Make Them Come and Beg
At that same hour, there were days Olivia never made it into class at all—days she did not even come to school.
Carl Bernstein, president of the second-year student council, was at home, taking a report from a lawyer at the firm.
"As I told you, Park Jihoon is preparing a venture in Manchester."
"So there has been progress."
"Yes. We looked into why he would go to the trouble of starting something in Manchester when he already has London."
The lawyer drew a thick sheaf of documents from his bag. Packed inside, in dense detail, was every trace of Park Jihoon's contact with the chairman of the Manchester City Council.
"From what we hear, he wanted to acquire Manchester United."
"That's a football club, isn't it?"
"Yes. That's right."
"Ha!"
Carl let out a hollow laugh, as if the whole thing were absurd. And no wonder. Football was the sport of ordinary people, a game planted at the opposite pole from rugby, which the aristocracy loved. Word was the boy had sold paintings, succeeded in business, and come into quite a bit of money.
"His taste, though."
Did he think it lowered the tone? Carl gave a dismissive shake of his head.
"And so?"
"Having the money, it seems, was not enough to buy the thing outright. The city demanded a contribution to local development, and as a result Jihoon's side purchased dead factories and set about building a new commercial district..."
"And who, exactly, is going to show up if you open a shop in a dead factory?"
"They probably had to go through the motions. The city asked, so they had to move—but they had no wish to spend serious money in Manchester. London, perhaps. Manchester, no."
"So he's bluffing that he'll grow some cheap factory into a business?"
"That appears to be the case."
"He isn't Cinderella. How do you make a carriage out of a pumpkin?"
He snorted, but a flicker of calculation crossed his face. The seasoned lawyer did not miss it.
"You look as if you're thinking hard."
"I have two options, and I don't know which is better."
"The two being?"
"First, I leave Park Jihoon to waste his money."
"..."
"Second, I snap him before he can even pull the stunt. Break it at the root."
The quick lawyer had his answer at once.
"I'm told he isn't short of money. Buy a few factories, spin his wheels a little, and it still won't show."
"Better, then, to tangle the thing until it goes wrong?"
"He has been winning without a break. If the whole plan comes apart merely because he couldn't sweet-talk a city council chairman, won't that put a crack in his pride?"
Heard that way, it was a plausible enough reason.
A grin tugged at the corner of Carl's mouth.
"That aside."
"Yes, young master."
"Please engage a few designers for me."
"Designers..."
"I did say I wanted to launch a brand."
"Yes. I remember."
"A space has opened on the third floor of the luxury hall. They told me it would look better to trade there for a few months and then move down to the first floor, so for now I told them that would do."
The lawyer offered his congratulations, and then went on.
"If you could tell me the brand's concept, I can match the designers to it..."
"There is no concept. Staff it with all-rounders."
"Pardon?"
"People who can knock something together no matter what you throw at them. Preferably the sort who like money."
In the end, he wanted famous faces laid down in a row and bought with cash.
That is going to burn a fortune.
Whether or not Carl could read the thought—
A dead factory against a luxury hall.
Carl was already savoring the joy of victory.
Three days later.
Only three days had passed, and already the school was a different place.
How had they advertised? The method was simple. They had hacked the PCs in the computer lab and replaced every start page. After that, it ran in a straight line. And of course it began with Julian Burnett, who then wrote up his investment portfolio with painstaking care.
There were malicious comments, naturally.
Julian, of course, was not about to just take it.
The keyboard war that started there went on and on. Someone once said the most entertaining thing in the world is watching a fight. Even the boys with no interest in investing seemed hungry for a dogfight. Visitors kept gathering, and with them came requests.
And why not?
In any case, word reached me through the faculty office. Jo Sudeok wanted to speak. He was not the sort to telephone the school over anything ordinary, so it was with a quiet unease that I picked up the payphone. The tone had barely sounded before a rushed voice came through.
"Boss, it's gone sideways."
"What has?"
"I was just on the phone with the chairman of the Manchester City Council..."
What followed was obvious. You know the kind of story. I had felt the odds at ninety-nine percent, and regrettably the remaining one percent had decided to misbehave. I had deliberately dealt a winning hand to an ambitious man who dreamed of becoming mayor of Manchester, and at the very end the thing had twisted. That had to be it.
"What was the problem?"
"I'm sorry to say I don't really know."
"...?"
"There simply isn't a reason to refuse. Put it in hwatu terms—he's drawn the unbeatable hand, and he's still swearing he's about to die."
Jo Sudeok let a beat pass, then went on.
"Unless there is pressure from outside... I can hardly make sense of it."
Pressure from outside. That meant someone was interfering with my business.
Why?
But the puzzlement did not last. A first-year was picking a fight with the Harris department-store family. Nothing that happens ought to come as a surprise. Fine. What of it? The plan had already shifted, and the Manchester acquisition had been pushed down the list. Let them throw obstacles. There was nothing for me to lose right now.
Even so.
"Since it's come to this, I ought to save a little of the budget."
"Sorry?"
I had meant, originally, to buy the factories with my own money.
"Now I'm going to make them beg me to please, please come."
"W-who do you mean?"
"Who else? Manchester."
Once my goals were achieved, one after another, good jobs would pour out. The love calls from countless local governments would follow, and I found myself curious what face the chairman of the Manchester City Council would be wearing then.
Even for that.
First, the select shop had to succeed. The store was coming together well enough, and the magazine was already nearly finished. Now the clothes just had to come out right.
Doubt is forbidden.
Paver would take care of all of it. Perhaps because a welcome name had surfaced, a wide smile settled over the face reflected in the glass.
These days James Paver sat at his desk every day, moving his pen like a man possessed. There was the joy of carrying onto paper what had lived only in his head, and the expectation that it would not stop at a sketch. Wound through both was the hope that everything he imagined would be produced at the highest quality. Perhaps that was why he forgot sleep and threw himself into the work like a madman.
Only when a little room finally opened did he reach, without fail, for coffee.
One cup of this, and I can hold out for two hours.
That was when it happened.
"They say no trade stands before money. That line was made for you."
His friend Lukashi came over wearing a sly, oily smile.
"Hear there's big money in it, and even stubborn Paver turns into a model student."
"You think I'm doing this for the money?"
"You get all serious and it turns awkward. I'm joking. Joking."
"Not funny."
"Course it isn't. These days you're sunk in making things, so nothing else is fun. What did you expect?"
"What, you sulking because I won't hang out?"
"Yes! I mean, I haven't seen you in months, and I still haven't gotten a word off my chest."
Come to think of it, they had never once set foot in an ordinary pub. And why would they have? From the first day in London he had run straight to John Green, and ever since he had been buried in design.
If I made the time, I could.
Drinking for no reason felt oddly like a waste. Hmm. Looked at a certain way, Lukashi's grumbling was only fair.
"Cut me some slack."
"No—you've got all the time in the world, so why sprint at full power from the opening gun? Were you that starved?"
"Weren't you?"
"Sure, it's good. It's good, which is why I brought you in too, but..."
There was no need, he meant, to cut into sleep and throw himself at it.
"I'm doing it because I like it, so it's fine."
"Right. And I'm saying let's do that good thing loooong, and sloooow."
A snort.
"I lie down and sleep still won't come."
"You're pouring coffee down your throat. You think sleep is coming?"
"It isn't because of that."
"Then what?"
The first day in London. The night he had gone with President Park Jihoon to see John Green. The moment he had brought out those words—that film is a director's art, and fashion, likewise, belongs to the designer. And then the scene in which he had held out the sketch, as if to say refuse it if you dare. Too many things had been decided there.
It did not matter that John Green had given his permission. Certainty had already taken root in Paver's heart in that instant. He was grateful for the line that named the designer the protagonist of fashion, but turning fashion into a business belonged entirely to the businessman. Excellent was not a big enough word. Born to it was a cliché, so he did not want it. Damn it. He could knock out outfit after outfit without a thought, so why did he keep losing his footing the moment he stood in front of language?
It was all right. President Park Jihoon would do the talking for him. Yes—leave that side to him, and give himself wholly to design...
The thought had only gotten that far.
Step. Step.
His feet moved on their own.
"We were in the middle of talking. Where are you going?"
"I've had my coffee. I should go in and work."
Say what he liked.
Paver only kept walking.