It was an ordinary day over at Leroy's, munching on lotus chips dipped in sour cream whilst racing on Peach Beach in their customized karts, picking up mystery boxes along the way for a random boost. Vanilla, having never quite gotten over leaning left and right regardless of the buttons he pressed on the controller, was doing surprisingly well at fourth place while Leroy, the expert, had maintained first place throughout the entire course. With one hand.

The weeks leading up to this level of quality gameplay had not been spent in vain. Thanks to Vanilla's uncle being caught up with work, the former had found himself spending at least two days a week over at Leroy's under Miss Julie's approval. Needless to say, Mrs. Cox did not hesitate to fry up more batches of thinly-sliced lotus root.

While the bespectacled bean was more than aware of his companion's intellect—judging from his ability to keep up with the former's unconscious rattling filled with jargon and odd concepts studied by scholars in their fifties—Vanilla could not quite identify where Leroy's understanding of all this had come from.

Unlike his room, the older boy did not own a single shelf of books or seem to read any in the first place. What with the distraction of console games which they played all-day-every-day, the fact that Leroy could differentiate between Barhi and Medjool dates and their origins after matching flavour profiles proved quite the feat to a bookworm who had little to no other sources of knowledge.

So when they'd crossed the finish line and the scoreboard had announced Leroy's twenty-second win of the month, Vanilla could not help but deem his companion a born genius. How his culinary knowledge had developed in such a vast and extensive manner remained, to this day—a secret.

He turned to Leroy. "I... I would like to request a change in game. We've been playing this for weeks," said the younger one, arms folded across his chest as he averted his gaze with a pout. "I would appreciate it if you picked something that doesn't feature such a steep learning curve."

Those were big words for a four-year-old and his companion could not help but snort. "You read 'Elements of Agricultural Chemistry' and talk about gravity like it's breathing but you can't play a game?" He laughed, straightening up before pulling out a stack of DVD boxes from a nearby drawer. "You pick."

Vanilla was nothing less than thrilled. Marvelling at the game titles spread across the floor, he sifted through each and every one, wondering if this was Leroy's form of expressing an advanced level of friendship: allowing him to pick the game.

His companion waited patiently, sending lotus root chips peppered with cayenne into his mouth in twos as he did. It was not long before an all-too-obvious title found its way above the stack and into the eyes of the aspiring food critic.

"Cooking Mama," he read aloud, raising his gaze to blink at the other boy. "What's this?"

"I hate that game," was all Leroy had to say. "No one cooks like that."

This only served to further Vanilla's interest in the game's content. Curiosity piqued, he scanned through the description and gameplay images on the back of the game's DVD case, partly confused as to why Leroy had gotten himself a game he did not like. That, or whoever had purchased it for him was unlikely to have really understood his tastes.

"Oh. So... um, do you know how to cook?" The bespectacled boy had asked to fill the silence, squinting to decipher the screenshot he was staring it.

The pause he received in return was long and unexpected. After all, his question had been simple—all one could really say in return was either a yes or a no; simple and straightforward with no added twists or turns.

"Maybe. But I don't like cooking," said Leroy after a moment's worth of deliberation. At once, he observed a spark in his companion's eyes, accompanied by the instant straightening of his back.

"W-what? You should have said so earlier!" Vanilla shifted a little closer, leaning into the conversation with an eager heart and as though he hadn't heard the latter half of Leroy's statement. "What kind of dishes can you make?"

"Uh... just chicken vesuvio, beef stroganoff, rivel soup, shrimp-based paella and some mac and cheese...?" He listed slowly, thinking. He'd said the final dish as an attempt to throw him off, as though the simplicity of the dish was enough to offset the complexity of the ones before.

Vanilla was quite obviously in awe. "But! Who taught you all that? And—you know what's a stroganoff? I've never met anyone else who knows what they are!"

"My mom taught me mac and cheese," he stopped there on purpose, leaning back before deciding to just lie on the floor and gaze up at the ceiling.

His companion, a boy whose mind followed rules that were quite apart from the world they lived in, prompted him to continue. "And the rest? The... the vesuvio and stroganoff and paella and and and all that?"

"My dad," Leroy had said quite simply. Tight-lipped. "Did."

Perhaps it was the way that he'd said it, then, that made Vanilla come to his senses and detect the edged words lined razor-sharp. It made sense to avoid this topic altogether and that was exactly what he did.

"O-oh. I see. That's... um," he placed the game aside, folding his legs underneath his thighs. "You sound like a great chef already."

"Hm," Leroy didn't seem very convinced. "Not really."

The air of silence weighed upon their shoulders, going right up their noses in every breath they took. Unable to stand its heat, Vanilla hastily asked if he was up for another round of Mario Kart when, as sudden as the rising tide, Leroy spilled everything like the crash of a wave.

"He never comes home," he stared up at the ceiling. "Mom has to do everything while he gets all the fame on TV and lets it get to his head and comes home thinking he's better than mom and criticizes everything she makes. He's... a shit that doesn't deserve to live. I hate him. I hate him to the core. I wish I never met him."

Stunned by his outburst, Vanilla had stared blankly in return—glasses slipping down his nose as he did. Naturally, he hadn't expected Leroy to tell him everything at once and now there was nothing that could be said that came to mind and he fell short.

"And, um. I-is that why you hate cooking?"

Leroy sighed. Nodding.

"Oh." Vanilla shifted closer than before, hugging his knees and the both of them fell into another bout of silence; at least until the bespectacled boy had more to say that he could not control.

"Um. Maybe I'm not the right person to say this, but... um..." He couldn't understand why his heart was beating like it was. Mad and insanely fast; odd and incessantly hard. "W-while it's true that Mr. Father might have changed after experiencing the culinary world at—what's that word—at it's peak, yes, um... while that's true, I don't think cooking is the thing that's causing this problem."

At once, Leroy had frowned; a natural reaction for a five-year-old. After all, he was being told by someone younger by a year that he was wrong.

"After all, Mrs. Mother is cooking downstairs right now isn't she? And back home, I'm sure Miss Julie is cooking dinner for Uncle Al and me. And in Mr. Chocolate Chip's home, he's probably making that for Mr. Handsome and Miss Red Coat and they don't seem like they're changing for the worse or anything, so!" Vanilla had picked apart the boy's conclusions and premises with such care and concern that it resembled that of a scientist doing the same. "So maybe cooking isn't really the problem."

In the middle of it all, Leroy's expression had changed to one of surprise. "Then what is? Expensive cooking? TV? Fame?"

"W-well, it can be but honestly, I'm not sure," admitted Vanilla nervously. "You see, a problem can have many sources, whether underlying or out in the open. Sometimes, we may never know what went wrong and then we can only guess. But um! Um, what I do know is that... that, well... that your cooking belongs to you."

His friend had sat up midway and was staring back at him with his eyes wide, amber eyes alit—almost like the flame of a candle in the absence of wind.

"You, too, can become a famous chef of, of expensive foods, or I don't know. A chef as talented and skilled like Mr. Father but with a heart a kind and passionate as Mrs. Mother's! Would that solve the problem?

"All you have to do is... not be the person Mr. Father was. But that should be easy, right? Because Leroy is... well, is Leroy."

There was a flickering of the candle inside, as though he'd opened the window to let something in and by doing so allowed the wind to slip by in a fleeting moment. Beyond the window was a pair of oceans; as odd as it was beginning to sound. Those eyes, he stared at. The colour was of clear waters, lapping against the shore in peace but all hidden behind a pair of glasses.

The candle and the ocean.

"Ah, but that's doesn't quite make any sense does it. It's a circular argument," oceans for eyes piped all of a sudden, tapping his chin in deep thought, but only after pushing up his glasses. "Hold on, let me think of something else—"

"Vanilla!" A voice called up the stairs and could, very faintly, be heard through the closed door. "Julie's here to pick you up!"

Both exchanged a look at once, one witnessing the other's shoulders visibly droop as he apologized for the long speech that had been basically uncalled for. "I guess I'll be going now. Oh, and sorry we didn't get to play more games. I'm really glad you actually let me pick today. I-I was actually wondering if we could... um. Nothing. Maybe next time."

He rose to leave, reaching down to pull up his tardy socks when a hand held onto his wrist—pulling him back. Leroy was looking up at him, seated on the floor with the strangest look in his eyes.

"Wait. I don't get it," he held on and refused to let go. "Say it again."

"What—" The bespectacled boy appeared even more disappointed than before. "But... so... you weren't listening to what I was saying?"

"I just want to hear it again." Every bit of his resolve gathered in his gaze—clear and unwavering—spoke volumes of what he'd already come to understand from the words of his companion.

Leroy knew and understood perfectly well what Vanilla had been trying to convey and that was the essence of what it meant to be one's self, regardless of circumstance. Whether it was cooking or learning; thinking or breathing, there was no need to look anywhere else except inside. And though the boy had yet to grasp the entire complexity of what Vanilla had proposed and form, in his mind, words to describe it, there was but one thing he was certain about:

That he wouldn't have minded cooking for someone like that every day.

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

[Leroy]

There was someone who looked just like him standing at the highest tier, speaking to a girl with her hair cut short and messy, distracted and easily singled out among an otherwise screaming crowd I'd learned to block out.

"Hey, pay attention."

I turned. A senior had caught up to me as we came to the final stretch of what was supposedly our last trip around the track, tight-lipped and visibly annoyed. Unable to recall his name, I nodded once, asking Caspian for a slower trot and then, a walk to the stands.

I couldn't keep my gaze from returning to where he was standing, noting how his hair stood out easily just like always. A pale shade. Like his name. I would have continued staring.

"Pay attention." It was the same guy. "How many times do you need to be told?" Zero.

A brief announcement about the interactive session including details of what was prohibited was already ongoing, but no one appeared to be listening. Captain was not having a good time. He was facing the sun, leaving his steed to someone else whilst speaking into the megaphone over loud people—most likely regretting his decision to accept this insane idea in the first place. I could tell.

Then, before I knew it, I was looking at him again. He was farther now, navigating through the crowd and heading towards the right of the stands where the stairs were. Intending to keep an eye on him, I was about to make up for the distance lost when half the people watching us began to make their way down towards the track.

They were starting to crowd and congest at the lowest tier with hands reaching out to touch the horses or for a five from the riders. I backed up several feet, keeping my distance but they didn't seem shy enough to avoid the track. They ran up, surrounding Caspian and touching him without warning.

"Don't do that," I told them.

Either they couldn't hear me above the noise or couldn't understand what I'd said because they continued to do exactly what I had advised against. I caught myself raising my gaze in search for him while backing up with Caspian, just to see if I'd lost him. Not exactly the best practice for riders to be looking elsewhere but I couldn't seem to resist.

Bang.

Heads turned. It was the sound of something hitting against the steel platform of the grandstand—that, or colliding with it. There had been a softer sound, pitched higher than the slam that I could hear and it sounded like the breaking of glass. Somewhere to the right, people were beginning to leave the track and crowd elsewhere. Gradually, it thickened.

"What was that?" They craned their necks. "Ohmygod it was so loud." Stood on their toes. "Did something break?" Pushed others aside. "I can't see."

With a point of vantage several feet higher than the rest, I could vaguely make out something in the distance. A figure lying beside the bottom of the stairs, flat on the lowest tier... but it was a glimpse of the pale, creamy shade that came through and had me staring.

I got down in a second, leaving Caspian with one of our keepers at the far back before returning, pushing past the people who were just standing around doing nothing. The girl who was with him did not look very calm. She had lifted his head—that was lolled sideways and bleeding from his scalp—and was patting his cheek as though it would wake him up. Out cold. Did he fall?

"Stop," I grabbed her wrist, taking his arm and putting it over my shoulder. "Get him on my back." She paused and stared before appearing to snap out of it, nodding vigorously before helping his limp arms over my shoulders while I had held his legs. The line between his upper and lower lip was red. Very red.

"I think he bit his tongue," said the girl, standing back as I got up and started to the infirmary. People stared and did nothing, moving out of the way as I came through. "Uh—by the way, should I get his glasses?"

Oh. "Yes." Glasses. Black suspenders; black shorts; black formal shoes; white socks, long; white collared shirt, sleeves short—was that how I had expected him to look after eleven years? The person on my back could very well be someone else I made out to be him; just a combination of the past and present. And a longing past its expiry date that yet, remained.

"Where are you taking him?" She hurried to catch up, bags dangling from her shoulder and arms full of club flyers. "Is it far? Shouldn't we call an ambulance?"

"The infirmary. It's three minutes away," I told her. "Faster than an ambulance." She appeared to remember that the school was located by the river in the middle of a park isolated from civilization. Not really the case, but. Almost.

"Okay. So like—wow you're really nice to be doing this for a stranger—how about your thing? The horses and the whatever it was?" She stared at the back of my jersey. "C-O-X. Is that your name?"

I took a left. "Last name."

Up the stairs, past the plaza, down another flight of stairs—administrative building in sight. His breathing was shallow and warm by the time we arrived at the main entrance, where the registration counter was and the nurse sitting outside her office with a mug in her hands.

"Get him in," she stood the moment we were in sight, nearly spilling her coffee. "It's only the first day of school and no knives whatsoever but you've already managed to get yourself knocked out. Great start." She spoke as though he was awake.

"Are you the school nurse? Please tell me he's not going to bleed to death," the girl who was with him held the door open for us, grabbing tissues from a desk nearby to wipe the blood off my shoulder, where his lips had been. "He fell from the stands. Honestly, it's weird because he was like, no where near the edge and all of a sudden he was and I thought he was going to die from that height."

"He's not going to die. And I'm not actually the school nurse," lied the school nurse, producing something from a box on the table. Flashlight. Gauze. "Just some random chef who operates on students instead of fish and chicken. Put him on the bed."

I did—supporting his neck the moment he was off my back before lowering the rest of him onto the bed.

"What? What, okay, but that's allowed?" The girl seemed to believe every word she was told. "So it's true that school doctors don't need any qualifications?"

The school nurse ignored all this, dabbing dried blood from his lips before slowly opening it to check the wound with her light, then, sticking a roll of gauze into his mouth.

"You, apply pressure on this." She turned to me, handing over a pair of disposable tweezers that held the gauze in place. "And where did this happen? How long ago?"

"The track."

"Like, just," his friend finished. "Five to ten minutes ago. We were watching him at the horse riding showcase. Equestrian. I mean. It's the same thing."

The nurse came back with a wash bottle, pointing the nozzle in his open mouth and squeezing twice. "He's lucky then. Nothing stuck inside. Name and class?" She wiped a cut above his ear with another gauze before disinfecting it.

I turned to look at the girl standing by the door, bags and flyers still in her arms. Waiting.

"Uh. Uhh... oh my god. I'm just... I'm really bad with names. I'm so sorry. We only just got to know each other this morning, so," she looked very nervous all of a sudden. "Wait. Wait, hold on. I can do this. He's told me twice so I'm sure about this." She put her index fingers to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Well if you don't give me the name of the casualty, I can't look at his details or anything," said the school nurse, raising a brow. "You? Not a clue?"

I paused.

"It may be White." I checked his pockets. Nothing. "Search his bag."

"Oh yeah," the girl jumped all of a sudden, as though only just noticing she had an additional bag that wasn't hers slung across her shoulder. "Good point."

"White's a pretty common name you know," said the nurse, dropping by her computer to type this in the search box of an excel sheet. "I know at least five Whites."

"First years?" I narrowed down, turning over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of the results. Taking my chances. Listed alphabetically; so he's going to have to be one of the... "There. Last one."

"Vanilla's a name?" I heard her snort, clicking on the spreadsheet and opening up what I assumed was his medical history. "Right... looks like he's good. I'll give him the necessary medication when he wakes up."

The girl standing by the door didn't seem to have heard us, frantically searching for his wallet or any form of identification before pulling out a registration form that looked like club applications. "Shit I forgot he was supposed to turn this in. Wait—it was in my pocket all along and his name's right here. Oh my god it's such a weird name."

She handed me the form and just by the list of clubs he was applying for, I could tell it was him.

Looks like he hadn't really changed.

"Do you need confirmation?" I turned to the nurse with the form and she shook her head.

"The school has his application photo so I've confirmed all that already but—hey, pressure on that wound, don't stop—he's Alfred's nephew?" Her face did not look very calm. "Good god, Alfred loves freaking out. He's not going to be happy about this." Alfred. The name of his uncle. That much, I knew. After all, he was the one who—

"Alright. Leave his bags here and one of you stay and give me your details," the nurse instructed. "The other can leave."

I stood, handing the tweezers over to the girl. She panicked; fumbling twice with it before taking over what I had been doing. "Wait, what?" She stared blankly as I took a square of paper and a pen from the nurse's desk, scribbling my number on it.

"You stay," I gave it to her. "Text when he wakes."

Not as though he'd want to see me anyway.

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

It was another one of those days spent over at Leroy's without the will to start on weekend homework or read the next book on his gradually accumulated library list. Vanilla had brought along with him a lunchbox of roasted macadamias which they shared between themselves and had reduced to half after merely ten minutes amidst repeated failures to crack a virtual egg into a virtual bowl with a virtual hand.

The poor bespectacled boy had expected a certain extent of unwieldiness in virtual cooking but to possess the most inflexible and inanimate arm on screen was an insult. It infuriated him immensely, to which Leroy had responded with a simple glance that embodied every sentiment of 'I told you so.'

Amidst the sound bites of cracking eggs and upbeat music that was beginning to annoy the both of them, the simmering chatter of guests downstairs could be heard—louder than usual and a pitch too unusual to sound like the everyday dinner crowd.

It wasn't.

And they would soon find out when the shattering of glass travelled all the way upstairs and past closed doors where the pair had exchanged a look at once. Without a word, Leroy had stood and pushed a button on the console to pause the game before turning to the door. Then, as though remembering that some problems were better solved with two minds than one, glanced over his shoulder at his friend who had, too, stood up.

Because it felt to Vanilla like a silent invitation, he tottered after the older boy who did not seem to complain and followed him downstairs where foreign voices were loud and filled the air with a heavy cloud. This, the four-year-old thought ill-suited to the otherwise humble store that was often characterized by the wistful fragrance of butter chicken and quiet, familiar conversations.

"...cheap tableware. And the eggs—obviously of poor quality and they don't even try to hide it."

There were a group of customers seated at a table for eight who looked unfamiliar to Leroy—one of them standing with a plate in hand and speaking to the rest of his table in the most unpleasant voice. All other customers had turned to stare; stunned by the sudden commotion. Shards and chunks of what looked like broken glass lay on the floor beside the largest table in the diner.

"Never heard of shatterproof glass?" Vanilla observed the man jabbing his finger at the kitchen counter, where Leroy's mother stood stunned, a broom and dustpan in hand. "And the miserable state of your knives that can't seem to cut through anything at all?" He looked to him, unbecoming. After all, was there really a need to pick on a diner's choice of tableware?

The two were hidden by a blind spot behind the stairs, head poking out between wooden banisters as they looked on. Although Vanilla could very well imagine any form of customer service—whether or not it had anything to do with the food and beverage industry—encountering unreasonable customers, he couldn't ignore the bitter taste on his tongue upon seeing the look in Leroy's eyes.

"Isn't that your uncle?" He said, staring straight ahead.

This, Vanilla did not waste any time in confirming. He turned to follow his gaze, searching frantically among the tables for Alfred when he finally spotted him. Among the eight customers seated at the largest table. His uncle was seated in an uncomfortable position, staring up at the standing man who had now progressed to complaining about the diner's 'boring décor' and looking quite as though he had witnessed a blue dancing turnip appear in the middle of his garden.

"I... yeah, it's him," was all he managed in disbelief, surprised that he managed to finish his sentence without swallowing his words. The boy had always hoped to bring his uncle to the diner at least once despite his busy schedule. After all, Julie had always been the one picking him up but he'd never had the chance to show his uncle what a warm and cosy place he'd fallen in love with.

"—rickety chairs and rocky tables?" The man seated beside Alfred joined his colleague in standing all of a sudden, shocking the critic into a startled jump. "How do you expect anyone to eat on these if they can stand the food, if, at all?"

"George," hissed Alfred under his breath. "Are you drunk or out of your mind? Sit down!" He tugged on the sleeve of the man beside him but the latter appeared not to hear him. "What is on with you both?"

All this while, Leroy's mother had been sweeping up bits and pieces of glass on the floor, apologizing as she did while the rest of her kitchen staff struggled to keep up with remaking the dishes from their table and handling new orders from other customers.

"I would understand if it's just one passable mistake but for there to be a strand of hair in a critic's food is... it's unbelievable. You have no idea."

It had not been part of Vanilla's imagination that his friend beside him was the most tensed he'd ever seen him. There was a reason for the stillness of the candle in his eyes, unwavering and untouched by the wind but the shade of his hair under the light of dusk begged to differ—a deep, dark shade of crimson.

"—should all eight of us decide to write about our experience in your diner. Maybe it was a mistake on our part. Choosing a lowly... and having expectations..."

"I'm going to help in the kitchen." Leroy emerged from their hiding spot, parting the curtains between the diner and the stairs and leaving Vanilla alone in the back, with boxes and boxes of napkins.

He watched his back disappear from sight, hearing the repeated apologies of a lady he so adored and admired. His gaze rested on Alfred, reflecting the loss and uncertainty in the man that he now found existed within himself. It was then that he felt for himself what it was like for books to fail and for there to be an answer beyond the capacity of written words. There was something about the heart that could not be understood just then; just by reading.

This was something beyond his realm of knowledge that made it impossible for him to decide on the very next course of action. He wondered if he would ever have the courage to raise this in front of his uncle or Miss Julie at home; if this was something he'd come to regret and wish he'd never had to witness; if there were enough wishes in the world to wish it never happened.

He was about to make his way into the kitchen after his friend to see if there was anything he could help with but it wasn't before the words that would come to haunt the next eleven years of his life entered his heart and there, settled for good.

"Time for them to go."

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

A/N: Hello Bakers and (??) I realized I don't quite have a name for the readers of Vanilla yet but I'm think Beans (HAHAHAHA). Anyway! I hope you enjoyed this chapter even though it's so heavily loaded with backstory between Leroy and Vanilla. I'll most probably be updating on Sundays like how I do with the Baked Series but I'm still deciding between the next chapter (Five) or if I should write strawberry scenes on Inkitt for Chip and Xander. Just in case you're wondering, the title of the book is 'Not Good for the Heart' hehe. 

If you're the kind of reader who wishes to know about my schedule/update changes, you an follow me on Instagram at hisangelchip. Hehe. See you around!

-Cuppie.