ᴍᴇᴛᴀɴᴏɪᴀ | ꜰᴏᴏᴅ ᴡᴀʀꜱ x ᴍᴀʟᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 13

"I forgot there was an entrance exam," I muttered under my breath, carrying both my luggage and Yukihira's.

The redhead laughed at my predicament.

Thanks to my forgetfulness, I hadn't been too aware of the entrance exam for potential transferees. Due to that fact, my dearest friend made me carry our bags because I 'owed' him since he reminded me only 2 days before.

"Can it, Yukihira!" I hissed, kicking at his ankles. "You don't get to talk!"

He only snickered in response, knowing Joichiro had only told him 3 days before the exam. He soon quieted down upon hearing the noise of two voices screaming in the distance. 

We looked at each other for a moment before finding the owners of the voices in front of an unusual amount of lined up cars.

Two boys were yelling, almost mourning about being failures. My face contorted into disgust; clearly, they were overreacting no matter what they had failed to do. They were both kneeling on the floor, grieving the fact that 'their lives were now over'.

Behind us we heard a ghastly old person's voice, which promptly brought our attention as it was desperately requesting for something.

There stood 3 men who took the appearance of bodyguards and clutching onto one of them, an old man begging to not expel his son.

"Please! I'll pay you- 10! No, 20 million! Just please, please don't expel my son!" he sobbed, pleading and clutching the bodyguard's arm and jacket.

Beside me, Yukihira sputtered a noise of shock before turning to face the campus with a nervous smile present on his face. I followed suit, glaring at our soon-to-be school campus.

In all of its both infamous and positive popularity, Totsuki Academy stood, looming over the both of us. From the redhead's phone came his familiar ringtone; he'd decided to call his father for answers.

"What's the deal with this school, huh?!" he nearly screamed into his phone. "I thought it would be a normal cooking school, what the hell is this?!"

My neck snapped towards the boy who had the audacity to speak so rudely to his boss in such a way. Of course, it's not like Joichiro was really a person to respect, seeing as he so shamelessly asked me directly for money because he needed it for travel and hotel expenses.

'On second thought,' I frowned, internally cursing the man and his old culinary academy. 'I should be the one yelling at that old bastard!'

"Know this, Soma, [L/N]." Joichiro spoke from the other line, sounding rather serious compared to his usual easygoing attitude. "This is one of the best culinary schools in Japan; it's graduation rate is less than 10%."

The man's son silently gasped, staring up at the unnecessarily large campus with his jaw dropped in shock. I scowled at the new information, thinking back to my interaction with Koharu I had a few nights before.

"Which means that most pf the people you meet won't last a month," the man continued.

Walking around us, seeing as we were obstructing the way to front entrance were other students looking to attend the school. All of them seemed to be of the higher class of society; a rather large percent of the potential new students acted snobby, especially with their servants.

'Is that kid seriously walking with 4 butlers??' I thought, glaring at the boy's seemingly nonexistent independence. 'I know it's not right to judge a book by its cover but...'

I sighed, shaking away the thought and moving my gaze towards Yukihira's phone, which for some reason, still had the call with boy's father going on.

"Well good luck, you two, that school will-" Joichiro's rambling was soon interrupted by another man, who from the sound of it, was very upbeat and excited.

"Hey! Joe!"

I snickered lightly at the nickname, knowing that the next time I'd see the man face-to-face, I'd definitely use the title.

"Wait, so where are you working now anyway?" Yukihira quickly asked, having never received that information.

"Aren't you in New York right now?" I chirped in, remembering a recent conversation I had with the man. "That one big scale hotel?"

"Yep, the Manhattan Royal Hotel." he answered, before speaking in a smug undertone. "VIP reception hall."

The redhead beside me let out a 'huh' of pure confusion, probably due to the fact he wasn't there when we were talking.

"I'm not sure how long I'll be here, though..." his father drawled out.

In the background, we overheard several people praising his culinary arts, even a high priest monk claiming he'd rather abandon his faith than miss out on Joichiro's food.

Upon learning that information, I began to wonder why he decided to yield his obviously first-rate cooking advances and open up a local family diner in some rural shopping district in Japan.

As I forced myself away from my zoning out, I soon regretted it upon hearing the man's next sentence.

"-the thought of you two surviving that school till graduation and getting better than me is almost comical."

That one statement that Joichiro admitted had given his son so much determination that the man was cut off from telling us his cooking secrets because the redhead had hung up.

I knew Joichiro had only said that to tick us off, which would therefore result in us working harder; in us doing our best and more. 

Unfortunately, my not-so-bright friend couldn't comprehend that, and because of that, the moment we passed through the front entrance, he kicked a bench, causing it to shake.

I internally groaned, guiding my gaze towards a brunet boy who'd been sitting there with a cup of tea. Only a moment later did the redhead beside me notice the third party.

"Oh! I'm sorry," my friend apologized half-heartedly. "I didn't mean to do that."

I nodded along with the boy, sending the stranger a light bow as an apology on behalf of my companion. In response, the light brunet smiled, speaking in a calm and customer service-like voice.

"No worries," he told us. "You both are trying to transfer here as well, are you? Please, have a seat."

"Thanks!"  

"Thank you," I spoke in correspondence to his tone of voice, using my all too familiar customer service voice. 

Based on the butlers surrounding him, it was easy to see he was faking the niceties, additionally with the lone teacup that seemed to lack a sibling. In my mind, I could only hope that the strange boy in front of me was the opposite of what I had assumed. 

A/N: literally pulled out the almost word for word dialogue directly from the anime bc im still learning how to write properly ahhaaha