Prologue

Ah...the sky is blue.

I, Rina Hayasaka, was reclining against a tree in the corner of the crematorium parking lot, blankly watching my beloved grandmother turn into smoke and return to the sky.

My grandmother was already in a nursing home by the time I could remember, but after my parents' death, she was the only person who truly loved and cared for me.

I was three years old when a truck hit our car on the way home from a car trip with my parents after the truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. My parents died, and as my mother quickly covered for me, I survived. However, I hit my head and damaged my optic nerve.

Now, I wear glasses so thick they resemble bottle bottoms. Actually, I think these glasses could be a little adjusted. There are various types of lenses nowadays, such as compression lenses and aspheric lenses. Sadly, I can't afford such luxuries when I'm staying at my uncle's house, as my uncle doesn't want to spend an extra dime on me.

My uncle took me in with the intention of squandering my parents' inheritance and insurance money, but he was foiled completely when my grandma got a lawyer to act as my guardian, as I was a minor. I think she didn't trust my uncle to get a separate guardian for me when he was around.

I wanted to take her in and take care of her, and I regretted not staying with her after she fell ill. I remembered how she sadly patted my head.

I wished to tell her that I had been accepted to the university I was aiming for, but she fell into a coma three days before the admission results, so I never got to tell her. 

Thank you, Grandma. Thanks to her, I would be able to go to college without being penniless because she thought carefully about my future and appointed me a guardian.

With the help of my guardian lawyer, I secretly applied to a university in Tokyo. I applied for the entrance exam with the lawyer's address, moved my residence card to there as well, and asked the lawyer to be my guarantor for my apartment. I really couldn't thank the lawyer enough. All that was left was to sneak out next week and move to a place near the university. I would be done being a sandbag and a free housekeeper there!

"Rina! What are you doing slacking off here?

Mayu found me.

A year older than me, Mayu was my uncle's only daughter. In other words, she was my cousin. Ever since we were young, she bullied me both at home and outside the house. Her nickname when she was in school was "Female Giant" because she would tease me in front of everyone without even hiding it. And of course, my nickname was "Glasses." Glasses. Was wearing glasses a bad thing?

She still harassed me to this day.

For example, this mourning dress.

"While I was making tea for those relatives, you just disappeared. Do you really hate being seen in those shabby mourning clothes? Why don't you put up with that and deal with those people? You are just a nuisance who's being taken care of by my family..."

Shut up. I don't know where this dress came from, but it looks like a maternity dress. My breasts are a little bigger than normal...no, a lot bigger, and she knows that clothes without a waistband made me look fat!

I was in a bad mood today, too. I wondered if she was still angry about being dumped by her boyfriend last month.

She stole my recipe notebook and took it with her to make curry at her boyfriend's house, and now she blamed me for her rejection because she made shabby, undercooked curry. I thought something was wrong when she suddenly threw the recipe notebook that I had lost at me. I wondered why she went to the trouble of stealing someone's recipe notebook to make curry from spices. Why didn't she just use store-bought roux? She rarely cooked anyways. The reason I always made curry from spices was not because I like cooking, but because her family considered curry roux and Chinese spice mixes to be disgusting and refused to let me use them at all!

As I mulled this over, Mayu, who was still complaining, poked me in my shoulder, apparently having noticed that I was not listening.

My glasses fell to the grass.

Oh, no. My best friend, Aya, always told me never to take off my glasses in front of Mayu. I hurriedly groped for my glasses with my terrible vision. Oh, thank God, I found them.

"Hey, are you listening to me?⁉︎ Who do you think is the reason I got dumped?"

I wiped the lenses of my glasses lightly with a handkerchief and put them back on, only to find Mayu standing there in a daze.

"You think you can feign ignorance about this? How dare you pretend to wear lame glasses all this time...!" 

Mayu grabbed me while shouting incomprehensibly.

And just as she did, the ground near my feet suddenly began to emit a strange white light.

What was this blinding light?!

I squeezed my eyes shut. I felt as if I were being thrown out of my body, a sensation similar to vertigo. Then, when the dizzying sensation subsided and I opened my eyes again...

I, or rather we, were sitting in a place I had never seen before.