All Beautiful Girls Want to Stick with Me

[Dear Kotomi Izumi,

Congratulations! Your submitted artwork has been successfully selected for the First Phase of the Tokyo National Youth Art Exhibition. We are pleased to invite you to Kyoto for a three-day exhibition tour starting on October 19th.

Lastly, we wish you the best of luck with your artwork, Twilight Sky: Sunset, as it progresses through the later stages of the exhibition. We look forward to your outstanding performance.

Exhibition Venue: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.

(A round-trip Shinkansen ticket from Chiba to Kyoto has been provided as an attachment in this email. Please download the e-ticket QR code and exchange it for a physical ticket at your nearest Shinkansen station.)]

”Huh? Wait… Oh—YES! I GOT SELECTED!!!”

After reading the email word for word, Kotomi jumped up in excitement, spinning in circles like a top. Anyone watching might have thought she was being wound up and set loose by an invisible string.

After twirling for nearly ten minutes, she finally calmed down, sat on her bed, and opened the attachment in the email. Inside was a Shinkansen e-ticket QR code.

”I thought they’d mail the tickets, but they just sent a QR code via email instead. Technology really is amazing~” Kotomi muttered in an exaggerated country accent.

She had used Shinkansen e-tickets before, so she was familiar with the process. However, it had been almost a year since her last ride. Most of the time, she didn’t need to take a train—her school was within walking distance.

On weekends, she was usually at home, and even when she did travel to other cities, regular trains were sufficient. At most, she had to transfer lines occasionally, so the Shinkansen was never really necessary.

Of course, the real reason was simple—Shinkansen tickets were expensive!

Especially single-trip tickets. Just the thought of paying for one made her feel like her heart was bleeding.

”Oh—!”

Kotomi’s voice rose involuntarily as she noticed something on the e-ticket details.

”The exhibition’s sponsors really are prestigious universities. Not only are they covering round-trip Shinkansen tickets and hotel accommodations, but they even booked Green Car seats! I wonder if the hotel will be a presidential suite~ Hehe, just kidding. That’d be way too much.”

Although she had taken the Shinkansen a few times before, she had only ever ridden in standard-class cars. But now, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, every selected student was getting a round-trip Green Car ticket.

Just like how airplanes have economy, business, and first-class seats, the Shinkansen has different seating classes: standard and Green Car.

The difference? In simple terms, Green Car is the first-class equivalent of Shinkansen seating.

For instance, a one-way ordinary-class ticket from JR Tokyo Station to Kyoto on the Tokaido Shinkansen costs about 15,000 yen. But for a Green Car ticket, you’d have to add an extra 10,000 yen on top of that.

In other words, a single Green Car ticket costs at least 25,000 yen. A round-trip? 50,000 yen!

If the art exhibition organizers weren’t covering the costs, Kotomi would never spend that much on a Green Car ticket herself.

Even though she had recently made a bit of money from her novels and manga, she wasn’t about to start living extravagantly!

A girl who had experienced poverty in her past life, Kotomi, even after earning money, was still a frugal and financially responsible individual. As she thought about all this, her gaze unconsciously shifted toward her newly purchased gaming laptop sitting on her desk—a machine that had cost her a hefty 510,000 yen.

Hahaha… This laptop was technically for working on her writing while traveling. Even though it was marketed as a ”gaming laptop,” she had definitely bought it as a productivity tool!

That said, while she hadn’t installed Word on it yet, she had already installed Steam and an entire library of games...

”Ever since I received this free Green Car Shinkansen ticket from Chiba to Kyoto, I suddenly feel like… I love painting!” Kotomi dramatically declared before saving the ticket QR code, making a mental note to pick up the physical ticket at JR Tokyo Station.

Technically, the most convenient option would be to collect the ticket on the day of departure. However, Kotomi had plenty to say about Tokyo Station’s infamous ticket pickup process.

The whole point of QR codes was to make self-service ticketing more efficient, so passengers wouldn’t have to waste time standing in line. But Tokyo Station, in its infinite wisdom, required passengers to go through an additional manual verification process before printing the ticket. If you were lucky, it took thirty minutes. If not, you could be stuck waiting for a whole hour!

If you were in a hurry or running late for your train, you might as well just buy the ticket at the counter instead.

As much as Kotomi wanted to complain, she knew she couldn’t change the system. The best she could do was collect her ticket a few days in advance so she could board hassle-free on the 19th.

Come to think of it… picking up the ticket early did seem like the better plan.

”That said, my departure date is the 19th, which is a Tuesday. I can’t exactly skip school on Monday just to go to JR Tokyo Station for a ticket.”

If she tried to go on the weekend, October 15th and 16th, she’d run into another issue—those were the release dates for Sword Art Online’s first volume.

Yukinoshita Haruno had even called her personally, reminding her to visit nearby bookstores and observe the sales.

Kotomi had confidence in her book’s performance, but… she really wanted to see for herself. She wanted to check how many copies bookstores stocked. She wanted to see how many customers actually bought Sword Art Online throughout the day.

Every light novel author, upon seeing their work hit store shelves for the first time, couldn’t resist the urge to go to bookstores and observe.

Did customers praise the book while browsing? Or were they critical of it?

It wasn’t just new authors—even long-time bestselling writers, with years of experience and a steady presence on the charts, couldn’t shake the habit of personally checking sales when their latest volume was released.

There was even a story about a superstar author who was so obsessed with monitoring book sales that he frequently disguised himself—wearing a high-collared coat, dark sunglasses, and a hat—while lurking near the bookshelves, secretly counting the number of buyers.

However… he had been so focused on observing that he completely ignored the people around him. Eventually, store staff and customers began to suspect he was a criminal, and the police were called.

He was kindly escorted to the station by officers.

Thankfully, after his editor rushed in to explain the situation, he was released. But the entire incident—from its cause to its outcome—was so absurd that it quickly went viral on Twitter.

Ironically, the situation ended up boosting his book sales. Thousands of people, intrigued by the viral incident, flocked to buy his novel. It ended up topping the sales charts that month, and now, it was even getting an anime adaptation.

Back to reality—since Kotomi was a newbie author, she had to visit the bookstores when Sword Art Online’s first volume launched, especially on the weekend. She’d be keeping a close watch on the sales.

Which meant… there was absolutely no time to go to JR Tokyo Station.

”Ugh, whatever. I’ll just try to take a leave of absence on the 18th and get the ticket then.” Kotomi sighed before dialing Mashiro Shiina’s number.

The moment she saw the acceptance email for the art exhibition, she had immediately thought of Mashiro.

With Mashiro’s talent, getting selected for the First Phase exhibition was guaranteed. There was no doubt about it.

The thought of traveling to Kyoto together made Kotomi smile slightly.

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