Janet asked with a straight face, “Why did you come here then?”
“Because I have something to learn here. Min-joon is a person who I can learn a lot from as a chef and as a man, Don’t you think so?” Chloe answered.
“I agree because I’ve felt it to some extent. But if I were you, I think I would have been very uncomfortable being here,” Janet said.
“Well, I know, but there is something you want to do even if it’s hard,” Chloe replied with a light smile. “We are friends. And I want to show my friends that I can be a great cook, too. I want to show you I can cook by your side. That’s why I am still cooking so hard,” Chloe said.
Janet said playfully, “Well, I guess you want to sit right next to Min-joon than your friends here.”
Chloe blushed silently when she pointed out mischievously.
Chloe said in a calm voice, “At first, I wasn’t sure what to do, but come to think of it now, it was simple. I’ve just changed my mind a little.”
“How did you change it.”
“Well, I decided to be his fan,” Chloe said in a calm voice.
“If I could not make a romantic relationship with him, I thought I had better become his fan. Well, in fact, I’m yearning for him as a man and as a chef.”
When she said that, Janet suddenly became puzzled. She wondered how he could captivate so many around him like this? Chloe wasn’t an ordinary woman. No matter what, she was enjoying wide popularity as a cuisine broadcaster before she quit. Was it because of Min-joon’s talent or his passion for cooking?
‘I think it’s going to be very difficult for me to catch up with you, Min-joon,’ Janet thought.
But she had to. She couldn’t fall behind anyone because on the day she lost her child, she pledged to be the best in cooking. Right now, there was now a gap between him, the star, and her, the supporting star, but she was determined to close the gap.
At that moment, Chloe opened her mouth with a smile.
“By the way, you have come to me at the right time. Actually, I needed someone to taste my dish. Can you eat this carrot confit? I’m going to serve it in the morning.”
“Then, you have been preparing breakfast from 1:00 am until now?”
“Well, if you include that one over there, I don’t think I’ve spent that much time. Isn’t it alright for me to feel a bit elated now?”
Janet suddenly recalled somebody at that moment, who was none other than Min-joon.
She wondered why people around Min-joon were so crazy about cooking.
‘If the situation has come this far, he’s like a virus.’
It was not an ordinary virus, but a virus with no vaccine because one couldn’t use medicine for a crazy man.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Chloe asked suddenly.
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
Janet could not bring herself to tell Chloe that she had already contracted the Min-joon virus because she already felt lots of mixed feelings toward him. Others often criticized Janet for her harsh criticism, but she didn’t criticize others without any reason. Of course, it was controversial if they could take her teasing of Chloe as something like invective.
Janet slowly moved to Chloe’s side and helped her make the dish. Chloe glanced at Janet slightly, but Janet said without looking back, “They’re going to wake up soon. They are early birds.”
“Yes, let’s hurry up.”
Chloe had a childish smile, as always. When the sun just appeared through the window, they were done cooking.
Janet asked, looking at Chloe, “Let me go and wake them up.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for us to let them sleep a little more?”
“We’ve been cooking so hard early in the morning. But our dish is getting cold now. You want to feed them cold food?”
“Um… let’s wait ten more minutes.”
Normally, Janet would have scoffed at her suggestion and woke them up, but she could not, given her pitiful look. Janet was a softie for a woman like Chloe. She would have been harsh toward a tough woman like Kaya, but Chloe was the opposite. Janet could not get angry toward Chloe who was now smiling brightly at her, so she just remained silent and decided to wait for ten more minutes.
Chloe said she would wait ten more minutes but eventually stopped moving at all close to 20 minutes. She was just smiling at the plates on the table. Janet looked at her quietly. Chloe was very pretty. That was why Havier always praised her as the ‘prettiest female chef’ on TV, but she was commendable in other areas, aside from her beautiful looks.
Looking at Chloe, Janet sometimes wondered if she really was a woman who was crossed in love. Could any woman in the world make such a pretty expression even after she got her heart broken? Janet would not care if she completely gave up on Min-joon, but in Janet’s eyes, she still had lingering affection for him.
“Well, lucky for you.”
“Uh? What are you talking about now?”
“Because you can smile in a situation like this.”
Janet laughed. Chloe’s eyes were open wide at her smile, which she rarely saw. Unfortunately, Janet didn’t look happy despite her smile.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be able to make a happy expression.”
“It’s not new at all even if you are dumped. There are so many people in the world that are more miserable than me, so I can’t even pretend to be the protagonist of a tragedy.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you feel hurt more than others. Whether you have your finger or arm cut, the thing is you and your lover feel hurt the same, right?”
“If I think I’m unhappy, he will feel more unhappy,” Chloe replied in a quiet voice.
Hers was a voice like a spring water filled with sweetness in a cozy forest.
“That’s why I don’t want to think I am hurt. I don’t even think about it. I have a lot of good friends around me. They like me. So, I don’t have any reason to feel hurt.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea.”
Without saying anything for a while, Janet opened her mouth hard with an effort.
Chloe stood up first and said, “Let’s wake them up. They might be waiting for us.”
Chloe stood up and knocked on the door of the room where Havier and Anderson stayed.
But she didn’t want to tap the door of the room where Kaya and Min-joon stayed. Luckily, Janet read her mind. When Janet woke up Kaya and Min-joon and had them come to the table, everyone at the table looked at Janet and Chloe between sleep and wake.
“Have you made them early in the morning?”
“Well, I felt like I wanted to do it all of a sudden.”
Chloe replied with a bright smile. Min-joon looked at the dishes that Chloe prepared on the table one by one. There were as many as three egg dishes. Frittata, open omelet with tomatoes and goat curd, and soft-boiled eggs with salted ham and asparagus. At a glance, one might think that it wouldn’t take long, but Min-joon knew that it would take some time to make them all.
Kaya opened her mouth.
“This omelet smells of saffron?”
“Yeah, I made saffron butter and cooked it with it.”
“The sauce served with the soft-boiled egg here doesn’t seem to be just ordinary whole grain mustard. Did you mix honey and wine vinegar?”
“Wow, correct! Kaya, I wonder if you have a perfect palate like Min-joon.”
Kaya smiled triumphantly at that while closing her eyes halfway from drowsiness.
When she was about to close her eyes due to drowsiness, Min-joon put an omelet in his mouth.
It was a perfect omelet with no sticky spots anywhere. If she went to an omelet contest, she would win the first prize without a doubt. He didn’t feel any fishy smell because saffron butter was strong in flavor enough to overwhelm the fishy smell of the eggs.
The soft-boiled eggs weren’t seasoned very much, but the soft saltiness from the salted ham spread to the yolk properly, so the seasoning was just right. Thanks to the freshness of the whole grain mustard sauce and the fresh taste of asparagus, he didn’t have to worry about the stale taste of eggs.
“Does it taste delicious?”
Chloe looked at him with tense expressions.
He said with a nod, “Yes, that’s good. It’s well balanced. You have cooked the omelet perfectly, so I can’t ask for it anymore. Wait a moment. Let me try the frittata this time.”
Min-joon took some of the frittatas on the pan and put them in his bowl. The thick barbecue ham, darkly burned onions, and potatoes caught his eyes. The complex taste that he felt the moment he put it in his mouth was better than he thought. And he smelled a subtle saffron scent even there.
“You also used saffron here?”
“Well, I’ve made more butter than I thought. It’s a waste if I don’t use it.”
“You’re making comments like a housewife.”
Chloe scratched her head as if she was embarrassed when he said that. She felt so happy because he was praising her at the moment. Of course, her joy was different from Havier’s, who was also crazing for Min-joon’s recognition, but it was similar in nature.
Janet looked at Chloe silently. To put it precisely, she looked at the table. She stuck out as an amateur chef. It wasn’t that she wasn’t the one with quick hands or she lacked cooking skills. She could not find a professional touch in Chloe’s dish yet. In other words, she lacked the skill in calculating the taste of customers and the commercial success of her dish. Because of that, Janet felt like she was now seeing the cooking of an excellent student chef full of yearning. hearts.
Chloe’s dish was basically “warm”, given that she prepared the food for everybody here. Of course, it wasn’t a matter of gathering them at the table that made Janet feel her dish was more “warm” than hers. In terms of intimacy, Kaya and Chloe were not that close to Janet and Havier. Nonetheless, there was nothing awkward among them at the table this morning.
‘Can I also make this kind of warm dish for them? Or should I make it?’
