Chapter Text
Shines of the early spring sun splattered against the high window of the Parfaedia Institute.
The hallway was heavily filled with the lethargic atmosphere of a typical Thursday afternoon. Through the windows, the wondrous town of Parfaedia spreads out. The low, finely constructed houses stretched in a long row along the water, almost indistinguishable from each other except for their height and colour. The bright sunshine and the lush shade of trees, the flowing rivers, bridges and hills on the farther bank, with their delicate greenery.
The brilliant scenery did not cast its effect on Espresso Cookie. Leaning his head on the desk, the Mage glanced at the clock and yawned. He has been working on his new experiment for 16 hours straight since last evening. In pursuit of accuracy, he repeats each experiment several times and carefully reviews it - An extremely time consuming task. The time spent on the experiments, however, was necessary, as Espresso Cookie always says. He would generously sacrifice his time for sleeping and eating for his projects, therefore light always burned late behind the never-opened curtains on the second floor of the Parfaedia Institute. If he had not finished using the last blank sheet of paper to record the experimental data he had just obtained, he would have decided to start the report before taking a break.
After a couple of minutes of reckoning, Espresso Cookie stepped out of his dim room - he kept his office dark and cool, never letting in direct sunlight for the sake of maintaining the quality of coffee beans - into the hallway, where he came face-to-face with Latte Cookie, who was holding two steaming lattes.
“Look who’s here! I haven’t seen you for the whole week, Espresso Cookie.”
He calculated how to get around without talking to her, but the hallway seemed excessively narrow in this situation, and the other had already come up to him, so he had to give up.
The latter seems quite pleasant at seeing him. It’s always been a mystery to him why those cookies had persisted around him even though he often expresses his unwillingness outwardly. He had limited himself to making only inconsequential connections with others, to remember lightly the images that casually pile up in his memory as he ponders on a quiet Sunday morning. The only thing he wants to do is to live his academic life without too many distractions, although he still needs to learn to associate with those cookies he cannot avoid.
“I’ve got better things to do than wandering around.” Espresso Cookie lifted his brows and flicked a contemptuous glance at the cups in the other's hand through his lenses, wondering which poor egg was going to join the leisurely lady for her afternoon "coffee".
Latte Cookie glanced back at him, just a flash of the unwelcoming dark eyes, and that brief look was enough to tell that the scholar hadn't been getting any sleep. The lines near his eyes were deeper than two days before.
“Why, taking breaks is a necessary part of life!” She frowned, yet accustomed to espresso's disdain for resting.
“You would never come to your senses.” He sighed, and immediately decided to move on.
“Wait! It’s so rude for you to just walk away during a conversation!”
“I didn’t know we were having one." As always, totally indifferent to the reproach, "My time is tight. I need to go get some paper, and I doubt there’s any reason for you to insist on stopping me.” Seeing Latte Cookie's attempt to get in his way, he pouted dismissively.
A confused light crossed Latte Cookie's eyes. “Paper? Why don’t you just get some from Eclair Cookie? He always keeps a bunch of extra.”
That stopped Espresso Cookie, a look of intrigue crossed his face.
“It would be convenient for fact…” Interesting enough, he has never thought of borrowing supplies from his colleagues. Latte Cookie must have done so often, for he knew she's too relaxed to remember getting things for the office. Yes, that would work, and he can save the time needed to get to the store.
However, there's a new question about this idea. He rolled his eyes and his brows slightly furrowed.
“Who is that cookie?”
“Dear Witches!” Latte Cookie exclaimed, dumbfounded by his utter ignorance of his surroundings, “He is right at your next door. How can you not remember him?”
“I see…” He held his chin in his fingers and glanced at the office door of the history professor without responding to the lady's astonishment.
“Espresso Cookie-! That’s why you don’t have paper to borrow when you run out of it.“ Latte Cookie tossed her hair, tilting her head, “He is in class now, but I’m sure he won’t mind if you help yourself. It’s in the first drawer on the right side of the table. You will find it.”
Not many courses are scheduled at this hour. Except for the history lecture room, most of the rooms are empty. Eclair Cookie was a noted enthused professor and a fine storyteller; and since most of the youth were interested in the history of the cookie kingdom, everyone attended his course, so much so that the professor went beyond the existing curriculum and added some discussion sessions and lectures. Espresso Cookie could never fathom where this enthusiasm came from. He deliberately designed his classes to be extremely difficult to keep students from picking his course so that he could focus on his own research.
“If you say so - Surely I do not take responsibility for it.” Coffee replied bluntly, and turned to walk away, apparently figuring the meeting was already too drawn out.
Latte Cookie called out to him again, taking no mind to stepping on his final limits of patience. Giving the Mage a smile, she lifted one of the cups in her hand and attempted to hand it to him. "And will you do me a favour by putting this cup of latte on his desk?”
“Hilarious for you to think I would touch that thing!”
As if being embarrassed by the request, Espresso Cookie quickly walked towards the door next to his and went in.
The cream-colored curtains were wide open, and orange air of the afternoon filled the room elegantly. In one corner, next to the window, stood a large bookshelf holding some of the best history works one can find in Parfaedia, if not the entire earth bread. Some of them Espresso Cookie recognised, and he almost formed instantly an appreciation for Eclair’s immaculate taste in book collections.
Anyhow, he didn’t want to spend much time in another's office room, so he quickly headed towards the table. Students' papers and parchment scrolls piled up across the table, with two bottles of ink sitting next to a stack of history textbooks, holding a beautiful quill in the bottle.
He opened the drawer. A bunch of paper stacks in it, just as Latte Cookie said. He took a few, and was ready to take his leave just at the moment he noticed the paper copies behind the paper stack. These papers are of excellent quality, thicker compared to the paper beside them, and are of a brand new mint white. None of these trivial details, though, were enough to really get any attention from Espresso Cookie at first sight; it was the title:
A Refined Evaluation on Coffee Magic.
It was quite a shock as he recognised that it was his newest paper, published just a few weeks ago. Out of mere curiosity, he pulled it out a little to turn a few pages. The ever more familiar sentences came to his sight, interspersed with a handful of markings and underlines in blue ink made by the reader, as evidence that his article was read by the owner of this desk. Away from his office, outside the academic circle of coffee magic, his theories and experimentation have been read privately with no apparent lack of interest.
Unexpected. Thought Espresso Cookie. Though he did not care for paying attention to others' affairs, he could not help but wonder why a history professor would read and retain such a work that seemed to have nothing to do with his studies. To be honest, he was rather inquisitive as to whether the professor thought the work even had any historical value. It was certainly better than the original Treatise on Coffee Magic, which he had intended to throw away, yet had mysteriously become a museum exhibit…
If he is working on this subject he should have consulted me in the first place. He thought. Unless he’s merely interested in reading this on his own.
He never thought a historian would be capable of appreciating his work. Not even as many mages as he expected appreciate his works.
Surely he is not considering putting another work of mine into the museum — is he? His face crumpled at the thought of the possibility.
A voice sounded at the door, interrupting his ponder, indicating the approach of somebody. Out of a peculiar sense of embarrassment, he subconsciously closed the article under his hand and promptly pushed it back into the corner of that drawer.
“For sure, I will…!” The comer was startled when he turned his head and saw the cookies standing in his office and gasped in shock. The scrolls of parchment fell to the floor with a series of splatting thumps. Upon seeing who was standing behind his desk, a suspicious shade of red crept onto Eclair Cookie's face.
“I-I apologies! ” He exclaimed while bending down to collect his scrolls, a bit fumbling due to hurry.
All right, he was going to cut that thought off right there.
Espresso Cookie's eyes roamed back and forth between the historian and the floor, with a short sign, then crisply rounded out from behind the desk and picked up the last scroll which the other hadn't yet managed to reach. The professor jerked his head up, accepted his belonging with a sigh and a friendly, sheepish smile. “Thank you.”
Espresso Cookie watched the historian stand up, stood back a little as the other’s shoulder inadvertently brushed across his arm, “You’re welcome.”
“I'm sorry you had to witness this farce. I'm just... a little surprised to have you here, Professor Espresso Cookie.” He bowed politely, with a little stiffness.
“I came to borrow a few sheets of paper.” Espresso Cookie averted his eyes from the other cookie with a slight cough, “Latte Cookie said I may pick some from here. In case you mind.”
“N-No, of course you may! Please get as much as you need!” The historian hastily followed.
“It's appreciated. Please excuse me.” He intended to step out, feeling he had wasted enough time in this room.
“Professor Espresso Cookie.” The professor took a few steps toward, then suddenly looked unnerved, “By the way, did you take the paper from the drawer?”
The Mage looked back at the blond, who was staring at him with an unfathomable expression. “Yes. What’s the matter?” He recalled his papers that he had seen in the drawer and had quite an idea of what the professor was asking about, while intends to remain silent about his discovery for now.
“No, nothing…” He smiled, grabbed his documents and passed Espresso Cookie at the door, “Glad to see you!”
“What did you do to him?” Latte stood and watched the good old professor scurrying off to continue his unfinished lesson, and turned to Espresso Cookie.
"I wonder more why someone could stand in the hallway for the whole afternoon."
Her eyes glimmered with a slight upset, and blocked the way of Espresso Cookie, who planned to excuse himself, “I'm standing here for you, Prof. Seclusion who rushed away before I could speak. We teachers are going together to the Bar tonight, are you coming?”
"And with whom you decided that?"
"Almond Cookie agreed, and Eclair Cookie will come. We've never gone together before, you always refuse." She looked into the Mage's eyes and gave an affable smile.
Only affable in the very most superficial sense, thought Espresso Cookie. He knew too well that he was standing in front of the Master of disrupting-his-plan. His face twitched while reflecting how Latte Cookie had attempted to get him into unimportant activities. "Because we care about you!" said her always. He had to admit there were a few times when she and Madeleine are being somewhat helpful when they try to get him into bed when he's in some serious condition, but being invited to social gatherings, although they never consider which as an obstacle, was much too unsuitable for him.
“I must refuse again. Too busy for that.” He replied without hesitation anyhow, "Anything else? If not..."
“But we are expecting you!“ Knowing exactly what he was about to say, she immediately interrupted him, "You should take a break sometime. Have a little fun.”
Shouldn't waste time on irrelevant amusement. Thought Espresso Cookie, but he had well an idea she won't be easily convinced. "And if I refuse you will come for me again." Rubbing his temples, he can tell that an argument will only add on his mild headache from sleep deprivation. He sighed with a premonition of being defeated again in this conversation.
“Nnrg.” He pursued, an obvious reluctance spread across his face, which means "then it is set" to Latte Cookie.
”Everyone would like you more if you can be more friendly sometimes. Would you?” She smiled and patted his shoulders.
Not in my schedule. Thought Espresso Cookie.
“Anyhow.” He jumped out of the topic, for he understood sticking with that issue he would never be able to escape from this cookie, “I was wondering if you are familiar with that cookie. The historian."
“Eclair Cookie? Why, of course. I’m waiting for him to join my afternoon tea. We are friends.” Latte Cookie said.
“Is he — just out of curiosity, by any chance — researching coffee magic recently?”
“Since when are you interested in other Cookies!” She smiled in surprise, “Well, he could be researching anything you can name. Will you promise to come to the party if I agree to ask him about it for you?” Her brows slyly raised.
Fine. Looks like there's no way to skip that party. “No. Never mind. Just thought it unexpected to find documents on the subject in his office.”
"Oh." With a sign of cognisance flashed across her eyes, Latte Cookie chuckled a little, “He sometimes do that. But yes, that is pretty interesting." To Espresso Cookie's relief, she took a sip of the latte in her hand and stepped around him, "Well, I‘m letting you go for now. Do come tonight, busy cookie!”