Christmas DLC time! This one's in story mode!
Although Klickelan Island usually had warm weather year-round, every so often there would be an unexpected cold snap. While it would never quite get cold enough to snow even a little, the local business owners would bring out special stock for the weather whenever the temperature fell below a certain threshold. On one such unusually cold evening in Teomo City, Teisel strolled across the marketplace. He spotted Max sitting on the edge of the fountain and sipping from a Styrofoam cup. At first he turned to make his way across the cobblestones and say hi, but as soon as he noticed the candy cane sticking out of his boss’s cup, he froze on the spot. It was obvious even from that far away that Max had to have mixed his own peppermint hot cocoa.
Teisel tried to slip off into the crowd, but of course, by then Max had detected him from where he was sitting and started jogging over to meet him. “Hey T-Bonne, you don’t look so great,” he exclaimed. “You feeling okay?”
“It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
Max frowned and stirred the candy cane around in his cocoa. “If you’re worried about ruining my night, nothing you’ve told me before has
ever ruined my night,” he prodded. “Not even when it’s really bad! I bounce back, dang it! Now come on and tell me what’s bothering you before I get too worried and implode!”
Teisel nervously fidgeted with the edges of his coat pockets. “You’ve never imploded from worrying about me before,” he uttered with an anxious grin. “When I say it’s nothing I meant…”
“Try me.” Max stubbornly retorted. “You’re just not used to having friends around who’ll unconditionally listen to this stuff and aren’t dogs, robots, or relatives, are you?”
“For someone who has trouble reading books that don’t have pictures in them, that was an uncannily astute observation.” Teisel begrudgingly replied with a sigh. “But I’m telling you, this one really
isn’t that big of a deal. You just…” He took a deep breath and started the sentence over again. “My mom used to buy hot cocoa and stir it with a candy cane to make it peppermint flavored, too. I thought she was the only one who did that instead of buying regular peppermint hot cocoa out of a box. Tron and I drank it a lot when we were kids. You had no way of knowing that. I don’t want you to feel bad about it and throw out your drink because of me or anything! I just…I…I just miss my mom. It’s been fifteen years, I’m getting older, and some stupid little thing that was completely out of my control
still made me miss my mom. It really doesn’t get better, does it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Max admitted, “But it’s definitely as okay to miss her as it is to miss anyone else you’ve been missing. Sometimes you just miss people. And if she made peppermint hot cocoa with a candy cane, then she had to have been really cool, right? Did you want a sip?”
Teisel glanced at the foam cup. It was still steaming, but it looked like Max had somehow managed to slobber all around the edge anyway. “Errrr…” he faltered. “Thanks, but I think I’ll buy my own. Where’d you get it?”
“The takoyaki stand’s selling it plain for 100 zenny because of the cold snap.”
“Takoyaki and hot cocoa? Now
that’s a strange combination,” Teisel mused out loud.
“Tell me about it,” Max added. He reached into his pocket and handed Teisel a candy cane. “Take it. No need to return the favor.”
Instead of heading straight off for the vendor, Teisel lingered a bit before finally saying what was on his mind. “You know, Aero sometimes reminds me of Tron...but now you’re the one who ended up making your own peppermint hot cocoa the way she and my mother and I did. That threw me off.” He glanced at an empty can on the ground before turning to face Max again and asking, “Do you think, somewhere out there, on some island we’ve never visited, there might be someone with exactly the same tastes and interests as my parents or Tron or Bon?”
Max shrugged. “That’s a really complicated question.”
“It’s not an easy one to think about,” Teisel admitted. “The thought that some of the things I remember most about my family aren’t necessarily exclusive to them makes me get depressed. There are new things that get produced every day, and I’ll never know for sure what Mom or any of the others might have thought about them. I have ideas about some things, sometimes, if they’re popular enough, but they’d never really be a sure thing. That makes it hard. I can never tell when I’m going to run into something that they might have liked, or which insignificant little detail out there in the world might send an otherwise productive day collapsing in on itself. It’s easy when it’s something big, like a birthday. That’s something I can plan for in advance, but something like a beverage? Not so much.”
“I’m not sure whether you want one of these or you just lied about not wanting me to go throw this one out,” Max mumbled under his breath.
Teisel’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “I want one! Really! I was only surprised you had it!” He exclaimed. “It’s better than seeing things I know they liked go out of fashion…if that’s not the universe telling me that it’s been far too long for me to keep dwelling on this stuff, I don’t know what is.”
“Peppermint hot cocoa isn’t going anywhere,” Max assured Teisel, “but that takoyaki stall won’t stay open all night. If you want any, you should probably hurry up and grab a cup while you can. I’ll wait up for you over by the fountain. The fishy smell’s kind of strong over there.”
“Right,” Teisel stood up a little straighter and wandered off in the direction of the street vendor. “Thanks, Max.”
“Anytime, T-Bonne. And one more thing!”
Teisel whipped around on the spot.
“Don’t worry about how long it’s been,” he added. “You take as much time as you need. The universe can suck it!”