Good Deeds Bring Good Rewards
Patter-patter.
I stepped into the convenience store. It was far larger than before. The place had been tiny once, but after I complained there wasn't enough to eat, they'd expanded it until the floor was something like three times its old size. What had started as a hole-in-the-wall shop was now grand enough that even a supermarket would have nothing to envy.
The best part was the snack corner that had appeared all on its own. Every kind of treat was lined up on display, stirring my appetite to its limit, and the drinks had multiplied too, so the range of choices was much wider than before. The liquor section, though, hadn't been walled off to keep me out. The staff knew me too well for that. If I tried to walk up with beer or soju, they would never ring it up.
No dazzling speech of mine was going to fool a clerk into selling me alcohol. They'd phone our office on the spot. Hana's trying to buy beer and soju—do you know anything about this? And then someone from the office would come straight down and haul me away. Without the soju and the beer, of course! I'd get a smack on the bottom besides. Why are you buying grown-ups' drinks without permission? So I didn't so much as glance at the liquor corner. Basket in hand, I wandered the aisles.
The snacks had been good lately, but chocolate was what I craved most. I picked out a fancy bar said to have been made by a master chocolatier, smiling as I added other treats to the pile. Buy too much and carrying it would be a chore, so I meant to take only as much as would fit in my bag.
Once the basket was reasonably full, I set it on the counter. Thunk. The weight of it told me I'd picked out plenty again today.
"Ring me up, please!"
At that, the clerk lifted the basket and set it neatly beside the register, then smiled at me.
"Hana. You didn't sneak any beer or soju in today, did you?"
I'd bought beer one single time, and now they were treating me like a repeat offender! I'd only had one can... Still, the fact that I'd bought it hadn't gone away, so I said,
"I'm not drinking anymore!"
"Oh yeah?"
Beep. Beep.
While we talked, the clerk started scanning the barcodes on the snacks and drinks I'd chosen. Each beep was as pleasant as a lullaby. With every scan, my mood lifted a little more. Snacks and drinks really were the truth of the universe.
Then something caught my eye. It was some black machine, and across the front, in big advertising letters, it said:
I wanted one, so I told the clerk,
"One soft-serve, please!"
"Sure! I'll pile it on nice and high!"
One hand on the shopping basket, the other on the cone. A perfectly ideal division of labor. I left the store beaming from ear to ear. Maybe it was the thrill of a mission accomplished, but I felt like I could float right off the ground. And so, racing through the lobby, I hit a slick patch of floor and went sliding.
"Waaah!"
I had no choice but to scream. If the soft-serve had simply hit the floor, I could have bought another. The problem was that my cone had smeared itself all over some man's pants. Heart pounding, I lifted my head.
He was a middle-aged man, a little thin on top. From the way he was dressed, though, he must have had something important today—immaculate, expensive clothes from his shoes on up. And my soft-serve was plastered across the cuff of those pants. I couldn't get a word out. I was in full panic, because this was one hundred percent my fault.
Sprawled on the floor, I couldn't get up, and that was when the man took my hand and helped me to my feet. Then he met my eyes and asked,
"Little one, are you hurt anywhere?"
He looked me over just as he would if he were checking, in case I'd been injured in the fall. Luckily the dinosaur pajamas were nice and plush, so aside from a slightly scraped knee I didn't seem hurt at all. A small mercy in the middle of the disaster.
"I... I'm... I'm sorry..."
I thought I might cry. To make a mistake like a little kid—and this wasn't even the kind of mistake a little kid would make. Who buys a soft-serve, gets so excited they can't contain themselves, and falls over? Adult privileges: revoked.
"No, no. I'm the one who should apologize, for getting in your way. Are your parents around?"
Even with his pants a chocolate soft-serve disaster, the man seemed more worried about me than about himself. If it had been me, I might have snapped at the kid who'd ruined my pants. He seemed like a remarkably considerate grown-up.
"Th-this is my house..."
"Hm?"
Just then Maru came running from somewhere. She must have sprinted a long way; her face was a little flushed. If the building had been hot, she'd have been drenched in sweat.
"Hana, are you okay?"
I was gathered into Maru's arms. She'd probably seen that I wasn't in my room and come racing here. If I wasn't in my room, the convenience store and the back garden were the only places I ever went.
"Ah—are you her guardian?"
The middle-aged man addressed Maru, his expression certain that she was the one looking after me. Seeing him, Maru put on an apologetic face.
"Oh my. I'm so sorry. It looks like Hana made a mess. I'll cover the cleaning bill..."
But the man laughed, big and easy.
"Not at all. A child is bound to make a mistake now and then! What matters far more than my pants is that she isn't hurt. Pants can always be washed, can't they?"
"Then at least let me get you something to wipe them with."
Maru vanished in a flash. I stole a glance at the man. No matter how I looked at it, I was clearly the one in the wrong, so I bowed my head again and begged his forgiveness—an apology more courteous than most children would ever manage.
"Aigoo. You even know how to apologize politely. What a very good little girl."
He waved a hand as if it were nothing, telling me I didn't need to feel sorry anymore. Still, looking at the state of his pants, they didn't look fine at all...
Maru handed him a towel. He scrubbed the ice cream off his pants with a few brisk swipes, then disappeared as coolly as you please. Plenty of buyers came and went through our research institute; he was probably one of them. I decided I would tell Chairman Sehee about today as soon as she arrived.
She was coming because of some contract, though she could just as well have signed it at Starlight Food. She wanted to see me, she said, so she was doing the signing here.
And that man was the kind of genuinely good person you rarely saw these days!
Kim Yeongcheol, president of Yeongcheol Distribution, had steadied his nerves and prepared for a business trip. His destination was the Starlight Research Institute. He had left home to connect the foods made by Starlight Food with the companies that needed them.
With goods worth tens of billions of won on the line, today's contract had to go through no matter what. There were plenty of firms that could replace Yeongcheol Distribution, but the foods Starlight Food sold could be made only by Starlight Food.
After he arrived at the institute, though, a small child in dinosaur pajamas had fallen and smeared soft-serve all over his pants. With an important contract ahead of him, Kim Yeongcheol decided to take it as a minor mishap paid in advance, to bleed off worse luck. The girl also reminded him of the granddaughter growing up back home. So he soothed her as gently as he could, careful not to startle her, and handed her over to her guardian.
Still, he couldn't make sense of the child saying the Starlight Research Institute was her house. Why would this be her home? The idea of someone eating and sleeping in this building was difficult to imagine.
He pulled himself together, boarded the elevator, and headed for the tenth floor to begin the day's negotiations. When the doors opened, an unexpected sight greeted him. The girl who had dropped her ice cream earlier was there—and with her, laughing and playing, was Kim Sehee.
In that instant a chill shot up the back of Kim Yeongcheol's neck. He didn't even want to imagine what would have happened if he had snapped at the child instead. That was the very girl Kim Sehee was smiling and playing with, as dear to her as her own daughter.
"Hana gets into quite a lot of mischief, doesn't she?"
"N-not at all, Chairman."
Kim Yeongcheol was pouring sweat as they talked. The contract had apparently already been reviewed in full; Kim Sehee spoke of nothing but Hana, as if she couldn't live without her.
"I'm the one who ought to thank you, for being so gentle about Hana's mistake."
He went stock-still.
That day, Kim Yeongcheol walked away with a contract on truly excellent terms. It was true after all. Do a good deed, and a good reward comes back to you.
He couldn't begin to guess how precious this child named Hana must be, for her name to come up so often. From where he stood, though, the girl was an angel. She had gotten him terms this good, after all.
And if he had chased her off, or lost his temper? Then today's contract would very likely have been dead in the water.
The thought sent a shiver through him.