Jordan woke to sunlight stabbing through his factory windows and the immediate realization that he was going to meet Chloe’s mother in approximately nine hours and had absolutely no idea what to wear.

The navy button-up sat in his closet. Chloe had approved it. Simple enough.

But what about everything else?

He rolled out of bed and padded barefoot across the concrete floor, his mind already racing through outfit combinations that would somehow communicate "serious boyfriend material" without screaming "I own part of a million-dollar hot springs resort and my supernatural phone app has been tracking my romantic progress like a stock portfolio." The line between those two messages was thinner than he’d like to admit.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

CHLOE KIM: Awake?

JORDAN: Unfortunately.

CHLOE KIM: Good. Come over in twenty. We need to discuss wardrobe.

JORDAN: I have the navy button-up.

CHLOE KIM: You have the navy button-up for DINNER. You need something else for when Daniel arrives. He’s coming early. Three o’clock.

Jordan stared at his phone. Daniel. The younger brother. The fifteen-year-old gaming obsessive who Chloe secretly funded with OnlyFans money he didn’t know existed. The kid whose college savings account grew every month from a source his parents would never approve of.

JORDAN: You didn’t mention Daniel was coming.

CHLOE KIM: I’m mentioning it now. Twenty minutes.

She didn’t wait for a response. The typing indicator vanished, and Jordan was left standing in his boxers contemplating the fact that his afternoon had just doubled in complexity.

He showered quickly, the hot water doing nothing to calm the low-grade panic building in his chest. Meeting a Korean mother was one thing. Meeting a Korean mother AND a teenage brother who probably played the same games Jordan had been too depressed to touch for the past month was another thing entirely.

What did fifteen-year-olds even talk about these days?

Jordan had been fifteen three years ago. That version of him had spent most of his time on Discord servers and Reddit threads, developing opinions about anime he would never voice aloud and harboring crushes on girls who didn’t know his name. The idea of his current self making conversation with Past Jordan filled him with a specific kind of dread that had nothing to do with Mrs. Kim.

He dried off and stood in front of his closet, which had transformed over the past weeks from a graveyard of unwashed designer clothes into something resembling a functional wardrobe. The Nordstrom trip with Alexis had stocked him with options. Too many options.

Charcoal slacks. Navy button-up. That was dinner.

But what about the pre-dinner Daniel introduction?

Jordan reached for a plain white t-shirt, then stopped. Too casual. He’d look like he didn’t care. He grabbed a fitted black polo instead, then stopped again. Too preppy. He’d look like a frat guy trying to impress parents.

His hand hovered over a soft grey henley with a subtle texture that Chloe had commented on once, and he realized he was overthinking this to a degree that would have made Old Jordan proud.

He was not going to spiral about clothes.

He grabbed the henley, a pair of well-fitted dark jeans that made his ass look good without trying too hard, and his cleanest white sneakers. Respectable but relaxed. Approachable but not desperate. The kind of outfit that said "I have my life together" without screaming "I’m trying very hard to convince you I have my life together."

Jordan checked himself in the mirror. The Tune Up trait had done its work over the past weeks. His shoulders filled the henley in a way they never would have a month ago, and the V-line that Maya’s training had carved into his abdomen was visible when the fabric shifted. His hair fell in a deliberately careless arrangement that had taken him four minutes to achieve, the blonde on top contrasting with the darker sides in a way that no longer looked like a CVS box-dye disaster.

He looked good.

Not rich-good. Not trust-fund-kid-good. Just regular-guy-who-takes-care-of-himself-good.

That was the goal.

Before leaving, Jordan pulled out his phone and opened the golden app that had been running silently in the background of his life for the past three weeks. He hadn’t checked it since last night, too distracted by Chloe’s revelation about meeting her family and the subsequent collapse into exhausted sleep.

The interface bloomed across his screen, warm and golden, and Jordan’s eyes went immediately to the account summary.

💝 CASHBACK ∞

ACCOUNT SUMMARY

Balance: $12,847.29

Quest Tickets: 67 🎫

Active Quests: 3

He blinked.

Twelve thousand?

Jordan scrolled to the transaction history, and a cascade of small purchases unfolded before him. Coffee dates. Lunch runs. The groceries he’d picked up for Chloe when she was too busy editing content. The gas station snacks during their late-night drives. The bubble tea runs that had become a weekly ritual. None of them had been expensive on their own, maybe eight to fifteen dollars per transaction, but they’d added up over weeks of consistent interaction.

And the rebate rate had been climbing alongside Chloe’s chemistry percentage.

✨ TRANSACTION COMPLETE ✨

Purchase: Boba tea (2)

Amount: $14.50

Girl: Chloe Kim

Attraction Change: 77% → 78% (+1%)

Rebate: $22.33 (1.54x multiplier)

Net: +$7.83

✨ TRANSACTION COMPLETE ✨

Purchase: Late-night convenience store run

Amount: $23.18

Girl: Chloe Kim

Attraction Change: 78% → 78% (+0%)

Rebate: $35.70 (1.54x multiplier)

Net: +$12.52

The numbers kept scrolling. Dozens of small purchases, each one generating modest profit that had compounded quietly while Jordan was busy with boxing training and business meetings and the general chaos of his double life.

🎊 MILESTONE ACHIEVED 🎊

Cumulative Cashback Profit: $10,000+

Reward: 20 Quest Tickets

(Claim in Gacha menu)

Jordan stared at the notification. He’d been so focused on the daily grind, the moment-to-moment survival of his transformation, that he hadn’t noticed the larger pattern emerging. Ten thousand dollars in pure profit from spending money on a girl who actually liked him back.

The System had been designed to reward genuine connection, not desperate simping. Every dollar Jordan spent on Chloe returned more than he invested because she genuinely wanted to be around him, and her chemistry percentage reflected that reality in cold numerical terms.

If he’d been spending at this rate on Eliza during their disastrous two months, he’d be thirty thousand dollars in the hole and emotionally destroyed. Instead, he was twelve thousand up and meeting his girlfriend’s mother.

Funny how that worked.