Before Rowoon could say no.
“Wait, that was the young man? I thought he looked familiar. That is him. It really is.”
Before he knew it, other people who had been watching from nearby, gauging the mood, drifted over one by one.
“Oh right, right. You teared up a little back then when you saw the elder.”
“Hey, when did I cry?”
The elders who had gathered little by little formed a circle around Rowoon.
They kept saying how glad they were, how relieved they were, and praised Rowoon.
Some of them looked at him with pity.
“I thought you were dead, but I guess not. Thank goodness. Oh my, look how gaunt you are.”
“No, if you were sick you need to eat well. The time you think you are all better is when it is most dangerous.”
“Why are you saying unlucky things, elder. What if your words become seeds and take root.”
“Ah, that is true. My mouth runs away with me.”
The unexpected situation made both Rowoon and the camera operator following him widen their eyes.
What was even more unexpected was that they began pressing things into Rowoon’s hands.
“Eat this and keep up your strength. It is nothing special, but it is high in vitamins, so they say it is good for fatigue recovery and even for cancer prevention. So make sure you take it. All right?”
“Pardon? No, I…”
“When an elder gives you something, you say thank you and accept it.”
“Right. Your throat must be dry, so take this too.”
“This is from our field, take some. It is as sweet as an apple, crisp and tasty.”
“Stay healthy.”
Saying it was fine did not work.
They even slapped a sticker that said free sample over the barcode and personally handed him this and that.
Before he could refuse, the elders filled his arms with a heap of produce.
And then—
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…
Notifications popped up in a blur.
The elders left as suddenly as they had surrounded Rowoon, telling him to make sure to eat properly.
They even left a blessing for robust health to Rowoon, whose body was perfectly healthy.
“…?”
What was that?
He felt as if he had been bewitched.
He hurried to try to find them and return the items, but not a single one could be found.
When he looked back, even the camera operator, whose face had become familiar after only a few hours, looked dazed.
“What is it? What happened?”
Kim Bonggeun, who had been looking elsewhere, asked.
“Ah, just now the elders suddenly gave me things and left…”
“Whoa. You too? They did the same to Kang Chaheon over there.”
“Sorry?”
“You never heard the stories? You know that actor who played a villain in Ad. He went to eat at some restaurant, and the customers and even the owner let him have it with scolding and nagging, and he left.”
“…What?”
When Rowoon just kept saying “What?” in confusion, Bonggeun burst out laughing.
“Ha ha. It is my first time seeing it in person too.”
He said it was all attention, something to be proud of.
“This is the kind of episode only actors who are very good experience, and even so it is my first time seeing it in real life. Sounds like Gwiro left quite an impression on everyone.”
Someone had said it.
The reason Gwiro could succeed without spectacular action or the eye candy of flashy CG.
“Because it sparked a sense of shared feeling across generations,” that was what they had said.
Younger viewers projected themselves onto Gwiro as they gave up dreams and compromised with reality.
Middle-aged and older viewers chewed over their old memories of all the choices they had made as they passed through life.
A yearning for the road not taken, the road they could not take, the road they failed to take.
Gwiro awakened that yearning which anyone might hold.
Which is why everyone could both relate to and fall into that universal emotion.
“Still, did we not receive too much? These are things they sell…”
“Then we can buy more. And refusing this kind of thing is even more impolite. They gave it because they wanted to, so the polite thing is to accept it with thanks.”
“Is that so?”
For just being happy to see him, their generosity seemed too large.
But if Bonggeun said elders were usually like that, he had no choice but to believe it.
It was similar for Kang Chaheon.
In the end, as they headed out after paying, their arms were full of all kinds of food.
Half was what they had been given, half was what they diligently bought in return.
It had all been a mistaken impression, but instead it made one side of his chest feel warm.
“I am not such a vicious person, but it looks like it would have been fine even if I had not given you the card.”
A curious episode had been added to the day.
If you excluded that annoying person giggling in the back seat.
It was a first grocery run everyone could be satisfied with.
Kim Bonggeun’s skill was truly worthy of his reputation.
No wonder PD Han had deliberately chosen him as the cooking member.
“Oh my. The ingredients are so fresh and good that there is no need to do much more. Eating them as they are would be the most delicious.”
Chop, chop, chop, chop.
Even as he said so, Bonggeun’s hands moved briskly.
He shredded, minced, and sliced the ingredients they had bought.
While Bonggeun cooked, Rowoon and Kang handled simple prep.
“Do we have anything to do?”
“… For now, Rowoon, do not even think about going near a knife. If you really want to do something, rinse this napa cabbage.”
Kang cut off the cores and Rowoon washed each leaf clean.
When he shook off the water and brought them to Bonggeun, he took out the meat.
It was Hoengseong Korean beef for shabu-shabu, marbled and tender just to look at.
“Layer the cabbage leaves and meat alternating, neatly stacked.”
Bonggeun demonstrated.
“Like this?”
“You really have good hands, Rowoon. Look how neat that is.”
He who does not work shall not eat.
Rowoon diligently stacked cabbage and meat as directed.
“By the way, hyung, what dish is this?”
“Oh, that. It gets cold after dark here, so I wanted to do a soup dish. Shabu-shabu sound good?”
Of course. Meat is always right.
“Yes. I love it. But shabu-shabu?”
So this cabbage and meat would become shabu-shabu?
The shabu-shabu he knew was a big pot where you tossed in vegetables and dipped meat briefly.
“This does not look like shabu-shabu…”
His question was soon answered.
“It is a slightly altered version, but if we take what you made, Rowoon, and do this…”
Chop, chop, chop.
Bonggeun cut the neatly stacked cabbage-and-meat tower into even widths.
Then, starting from the outer edge of a wide pot, he set the cut cross-sections upright in a circle, one by one, snugly.
At first Rowoon did not know what he was seeing, but once the pot was filled with no gaps—
“…!”
Rowoon’s eyes grew round.
It looked as if a giant rose had bloomed inside the pot.
When he set a mushroom with a star-shaped score in the center, it looked even more convincing.
He had never once seen a dish like this.
“Hyung, this is shabu-shabu too?”
When Rowoon asked in amazement, Bonggeun grinned and nodded.
“It is called mille-feuille hotpot. Mille-feuille means a thousand layers of leaves. Since the cabbage and meat are layered like a mille-feuille, it is called mille-feuille hotpot. Now like this…”
He poured in broth until the flower shape was submerged and turned on the heat.
“If you just pour the broth and bring it to a boil like this, it is done.”
“Wow…”
It was astonishing.
Especially for Rowoon, who had stacked the cabbage tower himself.
“With just a slightly different way of arranging, it looks even more delicious.”
It was a culture shock.
Rowoon had always eaten to live.
Which is why quantity had always been his first priority.
Maybe because he had grown up not eating enough, if he had to choose between taste and quantity, he chose quantity.
Thanks to his manager bringing him lots of good food these days, he had begun to learn what taste was.
“I did not know it could be this pretty.”
To think that even such a simple method could completely change the aura of a dish.
No wonder people went to fine dining and expensive restaurants.
“With that money you could buy hundreds of convenience store triangles, so why bother…” he used to think.
That past self felt foolish.
“Eating is not everything. Seeing with your eyes is important too.”
“Rowoon, you suddenly look so lively. Were you that hungry?”
“Hyung.”
“Mm?”
“You are a genius.”
“… Huh?”
At Rowoon’s sudden words, Bonggeun froze.
Regardless, Rowoon looked at him with eyes full of respect.
Looking again, all of Bonggeun’s dishes were beautiful.
“I wondered why you bothered tearing up the greens leaf by leaf and scattering them…”
The color contrast between the green arugula leaves and the halved red cherry tomatoes was beautiful.
The irregular drizzle of balsamic dressing here and there added a sense of life.
“I used to think everything was the same once it goes in your mouth.”
It was not.
It was not only the stomach that could be enriched.
His mood grew abundant too.
“Hyung, you really are a genius.”
“Th-thanks… No, hearing it like that suddenly makes me shy. Still, thank you.”
Maybe thanks to Rowoon’s heartfelt praise, Bonggeun’s hands moved even more delicately and quickly.
While the mille-feuille hotpot was coming to a boil, another work of art was born.
“Hyung, it is so pretty. Completely beautiful.”
What Bonggeun proudly presented was fried rice.
But even the visuals were different from other fried rice.
“Is it really okay to eat this? It feels too precious to eat.”
That was because the plating was so gorgeous it felt like looking at a flower garden.
On the colorful fried rice sat an egg flower made by slicing a large bell pepper crosswise.
The idea came from the fact that cutting a bell pepper crosswise makes a flower shape.
He cracked an egg into it so the round yolk sat in the center, completing a flower that looked like a child had drawn it.
That was not all.
“What is this? It is not a real flower, right?”
“Carrot. If you slice carrot thin and shape it, it comes out like that.”
“This is carrot?”
Rowoon’s eyes grew wide.
There were small flowers scattered around with the bell pepper egg flower at the center, so he asked.
“Carrot…!”
The answer was shocking.
Maybe because they were made three-dimensionally, they felt even more like flowers.
“You can make them with apple or cucumber too. But apple does not go with fried rice, so I left it out.”
“Hyung… you really are a genius.”
There was no expression for it but art.
Sensing something special about this beauty, the production crew felt the same.
The camera operator assigned to Bonggeun captured the cooking from every angle with all his might.
Watching from this side, PD Han’s mouth was stretched to her ears and would not close.
“Wow… I only saw Mr. Bonggeun push this hard sometimes on his YouTube, but never like this.”
“Come on, this is nothing.”
From the giant rose-like mille-feuille hotpot.
To the little flower garden fried rice.
It was like a flower field had been lifted and placed right on the table.
“To think this level is nothing.”
For a moment it felt like a halo was shining behind Kim Bonggeun.
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