Garlic Breath

Trees

Takumi doesn't know what he'll find when he goes back. Only knows that he'll be finding something because he has to go back, whether he likes it or not. Despite wanting more than ever to run in the opposite direction, he picks up the pace as soon as Erina's voice peters off.

It's at the fork in the path, the one that branches the independent student apartments away from the academy's only dormitory, that he realises he's not actually nervous about tonight.

The realisation is not so much sudden, as it is decisive. He can't keep lying to himself that it's the shokugeki making him feel this way—though terrifying in its own way—once he understands it himself.

The epiphany stems from the choice he knows he has to make now, whether or not he'll go to Polar Star or head on home. The obvious choice is painfully obvious the more time ticks away as he stands there, pretending there's even anything to debate about.

Souma and him will have to be a team now. Their confrontation is now unavoidable. They have to talk.

But just the thought of it—

Ugh. Takumi hates the way his shoulders rise and tense up, already on the defence. Hates how he's already starting to form an argument in his head despite having been accused of nothing at all. What else was I supposed to do?

It's certainly not like Souma left him any other choice. It would have been much easier if he had been at least willing to help himself, and maybe then Takumi would have trusted Souma to find a way out of it on his own. Instead, he'd just given up and if he hadn't, maybe Takumi wouldn't have found this—

"—necessary to do," he bites out, loud enough for the trees and the birds to hear, unable to keep his argument confined just to his own head. The sound of his voice in the open makes him quiet down abruptly, and he finishes much, much quieter than before. "Come on. You left me no choice, Souma."

The tree in front of him doesn't look the slightest bit impressed. Hell, it doesn't look the slightest bit like a person, but he almost sees Souma right in front of him, looking down on him disapprovingly.

Surely, you know I didn't want you to do this for me, the tree seems to argue. Surely, you know this is the stupidest thing you could have ever done.

Maybe there could have been a better way and perhaps Takumi could have tried harder to find it.

Takumi shakes his head and rubs his forehead, turning away from it. He must be going crazy.

He stares at the path to Polar Star, and a huge wave of reluctance and dread rolls over him, and he understands why that comes. What he doesn't understand is this other feeling, this sudden frustraton warring in him. Or rather, since the frustration has been here for a while, he just doesn't understand why it's not gone.

Shouldn't he be more excited now, now that he's solved all of their problems? Shouldn't he be feeling inspired, already victorious? Souma won't even have to cook, Takumi will take over. He's got the skill Souma has, and the strength Souma doesn't. That combination alone is enough to win this, and he will but—

You know, it would be easier to tell him that you're in love with him.

Atsui's voice drips with disgust again in his head, heavy with sarcasm as he remembers it, and he wishes again he'd reacted how he wanted to do when he'd heard her say it. Told her that he already had and Souma just didn't care.

He hadn't, of course, detrimental to his plan as it was. Also because it wouldn't have changed a damn thing and if he's tired of feeling like shit, then isn't the universe even more tired of hearing about it?