Life's cocoa and pillow forts

Chapter 5 - Ice cream cake

Nolan was surprised when they returned home to see Sevanna in tears by the couch, an opened packet of pocky in hand. "Something happen?" they asked, kicking off their shoes by the door of the apartment and already rushing to console their roommate.

"There's this person- I didn't even know they were doing this- Look!" Sev quickly unlocked her phone and opened up Instagram, showing off some user's page. Nolan quickly scanned their bio and recent posts. "Hey, I recognize that picture!" Nolan indeed recognized an image with a cheery pink character on it.

"Yeah! That's one I drew two months ago! They're reuploading my art!"

"Really? Damn. Talk to them?"

"Already messaged them. They haven't replied. Thing is, they're not even crediting me! Hell, they're saying THEY drew all these pictures! Better yet, all of them have watermarks as well! MY watermarks! They're an idiot AND a thief!" Sevanna replied angrily, tears again flowing to her eyes. Nolan took a couple seconds to breathe. "Alright, it'll be okay, the internet has some assholes every now and again. How long ago did you discover this?"

"About two hours."

"You've been on this for that long? No wonder you look exhausted. Tell you what, if you put away your phone and don't think about that asshole the rest of the evening, I'll get you ice cream cake."

Sevanna sniffed lightly. "I love ice cream cake," she cried. "I know," Nolan said, pushing Sev's phone away from her gently. "Come on, would you like to watch a movie? Or a show?"

"Can we watch Gordon Ramsay yell at people?"

"Sure," Nolan agreed, almost snorting at the odd pick of their roommate. "Whatever makes you happy. Want me to call Dan over for today? Or did you already?"

"No, I didn't tell him about anything. I didn't want to worry him."

"That's entirely alright." Nolan settled down on the couch next to Sevanna, clicking away on the remote to run an episode of Kitchen nightmares.

"I'll be back in ten minutes, alright?" they quickly asked before walking out the door, wallet in hand, trusting Sevanna to take care of herself while they were gone. Nolan sprinted off in the direction of the supermarket as soon as they were out of the building.

It didn't take long to find the ice cream isle and grab the most chocolate-y frozen cake they could find. In just 15 minutes, Nolan was back home, cake not even a little melted just yet.

"I'm back!" They announced as they kicked off their boots. "And I got some ice cream cake~" they added in a singsong voice. Sevanna, still on the couch, turned down the volume where Gordon Ramsay was just heating up against a dry piece of chicken. "Please?" she said, turning to look at Nolan.

The writer opened the packaging of the dessert in the kitchen and cut a good quarter of the cake off, depositing it on a small plate. They added a tiny little fork as well before handing the piece over to their roommate. Sevanna sent Nolan a grateful smile as she stabbed the ice cream with the tiny fork, chocolate pieces almost flying off in all directions.

"Don't get chocolate on the couch," Nolan warned before joining their roommate, a smaller piece of cake on their own plate. The rest of the cake was stowed away in the freezer.

"Hey, Nolan?"

"Yeah?"

"How did you know I liked ice cream cake?"

"I found your stash hidden by the frozen fish fillets. A week later, after you had had artist's block for a couple days and were barely on track and breaking down every couple hours, the cake was gone. I naturally assumed that that was the cause since I didn't take it."

"Wow. You really notice small details like that. Did you ever think of snatching the cake?"

"It wasn't mine to take."

"You're a really good roommate." Before Nolan could reply to the compliment, Gordon Ramsay proudly yelled from the television, cutting off their thought process: "You shut your damn mouth and let me EXPLAIN!"

"Kitchen nightmares?" Nolan asked, curious. Sevanna nodded. "Yep. Kitchen nightmares."

A couple minutes pass in silence. "Get some ice, someone just got burnt!" Sevanna enthusiastically yelled at the screen as Gordon yet again brought down insult after the other. The poor restaurant owner, who Nolan noted as way too stubborn, had no rebuttals. "They should really listen to what Gordon says more," Sev admitted. "He has experience with this kinda stuff. I don't know why nobody listens to him, they always argue..."

"They've run their restaurants like that their whole lives and this dude comes saying it's shit. I'd argue too if I was in that situation," Nolan defended. Sevanna nodded. "I see you there." The room sat in silence for a moment before conversations sparked on TV yet again.

★

After Sevanna had headed to bed that night without expressing any more worry about the asshole that had stolen her art online, Nolan got to work. They had remembered the username of said person and pulled up several report forms and ask pages on how to shut down people who stole art. Thankfully, it wasn't too hard to report art thieves on Instagram. After several hours of filing out the copyright infringement form for every single one of their almost 100 stolen art posts, Nolan was exhausted. They went to bed without further thought.

The next morning, Nolan woke up way later than usual. They got up from bed, not bothering to change into new clothes since they had fallen asleep in the same clothes they had worn yesterday. They left the room and headed to the kitchen to get something to eat before planning to sit down for a writing sprint.

"Morning, Nolan!" Sevanna greeted her roommate from her room. Nolan responded with a tired hum. After getting a sip of green tea into his system, Nolan went to see how Sev was doing. Slightly leaning on the doorframe, he mumbled a greeting.

"Hey! You slept really late today, usually you're up way before me!"

"Usually I have insomnia. Today I got lucky. What makes you so happy?"

"Remember that art thief I told you about yesterday?"

"Yea, what about them?" Nolan asked, taking a sip of their tea.

"All their posts got taken down! It's totally clean!"

"Nice. Wonder how that happened."

"Indeed. In any case, I'm drawing a comission right now! I love it! The character has a great design!"

"Glad to see you happy," Nolan replied with a small smile before retreating to their own room.