Im rereading some of the cosmic joke stuff and I think buggys soulmate and mihawks soulmate would get along really well when cross guild stuff happens. Just two fools shit talking their soulmates over loud circus music
Cross Guild Headquarters, East Wing Salon
(formerly known as ‘The Room No One Screamed In’)
It was early afternoon, or as close to it as anyone in the Cross Guild could tell. There were no clocks in the building. Buggy had declared them “hostile symbols of mortality.” Mihawk simply did not care. Crocodile had smashed the last one with his hook.
So the only reliable indicator of time was the frequency of explosions, emotional meltdowns, and monologues. By that measure, it was relatively peaceful.
A rare lull.
Which meant Mihawk’s soulmate had claimed the chaise. And Buggy’s was upside down in a velvet armchair, heels over the backrest, hair tangled in some absurdly expensive fabric.
They had pastries. They had wine. They had a safe six-room buffer from their respective disasters.
“Alright,” Buggy’s soulmate said, nibbling the edge of a cookie shaped like a clown shoe. “What do you think the odds are that Crocodile’s been soulbonded?”
Mihawk’s soulmate did not look up from their book.
“Why would you say something so cursed out loud?”
“No, listen,” the other insisted, rolling upright. “He’s been twitchy. Tense in a different way. Less like ‘I want to conquer a nation,’ and more like ‘I don’t know how to feel about this mind worm who told me to drink water and called me sir.’”
Mihawk’s soulmate turned a page with the kind of languid precision that meant they were listening, even if they pretended not to be.
A pause.
“That explains the sand in the foyer.”
Another moment passed. It should have been tranquil.
Instead, a sudden psychic throb ripped through the clown’s bond. Buggy’s laughter, raw and unfiltered, erupted in her skull like a confetti cannon in hell.
She jolted upright.
“He’s narrating a dream about our wedding. Out loud. In the middle of the strategy briefing. Someone help me.”
Mihawk’s soulmate arched a brow, vaguely sympathetic. “Mine’s quoting poetry again. In Latin. He’s trying to seduce me by osmosis.”
“Pretentious bastard.”
“Clown addict.”
They clinked their glasses together in solemn toast.
Then came the sound.
Heavy footfalls. A low muttered curse. The unmistakable hiss of sand against polished tile.
Both of them froze.
Crocodile swept past the open doorway, not noticing them, not acknowledging them. He looked stormy. Distracted. His coat hung slightly off one shoulder.
And tucked into the crook of his hook arm, crushed but unmistakable, was a bouquet of roses.
Buggy’s soulmate sat up straighter, eyes wide.
“Was that flowers?”
Mihawk’s soulmate closed their book with a soft snap.
“God help us. The crocodile’s been trapped.”
