I Sell Gacha Jars in One Piece

Dr. Kureha and Hiriluk went back a long way. She knew about his research, had known for years, had watched him pour himself into the idea of coaxing flowers out of a land that had no business growing them. Seeing Chopper out there with a sack of seeds and that particular look of earnest determination, she had assumed it was another one of Hiriluk's schemes and laughed accordingly.

"Dr. Kureha, these aren't from the doctor's research," Chopper called up between handfuls. "They came from Mr. Amon's jar!"

"Amon?" The name meant nothing to her.

"Yes! His jars are incredible, they have..." Chopper gave her the short version as he worked, hitting the main points between steps. Seeds from a jar. A merchant named Amon. One day to bloom.

Kureha listened to all of it, then tilted her bottle back and laughed.

"You're telling me some merchant's jar produced seeds that can grow into flowers in a single day?" She shook her head. "Either you've had too much to drink or I have, because I have been alive for over a century, boy, and I have never once heard of anything like that."

"It's true!" Chopper planted his feet and looked up at her with the full intensity of someone who had watched Amon pull off three things that should have been impossible in the last twenty-four hours. "And the doctor's illness is gone. Mr. Amon cured him."

That stopped Kureha's laughter.

"Hiriluk's illness is gone?!"

"Yes."

"Impossible." Her voice was flat. "I examined him myself. There was no cure for what he had."

"Go look for yourself if you don't believe me."

Kureha stared down at him for a long moment, then looked away and took another drink, waving a hand as if dismissing the whole conversation. She turned toward her door. She was done talking about it.

But once she was inside, with Chopper's small silhouette still visible through the window, working steadily across the mountainside with his short arms going back and forth, the skepticism lost some of its footing. She sat with her bottle and her thoughts, and the thoughts kept arriving at the same uncomfortable question.

After a few minutes, she went out through the back door and headed down the mountain.

...

Chopper came trudging back to the cave an hour later, arms empty and thoroughly exhausted.

"Good work up there," Hiriluk said warmly. The peak was the one place only Chopper could reach, and he had done it without complaint.

"I didn't mind." Chopper sat down and caught his breath. "I've never seen flowers. I want to see what they look like."

It was true. He had been born on this island, had grown up in its perpetual winter, and had never in his life seen a thing in bloom. After eating the Human-Human Fruit and becoming something that belonged to neither the world of reindeer nor the world of humans, it had been Hiriluk who found him. Who took him in at the lowest point he had ever reached. Being out there planting seeds for Hiriluk's dream hadn't felt like effort at all.

Robin was watching the two of them from across the cave with something soft and thoughtful in her expression. "Will those flowers really bloom?" she asked Amon quietly. "I've never heard of anything flowering in conditions like this."

"They will," he said. He had no reason to doubt the system, and plum blossoms in particular were built for exactly this kind of cold. "Everyone get some sleep. By morning you'll have your answer."

"Lily, dinner."

"I'll help." Robin followed Lily to where the food was waiting, and the two of them carried the meal out together. The smell that filled the cave when they set it down was immediate and extraordinary.

Chopper's head came up like he'd heard a bell.

"What is that smell? I've never smelled food like this before." He was already moving toward the table with wide eyes before the sentence was finished.

He took a bite.

"This is amazing. What is it made from?"

Before Amon could answer, Robin looked up from her bowl with a perfectly measured expression.

"Reindeer broth."

Chopper's chopsticks stopped moving.

"Reindeer broth is a dish where you first take the reindeer and..." Robin began describing the preparation in careful detail.

"Ha. It's mushroom soup," Amon said. "Don't listen to her."

Chopper looked from one to the other and then slowly, very carefully, picked his chopsticks back up.

Robin's quiet laughter was entirely self-satisfied. Chopper spent the rest of the meal seated at the opposite end of the table from her, angled slightly away, which Robin appeared to find deeply rewarding.

It was, taken together, a pleasant evening.

...

The next morning, Chopper and Hiriluk were both awake before the light had properly settled. They sat near the cave entrance and didn't open the door.

"Doctor," Chopper said after a while. "Do you think the seeds actually bloomed?"

"I don't know." Hiriluk's hands were folded in his lap, very still. "Mr. Amon seemed certain. So I think... yes. Probably." He was trying to believe it. "Probably yes."

He was afraid to look. That was the truth of it. He had carried this hope for thirty years, and he had learned over those thirty years that hope had weight, and the heavier it got, the more it hurt when it fell.

"Then let's go outside and see," Chopper said.

"Just a little longer."

Chopper sat back down.

They waited.

Then, from just outside the cave entrance, came a voice that neither of them had been expecting.

"You two. Come out." Dr. Kureha. "The flowers bloomed. The whole kingdom is celebrating.If you don't believe me, listen."

They listened.

Through the stone and the winter air came something faint but unmistakable. Voices. Distant, scattered, moving. The sound of people who had stepped outside and found something waiting for them.

Chopper reached the door first. He threw it open, and the scent arrived before anything else, clear and sweet and completely unlike anything the winter air of Drum Island had ever carried before.

The mountainside was covered in plum blossoms. Every slope, every path, every flat surface that held soil was flowering, pale pink blooms covering the white of the snow in color that had no right to be there and was there anyway.

Chopper stood in the doorway looking at it, and then turned and found Hiriluk standing just behind him, and the expression on the old doctor's face was one that had no category except its own, and Chopper put his arms around him and held on, and neither of them said anything for a while.