6. Selvedge

 

6. Selvedge

 

 

 

I couldn’t sleep that night. The words “Let’s make jeans” had sunk to the bottom of my chest, and from there, they began to spread—slowly, steadily. It wasn’t like ripples on water. It was more like heat.

I was sure I had decided to try. But the view beyond that decision was still hazy, blurred at the edges. I thought I understood what it meant, but I really didn’t understand anything at all. Morning came, and I silently slid into the passenger seat.

The car climbed the mountain roads in steady rhythm. Outside the window: brittle branches, pale undergrowth. The bare trees scratched at the wintry sky like bones.

It takes nearly an hour just to reach the highway entrance—but this soft-serve ice cream from the highlands always makes it feel worth the trouble. I took one lick, and behind the sweetness of the milk, I caught the faintest trace of something like fresh grass. It tasted, just for today, a little different somehow.

“Selbi… what was it again?” “Selvedge.” “Right, that. So, what language is that from?” “English. It means the edge of a fabric. Spelled ‘s-e-l-v-e-d-g-e.’”

“That’s weird, though. Shouldn’t it end in a j sound, not a ch?” “I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. The point is—it’s selvedge denim.” Still facing forward, Ryohei answered without hesitation. “So we’re really driving all the way to Osaka… just to buy selvedge?”

The car jolted over a seam in the pavement. His hand didn’t even flinch, holding the cone steady with practiced ease. I took another lick, then turned to look out the window. A small stream traced the ridge of the mountain like a thread. The clear water quietly caught the light of winter.

Beyond it, a recent conversation began to resurface in my mind. "Then let’s make jeans." "Yeah, let’s do it." But that conversation hadn’t ended there.

Before I could say another word, Ryohei had already added, “First, we need denim.” There was something like certainty in his voice. The next words were already waiting.

Strange, incantation-like terms spilled out one after another. Selvedge. Tateochi. Hachinosu. Murakan. Onihige. Ears and noses and mouths—what?

I didn’t understand a single one. And yet, somehow, just the sound of them stirred something inside me. “I’ve been doing some research, just a little bit. Found some good info by chance. Apparently, you can buy selvedge denim."

"I still don’t really know what makes one better than another, though. That’s why I want to go and actually see it for myself. Maybe next weekend?” I still couldn’t picture what “making jeans” would even look like—but in Ryohei’s mind, a plan was already forming, and something invisible had begun to move.

I sat there, mouth slightly open, just listening. Letting the unfamiliar words wash over me. And strangely, it felt like something new was seeping into me, little by little.

The feeling of collecting those strange words reminded me of something—back when I first started coding, my hands had memorized the syntax long before my brain could explain it.

And so now, here I was, in the passenger seat, watching the mountains roll by. Our destination: a fabric wholesaler in Osaka. Our mission: selvedge denim.

We still had a ways to go before even reaching the highway. And then another stretch to get onto the Meishin Expressway. But today, that distance felt like it was giving me time—time to brace myself.

The taste of the soft-serve still lingered faintly on my tongue. It was supposed to be the same as always. But somehow, it wasn’t. Something inside me had already begun to shift.

In this world I was diving into without knowing a thing, I felt my eyes beginning to sharpen—just a little.

In a quiet corner of Osaka stood a cluster of weathered industrial buildings, each managed by number. We were headed to “Building 3-B” — a south-facing tower, worn and heavy with years.

Faded metal plaques marked the entrances, the numbers etched like time itself. The whole place looked like a sleeping machine, storing the memory of some forgotten city. There was something eerily quiet about it.

The moment we pulled into the underground parking lot, a faint sense of unease crept up my spine. The lights were dim, and the concrete walls were slick with moisture. In one corner, a red glow oozed through the air — unnatural and slow.

A flickering neon sign read simply: “Chinese.” Through the glass, I could see a round table and a red lantern. No people. Just a haze of warmth, like leftover breath.

I couldn’t look away. Something felt off — as if reality itself had slipped slightly out of place. A scene straight out of a cyberpunk film—That was the image that flashed across my mind.

The elevator groaned low and heavy as it climbed. Inside, the silver walls were dulled and dented, plastered with faded posters. The cold fluorescent light flattened every face inside into the same pale expression.

When the doors opened, the air changed. No humidity. Just the stale heat of age and use. It smelled of old fabric and dust—clean, but chaotic. Like too many stories layered over each other.

The concrete floor was stained with black marks that trailed like footprints. Each step of our shoes made a faint squeak. On the walls, yellowed notices curled at the corners. Somewhere, a cardboard box was being dragged, its rustle echoing louder than it should have.

It felt like a back alley from Blade Runner—dense, impersonal, and oddly alive. Yet the place also had the scent of utility, of professional trade. In that strange mixture, Ryohei and I both tensed.

We had wandered into a place we didn’t belong. That quiet realization brushed against our backs. Were we really supposed to be here? That tiny doubt made my feet feel slightly heavier.

The corridor stretched on—cold, straight, and unending. On either side, shopfronts with wide openings lined the walls. “Retail.” “Wholesale.” “Cut Sales.” Unfamiliar terms scrawled in thick black ink on white paper.

Each sign made my chest tighten a little. And then we saw it: the shop name we’d been looking for. My eyes locked on it. My throat went slightly dry.

The store stretched long and narrow toward the back—more warehouse than shop. Heavy steel racks were jammed with fabric bolts. All of them denim.

For the first time, I saw real selvedge. It folded inward and disappeared into the back like the coils of a sleeping eel. No sign invited us in. Though it was a store, there was no sense of welcome. A thin membrane of air separated us from the space beyond.

Crossing that threshold would take something more. A chill crept up from the floor through my shoes. Each time I raised my heels, the coldness clung and tried to pull me back down. The room’s heating hadn’t kicked in yet, and the air along my spine felt thin and sharp.

I hesitated. All I had to do was reach out. But I couldn’t move. Could a complete amateur really touch this fabric? That question dulled my fingertips.

Even Ryohei, though already fingering the cloth, didn’t seem to step fully inside. He hovered at the boundary, like someone who had drawn a line and refused to cross it. Then, something shifted.

Behind me, I felt a slight presence. Footsteps? Maybe. Maybe not. And suddenly — someone was standing just behind me.

A student-looking young man was mimicking the exact same motions. He gently touched the fabric, tilted his head, then reached for the next roll.There was something oddly familiar about the entire sequence.

He looked strikingly similar to Ryo. Not so much cautious as he was trying hard to look the part— even the way he masked his awkwardness with a “seasoned” air was nearly identical.

The two of them moved like actors blocking a scene before rehearsal, silently repeating the same gestures over and over again.

The two of them remained frozen. With clumsy hands, they pinched the denim, groaned in thought, and reached for the next bolt. Again and again. And I… I just watched. And watched. Still watching.

At the back of the shelf, a half-unrolled bolt sagged like a tired dog’s ear. It didn’t move. But it somehow mirrored exactly how I felt. Frustrated. That was the word.

—It was always like this. Ryohei lit the fire, but I was always the one who fed the logs. He struck the match, but I was usually the first to move. And today, there was no reason to change that order.

I exhaled, lightly. And took one step forward. I slipped between the coils of denim, like navigating a narrow hallway, and quietly approached the older man sitting behind the desk at the back—his back turned to us.

“Excuse me… do you sell by the meter?” Without looking up, he answered flatly, “Yeah, any length you like.” That was all it took.

As if a switch had been flipped, the two young men rushed up beside me. “What's the ounce on this one?” “How’s the slub texture?” “Wait—what about shrinkage rates?” They peppered the man with questions, their tone suddenly sharp, confident.

For a while, they looked like seasoned experts, pulling bolts one after another, inspecting them seriously. Their earlier awkwardness had vanished. Now they were hunters—people who choose.

Next to me, Ryohei murmured something I didn’t quite catch. I just nodded along. “Hmm.” “Yeah.” He was going on about the depth of the indigo, the width of the selvedge. Talking like he knew what he was doing.

He looked confident. But I knew—he didn’t really know either. “How about this one?” He asked, holding a bolt out to me. I touched it, just for a second. “...Seems fine.” I couldn’t even tell how much of that answer I meant.

“Alright then... we’ll take three meters. Wait—no, make it six!” And just like that, we took our first real step toward making our own pair of jeans.

The student—was gone before we even noticed. In the few minutes we had been lost in our denim hunt, he had disappeared, as if he had never been there at all. Maybe he was a phantom. Maybe not. Now, we’d never know for sure.

And yet—even that brief encounter, that fleeting overlap, lingered gently in the air, settling somewhere deep in my chest as part of that day’s atmosphere.

And so—with the bolt of selvedge we had chosen from among countless others, we would go on to make our very first pair of jeans at a surprisingly fast pace. Before we even realized it—they were finished.

…But there’s a twist to this story. A big one. That moment, right there, would become the turning point—the day we unknowingly took our first step into the deep, obsessive rabbit hole of denim research. But that—is another story.