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It’s not that Sanji particularly likes waking up early; it’s just that after a decade of working at the Baratie — as a busboy, a waiter, and eventually a chef — the morning routine has been drilled into his head by Zeff. Four a.m. is the bare minimum, five is an insult, and anything later than that is a lost cause.
It is why, the first night he stays over at Zoro’s, he is wide awake at four-thirty in the morning.
His body moves on autopilot despite the unfamiliarity of his surroundings — he’s brought his own toothbrush and towel, placed neatly by the sink the night before, so that’s where he goes first. Zoro’s bathroom is severely lacking even the basics of skincare, but Sanji never expected anything from his oaf of a boyfriend; there are at least a soap bar and a shampoo bottle, and Sanji uses generous amounts of both. Breakfast is next after getting dressed, and — after groaning at the sight of an alarmingly empty kitchen — he starts rummaging through the beers in the fridge, hoping to find something edible he can turn into a decent breakfast.
He’s finished making two sets of omelets, sausages and mashed potatoes before he notices that Zoro is nowhere in sight.
He peers into the bedroom, absentmindedly noting that it’s already seven-thirty, only to find Zoro still on the bed, practically dead to the world.
Huh.
So, Zoro is not a morning person.
Sanji can work with that.
“Ooh,” Sanji hoots as Zoro enters the gym later that afternoon. “Look who’s finally done photosynthesizing.”
Zoro strides towards him with a glare, though Sanji can see the faint blush blooming across his cheeks. “I’m an athlete,” he points out indignantly. “Outside of matches, I make my own schedules.”
“And does that schedule involve hibernating?” Sanji can’t help teasing. He taps his chin dramatically, pretending to think. “Wait — do plants even hibernate?”
“I’m going to punch you in the face,” Zoro growls, striding across the room until he’s all up in Sanji’s personal space.
“As if you can,” Sanji snaps back, undeterred, body leaning forward until their foreheads meet. He smirks, aware that he’s showing more teeth than necessary. “Are you even awake enough, Marimo? Cause one of your eyes is still closed.”
Zoro swings his sword just as Sanji raises his leg to block the attack; they soon fall into the old song and dance, Zoro with his kendo and Sanji with his savate . It’s an unorthodox fight that used to turn most heads in the gym back in the day; nowadays, the regulars barely bat an eye at the clacking sounds of a trained kick against a bamboo sword.
The fight lasts for a good part of an hour before both of them are lying on the floor, bruises blooming across their skin and grins plastered on their faces. This is usually the part where Zoro starts complaining about being hungry, so it surprises Sanji to find his boyfriend quiet, a pensive look on his face.
“Marimo?” He asks.
Zoro runs his hand through his hair in a rare sign of embarrassment. “Listen, Cook, about this morning —" he turns to his side and takes Sanji’s hand in his. “I know you stayed over during the weekend to spend more time with me, and I ended up sleeping half the day away instead. I —” he clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”
Something flutters inside Sanji’s ribcage, warming him all over. “Aw, look who’s a softie,” he says, pinching Zoro’s cheek with his free hand and laughs when Zoro tries to bat his hand away like an oversized green cat. “So you overslept once. Who cares — we still have the rest of the day to ourselves, don’t we?”
“But —"
“Hush,” he scoots closer so they’re now lying side by side, facing each other. “It’s not a big thing.”
It is, apparently, kind of a big thing.
Sanji knows Zoro isn’t a lazy person. On the contrary, Zoro has a strict regime for his training — a holistic combination of physical training, timed meals, and meditation that is more of a lifestyle than just a simple routine — and Sanji doesn’t think Zoro has missed a single training session for the past ten years. Zoro has a schedule and sticks to it. It just so happens that this schedule is completely incomprehensible to any other normal human being.
It also includes being an absolute disaster in the morning.
It only takes another night at Zoro’s place the following weekend to figure this out — he is once again attempting to cook breakfast in the kitchen when he hears a loud bang coming from the bedroom. He rushes over, ready to tackle anyone breaking into the apartment, only to find Zoro clutching his hip next to an upturned nightstand.
Sanji skids to a halt by the doorway.
He blinks.
“Do you have eyes,” he can’t help saying, because it is a tall, bulky nightstand with a garish yellow color. There is no way anyone could’ve missed that.
Zoro scowls at that, but says nothing, before turning around and stubbing his toe on the same fucking nightstand.
“That’s going to bruise,” Sanji says, mostly impressed now.
Zoro ignores him and saunters into the bathroom. There is another loud bang as he presumably runs into the door, and a cluttering noise a few minutes later, signaling that Zoro has dropped his toothbrush somewhere on the floor.
The man can hold a sword between his teeth, but keeping a toothbrush inside his mouth is suddenly an insurmountable task in the morning.
This isn’t just big. This is monumental.
“I think I’m going insane,” Sanji declares.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Usopp says, pointedly not looking up from whatever gadget he’s currently tinkering with. “It’s Zoro,” he says after a moment. “He’s not exactly the paragon of grace and elegance.”
“He is an oaf,” Sanji agrees. “But he has always been an alert oaf. One time I tried to kick him in the head to wake him up during his nap. He managed to avoid my kick and grab his kendo swords in those few seconds I was swinging my leg.”
Usopp finally looks up at that, just to give Sanji a flat look. “How are you two dating again?”
Sanji narrows his eyes at Usopp.
“Oh, right,” Usopp says before Sanji could even respond, “I forgot you two live in a pocket dimension where kicking each other in the head is a love language.”
“He likes it,” Sanji points out, indignant. Zoro is a brute like that — that’s how they met, after all. They were both regulars at the Straw Hats Gym, running into one another more often than not, and it didn’t take long for them to start competing with each other. Zoro asked him out after a particularly heated spar, and the rest is history.
He remembers the day like it was yesterday — the way Zoro looked at him at the end of the fight, pupils blown and cheeks red. His gaze flickered towards Sanji’s lips when he thought Sanji wasn’t looking and he didn’t seem to particularly mind that he was still being pinned down by Sanji’s legs. In fact —
“You know, I think it probably turns him on.”
“I did not need to know that!” Usopp sputters, and yeah, fair enough.
Sanji witnesses disaster for the next few weeks.
Zoro is essentially a zombie in the morning. He wanders aimlessly around the house, bumping into things in his path. He gets his shampoo and soap mixed up, drops his toothbrush onto the floor multiple times, and wears his shirt inside out. He pours cold water in an attempt to brew tea. He keeps biting at the fork as he eats his breakfast in a sleepy haze.
He still runs into the nightstand. The bruise on his shin seems to increase in size.
“Brute,” Sanji says and makes a mental note to plan a visit to an IKEA. He remembers seeing some cheap nightstands that can fit better into the corner of Zoro’s bedroom.
“You really do have a soft spot for him.”
Sanji stares at his phone incredulously, hoping that he can somehow telepathically send his distress through the call. “Why would I — I don’t have a soft spot for Zoro,” he sputters. “I find all of these disgusting, actually. Did you know he keeps dropping his toothbrush on the floor? That can't be hygienic.”
Nami scoffs from the other end of the line. “Okay, and what are you doing now, Sanji?”
Sanji freezes. He is currently rearranging Zoro’s furniture, because after he bought him a new (classier!) nightstand, Zoro proceeds to trip into other furniture; it is as if he starts his day with some kind of a masochistic quota to fill. There are various bruises all over Zoro’s body, and Sanji has begun suspecting that some of his scars aren’t from his kendo matches, after all.
And that…has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is now rearranging Zoro’s furniture during his off day. For aesthetic purposes , of course, and certainly not because he has somehow memorized Zoro’s disastrous morning routes and is now creating the path of least resistance for the oaf to bulldoze over in the morning.
He tells Nami as much.
“Sure, babe,” Nami says, clearly not buying a single thing Sanji’s saying.
It really is disgusting, okay.
The way Zoro is a cuddler, for one. He would trap Sanji in a deadlock and refuse to let him out of the bed, submitting Sanji every morning to the torture of stewing in the heat and sweat of his boyfriend, only to whine like the largest baby when Sanji tries to pry himself away from his arms.
Or the way he would stay in a cocoon of blanket afterwards, the only thing visible would be the green tuff of his hair and occasionally his feet.
Or even worse, the way he would sometimes wobble into the kitchen, still sweaty and shirtless. He would hug Sanji from behind, his chin slotting itself in the crook of Sanji’s neck.
“Breakfast,” Zoro would mumble into Sanji’s shoulder, which is Zoro’s caveman-speak for, what’s for breakfast.
Sanji would scoff at that. “You wouldn’t even know if I told you.”
“Still wanna hear it,” Zoro would insist, that stubborn oaf. “—like hearing you talk about shit you like.”
Sanji would not find that sweet. Not at all.
Instead of blushing, he would shove a sandwich into Zoro's mouth in an attempt to silence the zombie.
It is disgusting, all things considered. Sanji would also press a kiss on Zoro’s forehead, not because he thinks Zoro is endearing, no way. It is just a reward for waking five minutes earlier. Simple as that.
“I’m not,” Sanji says.
“Not what?” Usopp chimes in as he approaches their table.
“Sweet on Zoro,” Nami answers for him, scooting to give Usopp space to sit.
Usopp laughs at that. “Oh, you totally are.”
“I had to wash his laundry this morning because he had it on a pile on the floor!” Sanji quickly adds. “He’d trip over it! He knew he’d trip over them in the morning, and he still left it there! Why does he keep adding more traps for himself!”
“...and you washed his clothes? Instead of breaking up with him?”
“Come on, Usopp,” Sanji crosses his arms, a little offended. “I wouldn’t break up with someone over dirty clothes.”
The whole table stops and stares at him.
Sanji bristles in his seat. “What?”
“Um, yes, you would,” Usopp says, slowly, like Sanji is five. “Hell, you would break up with someone over clean clothes.”
“May i remind you the last time you dated someone,” Robin chimes in, all too rationally, “you broke up with him because his shoes and ties don’t match in color?”
“He paired green with burgundy,” Sanji grumbles, because it’s easier to point that out than to admit that Robin was right.
Sanji heard the clattering sound before his brain registers that Zoro has placed a key on Sanji’s side of the nightstand.
Sanji blinks. “What’s this?”
“That’s a key,” Zoro says, easily, and does not elaborate.
“I know that,” he blurts out, because the alternative is to sit down and really think what it could possibly mean . “What’s the key for?”
Zoro gives him a look. “It’s the key for our apartment.”
“Our — Zoro, we don’t have an apartment,” Sanji says, completely calm and not halfway to hyperventilating. “Not — this is not my apartment.”
Zoro lets out an exasperated sigh, but there’s a fond smile on his face. “Cook, look at me. Cook. You’ve practically lived here.”
Something leaps in Sanji's throat, but it is not the fear he was expecting.
This is too much, Sanji wants to say, almost on instinct, like he would in any of his past relationships. I love you but this is too much and I'm not ready.
But something is caught in his throat as he thinks of the fridge he’s stocked up, the living room he’s rearranged. The kitchen is filled with his own kitchen tools and appliances. The bathroom has a complete set of skincare products, arranged in alphabetical order. The laundry is neatly folded in the cupboard, Zoro’s on the right side and his on the left.
The nightstand now has a recipe book for Sanji to write his ideas in, right beside the key Zoro just put and the jewellery box for Zoro’s earrings.
I love you, he thinks, and realizes with a start that there’s no but coming after.
“You're right,” he finds himself saying. “I don't know what I was — you're right.” He picks up the key and hold it in his palm. The metal is cold to the touch, but still warms him all over. “Thank you, Zoro.”
Zoro grins. He does that a lot, these days — wide smile and soft eyes, like everything Sanji says is the best thing he’s ever heard. It gives a sweet, sharp ache in Sanji’s chest, and he can’t help smiling back, his whole body warming all over.
Yeah. Sanji can work with this.