A/N: Hewo remaining Beans!! (If you're still reading) Thank you for waiting. This week's chapter is about 4.5k words but honestly not as long as I liked but I thought I'd rather upload this than have you guys wait another week... ;-; Like maybe a 3-4k chapter per week instead of a 7k one every two weeks? I don't know. Which do you prefer?
Also, as mentioned last week, Vanilla Part 1 is now currently unavailable for purchase and Baked Love has been delayed because of the postal service/mail issues that certain states in the US are experiencing and I don't quite know if many readers will be affected but I just don't want you guys to receive damaged or subpar products!! ;-; I want to ensure that the quality is there and I gotta sort things out with the printing house first. Thank you so so much for supporting me and for being patient!
If you haven't seen them on Instagram, here are some pictures! ;v;
And now, to the chapter.
Enjoy this one. :') It was so personal and tough writing it, to be honest. Hehe.
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[Leroy]
He was wearing my jacket.
It looked good on him and though it wasn't exactly something I'd expected him to look good in, somehow at the back of my mind was a corner reserved for moments like these. Exceeding expectations. There's a thing about bomber jackets; they're not like the sweaters you'd wear indoors, or bathrobes you'd put on after a bath before bed. Underneath the jacket was his favorite silk pajama set and the look on his face said it all.
"Leroy?"
And then my attention turned to the kitten in his arms.
I think I said nothing for a good minute trying to take in and process the whole... picture-perfect, good shit before my eyes before actually holding out the paper bag with takeaway boxes in it.
The past week had been flames all around; I spent mornings at the firehouse as the crew's personal chef for breakfast before heading to Andre's bistro for the afternoon tea shift and then back to the firehouse in the evening after heading the kitchen for five-six hours. I'd bring Chicken along so that he'd spend the day in the station, and then when it was time to head back home to my apartment, he'd be there too.
No one knows, but while the crew's out running calls, I was all up in the common fridge and transforming all the shit they'd brought back from the grocery store into the magic stuff. Well not really. To be honest, this wasn't much of a difference from when we'd take turns making lunch or dinner for the crew—just, doing it alone. I'd even pulled out the stopwatch for knife skills. Not dicing onions or tomatoes by the way 'cuz those were basic. Julienning carrots, paper-thin radishes, bias-cuts on the scallions and shishito peppers, and maybe just a fine brunoise. Kinda like dicing, but smaller. Not too shabby, but still. Slower than sixteen-year-old Leroy.
Point is: I'd spent the week pretty much alone, but not quite. I spent the week with myself. It sounded so fucking abstract and shit when I first thought about it but like, a couple of hours in and it wasn't that hard to understand that it was something people needed to do every once in a while but never really knew they needed it. I was one of those people.
Desserts were... not yet. I was avoiding them, no doubt; partly 'cuz some of the crew really only allowed sweets on special occasions to stay in shape but mostly due to the fact that I'd have to face that shit again. I had no problem serving up disaster to the crew, don't get me wrong. Love to see them suffer for a bit, ha. Just... deep down, didn't think I was ready for it yet. Which was stupid because I knew somewhere along the way, I'd have to do it.
Also, I wasn't all that heartless. Jaeger even came up with a cool idea for the sake of my practice. Three meals a day and every morning, they'd take turns to pick out random, weird-ass ingredients after stopping by the grocery store. One time, Zales came back with some... spiral-shape vegetable stems called Fiddleheads. I didn't know what they were. Marseille would be disappointed. She taught the class on vegetable produce.
Back to Andre's.
Things were tamer there. I'd see Siegfried stop by every now and then, checking in on me. And when I say that, I mean just standing at the window while I called out orders to be fired which was pretty much it. Nothing new. The special menu though, was the only way I could work around Andre's rigid, conservative dishes that honestly tasted kinda... shit. I mean for that price point, people should be getting legendary-ass food, really.
I hate to admit it, but working in the bistro did well for my confidence. The reason: I realized how head chefs could actually get to a point that resembled Andre's. Literally stuck in their kitchen with the same menu in the same restaurant and never really needing a re-assessment of their skills or culinary knowledge. No doubt, some of them start thinking they're the best and like most ideas, the tasty ones stay and root in the heads of people who liked being at the top. Most people do.
Today's shift was different. Up on the special menu was a baked parmesan-and-pistachio-crusted chicken; less sinful than the other new fried chicken recipes I'd come up with that I'd caught some of the kitchen crew stealing portions of in the middle of their shift. I made a couple extra for the staff as a treat and nearly ended up with none left over.
I'd saved a serving.
Preparing for the preliminaries must have kept him up all night and frankly, I was pretty sure he'd been having microwaved shit for the past two weeks I wasn't around, so. After picking Chicken up from the station, I headed for his apartment building with an excuse. To retrieve the jacket.
"Oh," he blinked at the paper bag, struggling to receive it with the kitten in his arms that stared and mewled at my boy who must have been, uh, kinda excited to see a familiar face. "Thank you. Is this...? I smell parmesan. And something roasted—a nutty sort of... and um, dinner. I haven't, I mean, just a cucumber sandwich but... god it's late. I didn't realize." He checked the clock above the shoe cabinet and the kitten in his arms began to squirm.
Chicken barked once. I rubbed him on the head but held him back all the same, moving to block the new addition from his view.
"Leo—no, wait, just... stay still—"
Leo? I stared at the supposed rival. It paid me no attention, slipping out of his owner's (?) arms and jumping onto the edge of the cabinet to sneak off; nearly knocking over an empty vase and a trinket bowl containing loose change.
"Oh good god, give me a minute..."
And then Chicken my boy was in the mood for play, thinking this was some kind of game and wanted in and before I knew it, he'd slipped past my legs and made it into the apartment's hallway. I called after him and this all triggered some mad rush for the kids.
"Leo!" "Chicken, come back here." "Leo, what are you doing? No, no stop it." Around the dining they went and then it was the couch and until the kitten was backed into a corner and lashed out by mewling and swatting its paw at Chicken's snout. My boy was the same old. He sniffed at Leo and was surprisingly calm, wagging his tail and staring at the little thing until the latter's owner picked him up. I called Chicken away to give them some space.
"Sorry. Think he's just... excited."
"Oh no, it's not your fault. You couldn't possibly have known about..." He paused then, turning to the kitten in his arms and the thought of introducing us crossed his mind. "Um, this is Leo. I took him in on the evening after Winter Wonderland. Leo, this is Leroy."
"Cool name." I said to the cat. It turned away from me and had its head buried in the arms of his owner. That little shit.
"Thank you," he cleared his throat, gaze turning to Chicken and shuffling over to give him a head rub with his free hand. "And thank you, again, for the treats. Although... um... I was going to say that this may not exactly be the best way to introduce the little ones to each other."
I snorted, turning to the excited border collie wagging his tail. "You heard that, boy?"
"I-I meant to say that... perhaps we could... another time..." His voice faded off and he seemed lost for a bit but then wandered back on track. "Tomorrow. The preliminary round. Are you...? I assume you're ready, then."
I thought about the jacket draped over his shoulders and eventually decided against it. He didn't even seem to notice he was wearing it. Like it was a part of his routine or something.
That thought had me lost. And I think I stared for a second too long.
"Yeah," I started towards the door and had to look over my shoulder to beckon at my boy. "Just the cameras... those are kinda. Dumb. You?"
"Well," he laughed a little, something sad crossing his features for a bit. "I could say the same. Have you been practicing?"
"You make it sound like I'm playing a solo on stage or something," I spoke my mind, then realized it might've sounded a little weird. A little harsh, maybe. They way I'd said it.
He didn't seem to mind. "I suppose not, then. I mean... perhaps practice is the wrong word because, well... that word's reserve for amateurs and I know it's second nature for someone like yourself but um. At the very least, a refreshing of your memory..."
At this, he excused himself and crossed the room, heading down the hallway and disappearing at the door to the bedroom. When he came back out, he had Leo on the floor, padding after his heel while he clutched at something familiar-looking.
A book. Small. Handbound.
"Well. The only copy in the world, no?" He tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear and again, had me lost for another second. "Here."
"You don't want it?" I asked and he gave me a look.
"What! No. Leroy, don't be stupid. I want it back after you... fill in the blank pages remaining, of course." He averted his gaze. "It's mine. I'm just... lending it to you. It is 'on loan', and this is a private library. That's all."
I reached out for the book. A closer look revealed how well-kept it was despite all that it had been through—certain pages bearing the mark of a pool on a summer evening. Different times.
Flipping it open displayed my masterful chicken scrawl in all its glory. It wasn't that I actually forgot about them, just... never really bothered to remember. They were in there. Up in my head, somewhere. Just, hidden; and back then, what was the reason for writing it down in the first place? For taking those pictures, typing out a manuscript for the cookbook? For wanting it published in the first place? Why was that.
I could not remember.
"I mean," he interrupted the silence to say, hands behind his back that were probably clasped. Or playing with his fingers. Nerves. "If you're coming back, you'll need this more than I do. So. You'll be needing this. And needing much more, in fact. If you intend to impress the room."
I laughed a little, then looked up from the pages that were empty. "You know something?"
He waited.
"I've always thought—out of everyone else, everyone around me—you're the hardest to impress."
His expression faltered, shifting into something small. Almost brittle.
"That's why you're the benchmark," I finished and he paused, taking this in. "You've always been. I think you made me—"
"I disagree," he cut in and it was my turn to slow to a stop. "Sorry. But if I may: I did not make you more than you thought yourself capable of. Take it, Leroy. Take all the credit. It was your cooking.
"That aside, I..." He huffed, folding his arms and looking away. "This doesn't mean that I understand your decision to... be a part of this whole thing. You must have your reasons, but still. Surely, you'd know that we'd have to maintain some form of distance between us unless you're actually looking to be under fire for supposed rigging." He finished, glancing at Chicken and seemingly resisting the urge to give him another head rub. As though now, there was some kind of a... barrier. "Either way, I'm glad to see that you're doing well."
He let that be.
And I did too. But I wasn't really thinking about what he said. Up there, it was blank. The room wasn't entirely silent; just the swishing of Chicken's tail and the occasional mewl coming from the couch. If this was a dream; if it was something separate from the reality we had between us now, I'd think it was endgame.
And then I asked.
"Do you still love me?"
He was not expecting the question. He never expects that question. Every time I ask it, he starts. Blushes.
"Of course," and his voice, it's a whisper. "Do you?"
His gaze was lowered and his hair fell to frame his cheeks and then he reached for his ears to cover them, disguised in a fleeting motion of sweeping aside the stray locks but again, I was lost.
I came to only moments later, meeting his gaze that had gone oddly still from the silence—as though there was no doubt to my answer and nothing should faze what we had. Just like he'd said that day.
So I told him the truth: That right now, I was fighting wars. Many. And all of them, inside. I told him I'd return when I was ready. But it should never mean that I'd ever left his side.
It was abstract. The kind of thing he'd be saying and not exactly me; not the arrow-straight, easy sort of answer I would have come up with when it came to loving someone years back or maybe even a month ago. Still learning.
But what I said made him smile. It was the rare kind. The kind that had me by the cold. As snow often did.
"I'll be waiting."
He walked us to the door and leaned on the doorframe. There were bags under his eyes—from work, or from looking after that little shit that had all his attention, I couldn't tell. Maybe both. I checked on my boy before getting ready to leave after 'goodnight'.
Then something else crossed my mind so I looked over my shoulder and raised the book he loaned. "Is there a deadline?"
The librarian rolled his eyes. "We accept extensions on a case-by-case basis. A rule pertaining to... certain idiots."
I laughed. And it was goodnight.
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It was an ordinary day over at Leroy's, munching on lotus chips dipped in sour cream whilst racing on Peach Beach in their customized karts, picking up mystery boxes along the way for a random boost. Vanilla, having never quite gotten over leaning left and right regardless of the buttons he pressed on the controller, was doing surprisingly well at fourth place while Leroy, the expert, had maintained first place throughout the entire course. With one hand.
The weeks leading up to this level of quality gameplay had not been spent in vain. Thanks to Vanilla's uncle being caught up with work, the former had found himself spending at least two days a week over at Leroy's under Miss Julie's approval. Needless to say, Mrs. Cox did not hesitate to fry up more batches of thinly-sliced lotus root.
While the bespectacled bean was more than aware of his companion's intellect—judging from his ability to keep up with the former's unconscious rattling filled with jargon and odd concepts studied by scholars in their fifties—Vanilla could not quite identify where Leroy's understanding of all this had come from.
Unlike his room, the older boy did not own a single shelf of books or seem to read any in the first place. What with the distraction of console games which they played all-day-every-day, the fact that Leroy could differentiate between Barhi and Medjool dates and their origins after matching flavor profiles proved quite the feat to a bookworm who had little to no other sources of knowledge.
So when they'd crossed the finish line and the scoreboard had announced Leroy's twenty-second win of the month, Vanilla could not help but deem his companion a born genius. How his culinary knowledge had developed in such a vast and extensive manner remained, to this day—a secret.
He turned to Leroy. "I... I would like to request a change in game. We've been playing this for weeks," said the younger one, arms folded across his chest as he averted his gaze with a pout. "I would appreciate it if you picked something that doesn't feature such a steep learning curve."
Those were big words for a four-year-old and his companion could not help but snort. "You read 'Elements of Agricultural Chemistry' and talk about gravity like it's breathing but you can't play a game?" He laughed, straightening up before pulling out a stack of DVD boxes from a nearby drawer. "You pick."
Vanilla was nothing less than thrilled. Marveling at the game titles spread across the floor, he sifted through each and every one, wondering if this was Leroy's form of expressing an advanced level of friendship: allowing him to pick the game.
His companion waited patiently, sending lotus root chips peppered with cayenne into his mouth in twos as he did. It was not long before an all-too-obvious title found its way above the stack and into the eyes of the aspiring food critic.
"Cooking Mama," he read aloud, raising his gaze to blink at the other boy. "What's this?"
"I hate that game," was all Leroy had to say. "No one cooks like that."
This only served to further Vanilla's interest in the game's content. Curiosity piqued, he scanned through the description and gameplay images on the back of the game's DVD case, partly confused as to why Leroy had gotten himself a game he did not like. That, or whoever had purchased it for him was unlikely to have really understood his tastes.
"Oh. So... um, do you know how to cook?" The bespectacled boy had asked to fill the silence, squinting to decipher the screenshot he was staring it.
The pause he received in return was long and unexpected. After all, his question had been simple—all one could really say in return was either a yes or a no; simple and straightforward with no added twists or turns.
"Maybe. But I don't like cooking," said Leroy after a moment's worth of deliberation. At once, he observed a spark in his companion's eyes, accompanied by the instant straightening of his back.
"W-what? You should have said so earlier!" Vanilla shifted a little closer, leaning into the conversation with an eager heart and as though he hadn't heard the latter half of Leroy's statement. "What kind of dishes can you make?"
"Uh... just chicken vesuvio, beef stroganoff, rivel soup, shrimp-based paella and some mac and cheese...?" He listed slowly, thinking. He'd said the final dish as an attempt to throw him off, as though the simplicity of the dish was enough to offset the complexity of the ones before.
Vanilla was quite obviously in awe. "But! Who taught you all that? And—you know what's a stroganoff? I've never met anyone else who knows what they are!"
"My mom taught me mac and cheese," he stopped there on purpose, leaning back before deciding to just lie on the floor and gaze up at the ceiling.
His companion, a boy whose mind followed rules that were quite apart from the world they lived in, prompted him to continue. "And the rest? The... the vesuvio and stroganoff and paella and and and all that?"
"My dad," Leroy had said quite simply. Tight-lipped. "Did."
Perhaps it was the way that he'd said it, then, that made Vanilla come to his senses and detect the edged words lined razor-sharp. It made sense to avoid this topic altogether and that was exactly what he did.
"O-oh. I see. That's... um," he placed the game aside, folding his legs underneath his thighs. "You sound like a great chef already."
"Hm," Leroy didn't seem very convinced. "Not really."
The air of silence weighed upon their shoulders, going right up their noses in every breath they took. Unable to stand its heat, Vanilla hastily asked if he was up for another round of Mario Kart when, as sudden as the rising tide, Leroy spilled everything like the crash of a wave.
"He never comes home," he stared up at the ceiling. "Mom has to do everything while he gets all the fame on TV and lets it get to his head and comes home thinking he's better than mom and criticizes everything she makes. I hate him. I hate him to the core. I wish I never met him."
Stunned by his outburst, Vanilla had stared blankly in return—glasses slipping down his nose as he did. Naturally, he hadn't expected Leroy to tell him everything at once and now there was nothing that could be said that came to mind and he fell short.
"And, um. I-is that why you hate cooking?"
Leroy sighed. Nodding.
"Oh." Vanilla shifted closer than before, hugging his knees and the both of them fell into another bout of silence; at least until the bespectacled boy had more to say that he could not control.
"Um. Maybe I'm not the right person to say this, but... um..." He couldn't understand why his heart was beating like it was. Mad and insanely fast; odd and incessantly hard. "W-while it's true that Mr. Father might have changed after experiencing the culinary world at—what's that word—at it's peak, yes, um... while that's true, I don't think cooking is the thing that's causing this problem."
At once, Leroy had frowned; a natural reaction for a five-year-old. After all, he was being told by someone younger by a year that he was wrong.
"After all, Mrs. Mother is cooking downstairs right now isn't she? And back home, I'm sure Miss Julie is cooking dinner for Uncle Al and me. And in Mr. Chocolate Chip's home, he's probably making that for Mr. Handsome and Miss Red Coat and they don't seem like they're changing for the worse or anything, so!" Vanilla had picked apart the boy's conclusions and premises with such care and concern that it resembled that of a scientist doing the same. "So maybe cooking isn't really the problem."
In the middle of it all, Leroy's expression had changed to one of surprise. "Then what is? Expensive cooking? TV? Fame?"
"W-well, it can be but honestly, I'm not sure," admitted Vanilla nervously. "You see, a problem can have many sources, whether underlying or out in the open. Sometimes, we may never know what went wrong and then we can only guess. But um! Um, what I do know is that... that, well... that your cooking belongs to you."
His friend had sat up midway and was staring back at him with his eyes wide, amber eyes alit—almost like the flame of a candle in the absence of wind.
"You, too, can become a famous chef of, of expensive foods, or I don't know. A chef as talented and skilled like Mr. Father but with a heart as kind and passionate as Mrs. Mother's! Would that solve the problem?
"All you have to do is... not be the person Mr. Father was. But that should be easy, right? Because Leroy is... well, is Leroy."
There was a flickering of the candle inside, as though he'd opened the window to let something in and by doing so allowed the wind to slip by in a fleeting moment. Beyond the window was a pair of oceans; as odd as it was beginning to sound. Those eyes, he stared at. The color was of clear waters, lapping against the shore in peace but all hidden behind a pair of glasses.
The candle and the ocean.
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[Vanilla]
"Ay Banilla you are here. I thought we will meet during the dry run but I think they split up the timing to accommodate our schedules. You eat already?"
Today was the day. Oh god, it was the day. Running into Chef Pao in the dressing room for the judging panel first thing in the morning was perhaps the only saving grace. I had been kept up all night by Leo's mewling and the alarms I'd set to feed him milk formula (by the syringe, mind you). Needless to say, I was in for a rough day at the preliminaries and being rushed into the dressing room by the staff upon arrival had started the day with a figurative punch in the face. Also, on my way here, I'd seen the sheer number of cameramen smoking outside and by god, the production was big.
"Oh! Breakfast? No, um. Not yet, actually. I was um. You know. We'd be doing a lot of eating later so I thought I'd just have a cup of tea in the morning."
"Oi no," Chef Pao had stood to welcome me, leaving his assistant at the couches where they appeared to be going through a folder of papers. He looked perfectly appalled. "How can you not eat breakfast? Most important meal of the day. Come. I have this pan de sal I bake it myself. You can have it."
He then proceeded to shove an entire box of bread into my arms; the box having been magically produced out of his bag. I took a peek under the lid. Pan de sal was not an unfamiliar name, being perhaps the most iconic staple bread from the Philippines but this one, I observed, had a unique purple shade. The shape of it, as well, resembled the very, u-um, very familiar look of, um... a specific set of bread rolls.
"Ube-flavored?"
"You know ube?" Chef Pao laughed. "Okay I don't disturb you. Eat the pan de sal and read the script yah. Yours over there." He pointed with his lips.
I nodded and thanked him before reaching into the box for a taste of Chef Pao's creation. Just a rough gauge of his culinary prowess, or so to speak. Alas, my expectations were well exceeded.
This was no gimmicky, purple-colored, aesthetic bread rolls; the man knew what he was doing. They were traditionally exceptional—soft, fluffy, of course—and felt quite like biting into marshmallows except it wasn't. The surface was textural from the fine crumbs dusted on top of the dough, a signature feature of pan de sal. The softness reminded me of Chip's hot cross buns.
And all of a sudden, I missed him very much.
"Banilla you finish eating? Come sit here."
I did as told, reaching for my brief and realizing that the entire folder was specifically pertaining to us judges. Past the call sheets that I'd seen days prior to the preliminaries, an updated timeline and day's schedule, there was what appeared to be a revised script with a name list attached to the back.
On the list were several names. Including Chef Du Bellay and Chef Andre.
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A/N: Ah... Sorry I had to stop here ;-; I'm not done with the next part. Let me know if this is annoying and you'd rather wait another week. I know that a whole lot of the word count was filled by the memory but I think reading this memory again in the context of Wax is very different.
Reading it in Vanilla was just a sweet little thing, an extra bit of their feelings toward one another. But I think now in Wax, it's time to understand what Leroy and Vanilla really meant when they were kids and how, even after so many years, Leroy has never truly been able to rid of his war with cooking. I think as human beings, there are some things we carry with us for a very long time. And these things, if not fixed or sorted out by ourselves before getting into a relationship, can hurt oneself and their partner.
Leroy's wars have been mentioned many a time since Vanilla and even in AUs like Dancing in the Dark. It is time he faces them in his way.
Another reader mentioned about Leroy's reason for joining the competition! And that is something I have deliberately held off ;v; Sorry I can't reveal it yet.
Thank you for reading.
-Cuppie