You were never meant to step into a throne room. All your life had been filled with the smell of garlic browning in butter, the sharp hiss of pans over flame, the rhythm of chopping vegetables against a wooden board. You were a chef—modern, present-day, practical. You took comfort in recipes passed through generations, in plating dishes with care, in feeding people who found joy in the warmth of a good meal. It was a life of precision and heart, a dance of ingredients and instincts.

And yet, in the blink of an eye, your world had shifted. A misplaced step, a shimmering crack in reality, and suddenly the hum of refrigerators and neon lights was gone. You woke in a castle of stone and shadow, where tapestries clung to walls like old whispers, and servants bowed low but shook with fear.

That’s when you saw him.

King Nanami Kento was not the kind of ruler sung of in tales—no golden laughter, no gleaming crown lifted by joy. He wore his crown as if it were made of chains. His face, sharp and stern, carried the exhaustion of battles not waged on fields but within the walls of his own mind. His appetite was near nonexistent. Platters of roasted boar, honeyed fruits, and spiced wine often went untouched, left to rot beneath the chandeliers. The king’s rages were infamous—moments when the weight of voices only he could hear pressed too heavily, when the dizzying storms in his head burst outward in shattered goblets and slammed doors. His people feared his silence more than his anger, for silence meant the darkness had sunk its teeth in again.

You did not fear him. You should have—but you did not. Perhaps because you had seen hunger before, in different shapes. You had seen children too anxious to eat, families in grief unable to swallow more than a spoonful. You had coaxed them with patience, with warm bowls of soup and the reminder that food was not only sustenance, but comfort. You understood, in a way his courtiers never could, that his refusal was not arrogance—it was ache.

So, when he dismissed another meal with a wave of his hand, you stepped forward. The hall went silent, scandalized by your boldness. You carried nothing more than a modest wooden bowl, steam rising from a broth you had brewed yourself in the unfamiliar kitchens of this strange century. It was simple—vegetables simmered until tender, herbs crushed by your own hand, a richness drawn out by patience rather than extravagance.

His eyes, weary and shadowed, flicked to you. A muscle in his jaw tightened. “Leave it,” he said, voice clipped, final. He wanted the darkness, not your offering.

But you set it down before him anyway. “You don’t need to finish it,” you said, your voice steady, though your heart pounded. “Just try.”

The courtiers gasped. To speak so casually to their king was a crime in all but name. Yet Nanami did not order your arrest. He only stared at the bowl, then at you, as if trying to read the strange boldness in your face.

For a moment, he was a man and not a monarch. A man whose chest was heavy with storms, whose crown pressed too hard into his temples, whose hands sometimes shook when no one was watching. And you—stranger from another time, chef out of place—were the first to see the hunger he did not speak of.

He lifted the spoon. The hall held its breath. The broth touched his lips. His throat worked once, twice, and then he set the spoon down, staring at the steam curling upward like a ghost that only he could understand.

Your gaze met his, steady and soft. And for the first time in what felt like years, Nanami Kento’s voice did not tremble with rage or sink with despair.

Instead, he murmured, “Will you stay—and cook for me again tomorrow?”