shattered in an instant.
"Noisy idiot,", Sanji thought, refilling the pot with water. The flame could wait.
Truthfully, it would all go faster if he did the work alone. The cream Luffy whipped never quite held its shape, the vegetables he washed stayed half-covered in dirt, and the pile of snow peas had barely gone down. Sanji wouldn’t call it more trouble than it was worth—but neither was it much of a help.
From the kitchen, Sanji watched the captain blow gently over his cup, then brought his own tea to his lips.
One thing was certain: until that mound of snow peas was gone, Luffy would remain here. Flighty as he seemed, he rarely abandoned a task halfway.
Out on deck he was always laughing, chasing after the others, but on rainy days, during these makeshift kitchen chores, he stayed put. Just the two of them, quietly sharing time.
What that meant—Sanji would have no answer if anyone asked. He didn’t know what good it did, either. Or perhaps he did know, and only refused to name it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a feeling a ship’s cook ought to harbor toward the captain who led them all. That much, at least, had to be wrong.
"After all," Sanji told himself. "It’s never because I asked. Coming here, insisting on helping—it’s always his idea, not mine."
At last, Luffy drained his tea and turned back to the snow peas, his face set with at least some determination.
Sanji gathered the cups and teapot to carry to the sink, remembering belatedly that he had forgotten to ask Nami for tomorrow’s weather at snack time.
Outside, the rain kept falling, steady and ceaseless.