A/N: Hellu Beans! I'm feeling better ^^ and I realized that even if I was in tip-top condition last weekend to write my life away, I wouldn't have been able to do the 7.5k words you're about to read anyway. Hehe. I realized that I'm much better suited to be writing plot chapters from Monday to Thursday rather than giving myself the Friday to Sunday time slot with less time.
So I'll be changing plot updates to Thursday 22:00 GMT+8! I'll always be updating my schedule on Instagram anyway. Short stories are now going up on Sundays ^^ the next one is about the Honeycutt-Jaxon family spending a day at the beach and it will be up on Inkitt.
Enjoy the dramatic chapter that is likely to make your tummy rumble with a rumbly (' v ')/ hehe. I love writing these chapters on an empty stomach because I just go all out with the description and detail every single thing I can think of.
-Cuppie
===================
[Vanilla]
As a wholehearted, introspective observer who prefers watching from the sidelines to direct intervention in the unfolding of events beyond the invisible glass separating myself from the world, I had, in the span of four months, surprised myself and everyone else familiar with my personality.
I now apparently have friends. I also have an intimate companion. I am also apparently very capable of removing the invisible glass and stepping into the other side of the world. And at the very same time developing a temporary, spontaneous ability to voice my opinions publicly in front of a very big crowd as long as I wasn't looking at them. For some reason, I am also able to incite a brief 'suspension of disbelief' in which I would so logically conclude that as long as the crowd remained beyond my field of vision, I would, as well, remain beyond theirs. No one witnessed the tremble in my fingers or the redness of my ears; any external manifestation of my nervous disposition was not observed.
"Your feet were shifting." Leroy Cox was a liar and he couldn't possibly have observed such a detail as minor as shifting feet but here he was, walking alongside myself as we made our way to the practice kitchens.
"Ah, now you're making things up." I said, opting for a tactical subject change. "I'm just surprised I got away with speaking like that to you and by extension the rest of the... well, those of higher ranks since technically you'd all agreed to be sorted according to your draws. I... you're not offended, are you...?"
He snorted, going for my forehead. "You realize that saved our asses."
"It's a feasible plan of eighty-five percent working probability. Everything else would depend on the strategies of the other schools and how the guests respond to having a hundred and fifty food options," I told him, speeding up a little to catch up with Chen who was leading the way. The other schools were filing out of their assigned lecture theatres and heading to the practice kitchens as well. "We could discuss this further when we're at your station."
Participants were given five minutes to move from left wing to Roth Hall where the allocated kitchens and stations were before spending a maximum of sixty minutes refining their recipes. Fortunately for Leroy, the top thirteen students of each school were given individual practice kitchens for focus and privacy.
"Leroy?"
Sweet bubbles of joy were the hallmark of Maple's voice and I'd heard him calling for my companion several feet to our left—him, emerging from the lecture theatre and us, following the crowd up to the second floor. Leroy's selective hearing was a problem.
"Your student buddy." I pointed out. Maple had made his way over amidst the chaos of moving humans before greeting Leroy with the most excitable hug I've ever seen.
Si Yin, who had been speaking to Rosi right behind us, walked into an extinguished flame that seemed just about frozen from the top of his head to the very ends of his toes. After recovering from the impact, she and Rosi shared an all-too-dramatic gasp. Needless to say, I'd paused and registered this rare and miraculous occurrence before being seized by an uncontrollable fit of laughter. This, I'd done my best to suppress.
Leroy was the palest I'd ever seen him without a sign of life in his eyes and seemingly terrified while my display of amusement had him snapping out of his frozen state and sending an indecent finger my way.
"Can you not, like, block the entire hallway or something?" Birchwood had been some several feet behind Si Yin having received a bouquet of flowers from her supporters who'd returned to school despite it being their winter break to see her live performance. She overtook the bunch of us stopping in the middle of the hallway before seemingly doing a double take at Maple's very enthusiastic form of greeting.
Her eyes were nearly exactly as I remembered them to be on our first day of school. 'What are you doing here?' 'Who are you?' 'What are you doing?' Maple on the other hand, seemed to recognize her at once. Apparently, he was one of her fourteen-thousand followers on Instagram.
I was therefore put in a very awkward position of unfortunately being in the middle of Leroy and Birchwood, both of whom were somewhat involved in a budding conversation led by Maple. Thankfully, having read Social Conventions for Dummies by L.O. Red back when I was attending a private high school, I was sensitive enough to fall back alongside Si Yin and Rosi, allowing Maple to take my place.
Leroy had glanced over his shoulder nearly at once to shoot me a rather amusing glare, all whilst Maple continued to hold onto the idiot's upper arm within his reach. The two girls beside me were making wild gestures at Maple's back which I'd found mildly confusing. This lasted for some three minutes until the latter arrived at the line production kitchen on the first floor of Roth Hall where he'd been placed and waved goodbye. Si Yin and Rosi were assigned to stations in kitchen nine on the second floor while Birchwood had disappeared down a hallway of private kitchens and Leroy, in the opposite direction.
"I know he reminds you of Chip but—"
"Well, he's clearly taken a liking to you." I followed him into kitchen suite B, producing a tiny notepad I'd filled with ideas during the discussion prior. "I've never seen anyone greet hostile fires with a hug. It's a good thing."
Leroy had his head tilted slightly away from our conversation, biting his lip with a slight frown that seemed unsure if it was amused or skeptical. "Not sure if I can be as calm as you are now if you were on the receiving end of that hug."
I blinked. "You mean if Maple greeted me with one?" He had his hands braced against the countertop, staring down at a basket of basic ingredients and picking up the pencil on top of a notepad placed beside it.
"Anyone, really," he said shortly with a sigh. "I feel like you're giving him a whole lot of leeway because of the resemblance."
Crossing the room to where he was, I held my hand out for the pencil and wasted no time getting him started on drafting out a list of ingredients according to the menu we'd discussed back in the lecture theatre. "If what you're trying to do here is assess my capacity for jealousy, I'd very much prefer if you'd said that from the very start. I am capable of it. Admittedly, I've never had to experience the green smog since, well, this is my first romantic relationship and, academically, I'd long figured out that envy was no rational emotion to be feeling since, with hard work, I'd eventually be able to attain whatever it is someone else has. Now that we are dating, I flinch at the thought of anyone else having your full attention. O-or perhaps even just a slither of it."
I'd nearly finished the list whilst rambling away and, glancing up to observe his reaction, felt him lean uncomfortably low—resting his head on my left shoulder. I reached up to give it a pat.
"Maple is adorable, and I see why and how he can be attractive to certain people. Naturally, I'd be afraid if you eventually took a liking to him. And would I somehow be able to prevent that possible future? If you end up falling out of love for me and liking someone else instead, is there anything I can do but accept that you have? Well the answer is no. Hanging on to someone who clearly doesn't love you isn't the solution to anything and hurts both parties in a romantic relationship. That doesn't mean I stop loving you, by the way. One can never tell that sort of thing. The only remaining option would, speaking from probability, be to trust you and by extension, your love for me wholeheartedly, without question. I may very well end up getting hurt. But that will be my private concern if it so happens. I hope it doesn't. Happen. I'd spent the second half of my childhood concluding that I'd spend the rest of my life very much alone. Which I could do. Very much. But do I want to?
"Well... no. No, I don't. Given a choice, I would very much to spend the rest of my life not alone. Spend it with you, ideally."
I'd completed the list and highlighted several points about the tableware and how the station should be displayed from prep to collection area and had been thoroughly distracted by my doing so till I finally registered the exact meaning of the words I'd said, aloud, and and and promptly spiraled i-into another fit of embarrassment. Clearly, there was something severely wrong with my brain today.
"I did not just say all that." I turned to him in a whisper of dismay, to which he, jaw angled towards my neck, laughed into it.
"So... when's the wedding?"
"... judging from the sheer lack of attention you are paying to the task at hand, I'd say several days after your funeral, since Chef Marseille would murder you for messing up a perfect opportunity to bulldoze the school ahead in points. Ah, and the several-day interval just to ensure you don't somehow return from the dead."
After some awfully embarrassing shared laughter followed by the usual indecent finger and signature smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, we finally returned to running through the list that Leroy had to be submitting to the organizers so that they'd be able to prepare the ingredients beforehand.
"Charcoal stove?" He stopped at the last of the cookware I'd listed on the notepad and I nodded, particularly electrified by the idea of having it in a buffet.
"Yes. The white, Japanese kind. Made out of clay. Squarish. Grilling the chashu over charcoal on the spot will not only add an inviting fragrance to your dish, it will also do brilliantly at attracting guests to your station."
Leroy nodded, penning something down in his chicken scrawl before straightening up and frowning at the words. "Yeah, nothing's going to beat that intensity. The natural oils of it done aburi style. But the smell. I'd be drowning out the rest of the room."
I blinked. "Ah, you're afraid of overpowering their senses with just your dish... true." Giving it a second thought, that would indeed be a great concern considering the fact that this was ultimately not an individual tournament. "Well. Rationally speaking, it's a dilemma of choosing one's means to the very same end. Should we be thinking on behalf of the school as a team or simply place our hopes on one person who may very well be able to provide such a big point gap that would be able to decide the winner in the very first round? Both are means to the end that is victory. I would even go as far to say that other schools might not hesitate to execute an overpowering dish."
He nodded once, yet again scribbling something on his notepad while I left the final decision up to him.
"Alright I've spent enough time with you. I'm going to check on Si Yin."
The idiot had the gall to hold me back and by the waist!! Absolutely u-unforgiveable. Caught off-guard, I'd fallen backwards and into his arms, perfectly immobile.
"You?" He asked, gaze lowered. "What are you making?"
"Oh. Are you, um, perhaps offering some advice? Well... it's panko-crusted shrimp with chive aioli. Simple, really."
He gave that a thought, getting straight to envisioning the dish. "The plating?"
"Just a dollop of aioli at the bottom of the shot glass and a knotted bamboo toothpick through the shrimp, balanced on top of the opening."
He nodded. "Make sure your pan's nice and hot before the shrimp goes in or it's going to have an uneven cook." I struggled to straighten up with his arms around my waist, taking notes in the most uncomfortable position but doing so in a professionally efficient manner. Having Leroy around made one an expert at filtering out unnecessary distractions. "Don't crowd the pan. Rest the shrimp on some kitchen towels once they're done so that the oil doesn't end up dripping onto the aioli in the shot glass below it."
Nodding away and keeping my attention fixed on registering and understanding the logic behind the information, I hadn't noticed my companion closing in from behind so when I finally looked and and and did, I was naturally reduced to a flustered mess.
"It is broad daylight."
"So?"
"We are in school!"
"Your point?"
"Illegal activities are forbidden, you moron," I had to lay out with a heat on my ears and he laughed, leaning in. I factored in his relatively pleasant behaviour for the past week and the fact that he hadn't been very demanding about physical intimacy and decided upon a fleeting butterfly kiss on his cheek. "That is the most you're getting." I told him, lowering myself back to the ground after the brief tiptoe.
The flame in his eyes softened to a bud before growing into something that w-was just, simply bad. "You call that a reward?"
He had a hand wandering its way down my spine all the way to my lower back and clearly, I wasn't in the proper state of mind to be thinking rational thoughts save throwing out random words from my mental dictionary when all of a sudden, the door swung open to reveal an initially animated Chen.
Red as cooked shrimp, I slumped to the floor and curled up into a ball.
I heard the school's number one sigh in the most disappointing manner. "Cox, I told you. Not in front of my fucking salad."
============
[Violet]
It was twenty minutes to open doors and naturally, I'd had my strawberry mousse in white chocolate shot glasses all laid out, perfectly arranged to the exact millimetre before deciding to run to the bathroom to give my hair and make-up one last fix, since, well, I had some time. On my way out of the function hall, I saw glasses boy several stations down with his panko-crusted shrimp. The shot glasses he'd chosen weren't too shabby but that's literally it—I could see him fumble with the induction cooker and gingerly flip the shrimp he'd butterflied terribly onto its other side and immediately, anyone could tell that he had the technical skills of a potato.
I came back from the bathroom, expecting his station to be all good to go but he was still frying up his shrimp so I went over, grabbed a sample, examined the colour on the shrimp and tasted it with the aioli. He panicked slightly but the shrimp was already in my mouth.
Right off the bat I could taste the parsley and red pepper flakes he'd combined with the panko crumbs that were crunchier after frying in the pan, coating a good, seasoned shrimp that had a mild sweetness which might have been a thin brushing of honey or something, I couldn't tell. The chive aioli was the creamy citrus he needed to be cutting through anything sinfully fried and the textures, altogether, were actually...
"Not bad," I snorted. He seemed relieved. Shoulders relaxing. "You plate like a garbage boy though."
Startled, he picked up one of the shot glasses in front of him and held it to the light, as though that would give him the answer to what plating like a garbage boy meant. I told him to set it down because he was making himself look stupid. "You're taking too long to clean your plate. And it's because the opening of the shot glass is small so the aioli you spooned inside is all over the place and needs some cleaning up so think. Use a piping bag. And the tail ends of your shrimp isn't facing the same way. If you're making it face the end of the toothpick, then the rest of it should be the same. Standardize it." I referred to the rest of his samples laid out on the table.
"A piping bag... that's a brilliant idea," he was smiling and there was something about the way his lips were perfectly curled that honestly didn't sit well with me 'cuz, like, who smiles like they're at some PR event twenty-four-seven? It's like he's practiced it in front of the mirror a thousand times and honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if he did that at some point. "Thank you. I've been struggling with the dollop of aioli, so. I really appreciate that piece of advi—"
"Okay bye I'm busy."
I returned to my station because I wasn't going to spend the last fifteen minutes having a conversation with a nerd when I could so obviously be Instagramming the white chocolate shot glasses I'd made in, like, less than thirty minutes with a blast freezer. Just in case you're uninformed, Instagram is advertising. That is a hundred-percent free. Whether it's a story or a post, as long as the picture is stunning and people were looking at it, they were going to come.
Though I can't be sure the invited guests were familiar with the dessert or pastry scene that I was established in but even if they weren't, as long as I could get them to take pictures and maybe use a custom tag...
"Hey. Birchwood."
I looked up from the screen of my phone. Jael. "What."
"Did you see L'assiette's pink Himalayan salt block? And that grana Padano cheese wheel." He held up his camera, scrolling through the photos at lightning speed. I couldn't even tell what he was talking about. "Where'd they even get that at such a short notice?"
I scoffed. "A cheese wheel? Wow, they must be stupid. Cheese and carbs at a buffet. What, is it a cream sauce pasta in a ramekin or something? Are they actually trying? People aren't going to come back once they'd made their rounds of a hundred-and-fifty other dishes. It's too filling."
"Haha, yeah, uh," he stopped scrolling through the photos on his camera to give me a look. "The thing is, they're up front. First one through the door."
I paused. "Wow. Wow, fuck them."
"They have a pretty good strat, if you ask me. Most of their dishes are showy. Some huge setup that'll attract the guests—all that flambe, the chocolate fountain, grilled filet mignon on the salt block... and it's all pretty filling. Like they aren't giving the guests a chance to try anything else after they had theirs."
"People make better decisions at buffets," I chose to believe. Giving my immediate surroundings a scan, I realized it wasn't hard to differentiate between the stations manned by CSS and LV students. The European cuisines with a lot of classy showmanship screamed LV while CSS had some sort of global... international theme going on.
"Geographically diverse, I guess? I don't know," Jael said after I pointed this out to him. "It's not a bad strat. I saw, like, three different types of grills on the right. Kebab. Plancha. Satay. And like a huge Chinese wok or something. I mean it's how their courses are organized too. Culinary majors choose a cuisine to specialize in and I heard it's pretty widespread. Okay, gotta run. Ten minutes to door."
I dismissed him with a wave, going back to crafting my Instagram post, editing the photos, choosing the selfie to go with it, and then the filters. Honestly though, I was having a hard time concentrating because, like, ten seconds after Jael left to prep for the open doors, the station beside me had its owner ringing his call bell non-stop before some member of the organizing team finally arrived.
At the same time, a serve counter dressed formally in black came over to my station. I told him to stand a little further behind so that he wouldn't end up getting in my way. Since I was one of the few contestants utilizing edible serveware, I was given a manual counter instead of an electronic device that weighed the empty dishes to keep track of our score.
"Hey, the air conditioning is really weak. Half of us are dying," I heard him say and honestly, I wasn't getting where he was coming from. The air conditioning in the function hall was fine. "Could you turn it up a little? Like, the air flow or something?"
"Sorry but we can't do that. We're dealing with food here and turning up the blast is just going to rapidly chill everything out of a pan."
"Yeah so what about the desserts? You're just going to let people have lukewarm cream or stale pudding?"
"Dessert stations are equipped with cooling—"
"So if you're at some five-star hotel, dining at a buffet, you're expecting the guests to walk around sweating their pants off?"
I was looking at him like he was crazy; I mean, he was, to be equating this to 'sweating someone's pants off' because I sure as hell felt fine but apparently, the entitled L'assiette boy had some of his pals in their stations down the row backing him up and I had to stand there, listen to all that bullshit before watching that member of the organizing team give in and leave to consult the rest of the team about lowering the temperature of the room and turning up the air flow.
This was all before I saw the guy beside me bring both his trays of samples to some other dude way across the hall and... and swap dishes and then place martini glasses of shrimp cocktail, which belonged to the other guy) on his station while several other people started... doing the same thing! The people around who were not in on this or, like myself, did not get the memo that swapping out stations was allowed, were looking a hundred-percent confused.
I glanced at the clock. Five minutes to opening. Then returned my gaze to the station beside me and lo and behold, he was nearly done swapping stations—transferring more than half of his equipment and samples to the other table while the other guy took his place behind the counter. Exactly how far back they'd had this planned, I did not know.
Then, I was freaking out because this was practically sabotage and being downright unfair to those with stupid-ass stations at the far back like Cox and then with the stupid air-conditioning thing... oh my god that guy got a spot right under the vent. It's perfect for his lobster salad on cucumber appetizer things and I'd be lying if I said I was anything short of enraged by the fact that someone stupid had just one-upped me even though he technically wasn't on dessert.
The rest of the hall was up in a buzz and several people were rushing around, speaking to the organizers once they got wind of the swapping stations (Chen being one of them) and I was just standing there in the middle of the chaos minutes before bubbling with rage.
Looking around, there were several unfortunate souls on hot food prep whose stations were directly under the now freezing air conditioning vents and White was one of them. I wasted no time in heading over and telling glasses boy to pack his things.
"I want this station."
He was freezing, hands rubbing the sides of his upper arms whilst looking mildly disturbed by the fact that his pan was so obviously rapidly losing heat and nearly had his entire hand right on the surface of the metal.
"Sorry, what?"
I clicked my tongue, leaning in and hissing under my breath so that we were out of earshot. "Don't you get why your pan's taking so long to heat up? At this rate, all you're going to get is an uneven cook on that stupid shrimp of yours and it's all because of that silly—"
"Yes, I've realized the sudden drop in temperature and the fact that the air conditioning vent right above me somehow feels like it's a part of some snow storm but there's barely three minutes till the guests come running in and none of us had any idea about swapping stations being accepted which also brings me to the fact that I don't have a choice but to—"
"So hurry up, you moron," I nearly strangled him right there and then. "I don't have much, so the swapping is going to easy. Turn off the induction cooker and take your trays. Two at a time."
He stared at me like I'd gone insane and for a while seemed unable to process the entire situation when he finally snapped to his senses and mumbled something like 'you're on dessert' to which I responded with a exasperated 'duh' and shoved his trays of shot glasses into his arms and took the remaining two.
Before we could leave and head straight for my station however, this... this weird person who had been all over Leroy Cox in the hallway earlier today appeared beside us and offered to help in this singsong voice that did not sit very well with me.
"No thanks, we're fine." I told him but White was a whole other story and thanked the guy who then picked up his portable induction cookers, wires and all, and tailed us to my station. Then, after transferring his stuff over to mine, did the same to my white chocolate shot glasses, the coolers, and my prep box.
"I really appreciate the help, Maple. It's really kind of you."
The pink-haired person beamed and said some stuff in return which I didn't really get but they were both really chummy and I, again, wanted to strangle White because obviously, this other guy wasn't from our school and that meant that he was competition.
"Why are you letting him help you?" I hissed when the other guy was out of earshot and all glasses boy does is look at me with that stupid calm face of his.
"Well, Miss Birchwood, as far as I can tell, I require the assistance."
"You're going to owe him, you idiot," I couldn't believe I had to lay it out for him word for word. "That's the last thing you should be doing at a tournament like this! I thought you had a brain. Where did it go?"
"Well... when the time comes, I shall be gracious and return the favour as well." He sounded like he was some philosopher in some ethical text I was never going to read.
"Ohmygod, fine, whatever. I'm going."
"Thank you, by the way." Again, that god-awful, calm smile of his. "I suppose... I owe you one as well." Then I was starting to feel hot-headed and red, so I fled the scene and put my game face on in preparation for the next two hours of hell.
*
Apparently, the weather outside wasn't in its warmest state because the guests filtering into the function hall were warming their hands with the hot towels some facilitators were handing out and thanks to the turned up air-conditioning, had no eyes on anything cold.
Myself, along with twenty other contestants stationed up front were left completely ignored save the one or two children who couldn't resist the temptation of white chocolate. My manual plate counter guy standing several feet away was as still as a statue and by god, was this embarrassing. I'd checked the weather app on my phone five minutes into the buffet and blanched at the snowflake symbols all over before wishing I'd done this earlier on and made a hot dessert instead.
In any case, Lee's plan to get the guests started on hot food instead of cold appetizers was working and people were flocking to things like chicken pot pie, soup shots and Cox's... ramen.
I've seen him done cuisines that were definitely not under his belt, but this honestly takes the cake. As a budding chef or culinary student, Cox had never crossed my mind as experimental or in any way revolutionary but his dish during the tag team content sort of said it all. He's been improving; just when instructors were handing him full marks on every one of his technique demonstrations and giving him credit for the flawless precision of his every move in the kitchen, he knew that sticking to familiar recipes wasn't going to cut it. Which is pretty hot. But also isn't an excuse to ignore or brush me aside, which means I'd have to stick it in his face eventually.
Either way, I don't know where he got the idea of Japanese cuisine or a spoonful of ramen, but bless his plating skills and the charred fragrance wafting from his station because, as much as I wouldn't like to admit it, he deserved that long line of guests.
His draw was number four I think, the Asian soup spoon, which I and many others would've tried to avoid but he'd made the correct choice of picking a sleek, matte black Japanese soup spoon that looked sort of like a ladle with how deep and sturdy it was and had a flat back that enabled the spoon to stand whilst holding up a generous portion of perfect-ratio ingredients on the inside.
Obviously, I hadn't had a taste of it but one could tell, right off the bat from the plating and all, that he'd created and served up what one would call the perfect spoon. I'd been to Japan a couple of times but only for PR events, so ramen wasn't exactly what I had over there and I was pretty sure they tasted drastically different depending on the prefecture. Still, I, like most culinary students, were equipped with the basic knowledge.
He'd gone for a fusion. Spicy Yuzu Ramen was what he'd listed down on the official floor map with every station's name and dish. On every spoon was a portion of traditional temomi noodles that were bouncier with a better chew than the thinner gokuboso, sitting atop a golden-red, smooth spicy broth, topped with salted seaweed and crisp, fresh greens that I couldn't quite identify but were definitely the texture he was going to need to cut through the rich, flame-charred slice of rich chashu pork.
The fragrance of the broth he had simmering atop the induction cooker and individual pork slices sizzling in their natural oils atop the grill he requested drew nearly every guest as soon as they'd made it past the door. It travelled far and was honestly so overpowering that he was nearly drowning out every other station around him. Kind of... unfair.
A couple who'd apparently stayed at his station for five portions had came to mine (finally) after a walk around and were talking about his ramen. In front of my white chocolate shot glasses filled with fresh strawberry mousse.
"I think it's really clever, reducing the portion of what's originally a main dish into a portion that... we'd usually get from an appetizer? Because we're used to ramen being a huge bowl, right. So we'd automatically feel like having another spoon right after the first."
"Half the crowd's there to look at the boy's face up close, Mandy."
"You're so salty about it but you ended up having more spoons than me. Wonder what he'll look like five years down the road. He should just quit culinary school and be a model or something."
"That's a waste. He should be in the kitchen for the rest of his life with the skills he has. Yuzu in ramen broth... it's crazy how it works. Acidity cutting through all that heat and richness. The noodles were like... authentic, but different at the same time."
"... I can't tell if you're complimenting him or just dying not to see him on the front cover of magazines."
Obviously, I wasn't feeling very happy about guests talking about someone else's dish at my station when they were eating my dessert and so clearly enjoying it so I prompted them to speak about how it was while they were reaching for a second serving and they had the gall to give a generic 'it's good' and 'nice job' respectively before going back to talking about some girl from our school who made Croustades Noix de St Jacques aka Croustades with poached scallops in them. Wait. Wasn't that the girl who's always around White with the pixie cut?
Losing to a sophomore, fine. Losing to a first-year on the same team? Tragic and stupid, but I'll live. Losing to a straight-out competitor though?
"The guys we were talking to before coming in kept going on about this laksa station when I was getting drinks for the two of us. It's some... Peranakan cuisine or something. Never heard of it."
Oh my god, they were talking about noodle soup. Again. All because of the weather, spicy noodle soups were a hot pick and without an exact pinpoint target of frustration, I was the most unhappy Violet Birchwood I could ever be. When I die, I'm fucking... coming after the weather god or something. I bet their ugly hater asses that desserts weren't their thing.
Either way, I was pretty sure we didn't have anything close to Peranakan cuisine on our list of dishes, so naturally, this laksa thing had to be coming from CSS or LV. CSS, by the sound of it, since L'assiette was a little too pretentious to be on Southeast Asian Cuisine because ha, they probably think everything European is superior and that's why they don't have any culinary classes on food from the rest of the world anyway, so.
I mean, most of their dishes made stars out of caviar, foie gras, wagyu, lobsters, bluefin tuna and the like. It's not a stupid idea because that's what people like at a buffet—to get their money's worth. Realistically speaking, they weren't going to fill their food capacity with cucumber appetizers or strawberries dipped in chocolate fondue. A single teaspoon of the kind of A grade caviar L'assiette was serving would've cost at least twenty bucks. Two portions would've made their trip here worth the time. I wasn't sure if they actually paid for the meal though.
Overall, it wasn't easy trying to gauge how well everyone else was doing because the contestants who lost out initially to hot foods picked up near the end and I'd say this sort of happened across the board. Like, yeah, the chocolate fondue from L'assiette caught some attention with the kids but the teen girls with phones, I mean, I was expecting this, but they were all over the dark-white chocolate marbled shot glasses that I made after the first batch ran out and the strawberry mousse gave the entire table a cute, pastel look which was exactly what most girls on Instagram at that age were going for.
My counter was at three-hundred-and-seventy-two five minutes before closing and shot up to more than four-hundred by the time everyone was out of the door because, clever me, the shot glasses were not returnable serveware and the guests could take as many as they wanted on their way out.
"Students, I need you all to remain at your—no you're not going anywhere while I'm talking can't you hold your pee for a minute? Remain at your stations and start cleaning them up. Leave your leftover samples on a tray by the side and depending on how efficiently you guys clean up, we can consider giving you some time to try each other's dishes while the scores are being collated. Okay that's it. Five minutes bathroom break and girls, there's one down the hallway to your right and another to your left and one more upstairs near the library."
I didn't exactly need to go so I started packing up the coolers and washing out the molds. I made the mistake of glancing over at White to check on his leftovers because we ended up making eye contact and he'd raised a hand in greeting which I was obviously not going to return because no one's ever going to catch me being all chummy with a nerd anyway, so.
"How was it?" Jael came over and I told him, immediately, not to take any photos of me (not looking my best after any tournament). "Okay, okay. Chill. You did well near the end."
"Of course. What else were you expecting?" I scoffed. "Who do you think is going?"
"Mostly cold food. That poor guy with the fruit salad... double digits. Not even fifty, I reckon."
"Know anything about the panko-crusted shrimp?" I asked on a side note. He seemed surprised I was interested in a dish other than my own.
"White? Uh... he was okay. I feel like he went for something easy because he knows he's not going to win or anything? I mean, for some people, surviving every round is good enough."
By the time bathroom break was over and we were given permission to roam around the hall to taste everyone else's dishes, Cox's station had a massive line which I obviously wasn't going to join. No one was going to catch me waiting for anything and joining the queue was only going to make it look like I was jumping on the bandwagon and giving in to whatever the status quo was. So I made for the croustades.
The pixie cut girl had an expression of surprise that I thought was clearly exaggerated when I came up to her station and picked the nicest-looking croustade. They were... quite expertly made. The garlic cream sauce was rich and thick, coating the sweet poached scallop in the middle and completing the mouthfeel of everything in a single bite.
I moved away without saying a word.
Chen's grilled lobster mentaiko in a cone sitting snug in a dessert glass was, begrudgingly, my top favourite. Apparently, he'd saved me a sample and produced one from under the table as soon as I arrived at his station.
"You're the number one pastry chef, you idiot." I told him. That was before I tasted the dish, by the way.
"I know." He winked. Ugh, I hate him.
Either way, I somehow ended up in front of Cox's station because the line had been reduced to three people which was within my definition of 'waiting' so I joined it as inconspicuously as I could but by the time it was my turn to be served, his display table was empty. I looked up at him.
"You're done?"
"Yeah... we're out." Then, after glancing over my shoulder for some reason, added an apology under his breath. I turned around. White was clearing his throat aggressively whilst adjusting his glasses and looking at the floor. Oh my god what a nerd.
I turned on my heel to walk away when, out of the corner of my eye, Cox pulled a brand new, untouched bowl of ramen with extra toppings out of the oven under the countertop and slid that towards a stunned White who was now standing in the exact position I stood a few moments earlier.
"It's hot." Cox warned him with what sounded like the gentlest I'd ever heard him speak (or, like, with any emotion at all) and good fucking god I hate them both.
"You saved him an entire bowl??" I nearly flipped his display table. And Cox had the gall to snort like I was stating something he'd so obviously do while glasses boy was offering to share his bowl of ramen with me. Share! Something a chef had made for him, specifically! No one was going to accept that.
Thank god I left the station to retain my sanity because soon, they were back with the results and needless to say, I wasn't one bit nervous. Like, I wasn't going to get eliminated. And I wasn't going to be bestseller but I could settle for top ten or something anyway.
I was honestly surprised. I think everyone else was, too.
We'd won by a thin margin. Like, fourteen points thin. CSS snagged runner-up thanks to some girl by the name of Juanita Castillo whose Singaporean laksa station lost to Cox's by thirty-something points. Which wasn't a lot since third individual was some guy in L'assiette serving caviar canapés and was behind Castillo by a hundred and two. White also made it through. Either way, obviously, I won bestselling dessert, which was really all that mattered apart from the fact that we were placed first in overall score.
The narrow win had Chen giving the top thirteen a horrible pep talk which wasn't Layla Tenner's style since she wouldn't have... I don't know, she just wouldn't have panicked or anything like that. She always seemed to have things under control. Chen seemed pretty new to this, on the other hand.
"I'd like you all to have a good rest tonight and uh, be ready, okay? For round two. You guys were great in leading the discussion today back in the lecture theatre. I really need your help tomorrow. With all that kind of stuff. So... yeah. Rest up and I'll see you guys tomorrow." He dismissed us soon after and I headed to the bathroom to give my make-up a quick fix since the school was hosting a small celebration party for the participants who made it through to the second round and... and then when I was making my way to kitchen nine in the main building, I heard some voices down the hallway of the first floor.
I peered down, past the banister.
"—at the lodge, maybe? Liqin brought us some apple cider from the party she was at yesterday. You could join us for as long as you want."
The pink hair stood out at once and I know, I know, I'm a fan of pastel palettes but you don't understand. There's something about it on this L'assiette boy that just, like, did not sit well with me at all. He was clinging onto Cox's upper arm like this was an open sea and he was about to drown or something.
"I have a shift in thirty minutes."
Cox did not look very keen but if I was being honest, that was his face twenty-four-seven anyways, so. No one's good enough to tell when he's happy or sad or, whatever.
"Aw. You always work so hard!" Pink boy was literally holding onto Cox and making it hard for him to walk past the ranking board towards the main entrance. He had a bag over his shoulder and didn't exactly look like he was lying about the shift thing. "Maybe it's time you relax a little. What time does your shift end? I can come pick you up. Where is it? We could maybe... spend some time together. After that."
From the second floor, I couldn't really see the expression on Cox's face but he stopped and turned to face pink-hair and everything sort of froze.
"I'm busy. And attached."
WHAAAATTTT?!?!?! Leroy Cox is dating someone who isn't me???? Well then who the fuck is—okay, calm down Vi. Calm down. It doesn't matter. He's a disrespectful moron who's only good at cooking and has above-average looks. There's tons of better fish out there and... oh my god, what's pink-hair doing?
"That's okay. You can be attached and... still have some fun, right?" Drawing circles on his chest. Circles. On his chest. He did not just say that cheating is okay. He's so not implying what I think he's implying and why isn't Cox just punching him or slapping him or something for saying something like that? L'assiette needs to have proper moral education or at least give this boy some private lessons I mean, what's he playing at a-and and and where's everyone? I can't look at this anymore someone put a leash on pink-hair oh my god he needs to be stopped someone just—
"Not if his girlfriend just heard your entire conversation, you little brat."