A/N: Hi everyone! So I've been reading your comments (I always read all of them! Though I can't reply to every single one ;-;) and found out that several people are asking for Chip's current age. In Beyond Love, Chip is 22 going 23 when he met 4-year-old Vanilla and since Vanilla is now in high school, 15, Chip would, therefore, be about 33 years old. Of course, Xander and Chip will make occasional appearances in this book especially since I'm almost done with the third book of the Baked series, so you'll see how they've aged, changed, and how some parts of themselves essentially remained the same :> No spoilers tho. 

Enjoy! 

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He hadn't expected the walk to be exactly as short as the other had described it to be. To Vanilla, five-minute walks didn't necessarily exist, or so he'd come to think after having an odd, distorted sense of time as a child, alone and staring into the distance, waiting for something to happen.

"Will your parents be alright with me coming over without notice?" He posed to his companion as they walked against the wind, stopping before a diner's shopfront—tucked between a hairdresser's and a florist. "My uncle doesn't like it when people stop by uninvited."

"It's okay," said Leroy, pressing a button on the side of the door and Vanilla watched in awe as it slid open, revealing a warmly-lit interior. The smell of fried chicken wafted out like an invitation, and so did the sound of friendly chatter. Slow and relaxed. "Follow me."

He did.

They were greeted by the embrace of something in the air; something that a tongue and nose as sensitive and trained as Vanilla's could not identify. His first thought went towards paprika, a ground pepper spice that was rich and red, but the kindness of its touch reminded him otherwise; of marshmallows and cream, gentle and soft. Leroy did not seem to notice this.

"I'm back," he said instead to a lady behind the counter table, seemingly cooking up a storm alongside two other women. Every seat in the diner was occupied.

"Good. You have your homework? Oh, and who's this?" The lady with amber eyes, large and bright as though they contained a jewel within had turned to Vanilla with a smile. "A new friend?"

"No..." Leroy had stolen a sideway glance at his companion, as though confirming a second thought. "He's kinda old."

Vanilla could not help but feel the warmth of a flower, large but delicate in the curve of its petals, blossom and bloom upon those words like they were, to him, the coming of a spring he had been waiting for. Funny and oddly-phrased as they were, he had laughed and looked up at Leroy's mother with eyes behind large, oversized glasses that displayed a child-like anticipation of the new.

"Hello Mrs. Cox. I'm Vanilla Julian White and I'm four-and-a-half years old. Sorry for stopping by at such a short notice," he apologized politely, bowing so low that his glasses slipped askew. "I'll only be here for a short while until my uncle's fiancé comes to pick me up."

Leroy's mother, who Vanilla assumed was the owner of the diner, reached behind her for a basket of freshly made, deep-fried slices of lotus root. "You can stay for as long as you need, Vanilla. Come down for me if you're hungry." She handed the basket to Leroy, who grabbed a bottle of cayenne pepper from the counter and dumped a terrifying amount of it over the lotus chips.

"Don't forget to put your socks in the washing," she called as her son beckoned his companion up the stairs at the back of the store, past the tables and customers who waved at Leroy and ruffled his hair as he passed.

This, he had not expected in the least. That a stoic and expressionless, never-smiling boy like Leroy had captured the hearts of strangers when his observations clearly differed. Adults tended to prefer children who were always smiling and happy; laughing and never shedding a tear.

"Is this your room?"

They had arrived at the second floor of the shophouse, the warm smell of satisfied tummies left behind and replaced by an unfamiliar scent of aged wood. Vanilla had never been inside a house that wasn't his own. To see something that deviated from marble tiles and cream-coloured paint was, to him, oddly pleasing.

"No, it's the study," said Leroy, who showed his companion inside and reached up to turn on the light switch. There was a tiny sitting-desk tucked away in the corner of the room, surrounded by stray papers and textbooks but the main attraction, instead, appeared to be an old television set in the middle of the room.

"O-oh! Are we going to study? I have homework today," said the boy with glasses, pushing them up. "I like studying."

"Oh," was all Leroy had to say, index on the power button of his video game console. "I was thinking of teaching you how to play a game."

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[Vanilla]

"Oh! This tart. I've had this before. It's beautiful, but it wasn't really... oh. Oh, it says here that it's her signature tart," I hadn't noticed the look on their faces. "Well I guess she does have a lot to learn here, so." And by the time I did, it was a moment too late.

My gaze raised once more, I found myself to be the recipient of stares colder than the north, sharper than sharpened knives they'd used to cut into the shank of a cow—o-oh. That was a little graphic. Yet, there was no denying the frantic unease that was beginning to settle in my chest, resembling an animal strapped to the board, ready to end its story.

Almost at once, I began to register my mistake. The very one Uncle Al and Miss Julie had reminded me against and warned, time and again, to watch and restrain. He'd called it the monster of truth. Uncle Al did. And though the name itself sounded to me, back then, frightful and barbaric, I had learned a thing or two about taming its sharpened claws. Admittedly, however, there were times that I would let my guard down.

This was, naturally, one of them.

"Oh," scoffed the girl, who began to rise and take her tray along with her. "And you'd know."

"W-well," I lowered my head at once. "Not really, no I wouldn't, but—"

"What's your name again?" The boy seated diagonally across cut in with a smile or a smirk. I wasn't very good at differentiating between the two just yet.

"It's—it's White," I swallowed, anxious. Heart in my ears. "Oh, um, we've yet to introduce ourselves. I apologize for the earlier statement. I believe that you and your friends hold Miss Birchwood in high respect..." They'd stood in the middle of my apology and ignored me entirely, taking their trays and leaving the table without a second glance.

Xu herself appeared at a loss for words. She had her spoon of pilaf held in mid-air, the space between her lips and the plate and her mouth wide open, eyes turning in my direction after a moment's pause. "They left."

"I'm sorry," was all I could say, biting on my lower lip. "That wasn't... that wasn't supposed to come across like that. It was my fault. I shouldn't have been that honest or straightforward—or, um, to put in simply, blunt—with them." Exactly. They were strangers; people we'd just barely met. How could I have let my words run like I'd known them for a hundred years?

A vague memory surfaced at the back of my mind and all of a sudden, the moving image of Chip's husband walking me home from school, accompanied with the sharp scent of an autumn sting nearing its end was right under my nose. "Sometimes, people get punished for it." Honesty.

Back then, I hadn't quite understood what he meant but it was with age and an enhanced perspective that I began to see what he had meant. The one virtue that all elementary schools and primary schools seemed to worship was the very one that seemed most dubious and sharp with experience. It also tended to be the very first virtue one would lose hope in upholding as they grew up and lies, the very first, most tempting vice.

"Hey, you know what?" Xu was looking at me as though a volcano had just exploded before her eyes and she did not know what to do about it except be excited. "I have that problem too. I mean, saying whatever I want at whatever time I can. Although, I mean, I try to control it, but I can't help it when I've got so many things on my mind at the same time so I've got like a thousand thoughts to voice and a thousand thoughts to suppress. Can you imagine that?"

I stared.

"That does sound very hard."

She laughed, stealing some of my grilled vegetables before deciding to slide into the seat across me instead. "What's your name again?"

"White."

"Right... that's like, one word," she frowned and laughed at the same time. "I don't know if I've introduced myself yet, I tend to forget, but I'm Xu Si Yin, but you can call me Sylvia."

We returned to having a quiet lunch as though nothing had happened; the exact scene that would have occurred had we not decided to sit with others but by ourselves instead. Just us two. At that point in time, I wasn't the slightest bit aware of my name being written in ink on someone else's blacklist. That, and the fact that holding a grudge wasn't all that uncommon even across the seas.

*

"Did you know," Xu was on her fourth 'fact of the day' as we left the lockers and escorted ourselves to the Shunsuki Takaki School of baking and pastry, where a bunch of club exhibits and booths were gathered to recruit new members. "High school is supposedly where people make the most friends in their whole entire life—which I'm assuming has something to do with joining a club."

"You're not wrong," I said with a nod, unsure myself. "But I'd be careful not to put anything on a pedestal, you see. Most of the time, high expectations turn out to be our greatest enemy."

Aside, Xu was examining the school's complimentary guide for freshmen, a fifteen-page booklet filled with instructions and advice on how one was supposed to get through the first week of school. Already, Xu and I were off to a good start: offending a couple of students from the middle school division and earning ourselves a pinch of salted fame. Next on the list was joining an invisible club and remaining preferably invisible for the rest of our stay in the school.

After all, the best thing about being a critic was our ability to hide behind paper and words and leaving the rest to truth and perspective. No need for fancy appearances or blinding charisma—just pure, standard facts. Hard and cold.

"I smell food," declared my companion as soon as we'd passed through the doors of the admissions center and out onto open grounds where festive music and the scent of interweaving cuisines made for the strangest combination. My nose was confused.

"Food samples by research groups, likely. Somehow, I can only imagine this happening in culinary school."

Xu begged to differ. "But aren't club activities co-curricular? So like, what happens when we're in a culinary school? Wouldn't food research groups be considered curricular? Since all they do is... research about specific cuisines and that's kind of like what we do at school already," she pointed out after posing several questions at once, eyeing the row of stalls that were side by side, with the names of research clubs emblazoned on billboards and banners.

To say that there were students handing out fliers to promote club activities was an understatement. Apparently, each club had sent one or more members out beyond their booths with trays of food slung around their necks or even wheeled out on tea carts, boards strapped to their backs screaming 'come join (insert relevant club name here).'

"Hi hi hi hi hi," a female student with three badges pinned to her collar came up to us with a tray of paper cups and toothpicks. "Have you ever tried chicken adobo? No? Okay you have not lived life. Take this," she handed us a cup each and inside were piping hot chunks of chicken in a dark, fragrant sauce. "Join Southeast Asian Cuisine. You won't regret it. We have good food, good people, good life. If you want to find out more, our booth's this way, second to the right."

Before I could tell her that I have, in fact, had chicken adobo once when I was waay younger and Uncle Al's job had brought the three of us to the Philippines, the girl was ambushed by another group of students who apparently came only for the food samples.

"Mih ih gooh," said Xu with her mouth full, having tried a generous chunk of chicken. Despite having just had lunch mere moments ago, the unmistakable smell of garlic, soy sauce, and the sting of vinegar cutting through a deep richness of the chicken was enough to move my hands.

Big mistake. The single food sample sent both of us into a frenzied, new-born appetite for more, hunting down the street lined with booths and stopping at every one to pick up a food sample (and pamphlet). French, Italian, Middle Eastern, Korean, Japanese, Chinese—every possible cuisine one could imagine, had its own booth.

Should anyone have had the idea of coming into this high school and joining what every other book on this site has endorsed as the ultimate high school popularity booster, aka any sports club, they should be directed to the admissions center where drop-out forms are available for collection. Chip's husband is going to kill me. Point is: culinary skills were, in this school, everything.

Someone like my godfather would have received all the acknowledgement and revere that he deserved had he joined this school when he was my age. Chip being popular! Someone should write that book. New York Times Bestseller. Million copies sold worldwide.

Either way, that was what I'd thought when it came to the additional benefits of joining a food research club all before we'd come to the last couple of booths near the end of the street.

The school didn't have as many sports clubs as ordinary high schools did, and they certainly didn't have the standard few that always seemed to make their names in the list of sought-after human beings. Apart from the usual tennis, swimming, and football, they had golf, archery and... an equestrian club.

"So, you do horse races?" Xu went straight up to a member seated behind the counter of the booth. "Like the ones on TV?"

"Not really," he slipped us a pamphlet each. "We do have a race track, but whips are banned here and jump races can hurt the horses, so. We ride on flats and that's it. Walk, trot—yes, but no racing."

"And cantering?" I asked out of curiosity, since I'd never attended a school rich enough to afford an equestrian center in the first place.

The member looked up all of a sudden, seemingly surprised. "Oh. You ride?"

"A-ah, um... no. I've just read about it," I admitted quickly, pushing up my glasses. He smiled and pointed at a schedule printed at the bottom corner of the pamphlet.

"We're having a showcase in about ten minutes. Just a couple of members around the track and the routine involves cantering if you're interested, so... but I'm not sure if you'll find a seat at the stands this late. The guys come for equestrian girls and the girls just... come for Cox."

Cox? I scanned the contents of the flier and flipped over to see a collection of photographs, presumably from weekly rides. One of them featured the side profile of a single rider on his horse, the sunset behind him and the light in his hair making the picture seem a little too perfect.

"That face looks familiar," Xu was frowning at the same photograph that had caught my eye. "You know him or something?"

"Oh, um. Not really," was all I managed quietly, unsure why I was lying in the first place. "It's nicely taken, that's all. Any other booths you want to look at?"

The equestrian club member was inching a box of registration forms closer and closer towards us, readying pens and looking at us with a hopeful expression on his face. Xu stretched her arms upwards with a yawn.

"I might have a food coma. That, or I'm lacking oxygen or something because like, I'm feeling restless for some reason. Can we go see the horses?" She ended up saying after looking around.

"Well, I... I suppose we could, for a while," I gave in upon deducing the unlikely possibility of Leroy spotting me among his many other, um, fans, per se. "Have you decided on a club?"

"Not yet. How is anyone supposed to make a decision after being offered good food all around?" She laughed and I cleared my throat stiffly.

"Actually, I'm already decided. I've done my research over the past couple of weeks and will be joining the school's press as a writer for their weekly and monthly publications. U-um, yeah. So... yes. Did that sound very boring?"

"Very," Xu nodded slowly, wide-eyed and stiff. "Okay but I can't say it doesn't suit your general... general you."

I blinked. "That's very nice of you." And she burst out laughing.

"I didn't mean it as a compliment, but okay," Xu reached over to slap me on the back, leaving quite the sting. "You're kinda nice to hang out with."

The words remained in my head for quite a moment before cosying up in an abandoned corner, legs stretched out and hands wrapped around a momentous cup of hot chocolate under layers of dust and cobwebs. It had been some time since I'd felt this feeling—the strange stirring of a warm, fuzzy welcome.

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No surprises, the grandstand was packed with spectators of all courses and ages, including several members of the school staff and groups of what looked like students from the college division, skipping class to watch... an equestrian showcase. Six tiers of seating and every one of them filled with students of equal gender, leaving a final row of standing spectators behind the highest seating tier, which, by the time Xu and I had arrived, was nearly full as well.

"Guess we'll have to stand," she craned her neck in search of empty slots, pointing to a decent gap between two groups of students. "There's space over there. Thank god they haven't started, right? It's literally in a minute and I can already imagine how loud the cheers are going to be. The crowd, I mean—it's really just horses."

A girl who'd overheard Xu's offhanded remark turned over her shoulder with a glare, looking us up and down with a frown. I smiled apologetically, leaning over to remind my companion where we were.

"Besides, I don't think it's just horses they're here for, Xu," I continued quietly, eyes fixed on the stable not far away, where riders were just beginning to emerge with their horses. "Remember the guy in the photo we were looking at?"

"No. I suck at remembering faces and names," she admitted sheepishly, rummaging in her backpack and producing a bottle of mineral water. "But yeah, what about him? You think they're here to cheer him on like it's some race? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure this isn't a race."

"They probably like seeing his face," I let slip without a filter before stopping myself, clearing my throat and reining in every inappropriate word for the occasion. "I-I mean, his form. His riding form. But I suppose not everyone's here to see him. The member at the booth did say something about equestrian girls, which, um, I assume half the audience is here for. I simply wasn't expecting this to be such a popular sport in a culinary school. Or that any sport would be, for that matter."

Xu shrugged, taking a gulp of water from her bottle. "Who knows? Maybe you're right and they're here just to see some dude."

There was an outburst of manic cheers all of a sudden, as though someone had triggered a volcanic eruption and a turn of our heads was enough to prove my conjecture. Indeed, a frenzy had occurred when the team of select few riders was beginning to make their rounds around the racetrack. From where we were standing, there wasn't much to make out of riders in their uniform jerseys and uniform boots and uniform pants and—you get the idea.

Right then, it didn't cross my mind that I would somehow be able to identify Leroy among his fellow members since the only thing that differentiated each and every one of them at this distance were their horses. That was before I realized they had numbers and names printed on the back of their shirts.

"Is it me, or is everyone going crazy for number three in the middle?"

The timely remark by Xu drew my eyes to a passing rider and his horse, in the midst of their second round around the track. From afar, the letters on his back were harder to make out compared to numbers but it wasn't long before we could hear names from the crowd once he and his horse neared the grandstand.

Hm. A perfectly conceivable form of identification: hearing others scream his name whilst he was cantering past the stands. Why should I be surprised, having experienced the draw of his words first hand? It was precisely due to their lacking—words—that made conversations with him so oddly enjoyable. Every word seemed to count, and he'd always been more of a show-er than a tell-er, quite unlike myself.

Watching him ride and slow to a stop near the front of the grandstand after his third round, I advised Xu that we leave as soon as possible; preferably before everyone else stampeded the arena and began to swarm Leroy and his seniors. And their poor horses.

"What's the hurry though? We can wait till everyone's gone too," my companion appeared reluctant to leave, apparently taken by said acquaintance of mine. I sighed.

The team had completed their rounds and were wrapping up the showcase with what seemed like an interactive 'Q&A' session, openly accepting questions from the floor and encouraging students to leave their seats for a closer look. Truth to be told, my first concern had gone straight to the poor anxious horses surrounded by overexcited students. Then, well... then to other general circumstance of not wanting to be seen by Leroy whilst having to witness the natural phenomenon of human beings gravitating towards him like I always did.

Watching from afar.

"Well," I cleared my throat and adjusted my glasses on instinct, starting towards the stairs right down the middle. "I'd like to turn in my application form before everyone else does. Any later and we'll see the staff at the admissions center flooded with people trying to submit their forms. Um, I'm not forcing you to come with me if you want to stay though. Especially if you have any questions to—" Forward.

I was falling forward before I could hear myself think the next word and though the propelling force, presumably from somewhere behind, had rammed into my back and caught me off guard, the losing of my balance had been something slow. Almost like a yellowed leaf falling from its branch and drifting; floating in the air for a moment so brief that it resembled a fragment of a dream.

There was a dull, muffled shatter of something near in the distance, in the darkness of something bright. Nothing else but the ground filled my line of sight, so near that I could smell and taste the asphalt on my tongue and iron in the air and then.

And then, I could taste no more.