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Chapter 601: On the Verge of Being Independent (4)

Min-joon had grown up in a different way than Kaya. When it came to the excellence of a chef, she did not think that he was better than her, for she had as many merits as him in the field.

When it came to the kitchen leadership, however, she was relatively lacking in it, compared to him. He knew what real team play was. He didn’t make great dishes alone like her who ran Irregular Lab. He made chefs around him stand out together with him. It was after the final results of the team competition were announced that she came to realize the big gap in kitchen leadership between her and him.

She was alone. In the end, she was walking on a path, only looking back on herself.

‘Is it because my personality sucks?’

She knew that was not true, but she smiled self-mockingly. Irregular Lab was for the poor. At least, that was what she had in mind from the beginning. How meaningful was her motivation like that? How many Irregular Lab customers were regarded as poor?

Irregular Lab didn’t have as many poor customers as she expected. No wonder it had few poor customers, given that it was located at one of the most expensive hotels in New York. Although the price of the menu at Irregular Lab was pretty low, ordinary people didn’t know about it at all.

So she decided to be content with conveying her message to the customers at some point. Running a restaurant like this was not necessarily impossible. She wanted to convey the message that if anybody watching her wanted to run her kind of restaurant, they should do it instead of hesitating by making the dishes that ordinary people could not afford to enjoy.

But that was the immature idea of young chef Kaya who just turned 20. It was only after numerous people pointed out her problems that she came to realize how unrealistic her idea was, and how many side effects it had.

In other words, no chef could find any hope in Kaya’s restaurant.

Of course, Kaya could make good dishes by cutting labor costs. It was not bad from the customer’s point of view, but it was terrible from the employee’s point of view.

However, it was not only labor costs that Kaya cut. She hired part-timers, not chefs. If one would think about it and if people thought that Kaya was right and everybody ran the same restaurant as hers, where should the new junior chefs learn to cook?

In Kaya’s restaurant, cooks except for a handful of chefs were practically no different from those working part-time at fast-food restaurants. They were like machines and tools, rather than chefs, who repeatedly made the same dishes determined in advance through the division of labor. Just as no chef became famous by learning to cook at a fast-food restaurant, Kaya’s restaurant could not produce new competent chefs. That was not the end. Such a kitchen culture made the existing chefs manage junior cooks properly, just like Kaya.

As a matter of fact, Kaya and Chloe had lots of brainstorming sessions about the problems of their restaurant Irregular Lab. When Kaya asked her if she was really walking the right path, Chloe said either she or Kaya could not find the correct answer but added that she was obviously walking the path she wanted to.

‘Maybe I will regret it again.’

Even if she ran another restaurant, she might find herself saying the same thing as that. Nonetheless, she wanted the challenge. She didn’t want to get stuck in a rut without making any progress.

“Min-joon, evaluate me,” she said.

He looked at her with a bit of puzzled expression.

Then she said with a determined expression, “Tell me what kind of role I should play in your kitchen, for example, head chef, sous chef, or demi chef?”

“Do you mean that you can even serve as a demi chef?”

“Sure, if I have to,” she replied humbly. She couldn’t insist on pride because she already saw her pride battered at the Grand Chef competition.

Watching her quietly, he felt somewhat strange. She was a great chef. She had one of the brightest potentials among the chefs he knew. Nonetheless, she was now regarding herself as a shabby chef. Why did she think so? Did she really feel she was shabby?

Was she really feeling that she was lacking as a chef? He couldn’t find the right answer to this question.

So he answered, “I can’t evaluate you.”

***

Neither Min-joon nor Kaya were the type of people who could endure it for long when they wanted to do something. He told June that he would like to open a restaurant sooner than later.

June wasn’t surprised by his words because she expected to face such a reality someday.

Then she conveyed his decision to Rachel over the phone.

“Really? Did he really say that?”

“Yeah. Didn’t he ask you for the Venice main store?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, that means he might aim at another Rose Island branch, right?”

Rachel just smiled bitterly at her cold voice.

Since Rachel limited the term of the Rose Island chief to four years, June had tended to be edgier than before. Of course, she knew for sure that Rachel would not discard her because of the way she spoke. But whenever Rachel had a conversation with her, she was a bit concerned. She was not sure whether to tame this smart but assertive student of hers or just leave her alone, thinking she was cute.

“Well, I think I have to have him finish my homework for him quickly.”

“Homework?”

Rachel didn’t answer her question because she felt ashamed. Until now, she pinned her dream on him while neglecting her own dream. But what he really wanted to see was that she should lead a life with her own determination.

“It’s rather hard for me to reply...” she said.

But June could easily figure out what she was trying to say.

So she didn’t respond.

***

There was no doubt that Gwen was a fan of Kaya Reuters. She was not just one of those ordinary fans. She had something like respect for Kaya.

Kaya was living proof to Gwen that she could change her life. So Gwen tried to find out her past career as well as her personality and thoughts one by one. And she found all the information about Kaya by surfing the internet. Fortunately for her, Kaya was quite a celebrity among star chefs. Just googling on her name yielded countless pieces of information about her. So much so that there were new stories about Kaya even when she googled on Kaya every morning.

“Are you googling on Kaya again?”

Ken, who was passing by, asked her as if he was sick and tired of her being at it again. Almost everybody knew that she was hooked on Kaya. Despite that, she pretended to be just an ordinary fan of Kaya when she was with the latter.

Of course, Gwen wasn’t that weird. Except that she was once a drug addict, she was as good and healthy as any ordinary person. At least she was wise enough not to reveal what she was doing to Kaya, her idol.

Gwen slowly scanned Kaya’s past records. She checked what kind of expressions Kaya made when meeting people and what she said to them. She tried to find out any weakness or gentleness in her apparent arrogance. No wonder she came across numerous bad feedback about Kaya on the internet while she was googling her.

Victoria Santoro: To be honest, I think Kaya has been too inflated. It’s because she worked with Min-joon that she became the partner of Choters Guild and won the Paris International Cooking Competition. As for Irregular Lab, it was good that she launched such an experimental restaurant, but she has been criticized a lot by lots of people these days. In fact, it has been proven that her restaurant left behind lots of side effects. Besides, is it such a big deal that a chef is running a successful restaurant? Given her name recognition, it’s no wonder her restaurant is a success...

As soon as she read that comment, Gwen refuted the author right away.

└ G Q: I don’t know what you are talking about. If you want to look down on her, just do it right. Do you think if you are lucky, you can do everything as you wish? Of course, I know people end up being a failure no matter how lucky they are. But Kaya is different. Given that Irregular Lab is an experimental restaurant, you can’t criticize it like that. Not all the star chefs run successful restaurants. Don’t you know there are so many chefs who close their restaurants even after they become famous? Besides, do you think you can win an international cooking competition because of your own capabilities? No way! Even Min-joon has learned a lot from Kaya for a long time. How can you deny that?

After posting her comment like that, Gwen felt satisfied, but at the same time, she felt empty.

What was the point of digging out all the information about Kaya? Even if she defended Kaya’s honor, there was no change in her status like before.

Then she was surfing the internet again with a sigh when she noticed something.

The author of that comment clearly said it was a rumor, but he seemed to believe it was true.

‘There is a rumor that Min-joon and Kaya are getting married soon.’

Gwen knew that the two had been dating for quite some time. In fact, their fans even urged them to get married, asking when they would do it.

But what grabbed her attention was what the author said next.