There was no desperation in his eyes when his eyes opened again, staring at the wooden ceiling.

There was not, this was certainly not the right feeling to define.

In return, there was some agitation mixed with confusion.

He wasn't used to sleeping so much, generally he hadn't been used to it even before Whole Cake Island.

He had always been the first to get up, the first to set foot in the kitchen, preparing breakfast and waiting for other early risers to get up at their own pace, to then wake up the laziest ones, still in the world of dreams, helped by Brook and by his violin - a violin he always used and that they loved, seriously, but that when used as an alarm clock, made him receive curses and insults from everyone, of all the possible types.

It was therefore not from him to feel that extreme numbness in the limbs, that climate of abnormal and bizarre calm that showed him to his fullness. He never had the desire to remain in it a good while longer, to rest until midday.

Sanji, precisely because of the lack of habit, at the first moment when he had let the woody image make its way in his view, he had almost taken a panic attack, with the heartbeats starting a thousand in a race against the time, thinking of being in clear delay for the preparation of the food and everything, of how and with what it had to prepare the pancakes and the plumcakes, the scrambled eggs and even the coffees, the hot tea and the milk, latté or simple.

Then, however, he noticed a certain weight on him, warmer than a heated radiator, that was stuck to his chest. This weight was grinding him so thightly that he wondered how he had absolutely not felt that before. He then realized the truth as if someone had slapped him on the cheek, which had obviously come through a verse of pure frustration and a snort.

It was the first day of his vacation.

"Shit"

-Oi. Marimo. Get up - he muttered angrily, observing the other with a look between  bored and the type which  already showed his being fed up with the unsatisfactory situation. It was so goddamn frustrating, for fuck sake.

A noise from the cabbage head, a sort of grumbling, was the answer to his request, obviously without obedience of any kind: no, absolutely not. Instead he had to make the situation worse and tighten even more the grip on his side, of course, what else exactly he had to expect? 

That the idiot algae-head would actually  listen to him, when it was probable that he still was sleeping? Like. No. Roronoa was able to sleep so heavily that he almost looked dead... When he wasn't snoring, of course; the absurd intensity of a person unable to wake up even with two trumpets playing behind his ears... or even with a storm to rage, with the screams of the sea and the costant going back and forth of those who tried to maintain a decent course.

He would never have forgotten, probably, that time when it had really happened and Zoro had woken up when it was over, as if nothing had happened.

- Another warning. Either you detach yourself, or I'm going to  kick you out of bed, sleeping or not, you shitty swordsman-

No answer, again.

The blond waited for ten seconds, turning his expression into a large and distorted grimace, then simply stopped waiting and tried to kick him, noting however how his legs were trapped in those of the other, almost literally crushed, the other in his midst, held back to say the least and...

"Christ, what are your arms made of ?! They seem to stick to my hips with glue!"

The only way to get away from it all was what he did.

He gave a knee in the midst of the legs of the marimo with the restraint, snatching "What the fuck, cook" from him, before loosening his grip and then getting up pushing him down, ignoring his murderous look.  He simply shrugged.

Oh, after all, it was the only way.

*

There was no despair in his eyes when his heavenly had settled on the chair that Usopp had moved back for him, grinning, just like everyone else already there.

No, it was not desperation, rather there was a huge discomfort that to be contained was a real puss to fry.

Sanji was not at all used to sitting at the table with the others: not at breakfast, not at lunch, not at a theoretical afternoon snack - which in general he never did, so he remained theoretical rather than realistic - and not at dinner.

Perhaps for this reason he was, at that moment, sitting with even more anxiety in his body, trying to smile at his Goddesses who had prepared every single dish left there, before her eyes, including the sugar-free cappuccino laid under the his nose that was undecided whether to pull up to sip it or not.

He wasn't used to feeling stared at before eating, he  really wasn't, he probably never would have been.

But he just did it, since after all the work done by Nami ~ san and Robin ~ chan couldn't be totally wasted.

"Who knows how busy they will be," he thought to himself, swallowing the hot liquid from the ceramic cup of his favorite set, trying to suppress a mental phrase that rose up in his head in a tone so selfish he wanted slapping - she would never have done it. He didn't use his hands for this-.

A mental phrase that simply said one thing.

"I should have done it. It's my job, not theirs. Not. Theirs."

Yes, part of himself really wanted to slap himself for having formulated such a thing, so bad and ungrateful towards the two girls he so loved, that he praised and always praised, also because they, even if it was not their job and not they had his talent, they were doing it for his own good.

They weren't doing it to deny him his profession.

They weren't doing it because they didn't like his kitchen.

They weren't doing it to denigrate him as a chef.

They weren't doing it to hurt him at all, it was the most distant of intentions.

It was quite the opposite, they  just wanted to help him.

They were doing it for him.

They were doing it because he had to pull the plug, to stop thinking, to stop remembering.

They were doing it to help him.

So why did he felt that hideous stomach knot?

Why couldn't he keep the disappointment of not cooking for them?

Maybe it was just because he wasn't used to it.

Maybe it was just because he felt strange not to do what he loved.

Or maybe it was another reason.

A reason his head knew very well, but at the same time he didn't want to be put on display to avoid increasing the negative feelings that came from it, as if this were the roots of a big tree, too big even for him.

So he decided to swallow the last drops of cappuccino, to eat the sandwich with white bread, cheese, tomatoes and  then to get up, obviously thanking - trying not to show the anguish that devoured his intestine - and to go back to bridge, a new cigarette extinguished between forefinger and ring finger, the other fingers ticking against the pocket of his trousers with a total lack of rhythm and only with an enormous need to unload numerous tensions that overlapped in his head, pushing each other for climb higher than the others and be seen, disturbing him.

Perhaps yes, perhaps in that morning, there was a bit of despair in his eyes, albeit almost illegible.

It was hidden, but there, ready to scratch, bite, hurt.

Sanji only hoped that it would disappear as soon as possible, because after all, everything that was happening to him and that would happen to him from the first day until the fourteenth, would have been only for the simple fact that the crew cared for him, not for anything else.

Because his nakama, unlike his biological family, did not see him as something expendable.

So, as he had already thought, he just had to allow himself to heal.

"Everything will be better"

N.D.A

I'm sorry for not translating this chapter?... I was hoping to break out of my writer block. And i failed rip. I am still stuck, holy fijdnfidsni.

How did you find this chapter? Did you like it? Did it annoy you? How many mistakes are in there? A lot, probably lol.