Vanilla

Thirty Nine

A/N: I must confess, it is getting increasingly difficult for me to concentrate in the confines of my room ;-; my back and neck is more than sore it's like painful and my migraines have decided to drop by, knock on my door, ring the bell every 5 minutes or so. I live in a tropical climate, so the weather's just terrifying with the window open and the sun is just glaring so I'm mostly stuck in still, humid air, squeezing out every last word because I know that if I don't anyway, I'd soon be reduced to a pebble.

Also because I know you're probably suffering as much as I am, so this is my little attempt at making some part of your day.

Enjoy.

Oh, and having read some alarming comments of alarmed readers from the last chapter—yes, Leroy is a red-head and I mentioned it so many times in previous chapters ;-; sob. It's also why Vanilla always describes his hair as fierce. Red hair ranges from strawberry blonde to ginger to deep red to a very, very dark auburn! Leroy is of the dark auburn range but when he was young he was more of a deep red. If you notice, Vanilla does mention how his hair looks different under different lighting conditions, and sometimes he mistakes it for a dark woody brown and other times it appears 'fierce' under sunlight.

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[Vanilla]

"Gay, I guess," said Leroy without so much as a blink or a pause at the question I'd posed. It hadn't been an easy one. "I'm attracted to you. And you're a guy... unless you're not."

Xander had dropped us off at the hotel after begrudgingly swinging by an all-day convenience store and buying each of us a hot beverage and cup ramen, insisting we had all that before going to bed (and that I draft a text to Chip whilst filling my tummy just so that the details of our adventure remained fresh in my mind). I'd put some water in the electric kettle as soon as Leroy made for the shower, preparing our cups of ramen before gently laying the question upon him when he emerged i-in a bathrobe.

"I'm pretty sure you've seen me without my pants on and I do identify as part of the male species, so." I handed him a pair of chopsticks, mildly distracted by the forward confession he'd made about his attraction towards me. He was running a towel through his hair. It looked much darker when it was wet—as though singed from the heat. "And no, that's not quite the answer I was looking for. You can be something other than gay and be attracted to me in a... attracted to me, sexually. That's my current stand on things, by the way. I find I like you in that way. I mean I find you very asdkljf and I am, at the same time, aware that I am not attracted to other men."

You must understand that this was all going on at half past three in the morning and considering the fact that we'd boarded the plane at six a.m., our nonsense was... well I'd say it was justified.

Leroy's response was to blink, reaching over to receive the pair of chopsticks before staring at my hands and then back up at me. "That's why you didn't tell them." He seemed to understand now; why I had been struggling with the expression of truth, that dealing with something as foreign as my orientation wasn't exactly the easiest thing.

"Yes. I'm still confused and not entirely sure what's happening just yet," I confessed rather quickly, meeting his gaze briefly before nervously looking away. "I don't mean to keep you a secret, or anything like that."