The Name That Burned the Hottest

Kang Chi-yeol stood there in his yellow rubber gloves, the hot water still running, yet his eyes kept drifting back to the empty storefront across the alley. It was strange. He hadn’t felt an instant, unshakable certainty that this was the one from the very first glance. Still, something about it made him linger longer than any of the other places. Perhaps it wasn’t the size or the location so much as the atmosphere. The space was narrow but not suffocating. It felt like a place where people could step inside, sit down, and breathe in the smell of frying chicken. And above all, it didn’t feel too ambitious for someone just starting out.

He almost tapped the number saved in his phone and hung up immediately, but this time he held himself back. After a few rings, a man’s voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Ah, hello. I’m calling about the rental listing.”

“Yes, are you in front of the shop right now?”

“I am.”

“Would you like to see inside? I’m nearby. I can be there in five minutes.”

The call ended quickly. Chi-yeol lowered his phone and stared at the shutter again. Five minutes. Suddenly his heart was beating a little faster. This might turn out to be nothing at all—just looking at an empty store. Yet his mind felt strangely tense. More so than any corporate interview. At least in an interview he knew what was being evaluated. Here, he would have to judge everything for himself.

A short while later, a middle-aged man came walking briskly from the direction of the nearby convenience store. Chi-yeol couldn’t tell if he was the building owner or the property manager, but he was carrying a large bundle of keys.

“You’re the one who called?”

“Yes.”

“Let me raise the shutter for you.”

With a metallic scrape, the shutter rolled upward. The dark interior gradually revealed itself. The man flipped on the inside lights. The fluorescent bulbs flickered once before staying on, making the worn condition of the space even clearer. Still, it was cleaner than Chi-yeol had expected. There was the musty smell typical of a long-vacant property, but it didn’t feel completely ruined.

“What was this place before?” Chi-yeol asked.

“A snack shop. The couple who ran it closed up because their health gave out. Business wasn’t terrible, but they’d been at it for a long time.”

The man led him straight to the kitchen in the back, pointing out the sink placement, gas lines, ventilation ducts, and drain condition. Chi-yeol examined everything with more focus than he’d anticipated. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had done similar site inspections during his corporate days, and just like then, a mental checklist began running automatically. This will need work. This is fine. This will cost some money. This one isn’t in as bad shape as I thought.

The man seemed to read the look in Chi-yeol’s eyes.

“Planning to serve food?”

“Yes. I’m thinking about chicken.”

“For chicken you’ll definitely need to work on the ducts because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the smell. But the structure isn’t impossible. This place used to fry with oil too.”

The man continued describing the property: security deposit, monthly rent, maintenance fees, premium. Every time a number came up, Chi-yeol ran calculations in his head. It wasn’t completely out of reach, but it was far from something he could begin lightly. In the end, it always came back to the same thing.

Money. It was always money at the finish line.

After walking through the space one more time, he asked, “Has this place been empty for long?”

“A little over a month. Not that long.”

“What’s the alley like?”

“Steady lunch and dinner traffic. It’s not the kind of spot that hits it big, but it’s an alley where the places that last are the ones that survive.”

The man’s tone was plain and unadorned. The fact that he wasn’t exaggerating somehow made him more trustworthy. An alley where the places that last are the ones that survive. Chi-yeol rolled the sentence around in his mind several times. It sounded oddly fitting for him. He had never been the type to strike it rich overnight. Instead, once he settled into a position, he tended to endure. That had always been true, at least until now.

When they stepped back outside, the man handed him a business card.

“If you’re interested, please contact me. But other people have looked at it too, so don’t take too long deciding.”

It was a typical real-estate line, yet for some reason it pricked Chi-yeol’s chest. Don’t take too long deciding. Every time he heard those words, he felt as if his entire life was being criticized. Romance, promotion, decisions—he had dragged everything out too long. And by the time he looked up, the right moment had usually already passed.

Business card in hand, Chi-yeol stood in the same spot for a long time. The alley was still modest in scale, and sunlight hung caught between the buildings. The door of the laundry shop opened, releasing the brief scent of freshly ironed clothes. Across the way, an older woman was stirring red pepper paste in front of her snack shop. To someone else it might have been an ordinary scene, but at that moment Chi-yeol found the alley strangely appealing. It wasn’t noisy, yet it wasn’t dead either. It wasn’t flashy, but it carried the traces of people who had endured.

He went into a nearby café and ordered an iced Americano. Even while waiting for his drink, the empty storefront kept floating into his mind—the glass door, the worn tiles, the kitchen in back, the sound of the shutter rising. Nothing had been decided yet, but in his head the space was already shifting. Where to put the fryer, where the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠counter would work best, whether two hall tables would be enough or if he should aim for three. The images were so vivid they almost frightened him. When a person’s heart leans toward a place, it draws the picture faster than expected.

Seated by the window, he took out a ballpoint pen and wrote on the back of the business card.

When he wrote the final line, Chi-yeol’s hand paused for a moment. He thought he understood why the sentence had lodged itself so deeply in his heart. He was not a flashy person. He wasn’t the type who caught eyes at first sight or flipped the board in one dramatic move. What he did was endure. That had always been the case, and perhaps it was his only real strength. So maybe the place where he took his first step should be an alley like this—one that still held the warmth of daily life rather than the scent of sudden success.

On the way home from the café, he kept turning the business card over in his fingers. His steps were slow, yet his heart grew impatient. He wasn’t going to sign a contract today. He didn’t have enough money. There were still many other places to see. His head kept repeating those rational arguments, but strangely, a corner of his chest kept stopping in front of that empty storefront. Admitting it felt a little frightening. He told himself again and again that it was too soon, that he should look at more options, that he needed to stay cool-headed, but the words refused to stick.

When he arrived home, he didn’t turn on his laptop right away. Instead he sat on the floor, staring at the wall for a long time. Eventually he took the business card out of his backpack and placed it on the dining table. A single small slip of paper looked heavier than it should. Beneath it, he opened the memo app on his phone and typed a new heading.

Store Name

He left the space blank for a long while. Naming the store when he hadn’t even signed a contract—when he still didn’t know if he would actually go through with it—felt like getting way ahead of himself. Yet the thought wouldn’t stop. Once he imagined the space, a sign naturally appeared. Once he imagined the sign, it needed a name.

He wrote a few possibilities for fun.

Kang Chicken

Chicken Again Today

Hot Chicken

Exaggerated Chicken

At the last one he grimaced at himself. “Have I lost my mind?” Exaggerated Chicken? Did he really need to advertise so blatantly that he couldn’t let go of his corporate past? He quickly erased it. He wrote several more and erased them too. He didn’t want anything too common, and anything overly sentimental felt embarrassing. Chicken should look like chicken. A name that tried too hard to be cool would get old fast.

Leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, he suddenly remembered the words he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had spoken the night before last.

The sentence stirred inside him again. And then, quite naturally, one word followed.

Chi-yeol. His own name.

A name he had considered perfectly ordinary his entire life, never once thinking it special. It wasn’t the fierce chi or the burning yeol—just a name his father had given him. But in this moment it felt strangely perfect. It carried heat, intensity, the smell of sweat, and above all, it was his.

Carefully, he wrote it down in the memo.

He stared at it for a long time. Was it tacky? Honestly, a little. It was too direct, almost like a pun. Yet strangely, the more he looked, the more it stuck. The fierce years he had survived in the company, the determination to become fierce now with his own hands, the heat in front of the fryer—everything seemed contained in those words. It wasn’t refined, but it wasn’t a lie either.

He read it aloud.

“Chiyeolhan Chicken.”

And again.

“Chiyeolhan Chicken.”

The more he said it, the funnier it sounded. The more he said it, the more he liked it. Maybe putting one’s own name on a sign was always a little embarrassing and ridiculous. But at least it couldn’t be hidden. If it failed, it would fail under his name. If it succeeded, it would be remembered under his name. He liked that simple honesty.

In the end he drew a large circle around the title.

In that instant, reality shifted—just a little. Even though it was still only a name in his head, it felt as if a small sign had already been hung somewhere. That sign would sway in the wind but never fall, and together with the smell of oil it would light up the evening alley.

Thinking about it, Chi-yeol let out a small chuckle. Here he was, a man with no shop, no contract, and not enough money, already imagining the sign. But he no longer tried to push the vision away. Because perhaps this was how people began—by standing in front of an empty store for a long time, then fingering a single business card for a long time, and finally, one evening, murmuring the name of a shop that did not yet exist.

That night, instead of opening his laptop, Kang Chi-yeol took out a notebook. On the very first page, in especially neat handwriting, he wrote:

While the ink dried, he gazed quietly at the characters. Strangely enough, those five syllables were the hottest thing of the entire day.