I Want to Be a VTuber!
"Huff... huff!"
I'm dying.
I'd only sung one song. No—I hadn't even finished it. Clock it and I'd been singing for a minute, maybe. That was all. And yet my breath snagged in my throat, and my hands and feet had started to tremble.
"What the hell? I... I've got stamina to spare. Enough that I'd feel bad giving it away..."
I was the kind of person who, at every company dinner, held the table until the bitter end—third round as a baseline, then a fourth, even a fifth. And now I was gasping after a minute of singing?
I pulled up the Status Window.
Nothing different from before.
I found the oddity...
"Ah. Right. My Stamina is 1 right now."
I'd completely forgotten. I'm not especially sharp when it comes to reading a room. But I do as much as the next person, I can take a hint, and people have even called me fairly meticulous. Even granting that my head was a mess—this was ridiculous.
The contents had clearly changed from earlier. I went through the Status Window slowly.
Six abilities in total. Every stat except Appearance sat below average. Singing, at least, was a respectable B.
I'd just confirmed that by singing. For an ordinary person, it had sounded pretty good. For a proper check, I played back the recording on my phone.
Aaa~ Aaa~♪
Maybe because it wasn't a voice I was used to, there was nothing unpleasant about it. If anything, it was easy on the ears. It wasn't outstanding technique, and yet closing my eyes and listening felt strangely comfortable.
Ah—kack!Cough! Cough!
The coughing that followed shattered my concentration. Still, the singing itself wasn't bad at all. The voice had a slightly unusual color to it. If I just worked harder at singing, I could probably make a living off it.
"So... maybe a VTuber is better than being a celebrity? Lower risk, at least."
I picked up my phone and looked up what you needed to become a VTuber. The first essential was an avatar.
Mm... later.
I was still a student, so although I had a card, it wasn't mine. The so-called "mom card"—my mother's credit card. I couldn't just spend it however I liked.
Next up: character setting.
"Character setting? RP? What is that even supposed to mean?"
RP meant roleplay. In other words, locking in a character concept and acting—or performing—accordingly. Put simply, getting drunk on your own persona wasn't a bad way to think about it.
"There are VTubers who get by on concept alone, but that's a tiny minority... so I don't necessarily have to stick to one?"
That wasn't urgent either. I could worry about it later, when I actually got an avatar, and fold it in then. Pass.
"Next important thing is vocalization, then..."
I stood up, braced my core, and slowly let the breath out.
"Aaa~."
No matter how many times I heard it, the voice was good. Ordinary talking didn't tax my stamina. The problem was when I poured in passion—or soul—the way I had while singing. That was when stamina plummeted.
"One more time. Aaa!"
"My daughter? What are you doing in here by yourself? I heard you singing. Planning to become a singer?"
The room I'd thought was empty held a woman with a face nearly identical to mine. From the outside, anyone would have taken us for sisters. She was this body's parent.
I hadn't had parents in my previous life, so saying "Mom" still felt awkward. The word didn't want to leave my mouth.
"Well, she takes after me. If it's my daughter, she could be a celebrity and then some. Whatever you want to do, Mom will cheer you on."
Faith and support I'd never felt before. Tears almost spilled before I could stop them.
"No. I'm still thinking about it. And I looked it up—idols start training in elementary school. Even if I started now, I'd just be later than everyone else."
"Is that so? Still... a face like that is a waste. You've always liked singing, haven't you?"
Apparently the original owner of this body had loved to sing. Singing had been the only stat sitting at B. She'd been good at it since she was little; that explained why it outranked everything else.
"I'll think about it for now."
"All right. Think it over. You only get one life."
She wasn't wrong. One life... no. A life that had come back to me. This time, I wasn't going to work under anyone. That much was certain. I needed a more airtight plan.
First things first: I was going to study VTubers properly.
"Honey, what do you think about letting Jiwoo try being a celebrity?"
Ji Hyuna, who had been secretly watching earlier, wore a fond smile. When she'd first heard that Jiwoo had collapsed and was in the ER, she'd thought the sky was falling.
All that time she'd pushed study, study, and more study—and the child had obeyed without a single complaint. The thought that the girl she wouldn't have traded for the world might vanish had wiped the word "studying" clean out of her head. All that was left was a belated wish that Jiwoo would just grow up healthy.
"A celebrity? Jiwoo said she wanted that? Do you know what time it is? She needs to be studying."
"Honey! How can you say that? Our daughter collapsed from extreme stress over schoolwork, and that's what comes out of your mouth?!"
"I—that's not what I—"
"You heard the doctor say she developed a stress disorder, and you still talk like that?"
"Ahem..."
Right after the collapse, Ji Hyuna had bolted to the ER in her socks. What she'd heard there was that Jiwoo might never wake up. In that instant her heart had dropped. She'd barely kept herself from collapsing. Then they'd said there might be lasting impairment even after she woke, and she'd nearly lost her mind.
In fact, compared to before, Jiwoo had started talking to empty air more often.
"And to a daughter like that... you're still saying the word study?"
"That's..."
Her husband, Lee Hyun-woo, stroked his chin and sank into thought. If Jiwoo vanished from the world, he wouldn't be able to go on either. The reason they'd pushed her studies had been for her sake—wanting her to do well. It had never once occurred to him that the stress would go this far.
"You think we went too far too, don't you?"
"Yeah... we almost lost her because of our mistake. But... what are we supposed to do?"
Ji Hyuna and Lee Hyun-woo were first-time parents. Inexperience had led to mistakes. There was no law saying they wouldn't make another one, so all they could do was clutch their heads.
"For now, why don't we let her try the things she wants to try? I snuck into the hospital room earlier, and she was singing."
"Singing..."
She did hum and sing in her room from time to time. He'd assumed it was just the pleasure of studying leaking out as a tune. Ji Hyuna tapped the file she'd secretly recorded.
Aaa~
A pleasant singing voice spilled from the playback.
"That's Jiwoo singing?"
"It is. I was so startled the first time I heard it I started recording before I even knew what I was doing."
The singing was genuinely easy to listen to. It cut off in the middle with a cough, but the voice and the song were more than charming enough—even accounting for the fact that it was their daughter.
"Looks like we really might have to make our daughter a celebrity. Her looks take after me, after all. She's got the face for it."
"No. The looks take after me, not you."
"They do not. The face is mine. The brains, too."
Whatever else, neither of them had anything to be ashamed of in the looks department. Even now, when they went on dates, people rarely clocked them as parents with a child in tow.
"But is there a way? I heard the average age for joining an agency is early to mid-teens. Isn't it too late to go in now?"
"There's always a way."
Ji Hyuna smiled with meaning, like someone with a scheme already turning over in her head.
Maybe hitting the wall of reality here and dropping the celebrity dream fast wouldn't be the worst outcome.
If Jiwoo decided later that she was going to be a celebrity after all and ran away from home, they wouldn't be able to handle it. It was true that her voice and her singing were good. But the wall of reality standing between that and actually becoming a celebrity was anything but small.
"Well, do as you like. It's not like we don't have money. If she fails once or twice, that'll be experience too."
"Fail? Our daughter will absolutely succeed as a celebrity! Have you seen her face?!"
Ji Hyuna hurried out of the house. There was only one place she was going: the hospital where Jiwoo was admitted.
"Wait. If you're going to the hospital, I'm coming too!"
Lee Hyun-woo threw on a jacket and started the car.
"Excuse me? A celebrity?"
Visiting hours were almost over. The words out of my parents' mouths, back again so soon, left me baffled. Become a celebrity, just like that? No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't figure out why that word had come from the two of them.
Ah... they asked earlier if I wanted to be a celebrity. Is that what this is about?
If so, my answer was no. I hadn't even started studying VTubers yet. I wasn't about to give that up.
"I still don't have enough studying done. So for now I should study, and later I can—"
"That's not happening!"
I jumped. I hadn't expected him to shout. For a second I almost checked whether my heart had dropped out of my chest.
"Honey. If you yell like that, you'll scare Jiwoo."
"Ah... sorry, Jiwoo. The truth is... if you don't want to study anymore, you don't have to. From now on, you can do whatever you want."
Don't study? If I pulled up Jiwoo's memories, these two had spent every spare hour forcing her to study. I'd been planning to use whatever time was left after studying to look into VTubers properly.
"I said this before, but for becoming a celebrity, my age is..."
"What are you talking about? Jiwoo, you're still seventeen. That's plenty young! And you have talent!"
"Talent...?"
"Your face! You inherited this mother's face exactly as it is! It's possible! Just trust Mom!"
Mm. The way Mom was looking at me was not normal. Those were the eyes of someone who did not doubt for a second that I would succeed as a celebrity. For now, going along with her seemed like the wise move. Even if I joined an agency, there'd be a test. If I failed that, they wouldn't have much to say.
"Huh...? I passed?"
But nothing in this world ever went the way I wanted.