A/N: I may write a continuation of this, but right now I feel as though the story is complete as it is. Happy reading everyone!

I am a chef. You don't need to be in charge of a fancy restaurant to know you're a good cook. You don't need to have four forks at each table just to prove that the customer is sitting in a restaurant worth eating at.

All it really takes is a few ingredients, something to cook them with, and the hope that it comes out good. And of course, the people. You want to make sure that everyone's happy with what they're eating. It doesn't take a genius or a prodigy to know that. Doing something you love doing, and making other people happy with your work, can be even sweeter than the best dessert. Anyone could tell you that.

Even though my father ran a bakery, I wasn't exactly raised to be a chef. I really didn't see too much value in sweets and cakes, at least, not then. My dad and I never saw eye-to-eye very much. If I had at least showed some interest, things might have been different between us when I was a teenager. But I didn't want to take over the family business, not when there was so much else in the world to do.

I didn't have much ambition back then—no big surprise, I'm sure. I was a pretty lazy student, I slept through classes, I played hooky every chance I got. I was not exactly the success story that my parents had hoped for. Sure, I did enough to get by, but now I know that it wasn't enough for them. Sometimes I think that parents only have children to fulfill their unachieved dreams for them. As a teenager, I thought I knew what they were up to, and I wasn't going to play that game. At least, that's what I thought.

I did manage to get into a good high school, somehow. I found myself wandering through the hallways of a new school, and I could never say how different my life would have been without getting lost on one of my first days at school.

It was the second week of class, if I remember right, and I was trying to remember where my one of the class rooms was. I was sure of only a few things: First, I had no clue what was going on in my class; Second, that I had no idea why I was in this class, and third, I had no idea where I was going.

Well, standing in the middle of a hallway continuing to stare at closed doors wasn't going to do me any good. I chose a door, took a deep breath, and pulled it open. Beyond that door was the first glimpse that I ever got of Kaori-senpai.

If you've ever see a picture of her, maybe in a newspaper or magazine, you'd have to agree that she is quite pretty. That was not Kaori-senpai as I first saw her. For one thing, she was up to her elbows in dough, flour across her face, as though it had been carelessly thrown there. Her apron had so many splotches of multi-colored stains, almost blocking out the pattern underneath. Frustration crossed in her eyes, staring at the dough she was kneading. She wasn't alone, either, but at that moment, she was the only one I saw.

Then I realized that I had just walked into a cooking class. Judging by the looks of the dishes the students were trying to make, it wasn't exactly a beginner's class. Instead of being shooed out of the classroom like I fully expected, Kaori-senpai looked up at me and smiled. "Did you come to learn to cook?" She asked. I didn't know it then, but that may very well have been the moment that changed my life, or at least determined where it was going to go.

She approached me after class had been dismissed, flour now brushed off, apron hanging up somewhere else. She always was pretty, even back then. "Are you interested in cooking?" She asked.

"Um, no. Not really." I shrugged. "I mean, my dad runs a bakery, but I really just wandered into your class on accident."

"Some people would say that there are no accidents," she replied, with that sweet smile still on her face. "I'm Suzuki, by the way. Suzuki Kaori."

"I'm Fujita. Fujita Keiji." We shook hands. "It's nice to meet you, Suzuki-senpai," I told her, suddenly shy.

"Call me Kaori," she said. "And I'll call you Keiji."

I had never had any friends that I had been on a first-name basis with before. One thing I learned about Kaori: she liked to jump to the chase. She was as ambitious as they came, hardworking, and still one of the kindest people that I had ever met. "O-okay, uh, Kaori-senpai."

"If your dad runs a bakery, then you must like cooking a little bit," she said as we started walking down the hallways together.

I shook my head. "Not really."

"Hm." She thought for a moment. "What's your favorite thing to eat?"

Now it was my turn to pause and think. "Since it's still pretty warm...ice cream?"

She nodded and clapped her hands together once. "Okay! Ice cream it is!"

"Wait, what?" I couldn't get the two words out of my mouth before Kaori-senpai had dragged me back to the kitchen that I had accidentally wandered into. She started laying out ingredients and searching for a mixer before I knew what she was doing.

She deposited a bag of ice into a large bowl, and looked up at me, expectantly. "C'mon. Ice cream is easy."

I walked over to the other side of the counter where she was waiting for me. "Now we place a smaller bowl over this one, and add some whip cream and sugar." She handed me the mixer. I stared at the mixer in my hand, and then back at her. Was she really going to have me do this right now? I groaned inwardly, and turned the mixer on. This was not what I had expected out of my second week of high school.

She guided me through each step, from learning how to make meringue, how much of every ingredient, and putting the dish in the freezer. "Was that so hard, Keiji-kun?" As always, she spoke with a smile on her face, but this time I knew she was daring me to say no. Sometimes Kaori could be really scary when she didn't hear what she wanted.

"I guess it wasn't," I said, trying to sound detached. It had been pretty fun, but I wasn't going to admit that any time soon. Unsurprisingly, she saw right through my flimsy act.

We sat on top of the counters, staring at the refrigerator until it was time to take the ice cream out. I swung my legs, trying to think of something to say. "You like to cook, senpai?" It seemed like a good place to start.

She nodded. "Ever since I was little." There was a sparkle in her eyes now; she was practically glowing. "I used to love to watch my grandmother and mother cook when I was a kid. It looked like so much fun, I had to try it for myself!" She giggled. "You know what I really want to do someday?"

"What?"

"I want to become a pastry chef." She closed her eyes, like she was dreaming. "Just me, and my very own kitchen." She opened her eyes. "And the smiles on the faces of everyone who eats my food." She glanced over at me, to see what I would say.

"If you really want to become a pastry chef, maybe you could come visit Fujita Bakery," I told her. "Maybe you'll learn something new there."

"Maybe." She looked at her watch. "I think it's time to take the ice cream out."

I felt like a little kid when we did. I looked at the vanilla ice cream that we had made together, and I felt like I wanted to show everyone, and tell them all, "I did this!"

Kaori-senpai held out two spoons, one for me and one for her. "Now, it's time for the real test!"

I took a spoon from her hand. I knew that my heart shouldn't be pounding so hard over something so little. If the ice cream didn't taste good, it was no big deal...right?

Right?

I took a scoopful of ice cream, crossed my fingers, and ate it. "It's good!" I said, more than a little surprised, but mostly glad that it had turned out well. And edible.

Kaori pulled the spoon out of her mouth. "Good," she declared.

I am a chef, too, and that was the moment I became one.