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Pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro wouldn’t leave. No matter how many times he yelled at him, kicked him or threw him out of the restaurant, he wouldn’t leave the Baratie. Zeff thought him cruel because of it, to have him where his son grew up, to have him taint those childhood memories with his bloody hands and blades.
He came to him a week ago, maybe less, maybe more, Zeff stopped counting the days. Before he had counted them to see how long he’d be apart from his son, to count the days of his adventures, not with him anymore but still following his path from a distance. He had collected all the articles that spoke about him and his crew, all his bounties hung in his office. He didn’t do that anymore, it didn’t matter anymore. His boy wouldn’t be returning.
The swordsman did though. He returned to the Baratie alone, on a small ship, clothes dirty and eyes wild like he hadn’t slept well in a long time. He had jumped off his ship, hadn't even docked it properly, it could’ve been carried away by the wind hadn’t one of his chefs tied it for him. He came to him, walked straight through the dining hall, where his customers were enjoying a late meal, to get to the kitchen where Zeff had been preparing a fish.
Zeff had barely recognised the pirate hunter. Gone was the boy who almost died in front of his home, gone were the lighthearted laughters and easy smiles. Sure, Zeff had last seen him three years ago before he got slashed by Mihawk but it wasn’t that. He had seen pictures of him in the newspaper so he knew that he had filled in his clothes and replaced them with bigger ones, a result of hard training and good food. And Sanji had written to him too, he talked about his crewmates a lot so he knew that Roronoa Zoro didn’t turn into some coldhearted man, he knew that that nineteen year old boy continued to live on inside of him because his own boy had claimed it to be so.
But it wasn’t his muscles or the fact that he seemed so much bigger than at nineteen, it was the shadows on his face, the dark lines around his eyes and the red inside them. It was the fact that his mouth had a slight downturn to it. It was the way his hair seemed less vibrant, a dirty green instead of the fresh moss Sanji liked to describe it as.
He stopped right in front of him, waited until Zeff looked him in the face and finally said, “Sanji is dead.”
Zeff dropped his knife. This never happened to him, he respected his tools too much to be that careless, didn’t allow himself or his chefs to be that careless but he couldn’t stop himself, his body reacting on his own. Everyone stopped what they were doing and seemed equally shocked by the swordsman’s words.
“What?”, he asked, desperately hoping that he had heard him wrong but he already knew the answer. It would explain why the swordsman was here and not on the Grand Line, it would explain the exhaustion pooling out of him but Zeff needed to ask, needed to hang on that thread that held him together, that he might have heard him wrong. The swordsman cut through that thread quickly, before it could turn into something foolish like hope.
“Sanji is dead”, he repeated and he could feel the atmosphere in the kitchen change. There was the faint smell of something burning but no one seemed to care, everyone was staring at the swordsman, tears slowly welling up in their eyes. His own remained dry for the moment, his body paralysed. Pictures of Sanji started running through his mind and he needed to stop before he did something stupid like cry in front of his employees. So he tried to focus on something else and his mind decided to focus on the swordsman in front of him. And something bothered him.
“Where is the rest of your crew?”, he asked, his voice steadier than he thought it would be.
Zoro fell to knees and bowed deep, the action so weird he almost missed the swordsman’s words.
“I’m sorry”, he said, his back shook slightly, as if he too was trying everything in his power not to cry, “I'm sorry.”
“Stand up, boy”, he packed him by his shoulders to force him on his legs but he stayed down.
“I’m sorry”, he repeated.
“Zoro”, he tried to calm him down, the name foreign to his tongue, “Stand up, I’ll give you a glass of water and you can tell me what happened.”
He shook his head violently, “You don’t understand-“
“Then make me understand because I don’t think I understand anything right now.”
He kept shaking his head, “No, that’s not what I mean, I-“, he kept his head low, not even having the decency to look him in the eyes when he said, “I killed him.”
Zeff needed a moment to process that and when he did he kicked the swordsman and had him flying through the kitchen door. He didn’t defend himself, didn’t reach for his swords but he finally stood up and lifted his head.
Zeff kicked him again and Zoro let him.
“I’m sorry”, he repeated again and again, the only response he seemed to have when he kicked him.
He raised his leg to attack him but instead it fell down like a heavy rock in the ocean and he could see his vision blurring from the tears.
“You killed my son.”
“I’m sorry”, he said again and then finally something else, “I didn’t want to, he asked me to.”
“It doesn’t matter”, Zeff’s legs suddenly felt weaker and he had to steady himself, “You killed my son.”
Since then the swordsman had been sleeping on his deck like some weed that could grow in every unlikely crack, no matter the conditions and no matter your actions to remove it. He didn’t even really speak to him, didn’t seek him out again, didn’t try to explain himself, he just stayed, laying underneath the sun and rotting there.
He made his chefs bring him food because he might want him to leave, a part of him wanted him to suffer, but he didn’t want him to starve. Zoro always thanked them, didn’t say a word more, even when Patty spat on him or when Carne sat with him and cried.
At some point he decided he couldn’t continue like this. He took the plate himself and carried it to their unwanted guest. He didn’t sit down, it would be too intimate, a young and an old man sitting next to each other and talking about a deceased loved one. He couldn’t do it.
He let him eat in peace or let him have as much peace as someone could have when another was staring him down. Zeff didn’t even try to control his scowl, letting the other feel his distaste. Zoro ate, didn’t leave a crumb, if this was a result of a life led as a poor kid or if it was a lesson learned by Sanji he didn’t know. He hoped it was the first, he didn’t want to see glimpses of his son in him. When Zoro pushed his plate aside Zeff finally spoke.
“Did he feel pain?”, he asked, not that the answer would make what happened less bad but maybe it would ease his mind a bit.
“He didn’t feel anything at all.”
It wasn’t a satisfying answer.
“Did he have last words?”, he asked with the same goal, to have something, anything, to ease the pain in his soul.
“He didn’t really speak, almost like it was too boring to him”, he looked at him, his eye bags even deeper than the day he arrived, “You wouldn’t have recognised him.”
That sparked a fury in him, he hated what the swordsman was implying.
“I’d recognise that boy in a crowd full of millions”, he snapped at him, “I’d recognise that boy blind.”
“You wouldn’t have”, he closed his eyes, “Believe me, you wouldn’t have.”
Before he could spat insults at him, insults with the intention to cut deep, the swordsman spoke up again.
“I’m glad you didn’t see him and I think he would be too.”
It left Zeff speechless, it was a cruel thing to say to a father, he wondered if Zoro knew that.
“I don’t think you know what really happened”, he continued, ignorant to Zeff’s pain, “Did he tell you about Germa?”
Germa. He’d be lying if he said he knew about it before the name had appeared in the paper a few months ago. They had called his boy a Vinsmoke, a name never even muttered when he grew up in the Baratie, a name he obviously wanted to forget.
“No”, he shook his head, “But he didn’t need to for me to know that something bad had happened to him.”
“Something bad?”, Zoro repeated, “That’s the understatement of the century.”
Zeff stared at him and the tight line his lips were forming. He’s sure he wouldn’t like this conversation. Of course Zeff knew something had happened in Sanji’s life, no child with that many nightmares and that much anxiety had a normal childhood. But Sanji had never wanted to talk about it and every time he had tried to ask he had shut down so eventually he had stopped asking.
“I don’t know the details, I wasn’t in Whole Cake Island”, the swordsman’s features were sharp, regret apparent on his face, “Maybe I should’ve gone, maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything but I could’ve killed them.”
He shook his head, the oppressing atmosphere vanishing with an absentminded stare, “Not like he would’ve let me.”
Zoro took a deep breath in, his hand brushing the side of his white katana. He’d been doing that a lot, gripping his white katana, sleeping with a hand around it. Zeff wondered if it was from fear of being attacked but he doubted that. There were only a handful of people that could fight the demon of the East so it must be another reason and the only thing that he could come up with was comfort. Zoro sought comfort in his white katana. He wondered if it was the one that had killed his son.
“Germa is a military kingdom with a special liking for science”, Zoro continued, Zeff didn’t interrupt him, “It was the reason why Big Mom wanted the alliance in the first place, to get her hands on Germa’s scientific knowledge and weapons. If an emperor of the sea wants something like that then you know that it’s the real deal.”
“They had weapons and suits that facilitated fighting but their speciality was human modification.”
Human modification. Zeff felt sick. He had heard of what the government did to Bartholomew Kuma. He had never seen a pacifista let alone the former warlord, there was no need for such measures in the quiet sides of the East, but no matter how quiet life got the paper still reached you. Unnatural, that’s how Kuma was described. Unnatural strength, unnatural speed, unnatural being.
Sanji came into his life when he was ten, a child who hadn’t even started puberty yet, a child who had looked at doctors like they were his biggest enemy, who trembled when he was near a syringe but never near a knife. He had tried to kill him when they met, knives in both hands and a determined look in his eyes. He had tried to kill him again, stranded on a rock in the middle of the ocean, barely any flesh left on his bones. Zeff had always reduced it to survival instincts, maybe it had been more.
“Sanji’s siblings are not exactly human, something that Sanji wasn’t supposed to be either. The king, Judge, genetically modified all his children so they were stronger and he removed their feelings because he believed that a soldier without emotions is a good soldier.”
“Sanji feared that something was going to happen to him, he knew before it happened”, Zoro turned his head to the side, face contorting into something somber, “I knew something was up before it happened. He was distracted, his fighting was sloppy and when I said as much he told me his body felt weird.”
His pain was written all over his face but Zoro didn’t stop like he needed to get it all out no matter how much it hurt.
“He asked me to kill him if I thought he wasn’t acting like himself and I promised him. He asked for my help”, he pointed his hand towards him, his finger tips touching the skin on his chest and emphasising his words, “And I accepted because of course I did.”
His hand stayed near his heart, fingers curling into a soft fist, nails scratching the healed scar. It looked better than the last time he saw it, Mihawk had been ruthless to the boy even if he had spared him. He had nearly dissected him on his doorstep but Roronoa was strong willed, even back then. Sanji had watched the whole thing unfold, he remembered him gripping the wooden railing, remembered the words Sanji had yelled to the young swordsman. A plea to give up on his ambitions, yelled from a place of fear. Zoro must be reliving a similar moment, a distant memory replaying in his head because the next time he spoke it was about their dreams.
“He rarely talked about the All Blue, he was so different from Luffy who took every opportunity to yell his dream for the entire world to hear. Sanji was quiet about it. Sometimes it was just him looking at the ocean while he was smoking his first cigarette of the day but when he talked about it his eyes would glow and his face looked so carefree. And he’d smile that smile that had you silent and staring”, the swordsman closed his eyes like he was imagining exactly that, a faint smile on his lips, “He was such a contradicting bastard. So childlike one moment and so angry the other.”
The smile dropped, “And then that went away and he was just this bag of flesh who needed to fight everything that was in his way.”
He laughed, a cold and dry thing leaving his mouth, “Fuck he barely was a bag of flesh, his skin was so fucking hard. He still had his face, still had his voice but there was nothing left of him. I can’t even describe him as an animal, even they have some sort of drive, a feeling of belonging or even just satiety. A full animal doesn’t hunt down more animals, they go and rest. Sanji just kept going.”
Zeff tried to imagine what the swordsman was describing to him but every time he focused on conjuring Sanji’s face he couldn’t help but add the soft smiles or annoyed eye rolls. Sanji was a lot, he was the whole darn spectrum but he was never apathetic.
“One day I realised his smiles were smaller and his laughter quieter, he stopped humming when he cooked, stopped wearing his dumb pink apron, until one day he stopped cooking altogether. It didn’t feel challenging enough, he said to me when I asked and when I tried to explain that that wasn’t the reason why he loved to cook he turned away from me.”
The swordsman’s eyes started to mist, even the scarred one producing tears in its empty socket.
“One day I woke up and Sanji wasn’t Sanji anymore. And I promised him-“, his voice broke, “I promised him.”
It felt like an excuse to him. The wound was too fresh for the effort of trying to understand the swordsman. A part of him saw Zoro’s tears and saw that boy that inspired Sanji to fight for his dream, the boy that obviously cared deeply for Sanji. The tears a proof for his grief.
Another part of him saw those tears and felt insulted. How dare he cry about the death of his son when he was the one responsible for it? Didn’t he feel ashamed? The tears felt like self-pity and disrespect. It made Zeff want to kick him into the ocean that Sanji loved so much.
“He lost himself?”, he asked instead, not having the energy to fight, his shoulders feeling heavy, the anger replaced by something less hot, his grief eating at him instead of fuelling him.
“He tried to fight it”, Zoro explained, “He didn’t want to live like his brothers did. It was worse than death to him.”
Zeff shook his head, “I know he did. Sanji’s always been a fighter.”
He took the empty plate on the ground and turned away from him. He stood there, listening to the ocean waves and the swordsman breathing, both irregular, something sad in them. But maybe everything seemed sad to him now.
“I’ll bring you dinner before the sun goes down”, he told him before leaving him be.
-
The swordsman was smoking on the deck, a concentrated look on his face as he watched the smoke curl around the wind. He hasn’t seen him yet, too engulfed in his own thoughts and the cigarette. It wasn’t the first one he smoked, Zeff had seen him light one almost every day. The coughing got better with time but it never completely disappeared, it was obvious that he never indulged himself in smoking before this.
In his right hand he had a golden lighter, his thumb opening and closing the cap.
“Hey Curls”, he heard him say to the ocean before him, “I think you’ll be pleased to hear that the food here is still good, not like yours though. Nothing could taste like yours.”
He exhaled smoke into the air, “I’m trying to eat even though my appetite’s pretty much dead, took that with you, you shitty bastard. You-“, he closed his fist around the lighter, “You were the reason I enjoyed food, it just doesn’t taste the same anymore.”
A fast finger movement lit a flame, light dancing above his hand, red and alive.
“I miss you”, he whispered to the lighter before distinguishing the flame again.
Zeff couldn’t intrude on such a private moment any longer and stepped out of the shadows that hid him, clearing his throat so Zoro would notice him for certain. He turned around immediately and almost let the cigarette fall from his lips. Zeff walked up to him and put his elbows on the railing, not saying anything yet. It was still weird to have him here, even though he now knew it wasn’t technically his fault, Sanji was already lost before he was killed. Still, he could only focus on the fact that he wouldn’t see his son again.
Every time he went to him he brought food with him, it made the visits have a purpose besides their conversations. It made Zoro feel less like an enemy and more like a human he needed to feed and that had always come easy to him. No matter how horrible, a hungry monster was a hungry man first.
“I never understood why he liked to do this”, Zoro decided to break the ice, “It’s disgusting.”
“It made him feel older”, Zeff explained as the mental image of his little boy came to him, his little lungs coughing from the smoke, “He didn’t want to be treated like a kid so he acted like an adult. He grew up but he never put those death sticks down, couldn’t kick it out of him.”
Zoro seemed fascinated by that little information about Sanji and held the cigarette closer to his heart, “He didn’t like feeling like a kid?”
“He hated it, never stopped me from treating him like one though.”
Zeff sighed, “He smoked too much, cursed too much, provoked too much. Growing up in a restaurant run by ex-cons perverted him. His lungs quickly turned black, his mouth venomous.”
He put some weight off his wooden leg, his strength was decreasing every year. He didn’t know how long he’d have before he wouldn’t be able to walk without any breaks or help.
“A parent would do anything to make their child happy”, he said, “I doubted this environment in the first months when Sanji lived with me. I couldn’t give him more though so I contemplated finding him a better home but he was my boy, I couldn’t give him away.”
He found Zoro hanging on every word coming from his lips, a small smile growing with every sentence.
“He loved the restaurant”, he told him, “He always talked about it, always talked about the chefs too. You were his family.”
A lump was growing in his throat, connecting to the pain in his heart.
“Was he happy?”, Zeff asked, “I mean before.”
“I like to think he was.”
Zoro shook his head, “No, I know he was because we were happy and I was happy. We made each other laugh and every adventure, no matter how dangerous, was fun too, you know? Luffy has this belief that adventures need to be fun so they always kind of were.”
His features softened, “He was my equal in everything so I must believe we were equals in this too.”
There was longing in his eyes, irises glowing from a memory, his pupils suddenly an open window to his soul. Zoro let out a deep exhale, the sound of his breath reached Zeff’s ears and with it came a realisation.
“You loved him”, it dawned on him and he felt stupid for not having seen it before. Zoro didn’t deny it, didn’t even try to, that wasn’t like him, “I do.”
I do because he never stopped and maybe now he never could. Sanji had trapped him.
“It was cruel of him to ask you something like that.”
To ask someone who loved you to kill you, it was demanding too much.
The swordsman looked at him like he had grown another head, “Curly was a lot but he was never cruel.”
Zeff laughed and it sounded so foreign to him, he hadn’t laughed since his boy died, “That’s not true, Sanji could be cruel and mean. He was a little shit.”
Zoro stared at him, didn’t dare to say anything, maybe fearing of further insulting him, fearing of tainting Sanji’s happy memories but his son was mean and he didn’t want to forget that. Erasing those memories meant erasing half of his identity and from what Zoro told him someone had already tried to erase his entire identity. He couldn’t do that to him too, no matter the extent.
“Did he know?”
Zoro slowly shook his head, suddenly timid, a shyness covering him that Zeff didn’t know he could possess, “He was blind to this kind of stuff.”
“You seem like the guy who wouldn’t be afraid to tell him.”
Zoro didn’t answer but there was a blush creeping up his cheeks. Zeff had to laugh, the swordsman wasn’t the first one to fall victim to Sanji’s charms and he wasn’t the first one to fall victim to his father because of it.
“That boy could turn heads”, Zeff said, “God that stupid flirting got annoying real fast. The first love confession he declared was when he was twelve, too young for the feelings he claimed he had, but he had bought flowers and gave them to this girl who came every month with her parents.”
He remembered the day like it was yesterday. The brunette had pulled him away from her parents to give him an innocent kiss on the cheek. Sanji had had a lopsided grin the entire evening, couldn’t think straight anymore, cutting every vegetable into a heart shaped form.
“His first love confession he received was when he was fifteen. We had a kitchen boy who ran away from home and who I decided to feed in exchange for him cleaning the dishes. Sanji had him around his finger in less than a week. That idiot was dense as a brick though, never quite understood that people could be interested in him”, Zeff furrowed his eyebrows, another wave of grief washing over him, “He never understood that people could love him too.”
Zoro frowned and for a second it looked like he would be reaching for him, to put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t though and Zeff thought it better this way, he didn’t know how he would’ve reacted.
“I think he’d gotten better at that“, he told him, “Luffy tried his best to drill it into him and Luffy is persistent.”
That was relieving to hear. It was good to know that someone had gotten through to him, that someone had held him and had not let go. He had not one doubt that his rubber captain achieved exactly that. Monkey D. Luffy was chaos but more importantly he was chaos that loved his son, a love that he had witnessed all those years ago. No, he had no doubts that Luffy got through to him.
“You asked me what his last words were”, Zoro touched the golden mermaid tail on the lighter, a feather light touch, softer than he’d imagined the swordsman to be, a glimpse of the man Sanji must’ve adored shining through, “It was my name.”
He held the lighter in front of his eyes and looked at it like it was the most precious thing in the world, “And he said it so warmly, he touched my cheek and brushed my tears away.”
“Of course he did”, Zeff said simply, his son’s foolish actions nothing new to him. His heart found comfort in this answer though unlike the one he had heard a few days ago, that his son died silent. Zoro looked at him, his eyebrows raised from confusion and Zeff took pity on him and explained, “He used his last moment for his last act of love. He gave you his last act of love.”
His eyes widened, even the scarred one slightly moving up, “I don’t deserve that.”
“And yet, you got it.”
He opened his mouth to disagree again but Zeff stopped him, “Don’t tarnish my son’s last moments. Don’t be stupid and let your mind convince you he didn’t love you.”
Zoro wiped his cheek with the palm of his hand, “He’s such an asshole, always trying to have the upper hand in everything, he could barely speak but somehow he managed to tell me how he felt. He never uses my name, prefers the hundreds of nicknames instead so when he uses it, it’s-.”
“Important?”, Zeff guessed.
He nodded, “It means he’s being honest, it means I need to listen.”
“I told him I loved him, tried to hold him as close as possible while he was still breathing but maybe it was too late. Maybe I should’ve said something sooner.”
“That’s a good way to make yourself go crazy”, Zeff shifted his body so there was less force on his wooden leg, “You have to think about it differently, at least he heard it, at least he died hearing he was loved and maybe even better, at least he died feeling loved and loving back.”
It meant he didn’t lose himself, not completely. He had the strength, the anger, maybe even the spite to die as himself. It sounded so much like Sanji that it had his heart breaking. Someone had stolen everything that made him him, turned him into an object good only for following orders and yet he defied it, spat into their face by dying with love in his heart.
“I need a drink”, Zeff hadn’t indulged in alcohol yet, didn’t want to drown his boy in it, it hadn’t felt right, but it’s been some time since he heard of it. The wound wasn’t fresh anymore, he wouldn’t drink to forget, he’d drink to share.
“D’you want one too?”
Zoro raised his head, a conflict apparent in his features, “He hated when I drank.”
Zeff huffed, “Probably because he was jealous. Even growing up with dirty mouthed sailors didn’t teach him how to handle his alcohol.“
The swordsman smiled, that fondness when he thought of Sanji as apparent as the green on his head, his love, now that he knew where to look for it, was as much a part of him as his hair, “He was such a lightweight. Could barely handle beer, had to carry him through town to our ship so many times.”
Sanji couldn’t handle beer, Zeff knew that. The Sanji from three years ago didn’t go to bars or parties though, he was barely on islands, the only reason he’d go on land was for food markets and he never went when it was dark. No one had to carry him around back then. This was a part of his life Zeff wasn’t in.
And he wanted to hear everything about it. Wanted to hear the swordsman tell him about Sanji’s life, about who he had become. He wanted Zoro to tell him about their adventures, about their enemies, their friends, which jokes they told each other and which ones made Sanji laugh the loudest.
Sanji never had good pictures of him taken. His bounties were either horribly drawn or horribly hilarious but they never showed his face in a normal state. Zeff feared that he didn’t know what Sanji looked like when he died so he wanted Zoro to tell him that too. He wanted to know if he still used his pinky to try food and if his eyebrows still drew closer together when he concentrated on the taste. Did he finally gain some weight around his stomach, Zeff always wished for him to grow fuller. Was his hair a darker shade of blond or did the sun bleach it even lighter? Had he broken his nose in a fight and had it become crooked? How many teeth did he show when he smiled, had one chipped off?
“Do you want to come inside?”, he asked him, the first time he’d let him in since the day he had arrived. Zoro hesitated, looking for something in his face and when he didn’t find doubt he nodded and stood up.
“I’d like a drink.”
-
It was only a matter of time until the strawhats came for their crewmate.
The news letter came in the morning informing the whole world that the emperor's crew left the Grand Line and was headed to the East Blue. The person most surprised by it was the person responsible for this change of course.
Zoro held the paper in his hand, rereading the article for the tenth time, his grip tightening with each reread, the paper crinkling around his fingers.
“I thought I’d have more time.”
He folded it and put it on the table in front of him, a cup of tea standing there untouched, the simple breakfast interrupted by the news.
The Baratie was quiet, it often was in the morning, the customers would only start streaming in around lunch time, the early hours not attractive for a floating restaurant. Though the chefs had been quieter too, fights had lessened, and there would be nothing to celebrate in the near future. The Baratie felt dead too.
“I didn’t think you were someone who ran away from his problems.”
Zeff sipped on his tea, trying to enjoy the way it warmed his stomach. He’d have to get up in the next hour to start on lunch so if the swordsman was having a crisis then he’d better be quick with it.
“I’m not”, he grinded his teeth, “I’m pretty sure I fucking proved that I’m not.”
Zeff hummed, not yet able to stop the anger from rising when the swordsman talked about murdering Sanji but not blinded by it anymore.
“Grief put a stop to our journey, l wonder if we’ll ever continue”, Zoro said, touching the rim of his cup and moving his finger around it, staring into the hot beverage with an empty glaze on his eye, “I think they hate me, I don’t think I’m part of that journey anymore.”
He didn’t like hearing Zoro talk about himself like that. He’d have agreed only a week before but now, he couldn’t do that to him. Not when he could see his own pain reflected in him.
“Listen to me boy, they don’t hate you. They’re just really hurt right now but you’re their friend as much as Sanji was, they’ll understand.”
“I don’t think they will.”
Zoro looked sad, his shoulders were hanging low, that confident posture that always held him had completely vanished. Before him wasn’t the demon of the East, not the pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro whose name was enough to instill fear even in the bravest of pirates, no, before him stood a young man who was grieving the loss of a friend.
Zeff put his hand on his shoulder as he had often done with Sanji when he had been too deep in his head, when he needed someone to pull him out, “Beyond my anger and beyond my grief I do not hate you so why would they?”
“I think I’d rather they hate me”, a quiet sob escaped his lips, “Because if they don’t, it will seem like my actions are acceptable and it will seem like Sanji’s murder is forgivable.”
Zoro buried his hands in his hair, fingers creating green streaks on his head. Uncertainty and doubt were flashing through his face and warped his features, forming creases around his forehead and nose.
“What good is a swordsman if he uses his skills to kill his friends?”, he asked. Zeff wasn’t sure if he was asking him or if he just said his thoughts out loud so they wouldn’t be trapped in his head anymore.
This wasn’t a question Zeff could answer and even if he did have an answer, it wouldn’t be one worthy to the enquirer. Zeff was a cook, he had decided a long time ago that he would never touch a sword to fight, he had taught it to his kid too. It was a lesson integral to his being, so no matter what he’d reply it wouldn’t be a reply for a swordsman because Zeff didn’t understand what it meant to be one. So he asked something else instead.
“Why did you come here?”
This too he didn’t understand, why come to the Baratie, why come to him? To the father of his loved one?
“You needed to hear it from me”, he replied simply and he appreciated the sentiment but it wasn't enough.
“Why did you stay?”
Zoro hesitated, “I don’t know. It felt wrong to go.”
His hand wandered to his katana, movement small enough it could be overlooked but Zeff had been fixated on that movement, somehow never leaving him be. When Zoro reached for his katana Zeff had to watch.
“I needed time to sort the thoughts in my head. I couldn’t think straight”, he began, “I saw him in every corner in every room I was in, I saw him everytime I unsheathed my swords. I heard him in the quiet kitchen, heard him even when there was nothing to remind me of him. I couldn’t confront Luffy when I could barely confront myself.”
“I needed a place where I could work through my thoughts, even just a little bit, enough so I could at least look Luffy in the eyes again.”
He understood what he was trying to tell him but the world was grand, why would he choose the Baratie, why not his hometown? He was born in the East Blue, the island where he’s from couldn’t be far away.
“And you thought the deck of the restaurant Sanji grew up in would be the perfect place to do that?”
“The deck of the grieving restaurant Sanji grew up in”, he added, “You’re angry at me too, I didn’t want to go to a place where I’d forget what I caused.”
So he wanted to punish himself. He wanted to go somewhere where he wouldn’t be allowed to hide from his actions but he must’ve miscalculated how much he himself was hurting.
“There’s no place on this planet where you’d forget that because you’re carrying the pain with you”, Zeff reminded him, an observation he made the past few days, something Zoro must surely know about himself.
Zoro raised his head, a dark eye staring into him and then with a quiet voice he said, “I think I wanted to be somewhere that belonged to Sanji, I wanted to be with him, just a little bit longer.”
The Baratie was a place where he could stop time for a moment before he’d have to face reality.
“When I built this restaurant with Sanji, we built a place that would serve as a shelter for the hungry and the outlaws. No matter what you’ve done, there’d be warm food and a job here, a refuge from the harsh sea”, Zeff explained, “There will continue to be refuge to anyone who needs it but Zoro, I have unwillingly trapped Sanji here once before, don’t let yourself be trapped here too.”
The strawhat crew arrived the next day, their ship was slowly sailing towards the floating restaurant, the clear sky and good weather making it impossible to miss. It was a different one, not the small one with the sheep as its figurehead. There was a lion that replaced the sheep, red and yellow colours a stark contrast to the blues of the sky and the ocean. One could call the strawhat pirates a lot, stealthy didn’t seem to be one of those adjectives.
The entire kitchen staff was waiting for them to disembark, their duties completely forgotten for the moment. Zoro was standing away from them, the closest to where the ships could dock. He’d been nervous yesterday, knowing that his crew was on the way and that he’d inescapably be judged for his actions.
Zeff recognised all of them but he had only met three. Besides Luffy there was the long nosed sniper and the orange haired navigator, both easily spotted though time has aged them as has the grief if the tired eyes were any indication. He had read about the others and could name every single one of them, from the huge cyborg shipwright to the small reindeer doctor. Sanji had written to him about them, if he tried hard enough he could recall all of their favourite foods, information Sanji considered worthy to share with him.
Luffy walked away from his crew and approached Zoro, he stopped a few steps in front of him and observed him.
“Captain”, the swordsman spoke first.
Luffy nodded, the straw hat casting dark shadows on this face, “Zoro.”
Zoro didn’t respond but instead waited to see what Luffy had to say.
“We’ve come to get you.”
He gripped the head of his katana with a stronger force but otherwise kept himself straight.
“I lost one crewmate, I don’t want to lose another.”
“Why?”, Zoro shook his head, his composure falling, “I committed the worst crime a pirate could commit.”
When Monkey D. Luffy crashed into his restaurant all those years ago Zeff had met a joyful boy who ate like his appetite never shrank and who had broken dishes when he was supposed to clean them but then the Don Krieg pirates had threatened the restaurant and their chefs and Luffy’s demeanour changed entirely. The scary part about Monkey D. Luffy was that he knew when to take something seriously and when he did your skin would shudder from his intense gaze and for a second you’d forget all about the boy who liked to pick his nose when he was bored.
But Zeff could see through his mask for once. His eyes were dark and he stood like an unmovable mountain but if you looked closely you could see his lower lip tremble slightly, his emotions shining through there, the loss of his crewmates hitting him harder than he was allowing himself to show.
“You and Sanji”, he lets the name rest on his tongue for a moment, “You always had secrets. To this day I don’t know what happened in Thriller Bark but I trust that you two knew what you were doing so I never asked and even now I don’t ask, I don’t need to know. You two have your own world, forehead to forehead, there is no place for another in between.”
A pause, no one dared to disturb it.
“Sanji decided to ask you for help, trusted you with this and I can’t get mad at the fact that you didn’t tell us but I am mad at the outcome.”
Zoro started shaking his head, “I know, I’m-.”
“No”, Luffy interrupted him, “Let me finish. I’m mad and maybe it’s good that you went away right after it happened because I would’ve said things I’d regret, especially now that Sanji is gone, he would’ve hated my words spoken in fury, he always did.”
The sniper raised his hand to his eyes and turned his head away from them, the navigator placed her own hand on his shoulder and squeezed comfortingly.
“I know how much you loved him, I don’t understand why you did it and maybe I never will but I don’t think it was your fault so I can’t blame you. And you’re suffering, what shit friends would we be to turn our eyes away from that?”
Zoro continued shaking his head like he couldn’t agree with Luffy’s words. He bit down on his lip to stop himself from making any sounds, not allowing his sobs to escape him.
And then, “Sanji wouldn’t want us to fight, not about this.”
That was what broke the swordsman, the tears started overflowing from his eyes and no matter how much he wiped his cheeks his face remained wet. He fell to his knees with a loud thud and started crying without holding himself back. This was not one tear escaping from his carefully crafted walls, or a sob that was torn out of him from a wave of sadness. This was him letting go, letting himself feel the entirety of his pain.
Luffy kneeled next to him and slung his arms around him.
“I can’t believe he’s gone”, Zoro managed through his tears, “I can’t believe he’s truly gone, Luffy.”
“I know”, Luffy’s voice broke, his mouth contorted from sorrow. The rest of the crew joined them and Zeff watched as they all held each other tightly.
Carne put his hand on his shoulder and when Zeff turned his head to look at him, he could see that his eyes were red too, streaks of tears visible on his cheeks.
“That shitty brat was well loved, wasn’t he?”
No one could deny that and if there had been doubts before they must’ve vanished from this sight alone.
“He had a way of worming into people’s hearts”, Zeff agreed.
His mourning would never know an end, how brutal it was for a child to die before their parent. But for now, friends and family united, Zeff could go to bed knowing Sanji lived life to the fullest, out on the sea with people who loved him, with people who loved him so much that they’d keep even the most unimaginable promises.
