“Ah, so that’s why you kept sulking?”
After the production crew left, Changsik burst into cackling laughter at Cheonghyeon’s worries.
He patted Cheonghyeon and told him not to worry and to just focus on filming, saying that this PD was famous for saving the mood by adding witty captions even in situations that were insanely not fun.
Along with the advice that even if he slept all day, this was the kind of person who would practically write a whole novel in captions and keep viewers completely hooked, so there was nothing to worry about.
Cheonghyeon had once felt the dignity of a capable PD on <My Home, My Purchase>.
He had seen with his own eyes a house that was nothing like the kind of “Han River view apartment” people usually imagine, a place that looked like a ruin, get transformed into a dream home, so Changsik’s advice helped settle his mind quite a bit.
A professional really is a professional.
To begin with, you cannot judge a master by an ordinary person’s standards. With a single word from the emperor, a bare winter garden could become a spring garden in full bloom overnight.
Is that not what an expert and a master is, making what cannot be done become possible?
With a lighter heart, Cheonghyeon went into his room.
Rustle.
At dawn the next day, the youngest assistant director, who had been told the password in advance, entered the dorm and turned on all the cameras.
It was the true beginning of the reality show. No one knew how far things would be laid bare.
As the morning sunlight brightened, Cheonghyeon sleepily opened his eyes. What time is it….
“Hi, Bixby.”
In a low voice, still heavy with sleep, he called the phone’s AI assistant.
It was the guy he thought of, in his head, as a portable Henry.
It felt pretty amazing that if he just asked, it would tell him the weather, the time, major news, and so on, so ever since coming to this world, it had been a very useful function.
“What time is it right now?”
“It is 6:27 a.m.”
“What’s the weather like today?”
“Today in Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, it will be clear and sunny. The low will be 4 degrees and the high will be 13 degrees. The current temperature is 6 degrees, and fine dust levels are moderate. Since mornings and evenings are chilly, please be mindful of what you wear when going out.”
He usually woke up around 7:30, but somehow he had woken up an hour earlier. If it were another day, he might have done something, but today he decided to just sleep more.
Lately, he had been staying up all night reading the letters posted on the official cafe, so his life pattern was completely wrecked. Besides, they said they would add funny captions even if he did nothing but sleep…
If you’re filming a reality show, you cannot even take a nap, so you should sleep a lot in advance. That was how he rationalized it, did the rough math in his head, and then burrowed back under the blanket.
The dimness of dawn made his body feel even heavier for no reason.
Then should I sleep a little more.
“Hyeon-ah… Cheonghyeon. Are you going to sleep more? Should we get up now?”
At the whispered voice, Cheonghyeon’s eyelids fluttered and he hovered on the edge of waking, and the presumed owner of the voice stroked his hair. Satisfied by the touch, he stopped forcing his eyes open and fell asleep again with a peaceful face, and then another voice came from beside him.
“Hyung, are you crazy? How can you stroke him right now. He’s going to fall asleep again.”
“Ah, right. What do we do? Should we let him sleep thirty more minutes?”
“Then, hyung, tell Hando hyung to reheat breakfast again in thirty minutes. Of course he’ll reheat it, but you won’t have a bowl then.”
Then, as if flustered, the first voice tickled his ear again.
“Cheonghyeon, should we get up? Did you fall asleep again? Aren’t you hungry?”
When he gently put strength into his eyes, he saw two guys shielding him from the strong sunlight while waking him up. As he wriggled around, putting effort into his body to get up, Sikyung and Yoonwoo gave a “Heave ho” and hauled him upright.
“Hurry and wash up and eat. Hando made breakfast this morning.”
At the news that it was Hando’s turn for breakfast, a piece of information capable of making even a sleep-drunk body spring up, Cheonghyeon staggered to his feet and headed to the bathroom.
When he came to his senses, cameras were running here and there, and the cameramen were filming while hiding.
‘Are we not allowed to acknowledge them?’
He mouthed the question at Yoonwoo, and Yoonwoo nodded. It seemed like, as in <Uyeonri>, he was supposed to not pay attention to the camera directors.
He decided to treat them like they did not exist, and nodded as if to say he understood.
“Okay, hold on! Please look over here for a moment.”
When he came out after washing up, the breakfast Hando had prepared was laid out beautifully across the table. Just as they were about to eat together, the PD suddenly stepped in to stop them.
‘What is this? Why are you talking to us?’
Did they not say to pretend you do not know the cameramen during the broadcast? Is the PD an exception?
With a confused heart, he clenched his spoon tightly and looked at the PD, and the PD looked at the members as if he found them cute.
“Now, Mr. Hando prepared a delicious breakfast for you, right?”
When the members nodded, the PD made a bombshell announcement.
“You’re going to eat all of this deliciously, and then the members are going grocery shopping. This filming mission is: everything that touched your spoon and chopsticks today, you must make the exact same thing for Mr. Hando. If you say, ‘I’m confident with stir fried squid,’ then eat the stir fried squid. And then in the evening, you must make the same stir fried squid for Mr. Hando. Also, when you shop, you have to pick the ingredients yourselves too, so be careful.”
At the PD’s words, the members froze with their chopsticks and spoons in their hands. Hando also made an awkward face. Since it was a broadcast and it was his turn for breakfast for the first time in a while, he had put effort into it in his own way, but the problem was that the foods were difficult for the members to make.
“I have a question! What about kimchi? This is what Hando’s mother gave us, so if we eat this, do we have to make kimchi and give it back to her?”
At Yoonwoo’s playful comment, the PD thought for a moment, then set the rule that kimchi alone would be an exception. Consideration for Koreans, or something like that.
“Alright, then we start now. Every single food that your chopsticks and spoon touch! You cannot eat with your hands. Then, enjoy your meal!”
Despite the PD’s excited greeting, the members could not easily start using their chopsticks. Yoonwoo targeted the kimchi and the fried eggs, and Sikyung, who took pride in his cooking skills, started picking at this and that while avoiding the trickier foods. Only Cheonghyeon stayed frozen.
He was hungry, but he had to eat only plain rice. At least he could make rice.
You just put rice and water in that machine, right?
But for the other dishes, not a single recipe came to mind.
In the first place, there were even more ingredients he still had not tried, so he did not properly know them.
That looks delicious…
Looking at the glossy foods shining with a sheen, Cheonghyeon spooned plain rice into his mouth. It did not taste good.
As Cheonghyeon gloomily picked at only his rice, the members watching and the PD laughed together.
The cameraman looked quite focused, like he was doing a close-up of Cheonghyeon’s expression. But seeing the corners of his mouth lifted behind the camera, it seemed even to him the situation was pretty funny.
In this situation, the only one who could not laugh was Cheonghyeon.
“Right now, Mr. Cheonghyeon is only eating plain rice, you know? Can you not even make a fried egg? We said you can eat kimchi too.”
At the PD’s teasing tone, Cheonghyeon’s expression grew more and more sulky. A fried egg? He had never even cracked an egg.
Naturally, paying at a store with S Pay and cooking were different things.
To not only know it as knowledge but have it come out naturally as action, two conditions were needed: it had to be an action that the original Cheonghyeon was familiar with enough to do naturally, and it had to be knowledge a man in his twenties would commonly know.
The method for frying an egg itself was something anyone would commonly know, but it did not seem like an action the original Cheonghyeon would have been familiar with enough to do naturally.
Even the knowledge the spirit had put in did not come easily to mind unless he experienced it directly. Only by seeing it and touching it did knowledge fully become embodied.
But for it to flow naturally not just as knowledge, but as action, it had to be something the original Cheonghyeon had done dozens, hundreds of times.
And instinctively, he could feel that the owner of these fine hands was absolutely not someone accustomed to frying eggs himself. He probably always used a delivery app for meals.
In childhood, he must have grown up eating what a housekeeper prepared. Cheonghyeon swallowed the countless excuses swirling in his mouth in place of side dishes, and silently scooped up small bites of plain rice.
I got up because Sikyung hyung said he’d let me eat something tasty! If it was going to be like this, I should have just slept more.
When he glared with resentful eyes, Sikyung laughed awkwardly.
“Ah, what do we do? Cheonghyeon wouldn’t wake up, so Hando made breakfast, and I woke him up asking if he was going to keep sleeping. I feel so bad making him eat only plain rice.”
When Sikyung looked at the PD with an embarrassed expression, the PD shrugged. And added, saying it was fortunate that Mr. Cheonghyeon knew how to make rice.
At that moment, as if he had a good idea, Sikyung picked up a quail egg from in front of him and brought it to Cheonghyeon’s mouth.
“This is okay, right? I can just feed you. Cheonghyeon, you don’t have to use chopsticks.”
“Huh, what? Wait a second.”
The PD, who had been smiling in circles the whole time, panicked and started consulting the staff, and in that gap, Cheonghyeon quickly accepted the quail egg and ate it. Yoonwoo also grinned and picked up some seasoned dried squid strips, pushing it toward Cheonghyeon’s mouth.
“PD, rules are rules. It’s only the food that touched your own spoon and chopsticks that you have to make, right?”
When even Yoonwoo joined in, the PD raised both hands like he had no choice.
“That’s a method I truly did not expect…. No, but isn’t it so embarrassing for guys to feed each other like this? You do not even do this with family!”
“We’ve been living together for years. We’re closer than family. Right, hyung?”
When Yoonwoo smiled slyly, Cheonghyeon nodded and jerked his chin.
Hurry, that. The clam soup.
Seeing Cheonghyeon, who had pitifully been eating only plain rice, now getting excited and eagerly taking bites like a sparrow, the PD could not say anything anymore.
“Enjoy your meal….”
At the PD’s exaggerated groaning, the staff watching also snickered and laughed.
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