The first time that Sanji sees Roronoa Zoro he's sat at a table in the Baratie with his nakama laughing loudly and, to Sanji's opinion, obnoxiously. Zoro is a strange looking man and Sanji can see that from a simple glance at him. The green hair is just the start but with the exception of his face every inch of Zoro's skin is covered up. His chest and arms are covered in a black skintight shirt that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination and his hands are in black leather gloves. He's wearing some stupid looking green band around his middle with not one but three (seriously, three?) swords at his hip. Then his legs are in dark green trousers and the stomp of his feet in their heavy boots irritates Sanji. So, yeah, he's odd.

When he rushes off to fight Mihawk and loses spectacularly although apparently gains the respect of the warlord Sanji mentally upgrades him to fucking abnormal.

The first hints of Zoro's particular brand of abnormality are evident from the start but only really noticeable in hindsight. He doesn't let anyone touch the wounds on his chest and when Sanji sees him next he's bandaged up like a mummy. That all seems sensible because in all honesty those bandages are probably the only thing keeping Zoro's insides inside.

When he's fully acquired for Luffy's motley little crew Zoro is wearing different but still as concealing clothes. He's hardly going to pick Zoro up for his fashion choices when he has a slew of other abnormalities going on. He probably should have though. Zoro reacts like a scalded cat when Luffy grabs him a little way later.

"Don't touch me!" Zoro yells and flails out of Luffy's grasp. That clue seems normal too, no sane person wanted to be subject to Luffy's not noticeable rubber grab-and-throw technique. Sanji had been subject to a few of his own before then.

He should perhaps have noticed the way that Zoro avoided touch of any kind, ducking out of embraces that Luffy and Nami didn't really try for. Eventually Zoro seemed to unhappily accept that Luffy was just going to grab him from time to time but he never looked pleased about it.

So it's not without interest that Sanji's ears perks up when Usopp asks his question.

"Zoro, why don't you let anyone touch you?" Usopp asks and Sanji sees Zoro stiffen. Sanji turns the burner off on his saucepan but keeps it there, maintaining the appearance of work as he watches the others sidelong.

"Because I don't want anyone to." Zoro answers curtly in a way that explains jack shit.

"You have every inch of yourself covered up, it's like your scared of anyone touching your skin." Usopp comments and Sanji winces. Scared was a suicidally dumb word choice and he will not be at all surprised if Usopp ends up thrown in the ocean.

"I am not scared." Zoro says, slow and dangerous to the sound of his sword sliding free of its home.

"Let's not kill Usopp, okay?" Sanji sighs, turning around. Zoro is glaring daggers at Usopp who is going paler by the second.

"That really would be great." Nami sighs, her chin in her hand. She looks too weary to intervene, either it's a discussion that she's already had with Zoro and knows of its pointlessness or she accepts that she can't stop Zoro in whatever he intends to do.

"He told me that he doesn't want me to touch his face." Luffy announces brightly. Zoro relaxes a little and looks over at Luffy. His sword drops back into place and though Luffy's words aren't an order Sanji guesses that Usopp isn't going to try touching Zoro's skin out of curiosity.

"So is it just your face or any skin?" Sanji asks because Usopp is too terrified to ask more.

Zoro's appearance goes from irritated but calming down to utter rage. The exposed skin of his face reddens slightly and contorts with anger and a flash of something else that Sanji can't parse and it's gone before he gets a better look.

"It's none of your fucking business, just don't do it." Zoro snarls and storms out of the room.

"What was that about?" Usopp asks in a trembling voice.

"It's just Zoro." Luffy shrugs and laughs.

"We don't really know why, just he really doesn't want anyone doing it. His swords stop enemies from getting close enough to do it and he's covered up enough elsewhere so he'll probably not have anyone touch him unless he actually wants it." Nami shrugs easily and Sanji is momentarily distracted by the movement that causes in her perfect chest.

Sanji purses his lips around his cigarette and thinks. Zoro isn't a totally unreasonable man and it's highly unlikely that he would be this adamant about something without a good reason. Black is often a colour that graces Zoro's form, his shirts are either black or white, his gloves are black, his boots and his trousers and bandana are such a dark green that they're almost black. One word comes to the forefront of Sanji's mind.

Mourning.

He drops the topic after that. If Zoro doesn't want someone touching his skin after the death of the one person whose touch on his skin meant everything then Sanji thinks that's perfectly reasonable and respects it. So he fights with Zoro because he can't avoid it, his feet and his legs make enough contact with Zoro when they brawl but he never lets his skin touch Zoro's. One time when he actually gets Zoro to tumble to the floor Zoro knocks Sanji down with him by hitting him in the back of the knee. From the terrified look on Zoro's face as Sanji falls towards him he guesses that Zoro didn't mean it. He falls down to Zoro and realises that his hand is going to hit Zoro's face and that Zoro can tell it too. He jerks it out of the way and gets Zoro with his shoulder instead, his arm flying so far out that it hits the deck after the rest of him. His last minute diversion of his limbs means that nothing breaks Sanji's fall and he lands face first on the deck with a crack and a bright burst of pain in his nose.

"Are you okay?" Zoro asks as he scrambles away from Sanji in a crab like fashion that Sanji would find hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that he thinks that he might have broken his nose.

"Shit, I think I broke it. I think you broke it." He amends in accusation.

Zoro's face looks as pained as Sanji's own feels and gingerly and oh so slowly Zoro comes closer on his hands and knees and reaches out a gloved hand for Sanji's face. A leather clad thumb and finger run down either side of Sanji's nose and he holds his breath in shock.

"It's not broken." Zoro answers and moves back away from Sanji again.

"Well, that's good." Sanji agrees awkwardly.

"Thanks for... not... touching." Zoro thanks him in an even more awkward manner, clearly aware that Sanji only smashed is face into the deck so that he could respect the wishes of his nakama.

"You owe me." Sanji sniffs, getting blood down his throat and he's going to get Zoro to do something that he really doesn't want to just out of spite.

"Yeah right, love cook." Zoro snorts but the tone is somehow a little warmer.

After that incident Zoro still doesn't let Sanji touch him, he doesn't let anyone do that, but Zoro doesn't enforce a three foot wide personal bubble any more. Or at least not with Sanji. It's fruitless even trying that with Luffy but some part of Sanji is pleased that he's the first one that the rule drops for even though it eventually is abandoned to the other crew members too. Still no touching, but there's trust there now that no one will do it.