Chapter Text
The Orbit docks at Dawn Island.
It’s a little farther out of the way than they usually sail, but there were very well-paying guests on board at what would have been the end of the cruise who wanted to be taken all the way to their home of Goa Kingdom.
Captain Chas strikes up a conversation with the harbormaster, one seasoned sailor to another, and the harbormaster divulges that it might do him well to stay in port. The people of High Town love an excuse to spend their money on a good day, and with an upcoming visit from a Celestial Dragon, they’re even more inclined than usual to flaunt their wealth. Once word gets around that there is a luxury cruise ship at the wharf that offers fine dining and a cocktail lounge, they’ll show up in droves.
“Make yourself scarce for dinner service,” the head chef warned Sanji very clearly. “These people will take offense as easy as breathing, and I don’t want to lose my best kitchen boy because some middle-aged noblewoman didn’t like the way his uniform was pressed.”
So once all the food was prepped and ready for service, and the staff was taking their last break of the evening before the rush, Sanji was shooed away by the grown-ups and told to entertain himself for the night. He goes easily enough, stopping by the bunkroom to change out of his white service uniform and into secondhand trousers and canvas shirt and boots.
He doesn’t always get the chance to explore when The Orbit is at port, and he was warned to stay clear of High Town—but Sanji isn’t even looking toward the kingdom walls. He heads in the opposite direction, running down the pier toward the beautiful beach that stretches out of sight around the natural bend of the island.
The waters are so clear. There are tropical flowers blooming along the coastline that add something fragrant to the sea-salt in the air. A gull cries overhead and Sanji imagines, just for a moment, what it would be like to find All Blue.
Then he collides with someone hard enough that he goes sprawling backwards.
“Ow!” that person whines from directly in front of Sanji. He lifts his head in time to look right into big brown eyes, all watery with hurt, as the little boy he ran into says petulantly, “You made me drop my fish!”
Bewildered, Sanji looks down. Sure enough, there are a handful of huge, colorful fish flopping weakly in the sand between them. They look too big to have fit in the kid’s scrawny arms in the first place.
“Sorry,” he says, for lack of a better thing to say. “The sand will come off easy when you scale them.”
The boy blinks. He rubs the rest of his crocodile tears away, smearing grubby fingers across a pencil-mark scar that curves beneath one of his eyes like a smile.
“Scale them?” he asks curiously. “They already have those.”
“No, you know, de-scale,” Sanji explains. “When you get the skin and scales off to cook them?”
He feels a little too big for his skin under the other child’s undivided inattention. Attention is usually a bad thing. Sanji has always been safer when no one knew he was there. He’s just barely gotten used to his kitchen supervisor hovering at his shoulder, reaching in to guide his hands away from a mistake.
This boy is smaller than Sanji, though. Most of the people who want to hurt him are bigger. That makes it easier to talk to him.
“We just roast them on the fire and spit out all the yucky stuff!” the boy declares.
Sanji thinks that’s the worst thing he’s ever heard. “What about the bones?” he says, not sure he’s ready for the answer.
“They’re crunchy but not big enough to choke on or anything.”
Standing up abruptly, Sanji picks up two of the fish. They’re heavy, someone’s very lucky catch. The younger boy scrambles up, too, face contorted into a scowl and mouth opening around what is probably a very loud protest, but Sanji beats him to it.
“Let me cook these for you properly,” he says firmly. “I’ll show you what fish is supposed to taste like.”
He watches wonder take over the boy’s face. He’s expressive, bouncing from one feeling to the next like he wouldn’t know the first thing about sitting still—not like the way Sanji’s siblings’ faces would always clutch onto anger or derision or mean-spirited glee for days, the way his father’s face was always chiseled into a displeased frown.
This kid has cycled through half a dozen emotions in half as many minutes, and now he’s already moving onto something new. He smiles brightly, sand in his hair and tear tracks on his face and a gap in his grin from a missing tooth.
“You’re a cook?”
Sanji nods, because that’s what he’s always wanted to be in his heart—but something in him that still shies away from lying, even after weeks of pretending to be a displaced orphan to the kind people on The Orbit who took him in, makes him add, “Almost. I’m still learning. My name is Sanji.”
“Sanji! I’m Luffy!”
Luffy’s hands come up and catch on Sanji’s shirt, sticky and stubborn, already tugging him in the direction Luffy wants him to go. Sanji has no way of knowing, in that moment, that those hands are never, ever going to let him go.
(If he did have any idea, he might have prayed again for the first time since mama died, just to say thank you.)
“Come meet my brothers,” Luffy demands, equal parts spoiled and sunny in a way that muddles together and manages to be charming. “But just remember, I found you first!”