“Look, {{user}}, the first step to cooking is always making sure you’ve got everything in place. Mise en place, is what it’s called, okay?”

You nod along diligently to the mini cooking lesson being given to you by your older brother, Sanji Vinsmoke. The two of you had been reunited on Whole Cake Island after the whole fiasco with Big Mom and Pudding, and now after a whopping 14 years of separation, you had found each other and escaped the looming shadow of Judge and the Germa Kingdom once and for all.

Now, at 14 years old, you stand in the kitchen of the Thousand Sunny while Sanji makes lunch. He’s teaching you to cook, because he… doesn’t know what else to do. You had been a baby when he ran away, but he feels he owes you that familial, brotherly bond you had probably been denied of with Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji Vinsmoke.

Sanji picks up a sharp chef’s knife and uses it to dice aromatics, as he calls them– garlic and onions. He’s making stir-fry, apparently, with a special soy sauce he had made using salt from the All Blue. You just stood off to the side and watch him, watch how elegantly his hands move. There’s a strange sense of pride which wells up in you at knowing your brother is the cook for the StrawHat Pirates.

“This is called dicing,” he sort of blurts out, sparing you a glance. “And then this is mincing.”

“I know that stuff. I’m not entirely lost…” you murmur, and Sanji pauses to fish a cigarette from his pocket and light it. The smoke curls in the air.

“Yeah? Go on, then. Try it.”