Breathless

"Well, that was pleasant. Thanks for lending a hand, egg-boy." Cherry wiped her lips politely with a napkin.

Tamago's brow twitched in response. "I take it that you'll be leaving then?"

He sure hoped that she would leave without a fuss. While the portion afforded to him looked small compared to Cherry's mountain of food, which she somehow consumed both hastily and with perfect manners, the meal had left him feeling somewhat bloated and slow.

Normally that wouldn't make any difference, but every little factor would matter if he was to get into a fight with someone who outclassed him.

Cherry stood up and said, "See you later, Pekoms… or not, if you die before we meet again. Want me to pass on any messages to the minks if you do?"

"I said my goodbyes before I came here," Pekoms spoke solemnly.

Tamago felt sorry for him, but his old friend made his choice and Tamago had made his as well. There was nothing else to say about it.

Tamago shut the book and stuffed it back into its place on the book shelf. When he turned around, he felt relief to see that Cherry was already leaving.

Then he saw that she didn't bother to take the table, dishes, or cart with her. His annoyance came back with a vengeance.

"Sacre bleu…" Tamago muttered.

Cherry stepped outside just in time to hear that and smile. She shut the door and walked a short distance down the hall, then she turned pale and translucent before turning directly into the wall and vanishing inside.

Pekoms silently hung by the pins piercing his hands inside his now pitch black paper cell. He wished that they would just get this over with. He didn't enjoy this empty darkness, not like he enjoyed the vast starry sky on the nights when Zunesha's fog would clear just enough to see it.

For a moment, he thought that he could almost see a star, peering through this oppressive blackness. As the star grew larger and formed a familiar face, he realized that he wasn't seeing things after all.

"Yo." Cherry greeted him with a whisper and a smile.

Pekoms sighed. He wondered whether it would be better to be alone and in the dark.

"Hey now, none of that. Or do you not want me to bust you out of here?" Cherry asked, seemingly bemused. "You know, I wasn't going to save you myself, but then I heard Pedro and Brook saying that they'd leave it to me instead of doing it themselves. Since my presence changed their plans, it's only right that I should follow through, no?"

"I'm not complaining, gao." Pekoms said. Cherry being the one to do it, assuming she was being honest, would certainly give the highest chance of success, he thought, but also had the highest chance of getting on his nerves in the process. A sacrifice he would just have to make, unfortunately.

"I'm surprised you didn't rat out Bege," Cherry said as she stepped completely into the closed book cell.

"What for? Bege will fail, and miserably so. I don't know what asinine plan he has cooked up, but no amount of plotting and planning is enough to beat Mama." Pekoms scoffed. "Snitching wouldn't change the outcome of that little conspiracy, but it would increase the security around the wedding which in turn would be doing your lot a disservice when I'm meant to be helping you. So I kept quiet."

Cherry gave him a smile that was almost pleasant. 'Almost' because it didn't have enough fangs to feel entirely genuine to his mink sensibilities.

"How are you doing that, anyways?" Pekoms changed the subject.

"What? This?" Cherry motioned at her body, still a ghostly flame in the shape of her physical form.

Seeing Pekoms nod, she said, "That's easy to do, less easy to explain."

'Largely because I don't want to tell the truth,' Cherry thought.

"However, if you must know, then I'll ask you a question in turn. Did you know that while matter can feel quite solid, even the densest and hardest materials are mostly empty space and connective repelling forces? I'm taking advantage of that by unfusing all my bits into the smallest particles, then slipping them through that empty space in matter, like this book." Cherry fed him a bullshit explanation.

Pekoms was only vaguely aware of her abilities and like most people, assumed any strangeness that came from her was related to her devil fruit in some way. Combine that assumption with being casually told that everything is mostly empty, and you have a recipe for a lion mink that won't ask any further questions.

"Right, so can you get me down? My hands are cramping up, gao." Pekoms asked politely.

Pekoms was plunged back into darkness. If not for the sound of Cherry stepping towards him, he might have thought he had imagined the entire exchange. He felt the pins in his hands vanish unexpectedly and dropped to the floor of the cell with a soft thump.

"Now, how to get you out of here?" Cherry thought aloud.

"You didn't consider that beforehand?" Pekoms was already feeling the exasperation and that wasn't a good sign. He'd never heard of anyone dying of exasperation before, but he'd rather not test if it was possible.

"Of course not, who do you take me for? Some kind of robot surgeon?" Cherry asked rhetorically. "Oh, I know! I'll put you in my pocket."

"You're going to what?" Pekoms was dumbfounded.

Unfortunately, he couldn't see a damned thing, so when Cherry not only didn't explain but picked him up, he failed to react in time before he felt himself being stuffed into what felt like a burlap sack, except softer.

Right before his head was stuffed inside last, Cherry warned, "Take a deep breath, I'm not sure how much air is in there, if any at all."

Pekoms quickly did as she bade him for fear that she wasn't joking and that he might actually suffocate.

The inside of the 'pocket' was a strange place. It felt like he was in a fabric cocoon that stretched and changed shape as he moved around, grasping for any kind of solid surface of which he could find none. All sounds from the outside had ceased completely once inside, and he had a weightless sort of feeling like being underwater but without the water.

'I'm sorry that I complained about how dark my cell was, Gao! This is a million times worse, Gao!' Pekoms practically screamed in his mind.

The worst part was definitely having to hold his breath without knowing if he'd be able to take another if he let it out. The uncertainty of it was far more dreadful than it would be just knowing for sure that there is no air.

The slowly growing panic was burning his oxygen faster than otherwise, he knew that, but he couldn't stop it. The seconds dragged on longer and longer, making him feel like minutes have passed already.

Then there was light. Blessed light.

"BWAAAAA!!!" Pekoms released his held breath that had been hammering against the inside of his chest painfully to escape, then took several deep breaths in succession as he calmed down.

"You were only in there for half a minute, Pekoms," Cherry said, a pink set of armor sinking into her skin as she spoke.