Souma had been in Paris for over a month now, cooking in Shinomiya Kojirou's flagship restaurant. It had been his plan to leave weeks ago, but each time he got his things together and mentioned heading to the train station, the owner-chef would invent reasons for him to stay—an ambassador's luncheon to cater, a new seasonal menu to unveil.

At first the line cook job had been as grueling as his stagiaire two years prior, but with each passing day he fell into a rhythm—work from 11 am to 10 pm, practice from 10:30 until four or five in the morning, almost oversleep but manage not to.

He was always exhausted, but he barely slept. Most nights, after he got settled in his bed, his mind drifted back to BLUE, to Totsuki, to her.

It's disgusting.

Part of me hopes you lose to Saiba Asahi.

It's a miracle that you even made it this far.

The memory alone was always enough to propel him back into the kitchen for another hour, two, three, until he came up with something that might surpass his personal best.

Since Souma arrived at Shino's, his mentor had featured a number of his dishes on the special menu. But even plates that could make it onto a three star menu were pedestrian to her. He had to work harder.

"So you're just not going back to school?" the prize-winning alumnus asked one day after closing. They were sitting on the steps to the back entrance, smoking cigarettes and sipping brandy.

"I'll go back when I've learned enough to achieve my goal," Souma said, repeating verbatim the response he used every time Takumi or Hayama called to nag him about his studies or his Elite Ten paperwork respectively.

"You're still after the first seat?"

Although he willed them not to, his thoughts drifted to Nakiri again, to her new short hair and her old short temper. Part of him seriously doubted that there'd ever be a day when she accepted him or his cooking, but here he was halfway around the world, trying anyway.

She was right to call him a fool.

Well, at least she wasn't all timid and tearful anymore; if nothing else, that girl was built to be high and mighty.

He sighed, shook his head. "Something like that."

In another two weeks, Tsukasa Eishi and Kobayashi Rindou popped up to drag Shinomiya back to Tokyo to judge the Autumn Elections.

"You come back too, Yukihira," Rindou said, draping an arm around his shoulders. She had just glutted herself on all of Souma's new dishes and was hellbent on making him her personal chef. "I'll buy your ticket right now. Or you could have Eishi's seat."

"Hey, Rindou!" The former first seat protested, his face blanching.

"Oi, Kobayashi," Shinomiya said, his face hard. "If you take my whole staff with you, who's going to be left to run this kitchen?"

"Come on, senpai. You know you can't keep my cute underclassman here forever. He has to graduate." Then she turned to Souma, her eyes sharp and catlike. "Besides, don't you want to see what the freshmen do with that theme?"

Something about the way she said it made Souma curious. "What did the council end up going with?"

Rindou's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You really don't know?"

Souma shook his head. Maybe he shouldn't have kept screening Takumi's phone calls.

"Well, Princess Erina went ahead and picked diner food."

Souma blinked a few times, waiting for the wolfish gotcha grin to spread on the Totsuki alumna's face, but it never came. "There's no way Nakiri would do something like that. Maybe the others overruled her in a vote?"

"To my understanding," Eishi cut in sheepishly, "it was all Erina-san's doing, and she was very adamant about it."

"But why would she—"

"Maybe she wants to get back together," Rindou offered, offering a cheeky grin. "You left because she was too cold, right? Well, this ought to turn the heat back up."

"Rindou," Eishi chided. "You can't just ask personal questions like that."

She rolled her eyes and waved him off. "Listen, as an alum, it's my solemn responsibility to advise the chefs coming behind me," she said. "Now are you going to take her back or what?"

Souma glanced up at the ceiling, scarcely able to fathom what he was hearing. Why the hell would she choose a theme like that? She did always like to poke fun at him, but she took Totsuki way to seriously to botch an old tradition like the Autumn Elections over a prank.

Though in the past he'd thought of himself as a decent conversationalist, it took him several moments to come up with a response.

"Look, now you two have gone and broken my apprentice." Shinomiya said, shaking his head. "I knew it had to be something like this, though. I've always known you were stupid, but were you really dumb enough to break up with Nakiri Erina?"

"Nakiri was never my girlfriend," Souma said finally. "I think she'd pluck off all her taste buds first." He forced a laugh out after this, but the thought left him feeling hollow. "Anyway, you all should probably finish packing. I'll close up here."

And then he was down in cold storage taking inventory until he was certain all of them were gone.

Author's Notes: Thanks for reading, everyone! After reading people's comments on the last chapter, I decided that I will probably go into Souma's point of view every now and then, but still keep the focus of the story on Erina and her development. Please let me know what you think, and I hope you all have a great day!