Internet Shopping

The anti-mint-chocolate faction put up a ferocious fight. We went at it for a full thirty minutes before the whole thing finally settled with me declaring myself a selective mint-choco enjoyer.

I'm not even on Team Mint-Choco. What am I doing?

I am not a mint-chocolate person. I'll eat it if it's already there, but I don't like it enough to spend my own money on it. More than anything, the only times I'd ever had the stuff were leftover scoops from when I used to work part-time at an ice cream shop.

"I mean, is someone else's taste in food really that important?"

"Well, I dislike it just enough that I wouldn't inflict it on anyone else."

I leaned back against the sofa and took a breather. Completely drained.

"Where was I again?"

After resting long enough to pick the conversation back up, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I realized I couldn't remember how far I'd gotten.

"Hey! You're messing with me again."

They clearly had no intention of telling me. I remembered up through the part about going out, at least.

"Forget it. We'll just talk about something else."

"I'm not sulking!"

Why were they teasing me like this? Weren't men supposed to be treated like precious treasures?

Well... I was the one who'd wanted this kind of atmosphere, and I'd told them to chat however they pleased...

If I asked them to dote on me, would they actually do it? The thought crossed my mind out of nowhere.

"Even if I try not to get mad... Fine. Alpha noona."

The thought flickered through my mind that my stream wouldn't function properly without Alpha noona.

"Oh, right, there was that."

When she'd first shown up in my channel, she'd said she was making it her temporary home stream. I figured she'd make it official once I turned the cam on and started streaming for real.

"Well, it's not like I can force her. If noona decides she's okay with it..."

It was the same electronic voice as always, and yet somehow it felt urgent.

"No, you don't have to decide that hastily—"

What even... Noona had changed. Alpha noona had fallen to the dark side! This was a crisis. I had to bring her back, and I had to do it now.

"C-calm down! I was just worried about you! I looked it up, okay? You're not supposed to lock in a home stream that easily!"

"Why! Why are you laughing! Stop laughing!"

They seized on every possible opening to mess with me.

"And whose fault is this whole— haaah. Never mind."

What was I supposed to say? Digging in would only make it worse. Easier to just let it go quietly.

"Right. So what should we do?"

I'd originally planned to kill time talking about going out, but the mood was already shot. I needed a new topic. And it was only then that I remembered I'd been talking about Se-ah noona. A little earlier would have been nice.

I hummed under my breath, turning it over, and my eyes landed on the new computer.

Come to think of it, I need a new camera and mic too.

If I was going to stream with the cam on, I needed a lot more than just those. Essentials like lighting, plus earphones, software to cut noise and help with production. Optional extras like a green screen or a Stream Deck.

"Yandere. Want to go shopping?"

"Why wouldn't we be able to shop? We have the internet."

One of the upsides of swapping computers was that I could throw an internet window up on stream. I set the monitor to broadcast and searched for webcams on a portal site.

It had felt incredibly alien when I first arrived in this world, but there wasn't much difference once you got used to it, and I'd adapted a long time ago. The site was called Piabel.

"Everybody calm down. I'm not turning it on right this second. I'm just looking."

They were making an enormous fuss over one webcam search. I understood the excitement, but I hadn't even said I was turning it on.

"Besides, even if I ordered one right now, it'd take time to ship."

"I knew you'd do that, so I locked donations. Like I wouldn't know you noonas by now."

I'd known the Yandere would come out like this. Every time they got even a sliver of an excuse, they opened the floodgates and started blasting money. If they kept it reasonable I'd accept it with thanks, but they always shot so much it became uncomfortable.

So the moment they had even the slightest justification to spend, my plan was to slam donations shut immediately. There was no telling what a Yandere with a pretext would do.

Looking at it that way, 'Yandere' really was the perfect name, wasn't it?

The more I thought about it, the more it fit like a glove.

"Ah, my head..."

Looking at the chat made the world tilt. I'd been getting headaches more often lately. I was reaching the point where I needed to keep painkillers on standby at all times. I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned into a full migraine.

"S-so how about this. It's only been four days since I started streaming, right?"

Fortunately, I wasn't the only one losing it. Plenty of people in chat were visibly recoiling at the self-proclaimed little sisters going feral.

"So look, I'm only on day four, I'm just a ba—"

Did the Yandere have some kind of future-sight ability? In a world with hunters, monsters, and superpowers called awakening abilities, I couldn't dismiss the idea outright, which only made it more unsettling.

That said, the noona-position Yandere jumping in to defend me was genuinely heartwarming.

"Ah..."

Think. Think of a sentence or a word starting with 'Ah' that can shut these tyrants up!

Thank you so much, noona. Sorry I said you'd fallen to the dark side.

"I sang, so shall we get back to shopping?"

"Thanks, everyone!"

Fortunately, one song was enough to put down the little-sister uprising. I closed the piano program I'd hastily downloaded and pulled the browser back up.

"So, do the Yandere know webcams pretty well?"

"A Together? I actually looked into it, but I haven't met the requirements yet."

Together. A site built for Twitch streamers. If you applied with your streamer account, you could set up a board — a place to talk with fans, post stream notices, that kind of support work.

I'd looked into making one myself. I'd already cleared every other condition. I just hadn't hit the one-month streaming requirement, so I'd put the application on hold.

"So which webcam is good?"

If we kept talking about Together, the conversation was going to derail completely, so I yanked the topic back to shopping. Everyone immediately launched into a serious debate.

This one had the best value. Cams were all about resolution. For a streamer, lighting mattered more than the camera itself.

"Ah, so a DSLR is king. That's the consensus?"

"No, jumping from an eighty-dollar webcam to a DSLR that costs over eight hundred — does that make any sense?"

They'd recommend a cheap value brand, and the second I started looking it up, someone would say if I was going to buy that I might as well spend a little more and get a name brand. Then if I was going to buy that, I might as well spend a little more and get a webcam that was vastly better on specs. Then if I was going to buy that, I might as well spend a little more and get a camera from a famous brand.

And that was how we arrived at the final boss: the DSLR.

"Haaah... I'll just go with that mid-range high-performance webcam that came up."

"Enough!"

I hauled a bellow up from somewhere deep in my gut and unleashed it on the Yandere, who had blown past verse one, verse two, and gone full brain-rot. Chat found that hilarious, apparently, because the window drowned in laughter.

"How many more times do I have to go through this?"

The remaining gear was a mic, lighting, and earphones — and the lighting I wanted wasn't just something to hit my face. I also wanted RGB string lights to wash the whole room, which meant I had no idea how many more rounds of brain-rot I was about to sit through.

If we'd gotten as far as a green screen and a Stream Deck, it would have been a disaster.

"You people are genuinely evil."

I let out one long sigh, then asked,

"Just in case. Anyone have a mic they'd recommend?"

"Ha, hahaha! Ahahahaha!"

Thirty minutes. That was how long the heated debate over a single microphone had been going. And it still wasn't over.

I'd locked donations because I was afraid they'd start throwing money around with their recommendations. At this point I was starting to wonder if I should have locked chat and opened donations instead.

I was not a money-crazed bastard. The people who were crazy about throwing money were turning me into one.

Is this even the right order of operations...?

How did viewers end up training their streamer into a cash-obsessed gremlin?

I looked at the chat, still locked in debate with no end in sight, and let out a self-deprecating laugh.