One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Sixty-Six-
"Boiled maybe..." Sanji quietly mumbled to himself as if he was truly considering Luffy's suggestion to eat this overgrown snail.
"Not you too" Usopp groaned.
"Ah! It's opening up" I jolted, pointing the minute the hatch on the snail's shell suddenly popped open.
"Oh, wow, I thought I was going to die in there for sure" a man gasped as he sat up. "Oh! Hi everyone" he quickly greeted the second he spotted us.
"Who the heck are you?" Luffy asked.
"Oh, dear, please do pardon me for not introducing myself to you folks sooner" the man brightly smiled. "I'm Rice Rice from Transponder Snail Mail Order, I'm available at a moment's notice to happily deliver anything you might need to a place of residence—so nice to meet you" he happily introduced, almost sounding a bit robotic in his greeting as if he had said this same spiel plenty time before and knew it by heart at this point.
"Transponder Mail Snail…what?" Zoro blinked. "I've never heard of it" he admitted.
"Well, you see, I was in the process of making a delivery with the S-Car here when we got caught in a terrible storm and I became trapped inside" Rice Rice explained as he motioned towards the S-Car. "I was in there just being tossed back and forth and back and forth by the violent waves, it was really unpleasant" he truthfully told us.
"That sounds bad" I winced.
"Oh, wow, that must have shaken you up" Nami said.
"Shaken and stirred!" Rice Rice laughed. "Pardon my joke, I can't help myself sometimes" he smiled.
"Same" I nodded.
"Here, have some water" Chopper offered the S-Car, holding a bowl of water out to the giant snail that finally started to creep its way out of its shell.
"I want to thank you all so much for saving me from the wicked sea, it's not much, but I'd like for you to have these catalogs—I can deliver anything in here for you" Rice Rice said, digging around inside the S-Car's shell before pulling out a stack of catalogs.
"That's cool, so you'll even deliver them while we're out in the ocean?" Zoro questioned as I picked up one of the catalogs and started to boredly flip through it.
"Well, no, I can't do that" Rice Rice truthfully answered.
"Okay" Zoro's eye twitched a little in what I could only assume was irritation.
"Makes sense, you wouldn't be able to know exactly where we were if you did that" I hummed, stopping every few pages to read up on some of the products this man's business had to offer. So far, it all looked pretty standard—nothing more than various products you probably could find just about anywhere else if you looked hard enough. Chances were his business partnered with other kinds in order to procure the products that he was selling.
"Correct, our motto is safe, reliable, and inexpensive—in order to meet those standers, we are currently unable to make sea deliveries" Rice Rice nodded as I closed the catalog and carelessly threw it back onto the pile of untouched ones before wandering over to the man's S-Car where Luffy and Usopp were currently digging around inside it.
"Hey, look! It's pretty roomy in there" Usopp remarked.
"What's this?" Luffy asked, pulling something out which caused me to quickly reel back as I was almost hit by the balls that were vigorously moving back and forth on each end of the thing he had pulled out.
"Watch it" I lightly scolded.
"Sorry" he widely smiled, not looking the least bit sorry at all.
"Ah! What do you think you're doing with that?!" Rice Rice quickly rushed over and took the strange contraption out of Luffy's hands as if afraid he'd break it. "Since you've clearly taken quite a liking to this item, I will happily introduce you to it—I'm sure you're familiar with the popular Buru Buru Blade, who isn't after all?" he asked, his smile instantly returning. "It is our company's top item and no doubt many of you owned the old model—this beauty right here is the new and improved version" he explained as he held the contraption out for us to get a closer look at it. "You see, we received feedback from our customers who are looking for a bit more variety from the product.
"This model allows them to modify the amount of weight ends so even young children can enjoy it—we always listen to our customers" he assured. "The Transponder Snail Order Company values your opinion and is always happy to receive any comments you might offer" he continued, sounding as if he was trying to talk up his own company alongside trying to sell us this strange contraption.
"Are you sure this is safe for children? Because I wouldn't even let my twin anywhere near that thing and we're the same age" I deadpanned. "In fact, I'm pretty sure the only people that would let their children play with that thing is if they're wanting to give them brain damage" I narrowed my eyes, watching how the weights continued to violently wobble from side to side. A child could easily hurt themself playing with something that clearly wasn't even meant to be a toy in the first place.
"I don't know why, but it makes me happy" Luffy smiled, sparkling in awe as he seemed to almost be transfixed by the blade in his hand.
"Chopper? What are you doing?" I asked the minute I noticed that the reindeer was now pushing back and forth on some strange contraption that had the rather cute design of a rabbit.
"I'm not sure, but this thing is a lot of fun" Chopper admitted.
"You all know about this baby, right? The amazing Ab Ab Slider—it's our company's number one product and boy, are we proud of it" Rice Rice brightened when he saw what the reindeer was playing with. "Our brand-new model has just been released, isn't it something?" he asked.
"Last thing was the top product, now this is number one—what's the difference?" Sanji frowned.
"Who knows?" Zoro shrugged. All too quickly did I become bored with listening to the man brag about the products his company had to offer, my mind already starting to tune him out until his voice was nothing more than a muffled murmur in the back of my mind. It became extremely clear to me that this man was nothing more than a traveling salesman and half the time, most of their products usually didn't live up to the praise they were given. "So, they're not free?" I owlishly blinked the moment I heard Zoro ask this.
"Of course, how can he make a profit off them if he just gave them to us for free?" I questioned. "Just because he gave us those catalogs as thanks doesn't mean he was planning to willingly give us the products alongside them as well" I said, crossing my arms. I wasn't too upset, man had to make a living somehow even if that meant sweet-talking the people who saved him into buying products they most likely didn't need.
"Must have" Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper said, staring longingly at the products they had been shown.
"You're going to buy them?" Sanji questioned.
"With what money?" I asked, rolling my eyes as I bent down and picked up another catalog from the pile. From the corner of my eye did I watch as the others follow in suit, their curiosity not getting the better of them as we all started to boredly flip through the catalogs, occasionally throwing and switching the ones we currently had for another in the pile.
"You guys sell kitchen knives along with other stuff?" Sanji questioned, but I wasn't too invested in his conversation with the salesman as I continued to flip through the pages of the catalog I was currently looking at while their voices became nothing more than white noise to me. I soon gasped though as I came to a sudden halt in my flipping, breath now catching in my throat at the sight of the most adorable thing I have ever seen.
It was a small stuffed rabbit with fur that was half black and half white.
Growing up, I never had the luxury of owning a stuffed animal that I could cuddle up to at night or hold to comfort me when things got scary. Sure, I had Sora there to hold whenever the nights got cold and the fear would get worse when we were younger and still shared a room. But that never stopped me from wanting to own a stuffed animal like some of the other children I would occasionally see did. In a way, there's a certain kind of normalcy I associate with the dolls I would see the other children carry and hold. Now curious, I closed the catalog and wandered over toward the S-Car.
Unlike Luffy, I made an attempt to actually be discreet as I started digging around inside. Shuffling random product after random product around as I looked. I was so close to giving up before gasping when my fingers finally brushed against the soft fur of the stuffed animal I had been looking for. I honestly hadn't really expected him to be carrying this exact product after spying it in that catalog, I doubted that many people were just clamoring to buy a simple stuffed toy compared to the rest of the products he sold...then again, he did seem to be a mixed bag now that I was actually looking at all the jump he had crammed into his S-Car.
"What are you doing all the way over here?" Zoro asked, curiously raising an eyebrow as I pulled myself out of the snail's shell and stared down in wonder at the stuffed animal in my hands.
"It's so soft..." I quietly muttered, running my thumb against the rabbit's faux fur as I took a moment to admire the seamless stitching and the glossy button eyes that innocently peered back at me.
"Do you want it?" Zoro asked, leaning against the S-Car which caused me to blink and look at him
"I don't have any money and I don't think you'd want to make your debt any bigger by asking Nami for some" I deadpanned, stopping him before he even had a chance to suggest buying it for me as he sweat dropped.
"Well, yeah...but—"
"See anything you like?" Rice Rice suddenly appeared, causing me to jump and drop the stuffed rabbit as I quickly turned to face the man with a nervous smile while kicking the rabbit off to the side without him noticing—I didn't really need him pestering me or trying to show me a million different products just because I took interest in one of his things. A salesman's goal was never to sell you just one thing.
"Uh...no...I was just looking" I answered, rubbing the back of my neck before heaving a sigh of relief the second his attention was quickly dragged over to Robin resulting in him leaving and going to pester her instead.
"Back to the catalogs I go, I guess..." I muttered, walking away from the S-Car and past a frowning Zoro as he watched me wander back over to the pile of catalogs where I once more took a seat and began to mindlessly flip through them.
"Do you sell stuff that's alive?" Luffy suddenly asked, perking right up the second he heard the man's statement that the company he worked for sold just about anything.
"Well, no" Rice Rice sheepishly admitted.
"You don't? Well, why not?" Luffy frowned.
"We don't carry what we can't carry!" the man laughed.
"In other words, it probably wouldn't survive the trip if he tried transporting a live animal in that S-Car of is" I answered for him.
"Hey, do you have paper?" Nami suddenly inquired.
"Paper?" Rice Rice echoed.
"Right" she nodded. "Strong paper that's big and hard to tear—something that it will take more than a sea breeze to do damage" she explained, clearly wanting a specific type of paper and not just regular old paper you wrote with.
"Absolutely, please just leave it to me, miss" Rice Rice smiled as he rushed over to his S-Car and started to dig through it. Tiredly, I leaned against the ship railing and yawned, now having grown bored once again while looking through the catalogs—there really wasn't anything else he had that caught my eye like the stuff rabbit. "Transponder Snail Mail Order is proud to present to you the one and only: One Thousand-Year Paper!" the man boasted.
"So what is it?" Luffy asked as he looked at the stack of papers that the man was now presenting.
"One Thousand-Year Paper is made from the truly incredible One Thousand-Year Tree that grows on Eight Nine Island—this paper is invulnerable and it is said that nothing written will fade from it even if it's exposed to the sunlight for a thousand years" Rice Rice bragged as he held one of the sheets of paper up. "It's great for family trees and treasure maps" he explained, listing off only two of the things it was really good for compared to most other sheets of paper.
"Paper airplanes too?" Luffy asked.
"What? Well, no, sir—why would you want to do that?" Rice Rice frowned in confusion, not quite understanding the captain's question.
"Right, how much is it?" Nami asked.
"I can understand how interested you are, but with such a valuable item there are short supply and great demand" Rice Rice explained as he moved the paper behind his back and smiled. "Even if I were to make an order today, it could be quite some time before I'm able to get it to you—years maybe."
"But surely you could sell it to me somehow, right? There's no price I wouldn't be willing to pay" Nami practically begged.
A/N: Enjoy
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