Valentine's Special: The Legendary Tale of the SeeSaw

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It had been a grand total of two weeks since Leroy had left for London and two weeks since waking up to an absence of forehead flicks and the manners of an idiot. Vanilla Julian White had thus begun to exhibit the poor symptoms of a fool himself: of which included missing the warmth of Leroy's hands and the little fire in his eyes. He never once thought of bringing this up to the fool, knowing it'd only make things harder for the both of them. Si Yin had intelligently dubbed him stupid for doing so, and soon after, diagnosed him with the magnificent condition of 'lovesick'.

Fortunately, his first week of school after the winter break kept his schedule extremely packed besides ordinary curriculum. The little genius with a flair for writing and crafting perfect, solid arguments had received the recognition of fellow schoolmates for having brought the corrupt to justice. After all, it made everyone feel a little better about themselves, knowing even competitions as prestigious as the W-interschool could very well be rigged. Quite frankly, it was a sigh of relief for an environment so competitive.

Before he knew it, Vanilla was receiving invitations to interviews about him (instead of being, you know, the one asking the questions) and rushing through club meetings and activities after school hours all the way past seven o'clock in the evening. This did not include the alarming number of assignments his instructors, old and new, had decided to drop mere days into the new semester. In other words, they could not be completed without the sacrifice of sleep.

This was all made much, much worse by the time difference.

For the first couple of days since the start of school, the candle-snow pair had not been able to arrange for a proper Facetime call besides ordinary texts throughout the day. Leroy would be asleep by the time Vanilla was back in his apartment after school and in the earliest hours of the latter's day before class, could not reach the candle busying himself in the kitchen.

Admittedly, there were pockets of time in which they could, of course, arrange for a quick appreciation of each other's digital company over Vanilla's lunch break or Leroy's dinnertime but the inconvenience of the company of others (sorry Si Yin and Ariq, and sometimes Violet) unconsciously placed a cap on their intimacy over a call. This therefore led to Leroy staying up till three or even four o'clock in the morning on his end for their little dose of seesaw.

This occurred three nights in a row thus far.

Needless to say, it did not take Vanilla very long to arrive at a dilemma: naturally, having Leroy lose precious sleep for a sliver of indulgent small talk or everyday conversation would, after some time, take its toll on the candle's health and that was most certainly not an ideal trade-off. Either way, he'd hoped to think of something that would sufficiently, in a way, invigorate their sparse, precious moments of digital connection. And so he consulted the local expert in romance.

"Obviously, you gotta reward him with something," said Violet over lunch the other day, having brought a couple of her signature chocolate tarts along—improved after a certain critic's generous feedback. "You can't just hop on a call every evening expecting the same boring content and I mean like, knowing you, you'd probably go on and on about some nerd-ass talk after a day update and like, I'd be snoring after three minutes not gonna lie."

"A-alright, alright," was all Vanilla could come up with to defend himself, being confronted by a statement he couldn't refute. "It's flavor profiles and... and the weather there and museums but—okay, fine I see how it could be a little dry to some people but Leroy wouldn't... I mean... so... should we not do the calls?"

"No you dimwit!" Violet had made a grand display of the whites of her eyes; slowed for added effect. "Do the calls but like, include some reward or something to, you know, spice things up a little—sh! Don't speak yet. Can't you just let me finish because I just know from that look on your face you have something 200-IQ-ready but guess what, Vanilla? I'm at 201. Look, I know Leroy's dumb enough to think these calls worthwhile and he'd also probably listen to you go on and on about museums and the clouds or even grass for hours and hours but I'm just giving you my honest opinion. Plus, I've had twelve boyfriends. Who's the expert now?"

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