lmao haha wow last update in 2015 really? Oh, well! I like this story and I just found a bit I apparently wrote a little while ago. It's nice and long, so if for whatever ungodly reason you were on the edge of your seat since 2015 waiting for updates, I hope 2.7k words makes up for it.

Today was the day. Everything Adrien valued—his reputation, his pride, his bros—was on the line today, and the Goddess knew just how hard he'd worked in the week leading up to this.

A day of days.

A festival of festivals.

Adrien had been Chase's perfect student, and he aimed to prove it today.

He had never cuddled his cow so hard in his life. Or hers, frankly. Every day, at precisely 6:10 in the morning, Adrien would storm the gates of his barn, startling his groggy animals, and make a beeline for Cara, his beloved brown bovine bro-ette. With a tenderness that had surprised Chase the first time he'd come over during Adrien's morning chores, Adrien would pet her nose, then scratch behind her ears, and set to her cleaning routine. The hard brush to get the grit off, the soft brush to make her coat shimmer, and the pick to free the dirt from her hooves. Adrien had felt a little guilty about his other animals not receiving quite as diligent treatment, sleeping as they were, but Cara's happy lowing of approval made it all worth it.

"Moosic to my ears!" he'd laughed with Chase that time.

Chase hadn't found it as hilarious. He'd left the barn, actually. Adrien was pretty sure he'd just been dramatic and had to leave to chuckle at Adrien's rapier wit in private.

The other important result was Cara's high-quality milk. It practically shone with purity and deliciousness. The latter Adrien could attest to, because he'd wanted to be one-hundred-and-ten percent sure its quality would be up to snuff by this morning.

He'd scoured the mountainside and forest for the thickest, richest, headiest herbs he could find. Adrien was partial to the blue herbs himself, but he had the feeling Yolanda would like the green, so he'd paid special attention last night for the juiciest-looking flawless specimens. And finally, nestled against a stump in the depths of Fugue Forest, he'd found the perfect little entanglement.

And the fish…Oh, how he'd slaved over the fish yesterday.

Adrien had spent the better part of the day at the pebbly excuse for a beach south of his ranch fishing and fishing and fishing and fishing. His shipping bin would reek of mackerel for weeks. But when that halibut had showed its floppy face…

Well.

So today Adrien was prepared. Exhausted, less chipper than usual, but chipper enough to feel prepared and raring to cook.

He would kick the Cooking Festival's ass, so help him, because Gill had laughed when he'd heard Adrien boast of his baking prowess to Luna and said pies were all well and good, but did Adrien actually know how to cook a real meal instead of working off all the pastries' calories on the farm?

Well, pies were all well and good! They were delicious! And Luna had agreed, much to Gill's consternation! But Chase had taught Adrien how to sauté turnips like no one's business. Adrien, fuming, had sworn—and cursed, now that he thought about it—he'd sauté Gill into the dirt at the Cooking Festival with the tastiest turnips to ever sizzle on a tongue.

But Chase had been a bro. He'd even been a biased bro, because he was competing, too. And Chase had told him he'd need something a lot fancier than turnips to give Gill the culinary throw-down he deserved.

And thus the agonizing, meticulous, delicate week that followed.

"No, no," Adrien had insisted, pushing Chase away with one hand and using the other to put his hand on his own chest to brood dramatically into the distance. "I'll figure something out on my own. Hush, Chase. Bro," he whispered when Chase tried to speak and offer some recipe. "You must give these lowly souls a chance. You can't be seen fraternizing with the enemy."

"This is weird. You're being weird," Chase had finally conceded, and left Adrien to brood on whatever passed for Harmonica Town's moors in peace.

And thus…fish meuniere. Perfect.

"Perfect" was the best word for his creation, really. The fish was delicate and flaky, just the silkiest hint of cream, and a mouthwatering pop of fresh herbs. It came out of the oven beautifully browned and wafting heavenly tendrils of savory joy throughout his ranch house. If Adrien had a cat, the cat would definitely be named Leo, because that was a badass name, and Leo the cat would totally be trying to get a piece of that. The dish had browned just a little too much on the sides of the pan, which Adrien figured was normal. Still looked and smelled tasty.

Armed with his little plastic bowl of fish meuniere, Adrien departed for Flute Fields. He whistled a jaunty little tune as he went, something one of the bells had jangled and always got stuck in his head. Chase was nowhere to be seen amongst the traveling townspeople traipsing through the field, but Adrien knew it was because Chase had gone extra-super early to make sure his entry was safe, and perfect, and replicable in case something did happen to it and he had to rush home again.

Because Chase was just like that.

And, when Adrien finally made it to the festival grounds and the judging table, his heart sank at the sight of a beautiful glowing bowl of bouillabaisse that was not Chase's.

Because Gill, standing next to it, was just like that, too.

Adrien looked at his little container of fish meuniere and sighed, a woebegone thing that no one would care about but him, just like his sigh. "We had this in the bag, bro," he whispered to it. It almost gleamed, but not quite. "Almost isn't good enough! Come on, step it up!"

"Giving yourself a pep talk?" The smirking-sounding voice didn't have the annoying ring of Gill-brand smugness Adrien had expected.

"Hi, Chase."

Chase's violet eyes widened, and he staggered back. "Did you just…call me my name? First thing in the morning? No 'hey,' no 'bro'?" Adrien cast his eyes to the heavens, squeezed his eyes shut, and prayed to the Goddess. For nothing, really. Just for Gill to face-plant for a couple hours. Not too long.

"Adrien? You good?" The concern in Chase's voice would have moved him any other day. But today was too tragic for anything other than heaving sighs.

"I worked my butt off to make the best fish meuniere I could," Adrien pointed to his dish, "but my best was not good enough. It was not Gill-level good enough."

Chase looked back and forth between Adrien's otherwise-perfect fish and Gill's shining-quality seafood while the wounded farmer continued to tell his tale of woe. "I spent so much time in the barn that Cara's totally sick of me. I'm lucky she likes me enough to give me milk at all. And then I went into the forest like, every day looking for good herbs, and I got branches and brambles all over my skin. Everywhere, bro. Everywhere."

"I believe you, pull up your pants—"

"And then I fished for hours and hours and hours until my hands were raw. And my shipping bin stinks!"

Chase inspected Adrien's red palms and red eyes with uncharacteristic sobriety. "You gotta be careful, man," he said, but he didn't seem to be paying much attention. He was looking at Gill, who was looking at his nails. Adjusting his cuffs, patting down his hair, adjusting his bowl just-so on the table. Adrien followed Chase's stare and sighed. Again.

"You know, I didn't think Gill was too bad before he emasculated me."

"He hasn't emasculated you yet," Chase said firmly. Adrien jumped. "Come on. Bring your fish. It looks good to me, and you worked hard on it."

"It's not good enough—"

"Of course it is," Chase snapped, dragging him to the judging table. "Look, let's say you don't win today. For the sake of argument. No, shut up, listen. Let's say you don't win. You feel like you can forage better? Fish? Find what you want to eat? For the Goddess's sake, Adrien. You barely knew what a frying pan was a few weeks ago. And you made this anyway, and it smells damn delicious."

Adrien blinked at his bro, chest tight.

"So you're going to enter this contest," Chase said, walking backwards, Adrien still in tow, "yes, even though I'm competing, and you're going to be proud, and Luna's gonna be—"

"Dude, I think I'm in love with her."

Chase paused, just for a second, then kept, well, not looking where he was going. "So you did this for a lot of good reasons. So who cares if—" Adrien didn't really have enough kindness in him that moment to warn Chase about bumping into the preening Gill. Which meant Chase bumped into the preening Gill.

Who had also been holding his bouillabaisse to breathe in its beautiful aroma.

Who had now dropped it.

"What the—" Both Gill and Adrien stared at the shattered bowl in horror. No one else had really paid much attention, the festival goings-on and whatnot still going on and whatnot.

"Sorry, Gill," Chase apologized with a serious nod. Gill woke from his stupor and now had the sense—Adrien could admit—to glare and ball his fists and shout a bit.

"You're sorry?"

Maybe less than a bit.

"Yep. I'm sorry."

Gill slapped a hand against his own forehead and grit his teeth. "I can't believe you. Those shrimp were expensive, Chase. I had to get them imported. I rushed the shipping. Do you have any idea how much it cost?"

Adrien didn't pout, because pouting was distinctly unmanly. Sticking out his lip a little and furrowing his brow, arms crossed, not looking at wealthy Gill…well, that was more brooding than pouting.

"I figure it cost you a winning entry," Chase agreed, voice almost contrite. But almost, as Adrien knew, wasn't good enough. "So how about you take my dish as repayment?"

Both Gill and Adrien gaped. The brutal knife that was betrayal from a bro sliced through Adrien's heart. "Bro," he whispered, and okay, fine, he couldn't help that his voice was quavering a little. But bro-trayal called for extreme circumstances! Chase didn't even look at him.

"Are you certain? You won't even be able to compete. That is," Gill gestured to the vague direction of Chase's house, "unless you think you can run back home to cook an entry."

Even through Adrien's grief and anger, he bristled at Gill's tone. But Chase nodded. "No, submission time's almost closed. But I win almost every year, anyway. So I can sit out—and you can have a good dish. No, a shining one."

"Yes, very well." And with that, Chase's beautiful sushi platter graced Gill's undeserving hands. "Isn't this, well, cheating a bit? I didn't prepare anything."

"Yeah!" Adrien chimed in, ignored by the two of them. Chase brought a bag of something out of his apron and handed it over, too.

"Yes. So how about you put the finishing touches on it? You can wrap the whole thing in some extra seaweed I had left over."

Gill eyed the untidy packet with suspicion, but when a few seconds had passed and Chase shook it at him, he grinned and swiped it. "You always do get nervous and overprepare, huh?"

"That's me. Nervous about everything."

"Hey, wait, that's—" Adrien interrupted, pointing a finger at the odd packet, "Chase, that's not—"

"I know it's not fair," Chase cut him off, giving him a totally unnecessary shove. "But life's not fair. Come on. Go give your stuff to Yolanda."

Adrien stared at Chase, the bro-trayal in his heart overwhelmed by brotherly affection once more, but another shove from Chase accompanied by a savage grin got him moving to Yolanda, to Luna, to their other friends, to the rest of the festival fun while the judging of everything else took place behind the scenes.

Adrien, Luna, Owen, Luke, and Kathy were hanging out eating apple candy by the barn and planning a last autumn cocktail night when Adrien overheard Yolanda gagging. He knew he wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the judging. He knew it.

But it wasn't "eavesdropping" if Yolanda was being loud in her disgust, was it?

"Revolting," she finally said after many a dramatic spit and cough. "Why on earth would anyone put algae in sushi? It's not seaweed, much as you'd like to pretend. Whose plate is this…? Gill, honestly! A bachelor should know how to cook at least something!"

Adrien's smile shined as bright as Chase's sushi once had. He whipped his head around looking for his beloved bro, but Chase was over by the silo with Maya, laughing and rolling his eyes while she regaled him with some story, shaking her spoonfuls of chestnut rice for emphasis. Not worth disturbing.

"Well, time to announce the winners of the cooking contest," Mayor Hamilton called after what seemed like an eternity. "Yolanda, if you'd please?"

"Yes, of course." Piles of honey, salt, and sugar towered behind Yolanda. She cleared her throat. "In third place, we have…no one." The crowd tittered. "It's true. Chase didn't compete this year—I know, I know!—so we only had two entrants."

Gill, standing next to Toby, smoothed the back of his hair. Adrien fought to repress a giggle.

"You know what, I'll just cut to first place. Parts of it were burnt, but other than that, essentially perfect, so…first prize goes to Farmer Adrien! Come on up, honey, because you win ten bottles of honey!"

Adrien fist-pumped with two hands while his friends cheered. He ran up to the podium, smooched Yolanda's cheek with a wet smack and a chortle on her part, and piled all ten bottles in his arms, ignoring Cain's offers of a cart.

Yolanda cleared her throat again, and the chatter died down. "Well, that means the second-place prize goes to Gill. Ten piles of high-quality salt! Come on up!"

Gill got cheers, too, but Gill looked…

Salty.

Adrien couldn't help cackling.

"And since we didn't have a third-place winner, I guess we'll just give it to Chase, since he was going to enter originally, too. Come on up, sweetheart."

Chase joined the two of them on the podium, at the lowest tier. "Wait!" Adrien shouted just as the applause broke out. He hastily set the honey aside. Eight of the bottles. He left two—one in each hand.

"To my bro, Chase!" he cried, ripping off the cap of one with his teeth. He lifted it high in the air.

Chase buried his face in his hands. "Adrien, you are not going to—"

Adrien did. Chugging honey, as it turned out, was a rather slow process, and he gave up only a few glugs in, but the spirit of the thing got through. Then he turned back to face the rest of town.

"And to my girlfriend Luna," he shouted. Adrien ripped off the cap of the other honey bottle with a rather stickier mouth and toasted her with it, too. "I'm in love with you, Luna! I love you more than I love food!"

The villagers laughed and cheered again while he tried to chug honey again. "You are such an idiot!" Luna yelled over all of them, and Adrien could hear the wobble in her voice. "I love you, Adrien, so much, but you are such an idiot!"

Adrien may have been an idiot, he decided on the way home, having taken up Cain's offer of a cart at last, but he was an idiot with awesome friends and an awesome-r girlfriend.

Luna smiled at him, meeting his doting eyes with an adorable eye-batting of her own. She pecked him on the cheek, then his lips, then his lips again but more heated. "Let's get you home and all cleaned up, huh?" she suggested in the kind of voice that made a man think about a lot of sweet things, and Adrien temporarily lost the ability to speak.

"I swear, the two of you better wait five more minutes," Chase griped from the front of the cart, where he, Maya, Luke, and Owen were tugging them and the honey along. "You owe me that much."

"Just for you, bro. I owe you a lot."