Scritch, scritch.

Half asleep, Hae-som was sharpening a knife on the whetstone when she suddenly stopped.

“Again.”

Jae-geon was over at the entrée section. He was with a Commis Chef who was struggling with the new menu.

“Does this look like risotto to you? Or dog food?”

“I missed the timing for adding the seafood… I think the liquid came from that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry to me. You should be sorry to the squid, shrimp, and abalone that died because of you. Right?”

That was exactly the kind of scolding Hae-som had wanted to hear.

So was that the level of stupidity you had to reach if you wanted the chef to yell at you?

She had tried all sorts of small tricks—loosening her apron, changing the order of ingredients in the fridge, leaving random things spread over her station—but none of that seemed enough to make him angry.

Thinking his range of tolerance was wider than expected, Hae-som ran a finger along the sharpened blade. She must have been that distracted, because the tip had gone bright and sharp.

She still could not sleep, still had no chance to talk to Jae-geon, and on top of that, Cha Ji-won’s return date was getting closer.

She could only hope that the long gap had made Ji-won forget about her completely, but who knew. Hae-som had never been very lucky.

Starting to feel nervous, she cleaned up her station and went out alone.

Jun-won, who was at the bar table sorting the list for the preview tasting, noticed her at once and smiled.

“Bambi, you’re here?”

“Hello.”

“Why does your face look so worn out?”

Hae-som rubbed her rough, tired face and gave an awkward smile.

“I guess I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Because of Jae-geon?”

She could not say he had nothing to do with it, but… Hae-som just smiled it off.

Certain that something was bothering her, Jun-won straightened up and moved farther into the bar area.

“If you have time, want to help me with something?”

“Me?”

“I need to pick coffee beans to pair with the dessert, but they all seem fine to me. You tried the dessert, right?”

He made it sound like he needed help, but Hae-som knew he was really trying to give her coffee because she looked tired.

“Thank you, Manager.”

“Come on, don’t be so stiff with me. What’s been bothering you lately?”

Still, even though Jun-won looked easygoing and social, he was not someone she felt fully comfortable with. He was the general manager who worked side by side with Jae-geon, and he was Editor Cha Ji-won’s brother.

Even so… he felt like the kind of person who might know a way to deal with Ji-won’s obsession. She needed to ask for advice without stepping on any nerves.

Hot water fell in circles over the dripper and let out white steam. Bubbles rose through the finely ground beans, and soon a rich, elegant aroma spread out.

The brewed coffee filled the mug to just the right level. The warmth of the cup in her hands gave her a little courage.

After taking a sip of the fragrant brown liquid to wet her throat, Hae-som finally spoke.

“What kind of person is Editor Cha Ji-won?”

“Why Cha Ji-won?”

Jun-won’s face went cold at once, as if she had broken some taboo. Hae-som hurried to add an excuse.

“My friend is interning at Savorin. She wants to become a full-time employee, but she doesn’t know how to stand out, so…”

His expression eased a little, but the doubt in it did not vanish. Hae-som tightened her fingers around the mug for no reason.

“I thought maybe you’d know, Manager, so I wanted to ask—”

The sound of footsteps coming closer cut her off.

The moment she was swallowed by a large shadow, Hae-som looked up and met Jae-geon’s eyes.

Hoping he would strike some hidden nerve in her.

“Looks like you’re busy on a date.”

His flat voice wrapped around her small body like warmth from a fever. The deep look in his eyes even gave her a strange thrill.

“Ah…”

Was this what it felt like when sleep started to come over her? She felt crazy, but Hae-som still kept drinking him in with her eyes.

Maybe he had caught that open stare, because the face that had started to smile moved closer and closer.

As if answering her bright gaze, Jae-geon bent fully at the waist and pressed his chin close to her shoulder. Then he reached across the space between her waist and arm and picked up the coffee cup from the table.

“Seong Hae-som isn’t allowed to have coffee.”

---

The wind, which had grown heavier and more humid over the past few days, brushed Jae-geon’s hair back.

He passed the line of jars sitting under the sun and slowed when he reached the wall stacked with stone towers.

It was weather fit for launching the summer menu. The exact opposite of hot hand-drip coffee.

A cute image flashed through the steam, and Jae-geon felt a headache coming on. It had already been several days since he had banned Hae-som from coffee. He had even taken on the trouble of drinking the hand-drip coffee Jun-won made himself, just in case it ended up in Hae-som’s hands.

It was not as if he had no wish to help her face, which had grown dry and worn from lack of sleep. He was also trying, in his own way, to follow the advice his uncle had repeated over and over at Hunam-sa.

“So your taste in coffee changed too, right after your taste in women?”

If Jun-won had not been that so-called “date” of Hae-som’s, it might have been a decent bit of mature meddling.

Clearly set on teasing him, Jun-won spoke with a slippery grin.

“I thought double-shot espresso was your thing, Jung Jae-geon. But you’ve been glued to hand-drip coffee for days now. Looks pretty suspicious to me.”

“You said you still haven’t found the coffee for the pairing. The preview tasting is right around the corner. When are you planning to test it?”

Jae-geon set the saucer down on the wall as if it were a table and lifted the cup to his mouth. The fresh aroma warmed the tip of his nose.

“So? What do you think?”

“Not for now. I think it’d work better if we launch it in fall or winter.”

For example, it would probably go well with nutty fall desserts, like walnut or chestnut.

Jun-won nodded as if he already knew that much, then crossed his arms and leaned at an angle. He looked oddly like a stylish detective.

“I don’t mean the beans. I mean Bambi. How is she? She’s not your usual type, is she?”

That caught him cleanly. Jae-geon set the mug back on the saucer with a lukewarm smile. Hae-som’s carefully built stone tower pulled at his eyes for a moment.

Unable to stand the silence, Jun-won kept pushing.

“Why are you interfering with her coffee, then?”

“Because she’s sleep-deprived and I don’t want her making mistakes while she works.”

“And how do you know she can’t sleep?”

It was a trap of his own making.

Jae-geon turned away and leaned back against the wall. Jun-won’s strange look stabbed through the plain face he was trying to keep up. It was like he could see right through him.

“What, is it not going well with Bambi?”

“What is there to go well with her?”

“And when you asked for her home address?”

The smooth curve of Jun-won’s mouth grew more annoying with the certainty in it.

“You know office romance is something even the copy machine notices. People are already gossiping that the youngest one in the main section can’t take her eyes off the head chef’s face.”

That was true. Hae-som, who used to run the second their eyes met, had changed after coming back from Hunam-sa.

In a way that was fairly bold.

She had started by stealing glances from the side, then before long she was meeting his eyes head-on. She delayed errands, disappeared like a messenger who never returned, and even tried hard to get his attention with an apron tied on purpose like a mess.

He had ignored it. She was much younger, and she was a girl with deep ties to his uncle. He was not reckless enough to do anything with her. Jae-geon had been firm about that.

At least, until a few days ago.

“Trim this before it grows. How do you think Bambi must feel? The man she likes is the chef at the restaurant where she’s interning, and on top of that, his ex is the editor who placed her there. That’s the perfect setup for losing sleep.”

When Jae-geon stayed silent, the blame in Jun-won’s tone grew sharper.

“Like you said, if it’s not romantic interest, then that means you should be even more careful with her. With that psycho’s temper, do you think Cha Ji-won’s just going to leave Hae-som alone?”

“She’s the kind of kid who handles herself fine.”

He had thought she was not an easy person, which was probably why Cha Ji-won had planted her here in the first place. He had no doubt Hae-som would stand up to her too, just as she had on the day she first brought in the recommendation letter.

“That’s what you think.”

Maybe he had some sense of where this was going, because Jun-won slowly swirled the coffee in his cup as he kept speaking. The brown liquid moved against the inside like a bad omen.

“If you think about how Cha Ji-won got obsessed with you, doesn’t the answer come pretty easy?”

He knew all too well her rotten habit of calling and texting until the other person finally picked up.

Was she doing that to Seong Hae-som too? And was Hae-som just accepting it like a fool?

“Make a clean cut before it turns into noise inside and out.”

After offering that hard warning, Jun-won was called away by a hall staff member. Jae-geon, who had brushed it off like nothing, walked down the hall corridor. Dark silhouettes moved behind the frosted glass wall.

The sight of everyone getting ready for the evening service and the new menu tasting was almost impressive. Which meant Seong Hae-som, who was always desperate to learn even one more thing, had never had the spare time to sit around drinking coffee and slacking off in the first place.

“Seong Hae-som isn’t allowed to have coffee.”

The thing he had done on impulse now kept gathering neat, solid reasons after the fact.

It wasn’t because he had improper feelings for Hae-som.

He had only done what a superior should do.