Vanilla Chaos

Chapter 24: Hope

The blonde man in the tortoise shell spectacles communicated with his son in their native tongue, as I sat with ginger lady with the green eyes on a cream-coloured couch Francois waved his smartphone in Nelly's face, who appeared to be self-assured on the surface but I could tell he was panicking on the inside, I could just tell, for it felt like I knew him more than knew myself, at least to some extent. The boy was unpredictable.

I pondered the thought of what they could be talking about, then I realised: "I cannot sleep, I am too busy dreaming." - Océane Bleu's most recent quote. He had made headlines once more, this time people taking a much different approach to his work calling him wonderful, inspiring and a beacon of hope for the modern world.

I was proud of my crépeboy, to say the least. He was one teenage boy who had managed to spark a revolution in popular culture using urban art, all whilst not being caught by the police once. I hated to think of what could have happened if such an event had occured - none of this wonderfully catastrophic movement would have taken place.

A famous magazine by the name of 'Perle' had been the first to publish a #StopPretendReality (a trending hashtag that Nicki may or may have not started to show her great respect for Oceané Bleu, either way, like magic, it soon became viral) issue. The purpose of the issue ws to state that a certain graffiti artist had moved them, and they were going to prevent their covergirls and boys from lying to their beloved readers, by stopping using Photoshop. This was the first of many magazines and tabloids to follow suit. The prestigious London fashion magazine, 'Bubblegum' had recently featured a ridiculously beautiful supermodel, Mimi Honda, make-up free, full of pimples and wrinkles, on their front page, with the title "MIMI: This is my real face and yes, I haven't plucked my eyebrows."

We were slowly but surely moving towards a new era of acceptance, equality and confidence for all and who was it all down to? Avenelle-Jérôme Rouge.

"How is the cake, Heidi?" Marseille smiled with that same, kind twinkle in her eyes.

"It's lovely, you are a very good cook, Marseille. Thank-you very much for offering me a slice of it." I took in another delectable bite of red velvet cake, treasuring the silky taste, as Nelly and his father joined us on the sofa, François sitting in a pristine, white arm-chair and Nelly landing down next to me.

"You are welcome, sweetheart! It has truly been a pleasure to have you here."

"Ah, oui," François added, "it is nice to have visitors, it gets awfully quiet without Avenelle's loud mouth."

I laughed and Nelly rolled his eyes, "So where will Nicki be attending university?" I thought out-loud.

"Tokyo, Japan." The Frenchman thoughtfully replied.

Marseille reminded me of a gremlin when she chuckled, this entire family was just so adorable and I dreamed of being a part of it. "Oh, our little girl has been obssesed with the city since she could first read. She's been dreaming of going all her life, and since she is pretty much fuent in Japanese, we decided that whilst it was pricey, it wouldn't bankrupt us to send her to her dream school."

"Heidi can speak Japanese!" I had never hated my boyfriend more than in that moment.

"You can? That's impressive, I have businesses in Japan and even I can't. Hell, I can barely speak English!" François sipped his rosé wine.

"Well, I study it at school. You see, we have to pick two foreign languages to learn. I take Japanese and German. We have a lot more languages to choose from as our's is an MFL (Modern Foreign Languages) specialist academy. I wish I had picked French, now, but it sounds so pretty and I'm afraid I would probably butcher your language."

The entire family (excluding Nicki who was out 'clubbing') laughed and Nelly kissed my cheek, "Nothing sounds prettier to me than your voice, no matter what language you're speaking."