Ever since the eminent Nakiri cousins graduated and their grandfather retired to a Nakiri resort in Yokohama, the mansion had remained virtually empty save for the occasional gala organized by either Alice or Erina, but with the ridiculous schedules that both women subscribed to, it was pretty much impossible for them to be available enough to unlock the wrought iron gates.

And then Alice's son and nominated heir of the Nakiri-Totsuki Group came to the middle school entrance exam on a fresh spring morning twirling a lanyard with the mansion keys around his finger. The night of orientation, Kurokiba Auden's first order of business was to throw a massive party for all the rising freshmen accepted into the 119th generation.

All parties require booze. And at a school like Totsuki, where everyone's palates are refined to at least some level, parties require good booze.

That is why thirteen-year-old Kurokiba Auden ventured to Polar Star Dorm at damn near four in the morning on the first day of classes — to hash out a deal with Ibusaki Seijuro for access to Sakaki Sake. The Spanish cuisine specialist and part time brewer agreed to supply Auden's parties with the goods in exchange for a promise of aid in times of necessity. Thus the Ibusaki-Kurokiba bromance was born, and with it came the rise of the alliance between Polar Star and Nakiri Mansion.

At the Autumn Elections in their first year, the Nakiri cousins served as two of five judges for the final swordfish round between Auden and Seijuro. They chose Seijuro's empanadas over Auden's smorrebrod, but the victor himself admitted that the only difference between their dishes was the weather and the poor alignment of Auden's stars that particular day. During a conversation over dinner following the match, Erina asked, "Alice, remind me again why your son has turned our ancestors' prized estate into a frat house?"

Alice grinned. "Pot, meet kettle." Neither Nakiri had done anything to deter Auden from totaling the mansion every weekend. So, now in their fifth year at Totsuki, he and Seijuro were organizing weekly parties with attendance levels consistently scoring higher than that of most research societies.

They were also the finest duo to grace Totsuki's shokugeki stadiums since the brothers Aldini had amassed a 244-win record during their era.

Ibusaki Seijuro and Kurokiba Auden of the 119th generation completed their stagiaire at a certain three-starred trattoria in Tuscany and studied with world renowned chefs Takumi and Isami Aldini, returning to Totsuki possessing a newfound mastery over the mezzaluna that damn near gave the Aldinis a run for their money. Taking on everyone they could possibly challenge and quickly garnering an undefeated streak of 20 matches a month, the seventh and eighth seats of the Elite Ten were unanimously dubbed the Twin Kings and the popular bets for next year's seats one and two.

Marui Sena was sitting on her dad's old bed in Polar Star's room 205 when a boy with slate grey eyes and magenta hair swept off his forehead walked in bearing a crema catalana/leche frita hybrid.

"Sena!" Ibusaki Seijuro set down the dessert and laughed in disbelief as he hugged her. "You're getting old!"

"Excuse me!?"

"I'm just saying. It's been a year since we last saw each other. You've grown."

"Yeah, well, you haven't."

"Tongue's still as sharp as ever, huh?"

Rolling her eyes, Sena retorted, "As if. I've written seven times as many lectures as I had at your high school promotion ceremony."

Seijuro pointed out, "Your typing speed has nothing to do with your tongue, though." He sat down with the leche crema frita catalana — unoriginal dumbass that he was — and motioned for Sena to sit next to him. She did so, resting her head comfortably on his shoulder as they had done when they were kids.

"I missed you, Sei," she said when the plate was half empty.

"Missed you, too. How's life?"

Sena raised an eyebrow. "I doubt you don't know."

"Be nice to me, Sena."

She nudged him affectionately with her elbow. "Get used to it. Who else lives here?"

Seijuro thought for a moment. "All members of the faction have rooms in both the dorm and the mansion, so it's kinda hard to say that we live here. Everyone is at Nakiri Mansion tonight, so the roster for now is you and I—"

"Don't forget me!"

Both of them lifted their heads to face the tall boy leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. Sena noted his expression — merriment and a subtle trace of… jealousy?

"Senpai," she greeted.

And when Kurokiba Auden sat down right between them and Sei handed him the rest of the crema catalana, Sena realized just how complicated things had gotten.

Having both Auden and Seijuro escort Sena to her first class the next morning rendered the Twin Kings' fanclub (read as the entire school population) positively boiling with rage, and the victim of this wrath did not fail to notice this. The boys in question, however, did not.

She understood, though, why everyone was hellbent on hating her.

Sei was wearing a white tank with the Totsuki tie — already a violation of the dress code — but he'd added further insult to injury by adding a flamboyant Hawaiian shirt and Birkenstocks to the ensemble. He had six piercings in one ear and two in the other (because he and Auden were drunk off their asses when they went to the tattoo shop for Sei to complete his dare). Auden, who had taken the liberty of cutting the sleeves off of every t-shirt he owned, had also gone and scissored a few sizable chunks from his jeans. Combined with the chain hooked to his belt loops and his battered hightop Converse, Auden could probably have passed for a typical soCal eboy.

Ibusaki Seijuro was Totsuki's very own girl magnet and fuckboy extraordinaire. He attracted people like honey attracted flies; his words were law and his Hawaiian shirts were holy rites. But nobody would know this from the way he wore a turtleneck and sweatpants in the dorm or at the mansion, safe from prying eyes hoping to dethrone his reputation.

Nobody in their right mind would look at Kurokiba Auden's narrow, mismatched crimson eyes and call him a chef. At first glance, he was as much of a fuckboy as Sei. And then they heard his voice and promptly hit the ground. If he hadn't been a culinary prodigy and if he hadn't dipped a week of school to win a national swim competition in Osaka, Auden would've probably succeeded as a narrator for Planet Earth. His countertenor was flat and dry like his father's, but his words were hymns, songs that promised a paradise in the near future, soft and tranquil like the rippling surface of a serene lake. Sena had never met another boy as soft as him.

If Ibusaki Seijuro was a tequila bomb, Kurokiba Auden was a heaven-sent angel cake.

When classes were over, Auden and Sei were waiting for her outside her classroom. She tried to slip out unnoticed but they bellowed, "Marui!" thus denying her the ability to avoid the irate death stares shot her way. Seriously, those fangirls had fucking lasers in their eyes.

"Let's go to the mansion so you can pick your room," Auden said, swinging an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into his touch without thinking twice, but when she (and Sei and Auden) noticed the subtle gesture, she jerked away from him so fast she felt the whiplash.

The walk was silent until they passed Legislation and approached the front gates of the mansion. A tall, unnaturally beautiful girl with cinnamon-colored skin and shoulder length silver hair was standing on the steps, embroiled in a fierce debate with a boy with olive green hair (Sena automatically tagged it as #BAB86C from a book on perception of color she'd read a month ago) that stuck up in tufts and wire-rimmed glasses.

"In no way does drinking a gallon of yerba mate per work session help your lack of self-preservation!"

"Yeah, well, I could say the same thing about your workaholic grandmother-lookin ass! You have more coffee in your veins than actual blood!"

Sei lifted a hand. "Yo, Arato-senpai! Eizan-senpai!"

The boy and girl exchanged a final glare—Sena observed the mirth in both of their expressions and deduced that they weren't actually fighting—and turned to face the three coming up the steps.

"Ibusaki-kun. Kurokiba-kun," she greeted them. Her voice was soft but laden with the undertones of a tremendous power she had yet to disclose. "And you must be the transfer? I'm Arato Hikari, 118th generation. First seat and head of the Medicinal Cuisine Research Society."

Sena gave the first seat a crooked grin. "Hey, Arato-senpai. I'm Marui Sena."

Hikari regarded her with a raised eyebrow for a long moment. "Look at her eyes," she mused to nobody in particular. She swooped down and tilted Sena's chin up with a long, graceful hand. "I like her. She's got spirit."

So this was the first seat of the Elite Ten. Marui Sena prided herself on being an individual of incredible mental fortitude, but in this moment as she tried to keep steady contact with the jade eyes no more than two inches from her own, she felt herself waver. Goddamn, this enigma was scary.

Letting go of her, Hikari smiled. "Welcome to Nakiri Mansion, Marui-san."

The olive-haired boy stuck out his hand. "I'm Eizan Seiya. Second seat and assistant financial director."

Sena's eyes bugged out. "You're in NTG board?"

"Yeah. My pops is the CFO. Arato's dad is Dean Hayama."

Sena blinked once. Twice. Twice again.

Grinning at her lack of response, Seiya continued, "Her real name is Arato-Hayama, but she usually goes by Arato. I get to call her Hishoko."

"Eizan," Hikari said with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Call me secretary one more time and I will actually kick you off the council."

Seiya dipped his chin and raised an eyebrow. "I'd like to see you try, princess. You need me."

Auden cut in, "You both would be helpless without me. The only contribution you made to the gen 117 alumni report last year was creating the Google doc."

The third years waved him off. "We love you, Kurokiba-kun."

Auden sighed, reconciling himself with the fact that he'd be doing all of their work until they graduated, and Seijuro laughed, because he hadn't ever done his paperwork either.

And when Seiya swung his arms around the underclassmen and yelled something along the lines of "Nakiri Mansion initiation party for the freshman tonight! Ibusaki, get the booze," Sena reckoned that she and all her tremendous brainpower could not possibly fathom how wild her time at Totuski with these chefs was going to be.

Little did she know, however, that precisely one year later, Tsukasa Akechi would enter the high school division, fashionably late and with his head above the clouds from his time in Finland, and that was when the shit would hit the fan.