"Creak, creak."
At dawn, the girl's bedframe squeaked and wobbled. Sunlight slid along her long blonde hair and spilled onto the floor.
When the light pierced her eyelids and jolted her awake, Takahashi Mio yanked the quilt over her head.
A moment later it felt stuffy, and she couldn't help sticking out a long, fair leg—lean from hip to toe, not an ounce of extra flesh.
Like a baguette soaked in sweetened condensed milk—one bite and you'd be hooked, left wanting more.
She rolled over, curled both legs up, and made a C-shape on the bed, clamping the blanket tight between her knees.
Not enough sleep. Nowhere near enough.
Her head was foggy; her eyes stung too much to open, itchy like a mosquito bite.
She tried to force herself back to sleep with her eyes squeezed shut, but it just wouldn't happen.
It felt like someone had stuffed a lump of quicklime into her chest—glug, glug—and in no time she was hot and restless.
After squirming like a cocooning silkworm for a while, Mio gave up and opened her eyes.
Impatiently, she fished her phone from under the pillow and held it over her face.
7:23.
Only seven?
Mio couldn't help sighing.
Her first class wasn't until the afternoon. Normally on a day like this she'd sleep till noon.
Instead she'd woken at the crack of dawn—and last night she'd tossed and turned, waking up two or three times.
Now, just like in the middle of the night, she opened her banking app and typed in her password.
Account balance: ¥1,312,085.
Her thumbnail tapped the screen as she counted the digits.
One, two, three…
Seven digits!
The corners of her lips lifted without her noticing, a wave of satisfaction she'd never felt before welling up inside.
Yes, she owed two million yen in online loans, but that had piled up over time by rolling one loan into another.
At her "richest," her account had only ever hit three hundred thousand.
Worried she was dreaming, she bit the soft flesh inside her cheek.
A sour jolt of pain snapped her awake.
So… it's real?
Someone really transferred 1.3 million to her in one shot…
That guy really is an idiot, huh?
He'd said she just had to be his girlfriend and "fulfill girlfriend obligations," but he'd never specified what exactly—so wouldn't that be up to her?
And if we're being honest, these days kissing—and even having sex—would count as "obligations," right?
What an idiot…
Though if he actually demanded that stuff, she'd probably refuse… right?
At that thought she frowned, her toes curling under the covers.
Could she really refuse?
Like a big rock dropped into a still lake, her thoughts started rippling in every direction.
Much as she hated to admit it, this kind of romance…
Wasn't it… different from what she'd heard?
It's not like she didn't have classmates who'd done that. When they talked, the topic always circled back to ending up in bed…
But Shiratori Kiyoya didn't want this or that—he just wanted her to be his girlfriend.
Could it be he'd had a crush on her forever, already head over heels? Spending money to confess like a big dummy—just wanting to give quietly without asking for anything back?
Mio replayed in her head the look on Kiyoya's face while he was talking to her yesterday.
After a long beat, she sighed.
The impression stuck in her mind was that same poker face.
With her looks and figure, people had been confessing to her since she was young. The shy, inferior-feeling boys who liked her from afar were too many to count.
And she really couldn't read a shred of liking on his face…
Plus—how did he know about her debt? He'd even threatened, in that note, to call her mom…
How much does he know about me? What a creep…
Damn it—who is this guy, really?
She couldn't see through him at all.
Staring at the ceiling for a long while, Mio realized the more she picked at it, the more she felt Shiratori Kiyoya was not simple.
He definitely had some secret he couldn't admit to.
"Tch."
Smacking her lips, Mio drew a deep breath, jolted upright, and dialed the first contact in her address book.
It rang forever before a sleepy female voice oozed through the speaker.
"Mio, you've got ten seconds to explain why you just robbed me of ten million yen."
Mio blinked, then blurted:
"Huh? Ten million yen? Rika, are you still half-asleep?"
"Obviously. I was right in the middle of making a love baby under the covers with a handsome guy in my dream—then you ruined it. I'm only charging you ten million yen out of respect for our years of friendship…"
"What nonsense. I've got something important to ask."
"If you won't say it straight, it's not that important. You've got five seconds…"
"Tch!"
"Shiratori Kiyoya. Do you know him or not?"
"…"
---
In an apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Shiratori Kiyoya had no idea how complicated Mio's thoughts were at that moment.
He was chewing on a half-rare steak, eyes fixed on the system panel, thinking through his next moves.
He opened Takahashi Mio's system screen, and a stream of data appeared.
[Name]: Takahashi Mio
[Stamina]: 5
[Charm]: 8
[Intelligence]: 6
[Special Skill]: Acting
[Acting Potential]: S
[Acting Level]: Beginner (tiers: Beginner, Apprentice, Proficient, Master, Perfect)
[Next-Level Reward]: ¥1,000,000; unlock permission to purchase LV2 scripts.
[Romance Check-in]: 0 days (Bonus ¥1,000,000 at 30 days)
Roughly four years earlier—back in his final year of secondary school—Kiyoya had bound himself to this Romance Career Training system.
Its function was basically: earn money by raising the bound love interest's skill levels and by daily "romance check-ins."
For Kiyoya—whose parents had died in a car crash and who was being fostered by his aunt—that was a godsend.
At first, he was fired up to cultivate a first-rate swordmaster, diva, timeless painter, or A-list actress, so he could make bank.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as smoothly as he'd imagined.
Over four years, he met plenty of people.
Some were genuinely gifted but overlooked. Still, because he was young and unknown, no one wanted to take a risk on him.
If he confessed to a gentle older woman, she'd stoop to pat his head and say, "You're cute, but you're a bit too small. If we're both single once you're more established, maybe I'll consider it."
If she was the sharp, cold, explosive type, she'd give him a look that said "Whose brat is this?" and tell him to get lost.
Dead in the water before he even set sail.
Forget "career training"—he couldn't even clear the first step of binding a romance target.
With no other choice, he switched strategies and started looking among his peers.
Maybe luck turned, or maybe the system's pity mechanic kicked in. After he'd practically toured every school in Tokyo, from late high school through graduation he managed to cultivate two love interests.
Because of inexperience, though, his first partner's career path was a bust.
Not that she didn't succeed—by her first year she had swept every kendo tournament she entered.
If she'd stayed on the normal track, she probably would have become the Reiwa era's first female sword saint.
It was a "failure" because Kiyoya barely made any money off her.
Two grueling years netted him just two million yen—and that was from romance check-ins alone.
In other words, the "sword saint" path was pure red ink.
That's when Kiyoya learned: if you don't have enough name recognition, teaching kendo doesn't pay.
He took the lesson and pivoted to a money-making field.
Conveniently, at the same high school he met a girl with top-tier talent for singing.
After a period of courting, they officially started dating, and he bent over backward to guide her onto the path of a singer.
He used the system to exchange for various catchy songs and pushed as hard as he could to get her known.
He even went all-in for a breakout: in his graduation year he spent all his savings to exchange two LV3 songs—"The Old Man and the Sea(老人と海-n-buna)" and "Jealous(ヤキモチ-高橋優)."
She didn't let him down. After a year of honing, she began to shine in just a few months, with all the makings of Japan's next pop star.
Kiyoya pinned big hopes on his second partner. With her talent and effort, hitting "Perfect" in singing was only a matter of time.
Once she reached Master or Perfect, he could unlock LV4 and LV5 works.
Then he could spend to exchange phenomenon-level hits like Lemon(Kenshi Yonezu) or Fireworks(打上花火-DAOKO), and the two of them could basically be financially free by the time they graduated college.
A win-win for both.
But plans can't keep up with reality.
Only a few months after she got famous—before Kiyoya's funds even cycled back—she took his hand, eyes brimming, and said:
"Kiyoya, let's get engaged when we graduate, okay?"
Kiyoya: "?"
"We'll get engaged first, and once we finish college I won't go anywhere.
You write songs, I'll stay home to take care of you and always be with you, okay?"
"Kiyoya, do you want a boy or a girl?"
Kiyoya: "…"