Episode 1: The Homeless Beauty Gets Picked Up by a Gal
Heaven doesn’t give two gifts to one person.
That’s the saying, anyway, but I don’t think it’s true. Because I, Nanami Riri, happen to be someone Heaven gave two gifts to.
“Fuh, fuhihi… yes, viral again…”
A gross little noise escapes me before I can stop it, and I clap a hand over my mouth. The stares around me sting, and I duck behind a telephone pole like I’m running from something.
I’m an introvert. A certified, no-question-about-it introvert. I can’t hold a normal conversation with anyone, and despite being an introvert, my grades are pretty bad too.
But I have two things I can be proud of.
The first one is my face.
It’s stupidly cute.
“Going viral again with zero editing… hah, ah, but people are commenting that it can’t possibly be unedited… maybe I should post a video, go for viral again…?”
The moment I leave school, I check my social media. Not my real-name account, of course. I run mine under the name “Ruri.”
People would probably say posting your face online shows you have no idea how the internet works, but my need for validation has swollen so far past the point of restraint that I can’t help but keep uploading photos of my face.
And it worked. Post after post went viral almost instantly. My followers are past thirty thousand now.
If I were any good at talking, I probably would’ve become a streamer ages ago. But there’s no way. I’m terrible at talking.
That’s exactly why I’ve given up on being adored in real life. At school, I live behind a pair of thick glasses and a mask.
“…What should I post today?”
I hurry home, still thinking about it. I need to get back as fast as I can and set today’s cute photo loose on the internet too.
◆
“Hah, haaah!?”
The moment I reached my house, I let out a shout, which never happens. The neighbors glanced my way, murmuring poor thing to each other under their breath.
“W-wait, hold on, what, what is this, what’s going on…?”
Heaven’s other gift to me was that my family happened to be absurdly, obscenely rich.
And my family home was incredibly massive - or at least, it was.
A giant piece of paper reading SOLD was plastered across the gate of the mansion I’d grown up in, and unfamiliar movers were carrying things out of the house.
I fumbled for my phone and called my parents, back and forth, over and over. Neither of them picked up.
“W-why… oh, wait, now that I think about it, they were saying something about the company’s finances lately…!?”
I searched “Nanami Corporation” online. The top result was a news article: bankruptcy.
“Wait, hold on a second…!”
While I stood there clutching my head in confusion, my phone buzzed. An email from my mother.
Riri-chan, I’m so sorry. Daddy’s company went under. Mommy and Daddy are going to go hide overseas for a while. You’ll figure it out, Riri-chan! We’re rooting for you! ♡
“Wh-what is this, what even is this, this reads exactly like the mom from episode one of some anime about a poor protagonist…!”
I called her again and again, frantic. No answer. I sent email after email. No reply.
No way.
Don’t tell me I’ve actually been abandoned…!?
“Why!?”
I mean, sure, they spent a fortune getting me into an elite girls’ school and I’ve been dead last in my class the entire time, and I’m an introvert with exactly one friend I can actually talk to, and I’m the kind of woman so consumed by her need for validation that she monitors social media twenty-four hours a day and has meals brought up to her room, but still…!
“…No, yeah. I can think of a few reasons.”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I sank down onto the ground. But the stares of the people around me got too frightening too fast, and I ended up fleeing anyway.
◆
I wandered without any destination until the sky went fully dark. My phone had died a while ago, and I honestly wasn’t sure where I even was anymore.
I tried to buy something to eat at a convenience store, but the credit card my parents had given me didn’t work anymore.
“What do I do…”
I sat down on a bench I happened to spot and took off my glasses to wipe my eyes.
The only face that came to mind was my one and only friend, but her parents pretty much hate me. And besides, this wasn’t a today-or-tomorrow kind of problem. I couldn’t exactly corner a friend and beg for money or a place to stay.
If I did something like that, I really would end up with zero friends.
Still, at this rate I wouldn’t even have anywhere to sleep.
“Hey, you.”
Someone spoke to me out of nowhere. I looked up to find a blonde gal standing there. Her ears were covered in piercings. Gorgeous, but terrifying.
“Hiiii!? Um, ah, I, I don’t have any money on me…! Actually, on top of that, my parents abandoned me and I don’t have a house either, oh, uh, but that’s fine, um, anyway, whatever I can offer you…!”
“Wasn’t asking about any of that. Wait, you’re Ruri, aren’t you?”
“Huh?”
Our eyes met, and the gal smiled like she’d confirmed something.
“I’m Möbius.”
“Ahh!”
Möbius-san.
Unlike me, she’s an actual influencer, the kind who shows up at cosplay events in person. We followed each other at some point, started DMing casually. Basically, an internet friend.
“Oh, thank god…”
The instant I relaxed, relieved that it hadn’t been some scary gal calling out to me at random, my stomach growled loudly enough to announce itself.
“Ruri, you hungry?”
“…Yes.”
“And you don’t have a house either, huh?”
“…Yeah.”
“Then, wanna come to mine?”
Normally, I wouldn’t go home with someone I was meeting for the first time in person, even if we were already friends online.
But right now, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.
“Please…! Please let me come…!”
—And that was how “Ruri,” otherwise known as Nanami Riri, was picked up by “Möbius,” otherwise known as Kurusu Akira.