Chicken and Tteokbokki, A Dangerous Resonance
Kang Chi-yeol felt his heart sink again at those two short words.
“A little less salty would be better.”
His mind snapped back into focus. The tension that rose wasn’t emotional—it was purely about business. “Was it too salty?”
“Yes. The first bite is fine, but from the second piece onward, it might start to feel heavy.”
Her observation was precise. It was the very thing he had faintly noticed himself that morning. He had been aware that the seasoning had crept up a notch due to pre-opening nerves, but he needed someone to point it out clearly. And Lee Do-hee had done exactly that.
Kang Chi-yeol nodded reflexively. “You’re right.”
Do-hee looked at him with mild surprise. “You admit it right away.”
“There’s no reason to insist otherwise.”
At that, Do-hee let out a very brief laugh. Again, that thin smile. For some strange reason, Kang Chi-yeol kept losing strength every time he saw it.
“Most people usually deny it.”
“I’m not the type to argue about how my own food tastes.”
“That’s nice. I like that about you.”
The words That’s nice lingered in his mind for no good reason. Kang Chi-yeol forced himself to keep a neutral expression and asked, “Then… aside from it being a little salty?”
Do-hee glanced down at the remaining piece on the plate before answering. “The aftertaste is good. There’s no gamey smell from the chicken, and the crispiness is definitely a strong point.”
Definitely a strong point.
Without realizing it, Kang Chi-yeol’s shoulders straightened just a fraction. People really were simple creatures; when someone accurately named their strengths in the right words, they instinctively stood a little taller.
“Thank you.”
“But.” Do-hee handed the plate back to him and added, “This would go really well with tteokbokki broth.”
Kang Chi-yeol froze for a moment. The statement could have been nothing more than an objective comment on flavor pairing. Crispy, slightly salty chicken naturally complemented spicy tteokbokki sauce. It was common knowledge. Yet the fact that the owner of the tteokbokki shop next door was the one saying it made the words land with unusual weight. It sounded like a sentence that carried the scent of both competition and collaboration at once.
Kang Chi-yeol unconsciously touched the corner of his mouth. “I suppose so. After all… people tend to eat them together a lot.”
Do-hee nodded. “Exactly. That’s why.”
It was a short answer. But the dry, matter-of-fact tone at the end made it difficult to read anything more into it. Once again, she was drawing a clear line. Just then, Jo A-ra suddenly poked her head in from the doorway.
“Boss, can I have some too?”
A-ra casually picked up the last piece from the plate and popped it into her mouth. The moment she bit down, her eyes widened. “Whoa. It really is a little salty.”
Kang Chi-yeol glared at her. “Do you always have to swoop in at the end and deliver the final blow?”
“No, but it’s still good. If you just dial the salt back a tiny bit, it’d be perfect.”
Do-hee glanced at A-ra, then asked in a very concise tone, “Are you the part-timer?”
A-ra smiled and extended her hand. “Not quite yet. I’m the preliminary part-timer.”
Preliminary part-timer. Kang Chi-yeol had no idea why that phrase sounded so embarrassing.
Do-hee gave A-ra’s hand a brief shake and released it. “Ah, I see.”
Her tone carried neither particular interest nor dismissal—just the perfect, neutral temperature. He thought she really was an impressive person. She never crossed the line, yet never came across as rude. A-ra quickly read the room. Sensing the subtle tension flowing between Do-hee and Chi-yeol, she deliberately brightened her voice even more.
“But the boss’s chicken is really good, right? From what I can tell, plenty of people are going to be drawn in by the smell from day one.”
Do-hee gave Chi-yeol a very quick glance before answering. “Yes. The aroma is definitely appealing.”
The aroma is definitely appealing.
Once again, an ambiguously complimentary yet oddly practical statement. Kang Chi-yeol repeated the sentence to himself several times in his head.
“Thank you.” In the end, those were the only words he could manage.
Do-hee returned the plate and said, “If you need more feedback, I can give it to you later.”
The moment those words left her mouth, Jo A-ra formed a tiny “o” with her lips. Kang Chi-yeol didn’t want to see it, but he already had.
“Ah, yes.” He tried to answer as normally as possible, but his voice rose slightly. Do-hee gave a single nod, her face revealing nothing about whether she had noticed. “Then I’ll be going.”
With that, she turned and left. After the door closed, Kang Chi-yeol stared down at the plate for a long time. It was the same plate Do-hee had been holding just moments ago. Where the chicken had been, only a few tiny crumbs of batter remained.
A-ra looked at him once, but she didn’t laugh outright. Instead, she said in a deeply meaningful tone, “Wow.”
“What now.”
“‘If you need more feedback, I can give it to you later.’”
A-ra did a poor imitation of Do-hee’s voice. Kang Chi-yeol felt his ears growing hot. “Knock it off.”
“No, seriously. That’s the kind of line a really competent person would say, but at the same time, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation.”
“What room for interpretation?”
“You look like you could survive until this evening just on that one sentence, Boss.”
She was right. So right that it annoyed him even more. “Stop messing around.”
“I’m not messing around.”
A-ra watched him wipe the plate and let out a small snort of laughter. “Boss.”
“What.”
“Right now it’s fifty percent butterflies and fifty percent feeling validated, isn’t it?”
Instead of answering, Kang Chi-yeol simply lowered his head. Because she was correct. It was true that Lee Do-hee’s neat, pretty appearance had caught his attention, but what had shaken him more deeply just now was something else. The fact that she had looked at his chicken with such precision. That she hadn’t offered empty praise but had pointed out the problems and, at the same time, clearly stated its strengths.
Kang Chi-yeol had always been weak to that kind of validation. A single remark born from accurate observation meant far more to him than superficial compliments. It sank in deeper than it should have.
“It does feel good to be acknowledged,” he said quietly. A-ra nodded.
“Exactly. You’re the type who’s weaker to precise praise from someone who knows what they’re doing than to compliments from pretty people, Boss.”
“What exactly do you take me for?”
“I’m seeing you pretty accurately, I’d say.”
At that, Kang Chi-yeol finally let out a small laugh. It was unfair, but he couldn’t deny it.
As the afternoon wore on, he adjusted the seasoning ratio again. He lowered the saltiness just a touch while making sure the savory depth of the first bite remained intact. The points Do-hee had mentioned kept lingering in his mind, making his hands more sensitive. And strangely enough, the new batch he made really did taste a little better.
He took a bite of the freshly fried piece and muttered, “It really is less salty now…”
Even to his own palate, the difference was noticeable. It left him feeling oddly conflicted. The fact that he had changed his recipe based on a single comment from the tteokbokki shop owner next door was amusing, and the fact that it had actually helped was even more so.
Suddenly, he recalled the countless pieces of feedback he had heard in conference rooms at his old company. Most of them had been vague remarks meant to avoid responsibility or to spread blame. But Lee Do-hee’s words were different. They were short, dry, and precise. That was why they felt trustworthy.
Kang Chi-yeol’s mind suddenly sharpened. This was dangerous. It was already a problem that she affected him as a person, but if he started respecting her professionally as well, she would linger in his heart even longer. And people like that were always the hardest to forget.
Later that evening, he ran into Lee Do-hee again in front of the shop. This time she spoke first.
“You lowered the salt a little, didn’t you?”
Kang Chi-yeol’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“The smell changed.”
The answer was so unexpected that he genuinely lost his words for a moment. The smell changed. Lee Do-hee wore a perfectly casual expression. Only Kang Chi-yeol was left strangely unsettled again.
“Ah… yes. I made a small adjustment.”
“Good decision.”
Do-hee said it briefly and walked on. Good decision.
Kang Chi-yeol stood there for a long time. If he were to write down everything Do-hee had said to him today, it would almost read like a performance review.
You manage the oil well.
A little less salty would be better.
The crispiness is definitely a strong point.
You lowered the salt a little, didn’t you?
Good decision.
They weren’t grand words. They weren’t particularly warm, either. Yet he had no idea why they stayed with him so strongly.
That night, he eventually opened his notebook and wrote in the corner of a page:
Lee Do-hee — Her palate is precise.
He paused for a moment, then added in very small letters:
Scary / Good. The fact that it’s not just one or the other is the real problem.
He set the pen down and leaned back in his chair. The room was quiet. Outside the window, the faint sound of someone returning home late brushed past.
Kang Chi-yeol closed his eyes and thought slowly. This could really become a big problem. The fact that the tteokbokki shop owner next door was pretty was a problem. The fact that she was good at what she did was a problem. But above all, the biggest problem was that she looked at his chicken with such accuracy.
Human hearts were strange things. When someone pinpointed the core of your work exactly right, the person themselves started to appear more clearly, more favorably. And he suspected he might have already taken that dangerous first bite.