Chapter 89 - Chapter 89: Weight of Restaurants (1)

“47, 48, 49… 50. Okay. Get up, Chloe.”

“… Sigh, I’m tired.”

Chloe breathed heavily while lying on top of a mat. Cho Min Joon let go of her legs and asked.

“Isn’t that hard to do every day? Even the guys that exercise takes some days off. You’ll get hurt at this rate.”

“But I don’t work out that hard. Besides, there aren’t much equipment here…”

Chloe glanced at the gym with sad eyes. The gym, which was originally made for the staff, not the contestants, was not that great. Cho Min Joon glanced over at Anderson, who was doing squats. Anderson was pretty muscular. His body was very different in comparison.

“… Maybe I should work out, too.”

“Isn’t that why you came here?”

“No, I just came here for motivation.”

“You should make your own motivation, not take it from others… If you keep mumbling to yourself about needing to work out, nothing will change, and your motivation won’t change either.”

“Okay. Then I”ll start…”

Just as he was about to say ‘today’, his phone rang. Cho Min Joon gestured to Chloe with his hand and left the gym. The name on the screen was Jessie Dean. Cho Min Joon smiled at the name that he hadn’t seen in a while.

“It’s been a long time. What’s up?”

[Nothing. I’m just bored and had nothing to do.]

“But shouldn’t you be at school? Oh, New York is 1 hour behind, right?”

They chatted about all sorts of things. She asked if he was making jelly these days, if the Grand Chef House was big, and all sorts of things like that.

[Are you sure you two aren’t dating?]

“No.”

Cho Min Joon answered in a firm voice. Jessie groaned. Cho Min Joon sighed and changed the subject. He was tired of talking about this topic. After all, it wasn’t just Jessie, but his entire family that asked about Kaya whenever they called.

“How’s Lucas?”

[I think he’s trying to start a new business… But he doesn’t really talk about it with me. He’s doing fine though.]

“That’s good.”

Jessie sounded much brighter than before. He realized he didn’t’ have to worry about her anymore. At that moment, Jessie asked what she was actually wondering.

[But about that Reuters woman… I saw some bad rumors about her online. It’s not true, right?]

“No. People always think they’re the victim. Tess Gillly, I mean… that woman is just like that.”

[You do have good judge of character.]

“Tell the people around you that Kaya’s not like that.”

[That’s not hard to do, but why do you care so much?]

Jessie asked suspiciously. Cho Min Joon responded with annoyance, “I’m hanging up. I have to work out.”

[Aw, sorry. Don’t hang up. I’m bored. I said I’m…!]

He hung up despite Jessie’s pleading. As soon as he hung up, he heard a familiar voice near his ear.

“Were you talking about me?”

“Ah! You scared me… Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Once he turned around in shock, he saw Kaya pointing at her shoes instead of answering. They were high heels. Her feet moved. Click-clack, click-clack. It was a loud noise. Cho Min Joon stroked his chin with a confused face.

“I can’t hear that while I’m on the phone.”

“Maybe you’re just deaf, so were you talking about me or not?”

“Everyone asks me about you when they call. What else can I do? Don’t you have the same problem?”

“… I don’t get that many calls. Only from my mom and sister.”

Kaya answered with a frown. He should’ve felt sorry for her, but he rather saw Kaya as cute. Cho Min Joon smirked.

“Don’t your mom or sister ask about me?”

“Yeah. They keep asking why such an idiot keeps hanging around me.”

“… Really? Is that what they said?”

“You believed that?”

Kaya clicked her tongue and shook her head. Cho Min Joon frowned. When one played with their young cousins, it was very easy to become just as immature as them. Same went with Kaya. He didn’t know if that was good or bad…

“I’m going to work out. See you.”

“Really? You never worked out before. Is it because I made fun of you?”

“Do I look like a kid to you? I wouldn’t get jacked just because someone teased me.”

“What’s wrong with being a kid? You haven’t escaped your teenage years that long ago. Stop trying to act like an adult.”

He got angry for a second, but he didn’t want to show Kaya that she got to him. To Kaya, he hadn’t escaped his teenage years that long ago, but that wasn’t true since he had lived until 30 before. It was an age where he wasn’t allowed to be immature.

“It hasn’t been long since I came back from the military. My body’s not bad, you know!”

“Military? You were in the military?”

Kaya jolted her eyes wide open. She didn’t expect that. After all, he had never told anyone that he had gone to the military. Cho Min Joon rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. I shot guns and trained.”

There was no need to tell her he actually worked in administration. Cho Min Joon left that part out. Kaya looked shocked by the unexpected news and cautiously asked, “Have you done it before?”

“What?”

“Have you… shot a person before?”

Her eyes looked different as if she was worried. She also made a lot of unnecessary hand gestures. For that reason, he felt tempted to tease her. This man, who was once 30 years old, intentionally spoke in a questionable voice, “Korea is still at war.”

She had no idea what he meant. Kaya wasn’t good with people beating around the bush. She wasn’t sure if that meant he had shot a person before or if he hadn’t, but his voice said that he did.

‘Is it hard to answer?’

She had no choice but to think that way, and she felt embarrassed to make it show that she didn’t understand. Kaya opened her eyes wide and said, “I understand if you had to do it. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

Cho Min Joon smirked. He wasn’t sure if she imagined Korea to be a place as dangerous as the middle east. It was possible that when he cleared it up with her one day, she would give him a few punches to the face.

‘I should worry about that later… and get back to working out.’

But Cho Min Joon didn’t end up working out that day. As soon as he picked up a dumbbell, a staff member called them over.

“Let’s go to the mission location. Come out to the parking lot, everyone!”

***

While riding on the bus, the topic of conversation was about the mission. Sasha asked, “It’s probably at a restaurant, right? There’s nowhere else we could go.”

“It could be a hotel, too. It has to be somewhere with a kitchen though. It’s just a matter of where.”

“… Will only one person be disqualified today?”

“I don’t know. Probably, considering our current number, but then again, they could just get rid of 2 to be unexpected. Don’t think about going home. It’s better that way.”

Anderson spoke in a cynical voice. Sasha sighed and Cho Min Joon turned back to the window. It had been a long time since he left the Grand Chef House. Lately, there had been so many reporters, that he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to, so it felt refreshing to see the outside world for once.

But from behind him, Kaya glanced over at the back of his head. He felt anxious that just by looking out the window, she could be thinking about his story from the military.

‘… How dangerous is it if they’re still at war?’

She had never learned about it, so she had no idea. Kaya jabbed Chloe on the side. Chloe glanced over at Kaya.

“What?”

“Shh. Come closer,” whispered Kaya.

“Is Korea, I mean South Korea dangerous? Do they still shoot guns?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t’ think so. I had some friends who traveled there, but then again, I did see some fights on the news. But why?”

“No, nothing.”

“You’re making me curious. Tell me. If it’s about Korea, is it about Min Joon?”

“Shh! Be quiet!”

Kaya blocked Chloe’s lip with her finger. Chloe raised her eyebrow and stared at Kaya’s finger. Kaya lifted her finger and said, “Have some sense, Chloe.”

“But why?”

“… You can’t tell anyone here.”

Kaya looked at the other people around her. Cho Min Joon was still staring out the window, and Anderson and Sasha were talking about the mission. As for Ivanna, she was sleeping. No one was listening, so Kaya said,

“Min Joon was in the military.”

“It’s mandatory in Korea, so of course he did. Why?”

“Soldiers fight at war and stuff, right? I met a few men who fought in the war at the market, and they had a really hard time there. Min Joon’s not making it obvious… But what if he’s having a hard time, too? Like from PTS or whatever it’s called.”

Chloe stared at Kaya with a strange look. ‘What on earth is this immature girl thinking?’ But Kaya was still in her own little world.

“If you think about it, he’ll go back to Korea once this show is done. I haven’t thought about this before, but isn’t this dangerous? Maybe we need to help him. Should we tell Min Joon to register for immigration?”

“… I think you’ve got this all wrong, Kaya. Korea isn’t what you think.”

“It’s in the middle of a war. That means war can break out at any moment.”

“That’s true…”

She didn’t know how to explain it. Chloe didn’t know much about Korea either. There was another problem. She thought it was cute to see her overreact and dwell on this issue all by herself, but if she led her on and teased her, she could get serious backlash from Kaya’s temper later on.

“Kaya, the truth is…”

“We’re here!”

“Okay. Let’s talk about this later.”

A staff member cut Chloe off. Chloe thought, ‘I’ll just tell her later’ and turned her head. She saw a restaurant outside. Half was on top of the water, and the other half was on a lakeside. Since most of it was made of white wood, it looked quite romantic.

It had the visuals that anyone would be amazed by, and Kaya was no exception. Once she got off the bus, she forgot all about Cho Min Joon and stared in awe, but the voice that rang through the mic woke her back up.

“I’m Jessica Prada from Daily Street. You’re being suspected of having bullied a friend from your school days. Is that true?”