I Returned as a High School Girl

Chapter 179: Country Diner (5)

All four members of the cast had gathered at the courtyard once Je-Woon and Tae-Chan arrived. It was 10:30 PM. They had sweet potato fries as night snacks. Although it had been a while since they had been made, their mics could pick up the crunch whenever the cast bit into them.

Tae-Chan was the first to have a sweet potato fry. He stated, “It’s still so delicious. I wonder if it’s because Ra-Eun made them?”

“It’s not like fries change based on who cooks them. You’re just imagining it because I kept them from getting soggy,” Ra-Eun trivially glossed over Tae-Chan’s praise.

Je-Woon agreed with Tae-Chan.

“Tae-Chan is right. I don’t usually eat fried things, but I can’t seem to stop eating whatever you've cooked.”

“You’re like that even now, hyung.”

Je-Woon had eaten more sweet potato fries than Tae-Chan had before he had realized it. Ra-Eun smiled as Je-Woon proved his point with actions as well as words.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying them.”

The staff members had also gathered to enjoy her sweet potato fries. Not only had the sweet potatoes been an excellent ingredient, the one who had cooked them also had excellent culinary skills. Evaluations of the fries aside, stories about what had happened in the diner was more fit to be discussed in a gathering like this.

Tae-Chan seemed to have something he wanted to say about Ra-Eun.

“I was so surprised this morning.”

“What about?” Je-Woon asked.

“You don’t remember, Je-Woon hyung? About our very first customer once we flipped our door sign to ‘Open.’”

“Ohh!” He finally seemed to remember. “How could I forget? I had never expected to see a foreign customer in the countryside.”

Haenam was not a famous tourist attraction among foreigners, so they had never expected one to come to a diner in the southernmost village of Korea. The tourists were an American couple in their thirties.

Je-Woon and Tae-Chan were able to communicate with them to a certain level since they had world tour experience, but they had not been able to understand everything that the tourists were saying. They were idol singers, not interpreters.

“I was getting cold sweats when the husband wanted me to explain what a baekban was,” Je-Woon expressed.

Tae-Chan also felt the same way. They were able to explain things regarding their jobs, such as the stage and their album, to a certain extent, but they were not confident to do the same for food. Not just that, they were not involved in kitchen duties. As they were pondering over what to do, their savior Kang Ra-Eun had descended.

“When Ra-Eun was explaining to the husband for us in English, she reminded me of that female interpreter we had during our world tour. You remember her, right, Tae-Chan? Ra-Eun’s pronunciations were native-level, just like that interpreter.”

“I saw it too, hyung. You have no idea how shocked I was. I almost fell for Ra-Eun.”

Ra-Eun did not show much expression despite their high praises.

‘Oh, right. That happened.’

Ra-Eun sometimes received bodyguarding requests from overseas, so she needed to learn English for the occasion. She had simply given a taste of the skills that she had learned in her past life, but the others had no idea that Ra-Eun was so good at English. Unlike the other two men, Ji Han-Seok already knew that Ra-Eun could speak English.

“I found out how fluent she was in English when we went to play golf together last time. I saw her conversing with a group of foreigners who had been near us.”

“You can seriously do anything, Ra-Eun. I bet Director Choo is thinking about taking you when he plans an overseas special for Country Diner,” Je-Woon stated.

‘How did he know?’ Director Choo thought.

He had indeed been thinking that. Director Choo and the production team had been planning an overseas special, and were thinking of recruiting cast members that could speak enough English to converse with foreign customers. And today, Director Choo had decided to have Ra-Eun join the overseas special no matter what. But of course, Ra-Eun would have to give the okay for her appearance to be established.

“The foreign couple aside, the residents here... I’m so thankful they all treated us so kindly,” Han-Seok expressed what he had felt while working in the diner.

The other cast members nodded in silence. The vast blue ocean, and the innocent children playing in the streets... The cast had gotten immersed in the life of this village where everything flowed so slowly and peacefully.

The emotions that they had felt during their short time here began to replay as they stared at the firewood burning brightly under the night sky. Tae-Chan was the first to shed tears after the long silence. Seeing that from next to him, Je-Woon chuckled.

“Why are you crying, man?”

“It’s just... Our life’s been so hard, so I find moments like this precious to me.”

One could only be moved after experiencing hardships.

“Hah, I’m tearing up now too after seeing Tae-Chan.”

Je-Woon couldn’t help it since the two of them had experienced the exact same hardships during their unknown idol group days. They had shared the same difficulties, so Je-Woon knew exactly what Tae-Chan’s tears symbolized.

The two men were crying a river, while Han-Seok also secretly wiped tears from his eyes in silence. Ra-Eun was the only one remaining who had not shed tears. All of the staff members’ eyes were on her, as if instructing her to start crying. However, Ra-Eun continued to stay expressionless while simply picking at the burning firewood with a long wooden stick.

“Would you like a tissue?” she asked.

“Huh? N-No, I’m okay.”

Ra-Eun acted like an older sister taking care of her crying little brothers. She went back to her seat and ate what was left of the crunchy sweet potato fries under the silent pressure from the staff members.

‘Why should I force myself to cry when the tears aren’t coming out?’

Ra-Eun refused to yield. Female cast members were usually the ones to cry first under moods like this since women were on average more emotional than men. However, Ra-Eun was not like other women; she couldn’t be any further from being full of emotion, since she wouldn’t have been able to properly fulfill her duties as a bodyguard in her past life if she had been.

After this day, Ra-Eun had earned another nickname: Woman of Steel.

***

Today was the last day of their time in the country diner. The four of them opened the doors of the diner for the very last time in the morning, and started to clean up after 2 PM. Ra-Eun looked around the kitchen that she had worked hard in for the last three days, with her hands on her hips.

‘It wasn’t a bad experience.’

Ra-Eun’s main priority had been to advertise her film in the beginning, but now she strongly felt that she had genuinely enjoyed her experience in the variety program Country Diner.

‘I guess appearing on programs really can be therapeutic.’

Ra-Eun never had such an experience before. She had always thought that work was work and was far from being therapeutic, but that had not been the case for Country Diner.

‘I might do something like this again if the opportunity arises.’

Director Choo had suggested that they talk in detail about an overseas special once they went back up to Seoul, and Ra-Eun was open to the idea. While she was cleaning the kitchen, the other cast members were cleaning the floor and the diner’s exterior. The four of them came out of the diner.

Je-Woon said to Ra-Eun while pointing at the door sign, “Ra-Eun. Flip the sign as our representative.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. After all, you were the symbol of our country diner.”

Her screen time matched the enormous number of things that she had pulled off during this program, which was why Je-Woon had designated Ra-Eun as their representative. Ra-Eun felt pressured from being put in such a position, but in the end, she decided to do as Je-Woon said and mark the end of their diner business with her own hands.

She flipped the door sign, revealing the English word ‘Closed.’ With this, their four-day shoot had come to an end. But just then, the village residents started to gather one by one, starting from the two men who had been drunk on the cast’s first day of service, the parents of the baby that had giggled in Ra-Eun’s embrace, and many others. They had many things that seemed to be gifts in their hands.

“Thank you very much for your hard work!”

“We’ve prepared this as a small form of our gratitude.”

They were given a bouquet and gifts that the village residents had prepared for them one by one.

Touched by the unexpected gift giving ceremony, Je-Woon exclaimed with a slight tremble in his voice, “All of this for us... Thank you all so very much!”

Not only Je-Woon, but Han-Seok, Tae-Chan and Ra-Eun also expressed their gratitude to each and every one of the residents.

“We had so much fun during these short three days!”

“We’ll never forget you!”

“I hope we meet again!”

The residents showered them with moving remarks, causing the cast members and a few staff members to burst into tears. Ra-Eun unconsciously narrowed her eyes at them.

‘You’re crying again?’

She had thought they had cried enough last night, but a time to cry had arrived once again.

‘Are they just crybabies, or am I just devoid of tears?’

The staff members’ attention focused on Ra-Eun once again. They were screaming in their heads, “Now is the time! Please shed some tears!” It was extremely valuable to see Ra-Eun crying in anything other than dramas and films, since it had never once happened. However, there was a reason for that.

‘I won’t cry, dammit. The tears aren’t gonna come out, so stop staring at me like that.’

Rather, it was harder for her to cry from all the pressure that was on her. The staff members of Country Diner had come to find out that the woman of steel never showed her tears easily.