105 Tough!

In a certain room of Totsuki's facilities. The top first years gathered under one roof, some were pissed, some were happy, while some...just didn't care at all.

Alexander was sitting on the couch with Soma in front of him kneeling on his knees. Alexander's eyes were red with an anger that could scare ghosts away

"You do realize that you are an election semifinals... Right?" Alexander spoke with a chilly voice. Soma could only shift his gaze in other directions trying to avoid him as long as possible "Then...How in the seven sweet seas did you end up in the red line?"

"Well...things didn't go as planned..." Soma said awkwardly

"God...even the Don R.S took the 3d place in the main street area, while you ended up last..." Alice was reading the magazine where the results were announced "...How pathetic." She smirked

"It wasn't that bad!!" Soma said with hast "There are still 5 days, you know!!" He said

Alice didn't mind him "The last part wasn't aimed at you...isn't that right, Erina?" Alice looked at her cousin who was sitting elegantly in the corner with a mocking smile and showed her the results of [uptown area]

Erina gritted her teeth and looked at Alive with anger "Alice...!"

"Enough of that..." Alexander interrupted the girls' incoming fight and brought the focus back to Soma who was glad just a moment ago "...you do realize that your reckless behavior has put even Tadokoro-san in a dangerous situation. With your current pace and staff, your chance of coming back from the red are slim, and let us not talk about beating the spiky-haired boy..."

"I actually don't mind helping Soma-kun, Alexa--"Tadokoro stepped in to help Soma

" You shut up." But Alexander shut her down real quick. Tadokoro got so frightened when Alexander glared at her that she sat down as the speed of light

"You should at least rent a bigger booth and recruit more staff, even three more people would be enough to come back." Said Hayama.

Hayama was baffled when he heard that Soma went in the red zone, he didn't take him to be this bad especially since he managed to pull a hard one on Takumi.

"Well...I was thinking of asking a certain someone." Soma shrugged.

Alexander sighed and shook his head " You and your reckless stuns will get you out of this school sooner than expected..."

"It is not that bad," Soma said as he stood up and cleaned the dust from his pants

"It is bad..."Erina said. She couldn't tolerate Soma's ignorance anymore "Yukihira-kun, Since the day Totsuki was formed, no student went under the red zone." She said making Soma feel like he was shot in the heart.

"A-any way, how was your booth, Aniki? I heard you've set a booth in the uptown area near the elite 10's first seat." Soma quickly tried to change the topic.

"Oh! here you go, see for yourself!!" Alice throws the magazine to Soma. He opened it and was shocked.

"whoa!! you're in the 2nd place, how surprising!! oh! Nakiri is fourth! hmm!" Soma looked at Erina with a strange side look making Erina feel uncomfortable

"W-What is that for?!! the competition is very high and it is still just the first day!!" Erina felt slightly embarrassed.

'oh!' Suddenly, Hayama, Ryo, and Takumi had this sudden realization as they looked at Alice 'So that's why she is so happy' they thought

"But looking at it, you guys are really amazing! even Isshiki-senpai is in seventh place!" Said Soma as he scanned the paper

"J-just like his rank, i think Isshiki has a thing for the number seven!" Tadokoro said as she looked at results

"I think i may go and visit your booths when i can..." Said Soma with a cheeky smile "Surprisingly, the first seat is 6th, i thought he would be in the 1st place." Soma took a bag of his Hujiao bing and started munching on it.

Alexander was looking at his half-brother with a tired expression 'Just for whose sake was i worrying, forget it, just let him be.' Alexander thought as he stood up "Let's go, we need to prepare for tomorrow." Alexander called. His group followed him as did Erina and Arato as they too still got duties to attend to.

"Take care~" Soma waved at his departing friends

"I want to see improvements tomorrow!!" Alexander shouted before shutting the door closed behind him.

"Yeah~Yeah~" Soma was all smiling just a second ago, but as soon as the door was closed, the air around him became darker and he sat down making Tadokoro feel anxious.

"Soma-kun...?" she called.

"...I need to make do with what i have for now." He mumbled.

Back at the North Star's dormitory, Alexander and the gang were sitting around a table with many papers scattered around.

Natasha who was climbing up the stairs looked on her right and called "Don't stay up late, and don't forget to switch off the lights."

"Okaay~" Said Alice. Natasha then left to her room, leaving the kids to do their own thing.

"With our current pace, we will take at most 3 more days to take the lead in the ranking and dethrone Momo-senpai."

"Indeed, she is far ahead of us, but there is also no guarantee that the others won't double their efforts and even our position won't be safe, let alone taking the lead." Said Hayama while looking at one paper "With our current method, we can't reach our full capacity, we need to abandon the reservation system and do freestyle."

"Are you saying to do the [First comes, gets served first] system?" Takumi asked, "It may be a good idea, but we are still not familiar with our customers and it may cause us chaos, our current way is saving us too much trouble to be abandoned easily." Takumi added.

Alice looked at the paper that has tomorrow's reservations, he raised an eyebrow and sighed "Hayama is right, we can't keep doing this, we need to freestyle, that means, two of us needs to leave the kitchen and focus on keeping the restaurant in order." Alexander said.

"It may not be necessary," Alexander said. "We are forgetting an important facture here," he said.

"What is it?" Asked Takumi "We have covered every aspect we need to run a restaurant."

"Indeed, we sank in the hole of managing the restaurant that we forget that we are in a festival." Alexander snapped his fingers "People who come to the moon banquet festival doesn't stay in one place, most of them travel from one booth to another."

"You mean..."Alice thought for a moment then smiled.

"The reservation system is holding us back. We need to free the tables and manage our thing while lowering the prices for more customers from other areas to come in"

"We can try that." Said Hayama with a nod

"But it will be a tough one." Said Alice.

Alexander chuckled slightly "And where is the fun if it wasn't."

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