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The music is loud. The speakers are turned all the way up, and the whole club seems to reverberate with sound, the bass echoing in their bones. Multicolored lights spin and flash over the dance floor, illuminating the throngs of people moving in asynchronous harmony, giving the place a borderline psychedelic look.
Sanji moves with the beat. Sweat trickles down his back, but he's full of energy, his feet and legs strong as he carves out a place on the dance floor.
He knows where everyone else is. Even in this crowd, he can pick his friends out with ease. Luffy is in the middle of the dance floor. The life of the party, as he always was and will always be. Nami is at a table with Robin and Jimbei, working her way through the most colorful drinks this place offers. The wallet in her hand does not belong to her. Franky is at the bar haggling for a full case of cola, Chopper using the bartender's distraction to get his fake id approved. Brook is sneaking up on the DJ and will likely usurp him by the end of the night. The Mosshead is probably trying to find his way out of the bathroom.
Usopp is in Sanji's arms.
Usopp has always been an artist; he's good with a paintbrush, a chisel, and, as Sanji well knows, his hips. He follows the music effortlessly. Thanks to his many, many years of knowing and moving with him, Sanji is able to anticipate his steps. They find each other's rhythm with ease, laughing, drunk on alcohol and happiness.
This is probably the last club they'll hit for the night. When it closes, they'll all make their way to whoever's home is closest and continue there. They have a lot to celebrate.
For the first time since being reborn into this life, they're finally all together again. Their memories are still in the process of returning, but if there's one thing they all remember how to do, it's party.
The beat changes, and Sanji pulls Usopp to him. They move together, aligned from chest to thigh. It feels like Usopp's hands are everywhere, on Sanji's shoulders, his waist, his hips, reaching around to push up the back of his shirt, and then sink low, lower. Sanji kisses his devious smile.
They don't know why they keep being reborn. It doesn't matter. Maybe it happens to everyone. Maybe in some far away lifetime they pissed off the wrong person and got cursed. It sounds like something they would do. A curse to die and be reborn, over and over and over again. To some, the unending existence might sound like torture. With friends like Sanji's, however, even the worst curses become blessings.
A new song starts, only the slightest bit slower than the last. Sanji guides Usopp into a turn, stopping him halfway to press up against Usopp's back. Usopp gasps, throwing his head back on Sanji's shoulder as Sanji runs his hands up his torso.
They all found each other pretty quickly, in this lifetime. They're good at that: finding each other and staying together, even before the memories of their past lives return.
The memories always take time to come back. It's not consistent, though these last few times, the full recollection took longer than the one before. Robin once pondered if it was because there were so many memories; she suggested, in that delightfully dark way of hers, that the longer this goes on, their memories may take more and more time to return with each new life. That someday they could end up forgetting each other entirely. Sanji adores her, but he likes Usopp's idea better: that they're given a chance to learn and grow and decide who they want to be in each new life, and the memories only come back when they prove (once again, always) that they choose each other.
The beat drops, and the twist of Usopp's hips is downright sinful. Sanji holds out his hand, and Usopp takes it like he has a thousand times before.
What Usopp said during that conversation is clear in Sanji's mind, even though he said it a lifetime ago. I will always choose you, he said. No matter what happens, no matter what kind odds we face, we will find each other, and I will choose you.
This club is no city-wide celebration of freedom. It's nothing like a banquet at a king's palace, or dancing with wolves around a bonfire in a land high above the clouds. Sanji has been a chef, a pirate, a prince, a weapon, a stowaway, an athlete, a waiter, a stylist, a student, and a cook at more establishments than he can count. He's seen the world in all different stages, lived through the cycles of oppression, revolution, and peace. So many things are different, but somehow, through all the years, all the different lives they've lived, they always find each other. Some things never change.
Sanji will choose Usopp in every lifetime too.