River stood frozen in his dining room long after the old man and his daughter had left. The empty bowl sat on table eight, scraped clean except for a few drops of broth. Such a simple thing - an empty bowl - but it felt more meaningful than any five-star review he had ever received.
The lunch service continued around him. Servers carried out plates of his signature dishes to customers who immediately pulled out their phones to photograph them. The familiar ballet of his restaurant played on, but River felt like he was watching it from outside his own body.
"Chef?" Min-ji approached him carefully. "Is everything alright? You've been standing here for ten minutes."
River looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Min-ji had worked for him for five years, but he realized he knew almost nothing about her. Did she have family? What made her happy? What kind of food did she eat when she went home?
"Min-ji," he said slowly, "what's your favorite dish that I've ever made?"
She blinked, surprised by the question. "I... well, all of your creations are amazing, Chef."
"That's not what I asked. What's your favorite?"
Min-ji shifted uncomfortably. "Honestly? I've never actually eaten any of your dishes, Chef. They're too expensive for me to afford."
The words hit River like a physical blow. His own head server, who spent every day describing his food to customers, had never tasted a single dish from his menu.
"What do you eat for lunch?" River asked.
"There's a small place down the street. An old lady makes simple rice bowls and soup. Nothing fancy, but it reminds me of my grandmother's cooking."
River felt something crack inside his chest. His employees ate grandmother's cooking while he created art that no one could afford to love.
He walked back to his kitchen in a daze. Jung-ho was expediting orders, calling out modifications and cooking times with military precision. The kitchen ran like a perfect machine, but River suddenly felt like he was watching robots instead of cooks.
"Jung-ho," River called out. "Why did you become a chef?"
Jung-ho looked up from the grill, sweat beading on his forehead. "Sir?"
"Before you worked here. Why did you want to cook?"
Jung-ho paused, a piece of perfectly seared beef on his spatula. "My mother was sick when I was young. I learned to cook so I could take care of her. I wanted to make food that would make her feel better."
"And now? Do you still cook to make people feel better?"
Jung-ho looked around the busy kitchen, then back at River. For a moment, his professional mask slipped. "Now I cook to hit our food costs and make sure the plates look exactly like the photos in the magazine."
River nodded slowly. He had turned his kitchen into a factory. He had turned his cooks into assembly line workers. He had turned himself into someone he didn't recognize.
That evening, after the last customer had left and the kitchen was cleaned, River sat alone at table eight - the same table where the old man had eaten his simple kimchi jjigae. He had asked the cleaning staff to leave this one bowl unwashed.
River picked up the bowl and smelled it. Faint traces of the stew still clung to the ceramic. It smelled like memory. Like comfort. Like something his grandmother would have made.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the photos from today's service. Perfect plates arranged like works of art. Customers posing with their food. His restaurant's Instagram page had thousands of followers who "liked" his creations.
But none of them looked as happy as that old man had looked eating his simple bowl of soup.
River put his phone down and sat in the silence of his empty restaurant. Outside the windows, Seoul glittered like a jewel, but he felt completely alone in the middle of eight million people.
For the first time in months, River asked himself a question he had been avoiding: What if this wasn't the life he was supposed to be living?