Chapter 74
The old man headed toward his usual seat in the corner by the window.
As soon as he sat down, he did not order anything.
He simply stared blankly into the distance beyond the window.
Lee Yu-han, who had been resting in the kitchen, approached Hong Man-gi and whispered.
"Hunter, the quiet grandfather is here again. Should we bring him what he always eats?"
Hong Man-gi looked toward the restaurant entrance.
As though following an appointment, the white-haired old man had appeared once again.
Just like always, he silently sat alone in his corner seat by the window.
Hong Man-gi answered.
"I'll prepare his usual."
Lee Yu-han followed him toward the kitchen.
"Hunter, about that grandfather."
"Yeah?"
"He comes once in the morning and once in the late afternoon, just like now. Exactly twice every day."
"No wonder he looked so familiar."
"He always comes alone... eats like that and leaves. He never talks like the other customers, and he never seems curious about the other dishes."
Lee Yu-han hesitated.
"It almost feels like... he's coming here looking for something."
Hong Man-gi opened the lid of the iron pot containing mana stones.
Warm energy and the savory aroma of freshly cooked rice rose with the steam.
"I feel the same way."
While scooping rice, he quietly watched the old man sitting by the window.
The old man continued staring outside with hollow eyes.
'He isn't coming simply because he's hungry.'
'This meal he comes looking for every day must carry some special meaning for him.'
Hong Man-gi remembered the feelings he had placed into this meal during the final round of "Blue and White Cooking King."
Inheritance.
The desire to preserve something precious from the past and carry it toward the future.
'Maybe... he's searching for a piece of his lost past inside this meal.'
Hong Man-gi began preparing the food with even more care than usual.
Freshly cooked pot rice.
Clear bean sprout soup.
Fragrant seasoned chwinamul greens.
Crunchy stir-fried balloon flower root.
Sweet and salty braised lotus root.
It was a simple meal, but every dish carried his touch and sincerity.
"I'll take it out."
Hong Man-gi lifted the tray and walked toward the old man's table.
"Your meal is ready."
The old man very slowly turned his head.
Then he returned his gaze toward the window.
Hong Man-gi placed the meal down and quietly went back.
"Ahem."
The old man cleared his throat once and began eating.
He did not appear to be enjoying the taste.
Instead, he mechanically lifted the food to his mouth as though performing some kind of ritual.
Hong Man-gi watched from a distance.
'What are you looking at...?'
Lost time?
Someone he missed?
Or perhaps himself, from a brilliant time he could never return to?
The meal was nearly finished.
Then, after putting the final spoonful of rice into his mouth, the old man suddenly dropped his spoon.
[Clang.]
"Huh...?"
Everyone in the restaurant immediately turned toward him.
'What's wrong?'
Something was strange.
The old man's hands were trembling slightly.
Cold sweat began forming across his forehead.
Suddenly, he grabbed his chest as though unable to breathe and spoke desperately.
"Wh... where... is this?"
He looked around in confusion.
It was almost as if he had forgotten that he had been eating moments earlier.
An unfamiliar room.
Unfamiliar people.
He looked like a child suddenly abandoned alone in a completely unknown world.
"Why... why am I here...? I need to go home... home...."
He suddenly stood and began staggering.
To anyone watching, it looked like a severe episode of Alzheimer's disease.
Hong Man-gi was the first to run toward him.
"Sir! Are you all right?"
Lee Yu-han and Kang Jae-min also rushed out of the kitchen.
"Stay away! Who are you people?!"
The old man violently slapped away Hong Man-gi's hand.
He had become like a completely different person.
"Let me go home... my family... I have to make their meal...!"
He muttered incoherently and staggered toward the restaurant exit.
Instead of blocking him, Hong Man-gi carefully supported his arm.
"Sir, please calm down. We'll take you home. It's dangerous."
"Let go! Let go of me!"
The old man struggled.
But his weakened body could not shake off Hong Man-gi's strong arm.
Hong Man-gi leaned toward his ear and spoke in the gentlest, calmest voice he could manage.
"It's okay. Everything is fine. Nothing bad will happen. We're not bad people."
Perhaps the sincerity in Hong Man-gi's voice reached him.
The old man's resistance gradually weakened.
Still breathing heavily, he allowed Hong Man-gi to support him.
At the same time, Hong Man-gi thought,
'What should I do...? Should I take him to a hospital first...?'
There were no visible injuries.
Hong Man-gi did not know what medical condition the man had.
And there was another problem.
They did not know his home address.
Searching the old man's pockets for identification felt disrespectful.
'What should I do...?'
While thinking, the heightened senses of the Gourmet Alchemist suddenly reacted.
There was a faint scent coming from the old man's clothes.
The stale smell unique to an old house.
Mixed with it was a very faint but familiar spice aroma.
'This smell... cinnamon? And... licorice?'
It smelled like something from a traditional medicine shop.
"Sir, is there an old herbal medicine shop near your home? Or do you boil medicine yourself at home?"
At Hong Man-gi's question, the old man's confused eyes trembled slightly.
"Medicine... right... I need to go home... and boil... medicine...."
A possible clue slipped from his mouth.
Hong Man-gi became certain.
He glanced toward Lee Yu-han and Kang Jae-min.
"You two clean up the restaurant and head home afterward. I'll take this gentleman home."
Hong Man-gi carefully supported the old man and left the Full Moon Restaurant.
Hong Man-gi walked through the alleys while supporting the elderly man.
He followed the faint smell of herbal medicine.
Still confused, the old man weakly leaned on Hong Man-gi's arm.
Unclear fragments of old stories continued to spill from his lips.
After walking for a while,
they reached the end of a quiet alley filled with old multi-family houses.
The smell of herbal medicine became stronger in front of one particularly old gate, deeply marked by time.
"Is this it...?"
Hong Man-gi carefully took an old set of keys from the man's pocket.
He chose the most worn key and opened the gate.
[Creeeak.]
The door opened with a rusty sound, as if it had not been oiled for years.
Inside was a small courtyard.
The house looked old, yet surprisingly neat and carefully maintained.
A deep scent of lived life welcomed Hong Man-gi.
For someone living alone, the old man's home was remarkably clean.
'Wow....'
Hong Man-gi helped him sit in a small chair near the entrance and looked around.
The first thing to catch his attention was an old bookshelf covering most of the living room wall.
Instead of novels or magazines, it was filled entirely with books about cooking.
There were old volumes with faded covers.
There were modern cookbooks that looked as though they had been read until their pages nearly fell apart.
The entire bookshelf resembled a giant secondhand bookstore containing one man's cooking life.
Hong Man-gi naturally moved toward the kitchen next.
The counter had been polished until it shone.
Every cooking tool hanging from the wall showed signs of long use.
In particular, an old kitchen knife whose blade had worn down by nearly half, and a brass pot whose bottom had been used until it was deeply indented, spoke clearly of the person who lived here.
This house belonged to a craftsman who had spent his entire life before fire and blades.
'Could he be...?'
Then Hong Man-gi's eyes stopped on an old black-and-white photograph hanging in the center of the living room wall.
The elderly man appeared in the picture, much younger and full of life.
He wore a brilliant white chef's uniform and smiled brightly.
Several other chefs lifted him into the air in celebration.
In his hands was a large trophy engraved with the words:
"Grand Prize, Korean Master Chef Competition."
The background seemed to be the Blue House.
'I've seen this somewhere...!'
A page from an old cooking magazine he had studied late at night while preparing for "Blue and White Cooking King" flashed through his mind.
'The living legend of Korean cuisine, Master Im Jeong-sik.'
A tragic genius who had spent much of his career in the shadow of his master, a great expert of royal cuisine.
Though often called second-best, he had quietly maintained his own philosophy and elevated the meals of ordinary people into an art form.
His pot rice in particular had been praised by the finest gourmets of his era as a heavenly flavor.
Yet just as he entered his prime, he suddenly stopped all public activities and disappeared.
Nobody knew what had happened to him afterward.
Hong Man-gi looked toward the old man.
The legend he had once read about was sitting right before him now.
An elderly man suffering from dementia.
The thought that a great chef who had defined an era was now growing old alone, unable even to remember his brightest moments, made Hong Man-gi's eyes redden.
While he stared at the photograph, overwhelmed by complicated emotions,
"...Hahaha."
A clear, calm voice reached him.
Hong Man-gi turned in surprise.
The old man who had been sitting in the chair was now looking at him with gentle, intelligent eyes, as if nothing had happened.
The confusion and terror from earlier were completely gone.
"Young man... you brought me all the way home. Looks like I lost my way again."
The old man smiled awkwardly and stood.
He approached Hong Man-gi and bowed deeply.
"I'm sorry for the trouble. My mind isn't what it used to be, and sometimes I end up relying on strangers like this. Thank you very much, young man."
His tone and posture were completely different from the confused old man from earlier.
They carried the experience and dignity of a true master.
Hong Man-gi stared blankly for a moment before speaking.
"You were a Master Chef... weren't you?"
