Wax

Valentine's Special: The Legendary Tale of the SeeSaw

She'd peered over his shoulder before taking her place at the station beside his, raising a brow after successfully stunning Vanilla into guilty silence.

"It's just a text, Violet," he said quietly, gaze darting left and right before hurriedly sending a response that, unbeknownst to him, was filled with typos. "I'll put it away..."

"Pity," she scoffed. "I thought you'd finally made some progress with the... whatever it was we were talking about the other day. That's what you get for not taking my advice. Oh wow, it's squid today. God, I hate cleaning squid."

Chef Marseille's curriculum was infamous for its demonic standards and quality; this month was a crash course on handling seafood. Last week was crab and crawfish. Today, apparently, she'd written the word 'SQUID' in capital letters at the top of the board.

"Your phone's buzzing," nudged Violet who had her eyes on the screen of Vanilla's phone that had lit up mere milliseconds after he'd placed it aside. On the counter. Within his field of vision but also, any passing instructor. "Are you begging for Marseille to have it confiscated?"

"But—no, I—" "And who the hell is Just Let Me Impress You? Oh my god, that's like, so dumb a-and and cheesy and... oh my god it's Leroy isn't it."

Both turned to the buzzing phone on the counter. Vanilla was the first to snap out of it, sweeping his gaze across the room before slowly reaching for his phone.

"You're not thinking of picking up are you?" His companion hissed under her breath, eyes wide in disbelief. "Why is he calling you in the first place?"

"I-I have no idea. This is very unplanned. Well, clearly, it isn't. I not am ready. I am not really. Ready. He knows I'm in class, I mean, that's what I told him. He wouldn't call unless it's urgent, would he?"

"Why are you asking me?" Violet whisper-shouted in return, hawk eyes fixed on their instructor up front currently occupied with the attendance sheet. She fished out something from her Gucci leather-trimmed, coated-canvas tote and stuffed it into Vanilla's hands. "Hurry up loser. Marseille's gonna be starting any moment.'

Receiving Violet's personal pair of AirPods—even for something that'd last for several minutes—was a huge honor and so Vanilla collected himself, thanked his station companion, and hurriedly connected his phone to the device before finally picking up the call. His camera came on. It was the usual Facetime.

"Leroy?" The bean ducked out of Marseille's line of sight behind his counter, clutching his phone with two hands and whisper-shouting. "Is everything alright?"

"That's my line, dumbass," came the attractive, characteristic low of a lion fresh out of bed that simply did things to the heart of a deer. "What took you so long?"

"But I'm in class, Leroy!" "...that's not what your text said."

At once, the bean was scrolling through their texts and groveling in pain at the ancient code he's apparently sent. I me U nx lass.

"Oh good god. I sent that in a hurry and—I'm sorry. Well, I'm fine. I... just, it's culinary fundamentals. Marseille's class. You know how strict she is with phones in class." Mid-sentence, Vanilla noticed his next-door-station companion freezing up and sticking a hand under the table to give him the cue.

He thus removed one of the AirPods to avoid suspicion, straightened up, and placed his phone on the table in a blind spot from the instructor's table—resting against a knife block to keep the phone standing. Thank goodness their names started with V's; their stations were situated at the far back.

"You mean I get to be impressed by your... culinary expertise?" Came the rustling of covers from Leroy's end as he shifted in bed and propped his phone up on the pillow. Laughing. He sounded more energized than usual; and Vanilla was surprised to see him still in bed at this time of the day. There were a few possibilities, but he settled with asking later and simply assuming that he'd taken a well-deserved day off.