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First Attempt
Back when Sanji still needed to look down the front of his chest and march his fingers on his jackets edge,
to make sure his buttons lined up correctly, he would sometimes sneak into the kitchen deep in the bowels of Germa's giant snail.
It was loud and hot and the men there would curse and yell at each other,
but they would pat each other on the back and say nice words in gruff voices,
like "good hustle" and "thanks for the help."
The noise and men were so big, there were no windows, just fires from the stoves.
Small wall lights were covered in steam, and Sanji thought he could stay hidden in a corner
soak in the left over good will, pretending the condensation on his face and hands made him a part of their crew.
Then, one night, when he couldn't sleep no matter if he was on his back or belly,
His ribs ached too much,
Sanji went down to the kitchen to see if anyone was there.
It was dark, save for a crack of light coming from the pantry.
He saw the white back of a uniform looming over the young man who always peeled potatoes.
At first, Sanji was scared. He thought the potato peeler was going to get his nose bitten off and Sanji covered his mouth with both his hands to keep from screaming.
Then, the one who was looming began whispering, "You're so handsome," "I want to run away with you," "I don't deserve you."
The two men put their lips together and one of them sighed,
Sanji didn't know who did,
but it was the happiest sound he had ever heard.
Sanji kept his mouth covered, now to keep from crying.
Every day, it seemed, all he heard that he was so ugly he made the seagulls scream in terror,
if only he would run away and get eaten by a shark,
that he didn't deserve to live.
Sometimes, when he messed up really badly, even Reiju would sigh, because she knew what it meant
and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Sanji quietly crept back to bed and thought about how kisses made people like you and think good thoughts for you.
He wasn't able to find his way back to the kitchen for another week,
Instead, he was spending his time in another part of the war faring vessel, covered in gauze and salves and humiliation.
So, by the time he made his way back to the kitchen, Sanji desperately hoped someone would notice how desperately he needed a kiss and all the gentle words that came with it.
He doesn't stay pressed into a corner. He makes his feet walk towards the one he saw in the pantry, the one who said such nice things to someone who just peeled potatoes.
For every staff person he passed, it was like he cast a spell over them, making them turn silent as he walked by.
Sanji reached the man and tugged on the longer string of his apron.
When he turned around, Sanji watched him take a big, deep breath in, like he had been underwater.
"How can I help you, Sir?"
"I, I . . . " Sanji bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes. "I want a kiss. Like you gave him." He kept his eyes shut and pointed in the direction of the potato peeler.
Instead of a kiss, instead of soft words, Sanji was asked if he had permission from his father to be in the kitchen.
His insides went ice cold and he couldn't breathe at first, until someone grabbed him by the shoulders and began pushing him out.
They let go of him once he passed the threshold and Sanji stood there, like a deer stunned by lights, until he got his wits back
And he ran all the way back to his room, hiding under his bed.
The kitchen staff weren't cruel men,
They never told on him to Judge and he hid there for nothing.
Second Attempt
The next time Sanji thought about asking for a kiss, his lips were peeling and sometimes he picked away the skin,
hoping it would grow back smooth.
He ran his fingers over his lips. He couldn't be sure which was scraping the other, they were both so raw and shriveled.
But it was all he had to offer, the price needed to be paid.
Sanji had seen this play out time and time again on the Orbit.
The staff, in their perfect black uniforms,
so nice and fancy they even had little brushes made just for them,
Sanji wanted a suit with its own tiny brush to keep it tidy,
they may have been servants, but they had all kinds of power too.
The staff could give extra desserts and heavy green bottles of champagne with the fancy gold foil tops
to any guest they wanted -
and those guests, Sanji saw what they did.
They handed back kisses and folded up notes.
Sanji had no use for little pieces of paper.
He could tear out pages from the head chef's recipe book any time he wanted.
But Sanji saw how food and affection belonged together.
He wanted to be the one who handed out little chocolate gateaux and made a pretty woman smile,
He wanted to make someone so happy it couldn't be contained inside them, they had to let it out with a kiss.
It wasn't until Sanji was on the rock and he could read the bones on his wrist,
After he had tried to eat the blades of the brown-green grass, only to vomit nothing back up a little bit later,
That he understood why the Orbit staff had really been kissed.
When he knew that the old pirate had given Sanji all the food.
The kisses were payment.
And Sanji was owing.
It was a dilemma.
Offer these lips, rough like barnacles?
Or hope against hope, that Mercy wasn't make believe,
it was real and brighter than the sun that reflected off the water below and stole the life out of the dirt underneath his legs.
That Mercy would let the two of them be found.
Then, Sanji could offer a proper kiss of thank you because
for better or worse, the smell of Zeff's leg made the decision for him.
It turned out that Mercy was not a made up story
to keep him from jumping into the water and letting him sleep forever.
They were rescued and fed,
The old pirate's leg was fixed as best as it could be.
Soon enough, the two of them were in a kitchen and the guilt of debt weighed heavy on Sanji's shoulders,
Making him feel even smaller than he was, amongst the all the grown men working there.
Now, Sanji is the one peeling potatoes and he feels more confused than ever.
When Zeff comes to check on him, looking at the spud, muttering "you're doing better, eggplant"
He knows he has to say something.
"I owe you a kiss!" Sanji cries out, knocking his stool back. "You gave me the food and I haven't kissed you yet!"
Sanji's grip on his small knife slips because his hands are sweaty.
He knicks his palm and Zeff sees the blood before he does.
"Come here, boy." The old man takes his hand and removes the white dish towel from off his shoulder.
Sanji finds his hand being wrapped, more than it needs to be, while he answers the simple question the old pirate chef asks,
"Why do you owe me a kiss for food?"
Sanji tells him about the Orbit and the fancy desserts and the fizzy drinks that came in bottles that popped loud like guns.
When Zeff sat down with a grunt to keep listening, Sanji decided to tell him more,
about another kitchen and a pantry and about how kissing meant nice words pushing away all the bad feelings.
At the end, when Sanji's hand had stopped bleeding and he had run out of words, Zeff finally spoke.
"When you give or make food for someone, all they owe you is nothing because it's a gift, you understand?"
Sanji did not, so the old man explained more.
"A gift doesn't come with strings attached. It's not a pull toy you can just yank back when you don't like how someone's playing with it. And you don't put your hand out, expecting them to give you one of their toys in return. You understand what I'm saying, boy?"
Sanji shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his bucket of potato peels.
He remembered seeing children on the Orbit play with toys.
All it seemed to do was cause fights.
The old man blew out through his nose. "Food is a way of showing love, idiot. Love doesn't want anything back. It just wants to be swallowed up and appreciated, like a good bowl of chowder. It makes you feel good and warm inside and helps you sleep better at night. You understand now?"
This time, Sanji's shoulders stayed in place and he nodded his head. He liked Zeff's chowder.
It did make him feel better, like he could stand on his step stool and stay in the kitchen all day long.
"Good," the old man sighed. "Good. But I gotta give you two rules. No trading food for kisses. If I ever catch you doing that, I'll make bait out of you and throw you off the side of this damn ship. Got that?"
Sanji swallowed and shook his head no, even though he meant yes, he understood.
"Number two," Zeff pointed up his index and middle finger. "If you have any further thoughts about kissing boys, then I'll need to teach you how to fight good. Really good. So, no complaints on that end!"
He says yes, of course,
even though there were plenty of times he ended up complaining,
As Zeff's wooden leg proved quicker than his reflexes.
Third Attempt
Sanji grew taller, learned to flirt loudly with the ladies and more quietly with the men.
He did offer kisses, though not in exchange for food, and only to the backs of hands.
Which, upon occasion, offered him a sting upon his cheek instead.
However, Sanji witnessed many, many kisses of all types while working at the world's greatest restaurant.
He saw shy pecks and deep, neck bending ones.
Sanji witnessed anniversary kisses full of memories and brand new kisses,
causing sparks in the back of the eyes,
these kisses from young lovers that brought out nostalgia and envy from those around them.
When he complained to Zeff while they were knee deep in a dinner rush that he was never going to kiss anyone,
his lips were lonely
Zeff tossed the arm of an octopus at him and told him to suck on a tentacle.
Sanji stormed out of the kitchen and smoked a cigarette instead, staring out at the water, wondering where it led.
A month later, he feeds a memory, a man so thin that his eyes look like caves
and his soul looks lost inside.
Sanji feeds Gin and Gin tells him I have nothing to repay you with, but would you allow me one more favor?
Could I steal a kiss from you?
Sanji thinks this is his big moment, after all, why wouldn't it be okay?
Gin is a pirate and pirates are supposed to take what they want.
Isn't it nice to be thought of as treasure?
Just as Sanji was about to say yes, he sees, he really sees, how thin Gin is.
How Gin's clothes hang on his shoulders as if they were on a hanger and not a person.
He can read the bones in Gin's wrists.
Sanji remembers the rock and that hunger that grew so great it ate itself.
He doesn't want to kiss a man who nearly died but for a plate of fried rice.
Sanji decides he can wait for his first kiss.
Besides, there is chaos about.
A monkey boy destroying his adopted father's kitchen
and a green haired thug who looks like trouble,
with too many swords and too much confidence and smile that is quick and sly.
Fourth Attempt
Zeff always told him he was an idiot eggplant, and here Sanji sailed away with fools,
who thought it was a good idea to help a runaway princess,
with ideals as big and innocent as her eyes,
topple a hand to god warlord,
who fed people to crocodiles.
Luffy's brother joins them for barely a tides worth of time.
Ace makes Sanji giddy and nervous, and he keeps offering the man drinks and his own dwindling supply of cigarettes.
His belly feels alive, like he has swallowed a pitcher of minnows.
Nami and Usopp take turns teasing him, and Sanji pretends he is just appreciative of Ace's rescue.
He's not sure why he's annoyed when Luffy tells Ace about finding Zoro, but he knows this is jealousy and it feels ugly, like the minnows inside him want to fight each other.
Sanji looks over at the swordsman, resting by the campfire with his arms crossed behind his head,
resting from a day of pulling the little reindeer on a sled.
Chopper, after a day in the sun, is now cuddled next to Zoro for warmth,
because deserts do not understand moderation. The nights steal heat, the same way the days steal water.
Zoro's face shows nothing as he stares into the fire, and the fire loves him back,
giving him a deep, honey glow where his flesh is still exposed.
Zoro's hair looks like jade now, and not moss.
Sanji shakes his head, thinking he must be dehydrated, but the only spare liquid to drink is wine.
It's foolish, but Zeff often called him a fool.
He drinks more than even he knows he should and feels bold enough to ask Ace to help him look for extra meat for tomorrow,
Sanji imagined how romantic it would be,
to kiss a tall, dark, stranger
one who had come to his rescue
right under a beautiful canopy of stars
but while they are out Luffy crashes their hunting party.
And for some reason, Sanji feels relieved.
Fifth Attempt
Zoro is ridiculous, the most ludicrous, hateful person he has ever encountered in his entire life.
He comes back from training with his rival,
the man who very nearly killed, who left him permanently marked
branded forever by him,
missing an eye. An entire eye.
And Zoro won't tell him, the one who carried him all the way back after nothing happened,
while Zoro coughed up sprays of blood that left Sanji's cheek marked with flecks of black and
Sanji had to lay him down on the ground twice
twice
to check for a heartbeat.
Maybe he should check again.
The moron might have traded it to Law for a bottle of sake.
Zoro grew out his hair.
Just so Sanji couldn't call him Marimo anymore.
How petty was that?
Sanji was done with him.
There was no third strike, three was the algae head's number and Sanji wanted to have nothing at all to do with him.
On Dressarosa, Sanji meets one of the most beautiful women in the world.
She's gorgeous, enough to make him realize how young and foolish he feels for still being unkissed at his age.
And, if Sanji's being honest, she makes him feel a little tired
of his crew, of cramped spaces and big personalities.
And
If he's being honest,
he's starting to have doubts about his dream.
How it feels less than everyone else's, happenstance and an afterthought compared to theirs.
Part of him was joking and part of him was being honest about running away.
It would be nice to settle down with someone, wake up with his arm over a soft woman, in a real bed,
in the same village where he never had to introduce himself,
and not worry about falling out of the sky
or one of your friends drowning because they thought they saw something shiny in the sea.
She asks for his help, and Sanji says yes of course,
he is a gentleman through and through, just look at his suit.
They run from the police and Sanji thinks for just one thrilling moment,
he is about to be kissed.
It's a ruse, for him and those chasing them, deeper than he knows.
The kiss is as false as her allegiance to Donquixote, just grazing his ear, all stage acting and false embrace.
Sanji is disappointed, but he understands.
Being crushed by a powerful man will make a person look for any escape.
He vows to help Viola, now understanding if he had a life that was still and unmoving,
full of quiet domestic bliss,
ladies like her might never find their escape.
(A Kiss Unremembered)
All young chefs must have good basic math skills,
for conversions and measurements.
Sanji was no exception.
Seeing his child bride, he realized there was one calculation he hadn't made all these years.
How young his own mother must have been when she married Judge.
Sora would have been just as too young, too nervous, and too putting up a brave face as well.
It didn't take numbers to know what he needed to do, it just needed some words.
Sanji told Pudding all the pretty things he knew Judge never said to Sora,
but that she had deserved to hear.
As if he could make up for the past.
He pours out tenderness into this hole of a memory,
as if it could be filled.
But Sanji finds himself pushed into it,
realizing it was a grave that he had dug for himself.
He watches from the bottom of it as Pudding shovels the first pile of dirt onto his body.
As Sanji lays, there, wounded, muddy, and broken,
he understands.
Pudding just wants her mother to love her.
He cannot fault her for that.
She is a baby bird, with wings bent and twisted by her own parent.
No wonder Pudding doesn't know how to fly without hurting others.
Proof comes of this when he offers her the smallest scrap of kindness and she breaks down,
as if Mercy were a weapon.
Sanji merely did as his own mother would have wanted him to do,
and he opened the door a crack, showing Pudding a world where people could be kind,
and she was the one who ran towards it.
Later, after chaos and cakes and apologies and reunions, Sanji leaves the island.
His fingers keep lingering over his mouth.
It's a ghost of memory, he thinks, of the failed wedding.
A Kiss Remembered
Sanji cannot wait to see everyone, to be back home with his family,
his real family.
The one who gave him compliments and complaints,
and accepted both from him in turn.
Who came into his kitchen to talk, to help, or just to get away from the noise outside.
His family, who teased him when he burped or made other rude noises,
but the laughter was kind and joyful.
The people he could fight with and not be thrown away,
or broken into fractures and disguised by a mask.
Sanji couldn't wait to see his real family,
all of them, except one.
Zoro was going to be upset.
Not upset, that was not strong enough of a word.
This was a man who would cut off his own feet on the slim to none chance
he might save his crew.
Who threatened to leave over a lack of respect to Luffy.
This was the person who also bled out his eyes to take his captain's pain and demanded no one tell.
Sanji didn't want to face Zoro.
Zoro was going to hate him, never, ever forgive him.
Wano is a revelation.
Maybe he should have listened to Zeff and kept his bangs out of his eyes,
because for the first time Sanji sees what's right in front of him.
When Zoro tossed the young girl into his arms, Sanji remembers the stories and recalls all the times
the swordsman took care of children.
And they, by instinct, were drawn to him. Like they knew he would guard them with his life.
As a past child, who had no such person before the rock island, before he starved,
Sanji feels sentimental for what never could be.
Then Brook tells Sanji how he found the beautiful, desirable Hiyori cuddled on top of Zoro,
how the two of them had slept together.
Sanji yells at the skeleton to be quiet, to stop fouling Hiyori's name.
The truth is Sanji doesn't want to think about how Zoro falling in love,
or how soft Hiyori's lips must be, like the petals of flowers.
His still carry the scars, still rough from those weeks under sun, while his stomach shrunk smaller and smaller.
Third, because Sanji will use Zoro's favorite, special number, he has the hardest understanding of all.
When his biggest fear,
the one that lurks in the deepest recesses of his mind,
the one he pushes down and pretends he didn't ever think,
crops up full force -
it was Zoro that Sanji turned to for help.
The horror that kept Sanji's feet running, that let him escape Germa in the first place,
was the dread he would turn out like his father and brothers one day.
But it was only the hope he was more like his mother that kept him going,
allowed him the gift of dreaming ahead,
pretending he might one day see something as made up as the Four Blues, or even just a mermaid.
There were many, many nights though, Sanji left his bunk, unable to sleep, and counted his inventory, or did the kitchen prep,
picturing a light switch being flipped on,
his blood coursing in reverse, his eyes going black and him earning the name of Vinsmoke.
He would break down fish at two am, alone in a cold kitchen
and think about losing all the colors in his life and all that connected him with the person who loved him first.
No longer Sora's son. Instead, her ultimate failure.
It was Zoro, Sanji asked to put a stop to him, worse come to worst.
Not Luffy.
Zoro said yes, with conviction and without hesitation, giving Sanji what he needed in that moment.
The others would have argued with him, tried to talk him out of it.
But Zoro understood, somehow he knew, it was certainty and a hard line Sanji had to have to keep himself from falling off the cliff.
When the dust settled from a battle that will be retold in stories and performed as plays for centuries to come,
Sanji found himself in a cluttered kitchen, too small by half,
walls cracked,
with a Zoro, too injured, by more than half.
As he wrapped bandages around the swordsman, Sanji tried to count the scars littered against the swordsman's still young body,
the way one might count stars on a clear night.
"You look worried, Cook."
Sanji tilted his head up. Zoro had a half smile.
Did Hiyori know how those lips felt?
Did they taste of liquor?
"Do I have something in my teeth?" Zoro asked, frowning.
"What?"
"You're staring at my mouth. Do I have something in my teeth?" Zoro repeated and Sanji could see him working his tongue over his teeth, trying to clean them.
Sanji shook his head. "No, no. I'm just . . . I can't believe Hiyori kissed you."
"Oh," replied Zoro, his brow wrinkling. "I'm sure you can't. Don't worry. You're Hiyori-schwan and me didn't kiss. Or anything else."
Suddenly, Sanji felt twenty pounds lighter,
no, fifty.
Like he could float on the currents of air.
"Good," he told Zoro softly as he leaned up. "Good."
Zoro narrowed his eyes. "Is there something you want, Cook?"
What did he want?
Sanji wanted a kiss, that was a given, and what did that mean,
really, really mean.
It wasn't a promise to make him feel good,
or payment for something given,
it wasn't something to be taken from one beholden,
never should it be a trick, but that could be forgiven -
or forgotten.
A kiss should be something two people want,
that two equals want,
who trust each other with their pain and their joys and their moments in between.
A kiss should be a moment of quiet and trust and the next step forward.
"This."
Sanji closed his eyes and his lips.
Zoro did taste a little bit like sake.
That night and the next one too.