Cross-Stitch
Word that Starlight Food meant to build a vast grape farm sent every vineyard in the country into an uproar.
Citizens who already loved grapes cheered and welcomed the company's move into the business. Until now, every crop Starlight Food had grown and brought to market had been exceptional in flavor. The prices ran high, true enough, but that was a flaw people could live with.
The nation's grape farms, however, were scrambling as if the floor had caught fire beneath them. They had no choice. Overnight they could be out of work, and no one listens quietly when told to be unemployed by morning.
Caught between them, the government took a lukewarm stance. Whichever side it chose, it would be cursed for the choice, so for the moment it simply watched and waited. Side with the public, and the grape growers would howl. Order the company to stop cultivating grapes, and the citizens would howl instead.
Grapes were not a staple crop like rice, so the government could not legally forbid Starlight Food from growing them. The company was cultivating entirely within the law; if officials commanded it to stop, they would only invite an administrative lawsuit in return. Civil servants steeped in the art of covering their own backs had no reason to gamble.
In the end, amid the confusion, Nonghyup—the national agricultural cooperative—had no choice but to step forward as mediator. In Korea, nothing to do with crops escaped Nonghyup's eye.
Kim Sehee met the director of the Agricultural and Rural Support Headquarters, dispatched from Nonghyup Central. The meeting had been Nonghyup's proposal. She could have refused and been done with it, but she agreed, if only to take the temperature of the room. The knife, after all, was in her hand.
"We are, as always, deeply grateful for Starlight Food's expansion into agriculture."
At the director's predictable lip service, Kim Sehee smiled and inclined her head. As he said, the company's full-scale entry into farming had brought considerable gain. In truth, Starlight Food was no longer a firm that lived or died by the domestic market. It could sustain itself handsomely on exports alone.
If anything, demand outstripped supply. Its rice had long since taken root in Japan, claiming roughly a ten percent share. Given the volume of rice Japan consumed in a year, ten percent was no small thing. In that short span, Starlight Rice had swallowed a tenth of the Japanese market.
Green tea, too, was competitive enough to sell overseas, so long as the volume held. Cherry tomatoes were another matter entirely—the supply was already secured. The plants set so much fruit that shipments had begun not only to the military but abroad. As a high-calorie stand-in meal for hunters, nothing else came close.
The director dabbed the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and studied Kim Sehee's face. It did not so much as flicker. For a man long accustomed to sitting in the seat of power, it had been some time since he found himself the one who had to ask.
"And? This isn't a communist state. I intend to grow grapes and sell them. I don't see why Nonghyup needs to involve itself."
Her manner was colder than her smile had suggested, and the director sensed the negotiation would not be easy. As she said, there was no way to stop her from cultivating grapes. She was not growing them illegally. Starlight Food was operating entirely within the law.
"Chairman, please. Think it over just once more. Grape farms across the country are on the verge of ruin. Anyone who has tasted Starlight grapes knows the rest can't begin to compete with what Starlight Food produces."
"Then let them fail. If they close up shop, don't they receive subsidies anyway? And they can always grow something other than grapes."
"Th-that's..."
He had come to mediate only because the grape growers' grievances had pushed him into it, and now he found he had nothing left to say. There was nothing incorrect in what Kim Sehee had told him.
In the end the director could only trudge away after a thorough dressing-down. Behind Kim Sehee lurked the Starlight Guild—a vast dinosaur against which political pressure and every other card were useless.
The domestic grape farms had no choice but to acknowledge the arrival of an enormous predator. There was no way to stop it, and no way to resist. This pitiless ruler would soon occupy the entire domestic grape market.
I was staring blankly at the television, and I was beginning to understand why people called it the idiot box. Nothing was better for gazing off into pure emptiness. The trouble was that if I kept wasting time like this, summer vacation might be over before I noticed. I shook my head hard, fighting to pull myself free of the idiot box.
"Haaahm!"
I stretched until my arms trembled and decided to go out and play. When it came to passing the time, nothing beat talking with people. I could suddenly see why aunties spent the whole day gossiping in cafés. There was simply nothing else to fill the hours.
I changed into slippers at the entryway and stepped out into the corridor. The lights were on, but quitting time was long past, and the hallway wore a bleak, uneasy air. An empty corridor in the middle of summer looked like the sort of place a ghost might appear.
Every condition you might see in a movie was neatly in place. I broke into a run and tore down the hall. If I slowed even a little, I was certain a ghost would seize me by the nape from behind. Only when I reached the office could I finally catch my breath. Maru was sitting in a chair.
"Hana? Is something wrong?"
She asked as if she couldn't imagine why I had come. I didn't really have a reason either, so nothing came to mind to say. At a time like this, the wisest course was to throw myself into Maru's arms without a plan.
I launched myself into her embrace. She set the cross-stitch she had been making on the desk and gathered me in. I looked up at her.
"Maru, what are you making?"
"Mm... a cross-stitch!"
A new hire, and already slacking off! I tried to school my face into something stern and lecture her on a rookie's fighting spirit, but I doubted it would do any good. There wasn't any real work to be done, and the only reason she was standing the night watch was to look after me.
She couldn't go home at night, and sat alone keeping the office, because of me. Perhaps that was why I said nothing much at all and simply climbed into her lap. From there, the desk spread out in front of me.
A YouTube video titled How to Cross-Stitch played on the monitor while Maru stitched away with quiet concentration. It occurred to me that she was alone out here too. Wasn't she scared? I got frightened in my room now and then myself, though being in a room was never as bad as standing in that corridor. Maybe because it's the room where I sleep, and wash, and actually live.
I picked up the cross-stitch and handed it back to her. I wanted to watch her make it. Maru reached her hands out in front of me and set to work in earnest, and I could not look away from that small magic.
Her hands only traveled back and forth, and yet a beautiful rose was blooming across the cloth. I let out a cheer at the dance of her fingers. Skill like that could walk into a competition and come home with a prize.
"Wow, Maru, you're amazing at cross-stitch!"
At my praise she stroked my hair and answered gently.
"Mm-hmm. It's been a hobby of mine ever since I was little."
Cross-stitch, a hobby! Maru's pastimes were secretly rather old-fashioned. Of course, I had no idea what fate would befall me if I said that aloud, so I swallowed the thought and kept it strictly to myself.
"I'm making this cross-stitch for you, Hana!"
A cross-stitch just for me? The words set my heart racing. It was a terribly exciting thing to hear. Maru produced a cushion from somewhere and said,
"I'm going to take this stitching and turn it into a pretty cushion on this! One you can use yourself."
Hmm... If she set that cross-stitch into the cushion, it really would come out looking wonderfully fine. And a cushion was a handy little thing, with no end of uses. You could sleep on it instead of a pillow, or prop it against your back and sit there watching television.
At the very least, it would be more useful than Rumi's transformation set. Not that there was anything wrong with Rumi's transformation set. It simply wasn't much help in ordinary life.
I chattered on while I watched Maru work. Looking at a cross-stitch coming together so handsomely, I had an endless number of things I wanted to say. Maru must have found it dull to stitch in silence, because she answered me with warm, eager enthusiasm.
Talking with Maru really was wonderfully comfortable. My heart settled right down.