A girl raised as Sanji’s spare survives by clinging to his words, until he returns to free her from living for him and helps her reclaim her own life
At sea, a person’s worth sometimes becomes a number. A bounty. A wanted price. A transaction sum. A ransom. A life is assigned the value of a single slip of paper, and someone, somewhere, puts yet another price on the blood that spills from another person’s wound.
She had been one of those numbers.
A child given a model number before she was given a name. Blood type, antigens, genetic sequence, presence or absence of rejection response, biological compatibility rate. Every last one of them matched, to an almost sickening degree of perfection, with one certain boy - Vinsmoke Sanji.
Back then, she had not known what that name meant. She only remembered the adults in white coats lowering their voices slightly whenever they said it, as if reciting a prayer, or perhaps reading aloud the appraisal of some troublesome jewel.
She heard those words many times.
Just in case. Meaning, if he were ever injured. If he were ever on the verge of death. If some part of his body were ever broken. Her body would be used to keep his life tethered to this world.
At first, as a child, she did not understand what that meant. Her meals and sleeping hours were simply fixed. Her condition was recorded every day. She was raised in such a way that she would never be injured. Falling was forbidden. Running was forbidden. Seeing the sea was forbidden.
If she caught a cold, she was scolded. If she cried, she was scolded. She was being preserved for a life that was not her own. She thought she had realized that fact when she was seven or eight years old.
The corridors of the research facility always smelled of chemicals. Disinfectant and iron, and the scent of dry paper. Inside her room, she often looked down at her own wrist. At the veins showing bluish beneath the skin, and at the thing flowing within them that did not belong to her. Like medicine sealed in a bottle. Like bandages put away on a shelf. She was waiting for the day her life would be used solely for someone else.
The first time she saw him, it was through iron bars.
One night, she slipped out into the corridor while the guards were distracted. The cold floor clung to the soles of her bare feet, and with every step she took without making a sound, her heart thrashed near her throat.
The boy there had golden hair. His bangs fell as though hiding one eye, and his body was thin.
It was the first time anyone had asked her that.
People had recorded how much she ate. They had checked her nutritional condition. But no one had ever asked whether she was hungry.
She did not answer. She did not know how to answer properly. He lowered his brows in a troubled sort of way, then held out a small piece of bread.
She did not take the bread. She was something preserved. For someone else, she had to remain clean, complete, undamaged. Her body, taught to believe that over and over, was frightened that a single piece of bread from him might change it.
He tilted his head slightly. At last, she opened her mouth.
She could not answer. She thought she might have had a name, but what people called her was a specimen number, what they recorded were her values, and what they praised was her compatibility rate.
Sanji did not hurry her even as she fell silent. He simply waited, still holding the bread. In this place, no one ever waited for her. Every moment was predetermined. There had never been any room to say no. And yet he was there, simply existing beside her, until she found her words.
“They said I’m your spare.”
The moment she said it, the bread fell from Sanji’s hand with a dry little sound.
“My spare? What the hell does that mean?”
She did not answer. She did not really know whether she was a person or a tool. A part kept in storage. A component set aside.
Sanji gripped the bars so hard his fingers turned white.
“Don’t screw with me. You’re you, aren’t you?”
No one had ever taught her such a thing.
From that night on, she fell in love with Sanji.
Without knowing the word love, without knowing how to handle the feeling called affection, she simply began to wait for his voice.
He was always angry. When she wavered after a blood draw, he got angry. When she said she was used to it, he got angry again. When she said, “It’s for you,” he looked as though he might cry.
“It’s not for me. You live for yourself.”
Each time, she was at a loss.
What did it mean to live for herself?
To want to see the sea. To want to drink warm soup. To want someone to say good morning to her when she woke. To wish to see the same person tomorrow. All of those things seemed too luxurious for someone like her.
But Sanji taught her luxury. He gave her half his bread. He talked to her about cooking. He told her that the sea was full of all kinds of fish, that there were fruits she had never even seen, and that someday he would find a sea called the All Blue. Only when he spoke of that did light mingle with his voice. She loved that light.
“Then, when you find it someday, tell me about it.”
“Just tell you? That’s all?”
“Because I can’t go outside.”
“We’re getting out of here. You too.”
The things one must not believe are the things that soak sweetest into a child’s heart. He was hope. Hope keeps people alive, but it also breaks them.
Even now, she remembered the day Sanji disappeared.
The whole facility had been in an uproar. Angry shouts and footsteps filled the corridor, and the researchers who were normally expressionless searched for something with pale faces. She heard them through the door of her room.
“Put the spare under stricter management.”
She understood. Sanji had escaped. He had become free.
She was glad. Truly, she was glad. Glad that he had escaped that place. Glad that he had gone out to sea with that golden dream still held inside him. She was glad, and yet she could not breathe.
Years passed after that, but she survived.
She was abandoned, her owner changed, her documents passed through the black market, and she herself was passed through countless hands. Still, her value did not change. As long as the man named Vinsmoke Sanji lived, she continued to have worth.
The fact that he was alive was both her salvation and her chain.
Once, she saw his name in a newspaper scattered across the floor. Pirate. Member of the Straw Hat crew. Black Leg Sanji. The man on the wanted poster was only a drawing, but he was no longer a child.
Sanji was living freely, crossing the sea, with companions at his side. He was chasing his dream. She wanted Sanji to be happy, from the bottom of her heart. If he was smiling, eating, needed by someone, loving someone, and standing on his own two feet upon the wide sea, she thought there could be no greater joy than that.
Sanji had not forgotten her. There was no way he could.
His crewmates often ate the food he made. Luffy swallowed meat with such force he seemed ready to eat the plate too. Usopp praised him with extravagant enthusiasm. Nami was sensitive to seasoning that suited her tastes, and Robin thanked him with a quiet smile.
Sanji loved those moments more than anything. Whenever he saw someone eat their fill, he felt as though some missing place inside him was being filled, little by little. But when he was alone in the kitchen at night, he would suddenly remember.
The girl on the other side of the bars. The small hand that had not taken the bread. The voice that said, “They said I’m your spare.”
Back then, he had not been able to take her with him. He had not given her freedom. He had only said, You’re you, aren’t you, and then gone out to sea alone. No matter how much his friends saved him, no matter how much he treasured the present, that fact alone never disappeared.
That was why Sanji’s breath turned cold whenever he saw a man treat a child or a woman carelessly. Why he could no longer smile at methods that stole someone’s will. Against those who treated people like tools, his leg moved before reason could. At the root of his anger, she was always there.
It took him a long time to admit it had been his first love. It was not pity from childhood. It was not only guilt. It was not only regret over failing to protect her, nor a duty born of wanting to save her. He had simply wanted her to smile. To eat until she was full. To see the sea.
And though he wished for that, somewhere in his heart, Sanji could not let go of a foolish kind of happiness. If she said she could die for him, if she smiled and called that happiness.
Sanji knew he would be wounded to the bone, and at the same time, he might feel a joy so terrible it made him sick. That was why Sanji hated himself.
In the night kitchen, the ember of his cigarette flickered faintly. The smoke he exhaled reached nowhere, dissolving into the ceiling. He wanted her to be happy. Somewhere he did not know, cherished by someone, smiling freely, living freely. That was his true feeling.
And yet there was a part of him that could not end it there. He wished for the curse of himself to disappear from her life, while also hating the fact that she had lived for him, and clinging to it all the same. His first love had long since begun to rot.
On a certain island, Sanji met a black-market doctor who knew the name Germa. Remnants who had commodified the Vinsmoke bloodline. They were not trying to kill Sanji. They wanted to capture him alive.
“You’ll fetch a high price. And the parts to keep you alive still remain.”
The instant Sanji heard those words, all the warmth vanished from his body.
Sanji’s voice was so low that it surprised even him.
“So even a weapon can grow attached.”
In the next instant, Sanji’s foot smashed through the man’s face. There was the sound of a wall breaking, shouts rose, and enemies surged toward him.
In the middle of it all, there was only one thought in Sanji’s mind.
This time, he had to find her.
When he kicked open the door to the room at the back, there was a white bed inside. Walls without windows. The smell of chemicals, and at the center of it all, she was there.
She had grown into an adult. Her features had changed, her hair had grown longer, and there was nothing childlike left in her expression. Even so, there was no mistaking her.
The moment she called his name, everything Sanji had forced down into the depths of his heart for years and years came flooding out with a sound.
Even if it wasn’t for me, I wanted you to live.
And yet the only thing that came out of his mouth was a single hoarse sentence.
“I’m so glad you’re alive.”
Sanji closed his eyes. Those words made him happy, and hurt so much he wanted to die.
“No, you shouldn’t be. What the hell is there to be glad about when you’re in a place like this?”
Countless IV tubes stretched from her arms.
Sanji knelt beside the bed.
“Let’s get out of here. Let’s go see the sea. I’ll cook for you. I’ll feed you until you’re full. Anything you want to eat, I’ll make it. I’ll take you anywhere. So…”
It was a trembling like wind touching, for the first time, the surface of water long shut away.
She drew in a small breath.
“I always thought I’d be willing to die for you.”
Sanji’s fingers shook. He knew that she would think that. He knew there had been years when she could not survive unless she thought that.
“But because you told me to live…”
Slowly, she touched Sanji’s hand. Her strength was far too weak.
“I kept living without knowing how.”
Sanji closed his hand around hers.
“Then learn from now on. …I’ll teach you.”
It was the continuation of an old promise.
The continuation of that night when he had said he would tell her about the All Blue once he found it. A promise made when they had been far too young and powerless. Words meant to make that promise real, this time.
Quietly, deep inside his chest, Sanji swore.
He would never again think of her willingness to die for him as happiness. He would spend as much time as it took untying the curse of himself that remained inside her.
Even if, at the end of that, she chose a happiness without him, that would be all right. She was finally trying to reclaim her own life. He must not lay his own desire over her freedom.
And so Sanji simply held her hand gently, carefully, so he would not break her.
“Let’s go back to your life.”
After a long silence, she smiled, just a little. This time, her smile was far clumsier than it had been long ago.
“…Will you be there too?”
If he answered wrongly, he would bind her again. So he chose only the truth, with such care it almost made him tremble.
She lowered her eyes. The shadow of her long lashes fell across her cheeks, and tears slipped down them, but Sanji did not wipe them away.
He did not want to take crying from her too.
Those tears were not for him. It was the first tears she had ever shed for herself.
