A/N: Hello Beans! I'm sorry I hadn't had this chapter ready by last Sunday and after reading this, you'll probably understand why. It's not exceptionally long, but it is rather heavy 😊 You know me. But I'll definitely be coming back with a chapter on the coming Sunday because I have both Saturday and Sunday off from my work at the bakery ^^
I have to say though. This is the only job out of, like, the five others I've been on as a pre-school teacher, a staff member at a bookstore, three times as a media intern. I absolutely love working at this bakery despite it being the most tiring of all the other jobs I've had.
Enjoy this chapter.
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[Vanilla]
It was not until Leroy's mother had fallen asleep after her meal and medication that we left the room a minute before the end of visiting hours and boarded the train back home. My repeated attempts to lend a listening ear to the details of her medical condition and plans for post-coma treatment suggested by the emergency medical specialist fell flat by the end of our two hours spent in the hospital.
With every added buzz of the phone in my pocket, heavy grey clouds began to gather for thunderstorm thoughts. The urge to relieve anxiety and read everything on the spot while Leroy was speaking to his mother lasted for the rest of the evening even after I'd switched off my mobile device entirely. On our way to the station, my companion seemed to have noticed the slight (or drastic) change in my disposition and had asked, for his sake or mine, I couldn't tell, if he could stay the night.
"Of course," I'd said simply; watching the clouds gather. He seemed shortly surprised by my lack of resistance to the idea and had the audacity to remind me that he hadn't brought along extra clothes of his to which I'd resolved by mentioning that he could, once again, borrow one of my stretched shirts. The next two days were the only luxury of a break for those participating in all of W-interschool, meant for final preparations before the bonus round and then, subsequently, the round that determined the ultimate rank of the top fifteen participants.
Neither of us spoke any more than that and while I could most certainly tell Leroy had much to be processing—his mother's recovery and the cost of therapy or even the feasibility of it all, how long it would take—I had selfishly chosen to indulge in personal issues gnawing at my chest, shortening every breath in a night that was cold. By the time we'd settled into an empty carriage on the train and Leroy had fallen asleep resting his head against my shoulder, I was resisting the urge no more and going through every notification, every email, every word in the comment sections of every blog post.
The system had a safety function of automatically filtering out hate words and sending them directly into the approval box, which had, in the span of two to three hours, amounted to a grand total of three hundred and seventy-two. That did not include the ones that were equally hurtful but without the presence of indecent language.
Reading feedback was one thing. I've read countless essay feedback and advice from writing professionals or school counsellors that had me under their radar for being the youngest of students back in the private high school I'd attended but this was a whole other world of social convention that had me immensely bewildered and quite frankly—afraid.
Indeed, my writing was made public for all to see but with my, well, relatively low profile, I hadn't quite thought of traffic going beyond two per hour. At present, the number was hovering at seventy-five.
Some of them had bothered to leave irrelevant remarks on every blog post about my apparently lackluster appearance, which were the easiest to ignore. The bulk of it had turned out to be a massive disapproval of me having 'displaced' Violet for the entirety of the third round and landed myself the idealized position of 'head chef' when I clearly did not 'deserve it'.
Well, anonymous human being, I find no fault in your opinion! In fact, I'd found this so terribly amusing after scrolling through a bunch of vulgar indecencies narrowing in on my lack of experience and 'scheming ass', that I was snorting the entire way down the filtered comments. Then came the longer ones speculating my supposed involvement in blackmailing Violet for a spot in the third round, essentially stealing her place, and then somehow threatening the student from L'assiette to appoint myself as head chef and then have 'karma shoved up' my behind by messing up and needing Leroy to save myself from embarrassment.
They were grand, really. Such comments were. To think they thought so highly of my social capabilities and came up with such elaborate strategies I myself couldn't even have possibly founded.
And there were those who laughed. Others that had things to say regarding my writing and my personal enjoyment of tasting and writing about the culinary world; well, to put things simply, they weren't being very encouraging.
Thinking back, Uncle Al did say he hadn't the easiest time starting out as one. For some reason, everyone liked chefs. But no one seemed to bear the same kind of revere; hold the same kind of respect; give the same sort of attention to critics.
I had to search up some of the derogatory terms they'd used. 'Clout' was one of them. What odd vocabulary people these days resort to using and how strangely emotional they can get behind their screens, with anonymity as shields and their keyboards as weapons into the heart of someone they barely understood.
But it was reading about what strangers thought about my personality that, oddly, had the greatest effect. They were a bunch of roundabout sentences claiming they knew the reason I was writing at all and even going as far as to conclude that I'd joined the interschool (as though it was a choice) to 'stay relevant'.
Essentially, I was not needed. Fundamentally, I was, to these people... boring.
Needless to say, I knew perfectly well the futility of such words. That these were digital receipts I shouldn't be spending the time and energy brooding over or caring about since, strictly speaking, none of them were logical, reasonable criticisms that had the intellectual power to break the protective layer of ice.
But to be misunderstood in such a manner had no doubt, chiseled cracks in the surface. I was, quite frankly, a fair bit more exhausted than I would have usually been on a day like this.
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Leroy had fallen asleep on the armchair waiting for me while I was in the shower and if that wasn't enough to show what exactly it was we needed in that instant, I wasn't sure what else would have. I'd forgone all thoughts of confiding in him about the miniscule issue I had the moment I emerged from the bathroom and saw that the lights were low; him, unmistakably knocked out on the chair, seated upright without a stir.
Admittedly, I wasn't all-too-eager to be sharing what seemed, against the comparative extent of worldly problems, to be petty concerns regarding anonymous human beings who clearly had no logic whatsoever in their actions. The idea was to fill him in on the truth since, well, should I decide not to tell him, that would be obscuring it and leaving a partner out of a whole in which I was experiencing did not seem like the best thing to do. Regardless, even a fool without an ounce of emotional intelligence would have the conscience to comprehend the extent of Leroy's exhaustion and hence refrained from adding to that burden in which he had been shouldering all morning.
I had, of course, intended to share my experience the next day since we had the entirety of it to spend alone, together (preferably in a museum) but as soon as we'd made plans for a quaint, peaceful walk along the Hudson river, I received a call from Chef Marseille who then requested to see me in school at once.
"Ah, I... yes, I understand. Should I be concerned? I am aware about the extent of my poor performance in the third round and I am deeply sorry if I disappointed you in any manner but... I'm certain I put my best foot forward and eventually got eliminated. Still, it's a two-day break we're allowed to enjoy, no?"
Chef Marseille had kindly reassured that this had nothing to do with the results of the third round and apologized for requesting my presence in school despite it technically being a holiday.
"I'll get dressed if you're going," said Leroy, sliding a mug of café au lait my way before taking a sip of his own and then adding an unworldly amount of sugar in it. I'd pointed that out and flagged the possibility of diabetes when he had the audacity to wink behind his mug and respond with a criminal "I like sweet things."
Brushing that aside after privately calming my malfunctioned brain, I assured him that we were going to take a proper day off. He then told me about Chen texting him minutes ago about an emergency strategy meeting in the student union room, which he'd apparently responded to by sending what appeared to be, at first glance, a picture of two coffee mugs, but upon closer inspection, included me in the background speaking to Chef Marseille on the phone. Chen's reply had been a dashing emoji of an indecent finger.
Eventually, however, since both Leroy and I had reason to be heading back to school, we did. And I ended up missing the opportunity to have a meaningful, detailed conversation about yesterday's events. He seemed to notice something off about my disposition while we were headed to the station, which I was thankful for, and offered to spend some time together after his closing shift in the evening. That, I had agreed to.
After parting ways on campus—him, making his way to the student union lounge and myself, to the staff room to see Chef Marseille at the arranged timing—I was oddly overcome by the urge to see him again seconds into the opposite direction and had, involuntarily, glanced over my shoulder in hopes of catching a glimpse of his back.
He was standing at the very end of the hallway, nearing the turn that would have otherwise removed him from my line of sight; he had been standing there, watching, waiting for me to turn. He flickered like a candle when I did. Though there was no telling the exact expression on his face, the passing moment felt very much intimate despite the complete lack of physical proximity.
Leroy raised a hand. I stopped, providing a small wave in response.
How odd. Had I brushed aside the urge to turn, I would have missed this entirely; had he not been staring at my back he would not have seen me turn and how odd—how odd it was to realize that he, too, watched people go.
I arrived outside the staff room in the strangest of thoughtful dispositions, as though my mind was housed in a basement without any indication of the weather outside and left wondering if the sounds coming from above were the result of a man-made commotion or thundering of an imminent storm.
"Come in," Chef Marseille was at the door as soon as I'd notified her by text, leading me past the reception, down rows of office cubicles to a private conference room filled with familiar faces.
"Mr. White," Chef Lindy acknowledged as soon as I entered the room and closed the door behind me. To her right was Violet and Si Yin. Seated across them with a deceptively positive smile on her face was Layla Tenner. "Have a seat. This will be long."
My first thoughts came straight from the bottom of a lake and needless to say, it showed on my face. Si Yin was struggling to catch my attention, brows furrowed and lips thin from attempting to keep her words sealed behind bars. Her constant fidgeting gave away the clear signs of discomfort she was experiencing.
"We have reason to believe that the interschool you are currently a part of has been a... is under suspicion. Of foul play."
I paused. "Pardon? You mean... you mean to say the W-interschool? But who, exactly? You can't be referring to..." My thoughts strayed into the awry path of vile comments. "I would never do something like that. I assure you; I did not mean to participate in the third round at all! Had Vi—"
"That is not what we are referring to." Chef Marseille could wait no further. She slid a folder across the table and, nodding as I received it, filled the seat across me. "What we are about to share, you must keep to yourself until the release of the article. Do you understand? And the information that we require you to withhold, these, too, you must not divulge. You are smart enough to understand the importance of information in court, I believe. We are dealing with a potential lawsuit."
Scanning through the contents of the folder, I first came across what appeared to be a transcript of a private interview with Tenner and then a voice recording of something about her meeting with the headmaster before she decided to leave school. Then it was a seeming testimony from Violet against... against her very own father. And then emails and emails and documents regarding the interschool and something about a convention in Paris during the previous summer.
All this, I took in whilst listening to the allegations, summarized by Chef Marseille and backed by Violet herself, who seemed both eager, anxious, and angered enough to speak all at once. Tenner did not provide a personal account. She had listened closely and nodded at certain points with a smile that was most certainly a mask. Si Yin was apparently not directly involved but had helped in the tracking down of Tenner and persuading her to testify.
"This is very private information," I began after a long, tepid silence. "I don't... I don't see why you're telling me all this."
"We were thinking of taking a journalistic approach on this. And as it stands, you are the only writer of the school's press who has actively participated in the W-interschool," Chef Marseille explained. "It is clear that you are level-headed and critical enough to have perhaps, along the way, identified certain aspects of the competition that may have seemed oddly subjective. Otherwise, you would be better able to put into words the experiences that Miss Birchwood and Miss Tenner have been through."
"Wait, but I'm... as in, it'll be anonymous, right?" The headmaster's daughter appeared to have her doubts regarding the matter, and it was clear as day how recent this all had been conceptualized. "I can't have my dad and brothers finding out that I... I mean, like, they'll disown me or something."
"Your name will not be mentioned," I assured her on instinct, before realizing that I hadn't quite agreed to this matter and then, stumbling over my words for the next couple of seconds, tried to envision a piece. "You should hand this information over to the media. I'm sure they'll do a better job. Additionally, the final bonus round is less than two days away. What of those who have worked hard to... well, to clinch that victory? Writing the article and publishing it by tomorrow would necessarily deem all results null and and and... should we really be denouncing the hard work of all the other students? Further, is the timing of it all not suspicious enough to warrant some sort of prejudice against the writer? After all, I was most certainly just eliminated yesterday."
"The idea is that by getting this out sooner and through a medium of a smaller scale, the headmaster and Miss Birchwood's reputation will not suffer an impact as heavy as should it be sent directly to mass media. That was Miss Birchwood's concern. Should we be able to settle this privately outside of court by returning Miss Tenner to school and give justice to the prior mistreatment she had experienced as an innocent party in the whole situation, it would be ideal. Or so Miss Tenner herself has expressed.
"And if you agree to this," Chef Marseille emphasized. "I will be appointing you as a store assistant without dating records. Which means you will be regarded as having had insider information all along and had a part to play in the interschool regardless of elimination. That should reduce suspicion of someone tipping you off."
The room returned to silence.
Needless to say, I had my reservations. Was Violet really alright with her father coming under fire and being scrutinized by his students and the public alike, potentially (or most certainly) losing his status as a culinary expert and headmaster of a prestigious school? What of her own reputation as an online celebrity and her thousands of supporters? The consequences were endless.
"But uh, you know," Si Yin was talking for the first time since I'd entered the room and knowing her, she must have drained a huge chunk of her energy by simply sitting still and not expressing her immediate and direct thoughts. "This might not really be a good idea too because yeah now that I think of it, uh, don't people who write stuff like this, like, journalists in general, don't they also end up being... you know, being under fire for calling people out or 'exposing' others too? Like, some people really like Violet and uh... look I know I said this was a good idea but last night, some shitty idiots were comenting some shit about—"
"Y-yes well the um," I interjected without proper thinking, which was not a good idea considering the fact that most of everything I said aloud were simulated. Only to a certain idiot, this does not apply. "The bottom line is that uh, yes, there is a risk to all of this which all writers do have to take when they um when they undertake this sort of... task. Covering a beat of um, such nature. The primary concern would be for Violet. Miss Birchwood. If she is alright with all this and if she has, wholly, agreed to the writing."
Si Yin was glaring at me for interrupting her and I, too, shot her non-verbal warnings. Violet on the other hand, sighed three times. It was mildly amusing.
"I mean... we'll be reading your first draft, so..."
"Keith Tang, the chief editor, reads my first draft and then you, and then minor corrections are made, and we should be good to go," I explained. "I rarely do third drafts. Signs of inefficiency, really."
Tenner had straight out laughed and slapped me on the back before presenting me with a thumbs-up. Chef Marseille appeared mildly surprised but with a smile. "Yes, we have discussed this with the chief editor as well. About potentially releasing a controversial article. But unlike him, you will be given all the details and evidence you need to write a good piece. He will merely be reading it. The fact-checking will be done on our side."
I paused, staring down at the documents spilling out of the folder. They were sufficient. Perhaps a little time to run them through the original sources themselves and specific questions... and some close reading. But then there would also be the underlying risk of what if it all turns out to be false? It was on me to assess and ensure that it remained as low as possible.
After all, writers had to be taking full responsibility of their every word and being relegated to an inferior group of nosy, gossip journalist desperately hungry for scoops was simply not my cup of tea.
"I'll have the first draft ready before sundown."
*
Si Yin had been the one to push right past the door for a shoulder-to-shoulder conversation about something I had brushed aside for the sake of clearing my mind; a necessary step of good journalistic writing. Objectivity was key and clouded thoughts were never an advantage in conveying truth in words. We were walking down the hallway of the staff room, out of earshot, when she burst into a series of flustered questions. It was unfortunate how contagious some emotions can be. Things like anxiety and irritation often leeched upon creatures in their cages and I was no different.
"If you need anyone to track those people down by their IP addresses, I've got a guy. Also, I got another guy who can probably program something to ban or glitch out comments like these on your blog in the future. Oh and if you need any legal back up or stuff like that, my mom knows tons of people. You really don't have to do this, you know that, right? Are you sure?" She fired away without stopping to breathe and by the time she'd tailed me all the way to the entrance of the school library, she had both hands in her hair, scratching at her scalp. "You're so calm you're scaring me."
I stopped before the glass doors, student card hovering over the electronic gate for checking in while she fumbled for her own. She hadn't brought it along. "You don't have to worry about me."
She seemed to pause, stunned, and most likely confused. I went on to explain that I would prefer some time alone in the library to focus entirely on the article, which she then took as her cue to leave after a moment of hesitation. I'd gone right past the doors and headed for the quietest seat in the quietest corner of the quietest floor and there, cranked up my thinking capacity to its maximum for the churning out of draft one.
It was one document, multiple corrections by Keith and a single instance of reviewing that all amounted to two-and-a-half-hours later that the entire process came to an end. And as promised, all before sundown. I'd contacted Keith for a final quality check and the exact time of publishing and he'd gotten back to me with an instant response, suggesting it be put up on the site and publicized on social media the next morning to catch commuting demographics and have the impact last throughout the day instead of having it fade into the night. This, he had consulted with Chef Marseille and Chef Lindy, who both thought it had decent reasoning and agreed upon it.
I was left on the third floor of the library, gazing out of the window at the setting sun and realizing how much of the day had gone by without so much as a sliver of personal, intimate emotion from myself.
Alas, they returned; like they always did after a day's worth of leaving them aside, untouched and unstirred. It was the bottom of the lake that I had the heaviest rocks placed without a disturbance but it was the shaking, or the crashing of a wave that would sometimes have them rise to the surface in bits that clouded the waters that were otherwise clear. Perhaps one could never truly avoid having to face the deepest and the darkest. Distractions in the form of truth and its pursuit for objectivity was ironically ignoring the truth that was sediment at the bottom of a lake. Eventually, they had to be cleared.
Realizing how cold I must have been moments earlier, I reached for my phone to send a text.
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To: Si Yin
About earlier, I'm sorry.
I know I can be cold.
================
Exhausted and altogether drained from the influx of weighted decisions all day, I'd retired from the library whilst composing a text to Leroy for his location when, as though right on cue, I received one from him with a photo attached. It was a beautifully plated dish comprising of elements that seemed all-too-dainty and elegant for his culinary style. The background was what appeared to be kitchen nine of Roth Hall and at the very corner of the picture, most certainly not looking his best, was Chen in a tracksuit.
It was upon arriving at the kitchen to pick him up in anticipation of some time together and a hearty dinner that I encountered an experimental mess that Chen and Leroy were in the middle of cleaning up.
"I had no part to play in this," professed Chen, hands raised in defeat while his companion threw a rag in his face which he had, moments before, been using to wipe spills on the countertop. "He was the one who suggested we swap signature dishes for a challenge even though I already told him they did that last year for the third bonus round."
"Time's ticking," Leroy had the audacity to remind the school's current number one, who appeared to be adding the finishing the touches to his dish. Ah, so the picture of that braised chicken dish had indeed belonged to Chen. Over at the idiot's station was a stunning purple sweet potato Mont Blanc in the richest shade of lavender that was most certainly a favourite of Chen's.
"I'll wait outside—"
"We're moving on to tasting in a minute though," Chen elaborated whilst adding artful droplets of sauce on the Scandinavian-style ceramic plate he'd chosen to present his dish on. I paused at the door. "Feeling hungry?"
"Ah," was all I managed in that moment. "Well... I'd assumed this was a... sort of, private discussion about the um, interschool matters and," apart from the fact that I wasn't in the best state of mind to be thinking about anything related to the competition, "seeing that I am no longer exactly involved in the issue, I should really leave you two to yourselves. Oh and don't forget to clean up."
Chen was somehow able to prevent me from increasing the distance between their stations and myself with a single question.
"Have you ever tasted a dessert he made?"
Needless to say, hesitation came in the form of troubled thoughts that had, at once, sided with Chen. True enough, I had not.
Making an embarrassing U-turn, I drew closer to their stations before ultimately deciding to banish myself to the wide window sill of one of the floor-to-ceiling gothic style windows lining the room, seated patiently in waiting.
It was apparent to both Chen and I that Leroy had had his Mont Blanc ready minutes before I'd even entered the room, which therefore explained his calm demeanor and his moving on to station cleaning. The digital kitchen timer went off just as Chen wiped the last unwanted speck off his plate and the pair of rivals looked up at each other before presenting their dishes on a tea trolley placed between their stations.
"You're fast for someone who doesn't make desserts very often," the school's number one had to say, handing out forks and knives for tasting whilst calling me over, eyes fixed on the dish that was finished first. "It looks... good. The bird-nest piping takes practice but for a first attempt, I'm impressed."
Leroy had a characteristic smirk on his face that conveyed, in a single glance, an unmatched confidence of knowing the standards of his dish. He then suggested we start with his Mont Blanc, since, as in most traditional culinary tournaments and competitions, they had the habit of calling up those who'd finished their dishes first.
His opponent had provided a brief roll of his eyes before scoffing in response, sinking his knife into the tart and checking for texture. The cross-section was just as impressive as its exterior plating and already, pre-tasting from the faint notes of sweet potato aroma and the complexity of its design.
Chen made sure to have a little bit of everything on his fork (the crust, the Chantilly crème, the sweet potato cream, chocolate balls) before sending it into his mouth. Both Leroy and I waited. Initially, I had thoughts of tasting it at the same time in order not to influence my thoughts on the dessert after Chen had said his but having missed the beat, I decided to be respectful and let him have the spotlight first.
His face was blank.
It wasn't clear to me if he'd always been the kind of person to take his time with reactions especially with regards to culinary tasting. Needless to say, this was nerve-wracking behavior for both the chef and the audience watching him, waiting for some form of response. It took so long for him to actually react that by the time we were at the limit of our silence, he was done chewing and had swallowed.
The first thing he did was point at the Mont Blanc and move over, reaching for a glass of water behind him on his station. I filled the space he had created after a moment's hesitation, hovering my fork over the dessert. "Should I wait for you to say something?" I asked Chen but his expression was hidden behind the glass of water he was drinking from.
"Just try it."
This made Leroy snort. I was guessing at Chen pretending there was something wrong with the dish since, well, he'd always been the kind to take unnecessary jabs at number two whenever the context did not involve some form of culinary seriousness. The latter seemed to think the same. "You just love to fuck around."
I sent an approximately similar section of the tart with every aspect of it on the fork into my mouth and about a second after taste transformed into flavour, I could feel the sweat on my palms and the sudden, disturbing flow of saliva reacting to the sickly sweetness of the Chantilly crème and sweet potato cream combined.
Certain that I was pale by this point from trying not to spit it out, I placed the fork down and searched for a paper towel in an attempt to hide the expression on my face. Eventually, I swallowed.
"Did you taste it?" I was numb without water and amazed at how Chen managed not to let a single streak of emotion show up on his face. He made mistakes too. "Did you taste the filling?"
Leroy was staring at both of us with an expression that was now blank. "Yeah. I did."
I paused. "You mean to say you tasted it before you added some additional sweeteners, correct?" The laugh that escaped my lips was nervous and uncharacteristic. Drawing towards his station, I searched for the ingredients. It was during this exchange that Leroy had picked up a fork and, after cutting a section out of his Mont Blanc, tasted it.
His chewed slowly. And then swallowed. Turning to us with an expression that was not the face of someone who'd had the sweetest forkful of Mont Blanc in their whole entire lives. It had been mouth of sugar.
I must have staggered. Chen and I exchanged a glance and Leroy, out of the picture, seemed increasingly vexed by that which we could not word. The gears turned and the puzzle pieces converged to form something I should have realized from the very first of signs. Chip's pumpkin pie. When was the last time he had something sweet?
Questions. "Did you use honey in your lobster ravioli?"
He stared. "Yes."
It was him. "And—and your sweet soy chicken at the orphanage. And for Annie. Did you taste them?"
"Yes." It came out urgent. Obvious. I went up to him, quiet and close.
"Did you taste the buttercream for the dessert toast that we ended up throwing away at the orphanage?"
The light in his eyes were strangled and dim. It was the strangest look on him and it was then that I realized I'd never seen him so visibly lost in information; stunned into silence. "I made that."
No.
It was him? But what was he doing on dessert and how long had it been since he had something sweet without realizing that it was bland but that must have something to do with him not having a consistent dessert or sweet dish that would have acted as a control for the past couple of months to have him not even realize that his taste buds were changing and that, that they were abnormal but there was nothing wrong with the savory dishes from yesterday or the day before that and the ramen during the first round so when? When did it all start?
"Leroy."
It, cracked and hollow, was all I could manage. Chen had made the decision to leave us alone, exiting the room from the left and slamming the door behind him while Leroy and I kept our eyes on each other. Waiting and, just, momentarily coming to a standstill. The sound, the creak of company on the other end of the seesaw seemed to stop. "Leroy."
"Your tart is inedible."
Through the glass, he seemed to distort in the lens and they blurred and focused and blurred and focused and I waited for the words to come right after but they did not and so I had to compose.
"It is far too sweet."
His gaze did not falter; nor did it move away from my own. And not a word, not a single word was said while we struggled to breathe. I staggered again, holding onto his sleeve for balance but he did not move to reciprocate. Rational thoughts. Rational thoughts; premises for a conclusion. There had to be a reason.
"If you are on some kind of medication, please tell me now."
It was simple, the shake of a head was, but for some reason they provided more confusion, desperate than ever. I shut down after a while and was quite unable to think of anything else. "Taste it again, and please tell me that this is a—"
He took off, grabbing his bag without warning and crossing the room towards the door and left, in his wake, the darkness of soot and burns and in the air, the scent of a candle
extinguished.
============
The darkness followed at his feet, shadows falling asleep at the setting of the sun to gather under streetlamps, lit; flickering as he passed and, a few hundred feet before the parlor, stopped at a convenience store in mindless smoke. A fried chicken thigh, he bought and bit into even before leaving the counter and felt a burst of salty, spicy flavour that matched the aroma and fragrance of crisp, seasoned batter. It was not bland.
He looked small against the wide, empty street, standing outside a well-lit convenience facing the shadows and chewing. Just chewing. And moments after he could finally convince himself that he hadn't lost it all, started farther down the street for the ice cream parlor. The palm-sized snack was gone by the time he arrived and the other staff member he was supposed to be taking over had done a double take as soon as he entered through the back.
"Leroy? Um, you okay?"
He punched in and had the other girl do her own, not quite answering her question. Making his way to the front and then going up the stairs to where the staff lockers were located, he checked the duty list and noticed that he'd been placed out front instead of the back.
Come to think of it, Leroy had spent most of his shifts serving customers at the counter or cleaning up even during closing shifts when previously, he'd always been made to prepare the batches of ice cream bases for the next day. Especially vanilla.
In fact, it had been nearly five months since he'd sat down in private for his usual fix in some corner at the back of the store. Just a cup. The exact same recipe they had been using since he joined the team. And as for the reason why, Leroy could not find it in himself to turn the gears and work things out.
The cravings, they seemed to disappear upon the reflection of a summer pool or the chill of a frozen lake. For the times they'd spent together, there seemed to him, little need for the comfort of something cold against the heat that had been growing within. Simply put; there was no longer a need for a fix. He was whole.
Had things been a little different, he may have, perhaps, discovered his deteriorating sensitivity to the taste of sweetness at the very back of the store, in the process of making the very same ice cream base every week or so. After all, it was his only constant; the only control; the only flavour he was so familiar with that he would, at once, know when it was wrong.
He changed out of his clothes and into the staff uniform, making his way down and ignoring those out front trying to get his attention, heading straight for the back and spotting the only other guy on base duty before taking over without a single word or question.
"Hey, Leroy. Aren't you supposed to be out front? I'll handle the base. Don't worry, I've done it a couple of times—"
All he had to do was insist. The other guy, he'd never heard Leroy say a single word outside of serving customers, let alone insisting on something that was otherwise considered by everyone else to be the most tedious role on the list and the one that would have to clock in an extra couple of hours just to make sure things were right.
He got to work. Cream, liquid sweeteners, salt, prepping of vanilla beans; they were part of his routine and usually, they'd all sit in the chiller over night before going into the machine the next morning for overnight aging that was what really made the texture of it all so smooth and scoopable. Today was different. Today, he'd got a quarter of it into the machine and had that running for thirty minutes.
And though the texture wasn't the perfect, smooth, airy, light cream he was used to having, he forced it out of the canister and into a desperate mixing bowl he'd found and out of that, he ate.
It was an entire spoonful he'd sent into his mouth. A life-sized mound of frozen cream that fell right apart on his tongue but nothing—nothing. Nothing. No crunch of leaves under his feet, no crashing waves over his head for a good drowning chill, no creak that was the sound of company. Nothing to soothe the burn of his flame that felt, at present, so beautifully close to being snuffed out by the wind.