Work Text:
"Sanji. We need to talk," Chopper said. His expression was unusually resolute.
Sanji had been having a pretty good day. This was the second day of the regular meetup between the Straw Hats and the Heart Pirates, supposedly for exchanging information. And she was happiest when more people were enjoying her cooking.
So yes, she felt content. Standing a little apart, watching the revelry flow between the Sunny and the Polar Tang, she found something quietly satisfying in the scene, especially with the scent of autumn leaves in the air.
Resting an elbow on the railing, Sanji exhaled smoke toward the horizon.
"Am I in trouble?"
"Not yet."
Chopper rummaged through his blue bag and pulled something out. Only then did Sanji notice the tiny nitrile gloves on his hooves, custom-made for baby reindeer by Usopp from latex he'd harvested on the Boin Archipelago. Sanji watched with interest as Chopper pulled out a sealed plastic bag full of discolored cigarette butts.
How had something that big even fit inside such a tiny bag?
Chopper held the bag out with a slightly disgusted look. He probably meant to shove it right under Sanji's nose, but because of the height difference it only dangled around her hip instead.
"This is everything I collected from your ashtray in just one week. One. Week."
"Huh. I thought a fairy had been cleaning those up."
Sanji just giggled airily, but Chopper's expression remained utterly serious.
"I've never given you grief about smoking before, but this is too much. You smoke way too much!"
"Can't help it, Chopper. My period made me twice as stressed. You know how I get."
"That's not a good solution at all! Smoking can make cramps worse, and studies show smokers can have more severe PMS. It's just a vicious cycle," Chopper pointed out.
Sanji should have seen this coming. There was no way Chopper, obsessive as he was about everyone's health, would keep limiting his nagging to the swordsman's drinking forever.
She ran out of things to say and settled for a pout instead.
"Fine. My period's over anyway, so I won't be smoking that much now. And I'll cut back next time too. Happy?"
Sanji didn't miss the way Chopper's nose scrunched up cutely. That meant another round of lecturing was coming. Unlike Zoro, she knew exactly how to escape this cycle. She crushed out her cigarette in the portable ashtray and tried to head off the next lecture before it began.
"Maybe cotton candy cookies for tomorrow's snack?"
Chopper's eyes went wide with an almost audible sparkle.
"Cotton candy coo— No! Don't try to wriggle out of this! I'm not done talking yet!" Chopper burst out. In an instant he turned into a giant, two-meter snow beast and blocked Sanji's path. "Your cycle's irregular, Sanji. That kind of compromise won't cut it. And I'm sure your awful smoking habit is to blame for it."
"Doubt it. I'm underweight for my height, I sleep less than anyone, and I do more work than anyone on this ship. Smoking accounts for, what, maybe a quarter of it."
"Let's see if you're still playing numbers games after I examine your lungs," the surgeon said, appearing out of nowhere.
Sanji had seen him being pestered by Luffy at the party not five seconds ago. Jumping from one place to another was only one of Law's unsettling abilities, but some were considerably more terrifying than others. He could extract organs in the blink of an eye.
Startled, Sanji quickly clutched her chest as if protecting her lungs.
Law glanced at her hand placement and said, "Tony-ya asked me to remove your lungs for examination, so I agreed to help. It wouldn't be a new experience, but Germa organs have research value. By the way, that's your heart, not your lungs."
"I'm not Germa! What happened to my say in this?"
Sanji protested, subtly shifting her hand to the correct spot. She was fairly sure the Hippocratic Oath included something about not harming patients. She'd heard that somewhere.
"I could remove it right now, but I'm being humane. I already got your guardian's signature, so let's head to the operating room aboard my sub."
Law held out a sheet of paper, letting it flutter lightly. Sanji snatched it from him, her face gone pale, and skimmed it. It was a goddamn surgical consent form. The moment she saw "Me" scrawled in the guardian signature field, her face flushed with rage. There was exactly one person she knew who signed things like that.
"That damn rubber idiot! Does he even know what he signed? And why does there need to be a proxy when I'm standing here breathing just fine? This is invalid!"
Sanji tore the paper to shreds. Law let out a small sigh.
"Based on the volume of cigarette butts, I judged you not to be of sound mind. Tony-ya, we're moving."
"Okay."
"No, no, wait—"
In the next instant, Sanji found herself stranded on an operating table. She hadn't even had time to stop it.
Sanji had visited this submarine a few times before, but her movements had always been limited to Law's private quarters, the galley, and the shared bath. This was her first time in the operating room. Her first thought was that it was slightly cold, and much better equipped than she'd expected.
Chopper had landed on his backside, but was already up again, scribbling on a chart. Law was pulling on surgical gloves. They really meant to go through with this.
Sanji swung her legs off the operating table and walked straight toward Law.
"I'm not doing this."
"Something to hide?"
"I already know what you'd find. Thanks to Germa regeneration, my lungs and airways go right back to a nice healthy pink no matter how much I smoke," Sanji said, arms crossed. She'd been rejecting the name Germa moments ago, but this wasn't the time to be picky. She mentally picked up the Germa label off the floor and stuck it on herself.
Unfortunately for Sanji, this had the opposite of her intended effect. Law seemed even more intrigued by Germa organs that healed on their own.
"Then prove it. Show me just how nice and pink your lungs are."
"Why would I? After all this humiliation, you think I'm going to let you dig around in my chest?"
"I won't be digging."
Law placed his hand against his own chest and created a blue translucent sphere about fifty centimeters across. He drew his hand away with a faint frown, and in his palm sat a rectangular organ slickly wrapped in membrane.
"Like this. It won't even sting. I won't even put a bandage on you."
"That's fucking disgusting."
Sanji grimaced. She'd handled plenty of animal organs for cooking. She'd even carried one of Law's bizarre heart cubes around for a while after he'd taken it from Caesar. Still, she couldn't get used to it.
"This is my lung. Prove yours are cleaner. Simple enough, isn't it?"
"And if I prove it, then what? What do I get out of it besides the humiliation?"
"You want to make a bet?"
"Depends on the terms."
Sanji's eyes lit up with a competitive gleam. She had no particular interest in betting money. What mattered more was wiping the smugness off the surgeon's face.
Law sighed. "You decide. Make it something truly humiliating."
"Are you a masochist?"
"I'll take that as a yes. Now go lie down."
Law shooed her along with a wave and set his lung on the trolley.
"That's not how you said it last night," Sanji grumbled. Even so, she obediently went back and lay down on the operating table.
Sanji's mind raced. How could she possibly inflict a humiliation worth more than money on that damn surgeon? She could make him wear that treasured Sora, Warrior of the Sea shirt she'd caught stashed in his closet. Or maybe she could make him walk around in Chopper's hat…
While Law checked the chart, Chopper dragged over a metal stool and climbed up to peer into Sanji's face. She looked anything but nervous, too busy indulging in revenge fantasies.
"Sanji, you don't have to watch while the organ is extracted. Traffy said some people faint."
"If those lab kids got through it, you think I can't?"
Sanji snorted. She found it oddly cute and innocent—Chopper worrying after seeing how many sea creatures she'd butchered on the Sunny's deck.
Just then Law approached, his Room expanding to fill the operating room.
"The less you know, the less afraid you are. And if you pass out, you'll be quiet, which suits me."
Well. That left room for several filthy jokes. But Sanji held her tongue, tucked in her chin slightly, and looked at Law's lung on the trolley. Still nauseating. Oddly enough, the heart sitting inside that little membrane cube had looked perfectly fine.
In the end, Sanji dropped her head back onto the table hard enough to make the back of her head ring and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Fine. Take my eyes too if you want."
"…Uh. I was just going to put a blindfold on you," Chopper said cautiously.
Sanji's eyes flew open and she glared at Law and Chopper. Apparently, being surrounded by geniuses had halved her own intelligence.
"But only for the actual extraction. I need to compare the colors."
"Obviously," Law said.
Sanji put on the blindfold Chopper handed her and lay back down. She could feel the surgical lights filtering through the blindfold. The operating table felt harder and narrower than she'd realized. Only then did she start to feel a little nervous.
Law had said it wouldn't hurt at all. But there was no telling whether his standards applied to normal people. Hadn't Vice Admiral Smoker passed out when Law took his heart?
Sanji took a shallow breath. She didn't need Observation Haki to sense Law coming closer and closer to the table. With her vision cut off, all her other senses seemed sharpened. Her attention narrowed to them completely. She even flinched when Law moved her hands from where they were folded over her stomach.
"Relax," Law murmured.
Sanji felt his fingers brush her jacket collar, light as a feather. The moment she squeezed her eyes shut, her body jolted for an instant, like a spoon scooping through pudding. Law didn't narrate the procedure, and true to his word there was no pain, but it didn't take long to realize her lung had been removed.
Sanji reached for her chest, needing to check whether the strange emptiness on one side was real. There was a gaping hole where no hole should exist. If not for the Op-Op Fruit powers, she wouldn't have had time to leave any last words. She tore off the blindfold and looked for herself. The sight of the large angular hole in her left chest knocked the breath out of her.
The doctors showed very little interest in their patient's panic. Law was brushing away bits of Sanji's clothing sliced off in the process, while he and Chopper studied the freshly extracted organ with great interest.
"Looks like a trash bag left in a hellish bathroom for a century," Law murmured.
Sanji covered the hole with one hand the way a girl might after losing her bikini top at the beach. Her breathing should have been perfectly fine, yet somehow she found herself panting. "It's not that bad."
The lung Law was admiring almost like a trophy was, Sanji had to admit, noticeably darker than his. Damn it. She was never going to see him wearing Chopper's hat. At least it looked nothing like the sticky tar lump she'd secretly imagined.
Law clicked his tongue and set her lung beside his. "Was my description lacking? I should've read more."
Sanji got off the operating table and approached the two lungs laid out like museum exhibits. She wanted to think of them as artworks that were impossibly real and unreal at once, but her stomach was twisting, which was another matter. With a forlorn look, she picked up the scraps of clothing arranged on the tray.
"Where did my boob go."
Law gave her a baffled look for worrying about her breast before her lung. "It'll come back once I put the lung back in, so don't worry about it."
Sanji mournfully touched the edge of the hole again. He hadn't said he'd be taking the breast too.
She was just about to demand that he at least reattach the clothing scraps when Law cleared his throat. Pointing in turn at his lung and then hers like a curator, he said, "Healthy lung. Dirty lung."
"Don't call someone's organ dirty! And this is pretty decent, isn't it?" Sanji shouted.
The sorrow over her missing body parts and ruined clothes had already been pushed aside.
Chopper scooted his stool closer to the trolley using sheer butt-power and began examining Sanji's lung. He'd never shown it openly, but was deeply fascinated by the organs Law extracted with his ability. There had been plenty of chances to observe Caesar's heart on Zou, but Chopper despised him too much to even look at it.
"For how much you smoke, it's almost miraculous. I'd say it's only slightly outside the normal range… How is that even possible?"
"Germa influence, most likely. You can't tell much from the surface. We'll need to take a closer look," Law said.
An ominous premonition flashed through Sanji's mind. She lunged for her lung, but Law was faster; he whisked the trolley toward himself. God, even wrapped in membrane, a lung hitting the floor would have to hurt like hell.
Sanji squeezed her eyes shut. But after several seconds, no pain came. When she cautiously opened her eyes, both lungs were wobbling peacefully on the tray like pudding on a plate.
Sanji shot Law a seething glare.
"So that's it? You win the bet and now you get to dissect my lung all you want?"
"Hm…" Law mused, pressing his lung back into his chest. A faint satisfied smile played on his face. "Strictly speaking, the bet isn't over. It wasn't about whether your lung was pinker than mine—it was about whether it was cleaner. Remember?"
Sanji's mouth slowly fell open in shock.
Law went on smoothly, "How bad it really is will take more time to determine. I don't expect the conclusion to change, but I want reliable data."
Apparently even a thorough study of her lung wasn't enough to satisfy him.
Sanji froze in place. Had some of her brain come out with the lung he extracted? She couldn't even form words.
"You fucking loan shark…" The words slipped out of her as a stunned sigh.
"You brought this bet on yourself. Still, nothing sweeter than a win."
"Oh, screw you! Just tell me what you want! My heart? Liver? Kidneys?"
Sanji first pictured her body riddled with holes like Emmental cheese. Then her mind jumped to the most indecent night she could imagine. There was no contest.
But Law considered the offer for a moment and shook his head.
"The heart is tempting, admittedly, but I'll save that for the next bet. Quit smoking for a while. That's what I want. Smoking will interfere with the research."
Sanji's vision went dark for a moment. She swayed, and Chopper let out a startled cry and rushed to steady her. A single lung couldn't weigh that much. Maybe it was the strange imbalance in her chest, or maybe it was the sudden no-smoking decree hitting her all at once, but her head swam. She caught herself on the operating table and took a moment to process what she'd heard.
"Hell no. Take my liver instead. Or my stomach, whatever."
"Removing something that large would throw your balance off even worse. A gallbladder would be more manageable, I suppose…"
"Cool, take the gallbladder then!"
"Not interested." Law shook his head.
Somehow their positions had reversed. Sanji was the one insisting he remove her gallbladder, and Law—who'd stolen a hundred pirate hearts, of all people—was refusing.
Chopper looked between them anxiously. "Sanji, it's only a week… ten days at most."
"Wait, a week?"
Sanji looked ready to collapse on the spot.
To Law, the whole scene looked absurdly theatrical. He knew Sanji fought with near-acrobatic movements, but she looked genuinely close to toppling over. In the end, Law picked Chopper up, sat Sanji on the stool, and set him in her lap, almost as if loading cargo.
"Why does it take that long? Can't your great and mighty ability get you an answer in a day? I was thinking two days, tops—"
"This isn't an opportunity I get often, so I want to take my time and be thorough. Besides, I have other things to do. I can't devote all my time to your organs," Law said, jotting something onto the chart.
Sanji's hands tightened instinctively around Chopper's arms (or legs?) as she held him pinned in her lap. Hard enough that he let out a silent scream.
"I hate you," Sanji declared.
"Ouch."
"I hate you so much. I'm going to kill you someday."
"Sounds romantic, but that's a bit much. I'm not asking for lifelong quitting."
Law smiled and tucked his pen into the clipboard. He set it down beside the runaway lung and approached the cook still glaring at him.
"I'll give you nicotine gum. And if you need it… I can help keep that mouth busy," Law said, lightly toying with her cheek.
Sanji was hopeless. Her face flushed almost immediately.
The sudden shift in the air made Chopper squirm in her arms.
"You do know I'm still here, right?"
✱ ✱ ✱
After discussing a few more details of the examination, the two humans and one reindeer returned to the party. Law informed the gathered Straw Hats that he was holding the cook's lung in custody.
Luffy looked like he was hearing this for the first time. That confirmed Sanji's theory: he had signed the consent form without knowing what it was.
"But you're giving it back later, right? I don't want even a gram of Sanji missing," Luffy said, picking his nose.
Sanji looked at her captain with an "ahhh" look of touched admiration. At the same time, she seized him by the hair.
"Touching, Captain, but wouldn't those lovely thoughts have been useful before signing the wrong form?"
"Traffy said it was for your 'well-being.' Ow ow ow…"
Sanji clicked her tongue and let go. She looked at her palm with open disgust, then rubbed it clean on his shirt.
Law crossed his arms. "Sanji's agreed not to smoke for the duration of the examination. Keep watch and make sure she doesn't smoke. That's what I came to say."
Nami frowned lightly. "Keep watch? Isn't that a bit much? Sanji-kun keeps her word."
"I trust her, to an extent. That's why I didn't confiscate the cigarettes."
Law reached over and toyed with the ends of Sanji's hair. The intimacy felt almost obnoxious right now, and Sanji sidestepped away a few paces.
Law withdrew his hand. "I'd bet the rough patch hits around day two or three."
That word, spoken so casually, awakened something cellular in Nami. Her eyes instantly turned into berry signs.
"Oh, you'd bet? Then I'll put my money on Sanji-kun holding out."
Nami flashed a confident grin. Law was briefly at a loss for words.
"…That's not what I meant. It's just an idiom."
"Usopp, you're in too. This is basically free money. We can make a killing," Nami said, ignoring Law's objection.
"Nami, you've practically mortgaged my body already. How am I supposed to raise the stakes?"
Usopp instinctively stepped back, a hand over his stomach. Unlike a certain someone who had no idea where her lungs were, his hand landed near his kidneys with reasonable accuracy, and Law noted it with quiet approval.
Nami gave up trying to persuade anyone with financial common sense and turned to Luffy.
"Luffy?"
"I'm in! I bet Sanji can do it!" Luffy said cheerfully.
"So. Are you in?"
Nami stared at Law unblinking. He looked back at her, letting out a silent sigh, his face full of utter incredulity.
"…Opening stake: ten thousand berries," Law declared.
"You reckless idiot! How many disasters are you kicking off at once?"
Sanji gaped at him in disbelief, but Law was already wearing the grin of a man drawn to disaster like a moth to flame.
"Zoro, you in?"
Nami turned to her next target. Zoro picked up a fresh bottle and shrugged.
"You know I'm broke, right?"
"I'll front you."
Zoro knew, through bitter experience, just how stupid it was to borrow money from Nami at her rates. And yet he studied Sanji carefully.
Sanji met his gaze without flinching, and he slowly shook his head.
"I don't think she'll last."
"Traitor!" Nami and Luffy booed.
"Guys, why are you gambling over this? This is a medical procedure," Chopper tried to cut in, flustered.
But only Sanji heard him. Everyone else was too busy arguing over the stakes and picking sides.
Once things settled, the crowd began to disperse. Luffy chattered about how a hole that big in Sanji's chest must let the wind straight through—wouldn't she be cold? Usopp shuddered at the thought of a cold breeze hitting exposed membranes.
Nami privately thought it was lucky that Sanji wasn't particularly busty, so losing one side wouldn't make her clothes fit awkwardly. Oh, but there was something Nami needed to say before indulging in that pointless thought.
"Sanji-kun, the future of our crew is riding on this. Hold out no matter what!"
"I'll do my best…" Sanji answered weakly.
"That's the spirit!"
Nami smacked her on the back and disappeared. The smack made Sanji stagger slightly. Only about a kilogram had gone missing from her upper body, but everything had snowballed so quickly her head was spinning.
The truth was, Sanji had been holding out hope that Law and Chopper might let their guard down long enough for her to sneak a cigarette. That hope was now a distant dream. A single cigarette would get her chewed out by everyone, doctors included, and mark her as a traitor to her crewmates—not to mention piling debt onto them.
"I've basically already won," Law said, in a tone so cheerful it almost sounded like he was singing.
"Why the hell?"
"Your lung is already in my hands. And the longer I drag this out… well, you know how it is. Addiction is a real bastard."
Sanji glared at him with open hostility. Of course. Law hated cheating—but he was the kind of bastard who'd exploit every loophole in the rules if it meant winning.
"Your crew will go broke. Lose every berry on the table, and eventually they'll have no choice but to hand their cook over to me…" Law clicked his tongue in theatrical regret.
Sanji was already desperate for a drag. She drove her foot into his shin.
"Fuck off! I'm not coming to your room tonight."
The cook stormed off, leaving Law alone rubbing his shin with a slight frown.
"…Yeah. That's fair."
✱ ✱ ✱
Three days had passed. Sanji was sinking into hell.
The nicotine gum Law and Chopper had made with some input from Usopp was the most boring thing she'd ever put in her mouth. Sanji didn't usually mind menthol cigarettes, but this mint flavor was unbearable—it made toothpaste look good by comparison. She couldn't even blow bubbles, which had been the bare minimum of fun she'd expected. After trying two pieces, she shoved the rest deep into a drawer and forgot about it.
That left nothing but sheer grit and stubbornness to get through the withdrawal. Law had made himself scarce ever since taking her lung, and hadn't offered anything beyond the gum for her oral fixation.
From the guy who'd been hinting at something way more intimate!
Sanji finished the dishes, chewing irritably on a licorice root. It was much better than the nicotine gum, but nowhere near enough to ease the stress and strange loneliness that came with a life without cigarettes—and one lung missing. Sanji was convinced that was the problem. That was what she needed. Absolutely not Law. Definitely not him.
Sanji paced restlessly around the kitchen until she realized she might as well be chewing on bark. The licorice root, which had at least had some bite to it before, had been reduced to frayed, soggy fibers. She tossed it and left the kitchen. She needed some air.
The truth was, Sanji had three full cartons of cigarettes tucked away in her drawer, stockpiled against any disaster. Her one stroke of luck was that no one knew about her private reserve. Because of that, the confiscation had stopped at a recently opened pack and a lighter, which Nami had taken. Back in operating room, Chopper had wanted to trust Sanji's self-control, but hadn't been able to do much. Law had seemed almost indifferent.
"Damn doctors…"
Sanji muttered irritably to herself when something caught her eye. It was the captain of the Heart Pirates, standing in front of the yellow submarine and talking to one of his crewmates.
What was he doing out here instead of holed up in his operating room (or his quarters), playing doctor with her hostage lung? Was he really planning to drag this out until she hit her breaking point?
Sanji's fists clenched on their own. She made up her mind to march over there, grab him by the collar, and demand to know exactly how the research was going.
Just then, a short shriek from Nami rang out from the deck. Every nerve in Sanji's body focused on it instantly. Almost simultaneously, a great column of seawater surged up and crashed back down. Someone had gone overboard again. On this ship, that particular accident had a way of happening exclusively to people who couldn't swim. Usopp's panicked shout of the captain's name made it obvious who today's victim was.
Sanji was already kicking off her shoes as she headed down to the deck. But she paused with one foot on the railing, poised to dive.
Clothes were floating on the surface of the water. More precisely, it was the laundry they'd washed that morning and hung out to dry on the line across the deck.
"You idiot! Of all the directions, you had to land there?" Nami shouted as she ran to the railing.
Sanji shrugged off her jacket with a sigh. Normally she'd be just as furious as Nami, but the severe nicotine withdrawal seemed to have dulled her temper—her anger graph just wasn't climbing the way it usually did.
Sanji dove in and hauled Luffy up first, tangled in the laundry line and clothes, and tossed him onto the deck. Then came the far more tedious task of retrieving the laundry, which had already soaked up a ridiculous amount of seawater.
"Sorryyyy… guys…" Luffy mumbled, sprawled across the deck like a piece of laundry himself.
Sanji pressed one foot down on his water-bloated stomach. Luffy shot a strong stream of water out like a fountain.
"You're not going anywhere fun today. Nami-san, I'll be right back after I rinse off."
"Sure," Nami said, barely listening. Her glacial stare was fixed on the culprits, who were already reading the room and heading off to dig out the laundry supplies they'd put away that morning.
Sanji shook her head and headed for the bathroom. She hadn't made any particular plans for the afternoon, but doing laundry and taking a shower twice in one day had definitely not been among them. The craving hit her again. Just one drag.
By the time she rinsed off the salt and came back, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper were already doing laundry under Nami's watch. Sanji made her a fresh-squeezed orange juice, then sat down beside the guilty trio. She wasn't about to trust delicate fabrics to those clumsy hands, so she handled them herself. After that, she worked through the rest of the pile one by one, her arms moving as fast as if they were on fire.
"Sanji-kun, you don't have to help. Those three could use a little punishment," Nami said, still a little put out. The juice had softened her mood considerably.
"It'll go faster with more hands."
Sanji kept working. She noticed Chopper sniffing as he scrubbed, a bump on his head.
"Chopper, how's the examination coming along?"
"Hm? Oh, almost done. But Traffy stepped out for a bit. He said he had something to take care of on the island. We'll keep going tonight."
"I see."
Sanji was annoyed. She couldn't understand what could possibly be more important than her lung.
She kept grumbling to herself, and before she knew it, the laundry was done. It was only when they were hanging everything back up on the newly strung line that Zoro finally ambled down to the deck. He'd spent the entire commotion doing strength training up in the crow's nest.
"What, more laundry?"
Sanji's blood pressure spiked. Her anger graph kicked back into full gear.
She let out a breath and snapped, "You owe me."
"And why exactly?"
"Luffy did what Luffy does, and the laundry we hung out this morning ended up in the ocean. That includes your filthy haramaki, which I had to wash all over again. You're welcome."
Luffy flinched.
Zoro looked over his uncharacteristically quiet and compliant crewmates hanging laundry and snorted.
"Heh. As if I asked you to. Good work."
Sanji was certain she heard something snap inside her head. She was airborne a moment later, and Zoro barely managed to draw one sword in time to block.
"Oh, it's on!"
"Fight, fight, fight!"
Luffy and Usopp, as if they hadn't been sulking a moment ago, started clapping and fanning the flames. Wham wham wham. Clang clang clang. Sanji's attacks were bolder and more ferocious than usual. Rage really was a great catalyst.
The fight lasted until Nami came out of the navigation room to investigate the noise and smacked both of them on the head.
After Zoro shuffled off grumbling toward the bathroom, the audience quietly resumed hanging laundry. Usopp wanted nothing more than to finish this delicate situation and get his freedom back as quickly as possible. Luffy, on the other hand, seemed to be feeling oddly academic—and had no idea how to use a quiet voice.
"I know why Sanji's been so prickly. She's missing one side of her chest. It's called 'Sad Nipple Syndrome.'"
"Jesus, Luffy!" Usopp gasped, horrified—yet couldn't hold back his laughter. What an asshole.
"THAT'S NOT WHY AND THAT'S NOT WHAT THAT MEANS, YOU DICKHEAD!"
Sanji brought her heel down impartially on both idiots' heads. Nami sighed, but figured they had it coming and kept her mouth shut.
Sanji stomped toward the stern with a lump on her head, wanting nothing more than to hurl obscenities at the open ocean.
This was definitely the withdrawal. It might've been a little easier if Luffy and Zoro weren't constantly getting on her nerves. Maybe it was time to dig out another piece of licorice root.
Just then, Chopper's voice flashed through her mind.
Traffy stepped out for a bit. He said he had something to take care of on the island…
So her lung was currently unsupervised. Law was on the island, and Chopper was back on the Sunny's deck hanging laundry. There was no way Law had told his crew to keep watch over it.
Just… one cigarette would be fine, right? Sanji had already lost her mind. Somewhere in the back of her conscience, a tiny angel with Chopper's face was desperately trying to stop her—but fuck that.
Keeping her face stiff, as if she hadn't just made a decision, Sanji made her way to her drawer. She cracked open a fresh carton and took out exactly one cigarette and one match. Taking the whole pack would be excessive.
She slipped back to the blind spot at the stern and listened. From the deck, she could still hear Nami barking orders at the convicts. Without wasting another second, Sanji struck the match against her shoe heel, lit the cigarette, and took a drag. The moment the smoke hit her lung, the only one she had left, peace spread through her entire body.
"Fuuuck… that's fucking good…"
She could have cried. Sanji tied her hair back belatedly, cigarette still between her lips. Hair held onto smells easily. She briefly thought it would've been smarter to do this before her shower, but that ship had sailed.
Sanji spent the six happiest minutes of her life.
Now for the perfect crime. She wrapped the cigarette butt and spent match in several layers of tissue and tucked them deep inside the trash can. She washed her hands three times until they squeaked, then brushed her teeth three times.
Finally, she sprayed herself with the air freshener Nami kept in the bathroom—the 100-berry shop brand, the kind that smelled cheap, something Sanji had never been grateful for until now—and called it done. She could have used perfume, but suddenly smelling like something she never wore would be a dead giveaway.
Everything was perfect. Even if Chopper's own grandfather showed up, he wouldn't be able to detect a thing.
Sanji destroyed the evidence like a criminal who had spent a lifetime planning this moment and headed for the kitchen, feeling lighter than air. She was feeling unusually generous now. She could even find it in her heart to forgive Luffy and Zoro.
Thinking about what to make them for dinner—something they'd love—she pushed open the kitchen door and locked eyes with Law, who was sitting at the counter.
When the hell did he get back? Sanji nearly passed out on the spot, but somehow managed to hold it together.
Law was watching her with sharp eyes. Like he already knew. But Sanji knew perfectly well that he looked exactly like that when he was thinking about Bepo's paw pads.
So Sanji pretended not to notice him and stepped behind the counter as if nothing was wrong. Her one mistake was passing too close—close enough to stir the air his way, close enough for him to catch a scent.
Unfortunately, that surgeon had keen eyes, keen ears, and the nose of a bloodhound.
"Hold on."
"Huh?"
"I smell something."
Sanji's heart dropped. She actually heard it land.
"What smell?" Sanji asked, her tone flat. Her heart was hammering.
"Cigarettes. Covered up by some weird grape scent."
"The grape smell is from the air freshener in our bathroom, and I don't think we're close enough for me to explain every reason I might use one. And cigarette smell? I wouldn't know. I've been smoking my whole life—maybe it's just soaked into my skin by now."
Sanji was rambling like hell. She could feel the guilt showing in every word, but she couldn't stop. It was like her mouth had a mind of its own.
Law stood up from the stool and closed the distance.
"Empty your pockets."
"What are you, a cop? My hall monitor?" Sanji shot back, defensive.
Law raised an eyebrow, clearly telling her to just do it. Sanji muttered something about arrogance as she shoved her hand into her pocket.
And proved there was nothing inside but a single tin of nicotine gum.
Please. What kind of amateur do you think I am?
Sanji stuck her tongue out at him. Even if Law dug through the trash and found the evidence, he wouldn't be able to claim the pot. All she had to do was insist she'd smoked it three days ago.
Law looked down at her for a moment. Then he grabbed her hand without warning and brought it up to his mouth.
Sanji nearly short-circuited on the spot. For one very brief moment, she imagined him biting her fingers off. But fortunately, her fingertips didn't end up in his mouth. He was just making full use of his bloodhound capabilities.
He took a careful sniff, completely unfazed by the way her fingertips were pressed against his lips. The situation was bizarre enough, but somehow it made her heart race. In the span of a few minutes, it had dropped, then hammered, and now it was going wild.
Heat rushed to her face for no reason at all. She yanked her hand back. "Keep your hands— oh holy shhh—"
The moment she pulled her hand free, Law caught the back of her neck and closed the distance between their faces.
Sanji tucked her chin back as far as she could. His lips were almost touching hers.
Almost. The only reason they weren't was because, once again, he was just checking the smell.
Every last fine hair on her body stood on end. She finally managed to wedge her hand between their faces and push him back.
"You perv! It's broad daylight!"
Instead of pointing out that it was five in the afternoon, Law simply took a step back and returned to his stool.
"I'll let it go this once."
"There's nothing to let go! I didn't smoke!"
"You're just lucky I can't prove it."
Law looked irritated. He'd definitely caught a faint trace of something, and it annoyed him that he couldn't track down the source.
He set down what had been sitting on the stool beside him all along, dropping it onto the counter with a thunk. A pillow-sized, vivid red cylindrical tin. Sanji had been so preoccupied with the possibility of being caught that she hadn't even noticed it sitting there.
Sanji took a step back and eyed him with suspicion.
"Wh—what is it? My lung?"
"Open it."
Sanji gave the tin a cautious turn, studying it warily. There was nothing written on the outside, but it looked almost like a gift. Not that Law was the type to hand one out right after issuing a yellow card.
She steeled herself and opened it. Inside were hundreds of lollipops. Sanji froze, still holding the lid.
"Is it Valentine's Day?"
"I said I'd help keep that mouth busy."
"How am I supposed to get through all of these… my grandchildren would have leftovers."
Sanji reached in reluctantly and rummaged around. The wrappers were every color of the rainbow—there had to be all kinds of flavors. As long as it wasn't mint or licorice, she was fine.
Law was smiling now, as if he'd never been dissatisfied at all. Even a lukewarm reaction from his girl seemed to satisfy him.
Sanji let out a long, defeated sigh. Apparently, she'd been the only one thinking something inappropriate.
"You little brat."
"Why?"
"Nothing. Thank you."
Sanji couldn't ignore the expectant look in his eyes, so she reached in, grabbed one at random, and unwrapped it. She popped it into her mouth and rolled it around.
Grape, as it turned out.
"Hm. Grape," Sanji murmured, pulling the lollipop out and looking at it. The lollipop was somewhere between purple and pink.
Something mischievous crossed Law's eyes.
"Let me see."
He leaned forward, bracing a hand on the counter. He took the back of her neck again—and this time, actually kissed her. Her lips were soft, tasting sweetly of grape.
The kiss didn't last long. It was barely more than a tease, just a brief press of his lips before he straightened back up.
Sanji stood there with wide eyes, her mouth pressed shut. Her face was flushed with a pleasant warmth.
"Better than your cheap air freshener," Law said, running his tongue over his lips.
"You're not supposed to eat that."
"I might need your help when my mouth gets bored."
"Wow, you really are a brat…"
Sanji laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. She tucked the lollipop back between her lips and turned to make Law a coffee.
She would never tell a soul, but she felt better than she had when she'd finally caved and smoked that cigarette three days in. Whether it was the grape taste still lingering on her lips, or the teasing little kiss that had just happened, she decided not to think about it. The more she thought about it, the hotter her face would get.
Oral fixation was a nuisance, but it seemed there were ways around it after all. And more effective ones than she'd expected. At least for now, Sanji wasn't craving a cigarette.
From somewhere behind Law came an uncomfortable murmur—from a small reindeer who had apparently been sitting there the whole time, reading a medical book long before Law had walked in with the red tin tucked under his arm—
"You guys seriously don't know I'm here, do you…?"