Summary:

Sanji works at the gym and restaurant combo called the 'Baratie', mostly as sous-chéf but also as a fitness dance instructor four times a week. During his Zumba classes he noticed a new member at the gym show up more and more frequently at his gym working hours. Though this new customer 'Zoro' has no interest in dancing along with the class.

Zoro, more experienced in martial arts, often brings his friends along to practise their combat techniques together, but his eyes always seem to be distracted by a blonde dance instructor.

Notes:

I made the age difference between Zoro and Sanji a little bigger. Sanji being 21 and Zoro 19.

OC's are used without purpose, mainly as gap fillers.

Even though I'm familiar with the One Piece characters, they are pretty new to me when it comes to writing them down, so;

Warnings:

Major OOC'ness.

Unbeta'ed.

Length :

Short story +/- 4 chapters.

Disclaimer:

I own nothing but the will to own.

ZUMBA IT

"One, two and three! And to the right now! Good job, ladies!"

Sanji's cheerful voice echoed through the gym, accompanied by the happy tune of the Latin music. Even though it was a raining autumn day, inside it was like summer never ended.

The music provided smiles on the participants faces, as well as the motivation to keep up with the fun and exhausting dance steps.

It was early afternoon, the time when most of Sanji's fitness students were elderly, slightly over weighed women. Of course there was the occasional man too.. well, Bon Clay mostly.

The more attractive, younger women usually joined in the evenings or on Saturdays when they didn't have any school or work. Even though he enjoyed bringing a bit of happiness to these more mature women's lives he couldn't wait until the younger ones came. The girls would walk in with those tiny sports bras and tight little hot pants, that hugged their buns in the exact right places. Though he'd better not start thinking about buns for too long before he strayed into fantasy land and missed the beat.

The blonde instructor paused the music after a while to explain what they were going to do next. "Okay! Now let's step to the side and.. Yes, Bon Clay we know you're flexible, will you stop fooling around?"

"THIS AINT NO JOKE! I'm showing you some new moves. Do this Sanji!" He kicked his one leg, clad in these ridiculous hot pink tights, straight up into the air and raised his other foot on his toes.

Sanji's other participants, five older ladies went, 'ooooh!' The oldest one of them, who Sanji estimated to be in her late seventies attempted to follow Bon Clay's movement.

"No no no! Ma'am!" He rushed to her side, stopping her before she hurt herself, while managing to send a glare towards the idiot cross dresser. "I've chosen some real fun steps for today. Follow me okay?"

"Yeah, yeah! Just start dancing, you girly brat! I don't have all day!" The cracking voice of the old woman sounded. There was really nothing he could say back to an old woman, who liked insulting him. Had she been a couple of years younger, no scratch that, had she been male he'd thrown her out into the rain with an extra few kicks for sure.

"Alriiight! Bon Clay, do that again and you're going to the dressing room! Now all step to the side and lift your hip like this! Then to the other side and sway your hip again, put some passion in it! Good! Then we're stepping to the back-"

He heard the oldest woman cackling as she did the steps to the best of her ability with her old, slow moving body and yelled, "what a girly boy!"

Sanji gritted his teeth and pushed the play button of the little remote control he had in his pocket, the music started again. He repeated the steps, seeing the women following him quite nicely before he speeded it up to the rhythm of the music. "Faster now! Throw in some shoulders!"

A gush of cold air travelled towards them as the door of the gym opened. He could have already guessed that guy would come in before he actually saw his face.

He had joined two months ago and came whenever Sanji was teaching his Zumba class for the last six weeks. Zoro was his name, Sanji found out, and he usually was accompanied by his trouble making friends. One of them, this monkey like guy, 'Luffy' never left the fitness bar, which also served food, like cold salads, from the restaurant connected to the gym.

The gym wasn't all that big, it was mostly one large open space where there was room reserved for martial arts, weight lifting, a few cardio machines, and classes like the one Sanji gave. With two extra rooms, where people could change clothes and even shower. It wasn't anything fancy or even modern.

The restaurant next to it could be reached through the door behind the bar, though that entrance was for personnel only, there being two main entrances separate for gym and restaurant at the outside of the building. Most of the restaurant's cooks also work at the gym, often instructing martial arts classes as many of them were former criminals experienced with street fighting. However Sanji chose to teach something that would most likely attract beautiful, scarce dressed women rather than sweating and stinking men. There were enough of those when he had to work in the kitchens.

Bon Clay was an unforeseen force he called bad luck. Especially when the idiot she-male brought all of his other 'okamas' along with him and they attempted to wax his hairy legs in the dressing room. Chills ran down his spine whenever he recalled that day of said horrific experience.

Both restaurant and gym are named 'The Baratie' and are owned by his father Zeff. Sanji had practically grown up in this place, and even if it was a bit worn out, it was his safe haven.

"THERE'S NO MEAT IN THIS!"

"It's a vegetarian salad!" The barman yelled at his annoying customer, Luffy.

"YOU GAVE HIM VEGETARIAN FOOD!... Are you stupid?" A long nosed guy, who occasionally came along with Zoro, exclaimed.

Peeking a glance at the bar, Sanji could see Zoro sitting there too, his three swords sheeted and by his side. The moss head's attention, however, was not directed at his loud friends but to where Sanji was leading his dance class. The blonde figured any normal guy would think of it as fairly creepy, but for some reason the blonde fitness instructor could only find himself to be slightly intrigued. Of course he pretended to not notice the weird green haired guy at all.

"Now it's one, one, double! Flexible hips ladies!"

"Tsk. That girly b-!"

"AND AGAIN ONE, ONE, DOUBLE!"

"SO FIEEERCE SANJI-KUN. I MIGHT FALL FOR YOU!"

"SHUT UP, BON IDIOT!"

0o0o0

While stuffing his face with a noodle salad, where bits of chicken had been added to by the barman, his eyes rolled to the side where the loud noise and music came from. "Thwat sjure Wooks hike fwun!" (That sure looks like fun!) Luffy said, without stopping his chewing.

"Sure does! Those old ladies know how to mooooove!" Franky, one of Zoro's friends said, hyped up by the music and attempting a couple of weird self-made up dance moves.

"I think our green haired friend here," a hand was placed on Zoro's shoulder, "is more interested in how that Sanji mooooves." Luffy's older brother, Ace, laughed.

The gruff barman, who was rubbing a long glass clean with a cloth jumped in, "I warned that idiot guy he would attract the gays if he started with this shitty Zumba."

"W-What! What the hell are you all going on about?"

"Oooh, Zoro's turning red!" Usopp declared out loud before stepping back, shivering from fear by the dangerous look Zoro was sending him.

"When are you just going to, I don't know, step up to the guy and say 'hi! Want to have a drink with me?' Instead of stalking him when he's working? Stalking never gets you the guy, dude." Ace explained, "it gets you a restraining order."

"Who the hell said I want the guy?" Zoro faked ignorance while his face hid beneath a glow of red.

"BVauwse uware swalghing im!" (Because you are stalking him!) Luffy said with a serious frown and a mouth full of food.

"Yeah. What my clever little brother here said."

"I'm not stalking anyone!"

His friends plus barman opted to say nothing, each giving pointed stares. A silent pause stretched on like that, which mocked Zoro more than any words could.

"Fine! I'm going to train! Because that's what I'm here for." Zoro picked up his swords and looked at Ace, "you coming?"

"Yeah. I'm coming. I wouldn't leave you all alone and unprotected out there. Sanji might even think you're here for him!"

"Stay here. I'm going alone." The swordsman stomped off towards the men's dressing room, followed by an amused Ace.

0o0o0

The gym part of the Baratie was quite still. Except for Zoro's friends who were loud, but good natured, hanging around at the bar. Zoro and Ace who were sparring in the boxing ring, right next to the Zumba class. And another man, known as 'Gin' who was working out in the weights lifting part of the gym with a buddy. A quiet day, though the space was filled with sounds and cheers of life contrasting with the sombre rain knocking hard against the windows from the outside world.

Zoro had left his swords against the wall, somewhere where he could still see them as Ace and he had chosen to put on some boxing gloves. Their feet were tapping the ground as if they were dancing too, bodies relaxed, swaying around as they looked for an opening to hit their opponent.

It was when a blonde man started a particular bold looking dance step, with pushing his chest forward then pulling it in quite passionately, a boxing glove connected with Zoro's chin harshly and knocked him to the floor.

Ace gave a yell of victory, "That felt good! Hey, thanks, Sanji!" He waved at the blonde with a big red glove, who gave him a puzzled look but couldn't afford to step out of rhythm to question him.

"Damn it, Ace!" Zoro carefully rubbed his throbbing chin. Ace hadn't hold back.

"Whaat?" His freckled friend asked, innocently. "It's not my job to check if you're paying attention or not!"

"I had an itch." He pushed himself up from the floor, fuelled to get Ace back for that punch.

"Uhuh." Was all the brunet could say before dodging a forceful boxing glove. A smile sealed on his face as they continued their dance of masculinity.

Muffled by their concentration they could hear Sanji's voice announcing a 'cool down' and a little while later the Zumba music came to a stop, traded by the radio's top 40.

It even slipped Zoro's focus when the blonde walked towards them and stood by the boxing ring to watch their match.

The green haired swordsman loved a challenge, anything to test his abilities. He yearned nothing more than to defeat the strongest man alive, and Ace was a good practise. The freckled man probably was as strong as he was, which meant each victory he had on Ace gained to his strength. Each victory was a step closer towards his goal. Even if he wasn't using his personal three sword style at the moment.

Zoro managed to find an opening at Ace's side and swiftly took it, only to be repaid by a punch to his own side. The men closed into each other, each giving their fair share of punches, though onlookers could tell they were evenly matched. It was that lucky punch they were searching for. It almost seemed Ace had found it before Zoro launched a surprise move and had his friend falling down.

Sweating and panting from their intense miniature battle, Zoro was startled out of his haze of victory when he heard someone clapping. His eyes widened just a little when he saw a smiling blonde looking up at him.

"Quite the show you guys make."

Zoro noticed strands of blonde bangs, slightly moist, twirled and clinging to the owner's forehead. Hair ruffled, cheeks reddish from exercise, and lips stretched into a relaxing smile with an arrogant touch.

Ace, though defeated, laughed with mirth as he raised himself into a sitting position. "Do we? Did you enjoy the show?"

"Sure I did. Didn't think the moss head would win though. He looks a little weak around the knees." A smirk played out on Sanji's face, something inside of him itching to taunt the green haired guy.

It took a moment before he realised he was being insulted, busy exploring blue eyes and all. "What the..? You looking for trouble, curly brow?"

A curly eyebrow twitched in response, "are you challenging me, grass head?"

"Nah." Zoro's lips twitched up, "I wouldn't want to harm that scrawny body of yours."

"THAT'S IT." Sanji didn't have a long fuse, nor was it hard to ignite. He grabbed the side of the boxing ring and pulled himself in. "After I'm done with you, you'll need special plant food to recover."

"You sure you don't just have a quick mouth?" Zoro raised a mocking eyebrow, "you're going to get hurt fighting a real guy."

"Ha. Those pumped up muscles make you a real guy? I've had men twice your size begging me for mercy on their shaking knees." Sanji looked at Zoro as if he were a bag of shit, wrinkling his nose, "you'll be no different."

"In your dreams, you dancing fairy!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT, MARIMO IDIOT."

Ace, had crawled to the side, where he now observed the two becoming redder by the minute of plain anger. He wondered if the insults were some weird kind of flirting. He had never seen his friend flirt before, so maybe this was his way of coming on to someone. Though technically Sanji started it.

Before anymore words could be spilled Zoro got send flying by a strong kick from Sanji.

"WOW." Ace called, never seeing it coming. All he, Zoro and the rest had seen was Sanji dancing. This was unexpected, though rather amusing.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!"

Ace, sniggered, even his little brother was in awe, who was still sitting at the bar, belly stuffed with anything he was able to get from the barman.

"WHAT THE HELL!" Zoro, just as shocked, held his cheek, where he got hit.

"What? You ready to beg so soon, you shitty marimo?" Sanji stood casually, hands in the pockets of his black jogging pants, as if he had just blown out a candle.

"You're dreaming again, curly brow."

"I'm not the one kissing the ground."

Zoro jumped up, ready to charge, "just not yet!"

Then there were limbs flying all over the place. Sanji's legs battling Zoro's gloved fists, blocking, attacking, a serial of movements that got played over and over again. It was like a movie figthing scene on repeat, each trying to knock the other down but without a chance to do so and it only pissed them off more.

The brunet, who was still sitting front row, blinked a couple of times, trying to follow the fast movements of the fight. Then someone else caught his eye, it was the man in the weight lifting area. He couldn't help but feel there was something eerie about how he was looking at the fiery couple in the boxing ring. He had heard his name was 'Gin' and it wasn't the first time he had wondered about that guy, since he always was at the gym. Not to mention all sorts of rumours followed the rough looking man around. All pointing to the fact that he was a very dangerous man that should be avoided. But when the guy got back to his weight lifting, Ace's eyes were on the fight once again. A kick here, a blow of the fist there, barely missing the blonde, legs up and down and twirling and…

"OI!" Sanji's leg just clashed with Zoro's forearm, where it stayed as he watched Ace. "Your friend! Did he get hit or something?"

"Nah, he's sleeping."

"How can he be sleeping! He was clear awake a second ago!"

"Oh. You should see him fall asleep when he's eating. It's kind of funny."

"Huh," Sanji frowned, looking at Zoro from behind his foot. "He falls asleep when he's eating?"

"He's narcoleptic." The green head, lowered his arm, which made Sanji lower his leg too. All motivation to fight gone, especially since it was hard to remember why they were fighting in the first place.

"That's too bad. I wanted to ask him something."

Zoro's curiousity was raised, "what?"

"Why his idiot moss head friend is always around when I'm having my classes, sneaking peeks and all that. It's sort of creepy."

"ASK ME THAT DIRECTLY!" Zoro could feel himself getting annoyed again. Who knew the blonde had such a rotten personality?

"Oh, so you're not denying it?" A smug grin played on Sanji's face.

The swordsman huffed, "don't give yourself too much credit I'm not here for you."

"Well, then there's only one other reason." The blonde took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Zoro, "here."

"What's this?"

Sanji was making his way out of the boxing ring. "I figured you were the shy type, who really wanted to join but didn't have the courage to do so. So I'm giving you some free classes, see if you like it."

"Uh. W-what?" The piece of paper had his name written on the top of it and underneath it were seven symbols representing Zumba classes, each with room for a date and a stamp next to it. "No, I don't really want..."

"Come whenever you like!" The blonde said before making his way to the bar, there he exchanged some words with Luffy and the rest, kicked the barman after he had said something to Sanji and left through the door behind the bar. Sanji sure was a lot more than a silly dancing queen.

Zoro smiled at the blonde's exit scene, though looking down at his hand he wasn't sure what to do with the paper. He couldn't really throw it away since Sanji gave it to him, well he could.. but he didn't want to, that darn annoying crush was in the way. On the other side he really didn't want to participate in those Zumba classes. He could already see his friends rolling around on the floor laughing at him. Not that he cared all that much, but it would piss him off especially since he had no real interest in Zumba.

For now he just placed the paper away in the pocket of his dark green training pants.

0o0o0

After Zoro had managed to wake his friend up, they had another few rounds in the ring. Ace had a win or two as well did he. Afterwards he felt pretty good. He even got to talk to Sanji, though it didn't turn out the way he had expected their first real talk would be. But then what had he expected? He wasn't sure about that. One thing he knew he didn't expect was for Sanji to be mighty strong, not that he would admit it out loud but he had a hard time blocking attacks from those powerful legs.

Sanji had really long legs.

He shook his head, discarding the pointless thought.

Zoro made his way out of the gym. His friends had already left when he himself had decided to lift some weights before showering and leaving. Outside the rain hadn't completely stopped, though it was barely noticeable now, just a few tiny drops. Reaching into the pocket of his leather jacket he found his keys and headed for his parked bicycle.

"Hey!"

The familiar voice made him jerk his head towards it, maybe a bit too eager. Sanji was walking from the other end of the building. Zoro knew there was a restaurant on the other side with a separate entrance from the gym. Quite a lot of people were heading towards it, some in groups others in couples. He figured whoever owned it must make big money, especially with the gym running well too and since they both wore the same name he figured they belonged to the same owner.

Sanji was wearing a fancy suit, to Zoro it made him almost look like a different person. The Sanji he knew wore tight jogging pants, with often a blue tank top and fancy white sports shoes. His hair usually was a mess from jumping around doing all those weird Zumba steps, now his hair was neatly combed and modelled. He looked attractive to him either way.

"You're just leaving now?" The blonde said, when he reached Zoro, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Yeah. Decided to do some weights. What about you?"

Sanji made a soft snorting sound, "no. I never leave. Whoa. This yours?" He grabbed the handlebar of the bike, "this is definitely not what I expected you to ride."

Though a little confused by Sanji's first statement, he let it drift, putting his key into the bicycle's lock. "What did you expect?"

"This really huge, bright green motorcycle, you know to boost your masculine ego and add to your bad boy image."

"Tsk. Like I need any of that." He let the insult slide this time and attached his sports bag to the rear of his bicycle. "Guess I'd like a motorcycle but I can't even afford to get a car license."

"Are you in still in high school?"

"Of course not. Do I look like I'm in high school?"

"You look like the type of guy that's in high school but doesn't look like he's in high school." Sanji said, taking his cigarette from his lips and blowing a line of smoke into the air.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah. It does to me."

"I'm in my first year of college. What about you? You look like you're mine age."

"See, I wasn't far off. I started working after high school, but then it was a specialised school for cooks to be. I work here at the restaurant mostly."

"Oh." Zoro, found himself surprised again, he always thought Sanji was a dancer not a cook. But it made sense now with what Sanji meant with never leaving this place, he worked two jobs here. He must be stuck here all the time.

There was a small pause with Sanji smoking and Zoro making sure his bag was bounded to his bike well enough. When he looked at the blonde again, he realised he was being stared at expectantly. He raised an eyebrow which caused the cook to look annoyed.

"Want to get a drink sometime?" Sanji finally asked, in a way as if someone had forced him to ask the question.

"Eh?" Zoro grunted, taken aback by the sudden invitation. "Now?"

"I have to work. What about Friday afternoon? You always come around at Fridays, right?"

"What? Are watching me or something?"

"You're the one to ask me that? Tsk. Whatever. Just ask for me at the bar when I'm not in the gym." He flipped his wrist to get a look at his watch, "my break's over. See you then."

"Yeah. See you."

Zoro couldn't help himself from staring at Sanji's retreating form, only leaving after the blonde had entered the restaurant. It was now he realised his cheeks felt a little warm, and his heart was beating a bit faster than usual.

Was he really that far gone? He had never been interested in anyone before, nothing could keep his attention away from his swords and the promise he had made when he was a child. His interest in Sanji had slowly crawled up on him, surprised him, and even though he was known for his direct ways he didn't do anything with his sudden interest. Most likely he was hoping for it to just fade, but the opposite was true. Unintentionally he was looking the blonde up more frequently as time passed. Though he didn't feel there was space in his life for any interest of this kind.

Zoro decided to just have a drink with the guy, since he already agreed to it, and then afterwards he would look for another gym. Away from distracting blondes.

With a little focus he could pass this sudden weakness.