A/N: Hi Beans :') I skipped last week's update because I wasn't feeling too well generally. It's been a tough couple of weeks leading up to this and I haven't been able to spend some time with myself for some good introspection, which was what writing Flight School was for me--time to look inside myself. I think the nature of writing romance is that I've always looked from in from the outside, which is ironic because all my romance genres are written in first person and Flight School is written in third.
What Leroy and Vanilla have is what I've always wanted to have and this is what I've come to realize. Not because I just like their dynamics, but because for Vanilla, he feels most human when he is with Leroy. Otherwise, he's just a book to many other people. And the reason for that is love. Love is what makes me feel human and I haven't had that in a very long time.
Enjoy the long chapter.
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[Vanilla]
My first instinct had been to check the booth number indicated at the corner of the striped awning in a hopeless attempt to prove my wandering eyes wrong, frantically searching under the tables of crockery and then the gas and the grill for a sign of some prank of poor taste, but even the aluminium bars holding up the stall appeared bare and untouched so much so that I'd begun to question my sanity and entertain the possibility of this being part of an unwarranted dream.
It was dark out and there was barely a streak of sunlight over the horizon at five, leaving the rest of the plaza ghostly quiet except for the occasional gust of wind. Being the first to arrive meant the absence of an immediate consultant and, surveying every nearby stall and booth, I came to the conclusion that everyone else had decided to ignore the school's scheduling of ingredient delivery for an hour's worth of additional sleep. Not to mention, I'd also been one of the last to leave the night before, having double, triple checked every single aspect of the booth to ensure everything was in perfect order. The state of the school had resembled a graveyard by the time I'd left, so who could have gone to the extent of... of arriving after ten in the evening and before five in the morning for some silly, childish sabotage?
I was no more furious or frustrated than I was tired; exhaustion was heavy on the shoulders and for a moment, dropping my bag on the ground had not seemed to lighten my load.
With most of the plaza unfortunately empty, the only solution had been to come up with hypotheses of my own and, accordingly, map out possible routes of action and the remaining options I had. I was about to start searching for students down the lane our booth was on when, to my pleasant surprise, several male students whom I'd recognized as Leroy's classmates from yesterday began to filter into the plaza with cartons marked 'fragile' and ice boxes over their shoulders, headed for their booth.
"Hi, hello," this was the fastest I'd ever gone up to strangers for a chat. "Sorry to bother. You're the only ones here and I was wondering if—"
"Oh hey." One of them seemed particularly enthusiastic. "You're that first-year guy Cox chose to be on his team for the cross-year."
"Yes. That I am," I caught on quickly, hoping this would provide him enough incentive to converse with someone like myself. "I was wondering if you'd perhaps been here earlier than five o'clock in the morning? Or, if, by chance, you'd seen anyone wandering around our lane late last night or early this morning... something's wrong. My class had our booth decorated and all but..." I'd trailed off, turning to the stall across theirs.
Almost at once, there was a chorus of boy-gasps. The general 'ohh' sound they tended to produce at something shocking or in a general bad situation when they knew not what to say.
"That's you guys?"
"There were lanterns all over the awning just yesterday, right?" One of them set his ice box down and I nodded vigorously, glad that there were at least witnesses who could remember what the stall looked like before. "They're gone?"
"Feels bad man." "We honestly just arrived and got a call from our representative about the ingredient pick-up, so..." "But Cox was here late last night, wasn't he? Setting up the deep fryers."
I was all ears at the name, turning to meet the gaze of the student who'd mentioned his presence. "Leroy? He was here? But um, exactly how late did he...?"
"Like, about eleven-thirty-ish, maybe? I don't know. You want me to call him or something?" He was nice enough to offer but the logic in my head had gone several miles ahead as soon as I'd heard his name.
Pure rational reason would have concluded that Leroy was not a witness to any suspicious activity occurring the night before since if he did, he would have texted me right away or warned me about it because one, he knew our class was the only Chinese street food stall in the entire plaza and would have identified that as ours and two, he had no reason to be hiding something like that from myself. Even if he did, he wouldn't have put up with such behaviour occurring right before his eyes and because the school closed at midnight sharp, that would have to mean that the incident occurred between four, the school's opening hour, to five in the morning, when I'd arrived.
The only premise that would destroy my entire claim was my unwavering faith and trust in the subject.
"Um, no it's fine. You don't have to call him," I said to his classmate, thanking the rest of them with a brief nod. "Thanks for your help... I guess I'll just contact the authorities."
"Oh. You sure?" He seemed surprised by my confidence—which was perfectly justified since, well, even I was taken aback by the sheer lack of doubt in my decision not to contact him.
"Yes. I'm sure. Thank you, again."
I gave the time a quick check whilst returning to my booth across the lane. Two hours till the instructors make their rounds for the quality and hygiene check. The festival briefing the other day also mentioned something about giving each booth an electronic machine for coupon scanning, which would be keeping track of the numbers for every class and the total number of customers they'd served. The top were entitled to keep a portion of their earnings and were also said to be given priority in upcoming learning journeys.
There was much at risk, considering the competitive nature of our school's culture.
"Vanilla?" I heard Si Yin's voice from afar and turned, relieved to see her approaching from the far end of the plaza stairs. "Sorry I'm late. The traffic was bad and Sebastian had to make a detour down small roads. What's..." Her voice trailed off as she got closer. Then she stared at me in disbelief.
I shook my head, resisting the urge to avert my gaze. "I... I know what it looks like but—"
"This wasn't how it looked like yesterday, right?" My best friend took one look at the bare, empty mess before returning to me, shaking my shoulders. "My memory can't be that bad, can it? Oh my god Vanilla, do something with your magic hands."
"I-it most certainly did not look like this," was all I managed, silently relieved that the first of her thoughts hadn't jumped to identifying me as the perpetrator, 'caught in the act.' Just as I'd trusted Leroy, she, too, had complete faith in me. "I'll check in on the group. Could I entrust you with getting an instructor here? Or any form of authority. Just, someone from the organizing committee."
She gave a swift, but slightly panicked nod before taking off in the direction of she came from, then u-turning because the organizing committees tent was in the wrong direction and she could tell from the way I was snapping my fingers at her back.
Okay Vanilla, nothing wrong yet. You have two hours to set things straight so just... just calm down, I could hear my head telling the frantic creature in my chest, thundering in a crazed beat. I composed a text on the volunteer group just to check in on their whereabouts, hoping they'd somehow know something about this or that they'd miraculous moved the props somewhere else due to unlikely weather conditions o-or—good god was it hard to convince myself.
Then it was taking a picture of the state of our booth with the intention to send it in the class group chat after composing a suitable accompanying caption but then I was hovering over the send button like a malfunctioning bot.
While Si Yin had been loyal, trusting and kind enough to understand my plight, the ultimate truth remained: we were best friends. The rest of my classmates on the other hand, weren't exactly on the greatest terms with myself and by god, were they not going to be happy about this. The worst case scenario was something I often preferred mapping out before everything else, especially during dire situations that required much preparation of the fragile heart for damage.
I was going to have to take the blame if we never find out who the perpetrator was. Or at least for now, it was bound to happen first. This was all very insane. And how could this... why would anyone... how could anyone—
"Is it me or is our booth kind of, not, ready?" This statement indicated the arrival of several other classmates on the early morning shift, of which included Jingrui Li and Jesse Meyers, culinary majors whom I've worked with prior to the food festival. And by that I merely meant being on production kitchen duty together. We weren't all that chummy with one another; nor were we on generally pleasant terms.
Knowing at once that I wasn't going to be spared the opportunity or time to dish out a full-length explanation of what happened, I devised a two-pronged approach: sending the early ones to search for the missing props and décor, and having the others quickly remake the elements of the booth in less than two hours.
Either way, I'd arranged for there to be additional class members on ingredient prep duty, which was a relief because imagine if I hadn't tried to foresee issues—not to an extent like this, no, but still—occurring at such an untimely hour.
"It's not like we expected to win anyway," Li had said soon after receiving my instructions to look for the missing props in designated areas I'd pointed out, ones with a higher probability rate. "1A's killing it with their café so... why try?" Meyers had responded to this by sighing so loud that people across the lane turned.
They left, ignoring Si Yin who'd returned with an official from the organizer's tent. After exchanging a word or two and explaining the situation as quickly as concisely as I could, we were told that a report would be filed and our instructors informed.
"Guess the Polaroid camera's kinda useless now, huh," said Si Yin as soon as the official had left us to speak to the school's security team. "I was honestly so pumped up that I remembered. Oh and isn't that your man's class across our booth? Why didn't I see that yesterday?"
"I think you did," I cleared my throat, gesturing towards some leftover paint cans stowed under the tables we'd marked out as the ordering counter. "I've asked if they'd seen anything but... good god. Whoever did this had the brains to take whatever was left of our sign, too. We haven't got anything to paint on."
"Are you saying their clever or that they're like, crafty. Is that the same thing? You're actually complimenting whoever did this?" She clutched her chest in disbelief. "I'm gonna go round plaza and ask around for extra wood. The least we could do is piece together some scraps and paint over them..."
I congratulated her for thinking on her feet before re-directing my attention to Ariq and Freda, members of the volunteer group who'd done up the décor and basic dressing of the booth across several days.
"We're going to be remaking key elements within the next two hours."
"Yeah we saw your text," Ariq appeared to be in the worst mood I've ever had to see him in, which wasn't a very good thing since he nearly seemed to be permanently upset and disappointed in the world. "Fucking retards. They better be expelled for sabotage or something or I'm quitting school myself."
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[Leroy]
I was on ingredient prep for the morning shift even after being the last to leave the night before, setting up the huge cast iron pans for the paella and then the deep fryers for the leche fritas. It wasn't part of my plan to be up before the sun was but the probability of him assigning himself the morning shift was incredibly high. And since watching him mend his class' booth, which I saw last night was right across ours, seemed like a good idea, I went along without complaining.
Another plus would be the similar break times, which meant that all I had to do was look out for him from where I was and then go over to hang out once he had the will to actually remove his apron and give himself a break. They'd done a pretty good job with the décor. It looked more festive than our own and even Raul admitted it over text.
I figured it had to be his idea, since no one would actually be dedicated enough to have everything written in both Mandarin and then English in small text, just for continuity. Even the scrolls were made of the exact material, which Si Yin probably helped him source for—aand it's gone.
"Hey I was about to send you a text man." I dropped my bag over at our booth, still looking over at his. "What took you so long? We went to collect the shit without you."
This wasn't really within my realm of concern at the moment, considering the fact that he'd literally just had weeks' worth of his hard work turned into nothing. The well-decorated booth was now a skeleton of aluminium frames holding up a white tent, which was what everyone had started out with.
The lanterns, scrolls, firecrackers—even the sign that caught my eye last night—all gone. He had his head lowered, fingers on his forehead, speaking to someone rummaging underneath the counter. My first instinct had been to go over; ask if everything was alright and then offer some help but I could tell from his face just how exhausted he was from explaining and re-explaining the situation. Every additional person he had to entertain was unnecessary stress.
That, and he wasn't going to feel all that good about himself if our first interaction in a while was something like this. Knowing him, appearing incompetent and weak or asking for help was the last thing he wanted to be doing in our kind-of mini-cold-war-thing. He was the type to pile everything on himself and have it all bottled up, either way, so I simply kept an eye on the situation.
If there was one thing I knew about him for sure, it was that he'd never back down.
"You know anything about that?" I got this over to Raul, who looked like he'd arrived only minutes before me and was putting on his apron. He handed me one before following my gaze.
"Oh, what? Wait... seriously? Wow how could I miss that oh what the fuck," his eyes were popping out of their sockets just from registering the missing décor of the stall across. "Ho man, but then don't you need to go over and talk to playmate? He must be crazy sad and angry." I mean, yeah. Couldn't argue with that but still, I wasn't sure if it was my cue to actually go over.
"Hi I've been standing here for like ten seconds and neither of you have eyes, apparently."
Raul turned first. I'd kept the corner of my eye on his stall while giving the ingredients in the ice box a quick quality check. He then nudged me in the side, which was usually what would happen when things required my attention.
"Hello? Leroy?" Birchwood. "I'm assuming you're trying to show off by bringing my attention to your work ethic or whatever mise en place you have going on so far but, hm, guess it isn't really working." She was doing something to her hair a lot. Something's different.
"So obviously, my class is waay ahead of everyone else. We've had everything down to the second and I mean, it's barely half-past-five but we're soo done with the ingredient prep. We're even training our waiters and waitresses down the hallway." So that's why she's dressed like that. "I'll let you know where we're heading for the next learning journey I guess. And I mean, we did talk about hosting a party with the prize money but, mm, a chalet's kind of small. I was thinking more of a villa."
The mussels weren't looking too good. Knowing the school, they practically did quality checks on their suppliers twice a week. The shrimp was okay but honestly not the best I've seen. I buttered a pan and cranked up the heat just to give one of 'em a go. Rough gauge of how fast they would cook.
"Birchwood got a perm," Raul was whispering. I didn't get why. "Dude, she's trying to impress someone. It looks hella expensive. Even my mom goes for the cheap kind."
"—honestly wouldn't be enough, even if our count was a thousand and above. I mean, really, what can you do with five-hundred dollars? That's not going to get you one night at an average villa."
On medium heat, about twenty, no, twenty-one on each side. This cast iron needs a little warming up. I grabbed a torcher from one of the boxes behind me and, facing it away, turned the knob.
"So, about the tag team competition this afternoon, I have the aprons and the tags. Make sure you conserve your energy, don't work yourself too hard 'kay? I need you in your best at two o'clock sharp."
I was torching the pan when I heard this, and it had me pausing, blue flame blasting the cast iron till it was orange. The mussel I threw in had popped and was black beyond recognition.
"Oooh, it's you," Raul was back at it with the whispering. "It's you she's trying to impress. Okay you're frowning."
Killing the flame and turning to Birchwood, I stared. "What."
She sounded surprised. Looked that way too. "What do you mean 'what'? I told you I was having your name down on the sign up sheet, didn't I? You said nothing so I thought you agreed! Silence means consent."
"No it doesn't," I laid out. "I ignored you."
By now she was very clearly offended by my words. Honestly, there weren't many people in the world who could put up with my shit. "What!" Already, she was raising her voice, pitched unusually high all of a sudden so much so that heads were turning from all the way down our lane. Including the stall across ours. "How is that even politically correct? You can't ignore offers made by someone giving you an opportunity, Leroy. What are you trying to say?"
So I was annoyed, no surprises there. Also not including the fact that she had basically the entire plaza of students prepping at their booths turning to stare. Raul was doing his best at bomb defusal.
"Hey hey hey, Birchwood, no one's saying anything, okay? See? Cox isn't saying anything. He's quiet. We're all quiet. And don't you have to prepare for the instructor's taste test? It's soon. Maybe just go back?" The others who'd returned from collecting packaging for the food had not been expecting our guest. All they could do was walk around her and quietly mind their own business.
Birchwood wasn't having any of that.
"Oh my god, now you're all ignoring me. Well I hope your little booth gets ignored by everyone coming to the festival." She was practically shouting. Listening to all this wasn't worth the burnt mussel, no matter how poor its quality. "Seafood paella? Done to death. Leche fritas are so last year and they look ugly too."
I was surprisingly good at keeping my mouth shut. Or generally just blocking out stupidity. It was the one thing the other parent was sane enough to do—wire his son for selective processing of information. There were things the world did not need to entertain and brainless shits were one of them.
I let her storm off.
"Woah, hey... she got your name down on the tag team contest," Raul had to remind me. I shrugged it off and helped him with the seafood sorting. "You just gonna pull out from the list then?"
"Guess so," my eyes were wandering unconsciously and I knew just where they were going. They ended up on exactly where I saw them heading for and by some miracle, our gazes met. Being the awkward little thing he was, averting his gaze and pretending to be adjusting his glasses was his go-to reaction. That, and not realizing that his ears were red.
He probably heard all of that; Birchwood wasn't going easy on her tone of voice.
"You think she has anything to do with the uh, the decorations and everything?" Raul must have thought we were out of earshot, like he'd always seem to think whenever we're back in the lodge, so he hadn't really thought of lowering his voice.
Fortunately for him, the others were there to entertain. "Dude, if the press gets wind of this, Birchwood's gonna hunt down whoever started the rumour." "Yes, talk about it but softly but also not too softly 'cuz we want in on the stuff too." Otherwise, mostly warnings.
This wasn't the kind of conversation I wanted to be a part of, so moving on, I sped up on two boxes of seafood to sort through. Once that was done, I looked over at Raul and told him I'd do his. "Go check on the stall across."
He gave this a double take, eyes wide. "Uh, you mean you want me to talk to playdate for you or..."
"I'm doing you a favour," I gestured to the box of shrimp he was taking forever to sort out. Part of ingredient prep was to ensure every morsel served was of a certain level at base quality. Raul said something under his breath before removing his gloves and then heading over to the booth across, quietly observing the situation from afar before sliding into a conversation between two first-years re-decorating the booth.
He returned after a good ten minutes looking fairly triumphant. I didn't know if I could trust the look on his face; by then, I was already done with the seafood sorting.
"So I was talking to some classmates of his—they're pretty cute by the way, is it a thing? Is his entire class cute?—and they said something about not making uh, new props or anything and no one's found their old ones yet so they just gonna remake the sign and sub out the scrolls for something simple on paper, I guess. Yeah but they're gonna have a plain booth, you know. 'S probably not gonna work out."
I was in the middle of getting out the short grain rice, double-checking the sack to confirm that it was the variety I'd told them to request for. Bomba. Or Arborio, if they couldn't get their hands on that. "Did you see him?"
"Playdate?" Raul was smirking and I didn't need to look at him to know that he was. "Yeah you know, obviously stressing out. Plus, you guys haven't been talking to each other so you can imagine how sad he is right now—"
"Bring one of those over," I nodded at the pair of standing industrial fans the others had brought around while Raul was over on the other side flirting with girls. They were part of my list of requests. "Just put it in front of his booth. He'll know what to do with it."
"Okay but what's he gonna do with a big big fan?" He sounded like he was rolling his eyes. "It's kinda cold at their booth. And by the way this is the last order I'm taking from you. It's not like you did all my prep..." He trailed off after I pushed the pan of sliced chorizos his way. And the marinated ground beef. "I was gone for ten minutes!"
"You can cook a meal in ten minutes," I told him with a finger. He clicked his tongue and gave me the same.
I watched Raul rope in someone else dealing with the food packaging, keeping an eye on the cast iron pan and peeling the shrimp all at the same time. They were lugging it over to the booth across and then having someone call for the person in charge, which was no one other than him so I chanced a glimpse at his reaction.
The fan was throwing him off. I could tell from the look on his face that it was. He was staring up at Raul and the other guy, confused for a good second before looking the thing up and down and taking over with a huge smile of relief. Si Yin came over to help move the thing, and I could almost hear her thanking him for the additional welfare but it really wasn't about keeping those on duty sweat-free.
I saw him directing her towards the grill while they struggled to move the industrial fan over. It was the exact position he should be having it—facing the stir-fry woks and grills, above where the steam would be and out towards the rest of the lane; then he was looking up and glancing over. I looked away before he could catch me red-handed.
*
The organizers had come by with the ticket machines and stickers for passing the quality examination two hours ago and most of us hadn't bothered to attend the opening ceremony down at the field so by the time the school gates were open to the public, we barely felt like this was a festival.
Most visitors were parents and alumni going around with complimentary coupons and the occasional stack of 'em, if they could actually figure out where to buy more. There was music blaring across the plaza to keep the spirits up but it was nine in the morning and no one was in the right fucking mind to be listening to house at this time of the day. Plus, those on the morning shift were up at four-thirty, at least.
The paella had turned a couple of heads, for sure. The smell wasn't something to resist and the fan helped by bringing it farther down the lane. Still, people were holding on to their coupons like they were some scarce resource and fifteen minutes into opening, we'd barely served three people.
"I don geddih." Raul was on his second serving of seafood paella, slotting his coupon into the machine to increase our counter. "Thih ih gooh shih. Why ahnt peepo comih to eah thih?"
A question I didn't know the answer to. It was tough trying to look welcoming up front so I told the others to swap out, keeping an eye on the empanadas while all they had to do was serve paella on order.
The other booths around us were picking up, appearing a lot more occupied with their line of three to four customers. Across, their class wasn't exactly doing so well either. They've had one or two since opening—though I gotta admit, whatever it was they were serving smelled like something out of heaven.
"Tasting samples," I told Raul, knowing it was our only way out of the slump. Doing below average wasn't something I was used to (cocky, but just stating the facts) so none of the requests I'd made were to account for something like this. There was no back up, which meant I hadn't thought of giving out free food and there were no plastic sample cups we could use.
"Yeah like we didn't think of that while you were thinking of it but we got nothing to hand them out on." It was some other guy. Nutritionist. All of us turned to the stack of paper towels. No, it would only make us seem desperate—
"Hi." We looked up, thinking it was a customer. He had on a red Chinese apron, which was what they wore in the booth across. He didn't look very happy. "White said you can have this." He directed this at me, handing a plastic bag over the counter.
Raul took it and peered inside without asking. "Woah, dessert cups! And biodegradable."
This was sexy and staring across the lane at him, I could tell he knew I liked it.
Sample-giving had probably made its way into his multiple probability cases and being him, he wasn't the kind who'd miss out the opportunity to fill every gap. Still, the décor thing, no one would have seen that coming and for someone as orderly and disciplined as himself, it must be a heavy weight to bear.
"Thanks. Tell him that."
"No I don't want to," the first-year was feisty and just overall in a bad mood, turning and heading back to his booth. "You tell him yourself."
We got round to handing out paella and empanada samples at all corners of the plaza and when it was my turn to go around with a tray, I mostly just stood around till people decided to come over. I was really just banking on my reputation.
I hate talking.
"Cox?" "What's that? Can I try some?" "You're handing out free samples? Hold on, I'll text my friends to come over." "You look really good in that." You mean that tastes very good, I wanted to correct but it involved talking so I ended up deciding against it. Either way, they seemed surprised after trying the paella.
"Dude, man, this is sick." "This is actually... super good." "I mean it's you, so, I guess it makes sense..." "Okay that dude was soo wrong about the Spanish booth. I didn't even know it was your class mending it!" "Yeah we would have surrendered our coupons right away." "Totally."
I got that group to pause, narrowing down to the last couple of comments. "What'd he say?"
"Mm, nothing much," the girl was a freshman judging by the single badge pinned to her collar. "That the stuff are sub-par and that the ingredients weren't fresh, and I mean I honestly shouldn't have believed him. He's literally, like, a first-year too, so. But seriously though I thought he was legit 'cuz he said his class had their booth right across the Spanish one."
Her group of friends chipped in, adding something along the lines of that being the reason they believed him too. Whether or not I bought their stories was a different thing altogether and frankly, both the rumour and their reasoning behind it was pretty dumb but I wasn't all that surprised.
What really did it was the fact that this dude, whoever he was, had something to do with Vanilla's class. Heck, he could've been one of his classmates.
I got this over to Raul and the others when I ran out of samples and had to return, but the motives and intentions had me stuck at trying to explain why anyone would spread dumb rumours for no reason.
"They could've been jealous," some girl shrugged, not really caring as long as business was picking up from our handing out of free food. "I mean, their booth isn't exactly the most... uh... I mean, it looks stupid now, doesn't it."
"Yeah but we're not the ones who messed with their décor," Raul wasn't getting any of this and ten minutes into the conversation, he was still trying to come up with conspiracy theories. "Just so you know, I had my money on Birchwood. You saw the look on her face when she walked off. Angry. Liva. Livid. Whatever. Maybe she dressed up as some dude and went off just to frame some other sad soul in case you found out. That girl's great at stirring shit."
"It's too much effort," I snorted, not really wanting to entertain the idea but the moment he said it all, the entire thing was stuck in my head. "She's not even smart enough to come up with something like that."
"Really, Cox?" Raul. "She literally just equated your ignoring her to, uh, consent? Birchwood is great at overthinking. She blows up every little thing and makes it into some pizza, you know what I mean?" I let him be, throwing a couple of dredged leche squares into the deep fryer.
I expected someone else to entertain him since, well, they'd been so eager to talk about Birchwood all morning but everyone on duty had lapsed into this odd silence. I glanced up from the fryer just to see what was going on and there that mother fucking kick-ass legend was. Yamazaki Shin.
"Hi, hi, good morning everyone. I tried your sample paella and it was so good, so. I came for more. Plus, they gave me some extra coupons to spend so can I make that, um, two? For me and my wife." He had his hands behind his back, composed and quiet, but not the least bit intimidating. Beside him was the person he pointed out. A woman with an infant in her arms. A girl.
"You're Chef Yamazaki!" Raul stuck out a hand and reeled him in. He could hug the president and forget about flinching. "Dude, dude you're awesome. I love your YouTube channel. The ah, the aesthetic. And all. Oh I read your cookbooks too. Sign my shirt?"
Everyone was too distracted to actually prepare his order so I took over while they got their arms signed. People down the lane were stopping to stare. Also the people in the booth across.
"Oh! Oh, uh, yeah okay haha... I'll—I'll sign your shirt, sure." The legend searched his pockets, presumably for a pen. "Uh, honey? Anh, honey. Do you have a pen?"
"Yes but Shin, it's the strawberry one," his wife whispered not-so-softly and everyone was practically lining themselves up in front of our booth to get his autograph. "Lemon's going to wake up once I pull it out. She can smell that thing a mile away." That's a nickname. Right?
People began to offer them permanent markers and sharpies from several booths down and before we knew it, there was some unofficial signing event going on and Yamazaki's paella was getting cold. I gave it away to the customer after him and made him another two.
"You're the one who made this?" He directed this my way after clearing the line of fanatics but it took me some pausing to register that I was having a conversation with some culinary legend.
"Yes."
"Wow, it's really good for someone your age," he glanced at the badges on my collar. "My wife asked for a second sample on the spot and she's never liked paella. I couldn't even get her to try it."
"Thanks."
"What's in your herb blend? Chopped parsley, olive oil, lemon juice and... something else."
"Garlic."
"Garlic?" He looked surprised. "Not the soft heads, then."
"Yeah. Hard heads. The purple kind."
"Wow, I... I couldn't tell. I never knew there was so much of a difference, used in a herb blend." I could tell he was trying to be friendly and nice and, don't get me wrong, he really was, but I wasn't very good at dealing with... famous people. He even got his wife to come over to introduce herself.
"Hii, uh, sorry, I can't really—oh, okay yeah you hold Lele—hi," she extended a hand. "I'm Nguyen Thi Anh. Your paella is super. Shin couldn't even cook like that when he was your age though he was very good at proof-reading my fanfics."
Yamazaki was holding his daughter and laughing nervously at the same time, which I assumed was his original state of mind. "Uh, I uh, still am, though. Right? I'm still good at proof-reading your writing."
They exchanged a look. I handed them the boxes of paella.
"Actually, you look very familiar," Legend went on to say while his wife opened the box and started digging in without him. "I've seen you somewhere."
"Cross-year recordings?" I said to throw him off, knowing where this was going. It wasn't the first time with celebrity chefs too, since I was basically a copy of the other parent when he was younger.
"Hmm, maybe. Way before that, too? Do you maybe have a picture of you when—"
"Oh my god, honey. Shin. Honey, look." His wife had turned around and was pointing at the booth across us. "Isn't that... you know, at Mr. Honeycutt's wedding? The, the boy with that super pale hair and cute blue eyes and those glasses? He sent us a picture of them not long ago. At the airport, remember?"
One line and I knew exactly who it was they were talking about. They'd moved up front so that Raul could serve the others behind them but I was, for once, intrigued by people who weren't him.
"Where? You mean the... oh. Oh, yes. Yes that does... yes it is him. Alfred Dempsey's nephew, the uh... gosh, I forgot his name but Chip's told me dozens of times—"
"You know Vanilla?" I cut in. The couple did a double take.
"Oh yes, that's him!" Yamazaki's wife was taking her excitement up a notch. "Doesn't he look adorable? And he stuck with the glasses! Gosh, the last time we saw him in person, he came up to my knee or something. Are you two friends?" There was a glint in her eye that reminded me of Si Yin but at the same time revealed the exact number of levels she was above her.
I looked away for a second and at Yamazaki behind her, noting some dangerous spark in her eye to which her husband dished out clear warning signs of imminent chaos in a single glance. I turned back to his wife.
"He's my—"
"Boyfriend sounds childish." "F-future husband? Leroy, what were you thinking?" "Yes, we're dating, yes but um, 'lovers' is such a... such a terrible term it triggers the immediate malfunctioning of the heart."
"—ne." Yeah that works too.
The spark in her eyes turned into flames and I could literally see her, in her eyes, sipping tea in a house on fire. "Confidence king!" Then as though unable to resist a conversation with her husband, said to him over her shoulder. "I can't tell who'd win. Him or Mr. Jaxon. Oh wait, we haven't got your name my dear." She returned to me and continued wolfing down the rest of her paella.
"Leroy."
With Yamazaki around, I was pretty sure my last name was going to be a dead giveaway. They were among the top few alumni who'd made it big on a global scale and he'd at some point given classes while Yamazaki was still around as a student, so.
Neither of them pressed any further during the handshakes, which I appreciated.
"You're very talented, Leroy. My guess is that we'll be seeing you at the W-interschool," Yamazaki flashed a smile and most students around me would have equated this to being blessed by a god. "Sorry for holding up the line and um, causing a commotion in front of your stall. Now if you'd excuse us... Anh just looks like she's dying to pop by that Chinese booth right across."
"Thanks for coming by." I nodded, watching them wave and cross the lane. Their daughter's sleeping face poked out over Yamazaki's shoulder. She was drooling.
Business picked up after his visit and by that, I meant a line that snaked round the booth and cut into the space of the stall beside ours. Naturally, people weren't very happy about that, so we had to improvise and start handing out ticket numbers and call them out when their order was ready.
A couple of hours passed like that and with people constantly in front of the stall, I wasn't exactly given the chance to be stealing glances at someone in an apron across the lane. Needless to say, I'd wanted to see the look on his face if Thi Anh had somehow casually pointed me out to him.
At least they seemed to be acquainted beforehand, and it wasn't like they were riding on his sudden spike in fame or that his uncle was a renowned culinary critic.
"Cox," Rosi arrived at the stall, tapping her wrist. "Break time. I'll take over whatever you're doing."
I nodded, handing over my apron and briefly telling her what to do for the rest of her shift. Mostly just order taking and frying up the leche fritas, which for her standard was pretty easy. She'd put aside an airtight bag whilst gathering her hair into a bun and I saw that they were a bunch of coupons.
"Can I have some of these?"
She followed my gaze. "Oh. I mean, Chef Palmer said it's for class use and everyone's entitled to one each, so." I slipped one into my pocket before glancing over at the stall across. As expected, everything about him looked like he needed a break. Yet, there he was taking orders from a surprisingly long line, calling out, serving food, and probably forgetting the definition of 'shifts'.
"Uh, you can go now," Rosi was waiting for me to give up my spot. I got out one of the disposable boxes and piled on a serving of paella. "Oh I get it, you're waiting for someone and you want to spend your break with them but they're busy and you're stalling 'cuz you, don't want to waste your time off." She stabbed my back with a finger at every 'you' and I flipped her off only because she'd nailed it.
Fuck.
"Just go." She nudged me out of the booth. "No one's timing you. I'll, like, close an eye or something. I'm counting this as a favour so we're even now, since you saved my ass from Marseille on Monday."
I went with this, heading for the stall across and joining the end of the line just so he would have to regard me as a customer and forget about making excuses not to entertain my requests. A glimpse of the menu was enough to confirm the lengths he'd went to. Every item on it was a brave culmination of research, and to ensure complementary flavour profiles and ease of eating on the streets, he'd narrowed it down to three items among the hundreds that were part of Chinese culture.
I missed the chance to snap a shot of his face the moment I got up front to the ordering counter, only because I was too busy musing over the look in his eyes. He had been calling out the order of the person before me over his shoulder and quite obviously didn't see this coming. The moment he returned to serving me, his next customer, was the moment we locked eyes.
"Oh!" His blues went wide and I could see in them, a ripple on the surface. "U-um. This is... an interesting change of, well, events." He was referring to the swapped roles, since I'd always been the one taking his order at the parlour and he had a point—this was more amusing than I thought it would be. "How can I, um," wow, he's adjusting his glasses again. Nervous. "What do you—"
"Hi! I'll take your order." Some girl in the same Chinese-style apron he had on cut in with an empty notepad and directed this at me. I didn't respond and she took this as her cue to address the person she'd just casually brushed aside. "White, right? Uh you can go take a break now since it's technically my shift."
He paused for a good second—stunned, alternating his gaze between me and the girl. I was distracted by whatever he was wearing.
"Oh... but, um, Davis, I thought you'd just extended your break till..."
"Nah it's fine! I can take it from here," she flashed him a smile, nudging him in the direction of the flat grill. I saw him glance over his shoulder at Si Yin and some other girl over at the woks and grills.
"So what can I get you?" She was back to asking for my order, which I didn't really appreciate. After all, I'd joined the line just to tease him.
I held out the paella in one hand and beckoned with my other. "Him. To go."
Characteristically oblivious despite my blatant flirting, his first thought was to assume that I'd been referring to something written on the menu behind him (yeah, like I'd beckon to a food item) and had continued to remove his apron but then his classmate blinked, and, following my finger, caught his attention.
He must have seen the smirk on my face because the next thing I knew, his ears were bright red. He'd flinched, too, before averting his gaze. As though he'd wandered a little too close to a burning flame.
"Um. I hope you're waiting for me to point out that grammatical mistake because I think you used the wrong object pronoun it's 'that' as in, a food item, instead of 'him' and I don't quite know what else to say."
This was full-on entertainment but there was a line at my back and I didn't want to be holding up the stall he'd worked so hard to run smoothly. I caught his eye.
"I meant you, dumbass." He looked startled by my words, folding his apron into a neat square before placing it aside. There was reluctance in his movement and I saw that he seemed concerned about the running of the stall, glancing over at Si Yin and the other girl at the grill. "I'll meet you at the fountain."
*
"It's Cong You Bing," he said, holding out a palm-sized craft paper bag and adjusting his glasses at the same time. "Deep fried scallion pancakes. They're more like flatbreads layered with spiced scallion and then deep fried. Si Yin says it's her favourite breakfast item."
I mused quietly, appreciating the fact that we'd shared the thought of offering the other a taste of our food. I exchanged his for the paella I'd packed and he seemed fairly surprised.
"Oh. And... this is for me?"
I nodded, taking a bite out of the scallion pancake. The kick was crazy. "This is good."
"Thank you." Even on casual occasions like these, he had his tie in perfect condition. "Can you taste what's—"
"Pepper. Ground. Sichuan."
"Hm! Okay, you win." He cleared his throat adorably and continued to avoid peering directly into my eyes, popping open the box of paella and going in for a forkful. I waited for his verdict.
"Smoked paprika. That's very clever, using it to substitute the smoky flavour one would get from cooking on a wood fire since, well, those aren't allowed. The shrimp is also perfectly cooked. And hard head garlic instead of the usual white ones in your herb blend. Oh we never stood a chance..." It was cute how he'd thought of our stalls—right across one another—as rivals and I had to resist the urge to dish out some mini-challenge for 'loser does as winner says.'
We took a right down the first lane of the plaza and I let him lead, just to get an idea of what piqued his interest. Turns out, he was merely following a list on his phone whilst finishing his paella.
"It's the background curation I'd come up for the listicle I mentioned. Granted, there's no fixed framework for this but I had to ensure I could start somewhere. The article has to feature at least ten classes, with pictures and a verdict. Plus, I don't actually have a photographer with me this time round so I've got to do this entirely by myself."
I scanned the checklist he had and noted a few I'd heard about. Birchwood's café was one of them. Still, having to busy himself with article-writing during his break time wasn't exactly ideal for his mental state. He'd dealt with a thousand over problems in a single morning.
"What happened to the decorations?"
He looked up, biting his lip and then looking away. "I don't know... we never figured out. But I've reported this to the authorities and they said they'd check the security cameras. I mean, at least we're not stuck on an average of a single sale made every fifteen minutes. Chef Yamazaki came by, and he really helped out. A-and the fan Raul provided us with. It was ingenious. Most customers stopped by and it had nothing to do with the décor."
Mm. "Depends how you use it."
Glasses rolled his eyes and came to a stop at the end of the first lane. "I knew it was you, Leroy," he huffed, then peered up, sideways. "You're unbelievable. My head was light, my... my cheeks were hot, my ears were most probably as red as my apron and my heart was all over the place. It also doesn't help that most of my head's been, well, filled with... um, information and knowledge about biological health and we haven't exactly talked since... then."
Needless to say, I was caught off guard. "You searched it up?" I said, careful. Watching him closely. "I thought you were scared."
"But I've been telling you I wasn't!"
"Yeah but," I gave our surroundings a second's survey before playing with his ear. "I thought you were lying to make me feel better."
"That will never happen," he laid out without an inch of hesitation and I didn't exactly bother hiding my amusement. "I always tell the truth and you know that! A-a-and why would I spare your feelings? It's not like I love you or anything." He stared down the second lane and I followed, giving him the finger that was accompanied by a short laugh.
"Fuck you."
"Language," he seemed almost used to it by now, keeping his eyes on the booth signs and looking out for one that was on his list. "I'm going to have to be interviewing store managers while I'm on break because Keith needs this article out by the end of the day."
"You're spending break time doing up your article instead of me," I laid out, just to be sure.
"I think you missed a preposition right there, it's 'with' you or else the prior verb 'do' would have to be associated with the latter subject and that wouldn't have made any sense, grammatically. And yes, the article takes precedence."
"Fine," I gave up, going for his forehead. "There's that drink stall three down on your right. Blue pea lemonade."
"Oh! The galaxy sunset," he noted, giving his list a check before getting in line. "Hm. It's nice having another pair of eyes on a hunt like this. There's simply too many people around."
We talked about stuff like this morning's incident and how he'd managed to work things through but when it came down to details about his classmates—and that supposed rat spreading rumours about the Spanish stall—he closed up a little and wouldn't let me in. I thought of pressing him for more but he looked tired and stressed enough as it was. So I didn't.
When we got to the front of the queue, I stepped aside for him to do whatever he needed to for his article and watched him order the only two drinks on the menu soon after. Galaxy Sunset and Milky Way Aurora.
He was collecting his order—one drink in a hand—and heading towards me when I had the idea of preserving this scene. So I got out my phone and snapped one just as he was holding out one of the drinks to me for, uh, safekeeping.
Unfortunately, the sound of my phone camera went off and he nearly bubbled with bewilderment. "W-wha—was what a... Leroy, I held this out to you so that you'd free my hand! I need two shots of these beverages for the article!"
I continued snapping away because he was frantically searching around the lane for a spot to place the drinks until he realized there was none and finally calmed down enough to reward me a glare.
"When you're done with that, perhaps you could take this drink and free one of my hands so that I, too, can take a photo for my article."
I clicked my tongue, turning the screen of my phone towards him so that he could see the perfect candid snap of himself panicking with drinks in his hands. "Just use this one."
"That is absolutely not happening I look horrendous in that photograph can you please delete that," he'd delivered this monotonously enough for me to get the message.
"Okay I'll take another one," I rolled me eyes and took the drink as he requested me to do. "Hold yours out. Like this." I had mine in the left of the frame and nodded at him to fill the right with the other drink in his hand before snapping a photo with shallow depth.
I showed this to him for quality checking. He frowned.
"I admit, it is a decent shot... but borderline cheesy. I'd pass it off as something out of a couple's Instagram post about some carnival date and the street food they'd enjoyed. Look, even our hands are in the picture. It's far too casual"
I shrugged. "Exactly. That could be your angle. Street food for a date."
He was a mess.
"I-I can't—I can't have all the pictures in my article feature your hand and mine in the same frame holding out the same food in the same pose for a... an article with an angle like that, it would be extremely scandalous!"
"We're on a date," I told him with a smirk. "Being scandalous is allowed."
Still a mess.
He tried out the drinks and wrote down his verdict and comments before we moved on down the lane and came upon the main area of the festival that was in the middle of the plaza, between the four lanes of street food booths. I hadn't seen the entire set up since we'd been busy with our own stalls but there was apparently a stage for key events. Like the tag team thing.
Which was about to commence in... three minutes.
To the side was Birchwood and some other dude she got to replace me. There were other contestants too but I could barely recognize them. Tenner and Chen, number one and two, had not bothered entering the competition.
Either way, I was surprised by the attention the event was receiving. The main area beside the fountain was packed. And by that I mean people all the way from the front of the stage to the steps of the fountain, seated on the ledge with umbrellas to shield themselves from the water splash.
Birchwood had a fanbase; and though, not to brag, it was common to have one as the school's top-celebrated culinary students often do, I was pretty sure Tenner had started of with something of a smaller scale, even back when she was a third year. Birchwood was only a freshman.
Already, she had signs and coloured boards and light bands and even a fucking cheer team. There had been stuff going around about her giving benefits to her fans but even so, wow. This was taking things far.
"Hm. I think I see some of my classmates up in the front. With the banners and all." I turned to my companion, sipping on the last of his blue pea lemonade and staring past the crowd.
It was a far-fetched idea.
That Vanilla's classmates may have overheard Birchwood's outburst in front of our stall and, to get back at me for all that, decided to spread shit about us. Even for soap operas, it would have sounded stupid at the very least. Fans were... fans. They weren't psychos.
Still, the thought of there being slightly deranged people in his class possibly familiar with the act of sabotage was a little worrying. I turned to say something about this but all of a sudden, the entire crowd had their eyes on us, over their shoulders.