I knew full well that I didn’t exactly have a pleasant personality.
But I’d never expected I could enjoy making soone feel this uncomfortable quite this much.
“So, what you're saying is...”
“Yes, that’s right.”
I answered cleanly. The woman hadn’t even finished her question, but I could already tell she was about to ask whether we had parents.
Honestly, if she had followed up with sothing like, “Then how have you been living until now?” that’s when things would’ve gotten tricky. I only realized that after opening my mouth.
Were we self-supporting? Were we from an orphanage? Were there any guardians?
If we went to school, where and how?
Why were five unrelated girls with different surnas living together?
Once you started asking questions, there was no end to them—and half of them, I couldn’t even answer.
Still, I ca to this eting knowing things like this might co up. The more awkward the questions beca, the more likely it was that the goddess would be the one getting flustered.
Maybe, in trying to fix things too perfectly, the goddess would eventually slip sowhere.
And when that happened, maybe she’d get fed up and just send us back.
It hadn’t even been a full hour in our world when we got transported here, so it wouldn’t be a huge loss, right?
“......”
But the producers seed to have decided not to go down that path.
Fine by us. Makes things easier if we can just enjoy ourselves while preparing to return.
“Then, how have you all been living, exactly? I an...”
The female producer pulled out a printed version of the email exchanges we’d had. She flipped through the folder, picked out a sheet, and her face lit up.
“You ntioned you won the lottery and used the money to buy your apartnt?”
“Ah, yes. We were living together in a villa before that.”
“A villa?”
“It was an old studio-type villa with no elevator. But it had just enough space for five people. We’ve been much more comfortable since moving here.”
“......”
“Ah, but... would you mind not ntioning the lottery thing on air? We included it in the email, but if that gets aired, I feel like people might start reaching out to us for weird reasons...”
“Of course!”
Perhaps relieved that the conversation didn’t steer back into grim territory, the producer scratched out the ntion with her pen.
Five girls with obvious foreign blood.
No parents, raised on their own, recently moved from a cramped, old villa where they barely managed to live together.
Even just those two sentences made it hard to breathe—too heavy a story to dig into any deeper, it seed.
Which was ironic, because it was perfect TV material.
*
The conversation continued a bit more after that.
But once the topic shifted to our livestreams, the producers relaxed noticeably.
Talking about how we were doing well—traveling, eating whatever we wanted, playing gas and streaming—seed to reassure them.
It looked like they’d decided to fra our story that way. They said they’d contact us again once the program’s structure was finalized, and then they left.
“The bureaucratic system in this country is far more rigid than I expected,” Charlotte remarked after they were gone, as we all sat back down together.
“In Azerna, if you said a child was living alone without parents, people would just say, ‘Oh, really?’ and move on.”
She had a point.
In a country where things like registration didn’t exist and school wasn’t mandatory, there wasn’t much of a “standard” answer you were expected to give when soone asked about your past. Sure, there might be common responses, but no one would go, “You’re that age? You must’ve finished elentary school, right?”
But in the country we were living in now, schooling was legally mandatory through middle school. If a child said they didn’t attend school, people would imdiately assu there was sothing wrong at ho.
Not that the system always worked perfectly...
“It’s a sha, really. Even if soone wanted to mimic that system, they couldn’t.”
Alice chid in.
“Honestly, by the ti people there even want to imitate it, it might already be too late. The way people think is different.”
In so countries, the idea of a national ID system like Korea’s is enough to send people into a panic.
“The nobility would probably hate it,” Charlotte added with a bitter smile.
True. That, too.
“Still, I think it’s a good thing that school is mandatory. It ans children get a chance to make friends from a young age.”
“......”
Charlotte looked over at Mia and suddenly started ruffling her hair.
Mia flailed—“Ack, hey, co on!”—but since she was sitting in the corner of the room, she had nowhere to escape.
At least she wasn’t sitting right in the middle. If she had been, she would've had to fend off all four of us.
“I’m just glad I’m not a princess.”
Claire said cheerfully as she drank her juice. Alice shot her a glare.
*
Honestly, aside from the figures, the house was in pretty good shape.
All the stuff we’d bought was stored neatly. We didn’t live like slobs.
We laid out blankets in the living room to sleep, but everything was cleaned up by morning.
Still, since we were going to be on national television, it seed like a good idea to do a proper cleaning.
We went through the places we usually ignored and tossed out anything we didn’t need.
It ended up taking longer than expected.
And after all that effort—
“......”
“...Not much looks different.”
That was Alice’s verdict.
She was right. All the parts we’d cleaned were the ones people couldn’t see.
None of us had done much cleaning ourselves back in Azerna.
Sure, we’d probably done the basics when living in the dorms, but unless you specifically told the staff not to, soone would co by and clean regularly, like room service at a hotel.
I had made a point to tell them not to clean my space, but still.
Thanks to everyone’s generally tidy habits, the house always stayed pretty clean.
I’d seen stories online about how ssy girls’ dorms could be, but our place wasn’t like that at all.
“You know,” Claire said, sounding slightly puzzled, “do you think we’re living with too much formality?”
“...No, I wouldn’t say that,” Alice replied, furrowing her brow.
“Claire, don’t tell —you used to leave your underwear lying on the bed back in the dorms?”
“Of course not! If I had, the hotel staff would’ve seen it right away.”
“Exactly. We were always aware that soone could see. We kind of grew up that way—it’s a habit now.”
That made sense.
It’s not like the British royal family leaves their clothes strewn all over Buckingham Palace.
“Conditioned from childhood, perhaps,” Charlotte mused, resting her chin in her hand.
“Right? Rember how ssy it was when we first moved into your place?”
“...That’s because I’d been away for a year.”
“Still, if things were ssy, that ans you just left them like that a year before, right?”
Alice’s retort left speechless.
Sure, it had been a year in this world, but I’d spent several years living in Azerna during that ti. I’d served as a princess there, so naturally, I picked up the habit of keeping things organized.
And just like Alice said, if I had left underwear lying around, soone would’ve seen it.
Unless you’re in a dormitory, cleaning a royal chamber on your own isn’t easy.
You still have to gather laundry and pass it off properly—but so sense of dignity has to be maintained.
“...Alright!” Claire suddenly exclaid like she’d co up with a brilliant idea.
“Then how about we start loosening up a bit from now on?”
“...After we just finished cleaning?”
“Well, think about it—on cara, this might co across as too unnatural.”
“Broadcasts aren’t really about being natural, though.”
“Still, if it looks too fake, people won’t like it.”
“...Are you sure you’re not just looking for an excuse to let loose?”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes, and Claire looked away.
“I—I think it’s okay,” Mia ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) chid in.
Everyone’s eyes turned to her.
“Ah, I an... we’ve lived together for so long now. It might be weird to keep being so formal with each other...”
“......”
Charlotte, Alice, and I exchanged glances.
Hmm...
At this point, if we were going to let go of formalities...
What even was left to let go?
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