That Part Came Into View Quite Nakedly

That part came into view quite explicitly.

"Section Chief, this is a fatal defect that even the QA team failed to catch and let slip through!

If we'd released it like this, women's skin would have broken out all over, we'd have been hit with a return bomb, and the brand image would have gone straight to hell. We need to shut down the production line right now!"

Section Chief Han, who had been staring only at his laptop, slammed his paper cup down and shot to his feet in a panic.

"......Get it under control immediately. We nearly had a disaster on our hands."

The entire design office erupted into chaos. General Manager Kim stared at Kang-san with an intrigued expression that said he was getting goosebumps.

"How did you manage to catch that microscopic flaw, young man? Without any measuring equipment, just by lightly brushing it with your fingertips, you perfectly calculated even the load trajectory that would contact a woman's skin."

"It's difficult to explain. Just...... that part came into my eyes quite explicitly."

Kang-san answered while glancing sideways at Eun Ha-neul, who was blushing furiously and discreetly covering her breasts inside her skin-tone bra with her bag from the seat next to him.

"Assistant Manager Lee, starting today, give that kid the main analysis work and seat him next to me. He's no empty-mouthed braggart. He's the real deal—a genuine genius."

From his very first day on the job, Lee Kang-san's secretive and perfect data collection began.

Over the six months that passed after he joined the company, Kang-san—who had firmly established himself as the genius of the design office—and his colleague Eun Ha-neul had been dispatched to the Lucy direct store located in Seongsu-dong, where they were now in their seventh day of conducting on-site practical sketching.

Saturday, 8:43 p.m. A dimly lit beer house in Seongsu-dong.

After the store closed, the two of them sat in a corner booth with the men's and women's underwear fitting-test data from earlier that day spread out before them, locked in heated debate amid the thick, warm air. Condensation beaded on the surfaces of their beer glasses and slid down in slow rivulets, mirroring the subtle tension hanging between them.

"Ha-neul, about what happened this afternoon. Even if it was a new-material test, what kind of woman yanks the strings that taut while a man is still wearing them?

I was measuring the elasticity of the panty band and thought the skin on my lower half was going to scream."

Ha-neul drained her beer, then licked her lips with deliberate sensuality before answering.

"Oh, come on—what was I supposed to do? Last time you did the exact same thing to me! When we were fitting-testing that women's lace panty sample I was wearing, you clearly saw me in it and still hooked the lace band with your finger from behind and snapped it to check the elasticity.

The string wrapped around the flesh of my plump ass and went snap! with a juicy crack that echoed. I got goosebumps all over and nearly fainted from pure embarrassment, you know?"

"That was by no means intentional provocation. I was attempting to precisely measure the lace load-bearing capacity, but sweat had accumulated on my fingertips and it slipped.

Did you really have to exact revenge today by yanking the strings of my men's panties the same way?"

"Revenge? Please. You kept grumbling that the new-material band strength on the men's sample you were wearing was too weak, so I just pulled hard from behind to check. When it snapped tight all the way into the private areas, the durability and recovery were clearly excellent. You can complain all you want, but the data that hit my fingertips was honest."

"The data was honest, I'm sure. Thanks to that, I now have perfectly honest, bright-red friction marks like whip welts along my flanks and groin lines.

If I can't make it to work properly tomorrow morning, you're taking full responsibility, Ha-neul."

"Fine, fine. I'll stop by the pharmacy, buy ointment, and apply it to your ass and thighs myself.

By the way—when I snapped it you screamed, but once you actually had it on, how was the lower-body fit? Did it hold everything down there nice and heavy?"

Ha-neul's blunt, provocative question sent Kang-san's heart rate surging again. The memory of that intimate contact resurfaced, and a heavy thudding filled his ears. In that instant his X-ray Vision activated, and the white shirt and skirt of the woman in front of him melted into translucence with a soft, liquid rustle.

Inside the skirt, the thin black T-back panties she wore today had their strings cruelly digging into the flesh of her buttocks that looked ready to burst, trapped tautly in the cleft of her ass—a spectacular view that mercilessly ravaged Kang-san's retinas.

He swallowed hard, packing both the visual and tactile stimuli into a single flat remark.

"......It's less fabric and more like a single thread. The chafing is far too severe. External tension is excessively strong while breathability is poor, so the central string supporting the sensitive Y-zone keeps stimulating the skin with every movement. It's a defective structure that inevitably traps sweat and causes abrasion."

"Oh, excellent! Y-zone friction coefficient!"

Completely unaware that her own ass cleft was being dissected, Ha-neul excitedly scribbled into her notebook.

"We'll have to recalibrate the 'sensitive-area fabric friction sensitivity' numbers from scratch. You only ever dig into my women's data, so when you handle the men's line you keep losing the feel for what's below."

"This isn't a matter of feel—it's the domain of sensitivity that comes from physical structure.

Simulations can never capture it; it's something you only know from the raw data you just extracted from my body a moment ago. Stop changing the subject and write down the numbers I call out properly, Ha-neul."

"Yes, yes. As you command, Employee Kang-san who knows even my body inside and out."

The next morning at the Seongsu-dong store.

Directly across from the Lucy Seongsu Store, a mega store more than five times its size revealed its imposing presence.

On the massive LED display above the entrance of the Lumière building, a slogan in white letters blinked in real time like a deliberate provocation.

It was a sentence that took direct aim at Lucy's slogan of "comfort so complete you forget you're wearing it."

Sensing something ominous, Kang-san pulled out his phone and hit the call button for the design office.

One hour later, at exactly 11:00 a.m., General Manager Kim and Section Chief Han—having driven like madmen from the Gangnam headquarters—burst ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the store gasping for breath.

"What the hell? Lumière only ever opened in department-store luxury halls or Gangnam Rodeo. Those arrogant bastards never even glanced at a neighborhood commercial district like Seongsu—why suddenly here?"

"No need to analyze trends." Section Chief Han answered, trembling with rage. "They're here to stomp us flat, pure and simple. They're nesting right across the street with overwhelming capital volume to cut Lucy's throat."

Just then, a clear little bell chimed as the glass door of the Lucy store swung open and a man and woman strode arrogantly inside.

The man wore a high-end custom navy suit with a silver nameplate on his chest that read "Brand Strategy Team Assistant Manager Seo Tae-yang." Behind him followed a female employee of Lumière whose nameplate read "Strategy Team Coordinator Jo Eun-ha."

At the appearance of the intruders, Kang-san's tension spiked and his X-ray Vision locked onto Lumière's Coordinator Jo Eun-ha.

Sssssshk—!

The tight office blouse and skirt she wore instantly turned transparent as glass. True to her status as an employee of a self-proclaimed high-end brand, Jo Eun-ha's figure beneath the suit was blatantly explicit.

She was wearing a deep crimson silk corset bra that artificially gathered and shoved her breasts upward to the extreme. The volume was eye-catching, yet the excessive load pressure had left the skin across the upper swell of her breasts crushed red and trembling with every breath—a defect laid bare.

That wasn't all. The thin red lace garter-belt panties she wore to emphasize her hip line had their strings savagely biting into the smooth flesh of her buttocks and thighs, carving vivid red marks. On the surface she walked with cool elegance, but the body revealed by the vision was screaming under the "presence-filled" compression of Lumière underwear.

Assistant Manager Seo Tae-yang strolled leisurely between the display tables, scanning Lucy's products with a dismissive eye, then casually set a flashy Lumière shopping bag on the counter. He picked up one of Lucy's best-selling core items with arrogant fingers.

"The finishing is clean and the fabric texture is excellent. For a product made by a rookie, it's quite stylishly done, just as the rumors said."

Seo Tae-yang looked at Kang-san with a mocking smile. But in Kang-san's eyes, the red corset marks on Coordinator Jo Eun-ha—standing behind Seo and breathing in faint, pained gasps from the underwear's pressure—were being analyzed in merciless detail.

"And so we've come to finish this for certain."

At Seo Tae-yang's arrogant declaration of war, General Manager Kim's face twisted into something ugly.

"Finish us? What kind of rude stunt is this, barging into someone else's store in a pack just because you're wearing a big-brand armband?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. We've come to completely bury Lucy and finish it off in this innerwear market."

Seo flicked Lucy's soft pure-cotton underwear off the counter with a fingertip.

"You people at Lucy are completely mis-educating this innerwear market right now.

Truly good underwear is not that bland, flavorless comfort that erases the wearer's presence from memory.

It is the intoxicating stimulation that perfectly corrects and binds a person's physical flaws and flesh, deceiving them into looking far more voluptuous and beautiful than before."

Seo jerked his chin toward Coordinator Jo Eun-ha standing behind him.

"Coordinator Jo, show them."

"Yes, Assistant Manager."

Jo Eun-ha stepped forward. The flesh of her hips trembled microscopically under the merciless pressure. Suppressing her short, labored breaths, she activated a tablet screen and thrust it right under the noses of General Manager Kim and Kang-san.

"Our Lumière Brand Strategy Team has completely scraped and finished analyzing the consumption-pattern data of the Lucy Seongsu Store's main customer base over the past three months."

On the screen, blood-red letters were stamped with cruel clarity.

"Fully 82 percent of the existing customer base that used to consume Lucy products in this alley will soon be absorbed as new potential customers of our Lumière Mega Store.

No—according to my plan, I intend to tear them away like ripping flesh."

Jo Eun-ha spoke haughtily, yet Kang-san's sharp X-ray vision remained locked on the deep crimson corset bra beneath her blouse. In his eyes, the "murderous engineering defects" of the high-end products Seo was boasting about were being dissected and recorded as perfect failure data.

General Manager Kim's fists trembled as he glared at Seo Tae-yang.

"Even if you come wearing a conglomerate armband, there is such ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a thing as business ethics. Isn't it going too far to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠say you've come to cut our throat out in the open?"

"Business ethics is a word the weak use when they beg. You people at Lucy can never defeat our Lumière. It's already over."

Seo turned away with a smile of absolute certainty.

"Lumière's garments are certainly flashy. Flashy enough to shred the wearer's body into rags."

The moment Lee Kang-san's sharp barb landed, Seo Tae-yang—who had been about to leave—and Coordinator Jo Eun-ha, whose flesh was still bound tight, both froze solid on the spot, their thought circuits locking up cold.

"What's the reason?"

At Kang-san's low, quiet question, Assistant Manager Seo shrugged his shoulders and laughed arrogantly.

"Because humans do not remember the boring, bland comfort of daily life for long.

Instead, humans forever engrave on their retinas the most glamorous and beautiful decisive moments of their lives.

That magical instant when they put on our Lumière clothes, look in the mirror, and become intoxicated by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their own sensual reflection.

In the end, consumers willingly pay money to purchase that captivating memory and stimulation."

Seo pointed with his chin toward the building across the street beyond the glass wall, wearing a victor's smile.

"Why don't you come across to our Lumière Mega Store once? You'll understand at a glance why we are destined to dominate this market when you see the grandeur with your own eyes."

"Just a moment, Assistant Manager Seo Tae-yang."

Kang-san quietly reached toward the flashy Lumière shopping bag still in Seo's hand.

"This product—have you yourself ever tried wearing it, Assistant Manager Seo?"

"Excuse me? Are you...... asking me that right now?"

"Yes. I'm asking whether Assistant Manager Seo Tae-yang has personally put this extremely harsh compression underwear on his own body."

"Lee Kang-san."

Seo frowned as if the question were distasteful.

"I am the strategy marketing assistant manager who oversees this brand. I have already analyzed more than enough precise wear-test reports from professional fitting models and adult consumer-response market data.

Why would I need to wear women's underwear myself?"

"......I see. So you mean you've never known the pain of friction between a woman's skin and fabric—you've only looked at numerical indicators on a computer monitor."

"When a consumer first visits a store, it's true they open their wallet excited by the flashiness and pretty design that catch the eye, just as you say, Assistant Manager Seo.

But what makes that same consumer return to the store a week later to buy the product again is solely the domain of comfort that the skin cells of their own body remember."

Seo shot back.

"Just how inefficient and foolish an artisan spirit that stubborn insistence on comfort really is—you'll soon confirm it very clearly through the sales metrics. Well then, I'll be going."