AN: I'm pleased by how well-received this story was! At the very least, a lot of folks watching it.

Some points: I am not Italian. I've just been doing a bunch of research for this story. I literally read recipes and my notes on wine as I write.

Everybody lives in New Jersey, but Beca (and Jesse) to school in New York. The title of this story was inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany's, if that wasn't obvious. Also, you all might notice a difference in this chapter. Namely, it's much more detailed and whatnot. That's because I've been listening to classical music (the reason for which will become apparent) and that shiz totally works. I had words and everything!

Enjoy the chapter, lol. Love, S.

"So you knock on this one, too?" The store employee shakes his head.

"No, you smell this one." Beca's eyebrows ascend.

"And what about this?" She holds up a tomato.

"You just feel that one. You could also smell it, though." She groans in pained frustration, confused and feeling defeated.

"Why is this so difficult?" There were so many different protocols for determining the ripeness of fruit, all involving molestation or seemingly abusive tactics. Beca places the tomato back among its peers. "This is why take-out is my friend." The guy chortles before going back to his produce cart. She watches him arrange bunches of broccoli for a few seconds, contemplating ordering a pizza.

She's wandering the produce section like a lost child when a voice sounds from over her shoulder.

"Oh, shiitake mushrooms. Don't they look cute?" Beca spins around to the sight of her ginger neighbor and her bright blue eyes. She turns back to the mushrooms.

"I mean, I guess. They're not puppies, or anything." Chloe seems unaffected by her lack of enthusiasm, slipping by to examine the fungi herself.

"I think they're cute as buttons," she winks at Beca. And she gets it, that Chloe's making a joke about button mushrooms and standing with her tongue under her teeth, biting down a smile as she waits for the brunette to laugh.

"Lentinula edodes." Chloe's brow wrinkles, looking adorably confused and Beca points at the mushrooms. "Shiitake. Latin name Lentinula edodes," she repeats for clarification. The redhead nods.

"You like mushrooms?" Beca shrugs.

"My mom's a mycologist." She picks up a medium-sized mushroom, handing it to Chloe when the redhead faces her fully. "Did you know that there's a mushroom strain called 'penis envy'?" Chloe laughs loudly and her shocked amusement makes Beca smile as well.

"What?" She grasps Beca's elbow lightly, caressing with her fingertips and the brunette shrugs a shoulder as a tingle sweeps up her arm.

"Yeah. Totally a real thing."

"You're not kidding?" Beca shakes her head, stilling when the redhead tightens her grip on Beca's elbow. "Is it edible?" Her eyes sparkle with humor.

"It's um, it's debatable," she hedges, glancing around when Chloe leans closer.

"And what on Earth does that mean?" The redhead looks like she's waiting for a secret, all glittering gaze and coquettish smile. Beca can only oblige such a mischievous tone. However unwillingly it happens. Which isn't too much.

"Psilocybe cubensis," and from the way Chloe's staring at her, she doesn't get it, "it's... uh. It's a special mushroom," her eyes get a little sharper, "the strain is um, it's called 'penis envy' because," Beca shifts her feet, "because obviously it looks like a certain thing." She scratches her chin. "A large kind of thing that the less-endowed would, obviously, be envious of. Hence the name." God, why is she even still talking. "My mom thought it was really funny when she told me. I was like, sixteen at the time and we were having a conversation about urges and the body," it's all word vomit and Chloe isn't stopping her. "She made a terrible mycology joke and honestly, I think she brings it up as often as possible because of how uncomfortable I get." Beca starts to bag some of the shiitakes out of some auto-pilot urge to preserve what little is left of her dignity through mindless movement.

"Beca." She's not sure if she needs as many as she's getting.

"Hm?" What's she even going to do with all of these?

"Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?" Beca stops at about half a pound, dropping the bag into her basket.

"I'm not sure what you think I'm telling you." Chloe's eyes glint.

"Define 'special', please." Beca wanders down the refrigerated aisle, eyes unseeing as she pretends to consider the vegetables.

"I feel like, if you're asking, then you probably know." Chloe hums.

"I guess that's some," the redhead winks, tone spinning towards salacious, "pretty amazing penis, if it's giving you visions." Beca groans loudly and shuts her eyes.

"Jesus," she mutters. Beca turns back to the fresh produce, observing them as they get misted. Once the sprinklers are done with their job, she picks up a snow pea. Chloe follows her, plucking it from her hand and studying the snow pea.

"What are you making?"

"I'm not sure. I'm just getting things." Because honesty is the best policy.

"Are you going to be able to cook it?"

"Yes." Most of the time, honesty is the best policy.

"Huh." Chloe's smirk reeks of disbelieving amusement. She rubs her thumb over the pea, considering it for one reason or another. After a minute or so, she turns to Beca.

"How about you come over for dinner tonight? We'll do something with those mushrooms you're buying." Beca nods, and Chloe starts to bag the snow peas, a small smile on her face. She watches the redhead's cheeks flush slightly as she picks out her vegetables. She hasn't really seen Chloe in about a week. After that first dinner, they only passed each other in the hallway once, both busy. When the redhead waves her hand in front of her face, Beca blinks twice.

"What?" There's a soft look in Chloe's eyes. A kind of fondness that Beca isn't sure what to with because she doesn't really know Chloe all that much. But it dredges up a responding warmth, and so she smiles.

"I asked what you were in the mood for." Her shoulders rise in blasé acceptance of whatever the redhead might want to cook. Beca would probably burn the pot with the stove off.

"As long as it's edible, I'm sure it'll taste great." Chloe's got mad chef skills so great that Beca can't even see the bottom of that tower. Her worst probably far exceeds Beca's hopes of best. Chloe seems to ponder the answer, glancing between ingredients before narrowing her eyes at the things they're in front of. She grabs some scallions, raising and lowering her hand like she's weighing the vegetable.

"Chinese sound good?" Beca watches the redhead swing the bunch around lightly, like she's saging the air around herself.

"Sounds like a plan." And when Chloe smiles like it's the sweetest thing Beca's ever said, it makes her inexplicably more excited than she ever thought she'd be. The scallions are snagged and placed into her own basket. "I'll buy the ingredients, since you're cooking." When Chloe opens her mouth like she's going to argue the point, Beca cuts her off with a high noise at the back of her throat. "Chloe."

"Yes?" Beca uses her most serious expression.

"If I cook," and Chloe's already laughing, eyes bright and smile large, "if I cook. There will be fire." She plucks the bag of snow peas from Chloe's basket as well. "There will be smoke," she continues over the huff, her own lips pulling up at the corner, "there will be terror," Chloe's shaking her head and rolling her eyes, "there will be casualties." Her body sways from the redhead's playful shove to the arm. When she's back to level, she comes with a warning, "unending devastation. And I don't think you want to responsible for that, now do you?"

Chloe laughs louder.

"You make it sound like there's going to be a wildfire, Beca." Chloe strolls away, saying something about sauces that she misses the details of, because the redhead tilts her head back to wink.

And the way that wink hits her, Beca thinks that there's maybe already a wildfire.

Beca takes the ingredients home with plans to meet up and make dinner together. She leaves it all in the grocery bag that Flo insisted she always take with her, a dark blue reusable bag that had a cartoon bowl of guacamole with eyes on it and 'Guac!' written in a startling neon pink, and stuffs the whole bag into the fridge on the bottom shelf. A quick nudge with her foot closes the refrigerator.

She makes her way over to her sound system and snaps her phone into the dock for a soundtrack to her tidying the apartment. Just as the beginning notes of the piano's first solo passage from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 come through the surrounding speakers, she hears a knock at the door. Before she can even open it, Jesse's voice makes it through the solid barrier, a whistling that accompanies the music in the background. She's turning the knob just as the brass instruments jump back in and it makes the moment more dramatic than it needs to be.

"Ah, the classics," Jesse starts as soon as she's got the door cracked. "Impeccable taste, my dear lady." He bows deeply, one arm behind his back and the other swirling in front of him with a flourish as he captures her fingers and places a kiss to her knuckles. Beca swirls her eyes in her sockets, snorting at his antics. "You are displeased, Your Highness?" She snatches her hand from his grasp to shove at his head, disturbing the style, and blocks her doorway by leaning into the frame.

"What's up, weirdo?" His grin reads only charm and adoration, rather than offense.

"Just wanted to see what's going on. Hang out with my sister from ano-" She swipes at him, grunting when he doesn't budge an inch.

"I'm not going to be home for very long," and as soon as it's out of her mouth, she knows it's the wrong thing to say, because Jesse's like a dog with a very meaty bone.

"Why not?" She tries to affect something careless. Aloof. Bored. Completely uninteresting, and it's as if he's a very particular breed of dog. A bloodhound with a new scent to track, rather than a lapdog with a broken nose.

"Oh, I'm just headed out." She's trying to casually change the subject, but he's not biting. "So, about the-"

"Headed where? Can I join you?" He's such a boy. Just a giant boy in a man's body, all swinging arms and cheesy grin, reading signs like he had no eyes. It's an endearing trait, most of the time. This is not one such occasion.

"Uh, no. I'm actually- Just no." Beca shifts, thinking of ways to throw the scent without being obvious.

"Why not? I thought I was your best friend!" He's insisting like it's going to get him anywhere.

"'Was' being the operative word," she mutters, snorting when he acts mortally wounded.

"So fickle, to cast me aside when it suits your winter soul." Jesse's throwing around words and phrases in character like he just stepped out of a book full of poetry. Sadly for him, Beca's got a heart of prose at the moment, so she rebuffs his attempts at insinuating himself into her plans. And with all of the timing of one of those rom-coms that Jesse likes so much, her neighbor's door opens and out strolls Chloe, looking every bit a solid 9.9, and that's only because she just burped rather loudly. The redhead spots them in the doorway, arguing like highly articulate children.

Beca's got eyes, and they work. Not as well as her ears, but they're still functioning. She can discern hues and shapes, shades and forms. She can spot a deer in the woods during a car ride and she can pick out people in the crowd. Her eyes work, and so she knows that everything she's looking at is real. It's the way she sees it that makes her question, because Chloe seems to be surreal. From the way Jesse's face relaxes, Beca thinks that maybe he's wondering the same thing.

Chloe's walking towards them and her hair looks like it's being blown backwards by a breeze that doesn't exist because they're in an enclosed hallway. But it's swaying and mussed and Beca can't be sure that there isn't some giant hole in the building that's letting in a massive gust. The redhead's hips are swaying like Shakira's singing her song about that particular bodypart and how they don't lie, and it's playing in Beca's head on blast. She finds her mouth quite abruptly dry and her throat parched. She derisively jokes about being thirsty before shaking that ludicrous thought out of her head and shaking it literally as well for good measure. Chloe stands in front of them, stupidly attractive with her glasses perched on what Beca absently describes as an adorable nose. And really, there are too many adjectives and too many delirious thoughts that are flying through her mind at the moment.

"Uh, hey!" Beca's not a frog, but from the way she croaks, nobody would be able to tell the difference. Jesse smiles at the redhead, nodding even though no one has spoken to him yet, wrapping the fingers of one hand around his arm and kicking the floor with the toe of his shoe. Chloe grins back, offering her hand to shake his before dropping her electric blue eyes on Beca.

"Hey there, you. I was wondering when you wanted to come over?" She turns to Jesse. "I'm Chloe, Beca's neighbor." Jesse's response is way too excited.

"Hi! I'm Jesse. I go to school with Bec." Chloe nods. Beca watches them making conversation for a few minutes before deciding to butt in when she clues in to the fact that Jesse's voice has dropped half an octave. He's talking to her with a deep rumble, tone like smooth jazz, and Beca wants to take the needle of a record player and scratch straight across the vinyl. She's not about to call 'dibs' on a human being, but she's got a boot with Jesse's name on it, and it feels like time to kick him to the curb.

"Okay, that's enough chit-chat in my doorway. Be gone, you," she pushes rather obviously on Jesse's chest, 'encouraging' him to depart with a tad more force when he merely chuckles and hugs her.

"Why are you trying to get rid of me? Trying to hide something?", he questions jovially, an arm still over her shoulders. Chloe's eyes track the interaction.

"Yes. Your presence no longer pleases me, peasant." Jesse's unfazed by the direct dismissal, squeezing her shoulders.

"My lady?", he speaks over her violent rebuke of his terminology, "what might you be hiding?"

"An axe, that I will soon be hiding in you, you buffoon." She shoves out of his embrace, hoping that her candor might convey her desire for him to just please leave. "Now go. Next time, call before you try to sit in at an event you weren't invited to."

"But you are admitting there's an event, then?" She rolls her eyes, smiling begrudgingly when he starts humming Three Dog Night's 'One (Is The Loneliest Number)' as he starts to back away.

"Nothing that concerns you, that's for sure." With a quick and sincere hug, Jesse's off, probably to track down Benji for a guys' movie night or something. Chloe looks pensive, nibbling on her lower lip and energy muted. Beca stands up straight, readjusting her body and her focus towards the redhead.

"Sorry about that, Jesse's basically a big kid," she explains unnecessarily. "Did he make you uncomfortable with his weird voice thing? I can like, whack him with a newspaper or something the next time I see him." Chloe's attention returns with a smirk and a chuckle.

"No need. He was fine," and part of Beca wants to absurdly ask how fine, "wasn't bothering me or anything." Beca nods. "When did you want to come over? I don't know what time you normally do dinner."

"We can do it now. Not like I'm really up to anything anyway." Mozart is still streaming through her surround sound system, which Chloe seems to just now be hearing.

"You like classical music?" Beca smiles.

"Yeah. My concentration is in Concert Composition." Chloe's got her thumbs hooked into the pockets of her jeans like they're suspenders, rocking back and forth like an innocent cartoon character.

"That's cool," and the way that the redhead says it, it's honest and honestly a little surprising because most people were unexcited about the subject. "You're totes cool." Beca ushers Chloe in as she goes to fetch the ingredients.

"Glad you're not bored to tears by it." Chloe's hum is negative.

"I think it's interesting. Complex. I wouldn't even know how to go about trying to compose something like this." She lifts her hand, palm up like she's trying to collect water, slowly twirling about in the middle of Beca's living room as she listens to the music. "Who is this?" Beca places the bags on the counter.

"Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," like he really needed that extra detail to distinguish him. She grabs her phone and shuts the music off. "This is his Piano Concerto No. 24," Beca adds as they walk to the front door and she locks it. "It's one of only two minor key works. Kind of bummed that there aren't more, to be honest." Chloe's nodding as she unlocks her door. "Of all of his concertos, that piece actually uses the biggest orchestra." The redhead pins her with an indescribable look as she goes into her own kitchen. Beca tails her and throws out more words. "It's actually very well known. People say it was one of Beethoven's favorites. One of mine, too."

Chloe sorts through the ingredients after a brief inspection of the bags the groceries are sitting in, the first being the guacamole bag she kept in the fridge and the second, with the sauces, being a light gray bag that had random cursive printed across it like it's been stamped with the wet pages of a mid-eighteenth century diary. Understandably, the 'Guac!' gets a bit more attention, to which Beca merely shrugs at when Chloe hikes a brow in question.

"Guac rocks, dude." Chloe's eyes simply squint with humor.

Beca rounds the peninsula, helping her neighbor with the unpacking. She really has no idea what to do aside from lining things up. Beca holds up a bottle.

"Oyster sauce. Is it made from oysters?" She turns the bottle around, studying the bottom like it'd divulge the answer. Chloe's washing all of the produce except for the mushrooms and Beca hears her response above the running water.

"Yep. They do some funky things and make some funky sauce." Beca puts the bottle back down.

"Sounds... funky." Chloe barks out a laugh, shaking her head as she sets everything in a colander to dry.

"Wanna help me make the noodles?" Beca's eyebrows go up.

"We're making noodles from scratch again?" She really shouldn't be so surprised, but she is. Chloe digs out a bag of flour and slides the carton of eggs over, plucking three and rinsing them before setting them on a towel next to the bag as she cleans the counter off.

"Have fresh noodles enough times, and you won't be able to go back to dried, Beca." Chloe's slipping on a chef's coat, and Beca's being forced to admit, even if only in her mind, that it looks good. She watches the redhead retie her hair, setting it up in a ponytail before going and washing her hands. Chloe's just about to start making the dough, but then she glances up and their eyes meet.

There's a little pocket of time that's lost in the connection, a strange tiny moment that could be a second or ten minutes, where they just stare at each other and Beca has no idea what Chloe's thinking but her own mind is completely blank, devoid of words in a way that confuses her. Her phone rings in her hand, startling her with the vibration, and the reflex to nearly launch the device brings her back. And it feels like she should say something to break whatever tension is going on, but Chloe beats her to it.

"So, do you want to help me make the dough?" Beca stands up on impulse before she fully hears the question.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Because there's probably some aspect of this that she could ruin. Chloe, however, remains optimistic.

"There's no fire involved. I'll be right here, watching," she says, soothingly, like Beca's some sort of stray that needs coaxing. Beca rolls her eyes.

"You're asking for me to prove that I could create flames where there is no heat. Got it," Beca responds as she goes to wash her own hands.

"Probably hot enough between the two of us to make a fire," Chloe quips, winking as she makes her way to her music. "Do you mind if we listen to that thing you were playing at your place?" Beca mumbles her reply, busy trying to figure out what exactly the redhead meant.

"Sure." She watches Chloe in the living room, scrolling through her phone and setting up the music.

She remembers her first dinner with the redhead a week ago. How she'd left a pot of noodles boiling on the stove as she worked on a project for her class. She lost track of time, and all of the water had boiled down until there was only pasta burning into a giant lump at the bottom. There was no salvaging that pot, but the exchange was well worth the sacrifice. The first movement of Mozart's 491st composition starts, and Chloe comes to stand next to her.

"Ready to get your hands dirty?" Chloe seems so much more excited for this task than Beca is.

"Lead the way, Captain." The redhead hands her an apron. It's red and white checkered, and part of her feels like she's a walking picnic table. But Chloe makes a comment about it being cute and then she feels like she's trying to mimic the apron's pattern.

Chloe dumps some flour onto the counter and motions for Beca to 'have at it'. But she has no idea what to do, so she merely stares back in confusion. "What do I do with this pile?" The redhead chortles.

"You make a well in the center, and crack the eggs into it." Her brow furrows.

"I do what now?" Because making a well involved drilling, and she's not sure how making noodles involved digging into the Earth and finding water. She's also unsure about the eggs part. Chloe presses the tips of the fingers of one hand together, creating a point, and gestures the hand at the pile of flour, pointing her fingers down and rolling her wrist to make small circles.

"Dig down into the flour with your hand, like this. It makes a well in the center for your eggs to sit in." The redhead starts it, pushing down at the top of the pile and lets Beca finish until the flour is a big 'O' and she can see the counter. Then eggs are being slid over to her and she's trying to crack them without getting bits of shell into the equation. She's a little jealous when Chloe cracks an egg with one hand like the seasoned pro that she is. "'Kay, now take this fork and beat the eggs."

She makes a bit of a mess, accidentally flicking yolk out of their little flour volcano. Chloe giggles when Beca gags at the bit she's gotten in her hair and on her cheek. As she's denouncing the merits of cooking your own food, Chloe's thumb swipes the egg off of her cheek, gaze sparkling all the while. A wet towel follows, taking the last bit off and cleaning her hair as well. This close, she can see the different blues in Chloe's eyes.

"See? All clean. No need to have a meltdown." Beca's mouth moves on its own.

"I just had an unborn chicken on my face." Chloe's scoff scratches under her skin.

"Technically, it's not an 'unborn chicken'. These eggs aren't fertilized, so they won't ever develop." But she's not in the mood for technicalities.

"Stop being right," she grumbles to a thoroughly amused redhead.

They go back to their task, and Chloe teaches her how to mix it with the fork properly. Of course, when it comes to using her hands, she ends up feeling like she's trying to scoop the kind of cement that dries quickly.

"Oh my gosh, Beca. This is easy," she sighs pityingly, moving behind Beca and placing her own palms over the brunette's, "just work it, like this." Beca's wondering about all of the possible interpretations for that sentence, allowing Chloe to maneuver her hands with no protest. "See? Not so hard, is it?" And no, it's not so hard, because she's not a guy and therefore it isn't such an obvious thing, especially in her loose-fitting sweatpants. What is hard, is keeping her focus on actually forming the dough because Chloe's still behind her, no longer molding with the brunette but leaving her hands on the counter and she feels like Demi Moore in Ghost and her Patrick Swayze is teaching her how to form dough instead of pots. When it finally begins to turn into an acceptable lump, the redhead squeezes her hip and slips away.

As the the dough ball "rests" underneath a towel, whatever that even means, she washes her hands and goes to join her companion.

Beca sits across from the redhead on the couch, turning and leaning against the arm, stretching out a bit. "Cooking is freaking exhausting, dude. Do you do this everyday?" Chloe shrugs, clicking the volume down on the music with the dock's remote.

"Not every single day. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. But cooking is relaxing to me, so I suppose that I don't mind it as much as you do." Beca nods emphatically.

"I didn't know that the noodles needed to sleep, too." At first, Chloe's got a cute little expression on her face, like she has absolutely no idea what Beca's on about. But then she lights up, tossing her head back and laughing, looking at Beca like she's-

"You're such a dork." Chloe asks if she wants wine, rolling her eyes at herself for not doing it sooner as she gets back up to fetch some. And Beca still doesn't know why the dough needs to sleep.

"Wait. So, the dough needs to 'rest'," she brings her fingers up, hooking them to make air quotations, " and the wine needs to 'breathe'? Are you sure you're not crazy?" It seems the food is more alive than she thought. Chloe pays Beca and her questions no mind, setting up the cutting board and placing a rather large knife on it. Beca steps back. "I'm just kidding." The redhead rolls her eyes.

"We've got to prep the other ingredients. Here," she places the shiitake mushrooms in front of Beca, "pull the stems out of these and slice them thinly. Beca starks to pluck the stems out, putting them in a neat little pile on their work surface.

"How thin is 'thinly'?" Chloe hums as she rubs a spoon over a piece of ginger. Which, Beca's not sure about that, but she's not the culinary graduate, so what does she know.

"I don't want to be able to see through it, but it shouldn't be more than a centimeter thick." Beca's eyebrows go up.

"That's specific. What does it matter?" Somehow, the spoon is peeling the ginger, and Beca's watching some sort of magic happen as the skin is separated from the flesh like they were never connected. Which is freaky.

"It affects the cooking time. Uneven pieces means different cooking times, resulting in a lack of uniformity in the dish," Chloe rattles off stoically, transferring her naked ginger to another cutting board and turning the root into tiny bits with her knife.

"Okay, Einstein. I'll try to keep them like twins," Beca retorts, smirking when Chloe laughs at her.

"Sisters is fine, Beca. We don't mind a bit of individuality. Just don't make them look like third cousins by marriage." Beca snorts, accidentally chopping a slice of mushroom the wrong way. Slyly, she breaks up the Quasimodo chunk into smaller pieces. "I saw that."

"We don't mind a bit of individuality," she repeats Chloe's words, speaking nasally in a very childish imitation. Her neighbor's doing the same tiny cutting motion with a clove of garlic, scooting all of them onto the corner of her cutting board before moving to trim the snow peas. When she's done peeling the spines off, she pushes the bowl to Beca.

"Here, slice these diagonally." Chloe goes to check on their sleeping dough ball. With a series of pokes and pats that are reminiscent of a doctor's visit, she brings it out and starts to mess with it. "Time to roll this badboy out." The redhead sets up the same machine she did the other night, and Beca watches with fascination as it turns into a long ribbon.

With some heckling, she returns to her own task. Chloe gives her snow peas a passing grade, something she's secretly pleased by, considering her relationship with actualizing an edible meal. The scallions give her a bit more trouble, though.

"Who is Julianne?" Chloe's eyes probably couldn't roll harder, and even though she's busy cutting the dough into noodles, she still finds the time to school Beca.

"Not 'Julianne', julienne." Beca doesn't think that there's really a difference between what she said and what Chloe just said. "Slice thinly on an angle." The redhead moves her hands in what Beca is assuming is the proper motion for "Julie-Anne'ing", but she's not sure how to translate the visual example into an acceptable piece of cut scallion.

"Why do these green onions have to be so prissy? Can't I just drop it in the blender?" The look that Chloe gives her is so unamused that she ends up laughing. "Okay, okay." She gives it her best try.

And they're not the prettiest, but they're kind of there. They're cut, and that's the important part, right?

"We'll make it work." Chloe runs Beca's knife over the scallions, or green onions, or spring onions, whatever they're being called today. They look a little less like wood chips when the redhead is done. "Now comes the fire part."

Beca immediately washes her hands and sits down, much to Chloe's humor.

The redhead places a large saucepan of water on the stove, clicking the heat on. When she points to some of the ingredients close to Beca, the brunette nudges them over. The chicken broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and some chile sauce go into a bowl that Beca gets tasked with mixing. She sets it to the side when Chloe shakes her head. The water comes to a boil and noodles dropped in.

"So, tell me about school," Chloe requests as she stirs the noodles to keep them from sticking.

"I go to NYU, have my bachelor's of music in theory and composition," Chloe hums as she listens to Beca speaking, "I'm pursuing my master's with a concentration in Concert Composition." Beca watches her friend turn on the faucet and run hot water before draining the noodles into a colander sitting in the sink. "Why is the faucet on?" Chloe moves her glasses to the top of her head when the steam billows around her.

"To warm the pipes up. If you pour boiling water straight down the drain without preparing them, they can crack," she says as she shakes the colander under the water to rinse the noodles before turning the faucet off and letting them drain. "Your friend said he goes to school with you." Beca bobs her head.

"Yeah, he's also getting his master's in music. His concentration is in Multimedia and Film Scoring, though. He's a big movie buff." Beca shudders. "We met on the first day of school. It was weird." She messes with a stray piece of excess vegetable matter. "He's still weird."

And she kind of wants to bring up how into Chloe Jesse seemed to be, before she remembers her phone buzzing a while ago. She digs it out to read the message.

Weirdo: Hey Becs, that girl is cute. Do you think you can talk to her for me? Beca rolls her eyes.

Becs: Hey, how about no because I'm not your errand runner. She's not about to go around passing notes like they were in grade school. Besides, I don't know if she's into guys. Beca taps her phone on her chin. Even if she was, she wouldn't be into you. You smell like popcorn and bad jokes. She receives a reply almost immediately.

Weirdo: Is this your way of saying that you might be into her, Becs? Be honest. I'm here 4 u. She's not about to admit it to him.

Becs: Maybe I'm just trying to protect other people from your particular brand of boyish "charm". Beca's not a prolific user of emoticons, but she finds the 'vomit face' particularly apt right now.

Weirdo: I knew you secretly liked me.

Becs: Okay, don't know why I put up with you. night. She turns her phone facedown. Across from her, Chloe's heating up what smells like some sort of oil in a large, flat pan.

"What are you going to do with that big pan?" Chloe turns her head briefly before continuing her work.

"I'm going to cook everything in this skillet. This is where it all comes together." The way she says it, it's almost reverent.

At high heat, the smell of oil starts to seep into the air. Chloe drops the mushrooms into the skillet by the handful, and Beca watches a master at work, dancing to the sounds of sizzling vegetables and Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante.

"You said that that one composition was one of your favorites. Why?" Beca mulls over the question.

"It's an amazing piece. It's stormy and intricate, and such a departure from his previous piano concertos," she effuses, hands waving to better convey her thoughts. "It was written less than a month after the premiere of Concerto in A Major. It's like a frenetic dance, excited and moody and somehow still calm." Chloe tosses in the ginger and garlic, and Beca's mouth starts to water at the scent around them. "The emotional tension and conflict throughout the composition is exquisite."

The noodles and snow peas go next, followed by the sauce and the scallions that Chloe fixed. Beca watches Chloe working, seamlessly flowing and ebbing as she stirs and adjusts, and it reminds Beca a bit of music. Chloe moves the skillet from the heat and pours the food onto a serving dish. The redhead's finally able to move her glasses back in front of her eyes, and she does so with a smile.

"How do you manage to cook with your glasses fogging up all of the time?" Chloe slides a plate full of noodles and veggies over to her, complete with a fork.

"It's not so bad. I can see without them. I normally wear contacts during the day, anyway." Beca swallows a mouth full of saliva, because the food smelled good.

They sit at the couch again, accompanied by glasses of wine.

"Beaujolais." Beca nods.

"It goes well with this dish," she says to Chloe's smile.

"I wouldn't dare serve you a wine that paired poorly, Beca." Beca swallows her mouthful before huffing.

"Of course not. Because you're classy," Beca reminds her. Chloe, for her part, stays classy and looks up at the brunette through her lashes, a faint blush on her cheeks and a small smile on her lips.

They eat for a few moments without talking, instead savoring the fruits of their labor. When her phone vibrates on the coffee table, Chloe tips her head at it.

"Maybe this is being too forward, but what's your relationship with Jesse?" Beca chokes on a snow pea. After a quick confirmation that she's fine, she responds.

"He's a good friend, but that's all," and Beca decides to just go for it, "I think he's into you, though." She sips her wine. The redhead nods.

"I had a feeling." Beca's waiting for the rest of a sentence that doesn't seem to be coming.

"And...?" She watches Chloe twist a noodle around on her fork and eat it daintily.

"'And' what?" The brunette stabs at a piece of mushroom that's folded over.

"How do you feel about it?" Chloe shrugs, picking up her wineglass.

"Not much, to be honest. I don't really know him." Beca tries not to smile, but her lips are curving against her will and they're making eye contact over the edge of Chloe's glass and before they know it they both start giggling.

"Is there anyone you do know?" Chloe winks, setting her wine down and resting her chin on her fist.

"Maybe." And it's like there are butterflies marching around inside of her, with how that one word makes her feel.

"So, this wine," Beca starts as Chloe hands her a filled glass, "time for my next lesson on being cultured." The redhead nods, settling the jug comfortably on the coffee table and leaning into the back of the couch. She's still in her jeans from earlier, and the light blue of Chloe's blouse doesn't really match her eyes but it's as close as it can get. Her chef's coat is folded over one of the chairs by the peninsula. Chloe hums and looks at her wine.

"This is a Beaujolais," and Beca wants to stupidly say "bless you", "from the Chiroubles appellation-" Beca interrupts her.

"Appalachian? Like the mountain range?" Chloe chuckles.

"No, 'appellation' is the official title given to a product made in a specific place. In this case, it means that tonight's wine came from the Chiroubles area of the Beaujolais region of France." Chloe swirls the wine. "Most of the wine in that area is the kind that we're drinking now. A small percentage is Chardonnay and Pinot."

"Does the area make a difference?" The redhead hums.

"Mhmm. The elevation, the soil, the temperature, everything makes a difference, including the barrel it's aged in, and the way the grapes are processed." Beca's eyebrows go up as she considers the red liquid in front of her.

"Is wine made with special grapes?"

"Different varieties for different tastes. Beaujolais is made with Gamay grapes. This wine uses a variation of the maceration carbonique method and because of that, it extracts the maximum color and aroma without the astringency that's associated with red wine." Chloe taps her glass against her cheek. "Chiroubles Beaujolais has a lacy texture and suppleness that sets it apart from the rest." Beca nods as she rolls the fruity wine over her tongue.

"It's really good, actually. Smooth." She cradles the glass in her hands, letting the stem sit between her fingers.

"Can you taste the cranberry notes in it?" And as Beca takes another sip, she can't help but notice that Chloe's eyes seem to shine a bit brighter. Her brow wrinkles.

"No, um, I can't, actually." Because it's fruity, but it's less cranberry and more some other ambiguous berry, in her opinion. She's mulling over her thoughts when Chloe gently removes the glass from her hand.

"Try again." She's not sure how she's supposed to sample the wine when it's no longer within her reach, but then Chloe's there, lips just a breadth away, giving Beca a chance to escape. "If you'd like to, that is."

It's pretty chaste, closed lips pressing together and Chloe's hand grasping her upper arm, fingers just barely closed around Beca's bicep.

She pushes forward a bit, meeting Chloe in the middle so the redhead doesn't have to lean as much, and as they part, Beca can't help but think that it's nice. She licks her lips, watching with a hazy sort of focus as Chloe does the same.

And yeah, she can definitely taste the cranberry notes.

They're sweet.

AN: Hope you guys liked it! It's a reprieve from writing PTD. Which, I like, but I have to be in a certain headspace, so this light stuff is cool. Thoughts?