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“Good afternoon Gusto.”
“… Frost.”
Dulce shuddered. His wet hair sticking to his face.
Gusto squeezed Dulce’s tiny hands a little tighter than the boy would have liked. It was 1:08 PM, and Gusto and Dulce were late to Dulce’s playdate with Lucas. It was Gusto’s fault, but Dulce couldn’t tell him that. His father wouldn’t stop forcing his son to taste test his foods for the upcoming competition, and he didn’t feel the need to bathe Dulce until the last minute.
Dulce shuddered again, leave it to Gusto to not even bother drying his son’s hair first before dragging him out of the house in a rush.
“Is your son alright?” Frost asked, the warm light from the house giving the artist an almost ethereal glow. “He’s shivering like a leaf!”
“It’s cold, we’d like to go inside,” Gusto replied. If his father was cold, then he was doing a fantastic job at hiding it. Arms folded in his usual cooking garb, not even bothering to wear a coat.
“Of course, please come in you two,” Frost said, stepping aside. “I baked some snickerdoodles, if you’d like some.”
“Oh… thanks,” Dulce replied, trying to hide his lack of interest. He didn’t know which was more unpleasant, Frost’s bad cooking or having to taste another sweet treat again. “But I wanna talk to Lucas first!” He looked up to Gusto, who was giving Frost an odd look. “If that’s okay?”
“It’s fine,” Gusto muttered.
Dulce wasted no time throwing his jacket to the floor scrambling up the spiral staircase, ignoring Gusto’s screams for him to run back and put his jacket away properly. Dulce approached Lucas’s bedroom slowly, tiptoeing to his door. He always felt envious that Lucas got to sleep in his own room, as Dulce had to share a bedroom with his father. He always hated the fact that Gusto would either treat him like a helpless infant or an adult with too much agency, leading to both over protection and constant neglect.
He’s so lucky to have a dad like him. Dulce thought to himself, bristling with a bit of envy.
Dulce opened Lucas’s door slightly, ready to pounce on his best friend, but his hand stopped at the doorknob. Behind the thick oakish doors were the sounds of… crying? Dulce knew Lucas was a notorious crybaby, but usually he was bouncing off the wall waiting for Dulce to visit him.
Wait… I bet he’s faking it, so I mess up my routine. Dulce laughed, slapping his forehead.
Dulce took a step back and burst through the door, raising his arms up, “RAAAAH! I’M HERE TO EAT THE KING! NOBODY WILL STOP ME!”
Usually, Lucas would respond by holding his toy magic wand, pretending it was a sword, and then scream his famous catchphrase, “Not on my watch! For I am Sir Frost, and I am here to protect the king from evil monsters!”
But instead, Dulce was confronted with a frightened, shaken Lucas, huddling and sobbing in his thick bedroom blanket. Lucas’s eyes were reddened and droopy, he had dark circles under eyes and his mouth couldn’t stop quivering.
He’s been crying for a while, hasn’t he? Dulce thought to himself.
Dulce had grown used to Lucas’s tearful antics. His haggard state implied he was crying for hours . But that couldn’t be right. Lucas WANTED to see Dulce after school, didn't he? He’s the one who asked for the playdate in the first place. Perhaps something happened before Dulce showed up? Or, knowing Lucas, he was probably deathly nervous about the final cooking competition.
Well, then I guess there’s one way to cheer him up I think.
Dulce stood in front of Lucas and clasped his hands together, “Hm. What shall we make today, kids?”
Lucas looked up, still sniffling, “huh?”
Dulce giggled, “I said, what shall we make today kids?”
Dulce dramatically twirled across the room, “Macarons, waffles with cream…” he pretended to bow to his dance partner. “Chiffon cakes that are light as a dream!”
He looked back at Lucas expectantly. Lucas looked more depressed than ever, “p-please leave me alone Dulcie.”
“Chiffon cakes that are light as a dream,” Dulce repeated himself, dramatically bowing several times. Lucas giggled, though it was faint. “C’mon! If we don’t finish the song, the food is ruined!”
“L-laugh and sing,” Lucas sang quietly. “Smile, it's true.”
Dulce grabbed Lucas’s cheeks and stretched them, “ you’re supposed to smile when you say that!”
“You didn’t have to pinch my cheeks,” Lucas replied in annoyance, though a visible smile was slowly creeping on his face. “Laugh and sing… SMILE...” Lucas’s mouth stretched wide, it looked unnatural, but it was a better sight to see than his helpless whimpering. “It’s true!”
Dulce held out his hand. Lucas hesitated for a moment before grabbing it, pulling him out of the bed, “all that s-sweetness, waiting for you.”
The two boys began to ballroom dance, clumsily stepping on each other’s feet. Dulce laughed, twirling and spinning with Lucas in the large bedroom.
“Look there!” Dulce pointed to Lucas’s toy chest.
“What? Where?” Lucas exclaimed, slapping his cheeks together, matching Dulce’s energy.
“Over there!” Dulce shouted, pointing even harder. “The oven’s got somethin’ special to share!”
Both of the boys ran to the toy chest, nearly stumbling over themselves. Lucas opened the chest slowly, Dulce closed his eyes and ruffled through the endless supply of toys and plushies.
“Now let’s see, what we’ve got for you,” the boys sang in unison.
Dulce pulled a blue stuffed horse toy, “TA-DA!”
“Wow!” Lucas spun around. “What does it taste like?”
“It tastes like magic!” Dulce pulled the horse to his face and mimicked eating sounds, “It’s delicious! Here, you try!”
Dulce placed the horse in Lucas’s hands. He watched with delight as Lucas returned to his usual, happy go lucky self. He hummed to himself while nibbling the horse’s ear, “So good!”
The boys fell to the floor laughing and giggling, giving each other various toys to “taste”. Dulce eyed Lucas subtly, with a red toy car in his mouth, the tears still stained his cheeks, but he was no longer crying. Eyes shut and mouth wide while he rolled on the floor howling with laughter, the dour mood he was in dissipated in an instant.
———
“Dulcie, can I tell you a secret?” Lucas said nervously, arms wrapped around his blue horse.
After a couple hours messing around with Lucas’s toys and aggressively playing Samson and Judy’s characters, the two boys decided to make a mini pillow fort and huddle up inside. Unfortunately, Lucas’s dour mood had returned, barely speaking while Dulce continued to draw himself, Lucas or whatever he felt like with a sheet of blank paper in hand. Dulce should’ve seen it coming, Lucas’s energy always seemed its lowest when the sun was setting.
He’s not crying anymore, Dulce thought to himself. But I don’t like moody Lucas either.
“Yeah,” Dulce replied. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“I hate this stupid contest,” Lucas said coldly.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Dulce didn’t look up from his messy artwork, “Me too.”
“Really?” Lucas asked, turning to his side. “But wouldn’t you enjoy getting to eat chocolate and sweets every day?”
Dulce stared deeply at the paper, flipping it over to draw something else. Sometimes he had an easier time expressing his feelings. He drew himself, smiling while eating a chocolate bar, then another version of himself frowning and crying, while surrounded by various treats and candy.
“I guess I liked it at first,” Dulce confessed. “But that was all I ate. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, my dad kept feeding me his food to “practice” on me. I got a little sick of it.”
Dulce hurriedly grabbed another blank sheet of paper and began to draw. He felt ashamed for admitting those feelings. He never hated his father, but he always resented the way Gusto would often disregard Dulce’s feelings to get what he wanted. But articulating those feelings felt selfish and childish. It’s not like Gusto was doing this because he hated him, Gusto was simply trying to improve their lives. It’s not Dulce’s fault that his father developed a taste disorder. It’s not Gusto’s fault that Dulce was selfish.
“You’re lucky,” Dulce continued. “Your dad doesn’t make you do anything. You just get to sit around and watch him sculpt.”
“Shut up,” Lucas retorted.
Dulce stopped drawing and looked up, Lucas’s face was surprisingly intense. Of the two children, Dulce considered himself the more serious of the two, while Lucas had a tendency to be more emotional. Sometimes he even wondered how he could even be related to Frost, who often had an overly serious expression plastered on his face. But Lucas’s furrowed eyebrows and tense lips made him look like the spitting image of his father.
“O-oh,” Dulce looked away, unused to the look of fury from his friend. “Sorry Lucas. I wasn’t trying to… Sorry.”
“W-wait no! I’m sorry!” Lucas covered his eyes. That timid little boy returned. “I’m sorry Dulcie, I didn't mean to say that! I dunno what came over me!”
“Do you um… wanna draw with me?” Dulce asked. It was a subtle way of him telling Lucas to draw what he was thinking.
Lucas nodded, grabbing the sheet of paper and drawing next to Dulce. Of the two, Lucas was the better artist, observing how his father sculpted and modeled helped Lucas develop a decent job in mimicking his art, at least to Dulce anyways. Dulce kept his eyes on his own artwork, but shot a few glances at Lucas’s paper, knowing Lucas always struggled when someone watched him. To his annoyance, Lucas’s arm was blocking the paper from his view.
“I don’t wanna do this contest anymore,” Lucas said, voice quavering.
“It ends tomorrow, then we’ll go back to our normal lives,” Dulce said sweetly, pressing his hand on Lucas’s back, mimicking a gesture he’d seen Frost use on Lucas to calm him down. “We’re tough guys. We can handle one more day.”
Lucas didn’t respond, he was too focused on his art. Dulce peered over to see what he was so focused on drawing.
It was messy, red scribbles. Nothing coherent could be made out of the drawing.
“It’s not fair,” Lucas mumbled. “ They’re the grown ups, why can’t they do this crap themselves? And isn’t cheating bad?”
“Huh! Don’t say that word Lucas!” Dulce replied, as if he wasn’t the one who taught Lucas that word. “And besides, it’s different. Because um, we’re cheating for a good reason. So we can have nicer lives. Plus, the only other person in the contest is some lady who’s cheating.”
“How do you know she’s cheating?” Lucas snarled. “And doesn’t that just mean we’re just as bad as her? Who’s to say she isn’t trying to make her life better too?”
“Well… it’s different,” Dulce said, somberly. “I mean, if your dad asked you for assistance, wouldn’t you want to help him?”
The paper tore.
“OF COURSE I DO! BUT NOT LIKE THIS!” Lucas snapped.
Tears sprang from his eyes, staining his bedsheets. Lucas fell over to a violent sob, shaking and squeezing his stuffed animal tighter, “I don’t wanna do this competition anymore. I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna…”
Dulce tried to reassure him with another press to his back, but Lucas impulsively pulled away.
“You don’t… want to eat chocolate?” Dulce asked, unsure how to calm his friend.
Dulce could only watch as his work to cheer up his friend quickly became undone, and Lucas was back to his sobbing, disheveled state.
“I’m sorry Dulcie,” Lucas wept. “I’m sorry. I’m an awful friend.”
“It’s okay Lucas,” Dulce said, rubbing his own arm. “I know this contest is stressful for everyone, you don’t have to feel guilty for wanting it to be over.”
Another prolonged silence from Lucas, it was unbearable.
“D-Dulcie,” Lucas asked in between sobs. “C-can I ask you something?”
“O-okay,” Dulce answered.
“When… wh-when someone hurts you, y-you always forgive them? Right?” Lucas asked, covering his face. “B-because they love you, so you should… a-always forgive them? Right?”
“H-huh? Where’s this coming from?” Dulce asked. “Are you talking about our dads and Samson? Because they’re lying to him?”
“Y-yeah,” Lucas said, voice shaking. “I-if someone told Mr.Samson that our dads were lying to him, he would be so sad. B-but then he’d forgive them, b-because he knew how much they cared about him.”
“I guess so…” Dulce said to himself. “I guess if I was Mr. Samson, I’d forgive them.”
Lucas wiped his tears, sniffling, “Me too. If someone I cared about hurt me… I’d forgive them.”
Dulce laughed, “Geez Lucas, you’re such a crybaby.”
“Y-yeah,” Lucas gave an uneasy smile. “And weak too.”
“Nah,” Dulce slumped himself over Lucas’s body. “Just a crybaby. And stupid.”
Lucas shoved his face and laughed, “ You’re stupid!”
The two boys wrestled in bed, sending the papers and toys flying. Dulce could feel the pillow fort shaking from the rough housing, one final shove from Lucas sent their mini building crashing down on them. Dulce and Lucas laughed and screamed as they scrambled out from under the bed.
“Crap,” Lucas said. “I guess we gotta rebuild it.”
Dulce smacked Lucas’s forehead, “Geez, stop using that word—“
There was a knock at the door.
Dulce was about to open it when Lucas grabbed his arm, “Don’t open it yet Dulcie!”
Lucas scrambled off the floor and threw away as much of his toys as he could, it was almost superhuman the speed he was going at. After a few minutes the room looked how it did before, albeit without a crying Lucas sitting on the bed. Lucas nodded to Dulce, giving him the go ahead to open the door.
Frost greeted him warmly, “Evening Dulce.”
“Evenin’ Mr. Frost!” Dulce saluted him.
“You boys having fun?” Frost looked ahead of Dulce, likely staring at Lucas.
“The most fun! Thank you for letting me visit,” Dulce smiled. “Your house is the coolest!”
Frost smiled back, “Your words are appreciated. But I’m afraid I’m not here to receive compliments from you.” He pulled out Dulce’s jacket. “Your father told me that it’s time for the two of you to leave. It’s getting late.”
“Awww okay,” Dulce frowned, grabbing the coat. Dulce looked back at Lucas, who was watching his father the entire time. “See you Lucas!”
Lucas didn’t respond, still focused on his father. Dulce turned back to Frost, “I’m excited for tomorrow! I can’t wait to see who wins!”
Frost’s smile grew even wider, “I’m sure you two will have a fun day tomorrow.”
A firm hand brushed his head, “Alright now, get moving, I don’t want your father to yell at me.”
Dulce laughed, “He yells at everyone, right Lucas?”
“Yeah,” Lucas replied, finally looking away from his father.
Without wasting any more time, Dulce ran downstairs and pulled on his winter coat and boots. Gusto stood close to him by the door, not saying a word. Arms crossed, eyes closed and his head tilted down, muttering to himself.
Dad’s always been kinda tense, but geez, Dulce thought to himself. I didn’t think baking contests could be that big of a deal to him. I’m the only one being forced to eat bland chocolate everyday.
When he finally put his last boot on, he tugged at Gusto’s pant leg, signaling for the two of them to leave.
“Dulcie! Wait!”
Dulce turned out and nearly fell over when Lucas crashed into him, wrapping his arms around him.
“Hey Lucas! Did ya wanna yell at me for saying crap,” Dulce laughed. Lucas didn’t respond, tugging at Dulce’s jacket. “Lucas?”
“D-don’t go… please,” Lucas whispered, low enough for only Dulce to hear.
“I… I gotta go home Lucas,” Dulce laughed nervously, trying to push Lucas off. “I don’t live here.”
Lucas pulled him in tighter, shaking his head, “Don’t go… don’t go to him… please.”
“It’s okay Lucas,” Dulce bumped Lucas’s cheek. “I promise I’ll be back tomorrow okay?”
There was a long, unpleasant silence. Dulce wished Lucas wasn’t using his shirt like a tissue, but allowed his friend to sob into his shoulder. After a few deep breaths and weak sniffles Lucas released his grip on Dulce, “…O-okay.”
Dulce grabbed Lucas’s hand and squeezed it gently, smiling softly.
“Oh? You’re both still here? That’s surprising,” Frost asked while walking downstairs, holding his chiseling tools. Dulce felt Lucas’s body stiffen.
“Blame your son,” Gusto said, rolling his eyes. “He refused to let my boy leave.”
“Is that so?” Frost gave Lucas an amused smile. Approaching his son, Dulce felt Lucas’s hand tighten to a near crushing grip. “Well then, apologize to your friend Lucas, I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate you wasting his time.”
Frost gave Lucas a familiar pat on the back, and Dulce could have sworn he saw Lucas wince.
Aw man, my dad embarrassed him again, Dulce looked at Lucas sympathetically. Why does he have to tell Frost everything? At least Lucas’s dad knows when to shut up!
“Sorry Dulcie,” Lucas apologized. He gave a nervous look to Gusto when he raised his eyebrow. “I-I mean Dulce. S-sorry for wasting your time”
Dulce reached out to comfort him, “It’s oka-”
Gusto grabbed his arm and yanked him outside, “He apologizes for wasting our time by wasting even more time, let’s go Dulce.”
Dulce looked back and waved at Lucas excitedly, wanting to ease his nerves, “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow Lucas! We’re gonna do so much fun stuff together once this contest is finally over!”
“You promise?” Lucas asked, being slowly shoved inside by his father.
“I promise,” Dulce said with a warm smile.
It was 9:05 PM, December 23rd.
12 hours until the final round officially begins.