Seat Number Zero

Part 9

"Hey, I saw you come out of his room this morning," Izumi brought this up during breakfast out of nowhere causing Yumi to spit out her drink. He pointed at Yumi then at Isshiki. "Care to explain."

Yumi never got a chance to restock her potable fridge (or wherever she puts all her food) and had no choice but to eat outside. Not to mention she missed way too many classes, any more missing grades and she'd be expelled. But that not important right now.

"This," Yumi pointed at Isshiki while chewing her slice of bacon. "Kidnapped me to his room to talk, and shoved a plate in my face. I probably fell asleep at some point, and I guess he decided to just let me sleep there instead of waking me up." She glared daggers at him. "like a normal person."

Izumi eyes them suspiciously, "So you two didn't do anything?"

"Of course not!" Aiko gasped while giving him a hard chop on the head. "If they did, we would've heard it."

"Enough spouting nonsense and finish eating or we're gonna be late." Isshiki frowned.

"I dont understand?" Yumi said cutting her sunny side eggs, in no hurry at all. "What's so strange about me talking and eating with him? Were we talking that loudly? I didn't realize the walls were that thin." She blinked innocently.

They looked at her oddly for a second.

"Wait, wait, ok, hello, random question. What do couples do when they are alone?" Izumi asked.

"... hold hands? Kiss?" She answered blankly then started panicking. "Wait, What are you implying! We're not-"

'oh god, she's pure.' All of them thought at the same time. Then stared at Isshiki like he just kicked a puppy.

"Well would you look at the time, we're truly late," Aiko exclaims dragging Izumi out of the dorm with her.

"We should go too. Come on let's go," Isshiki took away Yumi's empty plate, despite her protest that it's still another hour before her class.

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The campus didn't exactly stay quiet about Yumi defeat, and my two-week absence only cooked up more gossip for her peers to exaggerate and twist.

The gossips are something along the lines of:
-The undefeated champion is finally dethroned
-I heard she joined the Polar Star Dormitory
-She was probably so ashamed and just went home
-She is a witch, her kitchen literally just exploded out of nowhere.

Lots of this floating around, showing her face around just added more fuel to the flames, like dont they have anything better to do like prepare for the next exam. But for Yumi, she was pretty used to people talking behind her back, during her endless shokugeki phase, this happened so often that she got used to it. She learned that it was best to just ignore it because correcting the rumors will only make things worse.

The class didn't change, the same as always. The whole time Yumi just sat on auto-pilot, managing to get through the class without remembering anything. How she pass any of her class is a mystery.

How thing however did change. Nothing she makes tasted... right, she swears she didn't change the seasoning on any of her dishes. Normally if Yumi is eating the food she herself cooked then she would eat it regardless if it was edible or not. But now she finds herself sitting in her private kitchen sighing at the plate in front of her, disheartened. "He spoiled my taste."

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"Get out of the kitchen! I'm using it." Yumi shouts upon entering the dormitory, storming into the main kitchen. Poor Saito scrambled to gather his stuff and fled out of there like he just set the place on fire.