The other child look around the room with curiosity.
They have never been in a room that looked like this before, some of them didn’t even know what college was, as it wasn’t something that existed in the place they lived in.
With peaked interest, the sixty to seventy children quickly spread around the room, checking out every nook and cranny.
Private Scott was too busy trying to look after them to notice two individuals slip away at this time.
At this moment, Tih had already look over the whole room and wanted to look into the other rooms for observational purposes.
Without thinking anything of it, he walks out of the room unnoticed by others.
Kai, who was with him the whole time, did not question his choices and follows along, continuing to chat.
Tih walks back into the hallway and moves towards the door opposite of him, room 1.
He opens the door and walks though in complete silence.
Kai, influenced by Tih and the quiet surrounding, also stops talking and follows Tih.
After opening the door, a voice travels into the two’s ears.
“Technique and application.
These are arguably the two most essential principles one needs to learn to achieve a high quality level of production.” They walk into the room, Tih casually taking silent steps and moving without making noise, and Kai, who’s crouched low and is trying his best to not make a sound.
One silently striding into the room and one tip-toeing in an awkward way behind him, the two take a seat in chairs as they continue to listen to the lesson.
“Can anyone tell me how to achieve this?”The instructor’s eyes move around the room as he waits for someone to answer.
A couple people try to answer the question, but are immediately denied by the instructor as incorrect.
“I think we’re in Culinary Fundamentals,” Kai whispered to Tih.
Although Private Scott didn’t click on Culinary Fundamentals and therefore the children didn’t know what room number it was, judging by the responses and little information the instructor gave him, Kai guess they were in the cooking classroom.
Kai mumbles to himself,”the answer should be…” While Kai is thinking and the instructor is focused on the students, Tih takes this time to observe the culinary instructor.
On the short and stubby side with the body shape of an oval, the instructor is wearing a white chef’s outfit with its sleeves folded back, revealing his burly limbs covered in hair.
A single bronze star is pinned on the outfit.
A well-groomed handlebar mustache lays underneath a Roman nose, brown eyes, and well-trimmed eyebrows.
His short messy hairstyle is been with hint of grey.
The man looks to be in his early forties, with slight wrinkles forming in his face.
The instructor seems to feel the intense stare coming from Tih,”You!
In the back, are you a part of this class?
I don’t remember seeing you yesterday…” He inspects the two boys.
Although he’s not familiar with everyone yet, since classes only started yesterday, but he was always proud of his good memory and he doesn’t recall seeing the two soldiers in the back.
Immediately caught, unlike normal people that would panic at this point, neither of the boys’ emotions fluctuate.
Kai comes back from his thought to look at the instructor,”Sir!
Is the answer, practice?” Surprised, the stumpy man pauses before saying,”Correct…Through practice, you can gain experience and improve yourselves.
It is especially important for Culinary, as you should eventually be able to make dishes purely based on muscle memory.” Forgetting what he was questioning the soldier about, he moves on and continues his lesson.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After letting the newbies look around for a while, I make them regroup and we move on to the next classroom.
I decide to bring them to Psychology for dummies, the instructor there is relatively laid-back and won’t mind the intrusion.
On our way there, I feel that something is wrong, like it’s too quiet, but I quickly ignore it as we reach the door of the psychology room and I guide the newbies inside.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tih and Kai attentively listened as the instructor finished up the lesson.
Both of them gained new information they hadn’t know previously and were satisfied.
The instructor was also very satisfied.
He never had soldier that put so much importance on his lessons for the basics.
Most of the soldier took classes not involved with combat, so they could get a job and earn money.
They weren’t interested in making it a long term profession and didn’t place much importance on the learning material.
They needed to take the class to get the job, because almost all job hires needed to know the basics as a requirement for recruitment.
So, when the culinary instructor saw how engrossed the two were, he immediately took a liking to the two, and even though about giving them recommendations to his coworkers who were lower-leveled instructors.
Recommendations are very helpful when asking for an apprenticeship with an instructor.
They’re importance is equivalent to credentials, or maybe even more.
At the end of class, he let everyone leave but called out to the two and told them to stay back.
Once everyone left, Kai and Tih walked down the steps towards the podium to stand in front of the instructor.
The man didn’t get a good look at the soldiers because they were so far away.
Now that they’re right in front of him, a frown started to form on his face.
They’re younger than he thought they were, short too.
Although, he was also short for his size, he wasn’t sure if the two I front of him would be able to use the kitchen counter in a comfortable manner.
But, they looked young.
One looked fourteen or fifteen while the other looked about ten.
So it wasn’t too much of a worry.
They would eventually grow, and the instructor always believed it was better to start early and have a head start.
He needed to know who the two soldier were to recommend them to his fellow chefs.
“What are your names.” Hearing the question and knowing the person next to him wouldn’t speak, Kai stepped forward to say,”Sir, my name is Kai and the soldier next to me is Tih.” “Kai and Tih, you both seemed very invested in my lesson.
Are you interest in pursuing Culinary?” Although he was asking them this question, the instructor already made the assumption they were pursuing culinary arts, mostly because he was comparing them to past students who were only interested in getting a job and earning some side cash.
“Ah…no sir, I’m not.” Kai only answered for himself, he only met Tih today and didn’t want to make any assumptions.
“Eh?” The instructor looks surprised for a second, then he turns to face the other soldier.
“How about you…” He turns his head and meets eyes with a calm lake that’s slightly off-putting.
Tih doesn’t say anything.
He wouldn’t have anything to say, even if he did speak, as he has no opinion on the matter.
Having the desire to pursue something…he’s never felt it.
The only thing that has brought him interest is observing things.
Kai explains,”Um, sir, Tih doesn’t speak.” The instructor is even more stunned when he hears those words.
Not because the soldier doesn’t speak, they’re are a few people with personality like that on the island, but because he would be basically useless in a kitchen.
A major part of working in a kitchen is teamwork, and to create a sense of harmony the members of a kitchen need to be able to communicate with each other affectively.
Putting someone that won’t speak in a kitchen will only disrupt the balance of teamwork.
The instructor sighs and shakes his head,”I advise you to drop out of this class.
No kitchen will be willing to hire a soldier that can’t speak.” He feels saddened that the two soldiers turned out to be duds.
“Ah…about that sir-” Kai was cut off by Private Scott who rushed into the room.
Private Scott finally noticed what was wrong after a while.
He realized that it was too quiet because Kai was not among the group, neither was Tih.
He started checking every room to look for the two and finally spotted them talking to Instructor Raphael, silver-stared chef.
“There you are!” Kai had a slight feeling of dejavu as Private Scott rushed down the step and put his hand on top of the two’s heads.
He put pressure on them to make them bow and he bowed as well,”Apologies, Instructor Raphael.
I wasn’t watching these newbies properly.” “Oh?
Private Scott, good to see you.
How’s Major J-” He freezes,”Did you say newbies?
These two are new recruits?” “Eh?
Yes.” Private Scott is confused by the sudden question.
Getting his answer, Instructor Raphael looks at the two.
Private Scott doesn’t notice his expression of ‘not knowing whether to laugh or cry’, and said,”We’ll be leaving now, Instructor.
I’ll send you a formal apology later.” With that, he drags Kai and Tih out of the room.
“Uh…yeah.” Instructor Raphael says absentmindedly.
He’s now renewing his idea of recommending the two, or maybe even taking them for himself.
He’s never seen newbies that were so composed.
They just arrived today, but they’ve already adapted to their surrounding, to the point that he, who has a good eye for these thing, couldn’t tell.
They would easily adapt to a kitchen environment, but the Kai boy doesn’t seem interested in the slightest and that other one…
Instructor Raphael decides to take some time to think about it.
He believes that since they just arrived, there’s no other instructors that would already be interested in them, so he can take his time to ponder.
Kai and Tih are pulled out of the classroom and into the hallway by Private Scott,”Sigh, both of you…how many times am I going to go through this.
Stick with the group during the integration period, once it’s over, you can explore whatever you want.
Okay?” Kai nods,”Yes, Sir.” Tih stares at the empty space in front of him absentmindedly.
He’s currently revisiting the new information he’s learned, finding it interesting.
Private Scott takes this as a silent agreement and leads the two back to the group.
He continues touring the newbies around, walking around the entire Lecture hall and occasionally going in to a room to let them check it out.
By the time they leave, it’s already late evening and the sky will soon turn dark.
“I think that’s enough for today, let’s head back to the housing district.” They jog southwest.
Looking left, Tih can spot what looks to be a river in the distance.
Past the river is a small town in a circular shape.
The group jobs parallel to the river, the flow of water heading in the same direction as them.
After a while, they make it back to district A.
Before splitting off, Private Scott says,”We’ll be meeting at the first floor of the cafeteria at seven tomorrow, so make sure to wake up and eat before then.” He then let’s everyone leave for their own apartments.
Kai and Tih walk side by side as Kai easily leads them to their apartment like a gps.
He even calculated how long it would take to reach their destination.
They walk up the side stair and enter their apartment.
Kai collapse on the bed as he said,”God, I don’t think I’ve ever done this much exercise in my life…” Tih silently sits on the edge of his new bed.
He hears Kai ask,”Hey, is it okay if I use the shower first?
I’m really sweaty and it’s kinda making me uncomfortable.
Or do you want to use the shower first.
Ah, but I haven’t even seen you sweat a drop during all of that exercise.
Hey, hey, are you actually a robot or something?-” Kai’s voice starts to drift off as he gets drowsy laying on the soft sheets.
Tih gets up and walks into the bathroom.
He takes a towel and puts it over Kai’s face.
After a moment, a loud gasp can be heard coming from underneath the towel,”Hey, you tryna kill me or something?!” Kai looked into the child’s innocent eyes,” Fine, fine, I’ll go take the shower now.
Thanks for making sure I didn’t fall asleep all sweaty.
That would have been uncomfortable in the morning.” He keeps talking even after he enters the bathroom.
His voice can still be faintly discerned even after the shower is turned on and water rushed out of the shower head.
Tih sits back down and stares at the wall in silence until he can hear the shower head turning off.
Kai steps into the room with only a bath towel wrapped around his waist, dripping blond hair clinging to the side of his face.
“Ah, I totally forget to bring clothes!
Why didn’t you remind me?” Kai starts scrounging around through his messy drawers to look for clothes.
Droplets of water run down the exposed back.
A thin and slightly bony stature reveals his true age of thirteen, with the height of a fifteen year old.
Tih, who was still staring at the wall at this time, finally moved his gaze away as he got off the bed, took some neatly folded clothes from his drawer and entered the shower.
After about seven minutes, he returned to his bed in new clothes and a fresh scent.
Wearing a loose white t-shirt and cotton shorts, he placed his neatly folded black uniform on top of his drawer and slipped under the covers of his bed.
Kai, who was in a dark grey t-shirt and shorts, looked at Tih,”Ah, pretty people really can wear anything and still look good…tsk.” He compares Tih in his black uniform and in his pajamas,”Different outfits give you different vibes…the uniforms made you look more indifferent and cold, while you look soft, almost fluffy in light colors..” He was about to continue when he realized Tih had already closed his eyes and was going to sleep, if he wasn’t sleeping already.
Kai, who was tired from all the exercise anyways, just shrugged, turned off the lights, and went to sleep as well.