I'll Live Here Until I Die
The rice harvested from those vast fields was stacked, sack upon neat sack, into the warehouses. The department existed so the farmers could give themselves wholly to the crops, and so that the moment any trouble arose in the work, someone was already there to meet it. Maintenance, upkeep, and repair were the whole of the job.
It was not what people usually meant by white-collar work. There were hours at a desk, yes, but far more of them were spent outside. Kim Minsu did not particularly mind. If anything, he liked it. Wasn't it better to walk in the open air and call it exercise?
He had been grinding away as the most junior on the team when he got his first look at the new benefits system Starlight Food had just rolled out. An official notice had come down to every department, spelling out the fresh perks, and of course the junior saw it first. Someone had to carry it in to the seniors.
That evening, home from work, Kim Minsu sat down and read the new benefits through properly.
Effective this month, welfare points may be spent at the online mall operated separately by Starlight Food.
Employees may purchase a range of crops and goods through the mall.
The smile that broke across his face was pure delight. Since leaving his parents' house to live on his own, he had been forced to think again about food—something he had never truly registered before.
For as long as his parents had set the table, Minsu had possessed no sense of what people called the price of a meal. Wasn't that true of every young person who still lived at home and had never kept a place of their own? Eating cost money. Dining out was expensive, but the food that found its way onto a household table was hardly cheap either.
"Four hundred thousand points... how far does that actually go?"
He booted up the computer and typed in the address scribbled on the paper. What greeted him was no slapdash company store thrown together over a lunch break. One glance told him the shopping mall had been built with real money.
"Huh. They actually opened the wallet for this."
As a rule, a company online mall meant a clumsy, half-organized homepage. The one Starlight Food had made was different. Whoever had designed it was clearly going to suffer for the privilege.
"Starlight tomatoes, Starlight Coffee, every kind of vegetable... there's nothing they don't have."
The produce ran a little cheaper than the supermarket. If a bunch of green onions was two thousand won at the mart, the same bunch on the Starlight Food mall was eighteen hundred.
Then something caught his eye. Starlight Rice—the very grain currently whipping up a frenzy in Japan. The price, though, defied imagination: eight hundred thousand welfare points for a single twenty-kilogram sack.
He would have to shove two full months of points into it just to walk away with one sack. Even so, simply being able to buy rice that still was not sold on the domestic market, and at this price, was already a fine result. A family of four would finish twenty kilograms in a month, but living alone he could make it last a comfortable half a year. The proof was in his own kitchen: the rice he was eating now was Starlight Rice he had bought a month ago.
Back then he had paid for the expensive stuff imported from Japan. One taste, and he could not bring himself to eat any other rice, so he had steeled himself and bought it. If he could get it here at this price, nothing could be better. He clicked through to the details, and there it was in red.
It was illegal besides, and Starlight Food was hardly going to sit still if employees started hawking Starlight Rice to outsiders. Let that slide, and every worker in the company would buy nothing but the rice. Get caught selling it, and there was disciplinary action waiting. Better not to try.
He had no need of Starlight Rice just now anyway, so he turned his attention to the other crops. Onions, potatoes, and the like—things that earned their keep when you lived alone, the sort that went into fried rice or sat easily beside another dish—went into the cart first. Nearly four hundred thousand won a month in groceries, saved. From where Kim Minsu stood, it was an excellent benefit.
The only pity was that the welfare points expired after a year. If he could have kept stacking them forever, it would have been extraordinary.
He was still browsing the mall with eyes gone soft and melty when the Starlight strawberries caught him. A line of text marked them as a limited edition, and that alone seemed to make them shine brighter. Kim Minsu ordered a box.
"Yap! Yap!"
I was lying on the floor, studying. I could have used the desk, but there was a peculiar pleasure in rolling around on the floor of my room while I worked. I kept at the book for a long while, and then the boredom set in.
At times like this, the answer was a visit to the office. I set the book up on the desk and got ready to go out, giving my usual dinosaur pajamas a once-over before stretching until my arms shook. Someone had told me that stretching this often made you grow taller. It sounded like superstition, but it didn't hurt to try it once.
Shoes on, I walked slowly toward the office. The hallway was empty. Everyone seemed to be hard at work. I leaned in and peeked only my face through the doorway. Inside, a great many employees sat at their desks, working.
If I go in, won't I just be in the way? The thought was enough. I called off the office visit and made another plan. I still had the card Bora had given me last time, so I would go to the convenience store and buy something delicious.
I pattered off and pressed the elevator button—all three of them at once, as a little bonus. Even then the cars spent the whole day shuttling up and down, and they were miserable to catch. I would have to tell someone later to add a lot more. Hundreds of employees, and only three elevators: it didn't make any sense.
Department stores with even bigger crowds had the same number as we did, but they also had escalators and plenty of other ways up, so it hardly mattered. Plenty of people in our building used the stairs, true enough, yet anyone working on the higher floors took the elevator without exception.
I considered the stairs myself, and regrettably gave up. Now and then, maybe—but not as a habit. The tenth floor was too high a wall. Just going up and back took dozens of minutes, and the tears came even while I was climbing.
In my old body it would have been a matter of minutes. A child's body was far too frail. A few flights, and I could feel my breath running out. It was enough to make me think I really ought to exercise later.
At the sound of the elevator I hurried to stand in front of the doors. There weren't many people inside.
"Hi, Hana!"
Fortunately, they were people I knew—the women who, last time we played hide-and-seek, had caught me and walked me back to the office. I hopped in with a neat little step and pressed the button for the first floor. I didn't like that the convenience store lived only down there. Wouldn't it be fun, later, to tell them to put one on every floor?
The institute was wonderful that way. Whatever I wanted, they granted it, and it felt a little like I had become a king. But I decided not to get too pleased with myself. They were kind people, all of them helping me, and thinking of them as subordinates would have been too much. The old me might have called them subordinates, but I've grown since then!
"Where are you off to, Hana?"
They seemed curious about where I was going. If I didn't answer properly, they would definitely put me right back in the office, so I answered with my head held high.
"The convenience store!"
"Yeah? Then want your unnies to buy you something yummy?"
I shook my head back and forth, a clear refusal. I knew that if they ever learned the approximate balance on my card, they would scream and flee as if they had stared into the terror of the abyss. I could say with certainty that no one in this institute was richer than I was.
"Bye~"
I waved, and we parted. Maybe it was the dinosaur pajamas, but strength seemed to well up in me all on its own. I pattered along to the convenience store, not forgetting to check, on the way, what new things had come into the lounge on the first floor. Greeting the staff who kept watch over that lounge was mandatory, too.
Whenever I went outside to do the farming, someone always seemed to place a call somewhere else. Then, as if by magic, Bora or Haru or Maru would come trailing along behind me. Were they really that worried I might leave this wonderful building for somewhere else?
I have no intention of getting out of here until the day I die! They fed me, housed me, and took care of every last thing besides. There was no reason to leave. And it was free. Nothing could be better than that. I strolled along, and before long I was standing in front of the convenience store.
Beaming, I stepped inside.