Touko (1)

――If I hadn’t dropped that key back then, would Riko have avoided getting caught up in this world...?

“Um... You dropped your key.”

When someone called out to me at the convenience store, I turned around to see a girl dressed rather dowdily. She looked like she might be in high school or college.

(She could put a little more effort into her appearance... Though I guess that’s how students are.

My little sister—yeah, that girl—used to wear tacky T-shirts and other clothes that made no sense, too.)

I wondered nostalgically whether I should take her shopping for clothes the next time I went home, then thanked the girl in front of me and reached for the key... No, I tried to take it.

Maybe it was because our hands brushed for just a moment, but the two of us were enveloped in a mysterious light and dropped into this world――

The girl—Riko—wasn’t one to speak up for herself. Maybe she was simply too young to keep up with what was happening.

But she was just an innocent victim who’d been caught up in all this, and yet the look on her face was as if she believed she had no value at all. I couldn’t just leave her alone.

That pretty-boy fellow named Julius, who’d taken Riko in, didn’t seem like a bad person, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to trust him...