Chapter 44: Unexpected Fame (1)
Chapter 44: Unexpected Fame (1)
While Kaya’s team was dealing with all of that, Martin was meeting with an unexpected visitor.
Emily Potter.
Of course, there was nothing particularly strange about seeing the two of them together. Martin was the director, and Emily was one of the programme’s regular personalities. But this time, Emily had not come to see him in her capacity as a performer.
Emily smiled brightly. “It’s been a while since we’ve met somewhere without cameras, Martin.”
“Yes. But what brings you here? Have you decided to accept the proposal I made?” Martin looked at her expectantly, but Emily shook her head. He did not seem disappointed and merely asked, “Then why...?”
“Well, since we’re both busy people, I’ll get straight to the point. About that proposal of yours—I’ve been thinking about it. The tasting programme you want to make after Grand Chef.”
“If you’re saying you’ve been thinking about it, I assume you have a proposal of your own?”
“That’s right. You really are perceptive.” Emily smiled. “I want Jo Minjoon.”
Martin’s expression immediately became strange. Only then did Emily realise that saying she wanted Jo Minjoon could be interpreted in several ways. There was no need to correct herself, though. Martin was hardly the sort of person who would misunderstand what she meant.
“Because of his talent for tasting?” he asked.
“Yes. If you haven’t finalised the cast yet, then at least put Jo Minjoon and me together.”
“But what Jo Minjoon himself thinks about it...”
“That isn’t something I need to worry about. Isn’t recruiting the cast the director’s responsibility?”
Emily was right. Martin fell into thought.
Putting aside Jo Minjoon’s own opinion, the question was whether the combination itself would work. The programme Martin had originally envisioned involved sending well-known food critics on a journey centred around tasting food. However...
Would Jo Minjoon really fit into a programme like that?
There was no denying that Minjoon possessed an extraordinarily developed sense of taste. The sensitivity of his palate was beyond comparison with most professional food critics. But while Jo Minjoon might be a pearl, he was still an unpolished one. Martin could not help feeling uneasy about casting him outright as an food critic.
Emily seemed to notice his hesitation. “Of course, it would be a little different from what you originally planned. But I can promise you this. Even if the direction changes slightly, it won’t become any less entertaining.”
“I agree with that. Even putting Jo Minjoon’s talent aside, he has more than enough potential to become a star.”
“Then I’ll wait for a good answer. Call me once you’ve decided.”
Martin sighed. “Whew... My workload just increased.”
“Increased? Do you have something else to deal with?”
At Emily’s question, Martin let out a bitter sigh and answered in an exhausted voice. “A small problem came up in Kaya’s team. More precisely, some conflict has developed.”
“I had a feeling that might happen. Kaya is a good cook, but she isn’t exactly the type to lead people. Who did she clash with?”
“Peter Gray.”
“Ah...” Emily nodded as though that explained everything.
Peter’s skills were reasonably good, but his personality was terrible. Even then, his skills had only stood out during the early stages of the qualifiers. By this point, everyone who had survived was competent, and compared with the other contestants, Peter had quite a few weaknesses. He himself was probably well aware of that.
It was hardly surprising for an already aggressive personality to become even more abrasive under those circumstances.
Emily tilted her head. “But isn’t that actually useful for you? In your position, wouldn’t this kind of conflict make good material for the programme? Shouldn’t you be happier about it?”
“If all I cared about was the broadcast itself, then yes. But in the end, the programme depends on the contestants. If the atmosphere between them deteriorates too much, their attitudes and emotions will inevitably come through on screen. In the long term, that isn’t good.”
“So that’s what it comes down to. You have to look after the contestants’ mental state to some extent too, right?”
“That’s right.” Martin nodded.
At that moment, Emily thought for a moment, then clapped her hands as something occurred to her. “Come to think of it, the fourth episode airs today, doesn’t it? What’s in it? Depending on the content, the contestants’ moods could end up completely different.”
Martin answered with an awkward smile.
After dinner, Jo Minjoon and the rest of the contestants gathered in the lounge. Peter, who had gone back to his room in a bad mood, came out as well, apparently unable to resist watching the broadcast. Naturally, the other team had gathered too.
Jo Minjoon poked Marco in the side. “What are you in charge of?”
“It’s a secret. They told me not to say.”
“Come on, you can at least tell me that much. Besides, it’s obvious anyway. Dessert, right?”
Marco said nothing and merely shifted his eyes away. At that moment, Anderson grabbed Marco by the arm and pulled him to his feet, looking coldly at Jo Minjoon.
“What are you doing, acting like a spy?”
“I’m a spy?”
“What else would you call trying to steal information from the other team?”
“Honestly, does it even matter?”
“You don’t know that. So what are you in charge of?”
“I’m...”
Jo Minjoon was about to answer when he suddenly frowned. “You won’t tell me yours, but you expect me to tell you mine?”
“I could say exactly the same thing to you.”
“Forget it. I’m not curious anymore.” Jo Minjoon snorted and turned away.
Anderson watched him with a cold smile, then tugged Marco along with him. “Don’t hang around with the other team. Especially that guy. He’s rotten inside.”
“Ah, no... Sorry, Minjoon. I’ll go.”
Jo Minjoon watched Anderson and Marco walk away with a bewildered expression. Anderson was one thing, but Marco’s behaviour left him with an unexpected sense of betrayal. It reminded him of being at school, when the class was split into two groups and the friend you had always thought was your best friend suddenly went off to play with someone else.
“You got dumped?” Chloe sat down beside him with a teasing smile.
Jo Minjoon laughed. “What are you talking about?”
He turned towards her and noticed that she was dressed more carefully than usual. A striped bandanna was tied around her head, and she wore a red-and-white floral dress. To be honest, it was a style he had no idea how to judge. She looked somewhere between an Alpine girl from the 1980s and a Korean girl standing awkwardly on the border of two fashions.
Jo Minjoon hesitated before saying, “Those clothes are pretty.”
“Really? I actually like them a lot.”
Maybe she would have become depressed if he had said they looked strange.
Minjoon quietly breathed a sigh of relief and changed the subject. “What about Peter?”
“He seems to have calmed down quite a bit. He’s much quieter than before.”
“That’s a relief. You made sure he didn’t go near Kaya, right?”
“Even if I tried to make them sit together, neither of them would go anywhere near the other. Well, he probably doesn’t want to come near you either.”
Jo Minjoon shrugged. In truth, Peter seemed more disappointed with him than with Kaya. Minjoon had scolded him harshly and then given his dish a score of five. Peter might easily think Minjoon disliked him.
Chloe sighed. “You only said what needed to be said. You did well.”
“I never said I regretted it.”
“You looked bothered.”
“How could I not be?”
“It would be nice if you weren’t...” Chloe smiled faintly.
It was the sort of smile that made it difficult to dislike her. Jo Minjoon fell silent and turned towards the television as the broadcast began.
As previously announced, the fourth episode covered the qualifying rounds. It opened with footage of the Grand Chef house, accompanied by the contestants’ faces and their exclamations of admiration. Among them were both familiar people and faces belonging to contestants who were no longer there.
After scenes of the judges introducing the Grand Chef house, the catfish challenge appeared. The screen showed contestants staring in confusion at the writhing fish, but among them, Jo Minjoon’s comparatively calm expression flashed across the screen.
Chloe immediately exclaimed and poked him in the shoulder. “Did you see that? Did you see? You were just on screen.”
“I saw.” Minjoon answered calmly and continued watching.
Seeing the challenge again made him realise just how competitive it had been. Many contestants had been eliminated simply because they could not clean the fish properly. They had needed to reduce around a hundred people to only a few dozen, so the judging had been extremely strict. Thinking back on it, Minjoon felt rather proud that he had survived.
While he was considering that, the screen showed him again. This time, it was not merely a brief shot. They showed him actually cooking—the way he crisped the catfish skin and prepared the purée sauce. Kaya, Anderson, Chloe, Hugo, and several others were given similar footage.
Jo Minjoon sighed. “...I’m going to get mentioned online, aren’t I?”
“You don’t want that?”
“I don’t, but I’m also looking forward to it. If people only said good things, why wouldn’t I like it? It’s the random hateful comments that hurt.”
“If it’s hard for us, imagine how hard it must be for Kaya. Whew. Sometimes I think life would be easier if the internet didn’t exist.”
At Chloe’s words, Minjoon looked over at Kaya. She was sitting a short distance away, almost glaring at the television with her usual cold expression. Was she nervous?
He leaned towards Chloe and whispered, “Go sit with Kaya. If I go over there right now, she’ll probably start grumbling.”
“Okay.”
Chloe stood up and moved over beside Kaya. Fortunately, Kaya did not react irritably. Instead, a smile appeared on her face almost immediately, as though she had secretly been hoping Chloe would come over.
The episode soon approached its end. The programme moved through positive and negative comments from the contestants, then the Grand Chef logo appeared and the screen went black.
Just as the contestants began standing up, thinking it was over, the screen lit up again.
Jo Minjoon appeared.
The moment he saw the image, he sighed.
Kaya was there too.
It seemed they had isolated the audio from their microphones, because the television played nothing but the faint clatter of tableware and the conversation between Kaya and Jo Minjoon.
“It’s delicious.”
“Yours too.”
With those lingering words, the episode finally ended.
Jo Minjoon stared at the screen in bewilderment. What kind of editing was that? Why had they turned such an ordinary exchange into something resembling a post-credits scene at the end of a film?
Hugo, who was sitting in front of him, turned around with a grin. “It’s delicious.”
“Yours too.” Another voice immediately answered him.
This one came from so close that Jo Minjoon could feel the warmth of the speaker’s breath against his neck. He turned around in surprise and found Carlos looking at him with a wicked expression.
Jo Minjoon frowned. “It was edited.”
“Carlos, do you hear something?” Hugo asked.
“What? A lie?”
“The sound of someone’s conscience tearing apart.”
“...You two need to get through this phase and grow up.” Jo Minjoon answered helplessly while Hugo and Carlos continued grinning at him.
At that moment, Joanne came running towards them as though something startling had happened, still wearing high heels.
“L-Look at this! You’re trending on the search rankings!”
“...Who?” Jo Minjoon asked despite already having a suspicion.
Joanne held out her phone as though the answer should have been obvious. The moment Minjoon saw the screen, his face froze.
The name—no, the names—rising through the portal’s real-time search rankings were painfully familiar.
3 NEW — Jo Min Jun and Kaya Lotus