Distractions were always looked at as something bad. People damned them from the moment they came around as if they did not cherish them the second they were needed. It was a love or hate relationship, nobody ever being in the middle about it.

Even if Troy understood just how important they were, he could not get himself to respect them. Currently, he loved them with all of his heart. In five minutes, he would hate it. Or he would still love it. Everything depended on him being able to do what he was supposed to do from the start.

“I still don't comprehend how you can say something so moronic,” Charlie said, for what felt like the tenth time. “Bread with vanilla cream is better than bread with chocolate. How can you say the opposite, and actually mean what you're saying? Did somebody replace your brain with a stale piece of toast?”

“Again, there is an important synergy between consistency and taste, when it comes to food. When I think of bread, I think of something mildly soft, yet not to the point where I can mould it with my tongue. However, bread alone is not a worthwhile dessert, because it needs something sugary attached. Vanilla cream can work in theory, as it is both delicious and can be mixed with many things. Yet chocolate chips are fully superior in the bread department, for they uphold the regulations set in place with bread. If vanilla cream had the slightest bit of crunch, I would consider making them superior, but we both know that will never happen,” Troy shot back, not letting Charlie gain ground through the use of unimportant slurs.

The two had been at it for a while, trying to make the other understand how their choice was the inferior one. Troy truly did believe that his own opinions were objectively accurate, seeing as he understood them better than anyone. Therefore, Charlie needed to shut his mouth up with some comically-sized super-glue and try to listen to the young man’s words of wisdom. Ten minutes had been had, since that moment that started it all. The muscular man had thought himself doing an act of kindness, by leaving the last vanilla bun for Troy. The young man had however requested to get the last of the chocolate buns, as they were in a greater way, even if their packaging was less fanciful in the colouring scheme.

Charlie had apparently taken offence to that statement of his, and their group discussion had stated off. The two buns had not yet been eaten, mostly ignored as words flowed out of each other. They were still civilised, letting each other speak in turns so as to not cut in when it was unneeded. Yet Troy could not see that continuing for long. If nothing else could be said, the older man was very clear about his choices in bad taste.

“Oh, and you probably like your fries frozen, so you can get that extra crunch out of them. Maybe you can even call it a bloody delicacy that you get some water added as well!” Charlie proclaimed, hitting the table that the two sat at with his fists. Troy still did not understand why the man had brought it forth while the discussion had only first started, yet there was a creeping suspicion that its only purpose was for dramatic effects. Hitting the table definitely looked better than the man hitting the air. One was the image of an angry man, while the other was a child having an anger tantrum. “We both know how chocolate bread tastes! It's fine, yes, but it does not hold a single candle to the sweet goodness that is vanilla cream. There is not a single bad thing about the change in texture. It actually makes it even better! A platter of food is expected to taste differently and have varied character. How can you not see that?”

A platter of food was meant to be the embodiment of diversity, yes, but such things were not expected from a single piece of food. Some of the more extravagant pieces prided themselves on their variety in taste, the changes on the tongues as it was slowly bitten into more and more. That was not something a mere vanilla bun was supposed to go after. Each type of food had its own placement, and the sugary treats were supposed to have something one-sided in the ways of taste. It did not need to try to be something it was not, when what it started as was already good enough. The chocolate bun showed this off perfectly, only complimenting the regular taste of bread while also adding its own spin on it. When it came to that which had vanilla inside it, the taste was like night and day. The people did not care for what was outside, only giving a damn about what was within. It was not the equal distribution that it was supposed to be, and that was where it failed the hardest.

“It might not be me who needs to have their eyes checked,” Troy replied, briefly looking down at the table to make sure the two remaining buns were still fine and well. If they were destroyed, the entire argument would fall apart. Charlie needed to understand that what he had been doing was not an act of kindness but actually the complete opposite. “Are you sure you do not want to back down? Our food is getting stale the longer you take to realise the truth? Or… have you already realised just how futile your points are? I would not expect you to be so stubborn, but I guess everybody can get surprised every now and then.”

It was getting harder and harder to come up with original arguments. It was a flaw of improvisation that Troy had been working on removing from himself, yet he was still a long distance away from having succeeded. Charlie, in contrast, was an absolute master when it came just spitting out whatever shit he could from his mouth. In the end, it did not matter much if it was as full of quality as Troy’s was, for he had so much more to fire with. The young man had mistakenly brought quality to a war of attrition, and he would soon suffer from it.

If that is, the battlefield was not changed. Nothing was set in stone, and all was fair in love and war. As long as the attention could be sent to the right side, then Troy still had a chance of pulling out victorious. He just had to be the last to do so, meaning that he needed to make Charlie reach the right conclusion.

“I could say the same thing to you, my friend. You pretend to be so wise, yet you are unable to see just how much wisdom you truly lack. You call yourself a master, yet even a student is able to overtake. How much more stupidity do you need to spread, before you realise just how much you have already lost. Trust me, you have lost face in the eyes of everybody in the room,” Charlie proclaimed, not backing down easily. Yet… there was still some hesitation in the man’s eyes. It was whimsical and it was slim, but it was something to take from. And take from Troy certainly did.

“Your words mean as much as your beliefs are true. I heartily feel empathy for your situation, unable to see the truth. You call me for treachery, yet you don't realise that you have betrayed those in the highest order. What would the true masters think, if you were unable to distinguish divinity from the ninth circle? Repent I say! Repent!” Troy proclaimed, trying his best to sound smarter than he actually was.

He even stole his last lines from some old movie he watched when he was younger, though he couldn't remember its name for the life of him. Yet the source material did not need to be thought about, as all that really mattered was the success-rate of it. If he could just get one hesitation from the muscular man, he would be able to make him concede… maybe.

Troy wasn't actually sure how likely it was if he could make Charlie stand down. The man was looking energetic enough to continue for hours on end, and even the push into the endgame made it look as if it could continue to double its current length. The younger one would not be able to last that long, losing by default. He did not have enough material to go with for an extended period. Even now, he was just working on fumes. If Charlie requested anything specific, Troy was afraid that he would suffer from performance issues.

“Divinity is a myth, and perfection has nothing with what the majority says. The average person is stupid, and should not be trusted to ever state the objective truth. If we can't trust the nuke launches to a democratic vote, do you really want to listen to what they have to say about bread ranking? There are some things in life which only the experts can say anything worthwhile about. There are reasons these people exist to start with. They have dedicated years of their life to find the absolute truths in this world, and not trusting them is a sin in itself.”

Gotcha. Troy was stringing the man with a fine thread. Even if he was a beginner at his craft, even he knew how to lead a conversation along the right path. Learning of buzzwords had been the second-greatest thing to ever happen to him.

“You say that you need to trust the experts, yet can you even call yourself such a person. We are on equal ground when it comes to personal experience, and I have doubts that you are an educated pastry chef,” Troy replied, trying to sound just confident enough to be taken seriously.

“One does not need to be Einstein himself to understand his equations,” Charlie fired back.

“You absolutely don't, but I have not yet heard you state a single source about, where you are getting these facts from. Could you perhaps declare them, so we can review them to check their validity? If there's nothing suspicious about it, I will immediately admit my defeat, and we can both be on our merry way,” Troy said, with a tone that implied how his decision was final.

It was not the most sophisticated of bluffs. He had accused Charlie of making things up as he went along while doing just that himself. If the man decided to call this out, there would be no defence that could work. Any attempts at misdirection would fail, as Troy should have been able to answer instantly. Things just had to work, else he would be in a world of trouble.

…

“You do realise how hard it would be, to get such sources validated, right?” Charlie questioned, sounding weirdly uneasy about that particular fact. This would be a time where the normal manipulator would put pressure on it directly, yet Troy decided to go a more fine-tuned route, going for something closer to the carrot than the stick.

“You raise a fair point,” Troy acknowledged, sounding as if he was going to step down from his earlier declaration. Like hell, he was going to do that. “Then… let's say this. How about you just show me a professionally written page full of the information that you have used in these last few minutes. It doesn't have to be all of them. Just a few. How does that sound?”

He had him. Troy fucking had him. Charlie was looking stressed to the point his head was starting to look a little red, trying to come up with something worthwhile. The man was absolutely failing, trapped inside the kind considerations made for him. Any argument against it now would look pitiful, and everybody inside that room knew it. Those in the room might only have numbered two, but it was still considerable.

“... This discussion bores me. How about we just drop it off here? Seeing as you were about to get the upper hand, we can just say that I owe you a favour?”

Troy had not expected that to come from the man. He basically admitted defeat, while still allowing the young man to get something out of it. Looking at the time, there was still two minutes left. Those would not be used fully it seemed, for there were doubts that the chance would not come in full again.

It was official. He hated distractions.