"Penguuuuuuuin what's the point of this?" Shachi yawned. He sat cross legged in front of a projection from the surveillance den-den mushi showing the kitchen which was,at the moment, empty. Penguin was sat beside him, keeping his eyes fixed on the scene.
"You're the one who wanted proof." Penguin was keeping his answers short and clipped, too intent on keeping an eye out for any movement that might signify the presence of whoever the mystery benefactor was.
"But there isn't going to be anything!" He pouted. "There's nobody else on this sub aside from you who can cook like that."
The subject that they were discussing was a pot of soup that had somehow managed to turn up on the stove without anyone noticing at the beginning of that week. The person who had found it first was Shachi. He had been on one of his early morning raids when he had come across the pot of soup that was hot,fresh and surprisingly tasty. Well it was tasty to him. Nobody else got to try it because Shachi ended up drinking the whole pot. He had assumed the person who had made it was Penguin, the main chef on the submarine but he denied having anything to do with it.
They thought that it would have been a one off but the next day there was yet another pot of soup waiting there. This time there was a note on it saying "This is meant to be for the sick person." The writing was written on in block capitals so they could not determine whose handwriting it was but the message got through and Shachi left it for Jean Bart who had been feeling a little more than just under the weather (Shachi still managed to sneak himself a small portion though).
This had carried on for a few days until eventually Penguin had decided to prove to Shachi that the soup had nothing to do with him. So that's how they came about to be sat in their dark room watching the surveillance den den mushi that they had planted in the kitchen at the witching hours. Shachi kept trying to fall asleep but had no luck as Penguin kept him awake with a firm wake up slap to the face. There was so little action though that Penguin himself was almost falling asleep when a flicker of movement caught his eye.
"Shachi, Shachi wake up." Penguin firmly nudged Shachi in the stomach to grab his attention in time to see a familiar figure walk in the kitchen.
~~~
"This should be the last time I think." Law muttered to himself as he walked in to the kitchen to make the last pot of soup. Jean Bart was almost fully recovered so he figured that he'd only need one more to help him along the way. It wasn't mandatory but Law felt like being generous so he thought he'd help speed the process up.
He attained most of his experience from back when he was being carted around North Blue as a child by Corazon. His cooking ability had been needless to say, poor at best which had encouraged Law to learn to make his own food in order to avoid being forced to ingest the dark matter that Corazon seemed to produce and risk food poisoning. He didn't have anyone to teach him specifically but the fear of contracting a extra illness on top of the one threatening his life was enough to force him to learn fast in some way or another.
Learning how to make soup was one of the first things he learnt to do and he found that it often helped him recover from an illness faster. So naturally as a captain looking out for his crew, he liked to make them soup as a treat whenever one of them was ill. He hummed a little song to himself as he began to prepare the ingredients, oblivious to the den den mushi that two of his crew members were watching him through.
He'd made this specific recipe hundreds of times so the process came easily to him but he'd never get bored of breathing in the fragrances that drifted towards him. The kitchen was silent save for the sounds of his knife cutting up the vegetables on the chopping board ( as much as he loved his sword it would have been a bit extreme if he used Kikoku in this instance.) and the bubbling of the soup on the cooker.
It was only when everything was in the pot that he finally sat down on a stool, preferring to stay beside the pot to make sure it didn't burn rather than return to his room. After a small while, he taste-tested the soup and decided that it needed a little more salt and pepper. He found however that he'd used up the last of the salt and pepper in the containers he'd been using. The herb cupboard was only about a meter to his left so he reached for that and felt something that didn't belong in there...
~~~
By this point the whole Heart pirate crew was gathered in the room,watching their captain making soup. Everything seemed to go in slow motion when they saw his tattooed fingers begin to reach in the cupboard where they had hidden the den-den mushi.
"Shit shit Penguin, the captain's gonna-" his fingers covered the front of the den-den mushi making the screen black. "-find out..."
Law quickly pulled his hand back from whatever foreign object he'd touched and gave the cupboard a quizzical look. He pulled the door open a little more to finally discover the small surveillance den den mushi hidden inside. He took a couple of steps back and some of the crew members began to snigger at the priceless expression on his face. He was clearly surprised, that much was obvious from the wide eyes and the way his mouth was grimacing.
The crew suddenly noticed his hand open and the ladle (still full of soup) that was being held by it begin to tumble to the ground. Law's attention switched away from the den den mushi to the soup that spilled out from the ladle and onto his spotted pants. Everyone in the crew was rolling around with laughter as they watched him jump up with shock and accidentally trip over, falling on his back.
"This is rich Penguin oh my god." Shachi said in between giggles as Law shot back up to grab a towel to wipe his pants.
A few minutes later, Law finally regained his composure and the crew winced when they saw him shoot a glare at the den den mushi before leaving the kitchen.
"Shit he's gonna kill us."
Penguin gave Shachi a pointed look. "Now do you believe me?"