Hana, Sad Because She's Short
"Welcome to the land of dreams and fantasy!"
The staff greeted us with bright, friendly smiles, and for no good reason at all I went bouncing around in pure excitement. Unlimited-ride wristbands looped around our wrists, we held them up for one another and chattered.
"This is so pretty!"
"Right? I'm not taking mine off even when I get home!"
Jiyu and Yumi seemed thoroughly taken with the bracelets, turning their wrists this way and that to admire them. I was staring at the one on my own right arm too. It really had been years since I'd last set foot in an amusement park. For ordinary people without children, a trip to a theme park was no simple outing. Couples might go together, of course, but going with friends always felt a little lacking.
Waiting one or two hours for a single ride was bad enough, and without a child's stamina you wore out fast. The park itself was enormous—its grounds even wider than the city's grand park.
"All right, everyone, eyes up here!"
The teacher clapped to pull our attention in. Watching the children fall silent in an instant, she smiled with satisfaction, then went over the rules. When a class came to a place like this, the whole class didn't wander around together; friends split off into their own little groups to play. It was easier that way.
"Play inside the park until six this afternoon, then meet back here! Do not go outside the park under any circumstances, and keep your phone ringers on so you answer when we call!"
"Yes, ma'am—!"
"Then go on and have a blast!"
"Waaaaah!"
The moment she finished, the kids scattered into their own clusters. There weren't all that many of them, so they simply blended into the crowds and vanished. Set against the population of the park, our classmates amounted to a handful of ash.
"Hana, let's go ride something!"
"Yeah!"
Jiyu, Yumi, and I made up our minds to enjoy the park as a trio. I intended to spend the day well. If we'd come all this way, we had to get our money's worth.
"What should we ride first?"
I pulled out the park booklet and studied the map. Every ride in the place was drawn inside it, neat and friendly. Jiyu and Yumi plastered themselves to my sides and peered at the map with me. Standing like that, I felt a bit like a treasure hunter on the trail of loot. Treasure hunters hunted treasure, of course. We were hunting rides. That was the difference.
"This one looks fun!"
I pointed at a roller coaster. Come to an amusement park, and you had to ride a roller coaster—or so I thought. Contrary to my expectations, Jiyu and Yumi were squinting at me.
"Wh... why are you looking at me like that?"
I flustered under gazes I couldn't read at all. Jiyu and Yumi put a finger on a warning I had completely missed.
"Look here, Hana."
"Ah—!"
"How did I not see that?"
The question nagged at me, but Yumi only gave an awkward little laugh.
"Jiyu and I just barely make it. I don't think you will..."
"Grr!"
I was 135 centimeters—four foot five—and Jiyu and Yumi both seemed to clear 140. I'd known there was a height gap between us, but I never thought I'd feel it here. Fortunately, only the main roller coaster barred anyone under 140. The rest, I could still ride.
"Nnngh..."
Even so, a main coaster was only worth it if you actually rode the thing. Reality, however, left me no choice. Hoping I'd suddenly shoot up taller was unreasonable. Height wasn't the sort of convenient thing that grew in an instant. It was a long job—months, at the very least.
"Want to try the bumper cars first?"
Jiyu said it while watching me sulk. The moment I heard her, my ears perked. Bumper cars were fun too. I nodded at her suggestion.
"Bumper cars, let's go!"
"Yeah!"
Yumi beamed and nodded as well, clearly on board. The instant the three of us agreed, nothing could stop us. Map in hand, our little party headed for the bumper cars.
After the ROK–U.S. joint exercise, the battalion commander who had tried a Starlight Cherry Tomato carefully wrote up a report and sent it up the chain.
He began with taste and calories, noted that it was a food quite popular in Korea, and closed by underscoring the point one more time.
Rear units might manage without it. The front line cannot. This is a combat ration that must be supplied there, without exception.
In modern civilian life, the Starlight Cherry Tomato's advantages had faded somewhat. Sales were only so-so, in truth. At five thousand won apiece—barely a few dollars—the people who actually bought them were those with no time for a real meal, and patients.
Students tended to order cup ramen and something else on the side. Even then it didn't break five thousand won, and it was more efficient than eating a cherry tomato. The tomato wasn't bad, of course, but it fell a little short on the pleasure of eating.
Office workers, too, never skipped lunch if they could help it. Rather than a cherry tomato, they preferred one solid meal, and many of them simply ate whatever the company cafeteria put out. Even so, the cherry tomato was fairly popular in Korea.
Put that same tomato in the military instead of modern society, though, and its strengths exploded. Tiny size, almost no weight, calories absurdly large for the volume, easy storage, and a taste that was perfectly fine.
The battalion commander's report climbed and climbed until, at last, it reached the Secretary. In the Korean military, a battalion commander's report making it all the way to the minister would have been impossible. The United States was different. It wasn't rigid and locked into hierarchy the way the Korean forces were; it thought more flexibly.
"This is that cherry tomato they're selling in Korea?"
"Yes, sir. It's fairly popular there, but it hasn't really made a name for itself overseas."
"Why hasn't something this good gotten out until now?"
"I don't know the details, but it seems they simply didn't feel any particular need to spread the word."
"And why is that?"
"They were probably thinking of selling it in Korea first. More than that, the company handles a great many products that might as well be magic. It used to be a small firm whose annual revenue didn't even reach a few tens of billions of won, and then it suddenly started handling all these products at once—so I suspect promotion of the cherry tomato got pushed back a little."
The aide added one more thing.
"And I've heard that the volume they're already supplying to the Korean military alone has them struggling to keep up with production."
"Is that so? Still... Starlight Foods. I feel like I've heard that somewhere."
There was no reason he should know some tiny Korean company, and yet the Secretary felt a faint sense of déjà vu.
"It's the company that makes the Tangle you take, sir."
"Ah! That company? Then why hasn't it been known until now?"
The Secretary was a man who had once possessed a gleaming bald head. These days, thanks to Tangle, he lived with a full head of hair. The most moving day of his life had been the day hair grew in after he ate a Tangle—a thrill greater, even, than the day he became Secretary of Defense.
"It's because they've suddenly launched all sorts of products this year. Up through last year, they were nothing more than a small-to-midsize company that was a conglomerate in name only."
"Is that right?"
The Secretary of Defense carefully ate one Starlight Cherry Tomato. A hundred words were no match for a single look; feeling the effect in his own body was the surest proof.
Not even a few minutes later, a fullness settled over him as if he'd just eaten a proper meal. Until a moment ago he'd been fretting over what to have for lunch. That worry vanished completely. His stomach was full now, and he couldn't eat another bite.
Having tasted it himself and felt what it could do, the Secretary turned to his aide.
"Far superior to our own military rations."
In his heart he wanted nothing more than to dump every existing U.S. combat ration on the ground, but military supply was tangled in too many interests for even a Secretary to decide on a whim. What he could decide was to supply Starlight Cherry Tomatoes to frontline units alone.
The volume wouldn't even reach ten percent of the combat rations the U.S. military already held. Even so, the mere fact of a contract with the American military was merit enough.
Once the U.S. military adopted something, the armies of other nations usually came sniffing around with interest. It was the strongest force in existence, and it wasn't called the nation of a thousand trillion—an economy vast beyond imagining—for nothing. America had the people, and it poured just as much tax money into defense.