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After all the islands they’ve already explored, Zoro shouldn’t be surprised.
Here, eternal night reigns. Here, it’s a world shrouded in futuristic technologies worthy of Egghead, with a slightly darker and more sinister feel, all bathed in thousands of colorful neon lights and mechanized humans.
Franky seems to feel at home, although he whistles jealously as he observes certain high-tech prostheses and the numerous chemiluminescence systems.
They entered this restaurant-bar for several reasons. Luffy smelled the meat, Nami saw the affordable prices, Zoro noticed the alcohol, Sanji recognized the quality cuisine…
The cook recoiled when he saw a few drag queens giggling loudly at the counter, but he contented himself with hiding in a corner of the bench when they sat down. He didn’t even try to sit next to Nami or Robin, so he ended up stuck between Zoro and Brook. Everything he hates, since he pretends Zoro annoys him and since Brook is gross when he eats.
Franky got fascinated by the digital tablets used to place orders. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper played with them long enough for Nami to get impatient and confiscate the devices.
That’s when they turned to Sanji: the cook usually orders dishes he doesn’t know, wanting to discover new things and get excited about them.
But the cook has his nose buried in his tablet, regularly swiping through the options, his eyes fixed on the bottom of the pages he is consulting, without seeming to pay any attention to the food. When Zoro glances at his menu, he understands what intrigues him: colorful flags, accompanied by informative texts, adorn the footers of the menu provided.
“Those little bastards…” mutters the cook as Zoro reads “Bisexuality: being attracted to more than two genders. Believing that one must ‘choose’ between men and women, even though gender is a broad spectrum far removed from this binary, invisibilizes bi/pan people.”
Sanji slides the plate aside and reveals another note: “Romantic and sexual attraction do not necessarily correspond. For example, one can be sexually attracted to people regardless of their gender (pansexual) and romantically attracted exclusively to men (homoromantic).”
Zoro thought everyone knew this without needing vocabulary to say it, but he finds the idea interesting. Sanji shrinks further into his seat while tensing up more and more, muttering angry curses and chewing his lip for lack of a cigarette.
“If I ever see them again, they’re dead…”
The rest of the crew exchange surprised glances, but by silent agreement, they decide to leave the cook to his anger. Nami takes the initiative to order a little of everything. She’s the one who holds the purse strings, after all.
Finally, the person serving them gives them their pronouns—they—and places a dish in front of Sanji. He has continued reading obsessively and is now fuming at the ears and blushing with an obvious mixture of embarrassment and rage. He looks up at the movement.
“Oh, sorry, thank you, um… lovely person,” he says with a smile that oscillates between the debilitating attraction he feels for women and the contempt he pretends to feel for men.
The crew gives him another surprised look, except for Luffy, who is already gobbling down the food.
Fortunately, Sanji puts down the tablet and devotes himself to the meal, although his sometimes distant gaze gives Zoro the impression that the dramatic episode is not over.
Sanji let his friends slip away to join the rest of the party, which is in full swing. There is a dance floor where drag queens mingle with people whose gender he would be unable to define, and men and women whom he would never have suspected of having a sexuality outside the established norm.
He ate heartily, enjoyed the atmosphere, and laughed with his friends. Then he went back to reading the small texts at the bottom of the menu and grumbling as much as he could about these okamas who pretended to be the only people on their spectrum—the term comes up often enough in the notes for his brain to have retained it—all to drive him crazy.
It’s not their fault, of course: perhaps even they, before Iva and their Newcomers returned, didn’t have all these nuances in mind. It’s not as if Sanji was in a position to find out, anyway; he was far too busy running away from them or fighting them in duels for a chat. Being useful to his crew was his only priority. And besides, the Newcomers had never approached him, because they weren’t part of the challenge, of this journey through hell that Sanji had negotiated at the expense of all his physical… and emotional needs.
Then, after eating, he continued to skim through the definitions like a man possessed. Certain things about the men who chased him with axes take on new meaning. Others have nothing to do with it, but they satisfy some kind of misplaced curiosity about some of his peers, Luffy at the top of the list, whom he has never caught in a moment of solitary pleasure, unlike absolutely all the other members of the crew—he almost died twice because of it.
He wouldn’t have asked the man himself: these things are private unless the person brings them up on their own, and the captain probably doesn’t care enough to give an enlightening answer, even if it would likely be enlightened. Sanji, slightly obsessed with sex, has always wondered how he functions, and now that he’s discovering the “aro-ace spectrum”, he’s beginning to understand.
However, his misplaced curiosity was replaced by a visceral unease when he came across the definition.
He threw down the tablet and drank the first alcoholic beverage he could find. He nibbled on something extra for good measure, as the drink was strong. Then he picked up the tablet again, remembered the page with the definition, and persisted in his exploration of the spectrums, searching for a better explanation. For a term that would save him from this other one that sounded like a curse.
He downed glass after glass without really seeing them, too absorbed in his quest.
He returned to the term. He stared at it for a long time. He reread the definition over and over again.
He wanted to drain one last glass, but someone snatched it from his hands with a growl. He growled back reflexively.
Now the word flashes before his drunken, blurred eyes, a distressing certainty.
“Lithromantic: a person who no longer feels romantic attraction when their feelings are reciprocated.”
Sanji bursts into tears.
Zoro let Sanji steal his glasses without saying anything, and because he’s petty, he retaliated by drinking his red wine straight from the bottle. Then, when he caught the cook’s hand reaching for another glass, he stopped him with a gesture and a growl.
Normally, he would have yelled at him, but the cook is weird, and Zoro understood he needed to give him some space.
The others went off to dance and have fun. Zoro stayed behind because the alcohol was good and the location allowed him to keep an eye on the whole place—and to keep an eye on the cook, even though he would never admit to this, even though he could claim it was Nami who forced him to do so with a simple glance that screamed, “I’ll increase your debt if you dare move from here.”
Then Sanji put down the tablet. He stood frozen in front of the word, the text. He swallowed without success. Zoro saw his face contort, his lips tremble and open over his clenched teeth. And Sanji burst into tears.
Zoro isn’t good at reassuring his peers. He stood there, unable to figure out what to do. He would have gladly yielded another drink, but Sanji has already reached the limit he never usually exceeds. He would have clumsily patted him on the shoulder, but that’s not something he allows himself to do with the cook. He would even have provoked him, but he feels that at this moment, it would destroy their mutual trust.
So Zoro stays there, sipping the drink he didn’t let Sanji steal from him, and waits for the erratic breathing to calm down. For the cook to do something, a movement, a glance, a simple shiver. Something to guide him towards a decent reaction, the reaction he needs.
He hesitates to call Nami, or even Usopp, who share different things with the cook and might be able to help him better than he can. Sanji feels safe with Nami, Usopp understands him. He even thinks about warning Luffy, but his captain disappeared from the bar a long time ago.
Sanji must have sensed an unconscious movement on his part, because he gasps softly:
“Stay. I don’t want their pity.”
Zoro turns to him. Sanji spoke. Sanji said, “I need you because you won’t make me feel any more miserable than I already am.” Zoro can respond to that.
“Go ahead, then. Give me yet another reason to make fun of you, love-cook.”
Tell me what’s wrong.
The cook steps on his foot with his heel. Zoro grimaces. Sanji snickers through what remains of his tears. He finds a handkerchief to wipe them away and discreetly blow his nose.
Then he slides the tablet toward him, and as Zoro deciphers the text, his sobs resume as if this vicarious reading had reopened all the floodgates.
Zoro doesn’t understand immediately. He doesn’t see the problem. Everyone is different. The cook too, with his multiple and erratic attractions, his penchant for dates with several partners, his obsession with women, even though he never seems receptive when he finally manages to get a little love rather than a fleeting flirtation or a one-night stand.
Sanji swallows his tears and turns his face toward him. His eyes are red and swollen. His nose is running again. He sniffs to articulate:
“Do you get it now…?”
Zoro stares at him, stunned. The thought that assails him echoes his friend’s observation, who protests weakly, as if to regain a semblance of dignity:
“You can’t call me love-cook anymore…”
The smooth voice breaks before he can finish his sentence. Zoro protests.
“I’ll call you love-cook if I want to.”
I don’t see how that changes who you are.
Sanji oscillates between laughing, grumbling, and crying even harder. His expression is almost comical. It brings a tender smile to Zoro’s face.
Sanji surprises him, as his features soften and, no doubt aided by the alcohol, he murmurs:
“I…”
Zoro picks up his glass and drinks it down in one gulp, looking disinterested.
I’m listening, says the nonchalant gesture.
“I’m in love with love. It’s something I couldn’t give for a long time, and… it became a kind of childhood dream. I love it, playing knight-in-shining-armor, flirting with ladies and making them feel important and adored, like in epic tales. It’s a fantasy. Something I thought I’d never have access to. At one point, when I thought the All Blue was out of reach, it was…”
His lips tremble.
“It was all I had.”
The sobs resume, jerky. Zoro hesitates on what to do next, touched by the confession. He should do more than just stay there and pretend to scoff. He should involve Sanji in his jibes, show him that he is there emotionally as well as physically. That he understands, at least.
“So it was your All Pink” he says ironically with a cheeky smile.
The cook freezes for a second, then bursts out laughing amid his tears, which redouble in intensity. Between two hiccups, he nods his head, then swallows.
“Yes… Yes, that’s what it was, you cosmic idiot.”
Sanji steps on his foot again, not hard enough to make him wince this time. Zoro continues to stare at the cook, proud of his joke and the smile he has brought to his tear-stained face.
“But…” continues the cook, encouraged by the sense of normality the swordsman has just established between them. “It’s hard for me to realize that someone is interested in me.”
Zoro doesn’t hold back the slightly bitter comment that crosses his mind:
“Yeah, I noticed.”
The cook raises an eyebrow in surprise. The swordsman feels compelled to elaborate.
“It seems like you’re incapable of considering the idea that anyone could be interested in you.”
Zoro has seen the cook ask Nami if she loves him too many times, get a tired yes in response, and do nothing with that information. He has seen him be disappointed with every rejection and remain neutral in the face of every acceptance. Women who desire him reach his bed, flattered strangers reach his lips, but the moment they look at him as if they were ready to kill for him, their words no longer reach his heart.
Sanji nods. He doesn’t seem surprised that Zoro is throwing this truth at him like a reproach, something he shouldn’t do, shouldn’t be. He justifies his reaction by invoking what binds them together without the slightest trace of conflict:
“Luffy… Luffy taught me I had to allow myself to want things.”
Zoro nods. He doesn’t know how Luffy managed to get through the cook’s defenses, but he’s grateful to him. Zoro needs Sanji to want things so that they can remain at each other’s level.
“So, I thought maybe I could live theses romances with my lovely ladies, but…”
He points to the tablet with an annoyed gesture that poorly hides his distress.
“The moment it becomes possible for them, it becomes impossible for me!”
His hand fumbles for a glass, which he finds empty. Zoro grabs the pitcher of lemon water abandoned at the other end of the table and fills the glass to the brim.
“Thanks…” the cook mutters distractedly before drinking it all in one gulp.
He slams the container down on the table and puts his fist in front of his mouth to let out a slight burp. Zoro decides that at least he won’t be sick and won’t have a hangover the next day. It’s rare, but he hates it when Sanji is in bad shape. Sanji can’t be in bad shape when he himself is, just as he can’t be in bad shape when everything is going well, because in both cases, Zoro needs him. To be up to par when he isn’t, to be on his par when he is.
However, this time giving free rein to his grief over losing some of his childhood dreams, Sanji finally complains:
“And that means even when I allow myself to want… to… to be loved! I can’t!”
He buries his face in his hands, exhausted by what he is facing. He rubs his eyes, sadness giving way to anger.
Zoro copes much better with the latter, so he feels more comfortable restoring the balance between them.
“Stop with the drama, cook. Everyone has different ways of loving. You’re capable of being a love-cook when it’s not mutual. Why can’t you live out your silly romance while being lithrowhatever?”
“I don’t need lessons from a marimo who’s a… wait, uh. Asexual,” Sanji growls as if it were an insult, but everything that comes out of their mouth is an insult when they use the right tone.
Zoro nudges him, grumbling that he’s not asexual. Sanji continues:
“But I don’t want to put a woman through that. I don’t want it to be fake and…”
“Why? Is what you do for Nami and Robin fake?” interrupts Zoro, a mean smile on his lips.
He knows Sanji uses girls to hide his worries, but he doesn’t feel that his charm offensive is any less sincere. Sanji is incapable of lying about his love for women, even when they don’t want him. Why, if his feelings are no longer romantic, would he be any less honest with a woman who wants him?
“Of course not!” Sanji protests. “I love them with all my heart!”
Zoro knows he’s taking a risk, but he needs to make sure Sanji endures, flourishes, stays happy. Because that’s how Sanji lives up to his standards, and that’s how he loves Sanji, deep down. He takes a deep breath and retorts, almost annoyed by this obvious fact:
“And the love you have for us, is it less precious, then? Is it less valuable because it’s not of the same nature?”
Sanji is about to protest, but he freezes, his mouth open. Zoro has just stated a truth no one has ever verbalized before. He knows he is revealing too much, but he hopes that the alcohol will prevent the cook from closing up like an oyster when he sees his defenses so threatened by what everyone in the crew has always known.
“I know you’re willing to do anything for the girls. Even die. But I’m in a good position to know that you’re willing to die for us too.”
This isn’t a good example. Zoro doesn’t want Sanji to die for anyone. He just hopes that the comparison will bear fruit. That Sanji will understand that no matter what kind of love he has, it will always be powerful enough to make his partners happy. To make them feel loved.
“You’ll always be a love-cook, love-cook. The only thing you don’t know how to do is how not to love. Some people don’t ask for anything more than that.”
Sanji sits up straight on his bench, shocked by the truths Zoro is stating. The swordsman has always been able to verbalize contexts in his own way, with reason and insight. He’s an idiot, but he’s capable of taking a step back, observing with an analytical mind, and Sanji shouldn’t be surprised that he knows so well how to reassure him on his own terms.
He suddenly wonders if there is a hidden meaning in his last sentence, but Zoro is too stupid for such nuances. No, it was just a simple generality. Something obvious to the swordsman, even though it suddenly made Sanji’s heart beat as fast as when he falls in love at first sight.
“You know…” he begins, caught up in the hurricane that has risen in his chest.
He has never been able to resist this storm, after all. He never could, and he never wanted to. Maybe it’s time for him to let it out, even if Zoro isn’t receptive. Maybe he can try, after all? Maybe he can let himself want a little more, a little harder, want completely, beyond anything he ever imagined possible?
He leans toward Zoro. He must look awful, with his swollen eyelids and the snot that has dried under his nose. He knows Zoro doesn’t care, and maybe that’s why he dares. Why he dares to want anyway.
“I’ve never had that problem with men.”
Zoro flinches awkwardly.
“What?!”
Sanji moves closer, just enough to make him feel slightly uncomfortable, and to show him the flame of defiance burning in his fierce gaze. Zoro seems to want to back away, but he stays put, tensing his muscles to prevent the reflex. A predatory smile graces his thick lips.
I dare you to keep this up.
Sanji returns his smirk.
“It’s rare, though. It takes something special. I don’t know what I did to make so many guys chase after me, but even I’ve noticed, mind you. It’s annoying, I don’t like guys. But I know I’ve been attracted to a few of them.”
Zoro seems unaware of where he’s going with this and scratches his ear nonchalantly. Sanji would give anything for a cigarette, just to keep his lips busy with something. He stares at the swordsman’s lips as he swallows. He’s been drinking. He’s very tipsy. However, he feels strangely lucid, probably because Zoro stopped him before he made himself sick, and the glass of ice-cold water he served him did him good.
The hurricane in his chest intensifies at this thought. Sanji lets it sweep him away:
“I never needed to do anything about this attraction. It’s not like men accept who I am when I’m in love. Bouquets of flowers, sweet nothings, and knights in shining armor aren’t their thing. Even those with whom it was mutual.”
Zoro is about to interrupt and reassure him with a sharp remark, but Sanji continues:
“You, for example. You’re unbearable, but I kind of like you. It would be easy to be into you.”
Zoro widens his eye and opens his mouth, looking scandalized. Sanji gives free rein to his amusement and his mocking smile.
“What would you say if I wrote you a love letter on pink paper and picked you a bouquet of wildflowers to go with?”
Zoro has a nervous tic that makes his eyelid twitch. Sanji can’t help but snicker, and he puts his arm around the back of the bench, behind Zoro’s shoulders.
“Would you like it if I booked a private suite in a hotel, with candlelit dinner and breakfast in bed, if I was always making sure you had everything you needed, if I told you how beautiful you look when you’re angry?”
Zoro’s eyelid tilts even further. The list is so absurd, compared to their usual dynamic, that it doesn’t seem to register in the swordsman’s brain. He felt the arm on his back, and even though Sanji is enjoying proving him wrong and taking control of the exchange, the cook can see how uncomfortable these ideas make him.
Sanji is so sure of himself that he doesn’t wait for Zoro’s response and misses the small, proud smile that suits the swordsman so well.
“See? It’s more complicated than you think.”
He pulls his arm away and moves it aside. He knows Zoro has clear boundaries and will gladly enforce them if he crosses the line, but he doesn’t want the swordsman to have to resort to that.
He sighs and adds gruffly, his arms now crossed over his chest:
“The only guy I know who would appreciate me treating him like that is Usopp. And Usopp is desperately straight.”
Zoro’s nervous tic returns, this time clearly visible. The man seems so disturbed by his statements that he clings to the absurdity that concerns him the least:
“What do you mean, desperately?! You have a crush on Usopp?!”
Sanji stares at him disdainfully, because Zoro is an idiot for not noticing.
“Marimo, half the world has a crush on Usopp.”
Zoro stares back at him, this time open-mouthed, no longer hiding his dismay. His expressions are so funny they reassure Sanji, anchoring him in their usual reality and making him forget a little the pain of knowing that he will never be able to love as he does in his fantasies. Frustration takes hold of him again, giving way to bitterness and salvific anger.
“Tss…” he complains again. “If I had known I could never love a woman in the long term, maybe I wouldn’t have rejected all those guys…”
Zoro seems to latch onto something in his sentence and finally retorts, as if to regain some semblance of control and bring Sanji back to the reality that it’s okay if he can’t love like everyone else, because he doesn’t need to in order to love everyone:
“Yeah, right, you were just scared shitless.”
Sanji crushes his foot with his heel, and now that he’s no longer drunk, the force of the blow forces a hiss of pain from Zoro’s mouth. Sanji sees him grit his teeth as the gears of his analytical mind spin at full speed, searching for a well-aimed retort that will make up for the blow he refrains from delivering in the bar.
He waits, slumped on his bench, arms and legs still crossed. He knows he looks like he’s sulking, but he allows himself this moment of childishness because he has the right to. No All Pink for Sanji. No rose-tinted romance. No fantasy.
Finally, Zoro turns to him with that serious look he gets when the opponent is threatening or when he needs to tell them one of those harsh truths that will guide the crew toward difficult but necessary decisions.
“You know… I don’t think there’s much I wouldn’t do for you, either.”
Now it’s Sanji’s turn to pick up his jaw. He didn’t need to hear that confession, but Zoro concedes it graciously, as if Sanji had exposed too many vulnerabilities and he had to do the same to keep the balance on this tightrope in the middle of which they are both dancing.
“So if it’s your fantasy to experience romance with someone who truly loves you… know that I, I can do that.”
Sanji feels the hurricane returning inside him, more powerful than ever. Something beats in his chest, a frenzied drum echoing that of his captain and taking on a form unique to itself, flames on his body and hearts in his eyes.
Zoro finishes him off by staring at him with his placid eye, imbued with that certainty he has always secretly admired.
“I could even fall in love, if that’s what you wanted.”
Sanji feels himself blushing at the thought. He uncrosses his arms and moves closer to his friend again, mesmerized by his determination and charisma. If there is one person in this world capable of loving because they have decided to, it’s Zoro. If there is one person capable of putting up with him because they see it as a challenge, of accepting his way of loving and fulfilling his fantasies because they want him whole and complete by their side, it’s Zoro.
As he places his hand on the powerful jaw, the swordsman concludes himself:
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my peers.”
Sanji rests his forehead against his before he has even finished his sentence. He knows this better than anyone, because he’s the same. Because he doesn’t know what he isn’t willing to do for his peers, no matter how hard he now tries to give himself the right to want things for himself.
So Sanji tells himself that if this man is willing to do so much for him, and he himself can’t think of anything he wouldn’t do for his peers, maybe he could love Zoro too.
The hurricane in his heart reminds him that he’s already well on his way, that a stupid pink heart that shouldn’t be there is already beating in his pupil. He closes his eyes to prevent the swordsman from noticing. Sanji isn’t ready to admit Zoro has already won.
“Can I kiss you, just to try?”
Zoro growls. That’s his way of saying yes.
When Sanji presses his lips to Zoro’s in one of his usual romantic kisses, the hurricane sweeps through his chest.
Yet that’s not what he notices. What he feels, what he knows, are Zoro’s hands against his tear-stained cheeks, his tongue on his upper lip covered in dried snot, that silent affirmation that no matter how much Sanji might repel him, Zoro will want him, and even his fantasies.
A week later, Zoro leaves his guard duty to find a path of rose petals and lanterns leading him straight to the bathroom. Amidst a garish decor of scented candles and dim lighting, he discovers the cook, naked in the bathtub filled with bubbles. Sensual music plays in the corner.
Sanji gives him a small, defiant smile.
Zoro bursts out laughing, then undresses to get into the bath. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his peers, including indulging their fantasies.