Zoro closed his eyes behind the blindfold and munched thoughtfully. He was trying to figure out what it was that he was eating.
Earlier that day, Sanji had suggested that everyone come into the kitchen and play a guessing game. Luffy, being Luffy, had proceeded to eat everything in sight before Sanji put a blindfold on his head and tied his hands together.
Sanji explained the rules. Everyone would put on a blindfold of some sort, like a towel, or in Zoro's case, a bandana, and he would put one food item on the table in front of them. Everyone's would be different. The person who guessed their food correctly would win.
You could guess three times. The first being based off of the feel, or texture of the food, the second being based on the smell, and the third from the taste.
Zoro thought about this as he chewed, listening to everyone else trying to deduce what their food was. It was entertaining, really. The grunts of recognition, hums of confusion, and sighs of deliciousness. And then there was Luffy, with his munching sounds louder than the rest and his smelling and touching periods shorter than his eating.
He took another bite of his sample. It tasted…well, Zoro couldn't really describe it. It tasted sweet, like honey, but then there was a natural taste to it as well, as if it were made of home-grown ingredients. The thing had felt crumbly, like coffee cake, and was soft. It smelled like a mix of spices. Zoro was the only one who had yet to voice their third guess.
He sighed, defeated, and popped the last piece of the cake into his mouth. Yes, he had deduced that it was a cake of some sort. His first guess had been, naturally, coffee cake, the second, spice cake, one of Sanji's secret recipes. Both of those returned negative grunts from the master chef.
Zoro put his head in his hands and pondered as the sticky, sweet crumbliness made its way down his throat and came to a rest in his stomach. He could hear the blond man tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for Zoro's guess.
He raised his head and sniffed his fingers. They smelled like sugar. He licked his index finger and was surprised to know that it tasted like cinnamon.
A slow grin spread across Zoro's features. "It's cinnamon-sugar cake," he said.
There was silence from Sanji. Zoro could only assume he had gotten it right.
"Hmm…" Sanji mumbled.
"What?" Zoro asked. "Did I get it right?" he mentally crossed his fingers.
"No, but you were the closest out of everybody."
"So what was it?"
"A cinnamon-sugar muffin."
Zoro rolled his eyes under his bandana. "That's the same thing, idiot!"
"I suppose so. Marimo has won the first round." Sanji collected the plates and took them over to the counter.
There was a ragged, out-of-sync round of applause for the swordsman. He accepted it all with a smirk.
"The second round is different. Everyone, remove your blindfolds."
They did as they were told and watched as Sanji placed a large tray in the center of the table. It was filled with all sorts of things, from vanilla cupcakes to broccoli.
"The object of this round is simple. You all have one minute to memorize everything that's on the plate." He looked at the clock. "Then you will put your blindfolds on. During the next three minutes, you will take as many things from the plate as possible and guess what they are. The same three categories apply to this round as well. You get one point for every correct answer, and negative one for every incorrect."
"That's easy!" Luffy said.
"Oh, but there's a catch. After you put your blindfolds on, I'm going to rotate the plate so a different section of it is before you. That way there's no cheating." Sanji smirked.
Everyone said nothing, their gazes focused on the plate of food.
A few seconds later, Sanji announced, "Your time is up. Please put on your blindfolds."
Zoro tied his bandana around his eyes and waited for Sanji's signal. His calloused fingers hovered over where he thought the plate was, twitching anxiously.
He heard the scraping of the tray as it was rotated, first one way, then the other. Sanji was obviously trying to confuse everyone. And if that was the case, then it had worked like a charm. After thirty more seconds of that, Zoro had absolutely no clue what part of the plate was in front of him. He listened to everyone else's hums of confusion from around the round table.
Sanji stepped away from the table and cleared his throat, reaching for the pen and paper on the counter. He made a chart with one section for each of them.
"On your mark…"
Zoro's mouth watered and his fingers twitched involuntarily.
"Get set…"
He loved Sanji's cooking, even if he didn't say so.
"GO!"
Zoro's groping fingers grabbed the first thing they could find. He moved the item around with his hands, feeling the bumps and ridges. He lifted the food to his nose and inhaled sharply.
As soon as the smell hit his nostrils, he gagged. His eyes streamed and he coughed multiple times. "That's…garlic…" he muttered, still gagging.
Sanji snickered but marked one point for Zoro.
Zoro shook his head to relieve the cloudiness and reached for something else. His fingers closed around something small and smooth. He popped it into his mouth and bit down. He knew exactly what it was.
"It's a grape!"
Sanji nodded and marked another point. Then he looked over to see how his precious Nami-swan was doing.
Nami was holding a jawbreaker in her hand. Of course, she didn't know that. Sanji watched as she moved it to her mouth and bit down. She shrieked in pain and flung the jawbreaker across the room.
He winced and marked a negative point for Nami.
Luffy wasn't doing so well either, surprising Sanji. He had been fiddling around with an animal cracker for a while now, and if he didn't speed things up, he wouldn't have any points at all.
Chopper had guessed his last food correctly, which was a pretzel, but his arms were too short to reach the rest of the food and he began pouting.
Usopp took a piece of bread from the plate and squished it. His face lit up and he said, "CAKE!" before setting the bread aside.
Sanji shook his head and clucked disapprovingly as he marked a negative point. Usopp always made thoughtless assumptions.
Robin was winning by a long shot. She had thirteen correct guesses. The person in second place was Zoro, who had two. So it was pretty obvious who was going to win.
Sanji glanced at the clock. There was only thirty seconds left. "Thirty seconds," he announced.
The food grabbing and guessing got more frenzied, making it hard for Sanji to keep up with everyone. Luffy had taken up an annoying new habit. He picked up something, sniffed it, guessed, then threw it across the room. Right now he had negative five points.
Aggravatingly, Usopp started doing that as well. Except he actually hit the person sitting opposite him, which happened to be Zoro.
"What the hell?" Zoro said as he was whacked in the face by a raw noodle. He guessed his food item correctly, which was a carrot, and he threw it across the table back at whoever had chucked the noodle at him. He smirked as it hit someone with a thwack.
"Ow…" Usopp said, rubbing his nose. He grabbed a cupcake from the plate and threw it back. It missed Zoro but hit Luffy, who happened to be sitting next to him.
A grin lit up Luffy's face.
"Oh no…" Sanji muttered before running to take cover. He dove under Zoro's legs and crawled beneath the table.
"FOOD FIGHT!" Luffy exclaimed, tearing off his blindfold and grabbing a muffin. He threw it at Nami, hitting her in the face.
Nami scowled and a tic formed over her eye. She whipped off her blindfold and sent Luffy a death glare before chucking a potato at his head.
Luffy ducked and the potato went through the window, shattering the glass, and sailed into the ocean.
By that time everyone had taken off their blindfolds and was throwing food. Chopper stood on the table and smashed a cupcake on Robin's head. She retaliated by sprouting hands out of the food tray which clamped down on anyone who tried to grab food. All the while, she was whaling all the food she could find at everyone.
Eventually Luffy managed to get some food while avoiding Robin's hands, and he chucked it at her. She lost her concentration and the hands disappeared. Everyone was happy that they could keep fighting.
Sanji, from his place under the table, groaned as he saw the mess his nakama were making. "Remind me never to do anything like this again," he muttered, putting his head in his hands.
*sigh* I wish I could do that in real life...