12. The Strawberry Frenzy
"Haah... so that's how it turned out."
A man in a business suit shook his head, damp with sweat.
Park Jeong-tae, the procurement manager for Hankyung Department Store, had rushed straight to the scene the moment he heard there was a problem with the strawberries scheduled for delivery.
And with his own two eyes, he had confirmed the erosion phenomenon that had appeared in the Yoo siblings' facility.
"We're so sorry."
"No, no. Accidents like this can't be helped. I don't know about anything else, but when it comes to erosion, there's simply no answer to it."
"Th-then, about the penalty fee, perhaps..."
"The rules are the rules. It's not something I have any say in. All I can offer is my sympathy."
Park Jeong-tae spoke with what sincerity he could muster.
A private farm equipped at this level was rare even by national standards. They had always made clean, punctual deliveries without a single hiccup in their dealings — and to think an accident had to strike at this of all moments.
But when it came to the new contract, the regulations were unambiguous, so there was nothing even he could do.
"Yes... I suppose so."
Yoo Seung-su's face, which had flickered with hope for a brief moment, darkened like a stormcloud. Though various words of consolation and talk of the future passed back and forth, his expression as they spoke refused to lift.
"...So this is the place."
Park Jeong-tae stood in front of the gate.
It had been a phone call from an unknown number, out of nowhere. The caller turned out to be the neighbor of the very supplier he was having trouble with — and he claimed he could fill the hole that had opened up in the strawberry deliveries.
'Honestly, coming out here feels like a waste of time.'
At first, he hadn't even intended to take the meeting. The man had spoken with such brazen confidence that Park Jeong-tae assumed he must be the siblings' business partner, but when he asked, he said he had no connection to their operation whatsoever.
The whole thing had rubbed him the wrong way from the start — the idea that because his neighbor's farm had collapsed, he should use his crops instead. And doing it to a department store, of all places, was downright absurd.
And yet, he had come here all the same.
It was the man's oddly trustworthy voice, his gift for conversation. Somewhere along the way, in a talk laced with remarks that never quite gave away the core of things while somehow teasing his curiosity at every turn, he had been swept along.
Just where had that overflowing, evidence-backed confidence come from?
'Well, it's right down the road. If this turns out to be pointless, I can just walk away.'
Knock, knock!
Park Jeong-tae rapped on the door, and before long, Oh Hyeon-seong appeared.
"Ah, welcome."
"I'm Park Jeong-tae, from Hankyung Department Store. Am I correct in assuming you're the owner of Oh-Hyeon Farm, the one who called?"
"Yes, that's me."
Oh Hyeon-seong nodded with a smile.
"You said you wanted to supply our store?"
"To be precise, I intend to supply only until the deliveries from my neighbor's farm can resume."
At his words, Park Jeong-tae scoffed inwardly.
Sure you do. A department store food hall offered rates incomparably better than most any other seller — a position everyone coveted. Out here in the countryside, people would sooner set fire to their neighbor's farm than give up a chance to sink their claws in and claim it.
"In exchange, if I can fill the gap, I'd like you to waive the penalties on the canceled volume."
"Uh... that's impossible under our regulations. And more to the point, a spot in our food hall isn't some place you can just muscle into on a whim and patch over."
Park Jeong-tae said this with a slight frown.
This was Hankyung Department Store — a symbol of luxury, and the top-grossing retailer in South Korea. The Gangnam branch in Seoul where he worked was locked in a cutthroat battle with its rival group, Daeseong Department Store's Jamsil branch, over the title of the nation's finest.
Amid all this, the food hall was one of the areas management watched with particular care. It generated enormous revenue on its own, drew in the truly big spenders, and was vital to the store's public image.
Of that hall, the natural produce corner Park Jeong-tae himself had conceived was gradually gaining traction and growing — and he could hardly ruin the whole operation by bringing in crops of some laughable quality under the pretense of patching a hole.
"Then that's for you to judge, isn't it, Manager?"
"Fine. Let's see the goods, at least."
Thud!
Oh Hyeon-seong brought out a box packed full of strawberries.
Park Jeong-tae, bracing himself to pick the shipment apart, stared at the strawberries inside — and was stunned.
The size, the color, everything about them was managed far better than he had imagined. This was no half-baked amateur all talk and no skill.
Even so, unless they'd been grown with custom facilities and a special cultivar like the siblings' strawberries, a limit on flavor was inevitable.
"No need to stare at them like that. Why not just eat one?"
Oh Hyeon-seong said it, evidently reading the look on his face. Embarrassed, Park Jeong-tae cleared his throat and picked up a strawberry.
'Fine, let's see just how tasty you are.'
One strawberry entered Park Jeong-tae's mouth — and the instant he bit down, his expression transformed completely.
'Wh-what is this?'
A burst of sweetness and tartness struck his palate all at once. Neither overwhelmed the other; the perfectly balanced acidity delivered pure pleasure. Above all, that luxurious smoothness was beyond compare.
It could truly be called a top-tier product that rivaled — no, that matched — any strawberry he had ever eaten in his life.
Could a natural crop really produce a flavor like this?
Nothing but genuine awe filled his mind.
"Wh-what is this? I don't see any facilities like this around here. Was it grown in a next-generation smart farm? Did you bring in some new equipment or...?"
"That's a trade secret. I can hardly go revealing my secrets to you, now can I?"
"Ah... r-right, of course."
The excited Park Jeong-tae caught himself mid-sentence.
In an era where cultivar information had become so valuable, he couldn't very well demand a supplier's secrets outright. But even from the lingering aftertaste in his mouth alone, he could tell this was something truly extraordinary.
"So — do we have a deal?"
"Y-yes! Yes, we do! Right away!"
'He completely swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.'
At the sight of Park Jeong-tae's attitude flipping a full one hundred and eighty degrees, Oh Hyeon-seong smiled inwardly.
However, the strawberry Park Jeong-tae had eaten was not the one he had first planted.
'After I heard the news from Seung-su, I expanded the fields and planted new strawberries. The reason I didn't bother pulling out the originals was simple — I needed a "downgraded version."'
For the newly planted strawberries alone, Oh Hyeon-seong had deliberately let the spirits' touch fall lighter.
Unlike the lettuce and potatoes from before, whose produce had been completely purged of miasma, these were allowed a measure of exposure to the takgi through less intensive care.
The result: strawberries with roughly half their flavor stripped away, just as he intended.
Far lower in sugar content than properly grown ones, and lacking in texture to boot. Yet even with all those drawbacks, they were still beyond any comparison to the strawberries currently on the market.
Which was exactly why Park Jeong-tae reacted the way he did.
Because it was the downgraded version, it wouldn't cause a shockwave big enough to turn the nation upside down, as he had once feared. But it would still be enough to send a considerable ripple through society.
"Come to think of it, we haven't discussed the most important thing. What's the delivery price?"
"Ah, my apologies. Let me go over it right now."
At Oh Hyeon-seong's words, Park Jeong-tae launched into an earnest explanation, volunteering details even before they were asked.
The current average wholesale price on the general market was roughly 20,000 won per kilogram. But for the premium natural strawberries Hankyung Department Store purchased, the rate was a staggering 180,000 won.
And that was the farmers' cut alone — the store would then add its own margin on top before selling. The resulting retail price was nothing short of terrifying for ordinary people.
But the rich paid it gladly.
Unlike the old days, when everything used to taste delicious, demand for premium food ingredients in today's world was enormous. The luxury fruit stories that once came only from their neighbor across the sea — Japan — like 300,000-won Senbikiya melons or million-won mangoes, had become a story for all of Korea and the entire world.
And the truly frightening part was how commonplace it had all become — you could find such fruit at any department store, in any region.
"I can't move the price around much, but we'll meet you as far as we possibly can on our end."
"Good. Then I won't be greedy from the start. At this flavor and quality, I believe sixty is a fair figure."
"I'm sorry... sixty... thousand?"
Park Jeong-tae's eyes went round as saucers.
A figure beyond anything he had anticipated had just dropped into the conversation.
"S-sixty thousand won per unit is something we can't accommodate. The taste really is remarkable, but... there's still a fair amount of public prejudice against natural produce. If we set the price that high, no one will even touch it."
"Is that so? But sixty was merely my minimum. I have no interest in a long-term deal at anything below that."
"W-well..."
Sweat trickled down Park Jeong-tae's forehead.
It was an outrageous demand. But he had tasted for himself just how outrageous the flavor was in return.
For a man pushing the natural produce section as hard as he was, this was a product he absolutely could not afford to lose — and so he found himself floundering, at a loss for what to do.
"Very well. Take the first shipment at around that price. We'll sell it once, and talk again after."
"R-really?"
At his sudden, ready agreement, color bloomed in Park Jeong-tae's face.
The rate had come in somewhat higher than what other farms received, but not by so very much. Only, the contract had been signed for just the small first batch.
"In exchange — you may well regret this later."
Regret it?
Park Jeong-tae couldn't make sense of Oh Hyeon-seong's words. If all they were doing was securing supply at a reasonable price, gauging the response, and renegotiating afterward, the store stood to lose nothing.
And yet, somehow, as he finished the paperwork and took his leave, he couldn't shake an uneasy feeling that something was off.
"Then, we'll see each other in a few days."
Only Oh Hyeon-seong, waving with a knowing grin, knew what was to come.
"Huh? Since when did they carry natural produce here?"
Two women, their hands laden with luxury shopping bags, stopped in front of the natural produce corner. They were in the middle of browsing Hankyung Department Store's food hall.
"That's been around for a while now, hasn't it? The premium line of natural produce. You're only just now noticing it?"
"I-I only ever shop at Daeseong Department Store, you know?"
"Oh? The strawberries are back in stock after being gone for a while."
One of the women brightened and drew closer. She had been a regular buyer of Hankyung Department Store's natural strawberries for some time now.
But her friend stared at her as though she couldn't comprehend it.
"Why do you eat that stuff? There are synthetic strawberries out there, made in clean facilities — not this dirt-caked nonsense."
"I hate that faint artificial aftertaste. Besides, natural produce might be a little less flavorful, but it feels like it agrees with my body better. Healthier, you know? And the strawberries here don't lose to most premium products on taste, anyway."
She picked up a single pack of strawberries. Wrapped in luxurious packaging, it held only a handful of berries — while the price tag was considerable.
"Ugh. Paying this for natural strawberries."
"There are plenty of people chasing natural produce these days, calling it wellness? Honestly, you're so slow to pick up on trends."
"Trends, my foot! You're the only person I know who eats that natural garbage. I'd rather put down extra money and have Black Label strawberries instead."
Her friend stuck her tongue out and snorted.
The 'Black Label' she spoke of was the most famous luxury strawberry line produced by Disanto, the world-spanning agri-food giant.
Disanto's synthetic strawberries had always been renowned, but Black Label was the crown of the line — a flavor nothing could hope to match. The price was every bit as staggering, but against these cheap little natural berries, it was no contest at all.
Even the Purple Label left rival companies' products in the dust, after all.
But whatever her friend said, the woman carried her strawberries to the register and paid.
"Wow, they're gorgeous! These photos came out amazing!"
Back home, the woman let out a gasp as she unboxed them. Set against the luxurious packaging, the vividly crimson strawberries showed off their beauty.
They looked plumper than the ones she usually ate, and prettier besides. Feeling as though she'd won the lottery, she thought about posting the photos on social media.
Crunch!
She bit into a strawberry.
And then, with a dazed expression, she lowered it.
"...Huh?"
She devoured them one by one, and when she finally came back to her senses, only the empty packaging remained.
As though possessed, she sprang to her feet and rushed back to Hankyung Department Store for more strawberries. But the moment she stepped into the food hall, she found the shelf where they had been displayed completely bare — surrounded on every side by people venting their fury.