Missing Piece

Chapter 12

"'Crewmate', my ass." Charlotte grumbled as she hauled the wash load into a large bin. "More like housemaid." She continued, glaring at the slow drying machine. There were already two other piles waiting to be dried. She was assigned to laundry duty shortly after the kitchen dish fiasco. The Heart Pirates found out the hard way that Charlotte could not clean a single plate without breaking them. Unfortunately, they had found out after Charlotte had finished cleaning all the dishes.

"It's not my fault, their plates are breakable." She continued. "I'm a hunter, not a maid!" They couldn't get mad at her for doing her job poorly. How did they expect her to do things well that she had never done before in her life? "Also what part of 'I refuse' do they not understand?"

She picked up a smaller white tee from the done pile and brought it against her top half. "At least this way I can get something to wear." She was wearing her regular black sleeveless crop top and cargo pants for the time being. But she didn't have anything else to wear whenever her one outfit ended in the wash.

She folded the top and dropped it along a very small stack of clothes she had put aside as viable options. Charlotte plopped into a random basket and lolled her head back, tired. That was when she spotted a different attire amongst the boiler suits. It was blue in nature and had black spots all over it. A mischievous smirk crawled its way onto Charlotte's face and in the next moment she had flipped herself over and was ripping the jeans out of the tangled mess. Charlotte stared at the hanging jeans for a moment before and throwing boiler suits everywhere to find the rest of his attire.

"There." Charlotte announced happily as she patted her hands off and stretched out her back. The garbage chute that Charlotte had failed to open many times before was now fully open. Relishing in her feat for a moment, Charlotte grinned proudly before bending over and heaving the bag full of Law's clothes towards the chute.

"What are you doing?" Charlotte jumped at the sudden voice, turning around slowly. Her shoulders hunched together slightly from being caught doing something she knew she shouldn't. "Oh, it's only you." Charlotte said, shoulders dropping back to normal as she spotted the other. Without any explanation or further acknowledgement whatsoever, Charlotte turned back to shoving the pile into the hole.

Ignoring the brush off, Penguin peered over at what Charlotte was doing. "What are you doing?" He repeated.

"Throwing away some clothes since washing them takes too long."

"Oh... okay... wait, what? Isn't that Captain's?!"

The next moment, he was fighting against Charlotte, pulling on the sack. "You can't just throw away all of Captain's clothes! He'd kill you!"

"Not if he has nothing to wear to do it!" Charlotte doubt that the prideful Trafalgar Law would just stroll out in nothing but his birthday suit. Actually—Charlotte stifled a laughter—she doubted that he could be intimidating at all in that situation. Her eyes snapped open, and her jaws dropped when Penguin managed to pry the bag out of her hands. "Hey! Give it back!"

"No. You'll thank me for this later." Penguin tucked the garbage bag behind him. It didn't matter if he has nothing to wear when he wants to kill Charlotte. He had her heart! He could easily end her without even as much as leaving his room. "Can't you just get along with Captain? He's not as bad as you think. Scary sometimes, but he cares." Penguin added softly, with a bashful smile. It fell as soon as his gaze met Charlotte's face twisted back in disgust. "He really does!"

Her face snapped back to normal, and Charlotte threw the tail of her scarf over her shoulder. "Yeah, because the doctor who steals heart, drugs his crew, and puts them in chains is totally an outstanding guy!" Charlotte exclaimed sarcastically with a dramatic roll of her eyes.