Soma: The Phantom Seat (Abandoned)

Chapter 7 Polar Star Garden

It is six o'clock in the morning, and Soma is still sleeping on his bed until he wakes up from the voice of Isshiki. "Good morning, Soma-kun! It's a nice morning, right?"

Soma rubs his eyes and says, "Isshiki senpai?"

"I want you to help me out with something! Can you come outside once you've changed?" Isshiki asks.

"Mmm...I stayed up late yesterday, so I'm sleepy...please go with someone else." Soma decides to go back to sleep, but Isshiki comes from the loft again and says, "Don't say that."

"You were there this whole time?" Soma is now fully awake after seeing him.

Right now he is walking with Yuki as Yuki asks, "Ahaha! Yukihira, you were woken up too?"

"Yeah, but what are we helping with?" Soma asks.

"He said we're harvesting vegetables in the field behind the dorm." Yuki says.

"To think that he grows his own ingredients." Soma says in awe.

"There's a lot of people who do that in the Polar Star Dorm. Ibusaki cuts the wood he uses for smoking by himself, Ryoko's speciality is cooking using "Shiokouji", so she has her own workshop close to the dorm. And me too, like in France, there's Bresse chicken, I wanted to make "Polar Star Chicken". So I've been grazing and raising them. And this place is mainly managed by Isshiki-senpai! A plantation where 10 different species of vegetables grown."

Soma is in awe at the sight, but he goes into a weird expression after seeing Isshiki wearing nothing but undergarments.

"Good morning, Soma-kun, Yoshino-kun! Doing manual labor in the morning makes your heart healthy. Let's work up some sweat together."

"Sure?" Soma says, but then he hears Megumi's voice.

"Look Soma-kun! We can pick this much!" Soma turns around to see Megumi in a farmer's outfit as she is picking a lot of vegetables.

"Tadokoro, you look good in that suit by the way." Soma says.

"Um...thank you..." Megumi says with a little blush, and Yuki adds, "Yeah, you are the Polar Star's refreshment."

Isshiki interrupts their conversation and says, "Now, my friends. Come here! Knowing how ingredients ripen is part of studying cooking. This is the Polar Star Field, or you can call it the Isshiki Field if you want."

"I see, so the field that my parents were using to grow vegetables...you really took care of them very well." Soma says as he looks at the tomato, he takes a bite and says, "This is firm and really sweet. This sure is high quality."

"Well, I'm devoted to this, thanks to it, I haven't gone to my classes at all lately." Isshiki says with a wry laugh, and Soma yells at him, "It feels like you're putting the cart before the horse!"

Yuki says, "But Yukihira, you mentioned something about Angel's Eyes, does that mean you can distinguish the raw and ripen vegetables with ease?"

Soma chuckles and says, "Well, that is one way, the other is that I can use the bad ones to make them into good recipes."

Megumi says, "Just like how you made a cheap-looking steak into the Chaliapin Steak that catches the judges attention back at that day."

"Yeah." Soma says.

After the workout, everyone is tired and hungry, Megumi takes out the bento box and she opens it, revealing three kinds of Onigiri.

"They all look good, I mean, having Onigiri after working on the field." Soma says.