Vanilla

Four

It was an ordinary day over at Leroy's, munching on lotus chips dipped in sour cream whilst racing on Peach Beach in their customized karts, picking up mystery boxes along the way for a random boost. Vanilla, having never quite gotten over leaning left and right regardless of the buttons he pressed on the controller, was doing surprisingly well at fourth place while Leroy, the expert, had maintained first place throughout the entire course. With one hand.

The weeks leading up to this level of quality gameplay had not been spent in vain. Thanks to Vanilla's uncle being caught up with work, the former had found himself spending at least two days a week over at Leroy's under Miss Julie's approval. Needless to say, Mrs. Cox did not hesitate to fry up more batches of thinly-sliced lotus root.

While the bespectacled bean was more than aware of his companion's intellect—judging from his ability to keep up with the former's unconscious rattling filled with jargon and odd concepts studied by scholars in their fifties—Vanilla could not quite identify where Leroy's understanding of all this had come from.

Unlike his room, the older boy did not own a single shelf of books or seem to read any in the first place. What with the distraction of console games which they played all-day-every-day, the fact that Leroy could differentiate between Barhi and Medjool dates and their origins after matching flavour profiles proved quite the feat to a bookworm who had little to no other sources of knowledge.

So when they'd crossed the finish line and the scoreboard had announced Leroy's twenty-second win of the month, Vanilla could not help but deem his companion a born genius. How his culinary knowledge had developed in such a vast and extensive manner remained, to this day—a secret.

He turned to Leroy. "I... I would like to request a change in game. We've been playing this for weeks," said the younger one, arms folded across his chest as he averted his gaze with a pout. "I would appreciate it if you picked something that doesn't feature such a steep learning curve."

Those were big words for a four-year-old and his companion could not help but snort. "You read 'Elements of Agricultural Chemistry' and talk about gravity like it's breathing but you can't play a game?" He laughed, straightening up before pulling out a stack of DVD boxes from a nearby drawer. "You pick."

Vanilla was nothing less than thrilled. Marvelling at the game titles spread across the floor, he sifted through each and every one, wondering if this was Leroy's form of expressing an advanced level of friendship: allowing him to pick the game.

His companion waited patiently, sending lotus root chips peppered with cayenne into his mouth in twos as he did. It was not long before an all-too-obvious title found its way above the stack and into the eyes of the aspiring food critic.

"Cooking Mama," he read aloud, raising his gaze to blink at the other boy. "What's this?"

"I hate that game," was all Leroy had to say. "No one cooks like that."

This only served to further Vanilla's interest in the game's content. Curiosity piqued, he scanned through the description and gameplay images on the back of the game's DVD case, partly confused as to why Leroy had gotten himself a game he did not like. That, or whoever had purchased it for him was unlikely to have really understood his tastes.

"Oh. So... um, do you know how to cook?" The bespectacled boy had asked to fill the silence, squinting to decipher the screenshot he was staring it.

The pause he received in return was long and unexpected. After all, his question had been simple—all one could really say in return was either a yes or a no; simple and straightforward with no added twists or turns.