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Before Sanji was Sanji, he was Vinsmoke Sanji.
Just a few years after his birth, his father, and even his emotionally inept siblings, agreed that there was something deeply wrong about him. Vinsmoke Sanji was a failure to the family name. Vinsmoke Sanji was not the perfect soldier. While the others were out planting flags into the soil of razed foreign lands, Sanji would have rather stayed at home, icing a cake. Sanji’s knees would scrape on the cold, artificial floor of the palace when he fell, and when that happened, he would break into tears and go running into the warm arms of his mother.
During the tests, they told Sanji to jump down from a roof. Test his durability, apparently. But he could not do it. He watched all three of his brothers take the step with zero hesitation, but always deadlast, he could not follow through. He vaguely remembers turning and watching a masked scientist mutter something to his father. When he looked away, he heard the taps and scribbles of pen on paper.
That would be his first strike.
Sanji could not jump. There was something fundamentally different between him and his brothers, and he for the life of him could not figure out what.
But the night he escaped, Reiju told him the answer. Pointing at the ship in the distance through her own tears, she gripped his shoulders tight enough to bruise and she sniffled:
“If you’re a boy, then stop crying already!”
Sanji’s watery eyes widened. If Judge couldn’t change Sanji, he’d have to do it himself.
When he was younger, he’d think that he wanted to be someone like his mother one day. The name Sora meant sky, and Sanji wished that one day he’d be as free as something like that. Vinsmoke Sora was kind and supportive and she loved Sanji more than Sanji loved himself. She was his first inspiration, his first model.
So, how do you tell a child that his hero is a fraud?
The most effective way is to not. Show, don’t tell. Sora was essentially strapped in her bed. She was fragile, just like you, his brothers would tease. And when she passed, Sanji was the only one to cry. Unlike the men of the family, he felt. And unlike Reiju, he was unable to hold back.
Redleg Zeff has blond hair. Just like Judge’s, but different. Sanji likes to think this is proof that Zeff is his real father. No, Zeff is his real father. He was the first male role model of Sanji’s life, and Sanji latched on to that. This was proof that he was a boy, after all.
Zeff taught Sanji everything, from how to mince carrots to how to treat women. Women are sacred, Sanji realizes. When Zeff explains this, it’s like puzzle pieces are clicking in place. It’s why the only ones before Baratie to treat him with kindness have been women– his mother, his sister. Sanji was not strong like his sister, and he was not amiable like his mother was. Therefore, Sanji was a boy and not a girl. Simple as that.
It’s okay. Sanji’s not a girl, so he can be a boy–a man– and a damn good one at that.
The first time he lit a cigarette, he coughed his lungs out. It was a feeling to get used to. Zeff yelled and backhanded him for it, but it was worth the whoops of approval he got from the rest of the restaurant staff. They told him he was a man now. At the ripe age of what, fourteen max?
The second time Sanji felt the nicotine. He vaguely recalled Zeff warning him about shitty habits hindering his taste buds, so he half heartedly tossed the unfinished cig. But he also huffed rebelliously that Zeff himself wasn’t much better; Sanji had caught him smoking in the back deck of the ship multiple times now. Now that he thought a little more about it, Zeff always had something dangling from his mouth anyway, like a toothpick or some shit. Sanji wondered if he was like that before he lost his leg.
The third time, it was in front of a group of ladies. He mimicked the mannerisms of the countless other men he had seen walk in and out of the restaurant, bowing like a gentleman and complimenting their dresses in a low tone that was definitely not his. If he really focused, his voice wouldn’t even crack! In fact, he thought he was pulling off quite the impression until one of the girls giggled and waved him off, saying he was “too young” or whatever. Made a joke about how if he really wanted a macho voice, he could always just smoke more cigs.
She was wearing all blue. Little gems lined the hem of her neck and she was so bright Sanji swore his eyes were burning up. It sort of hurt.
He could only stare, transfixed.
After her little group finished up their dinners and started getting ready to leave, Sanji looked down at his own blue collared shirt and he wondered, for shamefully not the first time, how that dress she wore would look on him.
Fiddling with his cuffs, he suddenly became very aware of the way the fabric was too tight around his shoulders, not tight enough around his chest. Forget even imagining how the dress would fit; the silk would probably just droop all limp against his bony, narrow hips and bulge up in a grotesque fashion at his too-thick biceps. With how shit his cards were, he could probably make that expensive outfit look cheap, even filthy.
Funny that Sanji thought even for a second that he could pull that look off.
As if he could do anything right, anyway.
If Zeff could read his perverted thoughts, Sanji wouldn’t have anyone to call a father. He snickered bitterly, to which the ladies paused their packing to glance at him in confusion, only to turn back to their conversation a second later.
But in that single moment, Sanji had never felt so naked. He felt like he just served a group of goddesses a badly plated dish of his defects just for them to jeer at.
Absent-mindedly, he notes that his cigarette had long burnt out.
Sanji stood up straight, flashing one last pearly smile at the girls and bowing low as he excused himself and strode back to the kitchen with confidence that not even an actor could replicate. He fumbled with his lighter and lit up his fourth.