I Will Find You - Chapter Eight

The doors to the restaurant Enfin at the Amba Hotel in Downtown Seoul silently opening before she could reach them was a painful reminder for Ji-young. She could still remember doors to the king’s quarters opening as if propelled by invisible fingers.

She offered a small bow and a slight smile to the two attendants as she quickly took in her surroundings. Granted, it was a tad late for lunch and much too early for dinner, yet only two tables were occupied.

Kim Ji-hu, looking exactly the same as in their Uni days, down to the polished shoes, rushed toward her. “Chef Yeon.”

She smiled in slight embarrassment at such a formal greeting. “Hey.”

He reciprocated her smile. “You look well.”

God love him, he’s always been a terrible liar.

“Were you surprised to hear from me?”

Besides following each other on the socials and exchanging perfunctory birthday messages, they haven’t seen each other in ages. “I guess a little bit,” she chuckled. “What’s up?”

He waved his hands in a nonchalantly dismissive gesture. “Nothing’s up..."

Yup, he was still a bad liar.

“It’s just...Let’s do business together,” he blurted out.

“What?” she breathed.

He clasped his hands in a prayer-like gesture. “Michelin has begun their selection process here in Korea.”

Hearing the M-word filled her with dread. She didn’t want to be dragged back into that competitive world. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, “but I’m not exactly thinking about working right now.” Not like that.

Ji-hu nodded. “Completely understood. If you can’t work full-time, then just one month. Just until we find a decent chef.” His eyes turned sad. “If we don’t receive a Michelin star again this time, the hotel will shut down the restaurant.”

Meaning, he will lose his job. Not just him, but everybody working in the restaurant. The cooks, the wait staff...No one deserved that.

“Please, Ji-young.”

It was the use of her name that did it. He was her friend; they’d been as thick as thieves at Uni. He’s helped her before. She couldn’t abandon him; she couldn’t abandon the people working at the restaurant. She took a deep breath and steeled her spine. “Can I see the kitchen?”

He sighed, his slight smile echoing his relief, and led her to the open kitchen. “Come this way.”

The kitchen, though it might’ve looked small, especially compared to where she’s been cooking in the past, was perfectly proportionate to the number of seats in the restaurant and quite spacious thanks to the smart design and setting. Though open in a sense, most of it was carefully hidden, with only the big island and one of the prep counters visible to the diners. It also had all the mod cons befitting a top-notch kitchen; the cooks were dressed in nicely pressed, fresh uniforms, their caps crisply white, and the female cooks’ hair was neatly tucked into hair nets disguised as bun covers, complete with a faux-velvet bow.

Everything was clean, crisp, professional, and efficient. It made her slightly yearn for the organized chaos of the suragan.

Thinking of the suragan and the friends, almost family, she’d made there, lit a small spark inside her. Wheels started to turn, whir...She had no intention of staying longer than a month; she had absolutely no intention of trying to compete for a star. But what if...What if she honored her friends, her family? What if she honored him and the memories, good and bad, by cooking again? Cooking food that would bring a smile to people’s faces, stirring long-forgotten memories. What if she started cooking, creating a menu from scratch for the fun of it?

Might as well. Plan formed, spark firmly lit, and a sense of rightness settled in her stomach. As if a puzzle piece finally fell into place. She turned and nodded to Ji-hu. “I’ll do it.”

If it could, his face would probably melt in relief. “Chef Yeon!”

She grinned and turned to the cook that had just prepared the two dessert plates for the last couple remaining in the restaurant. “May I taste the dessert?”

 

She sat at the table nearest the kitchen, listening to the silent efficiency of the staff prepping for dinner, glad she was taking over—temporarily—an organized kitchen, when Ji-hu placed a plate in front of her.

She cocked her head, slightly turned the plate with the tips of her fingers, and looked at the ball of white-chocolate mousse nestled among a few pieces of fruit arranged off-center of the plate. It looked sophisticated, elegant, fancy, and minimalistic. It looked like something out of a foodie magazine or a food Instagram feed. Glossy, cold, colorless, and flavorless.

She tucked the spoon into the chocolate mousse and sampled it. Just as she predicted. It tasted as it looked. Too fancy, too elegant, too perfect. There was no soul, no real flavor, no flair. No joy.

It was definitely off her menu. As was pretty much everything she’d seen on the restaurant’s menu so far.

Determination and eagerness growing, she sighed. “It’s just for a month, though,” she insisted. Better repetitive than sorry. People sometimes went deaf. Or forgot.

Ji-hu nodded enthusiastically. “Okay.”

Now, to tackle the biggest problem the restaurant had. “And if you want a Michelin star...” She swiped her finger on the tablet in front of her, fighting the eye roll threatening to emerge. The menu truly was pitiful. Fifty shades of meat. Whoever developed it was either inept or vengeful. “This menu won’t cut it.” A Michelin-star-worthy menu should be cohesive and should tell a story. She had a perfect one. “I’ll develop a new one.”

Ji-hu leaned closer. “The dish you won the competition with?”

“No.” She would never make that dish again. She had no one to cook it for. “I’m thinking...Fine dining that incorporates Joseon royal cuisine.”

He blinked. “You know how to cook royal cuisine?”

She looked up at him with a grin. He had no idea.

∞

Obviously eager to work with her—make that anyone who could help keep the restaurant open—the powers that be at the hotel were quick to draw up her temporary-job contract, agreeing to all her conditions and offering her an obscene amount of money for such a short-term arrangement.

So later that evening, after the dinner service was over and done with, Ji-young stood in the Enfin restaurant, dressed in a white chef’s coat with her name and her new position as head chef emblazoned over her heart, gaping at five familiar faces in front of her.

“No way,” she gasped. “Cook Eom! Cook Maeng! Cook Shim!” The tall, gangly man cocked his head, staring at her as if she should be at an institution. “Cook Min! Gil-geum!”

“Sorry?” The girl with Gil-geum’s face blinked, eyes wide. “My name is Sun-geum.”

“What?” Ji-young looked down at the girl’s nameplate. And sure, it said she was cook helper Seo Sun-geum. Same surname, different name. Come to think of it, they all had the same surnames as their Joseon doppelgangers. They weren’t just similar; except for the lack of facial hair on men and teenage skin on the girl, they were identical.

Were they descendants? Was such a thing even possible? They looked too much alike for it to be a coincidence, right?

Unbelievable.

Since they were all starting to look at her as if she did indeed belong in an institution, she quickly went back on tangent. “I’m Yeon Ji-young, and I’ll be overseeing the kitchen at Enfin.” She bowed slightly. “I hope we all get along,” she said with a smile.

She had an inkling they would indeed.

Cook Maeng turned toward her new sous chef, Eom Bong-seok—as stated on his jacket—and whispered, “La Poêle d’Or.”

Cook Eom gaped. “Oh, the winner?”

Cook Min leaned closer. “For real?”

The girl, Sun-geum, goggled. “Oh, the—”

Her sous chef places his finger on his lips in an age-old gesture. “That’s enough. Shhh.”

Ji-young hid her grin. He didn’t just look like Cook Eom; he also seemed to have his character. This should be fun.

She cleared her throat. “We’re going to develop a new menu for the upcoming Michelin evaluation. I’m planning on creating a dining course inspired by the royal kitchen that was in charge of serving meals to the kings of the Joseon Dynasty.” She grinned. “I have a feeling we’ll do great as a team.”

The entire kitchen and restaurant staff clapped as the cooks bowed once more.

“I look forward to working with you,” echoed in the empty restaurant.

 

As the five of them emerged from the staff entrance at the back of the hotel, Shim Mak-jin whirled toward Sun-geum. “I can’t believe you almost blurted it out,” he hissed.

“Sorry.” Sun-geum looked sheepishly down at the tips of her shoes. “It’s just—” She looked back up at the four men. “She is here. I can’t believe it.”

Eom Bong-seok clasped her shoulder. “Don’t get too excited. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Sun-geum blinked. “How couldn’t it mean anything? It’s her. It’s the Chief Royal Cook!”

Maeong Min-su shook his head. “It’s just a person with her name.”

“But she recognized us,” Min Gae-duk chipped in.

Sun-geum wanted to kiss him. He was quiet and shy, but she could always count on him to be in her corner. “Exactly!”

Bong-seok lifted his hand in a placating gesture. “She could’ve simply read our names on our jackets.”

“But—”

He stopped her again. “As I said, it doesn’t mean anything.” A sigh. “Yet,” he added. “She is alone. Let’s wait to see how things pan out.”

Sun-geum wanted nothing more than to break years of radio silence to rub the fact that the Chief Royal Cook of legend and lore was in fact real into Steve Im’s and Shin Jae-hyeok’s faces. They’d refused to believe the story, scoffing at it for years. It’s what tore the so-far tightly bound-through-generations descendants apart. The two tasked with helping the king when he appeared, refusing to believe the story in the first place, pushed a wedge between them.

But they didn’t deserve to know. They didn’t believe in the story, they didn’t care, and they’d probably laugh in her face.

And when—if—the king appeared? Sun-geum decided they’d deal with it by themselves; there was no need to get those two pitiful fools involved.

She just hoped they’d be able to tell Chef Yeon the truth soon. That they knew that they were there to help. Because then Sun-geum could return something the Chief Royal Cook had left behind in Joseon when she slipped back into the future.

Sun-geum’s many-times-great-grandmother, Gil-geum, had found it tucked away in a small silken pouch and passed it down through generations.

An intricately carved jade ring with a piece of red string.

Sun-geum couldn’t wait to give it back to Chef Yeon. And hear the story behind it.