The Chef x The Celebrity
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✨─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───✨
~ Date: June 26th – Interstellar Year 2422 ~
~ Location: Ozarka Tech University of Fine Arts, Technology and Agriculture
~ Cheraw City, Luna Fang - Terra Anka PXD2422
~ The Golden Dragon Star Nexus Intergalactic Empire ~
✨─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───✨
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🐦🔥 [ Phoenix ☯ POV ] 🐦🔥
Chef Han Shi-eon stood before the spread in complete silence.
That silence was more nerve-racking than any criticism could have been.
Phoenix kept his posture straight and his expression calm as she stepped forward, selected the instructor samples he had plated separately, and began to taste. She did not rush. She examined the mandu first, then the bao dumplings, the braised tofu, the sauces, the drinks, and finally the smaller accompaniments, pausing after each bite to make a short note on her tablet.
Her face revealed nothing. That, somehow, made the room quieter.
Phoenix trusted his craft. He had honed his skills across too many lives, kitchens, failures, and memories to doubt whether the food was good. Still, this was not only food. It was a history this era had forgotten, a language most of the room no longer knew how to hear.
Food had always been more than survival to him. It could hold apology, affection, condolence, welcome, grief, comfort, celebration, and love without needing a single spoken word. Sitting down to share a meal with people you cared for was one of the few miracles that did not need magic to feel sacred.
The thought tugged unexpectedly at the memory of Draco. For one breath, Phoenix felt the old ache press beneath his ribs: Draco's patient hands, smoke in the air, the remembered warmth of someone who had taught him that food could be inheritance, devotion, and home all at once.
Phoenix nearly frowned before smoothing the expression away. Not now. Chef Han Shi-eon was still tasting.
Across the restricted bond, Solaris went very quiet. He had caught the thought before Phoenix remembered to hide it, but wisely said nothing.
Then Chef Han Shi-eon set her tasting spoon down.
Phoenix's first reaction to her red-rimmed eyes was not pride. It was panic. Was the spice too much?
Chef Han Shi-eon inhaled slowly, as if collecting herself before speaking.
"Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan," she said, voice controlled but not untouched, "in all my years as a chef and instructor, I can honestly say I have never tasted anything like this."
A ripple moved through the room. She looked back at the dishes, and for the first time, her professional mask cracked enough for wonder to show through.
"The flavors are bold, but not careless. Fragrant, but not confused. Spicy, savory, sweet, sharp, and comforting in ways that should contradict one another, yet somehow do not. Every dish has its own identity, but together, they feel like they belong to the same table."
Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the tablet. "I do not know every ingredient you used," she admitted, and the honesty in that confession made several students glance at one another, "but I want to. Very much."
Phoenix bowed deeply, holding the gesture long enough to show sincere respect. "Thank you, Chef Han Shi-eon. Coming from you, that means a great deal. Most of the ingredients are connected to my final thesis. Some were cultivated, adapted, or reconstructed from family records and long-preserved food histories. I look forward to presenting the full research to you during my dissertation. Fortunately, you will not have to wait long."
"They are not perfect recreations," Phoenix added, glancing at the spread. "They are descendants. Some ingredients no longer exist, and some changed beyond recognition long before this era. But the shape of the food, the method, and the way it is shared survived."
Chef Han Shi-eon's eyes sharpened with interest. "Then I will look forward to it with sincerity. If this spread is only a preview of your thesis, then I expect your final presentation to be extraordinary."
A small smile touched her mouth, though reluctance lingered in her posture as she stepped aside. "I will allow the other chef instructors to sample next before the students proceed. Reluctantly."
That earned a quiet laugh from the room. Chef Han Shi-eon gave Phoenix one last searching look—professional, proud, and visibly moved—before making space for the others.
The other chef instructors approached with far less restraint than they tried to pretend. One of them went first for the mandu, another for the braised tofu, and the third chose the mushroom stir-fry with the grave seriousness of a scholar approaching a dangerous text.
Their first reactions were almost comically different. The instructor who sampled the gochujang sauce went very still, eyes widening as the slow heat bloomed across his tongue. He coughed once into his fist, reached for the green tea, took a careful sip, and then immediately went back for another taste.
"It hurts," he said hoarsely, looking offended by his own hand as it moved toward the sauce again. "Why do I want more?"
Another instructor laughed under her breath, but the laugh stopped the moment she tasted the ssamjang with a piece of tofu. Her expression shifted from amusement to concentration, then to naked curiosity. "Fermented depth," she murmured. "Salt, sweetness, heat, and earthiness. How is this balanced?"
The third instructor, who had chosen the bao dumpling, closed his eyes on the first bite. Steam escaped from the soft bread as he broke it open, releasing the fragrance of pork, chives, and seasoning. When he opened his eyes again, his professional detachment had suffered a visible defeat.
"The texture alone is worth studying," he said. "Soft, but not weak. Elastic, but not dense. And the filling does not fight the dough. It belongs inside it."
Phoenix watched them with quiet satisfaction. Two of the instructors clearly struggled with the spice, but both kept returning to the same dishes with the helpless determination of people who had discovered a problem they wanted to solve by eating more of it.
'A slow heat works every time,' Nix thought, amusement curling through him. 'Wait until I introduce peppercorns that make the mouth tingle and go numb. I miss that feeling already.'
Without realizing it, he smiled. It was bright, genuine, and sharp with anticipation. His eyes curved into crescents, and for one suspended second, the room forgot the food entirely.
Then the first student finally tasted a sample and let out a sound so embarrassingly pleased that every other student snapped awake at once.
After that, civilized restraint became a group effort. The students formed a queue with the solemn discipline of people one bad decision away from rioting over dumplings.
"Haha, y'all, calm down," Phoenix said, his smile still bright even as his eyes sharpened just enough to make everyone listen. "I anticipated that you might like the food, so I made enough for everyone to have a late lunch. I promise there is plenty. All I ask is that no one takes leftovers home or tells anyone outside this room about it yet. This is part of my graduation thesis."
The students and instructors understood the warning beneath his pleasant tone immediately. Curious as they were, no one wanted to jeopardize someone else's final project—especially not after being offered food that smelled like a miracle. Agreement moved through the room in quick nods and murmured promises.
With that settled, Nix brought out the rest of the dishes and arranged them into a proper family-style meal. He started simply, using rice as the anchor because it was the easiest place for unfamiliar palates to begin. From there, he showed them how to take small portions from the shared dishes, how to taste each sauce before committing to the heat, and how to build a bite instead of overwhelming it.
Then came the chopsticks. Nix demonstrated slowly, adjusting the angle between his fingers so everyone could see. "Do not stab the food unless the dish is meant for that," he said lightly. "Lift, guide, and do not reach across someone else's bowl. If you want something farther away, ask someone to pass it. Food tastes better when no one is fighting over territory at the table."
A few students laughed, and the tension broke.
Watching everyone try to use chopsticks was, admittedly, dangerously entertaining. Several classmates held them with the fierce concentration of people defusing tiny wooden bombs. One student managed to trap a piece of tofu between the sticks, lifted it with trembling triumph, then watched in betrayal as it slipped free and plopped back onto the plate. Another captured a mandu, froze like he had just conquered an empire, and whispered, "No one move," as if sudden motion might scare it away.
A third student tried to adjust his grip, accidentally launched a strip of mushroom onto his sleeve, and stared at it with the hollow expression of a man who had just lost a duel to lunch. Even one of the instructors, who had been pretending professional dignity exempted him from struggle, quietly turned his bowl to hide the fact that his kimbap had fallen apart twice.
Still, none of them gave up. Their eagerness outweighed their embarrassment, and before long, laughter softened the room as everyone adjusted, tried again, and slowly learned how to share the table properly.
The warmth in the room moved Phoenix more than he expected. He understood Chef Han Shi-eon's reaction better than anyone else there could have guessed. These dishes were not only flavors to him; they were fragments of memory, old family stories, preserved food histories, and the stubborn proof that something once thought lost could still return to the table.
"Most of what you tasted today was inspired by old family recipes and food stories that survived long after the original ingredients disappeared," Phoenix explained quietly. "They are not perfect recreations of ancient Earth dishes. They are descendants—recipes preserved in fragments, reshaped by alien soil, altered crops, family memory, and the stubborn refusal to let a culture disappear quietly. My doctoral thesis is built around reconstructing and adapting those lost ingredients for the modern era."
Chef Han Shi-eon's eyes glistened before she blinked the emotion away. Her voice, when she spoke, remained steady through sheer discipline. "Thank you for telling me," she said. "Food like this should not vanish quietly. If your thesis can return even part of that history to the empire, then it is far more important than a simple culinary assessment."
After that, the room surrendered completely to the meal. The students tasted their way through rice, sauces, kimchi, dumplings, tofu, soup, and drinks with growing confidence. Some still struggled with spice, but even those students kept returning for another bite, cheeks flushed and eyes shining as if they had discovered a problem too delicious to solve.
When Phoenix brought out the desserts, a collective sound rose from the room—half disbelief, half betrayal. Everyone had sworn they were full. Everyone was wrong. The first taste of the sweet drinks and desserts made that very clear, and within minutes, even the instructors had abandoned the last scraps of professional restraint.
When asked how he had come up with everything, Phoenix only smiled. "I will explain after my dissertation presentation in two or three weeks," he said. "Until then, please consider today a preview." The room accepted that answer with obvious reluctance. Curiosity burned in every face, but no one pushed. They all understood that this was part of his final and most important project.
Once everyone had eaten their fill, Chef Han Shi-eon stood and addressed the room. "Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan has not only completed today's assessment with exceptional results, but he also prepared a complete meal for the class and cleaned his station thoroughly before presentation. He is dismissed early today and will not be required to remain for the deep cleaning rotation."
One boy in class—a recessive alpha with damp eyes and a grip still awkward from chopsticks—rose from his seat and bowed deeply. "Thank you, Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan," he said sincerely. "That was the most incredible meal I have ever tasted. I feel honored that you shared it with us today."
The rest of the class followed almost immediately, gratitude spilling into a warm chorus of thanks. Phoenix bowed his head, touched more than he wanted to show. "Thank you all. It was my pleasure, truly. And if you do not mind, please call me Phoenix."
His smile flashed bright enough to make several students blush and look away. Before the room could dissolve into another round of staring, Phoenix quickly washed his bowl and chopsticks, collected his cup of matcha milk boba tea, and prepared to leave.
Chef Han Shi-eon approached before he reached the door. "Phoenix," she said, using the name deliberately, "you passed today's assessment with flying colors. If you wish, you may take the next two lecture days to focus on your thesis preparations. I expect your dissertation presentation to justify my generosity."
Phoenix bowed deeply. "Thank you, Chef Han Shi-eon. I will not waste the time."
He waved once more to the class, lifted his matcha milk boba tea in farewell, and stepped out of the test kitchen with a lighter heart than he had expected.
He was going to head home early.
And if luck was kind, he might still make it to Joon-ah's swim meet.
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