A gulping sound was heard. It was Jo Minjoon. He looked at the chips that were coming out of the boxes with a serious face. Blue team one, red team one. Blue team eleven, red team eleven. It was at the moment when they each had seventeen chips, with a total of thirty four coming out when Alan opened his mouth.
“Now, one of the boxes doesn’t have any more chips.”
The participants just heard that as a declaration. Alan looked at Jacob.
“Jacob. Do you think that your team will win?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s the reason for you to be saying that?”
“I believe in my teammates.”
“Do you think that you have performed the role of the head chef well?”
“It’s a difficult question for me to answer. I think that my teammates would be having the answer.”
Alan just looked at Jacob. His eyes seemed intricate and nervous rather than gentle. Jacob didn’t evade his sight. Alan said in a low tone of voice.
“If you have to pick someone from your team that performed the best, who would you pick?”
“…….It’s troublesome. It would be too simple to say that everyone did well. Fine. I will pick Marco. Because it was the only dish we didn’t even have to wash.”
“Then, if you have to pick the person that performed the worst, who would you pick?”
Jacob couldn’t reply immediately. He could only be like that. Because if he named someone, in the end, that person would only get hurt. And there were no particular people that made such a mistake as to bad mouth like that. Jacob replied with an awkward voice.
“I will pick myself. I tried to adjust to the head chef’s seat, but I don’t get the feeling to have completed my role well.”
At those words, Alan didn’t say anything. In the middle of the nervousness, only silence could be heard, and only after a while did Alan smile.
“You seemed to be replying trying to evade my question, but your answer seems to be quite true. I won’t refute that. I will only say a word. Jacob. You have done the best as a head chef. Remember that.”
“Thank you.”