After barely scraping in at the last second Sanji struggled through an early morning math class, then English, science, and finally lunch. It was a nice day and he decided to eat on the roof. Normally the place was crowded- there were a few tables set up for students, but they all sat empty. He thought it was strange, but went and sat down anyway.

He didn’t realize his mistake until the rooftop door slammed shut with a tremendous bang. There had been no other students on the roof because they had been scared away. Scared away by the biggest threats in the school. Rett and Zach stood by the door, malicious grins spread across their ugly faces. And beyond them, leaning against the rooftop fence, and a few by the door, stood more members of their crew.

To make the situation worse, Sanji couldn’t help but recall a particular rumor that had mentioned all of this sort was in some sort of actual criminal gang. Most looked the type.

Rett sat down on Sanji’s left, and Zach on the right. Sanji didn’t dare move, he didn’t look at either, and he hardly even dared to breath. He simply looked down at his lunch box on the table. Seconds stretched by and neither of them said anything, but Sanji didn’t dare speak first.

Time went by at an excruciatingly slow pace, Sanji’s heart was like a jackhammer in his chest and he could feel his hands slick with sweat. He nearly screamed out loud when a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder, “I hear your name is Sanji. Now is that right?”

The thug’s voice was smooth, calm, and even had a hint of joviality to it, but all Sanji could do was nod.

“Well, Sanji, I thought us three here need to have a little chat about last night, wouldn’t you agree?”

Sanji sat stock still, not at all daring to respond, but that didn’t work because Zach just crushed down on Sanji’s shoulder with the force of a vice, “Don’t you agree?”

“Yes!” Sanji exclaimed through the pain.

“Good,” Zach replied, “Now, seems to me like you knew those two bitches. So how about you tell us all about them.”

Sanji remained silent.

“Listen, kid, Sanji, whatever, here’s the deal,” Zach got right next to Sanji- speaking right into his ear still smooth as could be, “I’m going to hurt you. There’s no getting around that, you stuck your goddamned nose where it didn’t belong and for that I am going to punish you, but how you act with me is really gunna determine how badly I hurt you.”

The bully’s grib somehow strengthened even further, Sanji squirmed against the pain. All the while Bald Rett sat pleasantly by, going so far as to take Sanji’s lunch box and begin to rifle through it. Zach released his grip and Sanji let out a gasp of relief, “So what will it be, tell us what you know and get roughed up a bit, or get roughed up a lot and still tell us what you know? Except if you go with that last option I think you’ll be doing more screaming than talking.”

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There would be no Rose to save him this time, no Eva to come and kick them in the groins, and Sanji knew if he tried to scream for help then they’d have him knocked out before he could so much as get out a second syllable. He had to lie. That was the only option. There was no way he could put his own well being over that of the other girls.

Sanji took a deep breath, but Zach cut him off, “I know what you’re thinking here, Sanji. I saw those gears turning there, you wear your thoughts on your face kid. Think you can just lie your way out of this, but I can see it in you, you’re too honest. I’ll know a lie if I hear one.”

Sanji knew he wasn’t a good liar, it wasn’t something he practiced all that often, and he had no doubt that Zach would be able to see through and straight out falsehood. So he had to do his best to stick to the truth.

“I only met them yesterday, that girl… the blanket one, I saw her get hit by a truck. I tried to get her to a hospital but she was really weird about it and ran away. So when I was looking for her I ran into that other girl, she thought she knew the blanket one. We looked together, and them um…”

“Then you found us at the park,” Zach replied, still so very close to Sanji. It was nerve racking, Sanji didn’t know how to continue. Fortunately the thug let out an exaggerated sigh, “Sad thing is, Sanji, I believe you. And it’s not like you’re the one that got rough with us.”

Sanji felt the slightest ray of hope, but it was immediately crushed, “Still gotta hurt you though. Can’t have you going around talking about what you saw, got me? Going to hurt you so you remember that if you ever talk about this again that we will come back, and we will all take turns at you. Got it?”

Sanji bit his lip, winced, looked down at the table, and then said, “Yes-”

The word caught in his throat and he nearly puked then and there as Zach’s fist collided with Sanji’s stomach. Without being given so much as a second to recover Sanji was thrown to the ground. Zach gave him a kick in the ribs and Sanji curled into a ball. “So what’s for lunch today?”

The words were garbled and confusing, Sanji groaned and heard Rett reply, “Nothing worth keeping.”

“Real shame, well, we might as well help the kid out, get him his food and all.”

From his position on the ground Sanji could only make out two vague shadows as they stood over him, then a moment later something wet and slimy splattered across Sanji’s face. It was the salmon he had packed that day for lunch. A moment later something soft was shoved up his nose, and then the other. From the leafy smell he could tell it was the spinach leaves that accompanied the salmon.

Another kick to the ribs forces Sanji onto his back, and before it even happened Sanji knew what was coming next: the pudding.

With a loud plop and splat the vanilla pudding collided with the front of Sanji’s pants. He stayed still on the ground, groaning and in too much pain to worry about how he would get through the rest of the day.

When the assault seemed to relent for a moment Sanji tried to focus on his attackers. He saw Rett crouch down over him, the bully’s bald head was outlined by the bright blue of the sky as he looked down at Sanji and smiled. Then, in his own version of an oily smooth voice he said, “If you see one of those girls, deliver this message for me, alright?”

If Sanji were not in such pain he might have asked what message he was meant to deliver, but that became apparent as Rett lifted a fist, and in a single instant brought it down into Sanji’s face.

Despite the beating he did not lose consciousness, and Sanji rolled onto his side where he lay gasping in pain as he listened to the receding footsteps and laughter of the attacking gang. What would have happened if he had tried to fight them? This was their idea of going easy?

Sanji groaned and got onto his hands a knees. He was a mess, salmon chunks fell from his face and hair- landing on the concrete in little pink spatters. He used a shaky hand to pull the spinach leaves from his nostrils and worked his way slowly back onto the seat of the lunch table. The pudding was everywhere, and he only had a single napkin.

The remainder of the lunch hour crawled by as he cleaned himself up as best he could. Down in the bathroom the full extent of the damage became apparent- a shoulder of his uniform was torn open to reveal the white shirt underneath, his face was dotted with food particles, and he had what would obviously turn into a very bad black eye. At least he could see out of it.

Sanji went to the nurses office, explaining, “I fell down the stairs while holding my lunch.”

He knew things would only get worse for him should he report his attackers- they’d definitely get to him before anything could be done to stop it. Sanji then sat through the rest of the day, trying his best to deflect the attention that a black eye gave him.

And when the day finally ended Sanji realized the gravity of what would happen should Rose or Eva be found. He had to warn them.