I Need the Sunlight
Once the institute had reviewed the report Department Head Kim Jaeman submitted and tasted the samples, it decided on the spot to turn them into a product. A single sip had been enough. This was something that simply could not fail.
A research institute, by nature, was a creature that gulped down money and coughed up miserable results. No—that wasn't quite fair. Stumble onto some tremendous scientific discovery, or even just a theory, and you really did end up sitting on a fortune.
The Starlight Institute, however, was not in the business of science or theory. It poured its efforts into the monsters that came out of raids and the byproducts they left behind, and aside from the funds sent down by headquarters it barely scraped by on tourist money from the exhibition hall and on selling whatever theories its monster research produced. The fabled jackpot had never come.
The hundreds of thousands of strands Kim Bora had coaxed out of Hana with candy were shipped off to a factory run by the Starlight Guild. It was a beverage plant the guild operated, though doing everything well was more than it could manage. Every drink they sold drew a lukewarm response at best. The market was already packed with major corporations—a red ocean, pure and simple—and for a newcomer to wade in was little better than suicide.
Of course, taking first place had never been the Starlight Guild's real aim. Its strength lay in keeping a factory standing, so that the moment some breakthrough product appeared they could throw it straight into production. For now, they had simply laid the groundwork. What good was a byproduct hauled out of a gate, or some brilliant employee inventing something new, if you had no plant to manufacture it? The whole thing would come to nothing. Contracting the work out to another conglomerate's factory—watching the profit walk off with your eyes wide open—apparently didn't sit well with the master of the Starlight Guild either. That was why the guild kept the place running even at a loss, ready to turn out anything at all, down to something as trivial as pencils or chopsticks.
Fortunately the Starlight affiliates got along well enough, and splitting the profits on reasonable terms was possible.
Employees already waiting outside the guild's factory carried a box of Hana's hair inside under heavy guard, handling it with extreme care. They never posted security like this for ordinary goods. The hair was escorted with the vigilance reserved for a VIP and borne along as reverently as a sacred household shrine.
Making green tea out of Hana's hair was nothing complicated. You lifted a single strand with tweezers, slipped it into a tea bag, and—so the thing wouldn't look empty—mixed in the contents of an ordinary bag. That was all. A product holding nothing but one strand would seem suspiciously thin, so, following orders from above, they decided to add her hair to the green tea they already sold. They could make that call because a single strand effortlessly overpowered the existing tea and imposed its own flavor and scent. For the time being, they would push green tea. It could have gone into other products, but green tea seemed the best fit, and there would be plenty of time to develop something else once they saw how the market reacted.
The workers themselves, though, weren't especially interested—even though security was tight, the procedures elaborate, and only long-serving, trusted employees were allowed anywhere near the finished product. They were already making a living off the guild's existing teas and soft drinks, and they had no particular reason to fuss over some new blend. Besides, the Starlight Guild's teas and drinks weren't exactly flying off the shelves. The staff had a fair sense that they were being kept around out of necessity. Otherwise there was no reason to run a factory this deep in the red.
"The big corporations already have the whole market locked down—drinks, coffee, green tea, all of it. We're nothing but latecomers. Jump in and actually win? Holding our own would be a miracle."
"They've spent decades researching and building that market. We don't even have a proper recipe yet, let alone their accumulated know-how. How long is it going to take us to catch up?"
"The Starlight Guild can be as famous as it likes, spread across every district, but from what I've heard they still don't have a real food R&D department. Well—there is a department. I heard it's about at the level of a newborn."
Half convinced and half doubtful, the workers did as they were told. They lived on a paycheck. They had no reason to push back against a new experiment.
They set aside five tea bags containing Hana's hair and five of the original bags, measured the hot water to the exact amount, and brewed the cups.
"Whoa... the color's so vivid. A beautiful emerald. And the smell is incredible, isn't it?"
"Is there even a green tea on the market with a color this clear? Not that I know of."
"Right? I've tested every commercial green tea out there. None of them looked like this."
Steeped properly in the hot water, the tea that held Hana's hair poured forth a brilliant, vivid emerald, so radiant you could almost mistake it for the gem itself. The tea the factory had been making all along, sitting right beside it, was only an ordinary color—or rather, set against Hana's, that dull, washed-out brew looked downright murky.
Once the tea had steeped and the result sat in front of them, the workers began to murmur. It was a completely different reaction from when they had first lowered her hair into the bags.
"This might actually be something. It sparkles like a jewel."
"A green tea with a color like this ought to get a decent response, right? Flavor matters, but looks matter just as much. There's a reason presentation counts with food."
Judging by the rank and file, the reaction was good. So the plant manager and the specialists in charge of tasting decided they would be the first to try the tea that held Hana's hair. They lifted the brilliantly colored cups, and the moment they took a slow first sip—
"Th-this is really green tea?"
"The aroma is unbelievable, and it goes down so smooth. Even if you picked the leaves yourself in the birthplace of green tea and drank them on the spot, I don't think it would be this good."
"I only took one sip, and my head's already clear. My vision's sharper."
When the tasting specialists began to tremble, the workers watching them grew restless. They had made the tea themselves and still hadn't been allowed a single sip.
"This is it... This is absolutely going to work!"
"First place in this year's green-tea market is already ours."
I rolled around in front of the sunlit window. Bathing in the light left me strangely full, and happy.
Huh?
Come to think of it, why was I wearing clothes? If you wanted sunlight, taking them off was only natural. I hadn't been getting any lately, and my body was demanding the sun.
With that thought, I peeled off the hoodie and pants Kim Bora had told me to wear and stood before the window in nothing but my underwear. Anyone who saw me would call me a pervert, but this was a high floor. There was no one who could see me at all.
Haha!
Feeling as if I'd returned to the wild, I rolled in front of the window with everything I had. A plush carpet covered the floor, so tumbling around didn't hurt a bit. How many dozens of minutes had I been at it when the little rebellion ended? Kim Bora walked in.
"Oh my! Hana, what on earth are you doing!"
Seeing me rolling on the floor in my underwear, she rushed over, snatched up the hoodie and shorts I'd left on the bed, and came at me with them.
"Eeeek!"
I didn't want to put them on, so I fled. I threw the door open and bolted outside. It would be a while before anyone else came down the hall, and I tore at full speed along the empty corridor.
"Get back here!"
Clothes in one hand, Kim Bora put everything she had into the chase again today, closing in on me as I carried on like a little wild thing.
Ever since I'd been moved into this room, I kept doing things even I couldn't predict. The more they cut my hair, the more sunlight I needed. The morning after a haircut I would wake feeling hollow all over, with no strength in me. I could guess why. Growing the hair back was stealing nutrients from the rest of my body. If they didn't like how I acted, they could stop cutting it. Precedent was on my side—on the nights they left my hair alone, I woke the next morning without feeling tired at all.
I felt Kim Bora closing in behind me and ran for all I was worth.
Catch me if you can!