[Leroy]

"Hey, what's going on?" Chen. "You look like shit."

I couldn't find the will to even turn so I just looked straight ahead at whatever it was they had up on the screen, projected for the briefing. "Feel like shit too."

He sighed, sliding into my peripherals and waving a hand several inches away from my face. "Hello, don't mean to break it to you or anything, but the entire thing nearly got cancelled and all our efforts would have gone to waste if not for the deal Tenner came through with. We can't afford having half-hearted chefs on the team..."

I gave no response. A tell-tale sign I was deliberately dishing out. Against the last-minute instructions they were dishing out over the sound system and people filtering in and out of the waiting room, he finally pulled me aside. Somewhere over his shoulder, I saw Tenner's heard turn.

"So are you going to spit out what happened to White or not?"

I gave him a look. "Those fucking brainless kids."

"What," he frowned, gaze hardening into something briefly unrecognizable. "The same few from his class? Weren't they taken care of?"

"I thought you read his articles," I snorted. "Isn't that what nearly got the interschool called off? Birchwood's die-hard simps getting defensive and gunning after people who have anything bad to say about her. They tried to play a prank and ended up almost freezing him to death in the cellar."

Don't think Chen took this very well but I wasn't going to be the judge of that when my own reaction the night before was nothing short of irrational fear and panic. I'd left the infirmary to let him get the rest he needed but back at the lodge, I was having problems drifting off. If it wasn't fretting over Annie and her bills, it was him and having to control the house on fire—rage and hatred directed at the couple of blind idiots—and then it was the possibility of losing everything with disappearing taste. Of being left behind. Alone.

And again.

"You're kidding." Chen was glancing over his shoulder. Tenner was waving him over. "I was wondering why he hadn't walked you down here or something. Even though he was technically disqualified."

The bonus round was a duo-style back-to-back relay of five dishes. Cuisine of choice. Chen had insisted on placing my name next to Tenner's, even though I specifically emphasized zero capability of desserts. Tenner was a red too. Worst case was necessarily producing a dessert course. Neither of us were good enough to cover the other, especially in the current condition I was under.

All I could think about was ending things fast and running off to see him in the infirmary. And then Annie at the hospital. And in the process, try not to crash and burn.

"I need all remaining students to make your way next door and, according to the numbers beside your names, take your places at the assigned stations. Do not touch anything on the countertop. Just stand beside your stations. Everyone else, head up to the gallery."

Chef Pierre was in the room. He had eyes on Marseille, who'd left most of the administrative duties she'd been in charge of to Allan, now leading the organizing committee instead of her. His students from L'assiette had headed out first to the practical exam hall and for most of the duration, he'd been either glaring at Tenner or sneering at anyone else who looked his way.

"Royroy," she liked to call. Since day one, I think. "If this is you being an ungrateful little brat that your magic tongue boy got me back into business then you're being very childish right now."

I gave her a look; then raised a brow. "You think I'm intimidated by an ex-number one?"

"No, but you sure aren't the usual lion king I'm familiar with."

We passed the doorway and were handed numbered aprons without names on for 'fair judgement'. I told her what happened. Asked if it was worth it now that she got what she wanted.

I wasn't even going to deny it if someone called me out for blaming everyone left right center for consequences a single pair of shoulders had to bear as a result of 'truth' and 'justice'. No one's in the right mind to think I was angel enough to be objective all the time. In a sense, if Tenner hadn't agreed to using an individual writer for an article on the entire controversy, he would have been left alone.

"You're right," she admitted, tight-lipped after getting over a minute of shock from the news. "Yes, we should have been careful. One person shouldn't have had to suffer the brunt of all that but this, we've discussed and... and well, he agreed to it—only, none of us knew about the issue with his classmates. If we'd known, there would have been..."

And that was it.

I shut off, not exactly in the mood to be listening to explanations and 'what if's since neither seemed to add any value to finding a concrete solution. That, and I was aching, itching to end all five rounds, get out of the hall, and make a break for his side.

"... all the more reason we have to make this count. He did so much to make this happen so we can't just let it all go to waste. Imagine how disappointed he'd be if you let him down now." Tenner wasn't letting me off. Most of the stations had their occupants standing along the middle aisle and on our right were two girls from CSS; one of them, I recognized as his student buddy from Cinnamon. A Latino girl. "If this is what he worked hard for, you're winning the whole thing. Got it?"

I said nothing. They announced the first dish. A hummus variation. In fifteen minutes.

The collective whispers and groans across the room put me in a mood that was worse than before. Chickpeas were boring as heck and there were hardly any variations one could do since hummus was eventually just... hummus. I was prepared to shut down and reach for the chickpeas at the start of the clock.

Tenner stopped me with a hand. "Let's do fusion. An edamame hummus. Nothing much we can do about the flavour of the hummus itself, so we need something crazy for it to be paired with. Go get the pestle and mortar. I need sesame seeds, seaweed, bonito flakes and miso powder from the pantry for a furikake topping. Could you do toasted baguette chips?"

"I'll make them curry-flavoured," I settled, on it in a second; somehow glad that I wasn't given the role of thinking things through with a mind that was already full. She made things easy.

People were grabbing bags of chickpeas off their countertops left right center and I was back in the pantry tossing edamame into the cart, along with the other ingredients Tenner had laid out. Then I was back at the station, grinding up sesame seeds and sticking them into the oven for some toasting. And then slicing up baguette thins and brushing both sides with a layer of curry mix, chopped parsley sprinkled on the tray before switching with the seeds in the oven.

Someone came around. It wasn't Pierre or Allan, so probably the representative from CSS. "Layla Tenner! Good to see you again. You're always the one with surprises."

She laughed. "Hey chef. No, I'm probably just... here to win the school some reputation and whatnot, you know?" There was a pause on the other end of the room, like people were looking over. Listening in on the open conversation.

"Well, you're not wrong," CSS's culinary dean nodded stiffly. "People expect a lot from you, judging from your performance last year. Hope to see you in the final round."

"If I'm allowed to participate, then yes," Tenner popped half the edamame into the food processor. "I'll see you then."

I wasn't paying them much attention, if any at all. Whatever I caught had something to do with the terms of the deal Tenner had made with the headmaster and Pierre; though nothing was completely transparent up till this point and I really couldn't care less as long as it had nothing to do with him, resting under the covers with a cup of chamomile tea.

There was hardly any leeway of faring poorly at this point, or producing subpar dishes that weren't up to a competing standard. They weighed heavy on my shoulders but it was odd; I wasn't feeling a thing.

Not a single cell in my body felt like giving a fuck.

"Roy? The chips. Leroy!" Fingers snapped. Pointed at the oven. The slices at the rear end were unevenly toasted. Edges, black.

I threw on a mitten and got the out to a blast of heat and an unpleasant bitterness in the air. Half the batch was ruined. I counted the ones that were decent. Six.

"Do a new one," Tenner said without looking up, adding herbs to the blender. "Fast, or else you're not going to have the time to rest them."

"The furikake?" I hadn't started on that.

"I'll do that." She was already moving on to the mortar and pestle whilst letting the processor run on its own—a nice, smooth mixture on its way. I knew she was fast so none of this really came as a surprise but the truth laid bare on the table at every passing second.

I was cracking under pressure.

"Four minutes."

"It's done."

"Tasted it?" She picked up a chip, broke half and bit off a quarter. "Perfect. It's spicy too. This will go great with the edamame."

Tenner did most of the plating over the couple of minutes and neither of us really talked. I'd taken a back seat, falling into the role of assistant and merely handing her whatever she asked for.

Do fires crack?

I might as well have been picked up and put on Tenner's back the entire duration, carried endlessly into the next round of soup, then a protein salad, and then the appetizer, which in this case, had to be a small-portioned risotto dish. The complete lack of energy and will to attend to anything beyond the thoughts burning inside kept most of everything running on dry fumes. Tenner was the one telling me exactly what to do.

"Just a classic parmesan risotto with roasted shrimp," she got to work as soon as the clock started ticking. It was by this point that most of the room were at the peak of their performance level. The remaining two rounds had to be more of an uphill battle than before. "No gimmicks, no twists whatsoever. Your head's elsewhere and I don't really appreciate that but it's not like you'd snap out of it if I tell you to."

Tenner had rinsed, seasoned, and marinated the shrimp whilst prepping a saucepan of chicken broth. I was melting butter in a sauté pan.

The layer of ice atop a frozen lake is brittle.

It cracks.

"Chop the onions and mince the garlic. The station beside us are way ahead y'know. And it looks like they have more fusion up their sleeves, so. You need to be faster than this." I looked over. His student buddy, the Latino girl, had the ingredients for Thai red curry on their countertop. She and her partner were going big.

Turning back to the chopping board, I diced up the onions, minced the garlic and tossed that into the pan of melted butter. Tenner was still dishing out instructions. The most basic kind like 'cook till soft' 'add the rice' 'make sure it's all coated' that I would have supposedly known without her nagging but it was clear as day—I wasn't in the right state of mind to be thinking.

The last thing I remembered was sliding the tray of roasted shrimp out of the oven without knowing how the fuck it even got in there. The seasoning, too, didn't look a mere combination of paprika, salt and pepper. Tenner must have added something. Jerk seasoning, maybe.

Then it was the usual. The three instructors making their rounds for tasting and it was times like these that you could see the effect of a true number one—seasoned and versed under time constraints, no compromises on quality and taste.

Even Pierre who'd went around with an unreasonably harsh palate had nothing to say about our dishes for the past couple of rounds. This was with the prejudice he had against Tenner. Still, speechless. He tended to have a lot to say about people's choice of cuisine, apart from their 'lack of technicality'.

It was hard to give a fuck.

"Telling Layla Tenner that her shrimp is perfectly cooked is like telling Michael Jordan that he's got dribbling nailed." Allan was the first to arrive at our station and though I wasn't exactly paying them much attention whilst cleaning up, pretty sure he didn't look my way when he said all that.

Him saying something to lighten the mood did not seem to sit very well with Pierre. It was after tasting the risotto that he left our station, without a word. Tenner didn't even bat an eyelash. It was our third five-stars.

"What is this?"

We hadn't so much as looked away from our plate, still in the midst of clearing up the second after the judges moved on from our station to the next when Pierre, a couple of steps ahead of the other two, stopped short several feet away from the two girls from CSS.

He had his back towards us but the stance he took was clear as day even from a distance. The room could tell, without so much as a glimpse of his face, that he was offended.

From where I was standing, the Latino girl's face gave the only indication of whatever the fuck Pierre had going on in his mind. She somehow managed to freeze the smile on her face in place. It was stiff.

"You keep pulling the Asian card."

She was looking up at Pierre who was speaking to her. Specifically. Not even giving her partner a single glance of acknowledgement.

"Um, yeah. We did. I mean, I do too." She was the one who made the laksa that should've topped the individuals for best dish. Vanilla had been a fan of it. He talked about her excelling in multiple Asian cuisines despite a lack of Asian heritage. Which didn't matter. Really.

"Indian, Filipino and now Thai cuisine," she went on proudly, watching Pierre pick up a spoon and pick her risotto apart. "Um, slowly making our way 'round the world map. This is a Thai red curry risotto. Rich, creamy—"

"Maybe skip Asia next time."

I watched her face fall.

It wasn't even a subtle drop; she could hardly control her expression. The rest of the room was dead quiet, turning to stare at her and Pierre while the latter's spoon scraped the bottom of the plate every now and then. He wasn't even eating.

"Sorry, um... I'm not quite sure what you mean..."

"It is as I said. You don't understand? Skip Asia. You said it yourself girl. Vietnamese, Asian. Filipino, Asian. Thai, Asian."

"Yeah but—"

He dropped the spoon and was about to walk away without listening to what she had to say. All he had then was less than a spoonful of the risotto. I couldn't even understand what the fuck he was going on about, sounding as though he'd grouped all the cuisines under 'Asian' and dubbed them as the same kind of food.

Which was a mistake only novice chefs would make.

"Pierre, there's nothing wrong with her risotto. What are you going on about?" The culinary dean of CSS quickly tasted her students' dish and called after the man already making his way to the next station. He snorted. No further comments.

Do fires crack?

"Skip Asia next time." He repeated. The girl was already in tears. Her partner at her shoulder with tissues and blood drained from her face.

"Pierre," Allan. "You're saying this as though one could group French, Italian and Spanish cuisines under the same umbrella of Eu—"

No.

They crash and burn.

"You sound like a fucking joke."

Paused. Turned. "I dare you to repeat that."

"A mother-fucking three-year-old going around screaming shit about things you clearly don't give a fuck about."

"Leroy."

"Leroy Cox. You are disqualified from—"

"A judge should be versed in cuisine diversity. You're acting like an ignorant kid."

"You don't even know what you're talking about right now. I suggest you calm down and leave the room before you embarrass yourself any further."

"The cuisines and dishes she made were nothing alike in technicality and taste. You're fucking delusional."

"Leroy!"

"Are you challenging me to let your father know about this?"

"Don't think he'd even defend someone that stupid but you could try."

"Enough!"

Allan was on Pierre, standing between us; blocking each other from our line of sight. Tenner got in mine. I nearly shoved her aside easy. "People like him need a fucking—"

"Leroy, no!" She held something in my face. A ladle right out of the saucepan. I stared. She was breathing hard, eyes wide. In my peripherals that had narrowed, I paused and it seemed to expand. Eyes. All eyes. "Please. Calm down."

"He's shit, Layla."

"And it's obvious," she hissed under her breath. "You don't need to do a thing. He's being stupid and he'll pay for it, don't you see? I know you're upset and under a lot of stress but taking it out on anything is only going to give you more... Roy? Leroy, where are you go—"

Ah, fuck.

===================

A/N: Ahh! Sorry I kept it short, but I wanted this scene to be an entire chapter by itself. Just Leroy having the worst possible feeling in the world and having to put that aside for something he doesn't even wish to be doing. How he feels himself falling further and further into stress and madness and how he comes to realize that he is, in truth, at his breaking point.

I do think that I often put a lot of pressure on my characters, especially arising from the situations they are thrown into and have to cope/deal with. To this date, no one's really beaten Io and Luka from Flight School but I think Leroy comes close to having all things precious to him lost in an instant.

It doesn't help that he's always been the one trying to put out his natural flames and having to quell his forest fires in order not to hurt other people but it is at his breaking point that he reveals his nature and how hard, how painful and difficult it is for him to keep things inside, calm like a candle on the surface, ready to be snuffed out by the wind.

I took inspiration from a real judge after watching a snippet of MasterChef Canada, the episode with the Smelts, where one of the judges said the exact same thing to a contestant: "Maybe skip Asia next time." I think due to the nature of the series and the editor's desire for drama, it was made a lot more abrupt and ignorant than, perhaps, it really was, but I couldn't help but feel terrible for the contestant, knowing how absolutely awful it must have been to have your vastly different dishes brushed aside as some category of similarity. Context is important, and the judge could have been much more careful with his use of words. Implying that all countries in Asia have similar cuisines that one should 'skip' it after attempting them less than three times is simply ridiculous. The debate down in the comments section was interesting as well. I suggest you search up for the video on YouTube ^^ the title is: 'Alvin Leung Enraged By Home Cook Ruining Delicate Fish' lol even the title is so dramatic. Hilarious!

Either way, I'm glad that I got this out of the way because it is nerve-wracking writing about Leroy not being the usual candle that he is, so close to setting everything ablaze. He's always got his calm, his cool and knows what the next move should be. I feel like it is times like these that we know how truly emotional Leroy can be. And ultimately, how fragile that can make him as a human being.

See you next week!

-Cuppie.

P.S I've been thinking about Chip's birthday special but on the scale of 1-10 how much white stuff should there be? Hm