A Blood Sugar Spike Makes for a Fine Sleeping Aid
When people eat, they don't simply taste the food.
Whenever someone says that, the conversation almost always turns to the sensory side of things — the aroma curling around the tip of your nose, the texture that delights the mouth, the crisp crackle that reaches the ear. It was practically common sense to think of cooking as something that pleased all five senses.
But there was another factor that mattered just as much, and it was one people tended to overlook.
It was the situation leading up to the meal.
A cup of instant ramen after hours of horsing around in a swimming pool. A bowl of warm broth seeping into a body wracked by a hangover. Circumstances like those were what made food taste several times better than it had any right to.
And so what Elise felt now was no ordinary joy.
Even during the break, when everyone else had gone home to rest, she had stayed behind at the academy, choking down the dreadful cafeteria fare while grinding through student council work. And then, by pure chance, she had run into a first-year who turned out to be a genuinely skilled cook — a first-year who had, at this very moment, baked a batch of cookies just for her.
Under those circumstances, Elise could only think one thing.
"Wow… is this a dream?"
It was as unreal as the kind of dream you have when you're desperately exhausted. Sitting before her eyes was a plate of freshly baked cookies, steam still rising from them in soft little curls. Chocolate chips melted into glossy pools of heat so intense she could barely bring herself to pick one up. It was an absurd, impossible sight.
Elise stared, unable to fully process the visual information in front of her. For years now, she hadn't even been allowed to look at so much as a crumb of something like this — and yet here they were, piled high before her.
"Here, Senior. Please help yourself!"
Beaming with a boundless smile, Carmilla offered her infinite goodwill. Strictly speaking, Elise was the one who ought to be handing down a punishment.
St. Celestia Academy was an institution that had inherited the ascetic principles of the Goddess Religion wholesale. According to the school rules, bringing in snacks for the mere sake of pleasure — anything beyond essential nutrition — was strictly forbidden. On top of that, Carmilla had entered the old school building without permission and proceeded to cook there. And more than anything, Elise didn't care for the way a citizen of the Kingdom was freely fraternizing with people from the Empire.
There was a reason the classes were divided in the first place. No matter how egalitarian the academy claimed to be, one could not simply ignore the political realities of the continent. The Merchant Alliance might sit in neutral territory, but the Empire and the Kingdom were openly hostile nations. Mixing so casually across class lines was rare, and it sat poorly with Elise regardless of personal preference.
Moreover, reports of unauthorized food on campus had been trickling in of late. That was why Elise had tracked Carmilla today. With suspicions this solid, the Student Council President had every reason to act in the name of campus peace.
And yet, somehow, her hand was reaching forward.
…Elise di Rosenberg, pull yourself together. You must not forget your duty!
She had come here on official business — to uphold the dignity of the Student Council President and her obligations as a citizen of the Kingdom. The moment she ate one of these cookies, all of that would be nullified. Watching her own hand drift closer and closer to the plate, she desperately fought down her instincts.
But—
"Heh… they look delicious…"
Despite her best efforts, body and mind began to operate independently. The moment she caught the scent of those cookies, her sugar-starved body slipped free of her control.
And she knew, with absolute certainty—
Please… stop! If you eat something that ridiculous…
—that the instant she took a single bite, whatever reason she still had left would scatter to the winds.
"Wow… they're so hot!"
Even with that awareness ringing in her head, a warm, freshly baked cookie was already in Elise's hand. She hadn't been able to tell just by looking, but the moment her fingers closed around it, she understood. This was a different kind of crispness entirely — the kind you only got when every last bit of moisture had been driven out by the heat, something a cooled cookie could never deliver.
And then a question rose unbidden, dangerous and dizzying in its curiosity. That sweet, nutty fragrance. That cookie that looked ready to go crack the moment her teeth sank into it—
What would happen if she took a bite?
Oh, no.
In the end, Elise could not resist the temptation. She sank her teeth in deep, filling her mouth in a single generous bite.
"Mmm…!"
The texture of the crisply baked dough. She pressed it slowly between her molars, and as it crumbled, the rich aroma and flavor of butter and sugar bloomed across her tongue. And dancing atop the stable stage that dough had set was the chocolate — half-melted, luxuriously thick, twining around her tongue like a partner in a waltz. It was a bittersweet variation, the faint bitterness of the chocolate restraining the one-note sweetness with exquisite precision. It was a combination so perfect it inspired the reckless conviction that she could eat these forever. A violent, overwhelming kind of deliciousness.
Ahh… now I understand why people go to war over sweets.
The cookie's only real flaw was that it stuck in the throat. That crisp texture was a double-edged sword, drawing a fair amount of moisture from the mouth — and so her gaze drifted, quite naturally, to the mug sitting beside the plate.
Her instincts are devastatingly good, this girl…!
Whether you called it thoughtfulness or a thorough grasp of culinary common sense, the cookie's eternal companion — milk — had been prepared from the start, as inseparable as a pair of lifelong partners.
Gulp.
The cookie lodged in her throat dissolved and vanished with a single swallow of milk.
"Pah!"
It was the sort of sound one made after knocking back a stiff drink, and Carmilla, watching, couldn't help but laugh.
"Hehe… I'm simply grateful you find them so delicious."
Elise, for her part, could not share in that uncomplicated joy.
In the end, I ate it.
Tasting the lingering afterglow of the cookie on her tongue, Elise murmured the words in a daze. The duty of a Student Council President. The dignity expected of the eldest daughter of the Rosenberg family. She had abandoned all of it and surrendered to the cookie in front of her, and the reality of that was hard to accept. At this rate, it looked as though she had come here intending to eat from the very beginning — even though that had never, not for a single moment, been her purpose.
But it was only one. Maybe I can write this off as a little gift to myself for all the hardship I've endured.
A mistake. This was a mistake, Elise told herself, soothing her own conscience. Honestly, any school that refused to give snacks to teenagers in their prime was the real villain here. And as she worked so hard to rationalize her behavior, her eyes remained fixed on the plate of cookies.
"I only ate one… and there are still this many left?"
Suddenly, a memory from childhood surfaced.
If you eat a cookie, your younger siblings will go without. Are you fine with that?
When she had said she wasn't satisfied with one and wanted two, her father had refused her flatly. The cookies allotted to everyone were limited, he said. The moment you ate two, someone else might end up with none at all. And so it had become an unspoken rule of the Rosenberg household — a lesson in not letting greed blind you into coveting what belonged to others.
But now, piled high before Elise's eyes, were cookies in abundance. Not two — enough that she could eat for a long while and still have some left over. Looking at that sight, a realization struck her.
If there are this many cookies… I don't have to share at all, do I?
Only then could she take in her surroundings. There were no younger siblings here to divide the cookies with. No student council colleagues gazing at her with expectation and admiration. No father insisting on strict discipline. Only a space filled with delicious cookies and a junior smiling kindly at her.
"Yes — you looked so tired, Senior, so I made plenty. Please eat as many as you like."
At those words, something tight in her chest seemed to loosen.
"That's… truly kind of you."
And with that, Elise reached out. Unlike moments ago, when body and mind had been at odds, this time she did it herself. She picked up a cookie with her own hand and put it in her mouth.
"S'good…"
"You may have as many as you wish."
Past two, past three — her hand did not stop until every cookie on the plate was gone. In that blissful haze of crisp and tender flavor, something that had been missing from her life seemed to fill in, as though all the years of nothing but restraint were finally being repaid.
Watching Elise lose herself in the cookies, her eyes shone with pure, unguarded delight.
"Ahh… that hit the spot."
It was a first. A proper meal was one thing, but stuffing herself full on sweets like this was a thoroughly unfamiliar experience for Elise. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have felt guilty over something so undignified. But a gentle voice whispered kindly to her.
"You've worked so hard all this time… so today, please rest easy."
Perhaps that was why the only thing that came for her was a heavy, drowsy sleepiness.
Flop.
With a complete lack of grace, Elise — who had demolished the cookies right there on the bed — collapsed where she sat and closed her eyes. It was as if the day itself were telling her that, just this once, it was all right.
Hrrngh—
And with that sound, Elise truly passed out cold, a fluffy ball of fur named Luca tucked against her side.
It was, in every sense, a warm act of kindness bestowed upon her grueling life as Student Council President.