Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece
Well it's been over a month since my last chapter was posted, that should be the norm for this story. I hope you enjoy reading it, I enjoy writing the first half of it near a bunch of books in Chapters.
X_X_X_X
In the abdomen of Ryuko expanded by the sailing rocks, the crew were gathered in a room with a table. Yukine was standing before them pacing with uneasiness.
"We seem to be stuck here due to our lack of métier...and it's nobodies fault, it isn't, Eric."
Eric twitched his right eye hearing his name in an insolent murmur. Yukine continued to ramble his pontifications.
"I think it's time for two of us to learn something from the other because thinking one day we'll recruit a crewmate with a useful talent is insipid. Eric, you hang around Cain and learn some cooking higgledy-piggledy. If all of us but you perish who will teach new members how to feed themselves. As for me and Elisa...we'll be doing sword sparring."
Eric was immediately pulled on by his collar, Cain being the man in charge for a change, and was dragged sliding on his rump to the kitchen.
Elisa's lesson was more peaceful. Yukine waited for her to use her rump to slid her chair back and stand up, sipping a now lukewarm cup of tea before he pointed to the door.
Eric never wore a chef hat and apron before. His first task in them was to clean the stove. He used a cloth and a product of degreaser getting in there flapping his elbows like a turkey while Cain lectured him.
"A good chef always makes sure his or her equipment is polished and spruced otherwise the food would crunch our stomach and we'd fold."
Eric bemoaned at the recitation Cain gave him, but scrubbed the stove nonetheless. Some of it was rusty due to the oxidizing in the air. The stove made funny trills every time Eric tried applying a little elbow grease.
Cain murmured something under his breath, and it peeved Eric; he had the audacity to to do it in a flurry.
"That is enough cleaning the stove," he told his captain. "It's time I told you about cookings greatest accomplishment and it's greatest surmount of danger; gas and heat."
X_X_X_X
When Eric suggested they turn Ryuko's bladder into a training dojo, Elisa had some objections to make about it, but she could hear the soothing trills of Ryuko's chest pulsating in the interior of the room so he wasn't as upend about it as she originally believed.
Both of them were polishing their wooden bamboo words in their seiza-style before standing up, walking to the other end of the dojo, and bowing to one another.
Yukine's stance was kendo style; hers was raising the bamboo sword over her neck. Yukine found that stance to be hilarious; looked at her with a smarmy smile.
"Now the rule for this sparring is simple: first one to hit the other wins. Ready—rhetorical question!"
Yukine moved sporadically towards Elisa. He raised his sword ready to hit her arm before she could grasp her sword. She didn't do that, instead lopping to the left before hitting her sword on his arm. The blow stung him, made his nerves feel numb.
He was flabbergasted.
"That was good. Let's try that again."
Yukine flowed his arm in the air so his bamboo sword copied the pose Elisa made. He creaked his feet against the ground trying to be more unpredictable in his strike this time. He flinched his blade...Elisa dropped her blade letting it fall right into her awaiting palm before she jabbed her blade right in his stomach.
"Your not doing this right, Yukine." She scolded. "The first thing to do in a match of swords is to always make sure your blade is slashing into the opposite blade."
Yukine was quiet, blinked his enlarged pupils before speaking, "You know how to use a sword?"
"Tsk-tsk. Leave it to a man to always think that their normally the right ones. I wasn't raised with parents that had swordsmanship be my childhood, but Eric knows some good tutelage in how to parry, thrust, swing, cleave and deflect a sword, and if you listen you too might learn to use it better because your techniques..." Elisa raised her thumb up slowly, etching it to her neck, and then plumped it down.
X_X_X_X
Cain had to make Eric be hands on with the stove, turning the knobs one number every minute just to see how the gas made shrieking hissing sounds and know when he lit the fire what he was getting into. After learning a small amount of information about gas and heating, Cain brought out a plastic bag of dried noddle's.
"Today we'll be making spaghetti."
Eric reached for the bag slowly pulling the noodles out-receiving a hard smack on the palm from Cain.
"You were planning on cracking those noodles, weren't you?"
Eric looked at him with eyes that pleaded "I'm sorry" in all its intricate, sobbing details.
"You have to let the noodles melt and slither in the boiling water and then stir them until their a whirlpool of slithering strings, as silly as that may sound."
It was complications like these that made Eric glad he could survive on grass—the silica could be countered by replacing his teeth like a cow.
Stirring the noodles was tedious and extremely boring, his eyes slitted over to Cain—and where Cain stood was over by the glassless port window.
Cain took advantage of the mundane task Eric had to do, he did a little profound searching.
When all the noodles were stirred, Cain's eyes wept out a sprinkle of tears. Eric was as stubborn as a goat, but seeing tears on his nakama's face brought a trickle to his eyes. However, being distraught didn't stop him from wanting to finish this "cooking" lesson.
"I'm done."
Cain flinched when Eric spoke to him, his heart took him to where his mind had to go—or somewhere along those lines.
But all that sorrow dissipated when he appeared far-sighted judging by the distance between him and the spaghetti, got a glimpse of the noodles. He walked up, picked up tong's from a drawer, and picked the spaghetti up to put on a plate.
"These noodles look raw and damp. You did a half-assed job cooking them, Eric, but...every good chef knows spaghetti is only as good as its' toppings."
X_X_X_X
Yukine was on his last legs facing Elisa in their sword spar. He tried everything he could to land a blow on her but everything just ended in disaster.
These attempts included trying to confuse her by doing a dance mostly sidestepping back and forth distracting her, waving his sword around so she would be hesitant about slashing him, and against his own wishes just charging at her to see if he could defeat her that way. And with each attempt he tried and failed he was greeted by the rosy red cheeks and tight lips of a disappointed Elisa.
"So..when do I get to learn something new about swordsmanship?"
"I am here to listen to your wise tutelage, right?"
"Maybe some hot water will help you clear your head."
He was so vexed by her unusual prodigiousness in swordsmanship, but he had one last trick.
Standing up, arms in a relaxed position without even attempting to grasp the hilt of his bamboo sword, he moved with a run before leaping into a skipping charge.
Elisa still had her one arm—didn't feel like using both in the way Yukine was slacking—held on her sword behind her back where she crouched down.
She leaped simultaneously thrusting her sword with her and for the first time she missed Yukine.
Her pride was so wild she wouldn't let missing him be the catalyst for his first strike, so she spun around while swinging her sword everywhere.
In the half-hour she's been sparring against Yukine she didn't feel tired until now, but what was most peculiar was how her chest felt small grabby fingers all over her chest. Her irises dropped down faster than a porcelain doll falling off a table to see what was clinging to her—a light-brown three foot tall monkey with yellow eyes and a bamboo sword tangled in its tail.
Its mouth was opening halfway before it jabbed that straw right into Elisa's right shoulder, then the monkey excitedly started laughing. She tried swatting the jittery monkey off but it hopped off her before landing on the deck. The monkey smoothly started to relax leaning on its elbow while its left paw touched his face.
"I know it's you Yukine." She said sounding like a mother who worked cleaning clothes. "It doesn't count if its not a real sword."
The smarmy smile on the monkey's face carried over when he metamorphized back into Yukine.
"True, but I've been wanting to land on blow since this whole lesson started; and now that I have the game is done. Good day—or to put it more accurately, goodnight."
Yukine transformed into his monkey hybrid form with his seashell looking ears and skinny long tail before hopping away.
He intentionally fell off the edge of Ryuko's body just so he could latch to the rocks and start climbing to his ten, a dozen small jumps in a left cartwheel and he was there.
The first waft of Yukine's room was acidic water for cleaning.
He had many tools kept in a clamored spire and in the center of his room was a sparkling elixir of yellow, black, red and white. His bed was a futon pinned to the seats of lawn chairs with tape holding the pillow by its corner.
And around the room was one long square desk with only three sides and photos of animals and people—every photo he was in was marked out by black pen. Why Yukine would try to hide his own face in his photos...he was smiling but never happy in them—maybe they felt the opposite.
Yukine started his return home pulling out a big paper tawny brown notebook he used to store notes, but also use as a diary. He started his writing.
Day 53 onboard Ryuko
I've finally had the room to give my acute plan to the trio of pirates. First attempt has proven...difficult to say the least. I've partnered Cain up with Eric to teach him how to cook. Cain will probably be hard on him, I don't know, but although Cain is a bit of a moron with cleaning, navigating, and doctoring—he is astute in the field of cooking. Although I'm felling a bit melancholy dinner will turn out to be disgusting because its Eric's first time, I await the bell to find out.
The last sentence in his journal entry was scribbled so furiously he almost ripped the page in half doing it.
All I know E&E are going to be doing their lame couple antic; Elisa sitting on Eric's lap. I wish they refrain from doing it.
Yukine could hear footsteps trumbling about above. They were moving in a flurry, and the resounding scrapping of bowls being dropped coheshed with the rest of the sounds.
It could only mean one thing: dinner was on its way. Yukine was undettered working on his papers just for a meal cooked by an amateur cook.
And then—Eric barged into his room without knocking first.
"Yukine, supper time."
"I know. I'll be there in three minutes."
Yukine wanted that conversation to end with Eric closing the door and going to dinner, but he kept flitting his eyes around the room. He never understood the reason why Yukine scribbled out his picture in these photos, but he noticed a Yukine gaunt with overworking.
"If a man just sits in a chair all day and never socializes...he will die."
Yukine scribbled furiously before he replied "And out there is no safety net, just the original rules of this world, before we choose to build all those architect laden islands once unspoiled."
Yukine talked about teaching everyone on the crew new skills but he was impudent and fickle when it came to changing his own behavior.
"Well when your down hating everything about people, I'll be upstairs dining with all the "unteachables"."
Eric left the door ajar by a tiny slit as he left the room.
Yukine was peeved, outraged, conflicted and connived by Eric—so much turmoil it caused him to erupt throwing his papers all over the room.
Flashback:
Birds fluttered in a group over Button Villages' gravesite. On this day, Yukine's mother passed away and her body was fumigated before being lowered into the ground. Young Yukine was there with his father...soaked in three wine from the Kuraigana Island ales.
Yukine was barely half his height, his big eyes looked forlorn and his lips pursed. He wore a black yutaka with a white lily on his right breast and his sandy blond hair was gelled.
His father and him were congealed by blood but there was never a moment they were close.
The one Yukine sticked to like glue was his warmhearted mother. After the funeral, Yukine returned to the three bedroom family shack held up by planks of wood. He raced to his room and jumped on his bed so he could bury his face in his pillow-that had vines coiled around it instead of a pillow case and cried tears of sorrow.
The first five minutes his tears came out relentlessly, every second was a sad memory to him.