Sanji's Boyfriend ⑅˖⁠♡

“Hey,” Nami says suddenly, voice bright with danger. “Sanji.”

Sanji doesn’t look away from the field. “If you’re about to ask me to buy you a souvenir, the answer is no.”

She points at the big screen without even turning her head. “Look.”

Sanji glances up to where the camera feed’s sweeping the crowd, picking out faces and couples and people who look like they’ve been drinking. Everytime the screen lands on two people sitting close a little graphic pops up of two cartoon lips, a heart, the words KISS CAM in aggressive glitter font. A teen couple kisses too eagerly and the crowd roars, two middle aged women kiss and throw up double peace signs and the crowd roars louder. A guy tries to kiss his friend; the friend shoves him away and flips off the camera and the crowd goes downright feral.

Usopp is vibrating like he’s about to pass out. “If it gets us… if it gets us!”

“It won’t,” Sanji says firmly.

It does. 

The stadium is huge, sure, but the universe is petty as fuck and fate is nosy. Worse, Sanji has the kind of luck that ensures anything humiliating will happen to him in high bloody definition. When he looks up the big screen is suddenly, horrifyingly, the slice of the row where Sanji and Zoro sit shoulder-to-shoulder. The KISS CAM graphic pops up like a death sentence, cartoon lips bouncing. A little heart pulses and Sanji feels every cell in his body light up with panic.

Nami shrieks with laughter while Usopp howls. “Oh, this is classic!” 

Luffy stands up on his seat and is immediately, violently, yoinked back down by every pair of hands around him. 

Sanji’s face goes hot. “No fucking way.” He turns automatically toward Zoro, ready to hiss something threatening, but Zoro’s already looking at the screen, calm as death. He lifts two fingers to his mouth and makes a lazy little motion, like he’s telling the camera to stop and then he mouths, clearly and unmistakably: he’s straight. 

Sanji’s blood turns to ice, apparently. His brain stutters, trying to decide which part of that statement to be furious about first because it’s not wrong, it’s also just… not right. Maybe. He’s still figuring it out.

The crowd boos playfully, the sound hitting Sanji like a wave, but Zoro keeps his expression perfectly neutral, like he’s not actively detonating Sanji’s entire life in front of approximately twenty-two thousand people.

Sanji stares at him, mouth opening uselessly but Zoro doesn’t look at him. He keeps looking at the camera before he points at Sanji with a little dismissive wave, like: not him. And then, because the universe has a cruel sense of comedic timing, the guy sitting on Zoro’s other side leans in. He’s maybe mid-thirties, hat pulled low, smelling faintly of beer and cheap cologne, with the kind of face that says he’s here for a good time, not a long time. 

He looks at Zoro, at the big screen and grins like he’s just been handed a dare. “Well,” he says, loud enough for the nearby seats to hear. “If he’s straight…”

He leans in to kiss Zoro and Sanji’s entire body goes cold and hot at the same time. Zoro doesn’t jerk away or shove or look startled or – he turns his head just enough, barely, to meet it halfway like kissing some stranger on a fucking jumbatron is no big deal, and Sanji’s stomach drops through the floor.

Jealousy is an ugly word that Sanji’s never, ever liked. Jealousy feels like ownership or insecurity, like a thing weak people do because they can’t handle themselves. Sanji doesn’t get jealous. He’s above – 

His hand shoots out, grabs a fistful of Zoro’s jersey at the collar and yanks, hard, until the guy’s kiss lands on air, lips smacking uselessly as Zoro gets pulled out of orbit.

The stranger blinks, startled. “Hey!” 

Sanji doesn’t even look at him; he pulls Zoro in and kisses him.

The crowd loses its mind. Sanji loses his own mind in a quieter way because Zoro’s mouth is warm in the way it shouldn’t be, because Zoro is usually all sharp edges and stubbornness but here, right now, Zoro’s lips are soft enough to make Sanji’s chest ache. For one single second, Zoro goes still with surprise before he kisses back, his hand coming up to lock his fingers at Sanji’s waist, pulling him closer with the kind of blunt certainty Zoro does everything. Sanji’s heart slams against his ribs like it wants out. The kiss is messy, too fast and too public, fueled by pure spite and something else Sanji’s been denying for so damn so long it’s practically a second religion at this point. He hears the stadium roaring around them and Luffy screaming like he just saw fireworks against Usopp’s incoherent shrieks.  

He also hears, distantly, the tiny sound Zoro makes against his mouth – a little choked-off noise – and it’s the hottest thing Sanji has ever experienced in his life. He pulls back just enough to breathe, keeping his forehead locked to Zoro’s because he’s pretty sure that iif he puts any distance between them he’s going to die of embarrassment.

Zoro looks at him with his eyes half lidded and mouth open, expression utterly unreadable in the way that always makes Sanji want to punch something or kiss him again or take him home and never leave his bedroom, ever.

The Kiss Cam is still on them, the graphic is now throwing cartoon confetti like it’s celebrating a national holiday. The guy on Zoro’s other side is staring at Sanji like he just witnessed a crime. “What the hell, man?”

Sanji finally turns his head toward him, smiling nice and sharp. “Get your own,” he manages and, hey, if his voice is shaking a little, well. Seems fair, all things considered.

The guy holds up both hands in surrender, laughing. “Okay! Okay! Fuck me!”

Zoro, expression still, murmurs into Sanji’s ear, too low for anyone else to hear: “Jealous.”

Sanji’s entire body lights on fire, even as he jerks back to glare at the other man. “Shut up.”

Nami leans across Luffy with the grin of a shark. “So, are you two done pretending you’re not insane about each other or d’you need it to come back for a second round?”

Usopp looks like he’s about to faint. “I’m going to be sick. In a good way.”

Sanji covers his face like he’s trying to erase himself from reality but Zoro’s hand, warm and unbothered, settles on Sanji’s knee. The crowd’s attention is elsewhere now, chasing the next spectacle but Zoro’s hand stays put, heavy and solid. 

“You okay?” He asks and his tone is normal which seems worse, somehow.

Sanji’s mouth opens, several things dying to come out, starting with a denial or a cuss or a joke. Hell, he'd settle for a furious lecture about consent and public humiliation and Zoro being the worst. What comes out instead is thin and honest and horrifying. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Zoro blinks. “Why would I?”

Sanji’s throat tightens. “Because… because you don’t just… let some random guy kiss you!”

Zoro’s eyebrow lifts. “But I should let you kiss me?”

Sanji freezes, the part he’s been trying not to name sitting between them like some kind of landmine. He stares at Zoro, helplessly furious with him for being right.

Zoro leans closer, voice low enough that it becomes private. “You don’t have to figure it out right now, Curls.”

He swallows hard and does the only thing that won’t make him combust and stands. “I’m getting a drink,” he mutters, too fast.

Nami looks at him with plain surprise. “We’re in the middle of an inning.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Sanji snaps, and spins off toward the aisle.

Zoro catches his wrist, just enough to give him pause. His gaze is steady. “Don’t run too far,” he warns and Sanji’s chest tightens, knowing damn well he should pull away and pretend none of this happened and go back to being that guy who flirts with women and never has to look too closely at his own feelings for one of his best friends. Instead he glowers,  the only safe expression he has left, and stalks up the steps toward the snack stand like his dignity depends on it. Tragically, though, his dignity’s already dead on some camera feed somewhere, getting replayed in someone’s roll with heart emojis, probably. 

His mouth still feels like Zoro, skin still remembering Zoro’s hand. His brain keeps replaying Zoro mouthing he’s straight with that stupid calm like it wasn’t a knife to the gut and a gift at the same time. 

When he returns with a drink Zoro is still there, leaning back in his seat like nothing happened. He barely looks up when Sanji drops into his seat and shoves the drink into Zoro’s chest out of pure aggression. “Here.”

Zoro takes it, blinking. “Uh, cheers?”

Sanji watches his throat move with each swallow and hates his life. He takes a long sip of his own drink and tries to swallow down the panic and the want and the humiliating hope that is starting, against his will, to grow. Then he mutters, barely audible: “Just. We can talk about it later.”

Zoro’s hand settles back on his knee, his mouth folding into something soft and crooked, sipping at his beer like the tips of his ears aren’t going pink. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

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