Seat Number Zero

Part 33

"You think it's crazy right sis?" Soma shook his head in disbelief. "Why would Nakiri-"

"I don't know. Soma." Yumi responds honestly, cutting him off before he could finish his thoughts. With her hands placed behind her back, she walked carefreely in front of him. "Betting your happiness on a single person..." Yumi thought about their earlier conversation with Erina and her desperate emotions, surrounded by fear. Yumi smiles faintly. "Well, if it's the right person, and if they are special... wouldn't you want to bet on that as well?"

Soma remained silent, tilting his head to the side as a big question mark displayed shamelessly across his forehead.

Yumi turned around and chuckles at his dumb expression. "So brother... Who are you betting on?"

**************

The Quarterfinals:

Zero versus Saiba Asahi

"Did you enjoy my gift?" Asahi asked with a sly smirk plastered across his face.

The two of them stood on the stage arena, waiting patiently for their judges to arrive.

Yumi glanced over in his direction suspiciously, dragging her eyes from head to toe. "No, I threw it out," she replies sarcastically. Yumi knew he was referring to the piece of paper she obtained alongside her knife, it took her nearly all night to decode.

"You're welcome." He replies with a smirk.

"I'm running on three hours, dipshit." Yumi cursed under her breath. She is currently wearing her mask and hood so there's no conceivable way he would have noticed her very visible eyebags. Yumi just refuses to give him any satisfactory answer.

"Entering your judges."

****************

Theme: Contradicting flavors.

"What the hell is this prompt?" Yumi cursed silently, throwing a glare toward the monitor. She knew the Bookmaster wanted a champion unlike what the previous years have presented, someone who is unconventional and can pave a whole new path in the culinary world.

Yumi shook her head hard, her hands on her mask to make sure they didn't fly off her face. The shaking didn't clear her head but it did jumble up her thoughts into a chaotic mess. "That feels oddly better," she murmurs.

Yumi went to her station. Her hands flew across the cabinets, gliding swiftly over the knobs of the stove handle and through the collection of pots and wooden utensils. Her breathing hastens as her eyes flew towards the pile of ingredients, blindly picking her choices. Her movements are fast as if she was playing a game and is speedrunning through a level she had played many times.

'If only that was the case.' She sighs inwardly. Her mind was blank, nothing she grabbed clicked. Yumi had no plan, no recipe came to her, the main ingredient isn't even sitting on the cutting board in front of her.

"Yumi."

She froze, the knife in her hand that was shredding the onions into paste paused mid-chop.

"What's this Yumi? Is cooking not fun with mama?"

Her head tilted to one side in a daze. She removed the knife from the mush that were once onions and trembled as she slowly set them down on the cutting board.

"No, I love cooking with you. But you're a terrible cook."

"And who's the one gobbling up everything I make before it's ready for dinner." The foreign voice that complemented the voice of her younger self echoed in her mind, they were a bit rough yet familiar.