Fuyumi was making her way to the Winter-Only Ice Cream store like usual.
“It’s snowing today, so it’ll definitely be open…”
She headed toward the store, watching her breath come out in white puffs. Today, she had just one objective in mind.
Today is the day I try a two-scoop ice cream…!
She clenched her hands into fists in determination.
True, it was very cold out. But according to the weather forecast, it was going to start getting warmer, and soon enough spring would be on its way. When that happened, the ice cream store would disappear. For all she knew, this could be the last time she’d be able to buy any Winter-Only Ice Cream. With that in mind, Fuyumi had decided to try a two-scoop cone, no matter what.
And it just so happened that there were only two flavors she hadn’t tried yet.
“Two scoops—one yogurt, one vanilla-chocolate-chip, please.”
“Coming right up… Oh.”
After taking Fuyumi’s order, the person inside the store suddenly sounded troubled. Was something wrong?
“I’m terribly sorry; we’re out of vanilla-chocolate-chip. But we just got a fresh shipment of the ingredients. If you wait a little while, we’ll have it ready for you as soon as we can.”
Oh, was that all? What a relief.
“Yes, that’s fine. I’ll wait.”
“Thank you for your understanding. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
With that, the intercom switched off.
Fuyumi leaned against the building, underneath the awning. That was when she noticed a motorcycle parked behind the store. It looked like a cargo bike, with a rack for boxes attached. It was probably there to deliver the ice cream ingredients.
Just then the back door opened, and Fuyumi’s heart pitter-pattered in her chest.
Who could that be? Someone who works at the store? Or maybe…
She poked her head around the corner to take a peek at whatever there was to see.
She spotted a man dressed like a delivery person. He must have been cold, because he was wearing a big scarf. With his helmet pulled low over his eyes, you could barely see his face. Locking the door behind him, he slipped the key into his pocket and went back to his motorcycle.
That must be the person who delivers the ingredients…
Maybe he was a supplier who knew the owner of the shop. If she followed him, she might be able to ask about who was running it…
While she debated whether to approach him, the man got on his motorcycle and revved the engine. As he did, a key fell from his pocket and hit the ground with a clink. He drove away without having seemed to notice.
“…”
When the motorcycle was out of sight, Fuyumi stepped out from her hiding place and looked down at the key. Slowly, hesitantly, she picked it up.
Fuyumi quietly slipped around to the store’s back door. She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath.
She knew this was wrong.
It was wrong to take the key and open the door. The right thing to do would be to hand in the key, along with her money, when her ice cream came out. The key probably unlocked the staff door, and she ought to return it to the store owner so that they could give it back to the deliveryman.
Oh, but I wonder…is this really the key to this door?
The thought came into Fuyumi’s head suddenly. What if the deliveryman had multiple keys in his pocket? What if this key—the one that he’d dropped—wasn’t the same key he’d slipped into his pocket after locking the door?
It was certainly possible. She couldn’t say for sure that that wasn’t the case.
“If I gave them the wrong key, that could cause trouble. So then…”
She’d just have to test it out, see if this key really did unlock this door. Yes, that’s what she’d do.
Fuyumi nodded to herself and pushed the key into the lock. It fit perfectly and turned with a click. She then twisted the knob, and the door opened inward, creaking slightly.
That answered her question. This key did in fact open this door.
She reached forward to push it open wider but stopped. What next?
Now that I’ve opened it without asking, it’d be rude to just shut it again without telling anyone.
True, what she should really do next was go inside, apologize to the store owner, and return the key. Satisfied with her reasoning, Fuyumi pushed the creaky door again and stepped into the building.
It was dark around the entrance, but there was a light farther in, cast by a bleak fluorescent light bulb on the ceiling. And underneath that…
“…Huh?”
A short gasp escaped Fuyumi’s mouth.
Underneath the light…wasn’t a person. It wasn’t a snowman, either.
There was a huge machine, so large it almost touched the ceiling. She’d never seen anything like it before. One part in the middle of it seemed to be hollow. What on earth was this thing?
Fuyumi stood stock-still, dumbfounded.
And then the machine began to make noises, and some wirelike arms came writhing out from either side. Each one had a metal claw at the end, like the ones in crane games at the arcade. The wiry arms extended toward a nearby cooler, opened it, and took out the contents.
Fuyumi gasped again.
The thing it had taken out of the cooler…was a snowman. A snowman tiny enough to fit in the palm of her hand. And it was moving.
There was no doubt about it. The snowman was wriggling around, desperately trying to escape the mechanical claw’s grip.
A lid flipped open on the top of the machine. The arm released the snowman, tossing it inside. It did the same with another and another—it took snowman after snowman out of the cooler and threw them all inside. When it had crammed in ten of them, the lid slammed shut.
Then there was a metallic grinding sound like a blender starting up. Mixed in with it were several screams.
VWRRR!!!
“Yaaargh…!”
It was all too easy to imagine what was going on inside the machine.
✦ ✦ ✦
Vwrrr…
“Aaargh…”
The blender sound got smoother and smoother, and the screams started growing fainter until they faded away completely. After a few more seconds of blender-like whirring, everything was silent.
Then a door on the hollow part of the machine popped open, and an ice-cream cone was pushed out. Two scoops of ice cream were then placed on top of it, perfectly balanced.
The wire arms reached out again. One of them took the ice cream out of the machine and placed it in a stand waiting by the sales window. Another reached around and pulled open the creaky boards covering the window.
“Thank you for waiting! One yogurt and vanilla-chocolate-chip cone. That will be four hundred yen,” came a cheery voice from somewhere inside the huge machine.
Fuyumi recognized that voice. Even hearing it up close instead of through the intercom, she could tell it still had the telltale static mixed in.
As she stood there horrified, she caught sight of something moving near the window. It was a little snowman, trying desperately to scramble outside. One of them must have escaped the mechanical claws’ grasp.
But the machine quickly noticed it and shot out an arm to grab the snowman before it could go any farther. The other arm opened a cooler, and then the snowman was tossed inside, and the lid closed on top of it.
No…
Fuyumi staggered backward.
The ice cream really was made here in the store, but not by a person. And not by a snow spirit, either. It was a machine—one that made and sold the ice cream automatically.
And—and the ice cream she’d been eating all this time, the ice cream that tasted so wonderful, with such a distinctive texture… It was made of—!
She glanced to one side. There was a whole stack of coolers there. Each one had a label on it describing the contents, and they all said the same thing:
✦ ✦ ✦
Living Snowmen
Box of 30
Fresh from the Land of Eternal Winter, these lively little snowmen are the perfect ingredients for unbeatable ice cream. Caught in season and shipped directly to you, they will produce a melt-in-your-mouth texture your customers will never forget!
※Caution※
Ice cream made with this product will melt easily. Retailers should take this into account when deciding business hours. We recommend restricting sales to days cold enough for it to snow.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fuyumi staggered out the back door, her legs weak and unsteady. She looked up to see the ice cream she’d ordered still sitting in the window above the display case. Yogurt and vanilla-chocolate-chip. Two white scoops on top of each other.
For a split second, the chocolate chips in the top scoop looked like the eyes of a tiny snowman glaring back at her.