Wax

Nine

A/N: uwu hi everyone! Sorry for the delay~ I'm planning another update next Thursday for a 'SeeSaw' chapter for Leroy (his first day as a firefighter). I'll be updating you beans on Instagram. Without further ado, here's a long chapter.

I do realise that I'm going a little slow on the pacing of the story but having written several instances of romance, I think I've learnt my lesson to take things in stride. Either way, it is only so that when things start picking up, there is a good foundation of establishing the present personalities and circumstances of our grown-up Nillie and Royroy. 

Enjoy.

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[Vanilla]

Rhetorical questions were the kind of phenomena I'd never really become apt at dealing with, asking or receiving. There exists a select few in the world who truly believed that every question deserved an answer and perhaps in the past, I was guilty of being such a person. At present, I'd arrived at a point of having developed the strange and uncharacteristic ability to leave some questions unanswered. Ironically, these were often inquiries about myself, in relation to topics unexplored.

Romance, for instance.

And perhaps by the time I'd come up with something decent at the back of my head, the asker had either assumed my reluctance to respond or brushed the question aside; which was precisely what had occurred.

"Want anything?"

I looked over at my companion, following his gaze to the museum's gift shop that was up ahead and filled with souvenirs of interest. He must have seen the look in my eyes and inferred accordingly, judging from the musing smile he had whilst steering us in the direction of the store.

At present, we'd completed three-quarters of the museum's exhibits in quiet appreciation and had arrived back at our starting point near the courtyard we'd lunched at, miraculously alive. I say miraculously because I, for one, hadn't quite expected Leroy to maintain a certain level of interest throughout the visit. Which he did. And that, admittedly, was something to appreciate.

"Those look nice," he pointed out, nodded at a shelf near the entrance that was filled with postcard collections of the museum's illustrations. One of which featured a set of watercolor-ed garden birds, all scientifically labelled and complete with trivia facts printed at the bottom. "You like birds, right."

I turned to him, surprised. "Yes. Yes how did you know that?"

"You used to talk about this book all the time," he followed as I drew closer to the shelf and admired the sample cards displayed below the product. "The one about birds."

"Well um, I'm surprised you remember. Yes, I did talk about it and yes, it did bring about my fascination with birds." I reached up to retrieve a set. The box was beautifully designed and, naturally, appealed to my prudent credit card. "Oh, it's slightly dented on this side." I observed, glancing up in search for another.

The collection was placed slightly higher up in comparison to the flower and tree postcard sets, which may have been slightly more popular, hence the placement. Either way, I could not quite get my hands on the box behind the one I'd retrieved, and so turned to my companion with a look.

He stood idly, leaning against the shelf with a private, musing expression.

"Leroy."

"Yes?" He made no indication of moving and I looked at him quite incredulously, somehow unable to prevent a smile from surfacing.