“Seriously, I feel like I’ve heard from Rowoon alone that I’m a genius at least a hundred times? Ahh! Anyway, that means it’s okay, right?”
“Absolutely. You’re truly amazing.”
It wasn’t just okay.
The simple food transformed into something spectacular in an instant.
“That’s a relief. They say a pretty rice cake tastes good too. I also want to properly treat everyone who came all this way.“
This was a moment where Kim Bonggeun’s thoughtful nature shone through.
“But isn’t this too hard for you?“
“It does take some effort, but it’s repetitive work. If I prep ahead, it’s not that bad. Plus, our menu itself is pretty quick to prepare, so it should be fine.”
Kim Bonggeun added that they should help prepare in advance too.
“Ah, only Chaheon handles the knife. Rowoon, you stay away from the knife. So Rowoon can handle the egg-frying. Chaheon will teach you well.”
“Just leave it to me.”
Seeing him smile while saying that somehow made the future feel bleak.
“Anyway, I want to serve it with a bit more flair like this. I’ll think more about the plating. And I have one more idea—what if we add a kids’ menu item?”
“Since some families come together, that might be good. What would you add?”
“Fried rice. Judging by your reaction yesterday, I bet the kids would love it too.“
What on earth had he done yesterday?
Rowoon sank into self-loathing for a moment.
‘Well, at least it had a positive effect… so it must be okay!’
He already started worrying about how the broadcast would turn out.
”But is it okay for us to just do whatever we want like this?“
“Why wouldn’t it be? Oh, was this your first variety show, Rowoon? Ah. So that’s why you came down alone earlier?“
“Huh?“
“Come to think of it, Chaheon came down alone earlier too. Ah. Really. You two are both first-timers on variety shows, right? Ah. No wonder the directors looked so glum! You said you’re friends, and you really do resemble each other in that way, you do.”
“…”
“…”
Resembling each other.
Rowoon’s uneasy gaze and Kang Chaheon’s irritated gaze met briefly.
“You don’t have to overthink it. There’s no script anyway, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Th-that… Are we really not getting a script?”
“They officially said yesterday there’s no script, so I doubt there really is one? It’s kind of a trend these days anyway. It’s not like variety shows never have scripts, but for us, let’s just assume there isn’t one. Even if there is, it’s probably just the broad outline, and the rest is up to us?”
Isn’t that a bit reckless?
At first, I thought, ‘Ah, they’re just pretending there isn’t one because it’s reality TV.’
‘I never thought there really wouldn’t be one.’
It seems writers or PDs occasionally intervene, though.
“What if it ends up boring then?”
“Oh, come on. Why worry about that? To me, your characters are so distinct, it couldn’t possibly be boring.”
“…”
That’s supposed to be a compliment, right?
“This is the first time I’ve been left this much to my own devices, but whatever. They’ll figure it out. One PD is especially good at finding the fun no matter what. They wanted this kind of raw, unfiltered situation from the start, so all we have to do is do our jobs well.”
True.
If a variety show that starts with a kidnapping had a script, that would be weird too.
“Now that you’re up, Rowoon, let’s all have breakfast together.”
In an instant, he whips up a few bowls of noodles and bibimbap.
After a hearty meal, including the production crew.
Kim Bonggeun beckons Rowoon over.
“Could you take this over to the neighbors and bring it back?”
“What is this?”
“Oh, it’s nothing special… rice cakes.”
“Huh?”
“I saw they were selling some good rice flour yesterday. So I bought some.”
“…?”
Could rice cakes really be made this quickly?
Rowoon looked at Kang Chaheon in bewilderment, and the guy nodded as if understanding.
It was a sense of kinship that had somehow developed.
“It’s piping hot right now, so take it over and come back. He’ll be busy for a week because of us, so we should at least say hello. Go with Chaheon.”
Peeking inside the wrapping cloth, even the rice cakes looked extraordinary.
They were beautifully dyed rainbow-colored rice cakes.
‘Turns out Bonggeun hyung was hiding his skills, or something like that?’
The camera followed Rowoon and Kang Chaheon as they left the house with dazed expressions.
* * *
A quiet suburb where the nearest village was a 20-minute walk or a 10-minute drive.
Even calling it a suburb was generous; it was practically a remote mountain village.
Surprisingly, even in a place like this, neighbors existed.
Two of them, no less.
“What is it?”
Knocking on the half-open door instead of the broken bell, an elderly person poked their head out from inside.
“Ah. Hello. We just moved in next door and brought this for you to eat.”
“What are you bringing now? Come in here and sit down.”
Far from taking the rice cake, the elderly man beckoned Rowoon to the wooden bench squarely placed in the middle of the spacious yard.
“What’s this?”
“It’s rice cake. I brought it for you to eat while it’s still warm.”
“What a thoughtful young student. Did you come with your brother?”
There seemed to be a major misunderstanding.
‘No, even if I am a bit small… that guy is younger than me.’
“Oh my, this looks delicious. Wait a moment. I’m too old to just keep accepting things from children. Wait a bit.”
Before Rowoon could correct him, the old man slipped inside and emerged carrying a large basket.
Inside, it was filled to the brim with none other than potatoes.
“These are from our farm. Try one. They’re tasty. Hey, are they too humble for celebrities to eat?”
“No, they sound delicious!”
He had clearly come to greet them, but before he knew it, he was eating potatoes.
Even though he’d just had breakfast, they were fluffy and delicious.
Even that gentleman-like Kang Chaheon was silently peeling and eating potatoes.
The PDs in charge of Rowoon and Kang Chaheon weren’t much different.
“How is it? Alright?”
“Yes. It’s absolutely delicious.”
He’d only ever eaten potatoes a few times when they were part of a discounted hamburger set.
Who knew they could taste this good?
‘Being kidnapped… maybe it’s not so bad after all…?’
No.
At this point, it was actually better.
Hadn’t coming here allowed him to experience all kinds of flavors?
When Rowoon answered sincerely, the old man’s expression softened into a pleased smile.
“We have plenty in our field, so take some.”
“Huh? No, I can’t impose like that.”
“Imposing? What imposition? Take them. That whole area over there is a potato field. We’re too weak to dig them up now anyway, so you students can dig them and take them.“
I wondered what was in that vast field spread out before me—it was a potato field.
But as I listened, something felt off.
“Shouldn’t you be selling them?”
It was far too large to be just a hobby garden.
That scale could easily be considered professional farming.
“Digging them up would be a bigger loss.”
The elderly man’s expression darkened.
The story, as I heard it, went like this.
“Back in the day, these weren’t called potatoes, they were called ‘gold potatoes’ because they were so expensive.”
Last year, there was a bad harvest, and potato prices skyrocketed like crazy.
“Ah. I see. That’s why there was such a huge fuss about the potato supply shortage back then.”
A camera director chimed in, remembering something.
“Right. So everyone planted potatoes, you know? Who wouldn’t want to cash in on the high prices? Potato farming is pretty easy if you’ve got the land, so it’s no exaggeration to say nearly everyone planted them.”
But the problem was that, unlike last year, this year’s harvest was too good.
If it had been just average, prices wouldn’t have crashed this hard.
But a bumper crop like this was unheard of.
A bumper crop was good news, but not for the farmers.
“The price just plummeted. Half of last year’s price? Maybe a tenth, if that.”
The prices had fallen so drastically that harvesting itself became a loss.
Labor costs, logistics costs, storage costs, and so on.
The more they sold, the more money they actually lost.
“What can you do? Farming depends on the will of the heavens. There are good days and bad days. Anyway, that’s why you can just dig them up and take them whenever you want.”
His words, saying they could come anytime and take as much as they wanted, overflowed with genuine sincerity.
“Disposing of that stuff costs money too, money. I’d be grateful if you took it off my hands.”
A similar situation unfolded at the neighboring farm.
“Sweet potatoes? The prices have gone completely mad. Don’t even mention it. Ugh. But I guarantee the taste, so take as much as you need.”
And when they returned after finishing their rice cake delivery mission.
“…Did you guys go work in the fields?”
Kim Bonggeun, who had sent them off with the rice cakes, asked in a daze.
And no wonder – not only Rowoon, but Kang Chaheon and the camera directors were all loaded down with potatoes and sweet potatoes too.
That afternoon, a relief crop party broke out as an added bonus.
* * *
The third day after the abduction dawned.
In two days, the real guest reception would begin.
The day before yesterday, the first day, they had looked at the menu and bought ingredients.
Yesterday, the second day, they finalized the details and added a new item: emergency crops.
And today, the third day, full-scale practice was scheduled.
‘Ideas and actually making them are two different things.’
After having the production crew and staff taste the food, they also collected feedback on what was lacking.
“Ah, if we’re going to do this, we have to do it right. People came all this way, so they’d be upset if it tasted bad.”
Kim Bonggeun was more passionate than expected.
There were others overflowing with passion too.
“Wow… I didn’t think you’d actually go to the trouble of sourcing this.”
It was one of the PDs.
From the very first day of the kidnapping, and even the second day, he declared his full support with an already wildly excited expression, as if he had sensed something.
One of those things was the fish-shaped pancake mold right in front of him.
“Heh. What did I say? Didn’t I say I’d get it for you?”
Where on earth did he get this? It wasn’t a household model; he’d brought a machine sold at street stalls.
And now.
“…Didn’t you say this was a healing program?”
Wasn’t this practically a scam?
Rowoon thought seriously.
And no wonder—Rowoon hadn’t been able to leave the stove for hours now.
“They do say repeating the same motion over and over helps clear your mind of distractions…”
“But my arms hurt too much for that!”
His overworked arm muscles had been screaming in protest since earlier.
“Just bear with it a little longer. It’s better than him, right?”
Roun glanced sideways to look at ‘that guy’.
There, Kang Chaheon was already cleaning up the traces of what looked like fish-shaped pastries or rather, what appeared to be fish-shaped pastries for what felt like the umpteenth time.
“Who knew that Kang Chaheon had something he couldn’t do.”
Kim Bonggeun muttered, shaking his head.
Even amidst this, Kang Chaheon was steadfastly recording the consistency of the previous dough, preparing for yet another attempt.
‘Ha…’
Everything had been going smoothly until this sudden, abrupt halt.
The starting point for this mess was none other than a single remark from a PD earlier that morning.
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