Chapter 49

Gulp.

The gulping sound was loud. It was Cho Min Joon. He looked at the chips coming out of the boxes with serious eyes. One from Blue Team, one from Red Team. 11 from Blue Team, 11 from Red Team. By the time 34 chips had come out of each box, Allan announced, “There are no more chips left in one of these boxes.”

For the contestants, this sounded like a death sentence. Allan looked at Jacob.

“Jacob, do you think your team will win?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you believe that?”

“I trust my team members.”

“Do you think you did a good job as the head chef?”

“That’s a hard question to answer. I think my team members know the answer to that better than I do.”

Allan looked at Jacob for a while. Allan’s eyes were slightly slanted downward, but he had a more fierce look than a nice one, but Jacob didn’t look away. Allan spoke in a low voice, “If you had to pick who did the best job on your team, who would you pick?”

“… That’s a hard one. I can’t say all of them, right? Okay. I’ll pick Marco. All he did was serve clean dishes that didn’t even need to be washed.”

“In that case, who do you think did the worst job?”

Jacob didn’t answer right away. He couldn’t. Whoever he called would feel hurt as a result, and no contestant made such a big mistake that they deserved to be shamed like that. Jacob answered with an awkward voice, “I’ll pick myself. I tried my best to adjust to being the head chef, but I don’t think I filled the role as well as I could.”

Allan didn’t give a response. There was a long silence until Allan smiled.

“You’ve been trying to avoid typical answers, but this one sounded authentic. Great. I won’t ask further, but I’ll say one more thing, Jacob. You did your best. I know it.”

“Thank you.”

When their conversation ended, Kaya didn’t look so good. After all, she knew who Allan would pick next. Allan’s head turned toward Kaya. Chloe, who was standing next to her, wiped off her sweat with a towel. Allan watched this with a straight face before he asked, “Kaya, let me ask you the same question. Do you think you’ll win?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll just have to see, and why do you ask this anyway? If I said I was going to win, you’d criticize my confidence, and if I said I was going to lose, you’d ask why I didn’t have any confidence. Aren’t I right?”

Everyone by Kaya’s side laughed bitterly in response. They all knew Kaya’s personality, but they didn’t think she would say such a thing to the judges. Was it a bluff? Or was this the only way she knew how to answer a question?

Allan didn’t get angry. She wasn’t so rude that he felt insulted. She was just lashing out. Kaya’s eyes didn’t look respectful, but he had no reason to target that either. He was a judge, not a teacher. Allan spoke in a calm voice, “I won’t criticize your answer. Just answer me. Are you confident?”

“I told you. We’ll just have to see. I don’t know.”

Allan’s eye twitched. He was taken aback. He didn’t think she would talk back like this. Come to think of it, for someone who said those things, Kaya looked more shocked than anyone. She probably didn’t know she would react that way either. Allan took a breath before he continued, “Then next question. Who do you think was your best chef?”

“Hugo and Chloe. Oh yeah. One person, right? Chloe. I’ll go with Chloe, but as for their cooking, they were both good, but Chloe was good at serving. She had such a nice smile, and she’s pretty and cute unlike me, so the customers liked her.”

“… Don’t you think you’re beautiful enough for customers to love as long as you fixed that attitude of yours?”

“Then did you fix yours? Your bad personality.”

Allan smiled. He wasn’t one to talk. He wasn’t the type to smile at customers either. Allan continued. He wasn’t comfortable asking these questions, but this was a broadcast where it was required.

“Last question. Who do you think did the worst on your team?”

Some of the contestants looked at Peter. It was understandable. He was the one who burnt his food.

And Kaya didn’t show the consideration of keeping his name back. It was a bad situation either way, so it was best to just be honest.

“He burnt the chicken. I’d choose Peter as the worst.”

“What about you? Don’t you think you should have kept a closer eye on him as the head chef?”

“I never said I wasn’t in the wrong. I was just comparing. A dumb team member who burnt his cooking, and the head chef who failed to check on him, but between those two, the team member was more stupid.”

She was overly honest. The producers were smiling at the entertaining scene, but Cho Min Joon felt uncomfortable. Although she was honest, it could easily be portrayed as rude, and the viewers tended to focus more on the bad than the good.

How could she speak in such a way if she was scared of the negative comments? Of course, this would make her into an entertaining character, but it would take time until that character was perceived by the public. After all, even when Cho Min Joon first saw Kaya’s videos, he didn’t like her so much.

Kaya opened her mouth.

“Did I have to say that I was the worst? I never got a script.”

“… Forget it. Let’s end the interview here.”

Allan put his hand inside the red box, and Emily, who was beside him, put her hand into the blue box.

“One of us will show an empty hand. If my hand is empty, the red team wins, and if Allan’s hand is empty, the blue team wins. Will you countdown? Please count to three!”

In response to Emily, everyone started chanting. It was the same with Cho Min Joon. There were great desperation and anticipation in their voices.

Three.

Two.

One.

Following the announcement of the results, the contestants participated in their interviews, and Cho Min Joon was no exception. While he left the interview room after speaking with Martin, Chloe was in the hallway kicking the wall with her heel. When Cho Min Joon approached, Chloe turned her head.

“Are you done?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Hm, I didn’t feel like going to the kitchen. The vibe’s not so good in there.”

“Where’s Kaya?”

“Sigh. The way you look after her reminds me of siblings. Don’t worry. She’s in the interview room.”

“Okay.”

Cho Min Joon stood next to Chloe with their backs against the wall. He smelled concrete past the thin cloth behind him. Chloe said, “I saw the difference between home cooking and restaurant cooking today. I didn’t know it’d be this hard.”

“But it was fun. I had fun seeing customers enjoy my cooking. That was my first time.”

“… Same here. Even if I end up getting disqualified, I think I’ll be able to keep pursuing my dream.”

Cho Min Joon nodded in response. At first, he came all the way to America just to get his parents’ acknowledgment. Of course, he also had the desire to compete somewhere that he respected.

But the competition gave Cho Min Joon a lot of things. It improved his abilities and connected him to many good chefs, but most importantly, he was able to get a better look at his attitude and passion for cooking. Cho Min Joon smiled as he said, “I’m glad I came here. It was the best choice of my life.”

“Same here.”

Chloe smiled at Cho Min Joon. The conversation paused for a long time after that. They had nothing more to say, and rather than being uncomfortable, the silence was peaceful. They didn’t see the need in breaking that silence, but it soon came to an end. Chloe asked, “Come to think of it, are you going to tell your parents? You said you’d tell them if you won. About your dream of becoming a chef.”

“… I will. I can’t hide this forever. On top of that…”

Cho MinJoon smirked.

“We won the mission. So I should keep my promise.”

“… I don’t know if it was a promise, but still.”

Chloe scratched her cheek with an awkward look on her face.

The blue team, which was Kaya’s team, won. 17 against 26. Blue Team had 26. They won by a long shot. Considering Peter’s mistake, that took a very unexpected turn. Cho Min Joon still couldn’t forget the faces of the red team once they found out they lost.

“I think we won because of your serving. They don’t just evaluate the cooking alone.”

“Come on. Yeah right.”

Chloe shook her head with a smile, but Cho Min Joon wasn’t joking. Just as Emily evaluated, Chloe’s smile was capable of swaying customers. After all, the service didn’t end at what was placed on top of the plate.

“Really. If I were me and both teams were similar, I would’ve gone with the team with a pretty chef.”

“Stop it. Just go and call your parents, or does the time difference make that difficult?”

“No. It’s morning over there…”

Cho Min Joon hesitated before taking out his phone. He turned on his phone. Cho Min Joon’s face turned stiff. Chloe, who saw his expression, looked at Cho Min Joon’s phone and then knitted her brows. She couldn’t read it because of the Korean interface, but he saw the sign that meant missed calls. He had 21 missed calls. Chloe looked back at Cho Min Joon with a nervous look on his face.

“… Wait.”

When he checked the history, 10 were from his mother, 5 from his father, and the remaining 6 were from his little sister, Cho Ah Ra. Cho Min Joon looked up at the ceiling and then sighed at his phone screen.

[Mom: Min Joon, people are saying weird things to me.]

[Mom: Are you in a cooking competition?]

[Mom: Call me when you get this.]

[Dad: Min Joon. Are you busy?]

[Cho Ah Ra: Min Joon, I thought you went on vacation. What are you doing? Mom and Dad are mad right now.]

There were more texts, but he couldn’t be bothered to read them all. Cho Min Joon closed his phone. Chloe tapped Cho Min Joon on the shoulder. Cho Min Joon showed a dark look on his face as he said, “I think they found out.”