A/N: I must confess, it is getting increasingly difficult for me to concentrate in the confines of my room ;-; my back and neck is more than sore it's like painful and my migraines have decided to drop by, knock on my door, ring the bell every 5 minutes or so. I live in a tropical climate, so the weather's just terrifying with the window open and the sun is just glaring so I'm mostly stuck in still, humid air, squeezing out every last word because I know that if I don't anyway, I'd soon be reduced to a pebble.

Also because I know you're probably suffering as much as I am, so this is my little attempt at making some part of your day.

Enjoy.

Oh, and having read some alarming comments of alarmed readers from the last chapter—yes, Leroy is a red-head and I mentioned it so many times in previous chapters ;-; sob. It's also why Vanilla always describes his hair as fierce. Red hair ranges from strawberry blonde to ginger to deep red to a very, very dark auburn! Leroy is of the dark auburn range but when he was young he was more of a deep red. If you notice, Vanilla does mention how his hair looks different under different lighting conditions, and sometimes he mistakes it for a dark woody brown and other times it appears 'fierce' under sunlight.

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

[Vanilla]

"Gay, I guess," said Leroy without so much as a blink or a pause at the question I'd posed. It hadn't been an easy one. "I'm attracted to you. And you're a guy... unless you're not."

Xander had dropped us off at the hotel after begrudgingly swinging by an all-day convenience store and buying each of us a hot beverage and cup ramen, insisting we had all that before going to bed (and that I draft a text to Chip whilst filling my tummy just so that the details of our adventure remained fresh in my mind). I'd put some water in the electric kettle as soon as Leroy made for the shower, preparing our cups of ramen before gently laying the question upon him when he emerged i-in a bathrobe.

"I'm pretty sure you've seen me without my pants on and I do identify as part of the male species, so." I handed him a pair of chopsticks, mildly distracted by the forward confession he'd made about his attraction towards me. He was running a towel through his hair. It looked much darker when it was wet—as though singed from the heat. "And no, that's not quite the answer I was looking for. You can be something other than gay and be attracted to me in a... attracted to me, sexually. That's my current stand on things, by the way. I find I like you in that way. I mean I find you very asdkljf and I am, at the same time, aware that I am not attracted to other men."

You must understand that this was all going on at half past three in the morning and considering the fact that we'd boarded the plane at six a.m., our nonsense was... well I'd say it was justified.

Leroy's response was to blink, reaching over to receive the pair of chopsticks before staring at my hands and then back up at me. "That's why you didn't tell them." He seemed to understand now; why I had been struggling with the expression of truth, that dealing with something as foreign as my orientation wasn't exactly the easiest thing.

"Yes. I'm still confused and not entirely sure what's happening just yet," I confessed rather quickly, meeting his gaze briefly before nervously looking away. "I don't mean to keep you a secret, or anything like that."

My companion was quiet for a moment, gazing at the steam circling and rising from our sinful cups of midnight ramen. I pushed one towards him and started first, blowing on a couple of strands I'd caught with my chopsticks. He on the other hand, had a tongue incapable of understanding the concept of temperature and had straight up sent a generous portion into his mouth and down his throat.

I let the silence settle in, staring out of the window as it did and all of a sudden, registering the fatigue rested upon my shoulders. He seemed to follow my gaze, watching the streets down below and the occasional wind passing by, whistling against the glass.

"Think there's something for people attracted to intelligence?" He posed rather casually, halfway through his cup and I was, very naturally, immensely bewildered and illegally disarmed.

I couldn't words, so I simply returned his question with a look of absolute confusion and absurdity.

Leroy had the gall to square his shoulders like he'd just made a wild guess at the last question of his AB test. "Would explain why I'm so turned on every time you say something."

"So you'd go to bed with Albert Einstein or Edith Stern."

He gave that a thought. Well, he better. "... don't know the second one, but okay I get your point."

Admittedly, I couldn't quite tell if he was being serious about this whole thing but regardless of his intended purpose, he'd won a smile and then because I could so clearly see him hiding a smirk behind his cup of noodles, it worsened into a laugh. What an idiot. Has me wrapped around his finger and is perfectly aware of it! Someone, report him to the authorities.

He gave my forehead the usual after confirming the lightened mood.

"But does it matter?" He came up with soon after, staring intently at the side of my face that I could practically feel the burn without so much as have him in the periphery of my vision. I reached over without quite looking at him, gently directing his head elsewhere so that I could actually concentrate on having a conversation without heated eyes on me.

"Well my godfather's husband said the same thing. He says it isn't important. That we don't need to feel obligated to have an answer to that question. Initially, I'd somehow arrived at the conclusion that I, myself, wouldn't require a label, but that others would. And after listening to what he had to say, I suppose we don't have to arrive at any conclusion either way." I addressed the window. The view. More specifically, the reflection in it. "I mean. If you're okay with that."

He did not turn—somewhat obliging with the direction I'd put his head in—but met me in the glass with a testing smirk. "So... I'd be right to say that you like my dick. Specifically."

"This conversation is over." I finished up the last of my ramen, snatched up his empty cup on the table and put them back into the plastic bag they'd come with before securing that and properly disposing of it by the front door. "And I'm setting the alarm for seven in the morning as punishment."

I could hear him laughing in the bathroom, brushing his teeth.

*

To say I was an absolute disgrace to my reputation of having the most impeccable manners in all of teenaged human species was, by the very next morning, an understatement.

Leroy and I had ended crawling back into the waking world at eleven o'clock with the worst of eye bags and an inability to carry out basic functions like putting on a pair of pants or remembering where I'd left my glasses the night before. Most importantly, Uncle Al and Aunt Julie had reminded me just the night before about coming down for breakfast at nine; which meant that they'd gone nearly three hours either waiting for me downstairs or without a single text message. There were a total of twenty-four missed calls.

Naturally, being late the sort of phenomenon I'd never before experienced, and to think it wasn't Leroy but myself who'd mistaken the vibrating phone for the alarm I'd set and continually hit the 'snooze' button! Down the drain my spotless reputation went and even for my uncle and aunt who'd basically known me for my entirely life, this was exactly how their perception of me was—which, strictly speaking, was highly accurate, as far as I knew.

But perhaps that was all before sitting up in bed and registering the presence of a lion's mane poking out of the covers, completely oblivious to the multiple alarms and phone calls I was receiving. Leroy Cox had not stirred one bit despite my frantic attempts at returning the calls I was receiving from both my uncle and grandmother.

Thank goodness neither of them were worried enough to actually use the spare keycard they had to enter the room, most likely under the persuasion of my aunt. Who'd... probably made a couple of wild guesses regarding the situation at hand.

They would've needed an ambulance had they done so; Leroy's bathrobe had, as usual, come magically undone in the middle of his reckless sleep. He was the kind to move. A lot. And then stay in a specific, unbelievable position once he'd found that miraculously comfortable enough. This time, it involved sinking his entire face into the pillow, arms wide open, chest down with his back somewhat covered by the robes that for some reason, refused to stay on his shoulders.

After having a brief conversation on the phone with my uncle, apologizing for the mess that I was and reassuring that I was, indeed, alright and that I'd... overslept because Leroy had arrived rather late, I was informed of the hotel's check out time. Twelve noon.

The next hour was spent in quite the frenzy. Waking my companion and ensuring that he sat up with his robe done before struggling to find my glasses and then struggling to change out of my pyjamas and then, just, well, struggling in general. Aunt Julie met us downstairs at the lounge of the hotel lobby, wagging a finger in our direction while Nana was all over Leroy once more, tousling his hair and patting his shoulders.

"Where's Uncle Al?"

"He's gone to settle the bill. And you have a lot of explaining to do, little fawn," Aunt Julie crossed her arms and I recoiled on instinct, knowing how she'd used those terms on me when I was much younger. It first happened when they found out I'd dropped by the bookstore on my way back home and secretly bought a collection with the lunch money I'd saved up.

"W-well um. Leroy said he needed to drop by his mother's diner to collect some of their belongings, so. So he turned up pretty late last night at about um, midnight. And... we played some games and had some snacks before we slept." The events were to a certain extent, accurate and believable. Which was what made a lie convincing sometimes. Have details, but not too many. "The alarm was... that was my fault. We overslept and I'm really sorry for making you worry like that."

I don't play this card very often. Lying. And both Aunt Julie and Uncle Al know me well enough to trust my judgement of when I'd resort to dealing such a hand and the extent to which I'd do it.

She breathed a sigh, giving my nose a pinch. I sneezed. "You deserve that. I don't recall you spending late nights playing games or, or snacking back when you were in that high school! Should I be worried about this culinary school of yours?"

"Julie," Nana smacked my aunt's thigh and I could tell from the corner of my eye how hard Leroy was trying not to laugh. "The boy's acting like a normal teenager for once and you're concerned about that? Has Alfred finally rubbed off on you? I'm not allowing no more of that. Maybe you should spend more time over at my place."

Aunt Julie pursed her lips. "But Vanille's never overslept. Not even when he's spent hours burning the midnight oil for some pop quiz in senior year he's most likely going to ace anyway."

Again, I apologized. "I promise. It won't happen ever again."

"Good. Because Alfred says the next hotel giving us a free night has the best breakfast buffet in town, so you and Leroy have to be there, on time."

"Thanks A... Julie." My companion was this close to making a fatal mistake that would have sent my flying into outer space but to my surprise, Aunt Julie had laughed and, after glancing at Nana, said that he could call them whatever he wanted to.

The conversation went on to details of our school life that gave insight into the curriculum, stuff like the classes we were attending and the kind of core modules we were supposed to be taking according to our majors. Uncle Al returned sometime later, and upon hearing about my side of the story from Aunt Julie, told us that we should be setting off to our next accommodation very soon.

"Unless you two have something else to do? Someplace you want to eat at before flying back?" He'd directed this at Leroy more so than myself, since I'd told them about the short period of his stay.

"I was thinking of a place, yeah." My companion surprised me by nodding. I quickly pulled him aside.

"What did I say about impromptu plans?"

"I was thinking of going alone though..."

I blinked in return, glancing over his shoulder to check on everyone else before coming back to the whispered conversation we were having. "Well... I mean, it's not that I object to you going alone but today's s-sort of... it's the last day we're seeing each other. Until the end of the week-long holiday, that is. Not to say I wish to spend every single second of it with you, that would kill me, no doubt. I... just thought you'd like for me to go with you. At the very least."

My companion laughed low, leaning in to give my forehead the usual. "I'm going to see someone. This time's... not a good idea."

"Why not?" I probed, uncharacteristically nosy thanks to the terrifying seed of insecurity that had, for some reason, taken root somewhere within. This conversation was a great job nursing it; I simply couldn't bear the thought of there being another person he wanted to spend time with and at the same time, refused to let me meet them. Still, as I've learnt from multiple awfully-written protagonists of romantic fiction, taming the green monster inside was a necessary part of making any relationship work. "Not that I mind. Just... sorry I'll stop asking."

He sighed. "It's my dad. And we argue. All the time," he laid out bluntly. "So yeah. Don't want you to see me like that."

I paused, registering how stupid I must have sounded and promptly dilating the blood capillaries under the skin of my cheeks. Ultimately, I was childishly relieved of the weight on my shoulders. "Yes um. I respect your decision. A-although I wouldn't mind tagging along some three quarters of the way and then waiting nearby so that you'd at least have some company while you're traveling."

He took a moment to think about this, glancing over at the rest of my family seated at the lounge. "You... not gonna spend some time with them?"

"We've made exciting plans over the rest of the week. Redecorating the house. My room. Shopping for new furniture."

Leroy laughed shortly, then groaned under his breath as though giving up. "Fine. But when he comes, you're stepping out. The guy's a professional at involving bystanders."

"Okay," I nodded, unusually excited and guiltily so. The last he'd ever spoken about his father seemed about ages ago, back when we were playmates. "I'll go ask my—"

"I'll ask." He reached out to block my way with an arm, glancing over his shoulder with another one of his disarming smiles. As you all know, I'd offer to file a detailed police report on the various criminal activities of a certain idiot by the name of Leroy Cox but that would take too long, and far too many words so here is a petition for a blanket ban of his illegal existence. Please sign it.

Ban Leroy Cox.

Filed by Vanilla Julian White

*

Moments after we'd sought permission to leave for the rest of the afternoon and rejoin over dinner at the next hotel, we were on our way to a restaurant, or so Leroy had divulged. It was really all that he told me on the bus and, as a human being with a great distaste for limited information, I felt around for snippets of more.

"It's your father's restaurant?" I offered him a chocolate mint. He gave the box a glance, laughed shortly, and shook his head.

"He wouldn't waste his time on someplace quiet and out of the way. They're in New York, Shanghai, Manila, Singapore. The new one's somewhere in Europe."

Needless to say, I was mildly surprised. "You've been keeping up with him."

Leroy uncapped the bottle of water we'd purchased at the transfer station to share. "He's still my father. We just don't get along."

The words had so coincidentally struck a bell in my mind and I was at once reminded of the problematic issue raised by Chen on the evening of our school's open house. "Oh um, speaking of not getting along... Chen was telling me—Layla Tenner is quitting school. Consequently, he's going to take her place as the school's number one and you'd be moving up to second. And and and Birchwood will be joining the top thirteen as number nine. Did you know about this?" I searched his gaze, waiting. He was unexpectedly calm.

"What about you?"

That was not the answer I'd been expecting. It was practically another question. "What do you mean?"

Leroy clicked his tongue, rolling his eyes but with the corners of his lips turned up. "The ladder. You're not in?" Initially, I couldn't quite understand why he was asking this.

"Well clearly I didn't make the cut or Chen would be telling me about it," I pointed out with a smile, flattered by the indirect compliment he was making.

"Yeah, bet he'd love to come running to you with good news," said the idiot under his breath who, apparently, wasn't as good at taming green monsters within compared to myself.

In fact, I was admittedly so surprised by his reaction (had I not made it obvious enough that Chen was barely an option for my attention or attraction?) that it'd taken me a minute to gather my thoughts. "All he's been asking for are favours and quite frankly, I'm not so kind as to agree in a heartbeat. First, it was to join his cross-year team against my will and then now, he wants my advice on Dalgona-style desserts like cakes and pastries and and and going shopping for the ingredients together. And, again, if you knew a thing about being polite, I was turning him down in the most socially accepted manner by coming up with some form of an excuse."

He was listening to all this—or at least I hope he was—while staring at me before finally cracking a smirk and leaving me speechless with a private display of his indecent finger. "Knew he wasn't competition."

I rolled my eyes, pointing at the vulgar gesture in his lap. "Keep that up and he will be."

He had the gall to challenge me by doing so for the rest of the ride (cramping up twice) and for some completely irrational reason, managed to leave the both of us unable to sit back in silence without a smile threatening to surface. He'd changed from his right to his left hand as soon as the former had cramped up. It was absolutely idiotic.

This lasted for as long as thirty minutes until we'd arrived at our stop, alighted, and headed down an empty street. Leroy led the way and as we seemed to near our destination, the flame in his eyes darkened and dimmed, leaving our moment of smiles some way behind.

The restaurant we arrived at was not something one would expect to find in a quiet, narrow street, void of life and pretty much home to one or two pigeons roosting above. It had a pair of Italian flags on both ends of the storefront and a colourful row of fake flowers in a makeshift balcony dangling above the sign. A casual would have passed it off as borderline fancy but to the keen eye of an expert, trained, it was trying a little too hard.

Glancing past the immediate foreground of the display window, one could make out an elderly man behind the counter adjusting the reading glasses slipping down his nose. Before him were folders, papers and documents scattered around in a haphazard manner.

"That's your father?"

"Grandfather." Leroy corrected shortly, hand on the front door. He didn't say anything about staying outside so I followed him in and waited for the signal instead. Needless to say, curiosity got the better of me; that, and the sheer surprise of registering the presence of an extended family. After all, he'd never really mentioned a word about anyone apart from his mother.

The elderly man looked up from the documents he was deciphering as soon as he heard us enter. It was only after removing his glasses that he seemed to recognize his grandson. Unfortunately, his response had been to turn away and sigh, rising from his seat and retreating to the coffee machine on the other end of the counter.

Leroy did not waste a second. "Siegfried?"

"Your father just left this morning. Didn't he tell you?" Both those words and the tone he'd said them in felt almost stifling. His grandfather clearly wasn't in a mood to entertain customers, let alone family—pouring himself a cup of coffee and holding it up to his lips.

Leroy did not back down. "Do you know anything about the diner?"

"What diner?"

"Annie's diner."

"Oh, that," there was a snort. "Yeah, what about it."

The look of frustration on Leroy's face was an unbearable sight. The flame in his eyes burned, fierce and stronger than ever, flickering and reaching to spread its heat but he'd shut it down in a blink—killing the flames and reducing it to the still silence of a candle. He'd turned to me then with a look and I, hesitantly, excused myself.

And I was inching towards the door, the last I heard was a snippet of Leroy's elaboration. "I was there last night. He lied about the landlady. The place is under his name but he hired someone else to..."

This was no proper way of piecing things together considering my limited knowledge of the supposed selling of the diner but if the place continued to be under Leroy's father's name, then wouldn't that have meant he was the one who'd bought it over? But then there was the landlady. And then I could only watch him speak to his grandfather from a distance. From the outside, they looked almost like strangers.

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

[Leroy]

Just an hour ago, I was kissing him on the forehead in front of the departure hall and appreciating that stunned, pink shade dusting his cheeks while he struggled to come up with something coherent. He ended up settling on 'I'll let you off just this once only because we won't be seeing each other for the next week.'

I'd reminded him about downloading Skype on his laptop at the hotel last night. His reaction back then had been to pause and think for a really long time, before coming to the conclusion that facetiming or any form of video calling was 'not good for the heart.' I'd given his forehead the usual and told him not to come begging for a picture once he starts missing me too much.

"I assure you, that will not happen."

He's right, by the way. Don't know how he does it but he always ends up being right about things and here I was, on my flight back, itching to send him a text every now and then. You can't do that on a plane so I ended up drafting and queuing eight messages in total. Then scrolling through his appreciation album. And then going back to whatever boring movie I was watching on the entertainment system. And then scrolling through his photos again.

It wasn't until the movie I happened to be watching started featuring some crazy obsessive ex that I glanced back down at the phone in my lap and deleted all the queued messages.

The rest of the week sounded impossible for now. To think I settled with getting ice cream for him at some nearby parlour after I was done talking at the restaurant. But then again, I was spending more than half my energy trying to keep my fire in check, so doing anything more exhilarating than ice cream would have put our mood at risk.

Hugh had been an asshole, to say the least. Fact that Siegfried turned out so obsessed with money and fame and running away probably had something to do with it. He'd spent about an hour running in circles and leading me along as though he knew the reason behind the diner being under his son's name and then laughing when I finally snapped and told him to spit it out.

At least I tried.

_______________

To: Braised Chicken

Miss me already?

________________

From: Braised Chicken

I see that you're safe and alive

_______________

To: Braised Chicken

Split second reply?

Wow you miss me

______________

From: Braised Chicken

All I miss is your ability to make proper inferences Leroy Jeremy Cox

My mistake, it never existed

______________

"Fuck you." I laughed under my breath before realizing a second too late that I'd cursed aloud and caught the attention of everyone else standing in line waiting for a cab. Thank fucks for thick skin. And how did I end up here without knowing?

By the time I was back in school and craving for a nap, he and I had exchanged an hour or so's worth of high quality banter and it was just the shit I needed to survive the rest of my day without him. After taking a quick shower and crashing for two hours, I woke up at seven in the evening and gave him a text to tell him that I was awake and about to order some food.

He slapped me with a 'you're a chef in a culinary school and you're about to pay for delivery and unreasonable prices for mediocre food?' So I got my ass out of Cayenne and headed for the marketplace to get some ingredients. Not before sending him a shef meme.

Sadly, I ran into someone along the way. I wasn't expecting humans because, yeah, people go home for thanksgiving because most people have families. But then I remembered not everyone celebrates thanksgiving and felt like a little shit for assuming. Chen, apparently, was one of such people.

"Cox? Woah, you're back."

I nodded in greeting only because I wasn't going to give him the chance to slide into my—his DMs and complain about me ignoring him in the hallway. On instinct, I'd decided not to entertain or pay him much attention for more than a second's worth of my time but he stopped right in front of me and said something about meeting Layla Tenner for the last time before she leaves.

This got me frowning. "She's here?"

"Yeah. We're in kitchen nine. Booked it out for her farewell party—it's all in the chat group, Cox," he laughed. "Which you're in."

My first thought went something along the lines of: thanks Tenner you were great but I don't love you or parties, so. But two seconds passed and Chen was still standing there, in my way, which soon got me thinking about the insider info I could be getting for a certain writer and then, taking a leaf out of Xander's book, maybe earn myself some brownie points.

I gave in and Chen seemed just as surprised as I was with myself, which probably meant that he wasn't expecting me to actually go along with him. We made a short run to the marketplace for some nachos to go with a dip someone had made before arriving at kitchen nine to some half of top thirteen lounging on kitchen countertops half-drunk.

Over at the instructor's station was a bunch of party food and a Bluetooth speaker playing sad music beside a cocktail mix that obviously did not involve just fruit. That aside, everything else seemed... surprisingly chill. They'd even ordered pizza, which was great evidence so I snapped a photo of that and sent it to Braised Chicken after captioning it 'shef'.

"Baby Royroy?" Tenner was her usual self, sliding off the counter as soon as Chen and I came through the doors. I noticed a slight change in the way she was smiling. Missing some spark. I didn't really know what to say so I just stood there and waited for her to come over. Wasn't expecting the hug though. It happened very quickly. "Aw you naughty little shit. I missed you and your stupid face... where's your cute friend? The boy with soft hair and great tongue?"

"Back home," I cut things short and went straight for it. "Are you really leaving?"

I felt her pause and put me at arm's length out of the crushing hug. Jean Mercier came over to hand me a plastic cup of the cocktail mix I spotted earlier. Definitely did not smell like fruit.

"Well I haven't really... got a choice," Tenner sighed. "You didn't get to hear the story 'cuz you were late but in short, I'll... find an internship or something. Like a gap year. Like I'm graduating early or something."

"Without a certificate? Without the credentials?"

I knew it was a little too much. You'd be having the IQ of a goldfish if you'd actually thought she was making the active choice of leaving halfway, just when she was about to graduate at the top of school. But this was something he would ask as a journalist. Something he'd want to get to the bottom of.

"There are reasons," she was sighing a lot and it wasn't usually something people would associate her with. "And I can't tell you now."

"Well... Violet's going to be ninth and she for some reason, won that cross-year." Chen was going around handing out what looked like cookies which he claimed were the original Dalgona sugar cookies. "Don't you think the headmaster's got something to do with it?" He sounded salty despite the sweets he'd made, even shoved one in my face and I accepted it just so that he would leave.

Biting into it, I noted that the texture wasn't something I was used to but could see it being an acquired taste. Though the flavour itself was... a little dull. Wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be. Which may have been a good thing. Wow, I forgot how to be objective.

"Lindy's her stepmother and she was one of the judges too." But Lindy isn't that kind of person.

"Quiet down kids," Tenner was rolling her eyes. "I don't know what you've heard but I'm pretty sure it's not just the work of one or two people."

There was a pause.

"What do you mean?"

"Nevermind," Tenner backed out as quickly as she'd cut in.

"What?" "You can't do that we're suing you."

"It involved people outside the school, okay? I don't know how but they made some sort of agreement to get me to leave. And they've done it. Birchwood doesn't know a thing. I've talked to her."

Chen snorted. "She could be lying...?"

"She's too stupid to lie. I've seen her done it before and she's actually really easy to read. Also cries very easily." Okay point taken.

"Think we're going to lose the W-interschool?" Mercier dropped in the middle of a long-ass silence which I was happy to participate in. Or stay out of. Whichever I was doing. Number six after Mercier was the first to pull Tenner into a hug, and then before I knew it, they were turning it into a group thing probably because, yeah, Tenner was competition, but she was also the reason why interschool stuff were pretty easy to win.

I went into some corner to lean awkwardly by the window but number one spotted me and demanded I join the hug. "We'll just win without her," I said so that she'd give me the finger instead.