I figured I'd try something new. This drabble is about Komatsu as a student, before he meet Ume and Ootake.
Drabble word: Expectations
Komatsu worked tirelessly over the 'crêpe Marie' that had been asked by the teachers as part of their evaluations. He mixed the flour and yeast before dropping a few drops of water into the mix. Not too much, be careful. You only want enough to be able to mix the flour into paste, no more!
A hard learnt lesson giving to him by a rather ruthless teacher. Once he had just enough water, he hesitated as to what he should add to the Crêpe mix now. A small voice inside him clamored to add Soy milk and raspberry nuts but it was almost instantly crushed by a roaring voice admonishing Komatsu for thinking about using something the client had not asked for.
' You are training to be a chef! Thats means shutting up and doing what the client wants and only that! Dont add things that are unnecessary! Dont experiment with the recipes giving to you! You are there to cook and nothing more!'
Komatsu closed his eyes, feeling his heart going wild as he remembered the owner of the fearsome voice. His least favorite teacher, one that insisted on following recipes to the letter and would fail you if you did anything else.
Reopening his eyes, the young would-be-chef reached and grabbed the silk honey that the recipe called for and added it to the creamy paste. He mixed it exactly 4 times clockwise and 7 counterclockwise, just as specified by the teacher and his recipe. As he carefully dripped the now finished Crêpe mix into the warm not hot pan, he lifted his eyes nervously towards the watching teachers.
Komatsu was one of the first ones to finish and while the teacher that tasted his desert praised the taste as being exactly what was expected from the recipe, he himself felt worthless. After all, anyone could learn to follow a recipe. Komatsu clenched his hands as he walked out of the examination room and towards his room, unaware of everything except his own failure.
The young man dropped unto his bed, his mind going over and over his exams. He might have gotten a passing note but he still felt unaccomplished and was school and it was supposed to teach him how to survive in a real restaurant, in a world where innovations was everything and yet he found himself pushed into a mold and forced to be something he found repulsive.
As the future chef drifted to sleep with tears in his eyes, he hoped for strength to withstand the last few weeks of testing for his scholarship admission to the prestigious school of Nakaume Gourmet School.