Not Displayed in Any Department Store
"Korea's booming these days, isn't it?"
I answered with a smile, and that was when it hit.
Brrriiing!
The tune that announced the start of class spilled across the grounds.
"Oh dear. I've used up your whole break."
"…"
"Jihoon, might we have conversations like this from time to time?"
I had already started to rise. I met Gary's eyes for a moment and answered.
"As teacher and student? Or do you mean a capitalist and his investment adviser?"
"Wouldn't it be easier to begin as teacher and student?"
A slick little expression popped out of nowhere.
Good grief. Anyone watching would think he kept a few spare faces in his pocket.
I bowed and slipped out of Gary's office, then set off in the opposite direction from the lecture hall.
The law firm and the department store.
The words I'd seen last period kept circling in my head. Since the subject had come up, I might as well deal with it now. I headed for the pay phone in the middle of the grounds and punched in the number. The man on the other end was Yang Eokgwan.
"This is Park Jihoon."
"Yes, sir!"
"Can you talk?"
"Of course. But why the sudden Japanese…?"
"Too many ears."
I was calling from a campus pay phone, after all. The bell had rung, but someone passing might still overhear, so I was speaking Japanese.
"I don't have much time, so I'll get to the point."
"Yes."
"I want to know what relationship Clifford Brookhouse has with Harris Department Store."
A brief silence. Yang Eokgwan was surely turning the question over, hunting for the intent behind it.
"This isn't about an investment, is it?"
"The opposite."
"Ah."
He must have caught the firmness in my voice. He asked me to wait a moment, and then he seemed to be placing calls all over the place. Five minutes or so went by before Yang Eokgwan picked up the receiver again.
"Sorry for the delay. From what I've heard, the Harris family is the firm's most reliable patron."
"A patron?"
"Put simply, the Harris department-store family took in a poor lawyer as a son-in-law."
"So he founded the firm on his father-in-law's money?"
"Yes. That's also why the firm's fortunes move with the department store's share price."
"Hm."
Bring the firm down and the real body would still be standing somewhere else.
Which means…
Crush the department store, and the firm falls on its own. Right. So that was it.
"How big is Harris Department Store?"
"Among the largest in Europe. It holds countless chains—not only in Britain, but in France, Italy, Switzerland, and beyond."
"And the most symbolic of them?"
A keyboard began to tap beyond the receiver. A Bloomberg terminal, if I had to guess.
"By size and by sales, the London flagship stands alone."
The London flagship.
"And the customers?"
"VIPs, mainly. They run the luxury hall on its own, and its sales are in a class by themselves."
I had set out to lean on a law firm and somehow found myself facing Europe's greatest department-store chain.
Stick to the plan—press the firm just hard enough, and stop?
As if. The corner of my mouth lifted.
Meanwhile, Tennessee Grosvenor sat alone on the school grounds.
What he really wanted was a smoothie, but he was too aware of the eyes around him, so he had bought a coffee and come outside instead. Class could take care of itself.
"…"
He was staring blankly at the lawn when something caught him.
Hm?
Far off, a man was coming with an enormous load. A strangely familiar silhouette. Where had he seen him?
What the man was cradling in both arms was nothing other than a bundle of school uniforms. And just then a scene Tennessee had buried came back up.
Clothes are only a shell. Why fly into such a rage over something that doesn't matter?
He had added those words, venomously, for the tailor who had come all the way to the house.
Ah—and there are people who have given their whole lives to that shell…
Was it because that day had returned? Tennessee's face burned. His conscience must have been pricking him; he couldn't take his eyes off the tailor. Then, as if he had made some great resolution, he walked into the café.
He was the heir of a ducal house. Dropping his voice lower than usual was essential.
"Anything's fine. Whatever comes out fastest."
"Shall I wrap it to go?"
He nearly answered with a perfectly polite yes. Too late, Tennessee substituted a nod.
"I'll give you a bottled drink."
He took the juice in one hand and hurried out of the shop. And then—of all things. Look as he might, the tailor was nowhere to be seen.
Hoo.
Maybe that's for the best.
He was wearing an awkward expression when a voice came from behind him.
"What are you doing here?"
He turned, startled.
"Aren't you going to class?"
A tall East Asian was looking straight at him.
The call had run long, and class was well underway.
I'm late anyway.
I was walking the grounds on the strength of that excuse when I found Tennessee.
"Why are you holding two drinks?"
"I'm not."
"Not what?"
"…"
"Sit."
He dropped onto the bench before he quite knew what he was doing.
"You going to drink both?"
At that he quietly held out the glass bottle. I took the juice, drank a long swallow, and said,
"You played rugby, didn't you?"
"…"
Neither of us spoke for a while. The longer the silence, the lighter the bottle. By the time the juice was nearly gone, he said,
"No. Not at all."
I noticed it every time.
"I told you, I don't like it."
"Sure. Fine."
He was starting to get up, as if he wanted no more of the conversation, when I kept my eyes on his feet.
"Nice shoes."
Tennessee looked down at them too.
"Where'd you buy them?"
"…"
"A department store?"
"Why are you asking?"
"Why else? They're nice. I want a pair."
He was putting on that blunt face when I added,
"Do I go somewhere like the Harris luxury hall?"
"A craftsman's work isn't displayed in a place like a department store."
"Then where?"
Perhaps he decided any further talk would be boring.
"John Green."
"Huh?"
"If you're looking for good shoes, go to John Green."
With that, Tennessee walked off. While he receded—step, step—the heels a craftsman had made gave the air a pleasant sound.
Even after he was gone, I stayed on the bench a long while. A craftsman's work is not displayed in a place like a department store… His words lingered in my ear.
Could I actually land a blow on a giant department-store chain?
It would be hard.
But if I narrowed the target to the London flagship? If the job was simply to drop the sales of that store—the very symbol of the Harris chain?
Not entirely impossible.
And more than that. Going after the law firm was nothing but a private revenge. Competing with Harris Department Store, on the other hand, clearly touched the future I wanted: finishing Design's Hyeongang.
Maybe this worked out for the better?
Of course there was one decisive problem. To fight Harris, I would have to move up the work I had meant to take slowly across three years of school.
Move it up—and can I actually pull it off?
After that I sat thinking for a very long time. I needed a strategy radical enough to drag the London flagship's sales down. I turned it over and over, and the conclusion I reached was this.
If I can make the department store feel like an old space—and if the store I build comes to be seen as the hippest place in London—then I have a chance.
To manage that, I would have to bring in the brands that would lead fashion for the next thirty years.
Professor. You're managing all right, aren't you?
At that same hour, in the United States, Jo Sudeok was wandering New York with exactly two clues in hand.
A person of real taste who loved skateboards.
"…"
Hunting a ring dropped on a beach might have been easier. For days he had blindly turned over every park there was. Whenever someone with style so much as appeared, he followed them on a whim. And the result was a miss, a miss, and another miss.
So he fell back on his usual method and mobilized every connection he had.
"What? Skateboards? Wouldn't know a thing about them."
Among university professors, board culture was bound to be a foreign country.
Hoo.
Sir, why did you hand me a mission like this?
Even so, he couldn't simply despair.
There has to be a way.
He racked his brain until he seized a single lifeline. And that lifeline was—
The man who rules American fashion: Ral! ph! War! ren!
On the day of the Royal School entrance ceremony, Jo Sudeok had seen it with his own eyes. That day his chief and Ralph Warren had shaken hands as warmly as old friends. And it hadn't stopped at a handshake. Hadn't Ralph Warren handed over a gift prepared in advance?
When did he get on familiar terms with yet another heavyweight?
Anyway! If the man stood for American fashion, then a single keyword—skateboard—might be enough for him to recommend someone decent. Yes. That was it. Hadn't he sailed through missions even thornier than this and made them look easy?
The moment he fired up every optimistic circuit in his head, a plausible possibility appeared. Ralph Warren stood at the peak of his field. In this industry, the man's information had to be enormous.
Pleeeease!
It was on that vague hope that he had come here, to Ralph Warren headquarters.
Now this is a neighborhood.
The Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and the rest. A fashion house with its headquarters in the middle of New York. Awed by the splendor, he stepped inside.
Perhaps that too-shabby walk had caught someone's eye. Unfortunately, he was stopped at the door.
"What brings you here?"
"I've come to see Mr. Warren."
The employee slowly looked him over. He was wearing a designer coat, yes, but it was old, and the overall effect was unmistakably shabby. Sure enough, wariness crept across the man's face.
"Do you have an appointment?"
Say no, and of course you're cut off at the entrance. Quick on the uptake, Jo Sudeok shifted his stance at once.
"It's been so long since we made it that he may not remember."
"…"
"Why don't you try calling up?"
"May I have your name?"
"He won't need my name."
"…?"
"Tell him Park Jihoon of the Royal School sent someone. That should get a reaction."
He said it without so much as a change of expression. Was it the sheer brazenness? The employee looked doubtful, but he picked up the receiver anyway.
"Sir, there's a guest in the lobby. From the Royal School…"
A conversation followed. Step, step. The employee came toward Jo Sudeok with a face gone stiff.
Ugh.
So the bait hadn't taken after all. But right then—
"I've been asked to receive you with every courtesy. Would it be all right if I showed you up myself?"
In that moment only one thought rose.
It… it actually worked?