Sticking On the Dinosaur Stickers
"See? I told you this would work out."
"You were absolutely right, boss. I honestly never imagined anyone could make a living paying prices like these."
"Korean tastes may have gone Western, but we still run on rice. Ignore the power of a good bowl of rice and you're finished."
The employee couldn't help marveling at his boss's choice. When the man had first proposed the strategy, he'd stared at him like someone who'd taken a bullet to the head. He had never said so out loud, of course. In office life, knowing which thoughts to voice and which to swallow was simply common sense.
"Your foresight is truly remarkable, sir."
He meant it. The investment was aggressive enough to look absurd in a shabby little office, and even he had been left shaking his head. Now Starlight Rice was flying off the shelves. List it on a shopping site at a price anyone else would call insane, and they still couldn't keep it in stock.
He'd never imagined Korea had this many people with money to burn. Nearly four hundred and fifty dollars, gone, for a single sack of rice?
"Starlight Foods' products have already proved their quality and their flavor all on their own. You don't even have to look. It's obvious."
"Then...?"
"I just hope the government keeps hemming and hawing like this. Drag their feet a little longer, and we'll be sitting on a pile of money before we know it."
Hardly anyone had thought yet of buying Starlight Rice in Japan and selling it back in Korea. This boss was exploiting that brief gap. Once tariffs and the rest of the taxes were stacked on top, the margin on each sale wasn't much—but volume made it plenty sweet.
It was selling so well they could have charged even more, and they were quietly creeping the price upward. Ordinary households could skip it if they liked, but shops that lived and died by their customers' palates sometimes bought it through tears. The difference in taste between ordinary rice and Starlight Rice was simply that stark.
It was a business that could vanish the moment the government chose to act. Judging by how they were handling things, though, it could be milked for a solid year.
"A year at the outside. Anything past that is too uncertain, so we squeeze every last drop out of it before then."
They were only middlemen, so they hadn't invested much in the office—just a few computers and a telephone. It was never meant to last. A hit-and-run business had no need of investment, and the moment the government passed a law they would be as good as dead.
"Yes, boss. For this one year I'll work like I'm already dead and grind myself down to the bone."
"I'll be right there with you."
And so Starlight Rice began to spread through Korea by quiet word of mouth. Selling it domestically was clearly forbidden, but they were slipping through a gap in the law, and there was nothing solid enough to ban. How could you stop people willing to pay the tariffs themselves? Botch a prohibition, and the blowback might land on Korea's own exports.
In Japan, Starlight Rice was riding a fair wind—no, "fair wind" didn't begin to cover it. It was selling like wildfire. Set it out in a shop and it was gone at once.
No matter how brilliant the advertising or the design, food lived and died by taste. Because it tasted good, it spread by word of mouth without any real campaign at all. If anything, Kara Sushi was flustered by the sheer flood of purchase requests.
They had drawn a line in advance—this much, and we'll call it a success!—and blown straight past it. Even so, among Japan's population of more than a hundred million, the share actually eating Starlight Rice was still under five percent. Holding even that much of the market in so little time was a miracle.
The Japanese government was surely watching Kara Sushi with care. Had the supply been any larger, restrictions might already have come down. Kara Sushi's one regret was that they simply didn't have enough product left to sell.
They were charging more than ordinary rice and still moving this much. Sell it at the original price, and he didn't even dare guess how high the sales would have climbed.
Danaka smiled with satisfaction and lifted a piece of sushi with his chopsticks. The rice, of course, had been cooked from Starlight Rice. The way it melted the instant it met his tongue was all the reason that smile needed.
"Isn't it strange? That we, of all people, were the first to learn rice this delicious even existed."
It really had been a pile of coincidences. If the typhoon had never struck Korea. If he had never gone there as Kara Sushi's representative. If that neighborhood sushi shop hadn't been using Starlight Rice. Only because so many chances stacked together had they found it at all.
Now Kara Sushi could hold a firm first place among conveyor-belt sushi brands. Among everything he would accomplish before he died, this would rank near the top. He had no confidence he could match an achievement like this—not looking back, and not looking ahead.
"Whoaaa!"
I held up the tablet Maru had bought me and let the wonder spill out. From now on, when I watched Little Magician Rumi, the screen would be so much bigger. Maru settled in beside me and started teaching me how to use it.
I already knew all of it, of course, but I put on a diligent student face so she wouldn't feel awkward. After a lecture that ran for several dozen minutes, I tapped the screen with my finger. I had to choose the anime I was watching today.
"Hyah!"
Every time my little finger moved, the picture changed. Once I'd picked the show I'd sneak later tonight, I set the tablet down. Maru had gone back to the office, so I was alone on the bed. Bored, I decided to go play over there. Stay in a room like this by myself, and a ghost was bound to show up.
I stepped outside in my dinosaur pajamas. It wasn't quitting time yet, and people were still bustling this way and that. Anyone who recognized me reached down to ruffle my hair. Among the people who worked in this office, not knowing me would make you a spy.
No—in this whole research institute, there couldn't be a single person who didn't know me. If there was, I'd have to assume they were a spy from another company. Today, as usual, I'd brought a big stack of glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs to stick up in the office.
Dozens of them already covered the walls of my room, so I'd decided to share the good things. I'd stuck some up last time too, but when I went back they were gone, peeled clean off. Why didn't office people like dinosaurs?
It was fair to say no creature set a man's heart on fire quite like a dinosaur. They had a way of striking something deep in the male soul.
"Hmmmm~"
I walked into the office. Nothing stood in my way. The staff knew I was coming in, and they didn't stop me, because I was the king. I went up to a bare stretch of wall, dragged over an empty chair, and set it down in front of it.
"Hana, what are you doing?"
An employee who had no idea what I was up to came over and asked. I held up the glow-in-the-dark dinosaur sticker in my hand and announced it, proud as anything.
"I came to put up glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs!"
"R-right..."
"Where did the ones I stuck up last time go? You didn't peel them off and throw them away, did you?"
At my question the employee only laughed, awkward and hollow. Had they really thrown away the glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs I'd stuck up, one careful stitch at a time? I stared at him, shocked. Seeing my face, he waved his hands.
"No, no, we didn't throw them away. The dinosaurs probably just went somewhere else, don't you think? Stay stuck in one place too long and they get bored."
Oh. That made sense. Stuck in the same spot forever, they would get bored. I couldn't stay in one place for long either—how much worse for dinosaurs? I nodded at his words and said I understood.
The moment he heard that, he scurried off somewhere else. I watched him go, then got back to my work.
"Hyah!"
I stuck the glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs where the employees' hands couldn't reach. Looking at them plastered thick across the wall, I had to hold back a laugh. Letting them see dinosaurs this cool—I was just too kind. The staff would feel stronger the moment they saw them, because dinosaurs were the best!
I was still sticking them up when Bora came over and scooped me into her arms.
"This child, that's dangerous! What were you going to do if you fell off the chair?"
"Ah! I'm not done yet!"
I said it while still clutching the leftover dinosaur stickers. I hadn't even finished, and Bora had caught me and was hauling me back to my room. I'd have to put up more when I had the time. If the dinosaur stickers were only in my room, that just felt wrong!