Organic Plants, Good for the Body
"Hana's hardly been around lately. Do you know what she's been up to?"
One of the office staff put the question to Haru. Just as the woman said, Hana had all but vanished these days. Once she went to her room, her usual routine was television, studying, or streaming—but lately even catching a glimpse of her had grown difficult.
"She's been spending a lot of time in the garden. Probably because she has some kind of ability related to plants."
"The garden? Isn't it dangerous to leave her out there alone?"
She had a point. Sending Hana off to the garden by herself was a little frightening. The girl was a mischief-maker through and through, and leave her unsupervised and she was good for one spectacular disaster. She needed people keeping an eye on her.
"Ah, well. It's only the garden behind the building, and the grounds around the institute are fenced in, so there's no way she'd get lost. You can see the institute building right in front of you."
Garden or not, it was hardly bigger than an ordinary school soccer field—narrower than a professional pitch. You could call it spacious if you liked, but to anyone who actually farmed paddies and fields, the acreage was small enough to draw a hollow laugh. It was something grown purely as a hobby.
"Is that so?"
"And we're planning to go take a look ourselves sometime."
For the moment Hana was farming however she pleased, but she was still a child, and she might not be much good at actually raising things. Haru half expected to find wilted plants, the victims of poor care. Farming was simple when it was simple, and difficult when it was difficult.
So now that a week had passed, Haru meant to visit Hana's little farm at least once. The plants had shot up like that on the first day, yet the next day they showed none of the same remarkable progress. They were simply in the same state as the day before.
She had passed along a few words of caution and stayed away from the garden after that, because Hana had said she was more comfortable working alone. If anything happened, she would call, and there were security guards on the institute grounds, so there was nothing to worry about.
Haru had just settled back into the documents on her computer when a clatter rose outside—the sound of Hana coming back. She stretched long and loose and got ready to greet the girl who would come running into the office.
Whenever Hana returned from the garden, the office was her first stop. She washed her hands first, of course. Haru had drilled into her the simple rule that you washed up after playing outside.
"Haru!!!"
Hana's voice carried in from outside. Haru smiled and prepared to welcome her. But Hana had not come alone.
"Hana...?"
One look at the basket in the girl's arms, and Haru could only manage a voice thick with confusion.
"Where did you get that?"
The basket was packed full of vegetables and fruit. Was there even a shop selling produce anywhere nearby?
"These are vegetables and fruits I grew in the garden!"
"What?"
Haru couldn't believe it. Plants growing and bearing fruit in a single week—did that even make sense? It was so absurd she would sooner have believed someone telling her a dog had taken up grazing.
"You didn't buy these somewhere, did you, Hana...?"
The moment Haru said it in a voice that made her disbelief plain, Hana puffed her cheeks out round and full.
"I didn't buy them, Haru! I farmed every bit of this myself, with my own two hands!"
As she spoke, she began pulling the vegetables and fruit out of the basket. Lettuce, perilla leaves, strawberries—all sorts of produce filled it.
"That's impossible!"
Haru still couldn't bring herself to believe it. But Hana wasn't the type to lie, so she needed to see for herself. She scooped the girl up and headed for the garden. It was time to confirm with her own eyes just what kind of magic had been worked.
"Whew!"
Day three of farming in the garden. I had planted nothing but seeds the day before yesterday, and already they had germinated and put out stems. Yesterday, though, I hadn't tried anything special, and the stems had stayed exactly as they were after sprouting.
Bora and Haru both had work, so they couldn't keep watching over me. I told them not to worry and to go on. There was no chance of getting lost here, and no chance some stranger would turn up either.
All I had to do was farm and enjoy a peaceful, healing sort of life. After seeing Bora and Haru off, I stood in the middle of the garden and looked around. It boasted a fairly wide stretch of ground, but I decided not to use all of it—just a square quarter of the space, for now.
I wanted to use the whole thing, but if I went that far it would stop being a hobby. Planting seed across an area the size of a school soccer field, getting it all to sprout, and then looking after it alone was impossible. Real farmers could probably manage it, but I had the perfectly respectable status of a student.
Farming the way a farmer did was not my job. Even so, I wasn't satisfied with the current rate of growth. So I decided to cheat.
"Ow!"
I plucked out about ten strands of my own hair and dropped them into the watering can. Then I gave the plants a generous spray. I could already picture them shooting up. A single strand had produced that much of an effect—how fast would they grow with ten?
Unable to hide my excitement, I ran around the garden watering everything. Whether because the can was so large, or because the plants hadn't grown much yet, it hardly took any time at all.
With nothing left to do, I sang to the plants—a song telling them to hurry up and grow. They seemed to answer my voice. I could see the little stems swaying gently from side to side.
After spending the rest of my time that way in the garden, I went home.
"Whoa!!!"
The growth was nothing like yesterday. If the stems had only just peeked out of the seeds then, today they reached all the way to my knees. I had no reason to doubt the uncanny speed. I was the one who had made it happen.
Today, too, I dropped my hair into the watering can. The pace was anything but ordinary, but there was no one around to hit the brakes. After I finished watering, I picked up a trowel and pulled the weeds. I had wondered what I would do if the weeds flourished just as wildly, but they hadn't spread all that much.
I counted that as a relief. And with each day that passed, the plants' growth became downright bizarre—like watching six months of footage sped up a thousand times. Sleep through one night and they had swollen so much it was frightening to set them beside the day before. A week of that, and every plant had either grown unmistakably and set fruit, or finished growing entirely and simply stopped getting any bigger.
"This is really..."
Haru seemed unable to hold back her awe at the sight I had made. Well, of course. A garden that had been little better than barren ground a week ago was now bursting with vigorous plants—anyone would have been impressed. Even I was so proud my chin lifted all on its own.
"You did all of this, Hana?"
Haru set me down as she spoke. She was looking right at it, and still she seemed unable to quite believe it. I nodded, making certain she understood that this scene was my doing.
"I really can't tell where your abilities end."
Shaking her head, Haru took in the garden. The plants growing there were nothing like last week.
Back when we had loosened the soil with a trowel and planted the seeds, Haru had probably thought, This will take a good few months... But I hadn't been satisfied with a growth rate like that.
So I had given the plants a booster to help them along. The view spread across the garden was the answer.
"Haru, try one of these! They're organic!"
I had heard that pesticides and the like were essential if you wanted plants to grow, but I was the exception. Because they had come up this much in a week, things like pesticides were unnecessary. And since I came every day to pull the weeds myself, I didn't have to worry about the plants dying on account of them either.
"Try it, try it!"
I held a strawberry out to Haru. An organic strawberry, and one I had poured my whole heart into—I was certain it would be incredibly delicious. Haru took the berry I offered, then brought it to her mouth.
"!!!"
Her eyes went wide as she ate the strawberry I had grown. As expected. The strawberries I make are the best.