I'm Going to Be a VTuber! (Bonus Cookie)
One day I opened my eyes to a white ceiling.
Beside me, a couple with familiar faces clutched my hand and wept.
They looked so heartbroken you'd have thought someone had died — and even I, lying there watching them, looked pitiful enough to match.
Who are these people, though?
The faces were familiar. No one came to mind, though. There wasn't anyone who would cry for me, after all.
I shifted my head a little. Sensing the movement, the couple looked up, and our eyes met.
They startled so badly they bolted outside to fetch a doctor. One of them even tripped on the way...
Are they okay?
I found myself worrying without meaning to.
Before long they were back with a physician, who proceeded to run me through every test in the book. I sat through more than eight examinations that day alone, and that wasn't even the end of it. The next day they finished the remaining five they hadn't gotten to, and only then was I done.
Ugh... my head's spinning.
Two days of nonstop testing left no time to even speak properly.
"What on earth..."
Maybe it was from not talking for so long. My voice was completely hoarse, and yet it sounded... pleasant. No. Was this what people meant when they said a voice alone could make you fall in love? That kind of beautiful tone spilled out of me.
"Why... is my voice..."
I touched my lips at the sound of a voice I had never heard before. Not the cracked, dried-out lips of someone who'd pulled too many all-nighters — moist, soft lips, and skin that wasn't dull and sallow but smooth.
"A m-mirror!"
I reached toward the bedside table, grabbed the mirror, and checked my reflection.
Glossy black hair falling all the way to my waist, and dark eyes that seized anyone who looked at them in an instant. And how small was that face? Fist-sized, with every feature tucked in neat and delicate. The clothes were a hospital gown, sure — but there was no hiding the chest that looked ready to burst out of it.
I had become the single most devastatingly beautiful girl in the entire setting.
"Th-this is... r-right. This is a dream."
If I just slept and woke up, everything would go back to normal. I pulled the blanket over myself on the hospital bed and tried to sleep, praying I would wake up as myself again.
"Ha... damn it."
Even after I woke, I was still the same. No — something had changed. I'd figured out who I was. The moment I opened my eyes, memories came flooding in like a tidal wave. The pain of it kept me from sleeping.
Lee Jiwoo. A seventeen-year-old girl who'd just graduated middle school. On her way to a cram school to prepare for high school, she'd suddenly collapsed in the street. Bystanders called it in, and she'd been brought here.
My guess was that the student named Lee Jiwoo had died then. Otherwise her soul should have come back — unless I'd slipped in somewhere in the middle and woken up in this body. Nothing was certain, but...
"Urgh...!"
Ah. I remembered.
I'd finished overtime and was on my way home when a sedan pulled a sudden-acceleration drift right in front of the crosswalk and ran me down. I tried looking up what had happened to my original body, but no matter how I searched, I couldn't find a single news story about a sudden-acceleration accident.
Wait. What the hell is this?!
The date on the news looked wrong, so I checked a calendar.
January 202X
A full ten years in the past.
My head swam. This wasn't some novel — I'd actually regressed. And not even into my own body. Into someone else's.
If I'd known, I would have at least memorized lottery numbers. No — before that, some other way to make money... there wasn't one. When I actually tried to recall anything useful, nothing came.
I'd read something like this in a novel I used to follow as a hobby. That by regressing, I'd already changed the timeline, so the future might play out differently.
So?
What am I supposed to do with that?
The body was a girl's now, but a second chance had come my way all the same. I was never living that old life again. I was sick to death of being someone's errand boy.
This life, I'm living for myself and myself alone.
To do that, I first had to get a handle on my current situation. The name and age had come back, but the memories weren't fully there yet. Like fog sitting in the middle of everything... right. Might as well shout it like a lunatic. Wait — lunatic girl, now.
"Status Window...!"
As expected, regressing didn't come with a Status Window or anything like that. Thankfully I was in a private room, so nobody heard me screaming like an idiot.
Alright. Time to get out of bed—
I fell off the bed.
"Aaagh!"
Even as I rolled across the floor, I was thinking. This is... real? A Status Window? I actually regressed?
After a while I managed to find my composure. For a salesman, the most important things are a cool head and the ability to work a situation. I still had an adult's composure left in me.
"Damn it...."
My insides were boiling. What was the Status Window trying to make me do? I thought it through, and the conclusion was obvious.
Celebrity.
The only line of work that would put singing, dancing, looks, and acting to use was entertainment. But I had zero desire to become a celebrity. From the outside it looks glamorous, like easy money. The reality of a celebrity's life is hell itself. Sure, it can pay well — but that's only if you're popular.
Popularity. In other words, a celebrity with no name recognition makes less in a month than I did as a freshman office worker in my past life.
This life was supposed to be for me and me alone. I needed another way.
"Haa... I could really go for a cigarette..."
My hand drifted toward my right chest. All it found was an empty pocket. No cigarettes.
"Ah, fuck... I'm a student now, aren't I."
My head throbbed. A two-pack-a-day chain-smoker, about to be forced into quitting...
Tremble, tremble... Look at that. Withdrawal already...
"It's not kicking in?"
This body had never taken in nicotine, so even if I thought about cigarettes, the withdrawal symptoms didn't show. Maybe I should take this chance to quit?
Slap!
I smacked both cheeks with my hands and snapped myself out of it.
"What kind of bullshit is that! Cigarettes are my eternal partner! I am never breaking up with them!"
I dragged the IV stand beside the bed and headed out of the room. If I just lay there I'd get sick even if I wasn't. A little fresh air to clear my head.
The Sky Garden smoking area.
"Hhhss... that smell... cough, cough!"
The smoke I sucked in deep raked my lungs and set off a violent coughing fit. Yeah, no. Not happening. This body was clean. Too clean.
Tsk.
I clicked my tongue and wandered the Sky Garden. After walking for a while I felt my stamina drop off a cliff, so I found a bench and sat.
"Hoo..."
A long sigh slipped out. I touched my forehead. Soaked with sweat.
"What the hell..."
My stamina in my past life had been nothing to sneeze at. You needed it to survive daily overtime and drinking parties every other night. And yet. Ten minutes of walking and I was sweating like this?
I called up the Status Window again.
"Status Window."
Same as before... wait.
Everything else was written in letters. Only Stamina was a number. I'd been too out of it last time to notice properly. But...
"It wasn't 1 before, was it...? Am I imagining things?"
No idea. I slumped back against the bench and went limp. Exhausted... I didn't want to do anything. If I just fell asleep like this, would I wake up in my old body? I was taking a short rest when someone sat down right next to me.
If they were just sitting, I wouldn't have cared.
"Hmm, hm-hmm... hm-hmm..."
A cheerful little humming wrecked my rest. What could possibly be that enjoyable? I snuck a sidelong glance.
A video was playing on his phone. Inside it, someone who looked like an anime character was swaying left and right.
What's this? Was this a thing back then?
I couldn't quite remember. It was ten years ago, after all. And until recently I'd been working so hard I never really rested. Whenever I had time off, I slept.
"Hey, kid?"
I couldn't hold back my curiosity and tapped his shoulder.
"Uh.... uhhh...? W-who are you?"
"I'm not a weirdo.... more importantly, what's that?"
"This? ....It's Aruru."
"Aruru? What's that?"
"...Y-you don't know? She's a popular VTuber these days?"
VTuber? I was sure I'd heard the word before.
"Is VTuber a job?"
"A VTuber is... well, it is a job.... They stream on the internet, sing, sometimes dance, and talk with viewers. And while they're at it.... ah, see here?"
He disconnected his Bluetooth and turned the screen toward me.
Ah! AruruAdorer, 10,000 Walnuts! Thank you!
The anime character's face lit up with a huge, happy smile, and she bowed her head.
"That's a donation — it's how viewers give money to the VTuber who's streaming.... You really don't know about this?"
"Haha... this old man I know."
"Old man?"
"Ah.... an older guy I know got into this stuff, so I was wondering if it was actually fun... haha..."
Cold sweat beaded on my skin. Right now I didn't look like a potbellied ajusshi bloated from too many company dinners. I looked like a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. I tried to brush it off, but it wasn't easy.
"S-so this VTuber thing. Do you have to put on a character like that?"
"...Yeah. Basically you put up a fake face as your signboard and stream. If you're confident in your real face, you don't have to use a VTuber model — just going live as yourself isn't a bad way to catch eyes early on."
These days there are so many pretty characters, though... he added, standing up.
"Anyway, I should get going. It's about... time for my tests."
"Y-yeah. Go ahead."
A VTuber, huh... Didn't sound half bad. Even if I failed, the risk wasn't huge, and if I succeeded I could make a decent amount of money. A quick search showed that the streamers who really pulled it off were making hundreds of millions of won.
Wasn't this actually better than being a celebrity?
For now... maybe I should practice singing?
I went back to my room and sang, quietly.