Summer Break
A handful of Idaya Coffee shops in Seoul—the ones with the heaviest foot traffic—were secured ahead of the rest and supplied with Starlight Coffee beans. The store manager had her doubts about the beans headquarters had swapped in.
"Just how good does a coffee bean have to be before they tell us to stop using what we already had and switch to this?"
Among franchise cafés, Idaya Coffee was one that actually spent real money on its beans. They used stock roughly twenty to thirty percent more expensive than what other chains poured, and they had never been willing to give up on quality. Maybe that was why, mid-priced brand though they were, they so often landed near the top in blind taste tests. From the very beginning, the founder had insisted the product had to be good.
"Don't tell me..."
In a modern world where prices were shooting through the roof, had they finally failed to cover the cost of ingredients and started sending down slightly inferior beans? The minimum wage was rising. Prices were rising. In Korea, there was nothing that didn't rise. Even that pittance of a paycheck crept upward, so of course everything else was bound to follow.
But the moment the manager broke open the bag, a fragrant aroma struck her nose so hard it seemed to ring. She had worked this franchise for years, and she had never smelled coffee beans this intense—a scent that pricked the nose, then, on the second breath, turned soft and deep, like incense sinking into the air.
"Unnie! What is that? The coffee smell is reaching all the way over here!"
A coworker who had been working nearby drifted over as if the aroma had put a spell on her. It was so good that even staff standing well away caught the scent and came trailing after it like children after the Pied Piper.
"Uh... these are the new beans headquarters sent down. I think they're actually really good?"
"Right? And that's just from smelling them. Coffee made with these beans has to be incredible."
The color of the beans was beautiful, and their shape was so even it was deeply satisfying. Headquarters seemed to have found an extraordinarily fine coffee farm. Aroma, color, shape—a perfect hundred out of a hundred. All that remained was the taste.
"We're using these beans today. There's plenty, so don't touch the old stock. And follow the instructions from headquarters—survey how the customers react."
They finished every last preparation before opening. The shop opened, people came in, and after a few hours the café was packed wall to wall.
The manager had been sharp enough to throw the doors wide open. Coffee scent drifting lazily out of the shop worked a kind of magic on everyone walking the street, and people who caught it wandered inside as if entranced.
"Excuse me, one Americano, please!"
Some didn't even glance at the menu before ordering an Americano.
"I came in for a chocolate shake, but I smelled that and I can't hold out. I'm getting an Americano."
"You too? I was thinking the same thing. Excuse me, three Americanos, please."
Even groups who had come in with friends changed their order from shakes to Americanos the moment they caught the scent of the beans.
Before long, there wasn't a single open seat. No matter how busy the café had ever gotten, it had never happened that not one customer could sit down. They had never had a rush like this. The manager hurriedly addressed the people still coming through the door.
"Everyone! Takeout only for now! We're really sorry!"
The customers were fine so long as they got their coffee. Not a single difficult guest flew into a rage over the lack of seats. Takeout was enough for all of them. Even so, Americanos accounted for the vast majority of the day's sales, simply because nine customers out of ten ordered nothing else.
"Unnie! A little help over here!"
"Number thirty-one! Your Americano is ready!"
The kitchen, for its part, was dying. They had to greet far more customers than usual, so they ran until sweat slicked their feet. The one mercy was that this was a fairly large store with plenty of staff. A smaller shop would have had orders backed up for ages under a crowd like this.
The owner, though, could smile until her cheeks hurt. Unlike the employees, who were pouring in every last scrap of strength they had, she took a set cut of the sales. The harder they worked, the more she earned.
"Starting today it's summer break, so I hope you'll spend the time doing something meaningful instead of just playing around!"
The teacher stood at the podium and spoke. The mood in the room, however, was already boiling over. The kids who had heard her had long since said goodbye to their chairs with their backsides. Everyone was simply waiting for her to finish. Yumi looked around with a faintly pained expression.
Weren't they a little too much like children? They couldn't even endure those last ten seconds without bouncing all over the place. Then she turned her gaze to Hana and had to swallow the thought. Hana was currently sitting in midair. She hadn't merely lifted herself off the chair—she already had her bag on. It was far more childish than anything the other kids were doing.
Judging by the fact that she ranked first in the whole school, her head for studying was clearly good, but her behavior still had plenty of the child left in it. Yumi tried to picture Hana hitting puberty, and the image refused to form. Beaming, grinning Hana going through adolescence with a sour face just didn't seem like something that would ever happen. Hana looked like a girl puberty would simply pass by.
"Well then, have a good summer break!"
"Yeah!"
The moment the teacher declared vacation, the kids cheered and started pouring out of the classroom. Hana tried to join the stampede. Yumi stopped her.
"Hana! We said we were going out to play!"
At Yumi's words, Hana let out a little cry, as if she had only just remembered. She didn't leave the classroom after all, and came to stand in front of Yumi. Once Yumi confirmed the other kids were gone, she pulled out her bag and set it on the desk. Jiyu slung hers on at a leisurely pace and came over to Yumi's side.
"Let's eat pizza today!"
Jiyu loved delicious food. Maybe that was why she gave off the air of someone who would say okay to just about anything. The moment Hawaiian pizza appeared, though, her face turned demonic. They had only learned that after pizza showed up in the school lunch. Mint chocolate and Hawaiian pizza, she declared, were foods of Satan.
"Yeah! There's a good pizza place right up ahead!"
One pie split three ways was just the right amount. And it wasn't a chain pizza, either—just the sort that ran about eleven dollars a pie. Pool their money and it came to barely four dollars a person, cheap enough to actually eat pizza. Hana nodded.
"Then let's go right now!"
The three shouldered their bags and stepped into the hallway. The corridor already wore a bleak, emptied-out air, as if the kids had fled at the speed of light. Not even five minutes had passed, and there wasn't a single child in sight. Summer break plus little kids was invincible. Nobody could stop them. Even if their parents showed up, it wouldn't matter. Elementary schoolers greeting vacation possessed combat power on par with a tank.
"Hello, Teacher!"
Walking the hall, the group ran into their homeroom teacher and greeted her politely. The teacher waved back. The teachers looked different from usual, too, as if they were glad summer break had come. Well, teachers were people; of course a rest felt good. They still had to come in to school during vacation, of course, but handling paperwork was far easier than teaching small children.
"Have a good summer, kids."
"Okaaay!"
Once they stepped outside the school, the view was a spectacle. Because the elementary and middle schools shared the grounds, there were plenty of middle schoolers too. They must have started break on the same day, because every student poured out at once. The wide schoolyard looked like a chicken coop.
"Oh my gosh, look how cute!"
"We were elementary schoolers once, too."
"Those were the days..."
A pack of middle-school girls passed by, talking as if they had already lived entire lives. Being third graders, the trio was still at an age when the baby fat hadn't properly come off. Hana, though, did not look pleased at being treated like a little kid.
"I can't believe I'm hearing middle schoolers call me cute and small!"
Hearing that beside her, Yumi had a question. Cute was one thing, but wasn't small simply correct? To look at the middle schoolers you had to tilt your head up. The difference in height was that severe. Hana seemed to find it unacceptable.
"Pizza, pizza!"
Jiyu, of course, looked as if she wasn't thinking about any of it. And so Hana and her friends arrived at the pizza place in front of the school.