Is Bom-i Your Order?
A satisfying shoot.
He couldn't remember the last time it had felt this good.
Ignorant people only believe what you put right in front of their faces.
There were always those who envied his gift. They spread every rumor they could invent, hiding behind keyboards on the internet. The same cowards who wouldn't dare make a peep in front of him turned into gourmet critics the moment they touched a keyboard.
Delicious TV, Episode 9.
That, too, was finished now. The moment had come to cleanly settle the petty trouble that had broken out at last year's Hankuk University festival.
The broadcast played on the television. The brat who had handed him that massive humiliation was frozen on screen, mouth hanging open, looking utterly ridiculous — paralyzed by Gyo-iku-sang's razor-sharp critique.
This is why they call it the tongue of a god.
When he set his mind to tasting something properly, he could pierce every flavor the way Janggeum once declared a dish tasted of persimmon simply because it did. The kid must have felt stripped naked. He would have grasped his place with perfect clarity. No more swaggering after this.
Even the parting maxim was magnificent. He had been certain that line had crowned the broadcast's highlight.
There was more after that. Gyo-iku-sang could only stare, thrown by a subtitle he had never expected.
This was in there?
It hadn't been part of the shoot. Which meant it was a scene he knew nothing about. What kind of surprise was this?
The moment he checked the screen, his face went rigid.
Bubble, bubble!
It was the kitchen. They were revealing the entire process of how the ramen was made.
No way.
His palate could not have been wrong. Tonkotsu-base seabora-style ramen. He would stake the honor of Korea's first taste columnist on it.
He leaned closer to the screen.
Sploosh—!
There it was, just as expected. A ladle of softly rendered seabora scooped into the ramen bowl. The color ran a shade dark. And that yellow tint was unmistakably the mark of soy sauce and grated garlic.
See? Exactly. Who do they think I am?
Minor deviations were possible, of course — Korean soy sauce made to mimic the Japanese kind, for instance. If they tried to pick at him over something that petty, he would not let it slide.
He watched with a stern, unyielding expression. And then, in Gyo-iku-sang's eyes, something appeared that should never have been there.
Newtouch Tonkotsu Ramen Sauce — Commercial Use
Written in Japanese, but to Japanese-fluent Gyo-iku-sang it registered at a glance.
And that hateful face, right there on screen.
"What the hell is thiiis!!"
He had suspected some kind of scheme. He had planned to expose every last bit of it with the tongue of a god. The delusion had been about the fundamental thing itself.
The broadcast's aftershock. It did not take long for the spark of public outrage to catch fire.
Not awe. Just pure disbelief~
Delicious TV was the program Gyo-iku-sang headlined. Its entire premise was gourmet cuisine. Viewers tuned in trusting his tongue. If that tongue had gone bad, the credibility went with it.
Would Gyo-iku-sang praise that too?
The snide posts kept coming. No wonder the viewer board was exploding. This was not a mistake anyone could shrug off. And it was not a one-day problem either. Gyo-iku-sang had been stacking karmic debt for a long time.
A man who called himself an expert, constantly wrong because he never did his homework, insisting every single dish originated in Japan—
People were airing sensitive grievances without hesitation — most of them unconfirmed. From the viewers' perspective, the whole thing was absurd. The instant ramen incident was about to become the fuse.
"It was always going to blow. Just a matter of when."
"He was never going to last long anyway."
Even inside the production team, people could read the room. They knew better than anyone. The odds of a brand-new program landing a long-term slot in this industry topped out at under five percent.
"Look at the shows Cheon Jong-won does. Ratings punch through the sky."
"Rival? Only he thinks he's a rival."
They had hoped. Mukbang and cooking shows were the current darlings of broadcasting. But Cheon Jong-won was busy — beyond money, booking him was simply impossible. So they had settled for the next best thing, figuring even average ratings would be fine, and built a program around that.
Does this bastard not even understand image management as a TV personality?
OBS Broadcasting Station PD Kim Yeon-cheol. He was the one who had pulled Gyo-iku out of last year's freefall. Even he could no longer throw up a shield. No — it was time to cut ties.
"PD, isn't this a disaster?"
"What."
"The viewer board is completely exploding… and the teacher's public opinion was already bad."
"That's exactly why I aired it."
"Sorry?"
It had not been his unilateral decision. There was nowhere Gyo-iku-sang's reputation was not already toxic.
How does someone end up with literally no fans?
Even the shoot crew had been sick of him. The editing team had embraced this particular concept with open arms, gleefully cutting the most damning footage they could assemble. And this was not just an internal network problem.
The communities had never liked him to begin with. Younger viewers ranked him on the same level as that big-nosed webtoon artist.
In the 90s, when nobody was doing taste columnist stuff, he started alone
Called himself the industry first so everyone went whoa and hyped him
Put him on TV and he knows literally nothing
Can't even tell if his palate is a god's tongue or a moron's tongue
Of course, the broadcasting industry was full of every type. Even deeply unlikable people thrived sometimes — usually the ones popular with older viewers, the core TV demographic you could not ignore.
But you? Nobody likes you.
There was no reason for a network to keep him around. They risked catching the same stink by association. The smartest move was to cut him loose over a convenient pretext and pin it entirely on Gyo-iku-sang's personal failure.
"Wh-what did you just say?"
"We will be terminating your advisory contract as of today."
And this was not going to end with one canceled show. He was losing trust across the entire industry.
Why the advisory contracts too!
Gyo-iku-sang's main income was not broadcasting — it was consulting. He advised corporations and programs on food knowledge. TV appearances had been the business card that made him an "expert," the credential that let important people trust him with work.
"I've done so much for you up to now. You can't just notify me like this out of nowhere…"
"We'll pay the penalty fee. In exchange, do not go around telling people you advised our company."
"Wait, sir—!"
The whole arrangement only worked because of trust. The instant ramen incident had been more than enough to shatter it.
……
Unemployed overnight. No — every credential he had built was zeroed out, and he would have to start an entirely new life from scratch.
It was getting hyped as a must-try spot… and it was just instant ramen lmaooooooo
Of course, it took two hands to clap. Some criticism was landing on the izakaya as well. Instant. From a customer's point of view, that was never going to look good.
But other perspectives existed too.
They faked a gourmet spot with instant products?
Still… Gyo-iku-sang was our company's advisor…
Just how low can you push the cost ratio on something like that?
Corporations. To people for whom money was everything, it was inevitable that this would look like a goose that laid golden eggs.
Three days of the Grand Festival. Both the bar's operations and the broadcast had wrapped successfully.
Well, once the episode airs all hell will break loose.
But by then the festival would already be over. Barely a few hours left now. With nothing more to do in the remaining time, I was about to head home early—
"Hyung!!"
Right as I was slipping out of the booth, a voice called me.
"You really helped me out so much in Haeundae!"
"Nah. People fight sometimes. That's life."
"I'm sorry I couldn't come find you sooner — I've been so busy!"
It was Heon-u. A junior I was fond of, the type who always greeted me first whenever we crossed paths on campus.
"He's handsome."
"You know him?"
"How could she be with a guy like that."
"……"
What an annoying bastard. I was definitely going to wreck Suhyun thoroughly for this.
"Your girlfriend's something else."
"Yeah, her personality's a bit fierce. Haha."
"Must've been rough."
Maybe they had already made up. They seemed to be getting along again.
Sure. Couples grow by fighting.
If my existence had somehow helped the two of them, that was fine by me.
"That all you needed?"
"I thought of you, hyung. If you have time, even now, please stop by our booth once."
"Eh, don't bother. Too much hassle."
"There's a reason you absolutely have to come!"
Heon-u's reason for coming. It turned out not to be nothing. I had assumed it was just polite noise, but—
A YouTuber?
There was an interesting detail. A YouTuber had enrolled as a freshman in Heon-u's social welfare department. She had been too busy to join the festival earlier, but on day three she was apparently helping out.
"We're running a maid café, you know. Everyone's going crazy saying she's adorable."
"That pretty?"
"Pretty I'm not sure about… but insanely cute! The cutest girl I've ever seen!"
"Suhyun's going to feel left out."
"She's a completely different type from Suhyun, haha… please keep that secret."
And she was a girl. If she was good enough to short-circuit Heon-u's brain, she was worth a look.
Wonder if she likes rich oppas?