Chapter Text
Zoro likes napping in the mess after lunch.
He earns Sanji’s mercy by helping with dishes before he does. It’s a smaller job than dinner dishes, which is a task rotating between him and Usopp, and Zoro actually doesn’t mind helping in exchange for some peace. There’s an abundance of good nap spots and the cook’s usual after-lunch activities aren’t bad to fall asleep to. Normally he’s puttering around, making snacks or early aspects for dinner preparations. Zoro learns the visible strength in the cook’s arms comes from kneading dough, whipping creams and batters, grinding spices and pulverizing for sauces. Regularly the cook cleans instead of prepping, keeping every corner of the kitchen spotless, and sometimes he polishes silverware. Unfailingly, by the time Zoro wakes up he’s working on dinner. Which usually means Zoro spending some time with other members of the crew, doing extra training, or preventing meat-related break ins by Luffy if dinner is roasting.
Zoro’s settled in his routine- waking up, breakfast, training until lunch, doing dishes and napping- so much so he almost doesn’t realize Sanji is doing something different one day until he hears the familiar scrape of metal against a whetstone.
It’s the first time he’s seen the stone, but not the first time Zoro had noticed Sanji’s knives. He kept them in a bamboo block in the furthest corner of the counter from the sink, and there was an impressive variety of them. Their shapes and connected purposes were lost to Zoro, most familiar with knives made for fighting, but they were obviously taken care of. Sanji was picky about them being put away dry as bone. And he always insisted on sole handling of his favorite- the one with a monogrammed handle he used for just about every vegetable that crossed his cutting board and a not insignificant percent of other ingredients. Zoro didn’t complain about the knife’s preferential treatment. He knew about caring for a favorite blade.
The favorite is not the one Sanji slides against the whetstone. It’s one of the small ones he uses for things like pitting olives and cherries or cutting small fruit, or the detail work cooking sometimes implies. Zoro sees the number on the whetstone and shakes his head to himself. By that and the sound…
“You’re using too high of a grit on that knife.”
Sanji jumps and then immediately swears.
“The hell do you know about cooking knives?”
Zoro raises a single eyebrow. Sanji seems to know the ridiculousness of what he’s said, because he flushes.
“I only have the two grits and the other one’s too high to start with.”
“How unlike curlybrow to be unprepared in the kitchen.”
“Hey! It’s not like you’re volunteering a solution!”
“You’re right. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Zoro trots out of the galley and over the deck to the crew quarters, and then his storage chest. He digs around until he finds the bag he’s looking for and heads right back to the galley.
Sanji seems almost surprised that Zoro comes back. Zoro sets the bag on the counter and begins taking things out- a set of whetstones, a polishing cloth, oils and wax.
“What the hell.”
“Here. This one should work better- but for god’s sake soak it first. Do you have any bigger knives that need work in the meantime?”
“I know how to sharpen my own knives. ”
“Not better than I do.”
“Oh yeah? Bet you can't prove it. I’ve sharpened probably a thousand more knives than you.”
Zoro draws Wado with a growl and sets it on the counter.
“They probably weren’t half as sharp as my sword.”
Zoro expects a comeback, something yelled or a kick, but instead the cook’s fingers wrap around the hilt of the sword. It’s not to heft it like a weapon- he takes it from the side, examining the blade. He obviously does have some knowledge about care- he keeps his fingers off the metal as much as he can, testing the flex with minimal movements and analyzing the edge pattern and the (lack of) tiny markings. He turns the hilt in his hands to examine further, watching the metal shine pass over the blade, thumb loosely tracing the cord wrap. Zoro finds his own hand absently mirroring the motions on the hilts of his other swords.
Zoro usually feels nakedly vulnerable with Wado Ichimonji in other’s hands. He hates it and limits it as much as possible. But Sanji’s careful examination doesn't feel that way. Strangely Zoro finds he doesn’t mind.
It’s not the first time Zoro has wondered how Sanji would fare as a swordsman. It is the first time he has thought they might make swordsmen of the same type.
Not the same skill level, of course. Zoro would always be dedicated to blades first and Sanji to cooking first, only followed up by blades. But perhaps they’d both share an aversion to dishonorable swordplay and the quiet appreciation for weapons that made Zoro care for his own at every opportunity. Sanji would be the kind of swordsman Tashigi would trust with a legendary blade, if the way he cared for his kitchen and Zoro’s sword had anything to say about it. His steady motions are kind of hypnotizing.
He taps the flesh of his thumb to the tip of the blade. A bead of blood drops down his hand and the cook’s dumb dartbrow raises.
“The hell are you doing.” Zoro grunts.
“Sharpness test,” Sanji’s gaze settles on him, “I assumed you were showing off.”
In a singularly idiotic motion, the calloused tip of Sanji’s pointer finger brushes perpendicular to the sharp edge of Wado. More blood than a drop wells in his hand. Zoro swears.
“What the hell, cook?”
Sanji hisses belatedly, wrenching his hand back- the Wado set gently down with his other hand- and curling it so the blood doesn’t drip.
“What do you mean what the hell, that’s how you sharpness test! I didn’t expect that sword to want to fucking skin me!” Sanji holds his injured hand over the sink and swears.
“No, idiot! You sharpness test by using the fucking thing, what was that?”
“What the best damn chef in the seas taught me to do when I was fucking ten! And I’ve never cut my damn finger open until-“ Sanji stops in his tirade mid sentence like someone had hit him in the head. Fortunately or unfortunately, Zoro and Sanji are the only souls in the kitchen.
And Sanji is getting that look.
It’s the same sort of one he has watching the crew devour a meal he’d worked many hours on. Zoro sees it there most often, but flickers of it elsewhere, to a battlefield after a fight well fought, to Luffy after a great speech, to the sky, through three blades after a lost spar, to a table covered in Nami’s latest masterwork of charting, to tales of the All Blue. Zoro doesn’t know why it’s coming up now, randomly, in the middle of the kitchen while Sanji is bleeding over his own sink after cutting himself. He also doesn’t know why it’s directed at him.
“Sharpen the rest of my knives for me.”
Zoro shrugs.
“Sure. For some booze.”
Sanji’s eyes sharpen.
“I’ll pour you sake with dinner. One bottle max, take it or leave it.”
Zoro huffs, sitting at the counter. He takes and sheathes Wado.
“I could break in for three times that much while I’m on watch tonight and not have to do a thing.”
“Take it or leave it, mosshead.” Sanji snaps back. His finger is cleaned and methodically wrapped with thin gauze. It wasn’t a bad cut- as stupid as Sanji was, the motion would have worked on a shitty blade.
“I’m not saying no to free booze.”
“Good,” Sanji sits down across from Zoro and his tools and sets down two knives- the big serrated one and one that looks like a cooking knife from the dojo kitchens. Zoro grabs the big one first because it’s easily three times the work.
“You have a honing steel?”
Sanji produces two rods from a drawer- one ceramic and one steel. Zoro tests with his fingers and hums.
“Gimme a bowl of water.”
“Thought you were doing this,” Sanji jabs, but returns with a bowl anyway.
“I am,” Zoro grins, “But I need whetstones for sharpening knives.”
Zoro sets the lower grit stones in the water and begins working on the big serrated knife. Sanji watches for a while- it’s not interesting, Zoro steadies the ceramic honing rod with his arm as he runs every channel against the edge. By the time Zoro reaches for Sanji’s low grit stone to do the tip and the flat edge, Sanji has brought over every knife in the block barring his favorite. It’s less than Zoro thought there were.
“What’s this damn annoying knife for, anyway?”
“Cutting bread.” Sanji states. Zoro glares.
“No fuckin’ way.”
“Why would I lie? It’s big so you reach across loaves and serrated so it gets through the crust without pressing and crushing the bread.”
“Okay,” Zoro huffs, “Which one do you butcher with?”
“Fish, it’s this one.” Sanji taps the handle of a knife with a curved blade and a tapered tip. It reminds Zoro of a scimitar, if those were tiny. “It’s called a boning knife and it makes it easier to separate fish bones. You use it to fillet things too, so it’s also called that. If the fish is too big or it’s something else, though, I use a cleaver and a carving knife.” Sanji taps two more handles- a big square one and a long thin one.
“The cleaver gets the seperation of pieces from the body done. Then, when you want to get meat off bones or shape cuts, the carving knife gets in. I’ve got a carving fork and a gut hook, too, but they really only hold things or pull out the guts. Plus they aren’t knives.”
Zoro sets down the serrated bread knife. He grabs the dojo-style indented one and eyes the edge.
“What’s this one do?”
“That’s a santoku. Comes from the same part of the ocean you do. It’s a good quality chef knife but the important part is the shape is perfect for balance. You’d use that to chop precisely, but not finely. Thin dicing you want a knife that rocks to make the motion faster. I use it the most for chunking.”
“So you dice with your favorite then.” Zoro’s finished with the knife by the time Sanji is done talking, both sides on three stones taking no time with muscle memory.
“My favorite?”
“That one. The one you don’t let me touch.” Zoro nods to the single knife remaining in the block.
“That’s a chef’s knife. It’s the most frequently used, that doesn’t make it my favorite, just important.”
“But it is your favorite.” Zoro slides the boning knife twice on the higher grit block. “You’re fussy about it.”
“I am not fussy- “
“You haven’t let me so much as start drying the handle-“
“-it’s an important knife, the heart of the kitchen-“
“Then you admit that it’s your-“
“-fine. Yes, you got me. That’s my favorite knife. Gloat.”
Zoro smiles to himself as he sharpens.
“S’cool. Wado is my favorite sword, I always end up taking better care of it. No Luffy allowed.”
There’s a snort. Then a pause.
“You let me hold it.”
“Yeah,” Zoro says quietly.
Sanji doesn’t say anything for a moment. Zoro finishes with fine grit on the boning knife and wipes it off.
“It’s a very nice sword.” Sanji concludes. Zoro huffs.
“Yeah.”
It’s quiet for a short while as Zoro works through knives. Sanji watches unnervingly close but Zoro doesn’t mind running the practiced motions with an observer. There’s more little ones, which Sanji informs are paring knives, a small hooked one for peeling, and a few small ones Sanji lays out with meat cuts for dinner (steak knives). He even sharpens a pair of kitchen shears, and a backup santoku. By then, with the care Zoro takes to make each nearly as sharp as his swords, it’s almost late afternoon, and Sanji shoos Zoro out to start testing the knives for dinner. They negotiate another bottle tomorrow if Sanji can watch Zoro seal the knives with wax.
Zoro feels like he’s missed something, but settles down for a short nap anyway.
{<>}
Nami, as usual, wakes Zoro for dinner with a quick kick to the ankles. Not as usual, she’s scowling at him.
“You did something.”
“…hm?”
“Don’t ‘hm’ me, Sanji is in a good mood, and he made you food.”
“Isn’t that his job?”
“Idiot! I mean he made your favorites for dinner.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It means you did something, and I wanna know what. If there’s a cheat to make Sanji stop obsessing over me and Robin for a few hours I outta know it.”
“I didn’t do anything, I just sharpened his knives so he’d gimme some booze.”
Nami gives Zoro an expression of utter, gobsmacked blankness. Zoro growls, standing up properly and stretching.
“What?”
“He let you sharpen his knives?”
“Sure, why not? I’m good at it.”
“Sanji? We’re talking about the same person?”
“Yes, Sanji, the cook, what’s your damn point?”
“Uhh… y’know what, I’ll let you figure that out yourself.”
“Damnit, Nami! Why are you making a big deal and then walking off like it’s nothing? What were you going to say?”
“It’s more entertaining if I let you figure it out!” Nami giggles and disappears into the mess. Zoro follows, angry for as long as it takes to walk in and see the table.
It’s all of his favorites.
Onigiri, obviously, of several types, but it’s accompanied with fresh sashimi, tempura, and miso soup. Sanji had recreated the pork buns Zoro had liked on one of their island stops, complete with curry rice, and paired with appropriate vegetables.
Nami smirks as she registers his shock. Sanji, busy with plates as usual, slaps Luffy’s grabbing hands from Zoro’s servings with tongs and then scowls at Zoro himself.
“Took you long enough,” Is his only comment before focusing back to the kitchen to attend empty plates and whatever he’d prepped for dessert.
Zoro settles at his place and starts eating. It’s delicious, of course. Usopp raises an eyebrow at him. Robin smirks from behind a book.
“Did you do something?” Usopp asks.
Zoro glares.
“Imnotaccusingyouofanything!!! C’mon, Zoro, I just mean Sanji only cooks like this when he’s really happy with-“
“It’s an alcohol pairing, dumbass.” Sanji returns from the kitchen with a tray- small glasses and two clear bottles full of liquid Zoro recognizes.
Sake. And good sake, at that. Zoro has no idea where Sanji had been hiding it.
“I wanted to use good sake for everyone tonight, so I made food that would actually taste good with it.” Sanji pours four small glasses smoothly with one bottle, passing them to Nami, Usopp, Robin and Luffy, who is still utterly engrossed in his plate (Chopper had been excused from drinking after the first few times. Luffy was on thin ice).
“W-what about the pork buns? Those were-“
“Usopp, I made you bean-sprout soup off a restaurant’s menu last week and steamed medicinal buns for Chopper for three days. It’s a ship cook’s job to collect recipes his crew likes.” Sanji pours another glass of sake with the second bottle, leaving both next to Zoro. Usopp looks appropriately chastised.
“That is true…”
“But you’re giving him a whole bottle of sake.” Nami notes.
“So he doesn’t touch any of yours, Nami-chan! Don’t worry, if you’re thirsty, I can-“
“No, thank you, Sanji.” Nami looks perplexed as she bites into a pork bun, “I’ve got charts to make later, so I’m keeping a clear head.”
“Of course!”
Sanji returns to the kitchen. A brief silence falls on the table.
“This is awesome! Thanks for being nice to Sanji, Zoro!” Luffy exhales before continuing to stuff his face.
“Yeah, thanks!” Chopper agrees with a grin.
“It’s not- oh, why do I care.” Zoro slaps a stretchy hand away and continues eating. Nami, Usopp and Robin laugh, the tension is broken, and routine continues.
Including the routine of desert. Except not really. Because there’s three deserts.
Two plates are piled high with dorayaki. Luffy snatches one straight off Sanji’s arm and the other is gently set with its accompanying dishes- ichigo daifuku with an artfully cut strawberry resembling a rose atop the pile and a tray stacked with sticks of mitarashi dango.
“Wow, Sanji, this looks delicious.” Nami says pleasantly.
“Of course, Nami-chan, I made sure there were plenty of sweets for your- don’t touch that you brute I made a plate without sticks so you don’t choke!” Sanji growls at Luffy, grabbing another plate of mitarashi dango off a stool and slapping his hand from the larger tray. Sure enough, the round rice cakes are stickless, and with an easier target Luffy is happily distracted.
“I didn’t know he could choke.” Robin notes.
“I asked Sanji not to risk it after an incident with some plates.” Chopper sighs.
Zoro takes one of the daifuku from the tray. He bites into it.
Chewy mochi and creamy anko around the fresh strawberry, wrapped in neatly balanced layers.
He puts five on his plate and swaps Usopp for the dango tray.
Salty-sweet soy glaze is sticky on the soft round cakes. And there’s that aftertaste- a little smoky soy from the glaze, just like the smell- he’s not had mitarashi dango someplace that got the aftertaste right since he lived at the dojo.
Four sticks of five stack up neatly. Robin passes the dorayaki, and Zoro isn’t surprised that their chef, the best one in the sea, has somehow managed to make dorayaki like an old lady from a festival stall. They’re not overfilled, not too crumbly or too sweet, fluffy but not too thick.
Zoro puts two on his plate and slides seven into his haramaki to stash for later.
He doesn’t look up from his plate for the rest of the meal- Lord knows Usopp and Nami are staring at him actually eating desert for once and he doesn’t want to know where or how Sanji is looking. It’s Usopp’s night for dishes and that means Robin will read aloud to keep him on task. Zoro disappears into the crow’s nest to take his night watch.
{<>}
Two hours into the night there’s footsteps on the ladder. A plate appears before a hand, with a familiar black suit cuff.
“Figured I’d bring you something to survive the night.” Sanji says when his head appears from the ladder. The plate is slid over to Zoro precisely. The last few onigiri, a pork bun, and…
“I had some leftover red beans and mochi. Thought you might like it.”
Mame daifuku. The beans on the outside are shaped like a flower. Zoro doesn’t even know how he did that.
Sanji is met with a glare.
“Did I ever tell you the first thing I did to train?”
“…no?” Sanji quirks his head.
“I was young so I got some of the jobs other people didn’t want to do. It took speed, precision, rhythm, control, strength and awareness. It also took hours, and made my hands and arms hurt like hell. It was the same motion, but you had to pay attention, and going too slow would add even more hours to your time.”
Sanji is silent.
“The first thing I ever did to train was pound mochi. You do not have extra mochi by accident, cook. Especially not you.”
Sanji is, again, silent.
Zoro looks at him.
“Yeah.” Sanji says, “Didn't expect you to figure it out, mosshead. I assumed you’d never cooked a day in your life.”
Zoro shifts. He’s not… uncomfortable, exactly. But he’s off track. Sanji makes people things- fancy cakes for the girls and extras for Luffy and bean sprouts or cherry icecream when Usopp or Chopper look homesick and deny it. Sanji makes him food because he’s a member of the crew, but he doesn’t- hadn’t- done something like this for him. Hadn’t pinned him down and looked at him- really looked- to find whatever it is that Sanji found that had him make pork katsu in barrels when Luffy looked too far into the horizon and orange sauce when Nami doodled her own tattoo instead of maps.
“Why?” Zoro asks.
Sanji leans his head back on the bench and lights the cigarette clenched in his teeth.
“To say thank you.”
“I already got-“
“I know what you wanted,” Sanji snorts, “But this is what I wanted to do. To say thank you. It might not really matter to you, or it might be overkill or whatever, but it’s what I wanted to do. So I did. That’s why.” Sanji exhales a long stream of smoke. Zoro shifts where he’s sitting, again, crosses his arms. He wants to say that’s stupid or I just asked for booze or it was easy .
But he bites his tongue.
He let you sharpen his knives? Sanji? We’re talking about the same person?
You let me hold it.
“I still prefer savory food,” Zoro starts, “but mame daifuku is my favorite dessert. Just. So you know.”
The end of Sanji’s cigarette glows in the darkness. His face is shadowed. He smirks.
“Thanks.”
Sanji climbs down the ladder. Zoro eats the daifuku.
They’re perfect.
{<>}
The next day is normal.
Zoro wakes up to eat breakfast (continental, Nami is staring at him suspiciously) and then naps on the deck for an hour before working out. Usopp walks up, takes a breath, and walks away. Robin chuckles. Working out is interrupted by lunch (stew, sandwiches, and fruit salad, Nami is still staring) and Zoro takes his usual place helping with dishes after.
His blade bag is carefully tucked into a corner of counterspace. He’d left it here the day before. Sanji sets the last dish (his big pot) in the drying rack and grabs the bag and the knife block to set up. Zoro sits on the other side of the counter again and digs through his bag for wax.
That and two clean cloths are easy to find. Zoro opens the wax, dabs a cloth in it, and gets to work.
Sanji is watching, of course. His eyes follow every little movement. It’s intense. But not bad.
“You have oil, too.”
“Yeah. I’ll put it on my swords between waxing. Keeps them clean and keeps rust away but it doesn’t protect the blades as much. I don’t think you can eat it so you probably shouldn’t oil yours.”
“Hmm. Good to know. And you can eat the wax?”
“Yeah, it’s just beeswax and plant oil pretty much. Sometimes there’s scents or other ingredients but usually if I want that I’ll buy an oil. Wears off quicker if it sucks.” Zoro pinches down the edge of the carving knife and Sanji watches him like a predator.
“Do you have to sharpen them again?”
“No. I wipe the stuff that might dull the edge on the clean cloth. Same motion as a whetstone, but just preventing the coat on the edge from being too thick.”
The waxing takes a shorter time than the sharpening. Zoro doesn’t have to be as meticulous. Working the coats of wax on Sanji’s myriad knives is almost… soothing, the same motions repeated again and again under Sanji’s watchful gaze.
Zoro grabs the last handle and freezes.
“I’d like you to sharpen it first, actually.”
“Hey, idiot.”
“I know I’m picky, but I’ve had the thing for ages, so I tested the others first.”
“Cook.”
“It really saved me a lot of time, but you didn’t grind off much material.”
“Curlybrow.”
“I figure you can sharpen it until I get better.”
“ Sanji. You don’t let other people touch your knives, do you?”
Zoro’s fingers fit just slightly off into the grooves of the wooden handle. It’s clean. Sealed. Worn into shape.
The initials B.L.S. decorate the handle.
Sanji pauses.
“I don’t.”
He looks at the knife in Zoro’s hands. It’s light compared to a sword. It might as well be welded to the spot for how impossible it is to lift.
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t,” Zoro gasps, “Get it.”
Sanji stares at Wado Ichimonji, where it sits at Zoro’s hip, for just a moment.
“But you do,” Sanji says softly, “you do.”
Zoro swallows.
He gets a bowl of water. Three grits of stone. A new cloth to wipe blades and wax on.
They sit while the stones soak.
“Zeff got it for me when the Baratie opened.”
Zoro traces the edge of the handle. Picks it up. Looks at the steel.
“High quality for a first knife.”
“I knew,” Sanji smiles, “I didn’t use it for three years, until I could chop as fast as Zeff with just as much quality. He pulled some favors, I think. His set was grand line steel and mine matched.”
“Just the one?”
“Yeah. A chef’s knife- it’s a chef’s greatest and most variable tool. You can cook most things without touching any other knives at all. When you’re getting a really good knife- you only really need a really good chef’s knife. Sturdy, quality, and sharp will do for the rest.”
“Seems weird.”
“Yeah, a little, but- a good chef’s knife is like the heart of a chef. Couple of our guys came in filthy and angry and starving, but none of their knives had a scratch on ‘em. It’s important.”
“I believe you.”
Zoro takes the stones out of the water and picks the knife back up. It’s a simple thing, really. The wood handle wraps the base of it, with grooves where Sanji’s fingers sit, near-invisible patterns on the steel where he chokes up the blade for a stable grip.
Zoro sharpens it with smooth, even strokes. He hears Sanji’s breathing. He can’t help but think that if he watched as someone else sharpened Wado, he’d choke.
One stone. Clean the blade. The next. Dry, wipe it off. Wax. Wipe again.
“Thanks. I’ll get your booze with dinner.”
“Don’t,” Zoro chokes, “Don’t worry about it.”
He goes back to the deck to lift weights.
{<>}
Dinner is normal. Sanji is normal. Nami is drilling a hole in Zoro’s head with her eyes.
Zoro doesn’t eat dessert and stays to help with dishes. Nami asks for another slice of cake and Sanji is delighted to oblige. She watches as they wash dishes and talk about- of all things- if Luffy could catch fish with his rubber-mouth if he swam. Zoro argues yes. Sanji argues he’d just swallow them raw, and that doesn’t count as catching it.
Nami leaves, the dishes end, and Sanji settles a freshly dried hand on the small of Zoro’s back. He jumps a little and it nearly makes him slam his hand in a cabinet.
“I have something for you.”
“You don’t have-“
“I know.” Sanji says smoothly. The hand retreats, and Sanji produces a plate of onigiri with three mame daifuku from the fridge.
“Thanks.” Sanji says. He has that look on his face.
Zoro stares at the plate. He should just take it and say thank you. He reaches out, grabs it-
“Do you want to hold Wado again.”
Sanji blinks in surprise.
“Uh. Yeah, sure.”
Oh. Fuck. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Or work.
Zoro sets down the plate and takes Wado and its sheath from his haramaki. He sets it on the counter and stands back, slightly, shoving an onigiri in his mouth so he doesn’t say more stupid shit.
Sanji traces his fingers up the white-lacquered bamboo sheath. There’s little white brushstroke patterns on it that Nami called froufrou when she first spotted them. She hadn’t ever realized they weren’t painted on for him.
Sanji holds the sheath steady and draws Wado Ichimonji in a smooth motion. This time, he holds it like a weapon, sure and foreward-facing. One of his thumbnails traces one of the indents from Zoro’s teeth on the cord.
Single-handed, Sanji flips Wado in a quick circle like Zoro had seen him do with his knives. His heart flutters.
“Good balance.”
Another onigiri.
Sanji’s fingers are thinner than Zoro’s, Zoro knows now. Thinner and longer. They’re probably not soft- cooking was hard work- but they’re probably smoother than Zoro’s, better taken care of.
Zoro thinks about this as Sanji’s fingers close around Wado’s hilt. He’d adopted a fighting stance, and Zoro wants to know when he learned it. He raises Wado two-handed to the level of his eyes, cocks his head, examines it closer. Zoro holds his breath. He slashes slowly at the air, with two hands, then one. They’re fighting forms. Which Sanji knows. Somehow.
More onigiri, to avoid commenting on that.
He holds Wado out in front of him, level with his hips. He ghosts a finger along the wavy edge pattern.
“It’s elegant. Beautiful, almost.”
Zoro exhales. Tries to think. Swallows his mouthful of food.
“Swords are always lighter than I think they are. But this one is so…”
“It’s… forged by a very famous smith. One of the best in the world.”
Sanji looks up from Wado. He grins.
“A lot like you, huh?”
Sanji sheathes Wado gently. The whisper of it is loud in the brief silence.
“A great sword for the future greatest swordsman. Hey, if you use it, maybe it’s the greatest sword too.”
Sanji smiles, warm and bright, slightly leaned over the counter and with a little bit of sharpness. His eyes sparkle. He holds Wado carefully even in its sheath.
Zoro wants to kiss him.
The thought hits like a train. Zoro’s breath hitches, and he sways forward, like gravity, and Sanji’s eyelids droop and his face flushes and-
Luffy walks in.
“I want- hey, how come Sanji gets to hold Wado and I don’t????”