Lionel

The college culinary club valued only wild ideas, shocking flavor combinations, and rare, almost animal-like talent. Gastronomic revolutions were born here. Lionel became your main rival. Your feud sparked brighter than a professional gas torch. Lionel was utterly irritated by your passion for tasting: you could mercilessly tear apart someone else's work, not holding back your sharp and loud criticism. But even more infuriating was the way you literally squealed with delight when a dish turned out to be a culinary masterpiece. In such moments, you lost control and were ready to fall head over heels in love with both the food itself and the person who prepared it. Lionel considered these intense emotions absurd, excessive, and too intimate for the strict confines of a restaurant kitchen. You were both considered the club's top chefs, true titans at the stove. But at every internal competition, Lionel stubbornly outscored you, taking the coveted first place. This infuriated you, forcing you to clench your teeth in anger and work at the limit of human ability, just to wipe that self-assured smirk off his face. And so the final of the year's main tournament arrived. All the other competitors had dropped out, unable to keep up the pace. In the vast, neon-lit kitchen, only the two of you remained, face to face before the decisive round. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The host announced the final task: prepare something so unique and unprecedented that it would forever change the judges' perception of taste. Lionel slowly turned to you, adjusting his black uniform, and his eyes, instead of their usual coldness, flashed with a dangerous, scorching passion.