Chapter Text
Erina Nakiri hated the north wing of the Nakiri mansion.
The estate possessed dozens of corridors, courtyards, and private entrances, yet the north wing always felt cut off from the rest of the house. The air seemed colder there, untouched by the warmth that gathered in the occupied rooms. Even during the day, sunlight entered reluctantly through the tall windows, falling across covered furniture and polished floors in pale, narrow bands.
Most of the rooms had long since been converted into storage. Old serving sets, unused furnishings, and generations of family belongings rested behind closed doors, remembered only when a servant was sent to retrieve something from them.
One room had never been forgotten.
Erina refused to look toward it. Unfortunately, the north wing also housed the Nakiri family library.
It occupied nearly the entire end of the corridor, a vast chamber of dark wood, rolling ladders, and shelves that stretched toward a vaulted ceiling. Culinary histories stood beside private journals, medical studies, restaurant records, and handwritten observations accumulated by generations of the Nakiri family. Some volumes were so old that their bindings had faded to a shade of brown nearly the same as the shelves supporting them.
Among them were all the records the family possessed concerning the God Tongue.
That was why Erina continued returning. She sat alone at one of the long reading tables, surrounded by an impressive barricade of open books and family notebooks. A shaded lamp cast warm light over the nearest pages while the rest of the library receded into darkness. The mansion had gone quiet hours earlier. Even the servant’s footsteps had disappeared from the halls.
Erina lowered her gaze to the volume before her. The ink remained clear. The handwriting was careful and precise, documenting the sensory development of a distant Nakiri ancestor whose palate had begun displaying unusual sensitivity before the age of seven.
Erina read the same paragraph twice. The words refused to remain in focus.
I shall teach you proper cooking.
Her father’s voice rose from memory with such clarity that, for one terrible moment, the library vanished.
A white plate sat before her.
A spoon trembled between smaller fingers.
The dish had already been tasted three times, but the answer had been wrong each time. She remembered the smell of cooling sauce. The tightness in her throat. The measured disappointment in the voice behind her.
Again.
Erina’s hand tightened around the edge of the page.
She drew in a careful breath and forced herself to look at the present: the lamp, the table, the open notebook resting beside her elbow. No plate waited before her. No one stood behind her chair. She was alone in the library.
The knowledge should have been comforting. It was not always enough. Erina closed her eyes briefly, then straightened in her seat. She would not surrender the evening to a memory. That was precisely why she had begun this research. Her gaze traveled across the books she had gathered.
Some described heightened sensitivity to bitterness. Others examined the relationships among taste and smell, hereditary sensory traits, and increased density of fungiform papillae. The family records were less clinical. They spoke of inherited gifts, exceptional judgment, and palates capable of raising the Nakiri name above every other culinary house.
None explained what the God Tongue actually was.
More importantly, none explained why possessing it had to hurt.
Erina had begun the project several months earlier without telling her grandfather. At first, she had treated it as a purely academic inquiry. The God Tongue was a phenomenon. Phenomena could be observed, documented, and understood.
That reasoning had sounded convincing. The growing collection of notebooks beside her suggested otherwise. Every page carried questions she had not yet answered.
Was the God Tongue an inherited physical trait? A neurological condition? A heightened interaction between taste, smell, texture, temperature, and memory? Why did it appear only in certain members of the Nakiri family? Why did its sensitivity increase with age? And why did the family records speak so proudly of a gift that had brought misery to more than one person who possessed it?
Erina looked down at her own handwriting. Gift appeared near the top of the page. Several lines later, she had written burden. Near the bottom, pressed so deeply into the paper that the pen had nearly torn through it, was another word.
Curse? She had not crossed it out.
The screen of her telephone glowed beside the open books. Erina glanced at the time and discovered that midnight had passed nearly forty minutes earlier. She sighed quietly. She wanted to stop before eleven.
The following day was mercifully light. She had only a handful of scheduled tastings in the morning, followed by her Middle School Division course in Foundations of Classical Cuisine at two in the afternoon.
Ordinarily, the tastings would have been routine. Lately, even routine evaluations left her exhausted. Every sauce seemed louder than it should have been. Every imbalance lingered. A fraction too much salt, an oil beginning to turn, and vegetables stored several hours beyond their best condition. Each flaw announced the moment the food touched her tongue and remained long after she had swallowed. No one else appeared to understand why she had begun dreading what everyone around her called a privilege.
Erina closed the family notebook in front of her and rested one hand on its worn cover. “Still nothing,” she murmured. Her voice was small in the enormous room.
She frowned at the notebooks she had filled during her search. They contained copied passages, family histories, diagrams of the tongue, medical terminology, and increasingly frustrated notes in the margins. She had accumulated an impressive amount of information without moving any closer to the answer she wanted.
Erina leaned back and allowed her head to touch the chair’s padded headrest. For several seconds, she stared at the shadowed ceiling. The easiest conclusion would have been that there was no answer. The God Tongue existed because it existed, and her duty was to endure it with the dignity expected of a Nakiri. That was the conclusion others had accepted.
Erina could not.
If the God Tongue belonged to her, then she would understand it. Not as a symbol of the family. Not as a weapon for judging other chefs. Not as the instrument her father had attempted to sharpen until nothing human remained around it. She would understand what it was doing to her.
She would try again tomorrow.
“I’ll try another section,” Erina told the empty library as she rose from her chair. “Perhaps the earlier family records.” The promise steadied her more than she expected.
She gathered her notes first, aligning the notebooks before sliding them beneath one arm. Then she carried the borrowed volumes back to their proper shelves. The largest required both hands and the lower steps of one of the rolling ladders, but Erina returned each book to its exact place. Leaving them in disorder would only make tomorrow’s search more difficult.
When the last volume had been shelved, she extinguished the reading lamp. Darkness spread across the table. Erina left the library and closed its heavy doors behind her.
The north-wing corridor waited in silence. Her footsteps sounded too clearly against the polished floor as she made her way toward the occupied portion of the estate. She kept her pace measured at first, refusing to behave as though the empty hallway possessed any power over her.
Then she neared the door.
It stood several rooms beyond the library, unchanged from the last time she had seen it. Dark wood. Brass handle. No identifying plate. Erina’s body recognized it before she allowed her thoughts to do the same. Her shoulders tightened.
The notebooks beneath her arm pressed against her ribs as her grip closed around them. For an instant, she caught the phantom scent of cold sauces and overcooked meat. She heard a spoon striking porcelain. Her father’s patient voice promised correction with the certainty of a sentence already passed.
I shall teach you proper cooking.
Erina quickened her pace. She did not turn her head. She never looked at the door. She never touched its handle. She did not need to see the room beyond it to remember every detail. Only after she had reached the end of the corridor did she breathe freely again.
Erina continued toward her bedroom without looking back, her research held firmly against her chest. The north wing had offered her no answers that night.
Tomorrow, she would return anyway.
* * *
The following afternoon, the practical room for the Foundations of Classical Cuisine smelled of butter, warm stock, and the faint acidity of reduced wine. Professor Kitamura devoted the lesson to mother sauces and the preparations derived from them. Rows of polished stations filled the classroom, each occupied by students reducing, whisking, straining, and trying to prevent their sauces from separating beneath the instructor’s watchful eye.
Erina’s velouté had reached the required consistency several minutes before anyone else’s. She had found a slight bitterness in the stock provided to the class, corrected for it without obscuring the poultry flavor, and finished the sauce with enough cream to soften the edges without making it heavy. Hisako worked beside her, cleaning the final whisk while Erina transferred the remaining sauce into its evaluation container.
Professor Kitamura moved between the stations one last time before addressing the class. “Your cooking is finished,” he announced, his voice carrying easily across the room. “Your assessment is not. The condition of your station is part of today’s grade. No one leaves until every tool has been cleaned, dried, and returned.”
A collective groan rose from the far side of the room. Professor Kitamura looked toward it. The groan stopped as the students ducked their heads.
Erina removed the pan from the cooling rack and passed it to Hisako, who began washing it while she wiped the steel counter. The rhythm between them had become nearly automatic. Hisako washed; Erina dried and inspected. Neither needed to ask what came next.
At the neighboring sink, three students had abandoned any attempt at silence.
“I’m telling you, it was the same boy from the regional competition,” one of them said as he scrubbed a saucepan. “My brother heard the interview.”
“The one nobody expected to reach the final?” Another boy asked.
“He won,” the original boy said.
“With that stew?”
“It wasn’t a stew by the end.”
The girl beside him leaned closer with a curious glint in her eyes. “What does that mean?”
"He changed the entire dish halfway through.”
Erina continued wiping the counter. Hisako glanced toward the conversation but said nothing.
The boy lowered his voice, though not enough to prevent it from carrying. “He said two chefs taught him how to stop treating his first idea like a promise.”
“That doesn’t sound revolutionary," the third student replied. “Chefs change dishes all the time.”
“Not the way he explained it. He said they told him the diner mattered more than the plan.”
Erina’s cloth slowed against the steel.
The boy continued. “They were working in the kitchen where his uncle employed him. Travelers, apparently. An older chef and a younger one.”
“Did he give them their names?”
“No. That’s the strange part.”
Erina spoke before she decided to join them. “That is hardly worth mentioning.”
The three students turned. Their ease vanished almost at once. The boy holding the saucepan straightened. “Lady Nakiri.”
“If a preparation is failing,” Erina continued, folding the damp cloth into a precise square, “any competent chef should adjust it.”
“Yes, of course.”
“However,” she added, “changing a dish without losing its central purpose requires more than improvisation. What exactly did the competitor say?”
The students exchanged glances.
Hisako placed the clean pan on the drying rack and quietly moved nearer.
“He said the older chef kept asking why he was protecting the original version when the kitchen had already shown him it wouldn’t work,” the boy answered. “The younger one asked who he was cooking for.”
“For the judges, presumably,” Erina replied.
“That was his first answer,” the boy replied. Erina waited for a moment, then tilted her head as if waiting for his reply.
He blinked when he realized it. “He said the younger chef told him judges weren’t the same as diners. That he was cooking to impress people instead of feeding them.”
The girl beside him set down her sponge. “Then he changed the dish into something his grandmother used to make. Not the same recipe, but the same feeling.”
“And won,” the third student added.
Erina looked at the half-cleaned saucepan in the boy’s hands. “Where did you hear this?”
“A podcast. My brother sent it to me.”
What was the program called? The question sat at the edge of Erina’s tongue. She did not ask. The three students already stood too stiffly. If she requested the podcast, one of them would provide it at once, not because they wished to continue the conversation, but because Erina Nakiri had asked.
Hisako watched her.
Erina returned her attention to the counter.
‘The account remains unverified,” she finally said. “Competition interviews are often exaggerated after an unexpected result.”
“Yes, Lady Nakiri.”
The conversation did not resume. By the time Professor Kitamura dismissed the class, the rumor had taken up an inconvenient corner of Erina’s thoughts. She and Hisako left the practical room together, their footsteps joining the flow of students moving through the Middle School Division corridor.
They had nearly reached the stairwell when Hisako spoke, “I can find the podcast for you.”
“I never said I wanted to know,” Erina replied. She kept her gaze forward.
“You did ask a lot of questions.”
“I was trying to gain more information.”
“Of course,” Hisako replied as she adjusted the strap of her bag.
Erina descended three steps before stopping. Hisako paused above her.
“When you find the program,” Erina said, keeping her voice low, “send me the episode.”
“I will,” Hisako replied with a soften gaze.
They began walking again. Behind them, the classroom doors closed, and the students inside moved on to the rest of their afternoon.
The two unknown chefs quickly became the topic once again.
* * *
Nearly a month later, the talk around the winner and the two chefs had become reduced to mutterings and memories. Erina found herself seated beneath a stained-glass window in the eastern library of Totsuki Academy’s Middle School Division. The library was considerably older than the classrooms surrounding it. Its shelves had been built from dark wood that had long since lost its shine, and many rose high enough to require the rolling ladders fixed to their sides. Afternoon sunlight entered through colored panes near the ceiling, casting muted patterns of red and gold across the reading tables.
Erina had chosen a desk near the rear, far from the main circulation counter and the students who treated the library as an extension of the dining hall. Six books lay open before her, accompanied by a stack of medical journals, two culinary reference volumes, and several pages of Hisako’s carefully organized notes.
None of them held the words God Tongue.
That name belonged to the Nakiri family and the culinary world that had built a legend around Erina’s palate. The researchers whose work they had been studying used less dramatic language: heightened gustatory sensitivity, increased papilla density, olfactory-gustatory integration, and sensory-processing abnormalities. One article referred to its subjects simply as supertasters.
The term felt almost insulting in its plainness.
Erina traced a line beneath a paragraph discussing unusually low detection thresholds for bitter compounds. According to the study, some individuals could perceive certain tastes at concentrations several times lower than those perceived by the average person. It was the closest thing they had found to a measurable explanation. Unfortunately, it explained little else.
“This study concerns bitterness alone,” Erina said, turning the journal slightly so Hisako could see the highlighted passage. “It makes no mention of identifying origin, preparation method, or ingredient quality.”
Hisako looked up from the volume she had been reading. “The author suggests that heightened sensitivity may extend beyond the compounds tested.”
“Suggesting something is not the same as proving it.”
“No,” Hisako agreed as she added a note to the margin of her notebook. “But it may support the possibility that several traits are interacting rather than there being a single cause.”
Erina leaned back in her chair. That was precisely the problem.
Every useful passage seemed to produce three more questions. One study examined taste-bud density but ignored smell. Another addressed olfactory memory without considering texture or temperature. A third study concerned people capable of finding individual chemicals but having no understanding of food. None of them described Erina.
She could detect a spice concealed beneath layers of sauce, identify when a vegetable had been harvested, and distinguish between two salts taken from different shores. She could often tell whether a cook had hesitated during preparation simply by tasting the result. Yet the accumulated research offered only fragments.
Hisako turned another page. She had been helping Erina for nearly three hours without complaint, moving between medical terminology and culinary references with the same determination she brought to a practical kitchen. She had even prepared a list of unfamiliar words before they began, complete with definitions and references to the journals in which they appeared.
Erina glanced at the neat columns of Hisako’s handwriting. “You don’t have to remain here all afternoon,” she said.
“I know,” Hisako replied without looking up.
“You intended to review tomorrow’s lesson.”
“I finished that this morning,” Hisako replied.
“And the medicinal-cuisine assignment?”
“Yesterday.”
“When do you sleep?” Erina asked with narrow eyes.
“Usually when you do,” Hisako said with a slight curve to her lips.
“That was not an answer.”
“It was the most accurate one.”
Erina should have reprimanded her for being impertinent. Instead, she reached for the untouched cup of tea beside her and moved it closer to Hisako’s side of the table.
Hisako noticed and said nothing, but the small smile stayed as she returned to the journal.
Erina lowered her gaze before Hisako could see that she had noticed the smile in return. She had never formally asked Hisako to assist with the investigation. She had only mentioned, several weeks earlier, that scattered studies concerning supertasters might provide a useful starting point.
The following morning, Hisako had arrived carrying a folder thick enough to serve as a weapon. Erina was grateful. She was not yet certain how to say so without making the moment uncomfortable for both.
A sudden burst of conversation rose from the front of the library, causing Erina to look up. The eastern library was not silent in the strictest sense. Students whispered over assignments, pages turned, and the occasional book struck a table more loudly than intended. Even so, the growing noise near the entrance was unusual enough to draw the attention of nearly everyone in the room.
Several students had abandoned their desks. Others hurried between the shelves toward the media section, where archived culinary broadcasts and international news programs could be viewed on a collection of wall-mounted screens. One boy crossed the room so quickly that the librarian called after him.
“Walk, please.”
He slowed for three steps, then resumed hurrying as soon as her attention shifted elsewhere.
“Did something happen?” Hisako said as she closed her notebook.
“It is probably an announcement concerning the Autumn Selection preliminaries,” Erina replied as she removed her reading glasses.
“At this hour?”
Before Erina could answer, another student passed their table.
“Did they announce it?” someone called from between the shelves.
“The final result just came through,” the student replied excitedly. “They’re showing the interviews now.”
“The BLUE final?”
“Yes!”
Erina folded her glasses and placed them on top of the journal.
The Bishoku Leading Under-25 Entrance, commonly abbreviated as BLUE, was one of the most prestigious competitions overseen by the World Gourmet Organization. Its competitors were selected from restaurants, culinary schools, private kitchens, and regional tournaments worldwide. Although every entrant was under twenty-five, many already worked in establishments that most professional chefs could only hope to visit.
The competition’s gates tested more than technical ability. Contestants had to adapt to unusual ingredients, shifting time limits, restrictive equipment, and the needs of carefully selected diners. Reaching the final gate could establish a young chef’s career before they had ever opened a restaurant of their own.
Erina had been following the tournament reports. Most analysts had predicted the same winner from the beginning: Etienne Moreau, a twenty-four-year-old sous chef from a celebrated Parisian restaurant whose precision had carried him through every gate without a serious setback. If the final had concluded as expected, there was little reason for the library to resemble a train station during an evacuation.
A group of students rushed past their table.
“Who came second?” one asked.
“The Australian.”
“Which Australian?”
“Exactly.”
“That sounds a little more interesting than the Autumn Elections,” Hisako said as she started getting up.
Erina gathered their loose research pages and placed them inside the open folder. “We are unlikely to accomplish much while half the library is shouting.”
“Of course,” Hisako replied as she helped Erina.
They joined the students moving toward the media section.
The library’s main screen had been lowered from the wall, replacing the ordinary collection of smaller displays. Nearly forty students crowded into the seating area before it. Several more stood between shelves or leaned over the upper-level railing.
The WGO emblem filled the screen before dissolving into footage of a vast ceremonial kitchen. The final stations had already been cleared, but the marks of competition remained. Damp towels lay over steel counters. Empty ingredient crates had been stacked against one wall. A row of judges sat beneath blue-and-gold banners while journalists gathered near the presentation platform.
The result appeared across the bottom of the screen.
BLUE CHAMPION ETIENNE MOREAU, FRANCE
A photograph showed Moreau receiving the winner’s medal. He was tall, immaculately dressed, and composed enough to suggest that the outcome had surprised him even less than it had surprised the analysts.
Beneath his name appeared the runner-up.
SECOND PLACE ELEANOR VALE, AUSTRALIA
The photograph beside it showed a young woman with sun-browned skin, dark blond hair tied untidily behind her head, and an expression caught somewhere between exhaustion and disbelief.
The students around Erina began whispering.
“I’ve never heard of her.”
“She doesn’t work at a famous restaurant.”
“She worked at one in Sydney.”
“For six months.”
“The report says she was cooking at a small hotel before that.”
“How did she qualify?”
“Regional selection.”
“From where?”
“New Zealand, I think.”
The broadcast changed to footage from the final.
Moreau stood behind a dish of precisely arranged langoustine accompanied by a clear shellfish broth. Opposite him, Eleanor Vale presented roasted duck with charred stone fruit, a dark native-pepper sauce, and a thin pastry filled with smoked liver and herbs. The score had been close. Three points separated them.
The image returned to the presentation platform, where Eleanor stood beside an interviewer wearing the formal white and blue of the WGO press division. A silver medal hung around her neck. She looked less polished than the champion. A strand of hair had escaped near her cheek, one sleeve remained rolled higher than the other, and a faint burn marked the side of her wrist.
Yet she faced the cameras without embarrassment.
“You came within three points of winning BLUE,” the interviewer said. “That is a remarkable achievement for a chef largely unknown outside Australia. Do you believe the final result was fair?”
A few students in the library laughed quietly at the bluntness of the question.
Eleanor smiled.
“Yes,” she answered. “Annoyingly fair.” The laughter grew.
The interviewer smiled as well, “You know where the difference was?”
“I knew before the scores came in.”
The broadcast replayed, showing a close-up of her final dish.
“The pepper sauce,” Eleanor explained. “I reduced it too aggressively while finishing the pastry. It didn’t burn, but it tightened more than I wanted it to. That pushed the bitterness forward and buried some of the sweetness from the plum.”
“Several judges still praised it.”
“It was still good,” Eleanor said. ‘It just wasn’t the sauce I intended to serve.”
Her answer was direct and unashamed. Erina studied the replay more carefully. The sauce had an excellent sheen, and its placement was controlled. Nothing visible suggested a serious error. Most diners would likely have noticed nothing at all.
The God Tongue would have.
More importantly, Eleanor had noticed before anyone told her.
The interviewer continued. “Was the mistake caused by the pressure of facing Chef Moreau?”
“No. It was caused by me trying to do two things at once when I should have trusted my commis with one of them.”
The camera turned briefly toward a young assistant standing behind the barriers. He covered his face as the audience laughed.
“He knows I’m right,” she said while pointing at him.
The assistant called something back that the microphones did not catch. Eleanor’s grin widened. Several students around Erina leaned closer to the screen. It was not difficult to understand why. Eleanor spoke as though she had forgotten that thousands of people were watching. There was none of the solemn self-importance that often accompanied interviews with prominent chefs.
The interviewer waited for the laughter to fade. “You entered BLUE with very little international recognition, yet you passed every gate, defeated several established competitors, and nearly took the final. What changed in your cooking?”
Eleanor’s expression became thoughtful. “A dinner,” she said. The answer produced a ripple of confusion through both the broadcast audience and the students in the library.
“A dinner?” The interviewer asked, tilting his head.
“About seven months ago. I was in the United States on a short culinary placement,” Eleanor explained. “Texas. Somewhere in the Hill Country.” A faint murmur moved through the audience. “I wasn’t anyone important. I was barely trusted with anything beyond breakfast prep, basic pastries, and helping wherever somebody needed another pair of hands.”
Someone near Erina whispered, “She went from breakfast prep to second place at BLUE?”
Hisako’s eyes shifted briefly toward Erina. Erina did not react. Not outwardly.
“Two other cooks were working there at the time,” Eleanor continued. “Two traveling chefs, though I didn’t realize that immediately. Everyone else seemed to know them better than I did. One was younger than the other.”
Erina’s attention sharpened.
“Were they employed by the restaurant?”
“I wasn’t sure,” she answered after a slight hesitation. A few students chuckled.
Eleanor smiled faintly. “That place was unusual. People came and went. Sometimes someone would spend a week at one station, then suddenly help somewhere else. The older man seemed able to walk into any part of the kitchen and belong there. The younger chef was worse.”
The interviewer laughed. “Worse?”
“He asked questions about everything.” Eleanor’s expression softened at the memory. “Why did I hold my knife that way. Why I seasoned before cooking instead of afterward. Why I threw away onion skins. Why did I use milk in one dough but water in another? He never stopped.”
A little more laughter moved through the room.
“One evening, service had nearly ended, and most of the senior staff were busy elsewhere. I was asked to make something with leftover lamb before it became waste.”
“What did you make?”
“A lamb pie,” she said with a wry grin.
“That sounds rather ordinary.”
“It was ordinary,” Eleanor replied. “That was part of the problem.”
The interviewer smiled. “They disliked it?”
She made a sideways motion with her hand.
“And the younger chef?”
“He ate two plates,” she replied with a laugh. The audience joined her. Somewhere beside Erina, Hisako smiled.
Eleanor looked down briefly, her fingers touching the edge of the silver medal resting against her chest. “I expected criticism afterward. Instead, they sat at the prep table with me.” Her smile faded into something quieter. “They started asking questions.”
“What kind?” The interviewer asked
“Why lamb? Why that crust? Why did I make the filling so heavy? Whom did I imagine eating it? What would I change if I had another hour?” Eleanor paused. “The older one kept asking questions about technique. The younger one kept asking whether I actually liked the food I was making.”
Erina went very still.
“Sounds rather unusual,” the interviewer said while slightly leaning.
“It was.”
“Were they professional chefs?”
Eleanor thought about it. “I assumed so.” A small laugh escaped her. “Though neither of them behaved like any professional chefs I had ever met.”
The interview went on, but Erina didn’t hear a word of it. A month earlier, the accounts had been little more than restaurant gossip: unnamed chefs mentioned by an unknown competition winner, supported by stories from distant kitchens and secondhand interviews. Those stories were easy to dismiss.
BLUE was not.
The WGO examined its contestants, judges, and competition records with almost obsessive care. Eleanor Vale passed every gate under the scrutiny of some of the most respected culinary authorities in the world. She had nearly defeated the expected champion. And when asked what had transformed her cooking, she had described two unidentified travelers teaching the same ideas Erina had already heard elsewhere. Adapt when the kitchen changes. Cook for the person waiting for the plate.
Erina stared at the darkened screen.
Hisako spoke quietly beside her. “You’re thinking about the other report.”
“The circumstances are similar,” Erina replied.
“You called that one unreliable.”
“I said there wasn’t enough evidence.”
Hisako glanced toward her. “And now?”
“Now we have corroboration,” Erina said. It was not proof. But it was no longer nothing.
Onscreen, one final reporter called after Eleanor. “What would you ask those chefs if you found them again?”
Eleanor paused. Then smiled.
“What should I cook next?”
The interview ended.
Conversation immediately swelled through the library—students arguing over BLUE, Eleanor’s sudden rise, and whether the mysterious travelers had ever existed at all.
Erina barely heard them. “Hisako.”
“Yes, Lady Erina?” Hisako asked.
“Find the full interview. Footage and transcript.”
Hisako was already reaching for her notebook. “And Eleanor’s history before BLUE?” Erina looked at her. Hisako smiled innocently. “Employment records. Regional competitions. Earlier interviews.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Erina’s mouth. “Exactly.”
They returned to their table, though studying had become hopeless.
Erina reopened her article on heightened sensory perception and read the same sentence three times without absorbing a word. Across from her, Hisako opened a fresh page.
UNIDENTIFIED TRAVELING CHEFS
Questions began appearing beneath it.
Places. Dates. Competition results.
Erina watched silently. The first story had been little more than a rumor. Now another chef, one who had come within reach of winning BLUE, was repeating the same philosophy. Different country. Different kitchen. The same two shadows.
“Add where Eleanor was working,” Erina said.
“Already did,” Hisako said while motioning to the question. Of course she had.
Something warm settled behind Erina’s ribs. Without saying anything, she reached for the teapot and filled Hisako’s cup before her own. Hisako glanced down at it. Neither mentioned the gesture.
Everyone around them continued discussing Eleanor Vale.
At the rear table beneath the stained-glass windows, Erina began searching for the two people behind her story.
* * *
Some weeks later, the Nakiri estate had settled into the quiet that followed nightfall.
Lights still burned in distant Totsuki kitchens beyond Erina’s bedroom windows. Delivery vehicles moved along the service roads below, their headlights appearing briefly between the trees. Somewhere across the academy grounds, a bell marked the end of an evening club session.
None of it disturbed her.
Her curtains had been drawn, the lamps beside her bed turned low, and the documents concerning the God Tongue abandoned on her writing desk for the evening. Medical journals lay stacked beside Hisako’s notes, their pages crowded with terms such as gustatory sensitivity, olfactory memory, and papilla density.
At present, however, the only book in Erina’s hands concerned none of those subjects. A beautifully illustrated young man stood beneath a summer sky, his usually composed expression broken by desperate determination. Across from him, the heroine stared with wide eyes, one hand still gripping the strap of her school bag.
The scene had been building for three volumes. Three volumes of interruptions, misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and the male lead behaving with an emotional intelligence Erina considered almost offensively poor.
At last, beneath the lanterns of the summer festival, he had taken the heroine by the shoulders. There were no rivals nearby. No teachers. No childhood friends arriving at an inconvenient moment. Erina leaned closer to the page. The young man opened his mouth.
A burst of fireworks filled the next panel. The speech bubble beneath it contained nothing but an enormous decorative explosion. Erina stared in shock.
She turned the page. The heroine blinked at him. I’m sorry. What did you say?
I-it wasn’t anything. Sorry. The young man, now bright red, released her and looked away.
“Yo-you coward!” She said with a sharp tone. The words escaped before she could stop them. Silence answered her.
She looked slowly around the bedroom. No one stood near the door. No maid had entered. Hisako had returned to her family’s residence nearly an hour earlier. Erina was entirely alone.
Heat crept into her cheeks, nevertheless. She raised the book again and glared at the offending page as though the fictional character might feel ashamed beneath her scrutiny.
He had spent months gathering the courage to confess. The heroine had made her own feelings so painfully obvious that even the least perceptive reader should have understood them. Yet one poorly timed firework had been enough to destroy all progress.
It was absurd. It was manipulative. It was…
She turned to another page. The heroine walked home alone, wondering what he had attempted to say. Erina’s irritation deepened.
“Oh, now she’s going to misunderstand him for another six chapters,” She annoyedly muttered. This time, she closed the volume and placed it face down on the bedspread. The cover showed the same couple beneath a shower of cherry blossoms, standing much closer together than either had yet managed within the story. The publishers clearly possessed no shame.
Erina folded her hands over her lap.
Romance in fiction seemed to depend upon people becoming incapable of ordinary speech at precisely the moment honesty mattered most. A person could spend years mastering a profession, confronting rivals, and carrying responsibilities far beyond their age, only to lose all sense the instant affection entered the matter.
Perhaps that was why readers found it entertaining. Real life, she decided, could not possibly be so needlessly complicated. If two people cared for one another, surely, they would recognize it. They would discuss the matter directly, reach a sensible understanding, and continue with their lives. There would be no reason for misunderstandings, dramatic interruptions, or months of concealed feelings.
The conclusion was perfectly rational. It also explained nothing about why the confession scene had made her heartbeat faster. Erina frowned at the manga.
The thought of someone looking at her with the same unguarded devotion as the young man in the illustration was… Ridiculous.
She placed the volume inside the drawer of her bedside table, beneath two culinary magazines and a folder of academy correspondence. It was not hidden. Erina Nakiri did not hide things.
She merely stored certain possessions where they would not invite unnecessary discussion. The matter settled, she picked up her tablet. There were still twenty minutes before she intended to sleep. Ordinarily, she might have reviewed the culinary news, checked the WGO’s latest restaurant notices, or continued reading one of the research articles on her desk.
Instead, she opened YouTube. The application offered several recently viewed interviews, a lecture concerning fermentation, and a video Hisako had sent her about medicinal herbs. Beneath them appeared a thumbnail framed by dense green foliage and pale stone ruins.
A woman in a wide-brimmed hat stood beside a reporter, both shaded from the harsh sun by a canvas awning. The title beneath the video read:
MAI SAKURAJIMA DISCUSSES HER NEW FILM, LIFE ON LOCATION, AND THE SURPRISE CULINARY STARS OF THE YUCATÁN
Erina recognized her. It would have been difficult not to. Mai Sakurajima had returned to acting several years earlier and quickly reclaimed her place among Japan’s most recognizable young performers. Her latest film was an international production set partly among archaeological sites in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Erina had no particular interest in celebrity interviews. She still pressed the video.
The report opened with an aerial view of the peninsula: broad stretches of forest broken by old stone structures, narrow roads, and towns painted in warm colors. The footage shifted to a temporary film set near an excavation site, where crew members moved lighting equipment beneath a sky so intensely blue that the image appeared almost artificial.
Mai sat opposite the interviewer beneath the awning. Despite the heat, she looked composed, dressed in a white blouse and loose trousers, with dark glasses resting atop her head. A light breeze moved the ends of her hair.
The interviewer introduced her and spoke briefly about the production. “You’ve been filming here for nearly two months,” he said. “Has the location been what you expected?”
“It’s been hot,” Mai replied with a soft laugh.
The interviewer laughed. “Much hotter than expected?”
“I made the mistake of telling the director that I preferred location filming to working on a soundstage. I believe he took that personally.” Her delivery remained so dry that it took the interviewer a moment to realize she was joking.
“What has been the most memorable part of the experience?”
“The people,” Mai answered. “The local crew has been wonderful, and we’ve been permitted to work near places I would never otherwise have had an opportunity to visit.”
“You didn’t make the trip alone, am I right?” He asked with a knowing glint.
Mai’s eyes narrowed by an almost imperceptible degree. Erina recognized the expression immediately. It was the look of someone who had anticipated a question and had already decided how little of it she intended to answer.
“My boyfriend and his younger sister came for part of the shoot,” Mai said while looking somewhere from the camera.
“A family holiday?”
“His sister wanted to see the ruins.”
“And your boyfriend?”
“He wanted to complain about the heat,” she said with a teasing grin.
“Only the heat?” The interviewer asked with a chuckle.
“He is very committed to complaining.”
“So, the two of you have been enjoying time together away from Japan?”
“We’ve enjoyed showing his sister around,” Mai replied smoothly. “She took enough photographs to document every stone on the peninsula.”
The answer acknowledged the trip while giving the interviewer nothing remotely personal to pursue. Erina found herself mildly impressed. The interviewer apparently understood that the subject had reached its natural end.
“The production itself has attracted attention for something rather unusual. Several members of the cast have spoken publicly about the catering,” he said after glancing at his notes.
“Yes!” Mai leaned forward in excitement. “It’s been a major highlight.”
“Film catering does not usually receive glowing reviews.”
“It usually doesn’t deserve them,” she admitted.
“And this does?”
“Oh, absolutely!”
The report cut to footage of long tables arranged beneath white tents. Instead of the ordinary trays Erina expected from location catering, the tables held carefully plated portions of roasted meat, grilled vegetables, tamales wrapped in banana leaves, bowls of dark sauces, and bright arrangements of local fruit. Crew members ate from ceramic plates rather than disposable containers. A caption showed the provider as a restaurant outside Merida that had recently received a one-star rating from the WGO.
“One of the first WGO stars awarded to a restaurant recognized as much for its service as its cuisine,” the interviewer said when the footage returned to them.
“The service is part of the food. They understood that feeding a film crew is different from serving guests in a dining room. People arrive at unconventional times; they may have only ten minutes, and half of them are exhausted or covered in dust. The restaurant adjusted without lowering its standards,” Main explained.
“What stood out to you?”
“The ingredients tasted like themselves.”
The simplicity of the statement made Erina sit up straighter.
“They didn’t bury anything,” Mai continued. Her eyes showed clear interest in the topic. “The corn tasted sweeter than what I’m accustomed to in Japan. The chilies were used carefully enough so that you could distinguish their flavors rather than experience only heat. Even the staff meal I saw being served in the kitchen looked as though someone had thought about who would eat it.”
“You,” the interviewer began. He checked his notes and looked back at Mai. “You spoke to one of the chefs?”
“A sous chef helped distribute lunch one afternoon because several members of the service staff were delayed. We talked while everyone else was filming.”
“What did you discuss?”
“At first, whether the actors were eating enough.” Mai’s mouth curved slightly. “Apparently, we were not.” The report displayed another piece of footage, this time showing a woman in a chef’s jacket passing covered dishes to crew members. Her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and she seemed to be speaking sternly to an actor who had tried to leave with only a drink.
“She told me that the restaurant had recently changed almost everything about the way it approached its food,” Mai continued. “Not the identity of the dishes, exactly. More,” she made a motion with her hands, “about the thinking behind them.”
Erina’s thumb became still against the side of the tablet.
“The restaurant hired a new executive chef?“ the interviewer asked.
“No. The owner and executive chef met two traveling cooks who came in as consultants.”
“Consultants?“
“That was the word she used. One was apparently an experienced chef who advised the owner. The other traveled with him as his with him as his commis.”
Erina stared at the screen.
“They stayed at the restaurant?”
“For about a week or so.”
“What did they change?”
“According to the sous-chef, they began by changing very little. They asked questions. Why were certain dishes prepared the way they were? Why particular ingredients came from particular farms. Why the kitchen worked so hard to preserve traditions it no longer understood.” Mai glanced toward the film set before continuing. “The consultant helped them find ways to draw more flavor from ingredients they already had. Different roasting methods. Better use of trimmings and bones. Less complicated preparations where the complexity had no purpose.”
“And the commis?”
“The commis apparently challenged nearly every chef in the restaurant to a cooking duel,” Mai said with a warm laugh.
The interviewer blinked. “Every chef?”
“That’s how the sous chef described him,” Mai said with an amused grin.
“Did he win?”
“Almost never.”
The interviewer laughed loudly.
“He lost to pretty much everyone there,” Mai added with a laugh.
“He continued challenging them?”
“Every day.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t know. The consultant made him clean the kitchen whenever he lost, so perhaps he enjoyed punishment. And they argued and bickered about everything.”
Erina felt the corner of her mouth move before she stopped it.
“Was he at least talented?” The interviewer asked.
“The sous-chef said he was extremely talented. He simply challenged people who had spent years mastering dishes he had never seen before,” Mai said with a nod.
“That seems reckless.”
“It sounded reckless.”
“And yet they helped the restaurant earn a WGO star.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mai considered the question. “The consultant taught them to treat the ingredients with more care. The commis taught them not to be afraid of making something new with them.”
Erina remembered Eleanor Vale speaking beneath a silver medal. A plan was only useful until the kitchen gave you a better one.
On the screen, Mai added, “The sous chef said the two of them disagreed constantly, but the arguments always returned to the same question: who was going to eat the food?”
Erina sat very still.
“Did they develop the catering menu?” The interviewer asked with genuine interest.
“Parts of it. They had already left by the time filming began, but several dishes came from techniques they introduced,” Mai explained with a motion of her hand.
“You mentioned that they argued. Were they very different?”
“Apparently.”
“In what way?”
“The older chef was calmer. More disciplined. The younger one experimented with almost anything,” Mai paused. “Both of them also made food that the sous-chef described as deeply unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?” The interviewer frowned at the word.
“She used a less polite word,” Mai explained with a small cringe.
“What sort of food?” He hesitated to ask.
“Desserts containing seafood. Fermented ingredients combined with chocolate. Something involving coffee, citrus, and organ meat. There was even peanut butter involved.” Erina’s expression tightened. The dishes sounded indefensible.
“These are the chefs responsible for improving a WGO-starred restaurant?” The interviewer’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Those were apparently their failures.”
“Deliberate failures?”
“The sous chef believed so. She said they occasionally produced them for one another. She also said that one of their own chefs got in on the activity,” Mai added with a chuckle.
“No!” The interviewer exclaimed. Mai nodded with a laugh.
“That seems less like professional consultation and more like warfare.”
“The kitchen staff reached the same conclusion,” Mai said solemnly.
The interviewer glanced down at his notes. “Do you know their names?”
“No. The sous chef never gave them to me.”
“Perhaps the restaurant is protecting the identity of its consultants,” the interviewer suggested.
“Perhaps,” she said with a shrug.
“Or perhaps the story has been exaggerated.”
“That is also possible.”
The interviewer turned slightly toward the camera. “Although this is not the first account involving two traveling chefs, is it?”
Mai lifted one eyebrow. “You’ve heard the others?”
“There were reports in Europe last year. A restaurant in Canada credited two temporary employees with restructuring part of its kitchen. Similar stories later appeared from several establishments in the southern United States.” Erina’s pulse quickened—Europe, Canada, the United States, and now Mexico.
“They seem to be appearing all over,” the interviewer said.
“Agreed, it’s what I also gathered,” she said with a nod.
“Rather like ghosts.”
The word was spoken lightly, almost as a joke. Mai looked toward him. For a moment, her expression suggested that she was considering how ridiculous the comparison sounded. Then she turned toward the camera. “Yes,” she said. “Ghosts.”
“So, the Ghost Chefs,” the interviewer clarified in amusement.
Mai’s smile returned. “The Ghost Chefs,” she repeated.
Erina stopped the video. The room became silent. The image froze on Mai’s face, the bright green of the Yucatan forest visible beyond her shoulder. The phrase remained.
Ghost Chefs.
It was melodramatic. Sensational. Precisely the sort of title journalists invented when ordinary facts failed to attract sufficient attention. It was also irritatingly effective. The stories now formed a path. Europe. Canada. The southern United States. Australia, through a chef who had dined with them near Melbourne. Mexico, through a restaurant they had advised in person.
Different kitchens. Different chefs. Different circumstances. The same habits. One older, experienced, and controlled. One younger, reckless, persistent, and apparently incapable of refusing a challenge. Both devoted to adapting a kitchen without erasing its identity. Both asked who would eat the food. Both made dishes that no responsible chef should have allowed to reach a plate.
Erina opened the video description. Links appeared beneath it: the restaurant’s website, the WGO announcement of its star, and an article discussing the catering provided for the film. She opened each in a separate tab.
Then she returned to the interview and replayed the final exchange.
Rather like ghosts.
Yes. Ghosts.
So, the Ghost Chefs.
Erina lowered the tablet. The title was absurd. She had already accepted it. Her right hand moved to her phone and dialed Hisako before she could reconsider—the call connected after the second ring.
“Lady Erina?” Hisako answered. Her voice sounded alert, though faint rustling suggested that Erina had interrupted her while reading.
“Are you busy?” There was a brief pause. Erina could hear a small flutter and commotion in the background.
“No.”
“You sound busy.”
“I was preparing for bed.”
“At this hour?” Erina asked after glancing at the clock on her tablet.
“We spent four hours researching sensory-processing disorders today,” Hisako reminded her.
“That is hardly exhausting.”
Hisako wisely chose not to answer.
Erina sat straighter. “I found another account.” The rustling stopped.
“The traveling chefs?”
“Yes.”
“Where?” Hisako asked with a sharper tone.
“Mexico. A WGO-starred restaurant near Merida. They were employed as consultants several months before the star was awarded,” Erina explained.
“Both of them?”
“An older consultant and his commis.”
“That matches the previous descriptions.”
“There’s more. The younger one challenged nearly every member of the kitchen to cooking duels,” Erina said.
“Did he win?”
“Almost none of them.”
Hisako was silent. Then she asked, “Are you certain it was the same chef?”
“No.” Erina looked at the paused image of Mai again on her tablet. “But it sounds like him.” That was the first time either of them had spoken as though the younger traveler had become a person rather than an item in a report.
Hisako seemed to notice. “Who gave the interview?”
“Mai Sakurajima. She heard the account from one of the sous chefs while filming in the Yucatan.”
“Did she provide their names?”
“No,” Erina said with a soft sigh.
“Any photographs?”
“Not in the interview. Can you search the restaurant’s public accounts and archived staff images? They may have appeared in the background.”
“I’ll begin now.”
“Hisako…” Erina began but paused. She looked back at her tablet.
“Yes?”
Erina hesitated. The name still sounded foolish. Unfortunately, it gave shape to something that had previously existed only as disconnected accounts. “The interviewer called them the Ghost Chefs.”
Hisako did not respond at once. “The Ghost Chefs,” she repeated slowly, as if testing the name.
“It was intended as a joke.”
“It seems appropriate,” Erina defended lamely.
“It seems theatrical.”
“Those qualities are not mutually exclusive.” Erina frowned. “Create a new section in our notes,” she said. “Use that heading for the time being.”
Hisako’s amusement came through clearly over the telephone. “Of course, Lady Erina.”
“And send me everything you locate concerning the restaurant, its WGO evaluation, and any staff employed during the consultation period,” Erina said. She chose to ignore Hisako’s amused tone.
“I will.”
Erina looked toward the medical journals waiting on her desk. “And Hisako?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
The words emerged more quietly than the instructions preceding them. Hisako did not tease her.
“You’re welcome, Lady Erina.”
They ended the call.
Erina remained seated with the telephone resting in her hand. On the frozen screen, Mai Sakurajima sat beneath the Yucatan sun, unaware that an amused remark had just given a name to a mystery spreading through the culinary world.
The Ghost Chefs.
Erina replayed the interview from the beginning.
This time, she opened her notebook before pressing play.