Mooncakes & Friends

Youyi has never been one to stick around one place for too long. That’s just not him. He’s a man of trills– a man of adventure! However… He does like festivities. The atmosphere, the energy, the food… All of those are reasons enough for him to stick around for the Harvest Moon. Mainly the food.

“Are you done yet?” The merchant whines, one hand digging into a cookie jar to grab another piece of cookie to stuff into his mouth, dropping crumbs all over the floor.

Delores lets out a sigh at his question, gloved hands moving to take out a tray of mooncakes out of the oven before she moves to put the next batch in. “I would be if you had lent me a hand, Youyi.”

Youyi lets out a huff before shoving more cookies into his mouth in response to that, which has Delores sighing out loud again.

“You know you don’t have to wait on me if you want to go have fun, right?”

“I know,” Youyi hums, swaying his legs back and forth. He puts the now empty jar of cookies aside, licking the crumbs off of his face before leaping up onto his feet. “But a festival’s always fun when there’s more people around, right? I also promised Soren I’d bring you along, so!”

Having known Youyi for so long, Delores knows that he’s doing this for his own selfish reasons. Though… She can’t say she’s not thankful to have him here to keep her company. It’s… always nice to have a friend around, admittedly. Even if said friend is being a menace and stealing one of her freshly baked mooncakes.

“Youyi!” Delores chides, rushing forward to smack his hand away from the tray — only for her to catch one of Youyi’s monkos stealing a mooncake from the corner of her eyes. “Hey— You two! Come on!”

Annoyed, she stomps her feet against the floor, only for Youyi to let out an aggravatingly bright laugh. “C’mon, Delores. It’s just one mooncake!”

“Uki! Uki-uki!” Meijing the monko agrees, waving his stolen mooncake in hand before running back to Youyi to share half of it to him.

Youyi doesn’t wait for Delores to speak again before putting the mooncake into his mouth, taking a big bite out of it. He chews… obnoxiously loud on purpose before letting out a hum of approval. “Woah… This is like— really good!”

Delores’s cheeks flush a little at that, her flower tail swaying a little behind her as she fakes a cough. “Ahem– Of course… They’re for the community, after all.”

Always weak to compliments. Youyi can’t help but laugh, shaking his head a little before finishing up the mooncake in his hand. 

“Tell you what.” Delores tilts her head when he speaks, curious to hear what he’d say. He grins at her, dusting off the crumbs from his hand before continuing. “I’ll help you package these mooncakes and hand them out. As thanks!”

His offer does raises Delores’s eyebrow. Is he being genuine? When she looks into his eyes… It seems to be so.

“Okay,” she relents with a sigh. Though, there’s definitely a hint of a smile on her lips. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll get an extra mooncake.”