Chapter 2: Building an Empire from the Sandbox

During snack time, Takuto Kimura sat in a child-sized plastic chair, mechanically chewing small pieces of apple like they were yesterday’s stock report. His chubby fingers gripped a sippy cup of warm milk, and though he looked like any other three-year-old, behind those round cheeks and tiny feet lived the calculating mind of a corporate shark.

Since escaping his baby body was proving more difficult than an IPO in a recession, Takuto decided to embrace the situation. He had once risen from intern to CEO in under five years. Surely, he could rise to the top of this preschool's power structure even faster. After all, this tiny society lacked basic market efficiency, no barriers to entry, and almost zero competition. It was ripe for disruption.

His eyes sparkled—okay, twinkled cutely—at the idea.

It all started during outdoor playtime.

As the kids ran out to the sandbox, a cloud of glitter and chaos followed. There were tricycles crashing like bumper cars, screaming toddlers chasing each other with sticky hands, and a small but violent skirmish over a single yellow shovel that was deemed “magic.”

Takuto, holding his pants up as he waddled toward the sandbox, took it all in with a shrewd eye.

“These fools are sitting on a goldmine,” he whispered to himself. “And they don’t even know it.”

The sandbox was the largest unregulated territory in the preschool. Free toys were scattered around, but ownership was determined not by rules, but by brute force, crying volume, and who had the stickiest fingers. No order. No structure. It was… chaos.

"This?" Takuto scoffed, squinting like a baby mob boss. "This is the battlefield of my reincarnation? Not even decent office equipment... no Excel, no chairs with lumbar support?"

But then he saw it.

A bright red plastic truck. It gleamed under the sun like a beacon of toddler supremacy. It had big wheels, a detachable dumper, and stickers of cartoon flames on the sides. Compared to the other sandbox toys, it was the Lamborghini of playthings.

And it was currently being driven—more like slobbered on—by a chubby boy with cookie crumbs on his shirt and a mean look in his eyes. His name? Kenta. Known as the “King of the Sandbox.”

Takuto narrowed his eyes. “A rival.”

He approached Kenta with all the swagger a diapered toddler could manage. In business, you had to start with diplomacy before you moved to hostile takeovers.

“Listen,” Takuto said, hands folded behind his back, “I have a win-win proposal.”

Kenta blinked, then stuck a finger up his nose. “Huh?”

Takuto cursed under his breath. Right. Three-year-old mouth. Adult brain. Useless baby tongue.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “Apple,” he said, pulling a juicy slice from his snack stash. “Truck?”

The bribery plan worked. Kenta, whose loyalty to the red truck was nothing compared to his love of apples, eagerly made the trade.

Ten minutes later, Takuto Kimura was in control of the most valuable asset in the sandbox economy.

But he wasn’t about to waste it. No, he was building something much bigger.

---

Introducing: Sandbox Logistics LLC

With the truck under his control, Takuto started leasing it to other kids in exchange for building blocks, snack shares, and prime real estate under the jungle gym. It was brilliant. One girl paid two banana slices for a five-minute ride. Another agreed to trade her rare glow-in-the-dark sticker for exclusive access on Wednesdays.

"This is toddler capitalism at its finest," Takuto mused, drawing business plans in the sand with a stick. He scribbled out a basic supply chain map and labeled the stick figure children with titles like “Distribution Manager,” “Snack Trade Partner,” and “Unpaid Intern.”

“Little Takuto, what are you drawing?” Ai-chan, a pigtail-wearing classmate, leaned over.

“This is our cooperation agreement,” Takuto said with all the seriousness of a Wall Street lawyer. “Clause one: the toy truck’s rental f*e is two blocks per five minutes. Clause two: sharing snacks is mandatory for shareholders…”

Ai-chan squinted at the sand. “Wow! Is this a treasure map? I love pirate games!” she squealed and began stomping all over his careful diagram.

Takuto blinked.

“…You just destroyed my operating model,” he said flatly.

She giggled, offered him a half-eaten cookie, and skipped away.

Takuto sighed. He was surrounded by economic illiterates. Still, the business grew.

---

Monopoly Move: The Shovel Scheme

He soon noticed that while the truck gave him power, other kids were still distracted by shovels—cheap plastic tools in garish neon colors. They weren’t much, but they were essential for building sandcastles, digging tunnels, and bonking people on the head when negotiations broke down.

So Takuto cornered the market.

He acquired all the shovels using aggressive tactics: apple slices, empty juice boxes, and once, a dramatic rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus” that moved an entire group of toddlers to give him their toys in exchange for an encore.

With the truck and the shovels, he now controlled the tools of both transportation and production.

Next, he rolled out “bundled services.”

“Want to dig a tunnel? Rent includes one truck ride, one shovel, and one supervised baby yell for intimidation. Bundle pricing available. Apple slices preferred.”

It was going so well.

Until Kenta noticed.

---

Rebellion in the Sandbox

The King of the Sandbox did not take kindly to being overthrown. He stormed across the sand like a chubby tornado.

“GIVE ME BACK MY TRUCK!” he roared.

Takuto adjusted imaginary glasses. “According to our earlier transaction—”

Kenta wailed.

Oh no. The toddler nuclear weapon.

Yamada-sensei appeared, her eyes full of concern and sunshine. “What happened, boys?”

“He stole my truck!” Kenta cried, dramatically flinging himself onto the sand.

Takuto opened his mouth to counter. “This was a legitimate acquisition, governed by—”

But what Yamada-sensei heard was, “Bwah-bwah! Che-che!”

She smiled sympathetically. “Ahh, I see! Takuto wanted to trade fruit for toys. But remember, sweeties, everything here is meant to be shared~.”

“Shared?” Takuto nearly fainted. “You’re trampling the fundamentals of the free market! Is this socialism?!”

Before he could protest further, Kenta pushed him. Takuto stumbled backward into the sandbox, hitting the ground with a puff of sand and pride.

Within seconds, a dozen tiny voices were chanting:

“Sandman! Sandman! Sandman!”

One particularly vicious child threw a handful of sand into his onesie.

He tried to fight back with words. “You’ll all be blacklisted from future investment opportunities! You’re unbankable! You’ll never IPO!”

But to everyone else, it just sounded like, “Guuuuh! Da-da-bleh!”

---

The Fall of a Tiny Titan

By the time Yamada-sensei returned, Takuto was sitting in the middle of the sandbox, covered in so much sand that he looked like a poorly made sculpture of himself. He was shaking a tiny fist at the sky and yelling toddler gibberish at the wind.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Someone needs a bath.”

As warm water and bubbles washed over his sandy limbs, Takuto leaned back in his plastic bathtub with a sigh. “My first entrepreneurial venture... and it’s already bankrupt.”

He closed his eyes and muttered, “I need a new strategy.”

---

But All Was Not Lost

The next day, Takuto returned with a new plan: branding.

He began handing out hand-drawn logos on napkins. “Sandbox Inc.” was reborn with a cuter, more “community-friendly” image. He designed a rewards program (five shovel rentals = one bonus sticker) and launched a weekly newsletter written in crayon.

He even started a toddler podcast. Sure, it was just him yelling into a toilet paper roll, but a surprisingly large number of kids gathered to listen.

It was the beginning of a new empire.

And so, Takuto Kimura, once the youngest CEO on the Nikkei 225, now ruled over a crayon-and-cookies empire with the same ruthlessness and charm he’d used in corporate life.

His sandbox ventures might fail again.

But he’d always get back up.

Even if he had to be carried there, one wobbly step at a time.