Vanilla

Twenty Four

A/N: O-kayyyy! Phew, managed to finish this 8.6k word chapter on time wOw Cuppie are you a miracle worker or whAt but I guess I haven't been doing much in university here it's actually pretty relaxed compared to uni back home hehe. It's just cold and gloomy ;v; eep. 

So next week is the special birthday chapter thing and uhhh while I don't know how long it'll be yet, I hope I don't end up with more than 5K words because I wanted to do a double update for Flight School as well :') And my friends are coming over to visit me in London too ;v; wheeheee

Enjoy your serving of freshly brewed sexual tension!

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[Vanilla]

It wasn't part of my plan to end up being so engrossed in the wonders of taste and how the science behind it all added up to designing a perfect menu for whichever palate the client was intending to serve. This was moments after checking an examination pad's worth of chicken scrawls and leaving it in front of the owner for self-correction.

Lowering the text I'd held up between him and myself for optimal concentration, I raised my gaze with the intention of catching a glimpse of how far he'd managed to figure things out on his own. Ideally, he would have identified the careless mistakes he'd made in questions 2A and 5B, and then proceed to working out the—

Lo and behold, my expectations of a student hard at work were wholly let down by the sight of a sleeping lion, whose unkempt mane was half hidden by his arms that were supporting the rest of his head.

"Leroy," I picked up a pencil and poked his forehead, waiting. "Unbelievable."

He did not stir one bit; arms remaining below his head that was angled to the right and the uncapped pen in his fingers creating elaborate marks on the papers he'd decided to sleep on. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm that reflected a sense of peace and serenity. To think feeling sleepy could be contagious! Clearly, I needed to get my head checked.

I considered a second attempt at waking him but was at once overcome with a wave of reluctance. He had, indeed, outperformed himself in terms of stamina and it wouldn't have taken a genius to know that Leroy wasn't the best at math in general. And neither would it have taken a genius to know that I wasn't the most comfortable under such circumstances.

The decision would have been, to anyone else, clear as day: to pack up and leave him, undisturbed.

While leaving the still candle untouched remained at the forefront of my mind, I couldn't seem to entertain the thought of packing up. Odd things they were, candles in the dark. Unflinching in the shadows and yet, filling the room with the strangest warmth—casting a glow across unseen walls. They were pleasant objects of attention; the center of it all. It was hard not to stare.

I was placing my head on the table before I knew what I was doing, observing his eyes that were closed and the lids that kept them hidden. He'd be meeting my gaze had they been open, looking straight past my glasses and casting his light there like the danger candles often were. The starter of fires.

And dangerous they were for the next thing my consciousness could register was the urge to close the distance for god knows why and I sat up at once—frightened by the impulse that had my cage rocked.

I paused, breathing and counting and erasing all traces of such a thought. I must be insane. Content with my choice of words and adamant to prove myself wrong regardless, I sought the help of my trusty text; faith in CR02, The Science Behind Taste. With the unexplainable need to smack the back of his head with my two-hundred-page text, I resisted no further.