Chapter Text
Their cousins got the house. Their uncle got all the fine china. Their grandparents got the beach house. And the money was evenly divided between their siblings.
Cold Brew’s death was an opportunity for free possessions to her family.
She was quite generous in her will. Everybody seemed to have received something. Even the old hag’s neighbour was given some of her servants.
But if Cold Brew was so damn generous,
then why did she leave her great niece and nephew nothing but a beat-down little wooden house?
‿̩͙‿੭ ∔⠀ৎ‿̩͙‿
Espresso and Latte didn’t directly receive anything from their great aunt. The solicitor told them she had left behind nothing but a location and a note telling them to go there and find a set of instructions.
“If she hated us that much, she should’ve just said it to our faces.”
Espresso huffed, looking down at the GPS for a moment to check if he was on the right track, before shifting his attention back up to the road ahead.
Latte let out a disapproving sigh at the negativity (although she couldn’t help but agree with him..)
“Don’t be like that. Maybe she has a secret stash of riches there.”
“In the middle of the forest?”
“..Yeah. It’s a good place to bury cash.”
The professor shot his sister a look. “You know fully well that Aunt Cold Brew wouldn’t dare set foot into the forest. She wouldn’t even let us come inside when you tripped and fell into a muddy puddle.”
Latte chuckled. “It was freezing cold outside too. Ugh, she was so uptight…maybe that’s where you got that horrid personality of yours from.”
“Hey!”
The two entertained themselves by reminiscing on childhood memories with their great aunt for the rest of the car ride. Despite their clear irritation towards how Cold Brew acted towards them as children, it still managed to brighten their moods. Despite being twins, Espresso and Latte rarely ever got to bond anymore.
Moments such as this weren’t very common for them. Atleast, not anymore.
Arriving at the location was.. disappointing, but expected.
When their car pulled up, they were met with an underwhelming sight. Some sort of cabin- surrounded by a fully open fence that was rusting at the edges, looking as though it had been abandoned years ago.
“She’s really outdone herself.”
Latte stepped past the gates, making her way up to the front porch of the cabin, searching for the instructions they were told to find by the solicitor. They were conveniently placed under the welcome mat, although they were dusty and had obviously been sitting there untouched for a good while.
The instructions were handwritten, all on a piece of A4 paper folded in half like a booklet. The first page read as follows.
*‘ My dearest Espresso and Latte,*
*After all these years of watching you grow from afar, I don’t believe that materialistic possessions matter much to you.*
*And so, I grant you full access to something I hold dear to my heart.*
*An old project of mine from when I was a young woman. Before all the fortune and fame.*
*A light for the many travellers who find themselves trapped in the darkness of this forest. A product of a much humbler time for me.*
*I’m sure you’ll make good use of it. ‘*
The twins could not be more dumbfounded.
They sat quietly for a good minute, just processing the letter, before Latte finally broke the silence.
“She cannot be serious.” She rubbed her temples with two fingers, looking utterly depleted by her great aunt’s antics. “The woman was a billionaire. She judged any building less than 3 stories tall. She’d rather die than sit around all day taking care of random cookies [i](http://cookies.in)n a forest.”
Espresso pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, taking the paper from Latte’s hand. “‘Product of a much humbler time’… she gave us her scraps. This is far from a gift. It’s obviously one of her little side projects that she left behind after starting to earn some money.”
He scanned the second page, reading it aloud underneath his breath. Barely audible but still noticeable.
“..she expects us to fix this place?”
Latte’s eyes widened.* “what??” *she snatched the manual from Espresso’s hands, narrowing her eyes at the words on the page. She couldn’t believe it.
*‘My dying wish for you two is to rebuild this sanctuary and turn it into the safe haven I always prayed I could create before I left it behind many years ago. Leave your stressful lives in the city behind and become caretakers for those in the wilderness. I’m sure you’ll be fruitful in achieving this.’*
“Oh my GOD, she is mocking us. She’s dead and she’s mocking us from the grave!”
Latte crumpled up the letter in her fist, groaning in frustration. “This has to be because we left home to go work at the Parfaedia institution. Remember how passive-aggressive she was acting before we departed?! ‘Oh, you two are so brave, going off to become teachers by choice! Imagine the low pay… of course, you’re determined enough to get through it all.’ She was so-“
“Latte, she’s dead. Calm down.”
Latte brung a halt her rambling, clenching her jaw in frustration.
“..Is this really all she thought we deserved?” She spoke with a somber tone, plopping onto the wooden floor, her gaze fixed on her shoes.
“..What?“
“I-I mean, we were good kids, right? Surely, she wasn’t *that* disappointed by how we turned out. Even the family members she disliked got pretty good stuff… and… what about the money?! Long Black, Cortado and Americano all got some. How come our sisters had all this money divided between them and we got nothing?!”
Her brother took a seat next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Latte-“
“I knew she wasn’t proud of us, but I didn’t know she thought of us as such.. let-downs! We were never good enough for her, were we?! The family gets treasures, but the lowly twins get an abandoned project in the forest. She gave us her trash.”
By the end of her sentence, she had already begun to well up. She bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes tightly shut as she fought back tears.
Neither of the two spoke for a good while.
“…Do you want to drive back??”
“..Yes. Let’s… let’s grab some drinks at Sparkling’s too.”