Chapter 25: Sanji and Zeff
We go inside the restaurant and are greeted by one of the waiters and we are brought to a free table. We order some dishes and I go with their recommendation since I actually have no idea about what the hell most of these foods are. I can see the names and ingredients listed but still ain't helping for a man who doesn't actually remember the foods by name but by picture.
The group starts chatting while I try to handle my headache and all the noise from the whole restaurant. I can even feel what I presume to be Luffy getting shouted at for doing a bad job in the kitchen. Thankfully our food arrives safely and doesn't get messed up in whatever is happening in the kitchen.
The food tastes great... and to be honest I don't know how to say anything else since in my category there are inedible, can be forcefully swallowed down, tasteless, ok, decent, good and great. I've not eaten anything that would give me any feels like people show in all those food videos and reviews and it makes me think that all that is just acting bullshit.
After a bit we see Luffy getting out or more like thrown out of the kitchen and when he walks towards us, he notices us.
"Hey errand boy!" Nami greets Luffy gleefully as rest of us smirk at him.
"Ack! It's you guys!" Luffy shouts in shame as he notices us looking at him wearing an apron and being forced to work on odd jobs.
"Heard you have to work here for a year."
"Would it be alright to redraw the ship's flag?"
"Let's go! To the Grand Line!"
Usopp and Zoro joke about Luffy's situation while I make fun of Luffy by mimicking his always hype attitude about going to the Grand Line.
"You leave me here to work and go off to eat delicious food all by yourselves!? How selfish!" Luffy rages and my ears hurt more and a small groan escapes my lips.
"It's a free world, we can do whatever we want." Zoro says while looking at the rest of us while Luffy "stealthily" picks his nose and drops a booger in Zoro's drink.
I look at the scene in disgust while the other two giggle as they try to hold their laughter. As Zoro is about to drink from his glass, he quickly grabs Luffy and forces the drink down Luffy's throat.
"Ack! How could you do this to me!?" Luffy falls down flailing and screaming.
"I should ask you the same thing!" Zoro shouts back as rest burst laughing while I grit my teeth and hold my head.
"O'Blessed are the oceans for bringing me this fine day!" Suddenly Sanji appears out of nowhere and is holding a rose towards Nami.
"O'Love! Laugh if you will, at my poor self who cannot endure his tortuous passions! As long as I can be with you, I'm prepared to walk across any path, be it paths of a pirate or a devil! But alas! 'Tis a tragic there is such a great obstacle standing between the two of us!"
"By obstacle, do you mean me, Sanji?" Zeff cuts in on Sanji's annoying and creepy yet poetic love confession.
"Agh, the geezer!" Sanji snaps out of his love mode as he turns towards Zeff.
"It's a good chance. Just go and be a pirate. I don't need a guy like you in my restaurant."
Zeff starts arguing about what a baggage Sanji is with his bad habits and how the rest of the chefs don't even like him while Sanji keeps appealing how important he is to the restaurant. The moment Zeff starts insulting Sanji's cooking Sanji get a bit handsy and grabs Zeff's collar but gets immediately judo thrown to our table and breaking it while we somehow rescue our food in time.
"YOU CAN TRY TO CHASE ME OUT ALL YOU WANT! BUT I'LL CONTINUE TO BE A COOK HERE, YOU HEAR!? UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE, AT THE VERY LEAST!" Sanji shouts as he is trying to get back up.
"I ain't dyin'. I'll live for another 100 years." Zeff replies as he starts walking away.
"Wait, Red Leg! I would like to ask a quick question." I stop Zeff from leaving.
"It won't be anything serious or personal, just asking about something."
"... Ask away." After staring at me for a while Zeff gives me permission.
"Do you know about Haki or Mantra?" I ask Zeff as I rub my temple since the headache got much worse from the scuffle just now.
"... I've heard about Haki but that's 'bout it." Zeff answers after a bit of a pause.
"That's a pity. And here I hoped I could find a way to lessen my headache. Well never mind that, thank you for your time."
Maybe realizing something Zeff observes me properly for the first time but soon decides to just go back, leaving me to struggle with my own problems.
'I guess Zeff never made it that far in the Grand Line.' [Worth a shot anyway.]
After rejecting Luffy's offer to join the crew, Sanji picks us up a new table and resumes his work.
Sanji serves Nami some fruit salad and some fine wine as an apology while trying to flirt while Nami takes full advantage of him and even gets the food for free while Usopp starts raging about gender discrimination. He starts picking a fight with Sanji while trying to use Zoro as his fighter, only to be told to do it himself.
Sanji also goes to the kitchen and brings me some tea and soup that didn't seem to include in the menu.
"This is from the old geezer. Don't know what his deal is but he said that this should at least help you calm down and relax a little bit."
"Tell him that I appreciate his kindness." I give Sanji a weak smile and try out the food.
It's great like rest of the food here but seems like this has some medicinal herbs put in on it to help someone calm down.
"Say... How do you know the old geezer?" Sanji asks me as he is quite puzzled by the events since I guess it's not normal to get such treatment or well know about something personal about Zeff.
"I know a lot of things, Sanji, and I mean a LOT of things. And it just happens to be that I know something about him and his past."
[Can I bang your sister?] I almost choke on my soup as the thought comes to mind first and foremost when thinking about Sanji's past.
'Fuck. I almost actually asked that purely by the pure desire to do just that.'
Sanji just gives me a look but then continues to work and immediately starts flirting with another female customer as rest of us sweat drop at the sight. As Luffy just calmly sips his tea, Sanji suddenly appears and kicks him and brings him back to work.
"He's a nice guy but right now he gets on my nerves with all the noise he makes."
"You still haven't gotten better?" Nami asks as she looks at the grim face I'm making.
"I've gotten better, believe me, otherwise I would be asking to be knocked out once again."
"We can't really tell people to be quiet so you need to finish up and return to the ship."
"Oh, I have few ways to make people quiet or cause quite a commotion. I've got information that could shock everyone in here if not the whole world." I give an evil smirk "But unfortunately it should be for the best if I didn't do anything." [BIG NEWS!]
"That sounded so damn sinister. What the hell do you have inside your head that could create such a situation?" Usopp gets chills hearing me and looking at the face that could make a certain old an evil mathematician proud.
"Let's just say that just a few words are enough to change the world, like how Roger did. I've got to give some credit to the guy who asked the question. Who knows how the world would be if he didn't give that idiot Roger a reason to speak about One Piece."
"... Did you just casually call the Pirate King an idiot?"
"That's the point you hung up on?" I look at Usopp incredulously.
"Never mind about that, those are stories for another time and place."
We continue to eat and afterwards we return to the ship and resume our day as normal.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Dravde
Dravde And so the crew meets their future cook. From my memory Zeff never made it to the New World so he might have only heard rumors about Haki if even that.
Had to first sleep to finish this chapter. Damn my shifts are wonky this week. Let's see how much time I have to write.
Happy readings everybody~!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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