Chapter 163
Chapter 163
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: Budae-jjigae and a Promise
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“We finally made it here.”
On the first floor of the budae-jjigae restaurant, a woman in her fifties who appeared to be the owner was packing a colossal amount of ham and various other ingredients.
The Answer members, their eyes fixed on the ham being sliced into thick chunks, headed for the stairs to the second floor. The staircase was so narrow that only one person could go up or down at a time.
When we reached the second floor, people of all ages, from their twenties to their fifties, were sweating profusely as they ate.
A man in a 20s couple was the first to recognize Answer, his eyes filled with wonder. The customers in their forties and older also looked at the undeniably remarkable members of Answer with pleased expressions.
We split up and sat at two tables.
“There are four of them, so we could’ve taken just one table. But because of one person, we have to take up two. Sorry about that, huh?”
But why, Seul-bi, does your face look so sly as you say that?
“They’d probably get mad if we only ordered the stew, right? We’re celebrities, after all.”
Seul-bi’s words somehow managed to persuade me. In truth, it wouldn’t have mattered if a party of three and a party of two had come separately; it would still mean taking up two tables.
“Order whatever you want, Seul-bi.”
At my words, all the Answer members’ faces lit up.
“Are you young ladies singers?”
A gruff-looking woman wearing a white sanitary cap on her head asked.
“Yes. We’re called Answer.”
“Ooh!”
The gasp of surprise actually came from a couple in their forties behind us.
“You’re even prettier in person.”
“Thank you so much. Enjoy your meal.”
A few tables offered words of encouragement to the Answer members. They chatted among themselves, marveling at how different the members looked from on-screen.
“How would you like it? Five servings of budae-jjigae?”
“No. Three servings of budae-jjigae and two servings of the roast, please. And three packs of ramen noodles.”
“Order the ramen after you’ve had some of the stew.”
“Ah… okay.”
The woman turned away coolly, leaving all of us with awkward expressions.
Soon, what looked like a four-person serving but was supposedly for three was placed on the gas stove. The sheer amount of sausage, ham, ground beef, cheese, and kimchi made it hard to even see the broth, giving us a good idea of the taste before we even started.
“Don’t open the lid.”
The woman said as she closed it.
“Feels like we’ll get scolded if we don’t listen. Still, I have to take a picture.”
Seul-bi activated her phone camera and was about to reach for the lid.
“Hey! I told you not to open the lid!”
Another couple in their twenties, who had been about to open their lid just like Seul-bi, jumped in surprise and quickly closed it. Seul-bi demurely lowered her hand.
“That lady is so chic. The aura of a truly authentic spot.”
Seul-bi, who was always generous when it came to food, giggled to herself.
Was this what it felt like to be at one of those famous “cursing granny” restaurants? The members and I exchanged strange smiles.
Kimchi and white rice were brought out, and then the woman opened the lid. The three slices of cheese, melted thick over the massive pile of sausage and ham, looked incredibly appetizing.
Seul-bi, having timed it perfectly to snap a photo of the budae-jjigae, wore a satisfied expression as the woman scooped a heaping ladle of minced garlic from a large container and added it to the pot.
“Eek!”
Yi-na gasped.
She was probably worried the massive amount of garlic would make it taste strange, but Korean dishes often contain an unimaginable amount of garlic.
As it cooks, the pungent aroma often disappears, creating a harmony with the other ingredients.
Sizzle, sizzle.
The woman set a grill pan with bacon, plenty of onions, and garlic on the fire and took the lid with her.
I took one bowl of rice, and the members split the other two.
“…We can eat now, right?”
“I’ll try it first.”
I took a plump sausage, a spoonful of broth rich with ground beef and melted cheese, and put it in my mouth.
“!”
The rich, smoky flavor of the sausage burst through the spicy yet deep broth. The large quantities of sausage, beef, and cheese could have easily been too greasy, but the perfectly balanced garlic and kimchi completely offset any richness, creating a harmony that was nothing short of perfection.
A look at the origin label confirmed my suspicion: it was aged kimchi made in-house with domestic cabbage.
“It’s delicious. Everything’s cooked.”
“Seeing your face, Oppa, it must be really good.”
The members picked up their spoons, blew on the hot broth, and took a sip. Their eyes widened.
“…Wow, this is the real deal.”
The members were all in awe.
“If Uijeongbu-style is like a refreshing hangover soup, Songtan-style is more like a rich, heavy stir-fried stew.”
Everyone nodded at Seul-bi’s words. The cloudy broth was definitely a bone broth.
We polished off about half the ingredients in no time and ordered three packs of ramen noodles.
“Wow… they give you a whole pack of ramen, not just the noodles. That’s legit.”
Seul-bi crammed the leftover seasoning packet into the small pocket of her denim jacket.
The temptation of the noodles, bubbling away in the budae-jjigae and slowly softening, was immense.
“Whoo… slurp.”
“Whoa, this is freaking delicious…”
All the Answer members had expressions of pure bliss.
Who knew that slightly undercooked ramen in budae-jjigae could be this good?
As we ate the ramen, the roast was ready. I rolled a piece of well-cooked onion and garlic in bacon and popped it in my mouth.
The combination of the salty, smoky bacon and the crisp texture of the garlic and onion was better than I could have imagined.
It was a truly delicious meal.
“How many people are there at our company?”
Seul-bi asked, as if she couldn’t bear the thought of us being the only ones to enjoy this.
“If we buy it now, we’ll have to stop by the company before our next schedule… but it’s not rush hour, so it should be fine. It’s not completely out of the way, either.”
Impressed, we used all our remaining local currency to buy takeout budae-jjigae to share with our company family.
“Oh my… can you really carry all of this?”
One set consisted of a 2-liter bottle filled with frozen bone broth and a massive package that looked like it could feed four. It took me carrying eight sets and Yi-na, the weakest, carrying four before we could move it all to the car in one trip.
We couldn’t even fit it all in the trunk; we had to place packages where the members were supposed to put their feet before everything was loaded.
But the members’ faces were incredibly bright, despite having grunted and groaned while carrying the heavy load to the parking lot.
⋮
“Wow, I almost died from the kimchi smell.”
It was true that the smell of kimchi from the takeout packages filled the car, making the ride difficult, but if I could go back, I’d do the same thing again.
We all shared a sense of mission, a feeling that we had to let our company family taste this delicious budae-jjigae.
“This is budae-jjigae we got from a famous place in Songtan. Please share it with the people who take over your shift later. There are four, right?”
“Ah… you really don’t have to go to such trouble every time. We’ll enjoy it. Thank you.”
We started at the security office and made our way through the building, handing out the stew.
“Kids… haa… The thought is beautiful, but why did you bring all this to the company? Where are we supposed to store it all?”
The Isa-nim said, a look of disbelief on her face. The refrigerator in the break room wouldn’t even come close to holding it all.
“I’m sorry. It was so delicious that I didn’t think it through. And we didn’t have anywhere else to spend the local currency you gave us for meals at the event.”
“…Just how good is this stuff…”
The Isa-nim gave a wry smile as she looked at the meal kits in the black plastic bags. Despite her words, she was probably more grateful than anyone.
“I know this place! I tried it once at an event near the Osan Air Base. It’s seriously amazing.”
Even Park Jae-yong Daepyo-nim liked the idea, lifting the mood even further.
“Hmm. Where are we going to store all this…? It’s not summer, but it could still go bad if we’re not careful.”
`
As I pondered for a moment, the shining planning office appeared in my third eye.
“What if we put it all in the planning office and turn on the air conditioner?”
“We can’t do that. We just moved all the materials for Yoo-ah’s planning meeting in there…”
Park Jae-yong Daepyo-nim was firmly against it, but then he noticed the strange glint in my eyes, the Isa-nim’s, and Answer’s, and he nervously clamped his mouth shut.
“…On second thought, it could work. I’ll just move the materials back so we can have the meeting in my office, and the monitor too…”
“The planning office doesn’t have good ventilation. We should move it somewhere with better airflow later. Your office has a lot of windows, Daepyo-nim.”
As the Isa-nim led the way to the CEO’s office, the Daepyo-nim’s eyes widened in shock, but we silently followed her.
“Hey, hey, hey! Come on! You can’t just store kimchi in the CEO’s office! Hey! Wow, aren’t you guys going too far? Seriously? Wow. Does it make any sense for the CEO’s office to smell like kimchi? Ha!”
The Daepyo-nim grumbled as he followed us, but no one stopped walking.
* * *
“Have a good one. We’ll enjoy the food.”
“You have a good schedule too.”
Choi Yoo-jun saw us off as we left the company again.
“You’ve been busy lately too, Yoo-jun.”
“We’ve posted job openings for a fan manager and a trainee manager, but we’re having trouble finding suitable candidates.”
It wasn’t that there were no applicants, but they were all inexperienced people who seemed to just want a job so they could see celebrities.
This was one of the many reasons I had acquired a stake in JD Enter rather than starting my own company. A company doesn’t run just because I work hard alone. I needed to gain much more experience and build even more connections before I could even begin to think about starting my own business.
I might be an expert in my field of study, but I was still a long way from understanding the entire system of running a company.
“Huh? Ye-jun wants to talk?”
Seol-ah answered a video call.
“Yeah, Mom.”
-You’re not busy?
“Being busy is a good thing, right? Hehe. We’re on the move right now, so it’s fine.”
-Ye-jun just really wanted to talk to his big sister. Noona!
“Aww, my little Ye-jun. Did you get out of kindergarten?”
Seol-ah put on a motherly smile and started using baby talk.
-Uh-huh! Today… we made wice cake cookies.
“Aww, you made rice cake cookies? Noona wants to try the cookies Ye-jun made, too.”
-Uh-huh! Here, eat, Noona.
Seol-ah brought her mouth close to the phone and pretended to eat something.
“Om, nom nom nom. Aww, it’s delicious. Om nom nom. Ye-jun’s cookies are the best!”
-Is it yummy?
“Uh-huh.”
-How much?
“This much.”
The other members found Seol-ah’s natural aegyo, something they never usually got to see, highly amusing.
-Nuh-uh. No. You have to say you wike it a hundwed times.
“Pfft!”
It seemed the biggest number Ye-jun knew was a hundred.
-Noona, Noona, but when awe we going to see the wions? You pwomised you’d show me.
“Ah… oh, that…”
I remembered it too. During a previous car ride, she had told him that now that his sister was earning a lot of money, she could take him and Yoo-jun to the zoo.
It seemed Ye-jun had been thinking about it ever since.
“Ah… Noona is just so busy with work right now…”
-But Noona, you pwomised we’d go.
-Oh, Ye-jun! Noona is busy, you can’t be like that. I told you we’d go together later.
“Ah… I’m sorry, Ye-jun. Next time, I promise…”
-You pwomised! Waaah!
Ye-jun, who had never thrown a tantrum before, started to cry.
Seol-ah looked troubled.
Answer had been incredibly busy with their schedule lately, without a single full day off. The one day that was tentatively free was the day after an all-night commercial shoot, and they were still trying to coordinate the schedule.
Answer’s current popularity meant they could earn anywhere from 5 million won to hundreds of millions in a single day. And as they say, you have to strike while the iron is hot; this flood of work wouldn’t last forever.
In extreme cases, some idols worked for six months straight without a single day off, surviving on catnaps.
Even I couldn’t just tell the company to take a day off when schedules were pouring in like this.
It was an unavoidable part of being a celebrity, a fate they themselves had wanted.
*Ting.*
[Sudden Quest ‘Seol-ah’s Promise’ has been updated.]
Help Seol-ah keep the promise she made to her little brother, Ye-jun.
Objective: Take Seol-ah and Ye-jun to the zoo together.
Additional Objective: ?
Success Reward: 3 Distribution Points
Additional Reward: ?
On Failure: Seol-ah’s stress will increase significantly.
Time Remaining: 239 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds.
The appearance of a quest after so long was a welcome sight.
I hadn’t been able to distribute any stats lately because there were no rewards to be had.
“Tell Ye-jun we’ll go next Thursday.”
“What?”
Seol-ah asked again, her face a picture of surprise.
“Don’t worry, just tell him we’ll go. We can make time in the schedule.”
The Answer members looked at me with faces full of anticipation. In a normal situation, they would have found it absurd, but their trust in me was reaching its absolute peak.
“Um… Ye-jun, then… should we go next Thursday?”
-Yay, Noona is the best!
At Ye-jun’s words, the Answer members smiled, finding him adorable.
-Oh, dear! What are you saying when you’re so busy? You should rest if you have time like that.
But their mother’s worried voice shouted through the phone.
Now that I’d committed, it was time to think. How could I make sure Seol-ah kept her promise to Ye-jun without wasting Answer’s time?
And as for the additional objective, there was a high probability it was about money, wasn’t it?