Wax

Fourteen

A/N: My Beans, thank you for being so patient ;-; as a reward, I have for you art by yours truly, of our precious snowball and candle. You can find it on my Instagram highlights at hisangelchip under character art. There is a 5-6 year old, young version, and a teenaged version of them. I will also find the time to deliver le adult versions. 

I took some time writing this chapter because of health reasons and also the fact that I was busy with Xander's birthday special last week. With that out of the way, I'm hoping to go back to weekly updates ;v; I say this but no promises. I will try my best! 

Thank you for being patient. Enjoy the chapter and I hope you like my art too ;v; 

_________________________

[Vanilla]

I had expected a minimum wait of thirty to forty minutes outside the restaurant, judging by the length of the queue I'd passed on my way in. The hostess, however, had by some magic of her own, managed to clear half the guests waiting in line minutes into my decision to stay for the soup. Initially, she'd very naturally offered me a table ahead of the queue; and needless to say, I had turned her down politely.

"Just the soup, please." I said to the server who'd chanced a total of four glances in my direction on the way to my assigned table. He'd then very quickly retracted the menu he was about to place by my arm and hurried off to the kitchen with my order.

Past the floor-to-ceiling glass divider that kept the dining area and kitchen in separate spaces, I caught the brief, dissatisfactory gaze of a certain child at his play stove. This, I returned with a practiced smile, earning a prompt turn of his back.

Already, I was re-assessing my level of expectation.

It would be foolish of any seasoned food critic to expect the same level of detail, mastership and care in a bowl of soup ladled out of a vat meant to serve a massive crowd looking for some everyday excitement. Servers had to be bringing in at least three soup orders per minute and had Andre's restaurant been several feet smaller, the entire dining area would have been the equivalent of a well-frequented bar on a Friday evening.

The noise did not matter very much. Within seconds, I'd produced a notepad and penned down my response—a list of ingredients—derived entirely from the memory of taste.

It is perhaps a common misunderstanding to assume that all geniuses with a superior memory could somehow store every bit of the world's information right up in their head. No, that is not how it works. That which separates a versed mind from the ordinary was its ability to assess the importance of every piece of information and rank them accordingly.

For instance, I would not be able to accurately recall the taste and flavour of the mediocre scone I had this morning on the way to the office but could very well shudder at the vile remembrance of last week's watered-down chai I'd unfortunately purchased as a last resort at some gas station on my way home. It is unfortunate that food of poor taste tended to occupy the same sort of space in the mind as does that which tastes good.

The only exception being those that were of phenomenal quality; dishes that weren't just food but stories disguised as one—capable of rippling the surface of an otherwise still pond.

My godfather's strawberry shortcake was perhaps the first of the select few gems I'd kept stored away in a category of its own. To say there were less than ten dishes (out of the thousands I'd tasted and stomached) of such level was no exaggeration. But to have that number nearly double in a single evening: the egg cocotte, herb-crusted scallops, chicken soup, the skirt steak, added to the previously short and exclusive list of dishes I'd found myself thoroughly impressed by was nerve-wracking.