14. Why Do I Keep Getting Healthier?
The negotiation with Park Jeong-tae, the department store's representative, went off without a hitch.
Every time Oh Hyeon-seong opened his mouth, the man could do nothing but nod meekly along.
By the time the dust settled, the agreed supply price had reached a staggering 1.4 million won per kilogram.
An astronomical figure by any measure. Setting aside Disanto's top-shelf premium line, the Black Label, no strawberry on the market today commanded anything close to that price.
I could probably push it much higher if I really wanted to... but in the long run, this is exactly the right level.
If he had demanded a dramatic markup here, the fruit's utility would have narrowed to almost nothing. Instead of something people sought out and went wild over, it would become a decorative luxury item reserved for a privileged few.
At its current price, though, he could rake in plenty of money while keeping the buzz alive and well.
Natural produce at this price point alone was more than enough to shatter people's preconceptions. The shift in public perception to come would benefit natural produce farms growing premium cultivars as well — and, naturally, the Yoo siblings too.
Best of all, I gave them a slight discount in exchange for stuffing the contract full of favorable terms.
The heart of this deal had never been the high unit price alone.
Unlike a typical department store relationship, the contract made the usual buyer-seller hierarchy brutally one-sided.
Delivery schedules and quantities could be adjusted at Oh Hyeon-seong's whim at any time, and the department store was obligated to accept whatever notice he gave. He'd also packed in rights to all promotional use, strict confidentiality clauses, and crippling penalty payments for any breach — every advantageous provision he could think of.
All rights belonged to Oh Hyeon-seong; all obligations fell squarely on the department store's shoulders.
"Well, I'd say this agreement is more than sufficient."
"I... I suppose so..."
Park Jeong-tae's face had gone ghostly pale. He looked as though the process of hammering out this contract had aged him another decade.
"But before we sign, one thing you must understand. Where these strawberries come from — their origin — must remain absolutely secret. There will be no flexibility on this. The moment even a whisper of it leaks to the outside, the contract is over."
"Please don't worry about that. Our department store has always honored its contractual obligations to the letter—"
"I'm not talking about basic house rules. I mean even if your VVIP clients come sniffing around, or some heavyweight politician walks through the door, you keep your mouths shut."
Department stores would do practically anything for their wealthiest customers. Facing ordinary shoppers, they'd put on a show of strict principle, but if someone powerful came calling, slipping them a contact number through a back channel was nothing at all.
Which was exactly why he had laid down the law in advance. The moment this deal caused him any trouble, it was finished.
"Un-understood. I'll bear it firmly in mind."
Park Jeong-tae swallowed hard and nodded.
"Wow, so this is the one? The thing everyone's been going crazy over?"
Crowds packed tightly together, murmuring among themselves.
In the very heart of the prestigious Hankyung Department Store's food hall, a display of Oh-Hyeon Farm strawberries sat in proud, solitary splendor.
Even with additional shipments secured, the supply fell hopelessly short of demand. The price of the product had been raised sharply along with the wholesale rate, yet if anything the word of mouth only spread further, drawing in ever more customers.
Even with boxes holding barely a handful of berries selling for hundreds of thousands of won, people lined up in advance and the stock vanished in an instant.
And this was after adding individually packaged products and imposing a limit of one item per person per day.
Under these conditions, public interest only swelled by the day — and that interest naturally flowed back into the department store's bottom line.
Hordes of customers poured in and sales kept soaring. The spillover benefits were so great that even the tucked-away natural produce section was relocated to prime front-of-store real estate. As demand for natural products grew, the once-cramped corner had more than doubled in size.
"Haha... I can't believe it. This isn't a dream, right?"
A bright smile spread across Park Jeong-tae's face.
He had already been championing the natural produce section, and now he'd landed this blockbuster product on top of it — his standing within the company had transformed overnight. A special promotion was all but guaranteed.
When he'd visited the farm owner's house, he'd been bled dry without mercy. Looking back now, though, the man hadn't been a ruthless bandit at all — he'd been a savior in disguise.
Alright, let's keep this momentum going. You row hard when the tide comes in!
Clutching his documents, Park Jeong-tae strode briskly out of the hall.
The luxury food and dining industry — high-end hotels and fine-dining establishments alike — was currently scouring the market for these premium natural strawberries. But with no way to obtain them except through Hankyung Department Store, the store naturally had no intention of letting any volume slip outside its walls.
Except for one single destination: the lounge café of a flagship hotel belonging to a Hankyung Group affiliate, where a portion of Oh-Hyeon Farm's strawberries had been quietly funneled.
All for the sake of a limited-edition natural strawberry bingsu.
"Hah. What even is this, that it's blowing up all over social media?"
A woman with a sharply furrowed brow muttered as she stared down at the table before her.
She wore enormous sunglasses to hide her face, but with skin that pale and a nose bridge that elegant, the disguise never stood a chance. The people around her had already made her out and were whispering furiously.
"Is that Joo Ji-hye?"
"Looks like it. She comes to this hotel all the time, doesn't she?"
Joo Ji-hye — the marquee star of Aegis Entertainment. A top-tier hunter in vigorous domestic activity, a superstar celebrity with 26 million social media followers, and a popular actress and model who had planted her feet deep in the entertainment world.
Because she worked only within Korea, her overseas recognition was comparatively modest, but no Korean alive could fail to know her. She was a top star, plain and simple.
Her whirlwind of activity across so many fields had earned her no shortage of antis sniping that she was more attention-seeker than hunter.
But whenever that happened, she silenced them without a murmur with the sheer weight of her gate records. There was a reason people lost their minds passing through the hotel lobby.
None of it registered with her, of course. That kind of attention was old hat, and she couldn't have cared less what the gnats buzzing around her had to say.
Her eyes were fixed solely on the bingsu in front of her.
"The mango bingsu at the hotel next door is 810,000 won, and this little strawberry thing is 900,000? And it's supposed to use natural produce, no less?"
A modest condensed-milk ice flake, crowned with sliced strawberries.
By any honest count, it amounted to just a few berries. The mango bingsu at other hotels was famously small enough to hold in one hand — this one was even tinier than that.
"They peddled some flavorless slop as a 'new cultivar,' jacked up the price, and fleeced all the suckers. I bet this is more of the same."
She lambasted the strawberry bingsu with open aggression.
Not that she begrudged the money overflowing from her account — she simply needed something to be irritated at. And the price genuinely was outrageous enough to justify it.
But she couldn't very well leave without trying it.
Click!
She began snapping photos for social media. A celebrity riding the crest of such an explosive trend couldn't afford to sit it out.
By the time she'd pressed the shutter somewhere near a hundred times, she finally set the phone down and took a spoonful.
She expected nothing.
The moment it touched her tongue, though, both her eyes went wide.
"Wait — it's... it's actually good?"
Flustered, Joo Ji-hye stared at the strawberry bingsu. The taste was so far beyond anything she'd anticipated that she felt almost dizzy with bewilderment.
She had spent her life eating fruit at absurd price points, and yet compared to those, she felt not the slightest deficiency here.
It's just a natural strawberry, and yet...
The price that had offended her at first now seemed like a phenomenal bargain. Matching this flavor with premium synthetic fruit would cost at least twice as much. Among all the event bingsus she'd ever tried at hotels, it was, needless to say, the undisputed best.
So all that fuss wasn't just hype, huh?
She polished off the bingsu in no time and stared blankly at the empty dish.
She was satisfied. So much so that it bruised her pride.
A fleeting thought of wanting more crossed her mind — but that was impossible. It was a limited-quantity strawberry bingsu, offered one day at a time behind the hotel's massive promotional campaign, available only by advance reservation. The reservations themselves had drawn a frenzy of competition, though she'd secured a private allotment through her top-tier membership privileges.
But that allotment was one serving only. Asking for more now, after grumbling about the taste, was simply not going to happen.
"Ha, forget it. It's just a strawberry either way."
Scowling at nothing in particular, Joo Ji-hye visibly bristled.
It'd drive anyone without money insane, sure... but it's not like the taste is irreplaceable. Just eat fruit from some other top-shelf line and be done with it.
She was merely curious that natural produce could taste this good. She had zero intention of groveling after a strawberry that swaggered around about being limited edition and low supply.
Interest extinguished, Joo Ji-hye left the hotel.
That evening she ate a course meal worth millions of won, and back home she finished off the luxury fruits stacked in her refrigerator for dessert. Right up until she lay down in bed and tried to sleep, the strawberry bingsu never once crossed her mind.
And yet, somehow, strangely — she slept well that night.
What the hell? Why does it keep popping into my head?
A break in the middle of her drama shoot. Joo Ji-hye gripped her head, her expression grave.
She had cut off all interest in that strawberry bingsu completely, and days had passed without incident. And yet now, of all times, that strawberry from the hotel kept flickering at the edges of her mind.
My condition's shot too... this is so damn annoying.
Dark circles hung heavily beneath her eyes. Even with makeup on, they showed through enough that no one could miss them.
Her brutal insomnia had come roaring back.
Just when I thought it was finally getting better these past few days and the trend might hold. Ugh, I could kill someone.
The can in her hand crumpled with a crunch.
Filming resumed in a matter of minutes, but her condition was so poor she couldn't immerse herself in her role at all.
However tough a hunter might be, a human body that couldn't meet its basic needs inevitably creaked and groaned at every joint.
That day's shoot was a catastrophe. There were barely any usable scenes, and even the few she'd tried to salvage were scrapped against her will. The entire filming schedule slid backward as a result — practically dousing the production just as a brand-new drama was getting underway.
Yet not a soul dared voice a complaint about her.
She belonged to Aegis Entertainment, the super-agency of the industry, was a popular actress with phenomenal drawing power, and was a terrifying hunter besides. Even the head writer and the director wouldn't think of touching her.
Only the staff, dying in the middle of it all, grumbled quietly behind her back.
"I'm back!"
"Hey, what took you so long? You promised you'd hand it over the moment I gave you the word!"
"I'm sorry. Even there, shaving off stock wasn't easy, so it took a while..."
"Forget it, hand it over."
Joo Ji-hye snatched the Hankyung Department Store strawberries from her manager.
Then she went home and ate them while grumbling the whole time. This time, too, she was reasonably satisfied.
Was it just a coincidence?
Strangely enough, she drifted off quickly that night too, and slept deeply.
"...Could it really be the strawberries?"
Joo Ji-hye chewed on her fingernails.
What had begun as suspicion was creeping steadily toward certainty. Every time she ate the strawberries, her vicious insomnia eased, and she managed a proper night's sleep.
Even now, thanks — perhaps — to the strawberries she'd eaten the night before, she'd slept soundly and felt in excellent shape.
A problem that no hospital in the country could fix, cured simply by eating strawberries? Her mind refused to accept it.
But if the strawberries really did help, even a little, then sweeping up tens of tons of them on the spot wouldn't have been excessive for her.
Just then, she ran into a group of hunters in the corridor.
Rookie hunters from the same agency, Aegis Entertainment. The kind of people she wouldn't normally bother exchanging a word with — but Joo Ji-hye stopped them first and struck up a conversation.
"Hey, you lot."
"Yes, sunbaenim! It's an honor to support you! We look forward to working with you on this set as well!"
"Shut up. Has anyone here actually eaten those strawberries from Hankyung Department Store?"
"Oh, those? I've only heard about them, never tried one."
"I have!"
"I tried them too — paid resale out of curiosity."
Two of the six raised their hands eagerly.
"How were they?"
"How were they? They were shockingly good for natural produce, honestly... I figured I'd try them again once the hype dies down."
"I was completely satisfied. I paid triple, and I didn't regret a single won. They're way better than Black Label strawberries, seriously."
"No, not the taste. Did you notice any change in your body? Like your condition suddenly improving..."
"My condition?"
"Nothing like that at all, sunbaenim."
The hunters exchanged puzzled looks. Though Joo Ji-hye pressed them on every last detail, they insisted they'd felt no effect whatsoever.
Which made sense — no one's health transforms noticeably just from eating a few strawberries. Common sense said so.
Right... I must've imagined it. Just a coincidence.
Joo Ji-hye let the thought go and wrapped up the day's schedule.
But when she returned home, bad news was waiting for her.
"What? You couldn't get the strawberries?"
"I'm sorry. I asked repeatedly, but this time the department store flat-out refused to release any stock."
"Ha... unbelievable. They dribble out a tiny handful at a time, and now they have the nerve to turn me down?"
Her irritation flared so hotly that she nearly called the department store on the spot to give them a piece of her mind.
Instead, she shook her head and stopped herself.
"Fine. I don't need those stupid strawberries. I'll never let them near my mouth again."
Truthfully, she did want them. After eating them so many times, the thought of strawberries kept drifting up mid-task, no matter what she was doing.
But having come this far, her pride refused to allow it. A marquee hunter of Aegis, a proud star of the highest caliber, could not possibly be chained to a mere food item.
Thump.
Joo Ji-hye flopped onto the bed and tried to sleep.
For someone suffering severe insomnia, it was a place of dread — but she'd succeeded in sleeping soundly for days now. The strawberries might have had something to do with it, sure, but that was mere superstition born of coincidence.
She wasn't the type to believe in such things anyway, so she settled her body with an easy mind.
"..."
Time passed, and the next morning came.
Joo Ji-hye bolted upright, having slept not a wink.
The dark circles she'd barely banished had returned without her noticing, deeper than ever.
"AAARGH! What the hell is this!"
Trembling from head to toe, she screamed.