A/N: Thank you for being patient! Here is a new chapter ;v; so far, I've been able to manage work and writing at the same time and I'm hoping to keep it up. Enjoy!

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[Leroy]

I'd left the commons just in time not to lose him. The space between us was about fifty feet. I followed. He was heading for the main building despite there being half an hour till the end of lunch. With a brain like that, I thought he would somehow discover the additional presence behind him.

He didn't.

Just kept walking with his head down, fast and almost urgent; arms folded, shoulders low, recoiling from the wind every now and then. I let him have his space.

He ended up on the same bench I found him the previous time, before SOY when he tutored me for the first time. The rest of the plaza was empty since people were either at lunch or in class if they were a yellow or a green. I heard him sigh after sitting down and looking out, staring at the trees. He didn't seem to notice even when I was ten feet away, which indicated how upset he was about the whole thing.

So I sat beside him and stared, thinking he would be surprised.

"I suppose everyone else wouldn't think I'm the pompous, stuck-up teacher's pet if I'd just kept my mouth shut in every casual conversation," he sniffed, still staring at trees. I blinked.

Either he was talking to himself or he knew I was beside him. Even if he did, there had been zero indication. No surprise, no 'you were following me' with heart-eyes or anything like that. Just straight into conversation.

"It happened this morning too, in class. Although that's partly because Chef Palmer insisted I take on the role of class representative and I haven't been the most outgoing student to garner the support of my classmates, so. Naturally, they'd be upset, I'm sure." He sighed, lowering his head and then finally, peered my way. "I'm merely delaying the inevitable. If you're going to break up with me, please be swift."

I stared. He backed down, looking away first. "Dumbass," I reached over to give his forehead the usual. "Guess kissing lowers your IQ."

"W-what—!" His protest included a very cute face. "Excuse... excuse you, Leroy. I'd come up with a grand total of ten possible scenarios on my way to this bench in the span of five minutes and mind you, they were elaborate and concise. You coming after me meant halving that number and you sitting down narrowed it further to conversations and then you, staring and remaining silent eliminated everything else but that one dreadful possibility. I'm merely stating the truth."

I laughed, leaning closer—running a thumb under his eyes that were wet. "And the eleventh?"

He paused. "What eleventh?"

"The eleventh possibility. The one that's happening," I told him. "Right now."

Glasses seemed to consider this seriously, and then, frowning like a mathematician upon discovering a miscalculation in their equations the night before, turned to me with wide eyes. "Oh. Oh thank god."

"Okay let's kiss."

"I'm afraid your conduct of English hasn't improved one bit. Just how many times do you need me to remind you that questions should not be verbally produced with a tone that resembles that of factual statements?" He said, ears dusted in red. "I hope you were listening to whatever it was I was saying earlier. I shan't repeat it ever again."

Shan't doesn't exist. It can't exist—it's not a word.

"You're awful," he went on, shivering when my fingers brushed his ear. "I wish you'd stopped me back there. They must have had the most enjoyable laugh of their lives the moment I left."

I shrugged. "Say whatever you want, as long as it's the truth. They're being kids." He looked as though he'd mistakenly heard all this, turning to me with surprise in his eyes.

"You don't participate in conversations regarding, um, mature... as in, mature conversations? Isn't that what they call locker-room talk? I was in high school too, you know. I am aware of teenaged behaviour. Especially of the male gender. While it may be illogical and completely silly to me, it's not like I'm expecting you to, well, share my opinion. This was what I meant by, um, you wanting to break up with me. I figured I hadn't been the most respectful person, saying all those things back there."

I watched him lower his head, guilty.

"I've never had sex."

The words were simple and easy to understand but genius arctic swan boy had to process it longer than he'd processed the answers to the higher level questions in my AB text. I tapped the side of his glasses and he jerked back into reality.

"You must be joking," he had his hands in his lap and they were now laced together near his chest. "Like I've said, this isn't my first time in high school and while the one I'd attended was a private school for gifted students, even then they were dating left right center and talking about... about, well, their experiences and attending parties with alcohol and... and, other things! Freshmen included."

I couldn't tell if this was something I should be happy or disturbed about; that he did in some way think of me as a starving lion or any sexually-active animal like the rest of the high school students he's met. That I already slept around because it was apparently the norm.

"It's not like I don't think about it," I told him. He was looking at me intently, egging me on like this was new knowledge and it was his sustenance. I sighed. "I mean... yeah I think of it. Of fucking course I dream about it. And I jerk off in the shower. Doesn't mean I've done it."

I could tell he was curious. Inside that head, there were questions floating around but he swallowed them all and waited patiently. I didn't continue so he ended up asking the next.

"So... so um, does this have anything to do with you being home schooled?"

He gave me some time to think it through. "Don't think so. Interaction doesn't really matter... I've gone out with four or five girls. Can't remember." Really. "But it's not like I cared..."

We came to a stop, pausing and staring out at the trees until a couple of birds landed on the balustrade in front. I caught him shifting and turned to him. He looked like he was dying to ask another question and I thought of putting off prompting him just to tease but then I told him to spit it out since, ultimately, I was curious too.

"Just, um, just wondering. W-when you say you think about it, or dream or fantasize or, whatever synonym one should use, um... is there, do you perhaps, maybe, think of a specific—"

"Do you really want to know how I imagine us having sex?"

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

He malfunctioned for the next fifteen minutes and by that I mean speaking incoherent sentences that were deliberately extended to go round in circles, just to distract his audience from the fact that he couldn't look me in the eye without lighting up in red. I walked him to class just to see more of it.

Even after lunch while we were apart and he had something to say on the cross-year group chat, I'd watched 'Braised Chicken Rum Raisin is typing...' for nearly ten minutes before he ended up with "Good afternoon everyone."

He then mentioned something about obtaining the report of Chen's cross-year team only after everyone sent him question marks. Then I suggested we analyse that for a bit after school. They agreed on Cayenne Lodge at six, since most of us had club activities till then.

It was by complete coincidence that he was doing a feature on the equestrian team. Si Yin was there with the rest of the new members learning how to groom their horses and there he was beside them taking pictures and asking questions. I was at the track, just cantering.

"Hey." Lee Jungwoo.

I nodded. He slowed to a trot and signalled for me to do the same. We changed lanes.

"In the kitchen the other day. You said you were busy flirting with someone, and I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or not but I'm dying to know."

"You slowed me down for this?" I stared.

He laughed. "Cox, I don't appreciate cliffhangers. If you're spilling half of it, I need you to spill everything. Is it someone I know?"

"Yeah the whole school does."

He looked genuinely surprised. "Didn't know you were the type to go for those kind of people. I mean you're pretty well-known yourself, so."

I ended the conversation by easing into a canter and then, galloping away. Lee was not happy, but he had vice-captain duties to attend to and wasn't going to come after me so I managed to refrain from speaking to anyone till the end of our session. Si Yin had made a couple of friends on the team and had joined them on their way to the locker room for a shower. I spotted him seated on packed straw, staring at one of the horses. I dismounted and led Caspian over.

"That is a very handsome horse," was the first thing he said, watching. "The colour of its coat! Aren't black horses terribly uncommon?"

"You can touch him." I led him closer but Caspian had a track record of being more interested in straw than human beings. He lowered his neck and nudged the stack.

"He must be a non-fading since he'd been with you out in the sun rather often and yet his coat has yet to lose that rich black character," he said before gingerly stroking Caspian's neck and then petting his side. "And very obedient as well! How extremely soft he feels... a handsome stallion indeed."

Green.

"You give more compliments to a horse in a minute than an entire month with your boyfriend."

Immediately, he was all dusted in pink and protests. I watched him struggle to piece sentences together since that itself was very amusing. He also retracted his hand from Caspian after I casually added that he'd never touched me like that either.

"Leroy. You can't possibly be—be suggesting I pet you like I pet a horse, can you?" He said after a while. "A-also. I should remind you that... that compliments aimed at human beings are a rare phenomenon in my case. Especially if, well, if said human being is of... of high importance to me."

I led Caspian to his booth, where he was distracted by more hay. Everyone else on the team had headed for the showers.

"Yeah, but that was before," I went further, testing the waters. Just to see his reaction. "People say sweet things to their partner."

His first reaction had been to panic, scrambling for words in an area of knowledge he clearly wasn't familiar with. "O-oh! Oh, that—well, I... I'm sorry." It didn't cross his mind that I was merely playing. "I wasn't aware. That must have been a mistake on my part. Do they really? Say only sweet things to one another? I mean... now that you mention it, my godfather's husband practically showers him with compliments and flattering words. Aunt Giselle's boyfriend does the same and it would be awkward to pay Uncle Al too much attention, so I don't quite know about that one but... I, I suppose I could try to adopt another manner of speech."

I was amused. But he was making me decide between borderline unnatural dishonesty and cute facial expressions. A momentary version of the former for a lifelong memory of the latter wasn't too bad.

"Okay," I stood facing him, at arm's length. "Compliment me."

He'd paused for a good long moment before blinking rapidly and, as though coming to his senses, cleared his throat. "You are certainly, quite, infuriatingly attractive," he had his fingers laced together and was trying not to stare at them out of embarrassment. "It is awfully disarming at times."

It caught me off-guard. I hadn't exactly been expecting him to go all out and attack me with cute shit like that. He had his gaze alternating between mine and the hay strewn across the floor, seemingly nervous. I know I was the one who called for compliments but I'd made the mistake of underestimating his abilities. Should have known; he always had a way with piecing things together regardless of the situation. The words were effective—I was turned on.

"I hope you aren't laughing at me," he played with his fingers. Part of his habit whenever he felt troubled. "I can't tell if that's a smile or if you're just smirking to yourself."

"It's called being aroused." Laying this out wasn't the hard part. "But I was kidding about the compliments. Don't force yourself. Stick to the truth."

He looked like he was about to collapse. "A-aroused! What a... that is... w-well," he readjusted the frames on the bridge of his nose. "That was the truth, Leroy."

Could have had him there and then but someone else walked in with their horse in tow and glasses nearly jumped a feet into the air before subtly leaving some distance between us. It was weird being private. I kept the question at the back of my mind till we were heading for Cayenne, having waited fifteen minutes for Si Yin before she ended up telling us to head back first. Her best friend even said something about her liking long showers, but I felt she had other things to look at in the locker room. Had my sources.

"So we keeping this to ourselves...?" I glanced at him sideways. The look on his face told me he'd somehow anticipated this conversation.

"I'll be honest—I've long narrated the entire incident to Si Yin," he admitted in a single breath. Then, after meeting my gaze, went on to say that he hadn't told anyone else apart from her. "She conveyed her blessings and all but I hope you're not too concerned about me confiding in someone else about this. We could still keep it rather private. I'm sure she wouldn't go around announcing it to the rest of the world."

"Was banking on her doing that," I told him honestly and he blinked in confusion. I'd snorted, reaching over to flick his forehead but he dodged that so I caught his arm instead and pulled him closer, resting my hand on his waist.

"Leroy!" His first instinct was to jump in my arms, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. "It's broad daylight. Any form of physical proximity may cause quite the uproar, which, in case you may have forgotten, you as the school's number three cannot possible risk. An instructor could walk by any minute and banish us to detention for inappropriate behaviour."

"Doesn't matter," I took his hand instead and felt his freezing fingers. Stuffed them in the pocket of my coat. "You free this weekend?"

"This weekend," he repeated, looking surprised. "Are we about to make plans for it?"

I laughed. "We're telling someone."

He got my subtext and whatever I was referring to pretty quickly. It was easy to tell from his ears and how the general air would quieten to a simmer around him.

"I see. Um, who is it?"

"Annie." I told him.

We'd arrived at the doorstep of Cayenne and I was pulling out my key fob somewhere in the middle of the conversation when the hand I was holding onto in my pocket squeezed. I looked up and saw his eyes. Waves; worried. Slightly dark.

"Your mother? But, are you sure? There have been studies proposing the presence of consciousness in the minds of comatose beings even if they don't seem to display any signs of brain activity. I appreciate the symbolic gesture but... but what if she hears us?"

I unlocked the door and gave him a look. "That's the whole point, dumbass."

He paused, as though registering. "Oh. O-oh, you mean to say..." His feet shuffled past the entrance and before he could finish whatever it was he wanted to say in the shy, formally polite manner I anticipated and was hoping to hear, half the lodge idiots had to be roosting in the living room in front of the tv and in the kitchen.

They went straight for him.

"Another playdate? Didn't you guys have one just yesterday?"

"Hello, hi," very cute. "Apologies for the intrusion. I have the report with me, and the discussion wouldn't take any longer than fifteen minutes." He very quietly slipped his hand out of my pocket and returned it to his side.

Raul didn't notice. "Hey no I'm not saying that. Rosi's on dinner duty today so it's great you can come over and tell her how bad her food is."

Over in the kitchen, some hollering we couldn't make out. The two started conversing so I took his bag and headed for the dining table first, placing it on one of the chairs and then dropping mine next to it. Bank was already seated with his texts laid out on the table, making notes for a test. Rosi was a speck in the kitchen. Nabila on the couch with three others.

"You let him touch your horse," Bank looked up and this was the first thing he said to me. "You never let anyone touch your horse."

I raised a brow. "You saw?"

"Why do you keep forgetting we are in the same horse club?" He hit my wrist with his pen and I gave that a thought. He went back to his notebook. Meanwhile, the people on the couch were loud enough to wake hell and call for demons. It shocked Vanilla for a bit when he neared the living room with Raul, who made for the couch and swapped controllers with one of the guys.

"That's a gaming console," glasses came over to say, practically sizzling. "You love those. I wasn't aware the school provided such means of entertainment. You must have been ecstatic when you found out."

"It's Raul's," I told him. The guy had had it shipped over the day we moved in. "Technically, he's breaking the rules."

"Oh," his excitement remained visible. "Well, we've all had our moments of rule-breaking. This reminds me of our childhood, and the many days we'd spent picking up mystery boxes on Peach Beach." He didn't reveal the rest of the story. The one where he'd tried to work part-time at his godfather's bakery to buy a console of his own just so he could have reason to invite me over. He was four and a half.

I told him we could go to a real beach next time. That we could do other things that wasn't picking up mystery boxes and racing on mini karts.

"A, a real beach?" His eyes were different now. They were curious. "I've only ever been to one in Indonesia. It was beautiful, clear waters all around and just pristine sand granules. We didn't build sandcastles though. My uncle wasn't very keen. I've always wanted to build sandcastles, or go around collecting seashells, which we could do together i-if we were ever... to go to a, you know. A beach."

I moved to block him from the living, leaning in for a quick refill. "Promise."

"Leroy!" His first reaction was to look over my shoulder. He had his glasses askew and eyes nearly as wide as its rims. "You can't just—that wasn't. Doing that in front of everyone else, I... w-what were you thinking?"

I rolled my eyes and led him into the kitchen where Rosi was prepping for dinner. His ears were still red. She made some kind of off-handed remark about it but he was skilled enough to re-direct the conversation somewhere else since lying wasn't a word in his professional dictionary. I pulled out a carton of milk and some chilled bananas for a milkshake.

"So what did the report say? Bet they loved the concept we came up with."

I let him answer Rosi's question, since he was the first person I'd forwarded the soft copy of the cross-year report to. Either way, he was better at analysing stuff like that.

"Admittedly they did. Although perhaps one or two of the judges weren't all that keen on sharing their food. Technically, the individual dishes far exceeded their expectations as well. We fell short on timing and heat, which I'd anticipated since, well, we were practically struggling to survive in the forest back there. Apart from that, um... nothing specific really stood out. Chen was generous enough to offer us a look at his team's report but no one's heard from Tenner or Violet. The last I heard, a fellow journalist of mine has been trying to reach out to the latter."

He had my attention—like he always did—but this thing was in my chest and it wasn't the colour I was used to feeling. Adding a couple of blueberries into the mix, I cranked up the blending speed.

"Hey," Rosi was shouting over the whir, mincing garlic. "Who else is on dinner duty today?"

Nabila came into the kitchen at a good timing since I wasn't going to check the roster for Rosi. A waste of time and energy. Even better, she'd memorized the entire thing so neither of us had to check.

"Mikaela, wasn't it?" She offered us a bag of truffle seaweed chips. Some new flavour. I watched him nibble on one and make a face. "But she's representing her class for the school festival and I'm pretty sure I heard they have some meeting with the other third-year representatives today."

"Oh yes." He was doing that thing again. Pushing up his glasses to hide whatever emotion it wasn't he couldn't conceal. Like I said; lying wasn't in his dictionary. "Chen did mention something of that nature."

There it was again, that colour. I stopped blending and transferred the mixture into two separate glasses, handing him one. It was weird trying to hold back. It was weird having something to hold back on.

He received the drink with both hands and a short bow of his head. You could tell his manners were by the book, but his uncle was the one who actually chose the texts for him to read so that he would have it ingrained. To others, his politeness was stifling.

But I just think it's sex.

"When?"

He looked up from a sip of his milkshake. "Oh. Just an hour ago, perhaps. I can't remember the exact details but I recall receiving a response the moment I'd had all the details of the horse grooming article written out."

I stared at the top button of his shirt. All done up. "You guys text?"

"Sometimes, yes. He's very friendly, asking what I'm up to every evening."

The colour darkened. Rosi and Nabila were on the other side of the common kitchen, near the ovens. The exhaust was loud enough to keep our conversations separated. I pretended to sigh, just testing how far we could play.

"... Left out again, huh."

He bought it at once. It was hilarious.

"O-oh! Oh, I—I wasn't aware you felt so emotional about things like this. Should I add you into the chat so that we could all share secret recipes and things like that? I'm sure it would be very exciting. We weren't deliberately leaving you out or anything. As far as I'm aware, I'm the odd one out since, well, you and Chen have known each other far longer than I've known him so I'm sure he'd love to have you in the chat group as well..."

"Okay can't wait," I cut to the chase.

"Oh!" He paused, seemingly surprised. "Brilliant." It looked like he was searching for his phone the next couple of seconds before realizing that he'd left it in his bag at the dining. "I'll do that by the end of the day. Maybe we should be helping Rosi with the dinner preparations." He glanced over at the stove, concerned.

"I mean it's her turn to cook," I pointed out bluntly, but he was already tottering over to the island with cutting boards and raw ingredients all prepped in separate bowls and ramekins, with one casserole dish in the middle.

"Shepherd's pie," he noted over Rosi's shoulder while she was chopping up some carrots and onions. "What's the occasion?"

She turned behind with a blink. "How did you know?"

"It was obvious, actually." Humble. "Just by the casserole dish and the lamb, most would have been able to make a well-informed guess. I also have reason to suspect the presence of dessert, which is very kind of you, I'd say. Besides the green mango salad of course. I've never had anything close to a fruit salad but being fond of Thai cuisine does make one very aware of their cultural palate and I can't wait to taste it. So um... what's the occasion?"

Rosi straight out burst into some cackle before rolling her eyes. "Your wedding I guess." Okay not wrong but.

"My wedding?" He blinked, lips maintaining the usual expression of gentle manners. "Oh. Oh, that must have been a joke. I wasn't aware of its humorous quality, but I shall laugh anyway since, um, it would be socially polite to do so." He proceeded to laugh.

Nabila returned from the fridge with some frozen peas before Rosi could redirect the clueless genius back to me and lose a finger from laughing with a kitchen knife in hand.

"Hey, you made dessert?"

The current chef on duty had to calm herself before answering. "Yeah. We decided everyone's getting a minute for an elevator pitch until we make a final judgement, so. I'm pitching glutinous rice balls in sugar cane water tomorrow so I wanna see what you guys think of it first."

I watched the eyes behind his glasses light up at the words 'elevator pitch' and the next couple of seconds featured him scrambling for a mini notepad and pen hidden in the inner pocket of his blazer. It was interesting how he'd leave his phone in his bag and have a notepad in his pocket instead. The tension in his shoulders eased up a little as he was writing; made it seem like something heavy was lifted from his shoulders.

Nabila asked if our classes had decided on a theme. It was an inter-class thing. Some prize money for stores with the most tickets, but it honestly didn't matter.

"Spanish street food." I told her.

She and Rosi looked surprised. "Okay, wow. I'd thought the idiots in your class would go for the dress-up stuff in cafés. Weren't you guys the demon-angel things last year? Are you sure they decided on that?"

To end the conversation, I took both our glasses and headed for the kitchen. "... I only heard the conclusion." They called something after my back, but it didn't seem very important so I said his name and he looked up from his notepad and then followed me back into the living.

Raul had left the couch to poke his nose into Bank's textbooks and Si Yin had just arrived with her gear and all, taking the seat across and demanding to see the report. I told her that we should leave it for after dinner but really I just knew the papers were somewhere at the bottom of my rucksack, crumpled and possibly torn. I'd been reserving that only for him to see since it would've most likely made for one of his lectures. It was secretly enjoyable.

He ended up coaching Si Yin on her TF courses for test week coming up so I had to be okay with sharing the attention. He would look over occasionally to see what I was doing but I was just staring at him since shepherd's pie was taking long in the kitchen and I had nothing better to do.

By the time dinner was finally served, he hadn't been able to resist sharing the information from Chen and had every graded category listed out on an excel sheet for comparison. Timing wasn't an issue for them but our score for novelty was significantly higher. The others didn't seem very interested, but I could tell from his eyes that he so wanted to get to the bottom of this.

"I could ask Birchwood for her report." It wasn't a dealbreaker but he seemed to think it was. I told him it would be easy.

"Could you really? Emily—another first-year from the school press—she's been trying to do that for the past couple of days."

I was filling his plate with pie and ensuring he's had a good cut of it when he said this and then, at half-past-eight in the evening, someone was at the door. Raul was by this point stuffing his face so Bank, second nearest to the hallway entrance, volunteered to get it. Most of the lodge had returned and even if they haven't, it was unlikely that they'd forgotten their keys. I was the only one who did that.

There was some talking at the door but none of us were able to make out exact words until Bank returned with the usual look of confusion on his face. He said something about a first-year being at the door looking for Leroy Cox.

Sadly, Leroy Cox was me. But I wasn't very keen on leaving dinner or glasses alone at the table. I asked if he could just get whoever it was to leave a memo.

"She look angry when I said that," Bank pulled on the back of my collar. I got up, sighing.

At the door was Violet Birchwood. I wasn't in the mood to talk so I handed her a stack of sticky notes and got one of those blunt pencils by the doorway for her to write with. You can tell I was in a good mood. I closed the door.

"Wait." Her foot was in the way. "Just two minutes—it's about the tag team. Third segment of the school festival? I led my team to victory during the cross-year and you came in second so it makes perfect sense for us to team up. So?"

"Ask Chen. He's second too." I retrieved the writing materials and returned them to the stationary corner by the doorway.

"You're not competing?" She gawked. I didn't like being interrupted over dinner. "But you nearly won the entire thing last year without a partner. Imagine the two of us, cruising through. We'll split the prize money."

"... I nearly won because I competed alone." It was the truth. "Bye."

"You're giving up on five gra—"