Chapter 149: Rival (1)
Chapter 149: Rival (1)
“……It was really that good?”
Anderson frowned as though he could hardly believe it. Jo Minjoon nodded.
“It was almost on the same level as what we ate at Alan’s Olive Island.”
He was not exaggerating. Although he had not encountered a ten-point dish there, the fact that Higashino could produce food at that level by himself, using limited ingredients, was enough to make the restaurant comparable to Olive Island.
“For a one-man restaurant to be comparable to Olive Island…… If you’re the one saying it, I doubt you’re exaggerating.”
“If you ever come back to Japan, you should go there.”
“……Sera and I didn’t have nearly as much luck. Every sushi place we went to had fish in poor condition, and most of the ramen and udon shops used factory-made noodles.”
“Masters aren’t people you run into everywhere.”
“I heard from the staff that you only managed to find good places. Can you tell just by looking?”
“Something like that.”
Jo Minjoon shrugged. Anderson lay back on his bed and looked at him strangely.
“Do you know you’re pretty irritating sometimes?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You have practically every talent a chef could ask for, yet you act like an ordinary person. And on top of that, you never slack off.”
“You already know chefs can’t get anywhere on talent alone. Why are you complaining?”
“Since when was jealousy logical?”
At Anderson’s shameless answer, Jo Minjoon turned and stared at him. Anderson frowned.
“What?”
“You’re jealous of me?”
“Why? Am I not human? Am I not allowed to be jealous?”
“……No, it’s just funny. Because I used to be jealous of you too.”
Anderson frowned as though the idea made no sense whatsoever. Of all people, hearing I’m jealous of you from someone with an absolute sense of taste was difficult to accept.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No. I’m serious.”
“Then what were you jealous of?”
“You were better at cooking.”
Anderson still looked unconvinced. Jo Minjoon waved a hand.
“I’m not saying I’m still jealous of you now. But during the early stages of Grand Chef……I really was. You grew up with exceptional chefs for parents and absorbed everything they knew. You had solid fundamentals that let your talent flourish, and whenever you gave me advice, I could feel how certain you were about cooking. And most of all……”
Jo Minjoon smiled mischievously.
“You got to face Kaya in the final. I didn’t. I was jealous of that too.”
“……Crazy bastard.”
“Don’t people say that if you don’t want to end up ordinary, you need at least one crazy part?”
“What matters is what you’re crazy about.”
“Cooking. What else would it be?”
“Only cooking?”
Anderson’s eyes sharpened.
Jo Minjoon immediately looked away.
“Go to sleep. We have an internet broadcast at noon tomorrow. It’ll be a problem if we show up with dark circles under our eyes.”
“If you get out, I’ll sleep. So stop worrying about me.”
“Want me to turn the lights off?”
“Yeah.”
Click.
The room went dark.
Six hours later, at five in the morning, a quiet alarm began playing. It was an old jazz tune, the sort you might hear drifting through a dimly lit bar.
Anderson slowly sat up, fighting off his drowsiness. They did not usually film late into the night, but they certainly did not start this early either. There was only one reason he had woken up before dawn.
I can’t lose today.
Recently, a strange competition had developed between Jo Minjoon and Anderson. Perhaps it was more accurate to call it one-sided competition on Anderson’s part, but he did not want anyone seeing him asleep while Jo Minjoon was already in the kitchen making breakfast. Not Rachel. Not the cameras. And certainly not Jo Minjoon.
Maybe today he could finally win.
No matter how diligent Jo Minjoon was, surely even he would not be cooking at five in the morning.
Thinking that, Anderson walked towards the kitchen.
Then his expression stiffened.
“……What is this?”
The kitchen lights were already on.
Several ingredients lay across the chopping board, and a number of dishes had been left on the table. It did not look like someone had simply prepared breakfast. They seemed more like experiments.
And when Anderson opened the oven, which had already been switched off, he found a mackerel still warm inside.
Jo Minjoon, meanwhile, had fallen asleep sitting in one of the dining chairs.
Had he dozed off while waiting for the oven timer?
Anderson opened his mouth.
“Hey. Wake up.”
Jo Minjoon did not react.
Shaking him did not work either.
Judging by the fact that the mackerel was still warm, he probably had not been asleep for long. Considering how much exhaustion he had accumulated during the day, it was hardly surprising that his body had eventually given out.
……Do I seriously have to clean this up?
Anderson glared down at him.
But if he simply left Jo Minjoon like this, he knew he would feel uncomfortable about it all day.
He sighed, hauled Jo Minjoon over to the sofa, and dropped him onto it. Somehow, even after all that commotion, Jo Minjoon still showed no sign of waking.
Anderson went back to his bedroom and brought out a blanket, but there was no way he was going to carefully tuck him in.
Especially not in front of the camera.
He simply threw the blanket over Jo Minjoon and returned to the kitchen.
“What the hell did you make……?”
Anderson calmly examined the table.
There were several different dishes: katsudon, gyūdon, rolled omelette. He could also see sushi made with frozen salmon they had bought at the market, while the mackerel in the oven had been cooked in some sauce Anderson could not immediately identify.
He lazily picked up his chopsticks and put a piece of mackerel into his mouth.
The moment he tasted it, his eyes relaxed.
Part of that was because he was still half asleep.
But part of it was because the sweet, oily flavour of the mackerel woke him up.
It was delicious.
There were very few occasions when food made by Jo Minjoon tasted bad, but this was different. It carried a distinctly Japanese character, as though he had recreated something he had eaten the previous day.
Anderson looked towards Jo Minjoon sleeping on the sofa.
“This is what he made in one night……and this is after it’s been sitting in the oven cooling down?”
If Jo Minjoon had not fallen asleep, if Anderson had eaten the mackerel at the exact moment it was meant to be served……
The impression it left would probably have been incomparable to what he felt now.
His heart began to pound.
A faint fear wrapped around Anderson’s ankles.
He knew.
The Jo Minjoon he had first met and the Jo Minjoon in front of him now were completely different people.
His first impression of Jo Minjoon had been of some absurd bastard who declared that Kaya would win simply because she had grilled an eel.
But the longer they spent together, the more Anderson realised that Jo Minjoon was not reckless at all. If anything, he was calm. His determination towards cooking was firm, and his ability was anything but weak.
Even when Anderson learned about his absolute sense of taste, he had not thought of him as overwhelmingly impressive.
At first, he had honestly believed Jo Minjoon was beneath him.
His understanding of ingredients, his fine handwork, his basic technique—Anderson had thought himself superior in all those areas.
Now he could no longer think that way.
No matter how he looked at him, Jo Minjoon was no longer lacking compared with Anderson.
And yet Anderson himself felt increasingly lacking beside him.
Will I……still be someone you can be jealous of?
He did not want to fall any farther behind.
Jo Minjoon had closed the gap between them far too quickly.
Perhaps Jo Minjoon himself had no idea what he had accomplished, but Anderson wanted one thing.
He wanted Jo Minjoon to envy him.
And he wanted to envy Jo Minjoon in return.
He wanted this kind of relationship to continue.
An equal relationship.
As rivals.
As friends……
Morning sunlight filtered through the window.
Jo Minjoon slowly opened his eyes, then immediately shut them again.
He was sleepy.
And exhausted.
Nothing exactly hurt, but his whole body felt heavy. Even lifting his fingers seemed like too much work.
Ah. The oven. I left the mackerel in the oven.
He had set the timer, so at least it would not have kept cooking indefinitely. The problem was what happened afterwards. The weather was warm, so perhaps it had already spoiled enough to become inedible.
Jo Minjoon forced himself upright.
The blanket covering him slid to the floor.
He was certain he had fallen asleep in a chair.
Did a snail bride carry me over here……?
Maybe he was not fully awake yet, because his thoughts were becoming ridiculous.
He walked into the kitchen.
His face had been gloomy at the thought of all the washing-up waiting for him, but the moment he saw the table, his expression froze.
Several dishes had already been prepared.
There were scrambled eggs, fried fish, rice, and other side dishes. The entire spread had a distinctly Japanese feel.
Jo Minjoon stared.
“What is all this?”
“What does it look like? Breakfast.”
“Ah. Were you also the one who moved me to the sofa?”
“……I didn’t do that. You went there and lay down by yourself.”
Anderson paused before answering.
Jo Minjoon looked confused.
“What? I wasn’t even drunk, but I don’t remember that.”
“You were drunk on sleep. Shut up and go get the girls. Breakfast is ready.”
“Uh, yeah. All right.”
Jo Minjoon started to leave, then turned back towards him.
“But what did you do with everything I made?”
“I ate it.”
“Thanks. For cleaning it up. And for moving me to the sofa.”
“I told you I didn’t do that……!”
Jo Minjoon merely smiled brightly and left for the women’s room.
By the time everyone gathered around the table, Rachel, Sera, and Emily looked as though they had been awake for some time.
Jo Minjoon sat down with an unusually bright expression.
He could hardly help it.
One of the hardest parts of living abroad was food.
He had eaten mango rice in Thailand and other local dishes, but they carried such a strong Thai character that they never quite felt familiar. Italy was even more distant from what he was used to, especially because rice was often cooked firmer and sometimes served almost like a salad.
Japanese meals, by contrast, felt far closer to a Korean table.
Thinking about it, that was rather ironic.
His mother’s cooking had never been something he could honestly call delicious, even as a joke.
Yet merely sitting in front of a table that resembled the meals of home made his heart feel calmer.
Rachel smiled.
“No matter what you say, you really do like white rice.”
“I used to think I wasn’t the kind of person who got obsessed with it, but I think I’m slowly becoming one. When I eat rice, it feels like I actually ate a meal. No matter how much I eat without rice, it somehow feels like I was just refuelling…… I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.”
“I know exactly what you mean. Westerners often feel something similar about bread. Eating habits don’t change overnight.”
Jo Minjoon smiled and put a spoonful of rice into his mouth.
The rice was faintly violet because some black rice had been mixed in. Its aroma was stronger than plain white rice, and its sweetness deeper. He found himself feeling satisfied even when he ate it without any side dishes.
What kind of recipe could I create with rice……?
Unless it was something like bokkeumbap or bibimbap, it was difficult to imagine a rice-centred recipe with an estimated Cooking Score above 7.
(Translator’s Note: Bokkeumbap — Korean fried rice prepared with a wide variety of vegetables, meat, seafood, kimchi, or other ingredients. It is both a standalone dish and a common way of finishing meals cooked at the table.)
Rice was simply too fundamental.
He could imagine pairing it with extraordinary dishes, but there were relatively few cases where the rice itself was treated in some extraordinary way.
Emily glanced at him.
“You’re really good with chopsticks. You can even pick up a single grain of rice.”
“Ah, if you’re Korean, this much is basic. When I was in middle school, I once entered a competition where you had to move soybeans as quickly as possible using chopsticks.”
“Ahaha. That sounds like an adorable competition.”
“You wouldn’t call it adorable once you entered. It gets surprisingly intense. Your hand starts hurting too.”
“It certainly hurts mine right now.”
Sera lifted a piece of ginger pork—pork marinated in ginger and soy sauce.
The tips of her chopsticks trembled, making it obvious that she could not apply strength properly.
It was childish, but Jo Minjoon felt a small sense of superiority.
Perhaps he really was an elite when it came to chopsticks.
He smirked.
“Personally, I find forks harder. Especially with salad. I never know how you’re supposed to eat it properly. If you scoop it up, everything falls off. If you stab it, whatever’s underneath never gets onto the fork.”
“Hmm. Somehow, hearing you say forks are difficult makes me feel better. But it doesn’t magically improve my chopstick skills. Ah, forget it. There should be forks here, right? I’m just going to use one.”
“Ah, Sera. Bring one for me too.”
Emily hurriedly turned towards her.
Sera pouted as she stood.
Meanwhile, Jeremy examined the rolled omelette held between his chopsticks. The alternating white and yellow layers were arranged almost like thin crêpes, making it surprisingly beautiful.
“Anderson. The rolled omelette you made is prettier than Minjoon’s.”
“Thank you.”
“……I can’t just let that pass. Jeremy. My rolled omelettes aren’t ordinary either.”
“Don’t worry. Yours tasted better. Though I prefer the texture of this one.”
Anderson’s eyes met Jo Minjoon’s.
Jeremy looked between them with interest.
Then Anderson spoke.
“Want to settle it with a round?”