Chapter 594: Between Envy and Disappointment (6)
But the participants here weren’t that bad. Normally, the participants would have longed for Min-joon’s noble pride, but they had no choice but to blame him now.
‘Man, it’s tough.’
Min-joon was usually tired after hard work, but today he felt like his soul had muscle pain.
Until he finished his late dinner at 9 pm, Min-joon constantly asked them to come up with some recipe ideas.
No, actually, it wasn’t just Cho Min-joon. Neither Kaya nor Joseph would back down in the slightest in this confrontation where their pride was at stake. But was it really just a matter of pride? Gwen thought maybe she wasn’t.
“We don’t know how many will be eliminated from each team. But the head chef of each team will make the decision on that.”
Recalling the rules of this competition, he continued, “But I hope I won’t be able to send you back home.”
He continued his wishes for them. He was doing his best to make them cherish his wish while they were cooking.
In fact, he didn’t have to pay attention to it. He would be heartbroken to see his team member being eliminated, but it basically had nothing to do with him. And it would have little effect on his honor.
Still, he wanted to protect them, although he knew they would be eliminated at some point. Was it his simple hospitality toward her? If she won this competition, could she act like Min-joon?’
Hospitality was something strange to Gwen. She had never been in a position of giving something like hospitality to anybody or receiving it from anybody. So she felt like it was a dream that she received hospitality from Min-joon. It wasn’t a matter of good or bad. She couldn’t feel it was real. She just felt she was dreaming now.
After dinner, Gwen walked around the garden for a while. Among her team members, Ken and Vlad said they had to work harder this time, so they were still in the kitchen trying to work out some good recipe ideas. Of course, it was not hard to figure out their hidden motivations behind their eagerness to show Min-joon that they were working so hard.
‘What does that mean?’
Gwen felt instinctively that just because they’re sitting in the kitchen right now, they could get new inspiration and skills instantly. And Min-joon didn’t seem to appreciate their meaningless efforts like that.
‘I wonder if he can grasp what’s on our minds at a glance.’
Gwen recalled Min-joon’s face for a moment. When she saw him on TV, he looked just like a good chef, but now he was completely different here. Even if he smiled easily, it didn’t mean he accepted and understood them easily. He was more stubborn than she thought. He was uncompromising, and especially so when it came to cooking.
He was as soft as a fluffy blanket to Kaya, but he was as hard and huge as a rocky mountain when he dealt with them.
“She must be happy with him!” Gwen muttered with a sigh.
She felt that if someone like Min-joon cheered for him next to her, she could overcome any difficulties ahead. She thought she wet herself at the moment, as always.
Gwen put her buttocks on the bench. It was dark outside. The lights of the street lamps flickered whenever the branches of the trees swayed, and sometimes unknown insects flew around. When she lowered her gaze because my ankle felt itchy, there was nothing on her clean ankles.
For a moment, she felt like she heard music coming from somewhere. It sounded like hip-hop, but EDM-like beats resonated into my ears. Of course, it was an auditory hallucination, not a real sound. The countless songs she had heard, drunk with drugs a long time ago, were already deeply embedded in her mind and stayed there.
She frowned as if she was troubled. She then grabbed her arms tightly. She felt like she was losing her senses. The sound that once brought incomparable pleasure to her was now pounding in her ears like the drums of a referee.
She got scared all of a sudden. Her hands that got into her armpits were trying to scratch her back. For a brief moment, she was ecstatic as if she was in a good mood, but the excitement made her throw out something in disgust while moving around through her veins.
Hugo appeared only after she threw out something white. Embarrassed, he approached her with a puzzled expression.
“Are you okay? Can I pat you on the back?”
Instead of answering, she waved her hands and vomited once more. She didn’t throw out anything this time, but she was pretty tired. Hugo couldn’t even leave her, just watching her.
She then sat down on the bench again with a tired look.
Looking at her, he asked, “Would you like some water?”
“You have it?”
“I was jogging, so I touched it with my mouth.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He handed her the water. She immediately started gulping it down. Then she lowered her head with a tired expression, then muttered quietly, “Thanks.”
“Are you sick?”
“No, I’m just a little tired.”
It was obvious that she was trying to decline to reply, so he couldn’t ask her further.
Instead, he sat next to her quietly. She was obviously not in a good shape right now, so he could not just leave her even if he was not close to her.
“How is your team doing? Are they doing fine?”
“No. They’re in the worst situation. How about your team?”
“Well, I think everyone is in the same situation right now,” said Hugo, smiling bitterly.
She quietly opened her mouth.
“I intend to win this competition.”
He looked at her for a moment. In the past, he would have said the same thing because he thought it was important to win a war of nerves with the other party.
Of course, no matter how good he was at it, it had nothing to do with him winning, for his confidence and determination that was not backed up by his real cooking skills was just as vain as mere bluffing.
“You were in the same class as Min-joon during the Grand Chef competition, right?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“I guess you must have mixed feelings.”
Gwen didn’t realize that her question would make his emotions run crazy.
But he nodded, with a pleasant smile, then said, “Yeah, I have mixed feelings. At least Min-joon and Kaya don’t have to feel troublesome like me.”
“What made you decide to participate in this competition again?”
“Because I want to show them something”
“About what?”
“Well, I just wanted to show them that I worked as hard as them,” he muttered. “I want to tell them that I deserve a due reward for my hard work.”
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Contrary to what the average contestant thought, the three judges had their own concerns, faced with the task of leading their own teams as the head chef. That was the case for Min-joon, in particular. He had been dealing with the Rose Island chefs until now, so when he came to work with the ordinary chefs here, he had no choice but to feel a big gap in their cooking skills.
“It would be better if I could guide them from start to finish.”
“Well, I feel the same way.”
Kaya agreed with him with a sigh. As the head chefs, the three judges could not overstep the line while working with the participants of their teams. For example, they could recommend some sort of recipes, but they were not supposed to come up with the recipes for their team members. What they were supposed to do was to give them some advice and lead the kitchen staff to some extent.
Come to think of it, their assignment like that was natural because the purpose of this competition was to check out the cooking level of the participants, not the judges. The judges knew if they intervened a bit, they could upgrade their cuisine drastically, but they were not supposed to do it, which made them have a strange sense of helplessness.
“Aren’t you okay? Michael is in your team, right?” Min-joon asked.
It was Michael that Merlyn brought into her team first. And her judgment was quite reasonable because Michael stood out in many ways in this competition. Although he was more suitable as a team leader, not a team member, it was certain that he would carry out his job well as a team member.
“Don’t mention him! He’s really driving me nuts!”
“Why?”
“You know his problem, right? As you know, he didn’t come here to win but to make good memories. He talked about some trifling recipes for a long time, so …”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, his dishes were just good enough for eating, no more or no less. But he made most of the dishes without any decorum, and it was difficult for people to get familiar with his cuisine.”
Given that Kaya gave such harsh feedback about Michael, it was certain that Michael was a difficult guy to deal with. Maybe that was why he opened a restaurant of his own instead of landing a job at a restaurant after the Grand Chef was over.
