Chapter Text
Walking into the restaurant, taking in the atmosphere, hearing the chatter that filled it, it was easy for Zoro to imagine Sanji flitting between tables. Easy to see how he would charm everyone with just a few words and that dumb smile of his.
But Sanji wasn't here. It was like he had become a ghost in the two weeks since he had packed up all his stuff from the house, removing himself from their lives.
Two weeks since he found out about the truth, had listened to Zoro’s shitty explanation of everything.
Zoro couldn't blame him.
Luffy had demanded that they try to track him down the minute they figured out he wasn't coming back.
So here the group was, chasing a ghost.
“And he’s supposed to be working today?” Nami asked as they all sat down at one of the booths. Luffy and Usopp immediately nodded while Zoro just shrugged.
“Sanji said this is the only day I'm allowed in the restaurant” Luffy said, zero shame in his voice.
“And we normally go over our class notes together during his breaks,” Usopp confirmed. “Robin and Franky normally do date nights today as well so Sanji cant reject tips too.”
It seemed like almost everyone came to the restaurant regularly when he worked.
Zoro ignored the ache in his chest when he realized he had not visited it until now.
Well. him and nami were the only ones who hadn't been.
Which.
Did Not come as a surprise.
The group continued to chatter amongst themselves.
Until their server came by to take their orders.
“I'm sorry,” the guy said, interrupting them, not sounding sorry in any sort of way, “you're sanji’s friends right? The ones that he moved in with a few months ago?”
Zoro noted how almost all the workers had stopped moving around tables, and the muffled sounds from the kitchen stopped.
“Yeah! Have you seen him recently? We’ve been trying to track him down for a few weeks now and we know that he's supposed to work today and we just want to know why he-” the waiter walking away, more like sprinting, cut luffy off from his rant.
“Well that isn't a good sign,” Usopp muttered, drumming his fingers on the table. “Should we go? Maybe we should go? I'm sure Sanji would understand!”
“We are not leaving until we talk to Sanji,” Luffy said in that voice that no one could ever disagree with. “I need to talk to him about moving back in and Zoro needs to apologize. We aren't leaving.”
Zoro scoffed.
He knew he needed to apologize but still.
It wasn't like he was the only one that hurt Sanji.
Wasn't the one that set this whole ball rolling in the first place.
He wasn't the one that fled the house at the first sign of trouble.
(He knew that that isn't fair but he also didn't want to accept that everything was happening because of him, that Sanji refused to see their friends because of him)
“Well then, you're paying,” Nami said, flipping through the menu again. “And I'm getting dessert too.”
Luffy laughed and happily agreed, even though he pulled his phone out no doubt to text his brothers to ask them to pay for the meal.
About thirty seconds of peace passed.
And then the doors that Zoro assumed led to the kitchen slammed open.
He held back the laughter that threatened to bubble up at the sight of the comically large chef's hat that's on top of the man leading the pack's head. It distracts from the obvious malicious intent radiating from the three men.
And then the three very large, very angry looking men were stomping over to their table.
“Oh god, but we didnt even order,” Usopp groaned as he ducked behind luffy. “Why is one of them carrying a camera?”
The man leading the pack seemed to have locked in on Zoro, he noted.
“Which one of you is Roronoa Zoro?” the man asked despite seeming to know who he was already.
All three of his friends immediatly point at him, the traitors.
He raises his own hand up, shrugging in acceptance for whatever is about to happen.
“Right, well c'mon now,” the man said and kicked Zoro's chair. “We gotta take your picture.”
“We haven't even ordered yet, what did I do?” he complained even as he stood up and let the men herd him over to a wall.
His friends remained at the table, Luffy watching with curiosity, Nami worriedly chewing on her nails, and Usopp was hurriedly pulling his phone out and texting someone.
“It's my restaurant, I don't have to tell you anything,” the man answers him. “But if you gotta know, Sanji means a lot to me, a lot to us here at Baratie.”
“Whatever happened between us doesn't affect you old man,” Zoro responded.
The three men crowding around him laugh.
“Zoro thats-” he hears Usopp try to warn him, but he isn't fast enough.
“Sanji’s my kid so I think whatever you did to make him move back in with me affects me,” the old man says, Sanji’s dad says.
(“ Zeff actually kind of saved my life ,” Sanji had said, a soft look that Zoro knew in his bones he probably would never get to see again. “ He's more of my dad than Judge will ever be. Don't tell him i said that, he’ll hold it over my head for the rest of the year.”)
Of course. Of course, Zoro just had to go and piss off the guy who owned the restaurant his friends loved so much just because he broke sanji’s heart.
“Patty’s gonna take your picture and you're going to leave and accept your lifetime ban of the baratie,” Zeff says as the large bearded man lifts the camera up to snap the photo, the flash leaving him slightly dazed.
“Um, excuse me,” he hears nami’s voice call out, “what about us?”
And it's easy to see how this man raised Sanji. He still looks pissed as he takes one look at the table and sighs.
“I'll send you home with your food but this guy,” he points at Zoro, who literally hadn't moved from his spot, the two other cooks staring him down, “is paying. But you all are going to leave a pretty nice tip since I know that at least one of you had something to do with him coming back like that too.”
The three sitting at the table are quick to accept almost zero complaints except for Luffy's own when they deny him an order of everything off the menu.
“We wanna talk to Sanji before we leave,” Luffy said as a waiter was handing them their food. “He's gotta move back in or I'll die! I swear Usopp made that weird stew from minecraft and almost everyone was sick. I mean we still ate it because we knew how upset Sanji would be if we didn't but like. We miss him.”
Luffy had ended up eating a majority of the stew, his iron stomach no match for usopp’s attempts.
Everyone else had had to spend the day confined to their beds.
That incident really had been the last straw, well. That and Sanji had apparently left the group chat that everyone in the house was in.
Zoro had muted it two weeks ago.
The chef just sighed and ran his hands over his braided beard.
“I have no idea what minecraft is,” Zeff said, “but sanji’s visitin his mom today. I'll let him know you came by though. Not you though, I don't want you near my boy until he’s ready to talk to you, ya hear me?”
Zoro hummed in acceptance, if the cook wasn't ready to talk to him he wasn't going to rush it. He knew it would be better to give Sanji space to figure everything out.
But Luffy had given him those puppy eyes this morning and begged for a decent meal cooked by someone who wasn't actively trying to poison everyone and now Zoro was banned from a restaurant.
“Sanji’ll move back in soon though,” Zeff continued. “He loves living there too much to stay here with us.”
Luffy whopped, nami and Usopp hugged each other and zoro nodded.
“Thanks old guy!” Luffy said as he scooped up their food, ready to go home and enjoy their spoils of war. “Tell Sanji we miss him!”
And so Zoro pays, his wallet feeling so much lighter than when he first picked it up this morning.
Even as the group starts to leave, the head chef doesn't stop staring down Zoro.
Which. Okay. Deserved. Maybe.
“Can you tell him I'm sorry. And that I didn't. I didn't mean for all of this to happen?” Zoro says, his fingers messing with his earrings.
Zeff scoffs.
“I’ll tell him you stopped by,” Sanji's dad says and that's that.
Zoro knows that the ache in his chest isn't going to go away until Sanji comes back home.
Later, when they've made it back to the house, Zoro's phone buzzes.
mihawk : Roronoa Zoro I truly can not believe you’ve been banned from another place of business. What could you have done this time?
mihawk : I'll see what I can do, Zeff is a longtime friend. As is red hair. We should be able to get this handled for you.
“Oh no,” he groans.
mihawk : I've been informed what happened. I agree that this is well deserved. I told you that Sanji Black was too good for you. Shanks agrees.
mihawk : i’ll take his contact information to apologize on your behalf.
zoro : im literally blocking you wtf
mihawk : I'm aware of how much better I can treat him. Shanks agrees.
“How hard is it to get unadopted?”