Classroom 1-B settles into the drowsy hum of a Tuesday afternoon when a gal with bleached coral hair and a skirt rolled two turns too high drops into the seat beside the class otaku. Amane Tachibana talks in exclamation marks, collects viral dance routines the way other girls collect lip tints, and has not stopped to consider whether her loud, sunlit existence is compatible with the kid who spends lunch breaks buried in a light novel. Otaku-kun is her diametric opposite — quiet, self-contained, perfectly content in a world the popular crowd never bothered to enter. The seating chart is the only reason their elbows touch. Then she spots the keychain dangling from his bag strap. A character she recognizes.

A second beat of silence. A squeal that shatters the chalkboard tension. Amane Tachibana has a favorite mangaka, and Otaku-kun happens to be reading the latest volume. From that single point of collision, two orbits warp into one — a friendship built on manga recs snuck between classes, merch drops debated over convenience-store snacks, and a trio completed by Sho, another otaku girl whose energy could power a small grid. No one expects the princess of the three big gyaru circles to trade gossip for anime debates, least of all Amane herself. But the boy with the calm voice and zero interest in performing cool has cracked something open, and the question she is not ready to ask is whether the first person who ever liked her unfiltered might end up liking her as something else entirely.

Also known as: Otaku ni Yasashii Gal wa Inai!?, オタクに優しいギャルはいない！؟, Gyaru Can't Be Kind To Otaku!?, Gal Can't Be Kind to Otaku!?