His Fault | Monster Trio

40

Preparing himself to see what explanation Sanji would give Chopper on his Captain's behalf, Luffy waited until the man's speech begun.

"He burned his tongue a while ago with the soup I made a few days ago, remember?" He looked over at his Captain, earning a "non suspecting nod" from him.

Though Luffy's acting skills were terrible, he managed to comply with Sanji's lie, and worked together with him, so that neither one of them would be exposed.

That would only stir up Chopper's curiosity and lead to questions that would put their Captain in a risky situation.

"Let me take a look."

The short male stood in front of his Captain, instructing him to open his mouth while holding up his otoscope.

He positioned the triangular tip at the entrance of Luffy's mouth, shining a light inside of it.

What the Doctor discovered next made his face redden out of embarrassment.

"Luffy, these are... Wow..." He angled his prestige medical tool a bit higher, reflecting its light against a range of peculiar bruises above the roof of his mouth.

"These are..."

Before he could give the boy an immediate diagnosis, Chopper asked Sanji to step outside of his office, for privacy reasons.

Hoping that his Captain would be alright on his own, Sanji left the small room, feeling a change in the atmosphere.

The fragrance of old wood and leftover food lingering from the hallways of the Sunny were noticeably different, in comparison to the smell of strong antiseptics within Chopper's office.

"JESUS!" Sanji shouted in the most silently violent way he could, after a large silhouette passed him by.

"Not exactly a God sent from the Heavens, but thanks for the compliment." A man with a beer in his left hand joked, in a good-natured way.

With little to no motivation in physically responding to the Swordsman's sarcastic feedback, Sanji gave him an unamused poker face expression.

"Oi Cook, where you headed?"

Right when the younger was about to leave, Zoro got in his way by asking him a simple question.

"I'm tired as Hell and I wanna go to sleep. How's that for a hint?"

"Pretty shitty, but I can't argue with that logic." Upon admitting this, Sanji felt the need to laugh for a while.

"You agreeing with me is something I never expected to witness. Are you the real Zoro?"

As their eyes continued to lock, the Cook and green haired man were carefully monitoring one another.

Their legs began to move at a slow pace when they stood closer, leaving only enough space to potentially break out into a fight, if necessary.

"You keep talking about me, but what about you?" Zoro asked in a low-pitch voice.

"I'm the real deal."

"Why were you with Chopper just now?"

"Shit... What do I tell him. Does he know what happened with Luffy?" Sanji's mind went blank for a moment.

He didn't want to make any sudden movements or stare back at Chopper's office that made him appear suspicious.

Zoro has the eyes of a hawk, he can see through lies better than anyone else within the Sunny, and Sanji knew that he could be exposed in seconds if he didn't have a perfect plan.

"... Ah, Chopper wanted to have that leftover desert Luffy never ate." His statement made Zoro nod at him with a convincing look.

"Mmm, the desert."

"Yeah. Little guy ate it all up, he really likes sweets." Sanji smiled, looking away from Zoro to find an excuse to leave.

Meanwhile, Zoro maintained the same expression on his face, appearing uninterested in what the Cook was saying, like usual.

"This is definitely Zoro. That 'resting bitch face' of his says it all." Sanji's skin turned pale when the Swordsman caressed his face.

"What's he doing!?" Zoro narrowed his head down at Sanji's hands.

"Touch your face."

"What the hell are you doing?! Don't touch my face!" Sanji argued, using a subtle tone of voice.

"You don't believe me, do you?" The Cook asked, becoming overwhelmed with his own emotions.

"I'm not saying I don't believe you, I'm saying that I don't want the same situation to repeat itself, again. Neither in this ship, or anywhere." Zoro gritted his teeth.

The visible hatred that was seeping through his eyes was frightening.

"How about you just toss me into the fucking Ocean instead? Is that enough to convince you?"

"Maybe it is."

"Alright then, so be it."

Sanji's heart rate began to rise at a fast pace while he felt Zoro following behind him, the faster he would walk.

When the Swordsman realized that Sanji had no intentions of stopping after stepping out onto the deck, he was convinced that the man wasn't lying.

"Hey, okay."

"I said okay..."

"Cook."

"Cook?"

Sanji continued to walk further and faster, to the point where Zoro was almost unable to keep up with his footsteps.

The minute he made it out onto the deck, he could barely even hear what the Swordsman was shouting back at him from that point on.

The wind surrounding them grew stronger and made Sanji's clothing shift around his body while he approached the end of the Sunny.

A set of buttons popped off of his shirt, revealing parts of his chest as the man's button up got tangled onto a wire, halfway through climbing above the edge of the Sunny.

And there... He stood as still as the Ocean waves, overcome by an unsettling feeling in his stomach.

His shoes were slippery beneath the edge he was stood on. This made his body become dangerously imbalanced.

The reflection of Zoro's swords illuminated Sanji's vision, from afar, as the Swordsman walked over towards him, walking at a faster pace than before.

"Get down, enough screwing around!" His voice was stern, but Sanji's mind was stubborn.

"Okay, asshole. Let's make a deal: If I sink, I'm a criminal. And if I float, I'm just a Cook who's gonna climb back onto this ship and beat your ass."

This was an offer Zoro couldn't afford to lose. He was convinced that the man talking to him was Sanji, but his mind was so affected by the abuse his Captain went through, that he nodded at the blonde man.

The balance that Sanji had before vanished from beneath his legs while he leaned back, feeling the blood rush into his head as he descended into the Ocean.

Zoro leaned over the Sunny, reacting slowly to the event that had unfolded right in front of him.

"I'll be damned..."

A smirk was tracing his lips when he saw a middle finger being lifted up within the pitch black Ocean.

"You must really hate me right now!" He shouted, helping the man get back onto the ship.

"You have NO idea. I should drown you while I'm still holding onto your arm!" Sanji shouted back, shaking the water out of his ears.

Once he was back on the deck, his legs grew weak while he was pulled into an unexpected embrace.

"What are you doing?"

"Consider this my way of apologizing."

"Apology... Accepted."

~~~