Staring at him, who was leaving with a lingering affection for Chloe, Delia turned to her. Normally, Delia would not have cared at all about any woman even if she got drunk and had an affair with a man, but Chloe was different because she was Min-joon’s close friend. At the same time, she had a good feeling toward him like Chloe. Of course, Chloe felt much more affectionate for him than Delia.
“How come you are so drunk like this, Chloe? Did you have anything bad?”
“Oh, it’s you, Delia. Hehehe.”
Chloe looked at her. She called her name then hugged her and rubbed her cheek against hers.
Startled, Delia tried to take her off from her, but she couldn’t because Chloe was much stronger at the moment as if the liquor affected her. Besides, Chloe had a regular workout everyday.
“Hey, hey! Just let go of me!”
“You know what, Delia? I’m really having a tough time. I want to cook, but I can’t cook… I want to cook. I want to cook.”
“Go back to your room! You guys are chefs, so I have arranged a specially refurbished room for you!
Actually, that was one of the reasons Kaya, Cho Min-joon, and Chloe are living together now. It was not very common for a five-star hotel like this to make a special room with a kitchen available. As a matter of fact, Delia brought in the finest kitchen utensils for them and completely renovated their luxury room.
“I can’t go in… I can’t go in.”
But even with such privileges, Chloe could not enjoy it. Whenever she entered the room, she had no choice but to see Min-joon and Kaya being together all the time. There was no reason for Chole to see it everyday. When she thought of it, Chloe suddenly felt sad.
When she became quiet, Delia asked her, rather embarrassed.
“Are you crying now? Oh, don’t sniff! Don’t blow your nose! If you want to do it, just let go of me first.”
Kaya or Min-joon was not around, and Chloe was drunk. Maybe after waking up, she would not be able to remember what she did. As if she knew it, Delia gave her a piece of her mind without any hesitation, but the problem was Chloe was too drunk right now to listen to it.
Chloe sniffed while crying.
“I want to cook. Seriously. I’m a chef. Why can’t I cook when I’m a chef?”
“You can’t cook. Why? Because you don’t go in there!”
“I can’t go in… I can’t go in. I want to go in, but I can’t go in…”
“Then, go to the restaurant kitchen instead of your room. There you can cook whatever you want.”
“No, they are making soup and pudding hardened there now, and they are also making brown sauce! Brown sauce…”
“Why are you sobbing like that?”
Although she was drunk, she remembered such stuff in the kitchen. Delia’s face turned pale. It was clear she could not control Chloe. As a matter of fact, all the customers at the bar were paying attention to them. She had to get out of this miserable situation.
“I’ll cook it for you at my house!” Delia said.
Chloe stopped crying at that. Only then did Delia take a breather. If she had known Chloe would mess up like this, she would not have stopped Johnny trying to flirt with her from the beginning.
Delia said, ” I have everything like kitchen utensils in my room. So you can cook there. Got it?”
***
In Delia’s house.
“… So, what happened?” Kaya asked in a confused voice, watching Chloe crying in the kitchen while peeling potatoes.
Delia said with a weary look, “Because of you guys, she can’t go in like that. So, stop fornicating… Oh, what I mean is…”
Delia tried to say something to Kaya and Min-joon but remained quiet immediately. She had no intention of posing herself as Chloe’s ally, but at the same time, she didn’t want to make Min-joon suspect Chloe liked him. She was gracious enough to take that into account. It was true that she had no manners, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t care about others at all.
At that moment, Kaya nodded without asking anything particular.
“Yeah, I don’t think I was not considerate of her in that respect. I thought it would help her overcome her problem if I acted like that.”
Having heard that, Delia was at a loss, not knowing how to respond.
She cautiously asked, looking at her blankly, “Did you notice she liked Min-joon, too?”
“Isn’t it rather strange that I didn’t notice it?” Kaya said, turning to Chloe. “How could I know it when she likes my man so much?”
Delia hardened her expression at her calm voice. She never even imagined that Kaya was aware of it.
“When did you notice she liked him?”
“Well, it’s been a while. I wondered if Chloe felt affectionate for him during the Grand Chef days. When I met her again in Los Angeles, I was convinced she did because the way she looked at him was so romantic. You know what?”
“What?”
“When she is with Min-joon, her smiles are the prettiest.”
Delia instantly nodded her head unwittingly because she also felt it. Actually, she was wondering how she was not caught liking him when she expressed her affection for him so openly like that. Maybe the people around her might have already noticed it. In other words, they also know about it, but they were not talking about it for the sake of Chloe.
Come to think of it, it was quite naive for Delia to think that Kaya might not have noticed it when she herself knew it. Although Chloe was trying to hide her affection for him in front of Kaya, she could not, even if she wanted to hide it.
Whenever Chloe talked to him, she spoke in a pretty voice, and when her eyes met his eyes, she made a smile softly. Even when he didn’t say anything, she glanced at him secretly on and off, and sometimes she just smiled, looking at his face blankly.
Obviously, Chloe had a crush on him. If he had no girlfriend like Kaya, Delia would have cheered for their dating, of course.
Delia felt the way Kaya acted so casually was pretty dangerous. How could she let her best friend be a rival in love? If either of them failed to control themselves, they would be in big trouble without question. Lost in idle thought like that, Delia shook her head and said, looking at Kaya, “I would not have done it.”
“What?” Kaya asked.
“Well, I am not sure if I can keep being friends with a woman who likes my sweetheart. Maybe I can understand as far as that, but you even suggested to her that she work with you here. Why did you do that? Wouldn’t it be better for you to stay away from her, so she can give up?”
“Distance doesn’t matter. She would not give up anyway. So, I thought instead of feeling awkward toward her as a friend, it might be better for me to have her close by, so I could give her some time to overcome it.”
“For what?” said Delia, frowning as if she couldn’t understand at all. “Do you have any reason you should meet her like that? You have many other friends, right?”
“But you don’t have friends.”
“Who said that I had no friends?”
“Then, do you have one?”
Kaya looked at Delia with her surprised eyes, as if she had never imagined such a question.
Delia turned her eyes in embarrassment. Kaya didn’t want to harass this poor woman anymore. She opened her mouth in a calm voice.
“I didn’t have one, either in the past.”
“Are you talking about friends?”
“Yeah. When I took part in the Grand Chef competition, I was betrayed by a guy I trusted as my boyfriend and even got kicked out of school. If such a guy could be called a friend, I thought I didn’t have to make friends in the future. I even didn’t think I would make friends again.”
Delia looked at Kaya as if she didn’t expect it. As a matter of fact, she played the video about the Grand Chef competition because she was interested in Min-joon. In the video, she could find out that Kaya got along well with other participants. So, she wondered why Kaya answered like that.
But Kaya satisfied her curiosity right away.
“When I was struggling alone in frustration, Min-joon and Chloe liked me. They recognized me and approached me. At that time, I was sick and tired of seeing people, including my friends, but both of them embraced and comforted me.”
Then she looked at Chloe working in her kitchen at the moment. She was in a mess, drunk. But there was no ridicule or contempt in her eyes when she looked at Chloe.
“So, I won’t turn away from Chloe when it’s hard for her.”
Having said that, Kaya went to the kitchen. At that moment, Delia opened her mouth for a moment as if she was shocked and looked at her blankly. She still had lots of questions to ask Kaya. As a matter of fact, Kaya had never expressed in front of Min-joon that Chloe liked him.
If so, why didn’t she? Did she hide it only from Delia? She could not be so sure.
“Hey, Chloe, how come you got so drunk?”
“Uh… Kaya?”
Looking at Kaya, Chloe was restless at the moment with a confused expression. Chloe didn’t do anything wrong now. She just drank alcohol because she was so disturbed after watching Min-joon and Kaya flirting with each other. As long as Kaya could not read her mind, she didn’t have to feel sorry or afraid of anything. Was it because she was drunk?
At that moment, she made a crying expression as if she was caught in mischief.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Kaya. I peeled the potatoes.”
“Why are you sorry for that? You are a chef, Chloe.”
“This potato must have had a dream… It must have a lover, too, but I peeled it…”
“Don’t worry, it didn’t have one.”
At that moment, Chloe, who was sobbing until then, stared at Kaya sharply. Her resentful look made even Kaya flinch for a moment.
Chloe shouted in a sad voice as if Kaya was too mean.
“How can you say that, Kaya? Potatoes have no partner to love? They don’t deserve to love? Don’t ignore them like that!”
“Oh, alright, Chloe. Got it. So calm down and give me those potatoes. Let me trim them. I don’t ignore potatoes. How delicious they are!”
“Yeah, they’re. Potatoes…”
“What were you trying to make?”
“Potato soup,” Chloe said in a nostalgic voice.
Because of her tone, Kaya couldn’t even ask her why he was making potato soup tonight.
She didn’t even remember Chloe had made potato soup for her during the Grand Chef days, and that she liked it quite a lot.
Would it be wrong to describe it as the homing instinct? However, there was no other way to describe her cooking at this particular moment. Chloe was wondering after getting lost. So, Chloe was missing those days so much when Min-joon, Kaya, and her cooked together without any worries.
“Let me help you, Chloe.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. What can I do for you first?”
“Sure. Bake that bacon first. After removing its fat, bake it with the onion…”
“Got it. You don’t have to say more. Let me do it.”
“Great!”
Until a moment ago, Chloe was in a sad mood, telling Kaya she was sorry for peeling potatoes and shouting at her not to ignore potatoes, but she was not back to cheerful moods this time, anxious to make the potato soup as delicious as possible.
