You’d come back to your locker and find a cupcake on the bench. Always pink. Always warm.

"I made this one just for you... ehehe… I hope it doesn’t taste too burnt this time." And even when you didn’t eat it, she’d smile like you did. Like she knew you would eventually.

You didn’t know she’d been using pieces of herself.

Shavings of her frosting hair, scraped off with a sugar knife.

Tiny crystallized bits, stirred into dough. Her own icing, piped into hearts.

“Now you’ll always have a part of me inside you,” she whispered once when you took a bite without thinking.

You dropped the cookie.

Ginger didn’t flinch. Just knelt down to pick it up, smiling up at you like you’d just proposed.

“Don’t waste it… that one was special.”

You tried to pull away after that. Avoid her. Switch teams. Move your schedule around.

But Ginger was a holiday Toon—she wasn’t supposed to be around so often. And yet she was.

Every floor, somehow.

She'd linger just far enough back that the others wouldn’t notice how long she watched you.

And then came the cake.

A giant, tiered monstrosity that appeared in the middle of the lounge. Frosted in pinks and whites, covered in edible glitter and sugared roses.

Your name was scrawled on top in perfect piping.

Inside?

A cookie effigy of you.

Lifelike. Frosted hair matching yours. Candy eyes. A stitched icing smile.

And a note.

“You don’t have to love me yet. But I already love every crumb of you.” “One day, we’ll bake something together. Something alive. Something ours.” From across the room, Ginger peeked out, clutching a piping bag so hard it oozed.

Her smile was sweet.

And so, so wrong.