Chapter 158: The reason they are hungry (2)
As soon as the call ended, he thought he might get an angry text, or even an angry call from Kaya……but his smartphone was silent for a long ti. He even tried to call her himself, but all he got was a busy tone on the other end.
‘……This is scarier than her being angry.’
Maybe she is extrely angry, or perhaps, maybe she was actually hurt by what he said. There was nothing he could do since there was no response whether he called or sent a text.
“Hey, what should I do? Kaya might not be okay.”
“If her ntal strength is not even strong enough to handle sothing small like this, then, well, she should just give up living in society.”
“……You cold-hearted bastard.”
“If I really was cold-hearted, I would not have let you out of your slave contract after just one day.”
Jo Minjoon could only sigh in silence after listening to Anderson. Why did Anderson have to drag him into this ss? Anderson looked at Jo Minjoon’s back before asking.
“Are you going to make breakfast again today?”
“I’m not sure. If you think about our flight ti, it doesn’t look like we would stop for breakfast anywhere; it might be better to just make it on our own. But we should probably ask everybody else as well. Since it is our last one, they might want to eat at a restaurant than making it on our own.”
“……Wouldn’t it take too long to go to a restaurant? We might only have enough ti to grab a bento or sothing from a convenience store.”
“Then let’s just sleep in. Since we don’t have enough ti.”
“I suppose.”
However, seven hours later, at 5:00am, Jo Minjoon and Anderson were standing face to face in the kitchen. Anderson, who had just co through the door, had a ‘I knew this would happen’ expression on his face before speaking.
“Didn’t you say let’s sleep in?”
“Yes……but I could not fall asleep.”
“I heard your alarm going off earlier. Even if you try to look like you’re so sleepy you might die, do you think I would believe you?”
At Anderson’s deduction, Jo Minjoon awkwardly looked around. Anderson let out a laugh. Even though he lied, it was hard to be angry at him.
“You idiot. Whatever. Let’s just make breakfast.”
“Is there sothing you’d like to cook?”
“Seeing as how you’re asking, sounds like you have sothing you want to cook.”
“Yes. There were many things I felt at Tokyo Harmony yesterday. First……”
Jo Minjoon opened the refrigerator. There were quite a few different items in there, but maybe because they made breakfast yesterday, there were quite a few ingredients that were lacking. Jo Minjoon looked at Anderson and asked.
“Let’s go shopping.”
*
Even though it was already sumr, at dawn, before the sun had even started to co out, the wind and the ground were both cold. Jo Minjoon pulled the zipper on his cardigan all the way up and put his hand in his pockets. He shook his body trying to warm up.
“Ah, it’s cold. I shouldn’t have worn these shorts.”
“In the first place, you are wearing a long sleeve and a cardigan. Why would you wear shorts? Did you not expect it to be cold?”
“I thought the heat from the top would balance with the chill from the bottom. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. Just like in cooking, the balance between cold and hot must be very important.”
“Well, we are chefs after all. This type of habit isn’t bad.”
“Not bad but cold.”
Anderson shook his head left and right. Then, as if he could not hold back anymore, he started to speak.
“Hey moron, if it’s that cold, put your cardigan around your waist.”
“……Ah. Anderson. I didn’t know before, but you’re actually kind of smart.”
Anderson’s cheeks started to turn red at Jo Minjoon’s response.
Market. Jo Minjoon opened his mouth after looking at the fish available on display.
“For restaurants, do you think there are places that get their ingredients from large supermarkets rather than street markets like this?”
“More places probably get their stuff from super markets. If they have enough care to go to a street market, unless there was one right by them, they would probably go make direct contracts with fish suppliers. At our place, each ingredient is procured directly from the suppliers.”
“That sounds fun too. Going place to place, looking at the quality of the ingredients. Wouldn’t it feel like you were playing a puzzle ga?”
Jo Minjoon started to smile, as if just thinking about it was fun. Anderson raised an eyebrow and looked towards Jo Minjoon.
“Why are you looking at like that.”
“……The more I think about it, from the beginning, you romanticize so much about running a restaurant or things like that. How are you like that? You know what you need to know now. You know it isn’t just a relaxed and cushy job and that behind the glitz and glamor, there’s a significant amount of stress. Look at Samuel yesterday. Even soone as amazing as him cared so much about our opinions, even if it may have been for the cara. It’s a difficult job. A painful one too.”
“Of course I know. Why wouldn’t I know?”
Jo Minjoon stopped looking at the face of a Pacific saury and turned his gaze towards Anderson. When their eyes t, Anderson shivered for a second. Half a year. No matter how deep soone’s mind may be, it was enough ti to generally understand what was in soone’s mind.
But every so often, there were tis like this when Jo Minjoon showed him an expression that was hard to understand. It was like he was an elder who had more life experiences than he did; his gaze was full of sweetness and affection.
‘……Maybe it’s because he had planned on becoming a teacher?’
There was no ti to co up with an answer. Jo Minjoon opened his mouth.
“But Anderson. Even that difficulty is entertaining for . Of course, in the mont, my chest feels stuffy and it is painful, but maybe it’s because work and play is the sa. Whenever I’m in front of the countertop, my chest gets tense more than any other ti. Rather than wasting my life, if I think about the fact that I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing……just that thought makes full.”
“Must be great to be full.”
“I’m sure you’re full too. You’re just like .”
Anderson briefly opened his mouth at Jo Minjoon’s words. Jo Minjoon looked like he had so confirmation about Anderson, but initially, Anderson did not have that confirmation. Anderson hesitantly opened his mouth.
“What……just what is it that you believe in ?”
“Passion.”
There was no hesitation in that answer. Anderson looked at Jo Minjoon after hearing him speak as if it was an obvious answer.
“My……passion?”
“If you didn’t have passion, you wouldn’t have woken up at this early hour to make breakfast. Don’t you agree?”
Anderson briefly shut his mouth. His eyes headed towards a lady who was shopping in the market at this early hour. He started to speak in a quiet voice.
“I’m not such a straightforward person as you think I am.”
“I never thought you were like that?”
“……My feelings for cooking…rather than passion, it’s closer to affection.”
“Why.”
“It wasn’t my decision.”
(Note: So the word used could literally be translated to straight, and I had a good laugh about this conversation and the completely different aning it could hold.
“I’m not a straight person as you think I am. I never thought you were straight? “ Completely explains the bromance.)
Anderson gave a short answer. But that short answer was full of all sorts of complicated emotions stuffed down and echoing everywhere.
“It wasn’t my decision. It was because of my parents. Ah, I’m not saying they forced to do it. However, they only ever showed one path. At first, I thought that was obvious, but the older I got, the more I hated it. Without looking at anything else even once, without being able to breathe even once, just walking down this one path. It even felt like my life was not my own but my parents’. So……”
Anderson’s eyelashes turned downward. If you think about Anderson’s pride, it wouldn’t have been easy to say sothing like this. It wasn’t that Jo Minjoon was a great person to cut down his pride. The reason was simple.
Jo Minjoon was his friend.
“That’s why I participated in Grand Chef. My life, I wanted to make it mine. I wanted to do it on a path I decided for myself. I also wanted to verify whether I could love this path.”
“……Yes. I rember you saying once that you wanted to get out of your parents’ shadows.”
Hiding behind those words were very deep levels of agonies and worries. Jo Minjoon opened his mouth. The gaze he was looking at Anderson with was soft, but his voice rang strongly.
“You got out of it. Anderson. I’m not saying it because you are good at cooking. You……”
Jo Minjoon briefly closed his mouth. He wasn’t good at saying such sappy things. At least he didn’t consider himself to be that way. However, it was sothing he wanted to say at least once.
“You’re my rival. I wouldn’t be rivals with soone who doesn’t even like cooking.”
After saying that, Jo Minjoon quickly turned away and started to inspect the fish. He was getting itchy just thinking about what kind of look Anderson was giving him. It was at that mont. Anderson’s voice slowly ca out from behind him.
“I’m glad you are my friend.”
Jo Minjoon did not respond.
There was no response needed for sothing so obvious.
*
The cooking did not start right away after they ca back from shopping. Jo Minjoon and Anderson first sat at the table looking through each other’s recipes. They needed to think about the composition of the entire al, the harmony of the ingredients, and the anticipated results for following the recipe.
In the midst of that, Jo Minjoon and Anderson were both admiring each other. For Anderson, it was at Jo Minjoon’s creativity in coming up with a recipe, for Jo Minjoon, it was Anderson’s knowledge of ingredients that ca out every ti he talked. Anderson started to speak.
“You, just……how could your level be so high after learning at ho through the internet? This makes no sense.”
“I had a fabulous internet teacher.”
“Who is it? I’ve never seen anyone so amazing as I looked through the internet.”
“Kaya.”
Anderson frowned at Jo Minjoon’s short answer. He soon started to speak in a grim voice.
“You’re not talking about Kaya Lotus, right?”
“I am.”
“……Stop joking. Kaya only started to appear on the internet after the broadcast. How could you learn by looking at Kaya before that?”
Jo Minjoon smiled but did not answer. It was impossible to explain it anyways. However, he was at least able to tell himself that he did not lie to Anderson.
“First, let’s talk about our distribution.”
“What distribution? Our roles?”
“Yes. If you think about it, our distribution has always been very primitive. It was always one of two thods. Each person makes one dish. Or one person is in charge of the ingredients and the other is in charge of the fire. Isn’t there sothing more efficient, that would bring out the best of the person’s abilities?”
They were full of enthusiasm to find a better thod. Anderson quietly stared into the sea bream’s eyes before opening his mouth.
“We must beco one body.”
“……What?”
“What the heck is up with your expression. I an that we must move like we are one person! Sothing like a person with four arms. My thoughts beco yours and your thoughts beco mine. If we move like that, we can perfectly complete everything.”
“If we do it wrong, it could end up making things more complicated as well.
“To prevent that, let’s make sure we are on the sa page with the recipe and composition before we begin. Then it should be a bit better.”
Jo Minjoon nodded his head. The recipes they shared were similar to basic homade Japanese als. It was their last day in Japan, and at the sa ti, the end of their ti spent together like a family. The reason they picked sothing casual was because at least for this last al, rather than a comrcial dish, they wanted to share a al like a family would.
The configuration was simple. White rice. At first, they thought about adding mushrooms nad making mushroom rice, but unless they were using rice as a main dish, it didn’t seem like a good decision to add any other ingredient to the rice.
For fish, they picked the sea bream. To cook it, they cut off the at and put the sea bream, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a broth made of water, rice wine and turnip, and braised it. In addition, there was a beef and potato stir-fry, roasted ginger pork, and clams stead in rice wine.
With that, they had pickled cucumbers and pickled cabbage, sprouts flavored with salt and walnut oil, and cold tofu to complete the entire composition.
They did not say anything special. Jo Minjoon and Anderson continuously looked at each other’s condition. That did not an that they were not focused on the dishes they were responsible for. Rather than saying they were inspecting each other’s condition, they were paying attention to the entire kitchen. It was like both of them beca head chefs at the sa ti. If there was a difference with a normal head chef, it would be that there were two of them and that they were both working on the line.
It was a pretty fresh experience, and a beneficial experience as well. Cooking is sothing that could easily go wrong if you are not focused every minute while you are cooking. To pay attention to everything while eloquently handling the knife and pan in their hands, was harder to do than you think.
However, that made it more entertaining. The feeling that your brain and body were reaching their limit was so exciting that it was hard to describe with words. Specifically, not paying attention to how many points the dish was going to get made the whole experience completely different. The fla embracing the pan seed brighter and more beautiful than normal, and the handle of the knife seed to be wrapped in their hands more comfortably than usual.
‘Cooking……yes. It was sothing like this. This type of fun.’
Not paying attention to the score it will receive, each and every mont of the cooking process was like playing, and felt exhilarating. This was real cooking. Jo Minjoon had a small smile that you could barely see. It was small, but it was a more honest and clear smile than any other ti.
Even their teamwork, which was a bit awkward at first, started to slowly beco perfect. If Jo Minjoon moved, Anderson quickly filled that spot. And when Anderson thought he was going to need an ingredient, Jo Minjoon imdiately handed it to him without being asked. They were each paying attention to one another’s presence and their actions, while listening to the kitchen’s noise.
Anderson could feel his heart beating quickly. At first, he felt like he was being controlled by Jo Minjoon. However, that wasn’t it. They were exchanging tons of words without actually talking, and communicating well with each other. It was a feeling he had never felt before. It felt like there was soone who could completely understand him.
So once the cooking ended, Anderson had a disappointed expression on his face as if a fabulous movie just ended. Then he looked at Jo Minjoon with those disappointed eyes. But it was weird. Jo Minjoon was looking at Anderson, no, to be specific, he was looking at sothing next to Anderson.
However, even if he looked in the sa direction, Anderson could not see anything. It was at that mont. Jo Minjoon opened his mouth. He spoke in a very envious voice.
“……Congratulations, Anderson.”
[Anderson Russo]
Cooking level: 8
Baking level: 7
Tasting level: 8
Decorations level: 7
End
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