Archive of Our Own

Sanji’s heart sank as his newly opened eyes locked onto the golden glint of the three earrings, all too familiar.

It wasn't possible.

It could be a hallucination; he was exhausted, after all, coming back from a grueling shift at the Baratie. Zeff had been especially irritable with the place packed on a Saturday, spitting insults at Sanji left and right throughout all eight long hours of his shift, as if it were his fault. And as if Sanji wasn't the damn sous-chef.

Crossing all of New York by subway didn't help, either. Every night, he would fall fast asleep during the ride, leaning against the window; his body was so used to it that it always knew which station to get off at, always waking up in time. Tonight, however, Sanji was so groggy that he struggled to even remember where he was.

He rubbed his eyes. He waited for the stars behind his eyelids to settle. He looked again. He sighed, defeated.

Unfortunately, the trio of earrings remained there, casually hanging from the left earlobe, close to the all-too-familiar green strands of hair, always so perfectly cut.

It was late at night, and he was sitting only a few seats away; there was no remote possibility that Sanji had gone unnoticed. Silently, he cursed fate.

It wasn't fair to him. It had only been three months since the end of the relationship; in a city this big, living in opposite neighborhoods, such a casual encounter was perfectly avoidable. Besides, Sanji worked nights, and as far as he knew, he worked during the day.

It took him a moment to realize the tear involuntarily streaming down his right cheek, burning like an ember, exactly as it had on the day he left him. The voice echoed in his ear as if it were happening at that very moment.

“I don’t have the strength to keep going anymore, Sanji.”

“Zoro, please…”

“We barely see each other. We barely talk.” Zoro sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “What exactly are we doing?”

“I swear I—”

“That’s enough. We’ve only been fighting for months. I can’t take it anymore.”

And that was that. He had left with barely another word, taking with him whatever he could fit inside a very small backpack. Probably a few changes of clothes, his phone and his charger. He didn’t even take his toothbrush—Sanji found it in the bathroom later that day, still damp, like it had been used that morning without any thought of goodbye.

He took almost nothing and never sent anyone to pick the rest up, so their—his, he needed to remind himself—house was still full of Zoro everywhere he looked.

Not everywhere anymore.

The first few days were so hard he couldn’t touch or look at anything. Even standing in his own house felt wrong. The air was stale with it, heavy with things unsaid. He crashed at Luffy’s for a while, sleeping on a couch that smelled like takeout and detergent, but his routine was so fucked up Sanji had to drag himself back, had to force his feet through the door eventually.

Sanji started slowly, piece by piece.

First, their—his—room. Whatever was at sight went straight into a big cardboard box: shirts, pants, shoes, those stupid bandanas. That camel-shaped alarm clock he insisted on buying when they went to visit Vivi a few years before. It had been a ridiculous thing, ugly and too loud, but Zoro loved it.

It had been a good trip, even when they got lost inside that pyramid because of course Zoro got them lost, stubbornly insisting he knew the way while leading them deeper and deeper into identical corridors. Sanji could still remember laughing, breathless and annoyed, gripping his hand in the dark.

“We’ve only been fighting for months.”

Their bickering was never what Sanji considered a fight. Not even when they thought they hated each other, six years before.

Luffy had introduced them at a party during their first term in college. Sanji had been there studying Law because his douchebag father had decided that for him. He hated every second of it: every lecture, every expectation, every reminder that his life didn’t belong to him yet. He wanted to be a chef, for God’s sake, but the best he could get was to be sent across the country. NYU, thankfully, offered a lot of electives in Nutrition and Food Studies, and Sanji was determined from the start to make his experience there the best he could.

Luffy had been the first good thing in that place. They clicked instantly, from the moment Luffy stumbled into him in Sanji’s first frat party, so drunk he could barely stand, grinning like they’d known each other forever. Sanji had dragged him to the kitchen and made him fried rice, muttering complaints the whole time and trying to stay off the radar of his weird friend, who refused to leave his side; that rude, green-haired guy who hovered just close enough to intervene if needed, arms crossed, sharp eyes following every move Sanji made.

They crashed at the couch that night. Luffy passed out immediately, Zoro stood almost the whole night en garde despite how drunk he obviously was.

The next day, Luffy declared Sanji one of his best friends without a second thought, which meant Zoro came with the package, and God, Sanji couldn’t stand him. He was rude, provocative, sarcastic, everything Sanji despised in a person. Always pushing, always poking, always getting under his skin, and yet somehow that crooked, smug grin he beared turned Sanji’s knees into jelly.

It went on like that for months, like the only way they knew how to communicate was with sharp words and eye-rollings, until one day Sanji realized it didn’t feel like hatred anymore. No, actually it was never hatred, but some other thing they couldn’t name yet because they were too busy poking each other.

It happened at Zoro’s birthday. 11/11. A stupidly memorable date for someone like him.

Sanji didn’t know when he got to the bar; he thought it was only one of those nights that promised nothing, just a beer or two with friends on a tuesday night and they ended up completely wasted at their regular bar, trying to forget the sharp bite of the wind that night. Sanji slipped away to the restroom and found Zoro just stepping out.

“Careful. I might think you’re following me, cook,” he said, his voice hoarse, carried away by the alcohol.

“I’m not, idiot,” Sanji shot back, rolling his eyes. “I just need the restroom. Move.”

“You didn’t talk to me tonight.” Zoro said, keeping the path blocked with his massive frame.

Sanji frowned. “And why do you even care?”

“Because it’s my birthday.” He stated, with that smug grin, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms making his chest look huge.

Sanji froze for half a second before the realization hit, heat rushing to his face. “Shit. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.”

“No, really. I’ll pay you a round or something. My treat.”

Zoro tilted his head slightly, eyes dragging slowly to Sanji’s lips.

“I can think of another gift you could give me…”

For a second, Sanji thought he’d imagined it, as Zoro was very obviously drunk, but his half-lidded eyes didn’t move at all.

Sanji inhaled deeply. “Yeah? What?”

By the next fraction of second, their lips were locked. The kiss clicked so perfectly he couldn’t even believe it was real. Zoro’s hands were firm on his hips, pulling him in, pushing his back to the wall, pining him there. Sanji’s breath hitched and his fingers curled at Zoro’s as he felt those plush lips drag from his mouth to his jaw and to his neck and to his collarbone. Strong hands worked the first buttons of his shirt, impatient, while their hips grounded together like they were dancing. The cold night was suddenly hot as hell and he forgot about everything outside that hallway.

A door creaked somewhere, bringing them back to reality. They quickly broke apart, Sanji slipped into the restroom without a word, heart hammering so hard it hurt. When he came back to the table, Zoro was gone. The next day, Zoro didn’t remember kissing him, or at least acted like it.

The weeks that followed were an absolute nightmare where Sanji couldn’t tell if he had imagined the way Zoro’s hands felt or the way he looked at him. They kept bickering at each other, but Sanji always caught Zoro staring at him with something… Different in his eyes.

It silently looked like they were betting to see who would break first. Well, Sanji did. At New Year’s Eve.

Zoro looked unfair that night, wrapped in a dark green fur coat that matched his hair, sharp and effortless and completely out of Sanji’s league if he allowed himself to think like that. When the countdown was about to start, Sanji grabbed him with some half-assed excuse and dragged him outside — months later he would try to remember what he said and fail miserably — and they kissed again when the fireworks lit up the sky. Fuck, perhaps it was because of the lack of rush, but it felt even better than the first. Zoro’s hands felt warm on his body even with the snow piling over their heads. They went home together, fucked all night like animals and never let the other go.

They were partners by Valentine’s day and yet their bickering never stopped; it turned out to be their love language. They were always competing and trying to be the best but it was as healthy as it was supposed to be, never leaving each other’s side — which is why, now, Sanji couldn’t understand why he had called it “fighting” at all.

He took his time cleaning the room, though his vision kept blurring with tears he refused to wipe too quickly, letting them fall felt like part of the process.

The sword miniature collection came next. Sanji had helped him complete it, tracking down pieces online, dragging him to shops across the city. Zoro had been so fucking happy when they bought the last one, yelling “Enma!!!!*”* as he ran through the house like a kid, nearly knocking things over. Sanji wrapped those carefully, slower than everything else. He wouldn’t risk breaking something that couldn’t be replaced.

Next spot he cleaned up was the bathroom. Not in the same day, he couldn’t.

He had gone grocery shopping in East Village because he was out of tuna and nori. It was Onigiri night, after all. The thought had come automatically, like muscle memory. The market smelled like fish and salt and too many people. Normally it didn’t bother him; if anything, it grounded him.

But then some guy bumped into him and for a split second, the scent invaded Sanji’s nostrils.It wasn’t bad, not at all. Just that stupid Jean-Paul Gaultier Zoro only wore it on special nights. The ones they always planned once a month, like a ritual, like something sacred they built together.

And it hit him all at once: Onigiri night didn’t make sense anymore. Why would he make his ex boyfriend’s favorite food if he wasn’t even there anymore?

Sanji ran to the closest trash can and threw up his whole breakfast. He wiped his mouth, breathing shallow, before climbing back on the subway empty-handed and the hollow in his chest growing even more that he thought was even possible. He didn’t trust himself to stand in that place for another second. Back at the house, he pushed the green toothbrush, the fucking Jean-Paul Gaultier, the CK One he wore on a daily basis, the comb Zoro used to style his hair and his razors right into another box, maybe a little too rough. All the glasses might break for all he cared, but if he stopped right then, he’d probably just organize things back where they belonged.

Then, another day, he started the kitchen. There wasn’t much of Zoro there since Sanji had always guarded it like sacred ground, but that didn’t make it any easier; if anything, it made every trace feel more intentional.

There were the soft post-its that Zoro left for him every morning when he was out for his job, scattered in places only Sanji would look: on the coffee jar, near the stove, stuck crookedly to the cabinet doors.

“Have a good day, baby”

“I’ll miss you all day xx”

“Chose a blue post-it today cause it remind me of your eyes! ♥”

“I love you more than anything”

All samples of love written in a scratchy handwriting. Sanji stood there longer than he meant to, fingertips hovering over one of them before carefully peeling it off. The papers were slightly worn at the edges by being exposed for so long.

He moved on to their pictures on the freezer door, hung by magnets they got as souvenir from every trip they took.

At the beach, sharing ice cream. Sanji’s nose smeared with it, mid-protest, while Zoro’s finger hovered just inches away, clearly guilty.

Some hiking day Zoro had come up with and they almost got lost in the woods.

Their trip to a very sandy place with heavy dunes where they had a blast climbing and gliding, like snowboard for summer and hot weather.

Zoro pressing a kiss to Sanji’s very red face, their eyes closed.

Sanji’s stomach churned when he got to the last one: Zoro in the middle of the kitchen, standing like some ridiculous superhero, wearing nothing but an apron. This memory hit Sanji like a train — that day, when he saw Zoro in that condition in his kitchen made him so hard he knelt instantly and blew him until he came down his throat. They’d fucked in the counter, by the sink, on the floor. So weird that such good memories now made his heart hurt so bad now.

All of Sanji’s guts screamed for him to rip them, burn them, but he just couldn’t. Instead, he carefully put all of it inside an envelope and threw it inside one of the boxes that were now starting to pile in the corner of the living room.

Which was the next place he would work on. He took a while because it would need a complete reorganization. The apartment was quite small, but Zoro carved his way in there. He hung a fucking hammock in the living room. They argued for weeks about it, but eventually Sanji gave in. It had become routine the sunday lunches stretching into lazy afternoons, Zoro disappearing into it with a satisfied hum, one arm thrown over his eyes, swaying slightly as he drifted off to sleep. Sometimes he’d mumble something half-asleep, sometimes he’d reach out blindly until his fingers brushed Sanji’s wrist, like he needed to make sure he was still there. Guess who wasn’t there anymore, huh?

There was also this stupid dumbbells he kept in the corner between the TV and the moonflower by the window. Going to the gym was not enough for Zoro; the thing he loved the most in his life was working out and pulling Sanji along with him. Another part of their routine were the morning complaints while Zoro adjusted his stance, corrected his form, hands firm and steady where they needed to be.

“Again.”
“If you can do 10 more, I’ll rim you as soon as you finish.”
“Shut up and focus, cook.”

Sanji put the weights inside another box, then he folded the hammock. When he finished, he noticed that unscrewing the pins from the walls left small, empty marks behind, as well as the weights left tiny scars on the walls. There was still so much work to do.

The following day, he asked for Nami, Robin and Franky to come over and help him work up the place. Their company made his dreadful day a little lighter, bringing life to the apartment as the girls bossed him around and Franky complained about his cheap furniture. They painted the walls and moved everything from its place until it looked like a different apartment.

When they left, though, late at night, and he turned all the lights out, he saw it: the fucking moonflower. For years, Zoro had tried to grow it, watering it inconsistently, placing it in different spots, insisting it would bloom eventually, no matter how many times it didn’t. Sanji had teased him about it more than once, saying he was so thick-headed even plants didn’t want to deal with him. Like a sick joke from fate, because Sanji never took care of that flower at all, it was now blooming, alive as it never was.

He wouldn’t throw it, he couldn’t. It should stay there. And for the next few days, her scent filled the apartment and helped Sanji to not feel so alone.

All cleaned up, he waited for Zoro to come and pick his things up, but he never did. He caught himself waiting by the phone, each vibration sending him a jolt of hope it was a text, a call, anything from him.

Weeks of complete radio silence and a pile of boxes catching dust in his living room until Sanji picked up his courage and texted him.

Way more awkward than he thought it would be, but it was the best he could do. He wasn’t counting on the even more awkward thing he received back.

Fucker had changed his number.

After all that, it sounded like a fucking humorless joke that he was sitting no longer than three rows away from him on that fucking subway. Sanji’s fingers curled against his palm, nails biting into skin hard enough to ground him.

He’d never seen him again. He’d never talked to him again. Never heard his voice or got any explanation. Everyday Sanji tried to rebuild himself around the scraps of what Zoro left him. One day at a time, he kept reminding himself, despite how it felt like the pain would never end.

Sanji wondered if he had moved on. Probably. He was a very handsome and fit man, strong and confident, the kind of guy people gravitated toward without thinking. It wouldn’t take much for someone else to step into the space Sanji used to fill. His chest clenched at the thought. Those grey eyes were once just for himself, but in that last night he didn’t even bear him a look.

“Say it,” Sanji had begged, his voice cracking, as Zoro opened the front door and dropped his key on the counter.

“Say what?”

That emptiness in his voice made Sanji want to punch him.

“Say you don’t love me,” he pushed, the words tearing on the way out, “if you have the guts. Say you don’t love me anymore.”

He couldn’t care less about his humiliation back then, it was something that would haunt his nightmares only days after; he only needed some kind of proof that Zoro was lying, was pranking, bargaining, anything.

But Zoro didn’t say. Zoro didn’t cry. Zoro just lingered a moment at the doorframe and walked out like it meant nothing to him.

“Coward!” Sanji find some force within to yell at the hardwood door that closed at his face, the echo of his voice lingering a lot longer than the guy that had just left.

Sanji took a glance at the map inside the train. He was just a few stations from his house. He swallowed, jaw tightening as he looked away, fixing his gaze anywhere else: the scratched metal pole, the reflection of strangers in the window, the pins on some girl’s backpack.

Zoro needed to get off first. It would be a tiny gift the universe could grant him, after everything else it had taken. Sanji closed his eyes and, shifted his weight, arms crossing tighter over his chest and for the first time since he left his father’s house, he prayed, because yes, he was that fucking desperate. His pulse was loud in his ears now, drowning out the low murmur of conversations around him and time seemed to slow down until it fucking froze because that stupid mosshead was never leaving and Sanji’s station was never coming.

The sign flared and that robotic voice finally announced it. Fine, he hadn’t hopped out, but Sanji could turn his back and leave through the other door and they would never have to face each other. He didn’t trust what might show on his face if their eyes met again. As the train slowed down, Sanji made his way quickly, without sparing another glance not to risk being seen. He jumped off the train and stalked towards the staircase.

“Cook,” that hoarse, deep voice echoed through the empty station.

Sanji froze.

What a sick joke.

He exhaled once and turned slowly. Blue eyes met gray, and his heart melted into a pool of love. Fuck. He was going to have to leave the country. That was the only solution. There was no other way someone should still feel like this after everything. Sanji just blinked and stared at the man that now closed the distance between them. “Wait, please.”

The words were gone, suddenly he didn’t know english or french or any language at all. His mouth moved but no sound escaped.

“Let me walk you home?” Zoro asked.

“What the actual fuck? No way,” he managed to say, his voice sharp. “Get the fuck out of my face.”

“Wait, I—I can explain, I promise,” Zoro reached for his hand, but Sanji retreated it like it would burn him.

“Well you should have done that three months ago, fucker. Leave me alone.” he snorted and pulled away.

“It was your father!” Zoro’s voice sounded like an horn inside his head.

Sanji paused. “What?”

“He found out about us. Said you would disgrace his family by dating another man. He reached for me and threatened you and said that if I just walked out of your life like I never existed he wouldn’t—” he stopped himself. Sanji saw the glimmer of tears on the corner of his eyes. “he wouldn’t take you back home. He’d let you live. Free.” He cut himself off, like the words were choking him. Sanji caught the glimmer in his eyes, the tears he wasn’t holding back anymore.

Zoro stepped closer again, more careful this time, reaching for Sanji’s hands like he was asking permission. “Please,” he said, voice breaking. “Believe me, cook. Please, please—” The tears slipped, unrestrained now. “I should’ve never left you. I should’ve fought for you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was scared—”

“You had no right to make that call. You don’t even know Judge,” he spat, anger rushing through every word. “There was a reason I never introduced you in the first place!”

“I know—I know!” Zoro’s voice broke completely, hands trembling now. “I was just so—” He dragged in a breath. “God, I’m so, so sorry.”

Sanji looked at him and it hurt even more, beacuse what he was seeing in front of him was Zoro. Not the ghost from three months ago, not the man who walked away without looking back, but the one he knew. The one he loved. The one who was now standing in front of him, falling apart, telling him he had broken his heart to protect him.

It shouldn’t make sense, but it kinda did. His father indeed had left him alone ever since their breakup, he was just to wounded to care. But now the unhealed scar inside his chest was screaming for him not to believe it.

“Look, you don’t—you don’t have to forgive me, okay?” Zoro said, words tripping over each other. “I just—I mean—fuck—”

“Hey.” Sanji breathed, his voice coming out fortunately firmer than he believed it would. He inhaled slowly, steadying himself. “Here’s the deal.” His gaze didn’t waver. “We go to my place. I make you some tea. You calm the fuck down.”

Zoro blinked, stunned.

“Then,” Sanji continued, “you tell me everything. Step by step. And then I can think about forgiving you.”

Hope hit Zoro’s face so fast it was almost painful to watch. “Really?”

“Really,” Sanji said, still sharp. “But I’m not promising I won’t tell you to go fuck yourself and kick you out right after.”

Zoro let out something between a laugh and a breath. “Fair.”

Sanji turned toward the stairs again, not waiting.

“Come on, mosshead,” he muttered. “The story’s long and so is the night.”