two one piece shortfics
sanji-related, as usual. gen, but beware of squick in the first one, i guess.
Itadaki
He doesn't know how it will taste. He isn't all that surprised to find that it tastes like smoked fish. The dry skin enhances the texture in a curious fashion; it is mostly lean meat, but the salt stuck in the cracks of the crisp outer layer provides just the right amount of seasoning.
It's amazing, he thinks, how hunger numbs one to all except taste. Then again, it must be that his brain is no longer working the way it should. He doesn't feel pain anywhere, doesn't even feel that his leg is gone.
Smoked fish...
It occurs to him that this is an imagined flavor, one he had simply been longing for. Perhaps it masks the real taste, which is one of old dried meat left out in the salt and the sun too long. Or perhaps this is how it really tastes, one decision away from starving to death.
Either way, he doesn't care.
He finishes it off like he would finish off any meal, with respect and dignity, even if he had dropped it several times from trembling. One should always be a king at the table, he would always say. He squares his shoulders, picks it up off the dirt, and brings it to his mouth.
Other desperate souls would perhaps eat their fingers first, staving off hunger slowly, hoping to be alive for as long as it takes. But hands are a cook's most important body parts. And he swears, he swears, if he ever gets back into open sea, he will do right by his hands.
Inevitably, he thinks about when he'll have to cut off his right leg. He had lasted for three weeks without a bite. He can go another three again. And then there would be his left bone marrow - which, he thinks with the last of his morbid wit, might be worth looking forward to.
If there was one thing he had fully prepared himself for, during his entire year at sea searching for a distant myth, it was starvation. He knows too well that death has a fondness for ironies - though he is not resigned to any of death's ironies. He had once sworn to live for as long as he could, taking the dream of All Blue with him.
And if he couldn't, he could at least make sure that the wait won't be in vain. He has to stay fresh for when it's the boy's turn to feed.
Ikigai
"I hate you! I wish you were dead!"
"Wish I was dead, eh? So you can take over this restaurant, little eggplant?"
"I don't care! Anything to get away from you! You can just run this stupid restaurant all by yourself, crappy old man!"
It happened, finally, after a long string of failures, scoldings, fights. He could have avoided this by inserting occasional praise, or even casual pats on the head as he passed the boy by on the hallway. It didn't have to be welcome, but it would have broken the monotonous bickering, kept things from straining.
But tonight it had been one whack on the head too many. One too many lectures about bad combinations of pepper and red beet. The boy unabashedly let tears stream down the sides of his face.
He wanted to leave.
Zeff sat stone-faced as the boy stormed out of the room, slammed the door behind him. He knew where he would find the boy later. There were few places to hide in a piece of floating wood, and once you found one that you liked, you tended to come back to it.
It wasn't as if the boy could do anything if Zeff decided to sit quietly with him. What was he going to do, throw himself overboard? He knew Zeff would jump after him, save his punk ass, and give him hell for it afterwards. That had been routine all throughout the four years they had been together. The boy was growing up, growing taller and quieter, but apart from that, nothing between them changed.
He could ask what the boy wanted to do if he left. But he'd asked that before, challengingly, in response to yet another juvenile outburst. "That's my business! I'm going to look for All Blue and I'll do it on my own!" was the boy's answer. Zeff countered with a sneer, but something inside him shut up at that.
The boy still believed.
Having something to live for means desperately clinging to whatever can save you. He'd seen this in the boy, but he had always said it was lust for life. It wasn't just that.
The boy had sworn he was going to stay with Zeff. That was all that was keeping him from leaving the restaurant, and it would probably keep him there until the day Zeff died. Someday he was going to meet a girl, and it would be his reason for living, but not while Zeff was alive. All Blue was waiting... but it would have to keep waiting until Zeff was gone.
All Blue exists to be found, he had written in his journal, but not by me. If the boy ever truly believed it was no longer worth it to keep his promises to Zeff, Zeff would give him the journal, and send him on his way.
"You really think I can run this restaurant all by myself?" he asked gruffly.
The boy didn't answer.
"Fine. Then leave. Just make sure to tell me so I can finally turn your bunk into storage."
The boy hid his face behind his drawn-up knees. Zeff stood and left him to his thoughts, his one wooden leg tapping boldly on the planks.
In the morning the boy was in the kitchen, late as always. He threw an apron on, tied the straps around his waist, picked up a knife, and picked up a tomato to slice. When one of the other chefs threw him an insult for being late, he responded the way he always did: quickly and with great irritation.
And at the breakfast table the boy ate the worth of a growing lad, like he always did, laughing with the others at the table at the jokes he found funny, acting cold toward everything else.
Zeff played along. Nothing had happened. The boy was his usual cranky self. If he praised the soup the boy made now, he would be inviting suspicion. Besides, there was too much salt in it.
In the evening, around the same time the boy said to Zeff that he wanted him dead, Zeff stood outside, leaning back against the railing, watching the boy finish his tasks and make his rounds. Check if all the china and silverware were accounted for. Check if all the foodstuff was properly stored. Check if the doors were locked.
The boy's two nimble feet went around the ship faster and more efficiently. Finally they brought him back to his bunk, to a quiet night's sleep.
Zeff asked himself, What was wrong with being held onto?
If it was not yet time for growing up, and it was not yet time for All Blue to be found, this would have to do.
Itadaki
He doesn't know how it will taste. He isn't all that surprised to find that it tastes like smoked fish. The dry skin enhances the texture in a curious fashion; it is mostly lean meat, but the salt stuck in the cracks of the crisp outer layer provides just the right amount of seasoning.
It's amazing, he thinks, how hunger numbs one to all except taste. Then again, it must be that his brain is no longer working the way it should. He doesn't feel pain anywhere, doesn't even feel that his leg is gone.
Smoked fish...
It occurs to him that this is an imagined flavor, one he had simply been longing for. Perhaps it masks the real taste, which is one of old dried meat left out in the salt and the sun too long. Or perhaps this is how it really tastes, one decision away from starving to death.
Either way, he doesn't care.
He finishes it off like he would finish off any meal, with respect and dignity, even if he had dropped it several times from trembling. One should always be a king at the table, he would always say. He squares his shoulders, picks it up off the dirt, and brings it to his mouth.
Other desperate souls would perhaps eat their fingers first, staving off hunger slowly, hoping to be alive for as long as it takes. But hands are a cook's most important body parts. And he swears, he swears, if he ever gets back into open sea, he will do right by his hands.
Inevitably, he thinks about when he'll have to cut off his right leg. He had lasted for three weeks without a bite. He can go another three again. And then there would be his left bone marrow - which, he thinks with the last of his morbid wit, might be worth looking forward to.
If there was one thing he had fully prepared himself for, during his entire year at sea searching for a distant myth, it was starvation. He knows too well that death has a fondness for ironies - though he is not resigned to any of death's ironies. He had once sworn to live for as long as he could, taking the dream of All Blue with him.
And if he couldn't, he could at least make sure that the wait won't be in vain. He has to stay fresh for when it's the boy's turn to feed.
Ikigai
"I hate you! I wish you were dead!"
"Wish I was dead, eh? So you can take over this restaurant, little eggplant?"
"I don't care! Anything to get away from you! You can just run this stupid restaurant all by yourself, crappy old man!"
It happened, finally, after a long string of failures, scoldings, fights. He could have avoided this by inserting occasional praise, or even casual pats on the head as he passed the boy by on the hallway. It didn't have to be welcome, but it would have broken the monotonous bickering, kept things from straining.
But tonight it had been one whack on the head too many. One too many lectures about bad combinations of pepper and red beet. The boy unabashedly let tears stream down the sides of his face.
He wanted to leave.
Zeff sat stone-faced as the boy stormed out of the room, slammed the door behind him. He knew where he would find the boy later. There were few places to hide in a piece of floating wood, and once you found one that you liked, you tended to come back to it.
It wasn't as if the boy could do anything if Zeff decided to sit quietly with him. What was he going to do, throw himself overboard? He knew Zeff would jump after him, save his punk ass, and give him hell for it afterwards. That had been routine all throughout the four years they had been together. The boy was growing up, growing taller and quieter, but apart from that, nothing between them changed.
He could ask what the boy wanted to do if he left. But he'd asked that before, challengingly, in response to yet another juvenile outburst. "That's my business! I'm going to look for All Blue and I'll do it on my own!" was the boy's answer. Zeff countered with a sneer, but something inside him shut up at that.
The boy still believed.
Having something to live for means desperately clinging to whatever can save you. He'd seen this in the boy, but he had always said it was lust for life. It wasn't just that.
The boy had sworn he was going to stay with Zeff. That was all that was keeping him from leaving the restaurant, and it would probably keep him there until the day Zeff died. Someday he was going to meet a girl, and it would be his reason for living, but not while Zeff was alive. All Blue was waiting... but it would have to keep waiting until Zeff was gone.
All Blue exists to be found, he had written in his journal, but not by me. If the boy ever truly believed it was no longer worth it to keep his promises to Zeff, Zeff would give him the journal, and send him on his way.
"You really think I can run this restaurant all by myself?" he asked gruffly.
The boy didn't answer.
"Fine. Then leave. Just make sure to tell me so I can finally turn your bunk into storage."
The boy hid his face behind his drawn-up knees. Zeff stood and left him to his thoughts, his one wooden leg tapping boldly on the planks.
In the morning the boy was in the kitchen, late as always. He threw an apron on, tied the straps around his waist, picked up a knife, and picked up a tomato to slice. When one of the other chefs threw him an insult for being late, he responded the way he always did: quickly and with great irritation.
And at the breakfast table the boy ate the worth of a growing lad, like he always did, laughing with the others at the table at the jokes he found funny, acting cold toward everything else.
Zeff played along. Nothing had happened. The boy was his usual cranky self. If he praised the soup the boy made now, he would be inviting suspicion. Besides, there was too much salt in it.
In the evening, around the same time the boy said to Zeff that he wanted him dead, Zeff stood outside, leaning back against the railing, watching the boy finish his tasks and make his rounds. Check if all the china and silverware were accounted for. Check if all the foodstuff was properly stored. Check if the doors were locked.
The boy's two nimble feet went around the ship faster and more efficiently. Finally they brought him back to his bunk, to a quiet night's sleep.
Zeff asked himself, What was wrong with being held onto?
If it was not yet time for growing up, and it was not yet time for All Blue to be found, this would have to do.