The Japanese Advance (1)
On the day the Ministry of National Defense announced the bidding results, Daeyang Trading’s office was thick with tension.
The employees kept glancing back and forth between their computer screens, waiting for the results, while President Kim Tae-young paced the office floor, unable to hide his nerves.
This result would decide the fate of the company.
"President, the results are out!"
At the general affairs manager’s shout, every head turned his way, and Kim Tae-young hurried over to look at the screen.
"Announcement No. 2023-87 from the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, selection results for the combat uniform supplier..."
His hand trembled faintly. As he blinked and read the words on the screen, a smile slowly spread across his face.
"The selected company is Daeyang Trading Co., Ltd.!"
For a moment the office went quiet, and then cheers exploded all at once.
"We got it! We got it, President!"
"We’re saved! Our company’s saved!"
The employees threw their arms around one another, sharing their joy, and more than a few of them wiped away tears.
Kim Tae-young sank heavily into his seat and let out a deep breath.
That one breath held every ounce of the pain and anxiety he had carried until now.
"Everyone... you’ve all worked so hard."
Kim Tae-young’s voice shook slightly.
He quickly brushed at the tears at the corners of his eyes and stood again.
"Chang-sik! Go buy a whole box of makgeolli! Yong-jin, pick up some pork belly. Let’s have meat in the backyard!"
An hour later, the employee cafeteria at Daeyang Trading was heavy with the smell of sizzling pork belly.
The workers sat gathered around each table, passing around makgeolli and smiling brightly.
Kim Tae-young stood before them with a glass in his hand.
"Everyone, you really did a tremendous job. You all know how hard these past few months have been... But starting today, we begin again. We’ve secured at least five years’ worth of work, so let’s keep pushing forward and make great products!"
The employees applauded and cheered.
Then, all of a sudden, the cafeteria door flew open with a bang.
When they looked over to see who it was, they found Representative Choi Min-sung of Pacific Industries and Representative Park Jong-woo of Blue Sky standing there, their faces red and blue with anger.
"Kim! What the hell is going on here!"
Choi Min-sung shouted as he strode toward Kim Tae-young, with Park Jong-woo hurrying right behind him.
"What exactly is going on?"
Kim Tae-young, who had already expected something like this the moment the results came out, asked calmly without a flicker of hesitation.
"You didn’t even say a word to us... how could you do this? How can you stab someone in the back like this?"
"I stabbed you in the back?"
"Then what would you call it? Do you know how much money was at stake here? And you snatched it away like that!"
Choi Min-sung tried to grab Kim Tae-young by the collar, but the employees nearby moved quickly and stopped him.
Flushed red in the face, Kim Tae-young only raised his voice higher.
"Do you think acting like this will change the result? Where do you think you are, causing a scene like this?"
While the employees restrained the two representatives, Kim Tae-young straightened his clothes and then fixed them both with a cold, steely look.
"When I first said we should file a complaint with the DAPA, where were the two of you? Huh? What did you say when I asked for help? Didn’t you tell me, ‘Let’s each handle our own business’?"
Choi Min-sung and Park Jong-woo were left speechless, and Kim Tae-young kept going.
"You watched from the sidelines then, like we were strangers, not caring whether our company lived or died. And now that the bid notice is out and I won it fairly, you’re saying I stabbed you in the back? The ones who stabbed anyone in the back were you!"
"We did everything we could! We were trying to help!"
Blue Sky’s Park Jong-woo tried to defend himself, but Kim Tae-young cut him off.
"If you’re going to tell lies that pathetic, then get the hell out of here! Just thinking about you two kept me up at night!"
When Kim Tae-young nodded toward the employees, several of them took the two men by the arms and led them toward the exit.
"Let go! Don’t you dare let go of me!"
The two struggled, but they had no strength left to resist.
In the end, the two representatives were driven out of Daeyang Trading and couldn’t even bring themselves to leave far. They slumped to the ground with hollow expressions.
Park Jong-woo stared blankly at the traffic passing by, while Choi Min-sung clutched his head in both hands.
"We’re finished... It’s all over..."
Hearing the cheers from inside Daeyang Trading only made them feel more miserable.
The business they had failed to protect had become a celebration for a neighboring company, and that reality was unbearably painful.
*
Meanwhile, Jung Seung-hyun was walking through Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan.
He had come on a business trip to survey the local market ahead of Lesser Factory’s entry into Japan, so he was looking around the area near SHIBUYA L-COURT shopping mall and carefully observing how the people passing by dressed.
Then he said to A-young beside him, "Japanese people really do have a slightly different sense of fashion from Koreans."
A-young, who was accompanying him, replied.
She had loved animation since she was little and had studied Japanese whenever she had time, so her Japanese was fluent enough that she had been assigned as an interpreter for this trip as well.
"That’s true. Their style is definitely different. Unlike in Korea, where people tend to prefer something safe and unobtrusive, Japanese people seem to like styles that are more polished while still keeping their own individuality. They also seem to pay a lot of attention to details."
The two headed for SHIBUYA L-COURT shopping mall.
That would be the site of Lesser Factory’s first store in Japan.
Once they entered the mall, a wide range of fashion brand stores came into view.
"For now, let’s look around the nearby stores. We need to check what styles are popular and what the price range looks like."
They started by browsing through stores from Uniqlo, GU, and other representative Japanese SPA brands.
Seung-hyun examined each piece of clothing one by one, checking the fabric texture and the design.
He also touched them directly by hand, and at times he checked the tags to confirm the prices.
A-young carefully studied the clothes as well and offered her impressions.
"This fabric is a lot worse than our Urbantex. It doesn’t seem to have any waterproofing, and the stretch looks limited too. And yet the prices are higher than ours."
"Hmm... yes, that’s true. It’s priced quite high for the quality. And the design looks less refined than Lesser Factory’s, too."
Seung-hyun went into another store and looked around there as well.
The store had a neat atmosphere, with a variety of clothes arranged in a systematic display. He walked over to the lightweight fall-puffer section and picked up one of the jackets on display.
When he slowly rubbed the fabric between his fingers, a familiar information window appeared before his eyes.
【Yarn Quality = 78.5%】
【Sewing Condition = 85.3%】
【Design Suitability = 83.7%】
【Product Value = 82.1%】
'Product Value at 82 percent, huh...'
While A-young was next to him, responding in Japanese to a staff member who had asked her something, Seung-hyun began touching the other products one after another.
Cotton T-shirts, denim pants, knit sweaters. Every time he checked a different item, new numbers appeared before his eyes.
'Most of them are in the 80s. At this level, we can definitely compete.'
After touring the other stores in turn, Seung-hyun took out a small notebook and organized his observations.
"Japan definitely has a lot of good clothes. The designs are diverse, too. But the fabric quality of these brands isn’t much better than our Lesser Factory’s. In fact, I think we’re ahead in terms of functionality."
"I think so too. The fabric you developed is pretty special, so I think it has more than enough competitiveness. Japanese consumers are especially interested in functionality, too. I’ve heard they like clothes that suit the changing seasons... I think a functional fabric like our Dualtex can definitely make an impact."
They headed toward the planned site for the Lesser Factory store.
It was an empty space on the second floor of SHIBUYA L-COURT, and construction was already underway, with interior workers moving busily back and forth.
"Wow, so this is the place?"
A-young said, clasping both hands together as if deeply moved.
At a glance, the store was large and located in a key commercial district with heavy foot traffic.
The rent was therefore very expensive, but expensive rent also meant a large flow of people, so excitement came naturally.
Then someone behind them called out in Japanese.
"Another new store, huh. Idiots, do you even know where this place is...?"
When A-young whipped around, she found a middle-aged man wearing a newsboy cap.
At first she thought he might just be some crazy guy, but she was curious about what he meant, so she asked, "What do you mean, where this place is?"
"You don't know? You're not from around here?"
"I’m a tourist. From Korea..."
"I thought so. Your pronunciation’s clearly Korean. This store space is haunted."
"Huh?"
Startled, A-young immediately translated for Seung-hyun.
But Seung-hyun didn’t look particularly surprised and asked A-young to find out why.
"Why? Because no store has ever succeeded after moving in here. The longest any of them lasted was two years. They all went under and left."
He had said it was haunted, so for a moment she thought someone must have died here, but that wasn’t the case, which was fortunate.
It was only a story about bad business.
He shook his head and went on.
"In the past five years, three different stores moved into this spot, and every one of them failed. And it looks like a high-foot-traffic area, sure, but if you pay close attention, it’s really on the way to the movie theater, so people don’t actually buy anything here."
"Still, it can’t be all people like that, can it?"
"No, of course not. But you have to look at the rent. For what they’re paying here, it’s not really that great a location."
After hearing him out, Seung-hyun nodded at the logic in the man’s words.
"Thank you. But I think this time will be different. The store coming in now will probably last a long time."
When A-young translated that, the man gave a skeptical look.
"Thank you? Are you connected to the store that’s opening here?"
"Yes. The store moving in here is a SPA brand called Lesser Factory, and it belongs to our company."
"Ah... so you’re here to do a site inspection before opening. Nice to meet you. See that gray building over there? That building belongs to me. My name is Okada Sota."
The man in the newsboy cap turned out to be someone who owned a building nearby.
That was why he knew the local situation so well.
"Nice to meet you. I’m Jung Seung-hyun, the one who created the Lesser Factory brand."
"If I’d thought you were going to be the owner of this store, I wouldn’t have said that. I know that even the truth can feel unpleasant."
"It’s fine. Like I said, we’re different."
He gave a sympathetic smile.
"Every store owner who came into this place said the same thing. But not a single one managed to keep it going."
Seung-hyun smiled with confidence.
"Lesser Factory will be different. We plan to sell cheap clothes that are good enough to surprise Japanese consumers."
After A-young finished translating, Okada laughed as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just heard.
"Will it really turn out that way? Something no one else could pull off? And a Korean fashion company doing it in Japan? That sounds awfully reckless."
Seung-hyun studied Okada’s clothes.
At first glance, they looked like the vintage outfit of an ordinary middle-aged man, but there was a strange sense of luxury to them.
"May I touch it for a moment?"
"Hm? My clothes?"
"Yes."
When Mr. Okada nodded, Seung-hyun gently touched the navy-blue cashmere jacket he was wearing.
【Yarn Quality = 94.8%】
【Sewing Condition = 96.2%】
【Design Suitability = 89.5%】
【Product Value = 93.7%】
'93.7%?'
Seung-hyun couldn’t hide his surprise.
Okada’s jacket looked plain on the surface, but in reality it was a luxury piece made from top-grade cashmere.
"By any chance, is that a Brioni jacket?"
When A-young translated the question, Okada’s eyes widened.
"How did you know? It’s a ten-year-old piece..."
"The pattern and the finishing at the cuffs are distinctive. And that fabric uses premium cashmere sourced from northern Mongolia, from the 2013 limited edition. The fact that the elasticity of the fabric is still holding up after all this time means you’ve taken exceptional care of it."
"Heh, impressive."
"The way I could identify an older gentleman’s clothes, I think I can also tell what kind of clothes younger customers want. We won’t be going under and leaving here easily."
As he listened to A-young translate, Mr. Okada looked at Seung-hyun with a newly thoughtful expression.
"Then let’s see how it goes."