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Despite his well earned reputation as a brutal, heartless despot who could and would kill his soldiers without a second thought if they dared to take a single step out of line, even Vinsmoke Judge could not entirely wipe out the celebration of the North Blue’s most beloved holiday—Longest Night—from the Germa Kingdom.
He may have forbidden things like the traditional warm displays of candle lit windows, the garlands of evergreen boughs decorated with colorful baubles, and the elaborate feasting and drinking that was supposed to go on throughout the whole sunless day, but servants still snuck in ways to celebrate here and there. Spiced warm wine and small, buttery cookies would be passed around discreetly. Pine branches wound together with sprigs of holly and mistletoe would be tucked away in hard-to-see nooks and crannies. And on Longest Night Eve, the kitchen staff always made an unusually elaborate meal for supper, so that they and the rest of the servants could then gather and eat the leftovers around a roaring fire set in one of the large clay ovens, swapping stories of their childhoods and reminiscing over fond memories of holidays past.
Judge didn’t really approve of such nonsensical things as ‘fun’ and ‘frivolity’, but as a proud true blooded North Bluer, even he could not deny the importance of observing Longest Night. It was one of those things that had simply always been, the solstice holiday’s origins stretching so far back that they were all but lost to history. Therefore as long as any celebrations were kept clandestine, he let them be without comment.
It was for this same reason that Judge never stopped Sora from setting up a little bit of seasonal cheer within the confines of her own bedroom; and also because Judge didn’t think about his bedridden wife all that much, beyond wondering if her illness had killed her yet. Nor did he think much about his pathetic failure of a third son, unless it was to berate and punish him for the crime of being such a disgusting weakling. And so it never occurred to Judge that when Sanji went to visit his mother during the solstice period, he’d be getting to participate in something that was supposed to be expressly forbidden to the Vinsmoke children: the celebration of Longest Night.
Sora couldn’t do much given her weakened constitution, but she still tried her best to give Sanji at least a little taste of the normal Longest Night traditions. Her room would be decorated with intricately cut and decorated paper star lanterns, fragrant evergreen garlands, and sweet oranges studded with pungent clove buds. She would read Sanji the story of how the kindly old goat Gävlebocken came to give presents to children, and then tell him to leave a pair of shoes with her overnight; when he would return the next day, they always held a small toy or bauble. And then there were the treats: warm mugs of hot chocolate, spicy ginger cookies that snapped pleasantly when broken in half, and Sanji’s favorite, the lussebullar.
These were a specialty from Sora’s homeland—fluffy, buttery golden rolls with sweet plump raisins and crunchy bits of pearl sugar on top. They had the most wonderful flavor unlike anything else Sanji had ever eaten, earthy and floral before it gave way to a honey-like sweetness. They ate them together on Longest Night Eve, one each for mother and son, and then Sanji would curl up next to his mother while she told him a very special story.
“On the island of Lakrits,” Sora would always begin, “there’s a flower that only grows during the last days of autumn, when the sun still rises above the horizon. They call them lusse flowers after Lusse—the girl who befriended the Sun. Her tale goes something like this…
“Lusse was the only child in her whole village and so she had no friends to play with. One day when she was crying because she was so lonely, the Sun saw her from his perch high above the world and took pity on her. ‘I’ll be your friend, Lusse!’ the Sun said, and they played happily together all summer long. But as summer turned into autumn and autumn into winter, the Sun came out to play less and less, until one day, he told Lusse that for a while, he wouldn’t be coming out at all. The Sun needed to sleep a little bit every winter, you see, or else he would die from burning too bright. ‘But I’ll be so lonely when you’re gone!’ Lusse cried. The Sun knew he couldn't stay, but he also didn’t want to upset his friend. So he brushed the tears from Lusse’s eyes and scattered them upon the ground, and where they fell, flowers bloomed. ‘Pick the threads from these flowers,’ he told her, ‘and bloom them again in hot water. Then you’ll see I’m still with you!’ So the first day the Sun didn’t return, Lusse did as he told her, and when the flower threads touched the water, they turned it a beautiful golden yellow, just like her friend the Sun. And Lusse knew that she was not alone after all.
“That’s why we only eat lussebullar on Longest Night; so we’re reminded that the sun is still there, even if we can’t see it.” And she would always finish with a kiss to Sanji’s cheek or the top of his head, and Sanji would leave feeling warmer and happier than he did any other night of the year.
The last Longest Night they shared together before his mother died, Sanji couldn’t help but ask when the story was finished—
“Do you think if I went outside and cried, the Sun would be my friend?”
“Well, maybe not the sun itself,” Sora said, wrapping her arms around Sanji as tightly as her frail body would allow. “But you’re such a kind boy, Sanji; I’m certain that one day you’ll have lots of friends. More than you know what to do with.”
For a long time, she simply held him close to her, neither wanting to be the first to break away. But Sanji couldn’t stay forever, and eventually Sora let him go with a heavy sigh.
“It’s getting late, my love. You should probably head back soon, before your father comes looking for you.”
Sanji frowned, but didn’t argue; the last thing he ever wanted to do was get his mother in trouble with Judge. He slipped out of her warm, comfortable bed and was just getting ready to bundle up for the cold walk back to his own lonely bedroom when he spotted her half-eaten lussebulle still sitting on the nightstand.
“Mama,” he asked, gesturing at the unfinished treat, “aren’t you going to finish that?”
Sora turned to look at the golden bun, blinking slowly as if she didn’t quite understand what she was seeing. Then her mouth curled up into a tiny smile.
“You know what, Sanji?” she said. “I’m actually not that hungry tonight. Why don’t you finish it for me instead?”
“What?” Sanji cried, terribly confused. “But it’s your lussebulle! It’s the only thing besides my lunches that you always finish!”
“Is it? Gosh, I’ve never noticed,” Sora said, though there was a tightness around her eyes that made Sanji think she maybe wasn’t telling the truth. “Well, I guess your lunches are just so good that now they’re the only food I want to finish!”
At that, Sanji couldn’t help but preen a little bit. “Really?”
“Of course!” Sora laughed. “You’re a natural chef, my darling! How could anything else compare to what you make for me?”
She reached over and took the half eaten bun off its plate, holding it out for Sanji. “Here,” she said softly. “I know how much you love them. And we only get them once a year.”
Sanji hesitated. “Are you sure?”
Sora smiled, small and tired but so full of warmth and affection it made Sanji want to cry.
“Of course, my love. Please, take it; it won’t be good tomorrow anyway, and I would hate for it to go to waste.”
So Sanji did, cradling the precious pastry against him as he made the lonely walk back to his bedroom. But when he finally got there, he found he couldn’t bring himself to eat it. It felt wrong, somehow; like doing so would somehow be greedy, even though she had said it was alright. But he didn’t want it to go to waste either, so Sanji slipped out into the dark halls once again and found his way to Reiju’s room.
“It’s from Mama,” he said, when she gave him a curious but skeptical look as he held out the half-eaten bun to her. “It’s a treat from her home island for Longest Night. She said she wasn’t hungry but neither am I, so you should eat it.”
Reiju, who had never gotten anything for Longest Night before, snatched the bun out of Sanji’s hand faster than he could blink.
“Eat it slowly!” he said as she opened her mouth wide. “Savor it!”
His sister glared at him. “I don’t take orders from you,” she sneered, but the bite she took was small, and she chewed carefully, eyes slipping closed as the flavor bloomed across her tongue. By the time she’d finished it, not a single crumb of the pastry was left.
(When she was finally deemed loyal enough to become independent of Judge’s surveillance, Reiju would seek out the round, golden bun from her mother’s home island; but even when she found them, they never tasted as good as the half-eaten one her brother had shared with her, all those years ago.)
Sanji missed the first Longest Night after he escaped from Germa because he was too busy being run ragged as a kitchen boy on the Orbit to even realize the holiday was approaching, as the East Blue lacked the telltale visual reminder of drastically shortened days to signal the coming of the winter solstice. By the time Sanji remembered the holiday at all, it had already passed.
He missed the second because he was stuck on a desolate hunk of rock trying desperately not to starve to death, and the third because he and Zeff were busy with the construction of his floating restaurant, and also because Sanji was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the old man to kick him out on his ass.
But amazingly, that never happened; instead, when the newly christened Baratie opened at the end of spring, Zeff named Sanji an official line cook and together they took up residence in the back rooms along with a host of other cooks and waitstaff. Sanji even got his own little private cabin, though more often than not he ended up falling asleep in the communal bunk area, wanting to savor the feeling of finally belonging somewhere even after the kitchen had closed for the night. By the time December rolled around again, it was finally starting to sink in that Zeff wasn’t going to drop him like a sack of rotten potatoes, and one morning as they started in on the vegetable prep, Sanji felt brave enough to ask—
“Hey shit geezer. What do you guys do around here for Longest Night?”
“Longest what now?” Zeff grunted with a raised eyebrow aimed at Sanji, continuing to chop his carrots and celery with perfect precision even though he was no longer looking at his cutting board.
“Longest Night,” Sanji repeated, and at Zeff’s confused stare added, “You know, the celebration of the longest night of the year? Paper stars and candle wreaths? Evergreen garlands? Hot cocoa and ginger cookies?”
Zeff turned back to his chopping with a soft snort. “Don’t have anything like that ‘round here, little eggplant,” he said gruffly. “Must be a North Blue thing.”
“What?” Sanji’s peeler slipped on his potato and nearly took off a chunk of knuckle. “What do you guys do during the winter solstice then?”
“New Year’s is the big thing here in the East,” Zeff said. “Starts on the solstice and ramps up over two weeks for a big blowout celebration at the end. There’s usually a lot of food and fireworks. Plus parades in big places like Shells Town. And you’re supposed to eat mikans for wealth and prosperity or some shit like that.”
“Oh.”
Sanji resumed his potato peeling, trying to ignore the tight twist in his stomach and the prickle underneath his eyes. It was just Longest Night, he tried to tell himself. He hadn’t celebrated it in years anyway. There was nothing to be upset over, and certainly nothing worth crying about, especially not in front of Zeff.
The old geezer must have noticed something was off anyway, because when he finished with the carrots and celery, Zeff cleared his throat with a hacking cough and said, “You finish all your prep work on time today shit kid, and I’ll see ‘bout maybe making you a mug of hot cocoa. Should have chocolate ‘round here somewhere.”
Sanji swallowed thickly, staring resolutely down at the growing pile of brown, ribboning skins between his feet.
“Sure. Whatever.” He sniffled, and told himself it was because the air was dusty. “Don’t really need it until the solstice, though.”
“Hmm,” was all Zeff said in response, and they didn’t speak about it again.
Back in the North, Longest Night would have been spent bundled up inside around a roaring fire, celebrating with family; but the thing to do in the East on the solstice eve was going out to party, and so not only was the Baratie open, it was busy. Sanji barely got a moment to himself the entire day; by midnight Sanji was dead on his feet, even though the kitchen was still running because they’d only stopped seating at eleven. He didn’t even protest when Zeff picked him up bodily and carted him off to bed, too exhausted to do anything but shut his eyes and fall into a dreamless sleep.
Sanji woke up on Longest Night morning thanks to a sunbeam hitting his face, which felt so disconcertingly wrong for a winter holiday that he was thrown off-kilter before even getting out of bed. He grumpily got up, dressed, and made his way to the kitchen for the staff breakfast, bracing himself for what Sanji was already sure would be a shitty day. But when he arrived, he was immediately directed by Carne over to the corner table, where Zeff was waiting with a plate of eggs and toast, as well as a mug of frothy hot cocoa and a plate of ginger cookies.
The East Blue’s subtropical climate and the general heat radiated by a professional kitchen meant it was really too warm and muggy to enjoy the cocoa properly, and the cookies weren’t anything like the ones Sanji remembered, soft and chewy instead of snappy and crisp. But he ate and drank his fill anyway, while Zeff sipped on his own mug of black coffee and pretended not to notice when a few tears slipped down the little eggplant’s cheeks.
“What else did they eat for this Longest Night, where you’re from?” the old cook asked gruffly.
“A lot of things,” Sanji said vaguely, opting not to elaborate because in truth he didn’t really know; he wasn’t sure if what the servants had prepared for those unusually elaborate dinners was actually traditional Longest Night fare or just what they could get away with making. “But what I really miss are lussebullar.”
“And what’s a loose-eh-boo-lar?” Zeff asked, completely butchering the pronunciation, which made Sanji smile despite the lump still sitting in his throat.
“It’s a sweet bun with raisins and pearl sugar from my mother’s home island that they only make for Longest Night.” And he told Zeff the same story his mother had told him about Lusse and the Sun, as best he could remember it.
“Huh,” Zeff said when he was finished, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Never heard of lusse flowers before, but the way the threads are prepared make it sound like saffron.”
Sanji blinked curiously. “You mean that really expensive spice from your home island? The one we use for paella and bouillabaisse?”
“Yeah. Haven’t I ever told you how it’s harvested?” Sanji shook his head. “Well, the threads are so fucking delicate that they all have to be picked by hand. And since there’s only a few of them on each plant, it takes something like a hundred and fifty flowers to make even a single gram of saffron. That’s why it’s so bloody expensive—the labor cost. Roque is one of the few places in the world that has enough production for export, so if there’s a variety of it on your mother’s home island, my guess is they kept everything for local use.”
“Huh.” Sanji frowned thoughtfully. “I think that would make sense. They definitely had a similar flavor, but I wouldn’t call it exactly the same.”
”Oh yeah?” Zeff smirked, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding at Sanji. “Tell me how, little eggplant. Let’s see how much of my boundless knowledge you’re actually keeping in that thick head of yours.”
Sanji flipped him off on instinct, even as his eyes slipped closed and he tried to conjure up memories of how the lussebullar had tasted, comparing their unique flavor to the saffron that Zeff used.
“The lussebullar had a more floral aroma,” he said after a few moments' consideration. “And a sweeter finish. Roquian saffron has more bitter undertones and it’s grassier.”
Zeff grunted, which was about as warm a show of approval as he ever gave.
“There may be hope for you yet, shit kid.”
“Fuck off, old man,” Sanji shot back, and Zeff just laughed.
By the time Sanji was sailing the Grand Line with the Straw Hat Pirates, his memories of the North Blue felt so distant and removed from the person he was now that Sanji very nearly forgot all about Longest Night and lussebullar, until one day when he happened to be in a spice shop and got unceremoniously sucker punched by nostalgia.
He had already thoroughly chatted up the kindly purple-haired proprietor for any local herbs or special spice blends, and with a free jar of something called harissa successfully procured, Sanji was now perusing to see what else he could stock up on. The shop was closed off from the rest of the bazaar by heavy curtains hung all around, while the spices themselves were displayed out in the open; stacked cones of powders and bundles of dried herbs, glass bottles of extracts and entire bins full of whole seeds. Sanji kept having to resist the urge to sink his hand into a barrel of coriander, just so he could feel the grains fall between his fingers.
Zoro was with him; only because it was helpful having someone as strong and dumb as an ox around to carry things, and certainly not because Sanji enjoyed the mossy musclehead’s company. That would be patently ridiculous.
“Are you done yet?” Zoro griped from his spot standing by the pulled back curtain that marked the shop’s entrance, arms crossed in such a way that it made his biceps look very stupid and bulgy and kept prompting Sanji to glance over at them in irritation. “I wanna get this shit over with so I can go and find some booze.”
“If you wanted to find booze so badly then you shouldn’t have come along, idiot,” Sanji replied, shooting him an annoyed look that definitely didn’t linger on the solid curves of his arms for a few seconds longer than was strictly appropriate.
“I didn’t want to come along,” Zoro grumbled. “You made me.”
Strictly speaking this was true, but Sanji had only done it because for whatever reason, Zoro got weirdly moody if he didn’t badger the swordsman into being a pack mule. Again, enjoying his company had nothing to do with it. Because Sanji didn’t. Really.
“No one else was free, and I’m not carrying all that shit back by myself,” Sanji said, gesturing at the many bags resting by Zoro’s feet. “Deal with it, you shitty swordsman.”
Zoro flipped him off; Sanji returned the gesture as he began mentally ticking off a list of spices; he should have gotten everything he needed, except for—
“My dearest desert flower,” he trilled at the purple-haired shopkeeper, who scoffed at the flattery but kept a warm smile plastered on her deeply browned and lined face. “Such a wonderful shop such as yours must surely have saffron somewhere?”
“Ah, of course! Just a moment—I keep it back here so it doesn’t fall prey to wandering fingers.”
She ducked down behind the counter and came back up with a box that had several glass jars filled with crimson threads. “Are you looking for a particular variety?” she asked.
Sanji smiled as he stepped over to her. “I’m partial to Roquian saffron myself, but I’m happy to hear about your other offerings.”
“Oh yes, Roquian is a good one; I have that right here,” she said, setting a half full jar of scarlet threads upon the counter. “And Dressrosian, of course, although I feel like I can’t recommend that one to serious chefs in good conscience these days—its quality over the last few years has gone so downhill…”
She set down another jar, this one with quite a lot of yellow bits left on the stigmas, a sure sign of an inferior grade product to those who knew. This was followed by a few more jars with threads of varying size and red coloring, the shopkeep ticking them off as she went.
“This is Acharish… Here’s Mezzese… This is Roquian too although it’s a lower grade… Oh!”
The shopkeep had pulled out her smallest jar so far, one that looked like it held only a single gram of threads, though the unusually long length and the vividness of the red coloring without a smidge of yellow made Sanji think it must be her highest quality product.
“This is a new one I’ve started carrying—it’s absolutely wonderful but it comes all the way from the North Blue so the price point on it is, well…” She grimaced apologetically. “Let’s just say I usually only sell it to the very highest end restaurants around.”
Sanji blinked.
“The North Blue?”
The shopkeep chuckled at his apparent confusion. “Strange, isn’t it? I always thought saffron could only grow in hot, arid climates, but I guess there’s an island somewhere up there that grows the right kind of crocus for it. They have a special name for the flowers, but I can’t recall what it is…”
“Lusse flowers,” Sanji said without thinking, his own voice suddenly sounding very far away.
“Ah yes, that’s it!” The shopkeep smiled at him. “I’m impressed that you knew that—are you from the North Blue?”
Sanji opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His head was too full of memories, ghostly arms wrapped tight around him and phantom flavors dancing on his tongue. His chest ached so fiercely at the thought of glowing paper star lanterns and fragrant evergreen garlands and buttery, golden yellow buns that Sanji thought he might burst into pieces on the spot.
“Oi, cook. You in there?”
Sanji started, a couple of choice curses spilling from his lips before he could stop them. Zoro was standing next to him, having somehow managed to cross all the way from the entrance to the counter without making any noise; Sanji would never understand how someone that stomped around in combat boots could manage to be so fucking quiet when he moved.
“Sorry,” he muttered, giving himself a rough shake before turning back to the concerned looking shopkeep with what he hoped was a soothing smile. “Forgive me, my blooming cactus fruit; I was simply overwhelmed with nostalgia for a moment there. My mother was from the island where that particular saffron is harvested, and we used to eat a pastry made with it together every Longest Night—er, that is, the winter solstice.”
“Oh!” The shopkeep beamed. “Yes, you know now that you say that, I think I remember my vendor mentioning something about this saffron mostly being used for a type of sweet bun.”
“Lussebullar,” Sanji said, the corners of his mouth twitching at the memory even as a prickle began building underneath his eyes. He took a moment to shove that feeling back down violently; a charming old shopkeep would have been fine, but no way in hell was he going to cry in front of Zoro.
“Can I smell it?” he asked her, and when she nodded he uncorked the tiny bottle and brought it up to his nose, inhaling deeply. It was spicy and floral, pungent and earthy, and yet also more delicate than the Roquian saffron Sanji was used to working with, almost a little sweet. Perfect for a yeasted bun, where those subtle notes could shine through better than they could mixed with other heady spices and flavors, like in a paella or a pilaf.
“I never thought I would find lusse flower saffron for sale anywhere,” Sanji said softly, handling the jar with gentle reverence as he put the cork back in before setting it back down upon the counter. “When did Lakrits start exporting it?”
“Only a few years ago,” the shopkeep answered. “That’s part of why the price is so high; their export volume is low but the quality is so good that those in the know are willing to pay.”
“Isn’t saffron already something like five thousand berries per gram? How much more expensive could it be?” Zoro asked with a small frown, and Sanji couldn’t help but stare at him.
“How the hell do you know that?”
Zoro raised an eyebrow.
“Because you’ve dragged me through every spice shop on the Grand Line as a pack mule?” he said. Like it was obvious, even though it wasn’t. That would have meant Zoro was also paying attention as Sanji dragged him through every spice shop on the Grand Line, and there was no way the swordsman was doing that. Right?
“The best of the best is around that price, yes, although some of the lower grade varieties go for as low as a thousand berries per gram,” the shopkeep said. “As for how much more expensive the lusse saffron is…” She winced a little. “Ten thousand berries per gram, if I want to make any kind of profit.”
Sanji’s heart, which despite its ache had been steadily rising with the hope that he might finally be able to recreate the beloved Longest Night treat of his childhood, suddenly plummeted.
“Ten thousand per gram?” Zoro repeated incredulously.
The shopkeep shrugged. “Like I said, low crop yield volume with high demand because of quality. Lakrits doesn’t have the large-scale production capabilities of places like Roque or Dressrosa yet, and the cold climate also means they have a much narrower window for harvesting.”
“Yeesh.” Zoro dragged a hand down his face before giving Sanji an oddly sheepish grin. “Guess it’s a good thing we hadn’t hit up the butcher yet, huh? Ah well, Luffy always likes fishing for sea beasts anyway.”
Sanji blinked.
“What?” he said, turning to Zoro with a puzzled frown. “What are you talking about, marimo?”
“You know—” Zoro gestured at the little jar of crimson threads. “Cause if we’re gonna get that we won’t have enough berries left to buy any decent meat. Unless you wanna try doing something with awful again—”
“Offal,” Sanji corrected automatically as his eyebrows shot up. “And don’t be stupid, mosshead, we’re not buying that saffron.”
Now it was Zoro’s turn to blink. “We’re not?”
“No, of course not!”
Zoro frowned. “Why not?”
“What? What do you mean, why not? Because that’s our supply run money, idiot! I’m not going to go around spending it on something like this! Not that I at all doubt your goods are worth every berry, my sweet morning sunbeam,” Sanji added hastily to the shopkeep.
“Of course,” she said with a smile, though her eyes were moving between him and Zoro with no small amount of curiosity and a touch of concern, “I understand—”
”But you want it, don’t you?” Zoro insisted, cutting her off and making Sanji squawk in anger at the sheer rudeness of it. “You just said that it’s used to make a treat from your childhood and you never thought you’d find it for sale. If you don’t get it now, who knows when you’ll have another chance?”
In deference to the lady present, Sanji grit his teeth against the string of more colorful curses he wanted to unleash upon the stupid swordsman. It was a solid argument, but that wasn’t the point.
“Look, I won’t deny that I’d like to have it, but it’s not that important—”
“Bullshit it’s not that important,” Zoro snapped, hazel-grey eyes flashing in aggravation. “Just get the fucking saffron, cook. No one on the crew is going to complain if you spend a little extra money on yourself for once.”
“For once? I spend money on myself all the time, idiot!”
Zoro rolled his eyes. “Yeah, on things like clothes and cologne and all your stupid skin care shit. But never on food.”
“Never on—what?” Sanji couldn’t believe the course this argument had taken. “What are you talking about? I buy food I like all the time!”
“No,” said Zoro insistently. “You buy food that you like if someone else on the crew also likes it. You have never once, in the entire time I’ve known you, bought something only for yourself.”
He said it with such conviction that for a moment, Sanji was thrown off balance, struggling to find a comeback. “You’re crazy,” he settled on eventually. “Name one food I like that nobody else on the crew does!”
“Blue cheese,” Zoro answered with zero hesitation, and Sanji was so stunned that for a second, all he could do was blink dumbly.
“What?”
“You love blue cheese,” Zoro said, crossing his arms and leveling Sanji with a pointed glare, “but you never buy it because nobody else on the crew likes it. I see you fawning over it at cheese shops all the time and if it’s ever in a dish at a restaurant you always get it, but you never bring any back to the ship.”
Sanji gaped at him.
“That is—” he began, and then paused. “I do not—” Another pause. “You are so—”
He kept trying to mount a protest, but nothing was coming out because of the dawning realization that Zoro was right. Sanji loved blue cheese and ate it as often as possible when it could be found at port stops, but he never brought any onto the ship because everyone else hated it.
“Okay, fine!” he finally snapped. “But blue cheese isn’t ten thousand berries per gram! You wanna be the one to tell Luffy we had to skimp on his meat because I wanted some silly little spice?”
“It’s obviously not silly to you,” Zoro said flatly, “and Luffy would understand that.”
There was total and absolute conviction in his tone, and it hit Sanji in the chest like a hundred-and-eight pound phoenix blow.
He was so stunned he couldn’t even speak, mouth opening and closing silently like a goldfish. Where was this coming from? Sure, there was a bit more camaraderie between them these days, their rivalry having taken on a distinctly more friendly if no less fiery tone than before, but that wasn’t… Sanji didn’t… It wasn’t supposed to be…
“Um, I’m so sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” the shopkeep piped up, and Sanji’s head snapped back to see that her smile had dropped into a look of almost alarmed concern. “But did you want the lusse saffron, or…?”
“No,” Sanji said emphatically, at the exact same time Zoro said, “Yes.”
The only reason Sanji didn’t hit him square in the chest with a diable jambe kick was because it would have destroyed the shop.
“Marimo,” Sanji ground out through clenched teeth, “I told you, I am not spending our supplies money on—”
And then he had to stop, because Zoro was ignoring him in favor of pulling out a crumpled wad of bills from his haramaki. Sanji watched, frozen in shock as Zoro quickly counted out ten thousand berries and handed it over to the rather bemused looking shopkeep.
“Zoro,” Sanji said slowly as he watched Zoro grab the little jar of crimson threads off the counter. “What are you doing?”
“Buying your stupid saffron,” Zoro said, in the same casual sort of tone one might use to comment on the weather.
Sanji swallowed around the lump that had suddenly and inexplicably risen in his throat.
“But that’s… your money.”
“Yup.”
“That you use to buy booze.”
“Sure do.”
“Nami won’t give you any more until the next port stop.”
“Uh huh.”
“So then—” Sanji blinked furiously at him, trying so hard to understand what was happening and failing miserably. “Why are you spending it on saffron for me?”
Zoro side-eyed him with a look that clearly said he thought Sanji was a fucking idiot.
“Because you won’t do it for yourself.”
And with that, he slapped the little jar against Sanji’s chest, forcing him to grab hold or risk it falling and shattering. Then Zoro returned to the bags he’d left by the door, easily scooping them all up and giving Sanji one more brief look at his stupid, bulgy biceps before he walked out.
“Well,” the shopkeep said after a painfully awkward moment of silence. “I hope you enjoy the saffron…?”
Sanji could only nod, not quite trusting himself to speak. He kept cycling through the whole interaction over and over and over again, trying to see the logic behind it, and unfortunately he kept coming to the same conclusion, which was that Zoro… cared.
And that had Sanji feeling all sorts of ways about all sorts of things that he was absolutely not prepared to deal with right now.
Fuck.
Contrary to popular belief, there is a distinct difference in the skill sets of a classically trained chef, pâtissier, and baker. Sanji was fairly confident that there were very few chefs in the world who could match his cooking prowess, but with the other two skills, it was another story.
He only had a limited—though growing!—working knowledge of pastry, and most of what he did know was used for the express purposes of making treats for Nami, Robin, and Chopper. And when it came to baking, Sanji knew almost nothing, because proper baking involved yeast or sourdough starter; both components were tricky enough to work with under the best of circumstances, but add in the ever changing climates around the Grand Line and suddenly baking became a kind of witchcraft that Sanji was certain would take years to master.
All this to say—as sweet as Zoro’s gesture had been and as much as it left Sanji reeling for weeks afterwards (even as he tried to pay it back by letting Zoro finish off the many, many bottles of various alcohols he decided to incorporate into the next month’s worth of dinners), he couldn’t actually make the lussebullar, because he didn’t really know how to make yeasted breads.
Not only that, but Sanji didn’t even have a recipe for them, and the blessing and curse of regionally specific foods was how much they could vary and how difficult they could be to accurately recreate. Even if he managed to find one, there was no guarantee that what Sanji made would be the same lussebullar as the ones he’d eaten with his mother all those years ago. There was something to be said about the power of nostalgia and the disappointment of not being able to properly recapture a cherished memory, so Sanji really didn’t think it was all that unreasonable for him not to want to waste such a thoughtful gift on what could end up being an entirely fruitless endeavor.
“… Cook,” Zoro said after a solid thirty seconds of staring at Sanji with the single most unimpressed expression the cook had ever seen on him after his attempt to explain all of this, “you know damn well that’s a shitty fucking excuse.”
Sanji bit angrily into the filter of his cigarette. “It is not—”
“Yeah, it is. Know how I know that? Because if any one of us—” Zoro made a sweeping gesture with his hands, indicating the entirety of the Sunny and presumably her inhabitants “—tried giving that excuse to you, you’d kick us overboard for the insult. For fuck’s sake, I told you about eating unadon as a kid once and you had the recipe figured out within three days!”
“Yes, because unadon falls under the umbrella of cooking,” Sanji snapped. “What fucking part of ‘I am not a baker’ didn’t make it through your moss-overgrown brain?”
“The part where that matters,” Zoro shot back, slamming the bottle of cognac Sanji had handed him after using a laughably small amount for tonight’s coq au vin down onto the counter. “Not knowing how to make something has literally never stopped you before! What about those macaroon thingys that Robin likes so much? I know you hate making them because the batches fail half the time but you still fucking do it.”
“Macaron, you uncultured swine; and that’s because I make those for Robin-chan,” Sanji said, stabbing his ruined cigarette towards Zoro for emphasis. “Because she requests them.”
“Oh, so when one of us asks you to make something you’ll bend over backwards to get it done, but when you want something it’s suddenly not worth the effort?”
“It’s not bending over backwards!” Sanji protested whilst neatly sidestepping the other half of Zoro’s question. “I’m the cook; if someone requests something then it’s my fucking job to make it for them!”
There was a sudden gleam in Zoro’s eyes that Sanji did not like one bit. He watched warily as Zoro took a long swig of cognac directly from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand like the fucking barbarian he was before leaning over the counter as a shit-eating grin stretched slowly across his face.
“Okay, shit cook,” he drawled, “then I would like to request that you make these stupid buns you keep talking about, because now I’m real curious about what they taste like.”
Sanji’s jaw dropped.
Oh, that bastard. That no-good, shit-for-brains, moss-headed bastard.
“You—you’re not—fuck off marimo, you can’t be serious!”
Zoro tilted his head and blinked innocently, the effect of which was thoroughly ruined by his mildly feral grin.
“Sure I am,” he said. “I like other stuff you make that has saffron in it—now I wanna try these buns.”
Sanji ground his teeth in frustration, hating that Zoro was right. In fact, a lot of his preferred dishes that weren’t specifically East Blue cuisine had saffron in them—paella, bouillabaisse, tahdig, biryani. And the lussebullar as Sanji remembered them hadn’t been all that sweet; more like a breakfast or tea pastry than a proper dessert. If he left the pearl sugar off Zoro might actually quite like—
Wait. No. No. Shit shit shit, this is exactly what the bastard wanted to happen, Sanji couldn’t let himself fall into the trap—
Except that Sanji’s brain was already rapidly switching gears, the guilty reluctance he felt at wasting an indulgence on himself easily giving way to a stubborn determination that if Zoro, his crew mate, wanted lussebullar, he would get fucking lussebullar. Nevermind that Sanji wasn’t a baker and had almost no experience working with yeast and didn’t even have a recipe. In the wake of a specific request from one of his crew, these had all suddenly become minor details.
And judging from the smirk that had replaced his shit-eating grin, Zoro fucking knew it, too.
“You’re not getting them until Longest Night,” Sanji finally snapped when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to mount any further protest. “Which is more than half a year away.”
“So plenty of time for you to master them, then.”
Sanji groaned. “I hate you,” he snarled, angrily pulling out another cigarette and lighting up just so he could blow the smoke in Zoro’s stupid smug face. “Manipulative, shitheaded, algae-brained bastard, I fucking hate you.”
Zoro took another swig of cognac while flipping him off. “Hate you too, Curly.”
The tiny jar of crimson threads tucked carefully away in Sanji’s spice cabinet said otherwise.