Thank you a lot for the reviews, follows, and favs. Glad it wasn't utter trash as I thought.

Okay, second chapter is up! Enjoy.


3 years later...

It was the time of the week again. The sound of spoons clinking and crackling fire of the stove filled the diner as curious eyes were glued on Souma and Joichirou Yukihira. Whispers were exchanged, betting on one of the currently cooking chefs.

Yes, it was another cook-off between Souma and his father.

"Well, Souma, wouldn't this be your 500th loss already?" Joichirou teased, grinning widely at his son. Souma face just darkened and pointed a finger at the man in front of him. He knew his father was merely joking, despite that every time he reminded Souma of his loss streak his blood would begin to boil.

"This is the 498th match, so don't make up numbers, old man!"

"Hah, like it would make any difference!" Joichirou continued, giving his dish the finishing touches. Souma just growled in annoyance and began finishing up as well. The judge for that day wasn't randomly picked, actually it never was. For that day the judge would be no other than... wait... Nakiri Alice?!

"What?! What the hell is Nakiri no. 2 doing here?!" Souma said in shock as he saw Alice enter with Ryou into the Yukihira diner. The last time Souma saw or even spoke to Alice was the day before everyone left Totsuki. He vaguely remembered her saying she was heading right back to Denmark or something of that sort.

"Hey, who are you calling Nakiri no. 2! Have a little respect, tell him Ryou!" Alice whined, pushing her 'aide' to settle things straight with Souma.

"EHhm, have respect for milady... yeah."

"You're such a useless aide! I will do the talking myself from now on!" Alice said, pushing Ryou to the side again to face Souma properly. She had a devilish grin on her face and Souma wasn't sure if he shouldn't be running for his life now.

"Shouldn't you be in Denmark right now?"

"Well, I was there for a year. Did you actually think I would stay there forever?" Alice responded, shaking her head to show her disappointment in Souma's 'stupidity'. Truth was that Alice came back to Japan only to visit Erina, since she had missed her cousin and wanted to know how she was doing. She would travel back home in a few weeks, perhaps even months.

"Ah, Alice, you sure took your time," Joichirou said, putting his dish on a nearby table.

"Wait, pops, how do you know Alice?!"

"Hmph, ignorant as always. Don't you think it's logical for your father to know me as well when he knows Erina?" Alice mocked a devilish grin on her lips. Souma just looked dumbfounded with his face expression totally blank from confusion.

"Now, now, you can talk about that later. It's time for Souma to lose for the 498th time."

"Shut up!"

Souma glared daggers at his father as both of them served their dish. That day's theme was: sushi. Souma was quite surprised to hear it as well, when his father suggested it. It was definitely quite an odd choice, but also kind of brilliant at the same time. The 'critical' ingredient would not only be the choice of the fish, but also how to make the rice and correctly prepare the sushi nori without it being either to dry or to moist.

The tension rose as Alice slowly took a bite from both dishes, leaving all the people present in cheer suspense. There was no vacant reaction from Alice from any of the dishes. She just chewed away with her eyes closed and a very thoughtful expression on her face. Souma gulped in nervousness, it was actually quite rare not to get a reaction from someone. Usually it would show him where he stood and what his odds to win were, but Alice's face remained stone hard despite everyone knowing both of the dishes had to be delicious.

"Well, definitely heavenly good dishes. Both of you put a lot of thought into the sushi, which I could clearly taste. Yukihira Souma-kun, it was quite clever to keep rice a little warm instead letting it cooling off entirely like most people do. However," Alice said, looking up at Joichirou and grinning widely, "your father's dish didn't use sushi rice like most people do, he used, to my surprise, jasmine rice, rice with flavour so striking that if you make one mistake the rice could overwhelm all the other ingredients including the fish."

Souma already sighed. He tried as hard as he could to be creative as much as possible, since the element of the unexpected always made him score. But his old man took that to an entirely other level. Although Souma knew it required some guts to actually do something so spontaneously on the spot, or was it?

"So the winner for me personally would be Joichirou."

"Glad you liked it!"

"Hey, Pops, did you choose sushi on purpose so you could humiliate me with your jasmine substitute thing?" Souma asked, his left eyes twitching in annoyance.

"Ha, don't be ridiculous, why would I do that? Do you think I have no sportsmanship?"

"Yeah, you freakin' don't have any, old man."

"But anyways, only two more, Souma, and you'll officially have 500 on your record," Joichirou laughed, opening his little notebook and scribbling something in it and Souma of course like a mirror copied him and wrote little notes in his own notebook as well.

"I'll beat you next time!"

"Well, don't be a sore loser, Yukihira-kun," Alice teased, trying to cheer him a little. He was acting cool and just playfully angry, but she knew that with each loss Souma grew more and more frustrated. There was something hidden from him.

"You'll figure it out, I'm sure of it."

Alice and Ryo soon left and Yukihira diner was closed for the day. Souma and Joichirou cleaned up and washed all the dishes. Soon both of them were sitting at the table with a bottle of sake and glasses. It has more or less become a tradition after every cook-off to sit down over drinks, of course, when Souma was still a minor he would always just get apple juice.

"Look, Souma, your cooking has greatly improved. You were among the brightest stars at Totsuki, despite all that and the fact that you were a member of the Elite Ten, you still lack something, which in my opinion you just refuse to look for."

Souma raised an eyebrow. What could he possibly be missing? What could be so deal breaking that he hadn't taken notice of it until now?

"I thought you would figure out on your own, considering you had a great amount of friends back at the academy."

"Pops, I seriously have no idea what you're blabbering about," Souma began, "if you need to tell me something, just say it and don't go around the bush."

"You haven't found the person to whom you'll devote all your cooking to, Souma."

Just a gigantic question mark appeared in Souma's head. Heh? What was the old man talking about? Did he have a stroke? However, Joichirou's face stayed dead serious while telling Souma the 'secret to cooking', but he couldn't mean it! What has love to do with anything?!

"I don't think my cooking will improve if I get a girlfriend..."

"That's not about getting a girlfriend and whatnot, it's about finding the person, who you will want to give all your food to. It doesn't have to be your partner for all I know it could be your future dog or something. Listen to me, this is the true key to cooking. If you discover this, you'll be able to get even better, you'll experience a whole new view on cooking and trust me, it's quite the adventure."

"But I still don't unders-"

"Saiba-san!" A very high female voice called. Souma even flinched at the volume and both members of the Yukihira family turned their heads to the door, seeing who was yelling like a siren just a few seconds ago. It was someone Souma hasn't seen, since he graduated.

Nakiri Erina.


REVIEW

A/N Again, thanks for reading and a.k.a. Kusabi thanks for all the tips and about the popularity poll, I do find it odd that Takumi landed on third place, while Megumi got pushed to the fourth. I think the author doesn't do anything wrong, Takumi doesn't take a lot of screentime and it's the fanbase's choice who they like. I think people are growing tired of the sweet and shy type (I like them actually) and like more tsunderes (ironically since they're everywhere in anime now) and just the kind of people who don't really exist beside the anime world.