Chapter 4

“I’m Eden Han, the head chef of Moesan, a contemporary Korean cuisine restaurant.”

Eden bowed with a gentlemanly smile. Perfectly aligned teeth, a broad, refreshing smile, and even the dimples at the corners of his mouth—all the freshness of a clear early-summer day seemed to be captured in that single expression.

Han Eden, the cold-blooded chef who rarely smiled, possessed a smile so rare it could practically be declared a national treasure. It was his ultimate weapon, one that had conquered even New York’s high society, transcending racial barriers in a single stroke. Picky critics and demanding investors alike would often lower their defenses with just one flash of that smile.

However…

“Co… Contempo? What was it? Korea… cu… cuisine?”

The old man furrowed his brow and tilted his head. The smile hadn’t worked at all. A faint twitch appeared at the corner of Eden’s mouth.

“I really can’t make heads or tails of what you’re sayin’…”

Looking troubled, the old man turned to the woman standing beside him. She shot Eden a look of utter exasperation before stepping in to interpret (or something like it).

“He’s a chef at a restaurant in Seoul. His surname’s Han, and his name’s Eden.”

“Chef?”

“You know, those folks on TV who wear paper hats and cook.”

Paper hats, was it? Eden’s eyebrow twitched.

A toque (the traditional tall chef’s hat) was a chef’s pride. Its height and number of pleats served as important symbols of the wearer’s experience and rank in the kitchen. Han Eden no longer wore one since running a fusion restaurant, but he certainly wouldn’t tolerate anyone dismissing it as a mere paper hat.

“Ahhh! So you’re one of them fellas on the TV program? Well, well… I knew there was somethin’ familiar about that handsome face!”

The old man burst into hearty laughter, evidently relieved to have finally figured things out. Eden stared at the two of them in disbelief, looking from one to the other.

What kind of comedy routine was this, carrying on right in front of the person they were talking about? And not a single thing they’d said was correct. Eden didn’t wear a paper hat, and he certainly had never appeared on Korean television.

Right. As if he’d ever be crazy enough to do that again.

A few years earlier, just after Eden had earned his second Michelin star in New York, a broadcasting company had requested an interview. He’d agreed only after they promised to focus on the restaurant’s interior and its dishes, showing his face for no more than two or three seconds.

But there was no way those broadcasting bastards would keep their promise.

The footage that actually aired was the exact opposite of what they’d agreed on. The food appeared for a mere three seconds. For the rest of the segment, the camera devoted itself to sweeping over his face, his firm chest, and his bulging forearm muscles.

The reaction had been explosive. New York went wild over the arrival of a “sexy young chef.”

The problem was the way people expressed their enthusiasm. Every morning on his way to work, he had to dodge the wandering hands of strangers trying to grope his backside. On his way home, he’d find lace underwear of unknown origin stuffed into his coat pocket. Notes with phone numbers were just an added bonus. It had been the ultimate humiliation for a chef.

If the old man standing before him weren’t the owner of Cheongso-yo, Eden would have immediately told him to shove that filthy television nonsense and flipped the whole situation on its head.

But this was a time when he needed to be the one in the weaker bargaining position, not the one calling the shots. Suppressing his temper, Eden forced himself to smile once more.

“Haha, I’m honored that the owner of Cheongso-yo recognizes me.”

“Owner? What’s an owner now?”

“I mean… are you the person in charge here?”

The old man seemed utterly incapable of understanding a word Eden said without the help of that filthy, soot-covered interpreter. His patience was rapidly wearing thin.

His tried-and-true smile, which had never failed him before, was completely useless in this backwater. The old man kept looking only at the apprentice beside him, while the woman herself continued acting as if she had something more interesting to do.

It would be better to get straight to the point. Artists might act all lofty and refined, but in the end, nobody could afford to turn down money.

“Sir, I’ve come to propose a contract to supply the tableware for a restaurant I’ll be opening this summer. I’d like to use Cheongso-yo’s pottery—”

“We ain’t takin’ any new contracts.”

Before Eden could finish, the soot-covered apprentice cut in and ruined his pitch.

“We’re already too busy supplying places we’ve had relationships with for at least fifty years, passed down from one generation to the next.”

Eden’s brow furrowed sharply. An ordinary staff member had just answered a question he’d directed at the owner.

“I was asking the owner, not an apprentice. Ha… Does your pottery workshop have no sense of hierarchy at all?”

He shot the woman a sharp glare. In response, the old man snapped open his fan and burst into a hearty laugh.

“Owner, huh? So that’s what you meant by the head of the place? Ahh, now I get it!”

“Yes, sir. Price is no object. Please help me arrange for Cheongso-yo’s pottery to be used in my restaurant.”

“But I reckon you might’ve come to the wrong address, young Chef… What d’you think?”

The old man’s white beard swayed mischievously.

“’Cause I ain’t the owner. That’d be this here Hwang Ja-yeong.”

Snap!

The old man’s fan folded shut with a crisp, cheerful sound.

For an instant, every thought in Eden’s mind came to a complete stop. Silence swept through the kiln yard, so absolute that even the crackling of the burning firewood seemed to have abruptly ceased.

“…What?”

Eden clenched his fists before he even realized what he was doing. The clammy, unpleasant sensation of the woman’s skin against his hand still lingered vividly on his fingertips. He hadn’t even wiped it off.

There was no way this could be real. That tiny, scruffy woman, Hwang Ja-yeong? The woman he’d mistaken for an apprentice and so casually insulted was the owner of Cheong-soyo?

“Wha—what? Dear, what’s this ‘what’ supposed to mean now?”

“…Grandpa, let’s go. It’s time to eat.”

Ja-yeong ignored Eden, who stood frozen like a pillar of salt, and tugged at the old man’s arm.

“Ah, right. I made kimchi stew with plenty of meat, just the way you like it.”

“Since when do I like meat? You’re the one who likes it, Grandpa.”

The two of them treated Eden as if he were invisible and headed toward the path between the wooden fences.

Eden’s sharp mind sounded an alarm. If he let them leave now, it was over. Embarrassment? Humiliation? Those could wait. First, he had to stop them.

He hurried after Ja-yeong and grabbed her wrist. It was an action driven more by the instinct to survive than by reason. Her skin was even damper than before, sticky with sweat from the scorching heat, and clung unpleasantly to his palm.

“Why…?”

Ja-yeong looked back at him as if he were a nuisance.

Eden’s lips moved, but no words came out at first. Countless calculations raced through his mind. He wanted to get angry. He wanted to demand what gave her the right to make a fool of him. But the contract mattered more than those childish emotions. Somehow, he had to change the mind of the woman who had already given him her answer: No.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“I asked where the owner was. Don’t tell me you deliberately deceived me.”

Eden stared intently into the woman’s clear eyes.

“What would I gain by deceiving you?”

Despite the blazing sun beating down on the kiln yard, the woman’s eyes were cold.

“You showed up out of nowhere and started yelling at me. You got in the way while I was tending the fire. You made all sorts of assumptions based on whatever you wanted to believe…”

“That was…!”

“Anyway, I’m not taking any new contracts. Especially not with someone like you.”

Ja-yeong twisted her wrist free. After hauling firewood around, she must have been exhausted; there was hardly any strength in her grip. Even so, Eden released her without resisting. Once again, he didn’t even think to wipe away the sticky sweat left on his palm.

Ja-yeong turned away without a second thought. Eden stood rooted to the spot, looking utterly stunned. The sight of the two figures disappearing beyond the fence burned into his eyes, their retreating backs the very image of defeat.

‘Is it… over?’

No. Han Eden had never failed to get what he wanted. Whether it was food, women, or pottery.

If a polite proposal had failed, there was only one thing left to do.

He loosened his tie.

He’d shamelessly throw himself at the problem until he got what he wanted.

That was how Han Eden had survived the jungle that was New York.

“Excuse me!”

Eden strode toward the fence. Ja-yeong and the old man, who had been walking ahead, stopped and turned around. Acting as if he’d never been flustered in the first place, Eden rubbed his stomach with the most shameless expression imaginable.

“You have a guest here. You’re not going to send me away on an empty stomach, are you?”

“…?”

“I heard you made kimchi stew. Give me a bowl, too. That’s what Korean hospitality is all about, isn’t it?”

Ja-yeong’s eyes widened. She was utterly dumbfounded. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d been snarling at her just moments ago. But Eden paid her reaction no mind and flung the gate open.

“Let’s go. I’m hungry, Boss.”

Eden flashed a grin. His dimples lent his smile a refreshing charm that made it all the more infuriating.