Cookie Run - The Calling Card

Chapter Six

A date between the two of them… how could it come to this?! Walnut could never fathom the idea, and yet here it was. Anytime she had ever seen the two alongside each other, they were always neck and neck in a frightful rivalry that would paint the idea that the two hated one another. And so, she was needlessly shocked when she found out that the two had expressed feelings towards each other; and she was even more so appalled that they had started dating all without her knowledge. How long would this have gone on? Did this explain Almond's gradual nervousness in regards to Roguefort? All were valid questions that she hoped she would get to the bottom of. 

In front of her were several large cork boards that bore photos of both Roguefort and Almond, torn from newspaper articles and pictures, all that she kept and hoarded. Alongside these were strips of notebook paper and sticky notes, all sprawled with notes and points about their personalities, held together by red yarn and pins. It was a cliche to detective novels, but it managed to help her anyway (and she enjoyed the way it looked in its orderly chaos.)

And yet, despite every photo Walnut pinned onto the board and every word she wrote down, none of her research answered the real question. Why; why did they love each other? How could such opposites care about one another in the way that they seemed to when they embraced? Walnut would never have expected Almond to find a lover, and she most certainly would've never expected that very love to be the same cookie he had been hunting down for years. Walnut stared intensely at the board deep in thought, piecing idea after idea together, until…

"Walnut?" Almond cracked her door open, breaking her concentration and snapping her to attention. Almond's voice was soft and gentle. He knew she was upset about this and that it would take a heaping helping of patience for Walnut to see the two as a couple.

Walnut sighed hesitantly, unsure if she would be mad at him or not. She had no ill-intentions but was instead surprised, "Come in, Almond…."

As he stepped into the room, his eyes immediately darted to the massive display of information laid out on the corkboard, "Did you… make all of this?"

"I'm… just theorizing," Walnut looked down quietly in embarrassment. 

Almond chuckled softly, pulling her into a hug, "You don't have to theorize."

"But… do you love each other?"

Almond slowly nodded, "Yes. I always have. I know that Roguefort is a good cookie… and when you've got a troubled past as they do, something like this is bound to happen, unfortunately." 

"Are you SURE that's the case?"

"I'm not sure. But I suspect. And there's no way to tell without finding out myself."

"You… must REALLY trust Roguefort…." Walnut looked down in silence, still thoroughly confused with even more questions from Almond's words. She couldn't understand what he saw in Roguefort, and she couldn't understand how their love was worth it. And yet, she didn't ask further because she knew that his affection towards them was a grown-up concept, one that hardly made any sense to her. 

"I do, Walnut. It feels… right. I feel like I can trust them like this," A smile found itself across Almond's face, and soon enough, he was beaming just at the thought of Roguefort. And though he knew he'd never discuss it with anyone, he just couldn't push away the fuzzy, warm thoughts of sharing a kiss with them again. Almond didn't understand why he was so heavily engulfed in this love, but he knew he didn't want it to end anytime soon. Just about every aspect of Roguefort was so luxurious and grand, it almost felt like Almond was dating royalty, and soon enough, he felt beads of sweat run down his face the longer he let his imagination run. Although the tough cookie had had several dates in the past, never before did anything feel this right. And at the moment, as his hands began to tremble, he knew that this was the feeling of being deeply in love, at its rawest form…