The New Recruit
"This is..."
Haru had stumbled onto a product that was anything but ordinary—a genuine jackpot. Already she was picturing the whole country making kimchi with this chili powder. The flavor and aroma would leap to another level entirely, and before long people overseas would be eating it too. But the moment she watched Hana tending the plants, that whole vision had no choice but to collapse.
"Like this! You pluck one!"
Hana yanked out a single strand of her own hair and dropped it into the watering can, and every plan Haru had been nursing died on the spot. Grown that way, a single bottle of the powder would have to sell for several hundred dollars just to break even. True, the raw material—Hana's hair—cost next to nothing, so it wasn't impossible to produce. The trouble was that the hair already had an owner.
Hana herself, of course. And because those strands were already spoken for in both food and cosmetics, there was no reason to burn through a pile of them just to grow enough chili peppers to supply the entire country. Turning them into other products and selling those would make far more money.
So Haru decided she would be content with having tasted it. Watching Hana raise the plants was pleasant enough in its own right, and Hana clearly enjoyed it too. Someday, she thought, it would be nice to mass-produce the stuff. It was a shame she was the only one who had gotten to taste that chili powder. Still, even raised as a hobby, there was more than enough for the office to eat, so every now and then they got to savor fruit that set their tongues trembling.
Maru was a fresh-faced job seeker, barely out of university. She had graduated from a good school, but in a job market this brutal, landing work on schedule was like plucking a star from the sky. People said she only had to lower her sights, yet Maru meant to spend the year aiming at the major conglomerates. She had paid steep tuition and studied hard for it; settling for a small or mid-sized firm held little appeal.
Fortunately she was a woman, so she could prepare for work at once, with no military service and no leave of absence in the way. She had wanted to put her major to use, but a humanities graduate who tried that these days was all but guaranteed to starve, so she sent applications everywhere she could.
Interview after interview ended in rejection, and she felt the confidence inside her begin to crack. Even so, she refused to bend. She kept filing paperwork, and today word had come that Starlight Research Institute wanted her for a final interview.
"Mm... mm!"
She steadied herself in the mirror. From what she had heard, Starlight Research Institute had grown faster lately than any other company under the Starlight Guild. Between Starlight Cosmetics and the Research Institute, the two firms were hiring more new graduates than any other major company in Korea. Conglomerates almost never recruited in numbers like that. How well did a company have to be doing to scoop up fresh hires by the handful?
Even with that growth, they were still less sought-after than the Guild's older giants. No matter how fast they rose, the old gap remained. To Maru, though, the Research Institute and the cosmetics company were conglomerates she could scarcely dare to dream of. And hiring on that scale was proof the company was thriving, so she practiced a bright, beaming smile and prepared to give the interview everything she had. If she got in, she was ready to bury her bones there.
Dressed in a neat interview suit, Maru stepped out of the house and set off for the Institute. It sat a fair distance from downtown—nearly an hour by bus. A car would have cut that time in half, but a new graduate like Maru had no car to drive. Her parents were hardly what anyone would call silver-spoon rich, which only made it more so. She had a license, but the day she would actually get behind a wheel was still a long way off.
On the bus she drilled herself on the questions she expected today, and the moment the stop came up she shot to her feet and hurried off. As she drew near the Institute, a fresh, clean fragrance hung in the air on every side, as if she had walked into a forest. The plants were growing so fast it was almost suspicious. The weather was still chilly; they had no business being this lush...
She set the question aside and headed for the front desk to ask where the interview was. That was when something caught her eye.
Dinosaur pajamas?
Something that had no business appearing in this building was strolling through it. Amid people in crisp, proper clothes, a child who looked about elementary-school age was wandering the halls, trading greetings with the staff as if she belonged there.
An employee's kid?
If she were lost, she was far too confident about it, striding through the middle of the building like she owned the place. And looking again, her hair and eyes were far too unusual for an ordinary employee's child. Seeing that the staff left her alone, Maru decided to do the same—step past the girl in the dinosaur pajamas and make for the desk.
As she tried to pass, she felt her clothes tug. The child had caught the hem of her blouse.
Maru kept her composure.
"What's the matter, sweetie?"
The child only stared straight into her eyes. Those eyes looked deep enough to pull her in, and the feeling they stirred made Maru hastily look away. She loved her nieces and children in general, and the moment she saw this one she wanted to scoop her up and bounce her in her arms. The dinosaur pajamas only made her cuter.
The girl flung her arms wide.
"Pick me up!"
At that, Maru forgot entirely that she had come for an interview and hoisted the child into the air. She had been wanting to do exactly this, and had only held back because the girl was a stranger. Once the child asked to be held, there was no stopping herself.
Settled in her arms, the girl closed her eyes, patted around Maru's chest, and then announced:
"You pass!"
Pass? Pass what?
At the front desk, Maru learned which floor the interview was on. Still carrying the child, she spoke up—only for her sense to return once she was standing before the elevator.
"Which floor are you going to?"
"The tenth floor!"
By coincidence, it was the same floor Maru needed. If it had been different, she had meant to leave the girl with the receptionist and go. The same floor changed things. She could keep holding her a little longer.
The moment they stepped into the elevator, the fresh scent that had been tickling her nose grew stronger still. Just breathing left her chest clear and her mood bright, as if she had taken a stimulant. Her mind was sharp, and yet she seemed drunk on the smell—a tipsiness with none of the alcohol. She couldn't quite find the words for it. A pleasant fragrance was coming off the child's body.
When the elevator opened, Maru set her down. She wanted to keep holding her, but she had an interview to get to, and keeping the girl any longer would be too much.
"You can find your family from here, right?"
"Yep!"
With that, the child scurried off and vanished. The floors of the building were so vast that it was easy to get turned around, but fortunately the interview room was marked with a huge arrow on the wall, so finding it looked simple enough.
That was when a woman spoke to her. An employee badge hung from her neck, so she clearly worked here. Her name was Kim Bora. If Maru got the job, this might well be the superior she would be serving under.
"You like children, don't you?"
Maru had never been in the military, but anyone watching would have mistaken her for a recruit snapped to rigid attention.
"Y-yes! Taking care of kids is fun!"
At that, Bora smiled.
"If you keep that spirit through the interview, I think you'll see a good result."
With those words, the researcher called Kim Bora disappeared in the direction the child had run.
"Hana, which one do you like?"
This round of new hires was meant to look after me. They would have other work as well, but that was the main job, so the plan was to choose someone I took a liking to, if at all possible.
I didn't hesitate. I named the person who had held me a little while ago. There had been three candidates in all. One of the others hadn't picked me up when I asked, and the last one was a man.
Screening out men was simply the law of the land. I had never intended to choose him in the first place. I had no desire to be held by some dark, grim man. Sorry as it was to say, if I was going to be held at all, it would be in a woman's arms—never a man's.
Bora said she understood and left the room. She was probably off to pass along what I had said.