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A few months ago, in late spring.

"Seo-ah, you're wearing that outfit again?" Yu-rim said, eyeing her across the table.

Instead of answering, Seo-ah looked down at what she had on. A white T-shirt and jeans. It might have resembled yesterday's outfit, but it was, at the very least, not the same one.

"Why? I washed it. Does it smell?"

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"You wore something almost exactly like it yesterday."

"Yesterday's was gray, for your information."

So-hee, who had been listening from the side, burst out laughing. "So all you did was change the color."

Seo-ah tugged at the hem of her T-shirt and gave herself another once-over. Nothing about it seemed particularly wrong. It was easy to move around the lecture halls in, and comfortable enough to wear from morning to night.

"What's the problem? It's perfectly fine."

"That's the problem. All you ever wear is 'perfectly fine.'"

"'Perfectly fine' is fine, isn't it?"

"It's a waste on you, is what I keep saying."

So-hee nodded along in vigorous agreement. "Exactly. You're that pretty, so why do you live in T-shirts and jeans every single day?"

"Because they're comfortable."

"You own plenty of pretty clothes."

"Yeah, plenty."

"And you never wear any of them."

Seo-ah gave an amused little snort. It wasn't that she had no interest in clothes. She browsed online shops now and then, and bought things when something caught her eye. The trouble was that the pieces her hands actually reached for each morning were far fewer in variety than the pace at which her purchases piled up in the closet. Pulling out a top and a bottom, pairing them, trying them on, changing again when it didn't look right — the whole ritual was simply tedious.

"Oh, right," So-hee said suddenly. "Don't you have plans this weekend?"

"Yeah."

"Are you seriously going out looking like that that day too?"

"Please. I do own other clothes, you know."

"Owning them is all you ever do with them."

Seo-ah laughed and swatted So-hee on the arm. "Fine, then you pick for me."

"Why me?"

"You were just acting all confident about it."

"Then just use ChatPT."

"ChatPT?"

"Yeah. ChatPT. Supposedly it does outfit coordinating now. You upload pictures of what you own and it builds whole combinations for you."

"It does that too?"

"Wait, you don't use ChatPT?"

"Never tried it. I've watched plenty of people use it for assignments, though."

"Then use it this time. It's nothing."

Yu-rim cut in. "Perfect, actually. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Snap a few pictures of your clothes and ask it what to wear on the weekend."

"When am I supposed to photograph all of that?"

"Still better than pinning us down and making us answer, no?"

"When did I ever pin you down?"

"Just now," Yu-rim and So-hee said, almost in unison.

Seo-ah ended up laughing too. When she searched ChatPT in the app store, the name and icon she'd grown familiar with from watching her friends use it appeared right away. Among features for studying, document drafting, travel itineraries, and shopping, there were also outfit recommendations and style consultations.

She installed the app, went through a quick sign-up, and for the first time created an account of her own.

That evening, back in her dorm room, Seo-ah spread a few pieces of clothing across her bed: two shirts, jeans, a skirt, a cardigan.

She held each shirt against her body in turn, even pressed the skirt up against her waist, but when it came to actually wearing them together, she couldn't tell which combination came out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ahead.

"Ugh, honestly. They all looked so pretty when I bought them."

Seo-ah laid the shirt back down on the bed and sat down beside it. The afternoon conversation came back to her, and she opened ChatPT.

The reply came up almost instantly.

"Oh — so I just take pictures."

Seo-ah photographed the clothes spread over her bed one by one. She laid the shirts out flat so the fronts would show clearly, and flipped over the pieces whose designs needed checking to capture their backs as well. She shot the jeans, the skirt, and the cardigan the same way, then sent everything at once.

A moment later, several combinations appeared on the screen.

"Ooh."

Seo-ah put on the recommended shirt and jeans and stood in front of the mirror. She tucked the hem into her waistband and turned to check her profile — definitely better than it had been when she was mixing and matching on her own earlier.

"Not bad."

Still watching herself in the mirror, she tugged the fabric at her chest outward a little. There was plenty of cloth below the waist, but across the bust it always felt slightly tight. Go up a size and the waist got baggy; keep this size and the top pinched. That had always been the problem.

She picked up her phone again.

Seo-ah looked at the mirror, then stepped back two paces. Phone raised, she took one shot from the front, then turned so the shirt's side seams were visible and took one more from the side.

The moment the two photos went out, the analysis followed.

Seo-ah read the screen again. "Yes. That's exactly it."

Whenever she asked her friends, things ended with "that looks great on you" or "it's pretty." ChatPT, on the other hand, had put its finger on precisely the part that actually bothered her.

From there it flowed naturally. She changed into the other shirt and took more photos; this time she tried the skirt on as well. Comparing results, she saved the combinations she liked. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had started out just trying to choose one outfit for the weekend, but the thing was turning out to be more useful than she'd expected.

That was when a new notice appeared at the bottom of the screen.

"Photos in my underwear, too?"

Seo-ah's hand stopped mid-scroll. She'd sent the fully dressed photos without a second thought, but underwear was a different story. She had never taken those pictures to show another person, and there was no reason on earth to be sending them anywhere.

She read the notice over again, from the very top. It said she could keep using the consultation without registering anything.

Then her eyes drifted back to the shirt in the mirror. It was true that the same shirt drew a different line across the bust depending on which bra she had on. It connected directly to the question she herself had asked just minutes ago.

After a moment's deliberation, Seo-ah opened her gallery.

There were a handful of photos she had taken by herself to compare the fit when she bought new underwear. Some shot from the front, some turned to the side. Never posted, never sent to anyone — they lived only in a locked album.

She picked out two of them.

Her thumb hovered over the send button without pressing. Keeping something stored on her own phone and registering it somewhere else were, plainly, two different things.

She scrolled back up the screen.

Her finger stayed still for a breath. "...It's just an AI doing the analysis, that's all."

In the end, she pressed send.

The analysis results appeared seconds later. How the line of the bust shifted depending on the underwear, which styles would interfere least with the shirts she already owned, even how the silhouette at her waist and hips could change from garment to garment — it was remarkably specific.

Seo-ah scrolled down slowly. "It's more thorough than I expected."

The moment she finished reading, the next notice appeared right beneath it.

Seo-ah's finger stopped dead. "...Nude photos?"

This time she didn't open the gallery right away.

It wasn't as though she had none. After she'd started working out, she had taken a set by herself to track how her body was changing. But those, too, were records kept strictly for her own eyes.

She stared at the screen for a long moment, then unlocked the hidden album.

Front-facing and side photos taken before a mirror lined up one after another, their dates scattered — some from when she'd just started exercising, some from months later.

She opened one photo and closed it again. Checked the date on another. Went back to the very first one.

Is it really okay to send this?

Her hand stalled longer than it had over the underwear photos.

Seo-ah returned to ChatPT and scrolled back up through everything the app had said so far. Nothing seemed off. It had recommended clothes, compared sizes, and nothing had changed even after she sent the underwear photos.

If anything, the analysis had been accurate.

She opened the gallery again and selected two comparatively recent pictures.

She paused once more in front of the send button. "...It's just for the analysis."

Her thumb came down.

Seo-ah watched the screen. A loading indicator spun briefly, then a summary of the proportions across her shoulders, waist, and hips appeared. One final line was appended at the end.

A new notice followed on its heels.

"Recent photos?"

Seo-ah looked over the pictures she'd just sent again. One of them had been taken months ago; the other was older still. Her workout load had changed in the meantime, and her weight had shifted a little as well.

It didn't strike her as a completely absurd request.

She raised her head and looked at the bed across the room. Empty. There was still time before her roommate came back.

She looked at the screen again.

After a moment of wavering, Seo-ah swept the clothes spread across the bed to one side. She took out the phone stand she normally used for recording her workouts, propped the phone upright, and checked that her whole body fit inside the frame.

Then she took off the clothes she was wearing, one piece at a time, and set them beside the bed. She unclasped her bra and laid it on top, and finally slipped off her panties as well.

Naked, she stood in front of the camera.

Taking pictures themselves held no unfamiliarity. She had done it any number of times, whenever she checked her figure alone.

Seo-ah set the timer and looked straight ahead.

Click.

When the shutter sounded, she rotated her body sideways and took one more side-view shot from the same spot.

She picked the phone back up to review the results, and zoomed in on the first photo. "Ah." The stand's angle had been slightly tilted.

She propped the phone up again, leveled it, and retook the front-facing shot. This time it was fine. "There we go."

Still nude, Seo-ah sat down on the edge of the bed and flipped through the photos she'd just taken, one by one. On any ordinary day they would have gone straight into the locked album, and that would have been the end of it.

When she returned to the ChatPT screen, the earlier notice was still sitting there.

Seo-ah rested her thumb on the confirm button. She didn't press it.

She opened the front photo she'd just taken and looked again. Checked the side one as well.

Storing something on her own phone and registering it somewhere else remained, as ever, a different problem.

But she had already sent two old nude photos, and registered underwear pictures on top of them. And each time, all that had come back was an ordinary analysis of her body and her clothes.

Seo-ah went back to ChatPT and pressed confirm.

The body analysis appeared shortly after. The ratio of shoulders to waist, the width of her hips, the places that needed ease when choosing tops, the fits to look for in trousers — each item was laid out in turn. The shirt-size question she'd asked earlier had even been folded back into the recommendation list.

Seo-ah scrolled down slowly. There were designs close to what she normally wore, mixed among styles she would never have reached for on her own. Product photos, prices, even the shops carrying them were displayed alongside.

Her finger stopped on one item. She tapped the picture to check the front and the back. "This one's nice."

The moment she chose a color and a size, a new prompt appeared.

"It can even shop for me?"

Seo-ah pressed the proceed button. She entered a shipping address and registered a payment method — not so different from the process on any ordinary online store.

The final screen presented a long block of usage terms and, with them, a single checkbox.

Seo-ah read the first few lines, then scrolled downward. The text ran far longer than she'd expected. She scrolled back up.

"It's just a feature that helps with payment, that's all."

She tapped the checkbox and pressed Agree.

"Wow. It even does the shopping ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for you?" Seo-ah laughed under her breath.

She had started out just trying to pick an outfit for the weekend. In the meantime she had found new combinations among clothes she already owned, identified the size problems that always nagged at her, and ordered a new piece she liked on the spot.

It was more convenient than she'd expected.

She checked the purchase-confirmation screen one last time and set her phone down on the bed.

Only then did it register that she still wasn't wearing a single thing. "Oh — right."

She picked up the underwear she'd left on the bed, put on her bra, then her panties, and finally the shirt and jeans ChatPT had recommended earlier.

Standing before the mirror, the same clothes somehow struck her differently than the first time around. She tucked the shirt into her waistband and folded the sleeves up once, and the reflection came to match the look the app had shown her.

Seo-ah gazed at herself in the mirror for a while, then reached for her phone.

Click.

She took a single photo and dropped it into the group chat with Yu-rim and So-hee.

Seo-ah laughed. Only minutes earlier she had kept balking at the requests — underwear photos, then nude ones — but judged purely by the results, it was more than satisfying. It had combined pieces she rarely wore into looks that felt natural, and it diagnosed the size issues that always left her wavering more precisely than her friends ever had.

Best of all, it was easy. With a few photos on file, she never even had to repeat the same explanations.

The next morning, before she even opened her closet, Seo-ah opened ChatPT first.