Maybe he didn’t have to hide his pent-up feelings anymore. Maybe it was about time for him to think of how to reveal himself again. But now was not the time for him to think about it. He recalled somebody’s face among those around him. It wasn’t Min-joon’s face or Kaya’s. It was Gwen’s face.
‘Is today the worst day or the best day for me?’
It would be safe to believe that Gwen rejected his confession of love. She rejected it by responding that she wanted to focus on the final match, but he could find no signs of annoyance in her reply. In other words, she didn’t take his confession seriously.
Even if she was romantically interested in him as he was, it was just meaningless at this point. The moment he won, it was inevitable that the two would feel uncomfortable and awkward toward each other. Gwen was not as detached as Michael. Peter knew how fervently she wanted to win this contest.
Of course, if Gwen became too great a chef to care about the Grand Chef competition someday, she wouldn’t feel awkward toward him, but that was impossible at this point.
In fact, from the moment he confessed, he knew that this confession would not bring about what he wanted. Whether it was Gwen or Peter, one of them who won would have to travel the world and attend cooking events as the Grand Chef’s winner. So he couldn’t even dream of dating as usual if he had a lover. The reason why Min-joon and Kaya could become lovers despite their busy schedules was because of a strong and deep bond between them.
Of course, Gwen and Peter could not be compared to Kaya and Min-joon.
Even though he knew it, Peter confessed to her. He was actually just selfish at that moment. He just expressed his feelings for her, so he could get rid of his lingering affection for her once and for all, not caring about her feelings at all.
‘Man, I’m still such a coarse bastard! Human nature does not change.’
Thinking like that, Peter smiled dryly. Even though he was happy after winning the Grand Chef competition, he just felt spent up. He didn’t think it was because he was just empty. In the past, he thought the world of winning the Grand Chef competition, but when he won, he didn’t feel it was that great.
“Peter.”
It was Min-joon who called him. Peter looked at him quietly.
With a smile, Min-joon said, “Congratulations!”
“Thanks.”
The two had no idea what to say next. Min-joon slowly turned his gaze away and opened his mouth.
“So what are you going to do from now on?”
“I have to think about it slowly from now on. It’s going to be very tough for me to manage the tight schedule of the Grand Chef, so it seems difficult for me to make my own plan.”
“Gwen decided to join Lotus Bridge.”
“I see,” Peter said calmly. He felt relieved. He was worried if she would give up everything, shocked by her defeat. As a matter of fact, he was really worried she could do so, given her past track record.
“Good for her.”
The reason he commented about her like this was another piece of evidence that he still had lingering affection for her. Come to think of it now, however, it was just meaningless. He was not sure if she felt the same about him. Was it possible for her to give a serious thought about her romantic relationship with him while she was busy managing her tight schedule during the competition?
So he changed the topic and asked, “Min-joon, do you think I’m a good chef?”
Min-joon thought about it for a moment and replied, “You’re a good aspiring chef.”
“Yeah, I know I’m still lacking a lot.”
“You haven’t worked in a restaurant yet, so you shouldn’t covet the title of a good chef. Just take it easy.”
“I want to be like you.”
“Don’t even think about it. You can’t be like me. Be just like you!”
“You’re right,” Peter said, nodding.
Min-joon said slowly, “As I got older, I once thought that just like there were no adults who seriously said conquering the world was their dream, people who said something like the best in the world were just dumb and stupid. So when I saw people talking about their dreams, I just looked down on them, thinking they didn’t know anything about reality.”
“How about now? You don’t think like that anymore?”
“Well, there aren’t many people who have the exact grasp of reality while they are laughing at others’ dreams.”
Min-joon looked at him slowly and said, “I’m going to be the best chef in the world. So I have to have only the best people around me. Sharks play with sharks and shrimps play with shrimps, after all.”
“You’re great.”
“I want you to be great too,” said Min-joon calmly. “When I become the best in the world, I want you to be by my side as my friend.”
Peter didn’t say anything for a long time. He looked at Min-joon briefly, then turned his gaze away from him. Other chefs were whispering among themselves instead of leaving the venue.
Watching them, Peter answered quietly, “Sure, no problem.”
<hr />
Grand Chef was over. From the point of view of Peter and Gwen, it was a truly historic moment. However, Min-joon and Kaya could not afford to feel like them forever because they had to take care of two tasks.
One of them was, of course, the matter of their new restaurant Lotus Bridge. They had to hire the members to work with them right away, and after that, they had to start a publicity campaign for their new restaurant. There was no guarantee that their restaurant would make a big hit without problems even if the two were very famous.
Although they gained fame as star chefs thanks to their appearances on TV, there were quite a few chefs who closed their restaurants because of their bad management. So there was no law that the two chefs would not fail in their restaurant business.
In any case, Kaya and Min-joon had no choice but to pay more attention to Lotus Bridge than usual. Fortunately, they didn’t have to pay any attention to the Grand Chef competition, so they were not pressed for time.
But what mattered to them more than the first task was their wedding.
“Well, you and I are going to be sold out soon,” Min-joon muttered blankly.
Kaya, who was practicing Korean at that moment, glanced at him, but she didn’t respond because he mentioned it whenever he was bored these days. It seemed that he still could not believe he was getting married to her.
“If you want a refund, just tell me quickly.”
“Why? Do you want to refund me?”
“No. I’ll make you understand easily that it’s non-refundable.”
He felt as if she would make him understand by punching, not talking to him.
He momentarily cast a cold glance at her, then looked at the monitor right away.
While scanning the recipes that popped up on the screen, he immediately stood up.
“I’m going out for a while.”
“For what?”
He shrugged and said, “Let me check out our wedding hall.”
<hr />
At the Rose Island main restaurant.
“Min-joon!”
Rachel greeted him with a bright smile. He looked around the restaurant after hugging her. Since he saw it after a long time, he noticed lots of changes in it.
“How have you been?”
“Why didn’t you stop by sometimes?”
“I was a bit busy for some time,” he replied awkwardly.
In fact, he lied to her. Even though he was busy, he wasn’t so busy as not to visit here once in a while.
But he just hated something about Rose Island. In fact, Rachel was going to give the Venice branch, or Rose Island main restaurant, to Min-joon. And honestly, he didn’t hate her proposal. He also wanted to make this beautiful restaurant in front of the sea, not the one in downtown Los Angeles, his own.
But he couldn’t. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to dream for her. The reason she wanted to hand out the restaurant to him was partly because he had the perfect palate. Her conviction that he was a genius cook like Daniel also made her favor him, too.
Min-joon knew that her favoritism was actually quite twisted. First of all, he had absolutely no perfect palate. Of course, since people believed that he had a perfect palate, he tried to do his best to meet their expectations, but he still lacked a lot in terms of a perfect palate.
Of course, he didn’t blame Rachel for her false belief. But when she was trying to make a wrong judgment based on her wrong belief, he could not stand as an onlooker as her disciple. He couldn’t take advantage of her favor. Even if he achieved what he wanted in that way, he could not pride himself on that.
Of course, he could not mention it to her. If he had confided in her and she had still wanted to leave the Venice branch with him, it might have been a different story. But that was a meaningless assumption.
