BiTTER (Shokugeki no Souma Fanfic)

9. Fail, Fail, and Retry

AN: me, suddenly realizing that Fumio's name is legit one letter away from 'Fumi': fUCK

either way, I'll be slowly transitioning him from Fumi to Eda from next chapter on! Will say this before he chapter begins, but at this point in time there has only been four years since Jouichirou left (four years since Doujima Gin's generation graduated), so he's still pretty infamous there.

To put things into perspective, Shiomi Jun was a 1st year Middle Schooler(12-13) when she first entered Polar Star, and Jouichirou etc were 3rd year High Schoolers (17-18). Now Shiomi is a 3rd Year High Schooler, and Fumi is a 1st year Middle Schooler.

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On his way up to the dorms, he found many people making their depressed way down. From their uniforms, he realized that they were mostly from the High School Division, or seniors from the Middle School Division.

Fumi felt out of place. Why was he the only first year around?

They all held cooking utensils of some kind, and one even held a dejected bowl of noodles, whining softly, "but this can't be..."

(Was this entrance test thing really that hard?)

Looking at his luck for the day, Fumi really could see where this was going.

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"Hmm, it's been a while since I've had a cake as an entry, but unfortunately, I can't let you pass with just this," the dorm mother, Daimidou Fumio, told him.

Her arms were crossed, her brows furrowed contemplatively.

"It is certainly an excellent cake, but there is nothing in here out of the ordinary. You could get this in any cake shop in town-- and that is not what I'm looking for," she put him down as nicely as she could, "come back when you're older, kid. You've got potential."

Yeah, Fumi really had the absolute worst roll in the dice today. Please, someone give him a break. He's come all this way and all of a sudden, he's got no place to sleep tonight? Ugh.

He peeled off his gloves (that were put on over the wound over his finger in case of bacteria getting in while he cooked) and bowed as respectfully as he could.

"Thank you very much," he said. "If you don't mind, could I--" Could I try again tomorrow? Fumi wanted to say, but he couldn't bring up the will to say it. Would anything be different tomorrow? Or would it all stay the same until Fumi realizes that this is really as far as he can go?

(Fumi isn't her after all. Maybe she had the talent to cook. Fumi... maybe Fumi didn't. Maybe Jouichirou was wrong to have hope for him.)

"You can try again tomorrow, if you want," the dorm mother told him, as if reading his thoughts. She gestured at the group of seniors who were camping in the forest near the doorway, "you can keep trying, but unless you give me something that would wow me, you're getting sent back out the door like everyone else."

All of them? That's a crowd, Ma'am.

There was a whole field trip going on in that outer corner of the forest. They set up lights and tents and everything. Did they come prepared?