10 years post grad

"Hey, Nakiri? I brought you something."

Erina poked her head out of the bathroom. "Breakfast?" Sure enough, he was carrying a pop-up Trattoria Aldini Seoul bag and two espressos. "You're a little late. Was the traffic bad?"

Souma shrugged. "Not any more than usual. I had to run another errand before I came back."

In the evening they'd be attending a ceremony for their three stars at Svatyne. It was unnecessary, but the culinary titans had insisted, and to be honest, they weren't too upset about it.

"What was it?" Erina inquired as Souma started unpacking the takeout bag.

With another shrug, the chef asked, "You want syrup with this or no?"

Erina nodded. "Yes, please. Thanks."

He dumped what had to be a gallon of Aldini brand syrup over pancakes and set the plate on the island counter.

"I bought a three-carat," Souma said, trying to hold back his grin.

"You bought what?"

"I had it on hold for a while but I figured today would be a good day to pick it up from the shop. Given where we're going tonight and all."

The color drained from Erina's face. "Wait. You're not saying…"

Souma grinned and pulled something from his back pocket. He handed her the black velvet box and said, "Why don't you take a look?"

Hands trembling, Erina opened the exquisite ring box…

… to reveal a keychain ring with 3 carrots made of silly putty stuck on top.

Souma exploded into laughter as Erina chucked the box at him with an enraged squall.

"I fucking hate you!" she hollered at the top of her lungs. "Don't fuck with me like that!"

Souma tackled her and lifted her over his shoulder. She kicked at him but he was having none of it. "You love me," he sang triumphantly. "Did you actually think I was gonna propose to you like this of all fucking ways?"

If only she knew what was still in his pocket.


"We're going to be late," Souma said for the seventh time in the last ten minutes.

"Oh, please shut the fuck up and let me be a woman," replied the god tongue as she applied finishing touches to her lipstick, one hand planted firmly on the vanity to keep her from headbutting the immaculately spotless mirror. Erina couldn't seem to remember ever cleaning up the area after that one time when she accidentally dropped her eyeshadow palette and caused a bonafide explosion, but someone — namely, the diner chef she was cohabitating with — had squared all that dusty shit away. It was like magic. She'd leave her clothes (and pretty much everything else, to be honest) strewn about to the point where it looked like she'd made it a point to distribute the contents of her room around the Dongdaemun condo, but she'd always wake up in the morning to find everything freshly laundered, ironed, and arranged neatly in her closet.

Erina snapped shut her makeup bag. "Well? How do I look?"

"Fucking gorgeous," he said, and gave her a calculated kiss on top of her head, avoiding all areas that could have potentially been part of the reason why he'd been waiting for the last four hours.

"I already knew that," Erina said breezily as they emerged into the chilly Seoul evening. Thankfully, her insightful boyfriend had had enough sense to pick out her heels for her before she even got to open the shoe drawer. Souma took her hand as they got into the backseat of the stretch limo that had been sent to fetch them, most likely because those people didn't trust the two chefs to show up of their own accord.

Exactly a week ago, they'd received the call they'd been expecting since they came to the consensus that it would be stupid for them to not open a restaurant together. Probably before. Maybe it was when she first let go of his hand; maybe it was the first time she'd ever told him she loved him. Words were a delicate subject between them; they always seemed to encompass the worlds they straddled. There were no distinctions between those crossed paths. That time back in second year when they'd talked through the whole night on the roof of Nakiri Mansion just to watch the sunrise… the romance in the air had been too much for her. She'd buried her face into his chest at the embarrassment when he'd pointed out that they were pretty much reenacting a shoujo manga, and then she'd realized that she was literally hugging Yukihira Souma of all people.

Then the world had stopped turning and she'd told him she loved him.

It had been an accident, but she didn't take it back because they both knew she loved him, and perhaps more importantly, they knew he loved her. Time ended then for them; nothing was too fast. It was damn near two years' worth of repressed feelings between them, to hell with taking it slow or not knowing what love was. Shut the fuck up. It was love.

She'd broken his heart so many times. It had taken them much longer to fall back into familiar patterns this time around, because she needed to hear that he loved her before she could justify the reason why looking at him made her see stars. It took a whole year for her to work up the courage to tell him that she had always loved him and would never stop loving him. But in truth, she'd told him in so many ways over the decade that was their love story.

It was that thing about words — between them, words were nothing. It was the subtle actions, the gestures and eyebrow raises and the facades they'd both carefully constructed in an attempt to allow the other to move on. But, of course, they couldn't keep up the masquerades forever.

Erina's I love you was, in essence, the ten years she'd spent wishing she could turn back time to that day after the graduation ceremony when they were at a standstill, unsure of how their paths would diverge, and throw herself into his arms and hug him until they were both starved for air and even then she wouldn't let go.

And then. Last week, they'd done it. Their pillow talk had led to Svatyne, and they'd claimed their ultimate prize. Three Michelin stars, and they were worth so much more than all the stars they'd earned on their own, simply because it was them that had done it. It was no longer you and I; it was us.

They sat in silence for the rest of the car ride, both of them smiling gently at the memory of all the unspoken confessions between them — all the suitors and suits and suites and pursuits jumbling together, reflections upon reflections, mirrors upon mirrors. And she had tried so hard to broach those walls and seek fulfillment in the far-flung reaches of her universe when all along, the one she'd been looking for was quietly waiting by her side.