[Zenless Zone Zero] Hello, Aren't We Supposed to Be More Than Just Online Friends?

*A sudden spark of inspiration. Unless something unexpected happens, this should be a short story of only a few tens of thousands of characters.

*Updates whenever inspiration strikes.

After nearly ten years, Brisa finally wakes up in the hospital. From her former archenemy, she learns that the world has changed beyond recognition. She has no desire to return to the Monclair family, which no longer has anything to do with her, and work herself to the bone. All she wants is an ordinary life.

Mayflower kindly offers her everything she needs to start over in New Eridu.

“Your kindness is almost frightening, Mr. Mayflower,” Brisa says pensively from the mayor's office in New Eridu. “You really aren't setting a trap for me, are you?”

The smile on Mayflower's face is as warm as ever. “Of course not. We have no conflict of interest now, do we? If you change your mind and want to resume the plan you had prepared before it was unexpectedly interrupted, you're always welcome to.”

Brisa purses her lips.

Brisa's twin sister was originally raised to become the next head of the Monclair family.

Brisa is intelligent, but has little patience for complicated schemes, and can sometimes be too blunt.

Her sister wasn't as academically gifted as she was, only generally competent, but she had more patience and was better at dealing with people... In short, she was much more suited to being the family head.

So Brisa's mother and sister had both accepted that she would become a researcher.

Until the accident no one could have foreseen.

“Forget it.” Brisa turns away, uninterested. “I just want to live like any other ordinary person in New Eridu. As long as I have enough to eat, warm clothes, and can sleep until I wake up naturally, I'll be perfectly content.”

With Mayflower's support, she opens a clean, bright bookstore with plenty of space in Janus Quarter's Lumina Square. The second floor becomes her new home.

She no longer has to open her eyes each morning and immediately worry about the group's affairs or what kind of trouble those jerks from the other family branches have stirred up. With unexpected free time and a new life to get used to, the former head of the Monclair family has developed an internet addiction, just like other young people in New Eridu.

She meets a user named “Miserable Notre Dame” on the Inter-Knot after posting a rant about how she'd just gotten out of the hospital, opened her shop, and was ready to start a new life, only for an annoying person to show up and bother her.

As the days pass, they grow closer, but continue to communicate only online.

Brisa has always thought of them as ordinary online friends. It has never even crossed her mind to step across the line between virtual and real life.

...Even after the blond man suddenly shows up in front of her looking thoroughly disheveled, and starts frequently inviting her to meet one-on-one, she still thinks they've merely gone from ordinary online acquaintances to normal friends.

Not until Mr. Lycaon from Victoria Housekeeping visits and, with a conflicted expression, tells her to pay attention to the way his old friend looks at her...

Theme: It's important to take each day of an ordinary life seriously.