We made Luffy go in the restaurant to apologise to the owner. The Marines also tactfully retreated, Fullbody ignoring us to enter the Baratie.
As we waited on the deck, we wondered what reimbursement Luffy's going to be made to do.
"That guy's taking so long," Zoro commented, "Do you think they'll make him work for a month or something to pay them back?"
"He should just explain that this was all the Marines' fault… but that idiot's too honest for his own good." Nami sighed.
"The Marine might try to push the blame onto us though," I shrugged, "Anyway, I don't think sending him alone was a good idea."
"Who cares!" Usopp exclaimed, "If he's gonna work, let's go in and see him. We can get some good food too! Whaddya say?"
"You'll be paying then," Nami immediately decided as she stood up.
"Okay-Huh, wait!" Usopp hurried after her.
Inside the Baratie was much more luxurious than I thought it'd be for a restaurant at sea. Heck, even most of the restaurants I've been to can't compare how elegant it was.
Then I looked at the people.
Most were dressed in formal attire, but there were a sparse few going causal. And in that latter category, all of us fit in.
I pulled at my knit vest, feeling slightly inadequate despite being a tad bit more formally dressed than my crewmates.
The one who greeted and send us to a table ended up being a chef. I frowned; weren't there supposed to be waiters?
I gave a glance around the room; finally realizing there was a lack of properly dressed waiters. I shrugged the detail off; the service did feel a little lacklustre here, but I knew their food was going to be great.
We settled at the table we were given to. Usopp and Zoro immediately picked up the menus left there. There was another one left, but I gestured for Nami to take it. She shot a questioning look at me as she picked up that last menu. What is that guy trying to pull off anyway? He's got such a weird power… but then again Luffy's one is even stranger….
I didn't wish to invade her privacy any longer, so I surveyed my surroundings. Luckily the table we were given was far from the middle of the room; I assumed that the more ordinarily dressed people were put on the ends of the room so that they won't affect the overall fancy atmosphere.
I spotted the Marine Lieutenant from earlier sweet-talking to a lady at a table near the middle. One look at their faces had me gagging at the cliché-ness of it all. Bleh, the flirting that guy did was really cliche.
I felt a tap on my shoulder as Zoro passed me the menu to look at. I nodded in thanks and started to scan the pages. Well. They served quite a variety of food. It has been a while since I ate anything spicy though…
Done with our browsing, we called the same chef-waiter from before over. As he walked towards us, I finally got to read the thoughts off his face. Dammit, I'd rather be working back there. Why did all of the waiters have to run away the last attack?
Ah. No wonder there wasn't any waiters around.
When I pointed to the spiciest ramen they had, the poor guy's eyes budged a bit.
"A-are you sure, Miss? I'm sure your delicate tongue may not be able to hand-"
"I'm ordering it because I want it," I smiled at him. I wasn't surprised by the fact that he called me a Miss. Despite my height, I did look rather feminine – the hair, the eyeliner, and my androgynous-sounding voice factored into that. I found that it came handy when I wanted a discount in shops.
The rest of the table gave me funny looks, but I shooed the temp-waiter away to go make our orders.
"You just got called a woman, you know?" Usopp managed out.
I shrugged. "So what? I don't really care."
"You sound like you're used to it," Zoro commented.
"Well, yeah. I bet you guys thought I was female at first too," I said with a grin. The three of them suddenly found themselves looking at anywhere but me.
I laughed at that.
The food soon came, and we all dug in.
Admittedly, I was very picky when it came to food. I strangely inherited the same hatred of bread my brother had and refused to take a bite out of anything pastry-related. In my previous life I hadn't had this problem. But then again, with how poor my health was back then, I was already deprived of certain foods. Thanks to that, I currently lived mostly on a vegetarian diet out of habit.
'But,' I thought as I slurped on the noodles, 'The sting of spicy stuff is the best feeling ever.'
I was too engrossed in my meal that I failed to notice the commotion in the middle of the room where the Lieutenant was. I only looked up when I heard him smash a table.
"I AM A PAYING CUSTOMER!" Fullbody yelled, "HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME THAT ATTITUDE?! YOU'RE JUST A LOWLY COOK!"
All of us at the table looked over to the scene; A blond waiter dressed in a snazzy black suit and a cigarette in his mouth stood in front of the Marine Lieutenant unwaveringly. A finely dressed lady, presumably Fullbody's date, was trying to calm him down.
"Can money... fill your stomach up?" The blond man spoke up.
Before we knew it, he'd already started kicking the Lieutenant into pulp. The Marine did not fight back – not because he hadn't reacted fast enough, but because the blond man was too strong for him to handle.
'Ah, that's Sanji,' I finally recalled, 'Guess he's still as iffy as ever about wasting food.'
The Baratie arc was one of the few things I remembered about. The total chaos and confusion that happened was one of the best things I've seen written in the series. Of course, it was the start of many more twist and turns, but I'd like to think that Oda-sensei's storytelling skills shined here.
'Still though,' I thought as I saw a bunch of cooks trying to stop Sanji from beating up Fullbody further, 'I'm pretty sure Luffy's supposed to crash in-'
"AGHHHH!"
CRASH
Two figures fell from the floor above. Chunks of debris landed around them as they both struggled to get up again. Upon getting up, both Luffy and the other man started to argue.
Around my table everyone groaned in exasperation. We hadn't spent much time with Luffy, but he's the cause of our stress already.
"I don't think we'll ever set off to sea anytime soon," I muttered.
The other man, presumably Red-Leg Zeff, turned his attention to Sanji who was being held back by two chefs.
"Sanji!" He bellowed, "Are you running wild in my restaurant again?!"
"Shut up, shitty geezer," Said man groaned.
"It's exactly as it seems, sir! And this time, Sanji beat up some idiot Marine Lieutenant!" A chef in blue complained. He wasn't the ones restraining Sanji, so he threw his hands up in infuriation.
All of a sudden, Zeff shot out his peg leg and kicked Sanji in the face.
"Are you trying to ruin my restaurant, you little shit?!"
Then he turns around to Fullbody, and sends him rolling across the floor with another sweep of his peg leg.
"And you! Get out of here already!"
The bloodied body of the Marine Lieutenant laid on the floor, breathing hard. I couldn't see his face from here, but I could definitely tell he was a mixture of fear and anger from the colourful aura surrounding him.
The customers around us were all griped in our seats watching such an event happen. There were some who looked on in amusement; presumably regulars. After all, such commotions did happen daily at the Baratie. Even if I didn't have my current knowledge of it, its reputation was famous for its food, but infamous for the fact that it accepted people from all walks of life - including pirates. Why? The reason was simple.
The chefs here could handle them.
"The customers are our gods!" The chef in blue declared, folding his arms.
"Not surprising that you'd call them your gods, considering that they can stomach your shitty food…" Sanji lit another cigarette and brought it to his mouth.
"Patty, Sanji! If you're gonna fight, do it in the kitchen!" Zeff yelled at them.
The chefs were turning around to leave, and the customers started to turn back to their food, believing that the event was over. I knew otherwise.
"Li-Lieutenant! Lieutenant Fullbody!" A Marine cadet came rushing in from the deck outside, head dripping with blood. "It's an emergency!"
Instantly, everyone craned their necks to see what this next commotion was about.
"Forgive me sir, but he's escaped! That member of the Don Kreig pirates took seven of us to bring him down, but he's gone!"
Fullbody's head snapped up, "Impossible! He's on the verge of death when we captured him three days ago and hasn't had a scrap of food since then!"
Anxious murmurs filled the room upon hearing the news.
"A pirate of Krieg's crew?" "The same pirate Kreig who's crew is said to be the strongest in all of East Blue?" "They're really scary!"
I snorted softly; that was a whole load of bullshit. The crew was really just a bunch of idiotic troublemakers.
Before all of this, I was invited by one of their members to join at a pub after I had to throw hands with them because they were fucking around with my companion too much. They thought I was probably able to manage the lot of them because I seemed smart. Sure, Kreig preferred quantity over quality, but do you know how hard it is to organize a bunch of dumb idiots all at once? They were all incompetent to begin with; if I had joined I would've killed myself out of sheer frustration.
"Please forg-" the marine continued, but a gunshot rang in the air. His chest bloomed red with blood, and he collapsed backwards to reveal a figure behind him.
The people in the room started shrieking at the dead man on the floor.
The three chefs seemed to look nonchalant about this progression.
"One customer, coming this way," Patty declared. Zeff merely grumbled something about him not causing trouble.
The gruff looking man at the door slowly trudges inwards, ignoring Fullbody on the floor in favour of an empty table. He slid down on the chair and propped a leg up on the table.
The room immediately quietens at this.
"Anything would do, just bring me some food…" He muttered out in the quiet room. Seeing as no one has moved, he raised his voice a little louder, "This place is a restaurant, right?"
Patty instantly goes up to him. "Welcome, you squid faced bastard!"
"Right, I'm only gonna say this one more time! As your customer, you'll bring me food this instant." The pirate said.
The room becomes panicked at their interaction. Murmurs of how Patty could be killed because of this stirred up.
I glanced at my tablemates. Usopp and Zoro seemed to be engrossed in the situation in front of us, but Nami was looking down at the table. Her hands had a death grip on the tablecloth; her knuckles were turning white. I pursed my lips.
Ordinarily, if it was before she knew of my powers, I would've reached over to calm her down. But she still doesn't trust any of us properly for me to even do that. Yikes.
"The chefs at Baratie are trained to handle stuff like this," I said in a low voice, "They receive customers from all walks of life, after all."
Nami twitched a little.
"…Do you have any money?" I hear the chef say.
A click resounded the room as the pirate put a gun to Patty's forehead, "Do you accept lead?"
"…So you don't have any money."
Instantly, the chef's slammed his hands over the pirate's body and broke the table.
Cheers of awe from customers around rose as Patty folded his arms and declared, "If you can't pay the bill, you ain't no customer!"
The pirate's stomach groans as he slowly pushes his body off the ground.
"Oh, you hungry?" Patty mocks.
"Shut up… that was me farting. So hurry up and bring the food."
Patty starts shouting at the pirate about not having the money for the food and starts kicking the poor dude more.
Rolling my eyes, I turned back to my meal. I was here to eat, not to see some sideshow. I picked up my chopsticks and slurped more noodles down.
Soon after, the pirate was tossed out and everyone continued with their meals.
The four of us made small talk as we ate.
"Man, I can't believe this restaurant is this crazy! I've never seen something like this happening before," Usopp exclaimed.
"Baratie's known for having good food, so a lot of people tried their hands on taking over this ship," I chuckled, "Too bad none of them will ever succeed with the head chef here."
"You sound like you've been here before," Zoro noted.
"Mmhm, had to stakeout some guy for an old job of mine here once. I got told that some chefs were trained fighters, and that the head chef used to be a really famous pirate in the Grand Line."
"If that's true, I can see why they'd let this sort of things happen inside the ship. It's become a sideshow for the customers, huh?" Nami laughed, "Betcha if they could predict when people would attack, they would start charging for the shows."
"Oh!" Usopp noticed a familiar figure come out from the kitchen doors, "Look who's here."
"Ack, its you guys!" Luffy immediately spots us.
"Hey errand boy," Nami teased.
"Heard you had to work here for a year," Usopp joked.
"I bet you broke a buncha plates already," I added on.
"Would if be alright to redraw the ship's flag?" Zoro finished.
"You leave me here to work, and yet you guys go off to eat delicious food by yourselves?!" Luffy complained.
"It's a free world, we can do whatever we want," Zoro said, looking back at us. Luffy, noticing that, stuck a booger from his nose into Zoro's drink.
Nami snickered as Usopp choked on his spit to reply to Zoro. I wrinkled my nose.
The swordsman lifted his glass near his face, "But I have to admit the food here is great. Don't take this the wrong way but…"
"You're drinking this glass!"
He grabbed Luffy by the neck and forces the drink down his throat as Usopp and Nami started laughing. I supressed a grimace over how unhygienic that was though.
Our captain fell to the floor and rolled about, attempting to cough the drink up.
"How can you do this to me!" he yells indignantly.
"I should ask you the same thing!" Zoro yells back.
Before they could launch into further arguing, Sanji comes flying in.
"O'blessed are the oceans for bringing me this fine day!" He exclaimed with hearts for eyes, "As long as I can be with you both, I'm prepared to walk across any path, be it the path of a pirate or devil!"
Stunned by this sudden attention, I looked at Nami who was just as confused as I was.
"Is he… talking about you guys?" Usopp stage whispered as Sanji started dancing around us both.
The two of us gave Usopp a 'ya think?!' look.
"Alas," Sanji concludes, "'Tis tragic there is such a great obstacle standing between us!"
"By obstacle, do you mean me, Sanji?" Zeff said, making his presence known among us.
"Ugh, the geezer!"
"It's a good chance, just go and be a pirate." Zeff continued, "I don't need a guy like you in my restaurant."
Sanji stared at Zeff.
"I'm the sous-chef of the Baratie, so what makes you think I'm not needed?"
The old man folds him arms, "You cause too much trouble for the guests, and if they happen to be female, you drool all over them."
Zeff gave me the stink eye. Whoops does he know?
"You can't cook a decent meal to save your life. You're just unnecessary baggage, holding this restaurant down. And as you probably know, none of the other cooks want you here as well."
With each sentence, Sanji's face turns grimmer and grimmer.
"So be it a pirate or something else, its just better for you to get out of my shop." Zeff finally concluded.
At this, the blond charges straight for the old man, grabbing his collar.
"So that's what you've wanted to say to me all along, old man?" He yelled in his head chef's face, "Ignoring the other comments, if there's one thing I can't stand for, its someone insulting my cooking! No matter what you say, I'm staying here, got that!"
"How dare you grab the collar of the head chef!"
Zeff grabs the arm Sanji is holding his collar with and slammed his whole body on the table we were eating at. We managed to snag the plates of food in time off the table before Sanji's body landed on it though.
Zeff clicked his tongue and started walking away
"Dammit!" The blond growled as he sat up. He saw Zeff walk away and got even angrier.
"You can chase me out all you want!" He exclaimed, "But I'll continue to be a cook here, you hear? Until the day you die, at the very least!"
"Ain't dying for at least a 100 years, brat." Zeff tossed the comment off his shoulder, not bothering to stop.
We watched the old man stride back into the kitchen. Then Luffy turned around and grinned.
"Alright! He gave you permission to go. Now we can be pirates-"
"As if!" Sanji yelled at the dolt.
We were resettled into another undestroyed table(That's three we seen so far…) and given compensation in the form of drinks.
Well, at least Usopp and Zoro were.
I kept my mouth shut and smiled as Sanji fawned over the both of us. It was slightly awkward, to say the least. But then again, he offered a free desert for Nami and I. How could I turn that down?
The two boys were glaring daggers at me as I ate the parfait happily.
You're not even a girl! They both yelled internally.
The blond proceeded to pour wine for us.
"Oh, thank you so much!" Nami clasped her hands together, "You're so nice!"
I gave him a nod and a thumbs up. Free food, yo.
"What's with this um, gender discrimination?!" Usopp squawked Sanji.
"I already gave you some tea! You could at least say thanks for that, you punk."
"Wha, you wanna start something? I ain't gonna go easy on you! Get him, Zoro!"
"Get him yourself."
"You haven't even cleared the plates," Usopp still tried to find fault with Sanji's behaviour.
"You haven't finished your mushrooms," the chef pointed out.
"I hate mushrooms cause I got poisoned by one as a kid."
"Well this ain't a poisoned one so eat up, long nose!"
"Please don't fight on my behalf," Nami fluttered her eyelashes and clasped her hands.
"Anything for you!" Sanji went heart-eyed again.
"Just who the hell's fighting for you?!" Usopp screeched.
"Oh by the way, Mr Cook," Nami giggled, "The food's a tad too expensive for me."
"Then it shall be free of charge to you, Miss!"
"Eeh?" I gasped, channelling my inner last life, "What about me?"
"It's free for you too! Oh, but the long nose and moss hair have to pay."
"What the hell?!"
I giggled as Sanji walked away. Zoro and Usopp gave me the stink eye while Nami shook her head. Luffy was more engrossed in drinking the tea though.
"What?" I said with feminine flourish, "Does it matter in the end if you get free stuff?"
"Stop acting like that! And if you're gonna get a free meal, do it for us too!" Usopp complained.
I shrugged, "Not my fault he thinks I'm a lady."
"That's not the problem here," The sharpshooter groaned and looked away, only to see Sanji flirting with some more girls. "Damn leech."
"Oh right!" We hear him exclaim as he turned around to land a kick on Luffy's head, "Get back to work!"
We waved goodbye to Luffy as Sanji dragged him away by the collar. Then I looked at the others.
"Let's head back."
A/N: hewwo I'm sorry I went on a hiatus for five months? Goddamn that's long. But truly though, I had life happen and lots of things I had to do before I could indulge in writing though(alsopartiallybcigotwritersblocklel)
I'm still in a busy period of my life but I'd figured I needed to take a break from stuff that wasn't what I was doing sooo yeah here you go. No guarantees I'll be updating so soon though. If you've seen my twitter, you probably know that im a bit obsessed over other things right now,,, oof. Don't worry, I do love Lyn lots and I also feel that my planning would be wasted if I don't write it out soo ye. I'm not stopping anytime soon.
As usual, thanks for the follows, favourites, and reviews!
-Riki