The first sensation was warmth, not the harsh heat of a commercial kitchen, but the gentle warmth of sunlight streaming through a window. The second was the aroma: lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime, star anise, and at least a dozen other spices layered so perfectly that tears sprang to his eyes before he even opened them.
Am I... in heaven? Is heaven a Southeast Asian kitchen?
Ryu opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. His hands, when he raised them were smaller, smoother, unmarked by decades of burns and scars. His body felt light, energetic, young in a way he'd forgotten existed.
Panic seized him. He sat up abruptly, taking in the small bedroom decorated with cooking magazines, knife maintenance kits, and a poster of—
No. No way.
Totsuki Culinary Academy's entrance brochure was pinned to the wall, alongside a photo of a silver-haired man in a chef's coat standing with a young boy. The man's eyes were fierce and proud, his posture radiating confidence. The boy was grinning, holding up a plate of something that looked like—
Memories that weren't his own crashed into him like a tidal wave.
Ryu Nakamura. Fifteen years old. Son of Takeshi Nakamura. Accepted to Totsuki Academy. Mother died when he was five. Father, former Third Seat of the Elite Ten—
Third Seat. Not some middling position. Third Seat.
The memories kept coming: learning to pound curry paste at age six, traveling to night markets in Bangkok at age eight, standing in his father's kitchen and watching him move between three stoves with the grace of a dancer and the precision of a surgeon. A father who'd quit the culinary elite world after his wife's death to raise his son and run a modest restaurant in a Tokyo neighborhood.
A father who carried the weight of the world in his eyes but whose hands never trembled when he cooked.
"Ryu! Breakfast!" The voice boomed from downstairs. Deep, commanding, but with an undercurrent of warmth that made Ryu's new heart clench.
He stumbled to his feet, his adult consciousness struggling to pilot this teenage body. The face in the mirror startled him. Young, unblemished, with dark eyes that still held hope instead of the exhaustion he remembered.
I have a second chance. A real second chance.
The weight of it threatened to buckle his knees. Forty-five years of regret, of missed opportunities, of forgetting why he'd loved cooking in the first place, all of it erased. He had youth, talent, and a father who was a legend.
Don't waste it this time.
He made his way downstairs, each step feeling surreal. The restaurant below their apartment was small. maybe twenty seats at most but impeccably maintained. The aroma grew stronger with each step, and when he reached the kitchen, he froze.
Takeshi Nakamura stood before three stoves, orchestrating a symphony of Southeast Asian cuisine. His movements were economical yet fluid, each motion purposeful. Silver streaked his black hair, and burn scars decorated his forearms like battle honors. He wore a simple white chef's coat, but he moved with the authority of someone who'd earned his place among the culinary elite.
On the left stove, a pot of Malaysian rendang bubbled gently, the beef having already transformed into that deep mahogany color that spoke of hours of patient reduction. On the center, Filipino adobo glazed beautifully, the vinegar and soy sauce harmonizing with coconut cream in a way that made Ryu's mouth water. On the right, a Vietnamese-inspired omelet—cha trung—cooked with fish sauce and herbs, the eggs impossibly fluffy.
But what struck Ryu most was the expression on his father's face. Concentration, yes, but also joy. Pure, unbridled joy. The kind Ryu had lost somewhere in his previous life's pursuit of perfection.
"You're staring," Takeshi said without turning around, his voice holding a note of amusement. "Sit. We need to talk about Totsuki."
Ryu sat at the small wooden table, and suddenly tears were streaming down his face. He tried to stop them, but they kept coming great, heaving sobs that shook his teenage body.
Takeshi spun around, alarmed. "Ryu? What's wrong?"
How could he explain? How could he tell his father that these were tears of gratitude from a forty-five-year-old soul who'd forgotten what it felt like to have someone cook for you with love? That he'd spent decades cooking for validation instead of connection? That watching his father cook breakfast with such care was undoing something broken inside him?
"I just—" Ryu's voice cracked. "I'm just really happy right now."
Takeshi's fierce expression softened. He turned off all three burners and walked over, pulling Ryu into a tight embrace. The man smelled like spices and smoke and safety.
"I know," Takeshi said quietly. "Today's the day you officially join the path. It's overwhelming. Your mother cried too, the day she decided to become a chef."
The mention of his mother, this body's mother, but the emotion was real made Ryu cry harder. In his previous life, his own mother had died when he was twenty, and he'd been too busy with culinary school to properly grieve. Too busy to tell her how much those childhood cooking lessons had meant.
I won't make the same mistakes again.
After a long moment, Ryu pulled back and wiped his eyes. "Sorry. I don't know what came over me."
"Don't apologize for feeling," Takeshi said firmly. "A chef who can't feel can't cook. Remember that." He returned to the stoves, plating with practiced efficiency. "Now. Eat. Then we talk."
Three plates appeared before Ryu, each a masterpiece of balance and restraint. This wasn't restaurant food trying to impress—this was a father cooking for his son.
Ryu took a bite of the rendang first, and his eyes widened. The beef literally melted, but it wasn't just the texture, it was the story in every flavor. He could taste the patience in the caramelized coconut milk, the love in the perfectly balanced spice blend. Star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, candlenuts. At least twenty spices, each one contributing without overpowering.
This was cooking at a level beyond his previous life's Michelin stars. This was mastery.
The adobo came next, Filipino comfort food elevated to art. The vinegar's tang played against the soy sauce's depth, while coconut cream added richness. Bay leaves and black peppercorns provided aromatic complexity, and the pork belly had that perfect ratio of meat to fat. But more than technique, Ryu could taste warmth. This was food that hugged you from the inside.
The omelet was deceptively simple, light, fluffy, with herbs and fish sauce providing umami depth that made his taste buds sing. Vietnamese cooking's philosophy of fresh ingredients and balanced flavors shone through.
Ryu found himself crying again as he ate. Not from sadness, but from the overwhelming realization of what food could be when cooked with soul instead of ego.
Takeshi watched him quietly, understanding in his eyes. When Ryu finally finished, the older man poured them both tea and sat down.
"Your mother," Takeshi began, his voice careful, "was from Penang, Malaysia. Her grandmother was Nyonya, a blend of Chinese and Malay heritage and her cooking was legendary in their community. When I met her in culinary school, I was an arrogant ass who thought French technique was the only technique that mattered."
A sad smile crossed Takeshi's face. "She challenged me to a shokugeki. She made a simple laksa, rice noodles in spicy coconut broth. I made a complicated bouillabaisse with all the classical techniques. The judges were established French chefs."
He paused, staring into his tea.
"I lost. Spectacularly. Because while my dish impressed their minds, hers touched their hearts. She taught me that Southeast Asian cuisine wasn't primitive or unsophisticated, it was evolved. Thousands of years of trading, conquering, blending, adapting. French cuisine had its mother sauces. Southeast Asian cuisine had its soul pastes, its rempah for it's foundations just as complex, just as worthy of respect."
Takeshi's eyes grew distant. "After that, I was obsessed. I spent every break traveling through Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos. I learned from street vendors and royal chefs, from grandmothers in villages and young innovators in cities. Your mother traveled with me when she could, teaching me to see with fresh eyes."
"When we returned to Totsuki for our third year, I'd changed. I challenged my way up the Elite Ten using only ASEAN techniques. People mocked me at first,called my food 'ethnic,' 'street food,' 'too rustic for fine dining.' The establishment tried to break me, tried to force me to conform."
His hands clenched into fists. "I made it to Third Seat. Only two people above me—Gin Dojima at Second, and Senzaemon Nakiri's chosen successor at First. I proved that Southeast Asian cuisine could stand among the world's best, that complexity didn't require French names, that fish sauce and shrimp paste and bird's eye chilies belonged in the conversation with truffles and fois gras."
Takeshi looked directly at Ryu, his eyes blazing with intensity. "But it cost me. The culinary world accepted my skill but never truly accepted me. Job offers came with conditions 'tone down the spices,' 'make it more accessible,' 'add some European influences.' They wanted to tame me, to sand down the edges that made my cooking special."
"Your mother and I opened our own restaurant instead. Small, honest, serving the food we loved to people who appreciated it. We were happy." His voice cracked slightly. "Then she got sick. Cancer. Gone in six months."
The pain in his father's voice made Ryu's chest ache. "I almost gave up cooking entirely. What was the point without her? But then I looked at you, five years old, already trying to help in the kitchen and I realized. She lived on through the food, through the traditions, through you."
Takeshi reached across the table, gripping Ryu's hand. "So I stayed. Ran this small restaurant. Raised you. Taught you everything I knew. And now you're going to Totsuki, following in our footsteps."
He leaned forward, his gaze intense. "They'll try to break you, son. They'll say your cuisine is too bold, too ethnic, too different. The Elite Ten is full of European cuisine purists and Japanese traditionalists. They respect power but they resist change. You'll face judges who think Southeast Asian food is beneath them, competitors who think you're a novelty act."
"But you have advantages they don't. You have my techniques and your mother's palate. You've been training since you could walk. You understand that cooking isn't about impressing, it's about connecting. And you have something I never had—"
Takeshi's expression grew fierce with pride. "—you have nothing to prove to me. I already know you're worthy. So cook for yourself. Cook for your mother's memory. Cook to make people happy. And when some snobby French technique specialist tells you that tom yum doesn't belong on a Totsuki menu, you serve them a bowl so perfect they cry."
Ryu couldn't speak past the lump in his throat. In his previous life, he'd never had this. His own father had been absent, disinterested. He'd spent his entire career seeking validation from strangers because he'd never had it from family.
But now? Now he had a father who believed in him, who'd walked the path before him, who understood the weight of what he was about to face.
"I won't let you down," Ryu managed to say.
"You couldn't," Takeshi replied simply. "But more importantly don't let yourself down. Don't lose sight of why we cook. Don't become so focused on winning that you forget to taste your own food. Don't sacrifice your humanity on the altar of perfection."
The words struck deep. That had been exactly Ryu's mistake in his previous life. He'd become a cooking machine, technically flawless but emotionally empty.
Not again. Never again.
Takeshi stood up, and his entire demeanor shifted—from nostalgic father to demanding instructor in an instant. "Now. You have three months before the entrance ceremony. Starting today, your real training begins. I'm going to push you harder than I ever have. You'll learn techniques I've never taught you, secrets I learned from masters across Southeast Asia. You'll cry, you'll burn yourself, you'll want to quit."
He walked to a cabinet and pulled out a worn wooden box. Inside were dozens of small containers—spices Ryu recognized and many he didn't. Some looked homemade, others exotic and rare.
"In French cuisine, they have five mother sauces. In ASEAN cooking, we have countless soul pastes and spice blends—rempah, bumbu, recado, palapa, kroeung. Each one is a foundation, a building block of flavor that can create infinite dishes. Master these, and you can conquer any ingredient, any challenge."
Takeshi pulled out a particularly worn notebook, its pages stained and dog-eared. "This is your mother's recipe journal. Handwritten recipes from her grandmother, from the vendors we met, from our travels together. Some are in Malay, some in Thai, some in languages I still can't read but learned to cook by taste alone."
He placed it in Ryu's hands like a sacred text. "This is your inheritance. Your birthright. Totsuki will try to teach you that innovation means molecular gastronomy, that tradition means French classicism. But this—" he tapped the notebook, "—this is real tradition. Real innovation. Centuries of adaptation, of cultures blending, of people creating magic from whatever ingredients they could find."
Ryu opened the notebook with trembling hands. The first page had a photo—his mother, young and radiant, standing in a night market with steam rising around her. She was laughing, her hands covered in spice paste, looking at someone off-camera (his father, presumably) with such love it made Ryu's heart ache.
Below the photo, in elegant handwriting:
"Cooking is love made visible. Cook with your heart, and you'll never make a bad dish. - Mei Lin Nakamura"
"She wrote that the day before she died," Takeshi said quietly. "Made me promise I'd pass it on to you when you were ready." He placed a hand on Ryu's shoulder. "You're ready."
Ryu hugged the notebook to his chest, feeling the weight of two lifetimes of regret and hope mixing together. In his previous life, he'd chased stars and accolades. In this life, he'd chase something more important—the soul of cooking itself.
"So," Takeshi said, his voice returning to business. "Lesson one. We're going to the market. You're going to select ingredients for a dish using only Indonesian techniques. When we return, you'll have four hours to make me something that makes me sweat from the spice and cry from the flavor. If you fail, you do it again. And again. Until you understand."
He fixed Ryu with a stare that had probably terrified countless Totsuki students decades ago. "At Totsuki, you'll face people with incredible talent. But talent means nothing without understanding. So I'm going to teach you to understand—to feel—every ingredient, every technique, every culture we draw from. You'll learn the history, the philosophy, the soul of Southeast Asian cuisine."
"And when you walk into that entrance ceremony," Takeshi continued, his voice dropping to something fierce and proud, "you won't walk in as my son, trying to live up to my legacy. You'll walk in as Ryu Nakamura, master of ASEAN cuisine, ready to show Totsuki that the Third Seat's kid is going to surpass his old man."
Despite everything, Ryu laughed—a sound that felt rusty but real. "That's a pretty high bar."
"Good," Takeshi grinned. "Your mother always said I was too easy on you. Time to fix that. Now finish your tea. The best vendors sell out early, and we need makrut lime leaves, fresh turmeric root, and if we're lucky, some proper Indonesian long peppers."
As Ryu stood, his father caught his arm one more time.
"Hey. I know you've been stressed about Totsuki. I see it in your eyes sometimes—that fear of not being good enough, of disappointing people." Takeshi's expression softened. "But I'm proud of you. Not for getting into Totsuki. I'm proud of who you are as a person. The rest? That's just cooking. And cooking is what we do."
The simple acceptance—so different from his previous life's constant pressure—made Ryu's eyes sting again. But this time, he smiled through the tears.
"Thanks, Dad."
"Now come on," Takeshi said, grabbing his market bags. "We've got a legacy to build and only three months to do it. Your mother's watching from somewhere, and I'll be damned if I let her see me raise a mediocre chef."
As they left the restaurant, Ryu took one last look at the notebook in his hands. In his previous life, he'd died alone on a kitchen floor, chasing validation he never found. In this life, he had family, heritage, and a second chance to do it right.
I won't waste it. I promise, Mom—both of you. I'll make you proud.
The morning sun felt warm on his face as he followed his father into the streets of Tokyo, ready to begin his journey anew.