The madeleine sat alone on the white plate, a small, shell-shaped monument of golden-brown perfection. Its surface was smooth, crowned with the distinctive, proud hump that promised a light, airy interior.
A delicate, shimmering glaze coated it, catching the stage lights and making it gleam like a precious stone. But its true power wasn't in its looks; it was in the aroma that rose from it in an almost visible, intoxicating wave.
The scent was a complex dance of two formidable ingredients. The deep, warm notes of the dark rum came first—caramel, oak, and a hint of spice, rich and comforting.
Woven seamlessly through it was the unique perfume of the Rosaline flour: a subtle, enchanting note of roses, not cloying or sweet, but earthy and mysterious, stripped of its soapy curse and refined into something pure and captivating.
Together, they created an aroma that was unlike anything ever smelled in the Tholus Culinarius.
This foreign, mesmerizing scent drifted to the judges' table.
Master Marcus closed his eyes for a brief second, inhaling deeply, a small, knowing smile gracing his normally stoic face.
Mistress Albertine's jaw tightened, her expression severe, but she couldn't stop the slight, involuntary lift of her chin as she drew in the fragrance. It was a scent that commanded attention even before the first bite.
Master Marcus looked up, his gaze finding Ji Hoon. "It's nice to meet you, kid," he said, his voice carrying a note of genuine warmth. "I'm happy to see you made it this far."
Ji Hoon was taken aback that the high-ranking minister remembered him. "Likewise, sir. I am honored to have your acquaintance."
"So, what do you have for us today?" Mistress Albertine interjected, her tone sharp with impatience, eager to begin the tasting and prove Marcus wrong. "Seeing that you dared to choose a rare Grade-S ingredient like Rosaline flour, I expect something higher, am I right?"
"Of course, my lady," Ji Hoon said with a respectful gesture. "Today, I have made a dish that I believe is the most direct example of a memory-enchanting dish. I have made a madeleine. A small, shell-shaped cake, humble in appearance, but one I hope is profound in experience."
"A mad-a-leene?" Mistress Albertine scoffed. "Hmph. I've heard you always make some new recipe, but that doesn't help if you don't make something good. 'New' isn't always 'better'."
With a final, skeptical glance, both Mistress Albertine and Master Marcus picked up the madeleine. They brought it close to their mouths, but first, almost by instinct, they brought it to their noses for one final inhalation.
As the intricate bouquet of rum and rose filled her senses, a sudden, electric rush passed through Mistress Albertine's spine.
The roaring arena, the bright lights, the expectant faces—it all vanished into a silent, black void for a single, dizzying heartbeat, before snapping back into existence.
Her eyes widened a fraction, the first crack in her stern composure. The journey had begun before the food even touched her lips.
Master Marcus's small smile vanished, replaced by an expression of deep, reverent focus. But it was Mistress Albertine whose reaction was truly profound.
Her stern composure shattered. Her eyes, which had previously held only cold judgment, widened in pure, unadulterated disbelief.
The aroma seemed to bypass her conscious mind, pulling a memory from a locked chamber in her soul. Her lips, usually pressed into a thin line of disapproval, parted slightly.
"...Th-This feeling..." she whispered, her voice barely audible, a fragile thread of sound. "The day I met him, too..."
The memory was not a clear picture, but a wave of emotion—the fluttering nervousness, the bright, hopeful sunlight of a long-lost afternoon.
Drawn by a force she could not resist, her hand trembled as she moved the Madeleine closer to her mouth and took a bite.
~Munch-Munch~
The delicate, humped shell gave way with a perfect, gentle crunch.
* * * * *
In the quiet focus of the National Library, Lee Ji Hoon was also in another world—a world made of words and memory. He read the lines that would forever change his perspective, Marcel Proust's description of the very act he had just witnessed:
When the narrator dips a small piece of madeleine into his cup of tea and tastes it, he is suddenly overwhelmed by a vivid joy.
The crumbs of cake mingled with the warm tea on his tongue, something in him shivered—an unseen door within his memory creaked open, and all at once, the forgotten world of his childhood came rushing back.
He doesn't understand why until a flood of memory rises — not of the taste itself, but of where he once tasted it.
The flavor calls forth a forgotten image of his childhood Sundays in Combray, when his aunt Léonie would give him a madeleine dipped in her own tea.
In that moment, time collapses — the past and present merge — and he feels himself transported back into that long-vanished world.
Ji Hoon closed the book, the echo of those words resonating deep within him. The quiet of the library felt sacred. "...Will I ever make something like this?" he breathed into the stillness.
In movies and stories, food was often shown as a trigger for a flashback, a simple cut to a happy memory.
But this... this was different.
This was a book from a century ago describing not just a memory, but a resurrection of the past, a total sensory and emotional transportation.
It spoke of an alchemy that could turn taste into time travel. To him, it sounded like magic—the most beautiful, impossible magic.
He knew it was just prose, just metaphor, but the power of the idea was undeniable. He wanted, one day, to make something that could come close, even just a little, to evoking a feeling that profound.
But the Ji Hoon of that library, who once dreamed of such a thing as a beautiful fantasy, could never have believed he would actually achieve it.
He thought it was a metaphor, a writer's flourish.
* * * * *
Now, standing in this world, Terra, unlike Earth, where the rule of his past-world won't even allow was about to happen.
He watched the faces of the two most powerful culinary judges in the empire. He saw the shock, the disbelief, the raw, unguarded emotion as the aroma of his creation alone sent a tremor through their soul.
The foundation of everything he believed—that such transportive power was confined to the pages of a book—began to crack and crumble.
He had done more than just come close. He had, in this new world, made the metaphor real. He saw the proof before him, and he began to question everything.
In this world, Terra, more possibilities existed than his old mind could have ever conceived.
Just like Mistress Albertine had taken her bite, the aroma alone was already working its magic on Master Marcus.
For him, it was not a vision, but a profound and total sensory immersion. As he inhaled, the air around him seemed to thicken, becoming palpable.
He could almost see it, not as light, but as a shimmering distortion—like moonlight made of dust and scent, reaching into his nose and flooding his mind.
The roaring arena vanished. He felt a warm, dry breeze against his skin, carrying the intoxicating, rosy-perfume of the Rosaline flower.
It was the exact sensation he'd felt decades ago, walking the sun baked fields of Maria as a young apprentice, the pink blossoms stretching to the horizon. The memory was so vivid he could feel the grit of the soil under his boots.
Then, the scent shifted, deepened. The floral notes were joined by a heavy, humid sweetness. The warm breeze now carried the thick, rich, almost smoky scent of molasses and the crisp, green crush of sugarcane.
He still couldn't see but feel that he was no longer in one field, but two at once, the sensations layered perfectly—the dry rose and the sticky-sweet cane, a symphony of scent and feeling without a single visual image.
He was there. And then, just as suddenly, he was not.
The sensations snapped away. He was back in his judge's chair, his knuckles white where he gripped the table.
He was dazzled, his analytical mind reeling. It had happened. The boy had not just cooked; he had woven sensation from memory itself, and with just the aroma.
His head jerked up, his wide, shocked eyes finding Ji Hoon. He needed to confirm this wasn't a shared hallucination. He needed to see if Albertine, the ultimate skeptic, had felt even a fraction of it.
He turned to her, his voice urgent, "Albertine—"
The name died in his throat.
She had a single bite. The madeleine was still held in her hand, halfway to her mouth. But her eyes… they were blank, staring at nothing.
She was utterly still, a statue. She wasn't just lost in thought; she was gone, her consciousness already pulled into a depth he had only sensed from the outside.
She didn't respond. She didn't even seem to hear him.