hi friends i've been getting reviews and tumblr asks about whether or not i'm considering kaede x hikari as endgame. i def agree they'd be really compatible together and plus erina and hisako being inlaws is *chef's kiss so i need all yo opinions please and i'll decide based on what ppl say across both platforms :} thank you!

"Bloodbath," Sena whispered, her voice low. "Did you know?"

Auden turned his head and she could see the complete shock in his eyes. "N-no," he croaked.

Far below them, Yukihira Kaede stood with the fifth seat, surrounded by one hundred and fourteen prostrate Totsuki students. With a dry smirk she snapped Auden's knife case shut and folded his bandana with acute precision.

"Hey, big bro," she called up to the booth. "Thanks for letting me borrow your stuff. I'll leave everything in your office." Auden couldn't even manage to get out a reply. He watched, his mouth working but no words coming out, as Kaede grinned at Akechi. "You wanna come with?"

"Now everyone knows you have the god tongue."

"Word was bound to get out sometime. If anything, I'm surprised I got 15 whole years of anonymity. I'm done now, right?" Kaede asked, raising her voice and glancing around. "Come at me, I dare you."

The lights were louder than the occupants of the stadium.

"You coming?" she asked. He snapped out of his daze and began following her out of Chandra's. Kaede knelt briefly in front of Okazaki Kento, who was folded in half on the ground. "Your cha siu bao were left to steam for fourteen and a half seconds too long. But you can ignore my tongue, because I'm not a chef."

Then they left.

By the time Kurokiba Auden and the rest of the Elite Ten returned to their senses, most of the students had already dispersed. Then Auden stood up shakily, and as they slowly began making their way out of the booth, he told the three, "I can't believe I didn't know she had the god tongue."

Seijuro looked a little dumbfounded. "I can't believe it either."

"I guess she's a Nakiri Yukihira for a reason," Tetsuko laughed. "You never know what to expect with those people."

When they reached Legislation, Tetsuko had drifted away from the rest of them, presumably to stop by at the conbini a block down from Totsuki's front gates. The Twin Kings and the Professor — Sena hated the tag but Sei and Auden loved it so it stuck — paused in front of the closed door to Tsukasa Akechi's office. There was a decadent aroma wafting from the crack at their feet. It caught them off guard, long enough that they remained motionless in the hallway until a voice broke them from their reverie.

"Yo, babies!"

Arato-Hayama Hikari approached them, drinking coffee and waving her free hand.

"Hikari!" Auden greeted. "You came from Administration?"

She nodded with a pleased smile. "I heard Kaede caused a shitstorm at CD so I came to help her screw around with the school." Then she frowned. "The hell are y'all doing out here? Is the door locked?"

Hikari threw open the door, and they were greeted with quite an interesting sight.

Akechi and Kaede had set up a portable stove on top of what was probably his Elite Ten paperwork. There were a few strips of beef drenched in sesame oil and pepper with kimchi grilling over blue flames; beside the stove was a large square tray bearing a variety of vegetables and sauces. Kaede was facing away from them, leaning against the desk. Then she whirled around, took one look at Hikari, screamed, and before anyone could blink, she was squeezing the living daylights out of the former first seat.

Eventually when they'd come down from cloud nine, Auden officially introduced Yukihira Kaede to Seijuro and Sena.

Kaede shook their hands. "I'm Kaede," she said agreeably, as if she and Sena had just now met for the first time. "Pleasure to meet you."

Sena chuckled. "We've met before, I think."

"I'm a little fuzzy on the details," Kaede replied with an amused smirk, "but yeah, you do seem familiar." Then she leaned in so she was less than an inch from Sena's face — good lord, what was it with these Sorinakisakiryoali™ people and personal space — and said, words only privy to her ears, "I can tell why Auden's in love with you."

Sena blushed as the architect let go of her. "Um… thanks?"

Kaede grinned as an unspoken you're welcome. "Y'all want KBBQ? My folks should be coming pretty soon with more food, depending on how long they tolerate the rest of the students."

It was then that the chefs in question chose to make their grand entrance with Akira and Hisako in tow. Those that hadn't grown up with the trinity of 92nd gen power couples practically hit the ground in awe as they greeted everyone with boeuf bourguignon coq au vin.

"Yo, kiddo," Souma said as he opened a tub of strawberry ice cream. "Since when did you cook in public?"

Erina gestured appreciatively at her husband. "Good question."

"Today, I guess," Kaede replied.

"Now the whole damn world knows about your tongue," Souma laughed.

Hisako frowned. "Are you guys okay with that?"

"If the kid is, I don't mind. It doesn't matter too much to you, does it, Kaede?" Souma asked, passing her another foldable spoon and the ice cream.

Kaede turned down the dessert in favor of another strip of KBBQ wrapped in sesame leaves. "It really doesn't, to be honest. God tongue, devil tongue, whatever."

Auden looked more than a little hurt. "I still can't believe you told Hikari and not me, though."

Knowing it would only upset him more, Hikari added, "She came to visit me a few times and left without saying hi to you, didn't she?"

"Shut up," Kaede said through laughs, swinging an arm around Hikari's shoulders. "He's depressed enough as he is already."

The night was still on the younger side when Kaede decided it was time for her to jet off to watch the Paulo international cello competition in Finland. She'd spent much of her childhood in Seoul but before she started gallivanting around the world fulfilling building commissions, Souma had always cleared his schedule to take her to Helsinki every five years to watch the competition when it was held (and also drop in on Fountainhead), and at one point or another, Kaede had decided that she would not miss a single round of Paulo until the day she died. And even then, she'd figure out a way to make sure her ghost haunted the Musiikkitalo so she could at least watch the finals.

This year happened to be one of the Paulo seasons; Kaede was already climbing into the Nakiri jet when the rest of the KBBQ party attendants caught up to her on the roof of Administration.

Souma, Erina, and Hikari to a certain extent all looked as if this was a familiar occurrence and nothing to be concerned about, but the others appeared to be quite concerned by how lacking in conventional greetings she was.

Kaede waved at them, but just as the plane hatch was about to close, Akechi called out, "Wait!"

She glanced back. "Want something?"

"Kaede, let me go with you."

She blinked. "Don't you have shit to do?"

"I finished everything for the rest of the month," he explained, avoiding the death stares Auden, Seijuro, Sena, and Dean Hayama were fixing him with.

"Sure," she replied. "I'll wait for you."

When they were roughly 40,000 feet in the air, Akechi asked, "Can I ask you something?"

Kaede gestured vaguely in an implied shoot.

"What are we?"

She helped herself to a seltzer and sat on a cabin-length couch across from the scarlet haired chef. "So what's your actual question?"

"You were flirting with Okazaki. And Ibusaki. Even Arato."

"Did you just say I was flirting with Hikari?" Kaede asked with genuine curiosity.

Akechi shook his head. "I mean, maybe not with her, but didn't you basically offer to hook up with Okazaki if he won the rentai shokugeki? And there was seriously no guarantee that you were going to win in the first place. Were you flirting with Arato-senpai?"

"I knew the flaws in all of the Hong Kongese dishes before we even started. It wasn't that hard to exploit them. The powers of Korean cuisine. And of course I was flirting with Hikari. It's in my nature."

"Okazaki Kento, though?"

"Tsukasa, are you jealous?"

Akechi threw up his hands. "No shit, Sherlock! What are we? Friends? With benefits?"

Kaede raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm the type of person to have a friend with benefits?"

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay, Tsukasa."

"I wasn't your first, was I?"

She squinted at him, eyebrows drawing together. "I think the question is, was I yours?"

"Yes, you were, Kaede. You know I really like you, right? I'm in lo—"

"Don't finish that sentence. Do you even know who I am? You have no fucking clue what I've done."

Now that he thought about it, he really didn't know much about Kaede — probably not any more than any of the other Totsuki kids that had met her for the first time that night, and obviously nowhere near as well as Kurokiba and Arato did.

"I wish I did."

"To be honest, I'm pretty scarred. I don't want you to know the shit I've gone through because you'll probably be disgusted with me after, and I like you, Akechi. I like you enough that I care about what you think of me."

"Nothing could ever change how I feel about you, Kaede."

"It would be wrong for someone like you to be with me, Tsukasa Akechi. But I think I'd like it if you gave me a chance."

"Do you know when that's going to be?"

Kaede crossed over to his side of the cabin and pressed a chaste kiss to the underside of his jaw. "I think that's up to you."

three months later

The 90 and 92nd gen versions of the Elite Ten's first and second seats were catching up in a cafe in Prague when Eishi's phone rang.

"Hello?" the silver haired chef asked nervously.

Hayama Akira was on the other end of the line. "Morning, Tsukassan."

"Hayama," Eishi greeted. "Is something up?"

Rindou glanced at the phone curiously and Eishi turned it on speaker.

Dean Hayama cleared his throat in an uncharacteristically awkward manner. "Listen, so the thing is, I'm calling you to report that your son, Tsukasa Akechi, kind of… disappeared after Challenge Day and he hasn't shown up at Totsuki in three months. Also, he hasn't done any of his paperwork, and first seat Kurokiba Auden has filed at least forty requests for a sabbatical because he's currently completing seven seats' worth of tasks and is completely wiped out, but I literally cannot let him leave the school because nobody else is doing work. Do you know how tragic this is? Alice hates me and Kurokiba threatened to pull the kid out of Totsuki. We are having a literal crisis."

All at once, Eishi blanched, Erina dropped her head into her hands, and the two red haired chefs collapsed into fits of laughter.