Stray Crust | JYP Stray Kids x Pizza

Bready or Not

Ah, March 25th... the long-awaited ribbon-cutting ceremony. 

The Stray Crust team stood in a line outside the doors with grate (see what I did there...?) postures and cheesy smiles (ahah). Christina's thoughts were completely overtaken by memories of the Roblox game and how far she had come since then, her 9th birthday when she was gifted that computer in which she still had and kept in peak condition. She had travelled to a new country on her own, hand-picked her team members like a hand-tossed pizza, came up with the name of the restaurant herself and hand-drawn the logo, was appointed manager, crafted many legendary pizzas, appeared on national television, not only achieved an interview with him but impressed the Jay Why Pepperoni, made friends with all the teams of his other locations... and finally earned her very own pizza place. 

But there was still a long, long way to go(uda).

The Hungryvator pizza blew up in popularity. To say it "went viral" is an enormous understatement. All sorts of internet critics and mukbangers were posting videos of and about The Hungryvator. It became a social media challenge for a while, and Jay Why Pepperoni took advantage of this by selling stacks to influencers in bulk and hosting events where he gave away prizes to winners. 

However, Stray Crust did not debut officially with The Hungryvator. Although Distribute 9 was a less popular craft, it was their official debut pizza creation. Unsurprisingly, it, too, gained traction over time, for its entertainment value and marketability (it was a Russian roulette kind of pizza, which was also a fan favorite of daredevil influencers with too much money and time on their hands). If someone were to open their socials, they would be bombarded with way too many ridiculous thumbnails of Distribute 9 and Hungryvator pizzas, and they'd have to scroll for hours to find anything different. 

And so, on the fateful spring day of March 25th, CheeseRacha was handed a giant pizza cutter by Jay Why Pepperoni, and the news reporters zoomed their cameras in on their faces, so close you could see their pores. Seriously, why do they zoom in so close??? Like, back off I don't need to see the demodectic mites exploding on their eyeballs good grief.

For whatever reason, even National Geographic was there.

Lina Know always used to put on National Geographic for her cats to entertain them, so she was a huge fan, and asked for an autograph from them so she could show her cats at home. National Geographic said they would only do it if she did a funny little dance. And so, in honor of her precious cats Poonie, Bong, and Bulgogi, she did a funny little dance while the man behind the camera said in his iconic Nat Geo voice, "Any one of these hopefuls could be the next big thing in pizza...!"

Anyways, CheeseRacha cut the ribbon with the pizza cutter and everyone present cheered. Applause echoed far and wide, and the city of Seoul was thrust into celebration. Just kidding. It wasn't that big of a deal, but for Stray Crust, it was. It was that big of a deal. They had never felt more proud of themselves before, not in their entire lives. Bready or not, here they come...! 

The inside of the restaurant was... definitely something... most of them tried to hide their distaste, but the ever-dramatic Samantha Hwang was loud and proud about all of her feelings. Honesty and transparency were not inherently bad qualities to have, though. 

The restaurant they had used for the episode of Undercover Boss had been a set that was decorated temporarily for presentability, but when Stray Crust was given their actual restaurant (bought by Sky Kim as promised), it was a total blank slate. 

"That's an actual cockroach," Samantha whined, slapping a hand over her mouth. Nobody knew when or how, but she was already perched on the counter, wagging her hands in disgust.