Chapter 1
Priyanka’s pretty sure she’s the only person on the planet who looks forward to waking up at 6 am on a weekday: the still, grey peace of the world before it shifts into second gear; the crisp, dewy chill of the early morning air; the undisturbed birdsong - and the fact that she has the opening shift at the bakery, when the shop’s at its quietest and the few customers that come in feel less like clients and more like long term acquaintances.
… And, if she’s being completely honest, the regular that shows up at 8:07 sharp every morning to buy a pain au chocolat, so predictable and precise that it’s like clockwork. At her core, Priyanka hates mornings; she’s learned to romanticise them to provide some justification for constantly taking the earliest shift other than ‘there’s this gorgeous girl who buys breakfast and I’d rather get less sleep to see her’.
Lemon is gorgeous. She’s this small, slender thing with straight blonde hair down to the small of her back, who smells like summer citrus in a way Priyanka now knows is intentional and moves as though every action is an art piece. She’s a dancer, training at the most prestigious academy in the country - in the world - and Priyanka hasn’t yet seen the barest hint of weakness nor pessimism on her pretty face, which she assumes means that Lemon is good, because Kiara knows a lot of the girls there on account of helping out with their big productions, and it’s apparently hell on Earth.
The clock on the wall to her right reads 8:06. She watches the seconds hand slowly map the perimeter of the face, then follows the tiny drop of the minutes hand as it ticks over onto 8:07.
She turns to the door as it swings open, bell jingling. As though she’s running on code, Lemon steps into the bakery, wearing an oversized yellow sweatshirt that stops midway down her naked thighs - and Priyanka tries not to stare at her pale, bare skin, feigning ignorance and busying herself at the till until the other girl approaches.
Pretending that she hadn’t expected her arrival is pointless, however, because the both of them know each other now. Their routines have changed to accommodate one another’s presences, like how Priyanka always has Lemon’s order set aside waiting, and how she never checks the change because she knows it’s always right. The transaction is clean and painless, requiring no communication, and the only thing that’s changed is the way Lemon’s fingers linger against Priyanka’s palm when they exchange money.
(But that could just be her overactive imagination.)
Lemon slides into the stool nearest the till like she always does and unwraps her pain au chocolat with love, cramming it halfway into her mouth with a groan that makes Priyanka restless.“God,” she mumbles, covering her mouth with her hand, “I needed this today.”
“Is today special, or something?” Priyanka asks, and Lemon pins her in place with an urgent, lemur-like stare, swallowing prematurely so that she can speak.
“Oh, yeah. They’re doing, like, evaluations this week, and everyone’s just a bit -” she shakes one hand out in an exaggerated imitation of a tremor - “crazy right now. A lot of people seem pretty scared that the instructors are gonna give them a bad judgement, so we’re all running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to make sure we’re all super polished and have our shit together for the actual dances.”
She takes another bite of her pain au chocolat, humming appreciatively, and Priyanka tends to another customer in the meantime. “I’m not worried about the assessments, like, I know I’m gonna kill ‘em,” she continues, with an easy confidence that’s enviable, “but it’s just so much. Three solo dance pieces, one group choreo, three essays, two presentations -”
“Fuck me,” Priyanka mutters sympathetically. Lemon nods.
“Tell me about it. I’ve already memorised my lines for the presentations, so that’s not a big deal, and I’m really looking forward to the solo pieces, because I don’t have to rely on anyone else to turn it out, but the group performance...” she winces. “I know I’ll smash it, but when it comes to team cohesion? It… it could go either way. Some of the girls in my group have been known to be… difficult to work with.”
Judging by the disdain in her eyes, difficult is an understatement. Priyanka doesn’t understand what goes into a group dance, but any projects in university that rely on teamwork are almost always hell.
“Will it affect you, though?”
Lemon shrugs. “Can’t really say. If I’m really good, it’ll probably be negligible, but there’s no guarantee. I just know I have to be strong enough everywhere else for it to not matter in the grand scheme of things.”
Priyanka can’t say she knows anything of Lemon’s abilities - it’s all educated guesswork, speculation born from embarrassing hours spent daydreaming whenever studying is particularly slow - but the girl’s eyes are so sharp, so determined, that she doesn’t doubt that she’ll do brilliantly. “You’ll be fine,” she says decisively. Lemon smiles.
“To be fair, I kind of like the evaluations. They usually use them to choose people’s roles in upcoming productions, so you get a pretty huge reward for all your hard work.” Priyanka makes an oh yeah? sound, and Lemon sighs. “It’s just the stress from everyone else that’s exhausting. That, and getting up, like, before the sun. I’m an early bird, but not that early.”
She shrugs. “Honestly, recently, I’ve started wanting to just sleep in, you know? At this point, you and these pain au chocolats are the only good things about my mornings. Everything else is just -” white noise and whirring. Priyanka’s thoughts stumble over themselves in an attempt to rationalise Lemon’s casual inclusion of her as a good thing - one of two good things, in fact, the other being the pain au chocolats that she gives her - and come up empty-handed.
It’s just the pastries, she insists, as though they haven’t been chatting for months. It’s just the pastries! ‘But what if it’s not just th -’ It’s just the pastries.
Lemon waves a hand in front of her face, dragging her back to Earth unceremoniously. “Helloooo?”
“Hello!” Priyanka half-shouts, blinking rapidly as she refocuses, and realises that Lemon has been speaking this entire time, and she’s been ignoring her in favour of a crisis over the significance of pain au chocolats. “Sorry, what?”
“I said -” Lemon quiets as another customer comes in and orders three colossal Danish pastries in a clipped, icy tone, glancing at Priyanka - who stares back - in wondering despair. “I said -” Her phone buzzes in a rapid, staccato rhythm, and she glances down at it, features falling. “Oh, fuck. Great.”
“What is it?”
Lemon gestures absently, tucking her hair behind her ear, and Priyanka tracks the movement like a hawk. “One of the girls in my group has had another meltdown ‘cause of the pressure, and now she’s saying she wants to drop out. She does this every time, but they’re saying this time she looks like she means it.” She drops her head, arms sprawled over the countertop. “Just what I need, on top of everything else.”
She looks dejected, and it’s such a stark juxtaposition from her fearless self-assurance that Priyanka feels a stab of pain herself, as though the news is hers to worry over. “If we fail because of this -”
Store policy enforces professionalism, but a customer’s comfort is always paramount, so Priyanka’s certain there’s a loophole somewhere in the rules that permits her to place a hand over Lemon’s wrist in an unspoken gesture of commiseration. Lemon seeks her gaze with a tentative, warming smile and curls her hand until their fingers form a lattice; those four points of contact brand themselves into Priyanka’s skin, an unflinching mark of proof that her proffered friendship was not rejected.
“Hey, look, if she leaves, that’s not on you. It’s just selfishness, right? You can try and change her mind, but at the end of the day, you need to worry about you and about the girls who actually give enough of a shit to keep it together.”
“Thanks.” Lemon shakes herself out and shoves the last of her pain au chocolat in her mouth and stands. “I’m gonna have to go and sort things out, now, I guess. See if I can’t talk her out of this mental breakdown. Keep me in your thoughts today, yeah?”
“I always do - ?” Priyanka blurts, for although she is a paragon of a great many things, self discipline has yet to make it into that comprehensive list. A multitude of emotions flash across her face - confusion, then understanding, then alarm, then regret - but Lemon only laughs, pirouetting on the way to the door. “Good luck!”
And then Lemon is gone, and Priyanka wonders if she could have possibly been more of an idiot.
“Knowing you? Probably,” Rita remarks, once Priyanka is finished relaying the interaction to her, and Priyanka splutters indignantly, as though Rita is wrong. “What? It wasn’t as bad as some of the things I know you could have said, ma chérie. You like to put your foot in your mouth.”
“I have game,” she protests, but the objection feels forced the minute it leaves her lips. “Okay, maybe not, but she did laugh at me, and it wasn’t, like, a pity laugh, soooo…”
Rita rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything else about Priyanka’s inability to communicate smoothly. “Baby steps. But you don’t even have her number, and you haven’t spoken to her outside of your job, and it’s been months.”
“I’m working on it,” says Priyanka, who isn’t working on it. “I just needed to make sure she liked me first, God!”
“God is no help here, mon amie.”
“God’s no help anywhere.” Priyanka throws her legs over the arm of the couch and drops back against the cushions with a displeased and dramatic sigh. Rita isn’t lying: she moves with the speed and purpose of a snail in a salt circle, an entertainer without any plans for permanence. “It’s just hard, you know? How are you meant to ask a pretty girl out when you only see her for fifteen minutes every morning?”
Rita snags a pillow and throws it at her, nailing her square in the nose. “You write your number on the paper, you idiote!”
And oh, how Priyanka hates how slick that is, how clever, how movie perfect. She throws the pillow back and misses Rita by several feet. “Well, what if she’s straight? What if she’s not even single?”
“‘What if’ this, ‘what if’ that - you’re making so many excuses I’m starting to think you don’t even like her!”
“Fuck you! I’m just -”
“A coward?”
Priyanka shuts her mouth, then opens it, then shuts it again. She glowers at Rita, who ignores her with the disparaging haughtiness of some 18th century monarch, smug in the knowledge that she’s right, because she is; Priyanka has been avoiding broaching the topic of friendship with Lemon, let alone anything more, surviving on quarter-hour scraps while ravenous for more.
But Lemon is Lemon, and while Priyanka thinks decently of herself most of the time, she’s painfully aware that the blonde is probably out of her league. Rita would say they’re like day and night, summer and winter, yellow and blue - impossible to compare - but it’s difficult to believe when Lemon looks like that, and when she’s always so damn positive, talented and self-assured and infuriatingly perfect.
Sullen, she changes the subject. “Kiki said she’s throwing a party here on Saturday.”
Rita hums. “Yes, she is, because she promised me I would not have to buy my own booze if I let her invite whoever she wanted, and I figured I would be getting more out of it than she would if I said yes.”
“You talked her into buying your drinks for the night? Getting her to buy even one for me when we’re out is like pulling teeth!”
“What? I let her stay in this house, so I have leverage. You second years are easy to manipulate.”
Priyanka scoffs. “I can’t believe you.”
“Yes you can.” Rita turns her head to look at her, pursing her lips. “You should ask Lemon if she wants to come. There’s no better place to get to know her than at a party where you’re both drunk.”
Priyanka doesn’t know why the suggestion surprises her, because Rita has the dogged persistence of a hungry shark in bloody waters when it comes to matters such as this, but it does. Her brain shuts down, then reboots like an old nineties computer, all strange buzzing and flashing lights. “Yeah, and when I make an ass of myself, I can go hide in your room.”
“I’m locking it,” Rita deadpans, leaning over so she can pat Priyanka’s shin affectionately. “You’ll be fine. Just ask her, and when she says yes -”
“If she says yes.”
“When she says yes, I will get to say I told you so.”
It’s 7:28 pm, and Priyanka is covering Boa’s shift (because of course she is, it’s Boa, and Boa avoids work like the plague) when Lemon comes stumbling into the bakery looking as though her zest for life - pun absolutely intended - has been squeezed from her body, wrung out and left empty for the birds.
Priyanka’s heart picks up the pace, concern and confusion warring in her chest. Lemon has been a consistent beacon of light in her life since the day she first walked in - not an ounce of that fire is recognisable in her here. “Lemon?” she murmurs in lieu of greeting.
Lemon drapes her upper body across the countertop and makes an unintelligible sound of distress, sinking sluggishly back onto the stool like a receding tide.
“This… isn’t 8:07 am,” Priyanka continues, instead of saying something kind and comforting, then freezes like a deer caught in headlights. She’s not sure what’s more alarming: Lemon’s formulaic appearances, or the fact that she’s somehow memorised that pattern. “I mean -” Lemon’s shoulders shake with silent laughter (or sobs - it’s difficult to tell), and she hopes that means she hasn’t fucked it up already.
“I have a tight schedule, okay?” she teases, propping herself up by the chin with her hand. “But yeah, uh, Kiki said you were working, and I didn’t have anywhere to go, and I just - I wanted to see you.”
“You know Kiara?”
Lemon rolls her eyes. “Everyone knows Kiara. She helps a lot with setting up our big productions, ‘cause she’s got a better eye for that sort of thing than our own actual instructors.”
Priyanka nods - and then the rest of Lemon’s words catch up to her. “Wait. You wanted to see me?” She says it incredulously, as though the idea is preposterous - and really, it is, because she’s just the girl who gives Lemon her pain au chocolats every morning and entertains her with stupid chatter, and she hasn’t ever considered it being anything more than that from the blonde’s perspective.
But Lemon just flushes this pale pink colour and shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah, I really needed someone to talk to.”
And that brings Priyanka back to Earth - and to the heart of the matter: Lemon’s blatant upset. “Bad day?”
It’s like a switch has been flipped; the colour drains from Lemon’s face, and her whole body begins to deflate. “I mean… our group went perfectly.” She sounds exhausted, worn thin and overworked. “Which, you know, is great, but I was the standout, and the instructor for that module said I was more or less perfect, so -”
“But that sounds amazing!”
“Yeah, maybe, but he pulled me aside and pretty much told me that my free time next semester is going to be nonexistent because of all the extra stuff they’re going to be throwing at me.” Lemon sits up and runs her fingers through her hair. “I mean, I’m super excited, it’s just -”
Something isn’t adding up. Lemon had been thrilled by the prospect of extra work mere days ago, has always seemed capable of handling any amount of duty, and though Priyanka wouldn’t consider herself particularly observant, she’s learned to make exceptions for Lemon in almost every one of her flaws.
“Don’t you have anyone that can help you?”
Something dark crosses Lemon’s features, open eyes shuttering off, and Priyanka feels cold in the same way she feels cold when rain-heavy clouds cover the sun. “I don’t… have many friends.” She says it haltingly, each syllable less smooth than the last, and masks the vulnerability of the admission with a close-lipped, pained smile. “And if everyone didn’t hate me before, they’re definitely going to now.”
“How come?” It doesn’t make sense. Anyone capable of possessing such infectious peppiness so early in the morning has to be an innately good person - Priyanka can’t fathom anyone meeting Lemon and despising her, unless they were dedicated to the pursuit of misery.
Lemon twisted her hands in her lap. “Dance school is, like, crazy competitive. Everyone wants to be the one, you know? So when they see me getting more attention than everyone else, or getting bigger parts in numbers and productions -”
“They get jealous and shun you,” Priyanka surmises. Lemon drops her cheek into the crook of her arm and nods. “Well, fuck them! It’s not your fault none of ‘em can dance.” That startles a giggle out of Lemon, and she preens indiscreetly. “I’m serious. Who even cares about them, anyway?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” A pause. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be throwing all this onto you. It’s not fair.”
Priyanka waves a hand dismissively, feigning flippancy. “It’s fine, I’ll just add it onto your next order.”
Lemon gasps in faux offence. “You’re charging me for this?”
“Hey, I’m a minimum wage worker. A student’s gotta survive somehow.”
Lemon laughs, but it’s laced with something bittersweet, cyanide in coffee. “It’s kinda weird, actually, because I see you as a friend, but I’m really just a customer you can’t escape because this is your job.”
“No,” Priyanka denies, appalled - and then repeats herself more emphatically. “No! You’re my friend and I promise that even if I could escape, I probably -” (definitely, don’t kid yourself) - “wouldn't. I like talking to you. I like you.”
Rita’s voice echoes in her head: You like to put your foot in your mouth. But also, you should ask Lemon if she wants to come, and coward.
And she’s not a coward! She’s Priyanka, and she’s biding her time, because sunflowers don’t bloom in December, and she wants this to be good.
“Speaking of us being friends,” she begins, words at a million miles an hour to mask her embarrassment, “you busy this Saturday?”
Lemon does this thing where she cocks her head to one side like a curious little puppy hearing a new sound for the first time. “Nnno, I don’t think so, why?”
“‘Cause Kiara’s throwing a house party at her place and said I could bring anyone I wanted, and it sounds like you need a break, soooo…” She lifts her hands, bouncing them gently like old weighing scales. “It works out, right? Right?”
“Of course she is. Of course she did.” Lemon smiles, and it’s as though the clouds have parted once more, a rainbow framing the backdrop. “But yeah, I’d love to! I’ve not been to a house party in ages. Or… any party. Or a bingo night.” Priyanka snorts. “I’ve been like a hermit for the last few months, just dancing and studying twenty four-seven.”
Priyanka grimaces sympathetically - then claps her hands. “Great! Great. I can text you the details...?” She fumbles about for her phone, but Lemon stops her with a hand on her wrist, pen in hand.
“Here,” she says, just as Priyanka stammers, “Wh - ?”, tugging the cap off with her teeth and leaning over the countertop to scrawl what Priyanka hopes is her number on her arm. “Text me later, yeah?”
Struck dumb, Priyanka gestures mutely in agreement. This close, Lemon’s perfume is this overpowering fog - it would take nothing to cross the distance between them, and Lemon’s hand is still curled against her wrist, pinning it to the countertop -
The door opens. A customer walks in. Lemon drops back into her seat; Priyanka darts back to the till.
“Text me later,” Lemon repeats, and then she’s gone, and Priyanka is so distracted by her departure that the customer has to repeat his order twice before it registers in her brain. Two Alexandertortes.
When he’s gone, and the bakery is empty, Priyanka looks down at the writing on her arm. A string of numbers, capped off with a heart.
She pulls her phone out from her pocket, miraculously more deft than she had been in front of Lemon, and hits a particular contact name. Her wrist smells of citrus, sharp and sweet all at once, when she lifts her phone to her ear.
Rita picks up on the fifth ring. “Allô?”
“Fuck you, you were right!” Priyanka shouts down the line, and Rita only laughs.