The Enemy's Broth
Kang Chi-yeol craved tteokbokki that night. More precisely, it wasn’t the dish itself he wanted so much as the taste of the tteokbokki Lee Do-hee made. It was a perfectly natural yet extremely dangerous line of thought.
Lee Do-hee had already eaten his chicken. She had pointed out the oil quality, the salt level, and the crispness in precise detail. Those exact words still lingered in his ears.
“Your oil management is excellent.”
“It would be better if it were a little less salty.”
“The crispiness is definitely a strength.”
The reason those sentences had stayed with him so strangely was simple. She hadn’t brushed his chicken off with a vague “It’s pretty good.” She had observed it accurately and spoken with precision. Kang Chi-yeol had always been weak to that kind of observation—whether it led to favor or acknowledgment. And the human heart worked in odd ways: once someone saw you that clearly, you inevitably wanted to know their work just as well.
What kind of tteokbokki does she make, exactly?
What kind of broth is it?
Why a tteokbokki shop, of all things?
And why right next door to mine?
He opened his notebook to organize a checklist, but the tip of his pen simply spun in place for a long time. In the corner of the page remained a line he had written yesterday.
Lee Do-hee — Tasting palate: accurate / intimidating / good
Below it, after hesitating for a long while, he wrote in very small letters: Curious about tteokbokki taste.
The moment he finished writing, he frowned.
“This is so childish.”
A forty-one-year-old man scribbling “Curious about tteokbokki taste” in the corner of his notebook late at night. Even he found it pathetic, and a little funny. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to erase it. The human heart, after all, tends to hide embarrassing truths rather than delete them.
Right up until he fell asleep that night, he kept repeating the same denial to himself.
This is simply market research.
Since it was a competing business next door, it made sense to know the taste. He had even heard that his chicken paired well with tteokbokki broth, so knowing more was practically a business necessity. It was all perfectly logical. Beneath all that logic, however, hid one tiny, reluctant emotion he refused to acknowledge.
I’m just curious about the tteokbokki that woman makes.
Kang Chi-yeol closed his eyes without ever voicing that sentence aloud.
The next day, a breeze had picked up. The wind pushed deep into the alley, sweeping beneath the shop signs. From the moment he arrived, Chi-yeol moved around with unnecessary busyness. He rearranged the packaging containers he had organized the night before, retook the photos for the delivery app while adjusting the lighting angles, and after checking the seasoning sauce consistency, he ended up frying another batch of chicken. In truth, he was only pretending to work. When his mind was elsewhere, his hands simply grew more frantic.
The real problem was his gaze. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, his eyes kept drifting toward the glass door.
When is Lee Do-hee coming in today?
Is the shutter on the next shop still down?
Will she arrive earlier than yesterday, or later?
Kang Chi-yeol genuinely found himself annoying. But that didn’t stop the curiosity. It wasn’t as if he were waiting, yet somehow he felt like he was. It was an ambiguous and exhausting emotion.
Around eleven, the familiar sound of a shutter rolling up echoed through the alley. Lee Do-hee was alone again today. She wore a light beige shirt, black pants, and a dark apron tied over everything. The way she fastened the apron looked so naturally graceful that, in that brief moment, Kang Chi-yeol found himself quietly impressed. She really looked like someone who worked for a living. The kind of person whose working posture caught the eye before anyone even thought about whether she was pretty. And strangely, that made her even more appealing.
As soon as she raised the shutter, she went inside and brought out a pot. Before long, a familiar yet distinctly different aroma began to drift subtly through the alley—gochujang and chili powder, sautéed onions, a faintly sweet sugar scent, and beneath it all, the deep, savory undertone of something like anchovy broth.
Standing at his workstation, Kang Chi-yeol unconsciously lifted his head.
“Whoa…”
The sound actually slipped out loud. He was confident in the smell of his chicken, but tteokbokki had its own kind of violence. It was far more direct, striking straight at the stomach. Especially in an alley just past lunchtime, that tteokbokki aroma had the power to stop people in their tracks all by itself.
For a moment, Kang Chi-yeol felt a strange sense of crisis. At the same time, he grew even more curious.
What kind of broth does she make that the smell lingers this long?
It doesn’t seem like just anchovy stock.
Did she sauté the onions first? Or maybe use green onion oil?
When his thoughts reached that point, he grew sick of himself.
“What the hell am I analyzing right now…”
But it was already too late. Inside Kang Chi-yeol, the chicken fanatic, the businessman, and the man who had begun behaving strangely over the past few days had all raised their heads at once. Surprisingly, the three weren’t so easily separated.
By the time Jo A-ra arrived around lunchtime, Chi-yeol had already opened the glass door twice to sniff the air outside. The moment she walked in, she read his expression.
“What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got the face of a dog following a scent right now.”
“Do you always have to compare people to animals like that?”
“But it’s true. The smell from next door is no joke, right?”
Kang Chi-yeol gave up on arguing and simply nodded.
“It’s pretty strong.”
“Strong? More like it smells delicious.”
“That’s what strong means in this case.”
A-ra let out a small laugh and deliberately poked her head toward the door.
“Has she opened yet?”
“Not officially. Looks like she’s still testing.”
“You’re dying to know how it tastes, aren’t you?”
Kang Chi-yeol delayed his answer. That brief silence was apparently answer enough; A-ra’s face lit up with understanding.
“Wow.”
“What now?”
“Boss, you look like you’re about to die if you don’t eat it right now.”
“I’m not dying.”
“Then what?”
“I just… need to know, that’s all.”
A-ra brought her hands together in a mock clap.
“There it is. The business excuse.”
“It is a business reason.”
“Sure, sure. You want to eat it but you’re using business as an excuse.”
“Hey.”
“Am I wrong?”
She wasn’t wrong. Kang Chi-yeol felt unfairly accused but couldn’t argue further. After teasing him for a while, A-ra’s eyes suddenly sparkled as if she’d thought of something fun.
“Then, Boss.”
“What?”
“Should I go buy some?”
Kang Chi-yeol’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“Tteokbokki.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It would be too obvious.”
“What’s obvious about it? We’re in the same alley—it’s normal to try each other’s food.”
“Still, it’s…”
Kang Chi-yeol’s words trailed off. All his embarrassment was packed into that vague ending. It was true that tasting a competitor’s product made sense. But the idea of Jo A-ra going to Lee Do-hee’s shop to buy tteokbokki and the two of them eating it together inside his own store somehow felt like stealing. Above all, he hated looking like he was openly dying of curiosity.
A-ra, who seemed to have read every bit of that inner conflict, said, “Boss, you’re really funny.”
“What?”
“You want to eat it but you still want to keep your dignity.”
“It’s not about dignity.”
“Close enough.”
Just then, as if on perfect cue, there was a sound at the glass door. They both turned their heads at the same time. It was Lee Do-hee. She knocked twice on the door with her fingertips from outside. Chi-yeol glanced at Jo A-ra, who immediately shut her mouth. The moment Kang Chi-yeol quickly opened the door, Do-hee held out a small tray holding two paper cups.
“I’m in the middle of testing. Would you like to try some?”
Kang Chi-yeol was genuinely speechless for several seconds. How was it possible for something you’d only thought about in your head to appear right outside your door like this? He accepted the tray in a daze. Inside the paper cups were tteokbokki broth, a few rice cakes, and a couple of fish cake pieces. It was a very small portion, but the aroma was intense.
“Ah…”
That was all he managed to say. Do-hee continued with a perfectly ordinary expression.
“Since it’s still in testing, I wanted some feedback. After all, I tried your chicken too, Boss.”
The statement was perfectly reasonable from a business standpoint, yet it somehow made Kang Chi-yeol even more embarrassed. After all, I tried your chicken too. In other words, this wasn’t an emotional exchange but a fair sample swap. He tried hard to see it that way, but he couldn’t completely suppress the small flutter in his chest.
“Ah, yes. Of course.”
“Me too?” Jo A-ra immediately raised her hand from the side.
Do-hee looked at her and gave a small smile.
“Yes, of course.”
“Thank you.”
A-ra accepted one of the paper cups with practiced ease. Kang Chi-yeol held the remaining cup and stared down at it for a moment.
Tteokbokki that Do-hee personally brought over.
That sentence sounded ridiculous too. Yet that ridiculous sentence etched itself clearly inside his chest.
“Please let me know after you try it.”
With only those words, Do-hee turned and left. Her steps were still quick and neat. She didn’t look back once. The moment the door closed, A-ra turned to Chi-yeol immediately.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“No, you’re breathing weirdly.”
Instead of answering, Kang Chi-yeol lifted the lid off the paper cup. A spicy-sweet aroma rushed up. Beneath it lay a deeper broth scent than he had expected. It wasn’t merely a stimulating smell—it had weight. He picked up a piece of tteok with the wooden fork. The broth clung to it nicely, and the color was less vivid than he had imagined. Instead of an overly bright red, it was a deep, muted reddish-brown. Suddenly, he remembered Do-hee’s voice from the phone call about the sign color—use red, but lower the saturation. He wondered if she approached the color of her tteokbokki the same way and felt a strange thought cross his mind.
He took a bite. And immediately froze.
“Huh?”
The sound escaped before he could stop it. At the same time, A-ra’s eyes widened.
“Wow.”
This time, they both uttered the same word together. Kang Chi-yeol stood still, chewing the tteok with the fork still in his hand. The first thing that hit was the expected spiciness. But rather than leaping out aggressively, the heat rose slowly, intertwined with sweetness. It wasn’t sweetness pulled up by sugar alone; there was a savory sweetness from using plenty of vegetables like onion and green onion. And at the very end, a subtle umami lingered. It wasn’t just anchovy, nor just kelp—there was another layer. After swallowing the tteok, he took another spoonful of broth. This time it was clearer. The first bite felt comfortable, but the aftertaste lingered strangely long. In other words, it wasn’t the kind of flavor that grew tiring; it was the kind that made you want another bite.
“This…”
He murmured very quietly. A-ra spoke first.
“It’s delicious.”
Kang Chi-yeol wanted to find something a little more complex than that simple review. Saying it was merely “delicious” felt somehow unfair. This tteokbokki was closer to exceptionally well-made than just tasty.
“What did she put in the broth?”
When he spoke as if to himself, A-ra laughed.
“You’re already analyzing it.”
“No, I’m genuinely curious.”
He took another spoonful of broth. Watching him, A-ra’s lips curved upward.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“You look genuinely impressed right now.”
“I am impressed.”
“You’re being really honest.”
“This… deserves honest acknowledgment.”
The moment those words left his mouth, his heart felt strangely lighter. In the face of a flavor so well-made it was hard to deny, clinging to pointless pride would only look pathetic. Kang Chi-yeol was the kind of person who could offer that kind of acknowledgment. And more than anything, he knew the admiration he had just felt was quite genuine.
A-ra tilted her cup to drink the last of the broth and said, “If she sells this, I think it’ll do really well.”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re giving such a plain ‘yeah,’ you must really mean it, right?”
Chi-yeol lowered his head slightly. He was feeling several emotions at once. Admiration that Do-hee’s tteokbokki was far more delicious than he had expected. A sense of crisis that having a flavor like this next door would require real business vigilance. And the strange complexity that came from the fact that Lee Do-hee was the one who had made it. Good taste didn’t simplify people. It made them more complicated. Especially when the person who created that taste was already someone who occupied his thoughts.
At that moment, A-ra deliberately lowered her voice and asked, “Are you going to give her feedback?”
Kang Chi-yeol looked down at the cup. The tteok was gone, and the broth was nearly finished. He couldn’t just pretend he hadn’t tasted it. She had asked for feedback, and since he had received feedback on his chicken, he obviously had to say something. Yet one of his ears grew hot for no reason.
“I should.”
“Why?”
“She asked me to tell her.”
“Oh. Business reasons.”
With an irritated expression, Chi-yeol set down the fork.
“Would I go for emotional reasons?”
A-ra let out a small laugh.
“No. But thinking of it as a business reason seems more comfortable for you, Boss.”
Strangely, those words sounded like consideration. Kang Chi-yeol kept his reply brief. He picked up the paper cup and headed to the neighboring shop. When he knocked, Lee Do-hee came out from inside. She was still wearing her apron, and there were traces of a ladle on her hand. Kang Chi-yeol thought the sight looked oddly more natural.
“Ah, did you try it?”
“Yes.”
“How was it?”
The question was straightforward. But Kang Chi-yeol took a moment to choose his answer. He didn’t want to brush it off vaguely, nor did he want to sound overly impressed and make things awkward. In the end, he spoke honestly.
“You made it much better than I expected.”
Lee Do-hee blinked once, very briefly. Her face didn’t light up with delight at the praise, but her gaze shifted ever so slightly.
“Than you expected?”
“Ah, no. That’s not… I mean…”
Kang Chi-yeol suddenly wanted to bite his own tongue. Why had he added “than I expected”? It could sound as if he hadn’t had high hopes. Do-hee watched his flustered reaction for a moment, then gave a very faint smile.
“I know what you meant.”
At those words, Chi-yeol finally let out the breath he had been holding.
“The finish of the broth was excellent. The spiciness is strong, but it somehow keeps you wanting more.”
“Yes.”
“And… the sweetness didn’t overpower everything, which was nice.”
Do-hee listened very quietly. She didn’t nod exaggeratedly or laugh; she simply listened. Kang Chi-yeol liked that attitude too. She seemed like someone truly listening to talk about her own food, not merely someone receiving compliments.
“However.”
This time, Lee Do-hee smiled ever so slightly.
“There’s a ‘however’ again?”
Only then did Kang Chi-yeol realize he had unconsciously copied the verbal habit she had used a few days earlier. It felt embarrassing, but the words were already out and couldn’t be taken back.
“Um… the rice cakes might be better if they’re just a little less cooked.”
“Why?”
“They’re good now, but if they sit in the broth for a long time, they might break down while eating. For delivery, I think a little more elasticity would be better.”
After speaking, he was surprised at himself. Those weren’t just random words—they were the genuine opinion of someone who had eaten the tteokbokki. The fact that he had given feedback so seriously without realizing it felt a little funny. This time, Lee Do-hee nodded clearly.
“That makes sense.”
“Ah, yes.”
“For delivery, that would be better.”
She thought for a moment before adding, “Thank you.”
Thank you. Today, those words sounded different from yesterday. Not like formal courtesy, but like a real response to the feedback she had received. Feeling even more awkward, Kang Chi-yeol fiddled with the empty cup in his hand. Suddenly, Do-hee asked,
“Boss, you’re really precise when you taste things.”
The remark was unexpected. Kang Chi-yeol looked up.
“Pardon?”
“The way you immediately adjusted the oil after I mentioned it, and the feedback about the rice cakes just now.”
Her tone was dry, but there was clear acknowledgment in it. At that moment, Kang Chi-yeol felt strangely happy. Not because he had been praised, but because she had recognized that he wasn’t simply someone who liked chicken—he understood it.
“It’s just… because I like eating.”
“That’s actually the hardest part.”
Do-hee said it casually. Kang Chi-yeol was momentarily stunned by those words.
That’s actually the hardest part.
Had anyone ever described his way of liking something like that before? Whenever he said he liked chicken, people had always laughed. It had always ended as a joke—“You really do love chicken, huh?” But Lee Do-hee had called it difficult. As if she understood what it meant to truly know what you liked.
“Ah…”
Once again, that was all he could say. After watching him for a moment, Do-hee suddenly spoke.
“When you open officially, I’ll order some too.”
The sentence was very short and ordinary, yet to Kang Chi-yeol it sounded much larger.
I’ll order some too.
Once again, he tried hard to downplay its meaning. This was simply courtesy between neighboring shop owners. She had tasted it, so she was saying she would try the official version later. It’s nothing. It really could mean nothing. Yet strangely, his heart reacted first again.
“Later. I’ll make sure it’s less salty.”
The words tumbled out. Lee Do-hee laughed. This time the smile was clearer. Not a big laugh, but the corners of her mouth definitely lifted.
“Good. I’ll hold you to that promise.”
In that instant, Kang Chi-yeol genuinely wondered why his heart reacted so easily to such trivial sentences. When he returned to his shop, Jo A-ra had already read his entire expression.
“What did she say?”
Kang Chi-yeol drank some water for no reason.
“Nothing much.”
“‘Nothing much’ is the most suspicious.”
“She said thank you for the feedback.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and?”
“Boss, you’re in a good mood right now.”
Chi-yeol started to deny it, then stopped. It was true that his mood had improved. The problem was that there were multiple reasons, which made it even more complicated. Do-hee’s tteokbokki had been delicious. He had accurately identified that taste. She had acknowledged it. And finally, she had said she would order it once they officially opened. It was a conversation that left subtle ripples both in business and in his heart.
Watching him, A-ra clicked her tongue.
“Boss, you’re in big trouble.”
“Why?”
“Now you’re connected by taste too.”
Kang Chi-yeol glanced out the window for no reason. Beyond the glass door, he could see the light from the neighboring shop. Connected by taste. Strangely, those words felt right. Sometimes, what lingered longest between people wasn’t words but scent or flavor. Today, Lee Do-hee’s tteokbokki broth would probably stay in his memory for a long time. And perhaps she, too, would remember the crispness of his chicken just a little.
When that thought occurred to him, Kang Chi-yeol suddenly had a very strange premonition. The woman next door might not end up being just the woman next door. Not in business, not in taste, and not in heart. And that premonition, like the smell of gochujang, settled in slowly but lingered for quite a long time.