First Collab After That Day

I scrolled through the posts one by one.

Fortunately, the overall public opinion didn't look like much of a problem. It wasn't as if there was nobody who refused to forgive her — but then, it wasn't as if every last opinion could be a favorable one, either.

If In-ah kept at it, maybe even they would come around someday. In the end, it all came down to her.

This was a server Elmil was in, too. The unread badge on the messages had long since disappeared.

.....Is she trying to figure out what to say?

.....That had a barb in it.

After the offline meetup, Yo-ona, Elmil, and I had talked through all sorts of things. How serious Elmil really was about streaming. How hard she had been working at it. Yo-ona had no trouble seeing through the "I quit after a few months" story Elmil had given her — she'd spent months of her own career grinding through total indifference, after all.

Once Elmil had sincerely apologized to Yo-ona, and she and I had worked through the rest of it together, the decision was made: she would re-debut. The first order of business, of course, was an apology stream. After talking it over among ourselves, we agreed to keep any mention of me and Yo-ona to an absolute minimum. Just a "I apologized" — that was as far as it would go.

Public opinion after the re-debut had been, as you could see, reasonably smooth. And like that, a certain bond had started to form between the girls and me.

Ah — and we'd also talked about those slightly dangerous posts Elmil had put up.

"About these posts...."

"Ah, no! Those are just fantasy posts! I'm a total loser in real life, I couldn't actually do any of that!"

"I know that. But you could still get found out."

"Elmil is a shortened version of EroMir, so the odds of getting caught are pretty high, yeah."

"Ah, no, please don't even say that out loud! I won't use it ever again!"

We let it slide in a messy, vague sort of way. As long as nobody found out, there was no problem for anyone but me. I'd also built up a certain immunity to this kind of sexual harassment from streaming, so I didn't really mind.

Anyway, I roughly mediated between them and slowly started up the stream.

This time, too, it was a collab with them.

The moment I went live, the greetings rolled in like always. I tossed back a rough hello and started getting ready to join the collab channel.

"It's about time. Shall we hop in?"

In my chat, this was how she was known: she'd made a decent apology, but nobody knew what she was actually like. All sorts of speculation was floating around, but in the end I was closer to being a victim myself, so I was reluctant to bring it up.

Ding!

I joined the voice channel they were already in.

"I'm soooorryyy!"

And there was Elmil, sobbing, wailing, and clinging to us with an apology.

"...... Can I leave now."

It had been a somewhat planned bit, but this was a little beyond what I'd imagined. For a second, I genuinely considered hitting the disconnect button.

Once I'd somehow weathered it, Elmil apologized all over again, this time to set up a wholesome atmosphere.

"It's fine~ You already apologized last time."

"Even so....."

"You said you were sorry. No need to drag it out."

For the record, Elmil and I had just decided to speak casually, while Yo-ona was going to keep using polite speech. Even though Yo-ona was a year older than me.

I skimmed the chat. Fortunately, the public opinion didn't seem bad.

"Alright, let's wrap this up around here."

"We didn't get together ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just to apologize, did we?"

She clapped her hands together.

"Both of you, hop into the game~"

I launched it. The game Yo-ona had so enthusiastically recommended: Pi-X Park.

Yo-ona really was a stream addict. How was she planning to squeeze content out of even this?

"Doesn't this look like it'll be fun?"

"Y-yes!"

A guilty conscience needs no accuser — Elmil, feeling the sting, answered anyway.

....Well, it wasn't actually a bad choice, if you looked at it that way. A co-op game, with a designated punching bag already in place. And whether she liked it or not, once the chat started roasting her, she'd come off as sympathetic.

"Everyone in? We're starting!"

...That had clearly been the plan.

Have Elmil make a mistake — or even in situations that were hard to pin on her — deliberately create a setup where we dunked on her anyway. That was how it was supposed to go. And yet.....

"I'm sorry...."

For some reason, it had been Yo-ona dying this entire time.

Of course, at the beginning, we'd dunked on Elmil even when Yo-ona was the one who died. We'd bring up the apology stream on purpose, just to make it feel like no big deal. She'd start to get angry, then apologize all over again. That was the formula.

It had clearly been going well at first.

At first.

The problem was that Yo-ona just kept dying after that. Once or twice would have been fine, but with Yo-ona dying over and over all by herself, dunking on Elmil was a stretch. Elmil and I each tried dying on purpose once, pretending it was a mistake, but it was way too obvious and just killed the mood instead.

"Okay, you just have to jump over those one at a time."

"When I say one, two, three! — jump!"

Fwoosh!

The incoming ball struck Yo-ona's character, and the game over screen popped up.

"I, um..... ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jumped on three......"

"Ahaha..... I guess I counted a little weird."

The truth was, Elmil and I had jumped at exactly the right time, and we'd been doing this just fine without any of this until now.

"Then jump when I say jump, okay? Again..... jump!"

Her character took the ball again. Game over.

"I-it was Discord lag...."

"It might be better if we just don't do the countdown! Haha...."

As I said, we hadn't been doing any of this until now.

"Th-then how about we try it like this..?"

"Yo-ona stands on top of one of us."

"If someone's standing on you, you can't jump."

"When the ball comes, Yo-ona just yeets herself forward toward it — the extra hang time in the air should let her last through it."

We put the theory into practice immediately. The second the ball launched, she dove forward and survived, and I barely scraped out of the way underneath her.

"...... I've been thinking. Maybe it's not that I'm bad. You two are just too good, aren't you?"

.........Now that she mentioned it, nobody except Yo-ona had actually died from a real mistake.

"I-I've always really loved games, so...."

"Same."

"...... Sorry, I am a game streamer too, but... no, I guess I just haven't played that many games."

And from there, it was the same thing over and over: she was the only one making mistakes. On a stage where the three of us had to stack into a tower after a path that demanded real control, Elmil and I glitched and micro'd our way through it as a pair. On a stage where all three of us had to stop a timer and the sum had to hit a certain number, I clocked in at 0.2 seconds, Elmil at 0.1, and Yo-ona at 2.3 — and we still made it under 2.8.

".........."

She went quiet.

"U-aah, see, you're good at this too, Yo-ona!"

"Yo-ona's carrying this round..."

It was one of the few stages where Yo-ona was actually running out in front.

Pfft.

Her character dropped into empty air and died. A jump-map mistake.

"Why..... won't it work......."

That was her reaction when Elmil and I had already reached the exit on the same map, and Yo-ona hadn't even made it halfway. The truth was, we'd gone slow on purpose just a moment ago.

"No! You can do it!"

"If it's you, Yo-ona! I believe in you!"

"Hehe, getting cheered on by two guys is really pumping me up. Is this what a harem feels like...?"

She forced out a dumb joke, trying to reset the mood. Well — Elmil was in her male-voice state too, so it wasn't entirely wrong.

"Ah, we're almost there!"

"Just this one more jump!"

Fwoosh.

Same spot as before. A jump-map mistake, of course.

"Scrub♡.... ah, wait.... that's not—"

Elmil panicked at the true nature that had slipped out on its own. Later on, she would go on to flaunt that nature to her heart's content under an osugaki concept. After she got popular, there was even a rumor that people started saying shotas were the best after all, and that the younger-boy type — of which there were simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more to go around — had become the more popular one.

Anyway, I don't even know anymore. We were three hours into this game.

Someone save me.