After finishing at the register, Sikyung also left a video message for the granddaughter using the old man’s phone. The old man, delighted like a child, shook hands with Sikyung one last time and headed down to the underground parking lot.
And Sikyung, after having a small fan meeting with the fans gathered at the entrance like Yoonwoo had, headed for the bus.
“Alright, Sikyung is back! 6 minutes 53 seconds. Now, Cheonghyeon, you only have 13 minutes 7 seconds left.”
“Huh? It only took that long?”
“Yes. We only counted the time up to before the grandfather recognized you. With this, it looks like you’ll succeed?”
Sikyung had gotten good footage talking with the grandfather, and with this much time left, it was enough time for Cheonghyeon to shop.
Thinking they could also handle the evening mission afterward without trouble, the PD smiled in satisfaction.
Of course, if it was Cheonghyeon, the cooking illiterate who had only eaten plain rice, he might show a whole lot of clumsy appearance. Either way, thinking they could get entertaining footage no matter what, the PD’s mood lifted.
“Alright, Cheonghyeon, get ready.”
Cheonghyeon, who had been holding his breath in silence the entire time since Sikyung got caught, sprang up as if he had been waiting for those words. Among the members with their gloomy atmosphere, his confident appearance alone looked so bold and dignified that the production staff burst out laughing once.
“It looks like Cheonghyeon feels confident too, so why is everyone so gloomy?”
Cheonghyeon could not answer the PD’s question, and as he watched the members oddly avoid his eyes, he let out a small snort through his nose.
He knew what they were worried about, but right now, Cheonghyeon had built up quite a bit of confidence.
Watching what Sikyung did roughly, knowledge about the supermarket had entered his head.
What the members and the manager were worried about was probably that some variable would arise while talking with fans, but that was truly a pointless worry.
Why had the old Cheonghyeon, the one who had now become Isaac, struggled so much?
The old videos of Gi Cheonghyeon still had such a faint presence even now that his soul had changed. So of course, the new fans did not mix with East’s existing fandom.
If they diligently reviewed old content, it would be natural for them to seep into the other members too, but since that did not happen, they were even filming a reality show like this to create “chemistry.”
He could guarantee it: even that grandfather at the supermarket just now had recognized him because it was Sikyung.
If it had been him, there would have been no one asking if he was East. With the previous videos, they would not be able to match East’s “Cheonghyeon” to the current him.
And it was the same with the fan meeting after shopping. Unless someone who saw the essence, like Kwon Ihwa, suddenly appeared and asked, “What was the name of the title track you danced third after the fan signing four years ago ended?” there was almost no way his amnesia would be exposed.
With a light expression alone amid the members’ worries, Cheonghyeon headed to the supermarket.
Maybe because people had come after hearing the rumor spread on social media, the entrance area was packed with an enormous crowd, completely swarming.
Since there were so many people, the supermarket employees who had been chatting with the fans earlier were now controlling the fans. As he drew near the entrance, an employee who looked like the leader was guiding the fans through a loudspeaker.
“Alright, even if a member shows up, you need to keep order well. You know Yoonwoo couldn’t even shop and had to go back, right? You gotta let the young folks eat, don’t you? Don’t ask if it’s East, absolutely not. Understood?”
“Yes!”
The cameramen, apparently hearing the employee’s voice, smiled and zoomed in on Cheonghyeon’s face, where a smile was already hanging.
And as he got closer, the fans also seemed to spot the cluster of cameras, because the commotion at the entrance grew loud.
“Alright, alright, focus! Another member has arrived. Do not say it’s East, absolutely, and you must keep order well. You see those cameras, right? It’s all being filmed.”
The fans, who had almost lost their reason at the sight of Cheonghyeon, quickly came to their senses at the employee’s familiar dialect they had been hearing for ten minutes straight. Then, as if united, they shouted.
“Kyaaa, it’s Strawberry!!!”
“Strawberry! Can you look this way just once?”
At that, the cameramen hesitated, but Cheonghyeon smiled at ease, greeting the fans one by one, and stood at the entrance. Most of them looked older than him, but they felt cute like children.
They could not say East, and just in case, they were not even saying his name, and what they had chosen, after picking and choosing because they wanted to call him something, was Strawberry?
Could anything be cuter than this. Even people who were clearly fans of another member nearby cheered things like, “Strawberry, I love you!”
Cheonghyeon gave a small smile, turned his back to the entrance, and waved his greeting to the fans.
“I’ll succeed and come back. Thank you for cheering.”
At those words, the scene filled with cheers like an old fan signing. Hearing “Strawberry fighting!” here and there made him smile on its own.
The moment the automatic doors opened at the entrance, Cheonghyeon checked his wrist. The watch Hyeonbaragi and Gideon had gifted him before glittered on his wrist.
‘Thirteen minutes is enough.’
As soon as the doors opened, Cheonghyeon ran quickly to the fresh section. Maybe sensing he was the last one, unlike with Sikyung earlier, many fans quickly followed Cheonghyeon from outside the cameras’ range.
The supermarket employees also mingled with the fans, adjusting distances between fans, for the sake of preventing any accidents and for the convenience of regular customers who were not fans.
Cheonghyeon did the shopping, the production crew filmed, the fans watched, and the employees protected both the fans and the regular customers. It was a perfectly coordinated sight, each person doing what they had to do in their place.
The moment he entered the fresh section, Cheonghyeon widened his eyes at the unfamiliar feeling. Each time he turned his gaze, knowledge became embodied. If he tasted things directly, even more information would stack up.
And as he helped with the members’ dinner mission later, he would gain knowledge different from just eating.
Once all the memories the spirit gave him fully became embodied as his own knowledge, then he truly would be able to live like a native here.
“Here, onions, garlic, green onions, ginger. And leafy greens… spinach is here. The carrots that were in the braised short ribs… where are the potatoes?”
Watching Cheonghyeon, who gathered ingredients without pause, swiftly, like a shopping machine, the nearby fans and cameramen stared in fascination.
The fans whispered things like, “He must shop a lot normally,” and “He must be good at cooking,” but the cameramen, who had seen Cheonghyeon earlier that morning with a miserable face, spooning only plain rice into his mouth, exchanged glances and tilted their heads.
Usually, people who cannot cook are also clumsy at shopping.
The memories the spirit gave were subtly different from those of ordinary people.
Like a library, they were neatly categorized and organized, so unlike the members’ worries, Cheonghyeon could shop very quickly.
This was similar in context to how fans in the past had said, “He talks like a foreigner who learned Korean at a language institute.” Especially in places like big supermarkets or libraries, where categories were clearly divided, there was even less pressure when encountering them for the first time.
If he ever took a civil service exam later, he probably would not make mistakes in Korean, at least. Test takers said spacing, spelling, and grammar were very difficult, but for him, who held refined Korean language knowledge, it was not a big difficulty.
Humming, Cheonghyeon quickly left the vegetable section.
“I bought eggs and quail eggs, and beef is….”
Only six minutes had passed, so he had been confident, but when Cheonghyeon arrived at the meat section, for the first time he showed a troubled expression.
How many grams should I buy? Looking at the meat, whole cuts showing off a proud presence under red lighting behind glass, Cheonghyeon became worried. But only for a moment.
When he turned his eyes, a smile returned to his face. Kindly enough, in the refrigerated section next to it, there was meat neatly packed in aligned rows, labeled “for galbijjim.”
He went to the pork section beside it and put a chunk of pork labeled “for suyuk” into the cart too. Cheonghyeon’s shopping was going very smoothly.
Finally, when Cheonghyeon picked up the purged clams in the seafood section, the members on the bus shouted with cheers.
“Wow, Cheonghyeon!”
“We can eat now, hyung….”
Even Hando, who was usually quiet, stared at the laptop screen with a face full of emotion.
“Wow, even clams, 10 minutes 32 seconds. Grocery shopping success! That was perfect, wasn’t it?”
At the PD’s official line recognizing the success, the members smiled broadly and applauded.
Watching the members with a smile like they were watching cute kids, the head writer on the production side asked a question.
“But why were you all so worried? You all looked so gloomy that I thought Cheonghyeon would buy one potato and be done.”
The PD also chimed in like he was curious, and when he looked at the members, the members, who had been rolling their eyes around, opened their mouths.
“Well, we didn’t know Cheonghyeon would shop this well either. A guy who never even cared about cooking is shopping like he’s been going to the supermarket for thirty years…”
“We really raised Cheonghyeon hyung so he wouldn’t have to hold even one leaf of lettuce, you know? We don’t understand this situation right now.”
At that “one leaf of lettuce” line, everyone laughed again. And since today’s shopping mission ingredients did not even include lettuce, Cheonghyeon still had not held even a single leaf of lettuce.
When it got to that point, no one could stop the laughter spilling out.
“So as long as we just make sure he doesn’t hold lettuce, that’s enough, right?”
“That’s right. Then we raised him very delicately.”
At Yoonwoo’s playful retort, the PD smiled happily.
Even if it was a reality show meant mainly for fans, if there were no members with variety sense, the broadcast would not be fun. He had not expected much from their chemistry as members or their individual variety skills, but since they had been promoting together for more than six years, their teamwork was quite good.
It was a short reality planned as a quickly made, one off project, scheduled for four episodes, but if they kept this up, it felt like there would be quite a few requests for Season 2.
The PD waited for Cheonghyeon outside the camera frame and smiled in satisfaction.
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