Vanilla

Fifty One

A/N: Ah one of the most exciting chapters in this book I've written to date and also one of the most technically challenging (both in the culinary sense and writing as a profession) ones. There are a couple of phrases in here that are terms you'd only see in the kitchen and it was up to me to slide the definitions into the text without you quite noticing them while at the same time ensuring that there is sufficient relevant information for inference of its meaning. 

I've always loved competitive culinary as a genre of TV and now that I've watched Shokugeki no Soma, I regret not having focused on the rigour and heat and tenacity of culinary competitions. This one is on a next level of panic and I was fired up writing it myself! Ah, the music for Shokugeki is truly masterful ;v; I wish my babies can have their own anime series too! /.\ ah

Enjoy.

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[Vanilla]

"She's not turning up?" I struggled to understand this, wondering if I had, by some malfunctioning of my ears, made a mistake. "Are you sure that's what Birchwood, herself, said? What are your sources?"

The look on Chen's face made me question the memory I had of speaking to Violet at the gardens by the administrative building just yesterday and for a moment, I even entertained the prospect of it being all part of a very long dream. Si Yin was the one who came by to confirm that the supposed contestant had, in fact, changed her mind last evening and because the decision did not seem to bother anyone else in the room, we started at once towards the lecture room where further instructions were going to be briefed.

How no one else appeared to notice Si Yin's blatant anxiety of hiding something more than she let on, I could not comprehend. Needless to say, the urge to pull her aside and ask what exactly it was bothering her seized half of my brain as we took our seats in the front, but she was clearly avoiding my gaze. Something she couldn't tell me, then.

Fine Dining (Lunch) Service

Type: Elimination

Style: Kitchen Crew, Service Crew

Participants: 23 Red + 22 Blue = 45

Scoring: Guest ratings, teamwork, role competency

The organizers had done away with the suspense speeches present in every other briefing prior to this one and had, instead, decided to cut to the chase by having the details of round three up on the screen before even starting. And there it was again. Vague, non-transparent forms of assessment without concrete rubrics for proper judgement. How was one supposed to put a score to teamwork? They couldn't possibly mic them up on a production line.

Red and blue teams were assigned members across all three schools by a computerized balloting system, which sorted us into red or blue on a fifty-fifty chance. I was put on blue and in an instant, I saw his name directly below mine as though by some miracle, the computer was a wish-granting fairy in disguise.