Chapter 146 – Eating cookies

While most of the group was busy showing Eluna the real way to use magic, Sophia and Ari snuck away together because they had something better to do. Baking cookies, that is. Once the tiger finished corrupting the poor black-haired girl even further with her lack of common sense, she told the jaguar about chocolade-chip cookies. Ari very much liked the sound of these, and the duo decided to bake them.

"It smells delicious~!" The first batch of cookies was about to be done, and Sophia impatiently ran back and forth in front of the oven.

"Yes, the chocoladey smell is great." Ari agreed. "But we'll have to wait some more. Even after cookies are finished baking, they first need to cool down, after all. They tend to be rather chewy if you don't do it properly. While that's quite popular, too, I prefer crispy ones."

"B-But still warm ones with gooey chocolade that spreads all around in your mouth together with the slight crisp of the cookie is amazing~."

"T-That does sound delicious..."

"Alright, let's eat the first batch immediately! We can let the second and so on cool down fully."

"B-But all those calories!" The jaguar almost looked scared.

"Don't worry, I basically can't gain weight. Even if I would, I do a bare minimum of sport, and I'm back to my original weight."

"Sophia." Ari's voice suddenly changed.

"Yes?"

"You shouldn't say something like this in the presence of others, especially with girls around. They might end up hating you."

"Yeah, I know... Maya already did end up hating me once because of that."

"Understandable. I do, too, right now."

"Ahaha..." The tiger let out a dry laugh. "Sorry."

"As long as you understand."

"Y-Yes... Let's eat in moderation."

"Good."

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Afterward, the two took out the first batch of cookies and let them cool down for a minimal amount while getting the second batch ready to bake and placing it in the oven.

"Delicious!" Sophia couldn't wait any longer and bit down on a still fairly warm chocolade-chip cookie, and her face lit up.

"W-Wow..." Ari did the same and needed a moment. "You were right. The still gooey chocolade is an amazing experience together with the light crispiness of a regular cookie. The base recipe might need a little more tweaking, but overall, it's one of the best cookies I tried!"

"Yeah, it might've gotten a little too sweet because we used a ton of chocolade. Only a whiff, though. I still love them!"

"Absolutely. I still can't believe that no one, including me, ever thought of adding chocolade chunks to cookies..."

"Yep, I would say that's almost a crime!" The tiger was still beyond shocked.

"I agree."

The duo continued to bake the remaining batches while snacking on the already done cookies for a while. Sophia had just taken the last tray out of the oven and wanted to place it on the kitchen table when she noticed a slight issue.

"Uhh... Could you make some space for me, Ari?" While wearing some thick, heat-resistant gloves, the tiger looked at the packed table as she was holding the cookie sheet.

"Oh, of course! Let me see..." She looked around in the kitchen, but every corner was packed with things. "Err..."

"Look at the first sheet. There are only two cookies left. Just eat them, and I can place them on top."

"Right. One each?" Ari wanted to share.

"Ahhh~." As Sophia had no free hands, she simply opened her mouth.

"I guess it can't be helped." The jaguar got closer to her and gently fed Sophia the cookie before eating the remaining one herself.

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"Wow."

"Well, if that isn't something." In the exact moment when the black-haired girl began to feed the blonde, two new voices had joined the conversation.

"Ah." Sophia didn't even need to look at the door to know that Maya and the princess had arrived. While her detection magic was constantly running, she tended to forget about it as long as there were no enemies around.

"A-Anna?!" Ari panicked much more and immediately took a step away from Sophia.

"F-First that super intimate playing with the other's hair and now feeding each other?!" The girl in question didn't seem amused about the sight, and there was more than just a hint of jealousy in her voice.

"I-It's not like that!"

"That's some impressive timing." Sophia looked at her cat.

"Sure is. Still, feeding each other is kinda borderline on the flirty scale, you know?"

"What? She just stuffed a cookie into my mouth because I had no free hand at the moment."

"Okay, that's a solid argument." Maya was surprisingly calm.

"Thank you." The blonde was happy about it. "It's not like we were feeding each other mouth to mouth like a certain someone tried the other day, you know?"

"A-Ah." The certain someone with white hair and cat-ears turned her head away in response.

"Well, it was fun~." Sophia wasn't complaining.

"Hehe."

"Messy, too."

"Y-Yeah..."

"So, what's this all about?" Anna was still staring daggers at the jaguar.

"W-Well... While all of you were trying to teach Eluna magic, Sophia and I got a bit bored and tried to busy ourselves a little..."

"And since when does that end up in feeding each other?!" The jealous undertone in the princess' voice was growing. "You've never fed me before!"

"Eh?" Ari needed a moment. "T-That's the problem?"

"Yes! It's unfair!"

"R-Really...?" Slightly hesitant, the black-haired girl then picked up a cookie and brought it closer to Anna's face. "S-Say Ahh..." She wasn't sure how to deal with the expectant-looking princess, and her face turned a bit red.

"Ehehe, ahh~." Anna's expression brightened up, and she slightly opened her mouth.

"S-So embarrassing..." Ari's blush intensified as she gently fed the cookie to the princess.

"A-Are we also like this..." Sophia glanced at Maya after having watched the duo.

"I think we're worse, actually."

"Seriously?!" The blonde, too, became embarrassed.

"Yeah..."

"What's this?! It's delicious!" Anna was munching on the cookie she got from Ari, and she suddenly got loud. Or louder.

"R-Right?!" The Jaguar agreed while it seemed like her face was cooling down. "They're called chocolade-chip cookies."

"Really? Never heard of that."

"Neither did I. Sophia came up with them."

"Seriously?! You're amazing, Sophia! They're delicious! I love the chocoladey bits!" The princess was already on her next cookie while saying so.

"Eh?!" Maya also became loud. "What?! You made them?!" She looked at her tiger while trying a cookie. "T-They really are amazing. A tiny bit too sweet, though I like that. The texture's perfect, and the half-molten chunks of chocolade are... wow! Were you lying when you said you can't cook!? That would be pretty low..."

"N-No, I really am no good at it. I just knew these cookies from, uuh... somewhere and was able to recreate them with Ari." She obviously couldn't say where she actually knew them from. "My only contribution to the finished product was me having chopped the chocolade."

"Oh, I see. Ahh... that's why the sizes of the chocolade bits are all over the place."

"S-Shut up, that was on purpose!"

"Sure~." The cat naturally didn't believe her.

"Ari, I said that it has to be like that, right?"

"You did?" She only tilted her head.

"Ari?!"

"Hehe." The black-haired girl showed her a slight grin.

"H-Hey! Oh, are you giving what we talked about earlier a try?" Sophia remembered suggesting Ari to be a little more playful as the princess seemed receptive to being teased.

"What's this about?" The other two tilted their heads.

"Nothing!" The duo immediately answered at the same time.

"Hmm?" Anna's and Maya's voices, too, overlapped, and both didn't seem too enthusiastic about their behavior.

"Even having secrets on top now?!" The loud tiger sounded jealous again.

"Mh-hmm." It seemed to be a tad much for Maya, too.

"Ah..." The worst-case the duo imagined became true.

"Here, have another cookie, princess." This time, Sophia grabbed one and stuffed it into Anna's mouth, not showing any sort of gentleness compared to when Ari fed her before leaning over to Maya and started whispering. "It's nothing, okay? I'll tell you later. It's just something the princess shouldn't know."

"Oh, I see~." The cat's expression immediately relaxed.

"So unfair!" Anna's didn't, though.

"T-There's no need to worry, Anna..." Ari tried to calm her down. "Sophia just tried to give me a tip or two to get better along with y-you... "

"I thought we get along great, though...?" She wasn't sure how to feel about this.

"We do!" The jaguar's reply was instantaneous. "B-But wouldn't it be nice if we were to get along even better?"

"Oh!" Anna started smiling. "That sounds awesome! Thank you very much, Sophia!"

"Sure..." The blonde was glad the princess didn't want to know how. Explaining that would be slightly complicated.

"Anything else of interest happened with the two of you while you were all alone?" Though Maya was mostly okay with the new friendship of the duo, her emotional side still has some slight issues with it.

"Not really. We chatted about all kinds of stuff before I got confused about the whole activation word thing again and destroyed every bit of knowledge Ari ever had about magic."

"Yeah..." The jaguar nodded. "To the point where I got a headache and feel slightly dizzy ever since she finished destroying my common sense..."

"Me, too, actually... I don't think I ever made myself get a headache from being confused, let alone being dizzy." Sophia apparently had the same symptoms. "I sure went all out with that."

"Soo... practically business as usual." Maya didn't see anything out of the ordinary here.

"More or less." The blonde nodded. "What about the training with Eluna?"

"Not bad. She seems to be slowly getting a grasp of the idea. It's just that she thinks much more compared to the princess, so we might need a little longer than we thought."

"Hey!" Anna complained about the wording. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't question everything and just do as I tell you. It's much easier for you to get a feel of the magic that way. Though, once it clicks for Eluna, her progress might be faster afterward. Personally, I prefer the act first, think later approach, so teaching you is a lot more fun for me, princess."

"Ehehe~." She was happy about that answer.

"Very fun~." The cat-girl repeated herself again in a different type of voice and only so Sophia could hear her.

"You..." She only rolled her eyes.

Afterward, the girls kept chatting about more meaningless topics while snacking on the cookies Ari and Sophia baked together. For some reason, Anna kept demanding to be fed by the jaguar, and she happily, though with a blush on her cheeks, complied to it.