Food Feelings

Chapter 9

You just woke up and It's the morning after the welcome party. You change your clothes, brush your hair, then head downstairs for breakfast. You and many other Polar Star residents arrive at the dining hall at the same time, including Satoshi, Megumi, Yuki, Shoji, and Daigo. You all walk into the dining hall groggily only to fully wake up to a voice, "You told me it was postponed yesterday. So now, with the 7th seat on the line" Soma starts, "Satoshi Isshiki, I challenge you!!" and then there is silence.

"Sorry Soma, I didn't explain enough about Totsuki Academy's 'Challenges'" Satoshi responds and Soma looks confused.

Everyone grabs a seat at one of the tables in the dining hall and you sit beside Fumio across from Yuki. You give Yuki a smile and a nod as a way of saying good morning and she returns it. "To start with, these 'Challenges' were established to settle disputes between students. There are some rules to them," Satoshi continues, "Soma if you wish to challenge me to get my 7th seat, you must present 'compensation' that matches it. Let's see, if it was a condition of equal value to the 7th seat, not even dropping out of school would be enough."

"Really!?" Soma exclaims and you nod even though Soma isn't looking at you.

Fumio then continues on for Satoshi, "That's right! That's the worth of the Elite Ten. In the past, some of the students of this dorm made it into the Elite Ten nearly every year. It truly was the golden age of the Polar Star..." Fumio says with a smile on her face. "You guys are miserable compared to that!" She then states angrily with Daigo and Shoji complaining about her statement.

"If I accepted your conditions we could compete, but of course, I don't want you to leave this academy," Satoshi says, shaking his head, "To sum it up, your challenge isn't feasible."

"Really? And I woke up at 5 all fired up" Soma says dejectedly. You sweatdrop at this 'He woke up at 5? I can barely handle waking up right now'.

"I mean, challenging the 7th seat is just reckless..." Megumi says sweat dropping.

"I think he's probably an idiot," Yuki says and you nod in agreement at both of the girl's statements.

"And you see, it's not like we can just do it. For a challenge you need three things" Satoshi says and everyone's eyes go back to him, "An authorized person that can prove that the challenge is official, an odd number of judges and that both parties agree on the challenge's conditions. Those that oppose each other must make the other surrender with their cooking. Totsuki's traditional one-on-one cooking challenge. It has become known as food war."

Everyone continues eating after Satoshi's explanation of food wars to Soma. You look up at Yuki "I forget Yuki, last night did you say you specialize in the usage of wild game meats?" You ask and Yuki nods, "By any chance can you teach me a bit more about that later? I don't know too much about that stuff and I'd love to learn!" Yuki nods eagerly with a smile on her face.

"Of course (Y/n)!" Yuki replies with sparkles in her eyes. You smile at her reaction, you love it when people have a passion for things and get excited about them.

After everyone finishes eating they head back to their rooms to get ready for the school day. You put your uniform on, leaving the first few buttons of the white shirt undone and tying the tie loosely. You look at yourself in the mirror 'Ok, I think I look ok?' you think, patting your skirt to make sure there aren't any wrinkles. You look out your window and see Satoshi leaning against the railing on the balcony so you decide to head out and join him.

When you get on the balcony you walk over to lean on the balcony beside him. "Hey, Satoshi" You greet him.

"Hey (Y/n)" He responds with a smile on his face looking down below. You follow his eyesight to see what he's looking at 'Oh, he's looking at Soma and Megumi walking'. Satoshi laughs a bit "I can't wait to see what happens" You nod in agreement "I mean, Soma tied with me. With the 7th seat! He will surely get good results." At this, you give him a bit of a 'Really' look with a smirk knowing he didn't go full out. It's good he didn't go full out though, if he did that then it could've put a damper in Soma's mood or lessened his confidence.

"Don't make me laugh. In that showdown," You hear a new voice say and you look to your left to see Shun, "You weren't serious at all. You didn't make one of your 'Specialities'. For you, that dish was too much of a safe bet, wasn't it?" Shun asks, you're surprised that Shun could see all of that from their showdown.

"I wonder what you're talking about," Satoshi says, turning to look at him, "I put my best effort into cooking it, you know?"

"Hmph," Shun exhales, "What a cunning senpai." Shun then walks back inside after saying that and you and Satoshi go back to looking down at Soma and Megumi.

You two stand in comfortable silence for a bit just looking down below. You turn your head and examine Satoshi's face, 'He's quite the charming person' you thought while looking at each detail. While you're looking at him Satoshi turns to look at you and you blush then look away knowing that you had been caught staring at him. Satoshi chuckles quietly and wraps an arm around you as you two continue to look off the balcony. You blush even more because of the contact. You liked how he wrapped his arm around you, it felt right.

After a while of you two standing there, you and Satoshi departed ways heading to the school.

Once you get to the school you hear news about Erina's victory in a food war against Kiyoshi Goudabayashi from the Chanko Nabe Research Society. Even though you were a bit against Erina taking away people's club spots to make more kitchens for herself it was still fair and you still wanted to congratulate her on her victory. You knew that she put a lot of effort into her dishes, but there was still one thing she lacked and that was freedom in her dishes. You had a feeling that issue would be solved this year.

You look around the school for Erina so you can applaud her on her victory. After a while of looking for her, you find her in one of her kitchens. "Erina congrats on the victory! I heard that you did so well!!" You run up to her with a smile on your face and give her a quick hug. "I'm sorry that I didn't make it to the food war, it was a late-night partying at the dorm and I woke up late" You scratched your head and smiled awkwardly with a little laugh.

"Thank you, it wasn't really hard though," Erina responds blushing a bit at your praise.

"Still a victory is a victory and I'm sure your dish was amazing" You smile you give her a thumbs up. "Anyways, I can't stay to talk because class starts soon and mine is pretty far from here. I'll talk to you later Erina!" You say and Erina says a quick goodbye before you leave.

You're running in the halls trying to get to class on time 'Man, I should've seen Erina after class, now I'm gonna be late!' You think. While you're running around a corner you run into someone making both of you fall. 'Why does this keep happening to me?!' You think while falling with your eyes closed. "Ouch!" You hear the guy you crashed into say.

You open your eyes at the same time as the other person and see that you are pinning a guy with blonde hair and blue eyes to the ground. You both blush at the closeness of your faces 'He looks familiar-' Your thought gets cut off by him saying "U-uh can you get off?"

You quickly get up embarrassed and offer him a hand to help him get up. He grabs your hand and you pull him up. With no time to chat because you have to get to classes you quickly say "Ah, I'm so sorry, I hope I didn't hurt you!" then shout the last bit as you start running towards class again "I have to get to class, bye!"

"Wait-" You hear him start, but you get out of ear range quickly because you're running. The beautiful blonde boy with blue eyes that you had bumped into watched as you ran remembering the time you had met when you were kids. 'She's still as beautiful as ever' He thinks with a smile on his face then heads to his class.

You arrived at class just barely on time and sat at your desk. You looked out the window resting your face on your hand wondering why he seemed so familiar. You were in a rush so you didn't really have time to connect a name to a face 'Oh well, we'll meet again I'm sure' You think then tune into the lesson the teacher is explaining.