Chapter 150 - Chapter 150: Rival (1)

“… It was that good?”

Anderson knitted his brows, unable to speak. Cho Min Joon nodded.

“It was almost as good as Allan’s Olive Island.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. He wasn’t able to see any 10-point dishes, but considering their limited inventory of ingredients, it was fair to say that they were on a similar level as Olive Island.

“The place run by one person was similar to Olive Island…? You’d never lie about this.”

“You should go there sometime if you ever come back to Japan.”

“… Oh, me and Sarah didn’t enjoy it as much. All the places we went to had bad fish, and when we went to ramen and udon places, they tasted machine-made.”

“It’s not common to see masters.”

“I heard from the staff that you only went to good places. Do you have an idea of what’s good just by looking at it?”

“Something like that.”

Cho Min Joon shrugged. Anderson laid back on the bed and stared at Cho Min Joon strangely.

“You’re so unlikeable sometimes.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I don’t like that you act all normal when you have all the talent, and you don’t even make any effort as a result.”

“You know a chef can’t succeed even with talent if they don’t’ make the effort.”

“No person feels jealousy in a logical way, you know.”

In response, Cho Min Joon turned his head and stared at Anderson. Anderson knitted his brows.

“What?”

“You’re jealous of me?”

“Yeah. I’m human, too.”

“… That’s interesting. I was jealous of you, too.”

Anderson knitted his brows as if he couldn’t believe it. Who was jealous of who? He never imagined he would hear a person with a perfect palate say they were jealous of him.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No. I mean it.”

“Why would you be jealous of me?”

“You’re good at cooking.”

Anderson continued to stare at Cho Min Joon with blank eyes. Cho Min Joon shook his hands and said,

“I’m still jealous of you. It was at the beginning of Grand Chef. I was jealous that you could learn how to cook since you were little thanks to your parents. You had a solid foundation, and you had good beliefs when giving advice. Also…”

Cho Min Joon smiled jokingly.

“You were able to go up against Kaya at the very end. I couldn’t, so I was jealous of that.”

“… You crazy bastard.”

“You need to be crazy one way or another if you don’t want to end up average, right?”

“It all depends on how you’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy about cooking. Duh.”

“Only in cooking?”

Anderson’s gaze was sharp. Cho Min Joon looked away.

“Go to sleep. We have another live broadcast at lunch tomorrow. You don’t want any dark circles.”

“I’ll sleep if you leave, so don’t worry about me.”

“Should I turn off the lights?”

“Yeah.”

The light clicked off. 6 hours later, it was 5 in the morning. The quiet alarm began to rang. It was jazz music that was often heard at bars.

Anderson slowly got up with a tired look on his face. They didn’t film too late, but they didn’t do it this early either. The reason why he got up early was simple.

‘I can’t lose today.’

Anderson and Cho Min Joon had been competitive lately. It was possible that only Anderson saw it as a battle… But he didn’t want to be sleeping while Cho Min Joon showed off his breakfast cooking. He wanted Rachel, the cameramen, and Cho Min Joon.

He wanted to win today. No matter how diligent Cho Min Joon was, he never got to the kitchen before 5. With that thought, he headed to the kitchen. That was when Anderson’s face froze up.

“… What?”

The kitchen lights were on. There were ingredients on the cutting table, and there were some plates on the table. It appeared that they were practicing rather than preparing breakfast. And when he opened the oven, there was grilled mackerel inside.

And Cho Min Joon was asleep at the table. He must’ve fallen asleep after seeing the timer on the oven. Anderson opened his mouth.

“Hey, wake up.”

Cho Min Joon didn’t react. Not even when he shook him. Seeing how the mackerel in the oven wasn’t cold, he probably just fell asleep. Since he must’ve been tired from the day before, it wasn’t surprising.

‘… Do I have to clean this up?’

Anderson stared down at Cho Min Joon. But if he just left him alone, his body would be stiff the next day. Anderson sighed and pulled Cho Min Joon to a nearby couch. He must’ve been deeply asleep because Cho Min Joon still didn’t wake up.

He brought a blanket from the bed, but he didn’t want to put it on for him. Especially in front of the cameras, so he threw the blanket on top of him and returned to the kitchen.

“What did he make…?”

Anderson calmly looked back at the table. There were all sorts of different things. Katsudon and egg rolls. There were some tuna sushi as well as the mackerel covered in a mysterious sauce.

Just as Anderson put a piece of mackerel in his mouth with chopsticks, Anderson’s eyes went blank. Despite his tastebuds being dull because he just woke up, the sweet and oily flavor of the mackerel woke him right up.

It was delicious. It was rare for Cho Min Joon’s food to taste bad, but this one was special. The Japanese feel was alive. It was possible that he recreated what he had eaten the day before. As soon as he thought about that, he glanced over at Cho Min Joon on the couch.

“Something he made after a day and has cooled down tastes this good…?”

If Cho Min Joon was awake and he ate the mackerel when it was still hot… he would have been much more touched. His heart pounded. Faint terror held onto Anderson’s ankles. He knew… that the Cho Min Joon now was completely different from before.

The first impression Anderson had of Cho Min Joon was when he predicted Kaya would win just because of her grilled eel. But as time went on, he realized he had a calm personality, and that he had the skill and motivation to cook. But he never thought he was that impressive. Not even when he learned that he had the perfect palate.

But as time went on, Cho Min Joon improved drastically. At first, he thought he was below him. His understanding of ingredients as well as his skills with his hands, but that was no longer the case. No matter how he looked at him, Cho Min Joon wasn’t lacking in any way. Anderson believed that he was the one lacking compared to him.

‘Will I… be able to keep being the subject of your jealousy?’

He didn’t want to fall behind anymore. He caught up in too short of a time. Cho Min Joon probably felt accomplished, but Anderson felt restless, especially after becoming Rachel’s pupil alongside each other.

He didn’t even think that he could continue to stand in front of Cho Min Joon. He didn’t feel like he was in front of him now. Anderson only wanted one thing—to continue this relationship where he exchanged jealousy with Cho Min Joon. He wanted to always be on equal ground.

As rivals and as friends…

***

That morning. He could feel the sun through the window. Cho Min Joon opened his eyes before closing them again. He was tired and sleepy. He was stiff all over, and even lifting a finger felt difficult.

‘Oh yeah, the oven. I put the mackerel in the oven.’

Since there was a timer, it would have stopped on its own. But after that was the problem. Since it was warm out, it was possible it went bad already. Cho Min Joon got up. The blanket was sprawled out on top of him. He remembered falling asleep on the chair.

‘Did the snail bride lay me down…?’

He was so tired that he got weird thoughts. A moment later, Cho Min Joon headed back to the kitchen. His sad face at the thought of needing to do dishes turned into a puzzled face. There was a table full of food. There were western dishes like scrambled eggs as well as fried fish and rice. It looked like a homecooked Japanese meal. Cho Min Joon opened his mouth.

“What is all this?”

“What does it look like? It’s breakfast.”

“Oh, did you lay me down on the sofa?”

“… No. You laid down yourself.”

Anderson answered after hesitating. Cho Min Joon spoke in a confused voice, “Huh? I don’t remember that.”

“You were probably too sleepy. Go and get everybody from the women’s room. Tell them breakfast is ready.”

“Oh, okay.”

Cho Min Joon was about to leave but then looked around at Anderson.

“What happened to all the dishes I made?”

“I ate them all.”

“Thanks for clearing them and putting me to sleep.”

“I said I didn’t do that…!”

Despite Anderson’s answer, Cho Min Joon smiled and headed over to the women’s room. Rachel, Sarah, and Emily looked chipper as if they woke up a long time ago.

Cho Min Joon sat down at the table with a bright look on his face. It was hard not to. It was hard to eat rice in foreign countries. He ate some mango rice and fried rice in Thailand, but they tasted very Thai. Not to mention Italy. There, rice was only eaten in salads.

The rice he ate in Japan was closest to Korean food, but that was ironic. The food that he ate at home made by his mother was the furthest from delicious, but whenever he sat in front of a table that resembled it, he felt comforted.

Rachel smiled and said, “You love rice, don’t you?”

“I didn’t think I was obsessive over rice, but I can’t help it. When I eat rice, I feel like I’m eating real food, and whenever there’s no rice, I feel like I’m low on energy… What am I saying?”

“I know what you mean. It’s kind of like Westerners and bread. The eating habits are hard to change overnight.”

Cho Min Joon smiled and put a spoonful of rice in his mouth. It was purple rice. It was a little sweeter than the rice he was used to. He felt good eating rice even without any side dishes.

‘What kind of recipes are possible with just rice…?’

It was hard to surpass 7 points unless he made fried rice or mixed rice. Since he had eaten rice as a basic part of any meal, He couldn’t think of anything special to be made with rice. After all, rice was rarely used to make anything special. Emily glanced at Cho Min Joon and said, “You’re good at using chopsticks. You can hold every grain of rice.”

“Oh, all Koreans can do that much. When I was in elementary school, we even had competitions of how fast you could pick up beans with chopsticks.”

“Hahaha, that’s cute.”

“It’s a fierce competition. It hurts your hands, too.”

“Mine are hurting right now.”

Sarah picked up a piece of pork in soy sauce with ginger. Her hands were shaking as if she couldn’t hold it properly. It was childish, but Cho Min Joon felt superior. He felt like he was an elite chopstick holder. Cho Min Joon smirked and said, “It’s actually harder for me to use a fork. It’s especially hard for me to eat a salad with a fork. Things keep falling, and I can’t seem to dip it in the sauce.”

“Hm. Hearing you say that makes me feel relieved. It’s not like that makes my chopstick skills any better but still. Is there a fork anywhere? I should just use that instead.”

“Oh, Sarah. One for me, too.”

Emily turned and asked Sarah. While Sarah grinned, Jeremy stared down at the egg roll stabbed into his chopsticks. The yellow crepe-looking texture was lovable.

“Anderson, your egg roll is prettier than Min Joon’s.”

“Thank you.”

“… I can’t accept that, Jeremy. My egg rolls are good, too.”

“Don’t worry. Yours tasted better, but the texture of this one is better.”

Anderson and Cho Min Joon exchanged glances. Jeremy looked at both of them with interest. Anderson asked, “Should we put it to a test?”