A confectioner's Mariëls festival

Freine hums to himself as he stirs the chocolate mixture, doing a little dance around his kitchen to keep himself awake and entertained. It was going to be the Mariëls festival soon, so he's going to be up much later than usual today, filling up all the chocolate molds he has to sell the resulting confectionery in the café tomorrow.

He could already feel his eyelids getting heavy, but he still had at least seven trays of blofti-shaped chocolates to get through and even after that's done he's got to get the cinnamon roll dough prepped to leave overnight and bake in the morning. Freine loves his job, and enjoys festivals as much as the next cor- but he could do without the insane workload that comes from the two of those combining.

Sure, he could've just made less chocolate, but the both fortunate and unfortunate thing about Mariëls chocolate is that it sells very well and very fast. This is good because of the profit, but bad because he can only make so much supply to cope with the demand. He's only one cor after all... he'd rather be in bed.

A timer blared obnoxiously loud, making Freine curse and shoot up from where he'd been dozing against the counter. Right, the berry tarts were done. Good job, past him, for predicting this exact scenario, but also fuck past him for giving present him a heart attack with the loudest timer he owns.

...

Packaging the last of the chocolate into the little pink bags and curling the ribbon, A much more awake Freine loaded the day's stock into display cases, looking at the clock hung up on the wall. Only two minutes until opening time, but still another ten or so before he knows he'll get his first customer of the day.

Unlocking the door and settling in behind the counter, Freine is more excited for one particular customer than all the others. He hopes his own partner likes the chocolate he made specially for her, after all.