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Fanglan loved American candies. She loved them. She loved how sweet they were, how they almost made her teeth ache. She loved how artificial they always tasted. She loved the textures. Especially the gummy ones. She loved that American candy felt like candy. Something she shouldn't be having, but was. Something truly bad for her. Because of this, when she heard about a shop boasting healthy candy, Fanglan respectfully passed. Healthy candy wasn't really something that she wanted in her life, not with the tooth-rotting good stuff like Skittles, Sourpatch Kids, and Jolly Ranchers? When Fanglan reached for candy, she wasn't looking for healthy. She was looking for the opposite. She was looking for bad choices and regret later when she looked at the empty bag of gummy bears and coiled around her aching stomach.

And then she wanted to do it again.

But in the end, the reviews had been overwhelming and they had been constant. Enough so that she eventually gave in and made her way to the pop up shop with absolutely zero expectations. The venn diagram of candy and healthy, in Fanglan's opinion, should be two separate circles, preferably on two different sheets of paper.

“Hey,” a young woman at the counter greeted as the bell above announced Fanglan’s entrance. Fanglan, of course, reciprocated, because she wasn’t a monster, even if she was suspicious. And to be fair, the shop certainly looked like a candy shop, painted in bright neons of pink, yellow, green, and blue. Glass displays of their fares and treats lined the walls with wrapped options stocking white shelves in the middle of the floor. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a real candy store.

So maybe everyone else had a bit of a point with their reviews…

“Anything I can help you find,” the young lady asked from her position behind the counter. And to be fair, Fanglan didn’t exactly have an answer. Usually she asked to be directed to the sugariest, sweetest, sourest, most candy of candy possible. This time, however, that wasn’t really an option, so she hesitated, a small smile still on her lips as she searched for the words. The young woman seemed to understand, however, and rounded the corner of her counter to join Fanglan on the floor.

“You’re not here for healthy, are you,” she whispered to Fanglan almost conspiratorially. It was enough to make Fanglan deflate with relief and nod. The young woman nodded in understanding and went on to assure her, “you aren’t the first. A lot of people come in her really unsure of what to find. But I promise, it’s not like that other healthy candy that tastes like… you know…”

“Health,” Fanglan finished, earning herself another chuckle from the shop attendant.

“Here,” the attendant offered, holding out a bag of pink and green gummy candies with coarse grains covering their surface. “Sour watermelon gummies. My personal favorite. They don’t wimp out and go sweet halfway through, they stay lip-puckeringly sour all the way through.”

Which was really all the selling Fanglan needed.

Purchase in hand, then, Fanglan left the shop with a smile and barely made it down the block before she popped one of the gummies into her mouth. And, true to the saleswoman’s word, Fanglan’s whole face scrunched up as soon as the sour coating hit her tongue. And also true to her word, the sour flavor did not go away. The flavor was, in fact, so intense that Fanglan had to stop in her tracks and suffer a full-body shudder.

It was wonderful. Sour and watermelon-y and perfect.

And as she chewed, the sour flavor didn’t go away.

And the candy got gummier.

And gummier.

And…

Gummier…

Suddenly her jaw was glued shut, bound by the unyielding elastic of the candy. And it was still sour. So much so that another full-body shudder wracked Fanglan.

She poked one manicured and pointed nail into her mouth to try and pull the gum out from between the teeth, but to no avail. She was able to gain purchase, the point of her pinky nail hooking onto the candy, but when she pulled it gave no way for her. She yanked her jaw and it still gave no way.

And it was still so ******** sour.

She broke into a bit of a run, closing the distance to her apartment and dashing into her front door. Panic was beginning to set it, and she was worried that this would simply be her life now. Thankfully, no one was home to ask her what was wrong, partially because she didn’t need anyone to see her in this embarrassing position, but also because she wouldn’t be able to even answer them, save for a high-pitched whine that was emanating from her throat and didn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping.

Quickly, she started the kettle, still trying to pry her teeth apart with her nails hooked into the gum and her own jaw muscles, but nothing worked. Hopefully, her grandmother's old advice of tea fixing anything would hold true even now. She even broke out the good ceremonial stuff, hoping that the spiritual hocus pocus that she never believed in would serve her now.

As it turns out, it didn’t. The heat of the tea did nothing to melt the gum cementing her teeth together, and in fact only burned her gums and lips. She tried floss picks, she tried brushing. She even tried rubbing ice along the gum to try and freeze it in hopes that it would get fragile.

It didn’t.

Which only made the whines come out higher and longer and louder as she tried remedy after remedy to no avail. Several times she considered calling Xi, but in the end… there were two problems. One, how would she tell him what was wrong when all she could do was whine and grunt? Second, there probably wasn’t anything he could do to help, and it would only worry him.

It wasn’t until she was pacing in the kitchen, whines slowly becoming a caged scream, that her jaw finally loosened and that scream erupted from her finally freed jaws. The sound was so loud and so sudden that it surprised Fanglan. She clapped a hand over her mouth as though to bring the sound back into her mouth. Between her teeth, the candy had returned to its original gummy state.

Just to be safe, however, she didn’t close her mouth until she brushed her teeth, flossed until her gums bled, and used her mouthwash three times. And then she slam dunked the candy in the trash and resolved to never eat healthy candy ever again.