No one told Sanji to be ashamed; he got there on his own. It wasn't right that he stared when Zeff wasn't looking, that all he could think in the old pirate’s presence was touch me, please, touch me. Those rare occasions when Zeff did touch him gently--tousled his hair, patted his shoulder--Sanji’s body stiffened, heated, in ways he knew it shouldn't.
He knew he was growing up wrong. He wasn't man enough. If he could be more like Zeff and the other cooks...
When puberty came and went without a transformation, Sanji panicked. He shaved to thicken his beard--in vain. No amount of training would give him Zeff’s barrel chest or bulging arms. It wasn't working. Neither his body nor his mind were changing.
Chivalry was a stroke of inspiration. It came to him like a picture of two white faces becoming a black vase: what you are is defined by what you're not--it has borders. He just had to open doors, pull out chairs, worship the fairer sex--draw the borders--and there he was on the other side: a man.
So he buried it deep under flowers and formal language; under hand-kissing and compliments; under insults snarled at Zeff and fights picked to nourish a seed of contempt that refused to grow. He still looked. He still longed.
It was a relief, finally, leaving home. He wouldn't have to hide it so carefully.
~*~
Zoro paused with his barbell poised over his head, sun gleaming off the sweat on his bare arms and chest. "What're you lookin' at, shit cook?"
Sanji leaned against the cabin, exhaled a plume of smoke, closed his eyes. The faster you run, the sooner you come full circle, is that it?
"Shut up, muscle-brain," he said.