The dream usually ended there. Not this time.
The door gave an inch, then another, until it finally swung open into a dark hallway. At the very end, I saw my father walking away, pushing through two swinging doors. For a split second, I’d caught a glimpse of a fiery kitchen beyond.
And then Miki was shaking me awake. “We’re almost in Tokyo,” she said.
It all came back. Keiko showing up on my doorstep with a very large, armed reason to come with her. She’d promised this trip would give me answers about those who didn’t win the apprenticeship but were still alive. Was that what I was really chasing? Partly. If they were behind my restaurant’s destruction, then yes.
“What time is it?” I rubbed my eyes.
“A little after 9:30 p.m.” Miki lowered her voice. “She hasn’t said a word the entire trip. Just stared at you with that creepy smile.”
Keiko sat with her legs crossed, hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes fixed on me like she was watching a slow boil. No blinking. No shifting in her seat. Just that same smug curve to her mouth, as if she knew something I didn’t.
The big guy didn’t have a name. Keiko just said he was a Chopman, on loan to her, whatever that meant.
Miki leaned closer. “I really don’t like her.”
“Join the club.”
We sat in silence, agony for me. Pretending the person opposite me wasn’t the source of all my irritation was exhausting. I decided to use the situation to my advantage.
“Keiko, you said there were others like me, people who survived the apprenticeship. Why do you think that?”
“Ever since Kaiyo’s death, I’ve made it my business to learn everything I can about that program. It’s been running for at least fifteen years by my count, maybe longer.”
“Everyone knows that,” I said. “That’s old news.”
“Did you know the earlier classes had twenty, sometimes thirty apprentices?” She smirked at my silence. “Didn’t think so.”
“So there were more back then,” Miki said. “Big deal.”
“Are you saying there were more than the winners who made it to the end?” I asked.
“Not necessarily. I’m talking about the ones who lost a challenge but didn’t die. The ones who survived, healed up, and walked away from the program. They’re called Leftovers. Not good enough to throw out completely, but not something anyone really wants.”
“Leftovers? That’s impossible. I watched my competitors die right in front of me.”
“Are you sure? Absolutely positive about that?”
I dug into the memories I’d worked hard to repress, replaying every challenge and who had fallen. Kaiyo was electrocuted right in front of me. I’d watched Dori and Taka fall into a vat of boiling oil. No one could survive that. Hideo was poisoned by the toxins in fugu. Osamu had his throat slit during the puppeteer challenge…
A knowing smile tugged at her mouth. “I can see it on your face. You remember.”
“Akiko, is she right? Did someone from your class survive?” Miki asked.
“Sana nearly had his hand severed, but he walked out of the kitchen. He never came back, so we all thought…”
“Every year, a few make it out, more than you’d think,” Keiko said. “They live, but they’re trapped in an in-between world, denied the chance to train under Chef Sakamoto. Some are too disfigured for anyone to stomach, others too broken to ever cook again.” She nodded toward the Chopman. “If they’re lucky, they find other skills to offer.”
I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t stop myself.
The Chopman lifted his eye patch, exposing a hollow socket where his eye had been.
Miki gasped, her grip on my hand tightening. My breath caught. Another survivor of the apprenticeship was sitting right in front of me. And if this program had been running for more than fifteen years, how many more were out there living invisible lives as Leftovers?
I stared at the giant man, trying to imagine who he’d been before the program. Was he kind? Likable? Someone like Kaiyo, someone I could have called a friend?
Now he was nothing but cold emptiness serving as muscle.
