Oui, Chef!

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT SUPPORT THE FRE- oh let’s just get on with it.

She's just standing there at the pass, with her damn tweezers and a chive and you're pissed at her.

It's not like it's unwarranted, really. Take 10 minutes ago: you brought her the cod, skin seared and crispy. "Overdone," she said simply, as if you should've known better, barely even looking up from the plate.

Or like, earlier in the day during prep, when: she went to a commis, little tasting spoon in hand. "More salt," Chef Kazuha had said, tasting.

Did she not know you were her sous chef? Did she not trust you to know when a dish needed more fucking salt? You were just getting around to tasting it! Then you could've told the commis yourself to add salt. But no, she had to do it herself.

Maybe it’s just the heat of the kitchen, the cooks yelling 'heard!', and 'oui!', the oil and the grime, but Chef Kazuha was always like that. Just a couple of words, never too many. A 'not done' here, or a 'do it again' there. It didn't make it better her voice was so soft, not loud and rough like the sizzle of meat on the grill. You couldn't even compare it to the bubbling of the pasta water you had to constantly refill on busy nights like this.

It’s just, simple, her voice. But commanding in all the ways that mattered, because she's the Chef. So, "oui, Chef," is what you always say, even when she does piss you off.

But today, it's valentines day, and you're slammed. Your line cooks are slipping, and you know a mistake anywhere on the line is going to push whole tables back by minutes. Minutes you don't have. So it's the last thing you need for Chef Kazuha to leave the pass, come on the line and help you help your line cooks. Which, incidentally, is exactly what she seems to be doing.

And it's not a bad thing, actually. None of it is, not the quiet disproval, or the soft corrections. It's the fact you know you can do it, and you're desperate to prove yourself capable. But, quite clearly, Kazuha doesn't think you are.

So you hold your tongue as she hops onto the line, and it's just a thought, really, but maybe you're in the wrong. Because, if you're being honest, that piece of cod you gave her was overdone, albeit slightly. And since you're admitting things, yeah, you should've checked that commis's prep for salt, even though someone in a kitchen as esteemed as this should know how to season their fucking food.

Yeah, maybe you do have problems, something bubbling under the surface, like the pasta water - you'll let yourself similize the boiling to this at least.

"I'm jumping on the line," she says in that deathly calm voice, and it's weird because your sauce is splitting, oil rising to the surface of your pan, but it's fine, because it reminds you of the way Chef Kazuha's hair splits on her forehead under her Chef's hat (which is a weird thought for someone you claim to hate), or the way she splits through the chaos of the kitchen with ease.

Fuck, the sauce. It's bubbling. Okay, lower the heat, you think while tossing the pan, which is pretty fucking hard when the youngest 3-michelin star chef ever has just jumped onto the line. The heat's always on in her kitchen.

The change is palpable, and it pains you to admit it, but the way she steadies her hands, takes a deep breath before igniting whatever it is inside of her that can cook so well is damn impressive. She's a station away from you, helping the new commis with garnish - easiest fucking job on the line, but alas, he needs help - and she looks so damn focused. Every movement is calculated, the slice of her knife, the way she folds butter into mashed potatoes, it's all so precise. And, now another admission: you've seen all that a million times - what you really look at now is her eyes. They're usually large, and maybe a bit expressive, at least when she's not quitely telling you 'not good enough'. But now, in the heat, they're dialled in, focused, brown and attentive.

Sometimes her eyebrows flicker, beads of sweat rolling down her forehead, and you think: she should probably wipe that, but only because if it were to end up on a customers plate, you could lose a star, and it was always your dream to work at a 3-michelin restaurant. And you wouldn't want that, because despite her stoney attitude, you know she's brilliant, and she's pretty much taught you everything you know.

So, really, maybe you're not pissed at her, just caught up in the rush. But then, just as fast as she gets on the line, she finishes three dishes, and is heading to your station.

"Behind," she says squeakily, which is odd coming from her mouth - until of course you realize the squeaks are coming from your shoes, sliding all about as she comes to you.

The anger is back just like that. Because, again, you're the sous chef, and you're helping out the bulky saucier that hasn't put out an emulsified sauce all night (which is harsh, considering you just split a sauce getting lost in Chef Kazuha's eyes cooking ability). This is your job, your responsibility, and she's walking all over you like she thinks you can't handle the pressure.

She's right next to you, monter au beurring with absolute precision, and you think back, back to when you were a budding stagiere, excited for even the chance to work at Tenshi. It was grueling, 14 hour shifts, sweat, burns and salt. You worked your ass off, learning everything you could. You were a sponge, soaking up everything she had to teach you. You remember seeing her for the first time - your second day on the job, peeling oranges. She was different then. You thought she was amazing. You still do, really, but in a different way. Before she was brilliant, innovative, inspiring. Now, after being saturated and rung out time and time again, you know it's her frigid diligence, her steely ambition, her calmnesss that got her where she is.

You can see it now, in the way her sleeve is rolled up just below her elbow so you can see her forearm flex as she agitates the sauce in the pan, or the way she finally does wipe that bead of sweat off of her forehead, but now there's one climbing down the sharp angle of her jaw.

"Your sauce is splitting, Chef. Behind," she tells, walking back to the pass with 3 perfectly glossy sauces. Yeah, 2 sauce pots in one hand, and she's walking with ease. She could walk a runway in Paris, but instead she opened a restaurant so she could exacerbate your imposter syndrome everytime she was in the kitchen. And you know your sauce is splitting, it's fucking obvious, and now you're mad at two things: Kazuha, for pointing it out; and Kazuha again, because as you look at the tickets you realize the third saucepot she was holding was a replacement for yours.

Fucking valentines day. About 70 things go wrong, 60 of them fixed by your chef. And it sucks, because it's already another valentines day you spend cooking for couples only to go home and sleep alone, but also because you're the sous chef, and you don't feel like you're making an impact in this kitchen. Here or not, Kazuha would still have 3 stars. And you want to mean something to the kitchen.

But it's breakdown and it's late as fuck and you cannot wait to climb into your bed because you're tired and frankly still annoyed at Kazuha, even though you've probably come to terms with the fact that, yeah, maybe you do have some issues. You're thinking this when Kazuha approaches you, chef whites still pristine, and you're ticked off again before she asks: "can you stay late?"

The question catches you off guard because, for one, it's valentines day. She should be off with Chef Mory Sacko, or Carmen Berrzatto, or any of the other million young handsome chefs around her age, with a bottle of wine and horror stories about their front of house managers.

But instead she's standing in front of you, asking you to stay late on valentines day, and when you turn to look at her, there's expectancy in her eyes, like: "I know you don't have plans anyway". But she doesn't say that, she says "I want your opinions on the spring menu," and it startles you, because that's probably the longest sentence she's said to you in weeks, but also because Chef Kazuha usually perfects dishes alone before she asks her staff for opinions, it's just the way she operates. But she's here now, asking you to be apart of the process.

The kitchen is mostly empty now, save for you, going over inventory, and a couple dishwashers, and you think there couldn't be a worse valentines day plan than to spend it with your asshole (well, maybe steely is a better word, but you don't care about the semantics right now) boss, but then again, picking the brains of the best chef in the world is as invaluable to your career as it sounds.

So you spend your valentines night sitting in front of one those old squeaky roll out whiteboards - except this one isn't squeaky, because nothing in this kitchen is, except for maybe your shoes when Kazuha approaches you. Eventually the dishwashers leave, leaving the kitchen empty.

"This spring, I want to go with the concept of resilience for our menu," Kazuha says, and her eyes don't seem dialed anymore. Instead, you're reminded of her brilliance and her passion, because her eyes light up, and you almost stutter when she turns to look at you. Which is weird, because it really looks like she's asking for your opinion on the menu.

"Resilience?" You repeat, and it sounds awfully dense coming out of your mouth.

"Yeah, I think like - the world bouncing back. After the winter."

It doesn't really make sense to you, the concept, and it's even more confusing how she wants to turn this into a food menu, but you nod your head anyway.

She writes down Resilience in the middle of the whiteboard in perfect font, nothing out of place, just like her brunoise.

"We could really focus on the freshness of…" she trails off, and you're left thinking your input matters fuckall, because you haven't provided one piece of useful input. "… we can use the scraps we'd usually save for staff meal, and elevate them, 'cause, you know, resilience!" She says, and yeah, if you were to write down what she said on a piece of paper, you would add an exclamation point. Chef Kazuha just exclaimed. She has this expression on her face you can't quite place, because it's not really a smile, just the echo of it, but it makes your heart skip a beat, and this time not because you're pissed at her.

She looks at you expectantly. "Yeah, that, umm, that sounds brilliant," you say, and maybe the concept is dawning on you, but you're stuttering because that damn half-smile she has makes her eyebrows perk up, kind of accentuates the angle of her jaw.

"Yeah?" She asks. She's so fucking different when service isn't happening, or about to happen.

"Yeah, it-it's great. I think it's great."

She gives you a appraising look, and she unties her fucking hair. It's valentines day and you're alone with Chef Kazuha and she lets down her hair, which is insane because this is a kitchen, and hair is a code-red-times-a-million. It flows down like silk, and you can't help but notice how the strands fall to her shoulders like waterfalls, how it falls down past her shoulders, which is new information, because you've never seen her with her hair down. How she's so damn pretty, even if she is when her hair's up too, so you don't know why you were expecting anything different. "Great. Give me a dish."

"What?"

"Think of a dish!" And she's really fucking smiling, you've never seen her so excited, and you think, man, she really loves food.

"Like, to serve on the spring menu?"

She gives a nod. "I trust you," she says simply.

She trusts me? That doesn't sound right. But you're stunned, and this is an opportunity to do what you've always wanted, to have an impact at a restaurant worth cooking at,

"But-" the words catch on your mouth. "But what if I fuck it up?" You blurt.

Her eyes find yours, and you're cursing her for letting her hair down because you're pretty sure your cheeks are burning hot and red. "I won't let you," she says.

The words feel like a gust of wind has blown every memory you had right under a lamp post. I won't let you. It echoes like a ripple through every encounter you've ever had with her: the 'no's', the 'do it again's', even the 'it's not fucking ready's' she saves when things really get heated. And your knees are weak, but she's still looking at you expectantly.

You can't look at her in the eyes, so you look away, but it works in your favour, because she smiles, probably thinking you're thinking of a dish.

And you do, eventually, but it's more than a dish, and you don't know if you're overstepping. "What if we do a tasting menu - go through all the different techniques humans have discovered over the years, you know, to persevere?"

Kazuha thinks for a moment. "That… that could work." She admits.

"Yeah," you say, and you too are getting excited, because at the heart of it, you're just like Kazuha in that you fucking love food. "We can highlight curing, confiting, pickling and fermentation! It really shows that life is-"

"Resilient."