The Heaven's Tale Shokugeki No Souma Fanfic

Chapter 12 || Edited

Takeshima Rumi's POV

I mentally imagined myself gnawing a handkerchief as I tried to hold my weeping self in. If it weren't for Shinomiya-senpai's random question, I wouldn't have made a big mess in the kitchen. That's why, currently, I am bowing my head for several times ever since the restaurant closed for the night. I apologized again and again secretly hoping that he's not going to fire me for wasting his ingredients.

"Now, now, Takeshima-san. You don't have to apologize to that extent." Chef Ishigawa tried to reassure me that he was not mad and one apology was already enough. I think he was this lenient on me because he heard everything that senpai and I were talking about from his own employees. I was about to open my mouth to utter a protest when the source of this mess spoke first.

"Pardon me, chef, but a blunder is a blunder. You shouldn't relax when it comes to her. If you are not satisfied with her action, then you could fire her like any of your employees." I heard him suggest the simplest and easiest way of stabilizing things. I clenched my fists in anger to control myself from bursting at any moment. However, deep inside, I know that he was right about that.

'A chef shouldn't thing of personal things once they're in a kitchen. And, without a doubt, I failed that.' My heart and face both dropped. I was disappointed in myself. How could I forget that one fact that made me won the Grand Prix? How could I ever forget that one sole teaching of the man who taught me a thousand of things when mom and dad weren't around?

=== Flashback ===

I was already in the middle of prepping for Table 1's entrée when Shinomiya-senpai startled me with a statement that I didn't even realize that was possible. I doubled my pace after realizing that I was already falling behind from the team. I was about to fry the mackerel when Tsukasa-senpai's figure started to haunt my vision—altering my reality. Then another second came by and a made-up vision of him and Kobayashi-senpai goofing around with gold bands in their fingers came in. That sort of vision is powerful enough to make my body go numb and dysfunctional.

Crash!

"S-s-sorry! I'll clean this up as soon as possible. Please cover up for me." I asked the other chefs in the kitchen while hustling to the back where the cleaning materials were kept. I grabbed a small broom and a dustpan and hurriedly cleaned up the mess from the wasted ingredients to the plates that I knocked off in the process.

'That...I-have-a-crush type of bloom.' That last part from Shinomiya-senpai's deduction kept on repeating inside my head. It made me feel fuzzy and initiated the rise of temperature of my cheeks. I stood up, threw everything to their proper disposal, returned the cleaning materials, washed my hands thoroughly and went back to my station to prep a new set of mackerel.

I sighed, trying to calm my mind and my raging thoughts. Standing beside him for the prep stage is undeniably the last thing I'd ever want to happen. With the spare ingredients that I have in hand, it would only take a blur of 3 minutes for me to finish this up.

"I was right then." I heard him speak once again. Luckily, the knife that I was holding didn't fly off to his face and instead, I slammed it down to the counter. That noise was already enough to shift the entire staff's attention towards us more than ever.

"Chef Shinomiya, I don't care if you got a Pluspol Award and are aiming for 3 Michelin stars for your flag restaurant. But, let me just remind you, as long as you're working here—like you said—you and I are standing on equal grounds. Only our skills will separate us from each other as chefs." I hissed in annoyance. I guess my voice turned too sour for his liking as I saw his eyes wavered for a moment. "Back to work!" I ordered without giving him a chance to rebuke my own speech.