Chapter 109: Reunion in Front of the Door (1)
Chapter 109: Reunion in Front of the Door (1)
“I’m saying this one more time, but once you’ve decided, you won’t be able to change it. That means you’ll have to keep not only the concept of the course but the recipes themselves exactly as they are. Are you sure you’re satisfied with these recipes?”
At Martin’s question, Kaya nodded.
“I’ve spent ten days thinking about nothing else and agonising over nothing else. Unless some revelation suddenly falls from the sky, I don’t think I could change them anymore. No, maybe these recipes have already received that revelation.”
“Hmm. Fine. I’ll take them.”
“So when exactly are you planning to tell me how the mission works? I’m not going to have to cook all those courses by myself in just a few hours, am I?”
“Don’t be impatient. You’ll find out everything tonight.”
“Tonight?” Kaya frowned.
Did that mean they would announce it tonight? She could not tell. More precisely, she could not understand why they had refused to explain anything until now, only to reveal it at the last minute.
Anderson, standing beside her, shook his head. “Stop complaining like a child. They must have something planned. What, do you think they’re withholding it just to mess with you?”
“…I didn’t ask you.” Kaya practically growled the answer.
Martin smirked.
Just as everyone had expected, once Jo Minjoon—the link between them—was gone, Kaya and Anderson immediately began clashing like cats and dogs.
“Go and rest. I don’t recommend exhausting yourselves mentally by fighting over nothing.”
At Martin’s words, Kaya and Anderson exchanged dissatisfied looks before trudging upstairs to their respective rooms.
Kaya locked her door, sat on the bed and hugged her knees.
She hated being unable to do anything right now. Was it helplessness? No, perhaps lethargy was a better word. She would rather have started the mission immediately.
“…Chloe, Minjoon, Marco, and… uh… what were the others called again?”
Her memories of the other contestants’ names were already becoming vague. Honestly, they had never been particularly close, so there was nothing strange about that. But those three were her friends. She wanted to see them almost as much as she had wanted to see her family.
Kaya took out her phone.
Her gaze moved over the small number of names on the screen before stopping at Jo Minjoon’s.
After the argument that day—no, the vague conversation that could not quite be called an argument—the relationship between them had become awkward. It was not that they had stopped contacting each other entirely. But there had been many times when they simply endured the suffocating silence without knowing what to say, until eventually the conversation ended.
Because of that, the name Kaya finally pressed was Chloe’s.
The phone seemed to ring for quite a while before she heard someone panting on the other end.
Kaya spoke cautiously.
“Chloe…?”
[Haa… haa… Yeah, what is it? Huph…]
“Are you exercising again?”
[No, that’s not it… Huph. I was going somewhere, but the car stopped, whew, on a hill… I’ve been walking for quite a while.]
“…Should I call you later?”
[No, no, no. I’ll be there soon. I’m almost there.]
Chloe said that, but Kaya deliberately did not continue the conversation.
Her breathing sounded far too laboured.
After listening to Chloe slowly catch her breath for a while, Kaya finally heard her speak again.
[But why did you call?]
“I’m bored. And I feel suffocated. Being stuck with that bastard Anderson just stresses me out. As for calling Minjoon…” Kaya paused. She scratched at her fingers before changing the subject. “Anyway, that’s why I called you. But where are you going? If there’s a hill, did you go travelling somewhere?”
[Hmm. Something like that.]
“Must be nice. I want to travel too. Come to think of it, I’ve never really travelled anywhere in my life.”
[What are you talking about? There was the food-truck mission, and staying at the Grand Chef house itself counts as travelling.]
“That’s true… but anyway, it doesn’t feel very nice right now. A trip where Anderson is the only person around sounds horrible.”
Chloe responded with an awkward laugh.
She was not the type to join in when someone talked behind another person’s back.
Kaya sighed. “So where did you go? Since you said there’s a hill, it feels like somewhere out west.”
[In front of your door.]
“Huh? What?”
[I came to your door.]
At that moment, a knock sounded.
Knock, knock-knock, knock.
Kaya stared blankly towards the door.
Chloe spoke in a teasing voice.
[Delivery.]
Starting with Chloe, the eliminated contestants began arriving one after another.
Joanne and Ivanna came, followed by Hugo, Olivia, Sasha and the others. Eventually, everyone gathered in the fourth-floor lobby just as they used to.
Kaya stayed glued to Chloe’s side, struggling to keep her smile from showing too obviously. She was so happy that she could barely even think about the mission.
“This feels good.” Kaya said it simply.
She was someone who could be brutally honest about unpleasant things but found it difficult to be equally honest about good ones.
For Kaya to say even that much gave the words a certain weight.
Anderson spoke slowly. “There are still six days until the final, so gathering everyone here like this… Is it what I think it is?”
“I don’t know. We weren’t told the details either. But I’m probably guessing the same thing you are.” Hugo answered.
Unlike before, he was wearing glasses.
Ivanna, apparently having wondered about them for some time, asked carefully, “Hugo, did your eyesight get worse?”
Instead of answering, Hugo slid a finger behind one of the lenses and grinned.
Seeing his finger perfectly clearly through what turned out to be plain glass, Ivanna nodded in understanding.
Sasha spoke enviously. “I did think you two were strong… but there really weren’t any upsets. In the end, you both survived all the way to the final.”
“Well, I am good.”
“…Aren’t you normally supposed to say you were lucky?”
Even after Sasha pointed that out, Kaya merely gave a confident “Hmph” and smiled.
Perhaps that very confidence was part of her charm. When had they all become so accustomed to her?
One thing, at least, was certain.
She’s not a bad person.
At first, many of them had misunderstood her. Her mouth was rough, and her behaviour was even rougher. But the more one got to know her, the more she resembled a cute porcupine. She raised her quills because she was frightened, but if someone managed to calm her down, those sharp quills became soft feathers. That was the sort of porcupine she was.
Footsteps sounded from the stairs.
Everyone turned towards them expectantly. Who would arrive next?
They soon had their answer.
A dark, closely shaven head appeared at the top of the stairs. Then a huge body came into view, and welcoming smiles immediately spread across everyone’s faces.
“Marco!” Chloe and Joanne hurried over and hugged him.
Even with both of them extending their arms, they could barely embrace him properly.
But the moment they did, they realised something.
Marco had not come up the stairs alone. Someone had been hidden behind his enormous frame.
Jo Minjoon stepped into view and smiled awkwardly.
“Are you going to hug me too?”
“Uh, uh…”
“I’m joking.”
Seeing Chloe fluster, Jo Minjoon hurriedly corrected himself.
Chloe immediately held out her hands. “Give me your luggage! It looks heavy.”
“…It’s a suitcase.”
“You carried it all the way up the stairs. You shouldn’t even have enough strength left to drag it.”
“Just because I don’t have much muscle doesn’t mean I’m that weak… But fine.” He handed her one of the suitcases and smiled. “Thanks. That helps.”
Chloe blushed and hurried away.
As Jo Minjoon followed her, he glanced towards the others.
The moment Kaya’s eyes met his, she turned her head away like a child caught stealing sweets.
Hugo, who had been watching the two of them, laughed mischievously and looked at Kaya. “Things seem to have become pretty heated while we were gone. Kaya, shouldn’t you be worried?”
“Shut up.” Her black-lined eyes narrowed fiercely.
Even after Chloe and Minjoon returned, she could not relax her expression.
Rather than anger at either of them, it was closer to frustration with herself. Frustration that she could do nothing.
Jo Minjoon found the situation uncomfortable as well. Chloe had confessed to him, and he had more or less argued with Kaya.
The others were not blind. There was no way they had failed to notice that something was going on.
Joanne leaned towards Anderson and whispered. “Hey. Did something happen between those three while we were gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah, how can you not know? You were with them the whole time.”
“When you were with me, did you know everything I did? No, did you understand every single thing about me?”
“…No.”
“It’s the same.”
After Anderson said that, Joanne fell silent.
She pouted and continued watching Chloe until Robert entered.
He looked over the contestants and spoke. “Come down to the kitchen. It’ll only take a moment. The judges are here too.”
“…I’ve already been eliminated, so why am I nervous again?” Marco placed a hand over his chest and breathed deeply.
Jo Minjoon smiled faintly. “Because you’re taking someone else’s competition as seriously as though it were your own. Besides, standing in front of those judges would probably make you nervous even if you were only visiting as a customer.”
“I think you’re right.”
If they ever went to Joseph’s or Alan’s restaurants in the future, they suspected they would not be able to eat comfortably at all.
They headed down towards the kitchen with restless hearts.
Jo Minjoon had only been away for two weeks, but for the others, it had been much longer.
Naturally, returning to this place stirred memories.
And knowing that they were now here merely to support someone else could only make a corner of their hearts ache.
No one in the world could truly be satisfied with being a supporting character.
They wanted to be the stars.
The protagonists.
Who could ever be completely free from that desire, from that greed?
Jo Minjoon remembered something he had heard some time ago, though he could no longer recall whether it had been from a drama or an essay.
A director had said that everyone wanted to become the protagonist of their own life, but not everyone could.
Some people merely watched their lives instead of living them.
And because the protagonist was the person who received the most love, perhaps the true protagonist of one’s life was not oneself, but the person one loved most.
Something along those lines.
When Jo Minjoon had first heard it, he had thought it sounded like manufactured sentimentality designed to seem romantic. Now, however, he felt as though he could understand it a little.
Because accepting it was difficult. He still wanted to be the protagonist. He still loved himself most.
That was how strongly greed stirred within him whenever he looked at the path Kaya and Anderson were walking. And that greed did not always lead in the right direction.
Jo Minjoon tried to let it go. He tried hard.
As he clenched his fist tightly, something soft brushed against his skin.
Startled, he turned his head.
Chloe had also flinched and was looking at him. “Sorry.”
“No.”
An awkward silence fell between them.
Jo Minjoon spoke quietly. “Don’t you regret it?”
“What?”
“Not being able to become the protagonist here.”
“If I answer honestly, you won’t say anything, right?”
“…Is it something that would make me say something?”
Chloe took a few breaths.
They had already descended the stairs and were almost at the kitchen door.
“It was a place I didn’t deserve yet. Ah, I don’t mean that I’m putting myself down. Compared with Kaya and Anderson, the amount of passion and effort I’ve invested is still smaller. I need to build up more first.” Chloe paused briefly. “You know the law of action and reaction, right? If you push against a rock without enough strength, you’re the one who gets pushed backwards. Greed is the same. If you want something without having the ability or any proper plan to obtain it… you can end up losing what you already have. So I’m not going to be greedy.”
“…That’s cool.”
“Hee. Thanks.” Chloe smiled brightly.
At least for that moment, it felt as though all the awkwardness between them had disappeared.
The kitchen door opened. The contestants naturally formed a line and entered.
All three judges were wearing welcoming smiles.
Emily spoke first. “It’s really good to see all of you again like this. You must all be busy, so thank you for making the time. I imagine you’re curious whether we called you here for ourselves, for Kaya and Anderson, or because we need you as helpers.”
Honestly, they were not particularly curious. The situation was fairly obvious. Apparently, that showed on their faces.
Off to one side, Martin sighed in disappointment.
Could they not at least pretend to look more curious?
“I’ll tell you the conclusion first. The eight of you will split into two groups and join either Anderson’s or Kaya’s team. You’ll cook the recipes they designed and serve fifty guests, as well as us. And…” Alan paused and looked at Joseph.
Joseph smiled broadly and raised his voice. “Those fifty guests will be chefs representing all fifty states of America. Gaining their recognition would be no different from being fully recognised by the culinary industry in this country.”
At those words, not only Kaya and Anderson but all eight returning contestants’ eyes lit up.
If what the judges said was true, then the word the producers had used when calling them back made sense.
Opportunity.
They were not merely here to help Kaya and Anderson.
This could become an opportunity for them as well.
Even aside from showing off their abilities, simply making connections with people like that would be invaluable.
“One week… No, to be precise, you have six days. During that time, you’ll need to completely master Kaya’s and Anderson’s recipes and satisfy those chefs.” Joseph paused. “And of course, there’s one step before that. Right, Emily?”
Emily slowly looked over all ten of them.
Then she spoke calmly. “We’ll decide the teams.”