Chapter Text
Between the new intern nervously dropping freshly-washed plates on the floor and the incredibly busy dinner rush that night, Sanji only had five minutes for his smoke break, and even that was cutting it close.
Pointer finger bandaged tightly (stupid, he'd cut it helping Usopp clean the plate shards up as he tried not to yell at the poor kid), Sanji tapped impatiently against the pack of smokes in his jacket pocket as he maneuvered himself through the organized chaos of Le Tout Bleu's kitchen. Small nicks from knives in the kitchen were inevitable, of course, but whenever possible, Sanji took the best possible care of his hands.
As Sanji entered the back hallway, Usopp's loud, teary I'm sorrys faded away. Back here were extra freezers, closets for non-kitchen things, and the loading dock for the supply trucks. There was also a small door that led to the alley out back and also served as the staff entrance.
Thank fuck!
They hadn't had a night this busy in a while; some bigshots had a table today, he knew, from Robin giving him the rundown this morning. He had better things to do than gawk at movie stars, though, so he'd left any excessive pandering of the rich to Robin and his more than capable hospitality team.
From what he'd heard in an update about an hour ago, their work was really cut out for them; fans and press kept trying to get in. What a mess.
He shook a cigarette out of the pack, the act of smacking the small box against his palm and the familiar motions of his fingers almost as soothing as the actual nicotine itself. He turned the handle of the door and pushed it open with his shoulder.
The door hit something—someone?—because there was a yelp from the other side and a thud.
"What the hell?" Sanji said out loud, confused, and stuck his head out.
And holy shit—there was a small group of people out there, dressed in dark colors, cameras slung around their necks. The closest, now on the ground and clutching their head where presumably Sanji had hit them with the door, had a high-tech camera as well.
Sanji stuffed his cigarette back into his pocket and bellowed, "Are you fucking breaking into my restaurant!?"
Six in total, five clustered close, one hanging back a bit. All adults. No one looked that alarmed to see him.
"Look," said the next-closest guy, still standing. He held a camera tripod in his hand in a way Sanji had never seen before—like it was a weapon. "We just want to get in and out, get some pics of Mihawk."
"Oh hell no," Sanji growled. "You all have five seconds to get the fuck away from me." He pointed at the camera on the wall above the door. "And another five seconds to start running, 'cause you can bet your asses the cops are going to see that camera footage!"
The smarmy tripod-holder advanced closer at the same time as the person he'd knocked over with the door. "We have enough cash to make it worth your while," he started to say, but he reached into his jacket pocket, grabbing something unseen, and Sanji reacted instinctively.
He flung his tall chef's hat at the man's face, startling him, and followed it with a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. His special anti-slip shoes he wore in the kitchen weren't great for fighting but they still made a satisfying thunk right into the chest of the next one. He flew back onto the pavement.
At age seventeen he'd lost his first restaurant job for kicking the sorry ass of a customer who talked shit about his food. Since then he'd had plenty of close calls, but no more fights in a restaurant per se—and maybe this didn't even count, as it was the alley just behind.
But this was Le Tout Bleu, his own restaurant, his dream, the thing he worked for every damn day of his life until his early thirties. And five years later, this was his fucking home.
"Oh my god, he's actually fighting back," someone gasped, and the voice sounded feminine, so Sanji left her alone, the one in the back. But the other three had rallied after the first two went down, probably unconscious. Sanji ducked a clumsy swing and grunted as something crashed into his face; it was the only thing these paparazzi had to fight with, and that was evidently a camera. It split the skin, and Sanji felt hot blood start to seep down from his hairline.
Smooth as anything, Sanji flipped forward into a handstand and spun, his feet kicking two of them hard enough to send them down hard. He cartwheeled, a blur in his large white chef's jacket, hair all over the place, and came up with enough momentum to drive his knee into the solar plexus of the last man.
Gasping, the man went down on his knees, joining the others on the pavement, slightly-damp from the frigid fog that rolled in off the ocean earlier that evening.
Sanji stood there, chest heaving, adrenaline making every bit of his body sing. He closed his one eye, ignoring the blood slowly trickling down his face, and pulled out his cigarette.
He sparked his lighter, the gold one he always had on him, and lit the cigarette, staring down the woman in the back, filming him.
"I- I got all of that," she said faintly.
"I don't give a fuck," Sanji rasped. He inhaled deep and looked up at the night sky, exhaling the smoke in a long, thick stream. "Get these assholes out of my sight, and don't come back."
Sanji finished his cigarette in record time. When the one he'd kneed got his breath back, he tried to swipe at Sanji's ankles, but Sanji kicked him in the side, setting off another round of pathetic gasping and coughing.
Sanji tossed the butt of his cigarette onto the first guy he'd knocked out and went back inside with his key. Of course the door locked automatically—they couldn't have people sneaking in the back just like that.
Rage bubbled up inside him like the froth from champagne; that miserable fight had shook him up, and he wasn't panicking but he was something close to it, something similar to when your fight or flight kicked in and Sanji'd always chosen fight. He felt like he could burst.
Sanji barricaded the back door, kicking one of the waist-height freezers in front of the door, uncaring if it unplugged the thing. Then he swept out of the back hallway and through the kitchen, chef's coat loose from his fight and billowing out behind him like some sort of pissed-off avenging angel.
Kiku gave a small shout when she saw him, and the kitchen's sous-chef being anything less than her professional, put-together self made everyone else turn and spot him.
"Keep cooking!" Sanji barked, making his way past them all. "Don't fall behind! I've got this!"
Sanji burst out of the kitchen and into the main dining area. The sounds of cutlery on plates and soft conversation stopped rather quickly. Sanji ignored his customers, though, his vision dark and tunneled and focused, and he stormed out the front door into the crowd gathered outside. They never had people waiting by the doors like this; Le Tout Bleu was almost entirely reservation-only, because they were fucking good and people came and he'd worked for this.
Robin was there, at his elbow, trying to stop him and see what was going on. Sanji shook her off, repeating I've got this, I've got this and stopped still once the front door closed behind him. He'd guard this place with his fucking life.
"IF YOU DON'T HAVE A RESERVATION," Sanji bellowed into the crowd of gawkers trying to see in their windows at whoever-the-hell, "I NEED YOU TO GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY RESTAURANT RIGHT THIS INSTANT."
He turned his scathing one-eyed glare on a bunch of teenagers waving signs who had made it the closest, grubby hands leaving streaks on the glass his custodians had to painstakingly clean every morning before they opened for service.
"Now!" Sanji yelled, when, perhaps in shock, no one moved. He gestured wildly with his arms, telling them get back, and to his immense satisfaction, people started scrambling away.
One asshole crept forward though, in an ugly mish-mash of dreary-looking designer brands. "I'm the head of Perona's fanclub, and I can very well be where I please—"
"And this is my private business, and this side of the street is mine, asshole," Sanji sneered. Blood pounded in his ears and gushed from his temple. "And I can use reasonable force to defend it, and myself, as well as decide who to refuse service to! So back the fuck up."
The man got closer, but he was, luckily, the only one; everyone else was gone now, watching from the middle of the street or on the other side, holding up traffic.
Sanji held out his hand. "Not another step."
Cockily, the man got closer, and crooned, "Or what? Some random chef will go to jail for assault?"
Sanji brought one leg sky-high, his thighs not even protesting from all the practice at savate class over the years, and brought the back of his heel down hard directly on the man's head. He instantly crumpled onto Le Tout Bleu's doorstep.
One hit!
Had this been a savate match, or really any other fucking occasion, Sanji may have been pretty damn impressed with his own ability to still be really goddamn cool, even at age thirty-seven.
Instead, Sanji scowled at the shocked group of people across the street and spun on his heel, headed back inside.
Robin and Conis, head of hospitality were there, and every other employee that evidently had found the time to stop what they were doing and stare. Usopp's legs were shaking so bad the kid looked like he was going to fall over, and that finally snapped Sanji out of his fog of anger a bit.
"Ice?" Sanji prompted Usopp, and the intern nodded shakily before running into the back.
Sanji sighed, wiped blood away from the one side of his face with his sleeve, and addressed the eerily silent dining room at large: "Sorry for that incident, mes amis—please continue enjoying your meals. I'm not in the business of letting my customers be disturbed by others when they are here."
He bowed low at the waist, begging their forgiveness, then stood: Police to call, undoubtedly a shitstorm of things to deal with now.
"Hey!" a customer called.
He was a young-looking man with black hair seated at the table beside the one that caused all this drama, Sanji could only presume. He recognized the beautiful woman with the pink hair from an ad on his television just that morning. Sanji raised an eyebrow, waiting, and the man continued, "You really kicked his ass! That was so cool! Well done."
He grinned widely around a mouthful of lobster and Sanji couldn't help but smile back, the rage fading into something like dumbstruck amusement as the past five minutes sunk in.
"Thank you," he said, bowing again, and a couple of the customers clapped for him, and awkward laughter went through the crowd. Absurd.
Now blushing, Sanji hurried into his office, in another back hallway along Le Tout Bleu's side facing the ocean. His office window looked out there, and it was everything he'd ever wanted.
Fuck.
Usopp brought him ice and Sanji pressed clean kitchen towels to his bleeding gash as he explained what happened, first out back, and then right in front.
Robin, his best friend for over twenty years now, did not seem that worried for him or even that shocked; she seemed proud, even, smiling to herself even as she dialed the cops (who were probably already on their way). Usopp looked faint, though, and Sanji made him sit with his head between his knees.
Then came the long process of waiting for the police (who at least abided by their request to park in back, as to not cause another scene in front of the restaurant) and paramedics who gathered up the guy in front (who wasn't fucking dead thank you very much, Usopp). Everyone whose ass he kicked in the back was long gone.
Sanji recounted his story over and over and over. They showed the police the footage from their cameras, which clearly showed people fiddling and messing with the lock out back. They got statements from him, his staff, and even a few customers.
What. A fucking. Mess.
The only two good things that happened was that Sanji was allowed to go home after the cops reviewed some video they had seen on social media, and that Conis told him in a small, awed voice, that tips tonight had been astronomical.
Kiku and Robin kicked him out before closing, saying he had to rest; Kiku could run the whole restaurant herself blindfolded, and Sanji felt no nervousness leaving things in her hands.
Guilt was starting to creep in, though, and Sanji snuck out the back and dragged his sorry ass home. His jacket was ruined, obviously, a whole sleeve and the collar stained as shit.
He turned off his phone, showered, smoked, downed too much wine, and hoped that when he woke he'd still have Le Tout Bleu.
Sanji woke to banging on his front door. He laid there for a moment, irritated, staring at his ceiling, as it continued.
"Chef Black!"
Oh! That wasn't Robin, like he assumed—that was the voice of Le Tout Bleu's social media manager, a part-timer.
"Hold on," Sanji called, voice a rough, ragged thing. He staggered to the door after pulling on some sweats and a shirt. The bandaged cut on his head hurt like fuck.
Coby spilled into Sanji's apartment talking a mile a minute the moment Sanji opened the door. Sanji didn't hear a fucking word.
"Slow down," he said, "And start over. And why are you here?"
Coby certainly had no reason to visit Sanji's personal home before; he wasn't even aware Coby knew where he lived. Coby was looking around not-so-subtly and said, "Nice apartment, Chef Black," before launching into his explanation:
"Your cell phone is off."
"Yeah. I didn't want to talk to anyone."
"But it means you've missed this," Coby said, setting up his laptop at Sanji's kitchen island and turning it around. Pulled up is Twitter, where Coby's finger jabs repeatedly at the worldwide trending topic #NinjaChef.
"What the fuck," Sanji said.
The accompanying informational blurb read Chef Sanji Black of esteemed restaurant Le Tout Bleu gets in a physical altercation with alleged trespassers and fans of Dracule Mihawk, Perona Mihawk, and Zoro Roronoa.
The first tweet under the topic when Coby clicks on it is from Le Tout Bleu itself, undoubtedly tweeted by Coby:
@LeToutBleu: Thanks to law enforcement and paramedics for the swift response to the incident that occurred at our restaurant today. The safety of our customers is our number one priority, and Executive Chef and owner @MrPrinceSB demonstrated that.
Then another:
@LeToutBleu: Our favorite chef is fine - just at home resting! Thanks for the concern, everyone! Reservations at [email protected]
Both were dated for late last night, which meant that around the time Sanji was drinking a bottle of wine in the shower and definitely not crying a little, afraid he'd lost everything he'd ever worked for in the time it took to make a roux, Coby and probably other members of his staff were scrambling to do damage control on the mess he caused. He was such a shit. All these years in the business and he hadn't learned his lesson—
Sanji realized he was pulling his hair, eyes clenched shut, and scaring Coby. "Sorry," he said, breathing in deep and forcing his hands away from his scalp. "I'm going to cook breakfast and make coffee. Can you talk to me while I do it?"
"Um, yes!" Coby said enthusiastically. Sanji smiled softly despite himself and got to work. Cooking had always been the number one thing to calm him down. As he measured coffee beans and prepped the French press Coby explained that video leaked of the fight in the back, filmed by one of the paparazzi back there.
"The woman," Sanji murmured.
"Yeah. That's what saved you, I think—it clearly shows the one guy reach in his coat, you thought it was a gun, and you started attacking in self defense."
"...Right. I definitely thought it was a gun."
"But anyway, someone put videos together, of the fight in the back and then you coming out front because someone else was filming—and it has over two million views!"
Sanji croaked, spilling water all down his shirt, "What!"
"Yeah, it's kind of a meme," Coby said. He played the video, just under three minutes in total. Sanji watched himself yell, kick their asses, smoke a cigarette over their mostly-unconscious bodies (god, that had really hit the spot), and then it cut to a different camera, less HD, probably a phone camera from one of the celebrities' fans. The one-kick knockout looked as good as he thought it would. The gash on his forehead looked frightful though, bright red against the stark white of his chef's whites. Merde, his hat was probably still in the back alley.
Then Coby started showing him versions of his fight put to music, with pop music beat drops set to the moment he went into his cartwheel, and even an autotune song where they'd taken his angry words and put it to a shitty beat.
"Coby," Sanji said, furiously whipping egg whites into stiff peaks by hand because he had to burn the nervous energy, "Please fucking stop."
"Okay, okay," Coby said. "Anyway, that's where #NinjaChef came from, from you fighting them. I didn't know you could fight, by the way. A lot of big chefs are tweeting about the incident and giving their thoughts, and for the most part everyone is on your side."
Even the fucking B.A.R.A.T.I.E. tweeted about it:
@BARATIE: That's my son!!! -Executive Chef Zeff Black
"Oh my god," Sanji moaned.
An article from a reputable news source was the most-commonly shared one, and the preview had a professional shot of Sanji from last year. His hair was short then, and goatee a bit longer. He'd started growing his hair out, and now the ends of it passed his shoulders when down.
"But, okay," Coby continued, "The reason this got so huge in the first place is because Dracule Mihawk thanked you for protecting them once the video we saw earlier came out and retweeted it."
@DMihawk: Thanks to @LeToutBleu staff and head chef @MrPrinceSB for protecting our privacy this evening. That is truly going above and beyond for your customers. The food was good, too. @Roronoa @Purrrrona
Attached was a picture of his meal, and it did look good. His staff didn't fuck up. But Dracule Mihawk, two-time Oscar winner, as Coby reminded him, had over ten million followers on Twitter.
Then Coby's face got a little red, and he said, "And, well, I guess the other big thing to show you is Zoro Roronoa's tweet about it."
Sanji, placing an absurd amount of stress-cooked food in front of the college student, said tiredly, "Just show me."
Zoro retweeted the video of the fight and simply added:
@Roronoa: It was the sexiest thing I've seen in my entire life.
And of course, of course, the replies were his fans going wild, yelling in all caps and using reaction images galore. And then:
@BARATIE: @Roronoa He's single. -Executive Chef Zeff Black
Sanji started to smoke his fifth cigarette of the morning.
As they ate, Coby finally tucked his laptop away and talked about what he and Robin had decided to do moving forward - the plan was to milk this thing, because Le Tout Bleu's reservations had gone through the roof that night and this morning. Sanji's fifteen minutes of fame would eventually pass, and things would settle, but they all hoped that in the meantime they would get as much money out of this as possible.
It made sense from a business perspective, and Sanji had not made it this far without taking his fair share of business courses. Shit about marketing and finance and staff management and all that. But he liked cooking, and something small rankled at him about his restaurant being known for this and not necessarily for its food.
Coby put away his whole plate and half of Sanji's. College kids. He'd changed the password on the restaurant's Twitter account after a few hacking attempts, apparently, and gave Sanji the new one. Their yelp review page was momentarily on ice because of a flood of five star reviews from the celebrities' fans that were obviously fake. Stuff like FUCK YEAH NINJA CHEF was not a review of their food or service, apparently.
"Okay, so," Coby said later, rubbing his stomach. "I have class in an hour. But after I'm going to tweet some more. Can you send me some videos of you practicing your fighting or whatever?"
"It's Savate," Sanji corrected. "Mostly. And, um, sure."
Sanji fetched his phone, tossed carelessly on the couch last night, and powered it on.
They watched as notification after notification after notification blew up his screen. Missed calls. Texts. Enough Twitter notifications to boggle Sanji's mind.
"Um," Coby said, "Real quick I'll change your notification settings on my laptop. You don't need to get an alert every time anyone tweets you."
When Sanji's phone was useable again, right as Coby was jamming on his sneakers and his university hoodie, Sanji sent him some videos his buddy Gin took at the gym they trained at. The cartwheel and handstand were, admittedly, his favorite moves, and definitely were featured.
"Thanks, Coby, really," Sanji said. He felt very overwhelmed. His fingers shook from the rush of nicotine and caffeine.
"Of course," Coby said, "That's why you pay me! But… um, really. I didn't say this before but—it was pretty badass. I'm not surprised it went viral."
"...Thanks."
Coby grinned and was gone.
Sanji curled up on his couch with his phone, squinting at it, twirling the longest bits of his hair around his finger to avoid the urge to pull on it.
There were several missed calls from Robin, and then two texts from her. Coby is coming over. And: You can come in, if you're up to it, but don't expect to be in charge of the kitchen. Kiku is more than capable. You need to take it easy for a few days.
Gritting his teeth, Sanji didn't even bother responding. Instead he googled Roronoa Zoro. While he recognized the Mihawks the green-haired man was much less familiar.
He was an actor in Japan until recently, apparently, famous for J-Dramas and movies. And now he was in the West receiving some sort of personal actor mentorship from Dracule Mihawk, and they'd starred together in one of those films Dracule won an Oscar in, Zoro winning Best Supporting Actor last year.
But forget all that shit—the guy had an instagram, and each picture Sanji scrolled through was sinfully attractive, with the man pumping iron and doing upside-down crunches at the gym hanging from a pole and shit. There he was hiking, swimming (wow, what a scar!), and getting drunk with—oh my god, Nami.
Sanji's favorite actress! She was a fucking goddess, loveliness personified, orange hair so vibrant, and played the lead role in Tangerine, which always made him fucking sob alone in his apartment.
In almost all the photos Zoro's expression was pretty flat—he seemed like a serious guy. In the one with Nami his face was scrunched up in mock-annoyance while she laughed loudly, arm around his shoulders. Cute.
And apparently the guy thought he was sexy, or at least him kicking down a paparazzo was sexy.
He texted his dad stop setting me up online and laughed gruffly at the response: don't tell me what to do, eggplant. How's your head?
Fine. Nasty bruise but the cut is ok I think.
A haircut would be ok too
Shut up, Sanji responded, rolling his eyes, and tucked his phone away. Zeff ragged on him about growing his hair out every time they saw each other. Zeff was just jealous, probably, that his own hair was nearly gone, the geezer. And besides—Sanji really unexpectedly loved it long. He'd probably go another few inches.
Cautiously, Sanji checked the #NinjaChef tag.
@hulalalala: omg #NinjaChef kicked that guy's fucking head in sksksksks I stan
@peachnred610: i think zoro and #ninjachef should kiss, yes I do.
@VividC0l0rz: are u kidding me? If i was at a fancy restaurant and the chef started assaulting people I would demand a refund? Why is everyone normalizing this predatory behavior? Fucking weirdos. #NinjaChef
Aaaand, that was enough of that.
Sanji got ready for work. He had more than one chef's coat, of course he did. His was special, even, fitting of his place as Executive Chef. There were more hats at work; unlike his ridiculous dad, he didn't think the size of his hat had to be proportionate to his authority at the restaurant.
Carefully, Sanji tried to keep his mind blank. If he thought too hard about the hundreds (thousands?) of people talking about him online he choked on his cigarette and felt like he was gonna hurl his breakfast into his sink.
"You're almost forty," Sanji said aloud to himself, hating the way his fingers shook as he tied his shoes on (the shoes that had struck people yesterday). "Get it together."
Sanji parked further away from Le Tout Bleu than usual. As he approached his restaurant he could clearly see an abnormal number of people loitering outside the front (though it did seem that they were at least on the opposite side of the street, which, hell yeah). The alley in back that sometimes he cut through to get to his favored parking lot a few blocks away, though, looked packed.
So Sanji parked a ways away and slunk, nervously, towards his own restaurant. He became acutely aware of the hideous fucking bruise on the side of his head with the fresh bandaid. He attempted to part his hair differently in an attempt to hide it, covering his opposite eye this time, but the wind kept stubbornly revealing it again.
It was maybe ten in the morning, and they didn't open for lunch service until noon, yet there was definitely a crowd. Sanji resisted the urge to pull out a cigarette as he approached Le Tout Bleu, feeling like a man headed to the gallows.
The front entrance was the safer bet for sure, so Sanji awkwardly walked towards the front door on the empty sidewalk, well aware of the spectators watching him.
"Oh! Ninja Chef!"
And there, out of the throng, came a beaming young woman with her phone on a selfie stick. Her beautiful lips turned down in a frown just as she crossed over the street and onto the sidewalk, though, and she asked him, "Is it alright if I come over here to ask you a question?"
"But of course!" Sanji gushed, all his anxiety turned into absolute delight as he realized he was a minor internet celebrity today—him! And there was a girl in the hoodie of the historically Black college in the city coming towards him and turning her bedazzled phone around for a selfie of them!
"I would never kick a lady! Would you like a photo?"
She was already striking a pose, though, a peace sign up by her fabulously applied cat's eye eyeliner, so Sanji copied her after pushing his hair away to expose more of his paparazzi-inflicted wound.
He beamed, she took a few photos, and then she said, "Thanks! You kicked their motherfucking asses."
"It was my pleasure," Sanji said nobly, bowing to her like she was a princess—and she really was, so lovely, giggling at him, and moving back to her friends across the street. Other people, perhaps emboldened by Sanji not lashing out at her, started to press closer, but—
"Robin, please," Sanji gasped then, being pulled rather painfully by his arm inside his own restaurant.
"No," she said simply, "We're making a public appearance plan before you ruin it all by being yourself."
"But look!" he whined, "The ladies love me—"
He was cut off by Robin's husband's loud declaration that it was just so SUPER! to see him, Franky opening the door and pulling the both of them inside. The doors locked, then, and Sanji was urged deeper into the restaurant and away from the doors.
Without being blinded by the radiance of a beautiful woman, though, Sanji could see a bit clearer; yeah, that had been risky. A chorus of exuberant hellos from his staff distracted him, though, and a flood of his employees filed out of the kitchen and into the dining area to greet him.
"Lookin' good, Chef," one of the prep cooks called, flashing a thumbs-up.
"Yeah, reeeeal handsome..."
"I saw the clip on the news this morning—"
"—that looks like it hurts!"
Everyone's chatter washed over him and Sanji found himself smiling widely. He allowed it for a minute longer, then said, "Yeah, yeah," and held up his hands. "I took them out and I'll do it again for you guys. Didn't think it would get this much attention, though."
"You are too humble," Kiku said, smiling her soft smile at him. "Now—back to the kitchen!"
Her well-trained small army of chefs trooped after her, but not without some last ribbing at Sanji's expense.
His hospitality team wouldn't arrive for another hour, and the second shift workers who would stay until close not until after that. But Sanji still felt full and warm, surrounded by his employees, who he thought of as family. The familiar blue walls of his restaurant, the back aquarium wall, and even the soft lighting immediately soothed him.
"So," Franky said, but Sanji interrupted him:
"Why are you here?"
"A bit of extra muscle." Franky flexed one arm and winked at him. "I thought I'd spend some of the day… Robin and I weren't sure whether we'd have any copycats or not."
"Oh." Sanji eyed the front door and the crowd outside. "I didn't think about that. You think so?"
"The police yesterday said it was a possibility, but with how popular that video has gotten, someone else really might try their luck." Robin shrugged.
Grimacing, Sanji said, "Let's hope I don't have to fight anyone else."
Franky laughed, loud and hard, and nothing could get Robin to crack a smile faster than her husband's laughter, and that sent Sanji into a high-pitched fit of dumbass giggles.
"Holy shit," Sanji wheezed, "This whole thing is so weird."
Uncharacteristically giggly herself, Robin wiped a tear from her eye and said, "We had to unplug the phone and took the number off our site; it's just press call after press call."
"Oh, by the way." The expression on Franky's face looked like he was holding in a giant crap—that had Sanji instantly suspicious. "When do the rest of us get to meet Zoro Roronoa?"
Franky danced out of the way of Sanji's irritated kick (he'd been going easy on him, okay) and laughed loudly as he retreated.