Chapter 197: Is This the Land of Bunsik? (5) Fedora examined the business cards wedged between her fingers with bright, sparkling eyes.
"To think I would receive something called an entertainment agency business card—this is really fascinating. I thought it was something only drama protagonists experienced."
"Me too. I never thought someone around me would get scouted by an agency."
The company names on the cards ranged from small agencies he'd never heard of to major agencies he could recognize instantly just from the initials.
No, but in the time I was in the restroom, not just one—multiple managers came? Was I spacing out for a long time?
Just in case, Lee Jinseo pulled out his smartphone. After confirming that only about ten minutes had passed, he felt absurd that all this happened in that brief window.
"And it had to happen while I stepped away… you must've been put in a difficult spot."
"Not at all. Everyone treated me politely, so there was no issue. If I had to pick something that was difficult, those people called 'managers' explained things very earnestly, but there were so many technical terms that I couldn't properly understand them."
"Hah, seriously..."
Her appearance was enough to capture people's attention, but since it was the first time anyone had approached her like this, Lee Jinseo was flustered about what he should do from here on.
"And they all added the same thing. They said foreigners who speak the language here as well as I do are rare, and they urged me to come no matter what."
"So what did you do?"
"I told them I am affiliated with the Heirem Order, so I could not. Then they simply gave me their cards and withdrew."
Lee Jinseo forgot what to say as he watched Fedora answer with firm decisiveness, without even a sliver of hesitation.
Feels like they misunderstood and backed off, thinking she's in some kind of weird cult. But they still left their cards to the very end, so it doesn't seem like they've fully given up either. Still, thank god it didn't get more complicated. And Your Eminence doesn't look interested in becoming a celebrity anyway.
Lee Jinseo felt relieved, but he still couldn't fully shake his anxiety, because there was no guarantee this wouldn't happen again.
"Since more managers might come, should we close up for today?"
"Will that be alright? We haven't been here for very long. And Jungkook worked hard to secure this spot—closing so early doesn't seem right."
"Ah, that's true too. What do I do...."
Lee Jinseo put both hands on his hips, torn about what choice to make.
Meanwhile, Fedora began reading aloud the company names printed on the business cards one by one.
While the two of them were each lost in their own thoughts, people who saw the food truck sign began gathering one by one.
"Um… are you not selling right now?"
"No! Please wait just a moment!"
Since he couldn't send the customers who had already arrived away, Lee Jinseo hurried into the kitchen area and resumed selling bunsik.
As the counter area grew crowded again, Fedora returned to the table she had sat at earlier and opened the lid of the FrXggles jalapeño flavor she had bought last time at CoXtco.
"Now this is what Jinseo-nim is supposed to look like."
Watching Lee Jinseo carefully make bunsik for the customers waiting was the most familiar sight to her, and just looking at it made a smile bloom on her lips by itself.
But as she watched the customers eating the bunsik, the smile slowly began to fade from her face.
If she had looked bored before the agency managers left their business cards, now the feeling of dissatisfaction was openly written across her expression.
Huh? Why is she making that face? Did she not like the FrXggles jalapeño flavor? It's a taste that people can be divided on.
Lee Jinseo was bothered by Fedora's sudden shift in mood, but with orders coming in one after another, he couldn't properly check on her and had to focus entirely on making bunsik.
"Two portions of Tteok-twi-sun for takeout are ready."
"I'll enjoy it. Thanks for your hard work."
After processing the last order, Lee Jinseo hurriedly plated tteokbokki and stepped down from the food truck.
Fedora was still staring straight ahead with an unhappy face. Approaching from the side so he wouldn't block her view, Lee Jinseo carefully set the tteokbokki on the table.
"Your Eminence, did something happen?"
"It's not exactly that… I will eat this first."
Fedora ate the tteokbokki Lee Jinseo brought and watched the last remaining customer finish their bunsik and leave.
"This is strange."
"Huh? Is the taste very different from what you had on the Francia Continent?"
"No. Your tteokbokki is still delicious. What I find strange isn't that..."
Holding out a fork dripping with tteokbokki broth, Fedora pointed toward the customer's back as they walked away.
"Why are people here so quiet even after eating bunsik?"
"Quiet?"
"Every customer I've seen at the food truck until now was surprised and delighted by the taste of the bunsik you made. But in Korea, the homeland of bunsik, their reactions are far too indifferent. It feels as if your bunsik is being dismissed, and it doesn't feel very good. I don't believe Korean dining etiquette is to show no emotion even when truly delicious food appears..."
"So that's what you were thinking."
"Isn't it strange?"
"No. Here, it's normal."
The reactions of Korean customers were clearly different from the otherworld customers who would become happy and excited after even one bite of his cooking.
But Lee Jinseo found those Korean reactions entirely natural.
"That's because bunsik isn't a particularly special food here. People don't really rate a bunsik business that highly. And..."
"'You're just selling lousy bunsik… do you not know your place?'"
Lee Jinseo gave a bitter smile as he recalled those words that had once cut into his bones.
"Jinseo-nim? Are you alright? D-did I say something wrong?"
Seeing a shadow fall across Lee Jinseo's face, Fedora didn't know what to do.
"No. It just reminded me of the past for a moment. I'm fine. Ah—there's a customer coming."
With a bitter smile, Lee Jinseo returned to the kitchen area.
"Welco—"
Lee Jinseo was about to put on his usual business smile as he faced two women who looked like a mother and daughter.
But the moment he recognized their faces, his words trailed off and his expression stiffened.
"Oh my! Aren't you the son from Jinseo Bunsik? You are, right?"
Behind the middle-aged woman, who made a huge fuss as she recognized him, her daughter lingered, unable to keep her gaze in one place.
She was Lee Jinseo's ex-girlfriend—someone he had once dated, but had broken up with several years ago.
"Yes, that's right."
"But you're running a food truck now? What about the bunsik shop you used to have?"
"I closed it."
"Hm… yeah, figures."
Smiling meaningfully to herself, the middle-aged woman set the bag slung over her shoulder down on the counter seat with a thud.
"This food truck—how much did it cost to buy? Could you buy it with the deposit from the old shop?"
The middle-aged woman thrust her head forward and inspected the food truck from corner to corner.
Her gaze wasn't the curious look otherworld customers often had. It was a gaze searching for something to nitpick, or a place to look down on.
"It's been a few years since I last saw you, but it looks like you've been doing alright?"
"More or less."
"As for me, nothing's changed. But the price of the new place I moved into has gone up like crazy, you know..."
Without ordering anything, the middle-aged woman suddenly started bragging about herself.
The daughter who came with her looked uncomfortable and tried to grab her mother's arm and leave the food truck, but she kept chattering and didn't stop.
After over ten minutes of the middle-aged woman's nonstop boasting, Fedora—who had been sitting silently at a nearby table—stood up and walked into the kitchen area.
"Huh? What—she wasn't a customer? A part-timer? And she's foreign?"
The middle-aged woman swept her gaze over Fedora standing to Lee Jinseo's left.
"She's pretty. Not the kind of face that should be working in a place like this, but I guess she's got it rough. You can practically see the cheapness dripping off her clothes. Still, with that face, she'll pull customers pretty well, right? Jinseo, you really are ski—"
"Jinseo-nim, are they people you know?"
"They were regulars back when I ran the bunsik shop."
When fluent Korean came out of Fedora's mouth, the mother and daughter startled and stared at her.
"Hm… I see."
Fedora swept her eyes over the middle-aged woman from head to toe, then fixed her gaze on the daughter standing silently behind.
Then she grabbed Lee Jinseo's left arm and linked arms with him.
"Car— no, Fedora-nim?"
"Stay still."
Fedora whispered quietly into Lee Jinseo's ear as he panicked.
"I haven't been in Korea for very long, so there are still many parts of the etiquette here I do not know."
With eyes even more serious and stern than when she officiated Mass at Kaysus Cathedral, Fedora stared at the two women.
"However, what you said to Jinseo-nim did not sound like words that would be received well even in countries other than Korea. To my ears, it sounded like a sarcastic tone, and I would like to ask whether that is simply my misunderstanding."
"W-well, that's..."
"And I would also like to address what you just said about me. I believe inappropriate expressions were used for someone you are meeting for the first time, and I would like to know whether I am mistaken."
Faced with Fedora speaking clearly and without hesitation, the middle-aged woman couldn't answer and only moved her mouth.
Normally she would have barked, asking how a younger person dared talk back to an adult, but since the other person was a foreigner, she only floundered, unable to do anything.
"No, I mean—that's not what I—"
"You keep repeating that it's not what you meant, but I wonder what kind of reaction you would get if you stopped any random passerby and said the exact same words."
Fedora dissected the woman's words point by point, refuting her without allowing any counterattack.
The longer it went on, the more the middle-aged woman's face turned red, while Fedora stayed calm, stating only what she needed to say.
"By the way, didn't you come to order bunsik? What will you be ordering?"
"I—I didn't come to eat some lousy bunsik!"
"Then you may go on your way."
Still linked with Lee Jinseo, Fedora extended only her right arm to the side and gestured for her to leave.
In the end, the middle-aged woman had to retreat without even managing a proper rebuttal to Fedora.
She was so furious that even as she left the park, her shoulders shook.
The daughter calmed her mother while looking back toward the food truck, but Lee Jinseo had already turned his gaze away elsewhere.
"Jinseo-nim, if it will not be rude, I would like to ask what relationship you have with the young woman among the two who came earlier."
"Well..."
Lee Jinseo hesitated, torn about whether to say it.
But faced with Fedora's more serious demeanor than ever, he decided to be honest.
"We used to date. The older woman with her was her mother."
"As I thought."
"Well, it's all in the past now. I let go of any lingering feelings a long time ago. Hearing what you said also made me feel relieved. But why did you suddenly do that? I was really startled."
"Did I speak too harshly?"
"That's not it—this arm..."
Lee Jinseo looked down awkwardly at Fedora, who still had his left arm tightly held.
"I don't know. It's just… when I looked into that woman's eyes..."
The mother's eyes had openly looked down on Lee Jinseo, but the daughter's eyes had been a tangled mess of emotions as she looked at him.
"I felt like I had to do this."
Fedora didn't move away from Lee Jinseo—she pressed even closer.
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