Amidst The Stars

Carnations

  The next forty-eight hours were filled with hundreds of unsuccessful crêpes, trial-and-error and nighttime practice sessions. Vicente finally managed to pull off a half-decent crêpe on Tuesday night while running on nothing but coffee. Leon had been there to split said crêpe with him before trying and failing to push him back upstairs.

  It took him another two hours after that to figure out what to put in the crêpe. He came up with a good-enough filling a few moments after Leon went to sleep — sweet, crisp almond crumble and a thin caramel sauce would sandwich the soft, thin layers of the crêpe. After taste-testing and fixing the recipe a few times, Vicente went back up to the apartment at one in the morning to sleep.

  The next morning, it took Ling splashing him with ice-cold water to wake him up in time for class, and he ran off the bus towards the school building right as his first lecture (he knew he shouldn't have picked an eight o'clock class) of the day was to start.

  Madeline was already in her usual seat, tapping her pen against the desk. "You're later than usual," she commented.

  "Nearly overslept." He gestured to his still-damp hair. "Ling had to wake me up."

  "Try setting multiple alarms on your phone," she advised. "One every five minutes. By the second one, the noise should wake you up."

  "Mm." Vicente pinched himself; he'd give anything for some coffee. He accidentally elbowed his notebook, which fell off his desk and hit the floor with a slap.

  He bent over to pick it up at the same time as Madeline, grabbing the same corner she did. Then a brief tug-of-war of sorts ensued as they both tried to lift the notebook and placed it back on his desk. She looked at him, amused, and he suddenly felt very awake as he saw her smile.

  Vicente turned away, now fully alert, and did his best to concentrate on what the professor was saying.

...

  The cream-and-periwinkle sign hanging off of the Boulangerie's door read CLOSED in bold, flowery letters. Madeline pulled at the locked door a few times, grumbling under her breath, before releasing the doorknob in defeat. "Goodness, where did Lucien go? He never closes this early."

  "What if you called him?"

  "No, no, he's probably busy. Should we go to Huang's?"

  A few minutes later, they were on the bus away from the city centre. Vicente sent a message to Ling telling her that Madeline was coming back with him to the restaurant, only for her to reply with an unintelligible "DSFLKHJGHLKSFJLKASDJ OKAY I'LL GET STUFF READY".

  He realised what she meant when they walked into Huang's to find their usual table already set and plates of food placed down. A stalk of dandelion was floating in a glass of water in the middle of the round table, looking completely out of place.

  "Hi!" Ling was standing by the table, grinning widely. "Please take a seat and enjoy the meal we have prepared; the chef is in the kitchen should you need anything — "

  "How did you prepare this in ten minutes?" Vicente picked up the glass. He could see a few ants desperately clinging to life on the dandelion stem. "More importantly, why?"

  "Because we could!"

  Leon power-walked across the restaurant towards them, whisking the glass out of his hand and waving at Madeline. "Brother says you have five minutes to fix up that crêpe for Madeline before he has to use the stove again, so you better hurry."