Untitled Central AU Practice

It’s been one week since Kei had arrived at Totsuki. And so far, he could only say that it was…weird.

Like take today for example.

“Silly girl! How many times do I have to tell you? Stop altering the recipe!” The teacher scolded a brown-haired girl who wore her hair in a ponytail and backed away in slight fear. “This was approved by the headmaster personally, so follow the words on the paper! Or it will be the last dish you cooked on Totsuki!” The girl whimpered. “Ye..Yes Sir!” And got back to work while many eyes of the class still burned on her.

Kei frowned and looked at his own work. He had added garlic and also used a completely different sauce than the one that was written on paper.

“Sensei!” He called out as the teacher walked past him. The old man stopped in his walk and turned around. “Yes?” “Uhm…so…” Kei scratched his head and looked to the side. “I don’t understand why you scold that girl. She was merely trying something different. Honestly, I did the same. I wanted to give a try on another sauce and look how it would work out.”

The man now turned around and gave him a long, unreadable look. Then, out of the sudden, his face lit up and a kind, almost fatherly smile appeared on his lips. “Oh, Eizan Kei. Of course you’re free to experiment a little. I look forward to test your creation and to see if your version works! Good work, boy. But I should have expected that.” Kei raised an eyebrow in confusion.

That didn’t make any sense. Why was he allowed to do whatever he wants while the other students weren’t? But before he could open his mouth and ask exactly that question, the teacher was already handing him a little note. “To be quite honest, I’ve been thinking about doing something about Ichimura-san already. She’s way too, how do I put it, defiant. She could become a danger.” His smile got a little wider. “So please be so kind and give this note to one of your brothers. Preferably Shigeo-kun. So that she can be, you know…” He backed away again as Kei took the note in his hands. The smile didn’t left his lips. “….eliminated.”

“Eliminated?!” Kei called out, not understandingly. But the teacher had already turned around to inspect the other’s work.

Kei took a quick look at the note in his hands. It was merely reading: “Ichimura Naoko”, the name of the brown-haired girl.

Kei decided he would throw it in the trash bin when the lesson was over.

As he then exited the classroom, he was greeted by a stoic, emotionless but still cute-sounding voice. “Kei-kun.”

He turned his head head to face a the babyface of a black-haired, young girl with green eyes and an adorable ribbon in her hair. Judging her by her looks, she looked 2 years younger than Kei but was in fact 2 years older than him.

“Moe-chan.” He dryly greeted back only to be left with that blank stare of her’s as she was clearly expecting him continuing the conversation. “What do you want here?”

“The Headmaster wants to talk to you.” She stated. “And Shigenyan, Sashi-Senpai and Nee-chan are all three busy, so I am here to pick you up.” And with that she simply turned around, convinced that she had said everything she needed to say and sure that he would follow her. He rolled his eyes but then decided to start walking as well, wondering what this invitation by the director was about. As far as he could recall he didn’t got in any fights yet.

Normally the walk to the headmaster’s office was a long one, but luckily Moe had a limousine waiting outside which drove them the long way to the building in which the office was located. During the ride Kei was repeatedly asking Moe what this was about, but the emotionless girl kept quite like a fish.

As they were finally in front of the door that would lead them to the office, Moe raised a hand to knock. And only seconds later a deep voice called. “It’s Moe-chan, right? Please come in.”

With the permission given, Moe opened the door and went into the room, followed by Kei.

“Here we are Headmaster Azami!” Moe announced towards the man sitting at an enormous desk at the end of the room. He was pale, completely dressed in black and had a friendly but still eery smile on his face. “Come in, Come in!” He smiled in an inviting tone and pointed to two chairs in front of his desk. “Please sit down, you two.”

The two exchanged one look before doing as they were told. As they had sit down, Azami gave one nod to Moe, before turning his head to Kei. “So you’re Eizan Kei, the third son of Eizan Etsuya and Nene.” It took Kei all his willpower to not raise an eyebrow at this man for this question, but to rather say. “Yeah.” Azami Nakiri laughed. “Ah, I’m glad to meet you finally. I would have loved to invite you into my office on the day you got into Totsuki, but the first week is always a busy one you see. Anyway, I was looking forward to you coming to Totsuki.” He shot another glance to Moe, who disinterestedly watched her legs dangling. “Just like I look forward to Saito Yoshiko joining us in two years.”

He turned his head back to Kei. “Anyway, Kei-kun, how was your first week?” Kei looked to the side. “Good, I guess.” Another soft chuckle. “That’s nice to hear. Again, I’m thrilled to have you on school and I’m more than sure that you’ll be an excellent edition to our Elite.” Kei looked up, confused. “Elite?” But Azami just kept talking. “Masashi-Kun shows a truly impressive understanding on Japanese cuisine and his refined training shows in each and every dish he makes. And Shigeo-kun’s knowledge around chemical components is imposant. Not to mention, how much financial success he makes with his consulting.” He leaned a little forward and suddenly Kei felt a little uncomfortable. “I wonder what your talent is.”

For a moment there was silence in the room, in which Azami just continued on smiling like World Peace had just been declared, Kei searched for something to say and Moe thought about baby seals. As Kei finally wanted to open his mouth, he was interrupted again by Azami who had taken a glance on the expensive-looking watch around his wrist. “Oh, how unfortunate. I wish we could have talked more. But it seems to be time. Right, Moe-chan?”

Moe gave a small nod. Kei turned his head to her. “Time for what?!” At that Moe gave him her usual emotionless look and simply stated. “The first Elite Ten meeting of this school year.” Kei leaned forward. “Hah? What does that concern us?”

Azami took part in the conversation again. “Oh, Kei-kun? Did we forget to give you the information. Oh, I’m deeply sorry. Please excuse me being so inconsiderate.” Kei turned back to the man again, absolutely not understanding what was going on.

Azami opened his eyes and opened his arms in a festive gesture to happily announce. “Eizan Kei, you’re the new tenth seat of Totsuki’s Elite Ten.”

Kei jumped off the chair. “I’m what?!”

“The New Tenth Seat.” Azami simply repeated, still smiling.

Kei had already heard a lot about the Elite 10 and it’s role in the school, but from all the stories he heard it made absolutely no sense for a first year in the middle school division to just get in there. “But I…I am…”

As always, he couldn’t finish as Azami interrupted him once again. “Kei-kun. You may not know about this. But your parents once commit a great fortune for me.” He looked at Moe. “Alongside the parents of our ninth seat, Saito Moe.” With unbelieving eyes Kei stared at Moe, who was admittedly older than him but also too young to be of Elite Ten age.

“It’s just fair of me to repay them in any way I can. Because without them, I would have surely not been able to revolutionize this school like I did.”

Kei took a step closer, opened his mouth, ready to yell but as always Azami was having none of that. “Moe-chan. Please get him to the meeting, we don’t want him to miss it don’t we?”

Moe gave a nod and looked at Kei. “Come on, Kei-kun. Let’s go.” She said dryly as ever and jumped off her seat. “But I…” Kei wanted to interject before Moe grabbed his hand and pulled him along out of the office.

“Goodbye! Have a nice meeting.” Azami was calling after them.

Out there, Kei immediately ripped his hand from Moe’s and bloated. “For Fuck’s sake. What is this?” Moe only blinked before asking. “What do you mean.” “Moe.” Kei began. “We’re both too young to be in the Elite 10, don’t you think that’s a little weird?”

Moe tilted her head to the left. And then to the right. “I suppose.” She merely said. “You suppose?!” Kei responded in a more louder voice. His patience was running out.

Moe sighed. She turned away and only said. “It is weird. But what can we do about it? Now come on, or we’ll miss the meeting.”