After saying goodbye to Mizuno Hina, Kurono Ayumu hurried off.

Hina didn’t stop him. She simply watched him flee in embarrassment, the corners of her lips lifting slightly, clearly in a very good mood.

“Haha! Was he getting shy? That’s so cute!”

“Mizuno, is that handsome guy your boyfriend?”

Compared to Hina’s restraint, the two catgirl maids at the entrance were much more open about it after seeing Ayumu’s flustered state.

After all, Ayumu was seriously handsome. A “pure-hearted handsome guy” type like him was almost impossible for girls to resist.

For girls working part-time at a maid café, they’d seen plenty of creepy otaku before. Compared to those, Ayumu felt all the more rare and precious.

“No!” Hina denied it on instinct.

“Really? Mizuno, can you introduce him to me?” one of the greeter maids asked excitedly.

“Me too! Me too!” the other one chimed in, unwilling to lose.

Hina instantly regretted it.

Why hadn’t she just admitted it earlier? This was seriously awkward now. There was no way she’d willingly introduce Ayumu to these flirtatious little vixens.

“Maybe if there’s a chance later. That’s enough, I’m heading in first.”

After giving that vague reply, Hina quickly walked off, not giving them any chance to keep talking.

I need to send Bu-kun a mail. He shouldn’t come over to my place again later.

...

After leaving the Cat Paw Maid Café, Ayumu started wandering around with no real destination.

At noon, he grabbed a bowl of ramen first. He planned to go buy clothes in the afternoon.

While walking around, Ayumu noticed that quite a few vintage clothing stores in Japan were especially popular with young people.

To put it simply, what people called furugi meant pre-owned or secondhand clothing.

Japan’s secondhand market was probably the most mature, standardized, and largest in the world. It also had the richest selection and the best value.

That was mainly thanks to the Japanese obsession with luxury goods, along with the global shopping frenzy during the economic boom of the last century.

People who loved vintage often said this:

“Once you fall into vintage, it’s as deep as the sea. From then on, trends are just passersby.”

Walking into a good vintage shop really did feel like opening Pandora’s box. One beautiful item after another, all with amazing value, could leave you completely unable to stop.

Not all secondhand clothing could be called vintage.

In English, furugi was often rendered as vintage, while secondhand simply meant second hand. The two seemed to overlap, but they were actually quite different.

The word vintage originally came from wine.

In ancient winemaking, each new batch had to be mixed with a certain amount of aged wine to preserve stability and continuity.

That same idea carried over into fashion culture. The old led the new, completing a blend and transition between tradition and innovation.

Anything that had changed hands could be called secondhand. But not every secondhand item could carry the weight of inheritance.

Only garments with real age, and no longer in production, truly qualified as “vintage.”

Whether it was the fabric, the cut, the details, or even the original use, such clothing reflected the era it came from.

Because the age that produced them could never return, and the traditional craftsmanship behind them had vanished, these pieces were extremely rare.

Like antiques, every purchase meant one less left in the world. That gave them a special kind of value.

Vintage culture rose in postwar Europe for three main reasons.

First, there was a huge amount of leftover military material that needed to be dealt with.

Second, the war had destroyed everything. Young people who grew up in that emptiness urgently needed to seek individuality and a sense of self through tradition.

Third, the rise of postwar industry made everything mass-produced and homogenized. Objects lost all style, and their disposable nature made people value things less while also worsening the environment.

Japan at the time ran into much the same situation, and vintage culture took root there as well.

These days, in Tokyo fashion hubs like Shibuya and Shinjuku, you could see not only countless designer brands, but also plenty of vintage stores holding their own place.

After reading up on Japanese vintage culture on his phone, Ayumu found himself pretty interested.

In his previous life, Zhang Chufan had also liked buying intentionally distressed jeans, shoes, and similar items online. So he could completely understand Japan’s vintage culture.

New clothes had their own advantages, but old clothes had a unique charm of their own too.

Once Ayumu got interested, he immediately searched online for famous vintage shops near Shinjuku.

A lot of people recommended a store called VALON. It was popular with all age groups because of its wide selection, and it was often featured in fashion magazines too.

Using the map on his phone, Ayumu found the shop.

It had two floors, and the storefront was quite large.

The first floor was for men’s clothing, while the second floor was for women’s clothing.

As he browsed, Ayumu noticed that every item had tags marked with things like “A,” “B,” and “C.”

After asking a sales clerk, he learned that these were condition grades.

Generally, secondhand goods were divided into grades like N, S, A, B, C, and J. Different stores used slightly different labels, and their standards could vary a little, but the rough breakdown was as follows:

[N] Same as new

[S] Unused, kept in storage

[SA] Used a few times, with no obvious flaws such as stains, wear, or scratches

[A] Used only a little and in overall great condition, with a few minor flaws such as stains, wear, or scratches

[AB] Used a little and in good overall condition, with small flaws such as stains, wear, or scratches

[B] Used many times, with normal signs of wear such as stains, wear, or scratches

[C] Heavily used, with obvious signs of wear such as stains, wear, or scratches

[J] Defective item

Even vintage clothing had condition grades.

Ayumu couldn’t help sighing at just how much Japanese people loved vintage, and how meticulous they were in the way they did things.

After hearing the clerk’s detailed explanation, Ayumu figured the lowest grade he could accept was probably B or above.

Vintage was nice and all, but he still couldn’t accept wearing clothes with obvious stains or heavy wear on them.

“Excuse me, what kind of clothing are you looking for?” the salesgirl asked kindly.

She had been following beside him the whole time, warmly introducing different items. But Ayumu kept looking without buying anything, which had started to trouble her a little, so she finally spoke up.

Ayumu could understand that completely.

This store was already very popular, and today was Saturday on top of that. There were a lot of customers, and he knew he’d been browsing for quite a while.

“Could you take me to look at some jeans?”

“Mm, of course,” the clerk replied, instantly perking up again and sounding more than happy to help.