It was an average Sunday afternoon for the former members of the Polar Star dormitory. It was their bi-weekly get together and they had invaded Restaurant Yukihira for whatever unknown reason, much to Jōichirō's chagrin.

"Why do you young ones have to take over my shop? I've got to open up in a few hours, you know? Come on Sōma, you say something too!"

Sōma, a willing partaker in this gathering would do no such thing but rather grinned at his old man, scratching his neck.

"Sorry pops, even if I tried, nobody would move."

"Some son you are," he bemoaned before walking out the door to give the group some privacy.

The members gathered in a circle as if they were planning to summon a demon. Not that they wanted to, of course. They had already met one in their first year at Tōtsuki and they did not want to meet another.

Sōma glanced around the circle, seeing the familiar faces of his friends, and not just from the Polar Star - despite the event starting as an exclusive, it grew to include others - at this point, anyone from Tōtsuki was allowed to attend. Yūki was as excitable as ever, ready to hear about everyone's love life. Megumi and Takumi sat side by side comfortably, practically sharing a chair, their own relationship a result of Yūki playing Cupid. Ryōko and Shun were still panting for breath after their desperate run to the restaurant due to Shun's insistence on completing a smoking experiment. Zenji was relieved that they didn't take over his home or his restaurant for their gathering like how they raided his room at the Polar Star. Isami took the high ground, seating himself on a bar stool.

He was disappointed to see that Satoshi Isshiki and the rough men were missing as usual. Daigo and Shoji always happened to be busy on Sundays - though Sōma guessed that they really just didn't want to show up. Satoshi had been caught up in family matters involving the Isshiki and Kinokuni families and their heirs' marriage. Yūki, ever the love enthusiast let him off the hook. He also recalled that Ikumi had a delivery job to do for some high-end customers of her family and that Jun had fallen ill, causing Akira to stay at her home to take care of her. Alice and Ryō, meanwhile, had traveled back to Denmark together. She had already voiced her disappointment in not being able to attend over the phone.

"Let's start! Sōma, get us some drinks!" Yūki said cheerfully, almost jumping out of her seat.

"Hey, we don't have an infinite budget, you know?" Sōma groaned, going into the food storage room to pull out a few bottles of juice and a few cans of soft drinks.

"Just ask the old man for some more."

"This is the old man's money I'm talking about!"

"I think she means the other old man."

A wave of realisation hit Sōma as he heard Zenji's comment, but he shook his head furiously all the same.

"I can't be scamming my grandfather-in-law, not after only two months of marriage. Certainly not because I couldn't stop my gluttonous friends from stealing my goods." he said, placing the usual drinks in front of everyone.

"Who're you calling gluttonous! And where's the beer?"

"You know you don't take alcohol well, Yūki..." Ryōko reminded her, a very specific incident lurking in the back of her mind.

"But it's a special occasion!"

"How so?" Ryōko asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Megumi's pregnant!"

"What? No, she is not! Wait, Megumi, are you pregnant?"

"No, I am not!" Megumi responded adamantly.

"See, Megumi isn't pregnant! It's not good to lie about someone else's pregnancy just because you want alcohol to make you feel better about being single!" Ryōko told her all too savagely.

"Besides, we're not even married yet! Megumi's mother would murder me if we... you know..." Takumi stuttered, a little late to join the squabble.

"Now, now, let's all calm down for a moment, shall we?" Isami suggested. As much as he enjoyed seeing his brother embarrassed, it was hard to tell if the argument could've gotten heated.

They all heeded him, silencing their bickering in an instant. The last time their group had taken something too seriously, Yūki had ended up trying to find a resolution in a drinking battle and had ended up being admitted to a hospital as a result of her horrible metabolism and obstinacy. This particular event had been the very one Ryōko wanted to avoid.

Sōma stood behind the bar quietly, sipping on a mug of tea. He found these arguments amusing to watch but not so much to take part in and patiently waited for someone to start chatting about something else. When it became clear that everyone was a little bit lost for what to talk about, he decided it was time for him to bring up his problems and ask for help.

"Hey, so uh..."

"Rare for you to begin conversations," Shun butted in.

"Yeah, I know, but I just have this problem that I need help with."

Yūki's eyes almost seemed to flash, her Yūki senses feeling a conversation that she could be a major contributor in.

"Is it about Erinacchi?" she asked eagerly - or at least she hoped she asked. In times like these, she knew she had a tendency to sound like she was interrogating.

"It is. Recently, she seems to... I don't know... hate me, or something."

Immediately, the group came up with suggestions for what he was doing wrong, or what the problem might be if it was on Erina's end.

"Is it perhaps that time of month for her?" Megumi wondered honestly.

"Pretty sure it was at the beginning of the month, so I'd say no."

"Are you taking good care of her?" Ryōko asked him. Having known Sōma for almost nine years and counting, she wouldn't be surprised if he was being a bad husband and putting more strain on Erina more than she needed.

"When do I not take good care of her?" Sōma replied in a very unconvincing manner. Ryōko narrowed her eyes, deciding to take his word for it.

"How big's her workload? Too much stress might be affecting her behaviour towards everything at this point," Zenji theorised.

"She's got Hisako to help her anyway. And case in point, she's being very nice to her."

"Wait... are you doing THAT enough with her? I've heard that women can get really grumpy if you... uh... don't pleasure them enough," Isami said hesitantly, remembering his brother's earlier discomfort at the mention of THAT.

"What? No way, she probably doesn't even know about THAT yet! Hang on... nobody mixed doujinshi into her weekly shoujo manga delivery, did they?"

"I barely even have the guts to knock on the Nakiri family door, let alone swap out some of the God's Tongue's manga..." Takumi mumbled.

"Sōma... you haven't been... doing THAT, have you?" Shun questioned him, both terrified and terrifying with practically visible flames in his usually concealed eyes.

"Didn't I just say that she doesn't-"

"I mean THAT. The thing you used to do to Megumi back at the Polar Star. The Yukihira family infamy," he clarified. All the horrible memories came flooding back to poor Megumi's brain, who excused herself as she began to feel a migraine hit her, prompting Takumi to give her a lap pillow.

"Oh, THAT."

The abominations.

The creations that even the devil himself would be afraid of.

The Yukihira family's cruel and crazy combinations.

"Yeah, I was testing some combos and decided I needed God's Tongue's opinion so I may or may not have chucked some stuff in her dinner a few times last week. Ever since, she's been avoiding any food I prepare for her and tells me that she had dinner with Hisako or something."

There was no helping it. Everyone in the room slapped their faces, unable to stop themselves from doing so as a result of finding out about Sōma's stupidity, density and his nasty actions.

"No wonder she'd hate you," Zenji muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

"You couldn't be more correct," Shun agreed.

"I'd have filed for a divorce if I were her," Ryōko stated. She wasn't holding back at all. She had given no mercy to anyone.

"She probably has PTSD now, just like me," Megumi said weakly.

"So... if I promise to never make her eat another random combination, do you think she'd warm up to me again?"

"Well if you mean it, probably," Takumi assured him, not exactly reassuringly.

"Hehe, thanks guys! I'll keep it in mind. So... anyone else got something to talk about?"

While everyone else began a new conversation again, Megumi looked up into the eyes of her partner and smiled.

"I bet he's going to make her hate him again next week."

"Next week? No way. I'm betting she's going to ditch him in half a week."

Both of them were wrong. It only took one day for Erina to start ditching her husband's home cooked dinners again.

A/N - I'm here with my subjectively garbage attempt at a Shokugeki crack fiction. It gets boring when you're in China without a VPN to watch your favourite anime, alright? On a random note, I never actually expected to pay any attention to or ever catch up to the Shokugeki no Sōma manga, let alone write fan fiction, but here I am...

Anyway, I hope you got at least one laugh out of this. I'll probably write something more substantial in the near-ish future. Until then, goodbye!