Shun and Ikumi were distinctly unimpressed when Takumi told them that he'd figured out his dish for the Shokugeki— and that they wouldn't be privy to his plans.

"C'mon, Aldini," Ikumi said, dropping all polite pretense when she wasn't able to wheedle it out of him. "You have to have something planned, right? If you're so secure in whatever it is you've got up your sleeve, then why won't you at least let us help develop your dish?"

"I think it's as developed as it can be," Takumi said, slightly distracted by a knife he was sharpening for the match. "Any more finetuning and it'll fall apart."

"That's nowhere near as comforting as you're acting like it is," Shun muttered. He'd been nowhere near as vocal as Ikumi, but his disapproval was somehow more apparent.

"I promise, it'll be fine," Takumi said impatiently. "Even if I lose, I'm not too worried about the wager."

Ikumi blinked. "Isn't she planning on completely humiliating you?"

Takumi snorted. "I've done far worse things than act as a classmate's butler," he said. "A week of my time in exchange for a week of hers is a fair trade. Honestly, I was expecting her to ask for a lot worse."

"Someone like Akanegakubo-chan would see being forced to work for someone as the most offensive thing that could happen to you," Shun said. "Her putting that as her counteroffer is meant to be a huge insult, Aldini-san."

"It is?" Takumi took a second to think through everything he knew about Momo. "Ah, yeah, I can see that, actually. Why do people think that being a service worker is so demeaning, anyhow?"

Ikumi had buried her face in her hands during Shun's explanation of the depth of Momo's insult. This meant that when she now screamed, the sound was completely muffled by her palms.

"Is there anything we can do to help you?" she asked, finally looking up at him.

Takumi gave that some thought. "Actually, yes," he said, realizing something. "Could you help me get some decent quality steak and suet by tomorrow?"

Ikumi fully did a double-take at the request. "Aren't you making a dessert?"

"Yes."

She gave him a squinty-eyed glare. "Suet? Steak? For a dessert?"

"Trust me?"

"It's getting harder and harder to," she muttered. "Fine. Fine! I'll get you your stupid ingredients. This better pay off, Aldini."


Takumi was surprised to find the Shokugeki hall well-attended when he arrived. Sōmei shrugged when he voiced this.

"You must have considered that Akanegakubo-chan has the same notoriety as Mito-san with much, much less opportunity to interact with her," he said. As nonchalant as the boy normally seemed, Takumi could see his eyes darting from side to side, as well as a finger tapping on the pommel of his maguro bōchō. "The opportunity to see her actually create her confections without the filter of a phone screen is one that's hard to come by. I'm honestly shocked that more students haven't come out, though that may be due to how short notice everyone was given."

"Short notice? It was scheduled like a week ago."

"It wasn't advertised anywhere," Sōmei said. "Usually, word of a Shokugeki travels either by mouth or in an advertisement in the school paper, but I assume you didn't know that and Akanegakubo-chan would never care enough to set that all up. I'm surprised that the Shokugeki Board didn't decide to give you a larger venue."

"This venue is large enough," Takumi muttered, glancing at the slowly filling stands. "Are you trying to make me nervous?"

"Am I?" Sōmei sounded unconcerned. "I apologize."

Takumi rolled his eyes at how disingenuous his words were. "I'm going to head to my green room," he said flatly.

Sōmei gave him a lazy smirk and waved him off, presumably heading off to the audience. Takumi sighed to himself as he watched him go, the unwanted butterflies in his stomach threatening to start fluttering again.

Takumi had been given fifteen minutes to set everything up and arrange his ingredients on a provided counter. It took almost the whole time to put everything down; by the time he finished, Momo had her own ingredients all ready to go and was checking on the condition of the three ovens she must have requested.

There was a strange tension in the air that vibrated in the pit of his stomach. Takumi competed against Isami in their family's kitchen all the time, both for fun and for the rights to add seasonal dishes to the trattoria's menu. This felt heavier than that. The pressure of dozens of eyes zeroed in on him and, more likely than not, prepared to watch him fail slowly began to overwhelm him. It was almost a relief when the host got situated, ran through a quick mic test, and immediately jumped into her opening remarks.

"Hello Tōtsuki! You've got me, the adorable Kawashima Urara-chan here to commentate over this Shokugeki! Text your friends, email everyone you know: Akanegakubo Momo-chan has actually agreed to a Shokugeki! By now, everyone who's anyone has heard of the Pastry Prodigy; her photos online speak for themselves! We'll have to see what wonderful treats she has planned for this match. Going against her is the newest student at Tōtsuki Academy's High School Division, Aldini Takumi-san! What will he unveil in this clash? Is there a secret hiding up his sleeve that he's going to reveal to us all?!"

"That's a bit dramatic, isn't it," Takumi muttered under his breath.

"Hmph." Momo didn't seem up for conversation. She just examined him with narrowed eyes before turning to her station, Bucchi in tow. A flicker of irritation poked at Takumi, but he just turned and stiffly walked to his set-up.

"It looks like both chefs are ready to begin! The rules of this Shokugeki are fairly standard: competitors will have two and a half hours to complete their dish and present it to our panel of judges. The theme is Unusual Desserts! Time starts when the gong sounds! Good luck to Akanegakubo-chan and Aldini-san, and may the best chef win!"

Anticipation crawled in Takumi's stomach as he thought through every step of his process. It would be strenuous to try and prepare everything within the given time limit, but he knew it was doable. It was just a matter of time manageme—

DONG!

The sound of the gong lurched him out of his thoughts, and Takumi immediately set out making his dough. It was the step that would unfortunately take the longest; he'd had to change his typical proportions significantly to attain his exact desired flavor.

Urara's voice echoed throughout the arena. "Ooh, we've begun! Akanegakubo-chan's commandeering three separate bowls of ingredients— how did she crack those eggs so quickly? Oh, she's popped one bowl into a stand mixer; from what little I know about desserts, it looks like she's making some kind of meringue. She seems content to leave that mixing as she prepares the other parts of her dessert.

"And let's turn our attention to Aldini-sa— is that pasta dough?!"

Momo fully jerked and whipped around to stare at whatever Takumi was doing. He didn't even look up from his work, hand-mixing a suspiciously dark dough by hand.

"Chocolate pasta?" Momo spat derisively. "Is that supposed to be your secret to use against me? Are you going to pair it with some mashed raspberries and cream, too?"

Takumi felt the prior irritation come back. "I'm surprised you're telling me so much of what you've got planned, Akanegakubo-san," he shot back over his shoulder. "Maybe, you should focus on your own cooking."

Momo's face turned red before she stomped over to where Bucchi had been propped up on a counter.

"Ah… it's time for Akanegakubo's typical ritual of using her stuffed animal's paws as her oven mitts…" Urara's voice trailed off. "Does she have multiple extra sets, do you think?"

"No," Momo answered flatly.

Takumi couldn't help the tiny snort that escaped him at that. If there was one thing he and Momo seemed to agree on, it was that Urara's commentary was a bit empty.

"Well! Okay, then." The cheeriness never left her. "Let's see what Aldini-san's preparing— he seems to be preparing something in a pot— Aldini-san."

The change of tone caught him off-guard, making him pause with his mezzaluna raised. "Did you need something, Kawashima-chan?"

"Why do you have steak out?"

Takumi turned back to the ingredients laid out in front of him. "I'm cooking with it."

"This is a dessert-themed Shokugeki."

"And?" He pointedly opened the container of meat and began chopping it into bite-sized pieces. He poured it into his pot along with everything else he'd prepared and turned the stovetop on.

Urara gave an exasperated groan. "Why don't either of you two want to cooperate with me?"

"Momo's job isn't to entertain you," Momo said flatly, not looking up from her rapid-fire piping. "Momo's job is to make a dish that's going to crush whatever garbage Aldi-nyan wants to make. It's your job to figure out the entertainment value."

When Urara turned a teary gaze on Takumi, he just shrugged. "What she said, I guess."

"Meanies! Both of you are big meanies! I hope your food burns!"

"Okay." Momo turned back to rolling up tubes of dough that she was putting into the fridge on her side.

Takumi didn't respond but decided that Momo had the right idea and went back to focusing on simmering his sauce.

Urara sighed huffily, directly into her microphone. "Fine. Fine! Whatever. Akanegakubo-chan's putting her tray of meringues into a stove and now she's cutting up her shortbread tube and laying those out on ANOTHER tray. Lots of baking happening, as expected for her. And Aldini-san's doing something with pasta. How original for an Italian."

"This is an absolute farce," Momo muttered to herself. "Let's just get this over with, Bucchi."

"I don't know what else I expected," Takumi said. He gave his pot a stir. This step would take by far the longest of everything else he had to prepare, but everything else was prepped and ready to go, so he wasn't too worried about his timing.

"Hey, Aldi-nyan." Takumi glanced up to see Momo staring at him with a steely gleam in her eyes. She had turned Bucchi towards him as well, which was more terrifying than cute given that she was still wearing its paws as oven mitts. "Bucchi just wanted to say, no hard feelings when Momo wins, right?"

"Did you need something, Akanegakubo-san?"

Momo's grin curled unpleasantly. "Well, it's not good for a butler to hate his employer," she said, cocking her head to the side. "Do you really think whatever stupid pasta idea you have will hold up to Momo's concepts?"

Takumi took a second to breathe through his initial response to shout back at her. "The fact that you keep finding it necessary to bother me while I'm cooking must mean that you're at least nervous to see what I'm making, right?" he asked. "Why else would you be bothering me?"

Momo's eyes flashed. "Momo's not nervous," she snarled. "Momo just wants to make sure that Momo won't be poisoned two days into your working for me."

Takumi paused from watching his pot simmer and looked up at her. Momo was leaning over her counter, her neck craned slightly as she squashed Bucchi's face into it. Her eyes couldn't seem to agree on whether to glare at him or to watch what he was doing. Everything she had prepared seemed to be at a stage where it was either being backed or could be left to sit, giving her no excuse to walk away. There was also no reason for her to linger there to bother him so much about this.

"You're curious, aren't you?" he asked. He set out a pan and threw in a lump of butter and some flour, whisking it together.

Momo froze. "What?"

"You have absolutely no idea what I'm preparing," Takumi said, finally realizing the desire in her expression not as desire for his loss but a desire to figure out what he was planning. He poured in a measure of almond milk he had set aside. "You're hoping I mess up and finally reveal what all of this is setting up for so that you're not still in the dark. Is it really bothering you that I came up with a dessert concept that you can't figure out?"

Momo's face turned redder and redder with each word he said. "You think you're so, so smart, Aldi-nyan," she spat out. "You'll see! Anything you come up with is dirt to Momo, and the judges will be spitting your food out after tasting mine." She whipped around and stormed away to her ovens, yanking out all of her baking trays and slamming them on the closest available counter.

"What on earth did Aldini-san say to make Akanegakubo-chan so upset?" Urara said. "I've never seen her so fired up before."

"Momo is presenting, now," Momo declared, ignoring the host and walking over to the three judges with trays in hand. She carefully placed a tray down in front of each judge.

"Oh, how cute," one said. "There are all sorts of fun goodies cut to bite-sized pieces; I see that Akanegakubo-san has colored the French meringues we saw her preparing earlier into a whole rainbow."

"Momo used natural dyes to color those," she said. "Matcha powder for green, powdered strawberries for the pink, and cocoa for the brown."

"Very clever," the second judge said. "I can see the tiny shortbread cookies that were prepared here as well. The presentation for this dish is a little confusing, though; I'm not sure what to do with a bowl like this."

"What's in the carafe next to the bowls?" the third judge asked. He lifted it to his nose and took a careful sniff. "It smells like some sort of milk tea."

"Momo suggests that the judges pour the milk into the bowl and eat them all together with a spoon," she said. "That's the intended way to eat it."

"Well, we should listen to the chef, right?" the second judge said. She carefully poured the fragrant milk into the bowl, her breath catching in her throat as the scent of the dish as a whole shifted into something more subtly sweet rather than the sugary smell she'd picked up on earlier. "What an interesting presentation."

"This mimics some breakfasts in the west," the third judge said. "It's common for people to start the day with a bowl of cereal and milk. Many of the ones targeted for children are very sweet; I can only assume that's the experience Akanegakubo-chan is imitating with this dish."

"If you wait too long, the cereal will lose its shape," Momo spoke up. "Please eat while it's still crunchy."

The three judges spooned up some cereal and took a bite.

What became immediately apparent was that Momo's dish was meant to be a textural experience as much as it was meant to be a flavorful one. The meringue's crunch was tempered by the soft crumble of the shortbread, and a handful of fresh strawberries covered with a sugar coat also gave the judges a satisfying bite. The prepared milk offset the overwhelming sweetness of the other ingredients with a mellow, subtly floral taste that helped the whole bite go down. Such a dish invoked a sense of journey in the judges, as though wandering through a beautiful botanical garden and marveling at meringue flowers and cookie butterflies. Bees of milk darted between the petals, and something snapped beneath their feet as they wandered further and further into the culinary vision.

"What a wonderful creation," one judge sighed, easing back into her seat. "This dish was indeed modeled after a bowl of sweet cereal, a nourishing concept transformed into an indulgent one. Meringues to substitute for marshmallows. Shortbread to substitute for oats. And, if I'm not mistaken, Akanegakubo-chan included puffed rice as a more bland but no less important element of the overall bite, giving it more body and acting as yet another vehicle for this special milk."

"This isn't just milk," another said, spooning some of the liquid up. He set the spoon against his lips and sighed contentedly at the flavor, sweetened as it was by the cereal's contents. "This is a flavor derived from a tea drink called a London Fog. Quality Earl Grey, from the bergamot notes, and some vanilla— I assume Akanegakubo-chan decided against including any sort of syrup or honey in this milk due to how sweet the rest of her dessert would be. All around, a wonderful, well-rounded dish."

"And beautifully prepared, as well," the third judge said, nudging the cereal with a spoon. "All of the component parts are each adorable to see, and combining everything together you get a wonderful image. Even in competition, Akanegakubo-chan is clearly thinking about the benefits of an aesthetically pleasing dish."

"Such an elevated take on a dessert!" the first judge said as she delicately pushed her bowl to the side. "Not one I expected from a first-year high-schooler, even if they're a student at Tōtsuki."

"What lovely feedback from the judges for our loveliest pastry chef!" Urara seemed to have abandoned her pouty act. "What does Aldini-san have to offer that could go against this powerhouse baker?"

"Yeah, Aldi-nyan, what do you have?" Momo asked, perching on her counter.

Takumi had by this point moved over to the stove, where he completed the final few steps of his process. He jumped slightly when Momo spoke. "Oh, did you say something?" he asked. "Sorry, I wasn't listening."

"Al. Di. Nyan," Momo growled. "You were ignoring Momo?"

"I mean, not on purpose," he said. "I don't want my food to burn."

"Hmph. The first thing Momo will ask you to do is let everything you cook burn."

"Then you'd have to eat burned food," Takumi pointed out.

Momo's face scrunched at the thought. Takumi took advantage of her pause to finish cutting and plating his dish, turning with three plates towards the judges.

"And it looks like Aldini-san is done! He's presenting… erm, he's presenting—"

"Dessert lasagna," Takumi said flatly, laying a plate in front of each judge. "Please, enjoy."

"Dessert… lasagna?" One judge tentatively repeated. He looked at his plate with visible apprehension. Layers of dark brown pasta had a strange dark red sauce that definitely had cubed steak mixed among the diced fruits and mixed berries along with a white layer that looked to be melting lightly with the heat of the dish. It looked, in every way, like a typical savory lasagna, though it did smell much sweeter and fruitier.

"I see," another murmured, uncertainly poking at Takumi's offering. "This is a… clever concept, at the very least. Chocolate pasta is well-recorded, and nontraditional lasagnas do ask for ricotta, which is commonly used in desserts. I'm— admittedly, a bit more hesitant on the sauce that Aldini-san has also used. It looks like a close approximation of a tomato-based sauce, which I can't imagine going well with the concept of dessert at all."

"Are you really judging my dish before eating any of it?" Takumi asked, crossing his arms. "What kind of judges are you?"

"He's right," the third judge said, hesitantly holding his fork aloft. "We cannot fully claim to have judged this dish until we've eaten it."

The other two judges seemed inclined to wait until the third had portioned out a bite, examined the layers, and put it into his mouth. A look of consternation immediately cleared as his eyes widened, and the judge stared at his piece of lasagna.

"Well?" the second judge prompted.

"This—" Cutting himself off, he hastily moved to take another bite. "This is incredible," he whispered.

"What?!" The other two judges quickly moved to take a bite of their own lasagnas. Their eyes flew open in the same way and they began to gape at the dish.

From the moment they put it in their mouths, they knew that they hadn't eaten anything like it before. How could they? It was a confusing experience at first; the judges' palates recoiled at the sweetness paired with the mouthfeel they would expect from a hearty casserole dish. Following that first impression, the strange sensation that the food was good and that they desired to finish it overwhelmed the side of their minds that wanted to stop eating it, and at the second bite all of their misgivings fell away.

Similarly to Momo's dish, Takumi's dessert lasagna was a textural experience: the bite of steak, the wash of creamy ricotta, and the give of pasta provided a close interplay. The flavor was far milder than they expected. Much of it came from heavily spiced fruits and meat, but the cream quieted the inclination towards umami with a veil of vanilla and the pasta washed it away with a nuanced bite that simply highlighted the sweetness of the overall dish even more. There was a strange levity to the dish as well, as though each element was a different panel of colored glass that only showed its full image when experiencing all three of them at once. Enjoying the dish was akin to wandering through an art exhibition celebrating one painter: to understand each piece was intriguing, but to take it in as a whole gave a deeper insight into what the dish was.

"The chocolate pasta provides a bittersweet base that's offset by the lightness of the ricotta!" One judge carefully peeled back a layer of pasta to study the fillings more carefully. "The ricotta isn't the only thing giving it this creamy texture; Aldini-san made a bechamel sauce to go along with his lasagna."

"I made the bechamel sauce with almond milk," Takumi said. "Non-dairy milks tend to taste sweeter when reduced into a sauce, so I was able to keep the mouthfeel of a cream sauce while not compromising on the sweetness of the dish overall. Vanilla in both the ricotta and the bechamel tie them together so you process them as the same component of the dish."

"I see…!" One judge nodded to herself. "That makes sense— many commercially made plant milks are forced to include some other elements to ensure that the milk stays shelf-stable and tastes fresh. Sometimes, this includes flavorings to make it taste more appealing."

"I'm stumped by this sauce," the second judge admitted. "It's a heartier sauce than the bechamel and it's able to hold its own, but it's not a particularly sweet sauce and there's something in there that I can't put a finger on."

"That's a modified meat sauce," Takumi said. "I combined currants, two kinds of raisins, blanched almonds, candied citrus peels, and lemon juice and zest with chopped steak and beef suet to create it. It's been seasoned with a special spice blend that I prepared last night that's mostly cinnamon and nutmeg. The larger pieces of fruit in there are green tomatoes."

"Green tomatoes?" One of the judges echoed. "I see. When confronting the concept of a 'dessert lasagna', most chefs would approach the concept visually and simply come up with a red sauce to mimic the aesthetic of a tomato sauce, but what Aldini-san has done is replicate every single base of a lasagna with something sweet that would all come together. Green tomatoes are known to be much tangier and firmer than their riper counterparts, and as such were used instead of red tomatoes for the dessert meat sauce!"

"The ingredients for this meat sauce are a close parallel to traditional mincemeat from the United Kingdom. While most contemporary mincemeat dishes omit the savory ingredients, Aldini-san utilized an old-fashioned recipe to more accurately replicate the lasagna meat sauce experience. The resulting dessert is a strange creation that definitely works on account of all three of its parts: the pasta, the sauce, and the cream." The third judge took another bite. "It clearly addresses the prompt of the Shokugeki. Though, I feel that you could assume that based on our initial reactions to being told what we were tasting."

"Dessert lasagna has one more factor that is a bit more personal than professional," Takumi said. "In my family, dessert is that course that you take your time eating. It never fully concludes; usually, as people finish their portions, they either choose to stay at the table to finish their conversations or they drift off to their tasks for the evening. A dessert in the back kitchen of Trattoria Aldini must be as appetizing when it's first served to when it's last tasted, no matter how long that's been sitting in front of the one eating it."

"I see," one of the judges murmured. "Dessert lasagna would indeed fulfill that requirement as well. The flavor might be even more developed after being allowed to rest for an hour; at the very least, the flavors of the mincemeat sauce and ricotta might become more unified."

"If we were to consider longevity as an important element of a dessert, then one could argue that Akanegakubo-san's dish was a complete failure," the third judge said.

Momo visibly started. "What?" she squeaked out. Her eyes widened as a realization struck her, and she whipped around to see that her cereal had slowly begun to dissolve in the milk tea. My cute dish… my shapes have been completely lost. My cereal had to be eaten all at once, right as the judges started, but they didn't finish it— understandably so, as this is a competition and not a dining experience…

"She said it herself when presenting," the second judge said, grimacing slightly as she nudged the spoon in her bowl. "If we didn't eat the cereal immediately, it would lose a lot of its structure. Shortbread isn't the most sturdy cookie, and French meringues in particular are prone to falling apart easily. The delicacy and variety of textures Akanegakubo-san presented are in conflict with the exact concept that she wanted to execute."

"Longevity isn't a universal factor in judging food," the first judge said somewhat sharply. "If we were going to consider it, both students should have been told. I cannot consider it a significant element of my judging without that understanding being communicated."

"Understandable," the third judge said. "That being said, I think I've made my decision on which dish I prefer."

"I have, as well."

"It sounds like the judges have come to a decision!" Urara took a breath directly into the microphone, which both increased the drama and felt a bit too theatrical to Takumi. "I wonder which dish will triumph in this Shokugeki?"

"Aldi-nyan."

Takumi blinked as he turned to face Momo. She had Bucchi clutched in front of her, though her hands were still pawed.

"Momo knows what they're going to declare," she said quietly. "As good as Momo's concept was, it failed in a few ways that Momo finds unacceptable. Even if the judges say that the cereal wins, Momo won't believe it. This is your win. Momo will teach you whatever it is you want to know about baking and confections, minus any big secrets as Momo decides." She used Bucchi's open wrist to make a strange pattern on the stuffed animal's chest. "Cross Bucchi's heart. And Momo's too."

"Ah…" Any other words were stolen from Takumi.

"But make no mistake, Aldi-nyan." Her eyes narrowed as they watched him now. "You didn't win because your dish was better. You'll win because Momo's dish was worse. Subpar. Trash. It was practically charity work for you to earn this win. Momo will never accept you as the better dessert chef with that." She pointed accusingly at his still half-full baking tray of lasagna. "It was a clever idea, executed as well as it could be, but it wasn't a real dessert. Momo will have another Shokugeki with you, maybe even before the Autumn Election, but until you prove yourself then, you're still just another cute classmate to Momo. Don't get a big head about it."

"What an upset! It's a 2-1 win for Aldini Takumi-san! Congratulations, transfer student!"

"Hmph. Momo knew it," Momo muttered, shrinking into Bucchi slightly. She turned and began walking offstage. "Don't forget what I said, Aldi-nyan."

Takumi slowly packed up his own cooking implements, smiling as winningly as he could to the judges that stood up to shake his hand and congratulate him. Even as the other members of Polar Star swarmed around him, all he could do was nod in agreement with whatever loud compliment was yelled at him.

It wasn't until hours later, when he finally sat down in the Polar Star kitchen, that he finally had a moment to think to himself.

You didn't win because your dish was better. You'll win because Momo's dish was worse.

Momo's words stung, but not for the reason that he initially thought they would. At first, Takumi had heard the inherent insult in them, in the implication that his food was bad. There was empirical evidence against that laid out in front of him: he'd won his first Shokugeki, and it had been against a classmate in her own forte. Clearly, he was a decent enough chef if he was able to make something that could compete with her, let alone beat her according to a panel of impartial judges.

But something made him pause before he traveled down that easy outrage.

That hadn't been Momo's point. Momo's point had been that she hadn't cooked her best, and if she had she'd have demolished him.

Takumi couldn't argue against that. Ikumi had shoved image after image of Momo's perfect confections in his face, showing him complete miracles woven out of sugar. It had been foolish to assume that he would easily triumph over Momo. If anything, she had treated the Shokugeki arena as a place to get people to taste-test a concept rather than a chance to secure victory. She'd been overconfident, sure, but she had a reason to be, much like Ikumi. Momo's reputation was far-reaching, and based on the number of followers across her social media accounts she was a well-known figure in her field both in and out of school. In comparison, he was a random boy who had just transferred to Tōtsuki without even a notable name to back himself up.

Was that the difference between an Elite Ten's trainee and a normal student? Was that boundary one that he would ever be able to overcome without any one-on-one training? Would he ever be able to start thinking about competition as a playplace for his food?

Someone knocked on the door, startling Takumi out of his thoughts. "Yeah?" he called over.

To his surprise, Ryōko was the one to cautiously open it. "Hi, Aldini-san; you don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all," he said, scrambling to stand up. "Did you need something?"

"I mostly wanted to check in," she said, leaning against his doorway. "You seemed a bit quiet earlier. Still running on adrenaline?"

"Ah, not really anymore," he said awkwardly. "I've just been— thinking, I guess."

"Mm, I understand that." Ryōko crossed her arms. Takumi did his best to ignore what it did to her chest. "Akanegakubo-chan's a hard first opponent. You've probably done a lot for your reputation just agreeing to go against her."

"That's the thing, Sakaki-san," Takumi said, sitting backwards in his desk chair so he could lean against the back of it. "She wasn't really trying in that Shokugeki."

Ryōko blinked. "It looked like she was. Didn't she bake at least three components for that dish she competed against you with?"

"Well, yes, but—" Takumi grappled with how to word what he was going to say next. "She didn't take me seriously. She told me afterwards that she was experimenting with a dish during it— that if she brought her real, serious baking I would have lost completely." Takumi sighed. "I don't know. I don't think I expected the gulf between us to feel so large, but now that I'm looking at it…"

"I see," Ryōko murmured. She sat down in his doorway, one foot braced against the other side of the frame. "I understand why you, as a prideful chef, would be upset by that."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here," Takumi said drily.

Ryōko gave him a wry grin. "But," she lingered on the word for a second, "that doesn't mean you weren't successful. She thought you were an ordinary student and you proved her wrong, which means that next time she'll treat you more seriously. Isn't that an accomplishment in and of itself?"

"I guess."

"And," Ryōko hesitated before forging onward. "Who knows if she was bluffing or not?"

Takumi blinked. "What?"

"Akanegakubo-san isn't the easiest person to read. There's a chance that she clearly saw that your dish fulfilled the theme's concept best— a theme she set herself. One way to save face would be to immediately deny that your best work was your best, right? Imagine if you had challenged her to an Italian-themed Shokugeki and suddenly realized that you'd somehow been outclassed."

Takumi made a face at the thought.

"Exactly," Ryōko said, pointing at his expression. "You'd be more than a little disgruntled, right? It stands to reason that Akanegakubo-san felt the same way and felt the need to enforce her mastery over yours." The girl shrugged. "Maybe it's a combination of the two? Only Akanegakubo-san could tell you that. Either way, I'm sure it wasn't just because she wasn't taking it seriously. I think the day Akanegakubo-san doesn't take a dessert-themed Shokugeki seriously is the day I switch my focus to fruits."

Takumi chuckled at the thought. "Thanks, Sakaki-san," he said quietly. "I think I'll stay here tonight. Have fun at the party."

Ryōko gave him a kind smile as she stood up. "Have a good night, Aldini-san."


Dessert/treat cereal is not an original concept! Rather, it was prepared by Chef Jennifer E. Crawford as the dessert course of their finale meal in Master Chef Canada (they won their season, if you were curious). I remember watching the clip of this particular dish being presented to the judge panel and being so enthralled by the concept of a sweet cereal taken to the extreme before I thought about the state my teeth would be in after eating it and how quickly it would have turned into a slurry of sugar. I'm sure the actual chef's rendition is far sturdier than Momo's is in this chapter, but she's a fifteen-year-old student in this story and Chef Crawford is forty now, if I'm remembering correctly.

Takumi's dessert lasagna isn't based on anything of the like but was slightly foreshadowed as a dish he remembered messing around with when he was a child a few chapters back. The mincemeat recipe I was referencing for the modified meat sauce is from the 1930s (long before most of the strange banana recipes; the 1900s were a weird time in Western cuisine). Green tomatoes can be substituted texturally for apples, which were listed in the ingredients list, so I decided to just go all in on this incredibly weird concept. I have no idea what that mincemeat concoction would taste like. I can tell you that the non-dairy milk bechamel detail was based on something I did accidentally a few weeks ago. I can confirm that oat milk, at the very least, leads to an incredibly sweet bechamel that tastes extremely strange when eaten alongside tomatoes and beef.

The next chapter marks the end of this first arc! I'll be taking a couple weeks break to store up more of a backlog for the next arc (for those of you astute to canon would know is the Hell Camp, which is going to be almost completely reworked). I hope you've enjoyed the cast I've introduced so far! More will definitely come in the future. Let me know what you think in a review!