A/N: Hmm was the last chapter a little too inappropriate? ;-; I'm concerned if some Beans decided to skip the chapter since there's a lot less engagement. I'll try to keep it PG if the majority of us are uncomfortable :'D Leroy and Vanilla are a little young after all!

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

[Leroy]

I was up before he was and it had pretty much everything to do with that huge window behind the bed without its curtains drawn, leaving the sun all up in our faces and the urge to reverse it back down the horizon just at the forefront of my head. I'd gone to bed at least fifteen minutes later than he did, minutes after taking care and washing up, then making sure he was fast asleep before lying next to him.

Sitting up, I checked the time. He didn't look like he would be waking up anytime soon and I was reluctant to move. The bed wasn't too bad. Small, but comfy. He'd chosen a good duvet. Everything smelled like him, too; refined, a little reserved but still soft and soothing. Chamomile. I felt for my phone and snapped a picture. Then put it aside.

There was something about his face right now that said a lot about the things he liked to hide behind those glasses of his, often like a mask. People used to hearing big words line his every sentence, said in a tone so serious that he'd be mistaken for an icicle, wouldn't see past the dangers of honesty and the complexity that was the web of his mind.

Without the active shield of words and knowledge, he looked defenceless. Almost soft, breathing into the side of his pillow like a flower in the breeze, ripples in a pond.

Staring at him first thing in the morning didn't cross my mind as a bad idea but it soon did when I felt instincts rushing down south so I got back up and checked the general state of my situation under the covers.

Hm.

I had to get up either way, which meant either doing so now at a low risk of him seeing all that versus giving it a gamble while we were both awake and heading to the bathroom to brush our teeth. The safer call would be the first, even after factoring in the possibility that he'd wake from my climbing across him to get out—my side being a wall, so.

I made it out safely after carefully adjusting the covers so that they replaced my warmth and then, supporting myself on both hands beside his head, rolling out. He didn't stir. Also, I almost stepped on his glasses. For some reason, they were on the floor. So then it was brushing my teeth and washing up, dealing with morning wood, wearing some pants just in case he'd get a heart attack minutes into the waking world, then searching the fridge for anything breakfast worthy.

Sure, it wasn't part of the usual routine. I skip it most of the time since it meant a couple more minutes in bed, especially on weekends when I set the alarm for noon. Still, he was the kind who needed some distraction after first times, regardless of the context. Giving him a something on a plate to critique would suffice.

"Two eggs," in the egg rack. I nearly laughed. His uncle wouldn't be pleased to know how often he'd been resorting to microwaved box lunches. This fridge was basically unstocked without me.

I checked the freezer for some leftover bacon, and then after fishing out a red and green pepper from the bottom of the vegetable drawer of expired stuff, mapped out a vague menu of frittatas and rosti. Fortunately we had a couple of potatoes leftover from last night.

Getting the burner going made an unnecessarily loud sound so I turned over to check if he stirred. Surprisingly, he didn't. The logical assumption was that giving (not entirely) and receiving a hand job for the first time had been extremely exhausting. Studying, reports, essays, exams were easy for someone like him but it all came down to one activity that drained all the energy otherwise spent in the world he was comfortable in.

I caught myself on a dangerous thought. It had to do with hoping he'd say something about liking it, or any form of green light that meant he would be okay with progressing further. Or at least be okay with what we did last night. I had to settle for a low bar; partly because I'd always been the one who knew exactly what I wanted for a longer time. We never really talked about sexuality, or the fact that asking him out actually preceded thoughts of having this talk.

I was crisping up the bacon strips, getting a good char on both sides whilst dicing up the peppers and keeping an eye on the bed when I caught him stir at the corner of my eye. This sadly distracted me from the bacon and it was the smell of an overdone char (okay it's burning but I don't want to admit it) that brought me back to the pan.

"Leroy?"

I don't usually panic but it was the combination of having to hear his reaction to last night and burning fucking bacon that altogether made me switch off the flame and stop functioning for a moment. He called me a second time and was already sitting up, rubbing his eyes and squinting in my direction.

I gave my hands a quick rinse before going over.

"Hey."

He struggled to sit up straighter, momentarily dazed as soon as I neared. Assuming he could make out my general features at this distance. "Leroy? You're... I," and then he was turning pink by the second before finally retreating back underneath his covers. "I slept surprisingly well."

Okay. Wasn't expecting that.

"Yeah, happens after you... yeah," I finished intelligently only because he was giving me this wide-eyed, innocent look that made it hard to go on with the sex talk. Not as if I had any practice either. Being awkward and stiff applied to me as much as it did to him. "Everything okay?"

He blinked, staring into space before slowly lowering his gaze to my bare chest. "I, um. Yes, are you...? I'm so... so sorry I fell asleep during the... i-it's just—"

I wasn't going to put him in a spot so I pretended to cut him some slack and relieve him from my gaze, glancing over my shoulder at the kitchen countertop. It's obvious how looking at him in a way put pressure on his response. Like he said, 'candles.'

"It's nothing. How's your body?"

"A-absolutely nothing we did warrants that question and you know it, Leroy," he couldn't bring himself to look me in the eye and was searching for his glasses, groping around the bed after checking the bedside table. I told him it was over on the dining table. "This is odd. I can't seem to remember how I used to look you in the eye."

I gave him the usual and his response time, slowed by embarrassment and another streak of emotion I couldn't make out, made sure I landed the flick. He didn't react very much to it, only reached up to rub it lightly and blush even harder. At this rate, I was going to catch his awkward embarrassment.

This, I pointed out.

"Well I'd like for you to know just how shameful I feel about falling asleep without taking care of your needs. It was extremely rude of... of me."

His words never failed to amuse and entertain but this was a step farther than his usual. I helped him out of bed and brought him his glasses before going back to the burner. He headed for the bathroom before emerging, moments later, with a toothbrush in his mouth.

"Did you like it though?" I cracked the eggs into a bowl and added to that whatever milk he had left in the fridge.

He blinked, mouth full of toothpaste. "Hm?"

"Did you like it," I repeated, lowering my gaze so that he had more to work with. The added suggestion provided some grounding but it still took him ten blank seconds to figure out what I was referring to.

"Physical pleasure is, a-after all, pleasure," he managed after rinsing out the toothpaste and then coming out of the bathroom all shy and cute. "It was an escalation of our, um, of us. An escalation, but, not unpleasant."

Things were looking up. "Okay," I told him, trying not to let the amusement show on my face but then again, I wasn't the best actor. "So there's a next time?"

"That... would not be inaccurate. I must admit, this all isn't... I mean, I'm not entirely sure about something as complicated and beyond my realm of knowledge as sexual attraction or, well, orientation or anything of similar categories or labels but I can be sure that on my part as, um, a-as your... your partner—are we? Is that how you'd... because the term 'boyfriend' sounds so oddly childish that I can't seem to wrap my head around it—but as I was saying, yes. I take full responsibility for... for not, you know. Fulfilling my duties of, of our seesaw-ing. You had to do everything on your side and I was practically a pebble. You might as well have been seesaw-ing with a doll."

I'd finished frittatas and was in the middle of buttering the pan for the next dish when he started spiralling into an abyss of self-blame and just basically coming down way too hard on himself. So I got a fork, stabbed it into a triangle of frittata and presented it in front of his face.

"You're not going to be 'seesaw-ing' your part of the play as long as you aren't ready for it," I told him, guiding the end of the fork to his lips so that he'd distract himself with the food. "Just... take your time. You need a day? A week? I'll wait."

"But Leroy—there's no acidity in this by the way, you're missing tomatoes and I have lemon-infused olive oil up there in that cabinet but I suppose you're not going to be ransacking my pantry at eight in the morning, so—you see, I... I want not to take my time. Does that make any sense, grammatically? It's just I've always wanted to understand myself, o-or my attraction towards you, specifically, on a greater scale."

I cut myself a triangle and sent it in for evaluation. No surprises, he was right about the acidity. "Your fridge is unstocked. No tomatoes whatsoever. You've got a bottle of sour cream so I'm using that to go with the rosti. There's your acidity on the plate."

"Oh. Oh, alright, um. That works... but Leroy, were you listening to me?" He sounded anxious and this was kind of what I'd feared the most. "I mean to say that I, believe it or not, do not dislike the progression in our relationship last night and I'd like to, well, I'd like for it to... to continue. And not be sent back to sleep before you're satisfied yourself."

I plated breakfast for two and nodded at the dining so that he'd set the table. He did after hesitating. We sat across each other and I picked up my utensils but he refused to start, waiting expectantly for my answer.

"Hey," I sighed. "I know what you're trying to say. But we both saw how much you froze over last night just from trying to give me a hand job. Or just, having your fingers on my dick." He flinched at the word and it only seemed to prove my point. His version would have been 'reproductive organ' or something along those lines.

"S-so... you don't think I'm ready?" He sounded hurt. I felt worse than before but knowing how this could possibly lead to something worse than him just being mentally hurt kept me under control. "Even though I'm telling you that I am?"

"It's not just a gut feeling, Vanilla. You're the rational one. You sure jumping into this with zero knowledge about sex is the better decision?" I laid out, pouring him a glass of apple juice. "I don't want to hurt you."

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

[Vanilla]

Admittedly, that conversation with Leroy had taken its toll on my confidence level and general faith in the capacity of my mind for precise decision-making and superior judgement. While mundane texts continued to be exchanged and everyday conversations about flavour combinations and accounting basics made up the most of our digital back-and-forth, the topic of mature activity never once resurfaced after that day.

It had come down to a point in which I was desperate enough to be filling up whatever space there was left in my mind with the necessary knowledge. Leroy had claimed my insistence on progressing further in our relationship to be a matter of poor judgement primarily due to my inexperience (true) and my lack of theoretical study (also true). Thus, I figured I had to be doing something about it.

The basis of research should never start with the internet, just in case you're wondering. My first and accurate instinct was to consult science, as it should be, always, and after reading 'The Hormonal Theory of Sexuality' and several other biological texts, I finally moved on to prose and manuals, of which included 'Instructional Modules on Sex Education for College Students' and 'Values in Intercourse: From Principles to Practice.'

Admittedly, these were all very informative and provided a fair enough foundation for my branching out to keyword searches on the internet. Googling unknown terms did aid in my process of understanding this field of knowledge but had, unfortunately, raised more questions than I started out with.

Needless to say, I was far too embarrassed to be consulting Uncle Al with my woes or Aunt Julie with, um, sexual activities between two males and my only other friend who wasn't Leroy was Si Yin, who, herself, seemed rather clueless about such things. So then the only person left on my list was most unfortunately, another awkward pebble soul unable to have a conversation about things that happen behind closed doors.

"So um, Leroy and I... well, we had a row—"

"Oh dear, that's terrible!" Moments after catching up with my godfather, I'd decided to jump straight into the topic at hand and as usual, Chip was extremely enthusiastic in his reactions to whatever it was I had to say. Up until this point, all he knew was that Leroy was my childhood friend and that we were dating.

"But then soon after, he kissed me and not a single rational bone in my body could remain mad at him." I backed out a little but it had also been the partial truth. He'd done so just to break my shell and get breakfast going.

"Evil!" Chip had exclaimed. "Pure evil!" For some reason, I felt like he'd been through something of similar nature. "What was it about? Did he steal the pudding you had at the bottom of the freezer, reserved for a special occasion?"

"Well um. Not exactly, but I understand where you're coming from. I've been... I mean, we've done some..." Good god, this was harder than I thought and not a single word related to the events of that night could be pieced together without me dying of embarrassment. "I've just been doing some research on... on, y-you know. The kind of night time activities human beings do behind closed doors. More specifically between men."

"B-but Vanilla! That's... that's very brave of you but aren't you fifteen? Um, i-isn't this, I mean, no judgement, really, but of course you have the right to be curious so I suppose being curious about it isn't a bad idea and um... Xan! What did I tell you about drying yourself before coming out of the bathroom?"

"I... I understand but," at once, I began to see how Leroy had had a point about my diving into this. "It's knowledge, regardless, and yes I may be rushing into things but I... dear god, you're right. I am taking things a little too fast. I suppose it's the nerves of coming into a relationship without knowing anything. I can't seem to find a reason for my attraction to Leroy. Specifically. I struggle under the category of sexual orientation. It's all so confusing."

"Oh Vanilla, sweetheart, these things can take a lifetime to figure out! Some people realize their orientation past their fifties. It's not an answer you're going to get in less than five minutes like a mathematical problem... and if that's what you're worried about, we can talk about it over Thanksgiving! J-just... night time thingies should be taken slow and do your research if you must but back in my day, I was as clueless as you are but um, Xander was very u-um good at, the um, the leading part, so..." From the other end, I could hear laughing in the background.

"That's another thing that had me confused. Must there necessarily be a leading figure? A-and I've read things about the um, the entering from the back and well I was wondering about the pain and all because I'm pretty sure the muscles down there aren't—"

*

My godfather's husband had left me a text the very next day warning against conversations of similar nature or he'd soon have to hunt me down for causing husband malfunctions. Chip later on apologized for that and told me it was good practice for his kids in the future, which ultimately meant that I'd come upon crossroads.

Even with the next couple of days packed with first-quarter assessments and minor projects, I continued to read up on scientific texts that would further my understanding of, um, the future activities that Leroy and I would preferably be... maybe engaging in. Either way, texting was the closest interaction we could squeeze into our busy schedules and our lack of tutoring sessions, mostly due to every class' school festival prep work our of curriculum hours, soon garnered the attention of our friends.

"So did uh you and Naruto-boy get into a fight? Is there no more Naruto-Einstein? Should I be worried?" Si Yin had been resisting the urge to ask this particular question since a week ago when I first turned down her invitation to lunch with Raul and the rest while Leroy was on Line Production duty.

"I'm not avoiding him," was what my intelligent self decided to go with even without her mentioning anything close to that. "I-I mean we had our opinions. On which we disagreed. But neither of us are giving the other a cold shoulder and this is not a cold war so no, you should not be worried."

Si Yin had shot me a fair look of pity regardless of my explanation and given my shoulder three pats. It was later on in the day while Chef Palmer had once again entrusted me with the handling of school festival duties that I ran into Raul. A small of team of volunteer classmates, including myself, had stayed behind after school hours to set up our food stall for tomorrow.

While electricity and gas were mostly provided and set up by the school technicians, decorating the booth with signages, a fancy menu and relevant props were perhaps even more important than producing good quality food. Nowadays, a picturesque storefront for the purposes of social media ranked first among consumers' decision-making factors. At least according to CR04 Industry Knowledge, it was.

Raul and several of his classmates were hammering away at a several recycled wooden planks, combining them into a single, decent-sized signage for their booth, which was... right across ours. At once, I was looking out for a certain idiot. Fortunately, he was nowhere in sight.

We were putting up a row of scarlet lanterns across the awning, just below the signage that was in traditional Chinese characters we'd agreed on—with a rough English translation in a smaller font—when Leroy's lodge mate decided to call out to the few of us and asked if anyone had decent handwriting.

Si Yin had been the first to point her fingers at me.

"I just need you to write the menu here," he gestured to a blackboard laid out on the ground space between their stall and the one owned by the class beside them. "It's going up near the back so can you make it big? And cursive? Cool stuff."

I picked up a stick of blue chalk and, according to the menu Raul had keyed into his phone, mapped out the menu items and their respective prices in my usual penmanship. He was easily impressed.

"Thanks man. You and Leroy, uh... no more playdates?" His Italian accent seemed a fair bit thicker and from our past experience of working together during the cross year event, it meant that he was nervous.

"Oh we've just been, um, a little busier these days. I'm sure he'll be needing some help with AB soon after the school festival, so. Plus, the holidays are near."

"Yeah but no I wasn't talking about the AB, I was talking about the playdates," Raul insisted, oddly serious. "And yeah, the holidays are coming but you know they're all preparing for the interschool, right...? Dude's just going to get busier so... yeah."

"But that's not due till January, is it?" I straightened up, dusting the chalk of my hands. "The school calendar has it on the week after new year's."

"Change of plans. L'ecole de Juliette and Walter's aren't hosting W-interschool anymore. We're doing it this year and the dorms can't fit in that many people during the semester so they're doing it right before Christmas so everyone's home."

I blinked in surprise. Leroy hadn't said a word about spending Christmas in school. I'd even considered inviting him to Uncle Al's annual party since, well, since it might have been several years since he'd attended one.

"He didn't tell you," Raul gave the look on my face a glance and sighed. "Maybe it's not important."

I shook my head, denying his attempt to ease the discomfort in my chest. "Um... we'll figure it out. Thanks for letting me know though." He appeared rather distraught by my response, not quite reacting to the small wave I threw in his direction before retreating back to where I'd come from.

"Hey!" Si Yin was on me as soon as I returned, dropping the calligraphy brush in her hand and coming up to where I was. "Everything okay?"

The front of our Chinese street food stall looked decently pleasant, filled with dangling lanterns and scrolls of Chinese characters read from up to down, right to left—which was really just a fancy version of the menu. The traditional woks, fryers and pans we'd requested were provided in abundance and with the other volunteers working on the fake firecrackers we'd thought of hanging up on both sides of the stall, it wasn't looking shabby at all.

I'd even proposed a photobooth section at the end of the collection queue, specifically for customers to snap a quick photograph right after they'd received their food item fresh off the pan. Overall, it looked just as I'd imagined it to be.

"White? Where should we put this?" Freda and Lavinia, patisserie and nutritionist respectively, were part of the few who'd stayed behind to help. They were holding up a string of convincing fire crackers each.

"They look wonderful. Thank you—don't worry about putting them up. I'll do that."

"Nah I'll do it," Ariq intervened all of a sudden, taking them from me and dragging a chair behind him towards the far right of the booth. "I'm the tallest around."

Both Freda and Lavinia rolled their eyes but I was quietly grateful for his offer since, having made the mental projections and estimates, I would have eventually had to ask for his help. Admittedly, this was all a matter of not allocating any volunteer more work than they'd already signed up for. After all, we were five out of the twenty-odd students of 1B.

"So! The fire crackers are done, the menu's all good... youuu gonna head to the ice cream parlour now?" Si Yin was back at it again, shuffling into my line of sight and searching my eyes for any sign of truth. I told her and the rest that they were free to leave.

"I'll be, um, doing final checks on the crockery first. We've got to ensure everything's in place when the ingredients arrive tomorrow at five in the morning, so... have a good rest, everyone."

Ariq was dragging the chair back to its original spot while Freda and Lavinia picked up their bags and waved, leaving Si Yin to whisper-shout in my ear.

"Vanilla! What's going on? Why are you avoiding your man?"

"I-I'm not avoiding him," was all I could intelligently come up with, adjusting the frames atop my nose. "We're both incredibly busy. That's no equivalent to avoiding somebody."

"Uhh yeah it is," she was on the roll, jabbing me in the chest. "You've checked the crockery list, like, five times. Everything's in order! Leroy's class has their booth right across ours and you're not concentrating because of that, am I right or am I... right?"

I tried for a different approach. "Well Si Yin, what if I tell you that the reason I'm, well, finding accuses to stay a little longer is because I'm just waiting for him to appear over there? Help Raul and his classmates set up their booth? They're far from done, as far as I know."

This got her pausing.

"Oh. Oh!" Her frown dissipated into nothing and she skipped over to counter where she'd left her bag sitting. "Alright. Don't want to be a third wheel then... oh yeah and remind me what it was that you needed me to—oh right. Five o'clock with the Polaroid camera," she said after checking the wallpaper of her phone, presumably where she'd put all her important reminders.

I thanked her for remembering, then waved over my shoulder. The list attached to the clipboard in my arms wasn't the longest of its kind. An anonymous vote had made Chinese street food out to be the theme of choice and getting a hold of the crockery and ingredients proved to be rather effortless with the school's vast connections and well-stocked pantry. While most of the class hadn't seemed all-too-enthusiastic about the festival, no one appeared vehemently displeased by the result of the vote.

It took me an additional twenty to thirty minutes to ensure that everything was present and in place—and some perfecting of the fire cracker angles and taping the ends of the scrolls down so that they wouldn't collide at every gust of wind—before leaving the plaza at eight in the evening.

The desire to have the next twenty-four hours sped up and done in the snap of a finger were crashing waves in a storm that rocked my boat. I needed it all to go away and for this to be out of my realm of responsibilities before directing all my attention to personal issues, which was precisely the reason I'd set my eyes on pulling this off flawlessly.

Alas, this was not to be.

Five in the morning, hours before the sun would peek above the horizon, the booth we had so painstakingly decorated was in a state far worse than we'd started out with. To say that it was in shambles was an understatement for at least then, there was proof of us having put up something but no—the stall was bare; robbed of the lanterns, fire crackers, signs and every scroll, every streak of red. A mere skeleton.