Recently, I sorted through the clothes I owned. Why? Well, during my last health checkup, it was revealed that I had terminal lung cancer…So at the very end, I wanted to leave gracefully — like a bird that leaves no trace behind.  —Okay, not really. Nothing that dramatic. The truth is more mundane: I’ve gained over 10 kilograms since my younger days, my lifestyle has changed thanks to working from home, and I feel a growing resistance to keeping up with trends as I age. Just little things like that.
 
I really feel we live in convenient times. If I get tired of a piece of clothing, I sell it on Mercari. Then, with that money, I buy something I like now, also on Mercari. It’s a marketplace where wants and don’t-wants meet, and money and goods circulate efficiently—like some fated encounter between two heartbroken souls who end up healing each other.

When I was about 15 or 16 years old, I remember being completely captivated by the Levi's jeans, named with three-digit numbers like 501, while flipping through a brochure I had picked up at a clothing store. At the time, young men with long hair, clad in tastefully faded denim and adorned with expensive Native American jewelry on their chests and fingers, were everywhere in youth magazines like Hot Dog.