The doorknob turned with the slow, deliberate rotation of a guillotine being readied. It was a high-end, German-engineered mechanism, moving with a silken, terrifying smoothness that promised no hope of jamming or sticking. Each degree of its rotation was a separate tick on the clock of their impending doom.
Sato, with the silent, boneless grace of a shadow, slid under the massive marble desk. She coiled herself into an impossibly small space between the mahogany modesty panel and a thick bundle of computer cables, her body disappearing into the darkness as if she were made of it. Kenji, possessing none of her feline grace, was a study in pure, unadulterated animal panic. His mind, a frantic Rolodex of failed options, landed on the only possible hiding spot: a tall, imposing supply cabinet in the corner of the room. It was probably locked. It probably had an alarm. He didn't care.
He dove for it. It was less a calculated move and more a full-body lunge born of sheer terror. His shoulder connected with the polished wood with a muffled thud. By some miracle, the door wasn't locked. He tumbled inside, pulling the heavy door shut just as the main office door swung open. He found himself entombed in a space that smelled powerfully of expensive paper and printer toner. He was crammed between towering stacks of A4 letterhead and boxes of what felt like extremely heavy, very angular toner cartridges. He pressed his eye to the tiny crack where the cabinet doors met, his heart hammering a frantic drum solo against his ribs.
The figure that swept into the room was not one of Ayame's black-suited security goons. It was not Chef Ayame herself, returning for a forgotten file. It was, somehow, so much worse.
It was Monsieur Pierre.
The flamboyant food critic did not seem to notice the new, janitor-shaped lump of shadow under the desk, nor did he hear the frantic, ragged breathing coming from the stationery cabinet. He was in his own world, a planet of pure theatricality that orbited a sun of his own ego. He strode into the center of the room, his magnificent purple cravat flowing behind him like a royal standard.
"Mon Dieu!" he sighed, a sound that was less an exclamation and more a performance for an unseen audience.
He began to pace the length of the office, his expensive leather shoes clicking softly on the marble floor.
"The passion! The conflict! The unbridled, glorious, messy soul! The boy Ren, he is not merely cooking a curry; he is staging a rebellion on a plate! It is a primal scream rendered in cumin and coriander! An aria of onions, a crescendo of pork! It is magnificent! But is it cuisine?"
He paused dramatically, striking a pose, one hand on his hip, the other stroking his chin as he gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling.
"Or is it simply a delicious, bourgeois tantrum? Does true art require discipline? Or does it require this… this beautiful, untamed rage? The question is as old as the first fire that cooked the first mammoth!"
Through the crack in the door, Kenji watched the download bar on the computer screen. 62%. It was mocking him, crawling along at a snail's pace. A bead of sweat, dislodged by a slight movement, traced a cold path down his temple and into his eye. It stung. He blinked furiously, trying not to make a sound. A box of toner cartridges dug sharply into his kidney.
"And Takahashi," Monsieur Pierre continued, now gesturing to an imaginary Kenji who was clearly standing in the middle of the room, basking in the critic's attention.
"The silent master of the void. The philosopher-king of the fallen cake. The man who serves not a dish, but a question mark wrapped in an enigma. What would he say? Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that magnificent, chaotic mind! Would he praise the boy's reckless heart? Or would he dismiss it as a crude, unsophisticated expression, lacking the sublime, intellectual poetry of his own foundational cake? Would he see Ren's curry as a fellow traveler on the road of rebellion, or as a childish outburst next to his own quiet, profound nihilism?"
The progress bar hit 75%. From his cramped, toner-scented prison, Kenji could hear Sato's breathing, a slow, controlled rhythm that stood in stark contrast to his own frantic hyperventilating. He knew she was thinking, processing, formulating a plan. Direct confrontation was impossible. They couldn't reveal themselves. They needed him out of the room, and they needed him out now.
Sato, coiled like a spring under the desk, slowly, millimeter by millimeter, retrieved her burner phone. She had already, during her initial intel sweep, cloned the digital signature of the academy's main reception switchboard. It was a contingency for a contingency. She quickly typed in Monsieur Pierre's publicly listed contact number, spoofed the caller ID, and initiated the call.
Monsieur Pierre's pocket began to vibrate, playing a loud, custom ringtone that sounded suspiciously like a remix of "O Fortuna" with a techno beat. He looked down at his phone, his philosophical reverie broken, his expression one of profound annoyance.
"Allo? Pierre speaking. This had better be a matter of life, death, or a last-minute reservation at a three-star restaurant."
Sato, cupping the phone, activated a voice modulator app, setting it to the harried, slightly reedy tone of an overworked administrative assistant.
"Monsieur Pierre? Oh, thank heavens! This is Marcy from the front reception! I am so, so sorry to bother you during a moment of profound artistic judgment, I'm sure, but there is a situation! Your car, the magnificent purple one? The one that a student told me is named 'Amélie'? It appears to be getting ticketed! Vigorously!"
Monsieur Pierre's face, which had been a mask of intellectual contemplation, transformed into one of pure, unadulterated horror.
"Ticketed? Sacré bleu! On what grounds?"
"Well, this is the confusing part, Monsieur," Sato ad-libbed, her voice rising in pitch to convey administrative panic.
"The officer is saying it's a… a 'cravat-based parking violation'? He claims the vehicle is, and I quote, 'parked with an excessive and flamboyant disregard for established lane markers.' I tried to explain that you are a guest of honor, but he just muttered something about the law being blind to both fame and fashion."
"The philistines! The uncultured swine!" Monsieur Pierre shrieked, his voice cracking with indignation.
"My Amélie! She is not parked! She is presented! This room… this room has lost its inspirational mojo! The vibrations are all wrong now! I must go! I must defend the honor of my automobile and my neckwear!"
He swept out of the office as dramatically as he had entered, a whirlwind of purple silk and righteous fury, leaving a blessed, beautiful silence in his wake.
The moment the door clicked shut, Kenji tumbled out of the cabinet, covered in a fine, grey layer of toner dust and smelling faintly of ozone. He looked like a man who had just lost a fight with an office supply store.
Sato slid out from under the desk, a ghost re-emerging into the world of light. She was already at the computer, her fingers a blur. Just as she yanked the flash drive from its port, the screen flashed with a beautiful, final message:
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.
"'Cravat-based parking violation'?" Kenji whispered, trying to brush the toner from his coat, which only served to smear it into a modern art pattern.
"You have to admit," Sato replied, pocketing the drive, her eyes gleaming with professional satisfaction, "it was plausible for him."
She pointed toward the door.
"Now, let's go. Your public awaits your judgment."
They slipped out of the office and made their way back toward the auditorium through the labyrinthine service corridors. As Kenji approached the stage entrance, he could hear the roar of the crowd and the frantic, excited voices of the judges. He took a deep breath, straightened his dusty coat as best he could, and strode out into the blinding spotlights, back into the role he was beginning to hate with every fiber of his being.
The crowd gasped as he appeared. He ignored them. He ignored the judges. He walked with a singular purpose directly to Ren's station. There sat the plate of katsu kare. It was a mess. The sauce had splattered slightly on the rim of the plate. The pork cutlet was leaning at a jaunty, imperfect angle. But it smelled glorious. It smelled like defiance. It smelled like home.
Without a word, Kenji picked up a clean spoon from the station. The cameras zoomed in, projecting his face onto the giant screen behind the stage. He dipped the spoon into the rich, dark curry, scooping up a piece of carrot and a bit of the crispy pork. He lifted it to his mouth and took a bite.
He chewed slowly, deliberately, his face a perfect mask of unreadable contemplation. The entire auditorium, a thousand people, held its breath. Ren watched him, his face pale, looking like he was about to faint.
Kenji swallowed. He looked at Ren. He looked out at the sea of faces. Then, he gave a single, slow, solemn nod of approval.
The auditorium exploded. It was a sound he would never forget, a roar of pure, cathartic joy.
"He approves!" someone shrieked from the balcony.
"The master has validated the student's rebellion!"
Chef Morimoto, who had been watching the exchange with an intense, analytical gaze, slammed her hand on the table.
"The verdict is clear!" she announced, her voice booming over the din.
"One dish was a perfect sentence from a book we have all read. The other… The other was the first line of a new, exciting, and dangerous poem! The winner is Suzuki Ren!"
Ren stared, tears welling in his eyes, as his name was announced. He had won. He had cooked from his broken, messy, confused heart, and he had won. It was a victory over Ayame, over the Cerebralax, over the machine she had tried to turn him into. And it was all because a dusty, exhausted, fraudulent spy in a chef's coat had given him a thumbs-up. The blow to Ayame's ideology, Kenji knew, was seismic. And somewhere in the front row, she was watching it all burn down.