Chapter 158: The King of Plants
The world of entertainment ran on a cruel set of laws.
It was the sort of place where the old saying fit perfectly—seven parts luck, three parts skill. No matter how gifted you were, no matter how well your looks held up, without luck you were buried more often than not.
Anyone bold enough to chase that world had already cleared a high bar for both face and talent. Plenty of nobodies still showed up to try, but the entertainment industry carried a surprisingly small share of pure dead weight.
By those standards, Lee Haneul could count herself lucky. She had a presentable face, and enough spark to hold an audience's attention through a full hour of conversation on camera all by herself. Her acting was decent, too. Calling her an all-rounder who could do a little of everything was only fair.
Not every gift of hers had been sharpened to the limit. What she had sat at about an A-rank—the kind of talent that, handled poorly, could have left her stranded in the awkward middle. Instead she survived a competition vicious enough to wring the blood out of you. She never landed a lead, but the film she joined as a supporting player crossed ten million admissions, and her name rode that wave straight into the public eye.
She hadn't been a forgettable bit player who showed up once and vanished, either. She had coined a catchphrase. From here on, she could settle into the public memory as a familiar face, and she was already tasting the fruit of it in full. Guest spots on major variety shows—a luxury she couldn't have dreamed of before the film took off.
In the dressing room, her makeup finished, Lee Haneul was on her phone. She knew perfectly well that her recognition belonged to the public, and she never did anything that might give them a crack to pick at.
That was when the manager assigned to her stepped into the room.
"Oppa, what's going on?"
It was rare for him to come into the dressing room, so she asked with a question already forming. His stepping inside meant some special piece of news. Half of her was hopeful, half uneasy. Please let it be something good.
"Brought strawberries for our ten-million-ticket star. Eat up."
He held out a clear box. Fresh strawberries sat inside, but she frowned all the same.
"Oppa! You know I'm watching my weight right now!"
"I know, I know. A few strawberries aren't going to do anything to you. And these are from the client, no less—you've got to eat them and leave a review."
"Which client?"
She was signed to three commercials. Considering she hadn't filmed a single ad before the movie, this had to be her prime.
"You know the Starlight Food spot you're shooting? Their president sent them."
"Oh... if they're from the president, then I have to eat them!"
Lee Haneul was a devoted fan of Starlight Food. For a coffee addict like her, discovering Starlight Coffee had been nothing short of a revelation from on high. It was the one coffee that finally suited a palate ordinary brews could never satisfy, so perfectly her taste that she made a point of drinking one or two cups every single day.
And the green tea? She used to have no interest in it at all, but now, whenever her schedule stacked one job on top of another, it was perfect for shaking off fatigue. A single cup let her walk into a shoot the next day at full strength.
Last of all, the cherry tomatoes. The calories ran high, but these days, when she had no time to sit down for a proper meal, they were the food she relied on. Eat a single one and she could coast through an entire day—no, her stomach would swell so much she couldn't even touch chips or snacks afterward.
She lifted the lid of the box her manager had given her. The strawberries inside were fresh enough that no one would have doubted they'd been picked that very day and set down in front of her. She had only opened the lid, and already it felt as if their sweet scent had flooded the dressing room.
She gazed at them through a daze. Scent, freshness—there wasn't a single thing to dislike. And for the crowning touch, that vivid, translucent color. Faced with fruit that looked as if a god had handed it down, Lee Haneul felt her mouth flood.
If the sight alone could stir an appetite like this, how good would they taste once she actually ate one? Her slender fingers pinched a berry. The stem had already been removed; all she had to do was pop it into her mouth.
Maybe it was the diet, but the strawberry's fragrance left her light-headed. People said a hungry person would eat dirt, and she understood that feeling completely.
Nom.
She dropped the strawberry into her mouth without hesitation. She hadn't even chewed more than a few times before the juice spreading over her tongue forced her eyes wide. Clapping a hand over her mouth, Lee Haneul found herself wondering what, exactly, she had just eaten.
Strawberries were supposed to taste more or less the same. The ones grown by Starlight Food were so delicious they made every strawberry she had eaten before unworthy of the name. Like chewing gum, every bite sent another wash of sweet juice through her mouth.
The smile on her face wasn't one she had manufactured for a scene. It was the helpless, happy smile of someone eating something truly delicious. She was glad her manager had handed over the box and left at once. This way she could keep the strawberries all to herself.
"How... how do you even grow strawberries this good...?"
It struck her then that everything Starlight Food put out fit her tastes with uncanny precision. Even people with far pickier palates would find these foods impossible to refuse. The quality was that extraordinary.
Just then the dressing-room door opened, and a senior actress came in—the one joining her on today's variety show. Lee Haneul shot up from her chair and bowed until she was folded at a right angle, like a flip phone snapping shut. Ten-million-ticket actress or not—a supporting actress, let's be honest—she had no intention of walking around with her nose in the air on the strength of that glow.
She had no desire to play the arrogant junior. She wanted to remain a polite one. The crisp bow drew a satisfied smile from her senior, who accepted the greeting and then, looking at Haneul, spoke.
"Haneul~ what's that sweet smell?"
"Oh, these are strawberries a client sent. Would you like to try one, sunbae?"
Her senior was clearly itching to taste them, so Haneul offered at once. It seemed to be exactly what the older woman had hoped for. She accepted with practiced ease, took a strawberry, and ate it.
Words failed her. She just kept chewing. Anyone tasting these for the first time was bound to react that way, and from the look of it, raising strawberries like this had taken tremendous effort. Haneul couldn't begin to guess how much sunlight it would take to reach a sweetness like this.
"Haneul... is there any way to buy these separately?"
Haneul had heard her senior was strict about self-discipline, but there was no sign of that today. Even now she was fussing, demanding to know where the strawberries could be found. Haneul was dying to buy some herself, so she said:
"I'll ask my manager. He's the one who brought them."
"Yeah? Then you have to let me know! This is the best strawberry I've eaten in my entire life."
"Yes!"
But when she called him and heard that the strawberries weren't for sale, Lee Haneul had no choice but to despair.
"Growing these must take an incredible amount of work..."
The president said it while looking over the strawberries I was raising. I set that mistaken idea straight.
"It's not hard at all, President. You just sow the seeds, give them water properly, and they shoot right up!"
"Really? That can't be..."
But a moment later he looked at me, nodded, and said:
"If it's Hana's ability, then I suppose it's entirely possible."
As expected of the president—someone who understood my ability properly. Only two people knew how I grew plants: the one who worked in the office, and the president. If the farmers ever saw me raising them, they would be appalled, and furious.
I simply scattered seeds on the ground, then poured out water my hair had melted into, using it as fertilizer. By the next day, sprouts were up. What came of it was a plant with a vitality like steel, untouched by weeds or by pests and blight.
Even when I grew chili peppers—the kind that keel over if you so much as flick them—I didn't give them anything special. Just water, and still they surged upward. When I showed the president that this was how I farmed, he scratched his head and said:
"There's probably no one in the world who grows plants better than Hana. That much I'm sure of."
First among countless farmers. Pride puffed my shoulders up all on its own. If I was going to be first, I didn't want to stop there—I wanted to be the king of plants on this Earth. Wouldn't that be amazing?