MillyLilly. Chocolate Battle

“Thank you! Thank you!” Chaps kept saying in a voice, cracking with tears.

“Okay,” Nole barely could manage to say due to the force of the hug. “Thank… you… too.”

Grasshoppers were harmless, emotional, but actually pretty strong creatures. They were strong, probably, because of the constant jumping that make them very muscular. Nole had to catch his breath when Chaps finally let him go. The beautiful lilly was still not far from Nole, and he ran towards her. But when Nole was just steps away from the beautiful lilly, and even opened his arms to embrace her, the milly Grilly sprouted right in between and hugged Nole.

Grilly was on the chubby side and very sweaty; he was so sweaty that Nole’s face that got buried for a quick moment in the Grilly’s chest, immediately became wet.

“Thank you for finding me to give me your hug,” said Grilly.

Nole wanted to say that he didn’t actually look for Grilly, but chose not to say anything.

“Thank you, thank you,” quickly said Nole.

Grilly moved aside, and here she was, right in front of Nole, smiling and looking straight in his eyes. Nole blushed again.

“So,” she said in amazing gentle voice. “Any hugs left?”

“Y-y-es,” squeezed out Nole and, secretly making sure that Grilly is not around, opened his arms again. They hugged with Nole’s heart beating as if he was running a marathon.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Nole. “Are you new in our city?

“Yes,” she said. “We just moved here a week ago from Muffinado.”

“Was it boring in Muffinado?” asked Nole.

“Not really,” said she. “My mom’s health requires her to live close to lakes, and, of course, everybody knows about the healing qualities of ambia.”

“What’s your name?” asked Nole.

“Mela. And yours?”

“Nole.”

Mela smiled and said, “Nole, may I ask you to do me a small favor?”

“Anything you want!” readily agreed Nole.

“Could you please unlock your hug? I do enjoy your passion, but it looks a little bit strange now.”

Only then Nole realized that he’d kept hugging Mela all the time they were talking. What’s more, everybody around had stopped hugging some time ago and now were watching Nole and Mela.

“I’m so sorry!” said Nole and hastily stepped back.

“It’s okay.” Mela smiled. “We can meet up and talk later.”

Mela returned to her parents. Nole turned around to look for Chaps and found him right behind.

“I’ve heard everything,” said Chaps, sweeping tears of joy off his face. “It’s so beautiful. When you two are getting married?”

“Married?” exclaimed Nole. “I don’t even know her! She might be married already.”

“It’s not a problem,” said Chaps. “I can easily divorce her if you two love each other.”

“And why would you divorce anybody?

“Because I’m a master of divorce,” humbly said Chaps. “I used to work as a divorcer.”

“Where?”

“In a divorcing company.”

“We don’t have a divorcing company,” objected Nole. “Nobody ever divorces here.”

“The company is in RaspberryJamville,” said Chaps quickly.

“I see this RaspberryJamville has a lot of interesting companies,” said Nole. “And what did you do exactly when you were divorcing couples?”

“Nothing much. I would stand in front of a couple who wants to divorce, and say, for instance, ‘Nole and Mela, with the power of a handsome grasshopper, I declare you divorced. You can spit at each other now.”

“Spit?” repeated Nole, instantly forgetting about “the power of a handsome grasshopper” which he’d wanted to question Chaps about first.

“Of course. When a couple is getting married, they kiss each other; when they divorce, they spit at each other.”

Nole wanted to say that he’s never heard about the spitting tradition, but Sage Keon raised his staff again and said, “MillyLilly of Ambia!”

He looked around, making sure that everybody was listening, and everybody was listening.