A/N: A parody-ish piece of the cover pages of 878 and 880, but with Pudding and Sanji instead of Uhorishia and Sai. ^^
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The Husband Club
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A chorus of manly voices greeted Pudding when she stomped into the room.
"Welcome back, my love!"
"My lady Pudding, how did it go?"
"Pu-chan!"
She threw herself onto the nearest armchair and huffed angrily. "I hate him!" she said.
Husband Number Five took her hand and looked at her with concern. "Didn't it go well, my darling?"
"Obviously not!"
Warm hands descended on her shoulders. Husband Number Eleven said, "Let me give you a massage. You sound like you need it."
Pudding closed her eyes for a moment and let Husband Number Eleven work the knots out of her shoulders. Out of all her twenty-five husbands, he gave the best massages.
Being Big Mom's favourite daughter had its perks. She was the only one allowed to have multiple husbands, just like her mother. None of the husbands ever objected. She was gorgeous and talented (in so very many ways) – why would any of them complain? It was the highest honour in all of Big Mom's territory to be one of her harem.
Of course, she got something out of it too. All of them had their own special talents, and she had uses for every single one of them. Number Eleven's skill at massages was one example.
"Thank you, Gori-kun," she murmured.
The splendor of her personal salon helped calm her a little. Smoothie had once said – with marked disdain – that her quarters resembled a host club. She had merely looked at her elder sister and then proceeded to make it look even more like a host club by adding a disco ball and some ostentatious fur rugs as well as a huge signboard with the words "Husband Club" emblazoned on it. So what if it looked like a host club? It looked like a high-class host club. With the number of husbands she had, it was pretty much her own personal host club anyway.
"Are you feeling better?" asked Gori, a.k.a. Husband Number Eleven.
"Mm, yes."
Husband Number Twenty-Three appeared with a bottle of wine and poured her a glass. "What happened?"
"Ugh. That fool of a Vinsmoke!" Just thinking about it made her feel like she would explode. "He dared to turn me down! Me!"
A gasp went round the room.
"That moron!" Husband Number Four shook his head in disgust.
"What's wrong with him?" Husband Number Fifteen looked as though he was trying to comprehend a great mystery.
"But why?" Husband Number Seventeen was utterly perplexed.
Pudding's mouth twisted sulkily. "He said he's already betrothed to someone else."
"I have something to tell you, Pudding," he had said. The way he had looked and the tone of his voice had been immediate indications that it was not going to go the way she wanted it to.
"My 'father'" – the way Vinsmoke Sanji had said it made it sound as if he barely considered Vinsmoke Judge his father – "had no right to arrange this marriage for me. He disowned me a long time ago. That alone should have negated this arrangement. Moreover, I'm engaged to someone else."
Pudding had seen his so-called fiancée. It was obviously the girl standing beside him. She wasn't half as beautiful as Pudding herself! She was just some nobody from East Blue too. Insult upon insult.
Her husbands agreed with her.
"That is just offensive," said Husband Number Nine.
Pudding gnashed her teeth. "To think I even thought of letting him be my twenty-sixth husband!"
Husband Number Nineteen offered to go beat up this Vinsmoke upstart.
Husband Number Twenty-three poured her more wine, while Husband Number Twenty offered her some of his Special Soothing Soup.
"Forget him!" declared Husband Number One, brandishing a huge bouquet of roses before her. "We know how to appreciate you, Lady Pudding! You don't need that Vinsmoke idiot."
Surrounded by her harem, seated in the most comfortable chair in her glitzy salon, Pudding relented a little. "Perhaps you are right," she said as she accepted the bouquet of flowers. "You boys are so much better." She took out one of the roses and stuck it behind Number One's ear.
Besides, Mama won't let them get away with this insult…
She consoled herself with that thought.
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- the end -