Mixed Up (ZoSan)

We'll Find Out

He would have been lying if he said he didn't have an interest in sports. Sanji was a competitive person by nature, and used to believe that if his career in culinary arts didn't work out for him he could easily find a place for himself in the athletic world.

Sanji enjoyed soccer; he knew the ins and outs of that sport particularly well. He'd been good at it when he played as a kid, and even made the high school varsity team when he tried out for it. Occasionally he'd allow himself to fantasize about having an alternate life as a super star soccer athlete, complete with the women, fans, fame, and gratuitous amount of money- but he was, ultimately, grounded by his current profession.

He knew a lot about wrestling, too. Hell, he'd even had that phase in middle school where he'd been a hardcore WWE fan and started making up his own signature moves to use. To say he'd been devastated when Zeff had told him it was all fake would have been an understatement; he'd almost started to cry before he was told about a sport where the violence was real and unscripted. A sport where just about anything could happen, and involved more strategy than boxing or mixed martial artists used in their fights because they had to rely on the other players on their team.

Hockey. A team game where every player was encouraged to throw punches if it came down to it.

It was one of those sports that Sanji knew next to nothing about, except for that it had a reputation for being notoriously violent. In order to prove to him that hockey violence was real, Zeff had shown him a video where an unfortunate hockey player had gotten his jugular slit during a game.

Sanji couldn't forget the absolute geyserof blood that had spurted forth from the player's neck, painting the ice red even as the announcers casting the game panicked and freaked out. Ever since then, he'd gotten the impression that hockey was a dangerous game full of innumerable risks that people should probably try to avoid playing.

That being said, 9.9 times out of 10, hockey games were resolved without any blood being shed. Injuries of that dangerous caliber were rare, and leagues everywhere had taken precautions to protect the brave souls who played the game.

His excitement for the game lasted up until he'd realized that not every game played involved life-threatening injuries. Sanji had grown bored of following the sport after that, and focused more on what Zeff had to teach him in the kitchen.

But the unexpected bouts of violence were part of what made the sport interesting to watch when he did. Knowing how violent the sport was, coupled with the knowledge that Zoro was a rough person who could fight and did fight at the slightest of provocations had Sanji admittedly pretty excited to see him play.

Did he take the sport as seriously as his music career? Was it a just a placeholder he used to fill the time that his band used to take? Or was it a means for him to display his aggressive tendencies? After all, Zoro had told him at the art show that he honestly just liked to fight for no real reason.

Hockey was one of the only sports that actually off-handedly encouraged that sort of behavior, anyway. Was Zoro smart enough to utilize it in that way?

All his thoughts on the matter only further reinforced how little Sanji actually knew about Zoro. He decided not to think about it too much, but he had a whole days' worth of time to kill before Nami said she'd come to pick them up. It was hard for him to think about much else.

He didn't know yet if Zoro knew whether or not he was coming and if that would even matter to the punk or not. Zoro had, in the past, reacted extremely negatively to having Sanji experience these sorts of personal aspects of his life with him.

Sanji didn't rightly know what to make of that, because, while it seemed that Zoro didn't like him tagging along, he still took the time to get him properly involved.