Author's Note: All credit for the birth of this little story goes to Nehszriah. I was trying to write this for ages, but it just wouldn't come out right until she pointed out a certain someone to me at the center of the cover of volume 25. It was then that this story popped into my mind fully formed. Thank you, Nehsz-chan!
Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from One Piece chapters 1 through 491.
Of Schedules, Paperwork, and Kids
Sengoku led a very ideal, very organized life. Every morning he woke at half past four. At a quarter to five, he was dressed and beginning his training with a few simple exercises on the training field outside. At a quarter to seven, he always ended his training, and was in his office receiving his breakfast—specially prepared for him by his personal chef—at seven. Breakfast was, as a rule, not a large meal, but Sengoku sat at his desk until half past seven every morning reading the newspaper: news was supposed to reach him before it hit the papers, but the papers held information unknown to Sengoku at least once a week—usually only trivial issues, fortunately. Sengoku's schedule tended to vary from day to day after half past seven—meetings, conferences, greetings, speeches, looking over paperwork and the like, and even the occasional fight—but he always had a lunch break from half past noon to one, and supper was scheduled from six to half past six. After supper he went to the gym and trained there from a quarter to seven to a quarter to nine. Sengoku would then take a shower, maybe consider an issue or two that had no simple solution, and his day ended at half past nine when he went to bed.
Sengoku liked his schedule. It was simple, it was constant, and it kept both him and the people around him happy. Nothing ever changed about his schedule except the part that was supposed to change daily, and the regular daily change in that part of his schedule kept Sengoku from monotony. He had only one complaint, and that was that he didn't like the paperwork, and tended to let it sit around and accumulate until there came a point when he had to spent three days in a row just doing paperwork. But apart form that, it was a beautiful schedule.
Yes, it was definitely the best schedule in the world.
Until one morning when Sengoku walked into his office at seven to a horrible sight.
Sengoku, being the calm person that he was, did not scream, hyperventilate, panic, roar, or anything of the sort. He did not even stop in his tracks. Naturally, he was inwardly fuming at the moron who dared disrupt his perfect schedule, but it would not do for his colleagues—subordinates, actually, since the highest ranking Marine didn't really have colleagues, but it made Sengoku's subordinates feel better when he called them 'colleagues'—to see or hear him lose his calm. So he ignored the absence of the newspaper, mentally listing the horrible things he would do—no, excuse me, that he would order to be done, preferably by someone of very, very low ranking—to the moronic excuse of a Marine who had dared to forget to bring in a newspaper that morning.
Unfortunately, even Sengoku wasn't quite capable of keeping his calm entirely when he reached the other side of the desk. He stopped and stared—he just couldn't help it, because what were the odds of something like this happening?
Big, wet, adoring black eyes were looking reverently up at him from a white face. A furry white face. That was attached to a furry white body. Which was attached to tiny, perfect brown hooves and a tiny, fuzzy white tail.
It was happily eating his newspaper.
Sengoku stared at the thing. It stared back. Sengoku turned and walked calmly to the door, which he opened in order to look calmly at the personal assistant of the day who stood outside it.
"Tell me," said Sengoku lightly—or as lightly as he ever spoke, "Why is there a kid in my office, eating my newspaper?"
His assistant blinked.
"A- a kid, sir?"
"Yes, a kid."
"Eating your- your newspaper?"
"Yes, eating my newspaper."
"I- I really couldn't say, sir. I- I'll have a new one brought to you right away, sir. I'm sure that one of your assistants just brought in their child in and the child got lost. I'll figure out who its parents are right away, sir."
"An assistant's child?"
"Y- yes, sir, only your personal assistants are allowed into your office."
"Who's in charge of employing these personal assistants?"
The assistant blinked, turning the question around in his head for a moment. Was this a trick question? "Y- you, sir, of course."
"When did I employ a goat?"
"When did you- Excuse me, sir, but pardon me?"
"When did I start employing goats as personal assistants?"
"I- I'm very sorry, sir, but I don't- I mean, you haven't employed any goats, sir."
"Then what's a kid doing in my room eating my newspaper?"
"I- I'm sorry, sir. I don't-"
An ominously loud crumpling, ripping sound resounded behind Sengoku, and he turned around, his assistant peering over his shoulder. The assistant had to hold his hands over his mouth to repress a scream when he saw a baby goat with its front legs up on a chair, reaching up to the side table nearly overflowing with paperwork.
The baby goat was eating the paperwork. At an alarming rate.
Sengoku's assistant had never been so horrified in his life. He had worked so hard for so many years to secure himself this position, and now it was all down the drain. He should have noticed the goat; he should have done something about it; he should have had an extra newspaper handy; he shouldn't have left all that paperwork there… Sengoku would fire him for the destruction of that paperwork. And the baby goat—oh, that poor, innocent baby goat!—would probably be roasted alive. The assistant had never been more horrified in his life.
Sengoku, on the other hand, was delighted. He hadn't noticed how very lovable those adoringly watery black eyes were, nor how cuddly that soft white fur looked. There was just something likable about that kid.
"If you go have a bell made of pure gold strung on a red satin ribbon right now, I won't fire you," Sengoku said cheerfully to his assistant. The assistant was terrified to death of that uncharacteristic cheerfulness, and swallowed all questions as he ran off to have his single redeeming deed fulfilled.
When the assistant returned, Sengoku was happily feeding the last of the paperwork to the goat. Upon taking the bell form his assistant's hands, true to his word, Sengoku refrained from firing the man and simply demoted him to odd-job boy.
And life resumed.
The only difference was that Sengoku now always had a baby goat in tow—which he referred to as a 'kid' for some reason that most Marines couldn't fathom, but if those who mentioned this found themselves promptly demoted to odd-job boys (or girls), so people learned to wisely let it go. Additionally, Sengoku's formerly perfect schedule was now interrupted on a regular basis—whenever the goat was hungry, thirsty, bored, or needed the bathroom, everything had to be dropped for the goat, or hell ensued, courtesy of an eerily cheerful Sengoku.
The only people that had any serious problems with the goat were people who needed Sengoku to fill out particularly important paperwork. Particularly important paperwork which always seemed to end up in the goat's stomach before Sengoku had a chance to fill it out.
And yet, strangely, Sengoku's newspaper was never eaten by the goat again.
Another Author's Note: If the whole 'kid' thing left you feeling mildly baffled or lost (and I don't blame you if it did), look up the word in a dictionary