His left hand dropped from his lips and bounced on his outstretched right palm.

Sanji clicked his tongue in irritation at the action, blowing out a puff of smoke and scowling at the reclining man.

"I've seen you sign that to me enough times to know you're lying." He drawled, annoyed and already regretting asking Zoro of all people how to sign someone you loved them.

Zoro paused, his face blank as he dropped his hands.

"You remember?"

"You do it all the time – usually when you're drunk and want to start a fight."

"Huh," Zoro leaned back further, his mouth opening as his tongue pressed into his cheek. His face was thoughtful as he looked to the side, his mind elsewhere much to Sanji's aggravation.

"If you're not going to be honest, I'll just go ask Brook."

"Brook isn't good with expressions-" Zoro started automatically before cutting himself off, frowning at the other man as he looked him up and down critically. "Though I guess you don't need help with expressing yourself."

Sanji scowled at him.

"Then Usopp."

"He'd be too embarrassed."

"Franky."

"His accent makes it too hard to learn from."

"Robin."

"Isn't she the one you want to sign it to?"

"Luf- nevermind." Sanji tapped his foot against the deck as he considered the fact that he really was trapped asking Zoro.

Plus, he had wanted to ask Zoro. He wanted the swordsman to see that he was trying to learn to sign and that he was making an effort.

Sanji had never regretted anything more in his life than falling in love with the green haired man.

It was an issue for a lot of reasons – their current situation being one of them.

He hated the bullheaded and stubborn personality of the other man just as much as he loved it. He enjoyed their bantering. He enjoyed riling the other up and getting into scuffles. He enjoyed watching him chug down pitcher after pitcher of beer before turning to sign aggressively at Sanji, much to the amusement of all the members of the crew who could understand it.

It was an annoying love.

"I'm going to take a nap, so leave."

Very annoying.

Sanji tsked but turned away and went off to look for the other signers on the ship.

He would learn it before the stupid marimo woke up.

Franky, Robin, and Usopp were all conveniently gathered together.

The archeologist leaning against the cyborg's side as she read through a heavy volume and said shipwright tinkering with some parts with their resident sniper.

Sanji hesitated in the doorway as he watched the three.

The crew didn't sign a lot to each other.

Most likely because three of them couldn't sign – Sanji being one of them – or because it was less efficient in some areas to sign rather than talk.

In their cluttered workshop, however, their hands flew as they spoke to each other silently. Usopp's grand gesturing, in some no doubt extravagant story, in between breaks of Franky's welding was returned with wide grins and brief returning movements, the room oddly quiet except for the buzzing of Franky's welder, the pages turning in Robin's book, and the breathy exhales of overexcited signers. They looked to be in their own world – a tiny bubble of silence that Sanji was disconnected from, an outsider.

He must have made some noise, the bubble popping as Robin closed her book and lifted her chin as if doing so would let her see him better.

"Sanji." Her mouth stretched in a faint smile that was elegantly beautiful and Sanji couldn't help smiling back, the same elation that he got any time a woman so much as looked at him filling his chest.

The other two stopped their conversation to look at the blond.

"What up!" Franky's booming voice was nearly startling, the other two seeming to think the same as they burst out laughing. "What can we help you with, bro?"

Sanji hesitated again, hating the feeling like he was cutting into something, before shaking it off.

He walked into the room, closing the door with his foot and leaning against a table as he looked down at the sitting group.

"I want to learn how to sign 'I love you'."

"AOW! Is it for a special lady?" Franky bellowed before pausing, wrapping an arm around Robin and looking at the chef distrustfully. "This one is taken – don't try it."

"Of course." Robin smiled, patting the metal arm assuredly. "Which sign do you want us to show you?"

Sanji frowned, his head tilting as he worried at the cigarette in his mouth with the tip of his tongue.

"There's more than one?"

"Of course," Robin grinned patiently. "Usopp, do you mind showing him one?"

The black man jolted, looking up from where he had started tinkering again.

"What?"

"Sign 'I love you' to Sanji, please."

Usopp's face darkened at the request and he opened his mouth with the clear intention of refusing before his eyes caught Sanji's and he reddened even more.

"Um, I guess I used this one for Kaya a lot when we were kids," The sniper held up his right hand, his middle and ring fingers drawn down while his thumb, index, and pinkie stood at attention. His left hand covered his face and he refused to look at the other man, his hand falling rather quickly as he busied himself with tinkering again.

Franky laughed loudly, banging a hand down on Usopp's back roughly, causing the darker man to drop the tools in his hands and pitch forward.

"AOW! This one is great!" Franky held up both of his hands, the right in the same position as Usopp's had been while the other was closed except for the thumb and pinky, which stuck out the sides. The cyborg turned eager eyes to Robin, his grin splitting his face nearly in two.

Robin grinned back, though more reserved.

"That's not a common sign, Franky. Only Fishmen do that." The shipwright frowned at that, lowering his hands and looking at Robin with expectation in his eyes.

"You meant this one-" Robin did a sequence of signs – her hand forming the letters "I", ""L", and "Y" in order.

Franky watched and repeated each sign with her, redoing it twice quickly before popping back up with a bright look in his eyes.

"Like this-!" Franky held up the sign for the letter "I" with his right hand, his hand not forming a complete fist because he ejected the tiny hand in the center of his palm to form the letter "L" and then completing the image with his left hand in the shape for "Y".

When he turned back to Robin, his grin blindingly pure, she obviously didn't have the heart to tell him that it was only vaguely better than his first attempt and still very much wrong. She patted his face reassuringly and gave an apologetic smile to Sanji.

Sanji couldn't help but give a small smile back.

"I, personally, find this sign to be the best for 'love'." Robin started, her arms crossing her chest as if she was about to use her Devil Fruit, but instead of open-handedly bring her arms all the way across her body, she kept them closed fist at the center of her chest. "Though you have to complete it with directing whose love is going to whom."

As if to demonstrate, Robin pointed to herself, repeated the sign, then pointed at Franky.

Franky, being Franky, appeared overjoyed and wrapped her more fully in his arms, lifting her up off the ground and crushing her to his chest as a kid does with their dolly. Robin chuckled happily at the action, placing her arms in the correct positions to call upon a bigger pair of arms that wrapped the both of them in its embrace, the room filling with their laughter.

Sanji shuffled uncomfortably as he watched the two.

As if the ruckus was a call to action, the door slammed open as their excited captain stood excitedly in the doorway.

Upon seeing the couple cuddling in an amalgamation of summoned arms, Luffy threw himself into the mess, his own laughter joining the two, especially as they easily accommodated the 19-year-old into their folds.

Sanji watched the three with a frown, his eyes catching Usopp's before the both of them grinned, unable to contain the infectious joy in the air.

When the trio finally calmed down, and Luffy was set gently on the floor by a pair of hulking arms that disengaged after their task was complete, Sanji stood up from his leaning position against the table.

"Thank you, I think I can work with that." The comment was made mostly towards Robin, but he did nod at Usopp and kind-of catch Franky's eye in the process. Sanji thought it was an appropriate amount of attention for the amount of help each member gave him.

"Work with what?" Luffy said leaning again Franky's leg, a pinky stuck up his nose, as he stared at Sanji. There wasn't really a question in his eyes, showing how little interest he gave despite his words.

Sanji hesitated about telling Luffy about the question – mostly because their captain was a loudmouth who didn't know when to shut up, but Sanji reasoned that he probably couldn't get to Zoro before Sanji did, so it was fine.

"I was asking Robin how to sign to someone that you loved them."

"That's easy!" Luffy perked up. He sprung up and smacked the back of his fist against his mouth, pulling the hand away quickly with a smacking sound. "The easiest sign!"

The movement was so quick and sudden that Sanji didn't register it as a sign at first, thinking it looked more like the man aggressively wiped the back of his hand against his mouth.

Usopp groaned from the ground while Robin chuckled politely.

"No! Towards a person, Luffy!" Franky shouted, his arms pulling Robin more firmly towards his chest from her seat in his lap. "He's asking how you tell a person you like them, not how you really enjoy something."

"Oh." Luffy fell back against the cyborg, his pinky finding his nostril again. "Sounds lame."

"Of course it does to you," Usopp sighed under his breath.

Sanji rolled his eyes and turned back towards the door.

Before he left, he paused and turned back, his eyes finding Robin.

"Actually, could you tell me what this sign means?"

Sanji found himself crouched in front of Zoro with a cigarette hanging between his lips.

He liked watching Zoro sleep.

It sounded weird and perverted, even in his own head, but it was a fact of life.

The man came in two forms while sleeping – statue-like with a bowed head or mouth hanging open, drool accompanied with loud snoring.

Sanji cocked his head as he took in this form. It was the loud one. The swordsman's mouth wide open and the air filled with his stuttered snorts. It was a completely undignified and unattractive resting form, but Sanji couldn't help thinking it was cute.

He plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped the ash off onto the deck. Pausing a second, he stopped the stream of smoke from escaping his nose as he took a deep inhale before blowing the rest of it into the sleeping man's face.

Zoro jerked awake nearly immediately, his face twisting in disgust as he coughed up the offending pollutant.

Sanji watched him hack up a lung disinterestedly.

When he was finished dying, Zoro glared at the chef.

"You want to die?"

"You love me."

"You think that's going to stop me from killing you?" Zoro spat out.

Sanji watched the green haired man carefully, his eyes analyzing every twitch of his face from the subtle sneer on his lips to his ire-filled eyes.

"You're not going to deny it?" He started, perhaps not carefully more so as curiously, his head tilted as if he was watching some foreign species interact up close and personally.

"Is there a point? I apparently haven't been hiding it very well." The swordsman grumbled, settling back against the side of the ship and crossing his arms over his chest. "And I sure as hell am not going to stop drinking just so I don't confess my undying love to you."

"Undying love?" Sanji smirked back at the man.

Zoro managed a glower but ended up just sighing and closing his eye.

"Is that why you attacked me awake? To get back at me?"

Sanji stared at the man in front of him blankly.

He twirled the cigarette between his fingers, the filter crushing beneath his digits.

There was a lot of things Sanji wanted to say to the other man. A lot of words racing through his mind, his tongue tingling with the desire to express them.

But Zoro, the hardheaded and impossible man who Sanji just had to fall in love with, was pointedly ignoring him. He wasn't shaking or outwardly nervous, but the chef could taste his unease in the air, like the electric buzz on the wind right before a storm.

The swordsman was bunkering down, taking cover from what he obviously thought was about the be a disaster.

Sanji put out the cigarette on the deck and touched the green haired man's knee lightly.

Zoro seemed to freeze under his touch, but he slowly opened his good eye to look at the blond man.

Sanji hesitated for a second.

Not because he was unsure or afraid he would regret it, but because he didn't want to mess up and embarrass himself.

He carefully pointed to himself, his brows raised as he held steady eye contact with the swordsman and again his limbs felt heavy with embarrassment, but he pushed threw and brought the back of his pointed index finger to his lips before bouncing it on his outstretched palm.

There was a silence in the air that went deeper than in the literal sense as Zoro processed what happened and Sanji worried about if he was supposed to follow up the sign by pointing at Zoro or if it was obvious from the situation.

Zoro finally frowned, the corners of his mouth harsher and sharper than his normal frown, a fact that almost made Sanji back track.

"Do you want to start a fight?" He finally asked. His tone was strange, as if he was uncertain and regretful about something rather than angry.

"No, you dumbass, I'm saying I fell in love with you."

"Oh, I'd add 'with' and 'you' at the end, otherwise it's more of a statement rather than a confession. Your facial expressions still suck."

Sanji was sure his brain was dripping out of his ears with pure agony.

"Oh my god, you can not be that fucking stupid." Zoro's brows shot up as Sanji groaned into his hands. "It is literally impossible, right? For someone to be that stupid?"

"Wow, I'm only trying to help."

"No, you are not, you are purposefully trying to ruin me and my life."

"Oh, I didn't even notice."

"Please shut up. Just shut up." Sanji begged, his head falling to rest on his crouching knees. He roughly ran a hand through his hair, tangling his fingers in the back and tugging on the strands. "Do you know how difficult this is? How much more difficult you are making this? Of course you don't, you utter jackass."

Zoro sat up more, his hands already gripping his swords.

"So you did come to fight?"

"What? No, I came to kiss you, marimo bastard, but you're making this difficult."

Zoro stared blankly back at the chef, the blond refusing to look at the other man and opting to glare spitefully at the wall.

"No offense, but that had nothing to do with what we were talking about." The swordsman paused for a second, as if assuring himself that the previous conversation indeed had no mention or hint of kissing. "At all."

Sanji was about to argue further, the words dying on the tip of his tongue when he saw the green haired man's face.

The chef took a breath, his eyes closing as he tried to forcefully relax his body. He cleared his throat and shook out his shoulders before opening his eyes to stare intently at the man in front of him.

I-fell in love

With-who?

With-z-o-r-o

Zoro stared at Sanji's hand for a full minute before slowly bringing his closed hands together in the same way Sanji just had and pointing to himself, his brows raised in both an askance for affirmation and surprise.

Sanji nodded his head quickly, his own brows rising and he could feel his breath quicken in anticipation. He repeated Zoro's earlier motion, except pointing to Zoro rather than himself.

Zoro repeated the signs to himself, before turning his gaze to Sanji and bringing his index to his lips, giving a quick jerk down.

"Really." Sanji confirmed. "I'm completely serious."

Zoro's mouth formed the word for "oh" but no sound came out.

"Yohohoho, I see the two lovebirds finally confessed to each other!"

Both Sanji and Zoro's heads jerked up to look at the balcony above them where Brook was sipping on a cup of tea as he spied on them.

"That's wonderful, isn't it Nami?" Brook called over his shoulder.

The aforementioned woman ambled forward, a sly smirk dancing on her lips.

"It is indeed wonderful, Brook, especially since that means I win quite a bit of betting money." The redhead winked at the two men below whose faces were turning alarming shades of red as she held up the universal gesture for money. "Thank you, boys, you've been a real help!"

Sanji was hyperventilating at that point, one of Zoro's arms reaching out to steady him as he called out curses at Nami's retreating back.

"Ah! Our chef is dying!" Brook called back over Zoro's explicits.

"Oh no, Sanji, don't die!" Chopper was quick to run out of his hiding place at the words, his little hooves clomping on the deck as he raced down the stairs. He nearly tripped on his way to the couple, Zoro's other arm reaching out to catch him.

"Don't worry, Chopper, Sanji is okay." Zoro assured the young doctor. "He's just a little shocked."

"Nami-swan! Come back! I can explain!" Sanji shouted towards the upper deck, the man reaching out over Zoro's shoulder as if he could reach her that way.

Zoro paused for a second before turning to the reindeer.

"Or he's just stupid naturally."

Despite his words, Zoro couldn't keep the fond smile off his face, even as Sanji ran desperately after their navigator.