* * *
Dressed in a crisp black suit with a bright red apron emblazoned with the “Yeongdeok Chicken” logo, Yeongdeok confidently fried chicken.
After serving the first customer, he was about to return to the kitchen when he noticed Jihoon sitting at a table, beckoning him over.
Yeongdeok approached him.
“I thought you’d gone home.”
“Two fried chickens. Let’s see how good your chicken really is.”
Jihoon’s eyes were burning with a determined fire.
Yeongdeok recalled what he knew about Seo Jihoon.
A young man who wasn’t well-off but worked hard. Something like that, anyway.
He probably had enough money for the chicken, right?
Yeongdeok was a bit doubtful about Jihoon’s financial situation, but since he was a neighbor, he figured he could let him have 20,000 won on credit.
If worse came to worst, he could just think of it as charity to a beggar.
After all, where else would you find such a generous, obsessive chicken shop owner?
“Alright.”
Just as Yeongdeok was about to leave after taking the order, Jihoon slammed the table.
The noise made Yeongdeok turn around again.
“Alright? Isn’t it rude to speak informally to a customer? Shouldn’t you be more polite?”
Jihoon smirked with a cocky grin. Yeongdeok considered his words for a moment.
Soon, he concluded that Jihoon was right.
He should be more polite to customers.
“Thank you for pointing that out.”
“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, you should speak politely to customers.”
As Yeongdeok calmly agreed, Jihoon seemed a bit flustered.
While he found Jihoon’s behavior quite pitiful, Yeongdeok reminded himself to maintain a good relationship with him and forced a friendly smile.
However, all he got in return was a wary look.
He had no idea why Jihoon seemed so defensive when he was being so nice.
Yeongdeok went straight to the kitchen and fried the two chickens Jihoon had ordered.
Soon, he placed them in front of Jihoon.
“Here, your chicken. I mean, here is your chicken.”
“If this tastes bad, you’re gonna pay….”
Jihoon growled as if challenging him, but Yeongdeok only found his behavior ridiculous.
Jihoon grabbed a drumstick and bit into it aggressively.
As he chewed, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he soon scowled deeply.
“What’s wrong? You don’t like it?”
“Damn it….”
Jihoon took another bite and shot a glare at Yeongdeok.
It was hard to tell if he liked it or not. But given that he took another bite, it seemed he did.
At that moment, another customer called for him, and Yeongdeok went over.
After taking the order and returning to the kitchen, he glanced over to see Jihoon voraciously devouring the chicken.
Guess it wasn’t bad, then.
Not bad at all, being able to fry chicken so well.
He worried for a moment that his competence might attract more readers to this awful story, but he reassured himself that there weren’t many obsessive chicken shop owners in novels.
After frying the next order and serving it to a table, Yeongdeok returned to the counter.
Just then, Jihoon approached and handed him a card.
It seemed he did have money for the chicken, after all.
“17,800 won. …Sir.”
“Did you really open this chicken shop to sell chicken? You’re not up to something else?”
Yeongdeok couldn’t understand why Jihoon was so fixated on ulterior motives.
What other motive could there be in running a chicken shop besides selling chicken?
“Maybe you’re planning to sell vegetables from a chicken shop?”
He knew Jihoon was dumb, but not this dumb.
Yeongdeok felt a wave of pity for him.
“No, that’s not what I meant… Ah, forget it. Just ring me up.”
Jihoon’s check card wobbled in his hand.
“No need. I’m not going to nickel and dime you, just go.”
“What? Stop talking crap and just take my money. I don’t want to owe you anything.”
“This isn’t a grain of rice, it’s chicken….”
“Damn it, just charge me already.”
Jihoon thrust the card toward him, and a brief scuffle ensued over the card.
Thinking he might have bruised Jihoon’s pride, Yeongdeok decided to charge him.
Right, at 23, a man should have some pride. Watching him with a gentle look, Jihoon frowned.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“What did I do?”
“And why are you speaking informally again? I’m going to leave a one-star review saying your service sucks.”
“Do as you please.”
After completing the transaction, Yeongdeok handed the card back to Jihoon.
Jihoon snatched the card back and stormed out of the shop in a huff.
In the first few days after opening, there were barely five customers a day, but today, business was unusually good.
Perhaps it was thanks to the publicity.
Smiling, Yeongdeok fried chicken diligently, watching customers come in.
While serving the customers, time flew by, and soon it was 2 a.m.
After closing the shop, Yeongdeok remembered what Jihoon had said and checked the shop’s reviews.
Despite Jihoon’s threat, there was no one-star review.
How pathetic.
That was Yeongdeok’s assessment of Jihoon.
ꔚ
One day, about a week after Yeongdeok had started his business, Eungyeol, the main character of ‘No to obsession’, was meeting one-on-one with Baek Seonwoo, one of the candidates for “the Top” role in the novel.
“Eungyeol, what should we eat today? I’ll buy you anything you want.”
“Chicken…”
“Chicken? Then shall we have chicken?”
For some reason, Eungyeol couldn’t focus on Seonwoo’s words today.
This was because the words Jihoon had said to him a few days ago kept lingering in his mind.
After finishing his last class, Eungyeol was walking home when he unexpectedly ran into Jihoon, who had just come out of a store.
“Oh? Jihoon.”
“Ah, Lee Eungyeol.”
Jihoon, upon seeing Eungyeol, looked somewhat displeased.
Eungyeol glanced at the store Jihoon had just exited, called “Yeongdeok Chicken.”
Jihoon had a favorite chicken place, so why was he coming out of this one?
“Why are you coming out of there? Did you change your go-to chicken place?”
“No, a new place opened up, so I thought I’d try it. But you shouldn’t come here.”
“Why not?”
Eungyeol, not understanding the situation, tilted his head in confusion.
“That chicken place, Cha Yeongdeok… no, it’s run by Cha Dowon.”
“Dowon is?”
“Annoyingly, the chicken there is actually good…”
Jihoon clicked his tongue irritably and started walking off first, leaving Eungyeol behind.
Eungyeol followed him and asked,
“Why did Dowon open a chicken shop?”
“I don’t know. Now that I think about it, that guy is a complete lunatic. He doesn’t make any sense, and I can’t figure out what he’s thinking.”
Finishing his recollection, Eungyeol looked back at Seonwoo, who then smiled beautifully, his eyes curving.
“Why are you looking at me with such a cute face?”
“Did you hear that Dowon opened a chicken shop?”
“What? Cha Dowon? A chicken shop?”
Seonwoo blinked twice before bursting into laughter.
“He’s trying all sorts of things to get your attention, huh? Cha Dowon, a chicken shop? He sure knows how to waste money with style.”
“…”
“Don’t pay attention to him. That guy doesn’t know anything besides work, and he can’t do anything else, especially when it comes to dealing with people.”
Seeing Seonwoo’s cold expression as he bad-mouthed Dowon, Eungyeol involuntarily swallowed dryly.
Seonwoo’s shadowed expression felt strangely unfamiliar.
“A guy like that, running a chicken shop? That’s ridiculous. I wonder how long it’ll last.”
Knowing well about the kind of person Cha Dowon was, Seonwoo snorted.
At most, it might last a month.
* * *
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