Zoro watched in fascination as his captain stuffed his face with the dishes that Sanji had put out for dinner that evening. One of the dishes was a curry Sanji had whipped up using some rare chillies from the island they just left and to say it was hot was an understatement. Zoro enjoyed hot food, but even this was a challenge to him. Which is why he watched his captain in interest, waiting for some kind of reaction to the curry. When no reaction came, even after Luffy had taken seconds and thirds, Zoro had to speak up.
“Do you eat that curry so quickly that the spice doesn’t affect you or something?” Zoro said. The other crew members’ conversations tapered off as they too had taken interest in the answer.
Luffy, who was patting his full stomach, turned to Zoro. “Eh? You can’t handle a little spice, Zoro?”
Before Zoro could respond, Chopper spoke up. “Luffy… that was more than a little spice,” he said, and gestured to the tissues in his nostrils.
Luffy just shrugged. “Tastes all the same to me,” he said, which quickly earned him a kick to the head and a scolding from Sanji.
“Idiot! My food does not all taste the same. It’s abundant in complex flavours and textures,” Sanji said.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Sanji’s food always tastes great!”
Zoro chuckled. While Luffy was a terrible critic and couldn’t offer feedback beyond ‘good’ or ‘bad’, everyone knew he was at least honest.
“I wonder if our captain’s devil fruit has affected his sense of taste. Made everything milder,” Robin said.
Nami snorted. “I doubt it. I think he just inhales the food so quickly it doesn’t even touch the sides of his mouth.”
Everyone laughed at that. Their captain was something, all right.