SassyBass found that after he had been into Hatake's hired merchant, a duplicate of his character was left in the first character slot there. This didn't happen with any other merchants, just with Hatake's. I confirmed that when he left the store, the duplicate of his character still remained in the first slot. Another player (Tajer) was also able to confirm this. If anyone else entered Hatake's store while SassyBass and his duplicate were in the store, they were not able to access other stores in that fm room by clicking on them afterwards until they had left the room and returned. Posting this under Bug Report rather than Character Issues as it does seem to be some strange kind of bug.
Ohh this happened to me once, but I have no idea how long my doppelganger was in the store. I can provide an ss if needed
Pretty sure this was a one-off event. I am unable to replicate it. Unless anyone knows exact steps required to do this I have no idea how to prevent it. Changing to unreplicatable for now. If it happens again feel free to make a new thread.