Chapter 176: Country Diner (2)

The staff members that had come back to the lodge from the hellish march with Kang Ra-Eun collapsed on the spot. Ra-Eun was the only perfectly fine one among them.

Director Choo approached the exhausted Camera Director Kim and asked, “Wha... What in the world happened?”

“Director... I don’t think I can film Ra-Eun exercising... We’ll pass out at this rate.”

“It was that bad? But you said you were confident in your running skills.”

He was indeed confident, but he had been no match for Ra-Eun. Unlike the half-dead staff members, Ra-Eun calmly stretched her ankles to end her morning workout. The male cast members had still not returned from the land of dreams even after Ra-Eun had come back from her workout.

Director Choo gave Ra-Eun a suggestion before she was about to go wash up, “I think it’d be good if you filmed waking up the other cast members. What do you think?”

Variety programs frequently showed cast members that woke up first, waking up the rest. Entertaining content was not meant to be used sparingly, and Director Choo expected that Ra-Eun waking up the male members would be entertaining content.

‘Well, I’m being paid to do this.’

Ji Han-Seok had emphasized the therapeutic aspect of the program, but Ra-Eun had prioritized the work aspect of it more, hence why she had readily allowed the filming of her morning workout.

“I understand. I’ll do it,” Ra-Eun answered.

Director Choo handed Ra-Eun a small camcorder.

“Take this with you. It’s up to you which one you’d like to wake up first.”

“In that case... I’ll start with Tae-Chan.”

Tae-Chan had debuted far earlier than Ra-Eun, which made him her sunbae, but she felt the most comfortable around him since they were the same age. His room was closest to the front door of the lodge.

Creak.

Ra-Eun carefully entered his room and saw Tae-Chan fast asleep with the blanket almost covering his entire head. Her mischief senses started to tingle. She went right up to Tae-Chan’s ear, and then...

“Wah!” she exclaimed.

“Aaahhh—! What the...!” Tae-Chan floundered about in surprise.

Ra-Eun, who had caught all of that on her camcorder, asked as if nothing had happened with a smile, “Did you sleep well?”

Tae-Chan, still half-asleep, did not even seem to realize where he was right now.

“...Oh, right. We came to Haenam for a shoot.”

“Go wash your face. You’re a mess.”

“Oh, wow. You’re right.”

However, he was not an idol for nothing; he was still fairly handsome despite having just woken up.

‘No wonder he’s popular with older women.’

Ra-Eun then headed to Han-Seok’s room right next door, but her wake-up plan had failed. Han-Seok had already woken up right when she opened the door. He pointed at Tae-Chan’s room next to his while looking at Ra-Eun holding a camcorder.

“Tae-Chan screamed so loud that it woke me up.”

“That’s a shame.”

Ra-Eun had been planning on scaring Han-Seok as well, but it was too early to be disappointed since Je-Woon still remained. Unlike Tae-Chan and Han-Seok, Je-Woon had used a room deep in the lodge, so he was too far away to hear Tae-Chan’s scream.

Just as Ra-Eun was about to open the door, the events of yesterday popped up in her head.

‘He’s not sleeping with his clothes off, is he?’

She was fine with seeing it, but it was a bit of a problem to be broadcasted. Ra-Eun opened the door ajar with the camcorder covered and peeked inside. As a result...

‘...Let’s skip this room.’

It was probably best that Ra-Eun did not enter this room.

***

It was 8:30 AM. According to the elderly couple that owned the country diner, the diner usually opened at 10:30 AM. There weren’t anyone in the countryside going to work early in the morning, so there was no need to open the diner early for people wanting to have breakfast before going to work.

However, that didn’t mean it was not busy in the morning; rather, it was the busiest time of their day. Han-Seok and Tae-Chan headed out to the market in a truck to procure the ingredients themselves, and Ra-Eun and Je-Woon were put in charge of cleaning the diner. There were cameras all over the diner like an observation reality show.

“How about we take a short break, Ra-Eun?” Je-Woon suggested.

“Okay, sunbae.”

After they finished cleaning the diner, they took a break while getting some fresh air outside. Je-Woon asked about what had happened this morning.

“You sneaked into Tae-Chan and Han-Seok’s rooms this morning to wake them up, right?”

“Yes. Director Choo wanted some entertaining content, so I gave it a try.”

“But why didn’t you sneak into my room?”

“Because you were sleeping with your clothes off.”

“Oh... Makes sense.”

He had almost shown Ra-Eun himself in only underwear yet again.

“Do you sleep naked, sunbae?” Ra-Eun asked.

“No, not completely naked. I just take off my shirt.”

“Oh, I see. Half-nude, is it?”

“That sounds a bit weird, but I guess so.”

It was not like Ra-Eun was wrong.

“What about you, Ra-Eun?” Je-Woon asked.

“I even take my underwear off when sleeping on hot days.”

“R-Really?”

Je-Woon was left flustered by Ra-Eun’s unexpectedly frank answer. He even wondered if this was going to be put in the show. However, Ra-Eun herself did not mind it much, since it was not like she had shown him her naked body.

“A-Anyway. I’m glad I have a fellow comrade. But don’t do that during the shoot. It’d be a huge problem if there were to be an accident,” Je-Woon remarked.

“I know. I slept fully clothed yesterday, so you don’t have to worry.”

“That’s a relief.”

As their conversation was on the border between the all-ages and mature rating, they could see a truck coming their way from a distance. Han-Seok and Tae-Chan, who had gone to the market to procure ingredients, parked the truck in front of the diner.

“There were tons of the elderly in the market. Lots of fresh ingredients too.”

The seafood especially stood out since the village was right next to the ocean. Ra-Eun was glad upon looking through the ingredients.

.

“We can make a bouillon using the mussels and clams. As for the croaker and mackerel, we can grill them.”

Ra-Eun could already picture what dishes they could make just from looking at the ingredients.

“Let’s get to preparing the ingredients,” she remarked.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

The male cast members energetically nodded.

***

Ra-Eun had once wondered in her past life what she would do once she retired from bodyguarding. She thought about many things, and one of them had been to open up a restaurant since she loved to cook.

‘But I never expected my dream to be fulfilled like this.’

Of course, this diner was not in her name, but opportunities like this did not come often. Ra-Eun cleaned the fish that she had prepared, removed the remaining moisture with a paper towel, and seasoned it with salt after scoring it.

She then poured cooking oil on a preheated frying pan and grilled the fish on medium heat for three to four minutes. One needed to be careful when grilling fish, since grilling it on too high a heat or for too long would cause the skin to stick on to the pan.

‘This should be good enough.’

Ra-Eun plated the grilled croaker and mackerel for the three male cast members to taste.

“Let me know how it tastes,” she expressed.

They each grabbed a bite-sized portion of the two fish with their chopsticks for an indifferent taste test.

Munch, munch.

After chewing on the fish meat, they exclaimed simultaneously, “This is delicious!”

“Wow, Ra-Eun. You only seasoned this with salt, right? You didn't add any other seasoning?”

“Yes, just salt,” she replied.

They were surprised twice over; once from the taste, and once more from the fact that the fish had only been seasoned with salt.

“You’re great at seasoning.”

“This is seriously pro-level.”

They had never expected Ra-Eu to be so good at cooking. Han-Seok was a good cook, but Ra-Eun did not lose to him at all. Je-Woon and Tae-Chan gained more confidence in running the diner thanks to Ra-Eun and Han-Seok being with them.

“I’ll go switch the sign outside to ‘Open.’”

It was 10:30 AM, the time for the country diner to open.

***

They had enthusiastically opened the diner, but...

Thwack!

“Only flies...”

Thwack!

Tae-Chan, who had already swatted five flies, looked around the diner in disappointment.

“After all that we’ve prepared...”

The other three cast members sympathized with him, but there was no way for customers to fully know how much hard work they had put into this.

Han-Seok came out of the kitchen for a moment and dejectedly consoled Tae-Chan, “According to the owner of this diner, customers will start coming at around 11:30 AM. Let’s wait until then.”

“Will they really come?” Tae-Chan asked in return.

“Wouldn’t they? I’m sure this diner has some regular customers of its own.”

The program would end as a complete disaster if absolutely no customers came. The production team sometimes recruited people to pretend to be customers if the restaurant was too deserted, but the cast members hoped for things not to reach that level.

“Or why don’t you tout for customers outside, Tae-Chan?”

“Wouldn’t Ra-Eun be better suited for that than me? I’m sure people would swarm here with a simple smile from her.”

“You have a point there.”

The point was hard to deny. However, something like that would only work if there were even people outside the diner. Not only were there no people, there wasn’t even a single passing vehicle.

As the cast members continued to be in dejection, Je-Woon, who had been outside, rushed inside and exclaimed, “They’re coming!”

“What’s coming?”

“Customers! What else?!”

The cast members hurried to greet their very first customer.

Jingle—!

The small bell attached to the door rang.

“Welcome!”

Two men assumed to be in their late fifties entered the diner. Ra-Eun almost unconsciously frowned once she saw them.

‘They reek of alcohol!’

Their first group of customers was two drunk old men. They were in danger from the very beginning.