#isabella study freebies

[wishingforatypewriter]

The Fated Encounter (Portraits of 119)

Summary: Maria Aldini, the daughter of Takumi and Megumi, meets a handsome stranger over her summer break. 

Maria Aldini shielded her eyes from the Florentine sun. There were only thirty minutes left before Dolce closed for the day, and the line at her gelato stand was winding around the block. 

The owner of the sweets shop usually had no patience for children, and told her as much when she first asked to apprentice under him, but her father had used his connections to get her the summer job. 

Maria hadn’t asked him to do this; she was content with just helping out at the trattoria. But her father had insisted that the experience would help her in school, and as a distinguished alumnus, Chef Takumi Aldini would definitely know. 

She knew that he was right, of course, but if she had her way, she’d never go back to Totsuki.

Things were going to get a lot worse when high school started in a few weeks. Hayama-san would set out to destroy her on principle, and Isabella was still fuming about their shokugeki. She had barely spoken to Maria all summer outside of required communication in the kitchen of the trattoria. 

Sometimes after they finished a dish or briefed the staff together, Maria would start to think she and her cousin were on good terms again. But then, without fail, Isabella would retreat to the guest bedroom to Skype with Sumire and Akane, or slip out the back door to entertain one of her boyfriends. 

Maria shook the thoughts from her head and focused on serving the gelato and chatting with the customers. She put an extra scoop of stracciatella in the cup of a little girl with glasses who reminded her of Yuna. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a boy about her age pondering over a map. He was handsome, blond, well dressed—the type of guy she could see on the arm of someone glamorous. Without warning, the thought made her insides go cold.

When the last customer was gone, he approached her. “Scusi signorina.”

Maria smiled a bit; the pronunciation was better than what most tourists could manage, but cute guy definitely did not know Italian. Her blue eyes flitted to the map he was holding. “I speak Japanese,” she told him.

“Do you know a place called Trattoria Aldini?” he asked. “My pops said I couldn’t leave Italy without trying the food there.” 

“Your father knows what he’s talking about,” she replied with a proud smile. “The trattoria is a twenty minute walk from here. Give me a second to close up shop, and I’ll take you there.”

“Thanks,” the boy said. “I owe you one.” 

“Don’t mention it. We foodies have to stick together.” 

Maria emerged from the sweets shop ten minutes later with a cup of gelato in each hand. “White chocolate matcha or dark chocolate cayenne?” 

He took the matcha, and Maria grinned because the dark chocolate had always been her favorite. 

“Do you always take freebies from your job?” he asked, noting the huge tub of gelato sticking out from her messenger bag. 

“Everything we don’t sell or eat gets thrown away,” she explained. “Besides, these two flavors are my intellectual property.” 

“Wait, really?” he said, looking down at his cup. 

Maria shrugged. “The owner decided to give my recipes a try, and they got really popular with the customers, so…”  

“That’s insane,” he told her. “It takes some chefs decades to harmonize such distinct flavors. The macadamia milk really ties it all together.” 

Maria’s eyes narrowed then. Not even the owner of Dolce had figured out her secret ingredient. “How could you possibly know that?” 

“Lucky guess?” The boy shrugged. “So, do you wanna be a pastry chef someday?”

She nodded her head. “That’s what I’m studying at Totsuki,” she explained. “Oh, you probably don’t know. It’s a culinary school in-” 

“I know Totsuki,” he assured, and Maria noticed him giving her a once-over. Unconsciously, she tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “What do you think of it?” 

“I’m grateful for the education I’m getting; there’s really nothing like it…” Maria trailed off and she knew that she was probably making a face. 

The boy laughed. “But?” he asked.

“But most of the students are awful,” she finished. “There are a couple of super rich legacy kids who think they own the academy, and then a whole flock of people trying to curry favor with them.”

“From what I’ve heard, it’s always been like that,” the boy told her. “That’s why I never wanted to go. But it sounds like you manage to stay above it all.” 

“I wish!” Maria laughed. “Last year I ended up making some really powerful enemies.”

The boy looked at her incredulously. “You have enemies?”  

“Why is that so hard to believe?” 

“I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his head. “You seem likable.” 

“Thanks,” she said. “At the academy there’s this one girl, Hayama-san. She’s the best chef in the 119th generation, hands down, and most of the talented students in our year work for her.” 

The boy’s facial expression was surprisingly neutral. “How’d you manage to piss her off?” 

“Just listen to the story,” Maria said with a playful sigh. “My cousin, Bella, is best friends with her, so when I first transferred into the academy I hung out with them a lot. I even got to live in the Nakiri Mansion. But when I realized how they treated people, taking over research societies and monopolizing cooking spaces to increase their influence, it didn’t sit right with me. I broke ties with them and moved into a dorm on campus.” 

“They hate you just for that?”

“It doesn’t end there,” she explained. “When I first moved into the dorm, a lot of people were skeptical of me because my cousin had terrorized them. One of the first people to be friendly with me, Yuna, is part of an RS the Hayama Faction decided it wanted. She was so torn up about the whole thing that I challenged Hayama-san to a shokugeki in order to save it. But she only accepts challenges from upperclassmen, so the person I ended up facing was my cousin.”

The boy smirked. “And you destroyed her.” 

“3-0.” A mischievous glint flickered in Maria’s eyes. She had never allowed herself to enjoy the victory. “Neither one of them is going to take the loss. Bella is too prideful, and Hayama-san’s too type-A. They’re going to come after me.” 

“Without a doubt,” the boy said, as if he knew this for a fact. “So what are you going to do about it?” 

“Get stronger,” Maria said. “Enough to protect myself and my friends and the Polar Star. All I want is to graduate in one piece.” 

“Why stop there?” he asked her. “Go for the first seat; flip the power structure, if that’s what you want.”  

“If you were a student there, you’d know that’s impossible.” Maria rounded a street corner and the trattoria came into sight. “Well, this is it,” she told him. “You can take a seat anywhere, but I have help out in the kitchen.” 

The boy blinked once, twice. “You work here too?” he asked. “How many jobs do you have?”

She laughed. “If you had asked for my name, I would have told you that it’s Maria Aldini.” She extended her right hand. 

“Raiden.” He took it, shook it, and Maria felt an electric current run through her. “Can I see you again?” he asked after a pause. 

“Come back after closing,” she told him. “I’ll be waiting out front.”

Maria knew without looking that his lilac eyes had followed her all the way back to the kitchen. 

#sorina #soueri #takumegu #shokugeki no soma #119th generation #maria aldini #yukihira raiden