I Suddenly Became Rich, But I Have No Idea How to Spend the Money

After having dinner in Umeda, I returned home feeling utterly satisfied.

In Umeda, I bought a pair of shoes, denim jeans, and sunglasses—fully preparing myself for the upcoming summer.

The shoes were a pair of NIKE Air Max that I had been eyeing for a while. The denim jeans were from KURO, something I had always wanted but never had the courage to splurge on. And the sunglasses—I finally got my hands on a pair of Oliver Peoples, something I had long desired but found too expensive to justify.

Grinning ear to ear, I arrived home, tried on everything I had bought, and put on my own little fashion show. I felt incredibly satisfied.

Even after all that, I still had a few tens of thousands of yen left. Thinking I could afford to have a bit more fun, I decided to share the wealth with a friend and reached out to a classmate.

I had a go-to friend for moments like these—Shimizu. We were in the same department, both having moved to the city from the countryside, and had bonded over similar struggles.

“Hey, Shimizu. You free?”

“Oh, Kirishima! What’s up?”

Despite having lived in Osaka for a year, Shimizu’s Kyushu accent still lingered. Incidentally, it was Shimizu who had first introduced me to pachinko.

“I hit it big at pachinko. Wanna grab some food tomorrow?”

“Oh, nice one! I’ll keep my evening open. How about 8 o’clock?”

“Got it. Umeda good?”

“Sounds good. See you tomorrow.”

Hanging up the phone, I felt satisfied. After taking a bath to relax, I sank into the warm water and let out a contented sigh.

“Man… I never expected my luck to turn around like this. Just a few days ago, I was complaining about how dull everything was.”

And yet, I still hadn’t fully grasped the true power of my Rolex.

Excited about what to do next, I ended the day with a sense of anticipation.

The day after I bought stocks, my first class didn’t start until the afternoon. Waking up at a leisurely pace, I booted up my computer and checked the stock prices, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness.

“…Huh? …Wait, what? …Eh? No way…?”

For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing.

The stock chart was skyrocketing at an impossible rate. Even as I stared at it, the price kept climbing, and apparently, it had already hit the upper limit yesterday.

At that moment, the stock was approaching its daily price ceiling again.

“Sell, sell, sell!”

I hurriedly executed the sale and finally took a deep breath. By the time my order was processed, the stock had already reached its upper limit.

The 800,000 yen I had invested the previous day had now ballooned to nearly 2 million yen.

It was then that I fully realized—this Rolex was something else.

I transferred 100,000 yen to my everyday bank account and decided to reinvest the rest into stocks.

“This time, I’ll diversify.”

Learning from my last investment, I decided to buy shares in multiple companies.

For some reason, my intuition felt razor-sharp that day. I chose stocks from a pharmaceutical company, an electronics manufacturer, and a major automobile company.

The pharmaceutical company, in particular, gave me a strong gut feeling. So strong, in fact, that I even swallowed my pride and borrowed money from my parents to invest as much as I could.

With my new investments secured, I now had something to look forward to the next day.

Feeling upbeat, I got ready to head to university.

Wearing my newly bought shoes and denim, I stepped outside in high spirits.

For some reason, everything in class made perfect sense that day. I even asked a question—something I rarely did—and ended up receiving praise from the professor for my insightful perspective.

I was amazed at how much financial security could change one’s mindset.

With some time to spare before meeting Shimizu, I sat in the university’s computer lab, researching ways to make more money.

“At this rate, it’ll take forever to really build up capital.”

A cocky concern, no doubt, but I sighed to myself nonetheless.

Though, considering how my money had been multiplying like a high-stakes betting game, could I really say it was taking too long?

Just days ago, I wouldn’t have even entertained thoughts like these.

I continued browsing, contemplating different money-making strategies.

The obvious choices were things like lotteries and horse racing, but as I read more, I learned that information about big wins often leaks somehow.

The idea of long-lost relatives suddenly appearing or fake friends coming out of the woodwork was horrifying.

But then again, I figured that was just the price of making money.

As I scrolled through various web pages, I noticed it was about time to meet up with Shimizu.

When I arrived at our meeting spot, Shimizu was already there.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said as I walked up to him.