#ik yall are fucking starved for trans sanji content so pls enjoy

[queer-coffee]

simple words | pt. 1

Part 2 | Part 3 | Read on Ao3

Sanji sparks a light, just as the rising sun sends a beam of light through his tiny kitchen porthole.

Really, he wants to ask Franky if he can do something about that. Sanji’s favorite part of the day, and he can’t properly enjoy it through just a tiny porthole what with croissants that need an egg wash before the dough gets too warm, and bacon cooking alongside a maple glaze that will burn the sugar if it gets too hot, and weighing out the proper mix of five different tea leaves that he knows makes Zoro smile into his cup when he thinks no one is looking, and all the other things that must be done in a precise order, perfectly timed, so that breakfast is ready, but with a welcoming sort of ease fit for first thing in the morning, as his crewmates start to stumble in after a late night to enjoy it.

Not to mention, he needs more airflow in here. Sanji pauses as the sunray reflects off the ceramic of his stovetop to open the porthole. He exhales in its direction and ashes his cigarette after, so nothing disrupts the flavor of this meal.

But Franky worked so hard on this ship, and Sanji knows how much thought was put into every other aspect of his kitchen, his wine cellar, his aquarium with the freshest and most delicious fish he can find, that he can’t bring himself to critique something so trivial.

A crisp gust of wind blows the smoke back in his face, and into his kitchen.

Sanji sighs.

It’s so trivial.

But he can’t get it out of his head, what that stupid moss brain said to him last night.

And he knows it wasn’t personal, or intentional, or even really meant as an insult at all.

In fact, it was one of those rare moments that Sanji loves, when they catch each other in just the right mood, both just drunk enough, both alone.

Their crewmates were all laughing and yelling and drinking in the room over, oblivious to what was happening to Sanji just a stone’s throw away.

Sanji was returning with a few favorite picks from the wine cellar. A red blend for Robin, a sweet orange for Nami, whole milk for Luffy he grabbed from the kitchen, and whatever table wine for the rest, except for a small bottle of the finest sake he could get his hands on at that last island.

And the Sunny hit a swell. And Sanji, normally used to these unexpected changes in his center of gravity from being on a ship his whole stinking life, was too distracted polishing a smudge off the sake bottle to react in time, and lost his balance.

Sanji was ready to go down, unable to break his fall with his arms so full of precious cargo. He held on tight and braced for impact, but that impact never came.

Because the next thing he knew, strong arms were wrapped around him, and his nose was buried in someone’s musky shoulder. He caught his breath, inhaling sharply.

It didn’t take him but a second to place that warm scent, and Sanji’s heart pounded hard. He could feel the sweat on Zoro’s neck from the warm, muggy night, and still smell the sweet rum of that cocktail Usopp spilled on him.

“Hey shit cook, watch where you’re going” Zoro barked, pushing Sanji away from his chest, “You can hold your liquor better than that. How drunk are you?”

Sanji gripped his liquor bottles tighter, realizing that, while he was no longer buried in Zoro’s chest, Zoro still hadn’t let go of his shoulders, his grip fierce.

“Not drunk enough to be getting manhandled by you.” Sanji retorted, enjoying that spark a suggestive comment always put into Zoro’s eye.

But that spark was a little different tonight.

Zoro took a step in. Instead of muttering something insulting back, like the swordsman usually would, he pulled Sanji in closer. “It’s a good thing I don’t like women anyway,” he said.

Sanji’s heart fell.

“Lucky me,” Sanji muttered back. He pushed by Zoro, suddenly resenting all touch.

He took a few pounding steps, but stopped.

Sanji turned around. Zoro was frozen where he left him.

“This is for you,” Sanji said, holding out the bottle of sake. Zoro turned and stared at it, for a moment. Then he took it.

Sanji left before Zoro said anything else.

I don’t like women anyway.

The words replay in his head for the thousandth time that morning, like a knife twisting. He takes a small sip of coffee, a new habit he picked up since his brief stay on Whole Cake Island, and opens the oven door to put the croissants in. A gust of hot air blows his hair back, taking him aback.

He cut it short recently, too short to tie back, and he still isn’t used to having it loose rather than up when cooking.

Nami said she loved short hair like that on girls, while she was cutting it, but that it would make him look like a boy. Sanji didn’t tell her that was kind of the whole point.

It’s hard to tell everyone that he is finally coming to terms with the fact that he isn’t a woman, like they all think. That he’s never been, and it wasn’t until his time with Iva-sama that he finally realized it. That he learned what all those feelings he had meant, and that there were other people like him who also felt those things.

At the time he rejected it so horribly, terrified that he was also like that. He saw how difficult life was for those people, and he didn’t want his life to be any harder than it had been. He worked so hard to press those negative memories back. His childhood. He never wanted anything to be so hard again.

But then he trained alongside them. He talked to them. He cooked for them. And laughed with them. And he learned more about what being queer really was. It was hard, he was right about that, but it was also free. And all he ever wanted was to be free. Free like them.

It would just be hard first.

And he is just finally accepting that. Ever since he nearly lost everything that ever meant anything to him on Whole Cake Island, he is craving that freedom even more now. He thinks it’s finally time to go get it.

It will just be hard first.

Sanji inhales on his cigarette, allowing the nicotine and caffeine to gently wash over him, as he repeats it to himself, still in awe of how good it feels to not only know, but to accept. I am a transgender man.

Sanji exhales out the porthole, and closes the oven gently, letting that good feeling go.

He thinks of Zoro.

And wonders how on earth he’ll tell his friends.

Part 2