Red Pill
Luna's bombshell of a statement hung in the air for a beat—but the other members all agreed with her wholeheartedly, so it never turned into a real problem.
The funny part was that the viewers nodded along and accepted it all on their own, before I could even get a word of explanation out.
Come on. Was the gap really that wide?
It was true that my VTuber avatar looked more luxurious than the other members'. If their hair moved like a drawing, mine shifted strand by strand, close enough to pass for the real thing. Boram unnie had built this avatar for me with her own hands, so I couldn't just throw it away. The company understood where I was coming from and eventually signed off on it.
A part of me had worried people would cry discrimination. Watching the chat now, that worry had been completely pointless.
"So please don't start in with the discrimination talk, everyone. We've already settled this among ourselves."
Luna's closing remark snuffed out the so-called controversy in seconds.
"I suppose we have no choice but to ask this next. I'm sure you're all curious about the team name."
Aruru checked the script in her hand and moved on to the following question: why we had named the group Re:fresh.
"That's—"
"I can explain that one."
This time Jina cut me off mid-sentence.
"We originally had a bunch of candidates, and the last two standing were Re:fresh and Asepapa. I wanted to go with Asepapa, but..."
Jina glanced my way.
"Kuro shot me down and said we should go with Re:fresh."
"So the two of you fought?"
"You could... call it a fight, I guess."
No—why would you agree with that?!
What you're supposed to say here is that we had a little discussion and worked it out just fine!
I soothed my tightening chest with a gulp of cold water, already dreading whatever was about to come out of her mouth.
Don't tell me... she's not going to bring up the part where I called her a boomer, right?
N-no way... she wouldn't go that far...
My hands started to tremble from sheer dread.
"Kuro? Why did you suddenly start shaking? Don't tell me... you've got something to hide!"
"I-I do not... Hide something? Of course I don't..."
Shake, shake, shake...
My hand was trembling too hard to get the water to my mouth.
Why, though?
Why were they this desperate to hear about us fighting?
I knew the saying—the most entertaining thing in the world is watching other people fight. That was just a saying, though. We hadn't actually thrown punches. We'd exchanged a few words. Calling that a fight was a stretch and a half.
"W-we didn't fight... That's right. It was a disagreement. We had a brief disagreement, okay? So... everyone, stop~!!"
I tried my hardest to put the story-hungry chat to sleep, but...
The viewers had no intention of listening to me.
In the end, I had no choice but to throw up my hands. I couldn't start a staring contest with the audience on our debut stream.
"Fine! But just a little... I mean a tiny little bit."
"We've got Kuro's permission, so I'll tell the story."
Jina put on a suspicious little smile and started laying it out, one piece at a time.
"So... Kuro looked at me and asked if I could hear dentures rattling somewhere. We're only two years apart."
"Huh? Of course we didn't fight. And no, I was not triggered at all... Manager unnie, ban the bastard who just typed 'triggered?'"
"Ah. I really wasn't triggered, okay? Look at this. Look how well I'm smiling. Anyway... so both Asepapa and Re:fresh are written in English, right? I tried writing them out, and Asepapa just had this really outdated vibe."
"In the end I gave up, and the group name became Re:fresh. That's the story. Thinking about it now, Re:fresh—a comfortable rest for everyone—actually sits pretty nicely on the tongue. Not bad at all."
Jina nodded to herself, muttering that it was a good thing she hadn't dug her heels in any further back then.
After that, questions poured in about how we got along, how we'd met, and whether we actually lived together in the dorm.
"We'll wrap up with one last official question, then move on to questions from the viewers. And now, the final question!"
The words that left Aruru's mouth hit me like a truck.
This... is official?
"I still think Kuro's in first, then me, then Jina, then Tsuki."
"What are you talking about? Kuro's first, then me, then Luna, then Tsuki."
"Tsuki has a place in this too!"
The moment every member ranked her dead last, Tsuki thrust her chest out with proud conviction.
What you could actually see, unfortunately, was a perfectly flat plane.
The last official question we had been given was: whose chest is the biggest?
That hadn't been anywhere in the script earlier, so I was a little startled—and still found myself sweeping a look across the members' chests. The VTuber avatars' chests, of course.
"Haa... everyone, that's enough."
I let out a sigh and reined in the members, whose voices were climbing by the second.
"I have the biggest chest, and the rest of you are all the same, aren't you? If anyone wants to argue, go ahead."
"...."
None of them could say a word. They knew better than anyone that the moment they opened their mouths here, they lost.
And in real life, too.
"Like having a big chest is all that matters."
"Excuse me?!"
Luna's little mutter got picked up by the mic and blasted out to the entire stream.
"Luna unnie! What is that supposed to mean!"
"It's true, though. Everyone! I'll be honest! Kuro's actual Red Pill is huge too! Her chest is ridiculously big! She's basically every woman's enemy!"
"It's not that big! It's normal... yes. Completely normal!"
"Normal people don't order their bras from overseas!"
"Why would you bring that up here!"
"Wow... Tsuki's so jealous. Tsuki wants to try overseas shopping too."
"Let's just stay out of this... Though Luna unnie seems to order from overseas sometimes too. This is exactly why you don't get mixed up with the big-chested types."
Tsuki and Jina peeled off to the side and started muttering between themselves about the one thing they had in common.
"Wahahaha~! You're all so much fun!"
Aruru cackled beside us, as if this were the funniest thing she had ever seen.
What is going on? Am I the only sane person here?
"I came to end this war."
"Huh?"
"Excuse me?"
"Hah!"
"Whoa!"
A donation exploded onto the screen without warning. A full million won. Every member—Aruru included—froze solid.
If you figured a cup ramen at about a thousand won, a million won was roughly a thousand of them.
"You can't just donate a thousand days' worth of food! At this point—we're going straight to viewer questions! First priority goes to WarEnder!"
"Um... Kuro? I'm the one hosting..."
That was not what mattered right now.
It was a million won! A whole million won had just gone off!
A million won's worth of dopamine flooded my brain until my head was nothing but static and excitement.
"Oh?"
"Open-moo? You donated a million won and the question you came up with is just Open-moo? This person is not right in the head."
"Kuro! You can't say that on stream!"
"Ah..."
The chat window instantly flooded with Open-moo.
I figured I could just be honest. I'd already told them yesterday that I only ever wore black panties. All I had to say was, it's black again today~
"N-not the avatar... the r-red... pill..."
Even the TTS came out in a dying voice. WarEnder didn't want the VTuber. He wanted the Red Pill.
"What do we think, everyone?"
"Even so... dropping the Red Pill is a little..."
"Yeah... I'm with that."
"Tsuki doesn't mind, but if everyone else says no... Tsuki says dame too!"
They all shook their heads.
Is that how it is?
I personally thought it wouldn't matter if I said it. It wasn't as if the viewers could check anyway.
"I wear a matching black set, top and bottom."
"Hey!"
"Why would you say that!"
"That's our Jiwoo-chan!"
......Huh?