Zoro hadn’t paid much attention to the dining room when they’d entered, just wanted a bite while Luffy worked off his debt for launching a cannonball at the Baratie. He needed to piss. He wandered through one hall, then another, somehow circled back to the first, and finally spotted the door to the men’s room. He made a beeline for it, shoved the door open–
–and a hot blond in a fitted black suit slammed into him, looking far too fancy for a floating fish-shaped restaurant.
“Oi, watch it,” the blond snapped, giving Zoro a look sharp enough to cut steel. His hair fell over one blue eye, hair golden even in the dim light. He smelled faintly of smoke and spice, heat radiating off him like a kitchen stove.
Zoro’s gut tightened, heat sparking low and fast. His throat went dry. Subtlety wasn’t in his arsenal, so he just asked, “You gay?”
The blond’s brows lifted. He gave Zoro a long, considering once-over before smirking. “Sometimes.”
Zoro grinned. The restroom door banged shut behind them, and he quickly learned what “sometimes” meant when it came with a strong hand at his belt and thighs that could crush steel.
When he staggered out afterward, haramaki crooked, hair a mess, and a smile he couldn’t wipe off, Zoro decided life was good. He figured that was the end of it.
Turned out, the blond wasn’t just some waiter. He was now their cook. Zoro supposed that should’ve been awkward as hell, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
During the clash against Arlong’s crew, Zoro realized the cook wasn’t just a good fuck, he could fight like hell, his kicks cracking rock like it was driftwood. Zoro got a boner even as he was bleeding out, and one thought cut through everything else, hungry, undeniable, and stupid. Fuck, I’m into this guy.
So after they’d won, as the celebration went on around them, he asked the cook, “You gay?”
The cook – Sanji, he finally learned – smirked sideways, blue eyes gleaming in the lamplight. “Sometimes.”
Then Zoro got fucked in some stranger’s bathroom, pressed against cold tile while the muffled sounds of clinking steins and drunken laughter seeped through the walls. Sanji’s voice carried a husky rasp, roughened by cigarettes, and Zoro decided the taste of him was even better than sake.
It kept happening.
At Loguetown, Zoro was supposed to be looking for two new swords to replace the ones Mihawk broke. Instead, sunlight hit Sanji’s hair and turned it molten gold, and Zoro found himself walking toward him like a dumb moth to flame. He asked, “You gay?”
Sanji blew smoke straight in his face, lips quirking. “Sometimes.”
And then Zoro was bent over in an alleyway, pants shoved down, the reek of oil and fried fish clinging to his clothes while Sanji fucked him until he saw stars. Zoro barely recalled buying his new swords afterward – just Sanji’s laugh, low and dangerous, burned into memory.
On the Merry, it got simpler. If Zoro felt restless, edgy, itching for more than training could burn out of him, he’d corner Sanji in the galley and ask the same question.
“You gay?”
“Sometimes.”
The answer never changed, and neither did what came next. Sanji would shove Zoro against the counter, kiss him until he couldn’t see straight, then growl all the filthy things he was going to do to Zoro in his ear.
They started keeping a lot of lube in the ship’s head.
The thing was, Zoro wasn’t even sure he liked Sanji at first. Sanji picked fights with him over everything – meat, women, training space, hell, even how Zoro breathed sometimes. But it turned out that was how Sanji communicated with guys. The more he argued and fought with someone, the more he liked them.
Zoro felt pretty smug that Sanji liked him best on the ship.
Once that was clear, Zoro got into it. Arguments became sparring, sparring turned into brutal clashes that left bruises blooming across his ribs and scratches scoring his skin. And Zoro loved it. Sanji never held back, never treated him like he was fragile. Every kick had trust that Zoro could take it, or dish it back.
At times, when they collapsed after a fight, still panting and bleeding, Zoro would roll his head sideways, grin through swollen lips, and ask, “You gay?”
Sanji would wipe blood off his mouth with his thumb, cigarette dangling from the other hand, and say, “Sometimes.”
Then he’d get dragged off to receive a different kind of pounding that made Zoro grateful he was a bit of a masochist.
Zoro figured he’d found someone on his level. Someone who would push him, make him better, fight him to the bone – and then fuck him stupid afterward.
It was awesome.
Still, Zoro noticed things.
Sanji’s obsession with women was ridiculous – swooning at every pretty face, throwing himself at ladies who looked at him like he was trash, waxing poetic about beauty while Zoro sharpened swords and rolled his eyes.
But no woman ever took him seriously. And despite all the simpering and sonnets, Sanji never got laid.
Zoro started to suspect the truth, that “Sometimes” really meant “Always, but I don’t know what to do about it.”
He didn’t push. Didn’t care, really. If Sanji wanted to flirt himself blue, that was his problem. Zoro was still the one getting fucked. They were friends. Training partners. Regular fuckmates. Nothing complicated.
At least, that’s what Zoro told himself.
Until Sanji got on a train full of CP9 agents in Water 7, and Zoro’s heart lurched with fear.
Fear was something Zoro understood. He faced it, twisted it into strength, even welcomed it. But sometimes it pushed him into doing stupid shit. Like telling Sanji to be careful.
“Hey, marimo… worried about me?”
“Tch. Like I’d worry about you,” Zoro scoffed in reply, even though the voice inside of him was screaming YES!
Sanji came back in one piece, of course. He always did. But Zoro wasn’t fine. He realized his dumb heart had gone and tied itself to the cook.
When Zoro caught up later, he wanted to punch Sanji’s smug face for putting him through that. Instead, he cornered Sanji near the Galley-La’s pool and grumbled, “You gay?”
The air smelled of salt and tar, women laughing in the sun, their voices bouncing off the stone courtyard. Sanji’s eyes slid lazily from them to Zoro, smoke curling between his lips. “Sometimes.”
Later, fists white-knuckled on the bathroom sink, staring at his own blissed-out reflection, Zoro told himself he wasn’t in trouble. But he was already fucked.
He hadn’t planned it. Zoro didn’t plan much. He reacted, relied on instinct, cut through problems with steel. But when Kuma appeared, massive and unstoppable, ready to take Luffy’s head, something inside Zoro snapped taut.
Sanji stepped forward, intending to take Zoro’s place, because of course he did. Always throwing himself into danger like it was a game. Always too ready to bleed for someone else. Always thinking he was replaceable.
He wasn’t.
Zoro jabbed the hilt of his katana into Sanji’s injured side, saw the pain of betrayal in his eyes, and watched as he collapsed into unconsciousness. Then he dropped his precious swords beside Sanji, knowing he would take care of them, and stepped forward to face his death with nothing but love in his heart.
The pain was beyond description. It hollowed him out, tore through muscle, bone, and his soul. Zoro endured, because that was what he was built for. Endure, for the protection of others. Endure, until there was nothing left to give.
When he woke three days later, heavily bandaged but alive, Sanji was there. Standing over him, arms crossed, eyes blazing with fury and grief.
“You fucking asshole,” Sanji’s voice rasped like gravel, the sharp scent of tobacco clinging to his clothes as he leaned close. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Zoro’s throat was raw, but he managed a grin. “You gay?”
Sanji froze. Then he glared harder, like he could burn Zoro to ash on the spot. “You’re an idiot,” he hissed.
And then he kissed Zoro. Hard, rough, full of anger and relief and everything in between. Kissed him like Zoro hadn’t known he’d been waiting for. Kissed him until the pain blurred, until all he knew was Sanji’s mouth and the taste of smoke.
Life went on. It always did. The Grand Line didn’t care if they were in love, if they were scared, if they were happy. If it dragged them apart repeatedly before putting them back together again.
But something had shifted.
Now, when Zoro asked, “You gay?” Sanji didn’t always say “Sometimes.”
Most of the time he just hauled Zoro in, kissed him slow, and didn’t bother answering at all.
Then ten minutes later, Zoro was bent over again – because yeah, he was gay as hell.
End