Steady Shoveling
Companies itching to challenge Starlight Food's dominion had begun to creep out of the woodwork. In fields like semiconductors or the space industry, where technology was packed to a razor's edge, catching up was all but impossible.
It was the difficulty of tossing a cell phone to a Paleolithic hunter and telling him to place a call. Start from a bare foundation with nothing in hand, and a lifetime of effort still wouldn't close the gap—because the technology never stopped advancing. By the time you finally caught the technique they had been using, it was already obsolete, a discarded relic.
Starlight Food's products were different. Extract the seed, stick it in the ground, and you were done. Compared with any other industry, the work was laughably simple. While rival sectors wept and bled to pry secrets loose through industrial espionage, the companies hoping to copy Starlight Food's goods needed only a single seed. And getting that seed was as easy as buying one at the market.
Starlight Food didn't even appear to be trying to stop them. So, at first, the companies rubbed their hands in glee and set about planting. They meant to raise Starlight Food's plants on their own plots and sell them cheaper than the original. From a distance, it looked like a perfectly rational, perfectly legitimate business.
There was, of course, the matter of a patent on the seeds—but Starlight Food had never registered one. Why they hadn't was a mystery. Still, if the plants could be grown legally, so much the better.
"So this is the coffee seed Starlight Food's been selling?"
The man turned the thing over in his hands, studying it from every angle: an unprocessed seed of Starlight Coffee, the hottest commodity on the market these days. The subordinate at his side spoke up.
"Yes, sir. Excellent flavor, a rich aroma—the best-selling coffee bean out there right now."
"Hmm..."
To the naked eye, it looked no different from any other coffee. Then again, the very idea of coffee growing in Korea was absurd to begin with. Coffee grew only in the so-called coffee belt, that band between twenty degrees south and twenty degrees north. You could force it to grow elsewhere, perhaps, but only if you held the light and the temperature perfectly steady. The cost of doing so was ruinous. Mass production was out of the question.
And Korea sat far above that belt. You might talk yourself into believing it could thrive through the summer, but come winter the temperature would drop and the plants would wither and die. They needed sunlight to grow in the first place, and even in summer the monsoon rains would make a coffee tree all but impossible.
So one research institute dialed in the optimal temperature and the precise measure of sunlight, and set about raising the seeds. When the plants shot up at a startling pace, the researchers broke into cheers. Their plan, they were certain, was working.
"The growth rate is uncanny!"
"It hasn't even been a week, and look at this! I think I finally understand how Starlight Food moves so many coffee beans off such a small plot of land."
"The moment these bear fruit, Starlight Food won't have the market to itself anymore."
The more places there were growing and selling these beans, the narrower Starlight Coffee's foothold would become. And Starlight Food was a company that had only just exploded into growth. Surely, they thought, there had to be some weakness in the way it sold.
Before long, the researchers were forced to change their minds.
Time passed, and the coffee trees showed not the slightest intention of bearing coffee. Suspecting the temperature or the sunlight was insufficient, they adjusted the figures—and still nothing set. They heaped on fertilizer. Wondering whether the fruit simply took a long time, they let still more days slip by. The Starlight coffee trees never produced a single bean.
As if something essential to fruiting were missing, as if they were sneering at Starlight Food's rivals, the trees refused to bear. But giving up was not an option. However they reckoned the coffee market slipping out of their hands, the trees had to fruit. Sit idle like this, and they would crumble slowly, like a castle of sand.
They couldn't even compete on the raw material. Starlight sold cheaper than imported coffee, which meant the rivals had no strength left with which to fight.
They tried everything. They crossed the seeds with other coffee varieties and planted the hybrids. Those crossed seeds never grew at all. Another failure.
Starlight Food knew the plants would grow only around the one that had sprung from a single tooth. The competitors had no idea. So they poured out time and money without restraint, trying again and again, dreaming the empty dream that fruit would come someday.
They did not, of course, know that the dream had no chance of ever coming true.
"Bora!!!"
I caught sight of Bora stepping out of the elevator. I could have waited in the office, but my heart was on fire, and it would not allow it. So I waited by the elevator instead, and before long I found her arriving for work in a crisp, stylish outfit.
I latched onto her leg like a cicada. Clinging like that was the only thing that seemed to settle my heart. Bora stroked my head as she answered.
"Honestly... I told you to wait nicely!"
The words were sharp, but the tone was gentle, as if even Bora understood that waiting for the movie was more than I could manage. I tipped my head back and looked up at her.
"Bora! Let's go watch it right now!"
If we left this instant, I could be the very first one to see it. The movie wouldn't start for more than two hours, but I didn't care about that in the slightest. Just sitting in a seat in front of the theater screen and waiting would have been enough to make me unbearably happy.
"Hana! You're not going out dressed like that, are you?"
What's wrong with dinosaur pajamas! Every time I wandered the building in them, the way people looked at me changed. The only time they watched me with bright, sparkling eyes was when I had the dinosaur pajamas on. Bora, taking in the sight of me, pulled me into a hug.
"Hana. Dinosaur pajamas off! We're going neat and tidy. And if you do, I'll buy you something delicious. Deal?"
"Really?"
"Of course."
That was all it took. I had no choice but to scurry into the room. I felt a little sorry for the dinosaur pajamas, but food mattered too. Right now, the snacks I would eat while watching the movie mattered more than the pajamas themselves, so I peeled them off without a moment's hesitation. I did not, of course, dump them on the floor.
Once they were off, I hung them neatly on a hanger. I would be wearing them again, so keeping them clean and presentable was important. And the dinosaur tail mattered more than anything, so I gave it a stroke and checked that nothing had gone wrong with it. Nothing had. It spent plenty of time dragging along the floor, but however it had been made, the tail was as hard as steel.
"Hup!"
I changed into the outfit Haru had laid out yesterday and told me to wear. The girl in the mirror looked exactly like a little kid of that age. Not overdressed, and not sloppy either—just the ordinary clothes of an ordinary child. Of course, my looks were so striking that even ordinary clothes carried the air of something a model might wear.
"Hmm~"
Being too good-looking was its own kind of problem. I could understand why the people around me watched me with such envy. To have a face like this even at my age—I couldn't begin to imagine how beautiful I would be once I grew up. I was starting to feel like a narcissist.
If I had ever met a woman with looks like these, I would have felt as though the whole world were mine. Unfortunately, I was in a body that couldn't date itself, so I decided to leave it as a thought and nothing more. The face I had worn when I was a man was already fading, little by little.
I swept the stray thoughts aside, finished changing, and headed for the office. Nothing mattered more than going to see the theatrical film of Little Magician Rumi. The moment I arrived, I could feel people looking at me. I didn't care. I crept over to Bora, who was in the middle of talking with the department head.
"Bora!"
Seeing that I had changed, Bora smiled.
"It suits you, Hana. So pretty!"
She didn't even have time to finish her conversation with the department head. The instant I arrived, she broke it off and gathered me up in her arms. The destination was the movie theater.