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Recent events led to the inspiration of this story! As usual, I don't have much to say other than Read and Review please, you have no idea how much those comments make me smile :D If you have any ideas or comments for me, let me know! I don't own One Piece.

Soft clatters were heard in the kitchen of the small apartment as a tall blond finished putting away the last of the dishes in the sink. He glanced at the small kitchen, grabbing a small rag to wipe off miniscule crumbs that only he saw off the counter. After glancing around the kitchen for a final once over, the blond grabbed a cigarette and called out into the apartment for one of his roommates.

"Oi, Ace! Let's go." A loud sigh that suspiciously sounded like, "Finally!" erupted from a built brunette on the couch. Ace jumped up from the sofa and landed with a soft plop on the hardwood floor. He looked at Sanji, who had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, before smirking and grabbing his brimmed hat off the hook by the door.

"You finally ready to go, Sanji?" Ace asked playfully. Sanji glared from his stance in the kitchen. The blond grabbed the keys from a drawer and met Ace by the door.

"You know I don't like leaving a dirty kitchen," Sanji replied, fishing for the lighter hidden somewhere in his suit pocket. Ace laughed and looked around the spotless apartment. Everything was neat and orderly from the sofa facing the T.V. perfectly to the remotes on the coffee table being lined up exactly parallel to the edge of the table. The older boy suspected Sanji of having a small case of OCD. Not, that he'd ever tell Sanji this, of course. Sanji might get so mad as to keep him from dinner. Ace shuddered at the thought before looking the said blond in the eyes and smiling.

"Forget your nickname as Love-Cook, I'm going to call you Mr. Clean," Ace laughed. Sanji's glare intensified as his roommates laughed at his own joke. Ace was referring to the nickname bestowed upon the cook by Luffy and Sanji's common friend and neighbor, Zoro. The blond growled and opened the door and was about to leave before remembering to tell Luffy that they were going out.

"Oi, Luffy! Ace and I are leaving. We'll be back in a few hours. Please try and not destroy anything while we're gone!"

A muffled, "See ya!" made it to Ace's and Sanji's ears before Sanji sighed and walked out the door. Luffy had been stuck in his room for a few hours now watching his favorite show. It was a show about pirates and Luffy's obsession with it stole the younger boy away from the world at least forty-five minutes every week. And, this weekend happened to be a marathon with the show and naturally Luffy hadn't wanted to miss any of it. It was a small blessing in disguise because lately the younger boy happened to be grating on the elder boys nerves. Even Ace, whose patience for his brother reached saint levels, was starting to snap at Luffy for everything. Everybody won in this situation. Luffy got to watch his pirate show and Ace and Sanji got to relax for a few moments.

Sanji gave himself a mind check to make sure he didn't forget anything before walking out the door with Ace trailing him. They were going out to eat at a restaurant they heard about from some friends. It was a new restaurant that specialized in something called an Explosion. It was supposed to be so spicy that no one had been able to finish the entire meal before. Naturally, Ace, who loved the spiciest of all spicy foods, wanted to try it out. Sanji just went along to see if he could get any ideas for some new recipes. They would have offered for Luffy to come, but the younger brother was not moving from his spot in front of the T.V. in his room to miss his show.

Luffy heard the sound of the front door shutting and started to stretch his sore muscles. He had known he was aggravating his brother and his friend, Sanji more than usual the past two weeks. Somehow, without even trying, he'd wind up breaking something or making a mess more than usual. This led the older boys to snap at Luffy more times than he could count. The raven-haired boy sighed again. He honestly wasn't usually this much of a space-case or a klutz. Luffy directed his attention towards the small television in his room. His favorite show was on a commercial break for a moment and was currently playing a commercial for fries. Luffy's stomach growled and the younger boy remembered that he hadn't eaten anything in a few hours. The fries on the T.V. mocked him with a tempting voice, telling him to get some. Luffy didn't have a car and Ace and Sanji wouldn't want him walking to McDonalds this late at night. But, he really wanted fries. Luffy stood up and walked out of his room for the first time in hours and headed towards the kitchen. If he recalled, Sanji bought some potatoes the other day. As a matter of fact, he was sure that Sanji bought potatoes because he remembered dropping all the potatoes on the floor and having to hand-wash each one meticulously under Sanji's watch.

Luffy shuddered at that. So much washing.

The boy smiled when he opened the food pantry and saw the bowl of potatoes on the bottom shelf. He grabbed a handful of them and brought them to the counter facing the television in the living room. Using the remote, he turned the T.V. on to his show, which just started playing again, and peeled potatoes while watching.

Luffy chuckled to himself. If Ace or Sanji saw him making himself something to eat, they might have a heart attack from the surprise. Luffy knew how to cook a little. Not nearly as well as Sanji, but he knew how to make simple things like fries or eggs. He finished peeling and slicing the potatoes in thin slices and grabbed a small pan from the bottom cabinets and placed them on the stove. Using olive oil, he dumped a generous portion into the pan and turned the oven on high. Now, all he had to do was wait for the oil to get hot enough to fry the fries. Luffy looked around awkwardly before turning his attention back to the T.V. His eyes widened in surprise as one of his favorite characters received a hook through the stomach. Luffy, leaving the pan of oil on the stove, ran to the couch and once again fell under the spell of the T.V.

Luffy chuckled to himself as the captain of the ship fell overboard comically. His first mate had to go grab him because the captain couldn't swim. Who ever heard of a pirate, none the less a captain, who couldn't swim? A commercial came on, disrupting the raven-haired boy from his trance with the television. Luffy blinked a few times while coming back to the real-world. Sometimes his show could really put him on a whole different level. A feeling of forgetting something was nagging at his head and Luffy was currently trying to remember what it was. It had something to do with…..food? The younger boy scratched his head a little bit before the commercial changed to McDonald French fries.

Luffy blinked. Fries. Another blink.

Fries.

Black eyes widened. "Oh shit!" he yelled before turning around just in time to see the pan of oil catch on fire.

"SHIT," Luffy screamed while tripping over himself to get to the kitchen. He quickly opened a cabinet, grabbed the nearest fillable object, which happened to be a large glass, and ran to the sink to fill it with water. His mind remembered something Sanji said about oil fires and water once, but Luffy didn't think about that as the flames from the pan grew slightly larger, touching the microwave above the stove. Panicked, Luffy ran to the stove with the glass full of water and dumped it on the fire.

Flames exploded in the 17 year-old's face as the water reacted with the oil making the small oil fire to expand 1,700 times it's size in the small apartment kitchen. Fire devoured the kitchen and the boy in the kitchen. Luffy's adrenaline-pumped mind made the world play in slow-motion as the fire danced around him. Two thoughts passed his mind as bright orange flooded his vision. One, being that his arms and shirt caught on fire. The second thought being that it really fucking hurt.

Luffy dropped his body to the floor, working purely on survival-mode, and rolled until the fire on his body was suffocated. His mind put pain on a back burner as he thought of what to do next. The gigantic fire receded back to the small pan just as quickly as it exploded. Luffy quickly grabbed the pan lid and covered the fire with it. The fire died as the oxygen feeding it was devoured. A few seconds passed before Luffy noticed that he was, in fact, in a lot of pain. Then, just as quickly as the fire devoured the kitchen, pain devoured Luffy and he fell to the ground of the scorched kitchen. Black leaked into his vision and the last thing Luffy remembered was the sound of the fire alarm blaring around him.

_

"How in the hell did you eat that!" a small, Asian-looking man in a chef's outfit asked. Ace laughed while Sanji smirked. That had been the common reaction from everybody from the moment Ace entered the restaurant and demanded the spiciest food in the place. Almost immediately, a petite waitress set down a plate of noodles that was deemed, "The Explosion". Ace devoured the plate easily, claiming that the amount of heat provided was disappointing. Of course, the chef took it personally and had been preparing spicier and spicier meals for the hot-headed teen. Ace ate each one and finished it with a smile. A small crow had formed since and was cheering the young adult on.

Sanji looked out the window from the booth him and Ace shared. The moon was high in the sky, signaling the two of them had been there for a while. He smirked as he heard the chef accusing Ace of cheating. Ace was arguing back that he couldn't cheat on an eating challenge. The offence that his roommate held in his tone made Sanji smirk. The blond reached his hands into his pocket grabbing his cigarettes with one hand and a lighter with the other. With practiced moves, Sanji quickly lit the cigarette and took a breath waiting for the nicotine to course through his body. Though, as he took a breath in, only a crippling panic took control of his body. Blue eyes widened as the feeling of panicked horror dropped into his stomach, almost making him sick. Sanji looked up at Ace, only to see his roommate looking equally as scared. One thought crossed their minds as the two adults threw money on the table and sprinted out the restaurant to their car, leaving the cheering customers and irate cook confused.

Luffy!