The First Customer
At that very same moment, I was sitting at the very back, quietly watching how my classmates took it.
The bell had already rung, and still the room was a clamor; the mood refused to settle in the least. It hadn't been a frenzy from the start. This was an aristocratic school, and a men's magazine was the sort of thing you didn't so much as glance at, not with other people's eyes on you. Free or not, it was the same.
Perhaps, though, the Ultimate look set across the cover had stirred their curiosity. A few of the boys began picking the magazines up, and then—
"This is the latest chapter, isn't it?"
"It really is."
The moment they confirmed that Dragon Planet was in there, they rushed it. After that, every last one of them took a copy. The story was deep in the middle of a battle, so they tore through it faster than usual, wanted more, and found there was nothing beyond. Left hanging like that, they turned their eyes back to the magazines still in their hands. What was this thing, that it was running Dragon Planet? And then the provocative cut of Ultimate drew a murmur of admiration from all of them.
Nor was that the end of it.
"Isn't this Jack?"
"What?"
"It is. His name's right here."
Maybe it was the photograph Lukashi had taken. One by one the classmates closed in around Jack and started pouring questions over him.
"Where is this?"
"When was it taken?"
"What did they say to you?"
Jack could not have cared less. He kept the calmest face in the world, and in a perfectly level voice he repeated the same speech.
"The foundation of men's dress is the military uniform… If the rest of you want fashion to take notice of you, one method is to look to the uniforms that still carry the spirit of the patriots who died for their country……."
By this point any normal person would have realized a normal conversation was impossible. Even so, the classmates did not give up.
"Where'd they say the shop is?"
"The one who took the photo would know, wouldn't he?"
"No — I'm asking where you met him."
Uproar. While everyone else was losing their minds, exactly one person let his discomfort show. Julian Burnett, of course. Set against the attention his investments had bought him these past few days, today he was being ignored completely. Even so, Julian was not about to fold where he stood.
"Now then, where shall I invest today."
He lifted his voice so the whole room would hear.
"There's simply too much information. I can't settle on any one thing."
Perhaps it was because he only ever bragged, and never once shared a source. Whatever he went on about, the noise rolled on, and not a single classmate so much as looked his way.
"Oh, I doubled my money today!"
Julian's long campaign to win them over ran on for quite a while after that, and came, alas, to an end only when the teacher walked in and brought the curtain down.
That evening, Tennessee leaned back against the headboard and looked down at the magazine.
The models decorating the cover were, without a doubt, the men he had seen that day in Sir Lewis's shop. He might have forgotten the rest, but the red logo stamped on the hoodies and the shoes he remembered perfectly. So that was why they had looked so good. To think that very outfit would end up on a cover.
Wait.
Maybe it was because he had called that day back. A memory he had wanted to forget lifted its head along with it: the limited-edition package he had dropped out of pure shock, and then, when he went back ten minutes later, there it was, nestled with care inside a shopping bag.
Damn it.
The person he had run into that day had definitely been Park Jihoon. But why? Park Jihoon had offered not a word either way. Strangely, he had never come over to speak at all.
What is this. It's unsettling.
He let out a low groan. Anyway, that day Park Jihoon had been wearing exactly the same clothes as the ones on the cover.
How does that work?
The magazine hadn't even come out yet. How had he known, and how had he gotten the clothes? His head was a tangle. Search as he might, there wasn't a single clear fact to be found. If there was one thing he was sure of—
He said nothing. He wanted those shoes with the red logo. The hoodie as well, if he could manage it… ahem. Money he had, more than enough. He had it.
I don't know where the shop is!
Tennessee read the line in the magazine slowly, carefully.
Using the masterpieces as streetlamps, go forward, and where you are brought to a stop, take out Hamlet.
He could read it any number of times and still not find a meaning. But he had one piece of information worth its weight in gold: the place where three men in nearly the same clothes had come spilling out, one after another.
What had they all been doing in a shop with the lights off?
Tennessee stole a glance at the clock. Seven-twenty in the evening.
Hmm.
At last his eyes settled quietly on the box of drinks sitting on the desk.
Getting out of school was not particularly difficult.
"An outing pass……."
At that single phrase they drew up the papers at once, without so much as asking why. The greater surprise came at the gate. He never even held the pass out. They looked at his face and opened the door. Flagging down a taxi took less than five minutes, and so, before it was even eight, he was standing outside Sir Lewis's shop.
Well. I'm here, at least.
Turning it over again, he wasn't sure this was wise. Then again, having come this far, he could hardly just turn around and leave. Fortunately the lights in the shop were on. Tennessee gathered his nerve and went in.
Ding! The bell on the door let out a bright, clean note, and still not a single person poked a head out.
"Hello? Is anyone here?"
Tennessee had no choice but to look around.
"Is there really no one?"
Perhaps it was the height of the ceiling. His voice seemed to echo more than it should, and that was when it happened.
G-god!
A face seemed to lunge out at him, and he clutched his chest — then looked again, and it was a portrait. Right. A person's face couldn't possibly be that large. Nor was it only the portrait. Paintings hung at what felt like intervals of six feet. This was no gallery. He was just wondering why there were so many pictures when it struck him.
Wait.
Go forward with the masterpieces as streetlamps, to the place where you stop! Could it be that line from the magazine? It wasn't a stretch, either. Park Jihoon and the other two cover models had all come out of this very shop.
Then is it real?
Tennessee followed the paintings at a stride, and through a door left half open he saw a narrow room, its walls entirely given over to bookshelves.
A study? No — what was a study doing in the middle of a tailor's shop? The surprise lasted only a moment.
Where you have stopped, take out Hamlet!
Yes. This is it.
Tennessee stepped into the room without hesitation, and there he really did find Hamlet.
So I'm meant to take this out. Is that it?
A moment later, with a heavy grinding, the bookcase slid aside. He swallowed, and turned the handle. For a second he couldn't make a sound. The Triumph he had seen in the magazine was really there, planted square in the room as if it had every right to be.
Oh!
Right then—
"Boss? Why are you here so soon— huh? Who are you?"
A voice from farther inside.
"Ah, I— well."
What on earth was he supposed to say in a situation like this? Saying he had come because of the magazine felt somehow off.
"Please take this."
Tennessee ended up holding out the box of drinks in an awkward half-posture.
"You're telling me I'm the first customer?"
On the strength of that, he was waited on handsomely. James Faber, the designer, went over the clothes for him in careful detail.
"You came after seeing the magazine, didn't you?"
Tennessee nodded.
"There are pieces that didn't make the magazine. This one, I believe, won't be revealed until next week."
Revealed next week? What did that mean?
He had barely tilted his head before Faber went on.
"Most houses bring out new work once a quarter, don't they? We release one or two pieces a week, in very small numbers."
Words rose in his head. Tennessee didn't bother letting them out.
"Five in each size, thirty at the outside. Miss that week, and the piece will be hard to come by."
"I imagine so."
Even the mood in the classroom today had been something else. If the shop's location ever got out, thirty pieces would be gone before the day was.
"As I said, this is a piece we'll release next week."
What Faber brought out was a denim cap, a ball cap made by joining five panels. An ordinary hat, and yet — why was it that the red logo alone made it look so sharp?
"Could I buy that as well?"
"As a rule, no. But you're the first customer to solve the shop's secret, so we'll make a special gift of it."
The first customer. On the surface it sounded like a kindness, but something about it sat wrong. A few days ago he had seen Park Jihoon walking out in those exact clothes.
Then why am I the first customer?
Was it only a line for receiving guests? The feeling that whoever walked in, they would call him the first customer and play along. Well. You probably needed at least that much courtesy. Anyway.
"I don't need it as a gift. I'd like to buy everything the shop sells."
"Everything…?"
"Yes. If the size fits — no, even if it doesn't, just let me have them."
"Understood, for now."
While Faber rummaged through the cabinet, Tennessee looked slowly around the shop. Not only the clothes — the design of the space itself was excellent. Wallpaper, furniture, objects, all of it.
Hm.
He had already seen the vintage Triumph in the magazine. What was this? It looked like a Patek Philippe, and an extremely old one. Kept in a showcase, so it must be quite precious. And then…
He was glancing about for anything interesting when he found it.
Tennessee discovered an object that made him doubt his own eyes. He hadn't so much as flinched at the classic Patek Philippe, but in front of this he had no choice but to break at last. Sure enough, he asked in a thin, trembling voice.
"Do you… happen to sell this, too?"
Meanwhile, the truth was that this reaction had been planned, to a certain degree. There were, of course, exceptions.
Even though the response was nothing like what it had been, he kept posting without a pause. Where once a single post a day had been the whole of it—
Now he seemed determined to win by volume alone. For all that, the view counts were mostly zeros and ones. Perhaps that was what set his teeth on edge.
As if he would have any notion of what an IP address was. If he had truly wanted to hide his real name, he might at least have gone to the computer room…….
It was right about then that Peter and I started to snicker.
Rrrr! Rrrr!
The telephone on the desk rang loud enough to jump. I had bought it in case there was business to discuss, and only just had it installed. This was probably the first time it had rung.
"Yes, this is Park Jihoon."
The voice that came through was Faber's.
"A customer has come in."
What? A customer already?
"Only, he says there is something he would like to buy besides the clothes……."
I had naturally assumed it would be the Triumph, or the Patek Philippe. I was just about to tell him to turn the man down, politely enough, when—