Chapter 7: Volume 1, - 7: Clothes That Fit the Man Wearing Them
On the morning of Sunday, 12 February 2023, the System interface materialised before Ren’s eyes as he pulled on his scuffed winter coat. The translucent text hovered over the peeling wallpaper of his apartment entry, sharp and unyielding.
[Presentation Assessment: Active Barrier Detected.]
[Current attire: Overworn, oversized, worn collar, faded knees.]
[Impact: Signals economic distress, lowers initial social trust, suppresses visual presentation.]
[Objective: Acquire a complete, properly fitted presentation outfit and basic grooming.]
[Reimbursable Ceiling: ¥25,000.]
[Conditions: Select items, pay initially using personal funds, wear complete outfit, upload verified receipts.]
Ren stared at the message, his jaw tight. His immediate response was a sharp surge of internal resistance. He had over ¥1.8 million in total personal debt hanging over his head, with the ¥31,400 Orient Credit arrears still demanding every spare yen he could scrape together. Spending up to twenty-five thousand yen on clothes felt irresponsible. An indulgent expenditure for someone who had only cleared his oldest water bill on Friday evening.
Even with his daily income active and what remained of the ¥8,000 Social Task reward sitting in his digital account after ordering the portable battery, the habit of extreme financial paranoia ran deep. He hesitated, calculating whether he could simply skip the directive.
Then he looked down at himself in the small mirror beside the doorway.
The grey fleece he wore was stretched out at the cuffs and stained near the hem. His trousers sagged in folds around his heels because he had bought them off a discount rack two years ago, and the collar of his inner shirt was frayed into thin threads. He looked like someone who had given up on himself months ago. If he wanted to build a real business or walk into Akiyama Bakery without feeling like an intruder, looking like an abandoned ruin was a tactical liability.
He grabbed his wallet, verified his digital balance, and caught the local bus toward LaLa Garden Kawaguchi.
The floor of UNIQLO inside LaLa Garden was wide, bright, and organised with clinical precision. Ren moved through the aisles feeling out of place, his heavy frame drawing no special attention from the weekend shoppers, but his internal discomfort making every step feel deliberate.
Ren stepped out of the fitting room wearing a pair of dark stretch jeans one size smaller than his current waist required. The waistband pressed uncomfortably into his stomach, and tight, strained folds pulled across his thighs.
’If I buy a waist size down, it will force me to lose weight faster,’ he thought, a familiar, punitive logic rising in his mind. ’It’ll remind me not to get comfortable at 106.8 kilograms.’
"Excuse me, sir," a neutral voice said behind him.
A UNIQLO floor assistant, a young man in a clean beige overshirt, stood nearby holding a measuring tape. He was not smiling excessively or trying to make a sales pitch; his tone was purely functional.
"That pair is pulling across your waist and thighs," the assistant said, gesturing politely to the strained fabric. "Try the next size up. The right fit will look cleaner now, and you can replace it later if your body changes."
To ensure they found pieces that sat correctly on his frame, the assistant measured Ren’s chest, waist, sleeve, and inseam, writing the four numbers down on a small paper fitting card before bringing out the larger size.
Ren looked at the reflection in the mirror after changing into the recommended pair. The waistband rested naturally without binding against his stomach, and the dark denim draped cleanly down his legs. The assistant’s words stripped away the urge to punish himself.
"I’ll take the proper size," Ren said quietly.
He carefully checked the price tags to maintain a strict running total. He selected the sale-priced pair of dark stretch jeans, added two white Oxford cotton button-down shirts marked down on seasonal promotion, and ensured the shoulder seams rested precisely where his arms met his torso. He grabbed a two-pack of seamless AIRism undershirts to keep sweat from showing through the cotton, and finally approached the outer coat racks, selecting a navy BlockTech coat that was discounted on the end-of-winter rack.
As he carried the items toward the self-checkout terminal, he opened the UNIQLO mobile application to scan his member barcode. The app’s automated sizing assistant suddenly refreshed on his phone screen, displaying a pre-filled profile:
Recorded Measurements:
Chest: 114 cm | Waist: 102 cm | Sleeve: 86 cm | Inseam: 76 cm.
Ren froze, his finger hovering over the glass. He had downloaded the app two minutes ago while walking into the store. He had never entered his chest measurement, his waist circumference, or his inseam into any digital form in his life. The four numbers matched the assistant’s fitting card exactly, down to the centimetre.
He swallowed hard, feeling the cold, silent presence of the System operating beneath the routine software of his phone, and completed the payment.
From UNIQLO, Ren walked down the mall corridor to GU to complete his footwear and layering needs, keeping his mental ledger strictly under the reimbursable ceiling.
He selected a simple dark-grey knit crewneck sweater on limited offer, designed to layer over his Oxford shirts. For shoes, he picked up a pair of clean, monochrome black synthetic leather sneakers with flat white soles and no loud branding.
Before heading to grooming, Ren checked his tally. The discounted UNIQLO items, the GU pieces, and his planned haircut would keep his eligible spending safely beneath the ¥25,000 limit.
Also inside the LaLa Garden complex, the QB House salon was built for speed and utility. No small talk, no shampoo stations, no unnecessary fluff. You bought a ticket for ¥1,200 from the vending machine, sat in the numbered chair, and were out in ten minutes.
Ren handed his ticket to the barber, a middle-aged man with sharp hands and a quiet demeanor.
"How would you like it?" the barber asked, snapping a clean white cape around Ren’s neck.
"Clean it up," Ren said, looking at his reflection. "Clear the bulk around the ears and tidy the neckline. Keep it simple."
The barber nodded without commentary. The clippers hummed to life. He worked methodically, trimming away the heavy growth that had been curling over Ren’s ears and sweeping away the ragged hair along his neck. He thinned the top just enough to remove the heavy, square shape that had made Ren’s head look overly large for his shoulders.
When the vacuum tube cleared away the stray clippings and the cape was unclasped, Ren looked at himself in the glass.
His face had not magically changed. His jawline was still soft, his cheeks were still full, and his dark eyes still carried the quiet weariness of late-night convenience store shifts. But the harsh, abandoned look was gone. His head had a defined shape now, and his neck looked neat and presentable.
Ren stepped into the mall restroom, changed out of his old clothes, and packed them into a paper bag. He put on the complete new outfit: the AIRism undershirt, the crisp white Oxford button-down tucked cleanly into the dark stretch jeans, the grey knit sweater over the shirt collar, and the navy BlockTech coat zipped halfway up. On his feet, the black GU sneakers felt firm against the floor.
Outside the mall building, Ren sat down on a stone bench in the open plaza. He carefully laid out the UNIQLO paper receipt, the GU paper receipt, and the printed QB House ticket side by side on his lap. Pulling up the System interface on his phone, he photographed each document, verifying that the merchant names, dates, and itemized totals were sharp and legible, before hitting the digital upload button.
Only then did he stand up, pull his coat tight against the winter wind, and walk toward the bus stop in the complete outfit.
His phone vibrated sharply in his pocket.
[Presentation Task complete.]
[Eligible spending verified: up to ¥25,000.]
[Reimbursement authorised.]
[Appeal: 2 → 3.]
[Body composition unchanged.]
Ren opened the Legacy Reserve payment record. The exact verified amount of his eligible spending returned immediately to his personal digital balance, accompanied by a downloadable reimbursement statement.
As he waited for the bus, his mind briefly drifted to the shopping arcade in Nishi-Kawaguchi. He wondered, with a small, quiet flicker of curiosity, what Suzune would think if she saw him standing at the bakery counter looking like this.
He checked the thought immediately. He had not bought these clothes to perform for her or to pretend he was someone else. He had bought them because living in ragged clothes was a form of self-sabotage he could no longer afford.
At 10:45 PM that evening, Ren walked into QuickMart for his scheduled night shift.
He stepped into the back breakroom, neatly folded his dark-grey sweater into his locker beside his navy BlockTech coat, and pulled his blue QuickMart uniform vest on over his white Oxford shirt and dark jeans. The clean white collar stood out crisply against the blue polyester of the store vest.
When he walked out onto the sales floor to take over Register Two, Yui Morita was behind Register One, counting down her drawer balance.
Yui paused for two seconds, surprised by the haircut and properly fitted clothes. Her eyes registered the neat collar of his shirt, his dark jeans, and his clean black sneakers.
"Kisaragi-san," Yui asked, her tone carrying straightforward workplace curiosity. "Did you have a job interview today?"
Ren picked up the register key and slotted it into his terminal. He looked across the counter, feeling the structured weight of the new fabric against his shoulders and the cold air on his neatly trimmed neck.
"No," Ren said calmly, turning on the scanner screen. "Just working."
As Yui nodded and returned to her cash count.