A/N: I hope you're all doing okay ;-; it's now a semi-lockdown over here so I'm mostly stuck at home too. I am no longer provided the writing luxury of pleasant reading rooms or libraries, Starbucks or quaint little cafes, and dealing with four walls is hard but! If anything, I am most aware of the strength and size of the human mind that extends far, far beyond any wall. 

Walls are internal. That is all.

Enjoy!

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[Violet]

I stared down at whatever we had on the table and almost at once, couldn't believe I had the gall to pick someone who had zero grasp of complementary flavours or even the concept of food. Granted, Park wasn't my first, second, or even my third choice when it came to partnering up for any sort of duo contest. Landing someone with the same level of expertise with savoury dishes as I did with sweets wasn't easy, and with Tenner's absence for the past three weeks and number two being another yellow, Cox had been my next best bet.

Watching him take his dish to the judges up front wasn't the most pleasant experience. Right next to him was Park with his lacklustre gnocchi that screamed 'subpar' in presentation, fragrance and overall first impressions. Frankly speaking, none of the judges looked a tad bit impressed by either of them which was, like, a relief since it sort of meant we had this in the bag. Glasses boy wasn't going to produce some miracle dessert that could beat anything I made, anyway.

"We'll start with Team A's gnocchi."

The female judge in the middle was the only one I couldn't put a name to. The one on the right was Chef Marseille's wife, some food journalist from the Times and the one on the left was the dean of a rival school. I'd seen him once at a cocktail dad hosted over the summer break. His son was pretty decent but he'd butchered the word rendezvous and I can't possibly date someone without basic conversational French in their head.

Park was a third-year. Yet, he'd almost made his gnocchi with just flour and eggs so naturally I was like, what? No one makes gnocchi without potato, everyone with common sense knows that. How else is he going to get that light and fluffy texture? And does he really think he can beat anyone with flour and eggs? Wow.

If I hadn't told him to add fresh beetroot juice for that natural colour and flavour, he'd be serving the judges his last meal or something. A single glance at whatever Cox had made sort of confirmed this either way—their dish was a contender. There was nothing the judges could find fault with.

"The texture of the gnocchi is something I'd have in a restaurant. Good job on that." Marseille's wife has common sense. "The colour on it too, is fantastic. I like the sweetness of the beetroot. It compliments the butter sauce and gives the whole dish a very natural look, with the edible flowers too."

The rest of them sort of agreed. I say sort of because they didn't seem to have anything else nice to say and were wiping their mouths, loading their pistols. Already, the guy from the rival school was shaking his head with the worst kind of smile on his face.

"Julia. This is not gnocchi." Wow. He was picking at his plate. "This is food for a rabbit. It's tasteless. Bland. Did you even season this?"

I was the one who'd reminded Park to lay off additional rounds of salt and pepper. One, two cracks was fine but more than that would've messed with the edible flowers and, wow, if some dean of a culinary school didn't know that, he's... he's kinda stupid. Yes, I was offended.

"Yes, um. A little bit of salt and pepper." Park was silly enough to look over his shoulder, right at me with those weak eyes of his and I was ready to smack my forehead and just leave.

The other judge in the middle simply nodded and sighed, writing something on her papers before moving on to Cox's dish. "Alright. Team B."

I wasn't getting the clearest view from where I was standing, right behind the station. They'd set up a projector screen behind us, right before the backing of the makeshift stage, but turning around felt oddly sentimental. Like I was worried they were going to win or something.

Either way, I could tell they had cameras zooming in on the dish being presenting and projecting whatever was in the frame onto the huge screen behind us because the audience wouldn't shut up. The only people who weren't transfixed by Cox's dish were my loyal supporters, who of course, brought banners and handmade signboards that were super cute. They were the nicest people around.

"Describe your dish please," Marseille's wife was frowning at the plate in front of her, as though having a hard time deducing what it was. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Vermicelli Phad Thai, topped with shrimp, cilantro, beansprouts and crushed peanutes. The vermicelli, we soaked in black goji berry tea and... with a little bit of lime," he added, presenting a show of squeezing fresh lime juice with a spoon underneath, over the noodles, before giving it a light toss.

I saw, first-hand, the vermicelli turn from a shade of pale blue to stunning lavender. It was insane—and apparently, I wasn't the only one with that thought. A chorus of oohs and aahs made the entire thing a lot less bearable. This was, like, a disaster. A nightmare.

Cox was good.

"Not blue pea flowers?" The middle judge was visibly more impressed by their Phad Thai than she'd been with our gnocchi.

"Black goji berries do the same thing," said Cox. Marseille's wife offered an alternative name. Something along the lines of... something wolfberry. Cox then turned to glasses at their station and the latter nodded, so he relayed the message. It was his idea? I had to process this. It took a while.

"That's interesting, using an ingredient out of the norm. We don't really use wolfberries in Western cuisine." And that was the end of dishing out compliments because, again, dean of rival school had differing, entitled opinions. He needs to, like... get a life or something. Wow.

"Colour-changing noodles." He snorted, a snarky laugh that made him look like a turtle with bad hair. Do turtles have hair? "This isn't pre-school, young man."

Okay, w-o-w. I had to keep track of my mouth opening on its own thanks to the number of phones people were holding up in the audience whilst maintaining my composure. The chorus of boos coming from their side of the crowd sort of made my point—Cox's dish was hands down something I'd order from a café if its picture was on the menu. The pale blue of the vermicelli adorned by the plump redness of fresh chilli shrimp, crisp green onions and beansprouts; natural colours put together in a fragrant street food dish that had been elevated by its creator. It was barely street food.

Sure, I hadn't actually tasted it but, like, common sense? That's what everyone does when they dine at some restaurant for the first time, pick something on the menu that has nice pictures of it or a decent description. If anything, the colour-changing aesthetic was my thing. This dude needs to chill and—who even is he?

"Tastes better than it looks," he had the decency to admit, writing something down on his notepad. "I didn't come here for unnecessary gimmicks." He said this looking up, directing it at the audience whilst shaking his head. "If this is what you kids over here consider winning then I'm sure our students will find this year's W-interschool a breeze." The entire plaza went quiet.

I scoffed. So he's picking a fight, this... dean... from L'assiette Vide? He must be, judging by the way he's spitting all over our food over some minor issue of preference. Explains his standards I guess. They do have one of the best plating courses in the culinary world.

But, still. People who can't keep up with trends are just the worst, stuck in their old ways. Like, wow—don't they have Instagram? A phone? A life? He's obviously exaggerating about the presentation. Cox's dish was in no way tacky or overdone like amateurs in wannabe hipster cafes owned by actual boomers. Honestly, the dish looked professional. Just saying.

The fact that everyone else cleaned his plate of phad thai while Park's had his barely touched also showed a clear winner and that I was right. Well at the very least it proved my point about it both looking and tasting good, which I guess sucks to be that over-critical dean. Probably a critic. Critics all need to get a life, I swear.

"You're lucky it's him you're going up against," he was going on and on with that snarky laugh and, wow, I can't believe the thickness of his skin. "Tacky things like that should stay on the internet. Never in a contest."

Cox's response to that was surprisingly mature. He'd laughed shortly, hands behind his back and eyes sort of hard to read. If you don't already know, he's very hot. "Think I agree."

"Really." The critic couldn't be satisfied with people agreeing with him and by this point I think everyone in the audience dubbed him slightly mental. "No boy, I don't think you do. You don't understand how important this is, how your food looks. It's a fact that the eyes are the first to eat. No professional chef would serve colour-changing noodles in his five-star restaurant."

From where I was standing, I thought I saw Cox's face darken a little. Like he'd been triggered or something. It disappeared the moment I caught it so I guess props to him for hiding it well. Curious, I glanced sideways at his partner at their station. The critic boy with pale hair who wouldn't stop talking most of the time. He was slightly more readable. Obviously anxious.

They flashed the tallied scores on the screen, giving Park a surprising 68 out of 99 (surprising because I thought it was a bare pass like a 51 or something) and Cox a 71. The breakdown of his score was displayed a little below that in small text and lol wow, that dean gave his presentation score a measly 2 out of 11.

Before I knew it, they were calling for service so I got out my beautiful creation from the freezer and, of course, everyone gasped in awe.

I could tell the dean was in love with my dish even before arriving at the judge's stand and by the time they'd cleared Park and Cox's plates for mine and the dessert from the other team, I was greeted with ear-to-ear smiles.

"Classy," Marseille's wife said to me and then... then turned to the other guy too. "These look gorgeous."

"I see you two are way above your partners' leagues." The dean from L'assiette Vide had a different sort of smile on his lips and I was at once, like, super confused by his mood swings. Dad needs to have better friends. Like, normal ones who aren't condescending male chefs with PMS.

"Well, sir, um. It's a tag team contest, which means that both, us and our partners, had some sort of role to play in, well, the making of both the main dish and the dessert." All of us at the judging stand turned to stare at glasses boy who'd clearly spoken out of turn and as usual, he's got the guts. It happens every single time. "My apologies. Excuse me..."

The PMS guy was back to his snarky laugh and wow. Way to go, four-eyes! His mood is ruined and he's about to judge both our dishes. This is sabotage. It's obvious I'd be up first so he probably said that to, like, get something out of it. Even if he didn't, what's the use of pointing out something we all knew but didn't want to admit? If it's under the carpet, keep it there. God, he was going to struggle growing up.

"Okay then," the lady in the middle broke up the awkward silence by getting us back on track. "We'll start with Team A's stunning dessert that, I can see, suits the theme perfectly. What is it?"

"It's a black forest tiramisu tree with chocolate branches, and..." I picked up a stray branch I'd placed perfectly by the side of the plate and ran it through the bubbles filled with dry ice fog placed strategically around the plate, creating the perfect 'black forest' display with edible flowers and a beautiful caramel biscuit crumble doubling up as soil. "The base of the trunk is the tiramisu and the chocolate branches are dark chocolate pieces I'd tempered and shaped by hand."

I could hear the applause and the cheers and the whistling, everyone completely blown away by my display which was, of course, natural. Who else would've thought of preserving dry ice fog in edible bubbles? I had to request for a specific machine and thank goodness my dad had bought that for one of the food experimental classes recently.

"This is quite, very extravagant, young lady," Marseille's wife was obviously impressed, removing a chocolate branch from the tiramisu base and holding it up. "It's exquisite! You made this in one and a half hours?"

"Less than that, actually," I pointed out with my little girl smile. Judges loved that smile. "Since it's a tag team."

They tasted it; every aspect of it and all the elements both separately and together. Needless to say, they loved it. End of story. I won.

"Team B's dessert. Now this is something I'm fairly curious about," the lady in the middle had turned her attention elsewhere, narrowing in on critic boy's... jelly, looks like. "Nature at its finest. A literal raindrop. It reminds me of something I've had at Yamazaki's some ten years ago."

"It's actually a traditional Japanese dessert called the raindrop cake. Or, um, mizu shingen mochi, excuse my butchering of the pronunciation."

"Yes, I know it's Japanese but that's not what I was referring to," she actually corrected him. It was kind of entertaining. "It's the presentation—the style you've chosen to present it in. Frankly, it's frightening how simple it looks and yet because of how simply it is presented, you can see every technical difficulty involved in the making of it."

They each cut into the raindrop and tasted a spoonful.

"You injected lemon juice," the dean of L'assiette Vide was looking at him with an unreadable expression. "It balances out the sweetness of the berries and sugar. And it's also what gives it the purple gradient?"

"Yes. That is correct."

He nearly smiled. And that was when I started to feel a little uneasy. "You are taking a big risk, young man. In terms of technical difficulty, tiramisu is nowhere near the raindrop cake. Put some ingredients together and you have it. No heat, no precision. You here, have to be calculating temperatures, acidity, pH levels, and better yet... you have nothing showy to cover up your mistakes like this young lady over here with her... fog bubbles and edible flowers."

Alright this guy is officially mental. He has worse mood swings than mom used to have and she was, like, bad.

"It's very similar to Yamazaki's style," Marseille's wife agreed. "Because of the simplicity in presentation, there is less area of messing up. Mistakes, if made, would be clear as day... you're lucky there are none." I mean, she isn't wrong. It is lucky of him.

"Leroy—my partner—he did the agar and soymilk mixture. I have nothing to do with the technical parts of it and, well, him being him, I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing. I... well I'd just like to say that I don't think this is a product of luck."

Ohmygod is it still talking? I stared at him, jaw dropped and, like, just, unable to conceive his existence. He's way too honest! And blunt. And just, tactless, overall.

"Okay," the dean scoffed. "So what did you do?"

"I merely designed and plated the dish. I suggested it have a soymilk base and the clear agar on top of it, with black goji berries preserved in the clear parts while infusing its essence in the soymilk—instead of milk, due to soy's alkaline properties and would hence remain blue even after injecting the lemon juice. That's... that's all I did."

Marseille's wife gave him a curt nod before making some notes, presumably marking him down. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she did. But sometimes I just can't get what's going on in his head and his, like, obsession with truth and honesty. I mean, he could've just kept quiet about that and got the credit all the same. Eventually, their scores were going to get tallied and he'd just be pulling their overall downwards.

Our attention was directed to the projector screen at the far back for the scores and of course, I was... I was—what?

Everyone must have been just as shocked as I was because the entire plaza had gone so deadly quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. They'd given glasses an 85 and me an 89.

An 89, for god's sake! Only four whole points higher than a stupid tiny raindrop cake with no showmanship. It's official. They're mental.

They'd even given him a full 11 out of 11 for technique and me, a point less! Creativity was the exact same which was honestly just blasphemy because that included theme representation and I was obviously so much better at interpreting 'Nature' than he was and plus, the showmanship? How??

"157 to 156. Team A will advance to the semi-finals!" That stupid announcer had this ridiculous smile on his face, all cheery and joyful when I, the winner, was clearly not feeling any of this.

I mean, there was clapping and whistling and all, the usual stuff I was used to but not a single vein in my body could accept this... this victory. It was downright humiliating! And not to mention unfair. Just how high was his initial score for them to mark him down and still be just four points below me? They'd... they'd almost made it a draw!

I can't believe it. Dad needs to hear about this.

"Hi. Hello."

"What?" I snapped, turning around at someone tapping my shoulder. It was critic boy. Great. "What do you want?"

"Well I was wondering if you'd like to have a taste of the dessert we made. Le... Cox insisted on two servings instead of one so we ended up with some extra. Would you like some?" He was holding out another serving of his raindrop cake and by this point, I was in no mood for entertaining anyone else, let alone him, but something in me wanted to know exactly how this stupid little thing won the hearts of some three judges with mental issues.

"Give it here."

He appeared slightly taken aback by my accepting of his offer, handing me a dessert spoon and the plate before adjusting his glasses and, like, waiting by the side for comments. I pushed some leftover of the tiramisu I'd cut out to make the tree trunk towards him. Again, he looked surprised.

"It is a good black forest tiramisu."

"Yeah of course it is," I snorted, going for a second spoonful of the raindrop. Why does he talk so weird? "What else would it be?"

He seemed all of a sudden apologetic. "I—that wasn't what I meant... your presentation skills were excellent and innovative. It was a winning show."

"Then?" I frowned, glancing over at Park getting ready for the semis. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Critic boy literally looked like he'd swallowed a snake and was trying to cough it out but actually contemplating if he should just let it remain in his stomach. "Could I, perhaps, avoid having this awkward conversation by, instead, dropping you an email?"

I looked at him weird. Email? Who the hell uses that sort of thing unless they're a boomer?

We didn't continue from there because his partner soon came over after returning his apron. He, too, had some leftovers of his phad thai and slid it across the table towards me. "Julian White."

"What?"

"That's his name," Cox said, straight-faced. Barely readable. "Remember it." Critic boy was weirdly pink and embarrassed over this little thing and was all up in Cox's personal space, nudging his side. Wow. He has got to know his boundaries.

I rolled my eyes at them to end the conversation and headed off to where Park was. Plus, my supporters were waiting with the new merch I'd released. I mean I did promise them I'd sign it all.

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

[Vanilla]

By the time Leroy and I had checked off every booth and café on the listicle I had due tonight, it was ten minutes to five and the sun was about to set. Admittedly, he'd been the worst sort of distraction anyone could think of, purposefully snapping candid photos of myself and suggesting I use them for my article and then further teasing me by actually setting a collage of the worst ones as his wallpaper. I'd told him I looked ridiculous and all he did was laugh and flick my forehead. Completely underhanded.

Either way, we had to be returning to our stalls for the final two-hour shift till seven—the closing time of the open house festival. Guests would then be asked to leave and organizers would go around collating the tallied results of our coupon machines.

I'd arrived back at my booth just in time to see Si Yin speaking to Chen by the flatbread grill, waving her steel griddle around in a dangerous fashion. The patisserie major had spotted me as soon as I'd stopped in my tracks, standing by the takeout counter with his hands in his pockets and winking in my direction. Si Yin followed his gaze and turned to meet mine, doing something with her hands and, sort of, sliding them across her neck. I couldn't quite understand that gesture.

"Hey," Chen greeted as soon as I neared the takeout counter. "Saw you on stage this afternoon. Never knew you were that good at desserts too," he laughed, reaching over to ruffle my hair. Taken aback, I nearly spewed some quality nonsense in his face. It happens whenever I feel severely offended; my mental dictionary automatically pieces words together to form new ones and dishing them out was my only form of expression.

"Oh, um. Thank you." Come to think of it, Leroy and I had never really made our relationship known to, well, the public or our general surroundings. In the first place, what would be considered appropriate between participating members of a platonic relationship? Was hair ruffling acceptable? Still, Chen wouldn't have known about Leroy and myself. Perhaps it was his way of saying hi and I was overthinking. "Well, I did have a good partner."

"Cox?" He laughed. "The guy barely knows a thing about sweets. You probably did all the work."

"Oh um... no, not really. I mean, no. We were fairly even, or so I do believe." The urge to change the subject heightened. It was not something I wished to delve further into or harp on for more than two sentences. "Is there anything I can get you? Have you made your order?"

Chen flashed a smile. "I was just asking your friend if she's seen you around and she said something about you leaving early. But you came back, so. Guess it's my lucky day."

Words escaped my lips in the form of nervous laughter. It was all that I could muster in situations like these and, glancing over his shoulder, I could vaguely see a struggling Si Yin attempting to end our conversation by loudly scraping her steel griddle on the teppanyaki grill. I gave her the eye. She sighed and put the equipment away before removing her apron and passing it to me.

"Well, I apologize for making you wait and um, unfortunately I have to be getting back to work since it's my shift right now, so..." I left it there, which was likely enough to get the message across but, but but but Chen had very casually waved it aside. In fact, he'd leaned in.

"I have news about Tenner," he said in a lowered voice, leading me to a quiet corner. "She's quitting school."

"W-what?" Stunned, I had no control whatsoever over the expression on my face. Good heavens. "Impossible. Does... does Keith know about this? Does anyone? The rest of the student body or, or the top thirty-five? Or her team for the cross-year segment, at the very least?"

Chen shook his head. "No one knows if it's because of the cross-year. I was called in to a faculty meeting last evening. They're making me number one next week. Cox will be two. Birchwood's moving up to nine after the midterm assessment."

The midterms were a set of theory and practical exams with a twenty to thirty percent weightage on our final grades at the end of the year, usually held a week before the thanksgiving holidays. For first-years, it would be the first official assessment of the year and therefore our very first chance on the ranking board.

"But. But midterms hasn't even started yet," I pointed out. "How would they know if she'd do well enough to... unless you're saying that..."

He'd averted his gaze, not too keen on finishing my sentence. "Thought you'd like to know."

"Does Leroy—um, Cox, know about this?"

Again, Chen shook his head. "Not yet."

Our attention turned to the booth across the lane, glancing over at our current subject of interest who seemed fairly occupied with clearing the line. Over to the side were a group of female students lingering at the store, laughing at something Raul had said but with their eyes fixed on Leroy.

"You look at him a lot."

I did a double take, turning back to Chen. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Cox," he nodded in the general direction of the Spanish street food stall. "You guys know each other? Apart from being on the same cross-year team, I mean."

"Well yes," I found myself scrambling for words, mind going blank almost at once. "We know each other. I mean we're close. Childhood playmates, to be exact—I'm not sure if he's ever told you this and now that I've said it, I remember how his friends had laughed at the term and now I quite regret saying it. Forget playmates. I, um. We're... we're um..."

This was no longer a matter of searching for the right words. In fact, I'd known exactly what it was I'd wanted to say and yet, this was the first time I struggled to say it aloud. The truth.

"Any chance you'll consider me your playmate too?" Chen suggested out of the blue in what I assumed was a mood for jokes. Even so, my already-awkward smile seemed to stiffen and freeze in place. I had to pause.

"I'm sorry?"

He laughed. "I'm doing a video on Dalgona coffee. Some trend that's been making its way around the Internet and I need your help, coming up with something unique. I wanna see what else I can use besides coffee. Was thinking of making a cake out of it."

"Ah," my godfather had sent me a picture of his very own perfectly executed first attempt. "Well if it's stabilizers and colloids you're talking about, it's entirely food science. A text on food particle density or fat content might help you with that."

"Which is why I need you."

Well, I'm not a textbook and Googling helps, I caught myself daring a thought like that and killed it at once, having had quite enough of conversations for the day. I busied myself with putting on the apron and inching towards the class booth. "I'll think about it," I told him as politely as I could, elaborating on my lack of availability the next week since, technically, I, too, had midterms to prepare for.

Chen said something about 'hitting me up', which was terribly confusing since the phrase was by no means in my mental dictionary.

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

I must confess, there was never once in my life in which I would entertain the mere thought of flying alone at the age of fifteen. Four months ago, Uncle Al and Aunt Julie were by my side every step of the way, unsurprisingly anxious about my 'living alone' and 'early pre-adulting', ensuring I was comfortably settled in my apartment before boarding a plane back home. It had taken me less than a day to realize that I would eventually have to experience flying by my own since, well, what with Thanksgiving and the winter or summer break and my lack of acquaintances living in the same part of the world, the chances of having a flight companion was a near zero.

Zero was also, very apparently, a certain idiot by the name of Leroy Jeremy Cox because here he was, seated beside me, on a four-hour flight back to our hometown. This idiot was a natural, a born champion of exceeding my expectations of the external world. He'd successfully checked of my list of 'last things to expect in the next ten years' in the span of three months, crowning himself the king of 'impress Vanilla Julian White' just because.

"Anything I should note?" He turned to ask in the middle of this movie we'd agreed upon and hit play at the same time. The Favourite.

"About my family?" I blinked. "No, not really." He laughed low, seemingly unconvinced. I stuffed his earphones back into his ear because I wasn't going to miss a single second of this masterpiece film.

Mind you, this entire arrangement had all escalated rather quickly. Just last week in the middle of exams, Uncle Al had dropped me a text reminder of the thanksgiving dinner we were going to have over at our place, mourning over the untimely extension of our house renovation. Apparently, something had gone wrong with the Victorian mahogany banisters and we currently had no staircase.

One thing led to another and my godfather Chip Honeycutt soon suggested we hold the dinner party over at his place instead, while Aunt Julie and Uncle Al continue to stay at a nearby hotel whilst our house continued to be in a... stair-less state.

The idea had been for me to sleep in one of the rooms on the same floor, which Uncle Al soon got to arranging and by the time he'd told me about it, had already booked a 'nice little suite' down the hallway. This was around the same time I'd overheard Leroy speaking to his mother's weekday nurse over the phone. He wasn't allowed to stay after visiting hours.

"Could I, maybe... invite someone else to thanksgiving? A friend from school. Um, you probably know him," I'd went on to say, recalling the... well, the text messages he'd exchanged with 'Annie'. "Leroy. From kindergarten."

My uncle, a world-renowned food critic, had then very monotonously redirected me to the proper person for such a request. Our host.

Needless to say, my godfather was not going to say 'no.' In fact, I highly doubt he'd ever turned anyone down in his whole entire life of fluffy goodness. "I-is he that boy?" He'd said over the phone, four days ago, in an excited whisper. "The one you've been talking about? Oh I can't wait to meet him!"

I hadn't the heart to lie but neither was I feeling too bold that very day and so I'd simply kept quiet on my end and blushed my way out of the conversation. It was a tragedy.

"So... I can finally see your room?" The distraction was back at it with his primary purpose, glancing sideways with a smirk on the corners of his lips.

"Unfortunately for you, my house is currently under renovation and, well, that would mean... no."

Fortunately for me however, Leroy and I had agreed that he return home for two days tops—for thanksgiving dinner and to collect some old things from the landlord of his mother's old diner—since being too physically distant from his warded mother for long wasn't the best idea.

"Where are you sleeping then?"

I could feel myself turning into an inanimate object of embarrassment. "My Uncle's booked a hotel room for me."

"And...?" There it was; that disarming, illegal spark of his in his eye.

"And I asked if he could make arrangements for an additional bed," was all I quipped in response, turning away.

I caught him rolling his eyes, flashing a sideway smirk. "As if I'd actually use it."

Save me.

"God, you are unbelievable."

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

[Extra: Part 2 of Vanilla's Journey, Navigating Rainbows]

It had been nearly a month since Vanilla last consulted his godfather regarding rainbow matters and at present, standing before the full-length mirror stuck to the door of his closet—open wide and honestly so—and rehearsing some four, five words he'd been harping on about ever since... well, since the incident on his bed.

Needless to say, the fifteen year-old had never really entertained the idea of finding his way around his sexuality, having saved his mental capacity for other important matters. Or so he dubbed the Oscar Wilde epigrams he'd stored for future use.

And up till this very point in their relationship, Vanilla had not once asked his partner—another member of the male species—if he was, strictly speaking, gay. Or if that sort of thing even applied to him. Sexuality.

And yet, the bespectacled bean found himself quite sure about one thing: he was, as he understood, quite very romantically invested in Leroy. That much, he knew. And the strangest discovery he'd made of recent had been just how accurate his godfather's words were and that he had been, all along, right about everything.

Romance; it wasn't something he could understand or know just by reading 'The Science of Love' or 'Fundamentals for Lovestruck Dummies in Life' or any text of similar nature. In fact, Vanilla had come to the grand conclusion that it was the only sort of knowledge no written text would ever be able to describe, or, even attempt to impart.

Was Love even knowledge? And was that why no book could ever give him an understanding about it? Well. Only someone like Iolani Tori could ask that sort of question and answer it himself without the help of internet or books or the external world, for the matter.

"Leroy, do you like men?" Those were the words he'd been rehearsing for the past half an hour or so and they were a disaster. A tragedy.

The boy resorted to flopping onto his bed and, once again, flipping through the library texts of 'Finding Yourself: Sexual Orientation' and 'The Theory of Attraction in Bed.' Eventually, he closed them both and as though on cue, his phone rang.

Prior to this mini crisis he had been facing, Vanilla had been in the middle of a digital back-and-forth with his best friend Si Yin. He'd been confiding in her bits and pieces of his thoughts regarding his rainbow journey and she in return, had been sending him a series of texts every now and then with multiple pictures of men—of every race, build and nationality—attached to sentences like "are any of them appealing to u???" "are you excited by these pics????"

The question marks were critical.

"Well of course they are appealing," said Vanilla to his friend on the phone, gathering his books and placing them neatly on his study. "These people are attractive by societal standards. And as a member of society, I have, naturally, been conditioned to find these people under the category of: good-looking."

"No, no," Si Yin could be heard on the other end, a slight echo in her voice from the size of her room. "Not by any standard... like, like your standards. As in, no standards!! Okay I mean, these are strictly speaking, my standards because I chose them but like but you, okay? You, you uh, what did I... what was I about to ask?"

"Hm. I suppose you were about to ask if I was sexually attracted to these people," suggested the bean, fairly serious about this serious conversation. "The question would be: if I would willing engage in intercourse with any of these men."

Si Yin was confused. "Huh? What? No I'm just asking if you want to have sex with any of them."

"A-and that is practically what I just said," said Vanilla in return, strawberry-flavoured.

There was a lengthy pause on the other end."Oh really?"

"Yes and my answer would be: no! No of course not. I don't even know them—it would be absolutely unthinkable." And unthinkable it was.

"Yeah but... but that aside," Si Yin seemed to be struggling with all this information in her head. "Like, okay so... but don't people have one night stands? Isn't this what it's about? Like, for some people, or, well, maybe most people, you don't have to know someone that well to, um, have sex with them? It's honestly just an attraction to the body. If it's marriage then, yeah that's a different story and yeah okay I see where this is going you like Leroy as a husband sort of thing then. You're in love!"

"Well I thought we've already established that," the bespectacled bean navigated carefully, clearing his throat and moving away from the embarrassing topic that only seemed to dull his bright and radiant intelligence. "It's just. I've never really considered the rest of it. Orientation, sexual attraction, that sort of thing. Even falling in love sounds, well, honestly even now it sounds perfectly silly."

"Maybe you should just spend a day with Leroy talking about this. It's not like you have to, um, come out, or anything. I bet none of your relatives even expect you to be attached at, like, forty—"

"Neither do I, frankly." He confessed, finding the frankness in their conversation rather refreshing. "Did I just use present tense? I mean, did. I am attached."

"Yes you are, Einstein. But honestly, just... just a thought. When I think of Naruto-boy, I honestly can't think of any sexual orientation to, like, dub him as."

Vanilla had blinked, fingers lingering on the side of his bed that had, just a few days ago, been warmed by another presence. "Well... well, maybe sometimes people don't need one. A label. There's no need to identify people by their sexual orientation, is there? I think of Leroy as... well, Leroy." Yet another long pause over the phone furthered the bean's realization of his smitten state. "You know, I should lie down. I'm starting to sound extremely lovestruck and heading down this path of self-destruction is highly problematic."