Klein Moretti arrived at the teahouse by accident.
Technically, he was chasing a particularly evasive tip about a moon-blessed scone rumored to reset your regrets, but instead, he found himself standing in front of a small, vine-covered establishment sandwiched between two forgettable buildings that definitely weren't there yesterday.
The sign simply read:
"The Moon's Whisper: Teas for the Soul (and Occasionally the Spleen)"
The door creaked open before he could knock. A soft chime played what sounded suspiciously like reversed harp music.
Inside, a round table waited.
Around it sat the entire Tarot Club—the very same group of borderline cultists who kept insisting I was their mystical food messiah despite my repeated claims of just being hungry.
Klein blinked.
Audrey was delicately pouring tea into a porcelain cup shaped like a fox's skull. Fors was already halfway through a spiraling tower of cucumber sandwiches that emitted occasional sparkles. Cattleya was reading the back of a tea tin with an expression of suspicion, as if it might explode into tentacles at any moment. Alger was sharpening a spoon. A particular vamp-Sanguine seems to be missing but maybe that's for the best.
And they all turned to look at Klein like he was late to his own intervention.
"Ah, Mr. Fool has arrived~," said Audrey brightly.
Klein raised a finger. "I would like to formally remind everyone I am not a Beyonder. I am just a humble food journalist."
"Exactly," Fors said, mouth full. "Which makes what you've done even more suspicious."
"I just eat things!" Klein said.
Cattleya gestured vaguely to a wall of framed photos, all of them Klein mid-bite. In one, he was glowing. In another, his pupils were gone. One photo had been blurred out, as if reality had decided it was better not to remember.
"You've survived The Infinite Brunch Buffet of the Southern Continent," Alger said. "And the Pickled Paradox Platter of Lenburg."
"That one wasn't pickled, it was philosophical," Klein muttered.
"You keep summoning supernatural food phenomena wherever you go," Audrey said, sipping tea that smelled like moonlight and regret. "We had to gather."
"It's not my fault cursed food keeps finding me! I just have a palate and poor boundaries!"
From behind the counter, a new figure emerged.
She was robed, moonlit, and unmistakably unnerving in the way all powerful beings who also bake macarons tend to be.
Her name tag read: Miss Aria – Proprietor, Oracle, Brewmistress of the Eclipse Blend.
So the rumors were true. Miss Aria had arrived—calm, elegant, and exactly the kind of person who would steep your sense of self in lavender dread.
"Welcome, Klein," she said serenely. "We've steeped something… special for you."
"I'm starting to think I'm being gently threatened," Klein said.
Miss Aria presented a single cup of tea. It shimmered in the light like reality trying to reflect back incorrectly. The scent was floral, earthy, and slightly apologetic.
He sipped.
And immediately saw fourteen alternate timelines where he became a god of noodles, a part-time soup oracle, and in one alarming possibility, a croissant.
His eyes glowed briefly.
"...Lavender. And melancholy," he murmured. "With a cinnamon finish."
The Tarot members applauded.
"I knew he was The Fool," Fors whispered. "Only he would describe traumatic cosmic visions like a Yelp review."
Miss Aria handed him a complimentary biscuit. It whispered something about his childhood pet and disintegrated.
Klein blinked, staring at the empty space where the biscuit had been. "What just happened?"
His brain stuttered, trying to process the sudden loss of his childhood pet's vague emotional presence.
"We're the Tarot Club," Fors said cheerfully, as if everything was normal.
"You're all sitting at a round table drinking tea," Klein said slowly. "This... this is a cult."
"We're your cult," Audrey beamed.
"I write food reviews. I am not spiritually prepared to be a tea messiah."
Before he could even finish that thought, Miss Aria returned, gliding to the table with a serene air. She placed a delicate pot in front of him, the label reading, "Eclipse Blend – Brewed Between Worlds." The liquid shimmered, swirling like moonlight trapped in a teacup, as if it contained both forgotten secrets and unspoken promises. Klein hesitated only a moment before he took a sip.
The moment the tea left his lips, Klein blinked—and promptly forgot how to spell Wednesday.
Images bloomed behind his eyes like dream-laced fireworks: himself riding a moonbeam on a spoon made of regrets, a timeline where he was worshiped as the Deity of Dim Sum, and another where he was trapped in a macaron that refused to be eaten. The flavor lingered on his tongue like stardust and guilt.
Audrey clapped.
Cattleya gave a solemn nod of approval, as though Klein had just passed an unspoken test.
Fors looked mildly offended. "My Eclipse Blend didn't make me transcend the concept of weekdays."
"That's because you dunked a biscuit into it," Miss Aria said, sounding vaguely amused. "He let the visions steep."
Klein, still clutching the porcelain cup, exhaled through his nose like someone who had just gone on a highly emotional rollercoaster and was expected to rate it on Yelp.
"I think I just remembered a life where I was an egg tart," he muttered.
"Is it bad that I would eat that?" Fors whispered.
Miss Aria bowed slightly. "You understand now why the Tarot Club watches you."
"I understand nothing except that my tongue is now legally a divination tool," Klein replied, deadpan.
"Exactly," Audrey said cheerfully.
Klein turned slowly to face them all, his eyes slightly glassy, his fingers twitching like they were still swirling invisible tea.
"You're all terrifying."
"Yes," Cattleya agreed with no shame whatsoever.
He took a step back toward the exit and Miss Aria handed him a small, moon-shaped stamp card with glowing ink.
"9 more visits until your free cookie and partial enlightenment."
"Oh good," he said. "Maybe the cookie will help me emotionally process becoming a beverage."
Still holding the teacup, he raised it toward the door with a mixture of reverence and confusion.
Mentally, he jotted down his review, as one does after almost losing themselves in an alternate timeline.
"This place? 10/10. May have lost my linear perception of time, but the ambiance is divine."
The lights dimmed.
The eclipse ended.
And the teahouse vanished the moment they all stepped out, replaced by an empty alley and the faint sound of boiling water far, far away.
Klein stared at the empty alley where the teahouse had once stood, the last curl of tea-scented steam still clinging to his coat. Behind him, the Tarot Club had mostly wandered off—Audrey discussing biscuit textures with Fors, Cattleya consulting a tide chart for her next cup, and Alger muttering about "oversteeped illusions" like he wasn't the one who drank his tea straight from the pot.
He rubbed his temple.
"How did I go from casual food journalist to the spiritual mascot of a Beyonder support group with aesthetic menus?"
No answer came—only the faint rustling of a napkin from his pocket that now had writing on it:
"See you next time, Mr. Fool. The Moon's Whisper remembers."
Klein sighed.
"I just wanted a snack."
---
"Ambience: dreamlike.
Decor: soft apocalypse chic.
The Eclipse Blend hit like a gentle prophecy. Saw fourteen lifetimes, cried in two, laughed in five, one of them was entirely soup-based.
Biscuit dissolved my insecurities (and itself).
Written while trying to remember if I was always left-handed.
10/10. Might be a croissant now."
---
Next Chapter: Klein is invited to a secret rooftop supper club hosted by cats in formalwear.
Will he finally get a meal without suffering an existential crisis?
Will the cats serve tuna tartare... or something far more sinister?
Will Klein be inducted into a whiskered secret society?
Find out next time in The Fool's Gourmet Tour!