Celebration
The dining room on the Thousand Sunny was loud, boisterous, and totally without manners, which was to say that things were normal. Sanji had produced a meal even more splendid than usual, which was quite a trick when one considered the chef’s normal fare. They had been eating for the better part of an hour – or, at least, Luffy had been. The rest of them had subsided quite some time ago. To try to continue was impossible anyway, since he snatched up dishes as soon as Zoro could put them on the table. (Zoro was on dish duty as a penalty for snarky comments in the galley earlier, which was being enforced not by Sanji but by Nami, who could somehow disarm the swordsman with her rapier wit, and also by the fact that he owed her astronomical amounts of money and was terrified of the day she would try to collect.)
Since Luffy’s stomach was starting to swell to epically alarming proportions, Sanji decided that it was time to strategically end the meal. He left for the galley and came back with the evening’s masterpiece: a chocolate cake taller than Chopper in his regular form and weighing a considerable amount more.
He was greeted with oohs and aahs and generally sparkled at the ladies and insisted that one of them have the first piece.
“Well, Usopp should cut it,” Nami said, reasonably enough. “It’s his birthday, after all!”
“Yes! The great Usopp-sama will – wait, what? My birthday?” Usopp recovered quickly from this surprising news. “Of course, a man of my stature has as many birthdays as necessary for – ”
“It isn’t your birthday?” Nami asked. “Whose is it, then?”
Usopp, now disarmed, said, “I thought it was Chopper’s.”
“What?” Chopper blinked. “No, it isn’t. And it wouldn’t make me happy if you made me a cake this big, you bastards!” he added quickly, doing his happy butt wiggle. “Not happy at all!” He paused. “Isn’t it Robin’s?”
Robin laughed behind her hand. “A lady never tells secrets like her birthday,” she said. “Isn’t it kenshi-san’s?”
Zoro grunted. “Nope. Ero-cook?”
“I only cook like this for a lady,” Sanji said, scowling at him. “I thought it was Nami-swan’s!” he added, doing a twirl and a spin. “Is my Cake of Love enough for – ”
Nami absently punched him in the face. “Well, if it’s not mine, or any of yours – ” She looked around the table. “Luffy?”
Luffy paused in his feeding frenzy. “Ah?”
“Is it your birthday?”
“Nope,” he said, snatching a large hunk of meat off Usopp’s abandoned plate.
Nami wondered if she should bother trying to get some sense out of her captain. “Do you know what we’re celebrating?”
Luffy blinked at her, totally befuddled by the question. Then his eyes lit up. “I know!” he said, and the others waited expectantly. “It’s Tuesday!”
The crew looked at each other.
Robin laughed gently.
“Sure, why not?” Nami said, with a rather fatalistic sigh. “Tuesday.”
“Happy Tuesday!” Usopp said, diving for the cake knife.
“Happy Tuesday!” Chopped echoed, bouncing in his seat.
They toasted each other and devoured cake and everyone agreed that, as Tuesdays went, it had been a very successful one.