A/N: Hello Beans! 'Tis a 4.7k word chapter, written in less than four hours! Le gasp! Sorcery!!! Hehe. I read some of the comments in the last chapter anxious about the development of SeeSaw and saw in that anxiety a bit of me when I look back at my relationships with human beings. 

More often than so, we hope for a smooth healing; a sailing of things that encompass the magic of a reunion. I have realized that things do not work that way; but at the same time, that is what makes the SeeSaw so attractive. It does not move in a linear manner. It is an up and a down. 

Enjoy!

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It would always start with a candle.

The flame; it would be still and unmoving like before and the core of it all, a deep, full-bodied warmth that could be felt just by staring at its gaze. Almost hypnotic. In those eyes, there is a darkness that necessitates the burning of a flame. Without it, the room within was cold and alone.

I would find myself in that room. Someone had put the candle out and I had come to find the matches. Sometimes, they appear in my hands. Sometimes, they do not. When they do, I strike them and they light up the room but the candle—wick, wax and all—it would remain in the dark. Every time, I search. Every time, I fail.

I call out to the candle. It is silent. It does not want to be lit.

Tonight, I apologized. I did not know why. Then, I begin to wake. Between the waking and the dream, it came to me; the reason for my apology and guilt.

I was the one who had put the candle out in the first place.

_________________

[Vanilla]

It always bothers me how I somehow feel surprised to find the space beside me empty when I wake. Furnished apartments like the one I lived in were usually the height of independent living for singles in their early twenties. For it to come with a king-sized bed was unnecessary expenditure. Those were the first of two-a.m. thoughts in the first couple of days I'd settled into London.

Two weeks into my stay, I'd expected a change of heart with regard to the king-sized. There was none. Furniture like these had the hidden ability to further a sense of loneliness. Of being apart from the warmth.

My gaze rested on the view of the city outside. Still dark. I glanced at the clock. Four in the morning.

There was something on the edge of my mind; remnants of the dream I was having that resembled some form of distant warmth. Yet, my fingertips and toes betrayed an icy coldness. Chill to touch.

I had the misfortune of a mind that was acutely awake at a time like this, occupied by the strangest taste and image of Medjool dates as though the active synapses had somehow fired a longing for the deep, cloying sweetness.

Four a.m. was a kind of critical. It is in the moment before the break of dawn; the instance I find myself most prone to the undiscovered peaking of thought and mind. A golden time.

The dates.

It had something to do with the dates—it must have. I was familiar with the taste; perhaps at some point of time in my life, knew it, even. The taste, the dish, the chef. Only, I simply could not, for the love of anything remember where I'd last heard about it.

As much as the mind was prone to elevated thinking and inspirational discoveries, the heart too, in this hour of magic and dreams, shed rational walls where raw, unknown instinct willed undirected action. I was standing before I knew it, brisk walking across the marble flooring towards the closet where my suitcase was located. Barefoot and cold.

I allowed the opening of the suitcase and the subsequent urge to rummage, search, and produce the only item on my mind; quite forgetting to turn the lights on which would have admittedly made things much easier. It was exactly where I'd left it—in a nice little cookie tin, gifted by Miki who had painted and redecorated it with matching colors.

The palm-sized, handbound cookbook had been through all sorts of terrain; water, sun, dust, dark and time. Somewhere along the way, tape had been a necessary requirement and a rebinding, an obligatory procedure. Which I did, by the way. All on my own. And for extra protection, a plastic cover, and then for extra, extra protection, a Ziplock bag to store it away in the cookie tin. Just to ensure the edges would not be any more destroyed than they already were.

I flipped it open. It smelled familiar. Like an autumn breeze.

The writings, handwritten, of course, were unfortunately smudged much earlier on by chlorine-filled pool water. Most of the contents page, however, had somehow survived the tragic event. Third from the top. Chicken soup.

Half the ingredient list in the recipe was unreadable, made worse by water marks that were impossible to remove. A couple few basic ones listed at the top, I could make out. Barely, I might add. The chicken scrawl penmanship was mostly to blame.

Weekly academic guidance for math had perhaps added to my ability to read his handwriting but years later, I could not help but feel amazed. This was once legible to me. In the dark, I nearly laughed.

I drew closer to the window just so that I could take a closer look at the smudged nothings and scratches of alphabetical nonsense under the city lights and the moon. It felt awfully private, picking up and reading such a thing of the past; turning the lights on seemed almost wrong. As though this was a secret and I was the only one allowed to witness its brilliance in the form of odd, sentimental nostalgia.

It is longing, I realized after staring at the empty street down below. Warmly lit.

I missed him.

Another glance at the clock. Seven more hours. Seven more hours and I'd see him. Just a morning's worth of work and then, a nice quiet lunch together. Ah. Better make a reservation, then.

________________

Mornings at the office were often faster than the rest of the day no matter the occasion. Operating on an international scale meant communicating with people in various time zones and mornings happened to be the most productive all-around.

"Hey. There's a cool new kebab place down the street," Raul told our receptionist, Claire. I was simply passing by the coffee machine for a top-up of my mug before the next meeting. Not the coffee, just hot water. For tea. "Grab that for lunch?"

"Sure. Would you like to come along, Vanilla?"

I turned abruptly, taken aback by the sudden reeling into an unexpected conversation without prior simulations. Prep work was nil. "U-um. You mean the kebab place? Well I believe the person Raul invited out to lunch is you, Claire. Not me. And, um, it also appears that I have a lunch appointment today, so. Thank you, but. No thank you."

Claire's expression was one of extreme surprise. Mouth in the shape of an 'o', eyes wider than the teabag in my mug. "What! Vanilla, you have a date?"

"Oh no. Oh no no of course not, it is not a date I am merely having lunch with a friend."

"So a playdate?" Raul went on, the look in his eyes a cross between amusement and surprise. "I heard from Chen. You guys met last week."

This startled me immensely. I'd like to say I was caught off guard because, yes, this was an unexpected conversation I had not prepared myself for, and yes, it was also very very true and Chen should not be going around sharing details of my private life. "Y—w-well, I. If what you're referring to is the um, that I am having lunch with Leroy then yes. You are not wrong. Correct, I mean."

Raul took some time to process my sentence and while he did, I was checking the time on my phone and then gathering my things for the meeting. "Now if you will excuse me."

Quite the embarrassment, I must say. Why was I embarrassed? Quite the mystery as well!

Being the professional that I was, all irrelevant thoughts had to be cast aside over the conference that was of high significance. Participants included several production clients (old and potentially new), GLACE's head of finance and head of marketing. The discussion was a long-time project put on hold—a ten episode cooking competition and reality television series featuring a curated list of celebrity chefs as contestants.

Every culinary publication and renowned food critic would be entitled to one nomination of a potential contestant. This would all be arranged so that the publications and writers are assigned a pre-selected contestant. The production team had even provided a near fixed list of names in advance.

"I see," was all I gave in return upon a single scan of the list. Tight-lipped. "A curated list indeed. I'm sure the program would be very entertaining." The names were quick to incite a sense of danger as well as much as they amused. A deadly combination of well-established celebrity chefs who, apart from their skill, were known for their strong personalities. Needless to say, Andre's name was first on the list. And then, perhaps unsurprisingly—Siegfried's.

"Some of them would be invited as guest judges," the assistant producer explained, flipping through the papers. "We have two options for you, Mr. White. You could participate as one of the media companies nominating a name on the list. Or, we'd like to have you on as a guest judge."

I let my head of finance do the talking first; primarily due to the fact that I wasn't too sure if being invited as a guest judge was a compliment or insult. Being part of a list filled with drama kings and queens was not in any way a desired achievement in my career as a food writer, chief editor or not.

They tried to assure me that my 'immaculate' and 'extraordinary' taste buds needed a debut on screen and this would be the perfect launching pad for future opportunities related to judging. Again, I re-directed this to my marking director. She knew I meant to turn them down eventually.

The back-and-forth went on for quite some time and drifted into the more complicated part of finances just as I felt my phone buzz in my back pocket. A call.

I glanced at the caller ID. It was Si Yin.

"Excuse me," I apologized to the room, urgently raising the phone to my ear. "I have to take this for a minute."

Practically running out of the room, I finally picked up the call whilst making my way to the floor's outdoor terrace. "Si Yin? Good god do you know how many times I tried to call you and Violet? Is everything alright?"

"Hey oh my god I am sooo so sorry about the missed calls and texts you know how Vi is like she's literally made at least twenty-six demands since she landed and her hotel is, like, what? And there was this whole fiasco and all because she demanded some a door-to-door room thing and I had to explain to the staff that she didn't know what she's talking about but better listen to her because she's a huge baby when things don't go her way and then like things happened and I got distracted and my phone was not a thing but we got two rooms that are side-by-side and connected by a door isn't that cool?"

I was used to processing that much information at light speed. "Yes. Yes that actually sounds very pleasant. And that is quite alright about the missed calls. I'm glad you two are fine. No one's bugging Violet about what happened in London, are they? The Andre thing."

"Not really, no. Just hordes of people at the airport trying to get a shot of her while she was trying to spot me with her guards and all and then I sorta waved to catch her attention and it was like the red sea was parted. Okay, uh, anyway, I know you want to talk to her but she's in the bath now and we're about to sleep soon and I am nervous because apparently we're sleeping on the same bed???"

This caused for some rapid blinking and firing synapses. "That... is indeed a much unanticipated-but-not-unpleasant escalation of things, I suppose? I thought you two had separate rooms."

"Yeah I know right I said that like seconds ago I think but she said there's something wrong with her bed and that mine's better and tried to swap and say I'd sleep on her bed but she did the baby whiny thing again and and and so I didn't! Oh my god. Is she hiding something from you? Is this why she wants to spy on me all night so that I don't start taking orders from you? Not like I don't already do that but yeah."

Over the course of our friendship as a trio, I'd come to realize year after year, how prone Si Yin was to the 'baby whiny thing' advances of Violet while I, a mere ice cube, had witnessed little to zero instances of Violet's said persona. Either she was extremely careful not to reveal that side of her in front of me, or she just how effective that method worked on Si Yin and Si Yin only.

Which made sense, because out of us three, Violet was the fuss-kicker, the upset-upsetter, while Si Yin was the mediator-nurse, listener-listen. I was the one who'd often try to beat some sense into everyone else.

"Alright. Um. E-enjoy. I suppose. I don't know what else to say. Could you tell Violet to call me back when it's morning for you guys?"

"Okay sure. I'll do that. The call part. And the enjoy part, I mean. Yeah."

"O-okay." Needless to say, this rendered myself even more speechless than before. How? Quite the mystery! Why? Also quite the mystery. I caught myself staring at my phone after Si Yin dropped the call.

______________

Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of anxious thinking was my upper limit before the onset of extreme possible scenarios which, obviously, involved something related to his shift the night before since our last exchange on Monday evening. An accident during one of his calls or or a worsened situation concerning fire hazards; him riding his bike home at five in the morning after a tiring forty-eight—

"Hi. Hello. Is this fire station twelve covering East Dulwich?"

"Yeap. That's us. How can I help you?"

"Um, w-well, this might sound strange but I'm calling to inquire about a crew member of yours. Leroy Cox? He's just completed a forty-eight hour shift, if I remember correctly. I'm, um. A friend of his."

"Uh huh, okay, well you're correct about the forty-eight, sir. Cox clocked out in the morning. Jaeger sent him and his dog home 'cuz the guy was dead tired. His bike's still at the station. Is something up?"

Immediately I was calling for an Uber to his place with, again, the tragedy of thought, several other possible worse case scenarios. The series of text messages I'd sent prior to the wait had started off civil in nature before, um, deteriorating in quality. I was slightly panik. Mildly. Just, a little. After a fifteen-to-twenty-minute ride in the anxious backseat, I finally arrived at his apartment building, hurried up the stairs to his floor, paused at his doorstep in quite the frenzy of mind to collect my disposition, then reached for the doorbell.

All thought ceased at his face.

"Oh thank god. You're alive."

His eyes were apologetic; strangely written all over his features. The way he'd opened the door added to the moment's flooding of information; a sudden reveal of his hair, slightly unkempt, his shirt, un-ironed and unpressed with the top button undone and a jacket that was barely enough for the London grey.

In that instance, I was also able to catch a glimpse of a figure at the end of the hallway, past his shoulder. A young woman, early twenties, standing by the doorway to the living room with a plate of something in her hands; dressed casually, as though she'd been home all day only that, well, this wasn't her home. Unless—

"I'll be ready in a minute." Leroy interrupted my thoughts with a gaze that was hard. Almost rock-like. "Fuck, I'm so sorry." I'd never seen him look so apologetic in a very long time. How I responded to this was critical. It would determine his mood for the rest of the day.

"Please take as long you like. I wouldn't want to be calling your friends down to send you to the hospital for a broken ankle from, I don't know, falling down the stairs." At this, he cracked a smile. I was quietly proud. A result of multiple simulations in the Uber ride but also half a decade of training my sense of humor. "I'll let Jason know about bringing the car over. He should be here in fifteen minutes."

"I'll be ready by then. Come in." He held the door open.

"Sure. Um, I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" I slipped past the front door and glanced over his shoulder at the end of the hallway. His first instinct was to frown.

"No, we're supposed to be—" Then he followed my gaze. "Right. That's Erlynn. She lives in the apartment below."

Leroy started towards the kitchen, attention nowhere near introducing us to one another but focused primarily on getting himself properly ready in ten minutes or so. I let him be, slowing down as I neared his female guest.

"Hey," she came forth with an extended hand. We shook. "I've heard a lot about you."

I blinked, turning to Leroy on instinct but, as expected, he'd gone upstairs for, I assume, a change of clothes—leaving Erlynn, Chicken and myself in the living, dining space. I saw that Chicken's bowl was empty so I headed to the pantry at the back of the kitchen for a refill.

"Is that so? I can only hope it's bad things you've heard about. Good ones lead to raised expectations and raised expectations are so much easier to disappoint than low ones." I smiled politely, turning over my shoulder to meet her gaze across the kitchen counter. Then, my attention lowered to the plate in her hands. "Ah! Bagels."

"Yeah. Cheddar-cajun flavored." She returned the smile, holding them out to me. "Try one. I made extra for Roy since the kids seemed to really like'em. Not that he's a kid, but. Since he can't taste sweet things." She knew.

"That sounds like a perfect flavour combination. Did you come up with the recipe yourself? And quite frankly, I haven't had much to eat all morning but we're about to have lunch so... perhaps another time."

Erlynn nodded, moving over to the dining table where several boxes were laid out. It seemed like she had been stacking the homemade bagels she brought over on a plate for Leroy.

"No worries. I made a lot. And yeah, it's an original recipe—we have Food Fridays every afternoon at the elementary school. I teach third grade. The kids love it when I bring food around. So I pop by Roy's whenever I have a little extra. Depends on the menu though."

I changed and refilled Chicken's water bowl after putting away the bag of treats, having snuck one or two in his food bowl. "That is very kind of you."

She said nothing, merely continued stacking her bagels while I finished up, washed my hands and took a seat across her at the dining, flashing yet another polite smile. I checked my phone for Jason's location.

The odd silence continued until Erlynn was done stacking her bagels and had looked up curiously; an expression that was a cross between a frown and a smile. Upstairs, Leroy was clearly making an effort with the dress shirt. I say this ironically, by the way.

"You don't seem very... fazed." She chose to break the ice with. I held my smile.

"About?"

"About Roy being late. Not picking up the phone. And with me being here. And the fact that I know a lot about him. I daresay almost more than you do." Her tone was not the least bit hostile or negative in any manner. Almost genuine. Honest, even.

So much so that I actually found myself rather keen on having this conversation, albeit unexpected.

"That is a very bold claim you are making, Erlynn, and quite frankly, I don't mind it at all. In fact, I am not going to refute it. Thank you for your honesty; it is a rare and prized trait nowadays, you don't see it very often anymore. Let alone amongst strangers like you and I."

Her eyes turn the shade of amusement. A very beautiful shade of chocolate brown. "So you are a little anxious. Annoyed, even."

"About your presence and Leroy oversleeping?" I relaxed in my seat with a sigh, crossing my legs for comfort. "Sometimes, I find myself able to withhold emotional judgement. More often than so, it is because I have yet to gain access to the other side of the story. One perspective is enough to conjure multiple possibilities and explanations in the span of five minutes simply running simulations in one's head—I've had close to forty-minutes—but two. Two perspectives lead to the near quadrupling of possible explanations, true or not, that would be considered additional knowledge and additional knowledge... is not unwelcome." I smiled. "Unless it is, in your case?"

The look on her face was nothing short of sheer surprise. Granted, I had accidentally spoken without filter and I wasn't even sure if my diction was a little too much for anyone to understand what I'd just said but for some reason, I wasn't in the mood for dumbing down. Today was... today was slightly superior.

At last, Erlynn herself relaxed in her seat, leaning back. Taking a bite out of one of her homemade bagels.

"You are just as odd as he said."

I had to pause. "He said that?"

"Yeah," she laughed, radiant.

"The exact word? Odd?" I blinked.

She did something with her lip and shrugged once. "Yeah." Then it was the sound of Leroy coming down the stairs—the cue for us to end the conversation. She smiled, light-hearted. "It's nice finally getting to meet you though." Another handshake?

"Well," I rose from my seat, taking her extended hand with yet another polite smile. "My sentiments exactly." Leroy re-entered the living with Chicken; this time, with a proper coat, a better shirt, and a cross body bag.

"Ah. That was fast. The car's just down the street. It should be pulling up any moment now."

Leroy nodded, turning to Erlynn with a quick: "Thanks for the bagels."

"You'll love'em. I'll text you later. You boys have fun." She waved, heading down the hallway and disappearing behind the divider. We heard the front door open and close before turning to each other for a brief exchange. I gestured to the general downstairs. Where the car was going to be.

"Let's go." He reached down to give Chicken several well-deserved head rubs while telling him to behave at home. A strange urge surfaced; I asked Leroy, why not bring him along?

The surprise on his face was immaculate. "In a ride as expensive as yours?" He blinked, smiling nevertheless.

"Well, is he the kind to shed his fur everywhere?"

"No not really..."

"Well then," I reached for border collie's leash by the doorway. "They'll never know."

*

It was apparently Chicken's first time on an expensive vehicle. The highlight of the day was perhaps Leroy dishing out instructions to calm his tail-wagging excitement before getting into the driver's seat. I'd slid into the passenger's after properly appreciating Chicken's obedience in the back seat, then snapping to my senses and remembering to input the address of our destination into the car's navigation system.

Leroy spared me a sideway glance before we set off. "The fact that you're not the least bit upset is giving me the fucking nerves."

I was admittedly quite amused. "You know I've always been quite the master when it comes to certain emotions. Anger just happens to be one of them. Although quite frankly, I don't see a reason why I should be mad, if, at all."

"You don't need a reason to feel an emotion." He bit his lip. Gaze fixed on the road but hardened in thought. "I was supposed to pick you up at the office an hour ago." I blinked. The sentence had not been part of my simulated conversations.

"Alright then, why did you not? Let's hear it," I rejoined lightly, crossing my arms and pretending to wait impatiently. "Only fools jump to conclusions before hearing an explanation, slaves to emotion."

His laugh was low. And as awfully illegal as ever. "Guess I'm a fool."

"Oh we've already established that." I smiled, watching as he turned a bend as instructed by the GPS all while taking a hand off the steering wheel to present an indecent finger.

And just like that, he proceeded to explain. Simple. Short. No added details of how tired he was and what he had been feeling all night, all morning—just the objective, cold, hard facts that he thought I would have liked to hear.

"You're allowed to give excuses, you know. Or details on how tired you were after the forty-eight. I imagine you were up all night?"

The certified idiot sighed, eyes on the road as we turned onto yet another street.

"Yeah... but doesn't woron the whole..." He glanced sideways upon sensing my sudden lack of response, then proceeded to stare for two seconds until it was far too dangerous to be doing so and driving at the same time. "What?"

"Was that you trying to use the word warrant?"

He paused. "So that's how it sounds like."

Joint laughter was necessary at a point like this, after which the two of us settled, fell into a comfortable silence after the heightened emotion. At this, I turned to him. "Your neighbor. Erlynn, is that correct?"

"Yeah. What about her?"

I gazed out of the window, at the road ahead. "She told me you said I was odd."

A frown crossed his features. "O-D-E?"

"That's pronounced ode. She meant O-D-D. Odd." I laughed lightly, relaxing in the passenger's seat and reaching over to turn up the nice music that was playing. La vie en rose. "Have I never used that word in front of you? It does sound partly pretentious. And therefore partly me."

He clicked his tongue, "You're not pretentious," glanced sideways, and then back at the road. "That's some crap she's saying by the way. Doesn't sound like me." Then a pause because I'd gone quiet from a brief short-circuiting after having accidentally stared at his side profile for a second too long. "I swear."

I had to hide my amusement. "If you knew a thing about geniuses, Leroy, you'd know I could tell she was lying."

He snorted, mildly surprised. "Someone's trusting."

"Oh no it's not about trust. Sometimes I feel like I barely have any faith in your illegal existence," I teased, chancing yet another dangerous look his way. For some reason, Leroy was incredibly attractive in a driver's seat. "What gave her away was the absolute. I asked if those were the exact words you said. That I was 'odd'. She confirmed it. That was her mistake.

"Odd is not a word that exists in the extremely limited vocabulary of Leroy Cox. There is simply no use for it! You wouldn't even bother adding it to your dictionary. Weird, yes, strange, passable, but odd?" I laughed, unable to hide my mirth. "No further comment."

"Fuck you."

More laughter. Already, there was Erlynn's answer—albeit in her absence and perhaps moreso for myself, than for her. There were many years to make up for; many absences, many gaps to fill, but I wasn't going to lag behind. Just because things are no longer the same doesn't mean that they should be given up on.

"Leroy?"

"Yeah."

"What," I produced the palm-sized cookbook, flipping to the page that my all my attention at four in the morning, "do you say to dates in your chicken soup?"   

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A/N: Hwello! It's been some time since I did an end-of-chapter note. I'm just here to say that I actually recorded a video of myself (thirty minutes oh goooood god) trying to explain my process of creating characters and what makes a good character and what does not. I use examples of characters by me (and me only) so in the video, I tell you who are my badly written characters and who are my best written ones! 

I will be creating a YouTube channel and uploading that video over the next week. Updates will be over on my Instagram at hisangelchip so I'll let you know when the video is uploaded! :> 

The whole video was actually sort of sparked by a very interesting comment on my message board (I commpleteeely forgot Wattpad has that and haven't been looking at it in forever) about my female characters and it really inspired me to make that video. Oh, and also, the comment proves what kind of readers who ONLY read the Baked series :') hehe. 

Thank you for reading this chapter~

-Cuppie