THE FIRST DAY, PART ONE:

THE REINDEER INTERN, AN EMAIL SCAM(?),

AND THE RICE CRACKER DILEMMA.

I know I have good judgment, I know I have good taste.

(It's funny and it's ironic that only I feel that way...)

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Acacia Ward – Dressrosa Hospital

Staff offices (Internal Medicine Department)

Murasaki Arisa hid a wince as she turned the small paper box over in her hands. The bright sticker label reading SENKICHI'S ASSORTED SENBEI CRACKERS in faux-traditional brush strokes was emblazoned in full view beneath the clear plastic wrapping. Above it was stamped the brand logo: a somewhat cartoonish illustration of a grinning man in a yukata giving a thumbs up– the aforementioned 'Senkichi,' if Arisa were to bet on it.

Bringing souvenirs like this on your first day... it has to be somewhat tacky, right? If not a little presumptuous... Ugh.

I really shouldn't have listened to Shiori.

But it was too late now – taking the thing back home with her felt like admitting defeat. Not to mention a waste. As partial as Arisa was to rice crackers herself, there was no way she could hope to finish this entire box on her own.

She scowled down at the gaudy sticker label as she continued to stew in her self-induced anxiety. Wano's best, indeed. Well, if she was going to wimp out of taking this to a formal meeting with a PI like she'd planned, she could at least distribute the snacks to the residents and nurses in this department. (She'd already met two of the latter earlier – Shachi and Penguin – who'd helped her bring her things to this floor. They seemed nice enough.)

Arisa set the package down with a defeated sigh and looked at her watch. Fifteen more minutes.

Ah, great.

Her blue eyes slid over to the cardboard box resting by her chair – still piled high with binders and miscellaneous office supplies – then to her painfully threadbare desk space.

Technically, she could afford to organize for another ten or so minutes with plenty of time to spare before her upcoming meeting. But she was still unfamiliar with the building's general layout... and Arisa did not want to risk running late on account of something as silly as getting lost, especially on her first day. What sort of impression would that leave on her superiors?

She stood, closing her laptop and half heartedly depositing it in her work bag. Then she checked her phone, triple checking the meeting invite for the room number. Her heart sank a little, as it had every time she'd referred back to that stupid email over the course of that morning.

To the updated attendee list, more accurately.

The meeting itself was (should have been) a routine affair – it was her first official one with her supervisor, Professor Yotsuji, since her final stage interview. There had been no reason for Arisa to believe it was anything outside the usual fare of greetings and discussion of responsibilities.

Now, why Professor Donquixote Doflamingo had inserted himself into the situation at the last minute was still a complete mystery to her, and one which filled her with equal amounts of dread and annoyance every time she bothered to mull over it. Dr. Yotsuji had added his name to the attendee list yesterday evening with no warning or explanation, which had made for much speculation and a very sleepless night on Arisa's part. Had it been anyone else, she wouldn't have given it much thought, if any. But this was the Hospital Director and Head of Surgery. As important as he was, why would he take the time out of his busy schedule for a new hireling like her?

It was still her first day, so surely it wasn't due to anything she did...

At least that was Arisa's hope.

She started to turn away, only to be drawn up when she caught Senkichi's painted eye from the senbei box at the corner of her desk. She stared back at him for a moment, brows scrunched up in hesitation, before snatching up the package in a rare show of petulance.

Ah. To hell with it.

She tucked the box into her bag with a resolute frown. If Donquixote Doflamingo was going to be so insistent upon inserting himself in this meeting, so be it. She, Murasaki Arisa, would face him, no holds barred, with Senkichi-san and his stupid tacky rice crackers.

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She had just left the Internal Medicine wing and was passing an empty nurse's station – trying her best to ignore the familiar crinkling of the packaging emanating from her bag with each step she took – when a small, childlike voice drifted out from the counter:

"Um... excuse me, Miss?"

Arisa swiveled around sharply. It wasn't immediately apparent who'd spoken to her – not until her gaze dropped down to behold the small, peculiarly shaped figure standing before her.

Her first thought was that he must be a reindeer Min– well, no, that would be a lie. Cute was her first thought; the next was that she'd never seen a reindeer Mink of such unique proportions. He was very small, for one – less than a meter in height – with a blue nose and round, innocent eyes. A small pair of antlers protruded from an oversized pink tophat stitched with a medical cross logo.

Shouldering a sky blue backpack of a similar size, the reindeer was looking up at her with utmost graveness. Squirreled away behind that assumed dignity was a wavering snatch of childish intimidation which was all too easy for Arisa to decipher, having been subject to similar sentiments herself of late. She concluded then that he must be a patient... or perhaps a child of one, given his lack of an ID wristband. Maybe he was looking for directions?

She hastily cleared her throat and smiled down at him.

"Hello."

"You work here, right?" the reindeer asked. (His voice, if it hadn't been mentioned before, perfectly matched his description.)

Arisa nodded.

"How can I help you?"

The reindeer's shoulders slackened somewhat, presumably out of relief. He plodded closer, a mobile phone in one hoof.

"I, uh. I'm interning here this term," the reindeer stammered nervously. "Starting today. But... I still haven't gotten any information on where I should report to, and I was wondering who I should ask about that... The lady at the front office, she was super nice, but she didn't seem to know..."

Arisa started to nod along again, then did a double take.

Wait. Intern? So he isn't a kid?

"I think it should be someone in the Surgery Department, though...?" the reindeer scratched the back of his head with a self-conscious laugh. "Because that's Dr. Diamante's division."

"...Dr. Diamante, you said?" Arisa repeated blankly. And the utterance certainly wasn't out of ignorance.

"Yeah! He's the one who agreed to mentor me. Just from a cold email, too! Isn't that super nice of him?" He beamed and held out his phone for her to see. "See?"

Kneeling to be at his level to see, Arisa couldn't help but sweatdrop a little as she took the device in her hands.

Dr. Diamante...

Yes, everyone with even the shallowest involvement in the medical field was familiar with that name. Dr. Diamante was one of Dressrosa Hospital's highly sought after surgeons and the architect of the Hira Hira Technique. His Devil Fruit abilities allowed him to tune the flexibility of organ tissue and accommodate for easier, safer access for targeted treatments. The method had been considered revolutionary when it was first published – standing alongside Professor Donquixote Doflamingo's Ito Ito Technique as one of the first demonstrations of modern Devil Fruit-assisted surgeries – catapulting him to stardom overnight. Second only to the Hospital Director in his love for the spotlight, Dr. Diamante was also as much a showman as he was a physician, deeply involved in the hospital's outreach efforts – presenting his accomplishments at conferences all over the world, participating in Dressrosa Hospital's commercials, and even collaborating with social media influencers.

Now, Arisa didn't want to think of herself as overly cynical, but she certainly wasn't stupid either. The idea that a doctor as high-profile as Dr. Diamante would accept an internship from a single cold email... with no interview, no further vetting...

And the fact that none of the staff seemed aware of what was going on...

She really didn't want to say it aloud. Especially when this kid was clearly so thrilled about the opportunity. But... as was often the case for most prospects that simply seemed too good to be true... could it be a scam?

Arisa bit her lip, hoping her unease wasn't as obvious as it felt, and peered critically down at the screenshots displayed on the reindeer's phone. Sure enough, it appeared to show an email exchange with the aforementioned doctor.

She fished out her own phone and pulled up Dressrosa Hospital's staff page to compare the contact information.

No suspicious links, and the email address actually looks legit... That's strange.

She scrolled through the messages, of which there were quite a lot. The emails from the reindeer's end were full of dense paragraphs of... well, mostly flattery, meticulously articulating his admiration for the doctor's work and his willingness to assist in his research. Dr. Diamante's replies, in comparison, were painfully dry and succinct... not to mention riddled with grammatical errors. All of these things were of no surprise, given Arisa's own experiences working with PIs from the past.

What was eyebrow-raising, however, was how generic and immaterial 'Dr. Diamante's' responses were. It was almost as if the writer was purposefully being as vague in his answers in order to prolong the exchange as much as possible. Perhaps it was a strategy to draw out personal information? That was a common tactic, wasn't it?

She frowned.

Hmm. Maybe the doctor was hacked? Or it's some sort of social engineering scheme...

This is definitely beyond my expertise.

Meanwhile, the reindeer remained completely oblivious to her concerns. He suddenly perked up, clapping his hooves together as if something had just occurred to him.

"Oh... maybe I should just go to his office! Do you know where that is?"

Arisa hesitated, before handing him his phone back.

"Well, the thing is..." she paused. "...what's your name?"

"Chopper. Tony Tony Chopper! I'm a third year at GLU!"

Undergrad at Grand Line University... Pre-med track, most likely.

Arisa cleared her throat apologetically.

"The thing is, Chopper, this is also my first day here... so I don't know my way around just yet. I do know where the IT office is, though..." – in fact, that was the general direction of where she was headed, coincidentally enough... though maybe HR would be better suited for this? – "... so maybe we could find someone there who could help you out –"

"The IT office?" Chopper blinked, tilting his head innocently. "Why not Surgery?"

Arisa winced, bracing herself. These were the times she wished she'd had a fraction of Shiori's natural charisma. Some people were just born communicators, and there was no better encapsulation of that phenomenon than her best friend and former coworker at Kōzuki Instruments. Isseki Shiori had such a way with words. She could break the most devastating news, navigate the most difficult of subject matter, and make the whole dreaded exchange look seamless on top of it all.

Times like these, the best Arisa could do was to put herself in Shiori's shoes. Imagine what she would say.

"Well you see... that email you just showed me. I really don't think –"

Someone cleared their throat loudly behind them.

This time, Arisa didn't need to look down to spot the newcomer. The young woman peering critically back at her was more on the petite side, admittedly, standing around half a head shorter than Arisa herself, but that was a long way away from being small enough to literally overlook.

Her uniform clearly revealed her job title as a nurse, though strangely enough there was something in the way she carried herself which almost reminded Arisa of a model or a ballerina. A certain degree of... detachedness. An almost androidlike poise, which was almost as intimidating as it was elegant. (She'd noticed it in many of the other women nurses here too, in fact, which made her wonder whether the quality had been trained over the course of their employment. Or selected for. She didn't know which was more disconcerting.)

The nurse's keen copper eyes flitted between her and Chopper, her courteous smile giving nothing away. Long blonde tresses were pulled back into a ponytail so immaculate that her hair almost had the quality of being carved out of wax, with not a single strand straying out of place.

Arisa caught a glimpse of the ID card hanging off the lanyard around her neck.

RESSLICH KOTONE

And underneath, in smaller font:

SCRUB NURSE.

The name was somewhat familiar, weirdly enough. Shachi, one of the clinical research nurses Arisa had worked with that morning, had a habit of talking to himself aloud as he went about with a task, and the name had come up in passing a few times in his ramblings – "I need to remind Penguin, Kotone-chan told us to do so-and-so" and of the like – so Arisa had assumed this Kotone-chan must surely be a fellow coworker. Correctly, it seemed.

She stiffened when the nurse's knifesharp gaze zeroed in on her.

"You're Murasaki-san... the new trial coordinator, right? In Dr. Yotsuji's group?"

"Yes..."

Kotone nodded once in acknowledgement. Arisa felt her own smile falter a little, her caution slowly ebbing to bewilderment. So it seemed the cursory familiarity was mutual...?

What on earth was even going on?

"Are you lost?" Kotone asked.

"Lost? Well no, I...–" Arisa fumbled over her words as her mind finally caught up with the present situation. The swiftness of the intrusion had left her feeling somewhat gobsmacked. But then there was Chopper. She quickly moved aside to grant the nurse full view of the GLU student. "...a little, yes. I'm trying to help him with directions."

Kotone tucked her clipboard beneath her arm and peered down at Chopper.

"Are you a visitor?" she queried bluntly.

"No, I'm an in-"

"The daycare is downstairs."

"No, Resslich-san, he isn't –"

"I can take you there, or do you want me to call someone to get you?"

"No, what the hell? Intern – I'm an intern, damn it!" the reindeer snapped, rightfully sounding indignant. He rushed over, nearly stumbling over his hooves in his haste to show her his phone. "My name is Chopper, and I'm a university student! I'm looking for Dr. Diamante!"

"Diamante?"

"He's my mentor for this term!"

Kotone blinked, quirking one eyebrow in confusion as she took Chopper's phone and began scrolling through the email chain. One corner of her corral-tinged lips tilted upwards in a shadow of a smirk.

"Mentor, huh..." she muttered beneath her breath, more to herself. Then, raising her chin with a professional smile, she turned to Arisa. "Understood. I can take care of this."

"But..." Arisa shot a helpless look over to Chopper, before leaning in and lowering her voice. "That email. You should take him to IT, get them to check it out."

"What for?"

What for...!? Arisa's jaw nearly dropped. Are you kidding me?

"Don't you think it looks a little suspicious?" she posited feebly instead. "Accepting to mentor a complete stranger from just a single exchange over email is a bit... I mean, does that sound believable to you? What if the doctor was hacked?"

Kotone let out an incredulous snort, hugging her clipboard closer to her chest.

"Oh, he wasn't hacked. I know Dr. Diamante. Believe me when I say that this has his fingerprints all over it."

"How can you be sure? Just to be safe, you should–"

"It's fine. Don't you have a meeting with the Director coming up? You should go on; I'll take care of this." Kotone only widened her smile – the expression coming off more unnerving than reassuring, as was probably the intent – then whirled around to face Chopper. "Diamante's office, you said? Come along – it's just around the corner. I can take you there."

"Really?" Chopper brightened. "Oh, man~ I was so scared that I was gonna run late! Thank you so much!"

Arisa stared helplessly after them as they set off, her eyes lingering on Chopper's retreating form. The reindeer's excitement was apparent in his body language as he pranced along Kotone's side.

Even amidst her worries, Arisa couldn't help but crack a small smile at the sight.

Yeah... he's cute, she decided. A little naive, but really cute...

And then:

Wait a second. How did she know about my meeting?

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Room 2248B...

Here then.

Arisa huffed out a breath, stopping to take in the faded placard hanging by the door. She fished out her phone and double checked with the conference room number Dr. Yotsuji had listed on the calendar invite. The lights were turned off, so she was the first one there by all accounts.

She tried the knob, and was grateful to find it unlocked. No need to run down a worker from Facilities for a key then, thank goodness.

Well. There's no harm in being early –

Tightening her grip on the strap of her bag, she pushed the door open and stepped in.

Even in the dark, it was apparent that the conference room was much more spacious than she'd anticipated, with its interior furnished in that same modern, minimalistic style characteristic of Dressrosa Hospital. A long, darkwood table which looked like it could easily seat thirty people took its place as the centerpiece of the room. Before it, a podium and a flatscreen-mounted stand were positioned on a small raised platform. A row of acoustic panels lined the high walls.

Out of habit, Arisa found herself checking her watch again. Five more minutes.

Might as well get settled in before the others arrive.

She started to reach for the light switch, only to freeze in place when her eyes fell to the far end of the room.

A man was sitting at the other end of the table. Well, slouched was a better way to put it, with the way he had his head propped against one hand, as if he were on the verge of dozing off.

How hadn't I noticed him before?

Arisa started to speak up, then felt her heart drop when her gaze dropped to the open laptop before him. Oh, God... Had she just interrupted his meeting?

The man opened one eye and looked at her. It was hard to make out any specific features through the gloom – in fact, it was the very fact that he'd just been sitting there, alone in that room with all the lights turned off, that left her more unsettled than embarrassed – but Arisa felt herself balk under the intensity of his stare all the same, her intuition screaming at her to drop everything and flee.

Her sense of propriety dictated otherwise.

"Excuse me," she stammered, clutching nervously at her bag. Her voice stalled at the back of her throat as her mind momentarily went blank again. "I-I should have knocked... I think I have the wrong room."

Damn it... For the second time that day, she cursed herself for not being born as Isseki Shiori. Cheeks burning, she bowed her head in apology and hastily backed out of the room.

It was only when she was safely outside, with the door safely shut to any further embarrassments, that her brain finally caught up with her instincts.

Could I really have made such a stupid mistake?

...no, I couldn't have!

Arisa scrambled to pull out her phone and clicked the link on her virtual calendar.

2248B.

She looked at the invite, then swiveled her head to glare at the placard. 2248B.

No, she wasn't going crazy. This place had to be it. And now – with a despairing look at her watch – it was less than five minutes until the meeting...

That guy... he's probably a resident who found the room unlocked and decided to use it as a study space.

In that case...

Arisa turned around and marched back to the door, reinvigorated. Despite the vindication, the pointlessness of her own overreaction left her feeling more embarrassed and – perhaps to an even greater extent – vexed towards the man in the room. Quite the gall he had, to make her feel like she was intruding when it was actually the other way around!

The stranger still hadn't budged from his seat. He was typing something on his laptop when Arisa poked her head back into the room.

"Um... I'm sorry to interrupt, but –"

"Are you the new trial coordinator?" he broke in.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. His voice was low but clear, marked by a certain languid quality... like a cat's purr. If Arisa weren't so on edge at that moment, she might have even gone as far as to admit that it sounded almost soothing.

The man continued to type, his attention still riveted to his screen. She realized with another start that he was waiting for her to answer, and cleared her throat rather self-consciously.

"Yes, I am."

This evoked a single nod, but the rapid typing didn't cease. He still hadn't looked at her yet. Arisa bit her lip, then dared to open the door a bit wider.

"I have a meeting here in a few minutes..."

"Yeah, I know."

Arisa had to bite her tongue to thwart her immediate reaction. First the Hospital Director, then the nurse, and now him... What, had her work calendar been leaked to the entire staff?

"Is it okay if I turn on the lights?" she ventured instead, her hand hovering over the switch.

Silence.

"Uh, sir –"

"I don't care. Do what you want."

Arisa decided to do just that. Shouldering her bag with a huff, she activated the switch and wordlessly marched over to the spot right across from him. Hopefully that would be enough for him to take the hint, though his reactions thus far didn't bode well for him in the self-awareness factor.

Of course, she was right to doubt, as the man infuriatingly stayed put. It took everything she had in her not to glare at him as she deposited her bag in the adjacent chair.

Now that the lights were on, she could see clearly that he was indeed a doctor, albeit a rather shabbily dressed one. The dark dress shirt he wore beneath his white lab coat clearly hadn't been ironed recently, his lanyard was hanging crookedly, and his hair was... Well. If Arisa were to be perfectly blunt, he looked like he'd just crawled out of bed, even if the dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes seemed to bely such an assumption. Even with the light from his laptop screen illuminating his gaunt face, the spots appeared almost bruise like in prominence against his skin.

Despite all of this, he still looked remarkably young as far as doctors went. Maybe only a few years older than her by all accounts...

A resident then. And a remarkably rude one at that...!

Arisa purposefully kept her gaze averted as she began rummaging through her bag for her things.

I'm not even going to bother, she decided, sitting down and opening her laptop. Two can play in this game. If he isn't meant to be here, then I'll just leave it to the Hospital Director to kick him out...

Once everything was laid out, she made a pretense of checking her email. Her thoughts strayed back to earlier events – more specifically, to the episode with the little reindeer intern. She hid a sigh.

Oh, Chopper. Wherever that strange nurse took you... I hope you're faring better than me right now. I hope those messages were legitimate, and that you didn't end up falling for a scam–

"What's that?"

Throughout all of her ruminations, Arisa had failed to notice that the stream of typing from the opposite side of the table had died away altogether. The man had closed his laptop and was now leant back in his chair with folded arms... and he was staring directly at the box she'd carelessly left out by her elbow. The tacky, bright colored logo of the diabolical Senkichi and his equally diabolical grin was clearly visible beneath the clear crinkled plastic.

Arisa felt like sinking into the floor.

...I hate you, Shiori.

"It's... something I brought from my hometown," she heard herself say faintly.

He just kept looking at it.

"Cookies?"

"...rice crackers." Arisa squared her shoulders and began to speak faster and faster. Now that she was in the thick of things, she felt weirdly obliged to defend Senkichi and – by some bizarre extension – her home country's honor. "This brand is really popular in Wano right now. Goes well with tea, and... Well, I thought maybe everyone at the office would enjoy some."

In the awkward silence that elapsed, Arisa almost dared to hope that the worst might be over. That hope was dashed when the man unexpectedly reached across the table and took the package to study it closer.

"Senkichi's Assorted Senbei Crackers," he read aloud.

Arisa flushed in indignation at his puzzled look.

"Yeah. The name is... a little on the tacky side. But they're really good, I promise!"

"Hm. Interesting."

As the man turned the box over in his hands, Arisa noticed for the first time that he was heavily tattooed. There were several letters inked to his fingers, as well as tribal-style designs on the backs of his hands and the lower part of his forearms, the latter of which disappeared into his sleeves. Interesting. Not to mention a bit nostalgic. As far as Arisa could remember, the only other tattooed doctor she'd met was–

Rip.

Arisa nearly gasped aloud, half rising from her chair. This bastard actually had the audacity to start opening the box!

The man stopped, catching the aghast look on her face.

"It's for the meeting, right?"

"Yes!" Arisa snapped back, recovering enough of her wits to sputter back a rejoinder. "But it's not...! You aren't even supposed to be here! It's just me and Dr. Yotsuji!"

And the Hospital Director... though she deliberately chose to leave that out. She was still sore over that one.

The man frowned as he selected one small package of the assorted rice crackers from the box.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, leaning back in his chair. Arisa felt her eye twitch as he blatantly tore open the plastic wrapper. "Didn't you see the updated invitation?"

Her blood instantly ran cold.

"...updated invitation?"

He bit into the rice cracker with a loud crunch, nodding over to her phone as he began to chew. She scrambled to pull up the event details from her calendar.

List of attendees (Required):

Murasaki Arisa (Accepted)

Prof. Yotsuji Tsutomu (Accepted)

Prof. Donquixote Doflamingo (Accepted)

And at the very bottom of that list was one final addition, with a note from Dr. Yotsuji sent only a couple minutes ago:

Dr. Trafalgar D. Water Law (No Response)

 Comments:

Last minute addition as per Prof. Donquixote's request. Sorry for the short notice.  - Yotsuji

She read the message twice. Three times. By repetition number five, the shaking fist hanging at her side served as but a meager indication as to the true extent of her wrath.

Meanwhile, the man – no, this Dr. Trafalgar – was peering up at her curiously as he consumed another bite of rice cracker.

"Did you find it?"

With effort, Arisa looked up from her phone to meet his nonchalant gaze.

...is it normal to want to quit on your first day?

Luckily for them both, it was at this precise moment that the door clicked open.

Notes:

So I kinda freestyled this chapter. Had no idea how I was going to introduce Law through Arisa's POV... and then was struck with the imagery of him just sitting there, alone in a dark conference room on his laptop... menacingly. It felt so in character for him that I decided I had to keep it. xD

I want to strike a balance between him being chill / "go-with-the-flow" (pre-TS vibes) but also super brusque and inconsiderate to tie in the delinquent quality. Hopefully I will be able to convey it properly. (and the angst ofc. Don't worry, I won't forget the angst!)

So yes. He is admittedly gonna be an exceptionally rude boi in this.  I apologize on his behalf beforehand.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know. I would be happy to know your impressions so far! ^^

Thanks for reading!

-shiba

(p.s. The inter-colleague homicide attempts will start in the next chapter. I can't wait to get into that-)