Chapter 115: The Winner’s Scale (4)
Chapter 115: The Winner’s Scale (4)
The four of them did not have much time to focus on their conversation. Before the sadness had even disappeared from Chloe’s face, the chefs began flocking over.
Their interest was greater than expected, and as a result, simply exchanging names with one person at a time made the minutes disappear.
Jo Minjoon received plenty of questions as well. Most of them concerned his sense of taste. Since he could not tell anyone about the system, he merely gave vague smiles, but apparently that came across as modesty because the chefs’ gazes towards him softened.
Well, it’s not a bad misunderstanding.
Judging from their reactions, he could tell that the impact of his absolute sense of taste was far from small. Every chef there seemed curious about him, and some even handed him business cards and invited him to visit their restaurants.
Of course, they made similar offers to the other contestants, but Jo Minjoon in particular was overwhelmed with restaurant invitations. Even compared with Kaya, who had actually won, more people seemed eager to have him visit.
Then again, it was only natural that chefs would be fascinated by an absolute sense of taste.
If such an ability had never appeared in recorded history before, then that also meant no chef in history had ever served a customer who possessed one. Few chefs could resist the chance to experience something so unusual, perhaps something that would never happen again in their lifetime.
One chef who ran a restaurant centred around unusual recipes even invited Jo Minjoon with these words: “It’s fine if you steal the recipe. In return, pay for the food and the recipe with your impressions.”
Quite frankly, whether or not Jo Minjoon could properly appreciate the flavour, he had no idea what kind of lofty response the chef expected from him.
After some time, he finally managed to excuse himself. When he slipped away to a corner, he found Marco eating a crêpe filled with banana, chocolate, and peanut butter.
Marco swallowed what was in his mouth. “If you want some, go over to the second table. There’s plenty left.”
“………No. I don’t want to eat.”
“You want to sit down?”
Instead of answering, Jo Minjoon dropped heavily into the seat beside him.
He remained silent for a moment before speaking quietly. “It’s over.”
“Technically, it ended for us a while ago.”
“……Even so, it feels like it’s really over now.”
“Mm…… I think I understand what you mean.”
Marco nodded and began drinking something mixed with cocoa and banana.
Jo Minjoon looked at him with a tired expression. “You seem bigger than before.”
“Yeah…… Maybe it’s because the stress built up. I started eating a little more.”
“Stress? Why? You already have a place to work. Shouldn’t this be the point where you can finally relax?”
“That’s not how it works. Once one problem is solved, another tends to appear.”
“That’s true.” Life was a continuous succession of problems, large and small. Jo Minjoon spoke with concern. “Still, don’t deal with stress by eating. Your complexion doesn’t look good. Have you been to a hospital recently?”
“………Mm. Once I start working, I’ll get checked.”
“Let’s keep seeing each other for a long time. Healthy.”
At Jo Minjoon’s words, Marco laughed shyly and nodded.
“Thanks. For worrying about me.”
“We’re friends.”
“Mm. Right.”
After exchanging such embarrassingly sincere words, neither of them could look at the other for a while.
Jo Minjoon turned his gaze towards Kaya.
An elegant dress. Subtle make-up.
People said clothes were like wings, and when Kaya lifted one corner of her mouth the way she usually did, it no longer came across as mischievous. Instead, there was something provocative about it.
One corner of his heart felt warm, yet another felt strangely disappointed.
He ought to have been happy about Kaya’s victory, but if he was being honest, he could not feel entirely happy about the distance that seemed to have appeared between them.
Jo Minjoon checked his stats.
Absolute sense of taste.
The system.
And whatever talent he had originally possessed. If he combined all of those things, how far could he climb? Could he reach the same level of the world as Kaya?
……This isn’t a question of probability.
In the end, the most important thing was whether he tried or not.
And Jo Minjoon was prepared to try.
As his expression hardened with determination, Emily approached and sat beside him. Her face was slightly flushed, as though she had been drinking.
“Minjoon, we’re travelling soon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m telling you again, but you made the right choice accepting. Minjoon, it’ll definitely be a good experience.”
“………Travelling?” Marco spoke with a bewildered expression. He seemed to process what he had heard for a moment before raising his voice in shock. “You’re together?!”
His voice was as loud as his surprise, enough to drown out both the country music and the surrounding laughter.
In an instant, Jo Minjoon and Emily noticed all the gazes turning towards them and looked at each other.
“……Haa.”
Before the sigh had even faded, the storm arrived.
“I’m sorry.” Marco spoke with a dejected expression.
Because of his sudden misunderstanding, Jo Minjoon and Emily had been bombarded with questions and congratulations from everyone around them. They had tried to explain, but there were still some people firmly convinced that the two of them were dating.
Kaya glanced at him and asked carefully, “But……it’s not true, right?”
“……How can even you ask me that?”
“No, but…… Well. Mm……… Never mind.”
Kaya looked as though she wanted to say something, but in the end she closed her mouth.
Chloe twirled a strand of hair around one finger. “That sounds nice. You even get to travel.”
“The question is where we’re going. If we end up somewhere like Africa, I’ll die from the heat.”
“But heat feels different when you’re travelling. It’s enjoyable then.”
“………You’ve never lived anywhere hot, have you?”
Chloe merely smiled cheerfully instead of answering.
The party had ended.
More precisely, they had escaped from it.
There were still people drinking and talking, but the five of them had returned to their usual place in the fourth-floor lobby.
They needed some time to themselves one last time.
Of course, they might meet again someday, but this place and this moment had meaning precisely because they were here together now. The group did not include all the contestants. There were only five of them: Marco, Anderson, Chloe, Jo Minjoon, and Kaya.
The others were still at the party.
For a while, no one said anything. They could hear the silence and the calm sound of one another breathing. The farewell that would soon come cast a shadow over all of their eyes.
The one who finally threw a stone into that still water was Kaya. “Will we ever be able to gather here again?”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it here, but we’ll be able to meet again. This isn’t exactly a place we can visit whenever we want. But would it really be that hard to gather somewhere else? Getting everyone together might be difficult……but three or four of us should be easy enough. If we really want to, what’s the problem?”
In the end, the real question was how long the emotions they felt in this moment would last. They wanted to believe they would not simply fade away.
But where in the world was there a heart that never cooled?
Chloe looked at Kaya with watery eyes. “Kaya, you’re not going to stop hanging out with us just because you’re famous now, right?”
“She might.” Anderson spoke bluntly.
Kaya glared at him for a moment, then shook her head.
“Of course I’ll still hang out with you. Where else am I going to find people like you to mess around with? And even if I do find some, you’re still the best. This was the first relationship I ever had where the ending wasn’t bad. …Well, I guess we haven’t actually reached the end yet. But still……” Kaya’s voice cracked.
Moisture seeped into that broken sound.
She closed her mouth and moved her lips as though trying to continue, but in the end she lowered her head.
Her long, slender fingers covered her mouth. Then her eyes. Beneath her trembling fingers, her reddened nose began to sniff. Between lips that were brighter than her nose, her two front teeth appeared, and soon all her teeth were visible.
No.
What was truly visible was her emotion.
“……I’ve always looked for someone who would love me.” Kaya barely managed to force out that one sentence in a trembling voice. Then she drew in a shaky breath and slowly let it out.
Her hands fell away from her eyes. Her eyebrows drooped, and her forehead creased. The shadows around her eyes looked almost like smoky make-up.
Kaya sobbed, spoke, and confessed. “You saved me. Forget winning this competition. I was happy just because I received love from people outside my family. And…… I was sc-scared.”
“………What were you scared of?” Jo Minjoon asked quietly.
The others might not have noticed, but Chloe did. Kaya was not the only one struggling to keep her emotions from showing.
Jo Minjoon’s voice was slightly wet as well.
Kaya stared at the floor, her gaze shifting unsteadily. The sorrow of a frail girl who had never had anyone to depend on lingered in her eyes like a scar.
Jo Minjoon looked back at her with a similar expression. “Being alone again. No……I was scared that I’d eventually accept completely that I was someone who could only ever be alone. Thank you for not letting me become like that. Even if I became famous, what would it matter if I were alone? You gave me hope. That was really……”
Her sob swallowed the rest of her words.
Chloe wrapped her arms around Kaya without saying anything.
Marco lifted a handkerchief and wiped away her tears from beside her.
Anderson simply remained seated in silence.
Jo Minjoon could not say anything either.
His heart felt as though it were swelling like a balloon. Even calming himself down was difficult.
In the end, it was a good confession.
Although most of what Kaya spoke about concerned her scars, ultimately it meant those wounds had begun to heal.
But simply seeing the marks those scars had left—no, merely hearing about them—made Jo Minjoon want to shout.
It made him want to tear out whatever was hanging heavily inside his chest.
Even so, Kaya was the centre of this conversation.
If he was watching her overcome those wounds, then what he should do was cheer for her.
But why?
At this moment, what he wanted was not merely to cheer. He wanted to sink into Kaya’s feelings. He wanted to cry with her and embrace her, just as Chloe was doing.
But that was not his role. In the first place, they did not have that kind of relationship.
I…… How do I see Kaya?
A stone of doubt had been thrown into the spring. Ripples spread across the surface, but the stone itself never rose again.
Jo Minjoon simply stared into that spring. But it was too deep. He could not even see what was reflected in it.
“Minjoon.” Kaya called his name.
Jo Minjoon flinched and raised his head.
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and smiled through her tears. “Thank you. I was able to believe because you believed in me too. From now on……keep believing in me. Just like I believe in you.”
“If you say you believe in me……then it only means something if it isn’t a lie. If that trust changes depending on time or circumstances, then it was fake from the beginning. I……don’t do fake things.”
“I know. You’re real. More real than the fact that the Earth turns.”
Even as they exchanged such heavy words, the others remained silent. The atmosphere made it feel as though they should not interfere.
Jo Minjoon felt his face heating for no reason and avoided Kaya’s gaze.
The winner was Kaya. Right now, and in the future. And among all the weights placed upon her scale, one more had been added. A weight that would never disappear, no matter what happened. It was the most precious weight of all.
The name of that weight……