Bab 311: Tea
Cherry and Tesoro parted ways shortly after the demonstration. She was sent off to one of his real V.I.P. rooms that he saved for actually important guests. According to him, they were even nicer than the ones reserved for the celestial dragons, though he'd asked her to keep that quiet.
Cherry found all 7 of the hidden spy den den mushi around the room and gathered them onto the coffee table for a tiny snail tea party which, to her delight, the den den mushi were very interested in. Who knew snails like leaf juice?
As she observed the mini den den mushi sipping at the tiny tea cups she fashioned for them, there was a knock at the door.
Cherry skipped over to the door and swung it wide open, seemingly unworried about what dangers may lie on the other side.
"Oh~! It's a pervert!" Cherry greeted Tanaka with a pleasant smile.
Tanaka's brow twitched in agitation with a forced professional smile plastered onto his face whilst his eyes tried to burn a hole through her skull. Stripping him naked in front of a lady was humiliating, but he was frankly far more annoyed that she found all the bugs in the room she was given. It was an insult to his skills as the head of security on the Gran Tesoro; especially since she let them continue broadcasting what they perceived.
"Here's your 'butler', Miss Harpin." Tanaka said through gritted teeth.
Raise Max stood beside the head of security looking positively downtrodden despite having been dressed up in a high quality staff tuxedo, his face cleanly shaved, and his hair neatly combed, oiled, and parted.
"Ohhh~! He cleans up pretty well, huh? Even his head looks more normal sized when he is standing next to you, hehe~!" Cherry giggled. "Come, Sebastian! A tea party without a lowly servant to pour the tea for you is hardly a tea party at all!"
Tanaka marched away without a word. It was rude to leave without excusing himself properly, but he was afraid that if he opened his mouth then only vitriol would flow out. Thankfully, Cherry didn't kick up a fuss, which is what he expected from an uncouth pirate.
"..." Raise Max stood at the door and watched Tanaka leave before turning his gaze back to Cherry.
"Well? Get your ass in here, Sebastian! Tea won't serve itself!" Cherry demanded.
"Oh… I guess I'm Sebastian now…" Raise Max realized and trudged into the room.
*SLAM* *click click click click click*
Cherry shut the door with some force and started to twist the latches of several deadbolts all around the door. Before turning around and giving Raise Max a smile.
"So, did you have fun being dead?" Cherry asked.
"No, I did not!" Raise Max responded curtly in a low whisper. "Not that I would know, since we both know I wasn't really dead! Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be paralyzed, unable to even breathe, and hoping that whatever power held you hostage in your own body continued to provide the necessary resources to keep you from suffocating; not even knowing when or if the one who did it to you would put you back the way you were?!"
"Don't be a big baby~!" Cherry pouted. "Would you have preferred I kept you unconscious?"
"YES!" Raise Max shouted, before regaining his reason. "Which is exactly what I was trying to tell you before you went ahead and did it to me anyways!"
"It wasn't that bad…" Cherry didn't look the slightest bit sorry.
"You stopped my heart! I languished with a feeling of impending doom for almost an hour, which might as well have been an eternity!" Raise Max countered.
"Pretty neat how you hardly ever noticed your heart beating until it stopped, huh?" Cherry bounced on her heels innocently.
"Yeah… but that's not the point!" Raise Max agreed before forcing himself to be angry again.
Cherry grew bored of his feeble protests and walked over to the den den mushi tea party and plucked one of them off the coffee table. The adorable little snail stretched its little head towards its tiny teacup, trying to get one last sip.
She walked over to Raise Max and held the fingertip sized snail up in the palm of her hand. She put on a nasally voice and said "Testing, testing, can you hear me?"
"That's a miniature surveillance den den mushi, you can't talk through it-'' Raise Max tried to correct her.
"Hello? Who is this?" a voice answered from the tiny snail, causing Raise Max's eyes to bulge in shock.
Although it sounded somewhat diminutive, the voice coming from the tiny den den mushi was undoubtedly one that belonged to one of his comrades, Koala!
"Is that you, Koala-san?!" Raise Max asked hurriedly.
"Max-san?! Is that you?! Did you escape on your own?!" Koala asked back.
"Oh, it's Koala-chan~? I didn't expect you to be the closest one on the revolutionary frequency." Cherry said cheerfully.
"Cherry?! You're there too?! If you're still on the Gran Tesoro, you have to get away quickly! That gold loving bastard who owns it is a real menace in his own territory!" Koala responded.
"No can do~! I've already sold out; no more cherries in stock!" Cherry drawled. "I'm Gild Tesoro's subordinate now, and it'll stay that way until the day he dies~! … Hehehehehe!"
The dark chuckle Cherry attached to the end of her shocking declaration of "loyalty" to Tesoro gave both Koala and Raise Max the impression that "until the day he dies" wasn't a very long time.
"Isn't it fine? Cherry's a big girl, she can handle herself." Sabo chimed in.
"Chief of Staff!" Raise Max saluted involuntarily. Though Koala and Sabo couldn't see him, they heard the click of his heels quite clearly.
"Relax, Max. It always feels strange to have you salute me like that. We're all in this together, remember?" Sabo sighed exasperatedly. This was apparently an ongoing quirk of the man's.
"It's important to set an example, sir!" Raise Max insisted, shifting into an 'at ease' stance. Cherry was giggling at his sudden change of demeanor.
"To who, Max? The den den mushi?" You could almost hear the teasing smile on Sabo's face. "Nevermind that. We were planning to extract you, but it seems the situation has changed? What's your status?"
"I have allied myself with, er, Cherry here. I didn't know you were already acquainted with her, though." Raise Max scratched his cheek, frowning at his missing stubble. "She offered the means for my escape in exchange for helping her with a small matter."
"You can trust her, Max.; she's a good friend to the cause. You haven't been to headquarters in a few years, so you missed meeting her." Sabo explained.
"Wait, how did you know I'm with the Revolutionary Army?" Raise Max raised an interesting question.
"We didn't tell her about you as far as I know…" Sabo spoke.
Cherry smirked. "I rifled through Dragon's desk and found a group photo with you in it."
The sound of four hands slapping against their owners' faces was heard through the den den mushi.
"Damn it, Cherry. We've been looking for a spy for a year and a half because of that…" Sabo groaned.
"Whoops~?" Cherry's smirk widened. "I thought I was pretty sneaky. Guess not, huh? Hehehehehe~!"
Bab 312: Law's Crush
Law looked at the giant standing next to the docked Thousand Sunny and sighed in exasperation. "What kind of trouble have they gotten into now?"
He had rather enjoyed the brief escape from his stressful life while it lasted. He supposed that it was already somewhat of a miracle that he was able to get a few hours of relaxation whilst traveling with the Straw Hat Pirates. They were troublemakers by nature; if they didn't go looking for trouble, then trouble would come knocking on their front door soon enough.
Well, worst case scenario he has to chop up a giant. Easy enough to do for some no name guy who happens to be really big.
So he leisurely walked over to the ship, seemingly paying no mind to the giant guarding it.
"Evening." Law said as he made to walk past him.
"Have a good evening, valued guest," the giant responded politely, making no moves to stop him.
Law cast a final sidelong glance at the giant before hopping aboard the ship. He noted Cabernet's presence on the deck and asked "Are the others back yet?"
"They're busy. Cherry said they probably won't come back tonight," Cabernet responded, carefully pushing a block out of a tower of wooden blocks, then gently placing it atop the tower.
Cabernet looked him in the eye and had a reluctant expression on her face, like she had something to say but didn't want to say it.
Law raised an eyebrow at her. "What is it?"
"... Nothing." Cabernet turned back to her game. Merry was delicately prodding one of the blocks with remarkable dexterity for a sheep.
Law rolled his eyes. It felt like a time a girlfriend of his was mad at him but refused to elaborate on why. Of course, Cabernet wasn't even close to being his girlfriend, so he was inclined to ignore it. Except that Cabernet was ironically one of the more grounded members of the Straw Hats, despite actually being a ship with a devil fruit. As such, she was very easy to chat with without having a brain aneurysm.
"*Sigh* What's wrong…?" Law spoke, trying and failing to keep the reluctance out of his voice.
"Nothing is wrong." Cabernet reached for a block on her turn and knocked over the whole tower.
"Bah!" Merry bleated victoriously.
"There's no need for rude language." Cabernet puffed up her cheeks at the sheep, who just gave her a smug smile.
"There's apparently something bothering you and I'd rather not leave the matter, whatever it is, to stew," Law said.
Cabernet narrowed her eyes at him and he thought 'Here it comes. Some illogical reason to be annoyed with me. Women…'
"Fine. If you want to hear it so badly…" Cabernet huffed. "Cherry told me to tell you…"
Cabernet paused, visibly cringing. Law had a bad feeling.
"... She told me to tell you that if you were a "smokin' hot babe", then she'd be totally into you." Cabernet took a breath. "However, since you're a man, you'll have to be satisfied with being just friends… no matter how much you're "totally in love with her." Are you happy now?"
Merry was making an odd sound that gave the impression of laughter.
Law stood there frozen. By the time he had come to his senses, the tower of wooden blocks had been reset and a new game began.
"Um, thank you for telling me. I don't think I would have the social skills to handle it if she had said that to me in person…" Law said bluntly.
Cabernet spared him a look and a small smile. "Just be careful to steer clear until she sobers up."
A moment passed in semi-comfortable silence.
"For the record, if I didn't already have a girlfriend then I'd totally be into you. You're a handsome boy." Cabernet said, causing Law to freeze again. "So don't feel down cause you got rejected. I'm sure there's a nice guy or gal out there for you!"
It took Law a moment to realize that Cabernet had completely misunderstood the situation, and had taken pity on him. Blushing in embarrassment, he quickly denied, "I'm not IN LOVE with Cherry! …And I don't have any trouble with the ladies, either!"
"Oh you don't, do you? You spent so long on Punk Hazard in close quarters with Monet and never made a move no matter how she flirted with you." Caesar smirked at him.
"Monet was my enemy!" Law defended himself.
"It's okay, Law. There's no shame in being a virgin at your age… SHURORORORO!" Caesar couldn't keep a straight face for more than a couple seconds. "ACK?!"
Caesar's head went flying from his shoulders before getting switched into Law's hand, at his mercy.
"Would you like to see the inside of a toilet from a brand new perspective?" Law asked with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"I'm sorry- I'm sorry- I'm SORRY! Anything but that!" Caesar frantically backtracked.
Law looked at Cabernet. Seeing the innocent tilt of her head, he couldn't be mad at her. There was no way she was teasing him on purpose.
Then he remembered how she had said he was a "handsome boy" and had to retreat below deck to hide his blush, tossing Caesar's head to the lawn like a litterbug tosses trash.
…
"What in the world does she even mean?" Raise Max spoke to himself.
Cherry had sent him out of the room 'on a mission' after they finished talking with Sabo and Koala over the den den mushi. Those two were going to put together a more subtle plan for extracting him since he was semi-free to move around now. Then Cherry had forcibly 'done his hair' by which she meant putting a bunch of random braids in with pink ribbons and making him look ridiculous. From the way she snickered at him, she definitely did so on purpose too.
Anyways, the "mission" she had him on was to "Find me a big ol' putty tat with widdle beady eyes~!" He had asked her if she meant a house cat, but she denied and said something large like a lion.
He was on the casino floor now and security was nowhere in sight, so they apparently knew what he was doing. Cherry had made sure they were near the small group of den den mushi bugs when she gave him the command for precisely that purpose.
"Where on this ship am I supposed to find a lion with beady eyes?" He asked himself with a sigh.
"Hm?" a man nearby turned to look at him at his words. He was dressed in a pink suit and sunglasses on his lion-like face.
""..."" They stared at each other for a moment.
"Um, do you happen to be acquainted with a Harpin D. Cherry?" Raise Max asked hesitantly.
Pekoms lowered his sunglasses, revealing a pair of cute, beady eyes as they narrowed at him. "Who's asking?"
'Ah, this is definitely what, or I guess who she wanted me to find and bring to her…' Raise Max realized. He did his best to put on a professional air and said, "Miss Harpin would like to meet you in her V.I.P. suite, if that is amenable to you."
'Nailed it!' Raise Max felt inexplicably proud of himself.
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