"Adrian, you know him?" Maddy asks, her voice trembling and eyes red as she holds back her own humiliated anger and tears back. After all, she was fresh out of high school. How could she suddenly bear listening to this barrage of disparaging remarks aimed at her almost out of nowhere? Yes she was impulsive and made a bet with him after some provocation but the things he said afterwards were really too much!
This pitiful image really hit the final nail on the coffin.
Drake! Lanzoni! Is! A! Dead! Man!
Jia Hyson immediately retracts his hand from Drake's shoulder and takes a step back, shaking the hand that touched Drake like he'd just touched something so extremely dirty he was unwilling to even wipe it off his clothes. "I thought I did," he sneers, "but I guess I was mistaken."
"Adrian, wait, I-"
"Come on Mads," Jia Hyson dodges Drake's weak attempt to grab him, going around him like he had the plague as he holds his sister's hand. "We should probably head upstairs now."
"En," Maddy gave him a watery but happy smile, finally comforted. Pointedly they both ignore the male lead as they walk past him hand-in-hand.
"Adrian! Adrian I didn't mean it! I-"
"Ah, did you hear that Adrian?" Maddy asks scornfully, already feeling much better now that her brother is by her side. "Sounded like something loud and full of himself."
"Try to block it out Mads," Jia Hyson smiles gently before throwing Drake a brief mocking look as he adds derisively, "Us homely people shouldn't try listen to those two-faced ghosts lest we get taken in by their lies."
They didn't bother to waste time around this scum male any longer and quickly went upstairs to the indoor balcony. This allows contestants that aren't competing at the moment to watch those that are. Generally they will cheer for the people they like and comment about what's happening down there and what they would have done themselves.
As they climbed up the stairs they both missed the confused, ashamed and heartbroken expression on a certain male lead's face.
Once ten minutes had passed, anyone still lingering was sent upstairs and filming resumed with the pale-faced individuals in black aprons standing in front of the podium awaiting their elimination challenge. Jia Hyson spent most of the time chatting with Maddy and surprisingly the womanizer Daniel Green who was very friendly and insightful.
The elimination challenge wasn't too hard since it was only the first day, but that didn't mean it wasn't cruel. Six plates of six different dishes featuring eggs in ninety minutes. And they only had fifteen minutes of the pantry before it was closed off. Half of them were going home.
"Thank god I don't have to do that," Jia Hyson sighs, "I wouldn't be able to remember the things I would need for two recipes much less six."
Maddy laughs, "I remember once you tried to make a cake and forgot which step you were on, then you just dumped everything in and skipped right to the third last step."
"Oh-ho?" Daniel chortles, "Is that true Adrian?"
Jia Hyson flushes. That was the time he told Bebe not to help him because he was very confident in his cooking skills helping him out when his memory couldn't. It turned out this doesn't apply to the precise chemistry that was baking. "That, that was ages ago."
Maddy nudges him on the ribs with a sly wink toward an amused Daniel, "Sure, if you call last Monday 'ages ago'!"
"You brat!" Adrian chuckles, ruffling her hair affectionately as she squeals.
The cameras eat this up, and they aren't the only ones. Dark eyes also greedily take in the sight, filled in with envy and longing. Drake Lanzoni was barely even listening to his partner's gushing, too busy shooting glances at Adrian. It had been exactly a month and six days since he had last seen him. Every time they meet it was like cleansing his heart in a warm spring.
Except now the spring had turned frigid. Remembering the way Adrian's beautiful face of shock morphed into something disdainful and cold. It was unbearable.
Drake knew it wasn't right to be so mean to the girl. But he couldn't suppress the ugliness in his heart at her easy confidence and obvious reciprocated affection with Adrian. He wanted to destroy that confidence, that affection, that sweet face that Adrian apparently likes in a woman.. He hadn't thought that Adrian was already so close to this little upstart. If Drake knew that Adrian would have reacted so seriously to a few insults he would've... well, he probably would've done the same thing but he would have been more discreet at the very least!
And now Adrian hates him. The thought felt poisonous and corrosive to his mind. Drake came to this competition to pursue his dream of being a chef that can be acknowledged by his family. But it wasn't like Home-Cooked Miracle was his only option for this, it was merely the easiest one. However once he heard that Adrian was signing up, it immediately became the only one he would even think of pursuing.
And yet, now that it's happening.. This wasn't supposed to be how it went.
He imagined seeing the surprise on Adrian's face, the shock as he reveals his identity from pauper to prince. He imagined Adrian may take a little while to accept the change, but ultimately years of friendship would make him realize Drake is still the same person, money or no money. He imagined working together in the kitchens, fighting side by side through the challenges of the show, sleeping under the same roof, maybe even accidentally waking into one another in the bath, tensions will rise and maybe, maybe...
"Ahahaha!" A peal of tinkling laughter rang out, to anyone else it would sound almost fairy like but to Drake it was just grating, "Adrian, you idiot get off!"
Drake's jaw clenched. This was all that girl's fault. If only she wasn't here.
Quickly he forces himself to calm down and continue smiling placidly at the person in front of him. No, he can't afford to antagonize that girl. It would only serve to drive Adrian away. He had tried so hard to hide this ugly part of him and now it came out in a rather terrible way. Right now Drake needed to focus on patching things up and gaining back that lost trust and friendship he had so stupidly lost because of his impulsive temper.
Yes.
He knows what to do.
With renewed resolve as expected of a main lead character in love, Drake Lanzoni smiles.
...
Since no one important to the story dropped out early, Jia Hyson didn't care. In the end the judges said a very rousing speech that had dutifully incited the competitive cooking spirit in them all and bid them a good night, ushering the contestants back into their assigned cars which will drive them to the Miracle Chef House.
Since it was the first week, there was only three actual challenges meant to cut down the numbers. This is because the tapes of the audition videos and the preliminary rounds were enough to pad for two whole episodes. Jia Hyson remembers his preliminary round, he got to make his specialty- a cheeseburger- in forty-five minutes and serve it to two food critics and one very lucky food blogger who had determined he had passed. It was funny how one of the most stressful moments of his life was going to be shown in what was probably the most boring part of the show.
Generally there are about four challenges a week. On Monday there is always a 2-stage Mystery Box challenge which will result in either the elimination challenge and the Miracle Chef pin immunity challenge the next day. Thursday is some sort of team or service challenge which will lead to a two stage-elimination on Sunday. Friday is usually a carefree training day where the judges and guest chefs would teach everyone a dish or a skill and Wednesdays and Saturdays were days off. This schedule can change but more or less it's maintained throughout the show.
Anyway, the point is, they only had two more challenges but by the end of it everyone theoretically won't have to fight over which loser has to sleep on the couches.
F*cking drama.
"Okay," One of the older contestants says as everyone stares at the giant U-shaped communal couch with their luggage in hand while two asshole cameramen circle around them waiting for blood to be shed. "The first people who can find bunk mates can get first dibs of the rooms. The rest can figure out who's couches and who's floor."
"I, maybe we should make the people who got in eliminations sleep out here?" One of the white lotus timidly suggests, it was either Milly Trainor or Susan Bee, Jia Hyson can't recall they were practically copy and pasted versions of each other in his opinion.
The other lookalike white lotus gave the first one a sad look. "That's not fair, we had to fight hard in that elimination. If anything we should be the ones who get to sleep on a bed. Not to mention, some of us didn't deserve to be there in the first place!" Oh right, Susan Bee was the one who almost got eliminated. That makes the other one Milly. Sh*t, he couldn't wait till the herd thinned down, there were too many names to remember. Thank god he had Bebe to remind him.
Unfortunately Bebe was a stupid level 0 Beta system who apparently can't recognize important characters by sight alone. For now Bebe is just a floating story book that is capable of being sarcastic and ripping people off.
Jia Hyson: 'Weren't you a different type of system before? Were you always this useless? How can you not recognize Drake? He's a male lead! A male lead!'
Bebe: 'Host haven't you ever played an RPG? When you change jobs those job-specific skills disappear. What can Bebe do about that?'┐( ̄ヘ ̄)┌
Jia Hyson: 'Yes but the skill points don't! Don't they reset so you can pick the new skills?!'
Bebe: '..They do.'
Jia Hyson: 'Then where did they go?!'
Bebe: '... Bebe may have forgotten to build up foundation in Bebe's basic passive skills in favor of other things... like... getting an in-built laser beam...' (¬з¬)
Jia Hyson: Oh my god! I can't count on this f*cking cheap system!!! Die and go to hell!!! 凸ಠ益ಠ)凸
"Hey Adrian," Daniel nudges him as the argument between the similar looking white lotuses grow more heated. "Want to be roomies?"
Jia Hyson gives him a considering look before breaking out into a gentle and welcoming smile, "I suppose you're not too bad." They're already on friendly terms already plus he needs to keep a careful eye on Daniel and his flirtatious ways. Maddy had looked down on Daniel for his manner of standing on multiple boats. Boats meaning females. Anne Brooks was one of the first who had gotten strung along since they were car buddies, but since she dragged him down he quickly threw her aside for greener pastures like Susan Bee. Anne is set as naive and romantic and had genuinely fell for Daniel's sweet words, making her cling to him unable to take any hints of his displeasure until he couldn't take it anymore and yelled at her in the middle of a service challenge breaking her heart and pride. Maddy being the righteous female protagonist couldn't stand this and slapped him, fully triggering Daniel's interest early on.
It was the typical 'I'll make this prideful woman fall for me and break her heart but in the end I was the one who fell for her' type scenario. Thankfully his contribution to the bullying and sexual harassment wasn't much or Jia Hyson wouldn't have associated with him at all. Mainly his personality was petty and calculative, choosing to watch the bullying in the shadows before swooping in to help near the end or whispering doubts and suspicions in Maddy's mind toward the male lead and other interested parties. The worst thing he'd done was shortly before he realized his true feelings he'd panicked about Maddy completely ignoring him forever in favor of Drake and spiked her food with aphrodisiac to get her into his bed.
And honestly, that really wasn't that bad since literally everyone has accidentally or intentionally drugged up Maddy at one point. Really Jia Hyson could not be angrier. This piece of smut pretending to be a pure story couldn't even be bothered to be good smut. Why does someone have to be drugged to be horny? Never mind the clearly rampant bribery happening behind the scenes that allows so much drugs and illegal alcohol and exotic sex ingredients to be smuggled into the show.
So now that Adrian and Daniel has paired up, the surrounding people who were listening in also followed, unwilling to be the ones caught up in the catfight and then finding out there were no more rooms left. However being roommates with someone also wasn't that simple, if you are friendly with your roommates they could serve as invaluable teammates since you'll get a clearer understanding of their temperament and cooking preferences. Conversely if you are incompatible and become enemies with one another it would become an incredibly uncomfortable stay. The first challenge also created some bonds and impressions between various contestants which will add further complexity.
"What about that man?" Jia Hyson points to a relatively inconspicuous man in his mid-thirties. He looked like he did manual labor for a living and had a scruffy but trustworthy face. Daniel frowns.
"He has a beard."
Jia Hyson is starting to regret this partnership. "So? Why are you being this picky?"
"If I have to sleep with a bunch of men they have to be good-looking." Daniel sniffs.
Well. Jia Hyson doesn't disagree with that thinking.
"We'll be sleeping on the floor at this rate, the first two rooms for guys are already taken!" He hisses. "You pick then!"
Comments (0)
See all