Chapter Text
Usopp had spent three months trying to make Mugiwara Creative Studio’s TikTok account stop looking like the abandoned profile of some neighborhood hardware store. Which, so far, he had not managed to accomplish.
And not because he was not trying. He was trying *very* hard.
In fact, if anyone had measured the sweat, the dark circles, the unpaid overtime, and the amount of coffee he had consumed over the last month, they would have concluded that Usopp was not handling the marketing for a small creative company, but the communications for a presidential campaign in the middle of a national crisis.
But numbers were cruel. They were cold, miserable, and above all, humiliating.
The latest video on Mugiwara’s official account had twenty-seven views. Twenty-seven! Usopp knew because he had spent the whole morning refreshing the screen every thirty seconds, hoping TikTok had frozen by mistake, that the app had decided to hide his millions of views from him, that the algorithm was preparing some triumphant entrance, like great heroes before saving a city.
But no, it still had twenty-seven views. And two likes. One was his, and the other was Chopper’s.
“Those likes don’t even count,” Usopp muttered, slumped over his desk. “Chopper likes everything we post because he thinks if he doesn’t, we’ll get sad.”
From the next desk over, Chopper looked up with an offended expression.
“That’s not true! I also like them because I want to support teamwork.”
“That’s even worse, Chopper.”
The Mugiwara office was not big, although Luffy insisted on calling it “headquarters” every time someone new walked through the door. In reality, it was a renovated second-floor space with big windows overlooking a noisy street. It only had four rooms: a common area with mismatched desks, a meeting room that also doubled as storage, a tiny office Luffy almost never used, and a break room with a worn-out sofa, a low table covered in old magazines, and a mini kitchen with a coffee machine that made deeply concerning noises.
Even so, it had something special. It was not elegant, but it was alive.
There were Franky’s cables running across the floor, Nami’s Post-its stuck to every available surface, Robin’s books stacked in impossible corners, Brook’s guitar leaning against the printer, boxes of promotional material that Zoro was always moving from one place to another, Chopper’s bandages and candy in a shared drawer, folders perfectly labeled by Jinbe, and, of course, Sanji’s food appearing on the break room table as if the office were blessed every morning by some culinary god.
And in the middle of all that was Luffy, owner, founder, and main source of chaos at Mugiwara Creative Studio.
The company handled ad campaigns, social media management, brand design, small events, promo videos, and anything else that sounded creative enough for Luffy to say, “Yeah! We can do that!”
Sometimes they could. Other times they could not. But somehow, they survived.
The problem was that surviving was not enough. They needed new clients, they needed visibility, they needed people to know they existed.
And that responsibility fell on Usopp.
Usopp, who that morning had a notebook in front of him full of crossed-out ideas, three cups of coffee, an empty packet of cookies he did not remember opening, and the feeling that TikTok’s algorithm hated him personally.
“How many views?” Nami asked from her desk without looking up from a spreadsheet.
Usopp froze. There were questions that should not be asked out loud. Out of politeness. Out of humanity. Out of respect for the dead.
“We’re in the organic growth phase,” he replied.
Nami looked up. Usopp swallowed, knowing exactly what that look meant.
“Twenty-seven.”
The silence that followed was worse than any shouting. Nami set her pen down on the desk with terrifying delicacy.
“Usopp.”
“Yes?”
“The video was Luffy explaining what a briefing is using meatballs. Did you really think that was going to work?”
Luffy, perched on Zoro’s desk with a bag of chips in his hand, grinned proudly.
“And it was super clear!”
“It was not clear at all,” Nami said. “You ate the briefing halfway through the video.”
“Because it was a meatball.”
“It was supposed to be a metaphor, Luffy.”
“Well, it tasted good.”
Usopp rubbed his face with both hands. That video had been his idea, and in defense of his professional dignity, it had not sounded that bad on paper. “Marketing concepts explained with food” was a perfectly valid format. There were entire accounts based on explaining economics with pizza, history with dolls, and psychology with cats. Why could Luffy not explain a briefing with meatballs?
Now he knew the answer: because it was Luffy. Because Luffy had started by saying, “A briefing is like when you’re hungry but you still don’t know what for,” and from there the whole thing had collapsed.
“Young people want absurd things,” Usopp insisted, trying to defend himself. “They want authenticity, they want chaos, they want to feel like there are real people behind a company.”
“Young people do not want to watch our boss chewing on an advertising concept,” said Nami.
“I would watch that,” Chopper chimed in.
“You would also watch a video starring a rock if it said ‘teamwork’ in the description.”
Chopper thought about it.
“Depends on the kind of rock, I guess.”
At the production table, Franky spun around in his chair with a screwdriver in one hand and sunglasses perched on his head.
“I thought it was a super authentic video. Maybe it just needed an explosion at the end.”
“We are not putting explosions in every video,” Jinbe said from his desk, with the calm of someone who had spent years taking deep breaths before speaking. That was probably why he had lasted so long at that company.
“You only say that because you’ve never seen the metrics after an explosion.”
Brook poked his head out from behind the printer, where he was trying to rescue some sheet music that had gotten mixed up with invoices.
“I still think my jingle had more potential. ‘Mugiwara, Mugiwara, your brand will never sink-ah…’ Yohohoho.”
“Brook,” Nami said, “your jingle video got twelve views.”
“But one person commented that it was catchy!”
“That person was Robin.”
Robin, sitting by the window with an open book and her laptop on, smiled without guilt.
“But it *was* catchy, in the same way an ancient curse can be.”
Usopp rested his forehead against the desk. They had tried everything.
At first, like serious professionals, they made normal advertising.
A sober thirty-second video explaining who they were. Office shots. Close-ups of hands at work. Nami reviewing contracts, Robin reading reports, Franky editing, Sanji arranging trays for an event, Zoro assembling a display stand, and Luffy smiling at the camera with a thumbs-up.
Result: forty-three views.
Then they did an image carousel with motivational phrases.
*Your brand deserves to set sail too.*
Result: nineteen views and one comment asking if they sold cruises.
After that they tried a video with tips for small businesses.
*Five mistakes you’re making on social media.*
Result: thirty-one views, twenty of which Usopp suspected were probably just him checking whether the audio had uploaded correctly.
Then, under pressure, the degradation began. First came the dance trend. Usopp still physically hurt when he remembered that day.
He had managed to convince Luffy, Chopper, Franky, and Brook to do a simple choreography in the office. The word *simple* had disintegrated the moment Luffy decided to add a flip, Franky pulled colored lights out of God knew where, and Brook, instead of following the rhythm, improvised a tap dance solo. Why the hell did Brook know how to tap dance?
Chopper looked adorable, at least. But Luffy knocked over a plant, Franky yelled “SUUUPER!” so loudly the phone vibrated, and Brook crashed into the printer.
Result: sixty-two views.
Their best number so far, which, instead of encouraging Usopp, plunged him into a moral crisis.
Then they made a “day at the office” video.
But a day at the Mugiwara office did not look like an office. It looked like a deleted scene from a movie where nobody had read the script. Nami was threatening a client for not wanting to pay the invoice, Luffy was trying to open a window that opened the other way, Sanji was making coffee for everyone while arguing with the machine itself because “the coffee came out better than that thing even through a strainer,” Zoro walked into the meeting room thinking it was the bathroom, Robin said with perfect serenity that productivity was a modern illusion, Franky was welding something nobody had asked him to weld, Brook asked if he could add dramatic music to the accounting, and Jinbe closed his eyes like he was meditating to stop himself from resigning.
Result: eighty-five views.
Usopp had almost cried with joy.
Nami reminded him that eighty-five views did not pay the rent.
Then came the TikTok trends.
*POV: you’re a small business trying to get clients.*
Nobody understood it.
*When the client says they want it to go viral but they have no budget.*
Nami actually liked that one, but it still did not work.
*Types of coworkers in a creative office.*
That one might have worked if Zoro had not fallen asleep during his part and if Sanji had not interrupted to correct the shot because “the lighting was making him look like an attractive corpse, and he did not enjoy looking like a corpse.”
Usopp had even tried intentionally crappy ads, because he had read that ugly sold.
He made one with Luffy pointing at the camera while saying:
“Does your business have no clients? Then feed the algorithm!”
Off camera, Sanji had whispered:
“That makes no sense, Luffy.”
Luffy replied:
“But it sounds good!”
Result: thirty-nine views.
They also made a fake infomercial where Franky sold “brand identity” like it was a vacuum cleaner.
“With just one call, Mugiwara will clean the dust off your digital presence!”
Result: fifty views and a comment from someone asking how much the vacuum cleaner cost.
Usopp had tried everything. Everything.
And that morning, while staring at his phone screen with dry eyes from not blinking, he came to a terrible conclusion: maybe he was not a misunderstood marketing genius. Maybe he was just a man defeated by cat videos, teenagers dancing, and pasta recipes with way too much cheese.
“I can’t compete with a girl making brownies in a mug,” he muttered.
Robin turned a page in her book.
“No one can compete with the human desire to watch chocolate melt in under a minute.”
“We need something,” Nami said. “Something people actually want to watch.”
“I can eat more meatballs!” Luffy offered.
“Something *different*, Luffy.”
“I can eat them faster.”
Jinbe rested his hands on the desk.
“Perhaps we should focus on showing our real work better. The coffee shop project turned out very well. The before-and-after video could be useful.”
Usopp pointed dramatically at his phone.
“We posted it yesterday. Fifty-six views.”
“It was good work.”
“The algorithm does not care about good work, Jinbe. The algorithm has no soul.”
“Then we should not build our dignity around it.”
Usopp stared at him as if Jinbe had just spoken in some ancient language.
“I don’t have any dignity left. Only monthly targets.”
Sanji appeared from the mini kitchen carrying a tray of coffees. He was wearing a light shirt, dark pants, and his hair was perfectly arranged even though it was barely eleven in the morning and he had already argued with two suppliers on the phone. He placed one coffee beside Nami, another by Robin, one in front of Chopper, and one next to Usopp.
“Drink before you start seeing statistics floating in the air.”
“I already do,” Usopp said, accepting the coffee with both hands. “They’re shaped like failure.”
Sanji patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“Let’s call it dramatically realistic.”
Zoro walked behind them carrying a huge box of materials for a stand and dropped it against the wall with a dull thud.
“Where does this go?”
Nami did not even look up.
“Meeting room.”
Zoro was silent.
“Which one was the meeting room again?”
Sanji closed his eyes for a second, as if praying for patience.
“Zoro, you’ve worked here for eight months.”
“There are too many doors.”
“There are four.”
“Too many.”
On any other day, Usopp would have filmed that. In fact, one diseased corner of his brain thought, *Types of coworkers, part two: the one who gets lost inside the office.* But he was too deeply sunk to lift his phone.
Sanji pointed toward the hallway.
“First door on the right.”
Zoro picked the box back up.
“That’s what you said last time and I ended up in the bathroom.”
“Because you turned left.”
“Depends where you’re looking from.”
“From reality, marimo.”
Zoro paused for just a second and looked at him over his shoulder.
“Looks like we’re not living in the same one, curly-brows.”
There was no venom in the exchange, not even real annoyance. It was the kind of bickering that already sounded like background noise in the office, same as the dying coffee machine or Brook humming songs wildly inappropriate for a workplace. Sanji and Zoro could spend five minutes calling each other useless and dramatic, and the next minute Sanji would leave Zoro a plate set aside because he knew he forgot to eat when he was assembling equipment. Zoro could say Sanji was unbearable and then fix a shelf in the kitchen without anyone asking.
That was just how they were. Coworkers. Maybe weird ones, but at Mugiwara everyone was weird.
Usopp sighed and looked back at the account. After three months of brutal effort on his part, the company had only eighty-five followers.
The damn nail salon down the street had thirteen thousand, and a dog that “reviewed” fruit had two million.
Mugiwara Creative Studio, with nine adult employees, real clients, and decent projects, had eighty-five followers and a video of Luffy eating a metaphorical meatball.
“I’m done for,” said Usopp.
“Not yet,” Nami replied. “You’ll be done for if you don’t bring me a proposal that works by Friday.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s team management.”
“It sounds like a threat with Excel.”
“The best threats involve Excel. Mine certainly do.”
The morning carried on with its usual routine.
Luffy had a video call with a client and started by saying, “We make your brand feel like an adventure,” which might have sounded nice if he had not had crumbs on his shirt. Robin reviewed the history of a local candle brand and discovered the owner had spent years copying expensive perfume names, but “with legally ambiguous creativity.” Franky fought with the video editor because the file had corrupted and he refused to accept that a computer could beat him. Brook recorded three versions of a melody for a florist ad, but all of them sounded too much like funerals. Jinbe called a supplier and solved in ten minutes a problem that had been blocked for two days because, according to Nami, “people are afraid of disappointing Jinbe.”
Chopper organized a small internal survey about workplace stress and, after seeing Usopp’s answers, offered him herbal tea.
Zoro disappeared for twenty minutes. They found him on the building staircase, convinced he had gone down to the storage room.
The storage room that was next door.
Everything was normal. Chaotic, but normal for them.
By one-thirty, the office started slipping into that in-between state of hunger, exhaustion, and fading professionalism. Luffy had already asked three times if they could eat. Nami had already told him three times to wait. Chopper had started sorting his pens by color. Robin was reading client comments with a smile that was far too calm. Brook had changed the florist jingle to something less funeral and more “super ghost wedding,” according to Franky.
Usopp still had his phone in his hand.
He had tried writing out a new content strategy, but his notebook contained only scattered phrases:
*More human.*
*Faster.*
*Less corporate.*
*Luffy falling down? No, Nami will kill me.*
*Sanji cooking? Could work.*
*Zoro getting lost? Repetitive.*
*Chopper being adorable? Ethically questionable to exploit too much.*
*Brook showing off his vinyl collection? Pending, and boring as hell.*
*Should I resign before they fire me on Friday?*
Then he noticed movement in the break room, because from his strategically placed desk he could see into it if both doors were open.
Sanji walked in carrying a box of homemade cookies. Not the sad industrial cookies Nami sometimes bought on sale and everyone ate with resignation. Real cookies, golden, with chunks of chocolate, tucked inside a tin box Sanji had brought from home.
Usopp sat up a little.
The break room door was half open. From his desk he could see part of the sofa, the low table, and Zoro sitting there with his laptop on his knees. Which was already strange. Zoro was not a *laptop on the sofa* kind of man. Zoro was much more a *I’d rather move boxes* kind of man. But he looked focused, reviewing a document, or maybe pretending to understand some planning sheet Nami had forced him to fill out.
Sanji set the cookie tin on the table.
“Eat something.”
Zoro did not look up.
“I’m working.”
“That’s exactly why. When you work, you forget you have a body that needs to eat like twenty normal people. Your muscles are going to disintegrate.”
“My muscles are fine.”
“This morning your muscles tried to survive on one coffee and half a banana.”
“It was a big banana.”
“It was half a banana, Zoro.”
Zoro finally looked at the box.
“Are those the chocolate ones?”
“No. They’re screw-flavored, so you’ll feel at home.”
Zoro took a cookie.
“Hilarious.”
“Very.”
From his desk, Usopp felt something.
It was not inspiration. It was something more dangerous: impulse.
There was nothing extraordinary about the scene. Sanji had brought food, Zoro was eating and talking the way they always did. Light bickering, everyday familiarity. A cookie between coworkers.
But maybe precisely because it was so normal, Usopp found it funny to imagine it like some forbidden scene. As if he had just caught them in an intimate moment. As if the tin box were proof of secret love and not simply the result of Sanji having a genetic inability to let anyone close to him go hungry.
Usopp looked at his phone. Then at Nami, who was busy fighting an email.
Then at Luffy, who was trying to convince Chopper that meetings could also be held while eating.
Then at Robin, who looked up at him with half a smile.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but it looks dangerous.”
“It’s just a joke to wake up the WhatsApp group,” he whispered.
Robin went back to her book.
“Modern tragedies often begin that way.”
Usopp turned on the camera. He was not going to post it, really he wasn’t.
He was only going to send it to the work WhatsApp group. The group, called *Pirate Office*, was where important notices, Luffy memes, invoices Nami demanded nobody ignore, pictures of Chopper with new bandages, Franky’s endless voice notes, Jinbe’s reminders, and Sanji’s messages asking who had left a dirty spoon in the sink “as if we were wild animals” all got mixed together.
Usopp walked toward the break room with his camera raised.
Sanji was leaning by the table, Zoro was seated and had just taken a bite of a cookie. Neither of them did anything strange when they saw him. That was another detail: they were too used to Usopp filming things. In the office, his phone was practically an extension of his hand.
“Sorry to interrupt…” Usopp said in a deep documentary voice, “this very private moment.”
Sanji turned his head toward him.
“What?”
Zoro kept chewing.
Usopp walked in a little farther, filming the box of cookies first and then the two of them.
“I didn’t know cookies were already a love language.”
Sanji blinked.
“They’re cookies. What the hell are you talking about?”
“That’s exactly what someone hiding the truth would say.”
“Usopp, they’re cookies. Flour, sugar, butter, and chocolate. Not a confession in the rain.”
Zoro grabbed another one.
“They’re good.”
Usopp zoomed in dramatically on Zoro’s hand reaching into the box.
“Second cookie accepted. Emotional commitment confirmed?”
Sanji looked at him the way one looks at a child who has just invented an illness to avoid going to school. Which, to be fair, was something Usopp had done several times.
“Don’t you have work?”
“I *am* working.”
“Filming Zoro eating a cookie is work?”
“It’s market research.”
Zoro finally looked up at Usopp. His expression was not angry. It was flat, dry, almost compassionate, as if he were looking at someone who had lost a battle with his own brain.
“Did you hit your head?”
Usopp pressed a hand dramatically to his chest.
“Zoro, don’t try to distract from the issue. Since when has Sanji been feeding you in secret?”
“Since he started working here,” Zoro replied.
Sanji pointed at Zoro like that proved his point.
“Because otherwise he eats any garbage he finds, and I feed *all* of you!”
“That sounds like domestic care,” Usopp said, completely ignoring the second half of the sentence.
“That sounds like I don’t want a coworker fainting on top of a box of brochures.”
“Coworker,” Usopp repeated, moving the camera closer to Sanji. “Such a cold word for someone offering handmade cookies.”
Sanji sighed.
“Send your stupid joke to the group already and go back to your desk.”
“So you admit there’s something to send?”
“I admit you’re unbearable.”
Without looking at the camera, Zoro added:
“And loud.”
“Perfect!” Usopp said. “Established couple dynamic: one denies, the other grunts.”
Sanji grabbed a cookie and shoved it into Usopp’s mouth to shut him up.
Usopp stopped talking for a second. The cookie was amazing.
That was a problem, because part of his dignity depended on not looking impressed, but Usopp’s dignity had been in free fall for months already.
“This is incredible,” he said around a mouthful.
“I know,” Sanji replied.
Zoro shut the laptop.
“Done with your investigation?”
Usopp filmed both of them one last time.
“For now. But the public deserves answers.”
“What public?” Sanji asked.
“The WhatsApp group.”
“This is absurd.”
Usopp stopped recording, laughing. The video was only forty-two seconds long.
It had no music, no editing, no subtitles, no strategy. It did not have a call to action, a brand line, a logo, a format, content planning, or any commercial goal.
Just Sanji, Zoro, some cookies, and Usopp behaving like an idiot.
He sent it to the WhatsApp group. Nami was the first to react:
**Nami:** Usopp, get back to work.
Then Chopper:
**Chopper:** HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
**Chopper:** The cookies looked really good.
**Franky:** This has SUPER reality show energy.**
**Brook:** Yohohoho, love smells like chocolate.**
**Sanji:** Brook, shut up.**
**Zoro:** Why do I always end up in this shit?**
**Luffy:** ARE THERE ANY COOKIES LEFT?**
**Robin:** Interesting start to a romance plot.**
**Jinbe:** Let’s remember not to film coworkers without permission for outside use.**
Usopp read that last message as he walked back to his desk and felt a small prick of conscience. But it was the group. Just an internal joke. Nothing more.
Ten minutes passed.
Usopp tried to focus on a proposal for a bike shop. He wrote: *Fresh, approachable, dynamic campaign,* and then stared at the sentence with contempt. *Fresh, approachable, dynamic.* That sounded like the sort of phrase you wrote when you had absolutely nothing to say.
He looked at the video in his gallery again. It was funny. Really funny.
Maybe because Sanji was trying to explain himself with disproportionate seriousness. Maybe because Zoro looked genuinely convinced Usopp needed medical attention. Maybe because the cookie shoved into his mouth at the end made the whole thing unexpectedly perfect.
He watched it again. And again. And again.
He laughed to himself.
Without looking up, Robin said:
“Don’t do it.”
Usopp froze.
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is you’re already mentally justifying.”
“I’m not justifying anything.”
“Mhm.”
Usopp looked at Mugiwara’s official account.
Eighty-five followers.
Then he looked at his personal account.
It had a little more movement. Not much, but definitely more than the company’s. He posted stupid things there, little sketches, office videos without direct branding, exaggerated stories about “how to survive creative work.” He had some followers who followed him for his humor. He was not famous, but at least the account did not look like a deserted lot.
He could post it there, only there. As a joke, without tagging anyone, without turning it into a campaign. Just for a laugh.
Besides, the video did not show anything bad. No private information, no clients, no documents. Just cookies, coworkers, and coworkers acting like coworkers.
Usopp opened TikTok.
He wrote a caption for the video:
**Caught my coworkers in an extremely intimate situation: sharing cookies in the break room. I will not cover up this corporate romance.**
He laughed before even posting it and added some hashtags:
**#Office
#Coworkers
#OfficeRomance
#Cookies
#MarketingInCrisis**
He hesitated.
He looked at Jinbe, who was focused on a call. At Sanji, who had gone back to the kitchen and was cleaning a counter that was already clean. At Zoro, who had left the break room and was now checking some boxes with a frown.
No one was looking.
Usopp whispered:
“It’s just a joke.”
And posted it.
For the first few minutes, nothing happened.
Three views, then nine, then fourteen.
Usopp laid the phone face down, trying to pretend to himself that he did not care. He worked for exactly forty seconds before checking again.
Thirty-two. Not bad, though for his personal account that was normal.
After ten minutes: one hundred and twenty views.
Usopp sat up.
After fifteen: four hundred.
After twenty: one thousand two hundred.
“No,” he whispered.
Chopper looked up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
One thousand eight hundred.
Two thousand five hundred.
The video started getting comments.
The first said:
**I don’t know who these people are but the blond one is *so* in love.**
Usopp’s eyes widened.
The second:
**The cookie guy didn’t deny anything.**
The third:
**This is literally an office romance.**
The fourth:
**I need part 2.**
Usopp felt his soul slam back into his body.
No, not just slam back. It did a somersault.
“Nami,” he said in a strange voice.
“What?”
“I think something happened.”
Nami looked up with the caution of someone expecting disaster.
“Define ‘something.’”
Usopp turned his phone toward her, showing her the three thousand eight hundred views on the screen. Nami frowned.
“Is that… the cookie video?”
“Yes.”
“You posted it?”
The way she said it could have made a criminal confess. Usopp lifted one finger.
“Technically, nothing bad happens if I post it to my personal account.”
“Usopp.”
“But it’s working!”
Nami stood and crossed over. She snatched the phone from his hands with terrifying speed and looked at the views and comments. Then she looked at the views again.
Four thousand seven hundred. Her expression changed. Not much, but enough. Nami’s eyes, trained to see money where others saw chaos, made some silent calculation.
“How long has it been up?”
“Less than half an hour.”
“And our official videos?”
“Let’s not speak of the dead.”
Nami kept reading comments.
**I want to know if the cookies were homemade.**
**He fed him. In an office. That has to mean marriage.**
**The other one looks at him like they’ve been together for ten years.**
**Where do I need to work to get this kind of drama?**
**Company account please.**
Nami went still.
“People are asking about the company.”
Usopp nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
“On your personal account.”
“Yes.”
“And this video is doing better than everything we’ve done in three months.”
“You didn’t really have to remind me of my failure *right now*.”
Sanji appeared behind them, drying his hands on a cloth.
“What’s going on?”
Usopp and Nami turned at the same time, far too quickly not to look suspicious. Sanji narrowed his eyes.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” said Usopp.
“That’s never true.”
Nami handed the phone back to Usopp.
“He uploaded the cookie video.”
It took Sanji a second to process.
“Where?”
Usopp smiled carefully.
“TikTok.”
Sanji looked at Usopp, then at Nami, then back at Usopp.
“Usopp…”
“Before you say anything, it’s working.”
“Did you upload a video implying Zoro and I are having a romance because I gave him a cookie?”
“I’m not implying it. I’m investigating.”
“Usopp.”
“With humor.”
“Usopp…”
“And affection.”
Sanji took the phone. He saw the video, the caption, and the views.
Five thousand nine hundred.
Then he saw the comments. His face went through several phases: disbelief, exhaustion, embarrassment, irritation, and one final expression Usopp identified as *I am currently deciding whether to kill you with a kick or a frying pan.*
“This is stupid,” Sanji said.
Zoro, who had just walked over carrying a folder, glanced at the scene.
“What’s stupid?”
Sanji passed him the phone.
“Usopp put us on TikTok.”
Zoro looked at the screen. The video played. He saw himself eating a cookie and looking at Usopp like he doubted his sanity.
Then he read some of the comments. His face did not change at all.
“What a waste of time.”
“Thank you for your support,” said Usopp.
Zoro handed the phone back.
“Delete it if it bothers him.”
Sanji opened his mouth, but Nami spoke first.
“Wait a second.”
Everyone looked at her, and Nami pointed at the phone.
“It has seven thousand views. Look.”
Even Sanji looked, and yes. Seven thousand, and climbing.
Luffy appeared from behind them, drawn by the word *cookies* or maybe by the general scent of other people’s chaos.
“Are we famous?”
“No,” said Sanji.
“A little,” said Usopp.
“Potentially,” said Nami.
Robin walked over with her teacup.
“Accidental romantic narratives tend to be very well received by digital audiences.”
“There is no romantic narrative,” Sanji said.
Robin smiled.
“Of course not.”
Zoro sighed.
“I’m going to eat.”
“You already ate cookies,” Sanji said.
“That doesn’t count as eating.”
“Then you admit you needed something more than half a banana and coffee to survive!”
Usopp lifted the phone, and Sanji pointed at him without looking.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Usopp lowered the phone slowly. Chopper came closer too, curious.
“How many views now?”
“Eight thousand two hundred,” Usopp said, his voice trembling.
Franky stood up from his chair.
“Eight thousand? That’s SUUUUPER more than everything before!”
Brook leaned over Zoro’s shoulder.
“Yohohoho, Sanji-san, it seems your heart has cooked up viral content.”
“Brook, please shut up.”
Jinbe arrived last, but he did not look surprised. He looked tired in the way of someone who had predicted a problem and was now watching it materialize with perfect accuracy.
“Usopp.”
“I know.”
“Do *they* know?”
Usopp pointed at Sanji and Zoro.
“Now they do.”
Jinbe took a deep breath.
“This is not ideal.”
“But look at the numbers,” Nami said, backing Usopp up.
Jinbe looked at her.
“Numbers do not replace consent.”
Nami raised both hands.
“I didn’t say yes. I said we need to look at this calmly.”
Luffy, who had already somehow gotten a cookie from the box, spoke with his mouth full.
“If Zoro and Sanji don’t mind, we can make more videos.”
“What bothers me is the idiocy surrounding this office,” Sanji said.
“That’s not a legally useful answer,” Robin commented.
Zoro shrugged.
“As long as you don’t make me dance again, I’m fine.”
Usopp felt a door open somewhere in the universe.
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s an ‘I don’t care as long as you don’t interrupt me while I’m working.’”
“That’s almost a yes.”
“No.”
Sanji crossed his arms.
“I *do* care that people think giving food to a coworker means I’m declaring eternal love.”
“That’s not exactly what people think,” said Usopp.
He read a new comment.
**Sanji looks at Zoro like he makes him breakfast every morning.**
Usopp turned the screen off.
“Well. Maybe some of them do.”
Sanji snatched the cookie tin away from Luffy before he could take a fourth.
“I’m not going to participate in a lie.”
“It’s not a lie,” said Usopp. “It’s marketing.”
“Marketing based on a lie.”
“Marketing is full of half-truths.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, God!”
“But it sounds professional.”
Nami looked at Sanji with a calculating expression, though not a cruel one.
“No one is going to force you into anything, but people are clicking through asking what Mugiwara is. They’re following us. Look.”
Usopp opened the company’s official account. Eighty-five followers. He refreshed. Ninety-three. Refreshed again. One hundred and twelve, one hundred and forty.
Usopp felt heat climb into his chest. Mugiwara’s account was growing. For the first time in weeks, something was moving.
And not because of a brilliant plan, not because of an elegant campaign, not because of a before-and-after video or some inspiring slogan.
Because Sanji had given Zoro cookies.
Life was unfair, but Usopp was willing to take advantage of it.
Sanji looked at the number and then at Zoro. Zoro seemed more interested in getting the cookie tin back than in his new fame.
“This is absurd,” Sanji said.
“Yes,” Robin replied. “But also very contemporary.”
Brook raised a finger.
“We could make a song: ‘Cookies for Two Hearts.’”
“No,” Sanji and Zoro said at the same time.
Usopp pointed at them.
“That! That is *exactly* what people want! That synchronization.”
“We said no,” Zoro said.
“With a lot of chemistry, by the way.”
Sanji made a strangled sound.
“I’m going back to work before I regret every decision that brought me to this company.”
“Too late,” said Zoro, with a cookie in his hand. At what point had he managed to get the cookies back?
Sanji looked at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“I said the cookies are really good.”
“That is not what you said.”
“It’s what I meant.”
Usopp instinctively raised the phone and Sanji threw the kitchen cloth at his face.
The office burst into laughter. Even Nami smiled.
And for a moment, Usopp forgot about the metrics, the algorithm, and the pressure. For a moment, Mugiwara was just Mugiwara again: a small, noisy place full of people who were far too different and yet somehow worked.
But then his phone buzzed, showing ten thousand views. Usopp stopped laughing.
“I have to do something.”
“No,” said Jinbe.
“Something responsible,” Usopp added quickly. “Something strategic. Something that turns this video into more work.”
Nami looked at him with renewed interest.
“What are you talking about?”
Usopp opened his personal account, switched to the front camera, and Sanji took a step back.
“No.”
“You’re not in it.”
“You’d better not.”
Usopp positioned himself beside a wall where the Mugiwara logo could be seen in the background: a simple, cheerful design with big letters and a small straw hat over the M, Luffy’s idea and Franky’s resigned execution.
He took a deep breath before recording.
“Hi. I’m Usopp, marketing lead at Mugiwara Creative Studio and, apparently, the official investigator of the most unexpected corporate romance in this office. Due to public interest in the extremely intimate cookie situation, I am announcing that any future updates on Zoro, Sanji, and their obvious food-sharing coworker tension will be posted on Mugiwara’s official account.”
He paused dramatically.
“Follow us there. We’ve got campaigns, creativity, workplace chaos, and apparently a love story even its protagonists refuse to admit.”
From off camera, Sanji shouted:
“Because it doesn’t exist!”
Usopp smiled at the camera.
“As you can see, the denial is strong.”
Zoro, also off camera, said:
“Usopp, you’re an idiot.”
“And the passion is obvious.”
He cut the video and reviewed it. It was perfect.
Nami watched over his shoulder.
“Put the company handle on screen.”
“Yes, boss.”
“And don’t promise things we can’t sustain.”
“I’m promising chaos. We can sustain that.”
“True.”
Jinbe pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I want it noted that I am still against all of this.”
Robin took a sip of tea.
“It will be noted in the imaginary minutes.”
Chopper looked at Sanji with concern.
“Does it really bother you that much?”
Sanji let out a long breath. He looked annoyed, but not at Chopper. At Usopp, maybe. At the internet, probably. At the fact that a cookie could turn into content, definitely.
“It bothers me that Usopp is an idiot.”
“That bothers all of us,” Zoro said.
“But…” Sanji looked at Nami, then at Luffy, then at the rest of the office. “If it helps the company and no one crosses a line, I guess I can survive a few jokes.”
Usopp clasped his hands together.
“I promise I won’t cross any lines.”
Robin arched a brow.
“What a dangerous sentence coming from you.”
“I promise I will *try* to know where the line is.”
“That’s more realistic,” said Jinbe.
Luffy threw his arms up.
“So we *are* famous!”
“Not yet,” Nami said.
Usopp’s phone buzzed again.
The first video: fifteen thousand views. The announcement: one thousand in under five minutes. Mugiwara’s official account: two hundred and thirty followers.
Usopp swallowed.
“Maybe a little.”
The afternoon transformed. No one admitted it completely, but everyone was keeping an eye on Usopp’s phone. Nami pretended to review budgets, but every few minutes she asked:
“Followers?”
“Three hundred and twelve.”
Five minutes later:
“And now?”
“Four hundred and eighty.”
Luffy did not pretend at all. He sat beside Usopp watching the numbers rise like they were watching a horse race.
“If we get to a thousand, do we get free food?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“It should be.”
Franky started talking about improving the break room lighting.
“Not for filming you two,” he clarified when he saw Sanji’s look. “For content in general. Super general.”
Brook composed, in ten minutes, a suspenseful little tune for “love investigations,” which Sanji banned before he even finished hearing it.
Robin read comments in a calm voice that made them worse.
“The blond one looks like the type who cooks to hide his feelings. Interesting interpretation.”
“Stop,” said Sanji.
“And the other one looks like he doesn’t know what an emotion is, but he accepted two cookies. Fairly observant.”
Zoro looked at Robin.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Very much.”
From his corner, Chopper tried to set a rule.
“If you’re going to make videos, we should still have breaks without cameras. The break room should be for resting.”
Jinbe nodded.
“I agree.”
Usopp opened his mouth to protest, but Nami smacked his arm lightly.
“Don’t you dare argue with that.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Yes you were.”
“Only a little.”
Sanji pointed at Chopper.
“Thank you. At least someone here still has decency.”
Zoro, back at his laptop again, muttered:
“Decency died when Usopp said ‘love language.’”
“And you still ate my cookies.”
“They weren’t guilty.”
“Animal.”
“Pervert.”
Usopp looked at both of them. He did not film it, but it took effort. A *lot* of effort.
By six in the evening, the original video hit one hundred thousand views, and Usopp screamed so loudly Zoro nearly dropped a box.
“A HUNDRED THOUSAND!”
The office went silent for one second and then everyone spoke at once.
“A hundred thousand?” Chopper said.
“Show me the analytics,” Nami demanded.
“SUPER viral!” Franky yelled.
“Yohohoho, love conquers the algorithm,” Brook sang.
“It’s not love,” Sanji said automatically.
“It’s content,” Usopp corrected, practically tearful with emotion.
Robin smiled.
“Sometimes the difference is more fragile than it seems.”
Zoro looked at Sanji.
“Any cookies left?”
Sanji stared back at him, exhausted.
“After all of this, *that’s* your question?”
“I’m hungry.”
Sanji clicked his tongue, went to the kitchen, and came back with the tin.
“Last one.”
Zoro took it, and Usopp watched the scene with something close to reverence, though without filming it. And that small act of self-control felt medal-worthy.
By the time they finally closed the office, Mugiwara’s account had gone from eighty-five followers to over three thousand. The cookie video was still climbing, and the announcement on Usopp’s personal account had driven thousands of people to the company profile. There were DMs asking what they actually did. A local coffee shop asked for campaign information, and a clothing store commented: *We need this level of chaos for our brand.*
Nami was in a dangerously good mood.
“Tomorrow we review strategy,” she said, packing up her things. “Usopp, prepare a plan.”
Usopp nodded solemnly.
“I’ll call it Project Cookie.”
“Do not call it that in any document a client might see.”
“Organic Engagement Campaign Based on Spontaneous Relational Narrative.”
Nami looked at him.
“I think Project Cookie is fine.”
Luffy left the office happy, holding a cookie Sanji swore he had no idea where it had come from. Chopper said goodbye asking that no one get too obsessed with the comments. Franky promised to bring a ring light “just in case,” and Brook said he would dream of romantic melodies. Jinbe reminded Usopp that boundaries still existed even if the video had a lot of views.
As Robin passed him, she said:
“Be careful. Sometimes jokes find truths before people do.”
Usopp did not entirely understand what she meant. Or maybe he did, but chose not to think too hard about it.
Sanji was one of the last to leave. He put on his jacket, checked that the kitchen was clean, and shot Usopp a warning look.
“Don’t film me before coffee tomorrow.”
“After coffee, then?”
“Don’t film me tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
“Usopp.”
“I understood ‘negotiable.’”
Sanji pointed at the door.
“Go home.”
Zoro came out of the hallway with his backpack over one shoulder.
“We closing?”
Sanji looked at him.
“Zoro, the door is right there.”
“I know.”
“Last time you said that, you ended up in the storage room.”
“It was dark.”
“It was five in the afternoon.”
From his desk, Usopp smiled.
He did not film it, but he memorized the exchange for professional reasons. Obviously.
When he got home, Usopp threw himself onto his bed without even taking off his shoes. His phone lit up his face in the dark.
The video was still climbing. Two hundred thousand views, then two hundred and twenty thousand.
The comments multiplied.
**I came from the cookie video and now I want to hire this company even though I don’t own a business.**
**I need to know if Zoro thanked him for the cookie.**
**Sanji: they’re cookies. Also Sanji: I cook for him because otherwise he’ll die.**
**These two have more tension than the protagonists of every show I’m watching.**
**The social media manager deserves a raise.**
Usopp smiled so hard his cheeks hurt, then opened Mugiwara’s account.
Five thousand followers. In one day.
After three months of begging the algorithm like someone praying to a cruel god, everything had changed because of a joke, a box of cookies, and two coworkers who had not even *tried* to be interesting.
Usopp stared at the ceiling.
He was exhausted, euphoric, and terrified. Because now he had something that worked, and that was wonderful, but it also meant he had to do it again.
His phone buzzed one more time. A new comment appeared at the top:
**Please let this become a series. I need to keep investigating the office love between the blond guy and the green-haired guy.**
Usopp read it three times, then opened a new note on his phone and typed:
**Mugiwara TikTok series: Zoro/Sanji investigation (Zosan?).**
Underneath that he added:
**Episode 1: The Cookies.**
He thought for a few seconds, then smiled before writing:
**Episode 2: Fight caused by sexual tension?**
Somewhere in his conscience, a voice suspiciously like Jinbe’s told him to be careful.
But another voice, very much like Nami’s, reminded him that the company needed clients.
And a third voice, identical to Luffy’s, shouted that this was fun.
Usopp turned off the phone, buried his face in a pillow, and let out a nervous laugh.
At last, the algorithm had looked toward Mugiwara.
And Usopp, poor fool, believed he had found the perfect lie.