Let's Farm
Vreeeeeeee.
The grounds around the Starlight Research Institute were landscaped. Schools, government offices, and places of that sort always planted trees and flowers, eager to show how friendly they were with nature, and the institute building was no exception. Trees and flowers crowded the grounds. Lately, though, someone had begun to feel that something was wrong.
The employees saw it every morning on the way in, but they didn't tend the grounds, so they let it pass without a second thought. The gardener who actually looked after the plants could not. Day after day he watched them grow, and he could hardly believe his eyes.
They grow this fast?
It was still March, and yet the plants around the institute were flaunting brilliant green leaves as if summer had already arrived. In the more extreme cases, flowers that should not have bloomed until summer were opening right now. It felt, unmistakably, as if something around the institute were stimulating them and driving them to grow.
Up through last year, tending them once a month had been more than enough. These days, if they weren't cut back once a week, they grew so wildly that the grounds turned unsightly. Even now he was pushing through them with a string trimmer. The grass was shooting up just as fast. He was paid every time they called him out, so he didn't have much to complain about, but one look at the rate of growth left him certain: even drowned in fertilizer and raised under perfect conditions, plants could not grow like this.
"Hyung! This isn't a jungle. Why are the plants growing so fast?"
One of the contractor's workers, nagged by the same doubt, spoke up.
"How should I know? Just get the work done! They're paying us four times over anyway."
"The money's nice, but I swear this is suspicious..."
Ever since the Gates appeared, anywhere an anomaly had occurred gave ordinary people the creeps. You never knew when the next strange thing might happen. Plants growing this fast—didn't that mean some plant-related anomaly was on its way?
"The institute says it's safe, so we do our job and nothing else."
The worker said no more. He hefted the trimmer and went back to it. The pay was good, and the work wasn't even hard. There was no reason to complain.
Still, if someone could harness this—plants growing so eagerly—couldn't they make crops like rice and fruit flourish, and send the yields through the roof? He wasn't a researcher, though. He only imagined it.
"Hmm..."
I came out of the office smiling. There wasn't a single mistake on the homework. As expected, I was brilliant. They were only third-grade problems, but getting every one of them right, memorization subjects included, was reason enough to hop around in delight.
The bulletin board in the hallway was plastered with stories about me. In the most eye-catching spot of all, they had pinned up my report card: first in the entire school. I was the one who had taken first place, and yet the office staff seemed even happier than I was. Happy enough to mount my report card dead center, like a specimen on display.
It felt like proof that I had done well at school, and a warm pride swelled in me. Never once in my life had I been first at anything. Third grade or not, the rank of number one sent joy welling up inside me. Maybe that was why studying had started to feel fun lately. They were third-grade problems, so I barely had to use my head. Whistle a tune, think for a moment, and the answers unraveled on their own.
At this rate, was I actually going to end up in the gifted class? Not that I had any intention of going.
Back in my room, I had work to do today, so I set about it with a solemn face. The task that demanded such gravity was sticking up glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs.
There were already dinosaurs on the wall, but not many, and few of the famous ones. I meant to peel those off and replace them with the glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs I had bought yesterday. First, with delicate fingers, I carefully peeled the old ones away. Fortunately the adhesive wasn't very strong, and the wallpaper didn't tear. If it had, I would have been scolded. As expected, I had a real gift with my hands.
Once every last glow dinosaur was off the wall, I drew out yesterday's purchases with a reverent heart. Each and every one was a dinosaur that would glitter in the dark. I peeled them free one by one and pressed them carefully to the wall. It didn't go well at first, but after several tries I found the knack, and they stuck fast. Half an hour of dinosaur-sticking later, I finished the job with a bright smile.
The view was deeply satisfying. Compared with before, there were far more kinds, and these were sleek and finely rendered in a way the old, slightly knockoff glow dinosaurs could never match. With every dinosaur in place, I drew the curtains so no sunlight could get in and turned off the lights.
"Wow!"
In the darkened room, the glow dinosaurs on the wallpaper each gave off a soft green light. I drank the sight in as if I were gazing up at stars. Not all the money in the world could have bought this view. Glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs really were the best. To make a scene this wonderful with so little money! Of course, as time passed the light would fade until they no longer shone brightly, but I could think about that when it happened. This moment mattered far more.
I watched a movie with the dinosaurs for company. The room that had felt dreary until yesterday seemed bright and cheerful now. I had stuck so many to the wall, though, that Bora and Haru told me to peel a few off. There was no helping that. Even I could see I had gotten carried away and plastered them all over the wallpaper.
"Hoo..."
Today I dressed like a soldier marching off to the front. On my feet, not the slippers or sneakers I usually wore, but rubber boots. For pants, stretchy ones with plenty of give. On top, a T-shirt I could ruin with paint or dye and not care. And last of all, a straw hat with a very wide brim.
That's right. Today I was going to farm in the backyard behind the institute. Trowel and bucket in hand, I waited at attention in front of the office.
School assignments came in every shape. Some you could finish by scribbling a few words. Others you had to do with your body. Part of it, of course, was simply that I was overflowing with the desire to get at the little plot in the backyard. Most of these assignments were the sort you could manage with a single small flowerpot. A flowerpot, though, was far too small to satisfy someone of my caliber. It didn't have to rise to the level of real farming, but it ought to at least be tending a proper garden bed. I was already planning to make it no smaller than the grounds of one large apartment building.
I had only been waiting a few minutes when Bora and Haru came out of the office. They weren't in their usual sleek office wear or lab coats, but in the ordinary clothes you saw all the time on the street, and they were carrying all kinds of seeds. We were going to plant things to eat: napa cabbage, green onions, perilla leaves, and more.
Vegetables were a little much for me on their own, but the greens you wrapped around meat were the exception. Meat and wrap-greens were essential. Nothing else in the world could compare.
"Hana, you're ready, right?"
Bora and Haru were wearing straw hats themselves, from who knew where.
"Yeah!"
I thrust the trowel high overhead and took off for the elevator at a scamper. Growing vegetables in the backyard! The thought alone was thrilling. Haru and Bora followed behind me. Giggling, I stepped into the elevator.
We got off on the first floor, opened the door, and stepped outside. It was about April now, and the air was thick with the scent of spring. I breathed it in, refreshed. Spring air was warm and faintly cool at once, and that was exactly what made it so lovely.
"Hana, don't run so much! You'll get hurt."
Haru stepped into my path as I darted this way and that, then scooped me up into her arms. I can't run around like this... Even so, Haru's embrace was warm, and slipping free was not an option.
I wasn't in her arms for long before we reached the garden bed in the backyard. It was already neatly prepared. There was no need to till a thing. Haru said that the moment they announced we'd be using it, a contractor had been called in and the plot set up so we could farm right away. Even the gravel had been picked out. All that was left, literally, was to plant the seeds and let them grow.
I climbed down out of Haru's arms and ran for the bed. For something called a backyard, it was enormous.