The Water of Life
She twisted off the cap and gulped it down in long, greedy swallows.
Her throat worked with satisfying clarity.
“Kyaah!”
It was only water, yet she let out a sigh of pure bliss as if she had just tasted a rare vintage.
Wiping her mouth, she cradled the plastic bottle against her chest like something precious.
“This isn’t just barley tea. It’s more like the life water that saved me, you know?”
“The boss at the Factory Restaurant packed this for me. I need to drink it or nothing digests properly. It’s magic water—straight-up magic water!”
She was clearly riding the barley-tea buff.
Her chopsticks went back into combat mode at once. Jaw working without rest, eyes creased in pure happiness.
That day, Im Ha-yun’s stream shattered every record she had ever set.
KBN Entertainment editing room. On the monitor, Im Ha-yun scraped the last of the abalone porridge clean.
Even through the screen her appetite hit like an explosion. More than anything, vitality poured off her face.
“Whoa, PD-nim. This is insane. Im Ha-yun’s real-time viewer count just hit an all-time high.”
Assistant director Park Min-su couldn’t close his mouth, practically hopping with excitement.
Ga PD, however, stood with arms folded, unmoving, eyes locked on the screen. He wasn’t watching the numbers. He was tracking Im Ha-yun’s pupils.
“Min-su.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you get tired of delicious food if you keep eating it?”
“Obviously.”
“But look at her. She keeps looking happy. Does that look like acting to you?”
“Come on, it’s Im Ha-yun. She’s the Eating Empress—reactions like that are baseline. Though yeah, her energy today is kind of unhinged.”
“It’s past the level of a reaction. You don’t see it?”
Ga PD let out a short laugh.
Amateurs. Pros knew the difference. That wasn’t acting.
The industry had been buzzing with rumors—that Im Ha-yun was showing early signs of anorexia, that she was even considering retiring from broadcasting. Tabloid trash, sure; one bad eating day and the stories flew. But the fact that they were flying at all mattered.
Ga PD had seen her in person only a few days earlier and known the rumors were true. She had looked… precarious.
She had even taken yesterday off the air, hadn’t she?
He had figured her time was up. People who burned bright and then vanished were a dime a dozen.
And yet.
She changed this much in a single day?
He wondered if it even made sense. His eyes insisted it did.
“That.”
“Yes? Ah, the barley tea?”
“Zoom in.”
The assistant worked the controls and the frame expanded. A crude plastic bottle of brown liquid. Im Ha-yun drank from it and wore an expression of pure ecstasy while calling it life water.
“You know what that is?”
“You heard her. Just… something the owner gave her as a freebie?”
“No. That’s medicine.”
“Huh? She said barley tea. What medicine? Haha, she’s just exaggerating.”
“Tsk… Still no instincts.”
Ga PD clicked his tongue and sank back into his chair.
Now the puzzle pieces fit.
Why Im Ha-yun had thrown away every scrap of pride to hunt down that corner of a factory. Why the high-nosed empress was hugging that rustic bottle of barley tea like a treasure jar.
Kim Sunwu.
The answer sat at the Factory Restaurant.
“That owner isn’t ordinary.”
“Yes? Suddenly the owner? Did Im Ha-yun become an owner?”
“……Ugh. Idiot. The Factory Restaurant.”
“Ah. Right.”
Kim Sunwu. Not merely a chef who cooked delicious food. Ga PD finally understood why Jang On-gyu had been so determined to keep that place in check.
Looking at it now, I made a mistake.
He slapped his knee. Trying to recruit Kim Sunwu directly had been the blunder. That man couldn’t be baited with money or fame. Of course a television offer would never even register. But.
“Min-su.”
“Yes.”
“We’re changing the target.”
“Yes? Finally scouting other places? I’ve already got a full list ready!”
“Quiet.”
Ga PD’s mouth curved into a thin, knowing smile.
“I’m only changing who we approach.”
He pointed a finger at Im Ha-yun on the screen.
“If you want the owner, you go after the customer he treasures most.”
Kim Sunwu would not budge. Of that he was certain. But the patient who had staked her life on his cooking—Im Ha-yun—could not turn away.
She’s the type that gets weaker the closer someone gets. Classic strong-against-strong, weak-against-weak. Direct approach was never going to work.
He would have to come at it sideways. And if he was going to do that, he would make it big.
“Recruit Im Ha-yun.”
“Yes? Im Ha-yun? She doesn’t do anything but personal streams these days.”
“Make her. That’s your job.”
“……Uh, yes.”
“And our program concept—this is it.”
Ga PD’s eyes gleamed.
“Working title: Salvation of Gastronomy.”
“Suddenly salvation?”
“Yeah. A miracle chef who brings dying taste buds back to life. How about it? Can’t you see the picture?”
“……Yes?”
The assistant director didn’t understand, but a thrill ran straight through Ga PD’s skull. This would work. No—this would explode.
An owner who captivates people with cooking. One man is enough.
There was no more perfect picture than this.
Ga PD chuckled under his breath and switched off the monitor.
Bang!
Jang On-gyu slammed the smartphone he had been holding onto the desk. The screen cracked, but next to his shredded pride the damage meant nothing.
“Ha……”
He was beyond words.
Kim Sunwu. Even when that rat bastard had kicked his proposal aside, he had held his temper. Now the man had even gotten to Ga PD.
“Representative Jang. I’ll handle the broadcast myself. Don’t cross the line.”
Ga PD—called the emperor of KBN Entertainment. Only days ago Jang had suggested they do a program together. Instead the man had threatened him not to invade his territory and hung up cold.
He was the emperor of the food industry. And some lowly PD dared to ignore him?
“So Kim Sunwu plays hard to get, and Ga PD raises his nose, is that it.”
Both had refused his hand. Then there was no reason to keep offering it. If they would not take the hand, he would simply crush them underfoot.
“Secretary Park.”
“Yes, Representative.”
The secretary who had been holding his breath hurried forward.
“Entertainment is a dead end. That Ga PD has too much pride to listen to me.”
“Then……”
“We change the board. If elevating them doesn’t work, burying them is easier, isn’t it? We go with a documentary.”
Jang On-gyu’s eyes glittered coldly. He pulled an old notebook from deep in the drawer. Inside were lists of hyenas who worked every channel imaginable.
“A documentary, you mean……”
“Broadcasts aren’t only ‘restaurant tours,’ right? There are exposés. Truth-tracking specials.”
“Ah……!”
“Look into it.”
“Is there anything we can actually catch?”
“There’s no one who doesn’t have dirt when you shake them hard enough.”
Jang On-gyu smiled, thin and vicious.
Just as Ha-yun hit the jackpot, our restaurant exploded right along with her.
War had broken out. Customers poured in like an airstrike. We spent the entire day fighting a battle, and by the time I looked up, closing time was already breathing down our necks.
Jin-woo, mopping for close, stuck his tongue out at his phone.
“Whoa, hyung-nim. Ha-yun noona is really flying these days.”
“Since when is she your noona?”
“Last time I saw her she told me to call her that.”
“You’ve got some nerve. Why? Another record?”
“Don’t even start. She demolished ten packs of ramen.”
“Ten packs? Eh. Just that?”
For a normal person ten packs would be legendary. But this was Ha-yun. Just that and—
“Ah, not ten packs. Ten bundles of five. Fifty packs total!”
“……Crazy.”
“It’s chaos out there again.”
Jin-woo held the phone out, still looking amazed. On the screen Im Ha-yun’s complexion glowed so healthy you couldn’t find a trace of the sickly color from before. Her speed and volume had already left her old peak days in the dust.
It feels less like treatment and more like evolution.
Still, it was going well. I let out a quiet breath of relief.
Giving her barley tea so she could keep brewing it must have worked.
While she adapted to my cooking I had taken steps so she could handle other food again. That step was the barley tea. Luckily it seemed to have landed perfectly.
Long-term treatment is a first for me too, so I was nervous.
At this rate she would soon blow past normal and truly evolve.
“Looks like her appetite really kicked in today.”
“Not just appetite… Whoa, makes you wonder if that’s even human.”
“Less chatter, more cleaning.”
“Yessir!”
Jin-woo bantered while wringing out the mop.
“I’ll head out first then! You worked hard too, hyung-nim.”
“Yeah, go on. See you tomorrow.”
“Yep!”
I watched Jin-woo leave and stood alone in the hall. Ha-rang had already gone home early; she needed to check ingredients first thing in the morning. I was just about to lock up and leave myself when—
Ding-a-ling.
The door I thought was shut swung open with a bright little chime.
“Sorry, we’re closed— Huh?”
I stopped mid-sentence as I looked up. Hat pulled low, but I knew her at once.
Im Ha-yun. The same woman who, minutes ago on Jin-woo’s phone, had been inhaling ramen now stood right in front of me.
“Um, Boss. You haven’t closed yet, right?”
“Ha-yun? We already finished closing.”
“Ah……! Already? There’s still a little business time left, isn’t there?”
“As you can see, every ingredient for sale is gone.”
“Ah……!”
She edged up to the counter, awkward, then swallowed dryly.
“Still… is there any way I could get something delicious?”
“There are no ingredients.”
“So I brought some!”
“……What?”
I briefly doubted my ears. Coming back for more food after a full mukbang was already terrifying enough. She had prepared ingredients?
“Wait—didn’t you just finish a stream? Jin-woo showed me.”
“That’s right.”
She nodded with complete confidence, then patted her stomach and added,
“But I’m still hungry! Hee……!”
“……Huh.”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
“That earlier was ‘work,’ right? Don’t you know the broadcast stomach and the meal stomach are separate?”
“Haha. That’s strangely persuasive, actually.”
“Hurry. I’m getting dizzy. Once what I ate on stream digested, it got even worse. The taste of your cooking is still circling in my mouth……”
She pouted and stamped her feet in mock desperation, and a real laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
At first she had come here simply to survive. Now she had become a gourmet who knew exactly how my food tasted.
“Alright. But this is the last time.”
“Yes!”
I tightened the strings of my apron again.