"Remember when you didn't care about me," Kai reminisced over the good old days, smiling at Cinder. It was her work break from her stepmother's café, Continental Coffee (or as Cinder preferred to call it, Continental Cheese, due to her secret and possibly illegal side-business that involved mechanics and a secret cheese menu). The two were sitting in a pastry shop a short walk away, Cinder having insisted that she didn't need nutrition, only chocolate.
Kai was beginning to regret having given in.
"Who's to say I do now," Cinder said, shoving another pastry in her mouth. Sometimes he wondered if she even liked him, or just his excessive knowledge of the best patisseries in New Beijing.
To be fair, if it were the latter, he couldn't blame her. They were exceptional.
"Me, I'd hope," he teased.
"Okay," she said around a mouthful of croissant. "I'll take that into consideration. I think the only opinion that really matters is mine, though."
Kai shrugged and, eyeing the bag of cheez-its sticking out of her bag, ("Emergency snacks!" she always said. Kai just blamed it on her obsession with cheese.) smiled slowly. "If I make cheesy puns will I win you over eventually?"
"Sorry?"
"Well, I don't know anything that gouda," he said, casually picking up a piece of the pain au lait they'd ordered. "But with your parmesan I could at least try." He winked, grinning at Cinder's dumbfounded expression. She had never seen this side of her boyfriend before, which might have been a good thing. Torin liked to tell him that his puns rivaled Thorne's, even.
Taking Cinder's silence as a yes, Kai continued. "I really didn't think you'd stazaar long, you know. I was so annoying, it must have been like being in the devil's gluch."
At this point Cinder had finally leaned away from the pastries and was watching Kai with a number of emotions, only some of which he could discern. Confusion, certainly. Amusement. Perhaps a little bit of endearment.
"I'm not usually that inept," he said with a sigh. "It's just that I was so infatuated with you, the thought of being without... I camembert it. Cheesy puns are the only solution."
"There are plenty of other solutions," Cinder groaned.
"There aren't!" he protested. "You just make me melt! I can't resist, and it's the best I can do. Seriously, I can't do cheddar."
"Why are you like this," she muttered, slouching down in her chair as if the other people at the nearly abandoned café could hear him.
"If you wanted a normal boyfriend, you should have known I'm nacho man."
"Well, obviously. You're an emperor. Not to mention just your personality. Like, in general."
Kai feigned an offended look. "You'd feta take that back. I could have you thrown in prison, you know, so you gouda brie kidding."
Cinder frowned. "Okay, now you're not even being creative. I bet half of these puns are going to involve gouda or brie, they're such easy cheeses."
"I'm not that creative, I don't know anything that gouda! And if you're such an expert, why don't you try."
"No, thank you," she said wryly. "You're doing great, honey."
"You mean, I'm doing grate?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows incessantly.
Rolling her eyes, Cinder facepalmed quietly. "I take it back. You know, some day I'm going to be telling our kids about this-"
"Aw, we're going to get married?" Kai asked, his heart soaring in his chest. He knew they were serious (despite Cinder acting as if she hated him in times like these), but still. It was sweet. "To havarti and to hold? You mean it?"
Cinder groaned again, but judging from the way she couldn't look him in the eye, Kai suspected that if she were able she would definitely be blushing. "Whatever. I'll be telling someone about this, probably once this relationship is over because you keep doing things like this-"
"Forever provolone," Kai sighed.
"-and I'll sound positively ridiculous when I tell them that you did things like make cheese puns."
"It's all because I'm fondue you! If you were looking less sharp today maybe I'd be able to restrain myself, but alas."
Cinder stared at him, her face completely straight.
"Come on, I thought that one was pretty good! Are you laughtose intolerant or something?" he asked, grinning. He wasn't that bad about this, right?
"I only laugh at funny things," she replied.
Okay, ouch.
"How dairy."
She rolled her eyes, cracking the tiniest of smiles.
"Ha!" He leapt to his feet, forgetting there were other people in the shop, and pointed at her triumphantly. "So those are the types of puns you're looking for! Or is it brie you're looking for," he mused, sitting down again as the confused cashier slowly continued wiping down a counter, eyeing them and clearly wondering if it was within his station to remove the Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth from his café.
"Please no," Cinder muttered, eating the last of their Normandy apple tart.
"You'd feta watch out, because all my puns are in the same vein as that one."
"I know," she said, getting to her feet and checking her watch. "I've sat through seven minutes of them. On that note, I have to get back to work."
"Ah," Kai said, nodding as he quickly stood. "I'll come with you. Otherwise I'd be so provolonely."
"That one again?" she asked.
"Have I already done it?" He frowned, wracking his brain for more cheese-related puns. It was all fun and games until he had to make Cinder laugh, a harder quest than one might think. Unfortunately, Kai was not the most well-versed in cheeses.
"Yes. Well, essentially."
"Darn. Well," he said, following her out the door, "it's sardo believe none of these have made you laugh yet."
"Oh, is that your goal."
"Of course! What else would it brie?"
Groaning, Cinder muttered something about every sentence being a pun under her breath and Kai quietly beamed. "Well, I think the original one was reminding me that I actually do care about you now, which you're doing a horrible job of doing."
"Oh. Right."
"Ha! A sentence that wasn't a pun!" Cinder pointed at him, now beaming, and Kai deflated slightly.
"That's what it took to make you smile? A sentence without a pun?" He was devastated.
"Definitely."
"There must be something I can do! What if... I became Paris Stilton?"
"Who?"
"I don't know," he said with a sigh. "Brieoncé?"
"I literally have no idea what you're talking about, Kai." Cinder shook her head, the slight twinkle in her eye letting him subtly know that she was still teasing.
Thankfully. It would be pathetic if she dumped him over cheese puns. He would greve it forever.
"Urda person who has to listen to all of this, so I can't blame you for not liking it," he admitted. But it is rather fun to say. You should try."
"Definitely not," Cinder said. "I'll just subject myself to the torture of listening to you."
"Aha! So you do like me! You'd never subject yourself to torture if it wasn't from someone you loved."
"Bold of you to assume that I don't subject myself to the torture of being around people I don't like all the time. You know, like myself."
Blinking away his confusion, Kai decided that that was definitely sarcasm.
"I hope your sarcasm isn't rubing off on me," he muttered. "I'd rather stick with the cheese puns. They're at least mildly funny."
"Rude."
"It was supposed to be a joke!" he protested. "Mild? Like mild cheese?"
Rolling her eyes, Cinder laughed softly. "I got the joke, Kai. It was sarcasm."
"Oh."
She laughed again and smiled softly as they reached Continental Coffee. "Thank you for the cheese puns, Kai. They weren't as bad as I pretended."
"I'm glad," he said, genuinely relieved. "Because to be honest, they seemed pretty bad to me."
Chuckling, Cinder drew him into a kiss. "It's okay. You were a bit creole, but you've convinced me. I'm surke I love my grate boyfriend."
They separated and Cinder headed into the shop, leaving Kai dumbfounded in front of the door. "Wa- was that a cheese pun?"
"It was three, actually," she said, smirking. "The things I do to mac you happy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE MOST UNFUNNY FIC EVER TO EXIST IS FINISHED. PRAISE THE LORD, HALLELUJAH.
This has been in my drafts for three months, I figured it was about time I finished it. I hope you enjoyed by feeble attempts at humor with a teensy bit of Kaider sprinkled in.
Credit to CosmicNovaFlare for some of the punspiration! Check out her account, she has much better jokes than me. Not to mention awesome art and writing. (As if the "better jokes" part wasn't enough incentive to read her works.)
Thank you very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! And yes, this was of course a continuation of my Cinder the Cheese God saga, roughly related to the first oneshot of this book, Continental Cheese. What can I say? Cinder the Cheese God is extremely iconic and deserves more recognition. I am only paying tribute.
Much love,
Alice xx