Tsuyoshi is a self-employed video format upgrader who works from home. He and the rest of the world rely heavily on services rendered by the internet, which connects everyone and offers suggestions for actions, often random acts of kindness, through an AI in a device called a pokkecon. For example, Tsuyoshi goes to his usual coffee shop and is told by his pokkecon to order another coffee. Tsuyoshi goes outside with the coffee and the pokkecon directs him to a defeated looking businessman, who, though wary, perks up at the coffee. Tsuyoshi makes the maneki neko wave as a hand gesture to signify what part of the network he is from, though it doesn't seem to mean anything to the man. Tsuyoshi previously met his pregnant wife through the pokkecon. Tsuyoshi's pokkecon urged him to go talk to her about a particular subject, and the rest was history. In the present day, she asks him to run an errand for her, a prompt from her pokkecon to deliver a maneki neko to someone at the Hotel Daruma. Tsuyoshi agrees and goes, where he is prompted to buy a bottle of bay rum aftershave, which he gives to a man in the lobby. He strikes up a conversation with this man and offers to transfer a modern translator to his outdated pokkecon. Mid-transfer, the man receives a prompt, so Tsuyoshi goes with him to allow the transfer to finish.
The man stops and pours the aftershave down a vent, but then his pokkecon crashes, overloaded by Tsuyoshi's software. They part ways; Tsuyoshi starts receiving prompts. In the elevator with a bellboy, he is told to slip his wife's maneki neko into a woman's flight bag. He gets out on a random floor and calls his wife, saying things are getting strange, and he might be some time getting home. When he gets back into the elevator it stops on the fourth floor and the woman's male bodyguard gets in, eyes streaming. Before they can move, however, the man calls out in anguish and slams open the elevator, running back to his room.
Tsuyoshi follows hesitantly and asks if he can be of assistance when he sees a Japanese-American woman staring at the maneki neko he planted with horror. The bodyguard grabs Tsuyoshi and ties him up, taking away his pokkecon. He leaves to get some allergy medicine—it seems he was allergic to the bay rum aftershave. The woman, Louise Hashimoto, starts questioning Tsuyoshi. She seems to think he is part of a gang, a criminal network that's out to get her for busting a software pirate. The gang is known for leaving maneki neko everywhere and flooding her inbox with emails of pictures of the cat.
The two end up bickering over their way of life—Louise accuses him of freeloading off of free gifts sent from other countries, for which he doesn't pay taxes, while he explains that gift-giving is just a part of their culture. He adds that maybe their people are just happier and their economy functions better than America's. The power then goes out, and Louise confesses that lots of small inconveniences have happened to her since she busted that software pirate. It seems like the whole world is conspiring against her.
Eventually Tsuyoshi's brother and a few other people break in through the window, and Tsuyoshi's brother takes Louise with him, seeming to know who she is. He says that he knows of a sanctuary for "people like them" and they leave, leaving Tsuyoshi to patiently wait for someone to come rescue him.