TGMC 18

chapter 18

“They Said Filming Is Okay!”

These days, her life was a daily battlefield.

It made sense.
Elementary school vacation.

The children were set loose because of it.

The once-quiet house had become as noisy as a crowded market.

It was only quiet when the kids were at their academies.
Once they came back, chaos followed.

Today again, the kids were whining, asking for hamburgers for dinner.

She had soothed them by saying they would go eat hamburgers as soon as their dad got off work.

But when the children’s father came home, he suddenly suggested eating out.

The kids got excited, thinking they were going to get hamburgers.

“Where on earth are we going?”

The place their father took them to was a Korean buffet restaurant located in a remote area.

The kids were already on the verge of tears, so he promised to buy them hamburger sets if the food wasn’t good. Only then did they go inside.

They ordered pork belly, soybean paste stew, and rice, without much expectation.

The side dishes on the table tasted ordinary.

She couldn’t understand why her husband had come all the way out here just to eat.

Then suddenly, he held out a bowl of rice.

“Try it. Just try it.”

Rice tasted the same everywhere anyway.

That’s what she thought as she took a bite.

…What?

Why is this rice so good?

What kind of taste is this?

What rice variety is this? Odae rice? That’s what we use at home too.

Her mind became complicated.

Still, the kids absolutely refused to eat rice.

If they ate rice, they wouldn’t get hamburgers, so they were clearly doing it on purpose.

In the end, she ordered ramen.

She had to get something into their stomachs.

Freshly cooked ramen was placed on the table.

But the smell of the broth was no joke.

She had a feeling.

This ramen was going to be special too.

Slurp.

The kids started eating the ramen.

“Wow, Mom! This ramen is really good!”

“It’s the best!”

They weren’t starving or anything.

Yet the kids were eating ravenously.

Then the father picked up his chopsticks and started eyeing the ramen the older child was eating.

“Can Dad have just one bite?”

Normally, she would have scolded him for trying to eat the kids’ food.

But today, she also wanted to try just one bite.

What kind of ramen taste was it, that the kids were hugging the bowl to themselves?

She couldn’t stop herself.

Her instincts tempted her.

In the end, unable to resist, she spoke to the man sitting at the counter.

“Excuse me, can we get one more bowl of ramen?”

The table was a complete mess.

Two servings of pork belly, one soybean paste stew, four bowls of rice, and two bowls of ramen.

And then another ramen order.

When the ramen was brought out, split half and half,

the two adults finished it and even mixed rice into the broth.

They were sweating profusely but didn’t stop eating.

The bowls and pots were so clean they looked washed.

I gathered the dishes, took them to the return counter, and wiped the table clean.

Then I sat at the counter and waited blankly, but there was no sign of new customers.

It was midwinter.

A restaurant located in a remote part of Nagok-ri.

Unless word spread, this wasn’t a place people visited easily.

“Minwoo, let’s stop here for today and close up.”

“Yes, Mom.”

We decided to end dinner service.

Mom had to wake up early again tomorrow to prepare side dishes.

It was better to let her rest as much as possible.

I washed dishes together with her.

Then, just as we were about to close the restaurant and head upstairs,

Mom opened the door of the new refrigerator she had recently bought.

Inside were four PET bottles filled with fake mineral water.

After staring at them quietly, Mom turned to me and asked,

“Minwoo, about this mineral water… how much can you bring?”

This wasn’t mineral water.

It was water Bangul created.

It could be produced endlessly.

“No matter how much you need, I can bring plenty. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Really? That’s a relief, but…”

“Mom, starting tomorrow, how about using this water when making side dishes too? Instead of tap water.”

“I was thinking the same. The rice tastes better, and the kids loved the ramen earlier too. This water doesn’t seem ordinary.”

That’s right.

That water isn’t ordinary.

It’s spirit water.

Because of that, the effect was tremendous.

The difference in sales between before the renovation and today was enormous.

Dozens of construction workers ate at our restaurant during lunch.

They weren’t just passing customers—most of them bought meal tickets.

One of them even came back with his family.

All of that was possible because the food tasted different.

Rice cooked with spirit water.

Only our restaurant could do that.

‘Would the effect be the same if we used spirit water for side dishes too?’

A sudden question crossed my mind.

Then Bangul appeared in the kitchen and spoke to me.

[It won’t be exactly the same.]

According to Bangul,

There would be differences depending on the dish.

Dishes that used a lot of water, like soups, would be effective.

On the other hand, seasoned vegetable side dishes would have minimal effect, since the water is usually squeezed out.

[But there’s another way.]

Bangul suggested an alternative.

Growing ingredients directly in the garden.

If we watered the vegetables while growing them, they would absorb spirit power from the start, making the dishes taste much better.

[It would be even better if you let Deomdeom till the soil. They’d absorb not only my spirit power, but Deomdeom’s too.]

Bangul and Deomdeom.

Crops grown by those two.

What would dishes made from those crops taste like?

I couldn’t even imagine it.

But I could easily predict they’d be amazing.

‘Thanks, Bangul. I’ll definitely keep that in mind when we prepare the garden in spring.’

For now, I suggested to Mom that we try making side dishes with spirit water.

“When winter passes and we plow the garden in spring, it’d be good to water the vegetables with this too.”

“Yes, let’s do that. Then customers will come like they used to. Right?”

“Of course. It’s definitely possible.”

“When your grandmother used to run this restaurant, people lined up for one or two hours…”

Mom drifted into memories.

Happy Restaurant originally belonged to my maternal grandmother.

Back then, her cooking was special, and customers flocked in.

People came from all over the country.

The area in front of the restaurant was always packed, and TV stations even came to film multiple times.

But after my grandmother suddenly passed away, everything stopped.

If only the recipes had been passed down…

But because it was so sudden, Mom inherited nothing.

She took over the restaurant later, but

there was no way the food could taste the same.

Regular customers slowly stopped coming.

The once-bustling restaurant became quiet, and the beautiful hanok my grandmother lived in became abandoned.

Eventually, profits dropped so low that even paying Mom’s labor properly became difficult.

Still, Mom kept running the restaurant because it was filled with memories of her mother.

But now, it was time for change.

She planned to restore its former vitality.

With the help of the spirits I had contracted with, it wouldn’t be difficult at all.

In fact, change had already begun.

“Huh? The side dishes taste even better than yesterday.”

“Yeah. Yesterday only the rice was good, but today the side dishes are amazing too.”

“We should refill the side dishes more.”

“Boss, you’re improving day by day. Thanks for the great meal.”

“These days, I can’t wait for lunchtime because of this place. Thanks for the meal.”

The next day, the workers came back to Happy Restaurant.

They ate the side dishes Mom had prepared since dawn without a break.

Judging by their expressions, they were all satisfied.

There was a reason for that.

In times of high prices like these, it’s hard to find a 7,000-won buffet.

And if that restaurant is right across from the worksite and all the food tastes great?

Word was bound to spread.

Workers telling other workers.

Families talking about it with friends.

Either way, Happy Restaurant slowly began to be known.

Maybe because of that,

after a few days,

outsiders started visiting one by one.

Customers gradually increased, showing signs of a big hit.

But the other business I was ambitiously preparing still hadn’t made much progress.

‘When is YouTube going to blow up?’

My YouTube channel was slowly getting reactions.

But even so, subscribers had only just reached 1,000.

I looked for advice online, and they said you need to ride the algorithm, but it seemed my channel hadn’t caught it yet.

So it was stagnating lately.

There wasn’t much more I could do.

All I could do was wait patiently.

‘I should go film Samsek later.’

Samsek, the first kitten born to Jeomsuni.

As time passed, Samsek was growing into a beautiful cat.

She would casually approach me and rub her tail against me.

Unlike Jeomsuni, who was still wary of me, Samsek was extremely friendly.

“Samsek.”

The moment I called her, she ran out of the shed.

I bent my knees and petted her.

She immediately purred loudly.

Samsek was definitely a dog-like cat.

The other kittens, on the other hand, weren’t as close yet.

They darted away like lightning, avoiding my touch.

But we’d get closer soon enough.

‘Come to think of it, I should start thinking about spaying and neutering…’

Samsek would be possible.

But Jeomsuni and the others? No chance.

As I was pondering how to persuade them and checking on the other stray cats in the backyard,

my phone rang.

It was Mom.

[Son, where are you?]

“I’m in the backyard. Why?”

[Then come to the restaurant quickly. It’s a big deal.]

A big deal?

What kind of big deal could happen in such a quiet countryside?

Puzzled, I headed to the restaurant.

Lunch service had just ended, so it was relatively quiet.

But Mom was in the kitchen, holding her phone and pacing anxiously.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, you see… I just got a call.”

“A call?”

“Yes, I mean… ah…”

Mom struggled to continue.

Who called to make her this nervous?

“Well, anyway, they said they’re Kim Hajun’s manager. They asked if they could come eat later and whether filming would be okay.”

“…Who? Kim Hajun’s manager?”

“Yes. That’s what they said.”

Huh?

Kim Hajun?

Wait.

Is it the Kim Hajun I know?

Two million YouTube subscribers.

Once a famous ballad singer who dominated Korea, now a food YouTuber who travels around finding local restaurants.

He’s notorious among locals.

Because he reveals restaurants only locals know, crowds flood in and locals can’t eat there anymore.

That’s how big his influence is.

And Kim Hajun wants to come to our restaurant?

Where did he hear about us?

I was stunned for a moment.

But this was an opportunity.

“Mom, tell them filming is okay.”