“Hmm…”
I was looking at the office employees. The office employees were drinking coffee. I sneaked closer. It was a bonus that I hid so people couldn’t see me. I approached Maru, who was the easiest to mess with.
Maru was showing me the back of her chair while chatting with someone else. I quietly picked up the coffee cup on Maru’s desk. Then I put my mouth to the straw and slurped it up.
“Ew!”
It was so bitter. I had never tasted coffee this bitter before. Maru must have added an extra shot. Maru turned around. It was probably because I shouted “Ew!”
“Hana! What’s wrong?”
“The coffee’s too bitter…”
I stuck out my tongue as I spoke. My tongue was numb from drinking that bitter coffee, and I needed to fix it. I grabbed a candy from Maru’s desk. It was a lemon-flavored candy. I unwrapped it and popped it into my mouth. The lemon candy neutralized my mouth, and I felt like I could survive.
“Hana, did you want to drink coffee?”
“Ah!”
Maru slipped her hand under my armpit and lifted me up. I plopped down onto Maru’s lap. Maru was patting my head. It didn’t feel bad to receive that kind of patting. In fact, it felt kinda nice…
“Where did you get the coffee from?”
“I got it from the cafe in front of our building.”
After moving buildings, a lot had changed. Just one step outside our building, and the cityscape greeted us. Most of the employees living in Seoul said their satisfaction had increased. Of course, it made sense since commuting time had drastically decreased.
The one-hour commute by car had been cut almost in half, so even I would have been happy. Driving for an hour was such a boring task. That’s what I felt while riding in Maru’s car to Starlight Elementary School.
It was fun for a day or two, but after a week, the same scenery and the same roads made me feel queasy. You wouldn’t believe how happy I was when we moved buildings. No matter what, a one-hour car ride to school was just too much.
If it had been in the countryside, it would have been a distance that could cross cities. It was that far.
“Maru, don’t you have anything sweet?”
I wanted to drink something sweet other than an Americano. But Maru shook her head and said,
“There’s nothing sweet… Should I get you something next time?”
“Ehh… I’ll just go to the cafe myself!”
“Ah, that’s…!”
When I showed signs of going to the cafe, Maru followed me. It seemed she couldn’t just let me go alone. Then a thought crossed my mind. Rather than going out to a cafe, why not open one in our company building? There were a lot of empty spaces on the first floor of our building.
Since we hadn’t moved into the building long ago, there were still many empty spots. When I asked the boss, they said they’d fill it with whatever I wanted later. Isn’t this the perfect time? I got off Maru’s lap and headed to where the boss was.
I got on the elevator and pressed the button for the floor where the boss was, a floor no regular employee would ever press. Soon, the elevator doors closed, and I went straight up to the boss’s floor. When the doors opened, I dashed in.
Knocking was a luxury. I swung the door wide open. The boss was carefully wiping a picture frame.
“Boss!”
“Hana! Come on in~”
The boss saw me and stood up. Then they spread their arms wide. I dove into the boss’s embrace. Now that I was used to it, the boss lifted me up in one go.
“Hana, you’ve gotten a bit heavier!”
“No way!”
My height hadn’t grown, so there was no way I could have gained weight. I knew the boss was just teasing me. Anyway, after chatting with the boss for a while, I got to the point.
“Boss, let’s open a cafe on the first floor!”
“A cafe?”
“Yep!”
Wouldn’t it be better to have a cafe inside the building rather than going outside to buy coffee? Looking at famous big companies, having an in-house cafe was a given. So, wouldn’t it be okay for Starlight Food to have one too? And it’s not like we didn’t have the money. In fact, we had so much it was a problem.
When I said this, the boss nodded and said,
“If Hana wants it, we’ll do it!”
As expected, there’s no one like the boss. The boss immediately called the secretary and started building a cafe on the first floor of the company.
Anyway, there was space, so all they had to do was make it. It wouldn’t take much time either. The most important thing for opening a store was already taken care of. They just had to slot it into the empty commercial space.
—
A secret rumor was spreading in Yeouido.
And it was about Starlight Food, the hottest thing in the food industry lately. Many of the stockbrokers here owed Starlight Food a favor.
With their murderous schedules and grueling workloads, it was no wonder their hair was falling out naturally. Physically, it wasn’t too tough, but mentally, it was borderline abuse.
Normally, they’d have shiny bald heads, but thanks to Tangle, they had fabulous hair. In Korea, Tangle only cost 5,000 won per piece, so for the high-earning stockbrokers of Yeouido, it wasn’t a burdensome price. Even without insurance or other discounts, 150,000 won a month could save them from baldness.
For the bald guys, 150,000 won a month was a reasonable and great price.
Anyway, those stockbrokers were busy gathering intel. Using their domestic connections, they managed to get a rough idea of what Starlight Food was up to.
“Starlight Food has succeeded in cultivating wheat!”
“I know someone at Starlight Food, and they’re currently in talks with flour-related companies.”
“Can’t get the exact specs yet, but they can grow it at a price similar to imported wheat.”
The information others had was useless. But the rumors circulating only in Yeouido were plenty useful. The stockbrokers relayed their findings to their superiors, who made the most rational decisions within their judgment.
—
In less than half a day, the rumor had spread all over Yeouido. In modern society, just one piece of information like this could do a lot. If you worked at a Yeouido securities firm and didn’t know about this rumor, you were toast. If other firms already knew and yours didn’t? That just didn’t make sense.
The stock market reacted immediately. It’s always the first to reflect any changes. The retail investors, the “ants,” had no clue.
That’s why it’s tough for ants to survive in the stock market. It takes time for them to get information, and they don’t move as systematically as securities firms. While others fight with missiles and tanks, the ants are out there with slingshots. It’s not even a fair fight.
Stocks related to flour import companies started plummeting. Given that flour relied entirely on imports, the stocks naturally followed suit. With Starlight Food starting to produce flour domestically, the import market was bound to see major changes.
If the production cost of domestic flour was higher than imports, no problem. But if domestic flour was similar in price to foreign flour, it was a huge issue.
While production volume would play a role, domestic flour was undeniably better than flour grown overseas and shipped over. If the prices were similar, imported flour, with its higher distribution costs, was destined to lose.
Seeing the falling stock prices, the ants rushed in. Ants always move on impulse. Seeing the usually stable flour import stocks fluctuating, they jumped in.
The stocks of flour import companies rose and fell repeatedly. But in the end, the overall trend was downward. It was impossible for the ants to absorb all the institutional selling.
