Hong Raon was someone who had survived the city.
Even after Michelin wrote her name down,she couldn't stay in the kitchen for long.
Reservations increased.Reputation rose.
But her breath grew shorter.
Fixed hours.Fixed plates.Fixed customers.
"The food had to be perfect,""and somehow, I was disappearing."
Raon took off her apron.
And bought a truck.
A kitchen on wheels.
A place where she could choose directioninstead of complaining.
A place that could go anywhere,yet belong nowhere.
That was the freedom she chose.
—That day, too,she was near an industrial complex.
No event.No photos worth posting on social media.
But there were people.
Night-shift workers.People just off work.People pushed to the edges of the city.
"Today,I'm making the broth extra rich—!"
Raon muttered to herself,swinging the ladle.
The flame was weak.The wind was strong.
Still,her expression was bright.
That's when,at the very back of the line,
a man appeared.
Wearing a substitute driver's uniform.
Dark circles hollowed beneath his eyes,breath coming before words.
"This is…wow, it's really good."
No photos.He just ate.
Raon liked that.
"You eat out often?"
"No. Today I just…wanted to stay alive."
Raon burst out laughing.
"That's cheating,saying something like that in front of food."
The man finished every drop of broth.
"Are you a chef?"
"Yes.These days, a truck chef."
A brief silence.
"You keep looking around," she said."Something wrong?"
The man thought for a moment.
"I have a habit of checkingwhere people might get hurt."
Raon put the ladle downand looked at him.
"Occupational hazard?"
"No.A survival one."
She couldn't laugh that off.
—After that day,Raon saw the man a few more times.
Always at night.Always exhausted.
Still,he always ate slowly.
Then, at some point,he stopped coming.
Raon didn't think much of it.
The city swallowed peopletoo quickly for that.
—A few months later.
Raon parked her trucknear a construction site.
A man in a yellow safety vestwas stopping the work.
"We're rerouting the flow here."
"We don't have time for that!"
"If someone gets hurt,it'll take even longer."
He stood his ground,even as insults flew.
Raon recognized his face.
"Uh…aren't you that guy?"
The man looked up.
"…Chef?"
They stood there blankly for a momentbefore Raon laughed first.
"From substitute driverto safety manager—that's quite the career move."
"And you went from Michelinto a truck," he replied.
"Guess we both cracked."
They drank coffee together,amid the noise of the site.
"Still checking placeswhere people might get hurt?"
"Now I look atthe whole city."
Doyoon opened his laptop.
Trucks.Modules.Medical.Housing.Safety.
A moving city.
Raon's eyes lit up.
"This is…reckless, isn't it?"
"…Yeah."
"Which is whyit's kind of cool."
She thought for a moment.
"This isn't about business, is it?"
"No."
"People first?"
"…Yes."
Raon nodded.
"Then one personwon't be enough."
—That night,Raon made a phone call.
"Hey.I met a weird guy."
"Again?"
"He says he's building a city with trucks."
"He's crazy."
"But…he's serious."
A pause.
"Should I introduce you?"
"Yeah.He's not finished yet—but he's ready to break."
After hanging up,Raon looked at Doyoon.
"Mr. Doyoon."
"Yes?"
"I'm going to tell someone about you."
"Why?"
"Because this kind of thingfails if you carry it alone."
In that moment,Doyoon's proposalpassed into human handsfor the first time.
—Even after the call,Raon leaned against her truck for a long while.
She laughed first.
A city on trucks?Medicine, housing, safetyall on wheels?
"What a lunatic."
But she didn't hate it.
Raon had never been someonewho only made sensible choices.
Leaving a Michelin kitchento drive a truck alonecame from the same place.
The city was always being cookedfrom above.
—Raon made another call.
"Hey,are you still at the studio?"
"Of course.Clothes are made at night."
Yoo Hajin.Designer of the fashion truck.
"I saw a strange proposal."
"If you say it's strange,it must be."
"They want to put the city on trucks."
Silence.
"Who's behind it?"
"Someone working at a construction site."
"…Construction?"
"He starts by removing placeswhere people get hurt."
Hajin's voice dropped.
"That's…actually a very fashion-minded idea."
"How so?"
"Cities are clothesthat don't fit human bodies."
Raon nodded.
"It's exactly your kind of thing."
"I'm not saying join right away."
"I know."
Hajin laughed softly.
"Raon."
"Yeah?"
"When you hear things like this…"
Clatter—a hanger fell.
"People can't stay still."
—After the call,Yoo Hajin stood in the middle of the studio.
On the wall were sketches:a mobile runway,folding structures,a stage unfolding from a truck.
He looked at them again.
Why are these always just for events?
At the city's edge.At the end of industrial zones.In places people were pushed into.
There were always no clothes there.
More precisely—no clothes that fit.
Hajin took one drawing downand wrote a new title.
"Mobile City –What the city wants to show people."
At that moment,Doyoon didn't know.
That his designwas already stirring nights,changing people one by one.
The city had not moved yet.
But the ripplehad clearly begun.
And ripplesalways startwith people.