Food Wars: The Fighter

Chapter 12: A Chef's Guidance

"Okay, so first, we'll get started on food preparation. But considering that there aren't enough people working in this restaurant, we need to start hiring people as soon as we can. Is there anyone available to make a sign to attach to the front of the restaurant?" I asked Akinari's parents.

"Oh, both my husband and I can work on it while you help train Akinari out here in the kitchen," Yuri offered which I agreed to since they seemed they wanted Akinari to start training in the kitchen. As both his parents left, I looked at the menu and looked into their refrigerator to check what they had. I pulled out all the vegetables and placed them on the table along with the cutting board and knife.

"Okay, this part is easy. We just have to prep the vegetables for the day. It shouldn't take us so long," I told him with confidence. But when Akinari stared at the vegetables, he was concerned and a little nervous, "What's wrong?" I asked him.

"That's quite a lot of vegetables, Y/N..." He pointed out the number of vegetables I had just pulled out. I looked at the vegetables and started counting how many I had out which totalled up to about 15.

"I don't think it's a lot. It's only 15," I responded. After that, we got straight to work. Akinari was working at his own pace but I noticed something that he needed to work on. His speed. I pointed it out to him, noticing the vast difference between his speed at school and here. I had a feeling that because he's not dealing with customers at school, he's somewhat faster but when it comes to the restaurant, he gets nervous a lot.

I went ahead and showed him what to do and how to improve his speed especially when the rush hour comes by. I was quite used to working with customers so I had enough practice to help Akinari how to speed things up. Even though the first few days weren't easy, I had to be somewhat hard on him to help him improve in a way so he doesn't make a mistake in cooking the dishes and what to improve on so that his family restaurant could gain more attraction from potential customers.

During the two weeks, I had spent with him, it was hard because Akinari was rarely in the kitchen, he could barely keep up with most of the orders which lead me mostly take most of the dishes during the day. Despite the situation, I had to make him start cooking the dishes that I wasn't working on so he could get some experience in cooking in the kitchen. This seemed to help him a lot because he was a lot faster than in the initial days.

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"Akinari! Table 5 ordered 2 sets of onigiri and a plate of curry rice. Table 10 also ordered a katsu don and a gyudon!" I called out to Akinari who was now working as a kitchen staff as I walked into the kitchen with a few orders from out front.

"Got it!" Akinari responds. In just two weeks, not only did the restaurant hire more people to speed up the service, Akinari had significantly improved his service in the kitchen and outside. It didn't take Akinari long to get used to the speed of service in the kitchen since I had been working with him first hand and his parents were glad that I was available to help their son in a way where he was able to get better at his skills in the restaurant.

"Yamazaki chan, we do appreciate your support in helping us improve our restaurant. Thanks to you, we've been getting a lot of good feedback from customers," Tanjiro approached me once it was my last day here.

"Of course! I'm glad your restaurant has changed a lot even your son. At least he's doing a lot better now than at school," I smiled but Akinari let out a shocked look on his face. I waved to them goodbye and got into the limousine. The two weeks I spent at the restaurant felt extremely long to me because I had to start from square one to organize the restaurant with everything but the place has managed to get through and improve its services and quality.

As I was sitting in the limo, my phone had been going off like wildfire because Akinari had texted me like crazy. After all, I had mentioned that he was doing better at the restaurant than at school which got him in trouble. I smiled and laughed silently at the texts he had sent me and replied with a half-assed apology to him.

Once I arrived home, I had gone up to step into the shower after being in and out of the kitchen for so long. When I returned to my room, I got dressed and my door suddenly opened without a knock. I looked over to the door to see that it was none other than Tadashi entering without knocking.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"It's from dad. Said that you forgot to get your payment from the Kamado for the two weeks," he said tossing the money fulled envelope onto my desk.

Was I supposed to get paid...?

"Oh...I didn't know I was getting paid..."

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3rd person POV

Summer was slowly coming and the Autumn Elections list came. Many students were gathered across the courtyard checking the bulletin board if they had been selected to be part of the event. Many were disappointed at the fact that they weren't included in this year's lineup. Y/N however was scanning through the list frantically, she was half expecting that she wasn't in the lineup but half hoping that she would be in it. She ran through the end of the list where her last name was in and there was it, both she and her brother had been placed in the top 60 first-year students to participate in the autumn elections.

"I see...Looks like we're on the list," Y/N muttered under her breath. Y/N was in Block B while her brother was in Block A.

"Oiiiiii! Yamazaki!" A loud and familiar eccentric voice she hasn't heard in weeks called out to her. Y/N faced the direction where the voice was coming from and it was from none other than Yukihira Soma himself.

"Soma-kun? It's been a while," Y/N greets. "Everyone else too!" She then greets the others that were with Soma before him calling her over.

"You're amongst those in the top 60 aren't you? I hope you are, 'cause then I'll be able to have a battle against you," Soma asks, hoping that he could fight against Y/N.

"Yeah, I sure am! Don't go off crying about it if you lose though," she snickers

"That's Y/N for ya! I hope to take all three of you on for the Elite 10 council. Erina, you and Soma!" Alice was somewhat taunted because she was ready to take the three on for the seat of the top 10.

On the following day, back in the dormitories, Y/N was in her room fast asleep as usual while every other inhabitant was awake doing their own thing in the garden. Just as Y/N was completely knocked out in her room, Yuki used the dormitory speakers and began screaming through them trying to get the girl to wake up.

"Y/N!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wake up! Everyone needs you to be in the dining area!" Yuki loudly screams through the speakerphone 

Y/N quietly gets up and reluctantly gets herself ready to head downstairs where Yuki had called her from. After a few minutes, Y/N arrived at the dining hall, Yuki presents everyone with an envelope.

"What is it?" Y/N asked looking at the envelope.