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Amongst the heady mix of aromatic hazes, Anya knows one thing for certain: someone is cooking a peanut 🥜 dish.
It wouldn't be so bad, really, if the smell of peanuts 🥜 wasn't really, really, really strong, and if she hadn't skipped breakfast several hours prior. And she really regrets it now. Really.
Her little Bondman-themed watch tells her there's another half an hour til her shift ends and she can wander around sampling the other’s food. She's pretty sure Arnold is cooking up a mean array of kuih; he'd asked her to drop by his booth for a taste. It wasn't like he would be able to keep her away from desserts 🍰!
God, she has got to stop thinking about desserts. About food in general. Her stomach is rumbling, and the steaming, crisp mantou (steamed buns) she’s plating, an absolutely mouth-watering fragrance, is soooo tempting her. She dreams of cracking peanuts 🥜 between her teeth as she scooped some buttermilk into a paper cup, and handed both plate and cup to an eager bunch of exchange students. Becky was handling the money, so at least she didn’t have to worry about counting, but at least it might have distracted her a little.
“Oh, my, Anya! They’re ravenous! A plate of six and two plates of eight! Hey, no shoving!”
Despite Becky’s cross expression, the unmistakable glimmer of coins lights up her eyes. It wasn’t so much the money, Anya muses, that her bestie was ecstatic about (because really, she's got far more of it as a weekly allowance than they'd ever make running the stall); more so the heady rush of success and popularity. Fair Lady Fortune had smiled down upon them, making them one of the busiest stalls at the sales fair.
All the money would go back to supporting the education of underprivileged children in Meraya and Ostania. Anya’s plenty pleased about supporting childrens’ education, but damn, if it didn’t also feel good to run a booming business.
Peanut. 🥜
She freezes, ladle of buttermilk in one hand, little paper cup in the other, as the glorious smell of freshly chopped peanuts 🥜 meets her nose. A harmonious marriage of earthy nuts, and sweet, sweet sugar… And a hint of sweetcorn kernels, too. (Perhaps as their officiant?)
“WHERE?!” she yelps, buttermilk nearly missing the rim of the cup. A poor young-ish looking exchange Meraya student nearly jumps out of her uniform. Anya realises that she has forgotten the other ninety percent of her sentence, and also spoke in Ostanian, so she carefully sets the cup down and looks the poor girl dead in the eyes.
“Forgive me,” she apologises in a sincere yet broken and heartbreakingly-awful semblance of Merayu, and she really does mean it, “but I would be very grateful if you could tell me which food stall you bought that food at. The food with… With the… Uhh…”
In a stroke of misfortune, Anya forgets the Merayu word for “peanut”. 🥜
Actually, the Meraya students should have learnt some basic Ostanian before arriving as preparation, so maybe she knows “peanut” 🥜 in Ostanian.
“May I please know where you bought the food made with… Peanuts?” 🥜
In yet another instance of tragedy, Anya discovers that, in an effort to convey her message better, her hands have traced a terribly indecent shape out for the other girl, who is hopefully too innocent to interpret the hand gesture as something less than school-friendly.
The girl’s face breaks into a dismal expression. She does a 180° and leaves without her buttermilk mantou.
“Wait! Wait! Oh, uh, forgive me, I didn't mean to be rude! I’m sorry! You forgot your food!” Anya cries in vain. The customer has vanished without a trace. Anya wonders if she will get a Tonitrus Bolt for insulting an exchange student. Papa would faint dead away at the sight of her seventh Bolt.
At least the girl seems to have left her peanutty 🥜 meal behind in her haste to flee. Upon closer examination, it looks like a moist pancake folded in half, with chopped peanuts (🥜!!), lots and lots of sugar, and, yes, indeed, it is sweetcorn. There’s even a little paper cup containing chocolate dipping syrup.
Maybe she could have a little bite of this poor abandoned Meraya dessert…
No! It's not mine!
But it's not hers either (anymore)...
Damn, I could kill to eat my own food right now… Never skipping breakfast again…
Did I feed Bond his kibble this morning?
He's hungry 🥺 he’s just like me for real 🥺 I'm sorry Bond 🥺🥺🥺
“ANYA!” Becky screeches. Her financial success was under threat due to employee misbehaviour! She excuses herself for a moment from the crowd and lunges over to grab Anya by the shoulders.
“Not the time for boydreaming! I know you're totally Desmond-Delulu and basically drooling at the thought of buying Damian’s entire pancake booth out of stock and then hand-feeding him the crab from our buttermilk broth with his head on your lap, but we've got customers! You can't possibly deny us this financial and cultural triumph in store! We canNOT let his pasty rich boy ass – I'm sorry, Anya – outsell us! Our very international reputation is at stake!!”
Anya reckons her international reputation has already been blown to bits, but she snaps out of her hunger daydreams and salutes Becky. “Becky, you’re crazy. What kind of fantasy is that? Also, financially, we’re right on track to becoming as rich as Syon-boy! The cash register hasn’t stopped going ‘kaching! Kaching!’ since we—”
Oh. Anya remembers now. It’s kacang (peanuts). 🥜
Well. Despite everyone’s best efforts, international peace is temporary, but peanut 🥜 pancakes are here and now. If she keeps an ear out, she'll probably be able to track Syon-boy down via telepathy. She’s learned to control her senses (with a high success rate! Mostly), and often shut down her reading in crowded spaces, exactly like at fairs like this one. Too noisy, too overstimulating.
But if it meant she could get one blissful, heavenly bite of peanut 🥜 pancake…
She had painkillers for the headaches in her pocket. And she wasn't beefing with Syon-boy at the moment, anyway. (He was a tough book to read. He made about as much sense as her Maths textbook sometimes; throwing out wildly different signs, and leaving her clueless and sleepless out of confusion.)
Bondman-watch says fourteen more minutes. Anya groans and shunts another set of mantou into the toaster oven. The milisecond her slot’s over, she’s getting her damn hands on some peanut 🥜 pancakes.
* * *
Damian Desmond is hungry.
No, starving.
He's got a hole in his stomach and a very satiable hunger for food. All he's got to do is last… fourty-four more minutes of his shift, before Emile and Ewen return and take over from him and Glooman.
Fourty-four minutes!!! I'll starve. I'm actually going to pass away. Not a single angel is looking out for me. Fourty-four minutes hungry at a food festival! Running a snack stall!
He grit his teeth. His father is a chairman of a political party. His brother is a natural academic genius. He is… Well, he’s pretty good at history and maths. Not to mention, he's finally on the precipice of Imperial Scholarship. Seven Stellas down, and fourty-two more minutes of torture left to go.
He's not even dieting. He was just so wracked with stress and anxiety that morning that breakfast was not even a thought on his emotional and metaphorical table. He bet Glooman had had a wonderful morning bemoaning this event and blissfully eating his delicious and hearty breakfast. Glooman shows no signs of hunger; rather, he looked physically healthy, though rather fretful.
“Damian, our cash box is overflowing. I knew I shouldn't have used my Monopoly game money holder. What's the point of money if we can't hold it all? God, is our booth doomed to open only to shut penniless, suffering from excess of success? Were we all born to die?!”
“We are NOT ‘born to die’, Glooman,” booms a terribly familiar and entirely welcome UNwelcome voice. “Does a book begin only to finish? Does a song open with a beautiful chord purely to end?”
Anya Forger, as he lives and breathes, slides her way through the masses to plant one hideously stubby elbow, rolled up sleeves and all, on his countertop.
Glooman’s jaw goes slack as he ponders this newfound comparison. Damian curses and grabs the money box while still poking at the apam balik with his spatula.
“Forger! We're on duty!” He hisses. “Don't come messing with Glooman, he's going to forget to collect our money! No offence, Glooman.”
“It's okay,” Glooman sighs. “I probably would have anyway, even without Anya here…”
“George, listen!,” Forger blabbered on. “We are indeed born with the inevitable fate of death, but that is merely the final act of the play. We are born to love, to be joyous, to move, to learn, to cry, to feel.”
He swears she looks him dead in the side of his head. He's stoutly refusing to turn his head towards her, in case she actually thinks he’s paying even a single iota of attention to her, but he shivers. It feels like she's fired a grappling hook straight to his skull.
“We are, in fact, born to live.”
??? That made no freaking sense??? What did this have to do with the cash box, anyway???
“That's beautiful,” both Glooman and an exchange student customer sigh.
“Damn straight. Syon-boy, four servings of apam balik, please, with extra peanuts, extra chocolate drizzle, extra sugar, and extra yummy.”
Oh, hell. Tuning back to his stove, his apam balik is charred black. He can't give this to even Forger in good conscience. He bins it. Curse Forger and her damn poetry-waxing! She even has the gall to use a translated Classical Literature text, when she knows it’s his weakest subject.
He starts preparing a new batch. “You're going to have to wait, Forger,” he grumbles, pouring in batter and swirling it around in small, teacup-sized circles with a spatula.
She sighs. “Syon-Boy, I'm dyin’ out here, man.” She leans heavily on his table edge, faking an air of near-starvation, with her signature stupid grin all over her face. “What, I go aaaalllll the way across this place, risking death by hunger and crowds, just to eat your food, and yet I am denied the heaven I sought? Was Odysseus' suffering in vain if he struggled twenty years to return to his wife, only to see her hounded by her hundred greedy suitors?”
It's times like these Damian can't tell if Anya is flirting with intention, being stupidly oblivious to obvious connotations, or trying to come up with a flimsy excuse to be invited to his house, or perhaps even all three.
He felt the words your food and heaven and wife piece through him. She's an idiot archer with her words.
“It’s not like your chatterboxing is making this cook any faster,” he said dryly.
“Just turn it up ten times hotter. It’ll cook ten times faster.”
“Leaves of wilted cabbage. Is that what you have in your head? You have five leaves of wilted cabbage for a brain?”
“Flip the apam balik over, Syon-boy. It’s bubbling.”
Damian hurriedly removes the pan lid and adds some butter in. “It doesn’t need to be flipped. Only one side has to touch the pan.” He feels a tiny surge of smugness. So maybe he didn’t cook often (at all). It doesn’t mean he was bad at following cooking instructions at all.
He sprinkles sugar, tossed in sweetcorn kernels, and added a carefully controlled amount of chopped peanuts. He eyed Anya warily. She continually looked down at the food, then up at him with her big, horrible green eyes that reminded him of the first fresh baby grass of early spring and intricately-cut emeralds refracting soft light, and then down again, and then up again. Judging him.
“Stingy,” they seemed to say. There was nothing wrong with his portioning. This was what the recipe called for. He wasn’t about to give Anya customer favouritism. She wasn’t even his favourite customer. She wasn’t his favourite anything, period.
But then she looks right at him, her gaze piercing right through him, full of surprising sincerity and she implores, “please.”
Before his brain can catch up to anything, he finds himself already spooning out another scoop of peanuts for her.
This must be witchcraft. But poured peanuts is poured peanuts, and he simply gives up and adds a bunch more sugar to go with it, because why the hell not. Sure. Whatever. He puts in the butter and prepares to serve.
“Chocolate syrup,” she says, like he didn’t give everyone chocolate syrup already.
“Drizzled or in a cup?”
“Both?”
“Fat chance. Pick one.”
“...Cup. I’ll drizzle it myself.”
He plates the apam balik, along with a small paper cup of chocolate syrup. Hunger shining in her iridescent eyes, she holds one hand out in waiting, the other gripping a couple dalcs. For a second, Damian considers putting the paper plate on the countertop, like all the others, but Forger’s hand touches his when she eagerly grabs the plate, just for a miniscule fraction of a second, and she must be electric because he feels like he’s just been electrocuted head to toe, all nerves and some sort of surge of energy inexplicably surging through his heart and muscles. He stands still for a moment, shell-shocked.
She makes an undignified kind of sound as she practically inhales the food. One bite, two bites, three, and the first apam balik is gone.
“You’re the best, Syon-boy,” she says in between voracious bites, and then maybe something after that, but he feels a bit like he’s been tossed into an underwater vortex, with the roar of swirling water in his ears drowning out all other sounds. All he can manage is a well-trained, well-practiced sniff, and blurt out “I always am” like some sort of outdated computer with limited processing capacity.
“Damian, the people crave for more.” Glooman’s monotone voice dissipates his stunned reverie. He has to blink once, then twice, before he realises that Glooman’s already taken Anya’s payment for him, and a long line of customers is already waiting for their order. Forger is already disappearing back into the ever-shifting sea of indistinct Eden and Meraya students.
He banishes all thoughts of her from his mind. Now was the place to focus on his own excellence and performance, and not at all on Forger. Profit waits for no man. So he poured batter and sprinkled fillings and squirted out chocolate syrup and plated endless apam balik, and for a while, the mechanic movements soothed him, and he was content to do something he fully understood.
* * *
Some half an hour later, Ewen and Emile take over the fort, and he passes them his apron and spatula, and with nothing in his hands anymore, raw hunger overtakes him.
God, he’s starving. He’s got plenty of pocket money, so the question is not which stall, but in what order. Damian decides to visit Watkins’ stall first.
Unfortunately, after exchanging greetings, Watkins shoots him a sympathetic look at him. No, less sympathetic than a pitiful look. Pity makes Damian’s skin crawl. “Sorry, Damian, but we just sold our last batch. I can hit you up with the recipe if you want some for yourself, though?”
Damian politely declines. He doubts the Eden Academy chefs would cook up any new recipes solely for him, even if he was a Desmond. He only goes back to Desmond Manor on term breaks, where he had private chefs willing to cater to his every culinary whim. If he really wanted to eat coconut jam puffs, he would just have to wait.
He stops by Narcis Hubrisse’s stall. The guy practically preens himself when Damian asks for friend scallop pancakes. “What a shame, Desmond! My, if I'd known that Damian Desmond would fancy my food — why, I believe I would have saved you a portion! It's too bad, too bad! Alas,” he cries, slamming down a plastic, triangular sign on his counter that declares ‘SOLD OUT 😜😘’ in swirly golden letters, “my ingredients are all done for the day! The mob has polished each little grain off. I must say, I outdid myself on this little venture. Only the finest high-quality ingredients could I bear to use, but of course, there is merit in the talent of the maker, which is I, not to be ignored…”
Damian waves his hand to cut him off and stalks away. Ordinarily, he would have been appalled at his own blatant lack of cordiality, but Damian suspects Hubrisse did not even realise he was talking to nobody at all. The gnawing hunger in his stomach was really, really getting to him.
Damian Desmond, second son of the Desmond family, claws his way to (almost) every stall in the great hall, only to be met each time with disappointment. We're sorry, the faces blurring into hunger said, but we're all sold out. A few even point in a certain direction, and say he could still get some food from a certain still-open stall.
Obviously, because why the hell not, Forger’s stall is the only one left with anything to sell. For some insane reason, she still has food left to sell.
And obviously, he can afford the money, but he hesitates to make a move. Damian remembers something dumb Emile said once, about two wolves in one person. One wolf in him howls to be fed. The other begs him to not sell what little dignity he has left in exchange for some measly mantou. It’s not worth it, it pleads. Think of her stupid uggo reaction. This is just like the handkerchief / cake fiasco all over again!! It's basically like admitting that you think her food is delicious! Even though it's definitely not!
A waft of buttermilk drifts daintily through the warm air, tickling his nose. It smells delicious. It smells like heaven. He's so, so doomed.
Don't do it!!
He can see Forger’s face in his mind’s eye, with her stupid smirk plastered wide over her stupid face. Oh, Syon-boy, hi! She’d grin idiotically. And blasted Becky Blackbell, leering over her shoulder: Are you so desperate that you’d come crawling to dear Anya’s stall to buy OUR food? After fighting tooth and nail to stay away from us? From her? So your “high-and-mighty”-ness was all just false pride, huh? And where did that pride bring you? Back to Anya.
Anya: Wow, Syon-boy. I never knew you could cave in so easily! Can I come over to your house?
Becky: Heh, how cute.
!!!
“Never…” he hisses, to nobody in particular. “I’ll never go crawling to Forger’s mantou stall! I can do it! I’ll just wait for dinner… I’ll go out… Buy my OWN buttermilk mantou… I just have to last…”
Eden boarding students are allowed to go out to town at 6pm every evening.
It is now 2:34pm.
Only his watch bears witness to Damian’s sombre expression.
Off he went crawling to Forger’s mantou stall.
* * *
Becky makes a strangled sound in her throat. Anya pats her shoulder comfortingly, before turning back to her pot.
“Is that so…?” She hears Becky grind out.
They’re all out of fresh mantou, so Anya pops a new batch into the toaster. Having nothing left to do for a few minutes, she drifts over to the counter where Becky seems to be chatting up the customer.
Becky nudges her. Anya shoots her a questioning glance, but Becky merely smiles mysteriously. Anya can’t get a clear reading of her thoughts, either; she only sees little fireworks and a tiny mini-Becky screeching and giggling and running in circles, occasionally stomping in one place or doing pirouette jumps.
She turns her attention back to the customer before her. To her surprise, he’s got the red hood of his Imperial Scholar cloak pulled far up over his head, and has dark shaded glasses obscuring his eyes. Unusual, but if he wants to cover his appearance, well, it’s his own business. Maybe he was having a bad hair day.
“How do you find the food fair, hm?” Becky purrs. The boy coughs and pulls his cloak tighter around him. “It’s been a wonderful experience…” he mutters in a deep voice. Almost forcedly deep. Anya tries to tune into his mind, but all she can hear is chaotic howling and, oddly, more fireworks.
“Any favourite stalls?” Anya asked, and Becky’s eyes almost bug out.
“Um. The apam balik stall was nice, and I liked the choc– I… Yeah, the chocolate sauce a lot…”
Becky turns around so the customer can’t see the unrefined guffaw ready to burst out of her. Anya tries sending her a scolding glance, but the customer’s inner screaming has doubled. She does her best to tune it out, and checks on the toaster. Another minute or so.
She makes another attempt at the conversation. “Oooh, I grabbed some apam balik just now, too! I love peanuts 🥜, although I really liked the chocolate, too! It was pretty rich, so I guess my friend splurged for the expensive choco sauce.” She thought of Damian, who would rather die than be caught producing second-rate results for his work.
“So I guess my favourite stall is the apam balik one, too! Just really craving sweet peanut 🥜 snacks today, hehe! Maybe I can ask my friend for the recipe, though I don't think apam balik I make will taste exactly the same, since I DEFINITELY don't have pocket money for his grade of chocolate sauce. And between you and me…”
She leans over a little, and drops her voice to “scandalous secret spilling” levels of quietness. Anya looks back at her almost-finished plate of apam balik, then of the one the Meraya exchange girl left behind.
“I think he's just a big old softie. He's not very good with words. I think he talks a lot better with chocolate servings.”
And dodgeballs. And maracons. And cake. And bomb collars. Damian really isn't very good at words, she thinks. She really hoped Damian could get to connect a little more with the other students. Maybe he could get to know this particular Scholar and bond over… scholarly things? At any rate, any amount of new and genuine friends for him was welcome.
She trails off, seeing the boy’s cheeks had been dusted red like he'd just been toasted alongside with the buns. Becky appears to be fighting inner demons as she grips onto the money box for dear life. At a loss for words, Anya simply turns to the toaster for the fresh buns.
“Erm, how many mantou did you order again?” she asks.
“...Sixteen,” he croaks out.
“That’s eight Dalc, including the buttermilk.”
Becky clearly cannot be trusted with hot items at the moment, so Anya scoops out the buttermilk herself. He seems to be having a rough day, especially if he’s ordering so many buns; she gives him a little extra sauce.
She hands him his buttermilk cup and a mighty amount of mantou. But when she’s done prying the money box from Becky’s hands, the boy is gone, leaving exactly eight Dalc behind on the countertop.
“Oh my god.” Becky gasps like she's going to faint dead away, but quickly resumes her post as money handler. They quickly fall back into their old rhythm, but the boy’s exorbitant pile of steamed buns contrasts in her mind with Damian and his starving thoughts from a while ago. Anya knows he wouldn’t be able to go out for food for several hours more. She makes up her mind to do something about it.
* * *
He feels much better with fourteen buttermilk mantou in his stomach. Almost enough to make up for that dizzying encounter with Forger just now.
The way Blackbell was cackling like the witch she was in the background, he knew that she knows that he knew that she knew who he was. He just prayed Forger hadn’t been as observant.
At least he’s somewhere secluded. Behind a wrought-iron gate, at the end of a little-known winding pebble path, hidden by tall walls of shrubbery, was a tea table overrun by ivy. He’s never seen another soul here. It was his own little slice of heaven, carved out in the tranquility of Eden’s beautiful gardens.
He groans and buries his head in his hands.
“So I guess my favourite stall is the apam balik one. Just really craving sweet peanut snacks today, hehe!
Maybe I can ask my friend for the recipe, though I don't think it'll taste exactly the same, since I probably don't have the pocket money for his grade of chocolate sauce. And between you and me…”
“I think he's just a big old softie. He's not very good with words. I think he talks a lot better with chocolate servings.”
????????!!!!!!!!!!!!
“What the hell,” he mutters.
“Swearing, Mr. Sy-on? That’s not elegant at all! Ten Tonitruses for you!”
Damian jerks his face upwards so fast, he swears he heard his neck crack. Staring down at him, full of an unthinkable amount of cheek, is Anya freaking Forger. In his private getaway garden. In the middle of his hunger- or humiliation-fuelled crashout. Damian’s train of thought, which was already not productive nor helpful at all, immediately crashed into a nearby tree and caught fire.
HUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH???????
“What the hELL, FORGER,” he croaks. This entire situation is so stupid. HE sounds so stupid oh godddd just let him crawl into a nearby bush and dieeee
Forger takes a seat at the table, directly opposite him. There’s a brief clatter of porcelain on metal. The smell of buttermilk crab wafts unbidden up his nose. It’s strong, fragrant, rich –
He can’t help himself. He looks up.
“Oh, man!” Forger gasps. “I didn’t know you bought some of my mantou ! I hope it was good!”
Damian sweatdrops. Mentally, he kicks himself as he scrambles for a sharp, witty retort. He's usually better than this. (She's smiling so brightly at him.)
“I've had better,” he sneers with all the believability of three children in a trench coat. He knows that, dumb as Forger is, his poor act of arrogance falls flat, and she knows it.
So he softens his tone a little, and shrugs. “I mean, it's already good enough for a commoner's cooking, so. It wasn't bad.”
“Heh. So it wasn't bad. So, it's good! Thanks!”
“Have your satisfaction,” he grumbles. “What are you here for, anyway?”
“I thought you might want some snacks,” Forger said. “I brought crab leftovers! Sy-on boy had better be grateful, ‘cus this is, like, limited stuff, man! It cost Papa a ton of money. Heh.”
Et voila. Forger presented more mantou, crab pieces, and buttermilk on a paper plate and in a paper cup, respectively.
She grabbed a bun and tore a chunk off before dipping it into the sauce. Then, she held it out to him.
Was she trying to hand-feed him???
“What do you think you're trying to do, huh?” Damian blustered.
This absolute idiot cocked her head like a confused puppy. “Cheers, Sy-on boy?”
“What, with buns? It's covered in sauce! You're not even supposed to cheer before eating it.”
She rolled her eyes. Blackbell's mannerisms have been rubbing off on her. Or maybe his own sarcasm has. Wordlessly, he picks up a bun, tears it, and dips it. He raises it briefly to hers, shrugging, and tries to eat it as nonchalantly as he can.
“Good, right?” Asks Forger through a mouthful of her own mantou.
“You already asked that.”
“Oh, right,” she nods. “Yeah, it's totally good stuff. Savour it! It’s not every day you get a taste this delicious.”
They both eat in silence after that. Now and then, a bird sings a few notes, or the wind rustles the leaves around them. Subconsciously, Damian can feel his heartbeat slowing. Clearly, this is proof that he doesn't feel anything about Forger, apart from annoyance from time to time, which can easily be controlled. In fact, he might even be feeling… neutral towards her. Maybe even… slightly fond.
What? What??? Who said that? Scratch that! Redirect this feeling uncomfortably close to the heart!!!
“So, uh. How was your day?” He blurts.
Forger's so surprised, her eyebrows practically disappear into her bangs. Then, she breaks out her classic, big, dumb grin. “Sy-on Boy! My team hit our sales goal! And everyone who gave us feedback said they loved it! It's true that Anya's cooking skills aren't as good as papa's, but imagine that at my current cooking skill level, it's already yummylicious! Just wait ‘til I get as good as papa. Heh. Maybe I'll open a five-star restaurant. The Starlight, or maybe, maybe Forged Goods. Heh. I'll give you a voucher for a free meal once I make it big.”
“Voucher? Forger, if you're five-star, your restaurant wouldn't use vouchers. Those are for, like, three-star restaurants. And I'm rich, so I wouldn't be caught dead using a voucher.”
“I'll put your name on it,” she carries on. “‘Mister Damian Desmond, ultra-formally invited to The Starlight. Becky would be coming, too, of course. You guys can share a table with me.”
“If you're going to be the chef, why would there be a table for you? Wouldn't you be busy cooking?”
“Pshh. I'll cook super fast. Then when the dish is done, Anya'll just sit down with you guys.”
“I'm flattered, Forger,” he deadpans. “Just don't ask to come to my house in exchange.”
“That's old history.” Forger waves her hands like she's dispelling pesky fog. “But if you're thinking like that, tit-for-tat, then Sy-on Boy can gimme some of his leftover peanuts 🥜.”
He shakes his head. “Everyone’s sold out now. I haven’t got any left. Sorry.”
“Cowabummer,” says Forger. Even though she doesn’t sound too upset, he can’t help but feel horribly guilty. Here she was, bringing delicious, homemade food saved just for him. And here he was, emptyhanded, save for the last bite of mantou in his right hand.
Damian felt a wave of deja vu wash over him. Something about this reminded him of handkerchiefs and sweet cakes from a lifetime ago…
“...I’ll have my chef prepare the ingredients. If I… I mean, when I go back to the manor again during the holidays, I’ll make some for you and bring it back here.”
Honestly, he can’t believe these words – this promise – are falling from his mouth as easily as rain falls from the sky. He’s definitely going to lie in bed, staring unendingly into the dark ceiling of his dorm bedroom, for hours on end tonight. Maybe the rest of the week.
“Deal-eeooo,” Forger chirps.
Then she doesn’t say anything, and neither does he, and they marinate in the silence of the late afternoon’s warmth. The food is all finished, and his stomach is pleasantly full. It’s hard to not look straight in front of him, because otherwise he’s going to catch Forger’s iridescent eyes, and then he’ll really be done in.
Maybe he’s a weak man, because eventually after an eternity of scrutinising every last leaf on the shrub beside them, he accidentally meets her gaze.
(Which means she was also looking at him! So it’s only half his fault...)
Damian opens his mouth to say something charming, but nothing comes out. Fortunately, he has the grace to close it in shame.
She’s still looking at him. God. She’s crazy.
Was this table always this small? He swears she’s right in front of him. Like, stick out his hand and he could touch her face, kind of close. What? What? Who said that? That’s ridiculous. But it’s true. She’s right there. He would never do that. She could reach out and touch his face. What??? Why would that ever— That is to say, no way, nuh-uh, it could totally happen, but NEVER EVER. They couldn’t… (They could.)
Forger eyeballs him. Damian prays to every single angel he’s read about in hopes that that random crap she said in first year about being a mind-reader was just random crap. The way she’s looking at him, like she’s just encountered a puzzling homework assignment or a strange bug on the walk to class, threatens to shoot a billion bullets through his prayer.
“Bet I made more money than you,” she finally says. The tension melts away as easily as it had sharpened just moments before.
“Bet not.” Thank goodness. Whatever bickering thing they have is infinitely easier to maneuver than whatever emotional tension, touchy-feely thing they also have.
“Bet Becky’s already comparing with Ewen and Emile right now.”
“I bet she’s at Bill’s stall. Did you see the way she kept looking over at him the whole day?”
“Make it the whole last month!” cries Forger. “She thinks she’s so slick, but she isn’t half as slick as she thinks she is.”
“Let’s go see,” he suggests with glee. Betting is crass, but for this, he feels an exception is worth it. “Winner gets bragging rights of world’s best psychic.”
“Starlight Anya forsees… bragging rights for me, and none for thee!” she declares. He and Forger bolt from the table at the same time, still very, very conscious not to push (or collide — disastrous consequences for his heart) each other, sprinting across the bright green grass.
And as the afternoon sun bathes them both in its brilliant light, he can’t help but steal glances at her as she pulls ahead. The fierce competitor in him urges him to catch up — he’s taller, he’s leaner, he could outpace her in a heartbeat — but something keeps him just a few steps behind, mesmerised by her pink curls dancing and fluttering in the breeze.
It’s delicious. This moment.
He savours it.