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Wind chimes tinkled in the soft breeze as Sanji followed Chopper out of another shop. The air was warm, carrying salt from the harbor and a faint thread of cherry blossoms from farther uphill. Clouds crossed the blue sky in loose patches, dimming the pale stone street for a few breaths before the sun returned.
Jukai climbed outward from the harbor in rows of pale wooden buildings with painted trim, open shopfronts, hanging cloth screens, and narrow balconies crowded with drying herbs, paper lanterns, and flowerpots. The shopping street rose gently through the middle of it, pale stone worn smooth beneath carts and foot traffic. Paper signs marked each shop. Beyond the last rooftops, a dormant volcano rose broad and dark against the sky, its lower slopes swallowed by forest so dense that the road into it vanished within a few turns.
The Sunny had tied up in the harbor mid-morning. Sanji and Chopper had already handled the resupply and put everything away, so they had come back into town for clothes and sundries while the rest of the crew scattered. Brook had drawn the short straw to watch the ship, with Robin due to spell him later so he could enjoy the town, too.
Chopper trotted beside Sanji with his little pack bouncing against his back, turning his head every few steps to take in another window display. “Sanji, look at those small woven charms. I wonder what they mean.”
Sanji glanced over at the neat rows of braided cord and tiny carved tags hanging from a wooden frame. “No idea, but you could ask.”
Sanji glanced toward the shop next door, where summer shirts hung from a polished rail just inside the entrance. He needed a new one after the last island’s rain had done something unforgivable to the collar of his blue-striped shirt, and he’d been meaning to replace the cheap comb in his pocket since three teeth snapped off. Before he could steer Chopper that way, Chopper pushed through the hanging cloth of the charm shop. Sanji followed him inside.
The shop was narrow and tidy, its shelves lined with folded wrapping cloths, carved hair pins, tins of balm, needles in paper sleeves, and wooden boxes with sliding lids. The charms hung beside the counter in rows sorted by color: red and white, blue and black, and plain straw-colored thread, each one tied around a small carved tag with a mark burned into the wood.
An older man behind the counter looked up from tying paper around a parcel. “Afternoon.”
“Good afternoon,” Chopper said. He pointed to the charms. “May I ask what those are for?”
“They’re protection charms,” the shopkeeper told him. “Help keep away evil spirits.”
“Do they work?” Chopper asked.
“Haven’t had any evil spirits in my shop.” The shopkeeper grinned.
Sanji scoffed, while Chopper drank it in with wide eyes. “Maybe I should get some for everyone,” he said, looking up at Sanji.
Sanji shrugged. “Your money, though I haven’t seen any evil spirits hanging around the Sunny. Unless you count that bottle of rye we got from the Viscount.”
“Never know what might sneak from the forest onto your ship,” the shopkeeper said. “There’s plenty of evil in there.”
This wasn’t the first time they’d heard about the allegedly haunted forest that day. They’d been warned by a couple vendors to stay away. Sanji had zero interest in trekking into the countryside when they were only staying until the log pose set that night. He was going to shop for himself and then enjoy the evening visiting a tavern and hopefully meeting someone to flirt away the hours.
Chopper decided to buy a few charms to hang around the Sunny. “Just in case,” he said. “Even if they don’t do anything, they’ll make nice decorations.”
Purchases in hand, they wished the shopkeeper a good day and continued on their way.
The clothing shop next door was wider than the charm shop, with the front panels pushed open to let in the breeze. Summer shirts hung from polished rails just inside the entrance, folded trousers sat on low shelves, and a shop girl near the rear counter measured cloth from a bolt with quick, practiced hands.
Sanji found a replacement shirt, plus a short-sleeved one he could wear on hot days. The cotton was light, the collar sat properly, and the buttons were actual shell instead of cheap painted wood. Chopper found a few pairs of shorts and a soft strap cover for his pack, which he tested by looping it over one shoulder and nodding with approval.
They continued uphill afterward, falling into the easy rhythm of wandering, greeting shopkeepers, browsing without hurry, and leaving with one or two useful things. By the time the street widened into a small square with a stone basin at its center, Chopper had slowed in front of the tea shop and bakery on the corner. Its front was open to the street beneath a moss-green curtain, and trays of pastries sat behind polished glass.
Chopper bounced on his toes. “We should stop.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bite of something sweet,” Sanji agreed.
Together, they went inside. The interior was cooler than the street, shaded by the open front and a row of high windows along the side wall. Dark wood ran underfoot, worn smooth between the entrance, counter, and small tables where customers spoke quietly over tea.
Near the window, Nami and Robin sat with half-eaten pastries and cups between them. Shopping bags surrounded Nami’s chair, while Robin had a small stack of books wrapped in brown paper beside hers.
Sanji swanned and swooned in their direction when he spotted them. “Nami-swan, Robin-chan, how wonderful it is to run into you.”
“Hi, Nami and Robin!” Chopper said, with fewer hearts falling on the floor but still with heartfelt enthusiasm. “Can we join you?”
“Please do,” Robin said.
Chopper put his backpack on the chair and then dragged Sanji with him over to the counter before Sanji could show his undying gratitude for the invitation.
They ordered two cups of tea, one mild and honeyed for Chopper and one darker for Sanji, with a bitter edge that cut through sugar. Chopper chose a bean-filled cake and a plate of sweet-glazed rice crackers. Sanji added green tea sponge, a pear pastry, and a glossy custard bun, which he expected Chopper would want by the drool in the corner of his mouth.
Sanji carried the tray back to the table, careful with the cups while Chopper hovered beside him with open, eager impatience. Chopper climbed onto his chair and reached for the sweets before Sanji could set the plates down. Sanji shifted the tray out of reach long enough to put everything where it belonged, then sat across from him between Nami and Robin.
“I hope your shopping trip went well,” Sanji said, setting a cup near Chopper before turning his attention fully to Nami and Robin. “If either of you wish to model any of your clothing, I would be honored beyond language. A blessing for the day. A memory to keep me alive through the next week of Luffy asking for meat.”
Nami rolled her eyes. “Not happening, just like the hundred other times you’ve asked.”
“There’s always hope for the hundred and second time!”
Robin smiled behind her hand. “Has your shopping day been fruitful?”
“Yes!” Chopper said around a mouthful of pastry. “I found some shorts, and a new syringe case for my backpack. And I also bought some protection charms for the ship to ward off evil spirits.”
“Would’ve been good to have when we drank that rye,” Nami muttered.
Sanji’s lips twitched. He cut into the green tea sponge with the side of his fork and took a bite. The cake was light, not too sweet, with a bitterness that kept it from turning dull. The baker knew what she was doing.
“Evil spirits are not something to be taken lightly,” Robin said, leaning her chin against her palm. Her voice stayed mild, her eyes warm with mischief. “They can inhabit anything, including a ship, and bring misfortune and misery until you succumb to a grisly, tragic death.”
Chopper’s eyes were round as saucers. “Maybe I should go back and buy more charms.”
“She’s kidding, Chopper,” Nami said.
Robin lifted a brow and sipped her tea in response.
Chopper gulped and stuffed another bite of cake into his mouth.
Sanji took another forkful of sponge cake, then set his fork down long enough to reach for his tea. “I take it you’ve been hearing about the haunted forest, too.”
Robin nodded. “It’s fascinating. I questioned the bookseller extensively when she brought it up. It’s been reported through the years that people see things in the forest. Horrible things. Nightmares given form. The thing they fear most, or can’t bear losing. The townspeople avoid it completely and warn travelers away.”
Chopper held his cup in both hooves, the honeyed tea cooling between them. “I hope the others didn’t go out there.”
“Luffy had better not be, or Franky’s in a world of hurt,” Nami said. “I told him I didn’t want any trouble or I’d replace all his cola with caffeine-free diet lemon-lime.”
Robin’s mouth curved. “Usopp is with them. I’m certain he has come down with a fatal don’t-go-into-the-forest disease.”
Chopper gasped. “Oh no! He needs a doctor!”
“An idiot doctor, maybe,” Nami agreed.
“I stocked Franky’s cola compartment with Luffy snacks,” Sanji reassured her. “He should be adequately distracted if necessary.”
Nami pursed her lips. “Maybe. With Franky, you never know if he’ll behave or be one with the crazy.”
Robin laughed lightly. “It definitely keeps one on their toes.”
The conversation drifted into the craziest thing they had seen Franky do without Luffy’s help. Nami argued for the street-dance contest he lost to a seventy-year-old woman with better footwork. Chopper, after serious thought, chose the time Franky challenged a cannon to a staring contest. Sanji just said, “Cola farts.” Robin smiled enigmatically and said she couldn’t possibly say in mixed company.
Chopper demolished the bean-filled cake, then accepted the custard bun when Sanji slid it across the table. The little doctor had crumbs on his muzzle. Outside the open front of the shop, shoppers passed through the softened afternoon light with parcels tucked under their arms. Nami stole one of Chopper’s rice crackers without asking. Robin asked Sanji what he thought of the bakery, and he gave the praise the place deserved. “The custard could use a little more vanilla,” he added.
Robin smiled. “I wondered.”
“Naturally, Robin-chwan, your palate is as refined as your beauty. If this island had any sense, they’d name the finest tea after you and retire every other blend out of shame.”
Nami pointed her fork at him. “And me?”
Sanji turned to her at once, hand pressed to his chest. “Nami-san, no tea could hope to capture you. The cup would crack from the honor. The leaves would surrender.”
“Flattery doesn’t get you to see me modeling clothes.”
“Cruelty from such radiant lips,” Sanji sighed with feeling.
The snack break stretched pleasantly, full of small talk, stolen bites, shopping comparisons, and the soft chime at the doorway whenever another customer entered.
By the time the plates were empty, the light outside had shifted warmer across the street. Chopper bussed their table with Sanji’s help. Robin gathered her wrapped books, and Nami collected her shopping bags before turning to Sanji with the kind of look that usually meant his afternoon had just been reassigned.
“Sanji-kun,” she said sweetly.
“Yes, beloved treasure of my heart?”
“Go find Zoro.”
“He’s likely in a bar,” Sanji said. “That’s his natural habitat when he’s unsupervised.”
“And if anyone is going to end up in the haunted forest while looking for the bathroom, it’s him.”
Chopper froze with one hoof halfway into his backpack. “Zoro might go into the forest?”
“He might go into the volcano if there was a sign pointing away from it,” Nami said. “Go find him.”
Sanji pushed back from the table, already reaching for his shopping parcels. “Yes, Nami-san. Anything for you.”
Nami grinned wickedly. “I know.”
“Nami-san is beautiful when she’s cruel!”
Chopper remained with Nami and Robin, and Sanji split off to bring his bags back to the ship. He ducked his head into the bar and two small restaurants he passed along the way. He ran into Jinbe, who indicated he hadn’t seen Zoro. He also checked the swordsmith and the liquor stores, but Sanji’s luck wouldn’t be that good. After dropping off his bags, he lit a cigarette and stood at the rail of the Sunny, looking out over the town and the forest beyond that stretched the base of the volcano.
The harbor sat calm below the afternoon sun, boats shifting gently at their moorings while gulls crossed above the masts. Brook stepped up beside Sanji, leaning his skeletal forearms on the rail. Sanji had filled him in on the task. “Maybe Zoro-san found someone for a little afternoon delight,” he suggested.
Sanji exhaled cigarette smoke. “If he’d managed that instead of getting lost, I might be impressed.”
“I would help you look, but I have no eyes – yo-ho-ho-ho!” Brook laughed. “Also, I’m on watch.”
Sanji waved him off. “It’s fine. I’ll skywalk over the forest and see if I can sense him with observation haki.”
The number of times Sanji had been sent looking for Zoro had honed his skill at locating the moron. With a farewell to Brook, Sanji extinguished his cigarette and took to the sky, aiming toward the volcano in the distance.
The town fell away beneath him. From above, Jukai looked smaller than it had from the street, its afternoon noise thinned to bell chimes, gull calls, and the faint clatter of wheels over stone.
Sanji climbed higher, using the air above the rooftops to get his bearings. The weather held fair, warm sun broken now and then by passing clouds. Each shadow crossed the town, then moved over the fields beyond it, dimming the grass and the low stone walls before sliding into the forest at the base of the volcano. The volcano rose beyond everything, broad and dormant, its upper slopes dark with old rock and scrub.
At street level, the forest had been a line of trees behind houses and field roads. From above, it spread wide enough to swallow every path leading into it. The canopy packed together in uneven layers of cedar, pine, and broad-leafed green, with narrow breaks where old roads entered and vanished. Patches of pale stone showed through in places, then disappeared under branches. The light touched the upper leaves but did little underneath them. Even in midafternoon, the ground below looked dark.
Sanji narrowed his focus. Observation haki spread outward, first over the town, checking alleys, taverns, shopfronts, and the quieter rooms above them in case Brook’s theory had somehow been right. But he couldn’t sense Zoro’s life force anywhere nearby.
He kicked away from the town, toward the forest. The strength in his legs compressed the air beneath his feet, turning each step into a brief platform before he pushed off again. The harbor breeze thinned as he crossed over the last roofs, then the last gardens, then the road that marked the edge of Jukai. Below him, the pale street gave way to packed earth, and the final houses ended in a row of fenced yards with charms tied to their gates.
Sanji moved above the treetops, suit coat snapping against his legs as he gained height. From there, he could see the old paths more clearly, though none of them stayed clear for long. One bent toward a dry streambed and disappeared. Another split three ways beneath the branches. A third followed the rise of the land toward the volcano before vanishing under cedar and shadow.
He clicked his tongue and sent his haki farther out. “Where the hell did you wander off to, Marimo?”
His awareness stretched beneath him, brushing over clusters of small animals hidden in the canopy, birds tucked among branches, insects moving in dense pockets, and larger shapes deeper below where roots tangled over volcanic stone. Life filled the forest in layers: quick, skittish things near the upper leaves, slow things under fallen wood, and a few predators keeping still in the dark spaces between trunks.
He pushed his haki wider as he continued skywalking farther over the forest. More animals. More birds. A boar rooting near a hollow. Deer scattered along a ridge. Something long and low moving through the brush with too many legs to be worth thinking about. The forest was crowded with life, but none of it had the hard, steady weight of the idiot he was looking for.
Then, at the far edge of his range, Sanji caught him. Zoro’s presence sat deep in the forest, past the first rise of land and well beyond any sane walking distance from town.
“Of course you’re all the way out there,” Sanji muttered. He angled toward Zoro, but the canopy thickened as the land rose. The trees packed closer together, their branches interlacing over uneven ground and old black stone. There were no clearings beneath him, nothing wide enough to drop into, no safe break where he could land without smashing through half the forest. The closer he came to Zoro’s position, the worse it got – steep slope, dense trunks, broken rock, and a tangle of roots hidden under leaves.
Sanji circled once, searching for an opening. The only usable gap was well short of Zoro, a narrow break revealing a dry streambed before being swallowed again by the trees. He dropped toward it, slowing his descent with quick steps against the air. Branches whipped past his shoulders. The smell of fresh air vanished, replaced by damp earth, cedar, leaf mold, and old stone. His shoes hit the ground beside the dry streambed with a soft crunch of gravel.
Zoro’s presence remained ahead, distant but there. Sanji straightened his suit coat and smoothed his hair, then tucked his hands into his pockets and set off to retrieve the wayward marimo.
There was no path beneath the trees. The forest started as a wall of trunks, roots, moss, and black volcanic stone, and Sanji had to make his own way through it. Roots crossed the ground in hard ridges, raised over old lava rock that broke through the soil in dull, uneven plates. Moss filled the cracks. Fallen needles covered shallow dips and slick stone. Every step needed attention, which annoyed him, because the damn swordsman had turned a simple search into a hike through cursed landscaping in his nice shoes.
The forest closed around him within a few dozen steps. Behind him, the open break in the trees vanished, and the late-afternoon light thinned to narrow strips between branches. It wasn’t dark, not yet, but the sun had lost its warmth by the time it reached the forest floor. What came through was pale and scattered, catching on cedar trunks, fern tips, and damp stone.
The sound had changed beneath the trees. The harbor had been loud with gulls and the creak of moored ships. The town had been vibrant with voices and the song of wind chimes. In the forest, his own steps stayed close to him. The crunch of needles under his shoes died a few feet away. A bird moved somewhere above, but the flutter barely carried. Even the wind lost itself in the packed trunks.
Sanji stopped after a while and let his haki rise again, careful and narrow this time. He didn’t need to cover the whole forest. Keeping that kind of range open for long would burn through his stamina for no good reason, and if Zoro had gotten himself into a fight, Sanji would need his legs more than his irritation. He reached ahead, found that stubborn pulse again, and fixed the direction in his mind before letting the focus drop.
He kept walking. The ground rose and dipped without warning, shaped by old lava beneath the soil. Some trees had grown with their roots exposed over stone, gripping whatever shallow earth they could find. Others stood tight together, their trunks straight and close, cutting the forest into narrow passages. Sanji turned sideways through a gap between two cedars, ducked under a branch, and stepped over a split in the rock deep enough to catch an ankle.
The air smelled of cedar, damp leaves, old rock, and the faint mineral bite of stone. Sanji checked his haki again when the trees grew too dense to see more than a few yards ahead. A short pulse, just enough to confirm the direction. Zoro remained ahead and slightly uphill.
Sanji looked through the trunks, chose the gap that angled closest to him, and climbed over a shelf of black stone webbed with roots. “When I find you,” he muttered, “I’m kicking your ass into next week.”
He kept walking. The forest pressed closer as the ground climbed, the trees packed so tight that the spaces between them filled with dim green-brown air. A thin haze hung low among the trunks, not fog exactly, but moisture and shadow caught beneath the canopy. It dulled the distance and softened the hard lines of roots, branches, and stone until every gap looked deeper than it was. Sanji slowed, eyes narrowing as he picked his way forward.
The late-afternoon light barely reached him now. It came down in weak slants through the upper branches, broken across needles, leaves, and the rough bark of old cedars. Where it touched the haze, it turned pale and dusty, then faded before it reached the ground. The forest floor stayed dark underfoot, all moss, fallen needles, exposed roots, and black rock. His shoes slipped once on damp stone, and he caught himself with a hand against a trunk, palm brushing bark cold enough to raise gooseflesh along his wrist.
He clicked his tongue and moved on, forcing a route through the tangle. Branches scraped his sleeves. Ferns brushed against his ankles. Nearby, water dripped once from leaf to leaf, then stopped. The silence settled back in so completely that his breathing sounded too loud.
Ahead, he caught a darker shadow near an old cedar on a rise. The tree stood thicker than the others around it, its trunk dark and ridged, the base wrapped in exposed roots that spread over black stone before disappearing under moss. Low branches jutted out at uneven angles, heavy with needles, cutting across Sanji’s view. Between him and the rise, younger cedars stood close together with straight, narrow trunks, and a few pale-barked trees grew at slants where the shallow soil had given way. Ferns crowded the spaces between roots. The ground lifted beyond them in broken shelves of lava rock, making the shadow difficult to place. The haze blurred the dark shape whenever the light shifted through the canopy. Still, it had to be Zoro.
“There you are, dumbass,” Sanji grumbled, loud enough to carry as he wove between the lower trees and climbed the rise. “You owe me for coming all the way out here to find you.”
The shape ahead began to resolve through the haze. He caught the long curve of sheathed katanas first, then the edge of a familiar dark coat behind the tree, higher up than he had expected. The ground must have risen again on the far side. “If it were up to me, I’d leave you out here.”
Zoro didn’t answer, which meant the idiot was probably asleep. Sanji climbed the last stretch and circled the thick cedar trunk. “Wake up, shit swordsman. I’d like to get back–”
The words died in his throat and the world came to an abrupt stop.
Zoro hung from the tree.
For one blank second, Sanji’s mind refused it. The three swords at his hip. The dark coat. The green hair fallen over his forehead. Then the rest forced itself into place all at once. A vine bit deep into his neck and held his body suspended a few feet off the ground. His head listed at a wrong angle. His skin had gone waxy and blue beneath the late light.
His stomach had been torn open. Blood darkened the front of his clothes. Loops of entrail spilled from the gash in his abdomen and hung wet against his legs. More blood had run down onto the roots below, soaking the moss and black stone under the tree.
Sanji stopped dead at the base of the trunk, every part of him gone rigid.
Then the world started again as a sharp, brutal inhale tore through Sanji’s chest.
He hadn’t realized he’d stopped breathing until air came back wrong, too hard and too late. His throat locked around it. His vision blurred at the edges, then cleared with sickening force, dragging every detail back into place – Zoro’s boots above the ground, the blood on the roots, the vine at his neck, the awful stillness of his hands.
Sanji made a sound he didn’t recognize. It was small. Broken. Gone almost as soon as it left him.
He lunged forward. His hands moved before the rest of him had caught up, one reaching for Zoro’s coat, the other snapping toward the vine around his neck. The bark tore at his palm as he braced one foot against the roots and kicked up, enough to reach the branch without thinking through the angle. He caught Zoro’s weight with one arm and yanked the vine loose with the other, fingers digging under it where it had bitten into skin.
“Hold on,” he said, because there had to be something to say. “Hold on, you stupid bastard.”
The vine resisted. Sanji snarled and burned it away with a flash of heat from his heel, careful, too careful, panic turning his precision sharp enough to hurt. The charred length snapped. Zoro’s body dropped hard against him, heavier than it should have been, slack in a way Zoro had never been slack.
Sanji hit the ground with him and twisted before impact could jar him worse, taking most of the fall across his own shoulder and back. Roots dug into his ribs. Stone scraped through his suit coat. He barely felt it. Zoro lay against him, head wrong, body open, blood slicking Sanji’s hands before he could stop it.
“Zoro,” Sanji said, and now the name came out rough, furious, pleading. “Wake up.”
Sanji shoved himself upright, dragging Zoro with him until the dead weight of his body lay across Sanji’s lap. His hand went to Zoro’s throat first, then his wrist, then his chest, moving too fast and too hard as he searched for anything under his fingers. A pulse. Breath. A twitch. Something.
There was nothing.
Zoro’s chest didn’t rise. No air stirred from his slack, blue-tinged mouth. His skin was cold under Sanji’s hands, wrong in a way that cut through panic and left no room for denial.
Blood soaked into Sanji’s trousers. Zoro’s spilled insides pooled against them, warm and slick over Sanji’s knees and the roots beneath him.
“No,” Sanji said, sharp and useless. He pressed harder at Zoro’s neck, as if he could force life back under his fingers by refusing the answer. “No, no, no. Don’t you fucking do this.”
But there was nothing. Zoro was gone.
The sound that tore out of Sanji didn’t feel human. It ripped up from somewhere below speech, raw enough to scrape his throat bloody, loud enough to break through the deadened forest and carry past the trees. Birds burst from the canopy in a hard scatter of wings.
Sanji curled over Zoro, dragging his lax head against his chest, and the first cry broke into another. Then another. Ragged, uncontrolled sounds he couldn’t swallow back, each one forced out of him by the body in his arms and the empty place where Zoro should have been.
He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Zoro was too heavy in his arms, too still against him, too cold beneath the blood.
He didn’t hear anyone approach. Warm arms closed around him from behind, sudden and tight. Strong legs framed his sides, and a broad chest pressed against his back with a force that felt less careful than desperate. A cheek lowered to the top of his head, holding him there, and the breath against his hair shook once before it steadied.
“Hey. Hey, Sanji.” Zoro’s voice was rough near his ear, edged with something Sanji couldn’t make sense of through the grief. “I’ve got you. I’m here. What happened?”
It took a beat for the voice to register. The warmth came next. The pressure at his back. The low murmur near his ear.
Sanji still had Zoro’s cold body tucked under his chin. He could feel the slack weight across his lap, the blood on his hands, the awful stillness pressed against him. But another Zoro was behind him, alive and breathing, holding him tight enough that Sanji could feel the rise and fall of his chest.
Grief held the contradiction in place for too long. Then something in Sanji’s mind caught – there were two of him.
“Zoro?” he rasped, voice torn raw.
“Yeah,” Zoro said at once, tightening around him. The answer came too fast, too relieved. “Yeah, it’s me. I heard you. I’m right here.”
Sanji’s laugh hitched on a sob. He didn’t know what was going on, didn’t know what to believe. “You never call me by name,” he said, latching onto the only piece of it his mind could hold. His fingers pressed into the cold Zoro’s hair, and his body curled farther over him, protective despite the arms around his back. Maybe grief had broken something in him. Maybe this was what losing his mind felt like.
Zoro went still behind him for half a breath. Then his arms tightened again, firm and careful. “Yeah,” he said, lower this time. “I know.”
Sanji laughed again, broken and thin. “Of course you finally call me that when it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
Sanji drew up slightly, the Zoro behind him shifting with the movement. He lowered his arms just enough to see Zoro’s slack, blue face through blurred vision. The vine mark around his throat. The blood drying dark along his jaw. The impossible stillness of him.
“This,” Sanji said roughly. “You’re dead, you stupid bastard.”
The body behind him locked tighter around him. “I saw you dead, too.”
The words landed wrong. Sanji couldn’t take them in. He shook his head, a small, ruined motion, and his hand curved down to Zoro’s cold cheek. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t sound real when he’s right here.”
“I am real,” Zoro said, low and strained. “Whatever you’re seeing, I saw it, too.”
Sanji stared down at the body in his lap. The blue face. The slack mouth. The blood. Zoro behind him was breathing hard now, trying to hold still and failing. Sanji could feel it in the press of his chest, the uneven rise and fall against his back.
“You’re something this forest made,” Sanji whispered. “Or something grief made. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Sanji.”
“Just let me have a second.” His voice cracked, and he bowed over the body again, pressing his forehead briefly to Zoro’s. “Just one second.”
The Zoro behind him went quiet, but he didn’t let go.
Sanji closed his eyes. His hand slid into Zoro’s hair, careful despite the blood, despite the torn body in his lap, despite the part of him that knew there was nothing left to protect. He bent lower and pressed his mouth to Zoro’s forehead.
It was cold beneath his lips.
“I hate you,” he whispered there, and it came out too soft to be hatred. “I hate you so much.”
The body in his arms began to come apart.
Sanji froze.
The cold weight across his lap loosened, thinning beneath his hands. Blood lost its slick heat against his fingers. Zoro’s hair broke apart under his palm, not strand by strand but into pale haze, lifting through his fingers before he could grip it. The torn coat, the slack face, the terrible open wound – all of it blurred at the edges.
“No.” Sanji clutched at him. “No, wait–”
The body dissolved through his arms. Mist spilled over his lap where Zoro had been, curling around his wrists, his knees, the roots beneath him. The blood vanished with it, fading from his hands, his trousers, the moss-dark stone. Within seconds there was nothing left but damp air and the real Zoro behind him, still wrapped around him, still breathing against his back.
Sanji stared down at his empty arms.
Zoro’s voice came near his ear, low and shaken. “Sanji.”
There it was again. His name. Not cook. Not curly. Not a stupid insult tossed across the galley or through the middle of a fight. His name, rough in Zoro’s mouth, pulled out by fear and relief together.
Sanji turned. Zoro’s arms loosened just enough to let him move, but he stayed close, one hand still braced against Sanji’s side. He was alive. Warm. Whole. His face was tight, eye fixed on Sanji as if he were checking every inch of him and still didn’t trust what he found.
Sanji grabbed the front of his coat and kissed him.
Zoro went still. Sanji didn’t care. He kissed him hard, with shaking hands and bloodless fingers twisted in dark cloth, because Zoro was alive, because that thing had not been him, because Sanji had already watched him almost die once on Thriller Bark and had done nothing about it afterward. Nothing happened. Nothing to say. Nothing he could do with all the terror that had come too late.
He wasn’t doing that again.
Zoro made a rough sound against his mouth, startled and low. One hand came up to Sanji’s shoulder, caught there, and held. His body stayed rigid for another breath, as if he hadn’t understood what Sanji was doing to him yet. Then his fingers tightened in Sanji’s shirt.
Sanji broke the kiss only far enough to breathe. “I saw you dead,” he said, voice wrecked.
Zoro stared at him, still too close, eye wide with shock and something worse beneath it. “I saw you, too.”
Sanji went still.
“Back there,” Zoro said, his voice rougher now. “I thought it was you. Then I heard you scream.”
Sanji’s breath caught. Zoro looked off through the trees, his face tightening around whatever he had left behind. Then he looked at Sanji again. Relief cut through the confusion there, raw enough that he couldn’t hide it. “Wasn’t real.”
“No,” Sanji said, and his laugh broke in the middle. “No, apparently this rotten forest has a sense of humor.”
Zoro’s jaw shifted. He looked Sanji over again, slower this time, as if checking that Sanji was still there under his hands. “You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Sanji’s grip tightened in Zoro’s coat. “Stay that way.”
Zoro’s hand moved from Sanji’s shoulder to the back of his neck, heavy and warm. “Cook–”
“You said my name.” Sanji swallowed hard, still close enough to feel Zoro breathe. “Don’t start pretending you didn’t.”
For a second, Zoro looked as if the old habit might rise. Then his fingers tightened at Sanji’s neck, keeping him there. “I won’t.”
Sanji closed his eyes. He rested his forehead against Zoro’s, felt the warmth and the pressure and the familiarity.
Zoro stayed still, but his breathing had changed. He held himself carefully now, one hand fixed on Sanji’s shirt, as if one wrong movement might turn the kiss into something they had to address.
Sanji felt it, too. The question waiting between them. The shock of his own mouth on Zoro’s. The fact that Zoro had held on. He couldn’t touch it yet. He could barely touch anything past the beat of Zoro’s pulse under his hand.
Zoro embraced him a bit tighter, his arms and legs still around Sanji. “I thought you were dead, and I–” His voice cracked. His forehead pressed harder against Sanji’s. “There’s always someone stronger. I know that. But stay alive as long as you can.”
Sanji’s throat pulled tight. “Only if you do the same.”
“I promise.”
The words brushed warm against Sanji’s lips, too close to a second kiss. Neither of them moved into it. Neither of them moved away.
They stayed there for a while, folded into each other with their foreheads touching, the question still unsaid between them. The light thinned between the trees. What little warmth had reached the forest floor began to drain away, leaving damp stone, moss, and evening chill beneath them.
“We should get back,” Sanji finally said, because if they stayed there any longer, one of them would have to say something neither of them was ready to say.
“Yeah.”
Zoro let go first, but only so they could stand. Sanji felt the loss of his hands immediately and hated that, too. They brushed dirt and leaves from their clothes in strained silence before starting in the direction of town. Sanji pulled his cigarette pack from his pocket and lit one with hands that had almost stopped shaking.
The forest had grown colder. The last of the sun caught high in the branches, leaving the ground dim and uneven beneath them. Haze lingered between the trunks in thin bands, pale against the black stone and dark moss. Every step stirred the smell of damp needles and old leaves. Sound still didn’t carry, their footsteps muffled, Zoro’s swords giving only the faintest shift at his side.
Sanji kept the direction fixed in his head. The volcanic rock broke through the soil in shelves and ridges, slick in places where moss had grown over it. Branches caught at his sleeves. Ferns brushed his trouser legs. Behind the trees, the slope dipped and rose without warning, folding the forest into the same repeated pattern of trunks, stone, and thinning light.
He snagged Zoro by the sash when he started to veer off. The longer they walked, the less comfortable it became. The kiss followed them through the trees, quiet and impossible to outrun. Sanji finished his cigarette and immediately lit another.
The second cigarette burned lower while the forest deepened around them. The last light stayed overhead, caught in the highest branches, but almost none of it reached the ground anymore. Sanji had to slow down where the roots rose in dark knots over the stone. Zoro kept close, though. Close enough that his shoulder brushed Sanji’s once when the trees narrowed. Close enough that Sanji could feel him stop whenever Sanji stopped. Neither of them said anything about the sash still caught in Sanji’s fingers, or the fact that Zoro could have pulled free at any time and didn’t.
By the time the trees began to thin, full dark had settled. Air moved differently near the edge of the forest, carrying woodsmoke, cooked fish, and the faint salt of the harbor. They stepped onto rough grass at the edge of the upper fields. Ahead, Jukai spread below in lanternlight, the pale wooden buildings turned gold behind paper screens and open doorways. The shopping street had gone dark, bars and restaurants brightly lit instead.
Sanji glanced back at the forest. It seemed innocuous now. Nothing but trees and undergrowth. Nothing but a memory that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Sanji took a drag from his cigarette, held it a second, and let the smoke out slowly. “I hate this island.”
“Yeah,” Zoro said.
Sanji glanced at him.
Zoro was looking back at the trees, face unreadable in the dark. One hand rested near his swords, but the other hung loose at his side, close enough that Sanji’s knuckles almost brushed it when the breeze shifted his sleeve.
They walked through town, heading for the docks. It was late enough that soon the Sunny would be underway. Lanterns hung under deep eaves. Wind chimes gave the occasional faint note when the breeze came uphill from the harbor. A few people glanced at them as they passed, eyes dropping to their dirt-streaked clothes, the leaves caught on Zoro’s coat, Sanji’s hand still hooked in the sash.
By the time they reached the harbor, the sky over the water had gone black-blue. Stars studded the dark, and a thin crescent moon hung low above the masts. The Sunny’s lamps glowed warm across the deck, their reflections breaking in strips across the water below.
Sanji let go of Zoro’s sash as they crossed the gangplank. Voices greeted them from the deck, the rest of the crew already aboard and preparing to leave. Ropes were being hauled in. Jinbe and Nami moved near the helm. Franky’s voice carried from the stern.
Without the forest around them, without Zoro’s body under his hands or that false blood still burning behind his eyes, the kiss came back with humiliating clarity.
Sanji exchanged an awkward glance with Zoro.
Zoro looked away first, then rubbed the back of his neck. His ears had gone faintly pink.
“I’m going to wash up,” Sanji said.
Zoro nodded before going to help Franky without another word.
Sanji crushed out the remains of his cigarette and headed for the bathroom.
For nearly a week, the Sunny sailed on under fair skies and steady wind, and Sanji and Zoro became very talented at being anywhere the other one wasn’t. Sanji kept to the galley, the pantry, the washroom, the deck chairs, the rigging, anywhere with a task attached to it. Zoro trained in the crow’s nest, napped by the rail, cleaned his swords, wandered into the kitchen for water and left before anything could be said. They still crossed paths because the ship was only so big, but every meeting ended the same way – a glance held half a second too long, Zoro’s gaze dropping once to Sanji’s mouth, Sanji forgetting the insult already on his tongue, then one of them finding an urgent reason to move. The elephant napped on deck, and both of them stepped around it with impressive dedication.
Sanji knew it couldn’t go on, as much as he pretended otherwise. He had to make a decision whether he was going to do something about this.
Sanji loved women. He loved the way they looked, the way they smelled, the way they smiled and laughed. He had built half his manners, half his pride, and most of his worst habits around adoring women with his whole self.
Zoro wasn’t a woman. Zoro was swords and scars and broad shoulders. Rough manners. Worse direction. Callused hands. Quiet loyalty. A body that took punishment and kept standing. A mouth that called him cook until fear forced out his name.
And now Sanji knew what it felt like to kiss him.
That was the part he had spent a week walking around. Zoro liked men; Sanji knew that much. Zoro had never talked about it, but he had never acted ashamed of it either. For Zoro, this might be complicated. For Sanji, it was new.
Momoiro Island came back to him more often than he wanted it to. He had fought half of what they tried to teach him and learned some of it anyway. Love wasn’t as narrow as he’d once insisted. Want wasn’t either. Some impossible things only stayed impossible because he refused to let them be anything else.
He hadn’t been lying in the forest. The false Zoro’s death had wrenched something to the surface, but it hadn’t made Zoro matter. Zoro had mattered already. The new part was letting that matter in a way Sanji had never expected, and deciding whether he was brave enough to let it be possible.
Sanji stepped out of the galley, cupped his hands, and lit a cigarette. Wind filled the Sunny’s sails and knocked the rigging against the mast. Overhead, a cloudless blue sky stretched in every direction. He leaned against the rail outside the galley, looking down at the main deck. Jinbe stood at the helm with Brook nearby. Behind him, on the upper deck above the galley, Usopp and Franky’s voices carried over the wind.
Sanji inhaled on his cigarette, gaze falling to Zoro. He sat on the side rail beside Luffy, legs dangling outside the ship, fishing pole angled over the water. Sun warmed his skin and brought out the green of his hair. His expression was content, broken now and then by a half-grin as he answered whatever nonsense Luffy was saying.
It was rare to see Zoro like this, relaxed and simply enjoying himself. Since they’d entered the New World, he trained to exhaustion and dropped into naps with hardly anything in between. These moments where he let himself exist without strain were few and far between, and something settled inside Sanji as he watched him.
He wanted to be there to see more of these moments. Now and later.
Sanji pushed off the rail and walked down the steps. The breeze tugged at his rolled shirtsleeves and the loose strands of his hair. He crossed the deck lawn to the two fishermen and rested his forearms on the rail next to Zoro. “Anything biting?”
“Eh, small feeder fish,” Zoro said. “Nothing big enough to keep.”
“Usopp said a giant squid lives here and I want to catch it and eat it,” Luffy said eagerly, leaning forward to peer into the water.
Zoro reflexively snagged the back of his shirt before he tumbled in. “Usopp also said the squid has eaten a hundred ships, three sea kings, and one entire island festival, and it was only because of him the rest of the island survived.”
“I know!” Luffy said, delighted. “Usopp’s so cool!”
Zoro shook his head, let go of Luffy’s shirt, and checked his line. The wind chimed through his earrings.
Sanji exhaled smoke, and the breeze carried it away from them. “I suppose we could have calamari tonight. We have a few squid in the aquarium.”
Zoro hummed. Luffy made an interested noise and leaned over the rail again, only to be caught by Zoro’s hand a second time without either of them looking at each other. Sanji stayed beside them, cigarette held between two fingers, watching the water slide past the hull. The fishing lines cut thin angles into the sea. Sun warmed the rail beneath his forearms. Luffy chattered about squid meat, Zoro answered with occasional grunts, and neither of them moved away when the ship shifted enough for Zoro’s shoulder to brush Sanji’s sleeve.
A small explosion popped from the upper deck, followed by a puff of gray smoke and Usopp’s offended shout.
Luffy’s head snapped up, eyes bright. He jumped off the rail and tossed the fishing pole onto the deck with no concern for the hook still swinging from the line. “Don’t let the squid get away!”
“There’s no squid,” Zoro said.
But Luffy was already gone, sandals slapping across the grass as he raced toward the stairs. Above them, Franky yelled something about “controlled testing,” Usopp yelled back that controlled testing shouldn’t remove his eyebrows, and Luffy’s delighted laugh joined both voices before he even reached them.
Sanji flicked the spent cigarette away, picked up the discarded pole, checked the lure, then hopped up on the rail beside Zoro. The sea rushed below them, blue and bright under the afternoon sun. The Sunny cut through it smoothly, her hull lifting over the swells. He settled close enough that his thigh pressed against Zoro’s, shoulder tucked beside shoulder, and dropped the line into the water. The lure flashed silver once before sinking below the surface.
Zoro didn’t move away.
Sanji watched the line pull taut in the current. He gave it a small testing tug, more for something to do with his hands than because it needed checking. Beside him, Zoro sat still with his own pole angled over the water, gaze fixed forward in a way that meant he was paying attention to everything except the fish.
They sat for a few minutes, quietly fishing, as the Sunny sailed on.
Then, bold as brass, Sanji leaned over and kissed Zoro quickly on the cheek.
Zoro started in surprise – a sharp breath and a brief shift of his shoulder against Sanji’s. Color rose immediately at the tips of his ears. He stared out at the water as if the sea might explain what had just happened to him.
Sanji let the silence sit for a beat, then looked back at his own line. His heart beat harder than he wanted to admit, but his voice came out even. “So, you want to do this?”
Zoro’s fingers tightened around the fishing pole. He looked down at the water, then at Sanji, the blush still caught high on his ears. “You sure?”
Sanji’s throat went tight. Of course Zoro would ask that. The kiss in the forest had come out of nowhere, even to Sanji. To Zoro, it must have looked worse – grief, panic, terror, Sanji losing his mind under the trees and grabbing for Zoro because he was alive. But Sanji knew the truth. It had just taken him a week to stop pretending he didn’t.
Sanji held his gaze. “Yeah.”
Zoro searched his face for another second, careful in a way Sanji almost couldn’t stand. Then Zoro smiled. It came slowly, wide and unguarded, softer than his battle grins and warmer than the smirks he used when he’d annoyed Sanji into shouting. It changed the whole shape of his face, and for one useless second, Sanji forgot how to breathe.
“Then yeah,” Zoro said. “I do.”
Sanji’s chest went tight. He had prepared for deflection, for Zoro looking away, for some rough little answer that would force Sanji to decide whether to push or retreat. He had not prepared for that smile. For Zoro sitting there in the sun with pink ears, a fishing pole in his hand, his answer clear on his face before the words even reached Sanji.
Sanji looked back at the water before he could do something embarrassing, but the smile stayed caught in the corner of his vision. “Good,” he said, and if his voice came out a little too soft, the wind could take the blame.
They stayed on the rail, lines trailing behind the ship, neither of them in any hurry to move. Their shoulders remained pressed together, and every so often Zoro’s knee bumped Sanji’s with the ship’s easy roll. Beneath them, one of Chopper’s charms had been tied around the rail, blue-and-black cord bright against the wood, its carved tag tapping softly below their heels.
End