Of course, a high cooking score for a dish didn’t necessarily mean that it was better than those with fewer scores. No matter how well one made sushi, it was hard to get a cooking score of 8. But this wasn’t the problem. A dish that was easy to receive a high cooking score meant that its cooking process was so complicated and difficult that it was highly unlikely for people to make and enjoy it during their daily lives.
When he realized that, Min-joon wondered if it was okay to make dinner with only those kinds of dishes. But he didn’t have to give it a thought for long because he found out soon that no matter how good a restaurant was, it would please the customers all the more when the chef could make a dish that was not complicated but simple, just like when a person ate something fatty, that person might want to have a cup of refreshing tea after doing so.
However, Daniel was the opposite. He often used complex and esoteric processes to create the dishes he couldn’t even think of from the beginning. In other words, what he made at the end of the day was just a simple dish. How would it feel if the taste produced through dozens of processes was just plain strawberry flavor?
“Man, I can’t get any sleep tonight…”
Min-joon suddenly felt wide awake. He thought if any chef could sleep comfortably after finding a recipe like this, he or she would not be called a chef anymore. However, he could not concentrate at the moment. He heard some noise in Anderson and Janet’s room, then Anderson hurried to him and looked at him, panting and puffing. When Min-joon looked at Anderson blankly, Anderson shouted in a frightened voice, as if he had no idea what to do.
“She is feeling contractions!”
She was supposed to deliver a baby a little bit earlier than the due date.
Since her due date was earlier than expected, she was less prepared for it.
While he was going to the hospital with Janet, Anderson recalled numerous bad things in his mind. He didn’t know why such bad things came to his mind. Since he was restless at the moment, he could not afford to think about something good and happy.
He was just scared. He was afraid she might not survive while going into labor. He was afraid he would lose the baby. As a matter of fact, he often trembled with fear even when he felt comfortable with no worries because he might lose the happiness he found after getting married to Janet and that unexpected happiness was so cozy and warm.
That was why he was more scared now when Janet started to feel contractions. He was scared about her trembling, tears, the groan that she could even heave. He was more scared because of that. But he tried to suppress his fear because she would feel scared, too. Even though he was scared now, he knew he should not show it to her.
Anderson grabbed her hands, who surprisingly squeezed his hands tight. So much so that he could not believe her strong grip. So, he had no choice but to hold her hands more gently and softly.
Anderson whispered something to her countlessly. Sometimes he raised his voice as if to shout at her, feeling she didn’t hear him. He couldn’t remember every single word he told her. In fact, while he was talking, he didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe he whispered to her he loved her, or he might have asked her to endure her labor. He might have told her everything would be alright after today. Or he might have told her he was grateful to her or sorry for her.
He didn’t follow her into the surgery room. Janet said she didn’t want to show him her ugly looks. Maybe what she heard about her pregnancy made her feel that way. The way she tried to do her best to survive while going into labor befitted just one of the ordinary humans rather than a woman. But she wanted herself to be seen as just an ordinary woman, rather than the one who struggled to survive in his presence.
Anderson understood her feelings, but at the same time, he felt it so regrettable to have to hear her screaming in pain from the delivery room while she was going into labor. He paced up and down outside the delivery room several times, biting all his fingernails and drinking water over and over again to moist his throat.
When he looked at the clock, wondering if it passed about an hour, the minute hand didn’t yet turn halfway. People around him patted him on the shoulder several times and tried to comfort him with kind words, but no words could calm him down.
Whenever the door of the delivery room was opened and the doctor or nurses went back and forth, he looked at them blankly lots of times. After two hours passed, the doctor came back. Anderson wasn’t even paying attention to him because the doctor had something else to take care of, but he slowly approached Anderson. Anderson couldn’t even figure out what expression the doctor was making because he was still wearing a mask, absent-minded.
“Mr. Anderson?”
“Yes.”
The doctor then took off his mask. Anderson wanted to shout at him what happened, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t because it was rude. He found it hard even to breathe, so how could he raise his voice?
So, instead of opening his mouth, Anderson opened his eyes wide as much as he could and looked at the doctor’s face. He read some relief in the doctor’s tired face.
The doctor said without a smile in an exhausted voice as if he couldn’t rest for quite a while, “Congratulations. Both your wife and baby daughter are good.”
He expressed thanks to the doctor and even appreciated his fatigue.
***
Anderson and Janet’s daughter was named Catherine. Looking at Catherine over a glass wall, Kaya opened her mouth blankly. The newborn baby girl was so cute.
“She is so pretty.”
To be honest, Min-joon couldn’t agree much. As a newborn baby, she had no wrinkles on her skin and no red spots on her body, but she was a newborn anyway. So, it was too early to call her cute and pretty until one more day passed.
However, Kaya looked at the newborn baby so adorably. Not only Kaya, but also Chloe and Amelia looked at the baby girl with eyes full of affection and wonder.
“Yeah, she looks so pretty because she is Eurasian, doesn’t she?” Kaya said.
“If you say that to me, it really makes me feel heavy,” Min-joon replied.
“Good! Yeah, that’s why I said that. So, take seriously what I just said to you.”
He smiled at her then tangled her hair. Kaya got mad, complaining that he messed with her orderly hair. He knew she was pretty busy doing her face, saying she wanted to make a good impression on Catherine.
But it wasn’t Kaya alone who put on makeup. After putting on makeup with a gentle and natural touch, Chloe was even dressed up in a neat suit. She even smiled at the newborn baby who could not even open her eyes properly.
“Cathy! I’m your aunt Chloe! Call me aunt! Aunt!”
“What are you doing to a baby who can’t even open her eyes right now?”
“Don’t you know you have to ask for it even when she is a baby? Who knows, she might say my name first before Anderson or Janet?”
While saying so, Chloe touched the window of the delivery room so eagerly that it looked like she was going to hug the newborn baby as soon as she was taken out of it.
It didn’t take long for such an opportunity to come along. Soon, a nurse pushed a cart with Catherine on it to Janet’s room, then Min-joon, Kaya, and Chloe followed the nurse. Janet, lying in her bed, exhausted from her delivery, looked at Catherine blankly.
The nurse asked her, “Would you like to hug her?”
“Yes…” Janet responded with a hoarse voice.
And soon, Catherine was held in her arms. She was her baby which was more lovely and precious than anyone else in the world. As if she was still dreaming, Janet gently stroked Catherine’s head with her blank expression. For fear her baby might wake up, she touched Cathy’s cheeks cautiously with her fingers, which made those onlookers around her utter admiration.
It was a beautiful scene of a mom and a baby. They had never seen such a subtle smile on Janet’s mouth when she hugged Cathy. Since she was always stiff and tense and she was always neither a woman nor a human, but a chef, her new status as a mother made them look at her freshly.
Janet was pretty. So much so that they had never thought she was. She was as pretty as she was in a wedding dress. Only now did she look like a woman.
“I envy you, Janet,” Chloe muttered blankly.
