PAVEL'S POV
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror. Gray jeans and a black T-shirt lie folded on the counter next to the sink. They disgust me. I can't remember the last time I wore jeans—probably more than a decade ago.
It's not the garments themselves, but the memories they carry. Digging through heaps of discarded clothes, mostly jeans, searching for something that fit. Everything was torn, dirty. I didn't have money for laundry before putting them on. People avoided me on the subway, their disdain almost tangible, making my shame nearly unbearable.
The moment I started earning serious money through underground fights, I traded my entire second-hand wardrobe for slacks and dress shirts. Eventually, suits became standard. As time passed, I upgraded everything—expensive watches, accessories, tailored threads. It was all a way to forget what I had been for the first twenty years of my life. Trash. Someone the world would turn away from, someone invisible.
