A/N: O-kayyyy! Phew, managed to finish this 8.6k word chapter on time wOw Cuppie are you a miracle worker or whAt but I guess I haven't been doing much in university here it's actually pretty relaxed compared to uni back home hehe. It's just cold and gloomy ;v; eep. 

So next week is the special birthday chapter thing and uhhh while I don't know how long it'll be yet, I hope I don't end up with more than 5K words because I wanted to do a double update for Flight School as well :') And my friends are coming over to visit me in London too ;v; wheeheee

Enjoy your serving of freshly brewed sexual tension!

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[Vanilla]

It wasn't part of my plan to end up being so engrossed in the wonders of taste and how the science behind it all added up to designing a perfect menu for whichever palate the client was intending to serve. This was moments after checking an examination pad's worth of chicken scrawls and leaving it in front of the owner for self-correction.

Lowering the text I'd held up between him and myself for optimal concentration, I raised my gaze with the intention of catching a glimpse of how far he'd managed to figure things out on his own. Ideally, he would have identified the careless mistakes he'd made in questions 2A and 5B, and then proceed to working out the—

Lo and behold, my expectations of a student hard at work were wholly let down by the sight of a sleeping lion, whose unkempt mane was half hidden by his arms that were supporting the rest of his head.

"Leroy," I picked up a pencil and poked his forehead, waiting. "Unbelievable."

He did not stir one bit; arms remaining below his head that was angled to the right and the uncapped pen in his fingers creating elaborate marks on the papers he'd decided to sleep on. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm that reflected a sense of peace and serenity. To think feeling sleepy could be contagious! Clearly, I needed to get my head checked.

I considered a second attempt at waking him but was at once overcome with a wave of reluctance. He had, indeed, outperformed himself in terms of stamina and it wouldn't have taken a genius to know that Leroy wasn't the best at math in general. And neither would it have taken a genius to know that I wasn't the most comfortable under such circumstances.

The decision would have been, to anyone else, clear as day: to pack up and leave him, undisturbed.

While leaving the still candle untouched remained at the forefront of my mind, I couldn't seem to entertain the thought of packing up. Odd things they were, candles in the dark. Unflinching in the shadows and yet, filling the room with the strangest warmth—casting a glow across unseen walls. They were pleasant objects of attention; the center of it all. It was hard not to stare.

I was placing my head on the table before I knew what I was doing, observing his eyes that were closed and the lids that kept them hidden. He'd be meeting my gaze had they been open, looking straight past my glasses and casting his light there like the danger candles often were. The starter of fires.

And dangerous they were for the next thing my consciousness could register was the urge to close the distance for god knows why and I sat up at once—frightened by the impulse that had my cage rocked.

I paused, breathing and counting and erasing all traces of such a thought. I must be insane. Content with my choice of words and adamant to prove myself wrong regardless, I sought the help of my trusty text; faith in CR02, The Science Behind Taste. With the unexplainable need to smack the back of his head with my two-hundred-page text, I resisted no further.

At this, he stirred.

Disappointed in myself and my resorting to violence in an attempt to hide and make up for the indecent thoughts I was having before, I gathered my belongings and swept them into my book bag. They were most positively a mess and though the voice in my head was reminding me how uncharacteristic I must look at present, I was at my wit's end. Embarrassed and upset, I stood.

"It's late."

He seemed to be in the midst of figuring out what was going on at present or at least trying to remember how he'd ended up here (with the side of his head clearly aching) when I watched his eyes rid of drowsiness and meet mine at once.

"You're going?"

I'd turned away to avoid his gaze but was all at once feeling the need to keep up the act. Glancing over my shoulder, I tried for the most ordinary expression I could muster. "Well. What does it look like I'm doing?"

The words sounded very much unlike what I'd intended for them to sound the moment they'd left my lips but there was no taking them back and the only thing left to do was apologise. "Um—"

"I was wrong," he cut in with the most unexpected look on his face. "I'll pay attention this time, I swear." His voice was low and ridden with sleep but I was far too surprised to actually respond and continue with my train of thought.

I turned to face him. "Oh um, I'm not angry or anything." Well of course I'm not. Technically, Leroy had all the right to be mad at myself, if anything. "You've had a long day, I understand. I mean it quite literally, actually—it's almost eleven in the evening and I've already missed the last train so I'm left with the last bus, which departs in..." I glanced at the screen of my phone and nearly dropped it in doing so. "Ten minutes! Good god."

Clearly, I wasn't in the right state of mind, or state of being, for the matter. I started towards the door.

"Why?" I heard him say as I was retrieving my blazer from the coat rack. "Just stay the night."

I think I'd positively paled at this, since there was no other possible reaction I could imagine myself exhibiting. Managing to appear as calm, collected, and generally unfazed, I sought a couple of reasonable excuses. I turned to address him.

"I didn't bring any clothes, Leroy. And I've always imagined my first sleepover to be more, well, magical. So I'd like to keep that to myself." I wasn't lying, at the very least. This was all very, very true.

"Magical," he snorted, repeating as though my response was to him thoroughly entertaining.

"Yes," I quipped in return, taking my bag. "Planned, at the very least." He had his hand on my wrist all of a sudden and I had to take a moment to register its presence.

"So you'd want someone to tell you they're about to kiss you before they do?" The musing smirk he had on his face needed to be charged or sued for... for something. Highly disturbed and nearly immune to his teasing by this point (I say 'nearly' with the hopes of him keeping it at this level), I opted to tell him off.

"You need to stop this," I sighed, turning to him with a glare. It seemed to work as I watched his smile fade a little. Faltering.

"Stop what?"

I was both surprised and in all honesty quite exasperated that he needed it all laid out. "The teasing! That's what," I was at once reduced to some form of an embarrassed radish. "You're doing it a little too often for my liking and! W-well, and... and it's honestly not doing my heart any good, so."

Clearly, I'd chosen the wrong words because a single glance back at my companion saw that he'd cracked a smile. Small, and seemingly gentle. "What's that mean?"

"It means...! Well, it," I paused, thinking hard. "It just... means that I prefer conversations that, um, that do not include topics of... romantics like, like kissing or, or dating, or being married and stuff like that."

A brilliantly straightforward way of putting things which was exactly what I needed to be doing in conversations with this childhood friend of mine. I could almost see the cogs in his mind working their way through my words before he finally had something to say after what I assumed was thorough consideration.

"Is sex romantic?"

They were malware, his words were. I'd always known myself to be programmed in such a way that had my answers ready beforehand like pre-loaded pages on Google Chrome but Leroy Jeremy Cox was a virus acting up from time to time and I was now running on slow mode. Nothing came up. I was a blank.

"I! That's—!" I could not for the sake of my sanity comprehend how he had the nerve to say such words. Speechless! Even for the walking dictionary like myself, this was a little too much. "I-intercourse would not on any occasion be... considered an appropriate conversational topic. I'm sure many people would agree with that."

Good god, just when I was thinking myself immune to this idiot's frightening ideas.

"Wait," Leroy had a cross between a frown and a smile on his face—the kind of expression that made me feel as though a pause in the conversation was required to check for understanding. "What did you say?"

"Ah, another case of overestimating your abilities, then," I sighed. "I was saying, that, intercourse would not, on any—"

"Intercourse?" Leroy seemed to be holding back a laugh. "You mean, sex?"

I felt the need to rid of the blood capillaries in my cheeks, dilating unnecessarily whenever this idiot had odd things to say. I begged for the redness not to show on my face and for my words to not swallow themselves. "I—well, this! Sexual intercourse, yes, I—isn't that, common sense? You know what I'm referring to and that's all that matters!"

Leroy was laughing by this point and I had nothing more to say to him. Indignant, I'd glanced at my phone and felt the creeping dread that those numbers displayed at the top of my screen would incite every once in a while.

"Stay over," he wasn't going to stop. "Please."

I held a hand in his face and wanted so much to block it out of my sight. "This useless conversation made me miss my bus. Now I'm stranded in the room of an idiot asking me to stay and with no other option but to either oblige or call for an Uber that will never come because our school is in the middle of a park that's too big for its own good."

"Couldn't catch the second option but the first sounds great," my companion had the gall to laugh and flash the most unbelievably stupid smile that needed to be charged with, um, with something else that wasn't the one from before.

"Well," I wasn't protesting but the hesitation in my voice was heavy and easily identified. "Where would I sleep?"

"I have a sleeping bag," Leroy shrugged. "Whichever you prefer."

"Alright," I frowned, silently coming up with a list of reasons why I shouldn't be staying. "The problem with my clothes remain. That, and my habit of taking a bath before bed."

Leroy seemed to have anticipated this and had long readied an answer for it. "Use the shower we have. It's communal but there's five for ten of us."

"And the clothes?" I dealt my next card and he seemed to have one ready for such an occasion.

"Wear mine?" He raised a brow and said as though it was the most obvious thing to do and that my question had been a silly after-thought. I shook my head in disbelief.

"I can't—possibly! Wear... everything that's yours?" I hinted at the notion of undergarments by glancing at the bottom half of my body. The mere image of it was enough to prove my blood capillaries all the more active. Leroy on the other hand, had himself puzzled.

"Why not?"

"It's not sanitary!" This wasn't a question of whether or not whatever he wore underneath those pants were thoroughly washed but a simple issue of decency. One could come to the understanding that even the best of friends wouldn't willingly share their undergarments, regardless of whether or not they even had a best friend. "I'm not saying you don't wash them. It's just—the idea isn't the most comforting thing."

"Fine," he laughed. "Then don't wear anything."

"What!" Outrage. Gobsmacked. The words hit me in the face like rocks. "I... I'm tempted to report you to the authorities."

Upon finishing the sentence, I was rewarded with a towel thrown over my head and blocking my field of vision. And after dealing with that and being able to see again, it was a shirt and then, a pair of trackpants.

"Are you really fine with me—I! What's this?" Holding out the final item at arm's length, I was able to identify them as boxer briefs. "I thought I made myself very clear about this."

Leroy shoved something in my face that appeared to be an entirely new and unopened box of underwear (that was now opened because he'd just handed me a pair). "Here. Happy? You can keep the entire thing."

"Not the whole box, thank you very much," I pushed it back towards him, glancing at the pair of boxer briefs he'd handed me from before. "It's not what I'm used to, but it's much better than having to wear a pair of your own, so. Thank you. For your generosity."

"Have you seen the vest I was wearing?" Leroy was pulling up his chair and walking around the room, seemingly in search of the gym vest I'd hung up for him earlier on.

"It's right behind your door. No, not there—on the hook," I instructed with a sigh. "Your clothes were all over the place. Especially the floor, and I couldn't stand the sight of such a mess. If it's the pair of trackpants you're looking for, they're on the second shelf in your wardrobe, folded." He seemed to appreciate that bit of information, rolling his eyes but smiling all the same.

"Done? Let's go."

"Let's?" I stared at the thumb over his shoulder, pausing with the clothes and towel in my arms. "You're going too?"

"What," Leroy snorted, "you think I don't shower?"

"No, um," was all I managed to say, not having expected him to interpret my words in that manner. "Well I, I wasn't expecting you to come along with me, that's all. Like, I thought you'd shower later in the evening but now that I've had more time to think, I guess it would be a thing of convenience to occupy adjacent stalls and share the toiletries. I mean, I didn't bring any of my own, so I'd have to use yours too..."

This all, I'd said whilst watching Leroy grab a basket of pump containers, holding the door open before following him down the hallway after he'd gathered everything and headed out. I noted the voices coming from downstairs where the living and the kitchen were, including laughter and the muffled sound of the television. Ah, the residence life often featured in teen fiction series I've never had the time to read. Late nights and even later mornings.

Additionally, I had absolutely no idea why I had to be tip-toeing down the corridor like I was doing at present. The warm chatter down in the common room seemed far to sacred for our footsteps to be interrupting. That, and the fact that I was feeling a little out of place since I wasn't in any manner a resident of Cayenne lodge. Or if people could just stay over like this in general, I mean—surely there were rules.

The best solution was to stay hidden behind Leroy until, well, he responded with whatever I was saying earlier on about occupying adjacent shower stalls.

"Yeah, I know that. Or we could even use the same one if you like—"

"The mere thought of that idea gives me the shivers, Leroy. Please refrain from bringing it up ever again."

*

If anything, passing bottles of shampoo or shower gel back and forth through the gap underneath the partition between our stalls wasn't some ground-breaking landmark in our friendship. In fact, Leroy's shower head had been on for less than a grand total of three minutes and I was hearing him emerge from his stall before I'd even scrubbed the back of my ears. By the time I'd slipped on his shirt and pants (thank goodness this one had drawstrings attached or I'd have to be holding them up the whole time) and came out of my stall, he was leaning on the wash counter and scrolling across the screen of his phone.

"Sorry I took so long," I decided to apologise for the sake of it, since I'd technically made him wait for ten minutes or so. He glanced up to say something but instead stared at my non-existent ankles. And feet.

And laughed.

"Keep your amusement to yourself, Leroy." I shoved a hand in his face and he grabbed it, holding it aside whilst continuing to stare at the pants that went up till the balls of my feet. At least it gave me a legitimate reason to tiptoe back to my room, so. I retrieved my hand. He lifted up my shirt to check the drawstring.

"Can't you tie it up higher?"

"It's already at my waist, you idiot." I shied away from his touch and re-adjusted the pants. The shirt, too, was probably a size or so larger but otherwise, I was feeling surprisingly comfortable in his clothes. The undergarment too, must have been designed to be a little loose-fitting. Which was perfect for sleeping in, I gladly concluded.

And then before I could register what Leroy was doing, he'd knelt down and started folding the ends of my (his) trackpants. Shocked, I nearly pulled back and kicked him in the face. "Wha—good god Leroy, I can do that myself I, a-anyone could, do you not see! What would people think if they walked in on this? I! Me, a grown-up, unable to fold the ends of my pants!" Clearly, I wasn't speaking very well.

Either way, he'd given the usual smirk in response and continued nevertheless, moving on to the other leg before straightening up and grabbing his basket of toiletries. "Let's go." I followed him out of the changing area and back to his room.

We somehow returned to sitting at the foldable coffee table with towels over our shoulders and waiting for our hair to dry out. Leroy had produced a carton of milk from his mini-fridge and poured us each a glass. This, I wasn't expecting.

"You don't seem like someone who would drink milk before they sleep."

"Habit," he said simply, returning the milk to its place in the fridge. "Annie used to pour me a glass every night." I sipped on it after a nod of thanks.

"Annie?"

"My mom."

Silence. It settled like a cloud over skies that had appeared to those below deceptively clear. Oh, came a voice from the back of my mind. Unsure. What an accidental drop this was; a hole in the middle of the forest that had somehow gone unseen by the naked eye of one strolling along for a casual morning hike.

"Any news from the hospital?"

"Same stuff." The mood was stale and quiet and all I could bring myself to look at was the milk in my glass. "I'll be dropping by this weekend."

"Oh."

It was time. Exactly how long I'd intended to avoid running into the sensitive topic of his family, I did not know. The thought of deliberate evasion was, already, a tempting sin. Yet, with the amount of time I'd spent with Leroy as of late (more specifically the past couple of weeks), it was a miracle that we didn't touch on it sooner.

Would he be mad—would it be rude—if I asked to pay his mother a visit, too?

It was time. Staring into my glass of milk, I gathered the heartstrings I'd abandoned and decided that this was the time to tie up loose ends with the hardest two words.

"Leroy, I... know this is long due and for that, I apologize, too. I'm sorry I ran away and—and by doing so, abandoned you when... when you most likely needed me the most. Well, not saying that I'm particularly needed or anything, I mean. You grew up fine and look where you've ended up anyway."

"You're much better off without me, one could even say," I laughed. "But I guess I... never actually got over it. I was embarrassed and horrified, or so... you might have, um, figured out. By now. I've always thought the work of a critic was pure and genuine. My uncle, as well—I... I couldn't speak to him for a week after that.

"I mean, I may have been young but perhaps that was precisely the point, you see. I couldn't understand how my uncle had himself associated with such people, and as a critic. Well I... I learnt that they weren't necessarily friends. That they were just colleagues, you know. But I felt terrible regardless and so, well, I thought you'd never want to see me again.

"Which was an awfully selfish decision of mine since I was really just embarrassed and couldn't bring myself to face you or your kind mother and I know that's such the worst kind of excuse I could ever come up with and, and don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be coming up with excuses, no excuses, I-I mean..."

I'd been going on some time on my own, depleting the courage I'd mustered and leaving none for looking up from my glass of milk and into Leroy's eyes. In the end, it was his lack of response that prompted me to do so. Anxious. He wasn't smiling. Nor was he frowning. In fact, he, too, was staring at the glass of milk I'd been looking at. His own, empty.

I called his name and he looked up all of a sudden, meeting my gaze straight on. I nearly backed off on instinct. I realized then that candles should never be underestimated. They, too, were fire.

"I was mad at you, sure." Fire. "But you were what, four? Five?" He seemed to have his attention on something in the corner of the room. "I was a kid too."

And there it was again. "So..." The loud. "You were mad at me."

"Of fucking course I was mad at you," he snorted, as though stating the obvious. "Anyone can leave.

"Just not you."

I blinked, taking this in with every passing second before finally registering the words and what they seemed to mean. What a strange thing language was; what an odd way of piecing words together when words, themselves, were ambiguous. Sometimes, the simplest words and the shortest sentences were the hardest to comprehend; the entirety of its meaning hidden behind select few letters.

Leroy was quite unlike myself, having had many friends since a young age and an unspoken, indescribable charm that seemed to draw others towards him despite his distaste for conversation. There wasn't a concrete reason why he'd regarded me so highly and harbour such strong, heavy feelings towards not having me in his life. It wasn't as though we were an inseparable pair, best of friends, night to the light, astronaut to the moon; unable to bear the parting of the other.

"I'm not mad at your uncle by the way," Leroy went on to say, tilting his empty glass before leaving it in the middle of the table. "He came over a month later with money and apologized. I figured out he wasn't the same as the others."

I stared. Wide-eyed. Uncle Al never said a thing.

"So, um, you forgive him? Then."

"Yeah," Leroy sought the comfort of tapping his fingers on the table, staring at a spot on it before stopping all of a sudden and looking me straight in the eye. Waiting. As though expecting me to continue.

Prompted, I scrambled for words. "A-and me...?"

"Yeah, you too," he nearly laughed, seeming to relax. He'd leaned back to rest his head on the quilt draping down the side of his bed, just like I did in the afternoon. "But I couldn't forget."

"Forget about what?" I sipped on more milk.

"You."

And almost spat it back out. I was inclined to believe that my face was, at present, displaying the most physically confused and flabbergasted expression, heated and embarrassed at a word so vague. Forcing the milk down my throat, I sought to clarify matters.

"W-why not?"

He held my gaze. "So you forgot about me?"

"How could I possibly!" It was an exclamation of defence more than anything else. "I've always considered it a grave mistake of mine—running away—and I have been repenting since. I could never bring myself to face you and by the time I'd thought of coming clean, you'd moved."

"Yeah but you were young," he shrugged, seeming to insist on the prospect of my forgetting about him. And the incident in general. "People forget things when they are young."

"Not if they were your only friend, you wouldn't," I finished for him and knew at once it would be the concluding statement.

The silence that followed suit confirmed this and I, for some odd reasoning, dared not look Leroy in the eye. Admittedly, I'd just revealed information that made myself out to be profoundly vulnerable in his hands. The fact that he had not only been my only childhood friend but due to the circumstances I was under, held that very place in my heart was the most humiliating and frightful information to divulge. And yet, I did.

With a childhood plagued by an odd form of loneliness and solitude, littered with moments of isolation in the world that seemed to exist only in my mind, the only thing I could grasp was a hazy memory. A memory of the only person apart from my family I'd ever come close to loving.

"So?" I glanced up at him before my thoughts could drift in the idea of 'parents', something fairly unknown. My gaze did not last long and faltered in the face of candles, darting back down at my glass of milk. "What were you up to all these years? I told you I was skipping grades and attending boarding school but what about you?"

He straightened up, taking his glass with him and seeking out the carton of milk in his mini-fridge.

"I was home schooled," he said. Quietly. But the words themselves had the impact of a meteor, slamming into my chest with a hammering. A pounding. "By the other parent."

Never in a million years would I—or perhaps any other person—regard this social chaos of an attractive prodigy-leader as the kind of person who had been home schooled. Strictly speaking, it wasn't entirely clear how this had translated into his incredible popularity in his current school and even back then, eleven years ago. To think that he'd adapted to school life with superior learning speeds having never attended or experienced a similar system was... remarkable at the very least.

So that's why he has problems with AB, it came to me all of a sudden. His foundation in maths wasn't taught according to a proper syllabus and not having had any exams meant that he didn't have a clue what exam skills were or how to study for it.

I stared up at him. Deep down, it wasn't hard to come to terms with or remember the extent in which Leroy detested his father. The memory could be easily picked out amongst the many others; a conversation in his room over a game I recalled had something to with cooking mummies, likely about an Egyptian mummy on a culinary adventure of some sorts. No proper words to continue this conversation came to mind at present and at the work of some miraculous cupcake above, a decently witty remark slipped.

"Well. I guess your father must have been terrible at math."

He actually laughed—resuming the relaxed position from before after refilling his glass and looking my way with his head tilted slightly, eyes half-closed. Smiling. "You were the only one who was real."

And you would think that by now, I would have been decently accustomed to the occasional silence between us that unfortunately made up most of our conversations (if we weren't busy challenging one another or throwing comebacks for no particular reason). You are mistaken.

So when it was time for the deadly phenomenon to occur once more and for my mind to trouble itself with the deciphering of Leroy's words, the shrill ring of his phone receiving a text message was almost a cutting-edge relief.

"They say I have to collect the report in person," he was frowning at the screen of his phone. "At Allan's office on Friday."

And Tenner? I opened my mouth to ask, attention grabbed and eager to hear the news of someone important we hadn't been hearing about for the long time. These words were, however, rudely interrupted by my glass of milk being stolen by the person seated across me, downing it without permission.

"We're done here. Make yourself comfortable in bed," he nodded in the direction of his covers. "I'll wash the glasses."

I struggled to get a sense of what was actually happening before offering my help with the glasses (after all, one of it was my own) and realizing that, well, the door had already closed behind him. The bed was all that stared at me in return.

As much as I wished to stay up talking to Leroy about sensitive topics that would probably cause further discomfort, I was, admittedly, tired. Inclined to oblige by making myself comfortable in bed, I inched towards it and lay spread-eagled on the—hold on a second. Something doesn't seem quite right about making myself comfortable on... the bed?! I scrambled away from the sheets the covers the pillows the everything and stood a meter away.

And it was at this moment that me, Vanilla Julian White, the one who'd taken up the tedious task of cleaning a moron's messy room, knew I'd messed up.

The entire afternoon spent here cleaning and not even a glimpse of a sleeping bag. This very naturally left me blindly hoping that Leroy was somehow going to magically produce one from his closet Narnia or had, perhaps, gone to one of his lodge mates to ask for it.

Alas, what a grand overestimation of his abilities.

"The bed is big enough," was his response to my pointing this out upon his return, leaving the glasses on top of his mini-fridge without drying them. "Just use it."

Gobsmacked into outer space I was! How completely underhanded! Such rudeness and uncultured manners, I!

"You," I could hardly speak. "You were lying to me?"

For a moment, he seemed to pause with a hint of guilt in his eyes but that did not linger for more than a second. "Raul has one. I wasn't lying."

"So ask him," I put out at once, standing idly in the corner since the bed was not an option.

"He's asleep."

"You're mocking me," I breathed in disbelief and lost all will to continue with any valid arguments, settling on the edge of his bed and feeling quite tired indeed. The oversized clothes did not help. They were oddly comfortable and perfect for sleeping in. "I'm so tired."

Then I was feeling hands on my shoulders and before I knew it, they were guiding me towards the pillow and then laying my head on it. They felt oddly apologetic. "Then sleep—it's late anyway. Just... leave some space for me."

The quilt, he pulled all the way up to my nose before crossing the room and producing something from a cupboard above. I could hear the clinking of ceramics of some sort, and then the sound of water. He'd also flipped his laptop open.

"What are you doing?" I asked from under the covers, voice muffled. The urge to remove my glasses and fall asleep was very strong.

"Some work," was all he could tell, glancing over his shoulder and waving me off. "Sleep first. You're tired, right?"

The room was filled with the fragrance of quality coffee—or so I could tell at once from the notes in the air. Careful not to show the surprise written all over my face, I sunk deeper into the quilt; after all, I was so sure that Leroy would have been sleepy after hours of AB. It was five to midnight. "Oh. I mean. I am, but... staying up too late doesn't do well for your general health."

He turned with a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips, turning on his desk lamp before dimming everything else. I saw that he also had his camera plugged into one of the USB jacks, and then I had my glasses removed and placed on the bedside table so the rest of it was a blur. I mean I would have, on every other occasion, been a little more curious and probing but enveloped by a familiar scent and the weight of the quilt, I couldn't help but drift.

==========

There was a weight over my neck that made it feel as though I had been dreaming about being strangled to death by a Burmese python in the middle of a product knowledge class headed by Chef Marseille. The odd reality was that I was too warmed and comfy to acknowledge the chill of death and hence resorted to opening my eyes to identify my source of troubles.

Ah. An idiot.

And in his arms, to top it off! I wasted no time in sitting up thanks to a malfunctioning heartbeat, removing myself from the warmth of quilts and pillows to a chilled morning air. A glimpse to my left registered open windows and I purposefully smacked the side of the idiot's face whilst reaching over to retrieve my glasses from the bedside table.

He remained fast asleep, and for some reason, had a missing shirt. Frowning to stimulate some hopeful memory of him getting into bed or taking anything off, I checked the time. Good god.

"Leroy," I whacked his head with the pillow I was sleeping on and received one half-opened eye in responses. "Wake up." It closed.

Indignant, I shuffled out of bed and immediately searched my bookbag for the portable toothbrush set I would bring with me on every occasion for hygiene and presentation purposes. After all, a critic like Uncle Al would have had nine dishes or at least five locations to cover every single day. Grabbing the set and ensuring that I looked sufficiently sane in the mirror, I put on a pair of socks and borrowed a pair of bathroom slippers. This all had to be done quickly because the floor was absolutely freezing; more so than I'd predicted it would be.

"I'm heading to the bathroom first," I told him, albeit awkwardly since words didn't seem to be working at present. A low groan sounded from under the covers.

Making my way down the hallway and towards the male changing rooms at the end, I ran into a wide-eyed Raul whose face was half covered in shaving cream. He stood in front of the wash counter over one of the basins, staring at me through the mirror as I came through the door. A dollop of his shaving cream dropped onto the counter.

"Wait. You're—stay..." his eyes went to my shirt, and then my pants. The Italian unfortunately remained speechless before gradually resuming his task at hand, but at a slower pace. "No judgement but now he can't complain about my girlfriends ya."

I blinked. "Oh." And paused. Not quite understanding what he meant but nodding along despite so. "Um. Yes. Absolutely." It was the easiest way out of small talk.

"So?" Raul was smiling all of a sudden. Grinning and doing something with his brows whilst meeting my gaze in the mirror. "Fast move huh. Are first years even legal? Ya but how did it feel?" He was doing the hand gesture of having the tips of his fingers come together at a single point. "You like it?"

I was in the middle of squeezing toothpaste on the head of my brush and listening in an attempt to fulfil my side of the conversation when a clap on both our shoulders startled Raul and I.

It was the idiot—sneaking up behind us and somehow getting the door to sound as silent as possible. The sophomores greeted each other and I continued with my task at hand only to realize that the scare had caused me to squeeze the tube of my toothpaste a little too hard and a huge lump of it was now sticking to the side of the basin. None of it had landed on my toothbrush.

"Someone's in a good mood," Raul was punching Leroy on the shoulder and letting his shaving cream get everywhere. I had the common sense to inch away.

For quite some time, the pair proceeded to exchange looks and shoot playful glares at each other through the mirror but by the time I'd turned to leave the bathroom and passed the doorway, I swore I could hear laughing as the door swung shut.

Back in Leroy's room, I got dressed at lightning speed and was near ready by the time Leroy returned with a towel over his shoulder and the most unruly mane on top of his head.

"I'll be washing your clothes and returning them by tomorrow," I established at once, to which he shrugged and turned to his closet for clothes.

"No pressure."

I caught myself spacing out as he undressed and turned away at once, standing idly in the corner without quite knowing what else to do. Thankfully, Leroy wasn't one to take forever to wear his uniform.

"Hey uh," I heard him say all of a sudden. "I can't find my tie."

I turned and there he was, looking under his bed, around his shelves and all over his desk.

"On the hook inside your closet, to your left beside the mirror." These instructions he followed and ended up finding his tie with ease. The next couple of seconds were crucial because it was only yesterday that I'd lectured him about the state of his tie and though whether or not he was actually going to listen to my advice remained unknown, it was clear that he understood what my gaze meant. Unfortunately, this somehow gave him much reason to be holding my gaze with a rude smirk—all this whilst doing up his tie.

"Good enough?"

"Not really, but it's borderline presentable."

He laughed shortly, then got to taking his bag before pausing and frowning at a spot on one of his shelves. I could practically hear it: him being sure he'd left the badges to pin on the collar of his blazer right there.

"They're in the origami box on your desk," I told him with a sigh. "I made it and put your cufflinks there too. I found them under the bed."

He gave me a look. Something that a cross between his usual smirk and a rare frown.

"See? Already married."

"All I can see is that you still haven't gotten your facts straight."

*

It was a miracle that the two of us had fifteen minutes to spare and judging by the lax and unhurried way in which the rest of Cayenne lodge was getting around, I assumed that rushing for class was simply not a thing for the upperclassmen. And by that, I mean anyone above freshman year.

"Wait there," Leroy pointed me towards the fifteen-seater dining table that was somewhere between the kitchen and the living room—also known as the common space. There wasn't much to think of about the gesture. I mean, apart from him obviously not watching where he was going even if it was descending a flight of spiral stairs, and, well, that he was going to have breakfast ready.

Guess he wasn't that bad of a host after all.

Already, there were two people on the couch, dressed in their uniform but in no such hurry to leave the lodge. Each had their eyes fixed on the television screen, devouring respective bowls of cereal and not quite paying any attention to me and Leroy until he'd instructed me to sit at the dining area.

It was then that they turned, simultaneously, might I add, and gawked at him. And me. Or rather, alternating between us both. As far as I could tell, it was the first time I'd seen the girls around and they appeared to be, well, strangers. And logically speaking, any common being would feel the slightest amount of discomfort under a long, hard stare from someone completely foreign.

I chose a seat that was facing away from the two in an attempt to avoid confrontation. Meanwhile, Leroy didn't seem to notice this; far too absorbed in breakfast-making, he'd within seconds pulled out a bunch of ingredients and started kneading some sort of orange dough. I recognized it at once.

"Sweet potato? You can't be thinking of making something like that in less than ten minutes."

"Give me five," he looked over with a smirk and I hummed an agreement, wondering if there was ever any challenge he'd back down from.

"No rush," I told him in return, figuring that I'd help set the table while he was at it. "I'll just be timing you." And there it was again: the finger. Ignoring it, I slid open the drawer that had his name on the label.

"Orange or apple juice?"

"Vanilla milkshake," he made the offer completely irrelevant. "It's in the bottle on the side—I made it yesterday."

"Sounds absolutely diabetic," I poured him a glass nevertheless, choosing to opt for apple juice instead. "A one dimensional flavour."

"One dimensional?" He glanced over his shoulder. "Guess your tongue isn't as good as everyone thinks." I watched him pinch and roll small portions of potato dough into balls, getting out a large bowl and two forks.

"I may have failed the blind taste test but at least I've made my mark on history. Also, I can't quite tell what you're making. Are these meant to be glutinous rice balls?"

Leroy had the deep fryer turned on and it was bubbling with heat. He tossed a couple of the balls he'd made and submerged them in oil. "Fried sweet potato balls. You're not wrong though. I added glutinous rice flour for a chew."

"I'd never think of frying them," I admitted, watching him pinch and roll a couple more. Aerated, they grew larger in the oil and looked just about hard and crisp on the outside while still remaining soft and chewy on the inside. "But I guess it's a good idea."

"Saw it when I was in Malaysia for a couple of days," he smirked in my direction and I raised a brow.

"Alright international chef, you can stop showing off now." To say that this was his secret hobby... well, wasn't inaccurate in the least. Either way, I was determined to direct him away from this by feeding him some daily humble pie. That was the plan. "Your AB grades might come back to hau—"

"You're making breakfast?" The girls who were having their cereal on the couch earlier had come over to wash their bowls in the sink. One of them narrowed her eyes at the fryer that Leroy was using; the expression on their faces appearing very much like crazed surprise.

Unfortunately, my companion was not in the mood to respond. He scoffed, turning his back against them like the rude child he was. I saw the girls shake their heads at him and leave, but not before stealing another glance at him and looking as though he was part mad.

"You could have been a little nicer about that," I told him quietly despite the gawking we'd received. "Why does it seem like there's something wrong with you making breakfast?"

He laughed shortly. "Ignore them."

"Fine," I shrugged, letting it go since there appeared to be more important things at hand like, "you're at five minutes and eleven seconds by the way, so I believe you've—"

He was draining the balls on a strainer before transferring them to layers of kitchen towels; and then within seconds, the bowl that I'd prepared was filled with piping hot, fragrant, fried sweet potato balls.

========

[Chen]

Tenner, absent for two days in a row when she never missed a minute of class since first year wasn't just weird; it was almost uncanny. Nearly all the people I'd asked, including her classmates and those in her club and the people on her residence floor didn't know if she was in or not.

"I tried knocking on her door yesterday," the girl I was talking to didn't seem very confident about her answer. "No answer."

"Uh, yeah but did she ever mention being sick or anything?" I'd checked her 'last seen' on the chat group and it was more than a day ago. Things were getting a bit weird, and everyone on her cross-segment team didn't seem to have very detailed answers either. That, or they couldn't bring themselves to speak to the captain of a team they'd lost to. "Did you see her at the airport?"

"Only for a second. She called an Uber instead of coming with us on the bus, so."

I nodded in thanks, noting the time and realizing that class was about to start in ten and there was another place I had to be. So it was down two flights of stairs and a right at the end of the hallway, into Roth hall and then scanning the rows of freshmen lockers.

Four-two-eight... four-two-nine... I stopped at the next, already thinking that I might have missed him. He seemed like the kind of student who'd be outside the class, waiting to enter twenty minutes before it starts.

Part of the plan had been to check in on the Chronicle's coverage with Tenner since Keith Tang wasn't the best at entertaining anyone other than himself and I needed to know if anyone actually got a word from her after the competition. The other half was to check in on him as a person, since our teams did settle with a draw and I was starting to see a need to have him working with me as soon as possible before finals came around.

"Chen?"

I turned at his voice and nearly couldn't recognize him in the round glasses. It didn't look too bad on him, though—just a different vibe. Almost cute.

"Hey," I reached out to help him with the books in his arms but he held up a hand and gently pushed me aside to open his locker door. "I thought you were the type to be way earlier."

"Well I was... um... feeling the need to be on the dot today instead of the usual," Julian, or Vanilla, had this tuft of hair near his nape that was sticking out. Something he missed. "That aside, why were you waiting outside my locker? And how did you know that this was me?" He pointed at the numbers printed above his head.

I laughed. "Being number two means I have contacts you know. It's not that hard, all I did was ask around." He seemed fairly convinced that I was telling the truth, but also fairly disturbed.

"I, um, I hope you're not mad at me for choosing another team. I mean I did tell you that I wasn't going to join yours but I—"

"Nah," I extended a hand. "I saw the recorded livestream. You guys were good. Going up against you is cool anyway, but I guess I'd still prefer for you to be on my side," I'd meant it as a joke and winked to play along. Then I realized that I actually meant it.

"Oh!" He balanced his books on a raised knee and shook my hand. "No—I... that is, I don't quite know how it ended up as a draw because that amazing coconut-pandanus dessert was, well I wouldn't have thought of serving it hot, ever, and I've always thought your pastry techniques were good but you well exceeded my expectations. So, um. Your team did very well and I have no idea how it was a draw but that said, I have no idea how Layla Tenner lost to us all."

I pointed, eyes wide. "Exactly. Hey, have you seen her around?"

There was something on his glasses which I began to notice mid-conversation. A speck of grass or... just something green in general. He seemed to notice this as well and sighed, asking if I would hold his books for a second so that he could give them a wipe.

"The thing is, we've been trying to contact her for an interview or at least a written word. A text. Anything," he removed his glasses and I noticed how different he looked without them. His lashes were very long. "It doesn't help that watching the recordings of the livestreams and every bit of coverage done by the Chronicle proves how well constructed her menu was. Everything was perfectly fine and I couldn't imagine dishes that looked like that would taste... I don't know, subpar to ours." Down the hallway, something (or rather, someone) was approaching. Vanilla was part blocking the silhouette from afar but once he was less than fifty feet away, I saw the look in his eyes. "Anyway, I've decided to propose a direct interview with Chef Allan after the reports are released so that—oh good god."

Cox was an acquaintance. We never really talked and I mean, he never really talked to anyone, period, but I knew from others in his class that he preferred silence and inaction over anything else. Which weren't preferred qualitied in a head chef, by the way.

So when I saw him come up from behind Vanilla and slip a hand over the blue eyes I had been looking at, I couldn't help the surprise.

Initially, his target was busy being too startled to respond, panicking and flailing for a second before ending up somehow adorably annoyed.

"I can tell it's you, Leroy." First name basis? "Your hands aren't that similar to everyone else's and it doesn't help that you made me sweet potato balls this morning ether. You do know that your hands are warmer than an average human being's, right? This game doesn't work. But I'd be surprised if you knew that since, well, it wasn't like you had much self-awareness to begin with."

So Vanilla was saying all this—these unconsciously intimate things that somewhat revealed a lot about his relationship with Cox—and throughout this short period of time, I swear the look in that cheeky brat's eyes morphed into something resembling a lion's. It was the first time I saw him smirk... and to think he had the gall to mouth that word.

'Mine.'