Joint Attack
"Whee!"
I worked the bumper car's wheel and threw myself into the fray, mostly gunning for Jiyu and Yumi. Of the two, Yumi took a few more hits from my personal vehicle. It was absolutely not because she had called me a little kid a moment ago. It just so happened that she ended up on the receiving end more often. I was lost in a trance of ramming when—
"Take that!"
Jiyu slammed hard into the back of my bumper car. The impact rattled my whole body, and for a second the wheel slipped out of my hands. If this had been a real road, I would have clutched the back of my neck and climbed out of the car, but this was a cruel world that did not indulge that kind of sly little act. I seized the wheel again and spun a full one-eighty, determined to hunt down Jiyu for daring to rear-end my car.
"Waaah!"
But the instant I turned the wheel and set my sights on Jiyu, Yumi rammed me from behind. I was boxed in on both sides—a sandwich, in other words.
"Go for Hana!"
"Okay!"
As if to prove they had been close friends even before they met me, Jiyu and Yumi tormented me in perfect sync. I fought to break free of them, and in the end I never did.
The moment the announcement sounded, the bumper cars that had been zipping along so nicely became lumps of junk. Someone had cut the power.
"Ugh..."
I clutched the back of my neck and climbed out. I needed to file an auto insurance claim, and fast—that was how thoroughly Jiyu and Yumi had worked me over. Unfortunately, no insurance company was about to turn up at a bumper-car ride.
"Ha, that was so much fun~!"
"I know, right!"
After the bumper cars and a string of other rides, we checked the time. It was two in the afternoon, right about when hunger starts to set in. I went looking for somewhere to eat nearby. An amusement park like this was bound to have restaurants!
"What are you gonna eat, Hana?"
Jiyu and Yumi looked curious about what I would pick. For moments like this, the amusement park map came in handy, so I unfolded it. Restaurant locations were crammed all over the page. We needed something reasonably filling. Once you ate a real meal, extreme rides got a little hard to stomach.
Back when I was a man, I had eaten jajangmyeon—black bean noodles—and immediately boarded a ride called the Kraken that spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees, then thrown up on the spot. I had been far too reckless. I should have stuck to the gentle rides until the food settled, but I had jumped on the intense ones from the start and spent the whole day miserable with an upset stomach. The memory was still vivid.
So even now, while we were still a little empty, I had taken Jiyu and Yumi on the extreme rides that did not trip a height restriction. After we ate, the plan was to stick to the slow rides or head over toward the zoo. If that was not the wisdom of an adult, what was? A clueless kid would never have ridden with any plan at all. They would simply have climbed onto whatever was in front of their eyes.
"Let's get hot dogs!"
The hot dog stand stood there looking deliciously inviting. Stuffing yourself full between rides was amateur hour. Eating too much never did anyone any good, and we still had plenty of places left to go. There was no sense in eating until we made ourselves sick.
"Yeah! Let's go to the hot dog place!"
"I love hot dogs too!"
Jiyu and Yumi did not whine about the menu. They agreed on the spot. They must have fallen for my leadership. Otherwise an objection would have been perfectly reasonable.
We charged toward the hot dog stand visible in the distance. Fortunately the line was not long, so we could pay right away.
I could not help marveling at the fat sausage tucked between the buns, and at the seasoning sauce scattered over it so appetizingly on top of that. I took a bite just as it was. In my mouth the spicy sauce and the sweet sauce danced in perfect harmony, and last of all the sausage's juices sprang to life and joined the dance.
"Hana, you eat way too heartily!"
Yumi said it after watching me eat. Now that she mentioned it, I really had been scarfing it down without a glance at anyone around me. Here I was in a little girl's body, eating like some rough commoner. I straightened my posture and started on the hot dog with proper manners.
When people gather, there is nothing they cannot accomplish. One look at the pyramids of Egypt, raised in ancient times, was enough to know it. Without even the crude machines of the modern age, they had stacked those colossal pyramids by human strength alone—and not just one, but several.
In the same way, as Starlight Food's headcount climbed into the stratosphere, production of every kind of plant exploded. Full-time staff alone numbered over ten thousand, and once partner companies were included, there was no telling how much higher the figure would go. Only last year, Starlight Food had not even had a few hundred employees.
Along with that growth, Starlight Coffee had, before anyone quite noticed, secured enough volume to supply Idaya locations nationwide. When it came to coffee, the single most important thing was the beans. No matter how fine the interior or how good the location, in the end it was the coffee beans that decided whether a customer's feet carried them through the door.
Just as a restaurant with real flavor survives no matter where it sits, a café can survive even in an out-of-the-way spot if the coffee tastes good—not because of the atmosphere or the décor, but because word of mouth spreads. Of course, Idaya analyzed commercial districts before opening franchises, so no one could claim the locations were poor.
"So these are the Starlight Coffee beans headquarters said they were sending this time?"
Kim Wonju, who ran an Idaya Coffee franchise out in the provinces, said it as he looked over the beans that had come down from headquarters.
Branches outside Seoul could now receive Starlight Coffee beans as well. Day after day, customers had come in to complain about why the shop was not using them. The old days—sweating buckets and begging customers' pardon because, regrettably, headquarters' guidelines said the beans still had not been introduced—were over.
A cool sensation from the beans lingered around Kim Wonju. It was no different from having just laid hands on one tremendously powerful weapon. The cafés around him would have to start worrying about shutting their doors. That was only Kim Wonju's hope, of course. Whenever one café did well somewhere, other cafés sprouting up all around it like bamboo shoots was practically an annual festival.
"Ooh..."
The moment he tore open the packaging, an intense, addictive aroma—sharp enough to sting the nose—filled the café. It surpassed what Kim Wonju had expected. Beans with a fragrance like this... he could not begin to imagine how good the coffee would taste once he actually brewed it.
"Oh my? Manager, is this coffee beans I'm smelling? It's incredible."
The part-timer who pushed through the door just then was the one who said it. The Starlight Coffee beans smelled so good that she caught the difference the instant she walked in.
"Yejeong. These are the Starlight Coffee beans from headquarters. We start using them today."
"Really? Finally I won't have to stand there like a parrot telling people we don't use Starlight Coffee beans."
Day after day, Yejeong had repeated like a parrot that the Starlight beans still had not been introduced. Most of the customers who came to Idaya protested, demanding to know why the coffee sold in Seoul was not sold here.
But a part-timer had no way to fix that. What was she supposed to do when headquarters would not send the beans? It was a service job, so she had to smile at difficult customers and tell them they did not have any. If she had run into those same people on the street instead of behind the counter, she could not imagine what ugly words might have flown.
"Oh? It smells really good."
Every employee clocking in behind her caught the scent of the beans and pronounced it good. Kim Wonju had a feeling business would be excellent today. Holding a cheat-tier ingredient like this, if the coffee did not sell, the problem would be his. And this was not some nameless neighborhood coffee shop. They were wearing the name of a brand on the scale of a major corporation.
With that flutter in his chest, Kim Wonju opened the shop. Of course, he also pasted a great big advertisement across the front door.
Finally Here
And even though the day was hot and the air conditioner was running, he left the shop door open, so the aroma of the beans would spill out into the street. That way the smell would drift along the sidewalk and draw customers in. With the door standing open and the beans roasting, people began to pour in. They had opened earlier than usual, and still customers came first thing in the morning for coffee.
The part-timers gaped at the size of the crowd, and Kim Wonju, the owner, was free to wear a bright smile.