A/N (7.16.2023): I use a lot of Japanese terms which I will define here for the casual enjoyer of Japanese dramas and culture.

Rakki Seben: romaji for 'Lucky Seven'. The 'nana' character in Nanase's name means seven, which is a lucky number in Japan, so I named her YouTube channel Lucky Seven. (Fun fact, the 'se' character of her name means both 'water rapids' and 'chance' which just… has so many character-relevant tie-ins.)

bentou: commonly translated as a 'Japanese boxed lunch', it is generally any single-portion or ready-made meal. The lunch box you bring to school is a bentou. The pre-made meals you buy at a supermarket on the nights you're too lazy to make dinner are bentous. If you're American and you've had Lunchables, that's a bentou. Nanase names the watchers of her vlog Sebentous as a portmanteau of seben and bentou.

-chan, -sensei, -san, -kun: Japanese honourifics. Read more here: living-in-japan/culture/japanese-honorifics/

yakisoba: fried buckwheat noodles. If you've had stir-fried lo mein from your local Chinese restaurant, it's similar. (Some people may disagree with me on this, and that's fine lol.)

LINE: America has Messenger, South Korea has KakaoTalk, Japan has LINE, and everyone else has WhatsApp.

kaiseki: a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. The term also refers to the collection of skills and techniques that enable the preparation of the full meal, in which case it is analogous to haute cuisine in Western cultures. Traditional cuisine chefs who have Made It™ in Japan probably got famous for their kaiseki restaurants.

心臓 (ハート): the heart as a cardiovascular muscle in Japanese, pronounced shinzou. However, in parentheses, Kairi says it should be pronounced as ha-to, which is the Japanese romaji for the heart as a shape. This is a common phenomenon in written Japanese known as gikun, which basically lets the author assign a new pronunciation to any kanji as they wish, usually to inject new or additional meaning into the text such as significance or humour.

itadakimasu: literally means 'I will receive'. The phrase was historically said aloud before eating to acknowledge the living things (e.g., chef, animals, plants, etc) that led to sustenance. It has since culturally evolved into something akin to the French 'bon appétit' since it's always said before partaking in any meal.

ochazuke: a bowl of rice poured over with tea and topped with whatever you have on hand, historically used as a make-your-pantry-last-longer meal. This simple recipe can be elevated with fancier ingredients.

dorayaki: dessert sandwich of red bean paste between two small pancakes. It is famous for being the favourite meal of Doraemon in the eponymous manga and anime.

senbei: Japanese rice crackers, a common snack.

dogeza: the word for when Japanese people kneel directly on the ground and touch their head to the floor to express deep apology.

With that, let's get started!

---

It wasn't a busy shift at the clinic, just a long one. Nevertheless, Nanase is ready to go home, eat dinner, and check for new comments on her latest video upload.

There was a shrine festival near her apartment a few weekends ago, and she had braved the cold to go. The concept of her video was that she went around to different food stalls selling the same thing and tried to figure out how the chefs prepared the meals differently. She wanted to film in the shrine as well, but it was closed for the festivities, so she went back a few days later to learn more about the god it serves and the shrine keepers. It was equal parts a food review and a culture vlog, so she's pretty proud of this one.

When she logs onto the analytics page for her Rakki Seben YouTube channel, she's excited to see three new comments since she last checked yesterday.

@tamagotamako 1 day ago
it all looks so delicious! the shrine near me is having a festival next weekend. i'll order yakisoba when i'm there thanks to you www

@CBYTK 13 hours ago
Thank you for showing us the delicious food and introducing us to your local shrine's customs. Great video as always.

@yakini-kun 4 hours ago
which looks better, nana-chan or the food? discuss.

Her Sebentous are the best part of her day and the best part of running a vlog. They're so funny and complimentary, and some of them have really cute usernames. She would love nothing more than to host a meetup and get to meet them in person, but she doesn't think she's big enough for something like that yet. Maybe one day!

She likes and replies to everyone with a happy heart, then she does a cursory check of her business LINE account. There are some admiration messages, some hate mails (which she promptly deletes), and some recommendations for restaurants or meals to try (which she bookmarks for later), all of which are pretty typical.

What isn't typical is the message with a preview that reads 'INVITATION, ONE NIGHT ONLY: Tendo Kairi Pop-Up Kaiseki'.

Nanase rubs her eyes to make sure she isn't misreading the characters on screen because no way is this what she thinks it is.

[< cuisinebytendokairi

INVITATION, ONE NIGHT ONLY: Tendo Kairi Pop-Up Kaiseki

Nana-chan-san,

Tendo Kairi-sensei of Peninsula Tokyo's Kyoto Tsuruya will be the host and chef for 心臓(ハート), a pop-up, kaiseki-style dining event this weekend. We humbly invite you to attend as a media correspondent from Rakki Seben. In exchange for a free ticket, we ask for coverage on the evening in your next upload. Please see the attached image for details on the time and location, and please use the form linked below to RSVP and inform us of any dietary restrictions.

Your attendance is highly appreciated.]

It totally is what she thinks she is, and she cannot control her squeals.

Japan doesn't have celebrity chefs the way England has Gordan Ramsey-san and South Korea has Baik Jongwon-san, but Tendo Kairi is still making a name for himself in the culinary world despite not having his own restaurant. He is currently the sous chef at the Kyoto Tsuruya, a famous restaurant in the Peninsula Tokyo hotel. On the night of a prestigious economic conference, the head chef could not provide the highly-anticipated, personalised, five-course dinner for last-minute reasons, and the evening would have been in jeopardy if it weren't for Tendo's command of the kitchen and delicious yet improvised new menu.

For reasons starting with 'any chef who can pull that together on such short notice must be really skilled and respected by their staff' and ending with 'she saw a picture of him in one of the interviews he gave after the event, and he's pretty handsome', Nanase became his fan. He's still working as the sous chef at the Peninsula Tokyo as far as she knows, but she has been waiting for him to open up his own restaurant or get promoted to head chef so that she can try meals that he designed.

To learn that he's hosting his own limited-engagement dining experience is already a huge deal, but to be invited? It's too good to be true.

She doesn't believe it even as she gets her brother to double-check that the link isn't malicious ("Good news! It's just a Google Form."), even as she RSVPs and receives her QR code ticket via LINE, even as she's dolled up in the new dress she bought for the evening and standing in front of the event hall where the dinner is being hosted.

The marquee above the front entrance is lit up with the name of the event in both Japanese and English,

心臓(ハート)
CUISINE BY TENDO KAIRI

and it takes her an embarrassingly long time of staring in breathless amazement before she thinks to record any of this as B-roll for her vlog.

"Perhaps, are you Nana-chan-san?"

She's startled out of her focus by a handsome young man in a casual suit with the unfortunate air of a new hire who desperately wants to do a good job, and she cannot help but relate. "Hi! Yes, that's me. 'Nana-chan' is fine," she greets as she hastily turns off her camera.

The man sighs with relief. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Nishi Ryusei, and I'm an event staff for Ha-to. Allow me to you inside. From this moment until the time you leave, please rely on me for any questions or concerns as they relate to your dining and reporting experience," he narrates as he guides her and her filming apparatus through the security check.

Guests get a personal assistant? These exclusive events are no joke. "Thank you for working hard today, Nishi-san!" she chirps, following him into the small but tastefully decorated lobby.

"If I can call you Nana-chan, you can call me Nishi-kun," he shares warmly. "Would you be interested in checking in your coat as well, or would you like to head into the cocktail reception?"

"Actually," she declines with a sheepish shrug to her shoulders, "may I go around filming a little bit? I will stop if I inconvenience or intrude on other guests!"

Nishi-kun slaps his forehead with major self-recrimination. "Ah, of course! The media correspondent must collect media to correspond! My apologies for not addressing that sooner. Do you need assistance with your camera stand? Do you have special equipment to set up? Do you need to charge anything?" he asks in rapid-fire.

Nanase had commuted to the event hall with mounting anxiety about how she'll conduct herself in such a high-profile setting (and still doubting that she was actually meant to be invited in the first place). Even now, she is acutely aware of how much space she's taking up, the way that her hair is combed but not styled, the fact that this dress is the most expensive article of clothing she owns yet likely costs a fraction of other outfits she'll see tonight… and that hypersensitivity was feeding an additional worry that she won't be able to enjoy the evening to the fullest due to all her worries.

Somehow, though, Nishi-kun's nerves about assisting her does a lot to settle her own nerves about the night. One of them has to be composed, after all. "Would you want to help me?" she offers affably. "If you work here, you'd know the prettiest and most interesting spots to film, right?"

The surprised-yet-pleased lightness to his face makes her smile, and she thinks she and Nishi-kun will end the night as good friends.

As he hangs out with her to film B-roll, Nanase can't help but notice she has a lot less equipment than some of the other camera operators scattered across the venue, which confirms her privately-held belief that she is the most amateur attendant invited to Ha-to. All she has is her little Nikon and a table-tripod to help stabilise her grip, but she can spy camera setups taller than her brother in some corners (along with the local media outlet logos on the bags by their feet).

They intimidate her, but they also reaffirm her resolve. If she was the smallest scale 'media correspondent' in attendance, then that means someone in the event planning process took a gamble on her to provide good coverage of the evening.

She won't let herself down, she won't let her viewers down, and she won't let her anonymous benefactor down either.

---

When she finishes taking some atmospheric shots, Nishi-kun offers to take her to her table.

The dinner tables circle an empty space in the centre of the main dining room, presumably where Tendo-sensei will stand to address the crowd. Nishi-kun leads her to a table not too far from the centre, where there is already someone seated. She and Nishi-kun reach an unspoken agreement that they will part ways here, and she braces herself to make another good first impression.

"Ah, I was waiting for someone to come rescue me from my loneliness!" the older gentleman opens with exuberance.

She matches his humour—"Good thing I was looking for someone to rescue."—and it pays off. The well-kept man exuding a kind and paternal air smiles widely at her. "I'm Koishikawa. Tendo and I work together," he introduces.

Nanase's reach for a handshake turns into a pointed finger in her shock. "You're the head chef at Kyoto Tsuruya!" she can't help but exclaim. She's sitting in front of the very man whose personal emergency served as the impetus to Tendo-sensei's rise to fame!

Koishikawa-sensei is mildly taken aback to be recognised, but he recovers easily. "I see that my reputation precedes me," he comments genially. "Have I had the pleasure of your patronage before?"

She blushes. "Not yet."

Nanase would have certainly info-dumped on this poor man about how she's actually a receptionist at a urgent-care clinic near her apartment who definitely could not afford a table at Kyoto Tsuruya without some sort of divine intervention if not for the arrival of two boisterously laughing women holding half-empty champagne flutes.

"Where's your drink?" one of them asks Nanase before they even sit down.

"Do you want me to get you one?" the other follows up.

"Ladies," Koishikawa-sensei admonishes, but he immediately falters then turns to Nanase. "I'm sorry, but I didn't quite catch your name."

Oh god, she didn't even introduce herself. She is so embarrassing. "Sakura! Sakura Nanase. It's a pleasure to meet you all," she says quickly.

"Nanako-chan, where's your drink?" the first woman demands again.

"Do you want me to get you one?" Both of their words are noticeably slurred together now that Nanase is paying a little more attention.

"Sakura-chan doesn't need to catch up to you two in order to have a good time," Koishikawa-sensei banters.

"But if she did, she'd have a better time," the first woman rebuts in with a duh in her tone.

The second woman leans across the first one to reach for a handshake with Nanase. "I'm Yuki Sayoko. I'm a friend of the family."

"And I'm Ryuko, the family!" the first one pipes up with a loose, open-palm salute.

Yuki-san leans a palm on Ryuko-san's shoulder, a gesture of familiarity as well as leverage to lean towards Nanase. "How do you know Kairi, Nanase-chan?"

Unfortunately, Nanase cannot answer her because she does not actually know 'Kairi'. If she thought she was in over her head before, she's floundering in the deep end now.

She is currently seated at a table with Tendo-sensei's senior at work, someone she has a sneaking suspicion is either Tendo-sensei's really cool sister or really cool cousin, and a close family friend who understandably presumes that everyone at the table has a similarly personal relationship with Tendo-sensei. And there's still one guest left to meet!

How did little old her end up here?

She frantically looks around—for some water, for Nishi-kun, for a pile of bricks to fall on her and wake her up from this dream—when she meets eyes with one of the most attractive men in the entire archipelago from across the room.

A man who happens to be beelining straight for their table.

Koishikawa-sensei stands up to greet who must surely be Japan's version of Brad Pitt. "Kisugi-kun, you made it!"

"You know how it is when you're running the pass," Kisugi-san says as he returns the one-sided hug. "I'm just glad I didn't miss the introduction to the first course, or else I might as well skip the entire night completely."

"Tendo would have never let you live that down!" Koishikawa-sensei laughs as they settle into their seats.

"He's such a stickler for the 'holistic dining experience'," Ryuko-san snarks as she blows bubbles into her champagne flute, which somehow became full despite no server coming around to top off her glass. "If he didn't seriously know his way around a kitchen, he'd be the most pretentious man in all of Japan."

"But do we expect anything less from the Devil himself?" Yuki-san comments with affection.

"'Devil'?"

All eyes turn to Nanase, who has ruined her ruse of pretending she deserves a spot at this table with one single word.

"You've never heard anyone call my brother 'the Devil'?" Ryuko-san asks with incredulity.

"How did you know Kairi, again?"

Maybe they'll have the grace to wait until she's out of earshot before they start laughing at her. "Actually, I don't…" she confesses to the confusion of every party. She bows her head again, a final introduction now that the whole table is seated. "I'm Sakura Nanase. I was invited tonight as a media correspondent. Please keep me in your favour."

Polite interest is a better response than she could have hoped for from the group. "Media correspondent, hm? Who are you affiliated with?"

"None of the big broadcasting stations. I run a food vlog on YouTube. A small one, really. I'm wondering as much as you are why I'm sitting here," she awkwardly says in an attempt to preempt the elephant at the table.

Surprisingly, Yuki-san perks up. "You're a YouTuber? What's your channel called? How many followers do you have? How many public watch hours have you accrued in the last 90 days?"

"Eh?"

"Sayoko-san works in public relations and media management, and it seems she just found her next client," Koishikawa-sensei observes with amusement.

"Or her next pet project, depending on how you look at it," Ryuko-san jokes.

Nanase is saved from having to react to Yuki-san's enthusiasm by the lights dimming once, twice. Chairs scrape the marble flooring as the lively atmosphere of the room settles in anticipation.

"Email me," Yuki-san stage whispers as she slides her business card across the table to Nanase's clammy hands. She accepts the card with a bow of her head, and that's all she has time for before a man in a fashionable long coat emerges from the sea of tables and stands in the centre of the room.

"Welcome, everyone. My name is Tendo Kairi, and I will be your chef for this evening."

Tendo-sensei spins in an unhurried circle to receive the audience's applause, and Nanase isn't ready at all.

She knew he was attractive, but this is just unreal. From his ear to his cheek to his entire profile, his face is revealed to her slowly like the moon waxing to fullness, and the impact is just as dazzling. Striking, even. Everything about him seems cut into precise angles for the express purpose of carving this moment into her memory forever.

By the time he fully faces her, she has stopped clapping entirely.

His eyes, like everything else about him, have a piercing quality that does not allow her to move, to think, to breathe—a state of suspension she can only experience because he is looking straight at her.

There is a flash of surprise before his expression settles back into a neutral smile of appreciation, and the moon wanes to new once again.

Just in time for her ears to recognise sound, the applause settles in anticipation of Tendo-sensei's next words.

"Thank you for joining me tonight for the first kaiseki dinner plan that I designed and cooked myself. For the experienced, I encourage you to wash away your expectations with your first cup of sake. This will not be your typical evening of seasonal acknowledgements and ceremonial formality. Instead, I chose to honour a different kind of nature tonight: human nature. The multisensory, once-in-a-lifetime aspect of a traditional kaiseki dinner will instead be provided by you all as the recipients of the meal. Every individual will have different reactions to each plate, and every table will have different discussions as a result. I look forward to hearing about them during the after-party, which will be held in the lobby following the final course."

Tendo-sensei speaks with candor and conciseness that somehow completely suits the image of him she didn't mean to build in her mind but has now anyway. There are no unnecessary inflections to his speech. Every intention is plainly stated. Neither breath nor word is wasted.

"Now, I will introduce you to the ha-to as I know it with our appetiser, a bean salad with orange vinaigrette. The beans were harvested in Chiba, and the oranges were farmed from Egypt. I hope you will enjoy it."

Tendo-sensei bows in the direction he happens to be facing, and that's the cue for waitstaff to surge into the room carrying trays of the first plate. By the time everyone has one, he is gone from the centre.

Koishikawa-sensei takes one look at his food and chuckles, only loud enough for their table to hear. Kisugi-san joins him not long later.

"What? What is it?" Ryuko-san asks eagerly, always ready to laugh at a good joke.

"The beans he chose are known for being high in soluble fiber," Kisugi-san explains. "In other words, it's good for the heart."

"Eh? I didn't know that! That's considerate," Nanase can't help but effuse.

"It helps to have two chefs at the table, doesn't it? We'll have the secrets to all of Kairi's dishes revealed by the end of each course. You should do an exposé on your vlog, Nanase-chan."

With Yuki-san's well-meaning tease, Nanase remembers she has a job to do. She really has to get herself together. She can't be distracted by attractive men and imposter syndrome. She's here for one thing and one thing only: good food.

"Ah, would anyone mind if I started filming? I'll keep the camera pointed at me and my food, and I can mute the microphone if it would make you more comfortable."

Ryuko-san leans over to look into the lens of the camera Nanase places on the table, tripod legs set low so that no one's vision is obstructed. "So you put your videos on the internet and then people watch them? If I'm in it, will I get famous?"

"Heh, not really. Only a few hundred people watch my vlogs regularly."

"That's a few hundred more people than who know me now! Please let me be in your video, Nanako-chan. Please, please, please." Ryuko-san bounces in her seat to underscore her insistence.

"I also don't mind being recorded. I trust you to edit out anything personal or unprofessional. Make me look good, okay?" Koishikawa-sensei says affably.

The rest of the table chimes in with their consent, and Nanase doesn't bother hiding the stars in her eyes. Tendo-sensei's friends and family are some of the most kind, easy-going people on earth.

She bows with appreciation then presses record on her camera.

"Itadakimasu!"

(When she reviews the night's footage later, the smile on her face at this moment is the happiest she's ever seen herself.)

---

As Yuki-san predicted, it is incredibly helpful to have two chefs around to explain the likely significance behind each course. After the appetiser, there are deep-fried brie wheels drizzled in honey ("high in cholesterol and certainly bad for your heart when eaten in excess"), steaming bowls of ochazuke with tuna roe and chunks of sun-dried pickled plum ("traditional comfort food in Kyoto—one bite and you'll see why"), and a shot of cod liver oil in between courses four and five ("high in omega-3's, but golly, low on taste"). There even is a serving of cow heart in what everyone hopes will be the only literal interpretation of the night's theme.

Nanase falls in love with every dish she tries—except the heart, admittedly, but she has always wanted to try animal heart, so she still loves that she got the opportunity. The magic of the menu is not just in their flavour profiles, but also in their mouthfeel.

Almost everyone has flavour preferences, but she didn't discover she had texture preferences until she started Rakkk Seben and wanted to describe the experience of eating to her viewers. She loves when food is so crispy that it reminds her of the first leaves of autumn; she loves surprise chewiness in an otherwise melt-in-your-mouth dish; she loves when there are beady foods like beans or tapioca because she likes organising them in between her teeth for an even bite.

The Ha-to menu manages to capture all of that and more in a delightful manifestation of everything she'd want to taste or experience in a gourmet dish. Each recipe has a way of bringing out the essence of each ingredient, so even the simplest of dishes are layered with complexity. It's the most decadent meal of her entire life, in more ways than one.

Every course is introduced by Tendo-sensei in his same straightforward, succinct tone. He usually describes the ingredients and sometimes an anecdote about the preparation, and Nanae revels in his appearances as much as she does in his food.

The company is equally as compelling. Koishikawa-sensei has been a warm presence ever since their first interaction. Kisugi-sensei—as she has started calling him in her mind ever since she learned he is a sous-chef at another fine dining establishment she is too poor to try—doesn't say much, but she learns a lot whenever he does. Ryuko-san and Yuki-san are the ones keeping the conversation lively, and they're good about including others in their banter. (By others, she does mainly mean herself.)

Throughout the evening, Ryuko-san is definitely the one Nanase ends up interacting with the most. The older woman keeps popping into the frame to wave at the camera and speaking to viewers like a natural vlogger, and it gives Nanase an idea.

After the cod liver oil, Ryuko-san—who works as a sake sommelier but considers herself proficient in all alcohols—wishes aloud that it were a shot of Cognac instead, and Nanase uses the opportunity to tentatively invite her as a guest in a future video where she recommends alcohol pairs for street foods and they try it together.

The evening proceeds exactly like that: Tendo-sensei introduces his next course, Nanase becomes a little bit more enamoured with him via his food, and the conversation at the table rarely stops. She is so glad she has a camera recording all of this; otherwise, she'd be worried that she dreamed everything.

The next time Tendo-sensei steps out, he announces, "This will be our final course for the night. For dessert, I present dorayaki made out of store-bought pancake mix and canned red bean paste."

The entire hall titters with confusion. After several plates of high quality ingredients and sophisticated cooking techniques, he's serving something a college student or perhaps a very independent four-year-old would make for a late-night snack?

Nanase sneaks glances at her seatmates with the hopes that one of Tendo-sensei's closest friends and family would have an innate understanding of logic behind this choice, but the table seems as surprised as the rest of the hall. In fact, Ryuko-san is full-on pouting with the loss of a delectable confection.

She looks back to Tendo-sensei, who hasn't bowed yet to end his speech. He isn't reveling in the confusion either, as she suspected he might. Someone like him wouldn't end the night so anticlimactically without a very good reason, and she has the passing thought that the reason is simple shock value.

Instead, he is just standing still, head hung low and microphone clutched in his hand like he is searching for the will, or the courage, to do something.

He is facing her side of the room. When he finally raises his head, there is melancholy shadowing his angled features. Nanase tries to remember if she could have recognised it before, if it was perhaps there the whole night, but her memories of his face are only cast in dazzlement.

"I do not like sweets, but dorayaki is my favourite dessert. Maybe it is only my favourite because it was what my wife used to make whenever she wanted to celebrate something. The thing is, anything was cause for celebration: doing the dishes she let pile up for a day too long, finishing a book I've been meaning to read, small things like that. It's a taste that I've personally come to associate with a warm smile and a happy home. A full heart, as it were… I probably would have had dorayaki later this evening if not for the fact that my wife passed away eight years ago."

The hall is silent. Even the distant clamour of metal against metal that has been intermittently slipping out from the kitchen has ceased. It is so quiet that Nanase fears her raging heartbeat will upset the solemnity of the moment.

"Of course, I had other ideas for tonight's dessert; but no matter what I planned, I kept thinking to myself, 'I still don't get to eat Minori's dorayaki by the end of the day…' But I can try."

He extends one arm outwards, and the waitstaff flood into the room with their giant trays balanced on their shoulders as they have done for every course. "This is her dorayaki, replicated as close as possible to how she used to make it," Tendo-sensei narrates as the diners receive their plates. "As you eat, I encourage you to think about your heart: who lives in it, where it is telling you to go, and how you will get there."

At the end of his speech, a waitstaff places his own plate on the palm of his outstretched hand. Tendo-sensei pockets his microphone and picks up the dessert. With an inaudible prayer, he takes a bite of the dorayaki. It is the first time he partook in his own menu all evening.

He is still facing her direction, but Nanase cannot clearly see his tears.

"Sakura-san, are you crying?"

"Is there anyone in this world who wouldn't cry upon seeing that?!" she defends while being a sniveling mess.

"Now, now," Koishikawa-sensei cuts in. "It's a moving story, no doubt. Here, clean yourself up, Sakura-chan,"—he offers her a handkerchief from his pocket—"and let's all enjoy the special dessert Tendo-kun prepared for us."

"Is this special? I could buy the same thing at the FamilyMart across the street, and it would probably taste better than this," Ryuko-laments even as she rips a bite out of her dorayaki.

"I will say, though, isn't it rather nostalgic?" Yuki-san muses with a slightly full mouth. "My parents made dorayaki for me when I was little, and it tasted a lot like this, clumpy batter and all."

"This was actually the first thing I ever learned to make," Kisugi-sensei says. "I was 5, and the Showa brand pancake mix had easy-to-follow instructions… Honestly, if I think about it, it's probably the moment that set me on a path towards culinary school."

"Maybe that's why dorayaki is my favourite dessert," Nanase murmurs. She doesn't really expect her tablemates to hear her; but when everyone's heads turn towards her, she is prepared to expand on her thought. "It's really easy to make, right? Simple, too. No one can mess it up. It would probably be more difficult to make it taste bad."

"You say that, Nanase-chan, but you also haven't seen me in the kitchen."

"There's a reason Sayako-san is the only one at the table unaffiliated with food," Koishikawa-sensei jokes.

"One time, she…"

Ryuko-san trails off from her story at the gradual hush that overcomes the event hall. Without prompting, the five of them turn towards the centre, where Tendo-sensei has since finished his dessert and has begun silently bowing to the guests. Once he finishes his round, he straightens and heads out to the lobby.

The table slowly turns to each other in confirmation before gathering their things.

The after-party has begun.

---

The good food doesn't stop at the after party. The finger foods, just sugar cookies and senbei, are refreshingly simple after the complex flavours from the kaiseki. Plus, they're cut into heart shapes! Nanase loves commitment to a gimmick.

The people at her table naturally split up after the dinner to catch up with other colleagues or people they happened to know, so Nanase was left to herself for the after party. She doesn't mind. She just takes some snacks to a spot out of people's way and enjoys the ambiance. When is she going to have a chance to attend something like this ever again?

"How was the dinner?" someone asks from her side.

"Nishi-kun! Did you not have any?!"

He laughs. "No, I did, but you're the food reviewer between the two of us. I wanted to hear from you."

"Well, it was amazing, of course," she effuses, hand demurely covering as she finishes chewing her cookie. "I have a lot I want to say, but all the words are just floating around in my head. I think I'm gonna be up all night just trying to make sense of my emotions."

"That good, huh?"

"The best."

"I'm really glad to hear it. Between you and me, I think Tendo-sensei was pretty nervous about how you'd react to the food."

Good thing she finished with her cookie or else she would have probably choked. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's hard to explain," Nishi-kun says as he crosses his arms, "but I was keeping my eye on you throughout the dinner—in case you needed something, you know—and he was always around. And he was always looking at your table."

Nanase lets out a relieved laugh. "Oh, you've got it all wrong. His sister and his mentor were at the table, too. He was probably checking for their reactions. Everyone at my table was actually really close to him. I'm pretty sure I ended up there as a mistake, or at the very least not on purpose."

He tilts his head to the side. "Tendo-sensei seems like the kind of guy who does everything on purpose, doesn't he?"

"Sure, but was he the one in charge of seating?" she retorts with raised eyebrows.

Nishi-kun scratches at his chin. "Now that, I don't know…"

She pats him on the arm, absolving him of the responsibility to continue the topic and indicating that she wants his attention for something else. "Speaking of Tendo-sensei, do you know if he's allowing interviews during the after party?"

Nishi-kun considers her request. "The after-party would be your best bet, but I can't say for sure he'll be able to do an interview."

They both turn to look at the small group praising Tendo-sensei for the evening and then to the line that's pseudo-forming behind them. The after-party wasn't supposed to be a meet and greet, but it's turning out that way. Nanase and Nishi-kun slowly meander to the ill-defined line, not really intending to join it but moving forward anyway as the queued guests finish their interactions with Tendo-sensei.

When they're a few turns away, someone breezes past the line and straight to the man of the hour.

"When can we go home, Kairi?"

"You can go home whenever you want. I'm still busy," he says with a gesture towards the next guest he meant to meet before Ryuko-san interrupted.

She looks over at the line with pout, which immediately brightens as soon as she sees Nanase in it. "Nanko-chan! What are you doing over there? Come here and meet my brother!"

"Eh?" Nanase casts a worried glance to the other people in line, who look at her with disdain or judgement. She is prepared to reject the older woman's well-meaning offer, but her hand pulling on Nanase's wrist won't let her. All she can do is grab Nishi-kun's wrist and drag him along too.

"Kairi, this is Nanako-chan! Thanks for putting her at our table; we got along great."

"Eh?" "It wasn't like that!"

Nanase had planned to avoid looking directly at Tendo-sensei's face, but this is the second time the seating arrangement has been brought up since the end of the dinner. She can't help but look up in verification of Ryuko-san's statement. (They may have just met, but she's proven herself to be a very authentic person. Nanase is inclined to take her word over Tendo-sensei's.)

Tendo-sensei, for his part, looks very agitated. "Listen," he says. "You were a party of four, and these tables seated five. We did that a lot, putting solo attendants wherever there was space. If you guys got along, it was pure luck."

Nanase nods to herself. That makes a lot of sense.

"Rakki Seben kind of luck?" Ryuko-san quips.

"Huh?"

"That's the name of her vlog! 'Rakki Seben'. Nanako-chan invited me on it, and Yuki's gonna be her manager."

Tendo-sensei whirls on her, and Nanase feels strangely chastised even though she didn't do anything wrong. "I don't know about the Yuki-san thing, but the rest of it is true. I run a YouTube channel. It's actually why I was invited tonight," she explains weakly in the face of his intense stare.

"Say, you should be in it, too, Kairi! Give her an interview or something she can use in her video."

That happens to be exactly what she wanted, but to receive it without her asking is rather overwhelming in the moment. "Only if you have the time! I don't even mind waiting until later in the night, if you're willing and not still busy," she hedges, but Ryuko-san speaks over her.

"You."

Nishi-kun looks around to make sure the finger pointing at him isn't meant to be pointing at someone very near him. "Me?"

"Can you drink alcohol?"

"I'm, um, I'm 25."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Y-Yes, I can drink alcohol."

"Let's go get some, then!"

Ryuko-san wraps her arm around his and leads him towards the open bar. Nishi-kun looks back at Nanase with equal parts fear and apology in his eyes, and she can do nothing but send him pitying looks in return.

"I have a bad feeling about that," Tendo-sensei comments lowly from beside her.

She hasn't known Nishi-kun for long, but she still confidently defends, "Don't worry. Nishi-kun is an absolute gentleman and won't do a single thing to Ryuko-san."

"He's not the one who gives me bad feelings." Before Nanase could unpack that, he turns to her with a raised eyebrow. "So, what's this about an interview?"

There is something on the tip of Nanase's tongue about pretending an interview was never mentioned and apologising for wasting his time, but her resolution from earlier in the evening makes a convenient reappearance in her mind. She won't let herself down, she won't let her viewers down, and she won't let her anonymous benefactor down either.

She bows ninety-degrees in a desperate attempt at professionalism. "Yes! I am Sakura Nanase, and I have a YouTube channel called Rakki Seben! I humbly request to interview you as part of the video review I will give about tonight's event!"

"'Nanase'?"

Hearing her first name said so admonishingly snaps her upright. "I only need five—no, three—minutes of your time!"

He spends a long moment staring at her, silent and discerning, and the state of suspension from earlier in the night is back. She almost can't feel the legs she's standing on.

"Let's get on with it, then."

He offers a polite bow to the guests who hadn't yet given up on the meet and greet line then heads for a door on the opposite side of the room. Nanase starts after him, backtracks to give the people in line a deeper bow because it felt wrong to leave without doing that, then hurries to make up for the lost seconds. When she bursts through the door she saw Tendo-sensei heading towards, she finds that she entered a quiet service hallway.

Quiet because there is no one else there but her and Tendo-sensei. She gulps. "Right, well. Just, um, you can stand over there—or really, wherever you want—and um, I'll stand over… Here. I'll stand over here." She adjusts her camera on its tripod with shaky fingers, and it takes her three tries to turn it on. "Okay, start whenever you're ready… End whenever you're ready, too," she hastily adds.

Tendo-sensei leans against the wall behind him and crosses his arms. "And what would you like to know?"

Why was I invited? is the first question that pops into her head, but she physically shakes it out of her mind. She does have a real question she wanted to ask him, and she only has one shot at this. "Could you talk about the inspiration behind your courses? Except for the dessert, you mostly talked about the ingredients or the recipes. The guests at my table made guesses about why you made what you made—like, it's good for the heart, or it's bad for the heart—but why did you choose to make those recipes over other recipes that would have maybe expressed a similar statement?"

He quirks one eyebrow at her. "Sounds like you'll need more than three minutes of my time, Sakura-san."

Crap, he's right. She should have thought of that. She's so embarrassing. "No, I won't!" she maintains. "I have other questions! Like, uh… Which was your favourite course to work on and why?"

She grimaces. It's a really basic question, not at all on par with the kind of journalism that some of the other media correspondents would have pulled off if they were in her position. In fact, she can even hazard a guess at what his response would be… but it can be answered in three minutes or less, which is all that matters.

He turns his head to face down the hallway, his handsome face impassive yet undeniably radiating annoyance. She tries to ignore the silly worry that she has somehow disappointed him in favour of coming up with a better three-minute question, but then he says, "The dessert, of course, but you already knew that."

Agreeing with him is probably the right answer, but it also makes the fact that she asked the question at all look rather foolish, so she doesn't say anything.

He sighs then faces her again. "I'll start with the appetiser, then."

She wince. "Thanks for keeping me in your favour," she says with self-recrimination.

He offers her a hum of acknowledgement but nothing more on the topic of his time. "Beans are a natural choice to suit the Ha-to theme, but they're a versatile ingredient that could have appeared in any course. Rather than saying they best suited the appetiser, it was more like no other ingredient I wanted would…"

As he expounds upon his thought process and menu development, Nanase feels her superficial crush on the man developing into something a lot more substantial. He's so diligent and intelligent and magnificent.

Nothing like her, who was so nervous about filming the interview that she forgot to set the white balance before it was too late.

Everytime she glances down at her camera view to make sure her shaky hands haven't moved Tendo-sensei out of frame, she could perceive slight differences in colour temperature on the screen. She had hopes that the lighting of the hallway would help keep it more-or-less consistent, but that was evidently too optimistic.

She's pretty bad about adjusting levels in her video editing software, but she can probably just put some apologetic text on screen asking Sebentous for their understanding. It's not like asking him to start over is an option.

"Is my explanation not what you wanted to hear?" Tendo-sensei's harsh voice cuts through her internal monologue.

Her head snaps up. "What? Of course not! I'm so grateful for your insights! Cow hearts over fish was an inspired choice!"

"Then what's with that face? You look… dissatisfied."

Great. On top of incompetent, he must also think she's ungrateful. "I'm very sorry about that. I can… I can wear a mask?"

He looks at her with so much exasperation that she thinks that a bow may not be enough. A full on dogeza in this dress would be awkward, but not undoable.

"Forget it. If you're going to say stupid things, I'm just going to go." With a dramatic flutter of his coat, he stalks towards the lobby.

"It's the white balance!" she blurts out before he could reach the door. The truth is unfortunately another stupid thing, but hopefully explaining herself will at least prevent his opinion of her from getting worse.

It works, for the most part. He stops abruptly and whirls to face her with an unimpressed "Huh?"

She hesitates for just a second before scuttling over to him, camera outstretched so he could see what she's talking about. "I don't know how much you know about videography, but there's this thing called white balance, and…" Whether it's his stare or her hypersensitivity, she could sense that her rambling is losing more favour than it's gaining, so she switches priorities. "Basically, the footage we just shot is usable, but bad."

"Can you fix it?"

"Yeah, it's really easy! All I have do is—"

"Do it. I don't have time to repeat everything I was saying, so I'm just going to answer your dessert question."

That is so okay with her. She's lucky he's even giving her a second chance. "Thank you so much!" She stops the current recording, diligently checks the white balance and aperture and other settings she neglected the first time around, and starts a new file. "Alright, we're rolling," she says as lifts the camera up. "So, sensei, what was your favourite course to work on and—why…?"

She looks quizzically up at Tendo-sensei, who has gotten close enough and lowered the camera enough to indicate that he isn't quite ready to record.

"I've done a lot of talking tonight. I think it's your turn, Sakura-san."

Too bad Tendo-sensei looks so mind-numbingly attractive right now that it makes her forget she knows Japanese.

"Did you enjoy the dinner?"

She nods incessantly.

"Which was your favourite course?"

"All of them." It's not even a question.

His upper lip curls a little in distaste. Her self-preservation isn't strong enough to ignore the flash of white teeth that's revealed. "Why?"

She loves each of them for their own reasons, of course, but one thing they undeniably have in common is that, "They were all things that I like eating."

Tendo-sensei tsks, steps away. "Aren't you a food vlogger? Can't you do better than that?"

Between his reprimanding words and lack of proximity, the daze she was stumbling through clears enough to give her back access to her pride. "Of course! I just… needed to collect my thoughts."

He walks backwards and leans on the wall again, and pieces of the voiceover script she was writing in her mind the whole night helpfully organise themselves into something intelligible.

"I often highlight the mouthfeel of the foods I eat to my viewers, and I really enjoyed the textures of your dishes. Even though each course was consumed individually, I think they would have also worked really well together if they came out all at once like they do in Korean restaurants because of the diversity. Coupled with the different flavour profiles that you created, it was a complete fulfilment of the senses, and I am very grateful that I was invited to experience it."

She punctuates her spiel with a decisive nod, feeling confident and articulate and insightful… but the way Tendo-sensei is only looking at her is slowly making her question that self-assessment. He hasn't reacted, positively or negatively. Maybe he regrets asking for her opinion at all.

"Right, well—"

"—Anything special to say about the dorayaki?"

"Hm?"

He crosses his arms and looks away for a moment, tapping his shoe mindlessly against the linoleum floor. "One of your vlogs said that it's your favourite," he gets out after a few more beats. "The Odaiba one."

She knows what he's talking about, sort of. She does have a vlog where she went out to Odaiba to enjoy lunch on the bay on a nice late-winter day, but she doesn't particularly remember talking about dorayaki in that one. Nor does she know why Tendo-sensei, of all people, would know that, unless…

"You watched my videos?"

"Video. Single," he scoffs as he straightens out from his not-quite-insecure hunch. If she didn't witness him crying nearly thirty minutes ago, she would think that Tendo-sensei's face only has two settings: neutral and unimpressed. "And of course, I did. You're a nobody YouTuber, and this is the biggest professional achievement of my life. You weren't going to be invited without being personally vetted by me."

Now would be the perfect time to ask him why she was invited at all, but an event staff bursts through the hallway door at that moment. "There you are, Tendo-sensei! We've been looking all over for you. You're needed back out in the lobby."

He nods in acknowledgement. "I'll be there in a few minutes. I need to finish my interview first."

Nanase is still facing the staff member, prepared to apologise for keeping Tendo-sensei from his responsibilities, which is how she can see the confused look on their face before they bow and retreat.

She turns back to Tendo-sensei to give him one last chance to back out of having to give her any more of his time, but he's standing up straight and fixing the collar on his coat to prepare for the take. Whatever opportunity to react to anything that happened in the last ninety seconds is long gone.

Indeed, she's here for an interview with Tendo-sensei. She should just get this over with. She's been on edge all night, and this is the last thing she needs to do before she can go home and still be satisfied with how she handled the evening.

Ordinarily, she'd give herself a quick slap on both cheeks to fortify her resolve, but she's made enough of a fool of herself tonight in front of the no-nonsense chef. She has to settle for checking the settings on her camera one more time.

Okay, she can do this. "So, sensei, what was your favourite course to work on, and why?"

---

A/N (7.16.2023): Second chapter is the last one! It's already complete, I'll upload it in another week. :)