A/N: Hi Beans! Hope you like the new chapter. I'm always excited to write about food and starting this book has been making me do so much research that I somehow end up with the strangest knowledge ever. 

All I can do now is hope you like diz two keeds. :'D Also, is Vanilla too young to be doing the kissy kissy?? I'm Asian. My first kiss is probably going to be at my wedding. (Okay that has no relation to one another ' v ' ) Enjoy!

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[Vanilla]

Mere hours ago, I would have laughed pretty hard and rolled my eyes at the prospect of going grocery shopping with my only childhood friend who had by the fortune of narrative grown up to be some awfully attractive young man and, at the current age, retain that streak of boyish youth that I, a petty old soul, would never have. Adding to that the fact that we hadn't parted in the best of ways and that my younger self had been so terribly traumatised by the workings of friendship, this was no amicable situation.

Or so I would like to think.

"Budget?" Leroy turned to me sideways, starting towards the rack of vegetables on sale that was surrounded by middle-aged women scrambling through the boxes for the best.

"I would say as low as you can afford but," I cleared my throat, having to increase my pace just to keep up. "I'll allow exceptions depending on the justification you offer."

Leroy snorted, cracking a smile nevertheless. We found ourselves in front of a sale box of potatoes—fifteen in each bag and running out fast. To the right were eggplants and cucumbers; left, cherry tomatoes that didn't look very appetising. I lingered behind, watching as he somehow parted the sea of last-minute shoppers and returned with a bag of potatoes, perfectly unscathed. "You have apples at home?"

"Well," I blinked, averting my gaze. "Yes. I hope. As in, I do recall having two left in the refrigerator, but I wasn't aware you needed apples in your dish."

"One is enough," he nodded, heading towards the poultry section next. "Cooking oil. You have that?"

Leroy must have assumed I was perfectly incapable of taking care of myself, which wasn't the most accurate judgement after merely basing this on the fact that I'd almost bitten my tongue off but nevertheless, asking whether I had cooking oil back in my place was practically senseless. "I do. It's butter."

He snorted, not trying very hard to hide his laugh. I on the other hand, didn't bother to entertain his rare amusement.

"Garlic?" He continued to list at the poultry section, scanning the shelves of chicken and occasionally picking up a package to glance at the price tag. "Soy sauce? Honey?"

"You're not really trying to make this into a candlelit dinner, are you?" I pretended to laugh, sounding the least bit convincing and mostly fearful. "I wasn't being serious. Something simple is good enough—I-I really wasn't expecting a restaurant-quality meal and I mean, can you really? With an electric stove and one pan? It's nice enough that you're making me dinner.

"And yes, I have a bottle of soy sauce in my cabinet," I added after realizing that I hadn't quite answered Leroy's question. Either way, he didn't even seem to be listening to whatever I was saying, going through every cut they had at a speed I couldn't help but associate with habit. Something that he did perhaps every day for a very long time. "No honey and, um, no garlic."

He turned to me with a styrofoam package of two chicken legs, both of decent portion-sizes and price tags in bright yellow. Half-price. Half a smile.

"Just let me impress you."

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

Fortunately for me, living alone didn't necessarily translate into accumulated trash, clothes all over the floor or a messy dining table. One of the convenient perks of having a straight-laced personality was, as silly as it sounded, the ability to keep my surroundings in check. Doing the laundry every night, pressing them early in the morning and keeping them tucked away in the closet as neatly as possible—every single act stemmed from the fear of an impromptu visit, which was exactly what this senior of mine was doing at present.

"Apron?" Leroy looked around the moment we stepped past the entranceway, taking off his shoes after staring at the single pair of house slippers I had.

"Oh. Oh, that," I laughed stiffly. "I leave it in school, usually." He glanced over his shoulder, placing the grocery bags on the kitchen counter.

"So you don't cook at home," he seemed fairly amused. "At all?"

This got me protesting. "I-I do! Just, not with an apron," I added in a softer voice, retrieving the granny smith apple that Leroy had requested for and placing it on the countertop.

My companion snorted, shrugging off his blazer before draping it over the backrest of a foldable chair. "I'll send you my laundry bill."

I turned with the intention of dismissing his need for an apron but was unfortunately caught off-guard by his oddly, um, attractive way of removing his tie. That is a very strange thing to notice, Vanilla. Look away. Look away now.

"You're ranked third in the entire school, Leroy." Disarmed, I was left to stammer quietly in the corner, taking out the only pan I had from the cabinet below the sink. "Spilling would be the last of your concerns."

Naturally, with the level of social aptness that I possessed (none), this took an unfortunate turn for the worse, leaving him undeniably quiet all of a sudden. Anxious, I'd stolen a glance in his direction only to see that Leroy had his back towards me in the process of taking out his set of knives. Minutes passed and he had found the peeler without asking me where it was, leaving me to stand awkwardly in my corner with empty hands and a very stiff facial expression.

By this point, I was overthinking. Enough to forget the fact that Leroy appeared to bring his knife set around like it was a treasure he'd never find himself parting with; that, or figure out what it was he was trying to make. Of course, with the chicken legs and potatoes I was going to expect those on a plate but in what form? And where was the apple going to come in?

"You know a lot about me," he said all of a sudden, quiet. Removing the chicken legs from its packaging after skinning the potatoes with his knife. His sentence had been phrased in the manner of a question but spoken as though he'd meant for it to be a statement of fact. Vague sentences brought out the worst in me.

"No, I don't even know where you've been for the last couple of years."

Good god Vanilla, you need to stop saying things you instantly regret, I swallowed, running dry. Just as the air was about to freeze, I'd sped things up and brought the entire conversation into the middle of the arctic knowing very well that absolutely nothing from the past had been brought up so far by either of us or even if it was something we wanted to confront. After all, there was simply no way Leroy could have forgotten what Uncle Al's fellow critics had said and done that night at his mother's diner.

The half-hearted, poorly-written supposedly final chapter of our friendship had left an awful taste in my mouth. One that haunted every conversation I tried to have with people in school for the next eleven years u-until now. In fact, I never had the courage to bring this up at home or talk things through with Uncle Al—besides the horrendous tantrum I threw the next couple of days but never clearly stated the reasoning behind it—and everything had unfortunately settled at a stalemate.

This was it. Clear the air, Vanilla. You have to do it eventually. An apology was due.

"I—"

"Peel the apple."

I paused, blinking in return before snapping out of it and looking around fairly lost. "O-oh. Alright. Anything else you need me to do? I, um... I've had my first class of culinary basics, if that counts," I offered tentatively, picking up the peeler and working my way through the apple.

"Core and slice it after you're done," said Leroy without quite returning my gaze. Feeling awful, I decided to try a different approach, leveraging on the fact that he didn't seem keen on heavy topics at present.

"You, um. You seem to have many friends in school," was what I went for eventually. Thankfully, it received some sort of reaction.

Leroy snorted, laughing a little. "Really."

"And a fan club."

"I don't have a fan club," he frowned, glancing at me sideways. Meanwhile, I wasn't looking at his face but staring at his hands working on a very specific technique that I'd read about a couple of years back. French-boning.

And doing it really well.

"Well, that may be what you think but," I gathered the peels and tossed them in my mini trashcan. "I see students from our school dropping by the ice cream parlour every other day just to see you. Even students from that high school two stations away come by."

"They don't do that." He continued to deny, turning up the heat as an odd cross between a smirk and a laugh surfaced on his lips. "Unless you're thinking about joining them?"

"That would be an inaccurate projection."

Leroy shook his head, giving his hands a rinse before searching the drawers for salt and pepper. I pointed at the one second from the top, to his left. "You?"

"Um, what about me?" I was halfway through slicing one apple, naturally failing terribly at such a simple task since I was unfortunate enough not to inherit my godfather's amazing culinary skills (but mainly because I was unfortunately not related to him by blood). At least I was decent at multi-tasking.

"Made any friends yet?"

"Um. Just one, I guess," untimely, but this was all before I started remembering every word Si Yin said about Leroy carrying me to the infirmary and promptly sported a blush.

"That girl?" Leroy followed up with a frown, eyes fixed on my ears which meant that he'd noticed they were red and embarrassed. Good gods of rolling pins.

I nodded, purposefully turning in an angle that was definitely not optimal for slicing apples but perfect for hiding the rest of my face. "Yes. The one you saw at the ice cream parlour—well, her name's Si Yin. I believe you've met her before that too, haven't you? Back then at the... the thing," I pointed lamely at my tongue. "I didn't get to thank you officially, o-or formally, for the matter, but. Thanks. I guess. I mean I must have interrupted the show, so."

In a matter of seconds, and as I had been occupied with conversation, Leroy had buttered the pan and magically transported the potatoes he'd cut into it. By now, I was more or less able to tell what he'd planned for the potatoes all along and admittedly, it was ingenious. The cylindrical shape of each potato sort of gave it away.

"Fondant potatoes?"

He looked at me, eyeballing the seasoning (technically, he wasn't even looking at the potatoes so, um, would that even be considered eyeballing). "Took you some time."

"Well," I opened my mouth to protest but shut it quickly. Fondant potatoes were pan-fried, which meant that they were basically one of the only options Leroy had since he'd be working with the, uh, limited crockery that I could provide. One, actually.

He snorted, a smirk on the corner of his lips. "Almost couldn't recognize you without glasses."

"Sure," I said, tight-lipped but primarily because I couldn't get my mind around how he was going to adapt to a no-oven bake since fondant potatoes required at least twenty minutes in one. "You are aware that I don't have a microwave."

"I need your electric kettle," he diverted my attention elsewhere, pointing at the one I'd unplugged just this morning. "Boil the apples."

Being bossed around my kitchen wasn't exactly what I'd agreed to, but for all intents and purposes, I was in no position to argue with the better chef. After all, Leroy was doing me a favour and a quick analysis of how familiar he was with everything down to the very act of cutting potatoes, I was nothing more than a bean.

"Apple puree, then," was what I'd said under my breath, dropping the sliced apples into the kettle before adding just enough water to submerge them.

"With pan-seared, French-boned chicken legs and fondant potatoes," he finished with a smirk, topping the potatoes with rosemary stems before adding more butter to the pan. "Soy sauce?"

"Where you found the salt and pepper."

I left the apples to boil, standing around like a deer in the headlights awfully mesmerized by his every move before noticing that I was openly staring at someone I shouldn't be staring at and mentally shaking myself to set the table.

Searing the chicken legs in the same pan as the potatoes—substituting chicken stock? Or was he going to add it later? The fact that he was working around a limitation of using a single pan so effortlessly as though he'd thought it out across days of planning seemed almost impossible to believe.

Pan basting or, well, poêléeing the chicken leg that was thinly coated in soy sauce, he let it sit under a cover while checking on the apples and, lo and behold, adding a dash of salt to the kettle before draining its contents, reusing some of it to cover the bottom of the pan. I was confused and, unfortunately, fascinated.

"Hungry?"

I jumped, caught red-handed in the midst of my staring session and cleared my throat before sticking my head into the fridge for drinks. "Not really, no. I have milk, chilled water and... chilled water, infused. I'm sorry, um. Should I run to the store and get something for you?"

Leroy laughed. "Water's fine. Set the table," he removed the lid of the pan and the scent of beautifully seared chicken wafted past, leaving me unusually electric. "I'll be ready in a minute." He was taking the apples out of the kettle that were now soft, mashing them with the back of a spoon.

Truth to be told, I have never felt so useless in my entire life. To be reduced to simple tasks of slicing apples and arranging utensils... let's say I wasn't too happy about that. Nevertheless, the fragrance of butter melding with a curious acidity in the air that I could almost already taste was too much to miss. I placed my only two plates on the kitchen counter and returned to the dining table to set a fork and knife atop two napkins each.

Needless to say, Leroy was no amateur in terms of presentation either. It was borderline annoying; the way he seemed to plate so flawlessly fast and consistent without missing much of a drizzle. Three fondant potatoes on each plate, perfectly-sized, accompanied by a French-boned chicken leg on apple puree that wasn't overdone in terms of portion.

He served the plate and sat across me, leaning against the backrest of the chair. "Try it."

"U-um," I picked up my fork and knife. "And you?"

"You first," his gaze went from me to the plate, and then back to me. For some reason, I was nervous. Naturally, Leroy was expecting me to have an avalanche of witty remarks or professional comments in wait, but I'd barely started a week of school and having met all the seniors above us today, had my self-confidence in check.

I went first for the chicken.

Perfectly cooked—unsurprisingly, of course—both on the inside and the outside and most importantly, sweet. The taste was bold and light all of the same, balanced by a touch of acidity from the apple puree and melding together with the richness of the butter he'd basted the chicken in. Rosemary, soy sauce, garlic; salt and pepper was never enough seasoning and he'd taken it up a notch.

"You added sugar in the soy sauce before coating the chicken," I guessed, going in a second time. "Because there wasn't any honey."

He laughed, amused. "Correct."

"I'm not surprised," the apple puree itself, he didn't add anything to it. "With your understanding of flavour profiles, you'd at least try to make up for any imbalance. The soy sauce and butter would have made the dish heavy and, at most, salty and nothing else. A honey-garlic sauce would have been ideal but without honey, you'd have to find something else that was sweet and then, there's the apple—"

"Shut up and eat," said Leroy, reaching for a glass of water with the sides of his lips turned up. Hiding a smile.

"You're happy." I pointed out.

He shrugged. "There's a difference between cooking for people who say 'it's good,' and people who tell you why it's good. Or how you can make it better." He picked up his own fork and knife before getting into his plate. "But keep talking like that and you'll be having cold food."

I paused, registering this; tried the fondant potatoes; had more to say, but decided to leave it for next time. Or perhaps after we were finished with dinner. Wait. How do these things work again? Would he just quietly leave after he's done eating? Or, would I have to offer my company to the station? I've never had a friend over and past references no longer applied. Leroy's mom wasn't going to pick him up from my place like how Miss Julie used to do when we were young.

"So, um." I began after finishing a potato. "I sent you a text using Si Yin's phone... did you see it? I mean, it's okay if you did and didn't feel the need to reply. I'd understand."

Leroy looked up with a blink, staring straight into my eyes. "Never got that," he said, taking out his phone and sliding it across the table towards me. None of the contact IDs in his chats featured an unknown number. "She probably saved the wrong number."

All of a sudden, I was beyond embarrassed about having minded so much about a single text message that he'd never received in the first place; fretting over the possibilities of him not wanting to speak to me ever again or have anything to do with a terrible friend like myself. "Oh..." And to think it was something that could keep me awake at night. Good god, Vanilla—you're an embarrassment.

He reached over, holding out an empty hand. "Give me your phone."

I handed it to him without much thought, watching as he typed something on the screen and all of a sudden, his phone was ringing. He returned it to me before getting back to his dinner. "Done."

"Oh," was all I could say. "Done with what?" I unlocked my phone and there it was: my call history, with a number at the top. "O-okay."

It took me a moment to realize how natural it must be for Leroy, exchanging phone numbers with someone else without quite requiring the other person's effort to lift a finger and type his or her number in the keypad and save the entire thing manually—which was what I would have done, considering my lack of experience in this very field of, um, phone-number business. After all, he did come across as someone fairly well-liked by those around him.

The question was what to do with it. His number.

"So, um," I set my utensils aside and reached for a sip of water. "I'm doing this... taste test on Monday. I don't think I'll pass it, of course. But my family's been insisting on taking it since they... well. They don't seem to trust that I can take care of myself and apparently prefer to have me on campus grounds."

Leroy nodded, nearly finished with his chicken. "Nervous?" He seemed completely calm and unsurprised, as though he'd somehow known this already.

"No, of course not." I paused for a moment, then proceeded to correct myself. "Yes maybe a little. I. It's a lot of pressure... you seem to have heard about this."

I watched him shrug, downing the rest of his water. "I did. And I didn't believe it," he laughed. "Thought it was just some bullshit they were spreading about you."

Naturally, I wasn't too happy about this. "And who—or how—did you hear about this?"

"School's number three, remember?" Leroy snorted, refilling his glass with the jug of ice water I'd taken out from the fridge. "Find it hard to believe that we know everyone gunning for our spots?"

I blinked, not quite understanding what he was getting at but waiting for him to go on. He spared my expression a single glance and, I assume, saw the confusion in my eyes.

"They talk about people all the time," he explained, reaching over to fill my glass after his own. "Who's a threat. Who's not. Some have their eyes on you, so... doesn't help that you almost lost your tongue on the first day of school."

"And get carried to the infirmary by well-known school's one-and-only number three, Leroy Cox—a real Casanova," I added with a roll of my eyes, obviously sarcastic.

He laughed.

"Don't let your guard down," My companion paused, staring at my empty plate. "Unless you actually like being carried to the infirmary...?" He teased with a smirk, but I was already standing and making my way to the sink to do the dishes.

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I like to think that there are many ways print and digital publications could adopt for the sake of readership revival. In fact, there are. The one thing I could not seem to put a finger on, however, was if taking advantage of the gossip revolving around one's own employee—or, in this case, one of their very own writers or journalists—was ethically justified. You see, despite the many quibbles I may have about Uncle Al's stick-in-the-mud personality and overdone honesty (which I have unfortunately come to adopt), I'd always admired his past of reviving every dying publication he's ever written for. Naturally, I aspired to do the same.

Just, not in this way.

"Okay, but do you know that I know everyone knows you're applying for campus accommodation and that people are predicting you can't even get past the third stage of the test?" Si Yin greeted first thing in the morning, right past the entrance where she stood in wait for an ambush. I wasn't surprised.

"I figured." There wasn't a sound that escaped my lips not sounding like a sigh. Even my descriptive capabilities were crippled by the lack of will to finish today. "You sent me a text at six in the morning, Si Yin. Please tell me it wasn't something you saw on Facebook."

"No, but close," she piped, visibly more excited than myself. "The school's Instagram account is handled by the press. You know that, right? I mean, you're part of the press. So like yesterday afternoon, they promoted this gossip story of theirs on a post and I thought the accompanying photo had this guy who totally looked like you being carried to the infirmary and guess what? It was!" Already, her arms were flapping. "Guess what the headlines were. First-year student injured on day one due for taste test 56 on Monday. I still remember it 'cuz I thought it was pretty close to my prediction. Boy carries other boy to infirmary because he's in love. Honestly could've swapped it."

Alright, then. Betrayed by my very own club! What a pleasant way to start the semester.

In an attempt to avoid the sudden attention I was receiving as we made our way to first period (Food Safety and Sanitation), I did what everyone else would have done: stared at the ground. Naturally, there were limits to this. Just because I pretended everyone else didn't exist didn't necessarily mean that they did the same to me and it also didn't change the fact that I had to get through a day of class before reporting at the examination hall for the test.

"Excuse me," I began politely upon meeting my usher. I recognized her as the staff member at the administration office who'd helped with the applications. "Just how many examiners will there be for this, um, test?"

"You'll see," she smiled. I paled. The staff brought me past double doors into something that resembled a waiting room and for some reason, I was expecting a tiny, enclosed space behind those doors whereby all that existed was a table and chair and whatever food samples they needed me to take but boy was I wrong. Did I just think that? Clearly, I wasn't in the right mind.

"Mr. White. Have a seat," one of the four examiners seated at a long table gestured to a single stool prepared in front of them. A single stool with a foldout table in the middle of the most gigantic room I've ever seen.

At the far back was a grand staircase that led to a gallery on the second floor and a single glance was all it took for me to register that there were at least fifty people watching me through a panel of glass from above. Brilliant.

"Is it, um. Normal to have an audience?" I asked in tentative laughter, waiting. None of them responded. Ignored and positively embarrassed, I shuffled over to the stool and sat quietly for further instructions.

"And your student matriculation number?" The examiner who spoke had his glasses lowered, beady eyes staring down the empty space and piercing through my own. I swallowed.

"HS191... 04A, I think." Barely the second week of school and here I was doing what students did during oral examinations. Sometimes I wonder how I get myself into such predicaments—that, and if being Uncle Al's nephew had to do with most of it. "Sorry, I, um. I don't have it at the top of my head just yet."

Fortunately, I received a brief nod in return. "Alright. I trust you've read the information sheet and signed the terms and conditions?"

Nod. Just nod. I did.

"Good. Let's begin."

In a moment, my usher had left the room and returned with something that resembled a black scarf. "Mr. White, please take off your glasses and put on your blindfold."

Hold on a minute, I paused, stunned. It's a blind taste test. I must have missed that out on the information sheet and—good god. I'm going to embarrass myself in front of the entire school. She approached me and the moment was almost too stifling not to comply with her instructions. Removing my glasses and slipping them into the pocket of my blazer, I braced myself for a bad afternoon.

The last thing I saw was someone else setting a glass of water to my right, presumably for cleansing my palate, and in the middle of the foldout table, an empty plate.