"So? Weren't you going to have a good chat with me? Why are you so quiet now?"
Inside an elegant private cafe in town, the rich aroma of coffee beans drifted through the air alongside the mellow music of a gramophone.
Sunlight filtered through stained glass windows, scattering across the soft velvet sofas.
Rosse sat beside Olvia, whose gentle elegance and alluring charm coexisted naturally.
Sanji sat across from them in a single armchair.
Resting his chin on one hand with his elbow casually propped on the marble table, Rosse looked at his son with interest. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth.
Olvia quietly sat beside Rosse, holding a white porcelain teacup with both hands. She gracefully took a sip of black tea and simply watched the father and son without saying a word.
"H-Haha... Shirahoshi didn't come with you?"
Sanji forced out an awkward laugh, his voice sounding dry in the quiet cafe.
He felt as though he were sitting on pins and needles.
At some point, the back of his neatly tailored suit had already been soaked with cold sweat.
Just sitting alone in front of Rosse, that invisible pressure was enough to almost stop him from thinking.
This wasn't the first time he had spoken to Rosse alone. In fact, during his childhood, this father of his had spent plenty of time with him.
He had personally taught him countless times as well.
Every time, Rosse had always shown the same gentle, refined, even fatherly side.
But precisely because he was Rosse' son, precisely because he understood better than anyone else what kind of existence Rosse truly was in this world, he was this afraid. This timid.
It was the instinctive trembling of a mortal standing before a god.
Even if that god was his father.
"Shirahoshi? She should still be in Mary Geoise."
Rosse gently stirred the rich black coffee before him, the spoon making pleasant, crisp sounds against the cup.
"What? Am I really that frightening?"
"No, not at all. It's just... I didn't expect you to appear here in person, Dad," Sanji took a deep breath.
The hands resting on his knees clenched into fists as he tried to steady both his breathing and heartbeat.
"Haha! Sanji, you should learn to hide your emotions better, even in front of the people closest to you," Rosse chuckled.
He saw straight through Sanji's flimsy disguise.
He had many children.
His daughters behaved fairly naturally around him, but his sons were another story.
Truthfully, Rosse had never blamed any of them for it.
His status was simply too overwhelming.
When they were young, they still knew how to be close to him.
But as they grew older, constantly witnessing the authority and methods he wielded in this world, it was only natural that their attitudes changed, becoming filled with awe and fear.
In that regard, Shirahoshi was the rare exception.
That girl acted close when she wanted to, acted spoiled when she wanted to, and was serious when it was time to be serious. His identity never affected her.
Unlike Sanji before him, who always became stiff and restrained around him, as though weighed down by invisible chains.
"Yes! You taught me from childhood that in different situations, I should learn to play different roles. Even though it's exhausting, if I don't yet have the strength to flip the table, then the only choice is to perfectly play the person others expect me to be."
Sanji nodded lightly, his tone respectful.
His tightly wound nerves made him instinctively reach toward the inside pocket of his suit, wanting a cigarette to calm himself.
But the moment his fingertips touched the cigarette case, he remembered Rosse was still sitting in front of him and immediately pulled his hand back as though shocked.
Rosse really had taught him many things.
Everything about power, human nature, survival, and the mindset of a ruler had benefited him enormously in the outside world.
But that didn't stop Sanji from feeling deeply uncomfortable whenever he faced Rosse.
It had nothing to do with Rosse' supreme status.
It was simply the insecurity of an ordinary son standing before a father who was too perfect, too exceptional.
"You remember it well. That's good. But I also taught you something else..."
Rosse stopped stirring his coffee.
The smile on his face faded slightly as his eyes pierced straight into Sanji's soul.
"Raise your head. You're my son, Rosse' son. You bear the Jaygarcia name, the most honored surname in this world. Your entire life, you'll naturally stand beneath its supreme glory. You never need to feel inferior before anyone, not even me."
Compared to the Sanji from the original story who had suffered endless hardships, the current Sanji, blessed with Rosse' bloodline and educated with the finest resources in the world, was extraordinarily capable, not even inferior to Shirahoshi.
Only in terms of raw strength did he fall short of Shirahoshi, whose talent seemed blessed by the will of the world itself.
But to Rosse, strength was often the least important thing.
Within the tiny pond that was the world of One Piece, it was impossible to train an SS-rank powerhouse no matter how hard one tried.
And if Rosse truly wanted to, he could easily raise Sanji and the others to SS-rank at any time.
Compared to combat strength, which could be increased or decreased as casually as changing numbers, the shaping of one's character, the tempering of one's personality, unshakable conviction, and personal will were what Rosse considered truly worth training.
Having made his point, Rosse decided that was enough and didn't continue the heavy topic.
After chatting about a few everyday matters, he stood up.
Olvia obediently slipped her arm through his.
"Well, it's time for me to go. Oh, right. Sora misses you very much. When you have time, go visit your mother."
After leaving behind that simple family remark, Rosse departed with Olvia.
They pushed open the cafe's elegant wooden door and stepped into the sunlight outside without looking back.
Only after that suffocating presence completely disappeared did Sanji finally collapse against the sofa as though all his strength had left him.
He sat there silently for a long while before reaching for the cup of coffee, now only lukewarm though still faintly steaming, and taking a slow sip.
The bitterness slid down his throat.
But it was nothing compared to the bitterness in his eyes.
'Father and the rest of the family are all too exceptional... The pressure that brings has always been enough to leave me breathless,' Sanji laughed at himself beneath.
Compared to his monstrously perfect younger sister and his godlike father, he always felt that he was nothing more than an ordinary person.
"What are you thinking about, my dear brother?"
Plop!
A tiny splash suddenly sounded.
In the armchair across from Sanji, the very seat Rosse had occupied moments ago, the moisture hanging in the air suddenly began gathering at a visible speed.
The dry surface of the chair slowly became coated with seawater, which gradually took shape.
In only a few seconds, Shirahoshi's breathtaking figure quietly appeared, without even a single extra drop of water splashing onto the floor.
Wherever seawater existed, she could appear at any time.
"Nothing," Sanji didn't even raise his eyelids.
He was long used to his sister's habit of appearing out of nowhere and answered almost automatically.
Shirahoshi didn't stand on ceremony.
She picked up the cup of black coffee Rosse had just been drinking and tilted her head back, finishing everything left inside in one gulp.
"Hiss..."
The instant she swallowed it, her delicate face scrunched together.
She instinctively stuck out her pink tongue before complaining with complete disgust, "So sweet! Father's taste is still just as strange as ever. It's black coffee, yet he put in so much sugar."
"If you know his tastes are strange, why did you rush to drink it?"
Sanji finally couldn't help rolling his eyes.
"That's exactly what you're missing, Brother!"
Shirahoshi casually tossed the white porcelain cup back onto the table.
Clink!
The teasing expression disappeared from her face.
Her eyes, bright as stars, fixed firmly on Sanji as a meaningful smile curved across her lips.
"Why did you decide on your own to take Father away back there on the shore? Do you know that if the play had continued, Dragon and Beckman might not have been able to resist stepping onto the stage early?
"The scene then would definitely have been a hundred times more exciting than it is now!"
"But it also had a very high chance of making that idiot Luffy discover the truth ahead of time. It might completely break him," Sanji frowned.
This time he didn't hold back.
He pulled a gold lighter from his pocket.
Click!
A cigarette was lit.
Normally, as a perfect gentleman, he would never smoke in front of a lady.
But since the lady before him simply didn't care, he couldn't be bothered observing the courtesy.
After taking a deep drag, he exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked at Shirahoshi through it.
"Letting the play end early because the protagonist broke down... that isn't what you and Dad wanted to see, is it?"
"Oh, Brother, you're just too kind," Shirahoshi laughed softly.
She casually raised a slender finger and lightly drew it through the air.
An incredibly faint yet perfectly precise stream of moisture sliced through the air, dispersing the secondhand smoke drifting toward her before it reached her.
"Any play whose ending is revealed in the very first second is destined to be unbearably boring."
"So you're saying... the ending can actually change?"
Sanji paused with the cigarette between his lips and raised an eyebrow.
"The chosen one, Luffy, could even die today?"
"Of course."
Amusement sparkled in Shirahoshi's eyes.
"All of us exist within this grand game called One Piece.
"Some people, like Shanks, you, and Usopp, know it's a game. That's why you tread on thin ice, desperately trying to keep it from collapsing."
"And others, like Luffy, don't even know they're inside it. They simply keep moving forward like puppets on strings, confused yet full of passion."
"But no matter which kind of struggle it is, it only makes this grand performance more alive... and more interesting."
Shirahoshi slowly rose from the sofa.
Supporting herself with both hands on the table, she leaned forward, pressing toward Sanji with overwhelming presence.
"And what about us?
"We were born to be the directors of this grand performance... and its highest-level audience."
"What we should be thinking about has never been how to carefully preserve the original, boring script."
"We should keep adding fuel to the fire, pushing everything forward until this play completely loses control and becomes even crazier."
"And you, my brother."
She reached out and gently tapped Sanji's chest with a finger.
"You joined the Straw Hat Pirates back then simply to indulge Father and my little hobby. But do you really think we placed you there just to watch you stand like a wooden puppet and mechanically perform your role from beginning to end?"
Her voice echoed through the spacious cafe, carrying an almost irresistible temptation.
"Father personally told me that you're his first child, and that you possess extraordinary potential."
"So..."
Shirahoshi's figure gradually began to fade.
Seawater rose around her feet, slowly swallowing her bit by bit.
"During the voyage ahead, show me... show Father... the excellence hidden within you, my dear brother."
Splash!
The moment her words ended, Shirahoshi's body completely dissolved into a pool of clear seawater.
The water moved as though alive, slipping into the gaps between the cafe floorboards before silently flowing into the fountain outside the window, as though she had never appeared at all.
The cafe was left with only Sanji once more.
The gramophone continued to play its gentle music, yet Shirahoshi's stirring words seemed to linger in the air.
"I'm exceptional..."
Holding the half-finished cigarette between his fingers, Sanji let out a self-mocking laugh.
He shook his head and slowly stood up from the sofa.
Looking through the stained glass, he watched the seagulls flying across the sky.
A rare sharpness flashed through his eyes before it was quickly covered by boundless gentleness.
"Maybe..."
"But from the beginning... I've never cared whether I was exceptional enough, whether I could stand at the top of the world, or whether I could stand beside all of you."
"I've always known that no matter how exceptional I become, I'll never surpass you or Father. At least when it comes to the way you see the world, I'm far behind."
"The only thing I've ever truly cared about... is the safety of all of you."
"Protecting Father and Mother, protecting all of my younger brothers and sisters..."
"That's always been the thing I wanted most."
Tap!
Sanji pressed the cigarette into the crystal ashtray.
The last spark went out.
He straightened his tie, smoothed the wrinkles from his suit, and strode toward the cafe door.
If his family felt this play still wasn't exciting enough, if both his sister and his father were looking forward to his performance... then in the acts to come, it was time for him to add a few scenes of his own.
Not to prove his excellence to the world.
Simply because... it was the kind of scene his beloved family wanted to see.
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