"We're going to learn the basics of choosing good ingredients today."
And of course, after a good day comes another wave of bad luck.
"We'll have a test after class, so you should listen if you want a good grade."
Of course they were going to learn this in a culinary academy. It's the basics of the basics. You'd obviously learn that in your first or second year, right? After all, a chef that can't tell between fresh and spoiled meat is just asking for food poisoning.
(And of all days, he's not with Shinomiya in this class!)
It's okay-- it's okay, he can do this. He has a whole lifetime of experience in this. There are plenty of ways to tell good ingredients without smell and taste. There's also natural instinct, which he is fairly sure he has an upper hand over the others... if he stayed calm, he would be fine.
If he stayed calm, he would be fine.
...If he stayed calm, that is.
-
"I leave you alone for one class and ya failed it again?" Shinomiya groaned, "it's harder to flunk out in seventh grade, but you're swoopin' down speedier than a barn owl catchin' mice, geez."
"Your accent, Shinomiya."
"Nunya!"
"I don't speak country bumpkin!"
Shinomiya noticed a few things about the strange boy over the past days.
Of course, his obviously dyed hair was something everyone stopped to look at, but the burn scar on his left hand was always the second thing people observed about the boy.
He's failed about five classes over the past three days. In a way, that's certainly an achievement.
Every time, Shinomiya would find him under the table, curled into as small as a ball he could be. Eda would bury his face into his knees, with his arms wrapped over the front, left hand hidden from view.
In fact, Shinomiya found him there like that after his first class (and his second, and his third,) and wondered if it was some weird Ayakashi of the kitchen. Turns out it was just a wimpy human being with anxiety.
"How on earth did you even fail ingredients class?" Shinomiya threw his arms up in exasperation, sitting down on the chair and leaning over the counter, "it takes talent to get an E in that one."
Or maybe I just don't have a sense of taste or smell and can't tell shit, Eda thought to himself. That teacher definitely has something against me.
"Are you seriously crying?"
"M'not."
"Heck, you are. That's it, I'm out of here."
"Piece of shit."
"Crybaby."
YOU ARE READING
BiTTER (Shokugeki no Souma Fanfic)
FanfictionFumi lacks a lot of things. He's Taste-deaf. He's blind to most smells. He did not have the strength and culinary imagination many of the aspiring chefs in Tootsuki had. But he had experience, enough for a whole lifetime past. - Shokugeki no Souma ©...
