The Barbecue Party
The moment Starlight Food heard that Starlight Rice was about to hit the Korean market, they launched an investigation into how it had happened. It was a product they exported only to Japan, and they were desperate to know how it had found its way back into Korea.
What they uncovered was shocking.
"A domestic importer bought rice that had already been distributed in Japan, brought it back to Korea, and is reselling it."
"What...? I didn't mishear that, did I?"
"No. That's correct."
"We're selling our Starlight Rice out to Japan, and someone's hauling it back here to sell it in Korea?"
Under Korean law and proper procedure, of course, there was nothing illegal about it. Starlight Rice had already been certified by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and it had sailed through Japan's notoriously exacting quarantine with flying colors.
The sacks themselves were the only oddity, and only in appearance. Not a single word of Korean appeared on the packaging—only Japanese—so a shopper could easily mistake the rice for a Japanese product. Beyond that, there was no problem.
"Even so, the tariffs on that can't be a joke. People are actually buying it?"
Imported rice was slapped with a tariff of 513 percent, a wall thrown up to protect domestic growers. Once the tangle of taxes and assorted fees was roughly figured in, the price generally landed four to five times higher than Korean rice.
Rice grown in Korea ran about fifty thousand won for a twenty-kilogram sack. Starlight Rice, after it crossed over to Japan, sold on the local market in the hundred-thousand-won range.
"Yes. Everything already listed on the shopping sites is sold out. The moment they put it up, it vanishes."
Kim Sehee moved her mouse, found Starlight Rice sitting proudly on one of the country's famous online malls, and let out a groan. It was selling so well it had even climbed onto the popular-products list.
"It's tastier than ordinary rice, I'll give it that, but it's at least ten times the price of our Korean rice. I'm amazed anyone's actually buying it to eat."
With manufactured goods, a difference of a hundred won was often enough to send sales to opposite ends of the earth. This was an item ten times more expensive. By every normal rule it shouldn't have been able to compete at all—yet the flavor unique to Starlight Rice was extraordinary enough to overcome even that.
"Honestly, how much rice does an ordinary household even eat? Buy one twenty-kilogram sack and it'll last a month or two without any trouble. Someone living alone could stretch it half a year."
In the modern era, demand for rice had been steadily shrinking. Once upon a time people ate rice and side dishes for all three meals without fail, but these days foods that could stand in for a bowl of rice were everywhere you looked. The most extreme cases might manage a single rice meal a day—or perhaps not even that.
"And the fact that consumer preference for our Starlight Food has been so high lately did its part as well."
Word had gotten around that everything Starlight Food released tasted exceptional, and the result was this kind of goodwill. Consumers bought because they trusted the name. With Starlight Rice in particular, a batch had already been released to the market once, so there were people who knew the flavor, and word of mouth spread easily on its own.
There was a reason department stores urged you to try a bite at the tasting counter. Consumers who had tasted a food even once went on to buy things they had no particular need to buy.
"I never expected an importer to latch onto this. They've driven a finger straight into a gap in government policy."
Most people figured rice tasted like rice and simply bought whatever was cheap. Starlight Rice was different. It was different from the very first taste, and so, despite the price, consumers were overflowing with the urge to buy it.
An importer who had cut so sharply into that psychology would no doubt turn a handsome profit, and the Korean government would be powerless to stop it. On paper, and on the surface, the whole arrangement was legal. The importer paid the tariff and sold at a proper price; from the government's position, there was no justification for stepping in on the price.
Kim Sehee decided the situation wasn't a bad one. For now, she was deeply satisfied that Starlight Rice was circulating inside the country at all, even if it had to be dragged in by force.
Once the public tasted it, a shift in opinion was only a matter of time. The government would have to make a difficult choice: abandon the food self-sufficiency rate and heed the people by letting Starlight Rice onto the open market, or keep the tariffs in place and bolt the door against imported rice in order to protect that rate.
But the levee holding Korea's rice market already had a small hole in it. Someday that hole would widen, and a flood was certain. The only thing no one knew was when.
"Whoaaa!"
I couldn't hold back a gasp at the things scattered across the office floor. Midterms were over, and to celebrate the day summer began in earnest, the research institute was putting on a fireworks show.
It was a secret that I'd said I wanted to do it after watching fireworks on television. Maybe because I'd asked for a fireworks party outright, it felt a little like whining, and that embarrassed me.
Fireworks were piled on the floor. I tried to imagine what would happen if I touched a flame to them. The office would fill with smoke, the fireworks would catch, and the whole room would go up in a roaring blaze. Of course I didn't actually do it. I wasn't foolish enough to burn down the place I lived.
I picked them up one by one and looked them over. There was one shaped like a spinning top, and another shaped like a relay baton from a school track meet. From the outside alone, how they worked was a puzzle. Judging by the wicks, lighting those ought to do the trick—but sadly, I couldn't set them off in the office right now.
I was still fiddling with them when Haru appeared.
"Hana, what are you doing?"
She said it at the sight of me crouched on the floor.
"I'm looking at the fireworks."
"Yeah? We're going to set them off soon. Is there one you like?"
It looked as if they meant to put one in my hand and let me light it. I frowned down at the pile. Nothing in particular called to me.
"I'll pick when we get there!"
"Okay, okay. Take your time!"
With that, I went back to my room. I had offered to help get the fireworks ready, but Bora hauled me off to my room, insisting it was adults' territory. I'm an adult too! I can handle a few fireworks just fine!
I killed time in front of the television, and before long the world outside had gone dark. Once the sun had fully set, Maru called for me.
"Hana! It's time to go!"
I changed in a hurry and dove into Maru's arms. With practiced hands, she scooped me up. This was Self-Driving Unit No. 3. No. 1 was Bora, and No. 2 was Haru. I held still and gave myself over to the cruise of a living autonomous robot.
Out in the spacious backyard, a party was being laid. Three or four barbecue grills stood ready, and the tables were heaped high with every kind of meat and vegetable. The sight of the meat had me drooling. Off in a corner, someone was heating charcoal—clearly planning to grill over it.
They'd also brought in strawberries and vegetables picked from the field I was tending. The plants I raised set fruit so heavily that there was more than enough for everyone in the office. It overflowed, in fact, because I'd been using water I'd soaked my hair in as fertilizer.
"Waaah!"
I ran all over the backyard. A party atmosphere like this was always welcome. The moment I showed up, the staff started grilling, and the smell of meat on the fire made me hungry. They had split into several groups, each tending its own grill.
I didn't go where the men had gathered. Just walking up to them felt like I'd catch a whiff of old-bachelor funk. Instead I slipped into the cluster of Maru, Haru, and Bora—a group I hadn't even known existed, the self-proclaimed Mommy Squad. The moment I arrived, Maru greeted me with the tongs still in her hand.
"Hana, want to try some meat?"
She pinched up a piece that was thoroughly cooked and held it out to me. I opened my mouth like a baby bird taking food from its mother and ate. Juice flooded out with every chew and filled me with delight. Meat with juice like this!
"This is really delicious!"
It was so far beyond any meat I'd eaten before that my eyes went wide. Where in the world did meat like this even come from?
"Maru, where did you buy this?"
"We got it from a place called Choi's Ranch. They feed their cattle the rice straw our Starlight Food makes, or so they said. It really is delicious."
Maru kept up the odd habit of snatching bites even while she grilled. On a grill that size, cooked meat ought to have piled up at least a little, but her chopsticks flew so frantically that the meat never had a chance to accumulate. The instant it was done, it went straight from the chopsticks into her mouth.
I joined in. Even if Haru, Bora, and Maru each handed me only a single piece, that was already three. I was too busy accepting and eating everything they gave me to think of anything else.