Yukihira Soma GENIUS

Part 6

Rindou Kobayashi skipped down the hallway, hands in her hair and bored out of her mind.

It was another day full of pointless propositions. Who knew being the second best chef of her generation at the finest culinary school in Japan would come with so much baggage? Rindou had restaurateurs, business magnates, and celebrities all courting her - both for her cooking skills and romantically - when all she wanted was to try all the food the world had the offer. The world of cooking is so vast, yet here she was filling out paperwork or going to meetings or meeting some balding octogenarian and his crone bragging about how his son is a lawyer or a doctor or a samurai or some ridiculous profession that requires an inane amount of schooling and tuition.

The Tootsuki Academy of Culinary Arts and Tea Ceremonies is a school that adheres to tradition and protocol which is just plain boooring in Rindou Kobayashi's opinion.

Maybe she should have just stuck to watching the Cooking with Dog videos and that be that. But noooo, apply for a cooking school her mom insisted. At least then her-no-good-for-nothing-'I-want-be-a-hikikomori-when-I-grow-up!' daughter could get decent grades in something.

Who knew her mother's plan would be so wildly successful?

It started with one random shokugeki, a cooking competition. She just wanted a pencil and the stingy broad next to her wouldn't let her borrow one. So she challenged her. And she won. Now Rindou gets a bi-weekly shipment of pencils sent to her room as tribute from her.

Ha!

At least that was fun...

Turning a corner in the hallway, Rindou sighed.

Whatever was there to do? How could she alleviate the emptiness in her chest? The magic of the school was long gone. Everything came too easy. As a third year, she'd seen all the school events that were offered. Challenge letters came in less frequently as whispers of her brutal beatdowns of any challenger circulated with more and more intensity. Even Eishi Tsukasa, the first seat and only student above her, was so boring. It's not like he was better than her at cooking or anything. The guy just never seems to be able have enough free time to do a random shokugeki with her.

And if he did, he'd probably start having panic attacks about the stadium's floor tile arrangement or something.

Then she remembers some recent events

Yukihira… Souma, huh?"

The candidate for transfer to the academy came from a small special-of-the-day diner. His picture looked calm and collected. Obviously he wasn't very photogenic. He had no remarkable achievements other than his long career at his Yukihira restaurant, which wasn't uncommon for family-owned businesses.

"Interesting"

SOMA'S ROOM

As Soma wakes up, he notices he is far warmer than he usually is.

''Am I sick'' he thinks to himself before he feels something move beneath the blankets.

Soma lifts his blanket.

Looking down, he stared in a pair of playful purple eyes.

''Goodmorning Soma-kun'' the voice belonging to the eyes say.