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The waiting had become the worst part. Waiting for the moment when their plans would go into motion and the people of Wano could take back their land. Waiting through each day, pretending to be prosperous merchants of the Flower Capital when they were in fact, impatient pirates chafing against the injustice of the land.
And of course, when someone from Kaido’s group came too close to catching them together and perhaps getting suspicious, waiting in some hiding place until the coast was clear.
Usopp - or rather, Usohachi - had nonetheless made it a habit to get his lunch at Sanji’s stand ever since the cook had returned to the crew.
Part of the reason for that, of course, was that Sanji made the best food he had ever eaten. Even the half-remembered meals from his early childhood, cooked with love by his mother and served over stories of his father’s derring-do, only ran a close second. A very close second, if anyone asked. But maybe not so close. It was the love more than the food he remembered.
But that was only one reason. The other was just the reassurance of seeing Sanji there, cooking, with his own eyes. The realization that he was really, actually back. Not that Usopp had doubted Luffy’s sheer determination and willpower. And of course, Brave Captain Usopp would never for a second waver away from the belief that Sanji meant it when he said he would return someday.
All that being said, he found himself drawn to just spending time around the cook when possible. It was reassuring.
Sometimes when the lunch rush was a little slow and Sanji had a bit more food prepared than needed, he would leave the stand in the hands of an assistant for a little while and they could find somewhere to relax, sometimes alongside Franky.
Except today, for some reason, several of the big guns from Kaido’s crew were just in the city, walking around. Page One was looking for something. From the shrieking cries she was letting out, Ulti was looking for him. And as for what Drake was doing, Usopp wanted to neither speculate or spectate.
Sanji thought he was overreacting and that the odds of them being recognized were small, likely nonexistent. But everyone except Nami always seemed to be thinking that things were safe, and then when the crap hit the fan, who was right? Yup. Usopp. Usopp was right. It was hard being so attuned to the realities of the Grand Line, but someone had to do it.
Luckily, Sanji agreed to let Usopp figure out where to go. Unluckily, they had been walking in a part of town he wasn’t too familiar with. An alley seemed like a pretty good place to start though, so Usopp hurried into one, a bemused Sanji trailing in his wake.
Except… alleys might be small, but they were open at both ends. Anyone could see in. They were basically just a hair less exposed than if they just laid down in the middle of the street, right? Especially since all three of those people could turn into dinosaurs, and while Usopp might not be an expert on dinosaurs, he knew that anything that big and scary had to have excellent eyesight. Especially down alleys. So once they were down the alley, Usopp could not escape the creeping notion that they were purpose built for dinosaur vision, however little sense that made.
Which was how, on that afternoon, he ducked through the open door of a little shop. A “Now open” sign in bright, new paint the only invitation he needed.
Sanji lingered outside for a few seconds more, until one calloused hand reached back out and yanked him into the interior gloom.
Mayura shifted in her chair and adjusted the shawl over her head.
To be fair it wasn’t really a shawl, per se. It had started life as the last bit of a bolt of fabric she’d used to make a kimono. Her parents had said the black-and-purple fabric was unbecoming for wearing out where people could see, so the kimono languished in her room.
Luckily, the remnant had turned into a suitably mysterious hair covering, and an old work shirt dyed black with ink took care of everything else customers could see when she was sitting at her table.
The small chime hung above the front door sang out its warning. Mayura started to rise, but then remembered that a hasty move to greet her visitors would not only be unbecoming, it would also expose the pink-and-yellow flowered skirt she was wearing, as well as the fact that her feet were snug in a pair of comfortable slippers not fit for company to see.
So she settled herself back in her chair and instead checked the wall opposite her.
Her sister had been the one to suggest a small change to the interior of the structure. The wall dividing the front of the little shop from this area, where her table was set up, was thin and old. It had been the work of just a couple hours to slice a hole big enough for a mirror to be placed. She sat at just the right angle for the little reflective surface to give her a perfect view of the front door. Which was how she caught sight of the dark-haired man who hurried into her business like some demon was following him.
She frowned. There were many reasons that someone might be rushing like that in the capital. If this person was bringing some sort of trouble or danger to her brand new shop…
As she was thinking this, the guy looked over his shoulder at the closing door, then lunged for it, one arm reaching back out. A quick yank and he pulled a second man through the door.
Both were dressed as tradesmen, and while the new, blond one seemed confused by his friends furtive actions, it was clear the darker-haired man was worried about them being seen. But what could make one of them so worried while the other was so casual? They were probably in the same situation, but were having two different reactions to it.
Her eyes shone. Could this be… a secret romance?
She’d hoped for visitors like this. Sure, everyone knew that the main reason to read tarot was to make battle decisions. Pulling a card in the middle of a fight was much easier and quicker than convening the strategists and deciding on the next course of action. That was the assured way one of Kaido’s subordinates had used it, so she assumed that it must be a common tactic all across the seas beyond Wano’s borders.
But she always figured, if the cards could tell you things, why wouldn’t you ask about either things? Harvests. Schooling.
Love.
Could these two young men be a couple, but one of their families didn’t approve of such a union? That sort of interference from families could be cruel - to step on love for the sake of tradition? She couldn’t see the right in it.
Well, if they were looking for guidance, they had come to the right place.
“You may linger in the entrance if you wish,” she called through the door, trying to age her voice a little since she got the feeling no one would trust the cards as read by someone who had barely passed nineteen years in this world. “But if you have a question for the ancestors of this land, come this way.”
The ancestors of the land part was a little uncertain, but if the cards were supposed to see truth, then they must be appealing to some mystical power, and the power with the most knowledge and insight would be those who had lived and died here, right?
In the mirror’s eye, she could see the two conferring, heads so close their hair brushed together. She wondered what was so important. Why had they not discussed before coming in. Was it a whim? Were they perhaps running from whatever family members opposed their union?
All she knew for sure was that in the end, they chose to walk through the front of her shop, heading for the reading room.
She had put a lot of effort into the front of the shop. There were dark curtains shrouding the front windows and paper lanterns painted in eerie but meaningless patterns illuminating it. A woven carpet, cast out from some upscale boutique when it was still in good shape, but not good enough. Purple and blue flowers, artfully arranged, obscured the end table she had brought from home. A trio of chairs waited optimistically for a busier day, but for now, the two customers were coming straight back. The dark haired man kept casting furtive glances around while the blond simply eyes everything with the air of a mother judging her son-in-law’s home.
As the pair stepped into the much dimmer back room - only a single lantern lit the place, enough to cast her face visible and for both sides to be able to see the cards - they were still looking a little jumpy.
“Come now, sit,” she said, gesturing with what she hoped was mysterious allure at the chairs across the table from her. There were also three here, just in case, though she suspected that once her business took off, people would come in singly, with questions of a personal nature. No harm in showing she was willing to read for any of them.
The blond smiled at her, enough of a charming look that she almost second-guessed her impression of their relationship. Could he instead be a rake? But if so, woukdn't his man see that? So he had to just-
“Happy to oblige such a beautiful woman.”
She felt a blush start to creep up but forced herself to think no more on it.
As the pair took their seats, both now taking in the dim look of the reading room, Mayura picked up her cards and began to shuffle them. “Welcome to my shop,” she continued. “A reading is five silver. Ask your question, and I shall seek an answer from the great beyond.”
The blond one’s eyes went to the deck, so she deftly flipped it around so the images on the cards were visible. Fanning the cards out in an arc before her, she said, “You have a good eye. These are based on the very cards The Magician uses. Perhaps a reading using them will bring you as much luck as it’s brought him.”
This was not, precisely speaking, true. Loosely, the art was based on what Kaido’s crew had both seen in battle and let slip to the broader populace. She would love to get a closer look sometime, but a few of the Waiters had said the images looked quite like his cards.
“How long does a reading take?” This was the dark-haired young man.
A good question. She had done readers for herself and friends, and the time varied. “As long as it takes to let the spirits speak,” she said.
The two young men exchanged a look, then the darker-haired one pulled coins from his pocket and slid them across to her.
“You sure you want to do this?” The blond asked him.
“It beats going right back out there.”
Ah. So it seemed she was right. Hiding from disgruntled family. One of the couple did not believe in a higher power, the other’s mind was open.
Well, she would show them. In her first professional reading, she had decided on one thing.
She would make these two understand that they couldn’t let outside forces come between them. They must make their own decision and let their love bloom. She picked up the cards again, this time putting some of the fancy shuffling techniques her uncle had shown her into practice. Blondie still seemed
Smiling, she added, “With you two, you don’t have to speak your question aloud. I can see it in your spirits.”
“You can?” they chorused. One sounded skeptical. The other, amazed.
She nodded and passed the cards over. “But I need you to think it very strongly as you shuffle these cards. It must be your will that guides this answer, not mine.”
As another look passed between the pair, she felt her resolve settle.
These two would leave her shop as a couple.
Of all the things he thought the store might be, some sort of fortune telling location was well down the list of possibilities.
Given the moody interior and the sign which just showed a series of stars, he had expected this to be someplace that sold medicinal herbs, or maybe some mind-altering substances. Despite the looks it sometimes earned him, Usopp loved visiting places like that. The more creative he got with his pop greens and other ammunition, the more room he realized there was to experiment with all of it. Imagine ammunition that could cause hallucinations, or put the target into a stupor.
But once they were inside, away from dangerous eyes, he’d gotten a better look around and realized the store was bereft of any herbs or mushrooms, or, well… anything except atmosphere really.
To be fair, it was a decently spooky atmosphere. The room would have felt right at home back on Thriller Bark. Luckily, he wasn’t scared of such things anymore. Seriously. But the moody room with no goods to speak of had certainly put him on guard.
A situation not at all helped when a voice from deeper in the shop had called for them to go further.
Sanji looked as maddeningly relaxed as ever, which was wild when you considered the whole reason they were in here. Sure, Sanji might be able to handle a good ninety percent of what the Beast Pirates could throw at them, but even if he could, what if it ruined the plan somehow? Put them on guard?
“This place feels like a con job,” Sanji murmured, leaning in close. “Yopu think it’s a setup?”
“That would be some setup, to predict we’d come in here,” Usopp replied, somewhat distracted when Sanji’s breath danced across his cheek. “How would they possibly know?” That was pretty paranoid, and that’s coming from Mr. Paranoid himself.
Sanji chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Fortune telling, huh?"
"Seems like."
Sanji got a thoughtful look, then nodded. "Come on then.”
They headed back through the dimly lit store to an even more dimly lit second room. This one was festooned in darkness - one light with strange, swirly markings on it sat in the center of the table, barely casting highlights on the obviously young woman in old-lady garb, the black fabric festooning the walls and the deck of cards.
Usopp was somewhat interested in the idea of fortune telling. He didn’t really believe in it! Of course not! But imagine how useful it would be if some magic could let you know which islands needed an I-can’t-go-ashore disease and which ones would turn out to be fun?
Sanji, of course, flirted as soon as he realized they were in the presence of a lady, which irritated Usopp somewhat. She was trying to be a conduit to higher powers. He didn’t know exactly why, but flirting felt a little… heretical?
The woman kept casting looks at the two of them, back and forth, that almost made him wonder if Sanji was right and this was a setup. But Sanji seemed relaxed and Usopp didn’t see any other doors through which danger might be hiding, so he tried to relax. If this lady was reading the future, for fake or real, it could at least give the danger long enough to move on and bother some other area.
So he left her pitch wash over her, even the part about the Beast Pirate, until a line…
“With you two, you don’t have to speak your question aloud. I can see it in your spirits.”
Wait… did she know? He had been trying to work out how to ask about the impending attack on Onigashima without coming out and saying “will we all die fighting Kaido in his fortress?” That would be helpful.
As she handed the cards over to Sanji and watched him intently, Usopp felt like he could sense Sanji’s presence as a physical force, being directed into the cards. Usopp found himself watching Sanji’s fingers as he deftly shuffled the cards - nothing fancy, but something that spoke of long practice. There was no way he’d played cards with his family, so it must have been on the ships. The Baratie maybe.
Maybe it was the long practice in the kitchen, but Usopp had always thought Sanji’s hands moved elegantly. A sharp contrast from his rough language in the early days. Now, it was all just part of him.
He shook himself out of those thoughts as Sanji tapped the deck back into a neat rectangle and handed it back to the card reader. And while the main point of this whole exercise was to buy five silver worth of plausible innocence, he found himself huddling closer to the cook as the woman leaned forward, her shawl casting a deeper shadow across her face, and began the reading.
The woman (whose name he didn’t think they’d gotten - she’d just started the hard sell and now went straight into the reading) flipped the first card and put it to her upper left. Then she hesitated, glancing back and over her shoulders in a way that Usopp could almost convince himself not to read as her listening to some sort of spirit. The deep shadows were giving the woman an underworldly look, and the uneven colors cast by the patterned lamp gave her a mysterious aura.
Usopp tried to ignore the feeling as she nodded to herself and then kept going, turning over card after card until there were seven of them in a shallow V shape. She was just putting on a show. It wasn’t spirits. Spirits weren’t real.
She tapped the first of the cards, which bore an image of three katana spearing through a rather graphic picture of a heart. There was blood and everything. A Zoro card, if you will.
“I am doing a rice bowl spread. So this card represents the past,” she said, voice undulating slightly as Usopp’s did in the crosshairs of a terrifying foe. “As you can see from the… the three swords, this is the… um … three of swords.”
She looked at them. They looked back at her. The silence began to get a little uncomfortable.
“And what does that mean?” Sanji finally broke in.
“Oh! Yes. It means heartbreak,” she said. “As you can tell by the.. Um… the swords. In the heart.”
Well, that was good. He was kind of expecting it to mean murder or something. Heartbreak wasn’t that bad. Was it maybe referring to past times when they had failed? Luffy’s first fight with Crocodile. The whole first time they visited Sabaody. Briefly losing Robin to Sugar.
That was a little bit of a weird thing to call heartbreak, but he supposed it fit well enough.
He chanced a glance over. Sanji was regarding the cards with a relaxed curiosity. Apparently whatever he was thinking, it didn’t circle back to all those times we almost lost everything. That must be nice. Or maybe he was just confident enough that he focused on the fact that they hadn’t lost everything, rather than the near miss.
That must also be nice, Usopp thought.
The reader’s attention moved to the second card. “Next is a card representing the present.” She sounded more assured this time. Usopp checked out the next card - it was a pair of people holding goblets up in a toast. The card was upside down - or right side up maybe. Whatever. Its base facing toward Usopp. “The two of cups. This is a card that refers to … a … couple. Except since it’s reversed-”
“Reversed?” Sanji inquired.
“Oh! It’s upside down. So normally it would mean a couple coming together. But in this instance, it means a couple who can’t get together because of something in the way. See how they’re toasting to their union?”
Sanji made a choking sound. Usopp looked over, but Sanji was coughing and looking away from him, so there was no telling what the problem was. With all the coughing, at least he clearly was able to breathe fine.
They didn’t look particularly union-y to Usopp’s eyes, but he supposed that was why she was reading the cards instead of him.
But what could this mean. What was the present couple? Was this something about Kin’emon and his wife? Or something from that tale of Oden?
He guessed he’d need to give that some more thought.
Another look over toward Sanji, hoping maybe the cook had some idea what the spirits were trying to say.
Only to find Sanji looking at him, something strangely intense in the expression. Blushing, Usopp looked back to the cards a little too fast. No help there. A couple… a couple…
Yeah, maybe the answer would come to him later.
The next image showed a jaunty looking man with a rifle slung over one shoulder. “The third card shows other factors facing your questions,” she said. “This is the fool. He’s an optimistic person but… well, you can see the gun. He’ll fight if he-”
“Lu… uucy,” Usopp found himself saying without realizing he meant to. To his right, Sanji murmured, “Bet I know who that is.”
The woman looked between them, pleased. “Is it someone who supports you?” she asked.
“You could say that,” Sanji said.
Usopp nods. “Though, it’s more like saves us.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “He’s that important to the two of you?”
Usopp grinned. This was his expertise. “When we get lost, he’s the one who finds us. If we were to be sick in a snowstorm, he’d give us the coat off his back and drag us through the ice to safety. Even if a god itself set itself against us, he’d overcome it with-”
“Hey, hey,” Sanji said, voice a low warning. Abruptly remembering this was a woman of Wano and giving her this information might doom them, Usopp subsided with a, “... you know. Metaphorically.”
She turned her attention back to the cards, but he didn’t miss a smile he couldn’t parse as she did. WAS she an enemy? If so-
“Next card is your fears regarding the question,” she said, pointing to a young man holding a similar goblet to before.
One of cups? Usopp wondered.
“This is the Page of Cups,” she corrected, almost like she heard the guess. “You can see he’s drinking all by himself. He represents.. Hmm. Not leaning on other people! You have to find someone whose shoulders you can lean on in trying times. Other than your Lusi friend.”
Other than… hang on. He looked over toward her. She smiled back innocently. But up on her forehead, he could see the slightest sheen of sweat.
Again, his worried mind shifted into overdrive. This could mean she was a bad guy, trying to keep them occupied until more enemies arrived. But if that was the case, Sanji probably would have noticed something already. He seemed poised to catch tricks of that sort, maybe because he liked to play some of his own.
But if not that, then… what?
And finally, he saw it. He saw his own costume and cover story reflected in the artifice and oddity of this room.
This here was a grade-A storyteller doing a pretty decent cold reading. And she was using that gift to make money.
But if that was the case then what was the story she was trying to tell?
The next card was easy enough to read, even for someone like Usopp. The Devil was an old story he’d heard around the village when he was growing up - a creature who made terrifyingly unfair proposals to those in dire straits, offering power and money in exchange for their souls or their dreams.
No wonder the fruits were named after him.
He was depicted as a stark outline of a man, wreathed in flame and with two black horns curling from his head. An unsettling image, to say the least.
But what would that mean? Now that he’d figured things out, he was interested to see where she was going.
“So, this card is the one to symbolize how other people are looking at you,” she said. Her finger slid from beneath the last card to under the Devil. Well, under his head. This card was upside down as well. “This card represents other people being afraid. Because you intimidate them. Because you look so good together.”
“What?” Usopp heard his own voice melding with Sanji’s, as if they were sharing a synapse and had both landed on the only one-word retort that made sense.
“Oh, but it’s reversed!” she hastened to assure them. “So some people are on your side. Like your friend, right?” She tapped the Fool.
“Um... Right.”
Perhaps sensing the shift in mood, she moved swiftly along. The next card showed a figure with long hair holding up their arms. Five coins like miniature suns radiated around her. Zoro, Nami and Luffy all in the cards, Usopp though with internal amusement.
“This is the advice the cards have for you,” she said. “It means… wait, first. It’s the five of coins. It means you will have to seize your wealth. Even if the wealth isn’t money, but another kind of treasure. Like maybe a relationship, for instance.”
“So the cards are telling us the real treasure is the friends we made along the way?” Sanji asked.
“Or the lovers,” she corrected, voice suggestive.
Usopp choked this time. Not just at how brazen the suggestion was, but on how much it drew her overall story into focus. Heartbreak. A couple trying to get together, but outside forces are prying them apart.
Did she… was she thinking they were…
He glanced to the right to find Sanji regarding the cards intently. Had he just not come to the same conclusion? Or was he not even trying to think about what she was saying? Was he just pretending to be engaging with her reading while his mind thought about what he’d be making for dinner tonight, or if there were any holes in LAw’s plan, or… hell if he knew what Sanji thought about in the privacy of his own mind. The man always seemed to have a million plans going, at a level Usopp always admired. Envied, even.
What was he thinking now?
As if drawn by the thought, Sanji glanced sidelong at him, eye almost hidden by the curtain of his bangs. Usopp expected a grin. Instead, he looked almost thoughtful.
Well, Usopp had just been speculating that he was thinking about something else. But that wasn’t quite the sort of thoughtful he thought he saw there. He seemed… present. Just thinking. Considering.
The woman reading the cards continued. “Well, it just means that if something is important to you, the cards say you need to take it in both hands and make sure it stays close. Because people will try to tear you away from it in a world like this, with warlords and pirates."
The word “pirate” put Usopp’s guard up again, but it really felt like she was using them as an example more than hinting at knowing something more. Indeed, a glance at her showed there was nothing nefarious there. Or at least not that kind of nefarious. Her eye had the gleam of a shipper on deck.
So.. she thinks Sanji and I… That was a silly idea. If for no other reason than, why would someone like Sanji be interested in him? Sanji was a good-looking guy and he knew it. He often took care with his appearance, particular about his hair and clothing. By contrast, Usopp was… Usopp. Just a guy. He dressed for comfort and utility, had a skin routine that stopped at washing and did his best to take care of his hair but was focused more on keeping it healthy and out of the way of his work than about how it looked to anyone else.
Maybe that was the appeal to someone who didn’t know them, he thought. The contrast. The hot guy and the coward he took pity on.
He pulled himself out of those thought hand over hand, like an adventurer pulling free of quicksand. He’d gotten better about not letting these thoughts spiral, but sometimes it still snuck up on him. Sanji definitely didn’t think of him like that, and if this woman did?
Well, that was her own problem.
“And finally,” the woman said, drawing her voice down to the dark, theatrical tone she’d used a few times in this whole reading, when she remembered. “Is the Sun.”
Sanji asked, “And that’s our official answer?”
“In tarot there are no official answers,” she said, drawing her finger along the v-shape of the cards she had laid out. “There are only suggestions, probabilities. They are meant to draw out the information you already know from shadows to light, so you can make the decision you already know is right.”
An excellent conclusion, all things considered. Putting the decision back on the head of the questioner. I didn’t tell you anything, I just gave you more information to help guide you to make your own choice. If Usopp ever needed to play a part like this, he would be sure to remember that part.
“Now, is there anything else you wish to ask the cards?” she asked.
“For another few silver,” Sanji noted, rather than asking.
“Would you trust work done for free?” she asked sweetly. And while Usopp thought his answer was a resounding yes - maybe Nami was rubbing off on him - he got the sentiment.
He was unwilling to go through the performance again, so he shook his head, then checked with Sanji. To his surprise, the other man looked like he might be considering actually saying yes. Was he maybe more superstitious than Usopp had thought? But in the end, he also decided against it. So, the pair of them bid goodbye to the tarot reader and headed back out, through the dark storefront and past the chiming door into the too-bright sunlit street beyond.
It was a testament to how strange the whole situation had been that it took a few minutes for Usopp to remember he was supposed to be worried that they might be caught by the watchful eyes of the Beast Pirates. But the street was calm, the day was bright and he felt pretty calm about the whole thing.
Less calming?
Sanji’s presence, in the wake of that very leading tarot reading..
He liked Sanji. Liked every member of the crew. All in different ways, but …
Well, it would be wrong to say he never had crushes. But they were always fleeting things, spun more from the realization of just how amazing each of them was than from anything deeper. It was easy enough to compartmentalize until it passed.
With Sanji, it had been no different. He admired the man’s certainty, his assurance, his confidence - all things Usopp himself struggled with. And there was no question that he was an attractive person, but heck, everyone on the crew was.
But now that the woman had put the thought in his head, he found himself wondering - had he ever really stopped letting his eyes linger on the cook a little longer than the others? Was there something in his actions that she had seen that he had convinced himself wasn’t there?
Like how he watched the man’s hands when he cooked.
Like how Sanji’s deep compassion sometimes made him feel as though his own were inadequate in some way. Not because Usopp was cruel, but because Sanji was far nicer than almost anyone gave him credit for.
Could she have seen something that-
They are meant to draw out the information you already know from shadows to light, so you can make the decision you already know is right.
He could feel his core temperature climbing higher, and was not sure if it was because of his realization, the fact that the woman figured them out on some level or the fact that he hadn’t realized this for… for…
Oh jeeze.
“Everything okay?”
And Sanji’s voice, asking that question, was the last thing he needed right now. Technically? Yes. Mentally? That was a whole mess.
He chanced a glance over and immediately wished he hadn’t. Sanji looked amused, but also worried. He should not be worried. He should be laughing, honestly. These absurd thoughts, circling in his mind, were worth a laugh.
“Just worried about what happens if she really does have a line to the spirits,” he lied, hoping it was convincing. It sometimes was. “Her answers didn’t make sense, so maybe the spirits of Wano are trying to warn us about the answer to a question we haven’t asked. Right? Heh.”
The amused part of Sanji’s expression faded, leaving only the concern.
“So,” he said, Words coming slower now. “That wasn’t on purpose, was it?”
”On purpose? What do… how could I possibly have done that? And why?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Sanji looked away now. “Yeah, that’s a good point. Forget I asked.”
Okay, Usopp understood his own awkwardness, having lived intimately with it since he was old enough to understand the concept. But Sanji usually only got awkward like this around a pretty woman.
And do not read anything more into that, he chided himself.
Next to him, keeping pace as they ambled back toward the soba shop, Sanji slumped his shoulders, hands seeking pockets that weren’t in the clothes he wore. Then, he seemed to straighten up and look over at Usopp again, the move so abrupt that Usopp hopped away just a little, startled.
“So, you really didn’t know what was in that shop?” he asked.
“No, other than a place where we might not get seen by-”
“You didn’t know she’d do a reading like … that?”
He tried not to be hurt. It was funny, a bit, that she would assume them to be together. But that was it, no need for such accusation. “You think I have time to do something like that?” he asked.
“No,” Sanji replied, frustrated, guilty. “It’s just-”
When he let that thought hang unfinished for a while, Usopp pushed the question back at him. “What’s wrong?”
For a second he thought the other man would clam up again. Then, reluctantly, like admitting to some sin, he looked toward his feet and said, “It just… hit a little close to home.”
Well, that was unexpected.
“But it’s noth- no. No, you know what?” Sanji suddenly stopped, grabbing Usopp’s wrist to stop him too. “Not nothing. We have a few minutes. And if I don’t do this now, I…”
He made a sound of frustration and drew Usopp into the shade of a tree, out of sight of the passers by. This part of the city, in the intersection of a side street and an alley. Puzzled, because this all was making no sense to him, Usopp didn’t resist.
Once they were both in the green shadow of the tree, Sanji transferred his hand from Usopp’s wrist to his shoulder.
“She’s right,” Sanji said, and the tone was suddenly so serious that Usopp wasn’t sure how to respond. So he just nodded, waiting to see where this was going.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen when all the fallout of this plan hits. Things are going to…” His fingers tightened, and Usopp forced himself not to wince because whatever Sanji was wrestling with, he didn’t want to interrupt him now. “No. It’s from back at Big Mom’s place. The wedding. That fight. I… It’s not that I doubted Luffy. I didn’t. But part of me was sure even if the plan worked, even if we won, even if he got away, I wouldn’t.”
Usopp’s chest began to ache, like something was digging its claws into his throat. The time on Dressrosa had been so busy, there hadn’t been time to do more than worry about surviving. Once that was done, once they were on their way again, once they found out about Sahnji, he’d been worried. But he assumed that was just him, just his pessimism. He figured Sanji and Luffy and Nami and Brook, once they were all together, would be enough to overcome anything. Even a warlord.
He was worried, but he wasn’t worried. They would come back.
Realizing belatedly that maybe he should have worried. Worse, that Sanji had been worried? It felt a little like… not betrayal, but something similar.
Yup, that lady was more right than you thought.
“I wasn’t really thinking straight through all of that,” Sanji continued, hand firmly planted on Usopp’s shoulder like he was worried the latter might go into retreat which - fair. “But I remember feeling a few times like, even if I wanted to give up, I couldn’t. Because everyone was waiting. And I couldn’t let everything end without-”
He stopped and Usopp thought maybe this was the limit of whatever strange desperation was driving Sanji. But after a moment, Sanji added, almost too quiet to hear, “-without telling you what I felt. Hell, what I should have said a long time ago.”
Abruptly his own panic right after they left the shop came flooding back. “Hang on,” Usopp said. “This seems like a bad time to-”
But Sanji was not having a brave, tactical retreat at this moment. “I know this isn’t the time, but if it’s okay with you, once all this is over, some night, I’m going to cook something special, just for the two of us. So we can sit and talk and figure out whatever this is.”
“This being-”
“Well, whatever made you turn the color of a Crimson Hammerhead when I looked at you a few minutes ago, for starters,” Sanji said. And the small, uncertain smile that came with that felt so wonderfully familiar that Usopp smiled in return, in spite of the absolute terror he was feeling. He might screw this all up, but… but there was time. Time to prepare. Time to think.
Time to look forward to a nice dinner alone with Sanji.
And that might be worth all the terror.
“All right,” Usopp said, putting a hand over Sanji’s, just for a moment. The little boldness he could afford, as he tried to save most of it up for Inigashima. “Sounds like that can be in the cards.”
It was corny and cringy and dumb, but it broke the last of the tension. They both laughed and headed back to the lives they were faking for Wano.
Hopefully, before too long, they’d be free for that dinner.
And whatever came after.