I had been blessed with this particular ability of mine.

Wherever I went, whether it was in my home, in my neighbourhood, in my city, in the world or in the universe, I could create a little world for myself that was but a bubble around me.

I could shut out the rest of the world outside and let the bubble consist of only what I needed to focus on in that particular moment.

The size of that bubble varied depending on my mood. When I stood in my tiny bathroom, brushing my teeth or my hair or taking a shower, it would often encompass only my body, enabling me to lock myself into my thoughts, fishing them from the pond of my soul, finishing them up. When I was out on a walk in Paris, where I lived, I could expand that bubble to take in the cobblestone streets, the trees lining the alleys, the Eiffel Tower, the museums and shops and cafes around me. I would let that world contain all of the scents as well; of melting autumn leaves, of hints of snow, fresh spring grass, tarmac heated by the summer sun, all depending on the season. And also the scents that were an all-year given in Paris; coffee, cigarette smoke, exhaust from the sticky, oily traffic.

But now...

The bubble that was my world wasn't small enough to contain only me, nor was it big enough for the Eiffel Tower. When I was at work, my world was the little posh cafe where I worked Monday to Saturday, six am to five pm. That world smelled of coffee beans, of airy, buttery Parisian pastries, of the expensive perfumes and colognes of customers, of my own exhaustion and fatigue but most of all of my indescribable love for my job and for my life.

I contemplated this as I wiped down the counter, the sleeves of my light blue shirt rolled up over my lean but strong underarms, my grey suit pants hanging off my hip bones alongside my apron, my long, chestnut hair in a bun that was slowly but steadily falling out since my hair was so glossy. I was twenty-five, and had graduated culinary school two years ago and now, I was in Paris.

I know what's usually the story behind culinary school kids. They have been cooking with their maids since they were children in their big mansions, become very good at it, then taken over the responsibility for family dinners at the age of nine, invited their friends over for five-course dinners in their teenage years and then, after graduating high school, applied for culinary school in the hope of opening a Michelin star restaurant tied to their name, already having the benefit of rich parents behind them.

With me, it had been nothing like that.

I had been a very normal child and teenage boy (except for the fact that I played horse polo for a couple of years even if my family wasn't rich, please don't ask) and spent my weekends playing video games, having the normal amount of interaction with my mother and father even if I loved them dearly and they loved me. As I went to high school, I could dish up fries that I'd warmed in the oven and serve them with some refried beans and toast. Scrambled eggs was the most complicated dish I knew. But as I was in high school and thus still living with my parents, my small repertoire of meals I could cook for myself didn't matter that much because my parents were in charge of dinner, enabling me to compensate for my otherwise lacking diet so I got all of the bits and pieces of nutrition I needed to build a growing teenage body.

But once me and my fellow classmates started to see the light at the end of the tunnel that was school, that one question that will decide the course of the rest of your life was inevitably wedged into my life as well, like an envelope being wedged into a small mailbox. What do you want to do when you graduate?

I had always been a natural science kind of guy, earning straight A's in chemistry, biology and mathematics. I had gained A's in social sciences as well, even if those subjects weren't my favourites. People believed I would apply for medical school, or study physics or mathematics. But even if I loved science, I considered them my hobbies; I did not want to work with them. I did not want to get paid for them. Of that, I was absolutely certain. Other than that, I wasn't certain of anything. I had no idea what I wanted to do. You would think I'd panic over it, but I never did. I was laid back, took on every aspect of my life with ease (except the horse polo; I took that very seriously, please don't ask), was privileged enough to think 'it will sort itself out' to most situations. My friends panicked about my lack of chosen career path on the Christmas before graduating. My parents panicked. My parents also panicked over the fact that I didn't panic. But I was calm as a cucumber.

And then, one spring day when I came home from school, making toast with Brie cheese and chocolate as a treat to celebrate having scored 100% in my mathematics finals, I realised I would move out soon and couldn't cook properly for myself.

And I found myself in the audition for the most prestigious culinary school in the country.

They only wanted your grades for you to apply, and since I had the highest marks, they chose me for an interview.

"So, Mr..." The elderly man with thin, white hair and glasses clad in a suit looked down on the paper in front of him. I didn't know it at the time, but he was the Dean of the school, and owned the country's only five Michelin star restaurant. Everyone with even the slightest interest in cooking knew who he was. Which was why I didn't. "Mr Senju." He looked up at me, as did the rest of the panel of well-dressed master chefs I didn't recognise. I stood confidently in my long and lanky teenage body I still hadn't quite grown into, my hair short at the time, flopping over one eye in a very e-boy kind of way, my hands in my pockets, my shirt tucked in but falling out, as if I hadn't bothered which was absolutely true. "Tell us. Why should we choose you?"

"I want to learn how to cook", I'd said, dead-pan.

The panel had looked at me in shock.

"You... Excuse me?" a lady said.

"I said, I want to learn how to cook."

I didn't know that this was not a place to learn how to cook. This was a place you came if you were already a master at cooking, which to me would have sounded stupid at the time. Why study something you already knew everything about? I was completely clueless. I had come there, stood in front of those world-famous chefs and said they should admit me into their expensive school of cuisine because I sucked at it.

"What is your parade dish?" the man had asked, a crooked smile on his face, already having decided he wouldn't let me in but since I was already there, he might as well humour himself. I didn't understand that. So adorably clueless.

"I make a mad toast with refried beans."

The man looked up at me. "Do you make your refried beans yourself?" he asked, as if trying to cling onto a last straw of hope that maybe, just maybe, I could cook.

"Well... I open the can myself. Without a can opener. I know this mad way of opening it! You just..."

And I explained how I could open a can without a can opener that I'd found on Reddit one day I found myself in a situation where I had to open a can without a can opener.

I had been admitted.

Just like that, with only my knowledge about how to open a can of refried beans without a can opener as well as straight A's in my CV, I had been admitted into the best culinary school in the country.

It wasn't until my first week, however, that I'd realised what a miracle it was.

I wasn't surprised when I got the admittance letter. My parents, bless them, didn't really understand what culinary school was, either, so they were as not surprised as I was. My mother cried when I hugged her goodbye to take my new, hand-me-down car to move to the other side of the country, packed with my few belongings including my gaming computer. Even my dad had teared up. I moved into my student room in the same corridor as four other culinary students which I had no doubt I would become friends with; I easily made friends.

And the Monday after, I went to my first day of culinary school.

It was on that first day I understood what a massive mistake I'd made. What a massive mistake the people who'd let me in had made. What I had well and truly gotten myself into. And, by God, I could have given up. I could have given up so, so easily.

The teacher of the first day was an amicable but to-the-point man who'd asked the thirty people in class to make a tiramisu from scratch first thing. The people around me got to work at their stations covered in a thousand cooking utensils I had never seen before. I didn't even know what a tiramisu was. Wasn't it a type of pizza?

"Excuse me", I asked him out loud. "Where's the recipe?"

The other twenty-nine people turned to look at me in shock.

That's when I first realised something was terribly, terribly wrong. That I'd made a terrible mistake.

But that mistake would turn out to be the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Due to that one particular person I'd meet years, years later...