Let's Ride the Bumper Cars
"Hana, slow down!"
I tore through the sprawling amusement park at a full sprint, arms flung wide. Jiyu and Yumi had no hope of matching that speed. Once you set foot in an amusement park, moving fast was simply the established law of the land.
Age, as it turned out, could not be faked. Jiyu and Yumi were floundering helplessly before the seasoned prowess of someone who had lived for decades. The bumper cars were still a long way off. The park was enormous, as amusement parks tended to be, and seeing every single ride before the day was out was probably a lost cause.
Which was why I had mapped the optimal route and meant to wring every last drop of fun out of today. We could always come back, of course — but we had bought all-day passes, and riding as many attractions as humanly possible was the only sane course of action.
"Hana, you really are just like a little kid!"
"Wh-wh-what?!"
Hearing Yumi call me childlike, I felt something crack inside my chest. A ten-year-old, telling me I was like a kid! There was no humiliation greater than that. I had lived at least twice as long as Yumi! And the years I had already put in — how many were there? I did not, at the very least, come up short against Yumi.
I turned to her and spoke in a solemn, deadly serious voice, both fists clenched tight.
"Take those words back...!"
Yumi only grinned.
"Hana's a kid."
"Grr...!"
I decided it was time to demonstrate the dignity of an adult. The trouble was, I had no idea how one demonstrated adult dignity at an amusement park. Wasn't the whole place a theme park built for children?
Then something caught my eye.
"Cotton candy! Let's get cotton candy, Jiyu, Yumi!"
I jabbed a finger at the cotton-candy stand as I said it. Yumi and Jiyu looked at each other and nodded. Wait — was eating cotton candy supposed to be the childish part? Adults loved cotton candy too! This was discrimination!
"So yummy!"
I beamed, clutching a puff of cotton candy bigger than my own face. It was wonderfully sweet, just as cotton candy ought to be. Whoever had first invented the stuff had to be every bit as extraordinary as the person who looked at a pufferfish and thought, I should eat that.
"Hana. You have to finish it before the bumper cars. You can't hold cotton candy and drive at the same time."
"Okay!"
I started eating faster. I had meant to buy Jiyu and Yumi a cotton candy each as well. What I lacked was time, not money — I had plenty of that. To put it bluntly, I could have bought the entire amusement park outright. And if I were truly short, I could always borrow from Chairman Sehee. She had even said that if I needed it, she would stand as my guarantor. That was how close Chairman Sehee and I were.
Jiyu and Yumi, however, chose to split a single cotton candy between them. Apparently finishing one whole cloud of sugar on their own was more than they could manage.
We reached the bumper cars before I could finish mine, and my face crumpled into pure misery. There wasn't even a line — we could ride right away. Jiyu and Yumi slid a look my way. Their eyes did the talking: hurry up and choose.
Tears welling, I had no choice but to drop the cotton candy into the trash. Finishing a puff that size in under a minute was impossible. The moment they saw me throw it away, Jiyu and Yumi seized my hands and took off running for the cars.
"S-slow down, you two!"
They listened the way one listens to background noise — which is to say, not at all. Children, the both of them. Jiyu and Yumi couldn't conceal the little kid living in their hearts either.
"Three, please!"
We held up the all-day-pass bracelets on our wrists for the attendant, who welcomed us with a bright smile and then swung open the gate that had been shut tight.
"Have a wonderful time!"
"Okay!"
Hands linked, we poured inside in a rush. The floor was packed with bumper cars waiting for someone to claim them.
"I'm taking this red one!"
"I want the black one!"
Jiyu and Yumi each secured a personal vehicle. I spun my eyes like mad, pouring every ounce of focus into finding the bumper car that was meant for me. And then I spotted one in a color that caught my eye.
"I'm riding the green bumper car!"
Strangely enough, ever since I had changed into this body, green had become my favorite color. I used to love blue, but my tastes had shifted. Grinning, I took the wheel. First on the list: ram Jiyu's car.
There was no reason to fly anyone in from the United States. With US Forces Korea already stationed in the country, there was no cause to send American personnel from across the ocean. Colonel Oliver of USFK, acting on orders from the Department of Defense, set out for Starlight Food.
Once he received instructions from home concerning the Starlight Cherry Tomato, he had gone so far as to buy some himself and eat them, building up a private store of intelligence. Even he had been stunned after tasting one. To think food this revolutionary, this convenient, existed in Korea.
The base where US Forces Korea were stationed was America in miniature. That it was vast enough a man never needed to step outside into Korea at all was almost beside the point — nearly every convenience a person could want existed inside the fence. He spoke no Korean, and he rarely had any reason to leave the base.
Within those gates, the law to be followed was American law as well. To that extent, the installation had been granted both autonomy and independence. And yet here he was, riding in a car driven by his aide, bound for Starlight Food headquarters. Today he was meeting the president to discuss the Starlight Cherry Tomato.
"Colonel Oliver. Thank you for seeing me today."
"The pleasure is mine."
Hearing Kim Sehee's fluent English, Colonel Oliver was quietly impressed. Her pronunciation was indistinguishable from a native speaker's, and she was a beauty besides — the sort of woman who, met on the street, would turn a man's head before he knew it. That, however, was that, and business was business. Colonel Oliver got down to work.
"I'll come straight to the point. The United States military would like to conclude a long-term supply contract for the Starlight Cherry Tomatoes handled by Starlight Food."
The US Department of Defense had already contacted Kim Sehee about purchasing the tomatoes, so the request itself did not surprise her. What she had not yet pinned down was the volume they wanted. The United States was, after all, a great power whose standing forces alone numbered some one and a half million. They were, without question, a far better customer than the Republic of Korea's military, with its roughly five hundred thousand troops on active duty. Even so, she had no wish to abandon the Korean supply contract. Selling to both would simply be good business.
"What volume did you have in mind?"
Colonel Oliver answered at once. The quantity the US military intended to purchase had already been fixed.
"For the first tranche, thirty million tomatoes. And over the long term, we would like a steady supply of five million Starlight Cherry Tomatoes each year."
The United States was not presently at war with anyone. It had officially withdrawn from Afghanistan and from the rest of the Middle East. Small-scale fighting continued in places, but no American force was engaged in a full-scale campaign.
That was why the order had been kept modest for now. Had US forces been fighting a modern war, they would have needed to buy several hundred million. Hearing the figure, Kim Sehee let a look of relief cross her face.
"A volume of that size is entirely manageable. We would only ask that you grant us a little time."
The number of employees cultivating Starlight Cherry Tomatoes had surged of late, so the American order was within reach. And because the fruit came nearly once a month rather than once a year, the yield was staggering beside that of any ordinary cherry tomato.
"And what price were you envisioning?"
Colonel Oliver raised the question with care. If possible, he hoped they would sell at a reasonable figure. He understood the convenience and usefulness of the Starlight Cherry Tomato as well as anyone, but price was hardly irrelevant. In the private negotiations already running inside his head, ten dollars was the line he would not cross. He had heard they went for five dollars in Korea, though once distribution costs and the various taxes were folded in, it would not be strange for the price to rise.
"Eight dollars per tomato should be quite acceptable."
"Excellent. Let's sign at once."
When he considered that American combat rations cost far more than that, there was no reason to refuse. This was not an open-ended contract requiring congressional approval, nor any other arrangement of that sort. Colonel Oliver had come bearing full authority over the cherry-tomato negotiations, and no separate approval process at the Department of Defense was required.
The contract was signed then and there. Starlight Food became the first company in Korea ever to succeed in supplying the United States military.