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No matter what his siblings said, there was no such thing as "studying too much," at least that's how Fountain of Knowledge, or Blueberry Milk Cookie, as he calls himself, sees it. I mean, what's wrong with learning new things? Don't people crave that to get out of their comfort zones? He was living the dream, in a way!
And Flour should be proud of him, after all, he went from spending the day at home reading to studying outside and occasionally seeing a friend! A huge step forward, Sugar agrees!
Since the beginning of last year, his older siblings had been worried about his lifestyle. He didn't leave the house, spent his days studying, and never visited friends because he didn't have any. But he changed a lot in these last years of high school, talked to new people, went out to places like pizza places, and even went on a picnic!
The day he asked to go out with friends for the first time, Paprika Spice gave him a tight hug and Rice Flour gave him an extra twenty dollars to spend, which inevitably ended up on new books (“I tried to warn you” “you didn’t try—” “at least you’re happy, that’s all I ask”).
He liked his friends; they were a bunch of idiots, but they got good grades, mostly had jobs and prospects for the future, and were intelligent. But no matter their cleverness, they never let it make them boring, always making jokes that would offend them if said by someone else, or silly jokes that were almost childish, but light in a way he always sought. You can be normal, even if you’re special.
He loved them! From the quiet one, who said hilarious things when he spoke, Mint Chocolate Cookie, to his passionate best friend, Sugar-Cane Cookie, who loved love stories. It was almost comical how different they were: Blueberry all logic and rationality, and her all emotions and feelings. But their friendship was only stronger because of that!
In many ways, he could say that Sugar made him a better cookie, or at least that she forever changed his worldview. They've known each other for years, but only became true friends at the beginning of last year, and she never ceases to subvert his sense of reality. Sugar-Cane helped him communicate more kindly, better recognize the emotions of others, and listens to him without judging his opinions, being his greatest confidante.
Blueberry isn't one to trust others, but trusting these cookies to be his friends was his best choice. He hadn't even noticed how monotonous and lifeless his life was until he realized he had never felt so happy and alive as when he was with them.
Obviously, this didn't mean he would stop studying; the day he stopped seeking knowledge, they could kill him, because he's an imposter!
He had gotten a simple job as an assistant at a book publisher, which basically consisted of scanning documents and looking for spelling errors, sitting at a desk all day. It was perfect! The only people who spoke to him were his colleagues, and he even liked them.
Blueberry went to work every weekday morning, except Wednesday, when he went to his company-provided course. He didn't quite understand the purpose of the course, but he liked the classes because they were very dynamic and reviewed simple content that he never remembered to study on his own.
So, yes, his life was perfect at the moment. With the next outing with friends scheduled for that weekend at Hollyberry Kingdom, where Tacacá Cookie's family had a farm for them to enjoy and celebrate the end of his last year of school. He had never been so satisfied with himself; the once constant feeling of his jelly corroded inside, of his dry and brittle dough, without much of the oven's heat, and the whispers that his mind sent to his numb and apathetic being about his own death no longer consumed him.
(Not so often, at least. It was still there, on some days the emotions were just so devastating and the cold he felt inside was numbing, that he felt like his filling had been replaced by soup. Unable to open his mouth or not knowing what would come out. Words and confessions? Desires against his own life? Complaints that nobody wanted to hear? Vomiting from the overload? Or would his own jelly leak out until he emptied himself and crumbled on the floor?)
Blueberry Milk shook his head, not wanting to let the spiral carry him away on such a beautiful day and, excitedly, said goodbye to his classmates and teacher to meet Flour and go home. The day was mild, without sun, but without rain.
It would be a good and productive day, he promised himself.
Fount looked around, searching for his sister, only to blink in surprise when he spotted her, not because of her, but because of the biscuit beside her.
"Ah," was the sound the fountain of all knowledge uttered wisely, drawing their attention to himself. He smiled, confused but gentle, "Cinnamo"N Roll Cookie, what a surprise!"
"Hi Blue," she said, in her usual calm manner, but something about her posture was strange, which for some reason made Fount uneasy. Call it instinct, maybe tiredness from the new routine, but he decided he wanted to go home quickly.
"Come greet your friend, Milk," Flour's voice would have sounded calm to anyone else, but he could hear the hidden undertone in her voice, the silent "don't be rude little brother, or I'll be disappointed later." Since he was actually a good brother (and had a healthy amount of fear of Rice Flour), he skirted around the older cookie's white HB20 and approached.
"Hi Roll," he said, shaking her hand. "Bye Roll." They didn't let go of each other's hands.
They stayed like that for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, but the anxiety growing inside him didn't diminish. In a comical imitation of fight or flight, he straightened his back, spun on his heels, and got into the car without looking back. Blueberry could still see them through the window, but Cinnamon pulled Flour a little further away, out of earshot, the car doors closed.
Uninterested in the other conversation, Fountain of Knowledge picked up his phone and went back to reading another literary classic he had managed to illegally download. He hadn't even read a chapter in *The Posthumous Memoirs of Cookie-Pot* when his sister opened the door and said in a neutral tone, but with subtle amusement escaping her:
"She wants to talk to you."
No explanation, no subtle hints of context. Just a warning.
So why did he feel his stomach churning?
He got out of the car and walked silently beside Cinnamon Roll toward the school cafeteria, which was completely empty at this hour. With each step he took, Blueberry Milk felt his anxiety rise to the point where his insides went numb and the urge to vomit threatened to surface. Because he was absent-minded sometimes, even idiotic when it came to social matters, but he was by no means stupid.
And, as much as he wanted to deny this theory now and laugh hysterically, all the signs pointed to a scenario and a conversation he wasn't at all comfortable facing. A conversation he thought he had prevented from happening for over a year. But the cookie he saw as one of his best friends seemed to have decided to have it anyway.
They sat in the wobbly chairs at the first table they found. Blueberry Milk could see the oily stain ingrained in the wood right beside him, but chose to ignore it in favor of observing the cookie in front of him attentively. Cinnamon Roll Cookie had tanned, well-baked skin, a robust physique that came from frequent visits to the gym, and wore simple clothes that he managed to make stylish no matter what. She didn't fidget in her chair, but smoothed her hair with her hand, as if searching for a strand out of place in her ponytail.
She looked directly into his eyes, and what Blueberry saw in them wasn't anything concrete, but he could feel the weight of the emotions and the picture they painted. It was a beautiful picture, if he were seeing it from another angle, but it was turned towards him, and all Blueberry Milk felt in relation to it was fear and sadness.
It was at the beginning of the previous year that he, unknowingly, had made his opinion on the matter quite clear. Wine Cookie, a colleague and not-so-close friend, along with Nesquik Cookie, had played a prank on him that resulted in a mild anxiety attack, and after calming down, they engaged in a quiet conversation while Fount tried to explain his perspective on the matter. They didn't understand, but Fount was giving them deliberately contradictory answers, so he let it go.
The point that, inexplicably, stuck in his memory was when they asked him what he would do if Cinnamon Roll Cookie were involved in that hypothetical situation. He laughed for five minutes straight; the mere possibility of his friend doing something like that was comical to him. He saw her as a sister and nothing more.
During the middle of that same year, Nesquik Cookie warned him in the morning that she would tell him a secret. At the end of the afternoon, still unaware of what it was, he and Wine Cookie confronted Nesquik, who looked around nervously, not wanting to tell because Wine was there. But Fount was already out of patience and, seeing that the normally calm cookie was about to have an imminent fit of rage, he shouted:
"Hey Cinnamon, Wine is going to hear your secret too, okay?" The other simply gestured for him to go ahead, without taking her eyes off her card game.
Fount and Wine exchanged glances, realizing that Nesquik had just idiotically revealed something he shouldn't have. “Well…” he said hesitantly, “Fount… what would you do if I told you that a friend of mine is in love with you?”
And he… well, he laughed, he burst out laughing, because it could only be a joke made by the witches to mess with him. A scenario from romance novels, the kind he returned to the library shelf in disgust for being too cliché and unrealistic. The chances of his best friend loving him or reciprocating such feelings are microscopic, but there he was, receiving the news that his life was as unreal as the soap operas that Paprika Spice pretended not to watch.
“I would laugh, because I only see her as a friend,” Nesquik’s eyes widened.
“Not even a chance?” His nervousness showed in his tone, and he glanced sideways at where his friend was still playing.
“No, she’s like a sister to me,” he tried to make clear. Nesquik narrowed his eyes.
"Do you know who it is?" Fountain shrugged.
"It's pretty obvious, you let it slip."
"Then who is it?" The taller cookie crossed his arms, disbelieving him. Blueberry and Wine exchanged glances.
"Cinnamon Roll Cookie," they said together.
Nesquik was terrified and guilty for revealing his friend's secret and made them swear he hadn't let anything slip if Cinnamon asked how they found out. He still tried to convince him to give her a chance and go on a date, but he stood firm in his answer.
He didn't love her.
Cinnamon Roll Cookie never spoke to him directly about it, but she knew he knew; her nickname wasn't Fountain of Knowledge for nothing. They joked about it sometimes, and he had told her to her face countless times that she was his friend, that she reminded him of his brothers, like a mix of Flour's calmness and often Spice's energy. And he was sure she had gotten over that fleeting crush.
At the beginning of the year he made new friends, Lime Rasp Cookie and her boyfriend, Dandelion Cookie, who were old friends of Roll's. Since they were new to the group, Blueberry Milk spent a lot of time telling them stories about the group and explaining inside jokes. He liked to impart knowledge. And one day he told them how he laughed at the idea of Cinnamon liking him, with the cookie sitting next to him and laughing at the memory as if it were a joke to her too, her old feelings.
A week ago, however, it became obvious that those feelings weren't as far gone as he thought, when the cookie commented on how Spice and some of Blueberry's family members were insinuating that she was his girlfriend, something Blueberry had also noticed. The jokes about them being together stopped making him laugh a long time ago, now only making him upset and uncomfortable.
Couldn't two people just be friends in peace?
But Cinnamon's behavior started to get strange, with her acting increasingly kind to him in ways that he would only later realize could be mistaken for romantic. But he refused to believe it, after all, "she's gotten over her feelings for me."
Nonsense!
That day at the mall, she said she wanted to tell him something about people saying they were dating, exchanging nervous glances with her friends, making Fount feel the same nervous anxiety he felt now. At that moment, Sugar-Cane arrived, and he took the opportunity to leave with her, running to a store with the excuse, "I'm leaving soon and I was waiting for you to go there!! Let's go quickly so we can have more fun!!" without even looking at Cinna as he left.
When he got to the store, he told Sugar about everything, confiding in his best friend how uncomfortable the situation was making him and how grateful he was for her unplanned rescue. Sugar-Cane, being the best cookie of all, agreed that Cinnamon should respect his boundaries, since he had made it clear that he didn't want her like that.
He knew this conversation was inevitable, but there, with Cinnamon Roll sitting in front of him, he was overwhelmed by the desperate need to ESCAPE that he felt. In a dAn incredible display of self-control, however, he remained seated, without even nervously shifting in his wobbly chair.
"Look," the other girl began, and his mind was just screaming SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! "I've never done this before—THEN DON'T!!" Usually I chicken out and just send a cute message, but since it's you, I felt it was worth it.
"I, well, I brought you some presents," she said, pulling out a bag, taking out a small plush bunny with ruffles and an incredibly cute pocket watch, and the sequel to his favorite book, the one she gave him for his birthday a few weeks ago. He reached out purely by reflex, taking the items.
"I saw in the photo your brother sent that you didn't have any stuffed animals, I thought you'd like this" oh yes, his brother took a picture of him a few days ago, when he fell on the bed and passed out after the prom, and sent it to his friends' group chat. Thanks, Paprika! "I remembered you said at some point that rabbits are your favorite animals. I would give you more things, but I'm still short on money" she rubbed the back of her neck, as she did when she was nervous.
He mentioned that he liked rabbits in passing, just once, while they were at the mall and he saw some animal keychains. And he commented on how much he wanted that book, along with the other one she had given him before.
"I…Blueberry Milk, I like you," she said slowly, like when you have to carefully remove the tape stuck to your skin under running water. But it still stung.
He didn't know what expression was on her face now; the feeling he had was as if he were outside his own body, due to the unreality of it all. Would he seem astonished? Surprised? Alarmed? Moved? Blushing? Or pitying?
He felt so many things at that moment in relation to those words, all the memories of his last few weeks with her flying through his mind and quickly recontextualizing themselves. Every silly, normal moment of them having fun as friends, suddenly shining in neon light, signaling her feelings for him and—
He didn't know what to think about it. He viewed each moment with fondness and trust, but knowing what was hidden in the depths of his friend…did that change anything? Could the attitudes that were once "totally pure" in completely mundane moments still be seen that way? Did the hidden love make the moment heavier and more tainted, or did it simply add more sweet depth to the moment?
When she bought him chocolate because he was sad, and he took it as an act of deep affection that showed the depth of their friendship and how deeply they could care for each other—a demonstration of how much love a friendship can hold—
It wasn't a pure act of friendship, at least not entirely.
A memory in comfortable, happy shades of yellow and orange suddenly took on the pink hue of unconditional love and affection, or the dark brown and purple of hidden intentions? Did a hidden intention, however pure, carry a different weight? Every moment of blind trust on his part was followed by unconditional love from her, and he couldn't even begin to understand how to feel about it.
Cinnamon continued speaking, and although his mind was in a frenzy with small perceptions, he listened to her, her outbursts being white noise in the background of his mind. She was declaring her feelings; the least he could do was listen.
"I've liked you for quite some time," her words overflowed with so much affection that Blueberry thought he might drown in so much love, but if he continued looking into her soft eyes, Cinnamon Roll smiled, seeming to remember something dear, and continued, in an almost reverent tone, "I like you, from your intelligence, your laugh, to when you're sarcastic and ironic, but even so, never cruel to those who don't deserve it." How kind and sweet you are. How you are when you let loose around others and get noisy and playful, being dramatic and theatrical, as if you steal the whole room's attention just by twirling around…
-I love your smile -she said, looking back into his eyes and being so sweet and loving, with so much affection, the words steeped in nothing more than the pure truth that resonated with him. Romantic love, but unconditional and pure. The apotheosis of affection that someone can show, loving someone's flaws as much as their light, without expecting anything in return. Just caring deeply.
His throat tightened as the weight of all that love enveloped him and threatened to crush him, his heart aching in his chest, as if someone were grabbing and squeezing it forcefully. His stomach churned as if moths were fluttering their fluffy wings inside, sending out electric shocks that weren't all bad. And he couldn't help it, he really couldn't, but those words struck him deep down, in an insecurity he didn't even bother to acknowledge.
"Don't cry," the other cookie's voice sounded warm, adding more butterflies to his stomach and tightening his heart. "I want to cry too."
Her eyes, in fact, had a suspiciously moist glint that he was sure mirrored his own, as he fought back the tears that threatened to well up in the corners of his eyes. Too many emotions were swirling inside him, and he might well be tearing up for more than one reason. But her deceptively casual comment gave him a sense of normalcy so contrasting with the unreality of the moment that it made him laugh, and her mischievous smile softened.
"There it is, the smile I love."
He might as well crumble right there, and from a certain perspective, one could say he died happy, and his crumbs couldn't deny it.
"I talked to the guys. Tacacá Cookie and Peppermint Cookie supported me and gave me encouragement—" he froze, "Why, with your permission?" Peppermint and Tacacá were her best friends, but they were also his friends, and he knew they knew he didn't—"they gave me the courage I needed to do this. And I told Sugar-Cane—his best friend, at least—and I've never seen Sugar so happy!" "Huh?" She jumped for joy and gave me advice—"NO NO NO—and her partner, you know, helped me achieve this."
She picked up the same bag as before and took it out—
Oh
Could Cinna hear how fast Blueberry's heart was beating now?
His anxiety seemed like it would never subside because just when he was starting to become independent, to become more tolerable, she did things like this. He considered it a reasonable reaction to panic at the small ring box that was placed before him.
Cinnamon Roll Cooke delicately opened it, revealing a small, simple silver ring, beautifully polished, shining in the midday sun and resting innocently on the black cushion where it had been placed. He remembered the design; it was the same one Sugar and her partner used, but his best friend's were gold.
A silvery glint was visible on Cinnamon's hand, and looking closely… there it was, the other half of the pair.
Silver rings.
The only color of jewelry he wore.
Showing that she noticed the little details about him, showing that she cared.
"I hate situationships, you know that. If you love someone, you have to try a real relationship because you don't want to be with anyone else." I want a relationship based on love, truth, and above all—she looked into his eyes, all the gentleness fading as a serious look replaced it, revealing how deeply she believed in it and how seriously she took the situation—trust.
She took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and the moment the words left her lips, Blueberry knew there was no turning back.
"Do you wanna be me boyfriend?"
Nothing happened, even though it was something of astronomical magnitude, easily one of the most important and defining moments of his life. But fireworks didn't explode, trumpets didn't sound, and Blueberry Milk Cookie didn't spit out the answer hastily with a big smile on his face. He stood there, absorbing that information and, in short, just experiencing the surreal nature of the situation he was in.
"Just—" he swallowed hard, trying to get his mouth to work and the words out in that sea of sensations and feelings—"just…give me a minute, okay?"
Cinnamon Roll nodded calmly, while diverting her gaze from him to stare at the jewel. She respected his limits and didn't rush him. Which was a gift from the Witches, while at the same time only serving to worsen his mental state as increasingly conflicting emotions and contradictory ideas battled in his mind. Because, deep down, in the depths of his being, where his most selfish desires arose and hid, where he wouldn't have to acknowledge and suffer the burden of accepting those parts of himself he didn't like… he wanted that.
That moment, that confession, and all the weight of that love, all of that was something he only dreamed of experiencing. The festering wound within him was the desire to be loved so unconditionally and completely, to feel he could drown in the sea of love and warmth that was another person without fear of being too vulnerable. The dream of thinking of someone when he lay down and woke up, knowing that another person thinks the same, of being someone's priority, that someone wouldn't trade him for anything.
The feverish dream of dancing in the middle of the living room simply for the joy of being loved, of reading books, watching movies and series with romance and not feeling envy, but pride in having the profound realization that he possessed that. Of being loved and knowing it was real. Blueberry always complained about love, but in the end it was nothing more than the venom of a non-venomous snake, the ugly green of envy that stained his blue substance and corrupted his jelly.
He wanted to be loved like that, exactly the kind of love that Cinnamon Roll Cookie was offering him and all the mundane and simple things that came with it.
Romantic encounters, exchanging gifts, dedicating songs to each other, pointing out a couple on social media they both enjoy and saying “us!”, getting involved in each other’s interests, putting their arms around each other’s waists, feeling the other person’s breath close to their face and the warmth of that cookie’s lips against theirs—
Blueberry Milk stops, the rushing thoughts freezing so quickly it almost makes him dizzy, but the weight of realization is enough to pull him out of the flow and hits him as if he’d fallen into the icy waves of the Yogurt River, all the butterflies in his stomach disappearing and a weight falling on him as if he’d swallowed lead, the frantic beating of his heart becoming so painful that he can feel his own ribs and it seems like they’ve broken and pierced his lung.
And right there, sitting in his classroom cafeteria, with the sun's warmth filtering through the clouds, lines of calculations scribbled on his arms, in a rickety chair and still wearing his work shirt, Blueberry Milk Cookie is struck by the realization that he will never be able to love the cookie in front of him even a fraction of how much she loves him.
Because in all these dreamlike scenarios, when he thinks of the cookie beside him, the one he will kiss, it's not her face that comes to mind. It's still the same indistinguishable figure, without any distinguishing features, that has always haunted his mind in moments like these.
He wants to be loved the way she loves him, but he realizes that all the sensations he's felt up to that point were only the happiness and pleasure of being loved, not of being loved by her.
He loves love, but he doesn't love her.
And he doubts he'll ever love her even a fraction of what she loves him.
Fount raises his eyes, suddenly extremely aware of himself and his surroundings, from his leg that was nervously swinging to where his hands were intertwined, elbows on the table and forehead resting on his fingers. Cinnamon Roll still waits patiently, exuding a tranquility he greatly envies. His eyes fall on the ring again and he remembers the words she said.
“Tacacá Cookie and Peppermint Cookie supported me and gave me encouragement.”
“I've never seen Sugar so happy!”
Her friends supported her, they encouraged her to go through with her plan and supported the idea. By the Witches, her best friend stood by her side!! They did it, even though everyone was fully aware that he didn't reciprocate her feelings, even though he had openly told Sugar how uncomfortable the situation made him, and even so, despite everything they had been through together, despite being his friends as much as they were hers, they chose to support this idea.
This isn't betrayal, he tries to convince himself, but it hurts just the same.
The words he heard whenever this subject came up came to his mind: Why don't you give her a chance?
Maybe…maybe he should, shouldn't he? At least try?
Was that what you did in situations like this? Even without reciprocating, you gave it a chance to try and see if you liked the person back, eventually?
That didn't sound right, it seemed more like he was playing with her feelings.
But…what if it were true? What if love came with time? She was perfect, kind, fun, shared interests, was interested in what he liked, was respectful and genuinely good. Maybe one day it would work out, and he would wake up wanting to be by Cinnamon's side as much as she wanted to be by his.
But something deep in his mind reminded him that, no matter how deeply she loved him and how open he was in general with her, he still hid a central part of himself from his entire group of friends. Fount was well aware of their opinions about those of his kind, and those opinions weren't good, in fact. Every time they commented on it, a part of him hid further into the darkness, hoping they would never perceive his true nature.
Cinnamon Roll Cookie was a woman, who liked men, and who loved him.
Blueberry Milk Cookie wasn't a man, didn't only like women, and didn't love her.
In fact, the comments his friends made when questioned about their opinions regarding the LGBT+ community were always prejudices and jokes, but the stance was: I have nothing against it, but I don't want them around. That's why Sugar is his best friend, since she's openly bisexual and therefore he knows her perspective on the community, and Cinna was his second best friend, as she always seemed more respectful of these issues.
But he couldn't enter into a relationship with her while she saw him as just a cisgender heterosexual man, which he wasn't. It had been many years of acceptance and discovery, but he had come to a conclusion about himself a long time ago. Bluebbery Milk is agender and pansexual.
He is something he knows she doesn't accept on her own and that could make all that love go down the drain like throwing a bucket of water on a freshly painted canvas. He always had doubts about how much she respected the community and fears finding out while on the other side of a spear, worse still, heartbroken after so long building and striving to love her.
Maybe everything would be alright, maybe she would accept him, maybe she would respect and embrace every side of him, even those that went against the sense of what was “acceptable.”
Maybe.
But he couldn't base a relationship on mere ‘maybes,’ and even with those questions of his identity out of the way, there's that other detail about him that would be a long-term obstacle for her.
His asexuality.
Understand, no matter how much he thinks she loves him, no matter if she accepts who he is. Relationships conventionally have as their evolutionary and simplistic principle reproduction, which translates into carnal relations in more modern eras, and although not exclusively restricted and presenting other aspects of great magnitude and greater importance in the overall scenario, carnal relations are an evolutionary need that the relationship aims to fulfill.
A couple's sex life has an impact on how they interact and, in general, increases their satisfaction with their relationship with their partners. People, however shocking it may be to him, need this as a basic necessity, not so essentially as to other fundamental aspects, but it's still a need.
And he didn't feel that need.
The mere idea of someone touching him in such a lustful way makes him want to vomit.
It's not the result of trauma, it's not an illness or anything like that, he just doesn't feel the urge, and never had, to have sex.
But Cinnamon Roll does, and he doesn't think it's fair to trap her in a relationship where he can't offer her what she needs. It's unfair to her and to himself.
If he accepted her proposal, he would trap them both in a relationship that would make them unhappy, until the inevitable breakup. Which would be another problem, because they have the same group of friends, more than half of whom are her best friends, things would inevitably get awkward and they would choose a side. And he knew which side they would choose.
Cookies he loved, his only friends, everything he had, lost forever.
Saying yes would ruin everything forever, so all that was left for him was…
-Cinnamon Roll Cookie… -he sighed, straightening his posture and looking into her eyes, which quickly lifted her head at the sound of her own name. It was a very long few minutes; perhaps he had been silent for too long, but not even ten minutes had passed. Blueberry Milk looked into her eyes and tried to convey all the affection he felt for his friend, how important she was to him, and how much he felt, he felt so much.
-...I'm sorry, but I don't like you like this.
He tried to smile, but he didn't know if it worked or if it just looked like a grimace of pain. Her whole posture fell, while her eyes closed and a resolute sigh escaped her, her whole being screaming sadness, but he couldn't console her with the pain he had caused. He only observed without extending a hand of pity; he himself knew what it was like to be treated with pity and didn't want her to suffer more than she already was. His pity would only hurt her more at this point.
"I understand," she shakes her head and gives a weak smile that doesn't reach his eyes. He feels a pang in his heart for this person so dear to him.
"I'm really sorry…" she looks at him and tilts her head, still with a weak smile. They remain silent for a few seconds before he shifts uncomfortably and manages a shy smile. "…Wow, me talking like this sounds like one of those TV shows, doesn't it?"
He tries to laugh to lighten the mood, but it sounds hollow even to him, and she doesn't laugh along. When Blueberry looks at her, he sees her watching him with a dejected expression, as if the sound of his laughter breaks her soul ("I love your laugh," she'd said; it must hurt, her heart breaking like that, seeing in the shards the reflection of every little thing she loved).
"You can take the presents," she says after a few more moments of silence. He gives her a crooked smile as he takes the book and the plush toy, unsure how to act in such a situation.
Finally, they rise from the table and he approaches the one who was his best friend, the cookie who had given him her own still-beating heart, only to have it returned to her chest instead of receiving his in return.
"Can I hug you?" Cinnamon smiles, a genuine smile this time, albeit a sad one, and opens her arms. Blueberry wraps her arms around him for a moment, before squeezing and releasing, not thinking his presence was what she needed right now. "Bye and…I'm sorry."
"Bye Fount," she says, but he doesn't bother to interpret all the nuances in her voice and every emotion that escapes her, giving her the last vestige of gentleness, letting her keep at least those emotions to herself.
He walks through the parking lot without looking back, clutching his gifts, and doesn't stop until he gets into the car, where Flour is waiting for him. Fount ignores him, banging his forehead against the car's console, trying to ease the weight in his stomach and the tightness in his chest.
"So," Rice Flour Cookie said, as he fastened his seatbelt, "how did it go?"
"She asked me to be her boyfriend," a grunt of agreement came in response, as she turned the steering wheel (he didn't look out the windows, trembling at the sight of Cinna sitting where he'd left her) "I said no," a murmur of understanding.
"Why?" she said calmly.
"Because I don't love her that way."
"I understand," was all she said, without a hint of judgment, seeming genuinely to understand. And that meant more to him than she could have imagined.
He wouldn't be going on that trip with his friends this weekend, he'd realize, not when Cinnamon Roll Cookie was there. A pity, he'd been eager to go, but he knew he wouldn't be able to look her in the face anytime soon after that.
Blueberry Milk was then struck by the painful realization that he might never again share a moment of vulnerability and trust with her like before. That they could be friends from then on. But in that cafeteria, because of the encouragement her friends gave her, he was the one who had to bury his best friend and end the relationship they once had.
He had to look into eyes that were familiar to him, but that He suppressed feelings that he wasn't comfortable receiving from her, and had to say goodbye to the person who had declared her love for him, who now inhabited the body of his deceased best friend. Tears streamed down his face as the hollow pain of betrayal filled him.
Sometimes, you have to know when not to pursue love.