Chapter 195 – Hologram Shopping

In her dorm room, Yuna sat on her bed with Yuki standing at the door, leaning against the frame. He was giving her a relatively neutral expression that had a hint of curiosity in it. They stayed quiet even though they were only a few feet apart.

“Sorry for calling you out here,” Yuna said, breaking the silence. The quiet had grown a bit too loud. 

“I don’t mind,” Yuki replied. “But I did think that it would be something else. Like the specifics about your assignment.”

“It kind of is, right?”

“Well. Maybe. The clothes one wears can be relevant to the mission depending on the type of mission,” he shrugged. “I guess that since this is a reunion for family and friends you don’t want to stand out right?”

“It’s a bit of that and something else,” Yuna said. She scratched her neck, not wanting to elaborate any more.

“Mmm. Well. Let me take a look at what you have and what I can work with,” he said, gesturing towards her closet. 

Yuna nodded and pushed herself up from her bed. She went to the closet, pausing right before opening it.

“I don’t have much,” she said as she turned her head towards Yuki. 

“That’s fine. Just show me.”

She nodded again. With a small sigh, she slid open the door to her closet to reveal its contents. Or really its lack of contents. There were a few hangers that had three sets of school uniforms. Besides those, there were two other outfits that were almost identical to each other. They consisted of a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Yuki stood in front of the closet and gave it a critical gaze. Yuna watched his eyes flicker to the corner where another set of clothing hung. It was a uniform. On the shoulder of the blazer was an emblem with three letters. He looked away, not commenting.

“I see why you called me,” Yuki said. He closed the closet. “There’s nothing in there that you can wear to a formal reunion.”

‘That’s. Putting it nicely.’

“Tell me. What do you want to do?” he asked, turning to her. 

“What do you mean?” Yuna replied.

“There’s a few different ways we can solve this,” he said. “I can ask Erica or Akira to lend you some clothes. Or we can go out and buy clothes. It’s up to you.”

“I would rather buy clothes,” she said. She already borrowed an outfit from Akira before. Yuna didn’t want to have to do that again. “It would be good for me to have something so that this doesn’t happen again.”

“That’s true. Then we’ll need to get multiple pairs,” Yuki mused. “One outfit is no good.”

“Can’t I just rewear it?”

“What? No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “That’s not safe. Wearing the same outfit to every event you go to will lead to easier recognition. And also, wouldn’t you get bored wearing the same thing over and over again?”

“But getting multiples would take too much time and money right?” she replied. “I’m fine with one. I’ll just work with it.”

“But do you want to do that?”

‘Not really,’ she thought. It must have shown on her face.

“Then let’s go,” Yuki said. He went to the bedroom door and looked back. “We’re going to be out for a bit.

“There’s so many,” Yuna whispered as she walked through the department store. She passed holographic models that wore advertised outfits, some of which hung on the racks upon racks of clothing around her. “Why are there so many?”

“It’s a department store, Yuna,” Yuki said beside her. She glanced over at him. “I’ll be more worried if they didn’t have this much.”

“I guess. Couldn’t we have bought stuff online?” 

“Yeah. But that’s only possible if you know what you want. Plus, I like to actually try on the stuff before buying it.”

“Oh.”

“This brings up a question that I really need to ask you,” he said, facing her. “What kind of clothes do you like or want?”

“I, uh. I don’t know, a dress?”

Yuki paused, raising an eyebrow.

“Ok. So not a suit. Though, now that I think about it, that wouldn't that bad of an option. Hmm. But what kind of dress?” he asked. “Design wise or feeling wise if you understand what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Yuna repeated with a shrug and a small smile. “Just something that look nice on me, maybe? I don’t know how rare those will be.”

“I see. Well. Come with me then.”

Yuki led her to a part of the store where a woman sat behind a desk. Two hallways flanked the woman’s desk that opened up to multiple stalls. 

“Hello,” Yuki said as he approached the desk. The woman looked up and smiled broadly.

“Back again? How may I help you today?” she asked. She looked passed him and saw Yuna. “Brought a friend?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to find some clothes for her to wear to a little reunion,” he replied. “I’ll be using one of the rooms. It might take a while though.”

“Really? If it’s her wearing the outfits, I don’t think it’ll take all that long,” the woman laughed. “But that’s fine. Take your time.”

“Thanks.”

He motioned to Yuna to come with him. Yuna gave the woman at the desk a small nod as she passed by who replied with a little wave. Then she caught up to Yuki who had opened up one of the stalls. 

“This is a changing room,” he said. “We’ll be trying things on in here and whatnot. Go on in.”

Yuna entered the room and saw her reflection on a tall mirror that was placed directly on the wall in front of her. On the side wall was a panel that was currently one displaying the logo of the department store. She saw Yuki shut the door quietly behind her.

“Before we start, I just need to make sure you understand something,” Yuki said. He sat down on a bench that was placed in the stall. “When you say that you just want clothes that look good on you, you don’t seem to understand that that is a harder task than what it sounds like.”

‘Is it because I don’t look the best?’ she thought, her chest suddenly feeling as if someone had just added weights to it. 

“And it’s not because of what you’re thinking,” Yuki continued. “It’s the exact opposite. You’ll look good in nearly anything you wear. And that brings up a few problems.”

“Anything?” Yuna repeated.

“Yes. Anything. With your looks, you can pull off almost anything,” he said. “We just need to narrow that down to what we need. Or really, what you want.”

‘I feel like I’ve heard that before.’ 

“Outfits are more than just clothing that helps the person wearing them shine. They’re a statement and represent who you are. They give people around them a certain feeling depending on what the outfit was designed to do. So what we need to do is figure out what is it that you want to convey. That’s my question to you.”

“Convey? I don’t know. It’s a reunion, so something simple would do, no? I don’t want to attract too much attention,” she replied.

“Simple. Okay. I can try to minimize attention as much as possible. Anything else?” he asked. “What traits do you want to display? Any specific theme?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, that’s fine. I’ll figure that out. How about impressions? Do you want to impress someone or some people? Or give them a certain impression about yourself?”

‘Impress someone?’ An image of a certain woman with rainbow grey eyes appearing in her head. ‘Why would I want to do that? How would I even do that?’

“So it’s a yes,” Yuki noted. Yuna’s eyes widened. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask who it is. It’ll just help me narrow down my search. Well. That should be enough for now.”

He went to the side panel and tapped on it. The logo disappeared and was replaced with a menu and small render of the room.

“Um, what does that do?” Yuna asked, her curiosity piqued.

“It’ll let me adjust how the changing room looks,” he replied. “The lighting, the flooring, the furniture even. Can you stand here for me really quick?”

Yuna obliged and stood at the location Yuki pointed at. A few seconds later, a model of her appeared on the screen in the exact location of the rendered changing room as she was in the actual changing room. As she moved around, the model followed her movements.

“What’s that for?” she said.

“It’ll let me project outfits onto you,” Yuki said. “It’s how we’ll try on clothing. They don’t let you do this online.”

“Oh. I thought I’ll be physically wearing the clothes.”

“You can, but this will narrow down the things you actually have to wear quite a bit. If you don’t like how a projected outfit looks on you, then that’s one less thing you have to wear. Then if you really like something, you can request it to be brought over and try it on physically.”

“That’s nice. I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s why I like this place.” He tapped on the screen for a bit, moving a few sliders and selecting a few options. The light in the room dimmed a little and holographic pieces of furniture appeared. “Let’s begin why don’t we?”

He began to rapidly select pieces of outfits on the menu, each one being projected onto Yuna. Every so often, he would stop and ask Yuna to turn or take a pose. Then he would go right back to cycling options. At first, Yuna felt like curling up underneath Yuki’s constant critical gaze, but eventually became used to it. Time ticked by as they stayed in the room. 

Sometimes, Yuna would comment on a certain piece that she liked. Yuki seemed to take notice, but didn’t seem to actually do anything about it as he continued cycling options. At last he stopped. 

“I think we’re good for now,” he said with a nod. “I hope you like them.”

“I’m sure I will,” Yuna replied. 

Yuki nodded and hit one last button. A side compartment opened up to reveal three sets of clothing neatly folded on a tray. He picked up one of them and held it out to Yuna.

“Let’s try them out, why don’t we?”