Hamburger
"Huh?"
An employee at Starlight Food had stumbled onto something strange. The plant heavy with cherry tomatoes had been perfectly fine only yesterday. Today it was withered, as if no one had watered it in weeks.
"No!"
The Starlight Research Institute had plenty of identical plants, but there was no telling whether a reprimand would come down for neglecting their care. And that was not the only thing that had gone wrong.
"This one's dried up too?"
They were found shriveled even inside the machines that used cutting-edge systems to intensively manage plants kept for preserving cultivars. This was not simply a failure of care. Something else had to be wrong.
Having discovered the abnormality, the Starlight Food staff called the Starlight Research Institute at once. If the plants growing there were in trouble as well, it would throw their plans into serious disarray.
But the plants at the institute were perfectly fine. By then an uncanny chill had set in. The cherry tomatoes clustered along the stems were healthy, yet the stems themselves had shriveled dry.
"This shouldn't be happening..."
Word of the anomaly reached the Starlight Research Institute, and after several rounds of testing they pinned down the cause.
"Once a plant is taken beyond a certain distance from the institute, it withers and dies, as if it can no longer draw any nutrients."
That distance formed concentric circles around the Starlight Research Institute, roughly twenty to thirty kilometers out.
"This... we're going to have to buy up every scrap of land around the institute, aren't we?"
Fortunately the institute stood on the city's outskirts, so acquiring land was no great inconvenience. From the institute's point of view, it was even an opportunity. If the cherry tomatoes could be grown easily anywhere else, there would have been no hope of a monopoly—but as things stood, a monopoly was well within reach.
They had been able to grow the cherry tomatoes in other places, and the plan had been to stockpile as much as possible and cash in on one massive seasonal sale. Now that this anomaly had come to light, they could afford to sell at their leisure. Anywhere but the land around the institute, the fruit simply would not grow properly.
"We should tell Starlight Food. They're our partner, after all."
"Please do."
At the news, Starlight Food let out a sigh of relief. It was not, after all, a failure of their own management. The relief did not last. Soon they heard something far less welcome: unless the plants were grown near the institute, the cherry tomatoes would not grow properly at all.
They bore far more fruit than ordinary cherry tomatoes, of course, but nothing said they would be sold only in Korea forever. The moment they pushed overseas, demand would spike—and from Starlight Food's perspective, it was a bitter thing that the land where they could actually farm was so limited.
Even so, the fruit would never be raised in anyone else's hands, so its value would keep being recognized. And cherry tomatoes already harvested from the stem did not wither, no matter how far they were carried.
"Then we'll have to revise the sales plan."
Kim Sehee saw that the sales strategy report she had brought would need to be rewritten from top to bottom. The ways they could harvest these cherry tomatoes had just become severely limited. A limitation like that demanded a plan to match.
The thought of rival companies flailing about trying to grow the fruit made her laugh. They would insist on raising it somewhere else, she was sure, and she could already picture them failing again and again without the faintest idea why. If they were going to try, she hoped they would keep at it. Every bit they spent chasing the impossible would only drive the price of Starlight's cherry tomatoes higher.
"Waaaaaah!"
For the first time in a long while, I felt as if I'd slipped back into the days when I couldn't speak at all. Bora had already arrived with the school uniform in hand, and the manic resolve to dress me in it crashed over me.
I tried everything I could to squirm out of her grip, and I lost. My pajamas came off meekly in her hands, and the uniform went on.
I had no choice but to wear it with a sullen face. Bora took one look at me and clapped, delighted.
"Cheese~"
Then she started circling me, snapping photos on her phone. Watching her, I naturally struck a pose. If I didn't, Bora would pout, so I generously allowed myself to be photographed.
"Let's walk around Starlight Elementary today! We should see just how nice the school Hana's enrolling in really is."
"Can't we just... not go out...?"
The moment the words left my mouth, Bora looked at me with a chilly expression. It was the same face I had seen on her in that dream. I had no choice but to fold on the spot.
"No—now that I think about it, I wanted to go out!"
"See? And except for when we went to get your uniform fitted, you've never been into the city."
She was right. Months had passed since I'd come here, and I still hadn't been downtown. I'd glimpsed it when we went for the fitting, but I'd never actually gotten out and looked around.
I took Bora's hand and went down to the first floor. It was afternoon, and the building was busy with people. I had the distinct feeling they were looking at me—hardly surprising, when green hair was almost impossible to find in Korea.
Hiding behind Bora's legs, I made it safely to the parking lot.
"Bora, it's so cold..."
"Quick, into the car! I'll turn the heater on."
The puffer jacket up top was fine, but the skirt left everything below it bare to the wind. Stockings or not, cold was cold. I had never in my dreams imagined I would be wearing stockings...
Feeling my breath puff out in white clouds, I climbed into Bora's car. Winter was best spent burrowed at home. Coming outside was nothing but needless suffering. I did not, of course, say that to Bora.
Bora's car was thoroughly ordinary. I had always been a pedestrian who knew nothing about cars, so unless one was expensive, they were all the same to me. Sitting in the passenger seat, though, something about it felt different.
"Seatbelt, Hana."
"Oh, right!"
It had been so long since I'd ridden in a car that I'd forgotten. I buckled it with practiced hands and announced, bright with excitement:
"Let's go-go!"
"Hana, honestly... where do you even learn to talk like that..."
"Hehe."
I beamed and felt the rumble of the car as it pulled away. The ride was pretty good. Stepping out of the Starlight Research Institute felt strangely new. I had gone out once before, but every time I left, it felt new all over again.
The view beyond the window was peaceful. The institute sat somewhere people rarely passed, and there was hardly anyone in sight. Only research vehicles went by in the opposite lane.
We must have driven for a few dozen minutes before sleep began to creep over me. Warm air drifted from the heater, and the scenery outside never changed. I didn't bother fighting my closing eyes. When we arrived, Bora would wake me, wouldn't she?
"Hana... Hana..."
"Mm... huh?"
Bora's voice pulled me out of a sweet sleep. I looked around and realized we were already in the city.
"Let's eat before we stop by the elementary school!"
Fresh from sleep, moving felt like far too much work. Seeing I couldn't quite climb out of it, Bora smiled faintly. She came around to the passenger seat, gathered me into her arms, and carried me into the restaurant.
Today's lunch appeared to be hamburgers. Bora worked the kiosk with easy familiarity and chose a hamburger set.
"Want to try, Hana?"
This much is nothing. Held up in her arms, I used the extra height to give the screen a gentle tap. I was getting a delicious kids' burger meal.
It was absolutely not because I coveted the toy that came with it. We had plenty of toys at home... Still, one more couldn't hurt, could it?
"Huh? It's your first time on a kiosk, and you're really good?"
Ack!
Now that I thought about it, I had never touched a kiosk since changing into this body. I rolled my eyes, scrambling for an excuse.
"I—I saw someone do it on YouTube!"
"Oh, did you? I was going to help, but you managed all by yourself. What a clever girl."
"Hehe."
Bora's patting put me in a wonderful mood. There was something about her touch that tickled straight through to the heart. When the hamburgers came, I slipped out of her arms and took mine.
The taste was ordinary. That was the virtue of a franchise: a high floor, and a low ceiling.
The toy that came with the set, though, suited me perfectly. It was a plastic dinosaur—a Tyrannosaurus, head lifted high to the sky, roaring. One look at that majestic figure and I decided I would have to eat hamburgers every day from now on. The dinosaur collection had to be completed.