“Thanks for today.”
“For what?”
“For the handkerchief, and for the 9 points.”
“I just said the score as it was. There’s no need to thank me at the results you got by yourself.”
“Even so, I feel thankful.”
Chloe laughed brightly like a baby. Jo Minjoon just scratched his nose with an awkward face. Chloe smacked her lips after hesitating for a minute and then, she slowly continued talking.
“Actually, I wasn’t really confident even while making it. I did my best than ever but……I really wondered if it was fine. Before the evaluation, you smiled with your eyes. Surprisingly, that comforted me. Actually, that was even before you drank my soup, so you wouldn’t even have known how the flavor was…….Strange, right?”
“………It’s a relief if it comforted you. What’s there to be strange? In the end, people’s thoughts are their own feelings.”
“Anyways, I wanted to thank you if I survived. No. Even if I got eliminated, I would have felt grateful to you.”
There was no need to think about what to reply. Joanne came out from the interviewing room and called Jo Minjoon.
“I’m done. Minjoon, they said to go in.”
“Yeah, understood.”
Chloe seemed to have something left to say, but she couldn’t make the staff in the interviewing room wait. As soon as Jo Minjoon got in the room, Martin laughed teasingly and said.
“I hope that it became a good meal to you.”
“……..I’m not thankful nor resentful. Although it was a good meal, there were some things that I absolutely had to wash off from my mouth.”
The shock Kaya’s stew gave him still didn’t disappear. Still, as Chloe’s shark fin’s flavor was deeper than what he had thought, he felt less sorry for his tongue. Jo Minjoon said while smiling bitterly.
“The proposal I got last time, about the tasting travel, I did think about that for a bit, but after what I have experienced today my heart seems to have turned away from it.”
“……..Understood. It was my bad. So don’t scare me like this. I’m really expecting you to join us. Is that true?”
“Am I also going to eat that kind of food there? Chui tofu (취두부), Surströmming, roasted tarantula, or monkey’s medulla.”
“Ey, will I really do that?”
Martin smiled. Jo Minjoon let out a sigh. Even so, he didn’t know if he was going to participate in that program or not. Because if he won, then it would become a story that never happened. Martin asked with a calm voice.
“I know that this was your first time trying cow phallus, how did you feel?”
“It was horrible. Aside from cooking well or not, it’s an ingredient that you don’t want to bring it to your mouth, honestly.”
“Ey, if you are a chef, you should be able to eat that much.”