Who Invented Ice Cream?
"Whoa!"
"Woooo!"
We let out a cheer at the sight of the ice cream, heaped so prettily into the cups. It had been split three ways, each portion in a flavor that suited whoever was eating it, so there was nothing to fight over. All we had to do was eat the flavor we'd each asked for! And we weren't stuck with only one, either. They'd scooped out so much that there was plenty left to share.
"Hana, thanks! I'm digging in!"
"Me too!"
Jiyu and Yumi thanked me, then picked up their plastic spoons and started shoveling ice cream into their mouths. I watched them with a satisfied smile. I felt like an uncle who'd treated the kids to something delicious. Then again, maybe I really was one.
I was in my twenties, after all—old enough that, from Jiyu and Yumi's point of view, uncle wasn't a stretch. Anyway, I picked up a spoon of my own and got to work. Every scoop sent a sharp, sweet chill washing over my tongue.
Whoever invented ice cream was a genius. No question. To create something this cold and this good! In my personal ranking, they came in right behind the genius who invented air conditioning.
"They said if I do well on this test they'll raise my allowance... but I don't think it's gonna happen..."
Jiyu stopped mid-scoop, her face sinking as she spoke. Now that I thought about it, she'd been vowing for a while that she'd ace the exam, but the results never changed. The way she crammed the day before was like looking at myself back in college.
Of course, it would have been stranger if cramming the night before actually raised her grades. In the end, it looked as if Jiyu had bombed it. Beside her, Yumi scratched her head too, as if the test had been rough on her as well. And no wonder—this second-semester midterm had been brutally hard. Even I, with a university education behind me, had been unsure on a few questions, so for Jiyu and Yumi, who were only in the third grade, the problems were bewilderingly difficult.
It felt as if the teachers had written the exam specifically to knock the kids flat. Otherwise a hell-difficulty like that made no sense at all.
"Where do you even study, Hana, to be that good? You're not at home studying all day or anything, right?"
Yumi, who actually cared about schoolwork, asked me outright. If I told her what my days really looked like, I had no idea whether she'd believe me. Say that I went home, played on the computer or watched TV, and absolutely never studied, and she'd write me off as a show-off for sure. I did put some work into the memorization subjects, but nowhere near as much as Yumi.
Korean, English, and math I could handle with the knowledge I already had, so what I actually studied was mostly science and social studies—the kind of material you simply couldn't answer without memorizing it.
"I work hard... I get a lot of presents if my test scores are good, you know...!"
"Yeah? Well, you're first in the whole school, so of course you study like crazy!"
Yumi let it go without pressing any further. Thank goodness. If she'd seen what my days actually looked like, she might have protested that it was impossible. Having an adult's knowledge really was like holding a cheat code.
"Ack! My head's all fuzzy!"
Jiyu stopped eating, clutched her forehead, and groaned. It was the classic symptom of suddenly stuffing yourself with something cold. Watching her, I couldn't help but smile. She really was a kid, through and through. What I'd forgotten was that I, too, had been unconsciously shoveling ice cream into my mouth.
The pain found me as well.
"Aaaagh! Me too!"
I grabbed my tingling forehead and whimpered. It felt like my skull was about to split. I had no idea why eating a lot of cold things made your head buzz like that. Watching the two of us, Yumi sighed as if she had no other choice.
"I swear, you're both such kids...!"
Jiyu and I could only keep eating while sneaking glances at her. Being a little kid, Jiyu had an excuse. I, on the other hand, had committed this blunder before I could even show off an adult's dignity. With nothing to say for myself, I quietly kept scooping. Ice cream eaten in the middle of a heat wave was sweet, and it was delicious.
KT&G had launched a brand-new cigarette, and with a massive advertising campaign to match. In convenience stores and elsewhere, you could see the ads KT&G had produced themselves.
Smokers tended to be sensitive to advertising. What they saw when they bought cigarettes was the tobacco ads set out in front of the convenience-store counter—ads you could find anywhere, and come across without even trying. KT&G had aimed straight at that. A cigarette that tasted good and contained nothing but nicotine, offering a kind of "health" on a completely different level from the rest, was bound to be a hit.
All that mattered was an advertisement that could reach every smoker. So KT&G had poured an excessive amount of money into this campaign. Of course, KT&G wasn't the only one investing. Byeolbit Foods had joined the large-scale push as well. Cigarettes were certainly bad for the body, but the toxic substances and chemicals in this one had been brought down to essentially zero.
They could guarantee that, clearly and confidently, over any other cigarette. It really was far healthier, and better-tasting, than what other companies sold, or than the other varieties KT&G itself made. Nicotine was still in the leaf, so they couldn't advertise it as completely healthy. Even so, this was on the level of heaven and earth being remade.
Smokers saw the ads and started buying. The name they'd given it was Byeolbit Cigarette. Byeolbit Foods hadn't asked KT&G for anything in particular. It had been KT&G's own idea. Public goodwill toward Byeolbit Foods was high, so this time they'd decided to borrow the value of that name.
"So this is that Byeolbit Cigarette?"
"Right? Looks like KT&G just came out with it."
Smokers naturally bunched together and lit up. The reaction was fierce.
"Whoa, this actually tastes amazing. Way better than what I've been smoking!"
"Same. I'm switching to this from now on. Smoke the old stuff and then this, and the cigarettes I used to buy might as well be nothing."
One smoke, and the reviews were nothing but praise. The moment someone tried a Byeolbit Cigarette, they wouldn't so much as glance at the other cigarettes KT&G made—or at the imports, for that matter. KT&G had nothing to lose. Even if the other brands stopped selling, Byeolbit Cigarettes would sell that much more to make up for it.
Win or lose, KT&G came out ahead. For the other tobacco companies, it was tragic news. The moment customers migrated from their own cigarettes to KT&G's Byeolbit Cigarette, a drop in sales was a foregone conclusion.
While KT&G laughed, it was anything but good news for Philip Morris, which stood with KT&G as one of the two great pillars of cigarette sales in the domestic market. KT&G's Byeolbit Cigarette was already showing signs of taking off.
But there was no other way. Byeolbit Foods had already signed an exclusive contract with KT&G. Foreign tobacco leaf had no hope of matching the leaf Byeolbit Foods produced. KT&G was buying Byeolbit leaf at a higher price than overseas leaf, so competing on price didn't work either.
The only option would have been to call Byeolbit Foods in separately, get them to break the contract with KT&G, and sign with Philip Morris instead. There was no way KT&G would allow that. And the South Korean government would want KT&G to monopolize the domestic market. No government was going to sit with its eyes open and watch a foreign tobacco company conquer its own cigarette market.
KT&G was sailing like a ship with a fair wind at its back, and Philip Morris could only brace for the storm ahead. In the worst case, they might even have to pull out of Korea. The moment most smokers started lighting Byeolbit Cigarettes from KT&G instead of the ones Philip Morris made, it wouldn't even be a contest.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Philip Morris had no choice but to thrash about for survival.