Abandoning Hana
The day dragged on forever. Ever since I'd hurt my leg I couldn't walk properly, so all I could do was lie in bed from morning till night. It was far too much like the life of an unemployed bum.
Internet streams didn't appeal to me either. With my leg aching, everything had become a bother. I was killing time flat on my back when the door opened and Haru came in.
"Haru!"
I called her name with all the gladness I felt packed into it. Haru slipped off her shoes as if she'd done it a hundred times and stepped into my room, then looked me over—asking whether this or that was uncomfortable—and smoothed a hand over my hair.
That was Haru for you. I was getting her full, focused care; if anything at all was inconvenient, from the first thing to the last, she was there to help. But the moment she pulled something out, I started sneaking wary glances her way.
"Hana, we're studying again today, aren't we?"
What she'd produced was an elementary-school workbook. Studying—the most boring thing in the world. I put on a tearful face.
"Haru! My leg hurts so much I don't think I can study!"
But my little act of playing sick didn't work. Haru's expression turned firm.
"No phone until you finish these today."
Ehh...
She'd gone straight for my most vital organ. Haru knew me far too well. With no other choice, I picked up a mechanical pencil, sat up in bed, and started studying. Fortunately it wasn't Korean class; the problems unraveled as easily as a roll of toilet paper.
Once I'd worked through them, my head was pounding. Even if I was an adult on the inside, some of those elementary-school problems were a little hard. I had no idea why.
Haru was writing something on the cast around my leg. I turned my head to look. It was a message of encouragement.
Last time Bora had written on it too, and the employees had come by one by one to leave messages on the cast. Maybe thanks to that, my leg seemed to be healing quickly. In just a few more days I could probably have the cast taken off and walk without a problem.
Truth be told, I was already getting around on both legs. My right leg tingled sharply with every step, but that much I could endure just fine.
Anyway, maybe because I'd wrung my brain dry solving problems, I was hungry. Haru was doing something on her laptop beside me. I stared at her openly until she seemed to feel my gaze and turned her head. Our eyes met.
"Hana, is something wrong?"
I clutched my empty stomach as I answered. I'd gotten so thin that my pajama pants were practically sliding down—though that was probably just my imagination.
"I'm hungry, Haru."
"Yeah...? It's right about dinnertime."
Haru checked the clock, closed her laptop, and stood. Seeing that, I spread my arms. It was time for our familiar routine. She gathered me up and carried me toward the cafeteria.
Her arms were far better than a wheelchair I wasn't even riding. Warm and soft—surely better than any fancy chair.
Still feeling the warmth of that embrace, I arrived at the cafeteria. It was the place that had changed the most.
When I'd first come, the menu had been simple and the space itself not all that large. But after several rounds of construction, it had become a cafeteria that wouldn't have looked out of place at a major conglomerate.
Was this the result of me pestering Bora that I wanted to eat lots of delicious things? If they kept making food this good, I could even give them permission to take a bit of my hair. Later I'd have to tell Bora to start serving dessert, too.
"Hana, what do you want to eat?"
Nestled in Haru's arms, I agonized over the menu. There were no fewer than three options, and I wanted all three of them desperately. But my stomach wasn't that big, so one dish was my limit.
"I want tonkatsu!"
I settled on tonkatsu. It was always the safe choice—the best option there was, whenever deciding got hard.
"Hana, can you sit here? I'll bring it over."
Haru set me down in a chair and went to get the food. Bored, I looked around. At lunch the cafeteria was packed with employees, but in the evening it was comparatively quiet. Only the people who truly needed to be there stayed; everyone else had gone home, so of course it was.
I was a good kid, so I waited nicely until Haru came back. Normally I would have wandered around a bit, but with the cast on my leg, moving was difficult. I was glancing this way and that when she approached from far off.
"Sorry~ I'm a little late, huh?"
She came over carrying two trays, an awkward smile on her face.
"The line was long... Still, Hana's such a good girl. It must have been hard to wait."
"No! It wasn't hard at all!"
Saying that, I took the tray she was holding. Looking at a tray crowded with meat dishes, I couldn't help but smile. People really did need to eat meat.
"Hiyah!"
With a dazzling sword technique, I mercilessly slaughtered the tonkatsu soldiers. Every time the knife flashed, the cutlet began to come apart, slowly, before that majesty. The crispy breading stirred my appetite, and the sweet smell of the sauce was a bonus.
"Aahn~"
The moment a piece of tonkatsu went into my mouth, nothing in the world could have been happier. I ate with a wide, beaming smile, savoring the cutlet on my tongue. Watching me, Haru smiled contentedly and ate her own meal.
The moment Kim Sehee signed the final approval, the teams below moved as one. They shuttled in and out of every government office without rest—explaining how the plant would be built, and exactly where—all to get the factory established.
It was an investment of several hundred billion won, and Paju City welcomed Starlight Food's move. This wasn't the construction of some hated facility, or a dangerous one like a nuclear plant, so there was no reason to oppose it.
Simply receiving an investment from the Starlight Guild was enough to expect a tremendous boost in approval ratings. And Starlight Food—wasn't it the promising company currently shaking up the South Korean market? Its backing was rock-solid, too.
"If you run into any difficulties with the factory construction, please just let us know. Should there be issues with paperwork or anything else, tell us. We'll do everything we can to help."
Watching stiff-necked civil servants come at her with their heads bowed, Kim Sehee could only let out a hollow laugh. The treatment was nothing like when Starlight Food had been a tiny company. In a way, it was only natural.
Thinking that the Starlight Food of old—a mid-sized firm worth a few tens of billions of won—and the Starlight Food of now, with sales running into the trillions, were the same company would have been the strange part.
And so, perhaps because this was the first time they'd faced building a new factory, she had to spend her days so busy she barely had a moment to breathe. Hardly a day passed without Kim Sehee hauling herself from place to place in person.
Seeing everything click so neatly into place, a swell of pride rose in her chest. She'd thought it would end with a single factory... and now they were building one this enormous. She could have cried.
But this was only the beginning. Kim Sehee was looking farther. The construction of this plant was not the end. Later she would have to build another factory in Daejeon, large enough to handle volume for the provinces—and more factories meant it would be time to use Hana's hair to create other products.
She had absolutely no intention of being satisfied with green tea alone. Expanding step by step until she had seized the entire food market: that was Kim Sehee's goal. She didn't know when it would happen, but if she kept moving forward one step at a time, wouldn't she reach it?
"Haru. My tummy's all full."
I clutched my swollen belly and told her. Eating and sleeping and eating and sleeping like this, I'd turn into a pig—but I was a growing child, so it was fine. Wouldn't everything I ate just go into my height?
Looking at my ballooned stomach, Haru put on a grave expression.
"Hana, if you eat that much, who knows what might happen later?"
She seemed to be saying it to scare me.
"Heheh."
But I wasn't some little kid who didn't know how the world worked. Eating a lot when something was delicious, eating until my stomach was about to burst when I wanted something—that was the joy of my life. A half-threat like Haru's would never work on me.
Haru, though, started to lift me from the chair—and then let go.
"Hana's too heavy. I can't pick you up. Guess you'll have to spend the night here."
Hearing that, my face went pale. It really looked like she meant to abandon me here and leave.
"You're lying, right, Haru? I can't sleep here!"
Watching her back as she walked away, I had no choice but to call her name in a pitiful voice. Because it really seemed like she was going to leave me behind.