What Kind of Plan Could You Come Up With?

That evening, Rayne finished a day of training and pushed open the door to Dorm 307.

He spotted Smoker at a glance.

Instead of doing his usual extreme training, Smoker was unusually sitting by his bed with his brows tightly furrowed. His expression looked like he had been constipated for a week, torn between speaking and holding back.

When he saw Rayne return, his mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but he ultimately swallowed the words. All he did was let out an irritated grunt through his nose.

Rayne knew exactly what was going on and could roughly guess that the guy had something to ask of him. But he deliberately did not call him out, instead returning to his own area and beginning to sort out the training uniform he had changed out of that day.

An eerie silence settled over the dorm, broken only by the rustling of Rayne arranging his clothes.

Seeing how relaxed Rayne was, Smoker grew even more anxious. He fidgeted on the edge of his bed, shifting his butt several times before finally failing to hold it in any longer.

"Hey." He spoke in an extremely unnatural tone. "Did... did you... eat enough today?"

Rayne paused in the middle of folding his clothes and turned back in surprise.

He had not expected Smoker to hold it in for so long only to ask something like that.

He nodded instinctively and answered as if it were only natural. "Yeah, I ate enough. The cafeteria doesn't limit portions. If I wasn't full, I'd just keep eating."

Smoker: (ﾟДﾟ*)

"No... I mean, food like that in the cafeteria..." He struggled to organize his words. "How do you... manage to eat until you're full?"

"It was all right." Rayne shrugged, his expression as calm as if he were talking about something insignificant. "Back at the Loguetown Branch, the cafeteria food was even worse than this."

Smoker was completely speechless.

He felt that the argument he had spent so long rehearsing in his head, the words he had finally worked up the courage to say, had all been choked back by Rayne's casual remark.

All he could do was slump backward onto his messy bed with a helpless look on his face.

Irritably, he pulled a cigar from his pocket and was about to light it when he suddenly seemed to remember something.

He glanced at Rayne across from him, who was slowly folding his clothes, then reluctantly tucked the cigar away again.

Rayne caught the scene from the corner of his eye, and the corner of his mouth curved into an almost imperceptible smile.

He found it a little funny, but he could not be bothered to tease the guy any longer.

"Go on." Rayne turned around and leaned against his locker, folding his arms across his chest as he spoke calmly. "What do you need to ask me for this time?"

"What do you mean, this time?! When have I ever asked you for anything?!"

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, Smoker instantly sprang up from the bed and spoke with more bluster than confidence.

But when he met Rayne's faintly amused gaze and remembered that he needed a favor, his towering momentum quickly deflated. His voice unconsciously dropped.

"Well... don't you think the cafeteria food... is awful?"

Rayne glanced at him without speaking, merely signaling with his eyes for him to continue.

Smoker's gaze wandered. He scratched his messy white hair and went on, "I... I think your cooking is so good that it's too unfair for you to eat such terrible food with us."

"How about this... Every night, I'll use my Devil Fruit power to sneak in and open the cafeteria door. Then you can take the chance to come in and make something good... as a reward for yourself."

He finished in one breath, but his voice grew quieter and quieter toward the end. Clearly, even he felt that the idea lacked conviction.

Rayne froze after hearing it, then looked Smoker up and down with a scrutinizing gaze.

"Wait," he said suspiciously, "this plan... was something a cigar-smoking meathead like you came up with?"

He leaned closer, his tone turning teasing.

"Tell me honestly. Who gave you that idea?"

"How did you know?!" Smoker blurted out instinctively.

The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them and wished he could slap himself on the spot. Was that not an outright confession?!

Seeing Rayne's knowing expression, Smoker completely gave up.

Irritably, he plopped back down on the bed and exposed his accomplice in a fit of self-abandonment.

"It was Hina! It was Hina's idea! She couldn't swallow a single bite at lunch today, so she came to me and said that ever since she'd eaten the food you made on that deserted island, she truly couldn't stomach even one bite of cafeteria food anymore. So... so she told me to discuss it with you once you got back."

Rayne did not answer immediately.

He merely looked at the self-abandoning Smoker before him with those faintly amused eyes until Smoker's scalp began to tingle.

"So," Rayne finally said, a hint of amusement in his voice, "the genius of the Monster Class, the Navy's future hope, is going to violate military discipline just to fill his stomach?"

Then his tone sharpened. "Your plan is full of holes. What time do the kitchen patrols change shifts? Which cold storage room holds the top-tier ingredients? If the night watch Marines catch you, who is going to clean up the mess?"

The string of questions made cold sweat pour down Smoker's back. Only then did he realize how naive his earlier idea had been.

Seeing the dumbfounded look on his face, Rayne slowly leaned back against the locker and said as if delivering a final verdict, "Forget it. Expecting anything from you two was clearly asking too much. Still, I'll agree to this."

Smoker's eyes instantly lit up. Just as he was about to speak, Rayne raised a hand to stop him.

"But," Rayne said, his gaze calm yet full of pressure, "I'll handle the food, but it won't be free."

Looking at Smoker, he spoke clearly, one word at a time:

"From now on, no matter what you see me do that goes beyond your understanding, you must keep it secret without question and be ready to cover for me at any time."

"Of course, you'll also be the one washing the dishes and scrubbing the pots after every meal," Rayne added at the end.

He calmly weighed it in his mind.

Since they lived under the same roof, this guy would sooner or later discover some of his secrets.

Rather than let unnecessary trouble arise when that happened, he might as well bring him aboard now.

If he could buy off a future pillar of the Navy with something as simple as good food, it would be the best bargain in the world.