365 Days with the Celebrity

Chapter 18 - Unreasonable Rage

Since promoting Fujita sauces, sales have skyrocketed. Leon and his team were thrilled when they received their first milestone payment from Fujita Corporation. He was busy writing songs for his new album in the recording studio when the phone rang.

"Hello, Fujita-san," greeted Leon.

"Hello Leon," said Mr Fujita, "I would like to meet with your team this afternoon at two o'clock. I want to discuss how we can further promote one of my sauces."

"Sure, we'll come to your office."

"Bring your chef along."

"Alright. We'll see you there. Bye."

Leon hung up the phone and heaved out a loud sigh at Arnold, "The old man wants to see us in the afternoon at two."

"What does he want?" Arnold questioned.

"Not sure, it's something to do with one of his sauces. We've promoted almost his entire range but he says something like he still needs help with one of them." Leon shrugged.

"Oh boy, this better be good. Hope we can get more money!" said Arnold.

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"Our Fujita's Oriental-Caribbean Chicken Marinade sauce is not selling well as we hoped. You have promoted it for us on a few occasions, but we have received angry accusations that we lied in our promotions," said Mr Fujita disappointedly, sipping his coffee while he sat next to his son, Hiroshi Fujita.

Ariel sat, listening attentively without saying a word.

Arnold replied, "Well, that's the responsibility of your internal marketing, not ours."

"Don't forget we agreed to this as a partnership and we are paying you a lot of money. So figure out for us how you can help boost our sales," insisted Mr Fujita.

Arnold glanced at Leon who folded his arms, tapping furiously on his elbow with his fingers. Ken Fujita's unreasonable demands were hard to brush off due to his powerful status. Already, the negotiation with him was not an easy task to begin with, and once they were tied to the contract, Mr Fujita slowly but cunningly took back the reigns. Even Ariel felt lost. She was just a chef, not a saleswoman.

"Fujita-san, have you tasted your own marinade? What do you think of it?" Leon opened a jar and placed it under Mr Fujita's nose.

"Well," Mr Fujita cleared his throat, "it's a fusion of Japanese and Caribbean cultures made with fermented beans, bitter melon and other flavourings."

"Honestly, this sauce gives a strange, awful aftertaste. Do you remember how many of the contestants failed to deliver using this sauce?"

Mr Fujita raised an eyebrow at Leon, not feeling too happy about his criticism.

Hiroshi stepped in, "This sauce was a carefully crafted recipe by my grandmother, who lived in the Caribbean for many years. It was a favourite among our family, passed through the generations."

"But not for Americans and the rest of the world," said Leon.

"No doubt we received complaints about the taste of this sauce. But this is sentimental to me and I'm not willing to pull it off from the shelves that soon. It just needs to be cooked the right way, a new way, the way Ariel did it," Mr Fujita said.

Ariel looked at Mr Fujita, "Actually, Fujita-san. I enhanced the flavour of it during the competition."

"Really? What did you add? Those battered chicken tasted so good that even Leon liked it."

"I sure did," Leon nodded.

Rolling her eyes upwards to recall the competition, Ariel replied, "I added some garlic powder, onion powder, sugar and some other stuff that I'm trying hard to recall."