Preparing for the Picnic
Footsteps drifted in from outside as people came and went. Maybe the sound kept circling in my ears, because I woke on my own.
Flash.
Vitality surged through me as if someone had flipped a robot's power switch. I opened my eyes slowly and pushed myself up in bed. Outside, it already looked like spring—the trees were dressed in leaves, and the flowerbeds were in full bloom.
A little early, maybe, but what did it matter? The dead of winter seemed to have passed. It was still cold, just not the kind of cold that could freeze you solid. If anything, it felt a bit like spring.
"Hup!"
I put some force into it and jumped from the bed to the floor. The dinosaur pajamas left a long tail trailing across the floor, and I wiggled my hips this way and that, swinging it left and right.
Unfortunately it wasn't my tail, so I couldn't flick it around the way an animal would. I wanted to ask dogs and cats how they managed to wag so happily.
Still in the dinosaur pajamas, I stepped outside. The hallway was already busy with people hurrying back and forth. I greeted the employees and headed somewhere other than the office. I was absolutely not following a delicious smell.
Following that delicious smell anyway, I found Bora and Haru making something. The room was thick with the nutty fragrance of sesame oil.
I caught hold of Bora's pant leg.
"Bora, what are you making?"
"Oh, Hana, you're here. We said we'd go on a picnic in the park in front of the company today, remember?"
Right. I remembered what Bora had mentioned before—a picnic in the park in front of our company. Spring was on its way, and now and then Bora or Haru took me outside. A rehearsal before I started school, maybe?
"So we're making things we can eat when we go."
"Aha!"
The floor of the building where I lived was mixed-use, which meant it had living quarters, a kitchen, and offices all at once. An all-purpose floor, you might call it. It had just about every facility you could want, so there was nothing particularly inconvenient about it.
I sidled over beside Haru, who was rolling kimbap—seaweed rice rolls. She looked completely absorbed in the work. With bright, shining eyes, I sized up my prey.
Now!
I got my hands on a single slice of the ham going into the rolls. The moment that long strip went into my mouth, I couldn't have been happier. Truly, nothing beat stealing ingredients from the side while someone else cooked.
Was this the feeling behind just one bite of ramyeon? I circled Bora and Haru, plucking ingredients one after another. There was plenty stacked up, so taking them one by one wasn't going to leave us short.
But a long tail gets stepped on. Haru caught me in the act. I'd been going for the very last piece of ham, and the instant I reached out, our eyes met.
I offered her an awkward smile. At the sight of me, Haru smiled faintly.
"Hana, could you help a little?"
"Yeah!"
"Stack the cut kimbap in this lunch box however you like."
Haru handed me a lunch container. I carefully tucked away each piece she had sliced, one by one. Beside me, she set another roll on the cutting board and cut it with practiced ease.
Watching her, I asked with sparkling eyes. The way she handled the knife made her look like a samurai, and it was cool.
"Haru, Haru."
"Hm?"
"Can't I try using the knife just once?"
But Haru's expression turned firm.
"No. It's a dangerous thing. When you're a little bigger, I'll let you use it."
"Hnnn..."
I knew knives were dangerous, but I hadn't expected her to refuse so flatly. I put on a gloomy face, and even that didn't move her.
Well, using a knife the wrong way could end badly. Thinking it over again, I could tell she'd said it out of consideration for me.
As I packed the kimbap into little star shapes, my mouth watered. The moment Haru stepped away to wash the knife, I slipped one piece into my mouth.
Mm...
Maybe it was the crisp, sweet pickled radish and all the vegetables, but it was delicious. Eating the ham on its own earlier, I hadn't noticed. Mixed together like this, the ingredients seemed to taste even more special.
I'd been working at it, so I could eat the vegetables now without feeling burdened. There was still a little discomfort, but nothing like before.
I tried to snatch one more, but Haru came back and I couldn't. We'd be eating soon enough once the picnic started, so there was no need to eat it now. Even so, I was sorry to stop, and I gazed at the kimbap with wistful eyes.
Kimbap, I'll eat you later until my stomach bursts, so you'd better be ready.
I turned my gaze to Bora. She was making sandwiches. I finished packing the kimbap, closed the lunch box lid, and ran straight over to her.
Watching the sandwiches come together beside me made my mouth water. They were loaded with all kinds of meat. There were a few vegetables, but not so many that they'd get in the way.
As expected, Bora knew my tastes.
Ever since she'd caught me quietly slipping vegetables onto her tray during a meal, she had figured out that I didn't much care for them. If I'd known it would turn out like this, I should have just told her outright.
I stared at Bora with shining eyes, speaking with my gaze alone. Can't I try just one sandwich?
She must have read that look, because she handed me one finished sandwich.
Nom!
The sandwich Bora had made was really, truly delicious. For some reason a beer sounded perfect, but I held out with transcendent patience.
Plenty of companies besides Starlight Food had tried to cultivate Starlight Cherry Tomatoes.
Whether they were leaning on scarcity the way those honey-sweetened potato chips had, or whether they truly couldn't produce enough to meet demand, no one could say for certain. What was certain was that the cherry tomatoes made money.
They didn't vanish the instant they hit the shelves and spill onto the secondhand market the way those chips had. Even so, they sold fast enough to make you think they might. Despite a rather steep price, office workers who wanted a quick, filling breakfast preferred them by a wide margin.
Students and people who didn't earn much, though, did not. Younger folks cared about flavor too, and for about three dollars they could get a cup of ramyeon and a triangle kimbap—cheaper than a Starlight Cherry Tomato.
In any case, succeed at growing them and you could sit under a rain of money. They were only sold domestically for now, but the chances of them selling well overseas were endless.
The companies trying to cultivate them, however, ran straight into a serious wall.
"Why won't they bear fruit?"
At first they planted the cherry tomatoes and tried to grow them. Most never even sprouted. They simply sat buried in the soil.
So the companies tried every method they could think of. They adjusted the sunlight, dialed in the ideal temperature, and gave the plants plenty of fertilizer—there was nothing they hadn't attempted.
Perhaps that effort paid off, because when sprouts finally appeared they threw company dinners grand enough to celebrate. But that was the last of their success.
The cherry tomatoes grew far faster than other plants. Then, at a certain point, that abnormal growth simply stopped. And not one of them bore fruit.
"It feels like something's missing before these cherry tomatoes can fruit."
They couldn't tell what that something was, but Starlight Guild surely knew the method. That had to be why the guild had put Starlight Cherry Tomatoes on the market so confidently—because they alone knew how to make them bear fruit.
Just in case, the rivals brought in ordinary cherry tomatoes that weren't the Starlight kind and tried growing those. It worked. Plain cherry tomatoes bought at the market grew well, if relatively slowly, and they fruited generously.
"We have to figure out how these cherry tomatoes bear fruit. No matter what."
But even with every piece of cutting-edge equipment, success was a maybe at best, and there was no chance of cracking it on a research budget this modest. Short of storming Starlight Food's headquarters and stealing the cultivation method by force, knowing how to make them fruit looked a long way off.
And Starlight Food hadn't even removed the seeds. That, in itself, was proof of just how confident they were.
So Starlight Food's competitors had no choice but to throw money into the air trying to grow the cherry tomatoes.
Starlight Food held a relatively small stake within Starlight Guild, and the rivals had been sure that if they succeeded in cultivating the tomatoes themselves, they could carve out a decent slice of the market.