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Among the LFC staff, every person had their own special thing they did around the holidays. There were some things that they all did together, but others were their specialties.
Achterberg decorated the office with tinsel and yellow lights, and Taffarel would choose the holiday music playlist. Kornmayer, meanwhile, was on drinks duty—something that Lijnders found quite annoying this year.
It wasn't like Kornmayer was bad at mixing and serving drinks. He knew what people wanted, when, and how they wanted it.
The problem was that this year, Kornmayer was giving everybody a hard time. He would prepare their coffee or tea just how they liked it. But then he would make the recipient complete a challenge to receive their beverage. The questions ranged from slightly relevant to the day's conversations ("How many pranks did Darwin claim to have done since last week?") to the absurd ("To be, or not to be?").
Lijnders, who wasn't in the mood to answer questions that day, had forgone his usual coffee at breakfast for water. Unfortunately, it just so happened to be that Lijnders had a very strong craving for hot chocolate a la Andreas Kornmayer. He trudged up to the drinks station in the office, silently praying that Kornmayer wouldn't bombard him with his silly questions.
"Pep!" Kornmayer appeared out of nowhere, holding a mug of coffee. He took one look at Lijnders and nodded. "Looks like somebody's thirsty."
"No, I'm not thirsty. I'm craving sugar," Lijnders corrected him, wondering what he'd done to deserve putting up with this. Who even drank hot chocolate when they were thirsty? It was like drinking water to cure hunger. “Please, will you make me a hot chocolate? With cinnamon powder and sea salt?”
"I could see your craving for chocolate and cinnamon from breakfast," Kornmayer chuckled, bustling around the drinks table. Lijnders realized with a start that his coworker already had all the ingredients for his drink out, along with his favorite mug. "But first…”
"But first what?”
Kornmayer smiled a mischievous smile that could've rivaled Klopp's two-billion megawatt grin. "Name all the reindeer and I will.”
Lijnders bit his lip to prevent himself from screaming in frustration. How was he supposed to name all the reindeer when the number of reindeer varied throughout the world? In America, there could be up to ten reindeer to name, and in Lapland, there were eight. The poet commonly attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, there were six reindeer, and in the Netherlands, where Lijnders had grown up, there were originally seven. He had to remember them all, or he would fail his test and never get his hot chocolate.
It was a dumb thing to despair about, that's for sure. But when one had a sugar craving to deal with, despair came easily.
"There's... Dasher, I think? I think that's what Robbo used to call Trent back when he was still a teen. Alexis did say that one of his boyfriend's teammates had two reindeer plushies called Donner and Blitzen...and then there's the Rudolph reindeer song that I can't get out of my head! Dancer must be one of them. I'll have to ask Alexis which one it is. Maybe it's Donner like I guessed, or maybe it's the one named after a Roman god. Cupid? Or Vixen? There were Prancer and Comet. How many more am I missing?”
“Absolutely none." Kornmayer handed Lijnders his mug of hot chocolate with a twinkle in his eyes. "Now drink up before you go crazy from sugar deprivation."
Lijnders was shocked. So far, nobody had managed to answer Kornmayer's questions that day. He managed to utter a quick thanks before speed-walking out of the office, nearly spilling his hot chocolate. He stopped by the stairs and took a sip of his hot chocolate to calm his nerves.
How did I do that? I guess I know more than I thought. But how come Andreas didn't give everybody else easy questions? Is he pulling these questions out of a hat or something, or—
A pair of voices conversing pierced Lijnders' train of thought. He hid behind the staircase and decided to listen in on the conversation.
"You really gave him the reindeer question? I told you he'd freak out over that!"
“He answered it correctly, though. Pep's a lot cleverer than he gives himself credit for, both with trivia and general knowledge.”
Jurgen and Andreas collaborated?!
“That question can be hard or easy depending on where you're from, though. In France, there isn't even a single reindeer!"
“Pep is Dutch, Jurgen. 'The Night Before Christmas' was written by a Dutch migrant.”
“I thought it was written by that Clement guy!"
“Whatever, the question wasn't that hard."
“It could've been! That would be like asking a Martian about the Gangnam Style meme.”
“Still believing in those aliens, aren't you?"
“Yep.”
Lijnders shook his head with a fond smile and downed the rest of his chocolate. His coworkers asked weird questions and had even weirder answers, but it was nice to hear people saying good things about you behind your back.
Plus, the hot chocolate was just as good as any Kornmayer drink was.