Wax

Forty

A/N: UWU back to plot. But also single scene because I did much much research on olive oils. Something interesting I found out too is that the best quality olive oil is so amazingly delicate that it's really drinkable, even. So very interesting. 

Also, because I no longer limit myself to the idea of 'update MUST hit 3.5k words or no update', I do realize that I have a much easier time keeping up with weekly stuff and also feeling a lot more relaxed when I write. 

I don't know for sure if it shows in my writing but I have been rather chill and enjoying it lately. I can only hope you do too.

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[Leroy]

"You will first taste different types of olive oil. In teams. After gathering the olives, there will be a taste test. The team that identifies the most types correctly will receive high-grade ingredients for the main challenge—that's the basic info. The judges will tell you the full details. We're starting in two. Places."

Random teams, I caught on, watching the assistant radio someone on her walkie before she left us to stand in a pre-arranged line for entering the set. I was number six on the call sheet. Assuming the judges had their numbers too, he'd be three.

Bored, I scrolled through an older version of the script that was on my phone, searching for some sort of miracle segment that had both our numbers written at the top of the call sheet. Exclusively us.

There weren't any. Guess I just have to make it happen, somehow.

A minute later, they had us walking on set for a first take, on top of a hill that overlooked olive trees and you could see part of the docks we'd passed. There was a table in the middle of the terrace we were out on and it had a couple of shot glasses—labelled—spread out on top of it, in front of something that was covered by a red piece of cloth. He and the other judges stood behind the table, eyes on the bunch of us arriving on set to start the day.

Shooting the first take had me noticing his vest. He didn't have that on this morning; knitted, beige, v-neck, paired with a white dress shirt that... was missing its top-most button. Not gonna lie, that took me a while to recover from. The only reason I did was because the rest of the judges, too, were wearing something different from the shoot back at the villa this morning.

I put two and two together and figured the people in Wardrobe needed them looking different to mark the start of a new episode or something. Still, they got him to wear a dress shirt without a top button.

So that circled around in my head for a bit until they called for a second take but this time with Chicken. They had no idea where to put him in the shot, so I suggested telling him to sit by the table the judges were standing at.

"Ay I love dogs," Pao reached out to rub my boy's back but missed him narrowly 'cuz he decided to walk all the way over to the other side and sit by the snowy surprise. "But I guess your dog doesn't love me. He seems to like Banilla a lot."

I would've left my boy to make his own decisions after telling him to stay but I wasn't sure if Leo's owner was okay with that, so I waited till he turned my way to ask. By that I sort of mean searching his eyes for a wave check; he turned and I knew he wasn't all for it, but only because he had someone extra in his arms. So he did bring his little one along.

"Take two, ready?"

He snapped out of it the moment they called for places and looked away, down at my boy who was really just staring up at him and waiting for a pat. The next thing I knew—out of urgency or just some kind of resolution—he set a sleeping Leo down on Chicken's back, gently, before giving him a respectful pat between the ears.