The Collab Stream
Preparing for the collab stream turned out far easier than I had expected.
I had only just started as a VTuber, and this would be my first collab of any kind, so I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous. Shouldn't we at least do a rehearsal or something…?
When I asked Hina that, her answer was as follows.
So that was that.
I sat down in front of my computer. 7:50 p.m. Only ten minutes left until stream. Claiming I wasn't nervous would have been a flat-out lie. Back when Hina first raided me, I could get away with fumbling through it, but this time I knew full well that more than ten thousand viewers were waiting for me on the other side of the screen.
I swallowed hard.
Brrring—
A call tone rang through Distalk. With the heart of King Leonidas facing the million-strong Persian army, I hit the connect button.
"Yes. This is Unknown."
"Professor! Hello! Is the audio coming through clean? No dropouts?"
A clear, bright voice poured through my headset. That was Hina's stream voice—a perfect professional's voice, not so much as a single gram of nerves to be found, the complete opposite of mine.
"Yes, I can hear you clearly."
I answered while working the stiffness out of my shoulders.
"Thank goodness! I've got the waiting screen up right now, and the viewers are hyped out of their minds for you, Professor! Just like we planned, Part One will be the Ideal Type World Cup, Round of 32, for about an hour, then Part Two moves into the Angel vs. Devil debate! Winner decided by vote, loser does a punishment—you remember, right?"
"Yes. I remember."
I didn't expect to lose… but even if I did, it wouldn't matter. I had already thoroughly verified the performance of Jeong Eun-gyeol's vocal cords.
A short while later, at eight o'clock sharp, a notification popped up that Hina's live stream had gone live, and her broadcast filled my secondary monitor on the right.
Seemed like some of my own viewers had mixed in… and these little traitors were actually cheering for Hina.
Speaking of which—Hina was just sitting there with her hands folded… What, was that some kind of bit? Her avatar was a white-haired angel, so it fit well enough. And that music playing underneath… something holy, like a choir?
"Lost little lambs, weary of the world—Angel Hina brings you peace…"
Then a bright ching~! of a coin cut the music dead. Hina's avatar snapped her eyes open.
"…is the concept! Ugh, trying to act all sacred is suffocating! Whoosh whoosh on a cloud! Five years since I descended from heaven to the human realm! Fully adapted to worldly life—your capitalist angel Hina has arrived! Everyone eat dinner yet?!"
Donations started exploding all at once.
Whoa. A true pro really did operate on a different tier. I sat there staring at the monitor with my mouth hanging open.
I snapped my mouth shut. I worried for a second that looking so stunned might be rude, but Hina didn't seem to mind in the slightest as she steered the stream with practiced ease.
"Today, just as promised, we have a very special guest! Vivid's rising star! The fact-bombing machine herself—Professor Unknown!"
I unmuted my Distalk mic and opened my mouth.
"Hello. This is Unknown…"
Watching Hina work like a pro made me feel like I ought to do something too. But what, exactly?
"Thank you for having me."
…What else was I supposed to do?
Still, the viewers seemed to like it well enough. Donations were popping up here and there… At least I wasn't dragging things down, which was a relief.
"Professor! Great to have you! Everyone's going nuts over your voice! Alright—no more stalling! Shall we jump straight into Part One? As announced, Part One is the 'Mildly Unpleasant Situations' World Cup. Starting from the Round of 32!"
Hina's hosting was masterful. Without ever saying it outright, you could tell which topics she wanted to milk a little longer and which ones she wanted to breeze past. Before long we reached the Round of 16 of the Mildly Unpleasant Situations World Cup, and two options appeared on screen.
A. You've finished getting ready to go out, put on a fresh pair of socks, walked into the bathroom—and stepped in a puddle of water, the dampness seeping up between your toes
VS
B. You're exhausted, you've pulled the blanket over yourself and locked into the absolute perfect sleeping position—then you realize you left the room light on
Hina was first to react.
"I'm all-in on A! Having to go out while feeling gross is the worst! You have to change your socks, too—ugh, just thinking about it makes me hate it! What about you, Professor?"
I disliked A as well, of course, but given the flow of things I was clearly supposed to pick B.
"I will choose turning off the room light."
"Huh? Turning off the light? You just get up, flip the switch, and go back to sleep. With the socks, though—you take them off, dry your feet, put on new ones, toss the wet pair in the wash… isn't that way more of a hassle?"
"Hina, just now you said that with the light, you simply get up and turn it off, and that is the end of it. That right there is the entire viciousness of the situation, packed into a single sentence."
"Viciousness?"
"With the socks, the suffering is complete the moment they get wet. It has already happened; it cannot be undone. Unpleasant as it is, the course of action is simple. As you said—change the socks, put the wet ones in the wash. Having only one option is, in another sense, a relief. There is nothing left to deliberate over."
"But the light is different. The light presents multiple choices. Do you expend the energy to get up and switch it off, or do you simply sleep through the discomfort? Either way—"
"Uh… I think I'd turn it off, obviously, but…"
The chat was splitting into camps.
"To turn it off, one must ultimately expend energy. To remain lying there is to let the light torment one's eyelids. Whichever choice one makes, suffering clings to it. Sartre put it well: 'Man is condemned to be free.' It is precisely because I am free to turn off the light that I am in pain."
"Ah… hmm… is that so?"
The room was swinging my way. Time for the finishing blow?
"Socks merely make one unfortunate. The light puts one to the test. The former is a fate already decided; the latter is a punishment still in progress. And human beings become far more wretched before a punishment than before a fate. Therefore, the more infuriating of the two is unmistakably Case B."
"Honestly, I still think A is annoying, but I have nothing to fire back with… Alright, B advances to the quarterfinals…"
Along with Hina's slightly bitter concession, donations celebrating my victory burst out one after another. All told, they added up to over three hundred thousand won. Three hours of me rambling on my own stream wouldn't even net half of that…
Truly, a major-league VTuber…
From the quarterfinals through the finals, Hina carried me along and kept things moving smoothly. Occasionally a debate of Round-of-16 caliber would surface, but the moment my answers started threatening to run long, Hina cut them short with a clean stroke, so the stream never dragged.
"Alright then—shall we move on to Part Two? Today's main event: the Angel vs. Devil debate!"
The screen shifted, placing my avatar and Hina's side by side. In a bright, lively tone, she launched into the Angel vs. Devil concept.
"Hina represents emotion and empathy as the Angel! The professor will take the role of the Devil—pure reason and efficiency! The format is debate! The winner is decided by viewer vote~! Now, let's see what our first story is!"
A submission appeared on screen, and Hina began reading it aloud.
"This one's from 'ImTheGroupLeader.' 'Next Monday is the presentation day for my university major group project. But today, the teammate who was supposed to handle the research sent me a message.' Oh… there's an attached image?"
"…and then they went completely radio silent. I stayed up all night and finished the research myself, but… on Monday, should I still put this person's name on the presentation slides? Or cut them and explain the situation to the professor?"
Chat detonated.
Free-riding on a group project was, without question, one of the hottest flashpoints for controversy in this country. Hmm… It was obvious enough what role I was supposed to play here.
A moment later, Hina spoke up.
"Everyone! Calm down! Yes, the teammate did something wrong, but… even if it isn't a romantic partner, everyone goes through the pain of a breakup someday, right? And that pain feels like the end of the world. Besides, the writer already finished all the research, didn't they? It's already done—writing three little letters of a name isn't that hard. One act of kindness might move that teammate so deeply that it comes back as some kind of repayment later!"
Honestly, the topic itself was stacked against Hina from the start. The reason she'd chosen it was probably out of consideration for me. And her leaning into the cute act wasn't exactly out of character.
"Alright then—shall we hear Professor Unknown's rebuttal?"
That said, I had no intention of phoning in the content. Consideration was consideration, and a contest was a contest.
I cleared my throat lightly and dropped my voice just a shade lower.