OH SUGAR! ─── original applyfic

II

II
sweet tea and god's graces
now playing : tangerine frank sativa

— ✢ —

TOMMASO "TOMMY" FIORE WAS NO STRANGER TO REBELLION. Whether that be (shamelessly) being caught kissing another student in the locker rooms, sneaking out to house parties in Milano or infantile pranks against anyone unfortunate to have stumbled into the path of his life, Tommy would've been the mastermind behind the scandal.

On blissful July mornings such as this one, senior students dined in the orchards, close to the lake. Claw footed silver basins were filled with ice and sweating fruit, picked freshly from the orchards. Any fruit remaining from breakfast would be simmered into preserves, folded into cakes and crystallised into brulees or shipped off to the local farmer's market the next day and replaced by new produce.

He slid into the seat at the Gihon house table, shrugging out of his blazer and loosening their tie as soon as professors supervising breakfast filtered out of the orchard and into the staff's summer room. He reached over for an apple, rolling it in his fingers momentarily before taking a bite, ruby skin peeling away to reveal too-pale flesh. His eyes skimmed over the four long house breakfast tables, each laid with uniquely themed tableware. Each represented one of the rivers of Eden: Gihon (a deep emerald); Tigris(the colour of crystallised amber); Pishon (a Sicilian sea blue) and Euphrates (the rich violet of ripe figs). He frowned at the mundane sight in front of him; rows and rows of students in royal blue blazers and ruby ties. A few cliques had ladled food onto their plates and moved to sit on the riverbank, cooling their fingertips in the rush of freshwater.

His thoughts were interrupted by Ofélia slipping into the seat beside him. He turned to face the immaculately-dressed girl who was neatly cutting a crepe into pieces. She gave him a brief glance before concentrating once again on her crepes, receiving a hyperbolic sigh from Tommy.

"How was the visit from your secret lover last night?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Tommy accepted defeat, ladling sugar into his teacup. He lifted the porcelain, lips brushing against the hand-painted rim. He blew at the surface once, watching curls of smoke twist and choke in the air before taking a sip, sighing at the familiar burn of the first sip of a good cup of tea.

A bell chimed through the garden, causing heads to turn towards a neatly paired duo. Tommy smirked; Hana Montes and Ethan Lee. The two were another one of Tommy's somewhat well-kept secrets. Yesterday night, he had caught Ethan returning to the boy's dormitories with a loosened tie and the smudge of Hana's cherry gloss on the edge of his swollen lips. Ethan stopped ringing the bell and glanced down at the shorter girl, who briefly cleared her throat and began to speak, reading off of a piece of pale pink notepaper.

"Headmistress Ange wishes to announce the year's annual Midsummer Gala. Tickets will be sold by the Events Committee in the gazebo by the badminton courts everyday for the next fortnight. Thank you."

As soon as the brunette stopped speaking, the garden erupted into conversation, an almost eerie juxtaposition to the silence that had stunned the crowd just seconds earlier. Students began clucking discussing outfit shopping, which ones of their fathers cars they would take, whether it was an open invitation- fickle nonsense. Tommy smirked, turning towards Ofelia, who was disinterested, taking small sips of elderflower cordial.

"Wanna go with me?"
"No." Ofelia responds, reaching out for a handful of cherries before, like water trickling down her iced glass of elderflower cordial, smoothly leaving the table. They watched her, listening to the sound of her Mary Janes against the stone pathway leading out of the orchard.

Tommy is brought back to earth by the superficial nonsense erupting around him; couples liplocked over Gala proposals; . He scoffed as he stood up. He threw his apple core into a bed of coral sweetpeas, the bitter aftertaste of chewed apple seeds dampening their mood this blissful July morning.

— ✢ —

Jaewon Jeon had been living in the Inferno for three years. Three years was all it took to unravel a(n albeit short) life of hopes and dreams. He had been a student once. He'd spoken to his mother about studying abroad before she had passed. He had had wild fantasies: studying Byron's poetry in the halls of Cambridge the wordsmith had once walked through; strawberry summers overflowing with lazy afternoons lying with a book on manicured lawns and nights spent under cotton sheets, safe in a lover's embrace.

Now, he was seated in his bedroom. The room smelled and, to an extent, looked like an ashtray. It was dimly lit, with light streaming through the cracks between the blinds of the soot-stained windows. The small yellow light, the sole light source in the room, was unreliable, flickering like the click of an unstable arsonist's lighter. Hence, the windowsills were filled with a multitude of old wine bottles stuffed with tall candles that had seeped wax around the rims. It had a suffocating balcony encased in concrete where his friends would share cigarettes and Aperol spritzes in the evenings. There was a vintage claw-footed looking glass propped against the northern wall and a neat pile of books- classics, mainly- adorned his dresser, alongside his cologne and hairbrush. The areas of the walls that hadn't been covered with newspaper cuttings or rough graphite sketches revealed peeling cream wallpaper.

It may not have been the neat townhouse with the maroon door and the magnolia tree that he had dreamed of living in. After all, he was only seventeen. He had years ahead of him- he'd find his townhouse when the right time came. It was, however, home. Cassandra and Aku shared the largest room across the hall and Aku's twin brother Alexis inhabited the last room, but he was hardly ever home.

Life wasn't as difficult as he'd thought it would've been. He no longer had the stress of academic validation clouding his thoughts. He was able to sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays as his mother was no longer dragging him to Bible study and to Mass. The house was owned by a woman who lived out of Milan, probably out of Italy, and the rent had stayed constant despite the inflation the journalists parroted about in the news. He didn't have to worry about food, for who was to deny a smartly-dressed young man food?

Jaewon had learned about appearances the hard way. In his childhood, it had been through looks when he'd open his mother's packed Korean meals for his lunch. In his adolescence, it was being branded by crude nicknames and beatings from some of the kids from school. After another lunch time in which he'd had his belongings rummaged through, he found himself wondering what was it that made him so lowly to his peers but so highly praised behind the organ in the Church. His mother would have said it was the presence of God, but Jaewon argued the contrary. It was his appearance. Not his face, but his clothes. With clothes came stature. He would be treated differently in grey school-issued cardigans compared to his finest Sunday best. And, yes, it was often a peculiar sight to see a young man dressed in pressed trousers and white dress shirts and in the slums of the Inferno. But that sole appearance would grant him a table at all of the finest restaurants (at least momentarily) and perhaps a complimentary glass of Prosecco if he was lucky enough.

There was a knock of the door, and the knocker came in before giving him a chance to respond. He gave Cassandra a look as he buttoned his shirt up.

"Come in," he responds sarcastically, glancing his reflection in the looking glass.

Cassandra matched the expression on his face, "We're going out for food. Venus got some coin off of Lorenzo and Sungmin was able to reserve a table."

"And you're going dressed like that?"

An embarrassed flush bled on the apples of her cheeks, "We're going out to eat pasta, not to the opera."

"Sungmin booked a table ." Jaewon tutted, "And it's not as if you don't have anything nice to wear. If you let me choose-"

"Be down in five minutes or we're leaving without you."

Jaewon sighed as she left the room. He reached once more for his hairbrush, the wails of police sirens and daydrinkers far from his mind and cares.

— ✢ —

AUTHOR'S NOTE: okay i apologise for the unforgivably long hiatus... but oh sugar is back! i am aware that this is a ridiculously uninformative chapter but things are beginning soon i promise!!!