There’s a phrase—karma.

People liked to say you eventually paid for the things you did.

When I was a kid, I accepted that without questioning it. Adults said it, teachers said it, people on TV said it. But the older I got, the harder it became to believe.

Was that really true?

If people truly got what they deserved, then murderers should all end up dead themselves. People who lived honestly shouldn’t suffer. Good people shouldn’t end up miserable or unlucky.

Maybe someone like me deserved bad things. Fine. But even then—

"..."

For some reason, I felt like something was watching me.

Like a god. Or a fairy. Something like that.

...No. That was ridiculous. I was probably just half-awake.

There was no way I could actually sense something like that. Just thinking about it made me feel unstable.

Come to think of it, I remembered hearing something similar before. Some religious teaching about God always watching people, making sure everyone received proper judgment for their actions.

If you thought about it realistically, maybe it just meant there was some kind of perspective inside you—or close to you—that let you look at yourself objectively. Something that pushed you to reflect on your behavior and try to be better.

And then another thought crossed my mind.

What if that perspective itself was what people called “God”?

Something that stayed beside you.

Something that made you stop and think about your actions.

Maybe that alone was enough.

God didn’t have to be some grand existence floating above the world.

As long as there was something watching over you... something close enough to quietly guide you... maybe that was God for that person.

Which meant even some tiny little garden outside a normal house could have gods or fairies living there—

"...Yeah, no."

I looked away from the small garden outside the window.

Morning sunlight was finally starting to spill across the edges of the yard.

There was no way anything divine was hanging around our depressing little house. What was I even thinking about this early in the morning?

Enough. Move already.

I headed upstairs to the second floor.

The sunlight coming through the windows was enough to see without turning the lights on. The hallway stayed dim, but bright enough that I wouldn’t bump into anything.

I passed my own room and stopped in front of the door at the end of the hall.

A tray of food rested in my hands.

"I brought breakfast."

I spoke before knocking.

Not cold. Not overly cheerful either. Just gentle enough.

I wasn’t expecting an answer.

"I brought breakfast."

I still didn’t knock.

Didn’t try opening the door either.

Because it wouldn’t open.

‘—’

Silence.

No footsteps. No voice. Nothing.

"I’ll leave it here."

I carefully placed the tray on the floor.

The food had already been covered in plastic wrap beforehand, like I knew exactly how this would go.

It wasn’t anything impressive. Definitely not restaurant-level cooking. Still, I tried balancing it properly—rice, a main dish, side dishes. Enough to count as an actual meal.

Getting to this point had taken time.

With both parents constantly busy, if I couldn’t at least handle basic cooking, life in this house would fall apart pretty quickly.

Yeah, it was just homemade food. Nothing special.

But later, the person inside that room would quietly open the door, take the tray inside, eat alone, then leave the empty dishes back outside once they finished.

If I stayed upstairs, they wouldn’t come out.

So until then, I stayed downstairs in the living room, ate my own breakfast, and killed time on my phone until it was time for school.

That routine never changed.

There was no chance we’d ever sit together and eat.

I never even saw their face anymore.

『Login bonus! You should feel honored! Someone like you doesn’t deserve this generosity!』

The rich girl character on my phone screen proudly turned her head away with her eyes closed.

Long straight hair. Black with a faint brown tint. Her voice was annoyingly high-pitched, but her overall design looked strangely calm.

When I first saw her, my honest reaction had been, Oh. She’s not a blonde girl with drill curls.

That alone was enough reason to make her my home screen character.

...Though honestly, I’d started getting tired of her personality lately. I’d probably replace her soon.

Not that I’d ever think that way about a real person.

Doing that would make me awful.

Anyway, I scrolled through my character list.

Double tap or hold to open details. Listen to voice lines. Pick favorites.

You could set up three characters at once and swap between them by swiping across the screen.

Basically a harem system.

Meanwhile the girls just stood there waiting forever while the protagonist drifted between them. Kind of terrible when you actually thought about it.

Not like I was spending part-time job money on them anyway.

...Still, I’d probably keep playing.

Most of my characters already had max affection.

Just hand them gifts and suddenly they fell in love with you.

What a ridiculous system.

Reality was nowhere near that easy.

This game had originally been an R18 browser game. After maxing affection, the “reward” scene was sleeping with the heroine.

...Right.

Even so, I understood the basic idea behind it.

Normally you’d spend time together first. Go on dates. Build trust. Exchange gifts naturally. Like giving someone a ring during a proposal.

But no matter how I looked at it, I never played these games for that kind of stuff.

Partly because the gameplay itself was genuinely fun.

But mostly because...

I just couldn’t.

Even games overflowing with bright colors and attractive characters looked gray to me now.

No matter how hard I tried escaping into hobbies, reality always followed me there too.

I felt exhausted.

I was only a first-year high school student. I shouldn’t already feel worn down like this.

If I stopped believing that, I felt like something inside me would break.

If it was only about physical desire, watching videos online would’ve been faster.

But even that left me feeling empty afterward.

Lately, I wasn’t even sure my body was responding properly anymore.

...Wait.

Am I actually dealing with ED?

Seriously?

...Honestly, maybe I was.

The more I thought about it, the worse it became.

There was no solution. No point panicking either. I already knew that.

"Fuaaah… huh?”

I yawned and snapped awake just as my phone chimed.

A new message appeared at the top of the screen.

≪Morning. Did you sleep well yesterday?≫

I opened the app. My phone always stayed on silent at night, so I never noticed anything until morning. Lately, I’d been checking it less on purpose.

And the reason why was—

“…ugh.”

One name in my message list had [99+].

Back when I used to play puzzle games, seeing a number maxed out like that felt satisfying.

Now it just gave me a headache.

The same person who sent that message a second ago.

“Seriously…”

I scrolled upward.

Before the last message—late at night. And before that, another one every minute or so. Endlessly.

She’d kept it going for over an hour.

That was honestly a little scary.

≪Did you fall asleep?≫

That was where it finally stopped.

But getting there took forever.

I scrolled further back.

≪Hey≫ ≪You asleep?≫ ≪Are you asleep?≫ ≪Hey≫ ≪Hey≫

There were cute stickers and emojis mixed in everywhere, like she was trying hard to act sweet, but it was obvious what she really wanted.

She just wanted to talk to me.

“Was she always this intense…?”

I already knew the answer.

Further back—

≪Hey. Can you talk tonight?≫

That one came around nine last night.

I never replied.

And after that—

≪Busy? Wanna talk later? Message me when you’re free♡≫

Still normal at that point.

Then it slowly shifted.

≪Hellooo. Tonight no good? Busy?≫ ≪At least tell me if you can’t≫ ≪Why’d you read it and ignore me?≫ ≪Why are you ignoring me?≫ ≪Or are you just busy?≫ ≪Hey, you’re reading these, right?≫ ≪Wait… are you actually ignoring me?≫ ≪If I’m bothering you, just say it. I’ll wait until tomorrow≫ ≪Heeey≫ ≪Did your phone die? Are you okay?≫ ≪If texting’s annoying we can just call≫ ≪Yeah?≫ ≪I wanna hear your voice≫ ≪I really wanna hear your voice♡≫ ≪Ah… you fell asleep≫ ≪Morning’s okay too then?≫

…And that was only a small part of it.

Later on, she started throwing in weird jokes with that painfully awkward “older guy texting” vibe, saying things like ≪Is this neglect play?♡≫, then suddenly going back to lonely little one-word messages.

I stopped reading halfway through.

There were still way too many left.

Quietly, I closed the app.

When I looked up, the clock on the wall showed exactly 8:30.

“Guess they’ve finished breakfast by now…”

I climbed the stairs carefully, avoiding every creak, then glanced toward the unopened room at the far end of the second floor.

The tray from earlier was gone.

Then she was probably eating right now. There was no sign the door would open anytime soon either.

“Looks like I’m late again today.”

Once I thought about everything waiting for me after this—checking if the owner of that room planned on going to school today, waiting for the note she always slid under the door listing whatever she wanted me to buy for her—there was no chance I’d make it to school on time.

I wanted to see her face.

I wanted to talk to her.

I knew that was asking for too much, but still… how long had it been since I’d last seen her properly?

She’d become so careful about never making a sound that, honestly, her face should’ve faded by now. It should’ve drifted far away into memory and disappeared beyond reach.

But it never did.

She was like the sun.

Her smile had felt like sunlight itself.

To me, she had always been something bright enough to burn into memory forever, so there was no way I could ever forget her.

“It’s this late already?”

When I checked the clock in the living room, it was already 8:45.

Apparently I’d spent longer spacing out than I thought.

Even from the first floor, where I couldn’t possibly see it, my eyes still drifted toward the unopened room upstairs.

“Yeah… I’m definitely late again today.”

I muttered it with complete confidence, staring at another morning that looked exactly the same as always.

The girl who used to steal my attention away from everything else was still shutting herself inside her room today.

My little sister was a shut-in.

“That should do it.”

I brought in the laundry I’d left drying overnight, called school to tell them I’d be late again, and finished every chore I needed to handle before leaving.

All that remained was one last glance at myself in the full-length mirror by the entrance.

I stepped outside and locked the front door.

The instant I sensed someone behind me, I turned around automatically.

“Yahho♥”

A girl stood there waving casually with a bright smile, looking genuinely happy to see me.

“Morning.”

“Morning♥”

Her name was Onodera Yuu.

You could call her my childhood friend. My neighbor. Or maybe just the girl who’d been around me forever.

Any of those would fit.

She had big round eyes framed by long lashes, a neat nose, soft cherry-colored lips, and glossy hair that caught the morning light perfectly. There wasn’t a single thing to complain about when it came to her appearance.

And on top of that, she knew exactly how attractive she was without ever acting proud about it.

She treated everyone kindly, got great grades, and handled sports effortlessly. She was the genuine article.

People had always liked her, and after we started high school, it didn’t take long before everyone started calling her one of the prettiest girls in school.

Apparently several guys had already confessed to her.

“Ren-chan, something about me feels different today. Can you tell what it is?”

Yuu lowered her head slightly and peeked up at me through her lashes. With the height difference between us, she already had to look up at me normally, so the extra tilt was obviously deliberate. Combined with that sweet line, she looked exactly like one of those cheesy couple photos people used as profile pictures right after they started dating.

“Something different?”

Her deep brown hair was still tied into the same braid resting over her left shoulder. No new hairstyle, no accessories, no changes to her uniform. She still looked like the perfect image of a pure, straight-laced honor student.

Then maybe... her figure?

“.........”

“Ah~♥ What were you just looking at?”

“Your face.”

“Wrong. What part of me did you think changed?♥”

I hadn’t even moved my eyes, but somehow Yuu had seen right through me anyway.

Her chest.

That had been my first thought. Maybe it had gotten a little bigger. She wasn’t overly busty, but she definitely wasn’t flat either. Everything about her proportions felt balanced in this ridiculously unfair way. Honestly, that kind of size was way more dangerous than being either tiny or huge.

Still, if they really were changing little by little...

Part of me got curious.

Another part felt strangely disappointed for some reason.

No. Stop that train of thought.

I pushed the idea out of my head before it got worse.

“Soo? You really can’t tell?”

“Hold on. I never said I didn’t know.”

“Then what changed?♥”

Without moving back even an inch, Yuu stayed close to my face and waited expectantly. It felt like she was telling me to trust my instincts, so I finally gave in.

“Did you switch perfumes?”

“Correct~♥”

The moment Yuu broke into that pleased little smile, I quietly relaxed.

This had become part of our usual morning routine in front of the house. Every now and then, she would throw one of these questions at me out of nowhere. To Yuu, it was probably harmless fun. To me, it felt like a surprise test first thing in the morning.

Still, it woke me up better than coffee ever could.

Maybe that was why I’d been sleeping so well lately.

“So? What do you think of the scent?”

Yuu rolled her sleeve back slightly and held her wrist close to my face. A soft, clean fragrance drifted from her skin, fresh and comforting, almost like soap. The floral perfume she used before had been nice too, but this one suited her even more.

“I like it. Maybe more than the old one.”

“Really? Then maybe I’ll keep using this one~♥”

She touched her cheek, looking quietly happy and embarrassed at the same time.

Watching her like that, I found myself thinking it again.

She really was the healing part of everyday life.

Just having her around made things feel easier.

“Ren-chan, you’re staring again~♥”

“You asked for my opinion.”

Yuu glanced at me from the corner of her eye with an amused smile, and I hurriedly forced myself to calm down before my brain started going in strange directions this early in the morning.

Once we started walking, Yuu naturally fell into step beside me, turning it into our usual walk to school.

Then something hit me.

“…Wait. Isn’t it already late? We’re completely behind schedule, so are you really okay taking your time like this?”

“Why are you saying that now? Also, aren’t you the one who’s actually late all the time, Ren-chan? You’re walking around looking completely relaxed.”

“I’m panicking internally.”

I’d only brought it up out of concern, but she shut me down immediately.

“You know you don’t have to match your timing to mine, right?”

“But we’re supposed to go to school together.”

“Do we really need to commit to this set-up that seriously?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“…Do we, though?”

I had to admire her determination.

Or maybe stubbornness.

Still, this fake boyfriend-girlfriend arrangement occasionally became more trouble than it was worth. I wasn’t convinced we had to maintain it this thoroughly.

“Even if it’s temporary, you’re still my boyfriend, Ren-chan. I want you to understand that much.”

“I do understand. I just don’t know why we need to go this far.”

“We do.”

Yuu raised one finger dramatically.

“Think about it. If a guy and a girl show up late together, what does everyone assume?”

“What do they assume…? That they matched schedules? Or that they had some reason for coming together?”

If it involved someone important—especially a boyfriend or girlfriend—that was probably the first thing people would think.

“Exactly.”

“Oh.”

So that had been the point all along.

“I was seriously getting tired of all the confessions. Lunch break, after school… they keep taking up my time. Turning people down too harshly feels awful, but ignoring them just creates more problems later.”

“Hm.”

It sounded like a problem most people would envy, but I guessed popular people had their own headaches to deal with.

“So~! If we casually show everyone how close we are, it discourages future confessions before they even happen!”

“…I see.”

What shocked me more was that even though I was just acting as her fake boyfriend, there were still guys confessing to Yuu despite the fact that she was already supposed to have one.

Apparently, the number had dropped hard, but a few guys who still didn’t know her current situation had approached her anyway.

Since there was always the chance some of them were pretending not to know, Yuu had decided to go all in and wipe out the very possibility of confessions altogether.

Well, that had been the whole point of this fake-couple plan from the start.

“So from now on, let’s really show people just how stupidly in love we are.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“Don’t act like it has nothing to do with you. What, are you embarrassed?♥”

“I’m only playing your boyfriend because it makes things easier for you.”

“.........”

At the end of the day, our relationship was fake. That was the reality of it. Which was exactly why I wished Yuu would think a little harder about how empty it felt whenever moments like this dragged me back down to earth.

“.........”

“Hm?”

Yuu suddenly stopped walking.

I stopped too and looked back at her. For a second, I wondered if I’d said something that annoyed her.

“.........”

“What’s wrong?”

I asked again, but it only took a moment to realize she wasn’t even looking at me.

“Who... is that?”

“Huh?”

At Yuu’s uneasy murmur, I followed her gaze down the road ahead.

The street looked the same as always. Hedges. Concrete walls. Front gates. A narrow residential road barely wide enough for two cars to squeeze past each other, stretching toward the dead end ahead.

Thinking maybe some suspicious creep was lurking around, I was already preparing myself to either make noise or run to one of the nearby houses if things got weird.

I started turning back toward Yuu to say, Maybe you’re imagining things,—

Then movement caught the edge of my vision.

“Oops. Guess you noticed me.”

A girl stepped out from behind a utility pole.

Bleached blond hair tied into twin side-ups. The same school uniform as ours. That teasing grin plastered across her face like she was already enjoying herself.

“You two are seriously late today~ Pretty wild for a Monday morning.”

So she’d been hiding there waiting for us.

Completely suspicious behavior.

If Yuu hadn’t spotted her first, she probably would’ve jumped out screaming just to scare us.

“Morning, you two~”

“Morning, Tsuki-chan.”

“I was wondering who it was. Usotsuki-chan, huh.”

“Ren-kun, can you seriously stop calling me that already?”

Her real name was Tsukimi Yako.

At first glance, she just looked like a cute, normal girl.

The girl had a serious lying problem.
That was why everyone called her Usotsuki.

“Crazy running into each other at this hour. What a coincidence.”

“A coincidence...?”

“Yep. Total coincidence.”

Yuu instantly stiffened beside me, but I lightly raised a hand to stop her and played along with Usotsuki-chan’s act.

“Ren-chan...?”

I could practically feel Yuu staring at me like I’d lost my mind.

But my eyes stayed on Usotsuki-chan.

That smile of hers never changed.

Yuu smiled like an idiot sometimes too, but this felt different. Usotsuki-chan’s expression always looked like she was hiding something just beneath the surface—something she had no intention of letting anyone see.

Honestly, I had no idea why she’d gone as far as waiting out here for us, even if it meant risking being late herself.

Before I could ask, she spoke first.

“Both of you showing up late together on a Monday morning? Suspicious~♡ What were you doing last night, hmm?”

“Sleeping.”

“By yourself?”

“? Yeah, obviously by myself, but...”

For just a second, something flickered in the back of her eyes.

“Oh, right. I saw your message this morning. Sorry for not replying last night.”

“Oho~?”

The second I gave in and apologized first, Usotsuki-chan looked strangely impressed.

She stepped closer until she was right in front of me, leaned toward my chest, and took a small sniff.

Then she looked up at me with another grin.

“Kyaha☆”

“.........”

Before I could even figure out how to respond to that, she turned toward Yuu with the same amused smile still on her face.

“Then I forgive you☆”

The next second, she went blank-faced, moved up beside me, and started walking with us. Her blond twin side-ups bounced as she walked, the tips brushing against her shoulders. Seen from the side, she looked a little sharper than usual, probably because her expression and behavior felt slightly different from normal.

...When she was like this, she looked perfectly ordinary. With that fierce upward tilt to her eyes, Usotsuki-chan was definitely beautiful. If she didn’t have this impossible personality—if she didn’t lie about stupid shit, if she didn’t casually tell lies that stopped being funny fast—she probably would’ve been genuinely popular.

"Hey. Why are you staring at another girl when your girlfriend is right here?"

"Huh?"

I turned toward Yuu’s voice from my other side and found her puffing out her cheeks at me.

"Ah. Sorry..."

A guy walking with a pretty girl on each side might sound nice on paper, but reality wasn’t that sweet.

"Tsuki-chan, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"Huh? What do you mean, what am I trying to do?"

"I mean—!"

As if she was enjoying how rattled Yuu was getting, Usotsuki-chan narrowed her eyes and smiled.

"Oh, right! Ren-kun, take a look at this."

"Wait, Tsuki-chan—"

Ignoring the increasingly flustered Yuu, Usotsuki-chan pulled out her phone from the pocket of her school bag, opened an app, tapped a few times, and shoved the screen toward me.

The app she’d opened was one of those flea-market apps where anyone could list items and anyone could buy them. What was on the screen was the listing page for a certain item.

"What is this... underwear?"

"Yep☆"

The image showed men’s underwear. Along with the photo, there was an insanely upbeat product description, and in the caution section, one line stood out: [Used].

I got a bad feeling.

"...And why are you showing me this?"

"Doesn’t it look familiar?"

"...What?"

They were the loose kind—boxer shorts. I switched back and forth between boxer briefs and boxers every so often, but recently I’d definitely been wearing boxers. The relaxed cut with the loose hems, the navy base color, the red logo, the sleek white pattern across the fabric... it looked a lot like the pair I bought last month. No, it looked like the exact same product.

When I checked the seller name, the ID said [Tsukimiya©].

"Eh... what...?"

I didn’t want to believe it, but I suddenly wanted to demand an explanation from Usotsuki-chan so badly it hurt.

No, calm down.

I didn’t write my name on my underwear or anything, so this didn’t automatically mean it was mine. But the used pair being sold didn’t have any name on it either—which meant it could be mine, or it could not be mine, and I couldn’t throw out either possibility.

Unable to settle on either answer, I tore my eyes away from the absurdly enthusiastic product description and looked at Usotsuki-chan’s face like I was begging for something.

"S-so, um... yeah..."

The smug grin from before was gone from her face. Instead, she squirmed a little, almost shy, like she was embarrassed.

"...Honestly, I was planning to show you the pre-listing screen and surprise you, but..."

Then, after dragging out the pause for way too long, she said something horrifying.

"I posted it♡"

"Whaaaat!?"

From right beside me—where I was standing there dizzy as hell—Yuu screamed in pure disgust on my behalf.

"Give me that!!"

"Aaahn..."

Snatching the phone out of Usotsuki-chan’s hands, Yuu started tapping through the screen at high speed to check the situation.

"I-it’s really listed... and it’s an auction, too..."

The words hit me hard. Auction? Sorry, I don’t know that word. My brain, already half-dead, started piecing things together while I kept trying to escape reality with dumb thoughts like, Maybe it belongs to someone else.

I even ignored the fact that the used men’s underwear, listed at one yen, was already getting bid up toward the original retail price. Why the hell was that happening? The people driving the price up had to be doing it as a joke. None of this made any damn sense.

Maybe I should just skip school today.

Yuu, visibly trembling, looked at me.

"N High School... freshly stripped off male student REN... that means you, right, Ren-chan...?"

"Who knows."

Don’t ask me. At this point there was nothing to confirm. REN was obviously me. The color drained from both our faces—mine, as the actual owner of the underwear, and Yuu’s, as she read the listing out loud.

"Tsuki-chan, let me make sure I’ve got this straight. The seller is..."

"Obviously me."

"Delete it! Delete it right now!!"

Way more furious than even I was as the actual victim, Yuu shoved herself right up against Usotsuki-chan. Yeah. If she canceled the listing... right, yeah, if I thought about it calmly, there had to be a procedure for canceling it. Stopping a sale before someone bought it would be fastest, and even if someone did buy it, canceling the listing would at least keep my underwear from getting shipped out into the world.

“That’s the problem… I can’t cancel it…”

“Huh!?”

Yuu immediately started hammering at the screen again, then suddenly froze like she’d just noticed something even worse.

“Hurry up and log in already! You’re the seller!”

“Umm… about that… try not to get mad, okay?”

The moment she said that, a horrible feeling settled in my stomach.

“I forgot the password…”

“…………”

For a full second, it felt like every emotion inside me had completely shut down. Yuu looked the exact same. Her face went blank as she stared at Usotsuki-chan without even blinking.

“………Teehee~☆”

Usotsuki-chan closed one eye, stuck out her tongue, and lightly tapped her head with a tiny pose.

It was the first time in my life that a cute girl’s little “Teehee” act had genuinely pissed me off this much.

Chapter 1: When I Was Just Living My Usual Life, Somehow I Ended Up Having to Get My Underwear Back