The Day Before Debut
Time slipped by, and it was the day before the summer-break closing ceremony.
Out of nowhere, a video went up on JO Entertainment's NewTube channel.
It wasn't a pre-recorded upload. It was a live stream — nothing but a black screen and a white timer, ticking steadily down.
Everyone ran through JO Entertainment's roster one name at a time. And one by one, they shook their heads.
It had already been more than three months since the agency last debuted anyone. After radio silence for that long, a surprise drop like this sent viewers spiraling into speculation.
One viewer lit the fuse. To the person who typed it, it was a throwaway joke. To people who actually cared about the agency's talents — and especially to everyone who had been waiting for the first girl-group VTubers to come out of an entertainment company — it was chaos.
Chat detonated into a war zone in seconds. Watching it unfold, CEO Jo Kyuhyun broke out in a cold sweat.
"Uh... Jiwoo. Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"It's fine. They're only like this because they love Kuro too much. The second we drop the surprise at six on the dot, they'll settle right down. Just hang in there for now."
"Nngh... easy for you to say 'hang in there'... chat's about to explode. No — scratch that. The office is already getting a flood of complaint calls."
"Ah..."
Even I hadn't thought that far ahead.
"Let's wait it out anyway. Only ten minutes left."
"Ten minutes... think the servers will last that long...?"
I was standing on set with a very pale Jo Kyuhyun, Hoyeon, and the members of Team Refresh.
A set, you ask? The place I was standing was a solid wall of green — chroma key from floor to ceiling — and a battery of cameras sat ready to lock onto me. My body was plastered with VR motion-capture sensors.
"Hi hi~"
I gave a little wave, and on the giant monitor in front of me, Kuro waved back in perfect sync. I could check my own performance on that screen and, right beside it, watch the viewers' reactions roll in live.
"You really went all out, huh?"
"Of course we did. Do you have any idea how much we poured into this?"
I didn't know the exact number, but I'd heard it was well into the six figures. Building the VTuber avatar alone had cost close to a hundred thousand dollars. Add in the rest of the gear and the studio rental, and...
Ugh. I didn't even want to think about it.
Just do my job. That's all I have to do.
I checked the time left and loosened my throat, determined not to make a single mistake. Five minutes remaining.
I fluttered my lips and kept sipping water. Sing for long enough and you never know when your voice will give out. To get ahead of that, I followed the water with a spritz of throat spray.
Pssst.
Eugh. Tastes awful.
"Jiwoo. You're not supposed to drink that for the flavor."
"I... didn't say anything?"
"You don't have to. It's written all over your face. If I missed that, the title of head manager would start crying."
Was it?
"I never knew a manager could be this amaz—"
"Enough with the nonsense. How are you? Not nervous? Nothing going numb? You're not having trouble breathing?"
Worrying was just her nature. And between the two of us, Hoyeon was the one shaking harder.
"Okay, okay. Easy. Breathe in... and out."
I took her hand and walked her through it with me.
"I thought you said you had plenty of experience. Why are you like this?"
"...Huh? R-right. This isn't my first time."
Had her voice just trembled a little? I was about to write it off as nerves when—
"What are you talking about? Why would she have experience? This kind of stage is a first for Hoyeon too, isn't it?"
"...Excuse me?"
What was that supposed to mean?
"Aack! Oppa, shh!"
"Ah... okay."
What was that? They were definitely hiding something. I started to move in for another question, and someone caught my shoulder from behind.
"Jiwoo. Let's worry about the broadcast first. You can interrogate them later."
"Unnie? Fine. Got it."
Yuwol must have picked up on it too, because she reeled me in. Besides, the stream was about to start. It wasn't a conversation we needed to have right this second.
A little over a minute left. I looked over the members one by one. On the surface, none of them seemed any different from the day we'd first met — but their eyes had changed, no question.
"Alright. I'll go pave the road. You follow me."
I pointed a thumb at myself, all confidence. The two members watching me snorted a laugh. (Tsuki had announced she was going to watch it on the actual stream and hadn't connected through a tablet.)
"Listen to this kid. I paved that road. I'll have you know I've been streaming for three years."
"I've gotten used to it through more practice than I can count. So I'm not nervous at all."
Mm. Both of them had the right mindset.
I nodded once and stepped into the green set, one slow footfall at a time.
And then the timer hit zero.
♪
Music bloomed through the stream.
At last, every eye locked onto the figure stepping into frame.
The first thing that appeared was the hem of a black dress. She was walking in from offstage, so her face still hadn't come into view.
The second they realized it was a VTuber, the happiness circuits in their heads kicked into overdrive. The VTuber who was supposed to appear tomorrow had shown up a full day early. Word tore through the VTuber scene so fast that the live viewer count spiked hard.
A chat that was almost certainly Tsuki, sitting right in the middle of the feed.
I told her not to make it obvious. Honestly. What a disobedient little sister.
I wrapped my hand around the mic, and the instant the intro ended, I slid into the first verse.
The chats that crossed the line started rolling in. Not that I could stop the song I was already singing...
Right on cue, the whole board pivoted to real-or-fake.
"Everyone, this is a real live performance, so please don't doubt it. This is an official broadcast from JO Entertainment, so I'd appreciate a clean chat."
Six p.m. on the dot. I got through the opening number of the surprise stream without a hitch and sat down in the chair placed at center stage.
"Hello, everyone...."
I'd only paused because I was thinking. The viewers treated it like the end of the world. Chat was on fire — the kind of blaze that looked ready to become an actual riot the second the stream dropped.
"Ah, sorry. This is my first official broadcast since Luna's stream, so I blanked for a second on how to introduce myself. Of course... I should introduce myself like this, right?"
I took a moment to appreciate the viewers getting executed in real time, then stretched a hand forward.
Wink.
I'd heard this once before — that the gestures I used looked like something out of the early 2000s. I hadn't had an answer for that at the time.
Well.
They were eating it up.
The average age of people watching VTubers ran from teens to thirties. Twenties made up the biggest slice — and unlike teenagers, they had money, and unlike people in their thirties, they were far more likely to spend it freely, without a household to answer to.
And if you wanted to hit current twenty-somethings where they lived...
You had to stir up a little nostalgia.