Since it was Sunday, Ryu wasn't awoken by his usual alarm clock. He preferred to let his body tell him when to wake up on the weekends. He checked the time, and it read 12:30PM.
"Wow, I really slept in I guess that fight tired me out," Ryu thought to himself as he studied the time on the alarm clock next to his bed.
As he does every morning, he checked his quests tab, but nothing was there. "It must have something to do with all of the rewards I got yesterday," Ryu thought to himself.
He got up and made himself breakfast, as his mom was already away for work, sadly money never sleeps, and it surely didn't spare his mother the weekends with all of her part-time jobs.
"She's such a hard worker," Ryu thought to himself as he finished cooking scrambled eggs for his breakfast.
He quickly gulped down the scrambled eggs, despite being poor, Ryu has always enjoyed a good meal, because whether it was him or his mother, they always made the best home cooking.
"So, I have 1 million yen burning a hole in my pocket, how will I spend it?" Ryu thought to himself. Of course, he was planning to save part of the money as a rainy-day fund in case his mother ever needed his support.
With that he started thinking about the more necessary wants, rather than buying fancy clothes or making impulse purchases. Suddenly, Ryu pulled his phone out and looked at his shabby old flip-phone with a cracked screen. "This is what I will replace first," Ryu thought to himself. He was tired of his phone getting stared at in public, and furthermore it had recently been getting so slow it was barely useable.
Deciding that he was going to take a trip to the mall that day, Ryu took a quick shower and dressed in some unbranded athleisure clothes.
"I should also try to get some supplements, and maybe some athletic ware," Ryu thought. Using shorts and shirts that were barely fitting him as athletic clothing for lifting and fighting was probably not the best idea.
Since he was all prepared, he took 200,000 yen out of the envelope and put it into his worn-out leather wallet. Now that everything was set, he walked out of the front door ready to pop some tags.
Ryu had to walk to the mall, as his phone was too old to use uber and he didn't have the yellow pages to look up any taxi service numbers. The mall was around 3 miles from his house, so it wasn't that bad of a journey.
As he walked, Ryu studied the scenery around him. The vibrant Tokyo life still visible even on a Sunday noon. People of all types were walking around, some were talking, some were eating, some happy, some not as much. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold, and this was the first time Ryu truly got to appreciate what he had always taken for granted. Something about his recent progress allowed him to enjoy the little things more than he had before when he was filled with self-hate and doubt.
As he approached the mall he was surprised, he forgot how large it was because he had only been to the mall once or twice in his life as these shops were usually more expensive than his local ones.
"This place really is massive, huh?" Ryu thought to himself as he walked through the front entrance into the mall.
Once he entered the mall he walked over to a kiosk, it had an electronic map detailing all of the stores and their exact location, along with where he was in reference to them.
"Let's get the phone first," thought Ryu as he pressed the electronics filter for the stores and hit the first phone store that popped up. He was interested in buying a Pear Phone 13 Pro Max, he decided upon this one because it had a lot of great features and wasn't that expensive compared to other Pear Phone models. He was expecting to spend around 75,000 yen on a refurbished model.
After he pressed the first phone store that appeared, the map updated telling him directions on how to get to the store. "Wow this is pretty neat," Ryu thought to himself, not realizing that mall technology had gotten so advanced.
With that he proceeded on his way to the phone store, looking at all of the shops surrounding him. There was pretty much anything he'd ever want or need in this mall.
He entered the phone store and walked up to the front desk where a male who stood at around 5'10 was, he was skinny, but didn't look unhealthy, he gave off the general impression that he was a new employee.
"Hey, I'm looking to purchase a Pear Phone 13 Pro Max, refurbished," said Ryu.
"Alright, are you buying outright, or will you be purchasing a payment plan with us?" responded the cashier politely.
"I'll be buying outright, how much will that run me?" said Ryu.
"If you are a member of Splint then it will be 65,000 yen, if you aren't then it will run you 80,000 yen," said the cashier.
"Alright, I'll just pay the 80,000 right now, thanks a bunch, cash by the way," said Ryu.
"Alright, thank you for shopping with Splint, let me ring you up!" said the cashier with a voice so enthusiastic, that anyone could tell it was fake.
"Alright, thanks," said Ryu as he reached into his wallet pulling out eight ten-thousand-yen notes. He set them on the counter and waited expectantly as the cashier finished up the transaction.
"Alright, everything is all set, let me grab your phone from the back, sir," said the cashier.
After the whole phone purchasing ordeal was over, he headed towards another kiosk where he found the location of a second-hand athletic clothing store.
He walked over to the store following the instructions the kiosk gave him. He approached the store and entered it, once inside he was greeted with racks upon racks of clothing for sale. Since it was a second-hand store it contained brand name clothes for cheap prices, this meant that Ryu would no longer be wearing unknown brands which made him feel a little happier about choosing to shop here.
As he walked around, he found multiple pairs of athletic shorts and shirts that fit him well, he made sure to buy them slightly baggy as he anticipated that with time, he would fill out the shirts because currently he was so skinny.
He ended up checking out with around 10 full outfits, this only ran him 40,000 yen which was surprising considering he had bought Gym Whale and Young LS clothes which weren't cheap by any stretch of the mind.
After this he finally found the location of a lifting supplement store. He went to the store and checked out all of the supplements they provided there.
"Wow, I can't even pronounce half of these," Ryu thought to himself, "like what is cree-uh-tin? I've never heard of that."
Lucky for Ryu, and attendant noticed his helplessness and came over to help him. The attendant was a fairly muscular man, who was around the same height as Ryu, despite his large muscles he gave off the same energy as a golden retriever.
"Hello, are you by any chance a beginner to lifting?" the attendant asked Ryu.
"Yeah, I am, haha, I just don't know what I should get to start out," said Ryu.
"Well, the two supplements I recommend for beginners is protein powder and creatine, let me show you the brands that I like and the flavors I enjoy," said the attended in a respectful tone to Ryu.
The attendant showed him a couple brands and flavors, in the end Ryu bought chocolate flavored protein powder, and flavorless creatine. This was enough for him to boost his gym performance without getting overly technical or spending too much money.
At the supplement store he ended up spending around 50,000 yen, but it was only this much because he bought a bulk amount of the supplements as he wasn't interested in visiting the mall regularly.
"Well, I expected to spend 200,000 yen but I only spent 170,000 yen, I'm so good at budgeting," Ryu gloated to himself as he walked out the mall.