AN: So here you have it, the first actual chapter!

I'm not going in any particular order, if you're wondering that, I just chose Brook because his was the first idea I had XD Enjoy please, see you next time!


Zeff sighed as the slim man in front of him finished the explanation. When his head chef had called, they yelled at each other for half an hour, and in the end he forgot the reason why he had called. And now he remembered.

Damn eggplant.

"So, basically, you'll be taking the eggplant's place today?" the head chef asked finally.

"That would be correct" confirmed Brook.

The Baratie was a fancy restaurant, but not very big. Although it's food quality was excellent and the service wasn't that bad, it wasn't an enormous corporation because the owner and head chef, an old man named Zeff, didn't like huge enterprises, and preferred his small establishment. Brook didn't really seem to mind; the environment seemed quite perfect by itself.

"Ah, Zeff-san, where should I start?" he scanned the restaurant and directed his look to a group of three young ladies not very far away from him. "Perhaps I should ask those fine ladies for a peek of their undergarments..."

"We get one pervert in exchange for another, don't we?" sighed Zeff, and proceeded to grab him by the collar of his black suit. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Eh?"

"To the kitchen!" the head chef yelled.

In a surprisingly violent display of strength, Zeff tossed Brook right towards the kitchen. He passed through the revolving doors and landed against one of the kitchen walls, in the far end of the room. Other employers gave no signals of having seen the man fly right past them; maybe they were used to violence in the workplace?

He certainly hoped that wasn't the case.

oo00oo00oo00oo00oo

The start of the day wasn't all that bad. A man named Carne told him a few basics and the tall man was on his own, but Brook managed to make some decent stuff. Yet, when the recipes were getting more complicated, he ended up making more of a mess than what he had expected.

His lemon pie had the same smell as a dead body, and due to that, Zeff shouted that he was now in charge of waiting tables.

Armed with a little note block and a sharp pencil, Brook took his chef hat and deposited it on the counter before leaving the kitchen. He took two orders without much problem, a shy man who ordered nothing but a coffee and an old couple who were having an early lunch, and quickly found his way back to the kitchen to deliver the orders.

"This isn't that hard, I don't know why does Sanji-san complain" he told Carne, remembering the blonde chef cursing repeatedly at the mention of his job.

"You just started" was the man's simple answer.

Carne returned to the kitchen to continue his work, and so did Brook. He walked up to a third table, where a man seemed to be having a hard time choosing what to order.

"Welcome, what will you order?" he asked, remembering all the manners of a gentleman.

"Um, I'm not sure..." the guy replied. "What is good here?"

"Many things are good!"

"No, I'm sure of that, but what can you recommend?"

"Anything on the menu is recommendable" Brook assured him, but the man didn't seem convinced.

"I thin-"

Brook suddenly cut his mid-sentence when he heard some giggles by the door.

Two young, and very attractive, young women had just walked in and were being greeted at the door. Abandoning his current client, Brook couldn't help but walk up to them to appreciate better all the beauty they had.

"Ah, you look fine today, my ladies" he complimented. He cleaned his bow tie and got on one knee. "Could I ask for a peek at your panties, perhaps?"

They did not react, but there was still a reaction. Before any of the women could reply to him, Patty, the Baratie's doorman, was yelling at him as loudly as his voice allowed him to.

"How dare you mistreat a client like that?!" he yelled.

"Scary!" exclaimed Brook, jumping to a side out of surprise.

"Wait, no, my lovely clients, come back" it seemed as the two girls decided to eat somewhere else, probably as far away from the slim man that couldn't control his tongue as possible. This thought made Patty glare intensly at him. "You made two precious clients go away! You bastard!"

For that offence, Brook was given another hard blow that sent him right to the kitchen's wall. People seriously had to stop doing that!

The punishment didn't end there, though. Another cook passed him a mop and a bucket filled with water, and said that he had orders to clean the Baratie's floors and bathrooms. The idea didn't seem that bad, actually. It gave him an excuse to pass to the ladies room, and maybe there would be panties involved. The sole idea made him smile a bit.

Yet his dream was quite unrealistic. He had never thought how much dirt could get accumulated on a restaurant's floor, until he passed that mop and a pile of dust that could've covered him from heads to toes (and he was quite tall himself) flew up. He got some on his eyes and had to run to the kitchen to clean it. He could hear some people laughing. Brook ished he was all bones; that way, he wouldn't get dust on his eyes. But that dream, as well, was unrealistic.

It took him at least two and a half hours to finish cleaning the floors. When he tried to clean the ladies' room, as he originally wanted, one of the three women he had greeted earlier accused him of lying and being a "sick-minded perverted old man". That was a quote. When he tried to start with the men's room, he found two men kissing. Luckily, they didn't notice, but he walked out of the scene quickly. One of them he knew, he was famous, from tv, but couldn't remember his name. He'd have to ask Usopp-san later.

Patty was greeting clients at the entrance with a big, toothy, goofy smile, while Carne was chopping stuff here and coiling stuff there; it seemed as if he had six hands instead of two. At the speed at which he was working, he was slowing down the other cooks too much, so they kicked him out and sent him to wait tables again.

'Here we go again...'

The indecisive man from two hours ago had yet not decided on what to eat, but at least he had ordered a bottle of Coke. Finally, the guy sighed and ordered a stake, later muttering something that sounded like "screw my diet", or something of the sort. He couldn't catch it quite well.

After delivering the note to the kitchen, he waited about twenty minutes before having a warm dish on his hands that was hotter than expected. The heat made him release the dish, which crashed onto the floor loudly, making half the restaurant turn around. Brook apologized numerous times while Zeff and Carne cussed repeatedly, so fast that he couldn't make out their words. Brook picked up the pieces with a broom and took them to a trash bin, all the while with Zeff cussing at him and him apologizing.

And as he decided to return to the kitchen, a man's voice started loudly complaining about how they had not been attended by a waiter yet. Zeff glared at the man for a complete minute before signaling Brook to go to his table. Obedient and decided to not make any more mistakes, the slim man obeyed.

The man who had complained was muscular and had an iron hand. Literally. It sparkled due to the sun that filtered through the windows, but it didn't bother him much. The man was accompanied by an adorable and thin lady who looked like a supermodel. He was immediately starstruck, but decided to stay focused. He could ask for her undergarments later; he was sure they weren't going anywhere.

"We would like some wine to start" the man started.

"Which one?" asked Brook. They had so many wines, he couldn't help but wonder if Sanji could really remember them all.

"Don't you know who I am?" he asked with a smirk. "I'm 'Ironfist' Fullbody. I'll have your best wine, only the best for me and my lady."

The lady in question seemed pleased, and he granted the man a seductive smile. Brook left them with their menus and went to look for their best wine.

"Is this our best wine?" he asked Carne, looking at an already open bottle.

"Yeah, I guess" the other employee answered, barely looking at the bottle. "It's as good as any."

With that resolve, Brook left the kitchen and walked to the couple's table. He poured some of the red wine to their larger cups (luckily, he had seen Sanji do it enough times to know which were the wine cups) and Fullbody smiled, satisfied with himself for some reason.

"Great job, but wait, where are you going?" Fullbody asked, seeing that he was going back to the kitchen. "Stay. I know my wines better than anyone, you know my lady? I'll show you, and our friend here and testify, that I can guess the wine's brand just by its' flavour."

His companion seemed amused by the little game, and she accepted with a giggle. The man gave the wine a quick taste and licked his lips, feelins its' flavour.

"Ah, this taste, this smell, this colour... it can only be Pinot Noir... year 2006, I assume from the taste, am I right?"

The woman (and everyone nearby, actually, since he had attracted the attention of the whole Baratie) looked at him impressed, and then all eyes fell on Brook, wondering indirectly if he was right. Fullbody exhibited how white his teeth were.

"Is it correct, waiter?" he asked again.

"Ah" muttered Brook. "I'm sorry, but you got it all wrong... this isn't Pinot Noir, and it's from 2009..."

People everywhere couldn't control theirselves. The situation was quite funny indeed, and Fullbody's expression was that of a constipated man, which made it ten times better, but they didn't mind he was watching; laughter filled the Baratie. Even his date was having a hard time dissimulating her giggles.

"Well, it's just a mistake, could happen to anyone" the woman said, granting him a charming smile.

"The lady is so nice" replied Brook. "Perhaps she would be so nice as to tell me the colour of her panties..."

Before she could reply, the man in front of her had jumped up and was glaring daggers at him.

"You take hours to come, and when you do, you ridiculize me and hit on my date" he clenched his fists. "I shall not allow this."

Brook carried his hands to his face to protect himself, but the blow never came. Instead, the one that went flying towards a wall was Fullbody; Patty had been to quick for him, and struck before he did.

"Do not fight in the restaurant. Clients are not allowed to fight!"

"You bastard... do you have any idea of who I am?" he yelled back.

But no one got to hear who Fullbody was. Patty grabbed him and punched him again, this time harder, and the lady he was dating screamed. Chaos ruled in the Baratie for the next moments, everything was fighting, cussing, yelling, screaming, more cussing... one could barely distinguish clients from costumers.

Brook tried to crawl under a table, but was discovered when it was flipped by Patty to throw it at Fullbudy, while other three chefs tried to hold him down, but unsuccessfully. He tried to crawl back to the kitchen, to a safe place, but he realized that was impossible; there were too many people in the way. So instead, he decided to do the only useful thing he could think of right now.

He started singing.

Without a guitar, his song didn't sound quite as planned, but no one was paying attention to him either way. Fullbody tried to crawl under another table like he had tried earlier, but got the same result; another table flipped. His date had ran away. Even Zeff had come out right now, and all Brook could do was sing, sing about what he saw, sing about a vicious battle at a seemingly normal place...

But when he saw Zeff's face, he knew he shouldn't be singing anymore.

'If I make it through today' Brook told himself, watching as Fullbody was thrown out to the street by Zeff himself 'then I promise not to ask for panties anymore, I'll do anything, I promise!'

'Well, not much, at least...' he added after a moment.