[Vanilla]

"I don't have a specific recommendation," the voice was strangely familiar. "But you can tell if a parlour's good from their vanilla."

What an unbelievably strange but effective marketing strategy, was the very first thought that entered my mind. Still, no one would be in the right mind to believe such an incredibly plain recommendation—

"That's so clever of you to notice!" The girl blinked in surprise. "I never thought of it that way but you have a point. We'll get three medium-sized vanillas." Her friends began digging for notes in their wallets, snapping pictures of whoever was serving them whilst doing so. Stunned by both their ability to multitask and the fact that they'd pounced on the bait dangling before their eyes, I wiped out all thoughts of settling on anything on the menu.

A single glance at the display freezer of ice cream flavours marked out a flavour right beside the payment counter as the store's best-seller. I blinked. Naturally, I couldn't bring myself to believe that any ice-cream parlour's best-seller would be the plainest, most boring flavour ever invented. Needless to say, I was expecting an extravagant house specialty—so much so that I considered asking another member of the staff if they did have a house specialty that wasn't vanilla.

But by the time I'd moved up in the line and accepted that I hadn't enough knowledge to make the most well-informed order (which was within seconds of my previous thought), I was freezing up before the counter. The staff behind it, clad in a white dress shirt and a barista's apron, paused midsentence; whatever the sentence was in the first place. His hand hovered over the screen of an iPad they used in place of a cash register, eyes fixed on mine before I started to feel my ears burn.

The name tag attached to his apron said it all.

Neither of us seemed to realize the length of our abrupt pause that was a tad too long to pass as a harmless stare until a staff member behind the ice-cream display peered over Leroy's shoulder to ask what the next order was. Even then, I wasn't paying full attention to nearly anything that was happening.

"Your order?" He said first, waiting for a response.

Embarrassed and afraid that I'd been staring indiscriminately for the past couple of seconds, I stammered a preliminary answer from the top of my head in hopes of buying some time.

"Yes. Um, well... I'd like—"

"Rum and raisin?" He finished, seemingly confident that he was correct. I on the other hand, didn't even know what I was getting.

"Um. No," I picked up where I left, trying my best to recall if I'd ever told Leroy my favourite ice-cream flavour back then. "A café latte please." It was at the top of the beverage menu and there was nothing else I could think of.

He paused, looking up from the screen with an expression I couldn't quite read. "To go?"

"Um. No," I repeated, wondering if my voice sounded awfully strange by now. May the Gods of awkward conversations bless my soul. "Having here please."

Leroy nodded, tapping across the screen. He seemed far less fazed by the coincidence than I was. "Hot or cold?"

"Hot please."

Again, he paused, "With that tongue?" raising a brow.

Naturally, I wasn't expecting him to pull that card and catch me completely off-guard. His words easily disarmed all that I had in my mind (which definitely consisted of as many words in every scholarly dictionary there was) and I found myself bending to his will. Whatever his will was.

"Fine," I produced a five-dollar note, unable to meet his gaze. "Cold it is. Please."

The transaction following this was surprisingly ordinary; I was handed several coins in return and given a circular device that beeped once my order was ready for collection. All I had to do now was wait and calculate the probability that I'd entered the same school as the only childhood friend I had and dropped by his (assumingly) part-time workplace after school. Well. I do recall encouraging his passion for cooking back then, but who would be in the right mind to listen to a four-year-old child's circular argument? And does being a chef necessitate enrolling in an internationally-renowned culinary school? No. Does he even remember—

"Iced café latte for Vanilla?" What! I felt the heat rise to my cheeks and spread to the back of my neck. Weren't you supposed to call your customers by buzzing them over? What use is this circular device if you end up announcing their name to the entire store? And—god, I can't believe he wrote my first name on the cup like that.

The staff member on duty at the collection area had placed my clear plastic cup of coffee on a nice little tray, complete with a complementary cookie on top of a napkin. I could tell she was about to call my name a second time so I quickly handed over the service pager, collected my tray and slipped into the shadows.

I registered a slight tremble in my fingers from the remnants of adrenaline in my veins only after settling down at the second floor in peace. There was no mirror to check just how red my face was, but I certainly hoped it didn't resemble a strawberry or I'd have to hide this wretched thing for the rest of my life.

*

With a sting of energy and a creamy denseness, the store's café latte leaves a surprisingly light and smooth aftertaste without overpowering the bitterness of a full-bodied espresso. In fact, it might be one of the best café lattes I've ever had. The hint of sweetened condensed milk adds a different layer of...

Thirty minutes and half a cup of café latte later, I was still stuck at the very same paragraph; very same sentence I'd crafted moments before and struggling to reconcile my rampant biases and terribly-organized thoughts of the staff downstairs and the drink in my hand. I sipped it again, tasting the bitter sting and wondering if he was the one who made it. While descriptive paragraphs were no doubt my forte, I'd taken every couple of seconds to pause and think about the accuracy of my current taste given the hole in my tongue. W-well, not exactly a hole but you get what I mean.

I'd deleted a word and replaced it with another only to delete and re-replace it with the same one before when I heard someone coming up the stairs. Their footsteps were careful but heavy, so I assumed they were carrying something and perhaps required some form of help. Leaving my seat, I shuffled towards the stairs for a closer look. Ah, a staff apron. She's the one at the collection area from before.

The girl took one look at me and beamed. "Oh hi! Are you 'the boy with glasses on the second floor'? I'm assuming you are because you're the only one up here anyway," she laughed. "Leroy said to give this to you." A tray with a regular-sized ice-cream cup on top balanced on the tips of her five fingers.

In a flurry of panic, I refused at once. "On what grounds? I can't just accept this—"

She shrugged, passing me to place the cup of ice-cream by my laptop. "He didn't say. I mean, he doesn't say much all the time anyway. Actually, this is kind of the first time he's talking to me."

"U-um, I..." The harmless cup of ice-cream stared up at me in an attempt to crumble my resolve. "Did he say what flavour it was?"

"Oh it's vanilla," she followed my gaze. "Our bestseller."

I sighed, accepting the cup with a bow of my head and thanking her for sending it up when they already had their hands full downstairs. She shook her head, stating that someone else had subbed in for her since her shift was long over.

On behalf of writing an accurate and well-informed review of the store, I decided to ask if vanilla had been their best-selling ice-cream flavour since opening day. After all, it was useful information that could perhaps give some insight into their marketing strategy and changes in menu, projecting either a solid future or a stagnant one that would soon plateau.

"Hm... not long," the staff member tapped her chin in thought. "I've been working part-time over here for about three years but it only started picking up when he arrived," she said. "Leroy, I mean. The owner hired him because of something he said on his first visit. After that, he let him tweak the house recipe for vanilla and we've honestly been doing very well since then."

Head spinning, I nodded politely and thanked her once more before returning to my seat and hiding my face from the world. What was a culinary genius like him doing in an ice-cream parlour? Someone like him could easily get a job at a restaurant elsewhere or even his mother's diner if she's...

I paused mid-thought. Returning to the descriptive paragraph and the blinking cursor in the middle of a poorly-constructed review, I reminded myself of the many reasons Leroy would prefer not to have anything to do with myself. After all, there was nothing anyone could do to remove a scar that, although healed, would remain. It would be insensitive of me to ask how his mother was doing unless he raised the subject on his own accord—which was unlikely in the first place.

Glancing at the generous serving of vanilla ice-cream, I carefully spooned a portion to observe the texture and crystals at its perfect temperature, holding it up to the light for a better view. Glistening and smooth. A preliminary taste identified Mexican vanilla beans—of which purportedly have the most vanillin crystals of any vanilla species. Richer and unmistakably darker than the ones from Madagascar. A second spoonful acknowledged a wonderfully creamy texture that was neither too dense or too airy; one that was silky and melted away instead of coating the tongue in a cloying, sickly sweetness. It leaned towards the taste and texture of a gelato, which could be explained by the higher proportion of milk and a lower proportion of cream and eggs. Stunned by the recipe's attention to detail, it wasn't hard to admit that this was, by far, the most complex of vanilla ice creams I've ever tasted.

It triggered a flurry of words that drew my fingers back to the keyboard and filled the once-empty page in a matter of seconds. Yet, beyond that which I could taste in the tangible moment was something I could not seem to put into words—the scent of fall and red leaves beneath one's feet that was nothing like a boring day or the absence of flavour in which the very word comprised of. It was the creaking of a teeterboard.

The sound of company.

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

I had foreseen a particularly grueling first lesson to start of kitchen fundamentals, otherwise known by students as the triple-zero-courses. Si Yin and I had arrived fifteen minutes earlier in our chef whites at what I assumed was the largest kitchen with nearly forty stations for our first class of the day: Culinary Techniques [CL0001]. Though we'd made an additional effort to leave a good impression on the instructor, we soon realized that we weren't the only ones who strived to impress. The kitchen was nearly half-filled with students, of which some we couldn't recognize and made wild guesses about them being from another homeroom class that had the same time slot for fundamentals.

"Students of 1A and B, welcome to culinary fundamentals," said the instructor with a smile. "I'm Chef Lindy and this is the kitchen you all will be spending most of your time in as a freshman. As the title of the course suggests, this class will focus on the fundamentals of what makes good cooking. Searing, sautéing, pan-frying, braising, poaching—every skill and technique you will use in the rest of your time here in school.

"Our first objective is to start putting a dinner plate together. One that has five different components," she went on, flipping the huge blackboard in front of the class to reveal a step-by-step recipe. "So that means you have to organize yourself properly to make all five components come together at the same time. Is it going to be a cold dish by the time you send it out of the kitchen?"

"No chef," piped Si Yin beside me, who drew several pairs of eyes to herself. It was only then that I realized the girl standing before me with her arms crossed was Violet Birchwood—the one who sat beside me during the welcome ceremony.

Chef Lindy nodded in her direction. "That's a promise. And remember! Time and organization. I need you all to choose a station each before we get ourselves started on some preliminary knife skills. All necessary ingredients should already be in the box on your counter and if you've somehow forgotten to bring your knife sets in a culinary class, good luck on finding someone nice enough to share theirs with you."

Without warning, there was a scramble for stations and a desperate attempt to pick those with the most pristine-looking ingredient baskets. The strangest thing that caught my eye was someone rushing over to a station just so that they could give it up when Miss Birchwood came around and offer the nicest basket of ingredients to her. It was an odd but clever thing to do; an easy way to earn her favour.

"I'm assuming you've all read the online class materials before this so we're going to skip the demo and dive right into the simplest recipe we have on the menu—chicken soup. You can't mess that up." Oh. A test of experience and skills?

Admittedly, I'd read and watched the materials for this class long beforehand, but I wasn't expecting the very first lesson to turn out this way. Tasked to recreate a recipe from the get-go without much guidance was giving students from the middle school division a natural advantage and judging by the murmurs sweeping across the room, I wasn't the only one who thought so.

"You have five minutes to prep—meaning by the time I come 'round your station, your onions and celeries should be diced, carrots julienned, garlic minced, potatoes peeled and diced in whatever size you prefer, and chicken seasoned. Easy, right?" Her eyes swept the class and held my gaze for a moment too long. "You look like you have something to say."

"Um—no chef. It's just," I looked at the carrots. "You don't julienne carrots for chicken soup. Usually."

"And that is correct," she smiled, a gleam in her eyes. "Roll-cuts for carrots. They should be done julienne only when you have the time and resources to strain the stock before adding a new batch of cooked carrots so that they hold. We don't want the vegetables to turn into mush."

I kept my head down, noting that I'd gained quite a bit of attention from the students up front. Someone else would have corrected her either way, what with most of 1A being students from the middle-school division. Nevertheless, this wasn't the time to be thinking about underhanded questions used to test if students were paying attention. The stations before mine were already starting on peeled potatoes.

Yet, one look at the carrots in my ingredient box made them out to be two times smaller than the carrots that the station in front of mine had; further bruised in the most unappealing way. That's not very fair, giving some stations better ingredients than the others. At once, I could tell that two skinny and bruised carrots were not going to be enough to balance out the saltiness of the chicken and fragrance of garlic. Only one onion too.

Quickly, I seasoned the chicken before leaving it to set and rushing off to the additional ingredient pantry near the back of the kitchen. There, I caught Si Yin by the cupboard of alcohol, a bottle of brandy in her arms.

"Oh hey!" She whispered, seemingly free of guilt. "What are you getting? By the way, could you pass me a parsley root? To your right." I picked out a good one, taking an ear of sweetcorn that was just beside it.

"Do you think they have red dates?" I looked around the shelves, unable to spot anything that looked quite like the ones I've seen back home.

"Like, jujube? I think they—"

She stopped short and I followed her gaze to see Violet Birchwood standing at the entrance of the pantry area, blinking in surprise. She took one glance at the bottle of brandy in Si Yin's arms and scoffed, stalking to the back where she retrieved a yellow bell pepper. Because of this, I noticed a small drawer labelled 'dates'. Inside, were figs, raisins, prunes and finally, a small packet of what I had been looking for. I picked out two, resealed the packaging, and headed back to the kitchen.

Chef Lindy stood before my station, arms folded and eyes following me all the way from the pantry to my chopping board. "It's been five minutes and nothing's been done except your chicken. What were you doing in there?"

"Sorry chef. I was... um, I was trying to make up for the carrots. I just needed something to taste, that's all—I don't intend to change the recipe entirely. I might not even use them in the end."

The instructor skimmed over the ingredients I'd brought back. "Hm. Okay, sure. But you better ask for permission next time, Mr...?"

"White, chef," I said, relieved. "Julian White."

*

Over the course of forty-five minutes or so, we were given personal advice at every stage of preparation and cooking before we were told that a mock grade would be given in assessment of today's work. And according to the first couple of students who dared present their work ten minutes before the assigned timing, Chef Lindy was nothing close to being lenient.

"It's a three for presentation, zero for timing and two for taste. Additional comments would be that your knife skills require much polishing for someone from the middle school division," she smiled almost dangerously, successfully sending the student running back to his station near-tears who was muttering something about chicken soup needing no presentation.

And five minutes before time (while I was giving my soup a final taste), Si Yin and Miss Birchwood met again in front of Chef Lindy's counter—with the former being just a second faster than the latter.

"You. You're quite fast, aren't you," the instructor said to Si Yin as she picked up the spoon. "I saw you go into the pantry, but you finished prep within the given time. Your cuts aren't too bad either."

"Thanks chef," piped Si Yin, fingers wriggling behind her back. "I used a shot of brandy, you see. Hope you don't mind."

Chef Lindy appeared to have said something under her breath, but her counter was much too far up front for the rest of the class to hear. By now, most of the students were wrapping up their dishes and joining the queue for their soups to be graded. "Your name?"

"Xu Si Yin. But you can call me Syl—"

"Miss Xu," she nodded, penning something down on her clipboard. "You're a five for presentation, seven for timing and... eight for taste."

There was quite the uproar following Chef Lindy's announcement of Si Yin's score, which tallied up to stand at the top of the class so far; the best of chicken soups. Unfortunately, Si Yin herself didn't seem very interested in numbers.

"And the comments?" She leaned forward. "What do you have?"

"The brandy goes well with the chicken stock. It could have been luck—I saw you eyeball it. But judging from the precision of your cuts and the fact that you roasted the chicken before making the stock for flavour... maybe you knew what you were doing," Chef Lindy had a rare, almost unreadable smile on her face. "Just be careful sometimes. You don't seem to be very aware about the things happening around you once you're at your station. Remember—the kitchen isn't a place for one. Make sure you learn how to work as a team."

"As a team... okay, gotcha. As a team," she nodded vigorously, leaving everyone else quite unsure if she actually got what Chef Lindy was trying to say. Behind her, Miss Birchwood was not looking very happy at all. I had assumed she wouldn't be too mindful outside of her expertise (since she specialized in confectionery) but apparently, that wasn't the case at all.

"Alright, next." Miss Birchwood stepped up to present her dish while Si Yin shuffled away with hers, tasting the soup as she went.

Chef Lindy stared at the bowl of soup before her eyes, seemingly forgetting about the spoon prepared for her on a napkin. "Presentation, six. A seven for timing and... zero for taste."

The room was stunned into a nerve-wracking silence, leaving the air resting upon our heads taut and heavy. Si Yin, who was in the middle of finishing her bowl of soup back at her station, seemed not to have heard the frightful words and only stopped whatever she was doing when she noticed that everyone was awfully silent. Naturally, her first reaction was to turn to me with a puzzled look, which I quickly responded with a finger to my lips, directing her attention to the commotion up front.

Miss Birchwood had 'disbelief' written all over her face, staring at her bowl of chicken soup that was completely untouched. She appeared nothing less than distraught.

"You didn't even taste it," she snapped, losing all composure at once. "And you're giving me a zero?"

Chef Lindy laughed. "You've placed the emphasis on the wrong word Violet dear. I'm giving you a zero. Additional comments include the fact that I am allergic to bell peppers," she smiled. "That is all."

"That is unfair," breathing deeply, Miss Birchwood turned over her shoulder to point at Si Yin, whose attention had already been diverted to cleaning her station whilst re-boiling her soup for some reason. "She never asked for your allergies either. If you're grading me based on the act of not asking for your allergies, then—"

"Those who decided on additional ingredients or to tweak the recipe I wrote on the board took the same risk as yourself, Violet. Besides, I would go as far as to say that they had the disadvantage," Chef Lindy did not hesitate to jab further. "What kind of daughter doesn't know her mother's allergies?"

The entire class exchanged a look.

"Mother!" The girl hissed under her breath. Face red.

"This brings me to an important point," Chef Lindy stood, scanning the kitchen to ensure that everyone was paying attention. "Should any of you decide to do the same in my lessons, you will ask for permission to access the pantry for additional ingredients. This also serves to remind all of you that this isn't about learning how to cook, but how to make your customers smile."

Miss Birchwood appeared defeated by the instructor (otherwise known as her mother but they barely bore any resemblance to one another), taking her bowl of soup and shuffling away before turning sideways to give Si Yin another glare. However, the latter was unfortunately occupied with other things and it only furthered her anger and frustration.

I was one of the last students to have their chicken soup tasted and although it had allowed for the broth to simmer in the pot of flavours for a longer period, I was afraid that Chef Lindy, was somehow allergic to sweetcorn and dates as well.

"You're the other one who didn't like my recipe," she joked as soon as I set the bowl before her and handed her a spoon. "Dates and sweetcorn, is that right?"

I nodded. "Two jujube dates and an ear of corn. I cut that up into four." She nodded, taking in a whiff of the soup.

"Your knife skills are terrible by the way," she sipped a spoonful of broth before pausing with a frown. Then, it was another spoon; and another. Still, she remained silent whilst picking the ingredients apart, as though looking for something hidden in the bowl of soup.

Bated breath, I waited.

"You boiled the chicken?"

"Yes."

"Your potatoes are oddly small."

"O-oh."

All this, she said between several spoonfuls of soup, stopping every now and then to write something on her clipboard and ask me a couple of questions. The first thing she announced was a measly two for presentation and three for timing, claiming that I hadn't enough practice in the kitchen just yet.

"And how many times did you taste the soup?"

"Um. Eight, chef," I recalled counting, unsure whether she meant that I should have tasted more or something along those lines.

The rare smile she had on the edge of her lips resurfaced and she pointed at her bowl that I now noticed was nearly clean.

"Your carrots were in a bad shape, weren't they?" She dabbed a napkin over her mouth. "You tried to compensate for this by using flavours from the sweetcorn and dates but I don't quite think you 'made up' for it at all.

"I think you just made the best chicken soup I've ever had."

I blinked, frowning and turning to the person behind me to see if I'd heard that correctly. Judging from the blank look on their faces, they weren't exactly listening.

"And you're not even a culinary student," Chef Lindy skimmed through the class register, where I assumed our majors were indicated. "A critic. True enough, I'd say taste is your most important asset... but doesn't mean you can get away with terrible knife skills."

"Thank you chef," I bowed rather stiffly, not entirely sure what to make of her comments. "I just, um, cook everything to taste. I don't actually know what I'm doing," I admitted with an awkward laugh.

"Oh," Chef Lindy looked up in surprise. "But dates? Home cooks just add sugar if they don't have enough carrots." To which I laughed airily and picked up her empty bowl and the spoon that she'd used, not wanting to hold up the rest of the line.

I had taken a couple of steps away from the instructor's station when she stopped me with another question.

"Do you happen to know our number three?"

Turning with a puzzled look, I asked what she meant by that question.

"The school's number three," said Chef Lindy. "Leroy Cox."

"U-um, no. Not really," not good not good not good, "why do you ask?"

She returned to her clipboard with a shrug. "He's the only other student who uses dates in chicken soup."

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

"How did you do it?" I asked Si Yin as soon as she emerged from the girl's locker room on the first floor, holding out the book bag she left in my care. "Chef Lindy said you were done with prep work within the given time. How is that possible when you spent so much time in the pantry looking for that bottle of brandy?"

She burst out laughing, slipping her coat on and forgetting to take her bag. I had to remind her. "Vanilla! No one needs five minutes to cut up some vegetables," she turned to me with an expression that looked like a cross between frowning and smiling. "Right? I mean... two minutes is more than enough."

I stared, offended. "That is not true. Even experienced students from the middle school division took more than that and they didn't enter the pantry. I'm starting to think that you're a prodigy or something, especially after tasting your soup."

Truth to be told, that was an understatement. I hadn't thought of roasting the chicken instead of boiling it and the result was incredibly flavourful soup in the shortest possible time. Had she let it sit for a couple more hours...

"Honestly though, the brandy thing was something I tried out at home on a whim. I'm not all that special," she seemed to confess, albeit unable to meet my gaze as she did. "Okay but if you reaaaally wanna know my secret then I guess I'll tell you but you can't say this to anyone, okay, 'cuz if my doctor hears about this I'm kkkrrr," Si Yin proceeded to run her thumb across her neck. I nodded stiffly, afraid that she was going to reveal some sort of invisible fairy assistant that was telling her what to do.

"I didn't eat my meds."

She stopped there, lips drawn thin but moving restlessly even then. As though trying her best to keep the rest of her words from flying out. I blinked. "Go on."

Si Yin lit up like a lamp.

"So I have this craaazy thing whereby my attention just zooms in on anything related to food when I'm not on meds and okay, not really anything related to food but honestly just when I'm doing the cooking so it's like I'm in the Zone. If you read Kuroko no Basket. If you know what that means," she paused, looking at my face. "Okay I don't think you know what it means because your eyes are blank."

My first reaction was to stammer a request for more information.

"It's called Hyperfocus," she went on to explain, taking out her phone while we crossed the road. I confiscated it and returned it to her only after we'd done so. "Here, 'people who think ADHD means having a short attention span misunderstand what ADHD is' and 'a better way to look at it is that people with ADHD have a dysregulated attention span.' Oh, and Kuroko no Basket is this Japanese anime about basketball and the players all have this weird-shit Zone thing that people believe exists in sports and they magically start playing super-duper well and get hotter all of a sudden. Cool electric light shit starts leaking from their eyes, too.

"So yeeah, I become some legit next-level cooking person when I'm not on my meds, so... I didn't take them this morning to test it out and see if I have trouble with the other lessons. Thank god there aren't any lectures today."

Taking mental notes of the information dump she poured onto my palate, I was quietly surprised that Si Yin had so easily decided to reveal this to a stranger like myself.

"You're not a stranger," she looked at me disapprovingly and I realized, as embarrassing as it sounds, that I had been thinking aloud. "We're obviously friends. Er, right? If you're going to say no now, electric light shit might start leaking from my eyes too." Si Yin bobbed her head left and right like a snake and it looked so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh, asking if she was taking the train in the same direction as I was.

Only then did she look around. "Wait, we're at the station already?"

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. "We're in the station, Si Yin. You tapped your card at the turnstile and dropped your wallet and I picked it up for you while you were talking about your next-level culinary skills and electric lights leaking from your eyes."

"Oh," was all she said afterwards. "Okay, forget I said that. I was totally going to ask if we could hang out—a.k.a. throw a party—to celebrate our friendship. No pressure, but I do this every time I make a new friend and it's been a running tradition. No pressure. Also, we eat ice cream most of the time. No pressure." She said 'no pressure' three times.

Also, ice cream.

"Ice cream? In such freezing weather?" I shook my head at once. "Maybe we could settle for a café nearby. About a station away—would that be inconvenient? I forgot to ask where you live."

"A café?" She wriggled her nose in disgust. "No thanks that sounds boring as hell. Also, I'm not supposed to drink coffee or tea and hot chocolate bores me and ice cream doesn't so can we please go to an ice cream parlour? Please, please, please. And honestly we can drop by anything that's near your place 'cuz all I have to do is give my man Sebastian a call and he'll drop by with a limo. Cool right? He even wears the butler stuff and all. It cracks me up."

"Well, there aren't many parlours nearby so if you really want some ice cream then—"

"Liar," she called me out at once, stunning me into silence. "I read that review you put up on your blog yesterday. Plus, I looked at the comments and you seem to have this huge fan named Chip Honeycutt or something like all he has is praise for you. Also, if you're wondering how I knew about your blog thing it's because my family does checks on everyone I hang out with for, uh, security issues and like they come up with a list of facts in a terrifying report. It even has your address on it, but I promise I didn't look at that one. All I did was check out your blog. Promise."

It was the moment I saw Si Yin in a completely different light; not that I hadn't considered the possibility of this in the first place, but. I suppose a personal statement from her confirmed my suspicions and here she was, standing beside commoner me.

"Are you a princess or something?"

She had to pause. "Uh... no. I hope." My jaw dropped. "But does it really matter? Come on. I mean. If you're, like, obliged to listen to me then I'm going to say yes I am and I order you to bring me to that nice little ice cream place you discovered yesterday."

Naturally, I thought this through. What are the chances that part-timers like Leroy worked two days straight? Since most school clubs have their meetings and activities on Thursdays, wouldn't he be in school right now? We could pop by and if we see an overwhelming number of schoolgirls gathered at the first floor, make up an excuse to find another one. Brilliant thinking.

With this in mind, I gave in to her request and together, we boarded the train and escaped from the biting wind. 

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

A/N: Hellu Beans and Bakers! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I mean, it was close to 6k words but I've already tried my best not to end on a cliffhanger although like I'm thinking: I can't make the chapter like 10k words can I? So I guess I settled with this one...

Also, quick update. I uploaded a 4k word extra of Xander and Chip's domestic life on Inkitt! The book's titled [Not Good for the Heart] if you wish to read it, but if that's too long for you just type in [theCuppedCake] which is my username and it should direct you to my page. IF ALL ELSE FAILS and technology hates you just like it hates me, you can find the link in my bio :') hehe. 

To (hopefully) entice you to read it, here's an excerpt. 

Hi,

This is Xander. I'm just going to get straight to the point and tell you that I've had enough of Chip Honeycutt, the cutest, sweetest, sexiest, nosebleed-inducing Angel to ever bless the earth that I unfortunately walk on. You must be wondering: what the fuck is this man going on about? No complaints there. I don't ever get how my brain works whenever my husband gets within my ten-foot range of tolerance—or if it actually works when he does.

Point is; you're about to read my account of one of the million times Chip unintentionally knocked me out with his level of cute, which, trust me, is not a level that any sane human being can handle. Thank devils I was never sane.

Also, you might want to recall whatever happened in Chapter 39 of the last book, which my author stupidly titled 'Original' and decided to leave out numbers in all her chapter names only to find out that she will never be able to identify or point readers to the correct chapter labeled in her files that are actually numbers. She's dumb like that.

Basically, my husband went on a shopping spree for clothes (in Giselle's case) and underwear (mine and his). I still remember how he fucking sent an image of my underwear and named it hole in undies.jpg. See? Knocks you out with his level of cute in a single sentence. Back to the story. So I texted him back and said he should get several pairs for himself since he's always thinking about me and Giselle and never gets anything for his own benefit. I also suggested he get something similar to the black lace thing he wore the night before.

Context, done.

So if you're one of those people who demanded additional details about black lace from my author and never got it because she's an embarrassed fetus, it's your time to rejoice. I'm about to bless you with whatever happened that night—or entire day, for the matter.

You're welcome. 

-Cuppie.