Sticker
By Dixxy Mouri

9 Years Ago

It was time for the tangerine harvest again. Bellemere let little Nojiko and Nami help her gather tangerines from the grove, getting them ready to be shipped all over the East Blue. The younger daughter wondered how far their tangerines would go, and who would eat them. Maybe a beautiful princess would want one, or a famous musician or maybe even a unicorn!

Nami found a particularly orange and round tangerine and stared at it with wide eyes. "Wow, look at this one, Bellemere-san!" The little girl held up the tangerine with a huge grin on her face, looking at it in awe. "It's so pretty! I bet it's the best tasting tangerine in the entire grove!" She hugged it, looked at Bellemere for approval.

"If you think so, Nami," Bellemere said with a smile.

"But we still have to sell it – we can't eat nothing but tangerines, Nami!" Nojiko said.

Nami sighed, looked at the tangerine, and got an idea. "I know!" she said. Still holding the tangerine, she ran out of the grove and towards the house. "I'll be right back!" she yelled, smiling as Nojiko and Bellemere exchanged a confused look. They shrugged it off and went back to work, guessing that Nami wouldn't do anything too stupid.

A few minutes later, Nami returned with the tangerine, stopped before her foster mother and step sister, and showed them what she had done. There, on the rind, was a pink, purple, and sparkling pink unicorn sticker – Genzo had given them a sheet of them on his last visit, knowing the girls didn't get to have that kind of thing very often. As such, sparkling unicorns in all shapes and colors had ended up all over Bellemere's house (and the rest of the village). This tangerine was the latest "victim" in the sparkling unicorn spree.

"See? Now whoever eats this will know it's the best one!" she said.

Bellemere sighed, shook her head, and shrugged. "All right, Nami, if you say so."

9 years later

The Going Merry had been alive with celebration as they left Cocoyashi Village and headed for Loguetown. Arlong was taken care of, they finally had the ship and Nami back, and with just one stop to go, they were ready to head for the Grand Line. As such, there had been lots of drinking, eating, and generally tom foolery to be had.

Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp were passed out in the men's quarters while Sanji was busy cleaning up in the kitchen. Nami was tending to her trees, making sure they were taking to their new home all right. Moving trees could put them into a state of shock and kill them, but so far they seemed all right. Nami gently touched one of the trunks, sighing happily.

There was the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing, and Nami saw Sanji step out, light a cigarette, and take a drag. She frowned – she really didn't know him that well yet. Sure, he'd waited on her hand and foot for the few days they were all stuck at the Baratie before Krieg attacked and she stole the ship, and he seemed enamored with her, but she really didn't KNOW him.

"Hey, Sanji-kun!" she called. She winced a little – such a familiar term for someone she didn't even know. He was probably going to take offense to that. It was such a demeaning honorific, too – after all, wasn't he older than her?

Sanji didn't seem to mind. "Yes, Nami-san?" he chimed back, looking up at her as he leaned back against the railing. Nami sighed, rolled her eyes, and chuckled. "Do you need something my angel? Are you still hungry? I can make you anything you want – dessert, a drink, anything! I'll be your slave of love!"

"I don't need a slave of love – come up here, I want to talk to you," she said.

Sanji grinned at the chance, putting one foot on the railing and launching himself into the mini-grove, startling Nami. "Um, Sanji-kun," Damn, I did it again! He doesn't seem to mind but that's so rude! she thought, "I just realized we don't really know each other that well yet and, since we're going to be crewmates and all I just wanted to get to know you a little better."

"Of course, Nami-san! I'll tell you anything you want to know!"

Nami bit the inside of her bottom lip. Way too easy to please. Good to know. She turned back to her tangerines, thinking that might be a better ice breaker than Sanji's open invitation to ask her ANYTHING about him. "Well, maybe that's not the way to do that," she kindly suggested, pulling two tangerines off the tree and gently tossing one to Sanji. "Let's just … talk. Don't worry – this tangerine is on the house."

Sanji didn't seem to understand what she was saying about the tangerine "being on the house", but he shrugged, sat down at the base of one of the trees, and started to peel the fruit. "Thank you, Nami-san," he said. He smiled at the tangerine and held it up to his nose, closing his eyes and smelling it. "It smells wonderful." He carefully removed a section and popped it in his mouth, slowly chewing and seeming to savor the taste. Maybe a bit too slowly.

"Sanji-kun?" Nami asked.

Sanji smiled at her and nodded, shoving his free hand into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. "When I was a kid, I almost starved to death once," he said. Nami sat down next to him, stunned by this revelation. "That's how Zeff and I met – we were the only survivors from a storm out on the ocean. We didn't have much food on the island – the old man gave me all the real food, which, if I ate normal portions would have only lasted five days." He swallowed. "I made it last around twenty."

The navigator was stunned. Twenty days. Oh, Sanji-kun …"How long were you there?" Nami asked.

"I … shouldn't be getting into this, Nami-san – you said you wanted to get to know me and-"

"No, it's fine," she said.

Sanji sighed. "Almost three months."

Nami swallowed. "Three … months?"

Sanji nodded solemnly. "That's why I won't let anyone here waste any food. I'm not going to claim what Arlong put you through is any worse or better than what I went through, but starving? You never, ever want to have to go through it." He picked up at the tangerine and sighed. "When we were finally picked up, though, the first thing that I ate was a tangerine."

"A tangerine?" Nami asked.

Sanji nodded and laughed, opening up his wallet and removed a carefully folded piece of paper. "Yeah. I ate the whole thing – even the rind. Best tasting food I have EVER had. The only thing I didn't eat was this sticker that someone put on the outside." He unfolded the paper, revealing a slightly chewed but still in relatively good condition sticker of a pink, purple, and sparkling unicorn.

Author's Notes

Hey guys!

For those of you waiting for the next chapter of Mass x Acceleration, it's with my beta reader so it shouldn't be much longer. If you don't know what that is, it's part of my Laws of Motion series. The recommended reading order is "Vanished", A Force Against Inertia, "Sought", and then the in-progress Mass x Acceleration. They are all rated R so keep that in mind.

In the meantime I've decided to post some older one-shots that, up until this point, I haven't put on this website. Most (if not all) of these will be from the 30 One Piece challenge on LJ, circa 2009. I'm also going to try and touch them up a bit where I can.

"Sticker" was my response to the prompt "tangerine".

Hope you enjoyed it!

~Dixxy