Gilmok Restaurant (3)
"Holy crap… Oppa's actually on TV."
Chaewon mumbled around a mouthful of bread, still looking like she hadn't recovered from the shock.
"Why didn't you tell me? Do you have any idea how much I freaked out when I saw you on YouTube yesterday?"
I tightened my tie in front of the full-length mirror.
"You think I knew? They just showed up with cameras out of nowhere."
"Still…"
"Chaewon."
I can't let her get hurt.
I looked at her with concern. She was my only blood relative — how would she feel if people started tearing into me?
Damn it. I hadn't even thought about YouTube.
That had been outside my calculations. I'd committed to playing the villain, but I didn't need to look to know how vicious the comments would be. A flood of hate, no doubt. I'd put on a thorough villain performance yesterday, after all.
"Just… try not to look at the comments, okay?"
"Whyyy?"
"What's there to see that's any good? Don't go getting your feelings hurt for no reason. If I tell you not to look, don't look. I'm fine, so don't worry about it."
I said it offhandedly as I shrugged on my jacket. This was probably the first time I'd worn a suit this cycle, but it actually looked pretty decent on me.
Heh. What a nasty piece of work I am.
I grinned to myself.
The Gilmok Restaurant shoot wasn't a one-or-two-day affair. Yesterday they'd only aired about twenty minutes of my footage as a kind of teaser — they hadn't even filmed the rest yet. For the time being, I'd be running the shop with cameras rolling. And the whole time, I'd be making noodles in this suit.
"So where are you going today? A date with Yujin unnie?"
"Huh? No. I've got work."
"…Then why the suit?"
Chaewon looked up at me with innocent eyes as she pulled on her socks.
"What, do I look good?"
"…Did you get shot in the head?"
There was actually a reason I'd put on the suit. I thought back to the emergency meeting I'd had with Yujin yesterday — that was when I'd come up with a brilliant idea.
Yujin. If I make noodles in a suit, wouldn't that piss the viewers off?
The most insufferable thing in the world was someone who didn't know their place and showed off anyway. A one-table noodle shop, plus every kind of eccentric stunt imaginable. And yesterday's little display of putting women down on top of it all! I'd shown them the ultimate villain. If I showed up in a suit and acted like I was hot stuff, that would be the finishing touch. They'd be so disgusted they wouldn't come back, right?
So I'd gone out and bought a suit. Just to make the viewers' blood boil.
"Hmm… it doesn't look that bad, actually."
"What?"
I'd been lost in thought and missed what Chaewon said, so I asked her to repeat it. She quickly shook her head.
"Nothing. I didn't say anything."
"Don't be weird. Get ready and go to school. And don't come crying to me about being late again."
"I was gonna go even if you didn't tell me."
Chaewon grumbled as she squatted down to put on her shoes. Her skirt folded and rode up a little. It was a sight I saw every day, but something felt off. I frowned and pointed at her.
"Hey. Han Chaewon."
"Yeah?"
"What's with your skirt length. Why's it so short."
I'd noticed her skirt was shorter than usual. Originally it sat about an inch above the knee. Now it was more like two — practically halfway up!
"Did you hem it?"
"N-no I didn't?"
Chaewon panicked and tugged her skirt down with her hands, her face going red. Where there's smoke, there's fire — she'd definitely shortened it. I put on a menacing expression and stepped closer, ready to give her an earful.
"Han Chaewon."
"…Th-that's, Oppa."
Chaewon looked up at me with uneasy eyes. My heart twinged a little, but this was discipline. I couldn't let it slide.
"Are you a delinquent? Shortening your skirt like that."
"I didn't shorten it… I just folded it."
Chaewon hung her head and mumbled timidly.
"Folded it? Why would you fold your skirt. Trying to look good for someone?"
At that, Chaewon's face filled with indignation.
"I just folded it a little, okay?! Shit! You old fossil!"
"What? You little—! Hey!"
"Eojjeol-TV."
Eojjeol-TV?
Was this what high school girls were saying these days? I'd never heard anything like it in my life. I stood there, completely dumbfounded.
Why does "so what" have TV stuck on the end? Ugh, this is pissing me off.
While I stood there, stunned by the new slang, Chaewon snatched up her bag and bolted. Just before the door closed, I shouted after her.
"Jeojjeol-fridge! Jeojjeol 805-inch high-def full GD TV!"
Chaewon poked her head back in with an incredulous look.
"Where would you even find an 805-inch TV! And it's HD, not GD!"
…I'd won. I smiled, pleased to have banked another victory for the day.
"…I never noticed, since you always wear those sloppy clothes."
"Huh?"
Yujin said it as if seeing me in a new light.
"You've actually got a pretty decent body."
Restaurant work was no joke. Stamina was essential, and my father, knowing that, had made me exercise consistently since I was a kid. So I was in better shape than most guys my age.
"Glad to hear it, I guess."
I chuckled and opened the shop door.
"But… are you sure about this?"
While we were prepping for opening, she asked out of nowhere.
"Sure about what?"
"You didn't follow a single piece of Jong-eon's feedback."
Gilmok Restaurant was scheduled to run for about a week or two. Jong-eon had visited yesterday, given various pieces of advice, and left — things he wanted me to fix. Expand the menu, that kind of thing. He'd also said maintaining a one-table setup like this was unsustainable and that I needed to make changes.
Obviously, I couldn't take any of that. Running a successful business wasn't the point.
"You already know, don't you? I like the way I do things. I have no intention of changing."
"Fortunately, the public reaction to yesterday's broadcast wasn't bad, but…"
"It wasn't bad? Did they edit it well?"
I asked, surprised. This was news to me. Yujin nodded.
"Yes. Thankfully, people took it in good humor. However."
"However, if I keep this up, it will be bad. That's what you're saying?"
"…Yes. That's right. I just wonder if you really need to go about it this way. Of course, I trust you, boss."
"Don't worry too much. Even if I take hits, I'll make sure they don't hurt."
I'd said I'd become a villain. But that didn't mean I'd become garbage. I'd take a moderate amount of criticism. I supposed I should be grateful they'd found it entertaining.
"That's why I put on the suit, too. Teacher Baek Jong-eon said we needed a change, right? Let's go full fine-dining restaurant."
"A fine-dining restaurant?"
"Yes."
"…At a noodle shop?"
"It's all in how you present it. Just trust me."
Yujin gave an awkward smile.
"Understood. I'm sure you have your reasons, boss."
The doorbell chimed.
The appointed time for the consultation arrived, and someone stepped into the shop.
"Hope nothin' much happened?"
A stout build and a friendly face. CEO Baek Jong-eon walked in with a good-natured smile. True to his businessman nature, he kept time with military precision.
Not even a second late.
As expected, the foundation of business was diligence. In this Hunter era, where success didn't come easy, it was a virtue ordinary people absolutely had to possess.
"CEO, you're here. Nothing much happened."
I greeted him with a bright smile.
"Last time it was your employee who gave me a fright. This time it's the owner himself? And just what in the world are you wearing!"
"I took some of your advice last time, CEO, and elevated the shop's atmosphere a bit."
A tailored Thom Browne suit, dressed to the nines. It was a luxury piece Sia had given me as a gift. Anyone who knew clothes would probably scream that I'd lost my mind.
"No, boss. I told you to add menu items or drop the one-table setup…! Does it even make sense for a cook to wear a suit?"
Jong-eon looked at me with a hollow laugh, clearly exasperated.
Of course it doesn't make sense.
The first step to becoming a villain: treating advice like garbage. Instead of fixing the thing you'd been called out on, you suddenly changed something nobody even asked you to change.
And the second step:
"I think this is the right call. I'm sorry, but I have no intention of backing down, even for you, CEO."
Continuing to insist that a path anyone could see was wrong was actually the right one. From the viewers' perspective, it would feel like they'd choked down a hundred dry sweet potatoes — all frustration, no payoff.
Go on, whip me! Viewers. I am the villain.
I cackled inwardly like a proper bad guy.
"Alright, then."
CEO Baek Jong-eon looked at me with a meaningful gaze.
You get it now, don't you? What kind of guy I am.
By this point, he should have realized. This bastard was a lost cause. He might even say he was giving up on the consultation.
"If you think you're right, boss, then keep pushing forward."
"Excuse me?"
"You won't know if that path is a road of fire until you walk it yourself."
"A road of fire? I think it'll go well. Isn't it a golden road?"
I tossed out a lame joke. The expressions of the surrounding staff went stiff.
Did I go too far?
I caught the mouth shape of one of the filming crew. Pretty sure he'd just said, Ah, fuck.
"…You've got too much confidence, boss. Just looking at your eyes, you look like a man who isn't afraid of a single thing in this world."
Well… that's because I have an instant-death skill.
To be blunt, there was honestly nothing that could stop me. Even the most renowned hunters were infinitely equal before me.
Ah, wait. There is one.
Come to think of it, there was one person. The boarder at our house. Han Chaewon. For someone so young, her hands packed one hell of a spicy punch.
"The concept of this shop was wrong from the start. People who look for noodle shops are mostly consumers who want to fill their stomachs cheap. If you want to maintain a luxury shop like this, the noodles would have to be expensive too, wouldn't they? Who's going to pay that kind of money for noodles."
CEO Baek Jong-eon looked at me with pity. Even I had to admit he had a point. Still, I had a job to do.
"I don't charge that much, though."
"How much for one bowl of noodles?"
"……."
I deliberately let the silence hang. That would make it even more infuriating.
"Why aren't you answering, boss?"
"The price isn't set. It's a system where you pay as much as you were satisfied."
I pointed to the black box near the entrance.
"…Come again?"
CEO Baek Jong-eon wore a look of utter disbelief.
From a businessman's perspective, it's practically poison.
An unfixed price. It didn't matter to me. But for a businessman like the CEO, it was completely incomprehensible.
"Boss. You're not sick, are you?"
"I'm perfectly fine."
"This is all wrong. Is this business? This is gambling. How much do people actually pay?"
"Well… lately it's mostly been acquaintances coming in, so I haven't been charging for the noodles."
"See? When regular customers come to a shop like this, how much do you think they'll put in?"
"A lot, wouldn't they?"
Well, it didn't matter if they didn't put in much. My bank account was already groaning with more zeros than I knew what to do with. And more than anything, this shop was just for show.
"People who come to noodle shops are folks who want to fill up cheap, I'm telling you. You think they'll pay based on how satisfied they are? They'll try to pay as little as possible. That won't do. You have to set a price."
While CEO Baek Jong-eon was giving me an earful, the doorbell chimed. Someone stepped through the shop door.
"Sorry, but we're in the middle of a consultation right now. Could you come back next time?"
CEO Baek Jong-eon looked toward the entrance. The woman who'd opened the door shook her head and spoke.
Clumsy, broken Korean. A doll-like face and skin like white jade.
It was the S-rank hunter, Shion.