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Sanji meets the Straw Hats on a day his True Bluefin Sauté never makes it out of the kitchen, on a day he stops two assholes from scaring a lady.
A normal day at Baratie.
An order of one of everything, three beers, and milk. Regular water in a regular glass for the madam. All normal.
And then their bill comes, and that’s when Sanji knows it’s going to be a more interesting day.
“Thank you, my good man,” the guy in the straw hat says.
“No, sir.” Sanji can’t wipe the smile off his face as he reads the name Monkey D. Luffy written haphazardly on the bill. “Thank you.”
The glee doesn’t last long, because the stupid old man doesn’t let him back on the line and tells him he’ll never be a cook in his restaurant.
So Sanji walks away, returns to the kitchen at night when everyone’s gone except the newly-appointed chore boy. He tries to find some humor by talking to the guy who gave Zeff the IOU, but instead of humor, what he finds is—
“But that meal you cooked was incredible.”
“You know, you’re a really good cook.”
What he finds is something else.
That—whatever that is—makes his mouth open. He talks about the All Blue, about his dream to find it one day.
When chore boy tells him not to let some stubborn old man get in the way of his dreams, Sanji gets this strange feeling that it’s not just empty platitudes. The words are steady, grounded, spoken like they’ve already been lived.
He looks right into Sanji’s eyes as if offering proof, as if daring him to doubt it. But it’s more complicated than that. Sanji knows this boy doesn’t take dreams lightly, but he can’t just leave.
Not when the old man is…
The conversation halts as a starving pirate comes aboard. Naturally, Sanji feeds him.
“You’re not only a good cook. You’re a good guy.”
“If Zeff doesn’t appreciate you, you should join my crew.”
Sanji just laughs. No can do. He’s already got a job.
And while the man from the Krieg Pirates tries to shut down Monkey D. Luffy’s ambition after he announces it, Sanji stays quiet.
Become King of the Pirates.
Find the All Blue.
It’s not bad to dream, is it?
Meeting the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates also means meeting the first mate, Roronoa Zoro.
Zoro, who is annoying after calling him a waiter (even if Sanji is working as one then) at first.
Zoro, who is later on dying after fighting Mihawk at dawn.
The old man manages to close his wounds, but he’s lost too much blood that his one foot is already in the grave. Sanji can’t do much for the chore boy’s friend, so he stays on their ship and does what he knows best. Cooking.
These guys will be hungry. It’s close to noon, and even more so after everything. At least the fish won’t go to waste too, which is a great bonus.
Then Sanji hears it.
Luffy believes Zoro, the strongest fighter he knows, will wake up.
A belief so absolute it borders on truth.
Once more, Sanji finds—
“Hey, Sanji, can you cook Zoro’s favorite food?”
The answer comes easily, with a laugh. “I can make anything. Just tell me what you want.”
Sanji finds something else. Almost as if he’d also do anything for this young captain if it means being believed in like that. Being seen like that.
Sanji doesn’t hesitate to jump after Luffy into the sea.
(It will be weeks later when Sanji learns what happened with Mihawk. He’ll hear how Zoro challenged a Warlord to a duel—one Luffy didn’t interfere with, because it was Zoro’s dream.
And there it is again, Sanji will think. That belief in a dream.
Usopp will joke about it, soften the edge so that they don’t focus on how Zoro was dying after. Sanji will tease him about the sword-shattering, arse-kicking Mihawk gave him. Zoro will say something annoying back. Sanji will respond with another remark.
Yet. Despite all that.
On a sunny day in the Grand Line, Sanji will see the way Zoro looks at their captain on the figurehead. Despite the humor laced within Usopp’s story, Sanji will know the words said then are simple truth.
“If I fail to become the world’s greatest swordsman, you’ll be disappointed, right?”
Roronoa Zoro’s dream is to be the greatest swordsman, and that already gigantic dream has become even bigger now that it’s entangled with Luffy’s.
The future King of the Pirates will deserve nothing less from his first mate.)
“You just got here. You don’t know what Luffy needs.”
Even when they’re surrounded by Arlong’s men, the most annoying one on Conomi Island is still that shitty Mosshead.
Sanji snaps back immediately. He knows Luffy needs his cooking; after all, that’s what Luffy wanted. A cook.
And Sanji can damn cook. He’ll make paella, Gatsby sandwiches—anything his captain wants, as long as it’s within Nami’s budget.
He can also grab Luffy before he wanders off and go shopping with him while they’re in Loguetown.
“He’s the best cook in the whole East Blue,” Luffy tells a vendor.
The vendor mentions Baratie has a new item on the menu. A very familiar one.
With a grin, Luffy tells Sanji that Zeff must’ve liked his dish.
“I’m gonna have to keep impressing him,” Sanji says, grabbing the blue-finned elephant tuna and then a few more others, already thinking of what to cook next.
Already thinking of who else he needs to impress.
After all, Sanji is the best cook in the whole East Blue.
Sanji made a mistake.
Too much enthusiasm is never good, especially when it ruins precision. He knows this, both in the kitchen and outside of it. He should’ve known better.
Why did he think Luffy would stay put just because someone told him to?
The look in Zoro’s eyes is a reminder that this Mosshead was once someone else. A Demon Pirate Hunter.
“If anything happens to him, you’ll be the first I use my new swords—”
Zoro means it.
It’s a completely serious statement, just like when he said they should throw the Baroque Works agents overboard when Luffy wasn’t present.
There may not be a drastic length of time between the time he joined and the time Zoro did, but he thinks he’s seeing what he couldn’t the last time during that fight with Mihawk.
This is their first mate who vowed his loyalty to their captain. This is his devotion.
And Sanji, the cook, just got here.
When Luffy calls their names, calls Sanji’s name, from up the execution platform, his heart drops.
“I’m sorry. I’m dead.”
Adrenaline floods his veins. He fights, spins, kicks. Tries to clear a path. He needs these people to move out of the way. He has to reach Luffy. Has to get to his captain.
If anything happens to Luffy, Sanji will walk straight into the edge of a blade.
(The Waddy Itchy Monkey—)
But a miracle happens, and Luffy walks toward them. Slightly hurt but alive. Sanji grabs Luffy’s arm and gives it a squeeze.
It’s a reassurance he will never admit is not only for himself but also for the other pair of eyes never leaving Luffy’s form.
They meet Captain Smoker of the Marines soon after. Sanji charges first, intent to prove himself, to protect his captain.
He fails.
Again.
It becomes an awful pattern.
Sanji gets swallowed by a whale in Twin Capes. Gets distracted by women in Whisky Peak. Fights an evil otter and arrives late in Little Garden.
Fail. Fail. Another fail.
Can’t he get any shitty thing right—
In Drum Island, Luffy says he’ll climb the snowy mountain. It’s a ridiculous idea—snow biting, cliffs sheer, the wind howling like it has teeth—and Sanji immediately answers that he’ll go with him. Of course he will. There isn’t even a moment of hesitation.
Zoro moves to go as well, but Sanji tells him to stay. Someone has to; they need someone to protect the rest of the crew while Luffy and Sanji are away.
He says it easily like it’s only logic. Like it isn’t also something else sitting heavy in his chest.
Beneath that, Sanji also wants to prove he can handle it, too. That he can protect their captain on his own—without him. Without the man who cut down a hundred people in Whisky Peak like it was nothing while Sanji remained useless, late, always behind—
But the pattern doesn’t break just because he wants it to.
Sanji almost falls to his death, and it’s only an almost because he is saved by the same person he is meant to protect.
When he wakes, bandaged and aching, Sanji does what he knows. What he’s always known. He moves to the kitchen, to the steady rhythm of a knife, to heat and broth and something he can control.
He makes a simple soup, but even that betrays him. The memory of his mother threads through it, the quiet ache of not being enough curling in his chest until he finds himself talking, voice low, telling Nami a story he doesn’t usually share.
But there’s no time to dwell on the sentimental because the next moment, he’s fighting Wapol’s lieutenants alongside Chopper—and this time, he wins. This time, his body listens, moves the way it should, and it feels good. Not enough, not yet, but good.
It feels better when he finds Luffy and Vivi after.
Sanji clasps Vivi’s hands for a second before letting go and heading straight to his captain. He wraps his arms around Luffy tightly. A brief moment but it’s reassuring, grounding.
Different feelings wash over Sanji in the next series of events.
Comfort. Regret.
“I let him down in Loguetown. Never again.”
Determination.
“Luffy,” Sanji calls, raising his leg and offering it.
And of course, Luffy understands. He uses his leg to launch himself forward and defeat Wapol, freeing the people on this island.
The rising feeling is too bright and impossible to hold back.
Sanji laughs. “That’s my boy!”
Endearment.
That’s his captain.
“What kept you?” Zoro asks when the rest of them arrive at the castle. “What were you guys doing up here all this time?”
Sanji is the one who told him to stay, and he has no doubt Zoro held the line, cut down whatever came their way without hesitation. He’s more than enough to handle the monsters Wapol created.
So Sanji swallows the childish urge to jab, to tease, to say something smug about how things turned out fine even without him. The words linger at the tip of his tongue, but he lets them go.
There’s something else that Sanji then realizes.
For someone who threatened him over Luffy’s safety, Zoro isn’t always the one beside him.
And maybe Zoro feels that, too. The quiet absence in moments that should’ve been his.
Sanji wants to take petty satisfaction in that, but it doesn’t sit right. Not when he knows, deep down, that things might have gone differently if Zoro had been there. That maybe Zoro wouldn’t be useless against Captain Smoker. That maybe Zoro won’t fall off a snowy mountain.
That maybe, if they dig deep enough, they’ll find bitterness buried underneath the questions Zoro posed.
He’s a Mosshead. An infuriating, stubborn one. But he’s also the Mosshead who decided he’ll unconditionally follow a boy in a Straw Hat even when he wasn’t asked.
…And so does Sanji.
It’s a realization still settling into place—that he also wants to follow his captain until he becomes King. And with it comes something heavier: the memory of every failure, every second too slow, every moment he couldn’t do what needed to be done.
He doesn’t want that again.
He doesn’t want regret to be what lingers.
He wants this. The certainty, the sharp satisfaction of moving in sync with his captain, of being someone Luffy can rely on without question.
Sanji will get stronger. He will be better and redeem himself from his shortcomings.
He has to.
(It’s not just Roronoa Zoro who can lay everything down at their captain’s feet. Sanji can do it too—just as easily, just as certain, especially now that he’s beginning to understand the full weight of what he’s willing to give.
He’ll prove to that damn shitty Mosshead that it was a first and last mistake.
He will protect Luffy.
No threats needed.)