A Spice in Life (Shokugeki no Soma x Fem!Reader)

Chapter 46 - An A-bun-dance of Problems

(Name)'s POV

The first day was a disaster. We made so much food but received almost no customers. Heck, Alice gave one dude a plate and he ate it all before refusing to pay. But who gives an entire dish as a sample?!

I looked at our pile—or lack thereof—of voucher tickets. I didn't have to be a math whizz to know that we'd turned absolutely zero profit.

"Homura-senpai!" The respectful title caught my attention, and I turned to see none other than Mitsuru with his arms full of pamphlets.

"Mitsuru-kun, how are you?" I greeted the underclassman.

"I've been good, thank you!" The boy bubbled then waved one of the handouts. "This features a list of profits for those below the top three rankings." I accepted the pamphlet and waved goodbye to my underclassman who zoomed off to hand out more. "Bye, Homura-senpai!"

"Take care, Mitsuru-kun!"

Right, Soma didn't make the top three in his area. I automatically flipped through in search of his booth, forgetting my own worries for a moment. But so long as he turned a profit—

My stomach dropped once I reached the bottom two booths in the list.

'Booths with Day One Losses: Yukihira Soma and Shiomi Research Group'

...Seems I should be worried about myself, too.

Hayama's not gonna like this. I bit my lip and tiptoed over to where he was arguing with Alice.

"H-Hayama-san..." I whimpered, interrupting their squabble.

"What is it, Homura?" He huffed and walked over, reading the page I held out to him.

His eyes bulged as he snatched the pamphlet in shock. "We lost money?!"

*~*~*~*

"What is the meaning of this?!" Erina seethed, furious at our group. We had been gathered in a room by Hisako so Erina could yell at us, and yell at us she did. "All of you advanced to the Autumn Elections' main tournament!"

I coughed into my fist, feeling awkward at the sudden reminder that I—a person who didn't even progress past preliminaries—was the odd one out amongst the rest of my teammates. Alice progressed to the quarterfinals; Kurokiba, to the finals; and Hayama was winner, of course.

"It is already an embarrassment that three finalists are in last place sales. But you all actually lost money! Are you trying to demean the prestigious Autumn Elections?!"

She thinks we're doing this on purpose? It's not like we wanted to lose money! It's her cousin's fault we did in the first place! I prepared to fire back an angry retort, but I was cut off by Megumi's apologetic tears.

"S-Sor... I'm so sorry!" She blubbered. I immediately softened, forgetting my own frustrations.

"I... I wasn't speaking to you specifically, Tadokoro-san." Erina apologized, reaching out a hand to calm her.

I did a double-take. Miss God Tongue was being nice to Megumi?

My opinion of her improved just a smidge.

"How are you going to take responsibility for this, eh, Nakiri?" Hayama accused Alice. "You made a crap ton of mistakes ordering ingredients!"

Alice fumed, void of guilt. "But you were supposed to check the order, Hayama-kun!"

"I think you said you'd do that too, miss." Kurokiba added.

That's it, I should've checked the menu supply! I can't believe we left Alice in charge. I cradled my head in my hands, knowing we set ourselves up for failure by giving her responsibility.