Chapter 270
Chapter 270
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 270
Chapter Title: Dumping My Entire Wallet into Blue LUV!
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Uwuu, I thought I was gonna die of embarrassment.
Still, it was a relief that the person who took the photo seemed so happy about it.
And it wasn't just them—Hayul, who was standing right next to me, loved it too.
"Sunbae-nim...! It was seriously the best. I swear, I thought you were Kurumi-chan reincarnated!"
She must have been really moved, because Hayul was still going on excitedly right by my side.
She talked about how Kurumi-chan in the story was originally a shy character too.
About how it felt just like seeing early Kurumi-chan and made her so happy.
About how it even felt more faithful to the source material, which made it even better.
I could say something like, "Doesn't it get old seeing Hayul like this?"
But honestly, seeing her so thrilled made me secretly proud.
She was always so quiet and passive at the company, after all.
"Ah...! S-Sorry. Was I talking too much by myself?"
"Nah, it's fine. It was nice to see. It's the first time I've seen you talk this much, Hayul."
As I stared at her, she must have thought I was looking at her in some other way.
She hesitated a bit and shut her mouth, so I shook my head.
"By the way, Hayul, how did you get into cosplay? Was there some trigger?"
I suddenly got curious about why Hayul had gotten into cosplay.
Maybe she just naturally drifted into it from liking subculture stuff, no big reason.
But cosplay felt like a pretty deep hobby for that.
I figured there must have been some special trigger.
And sure enough, Hayul hesitated for a moment before smiling awkwardly and speaking up.
"To be honest, my personality's kind of gloomy, right? Kinda阴沉 too."
"No, I don't think so. I used to be like that anyway."
"You, sunbae-nim?"
When she self-deprecated like that, I firmly denied it and brought up myself instead.
Hayul looked at me in surprise, tilting her head.
She must not have realized because by the time we met, my personality had already started changing a bit.
"Yeah. Ask the president or the first-gen members—they'll tell you. Back then, I was super shy. Always stumbling over my words, and I'd get so nervous mid-sentence that I'd trip up."
"That's kinda surprising. To think sunbae-nim had that side too..."
"Hehe, I'm the one surprised. Hearing that from you means I've really changed."
Oh wait, more importantly, I was in the middle of hearing Hayul's story?
I accidentally cut her off without meaning to.
Better pick up where we left off.
"Anyway, with a personality like that, whenever I'd go to events like this, the cosplayers who shone so brightly always seemed amazing. Then I saw an interview with one cosplayer."
"An interview?"
"Yeah. They said the biggest appeal of cosplay is 'being able to become someone who's not you.'"
"Whoa, that's cool."
It was just like actors.
In a way, there were similarities.
If actors perform personality and speech, cosplayers recreate the appearance itself—that was the difference.
"After seeing that, I got curious. 'Could I borrow another character's personality and become braver too?' That was the trigger."
"Ah, so is that why you started this job too?"
I phrased it vaguely since we were outside—just in case.
Hayul nodded without hesitation, affirming it strongly.
"Exactly. Thinking of it like acting during cosplay made it work well. Th-Though, of course, it's pretty different from my real personality..."
"True that."
When I first saw Hayul's practice stream, I thought she had split personality.
Demon King Bar-chan the VTuber and human Hayul were total opposites.
But that's what made it more appealing.
In a way, it fit the VTuber name perfectly.
It was similar to what Japan's mainstream VTubers aimed for.
So deep down, I thought Hayul was an incredibly talented kid.
In some sense, even more so than the first-gen members I admired so much.
"I was so happy when I started this job, but lately I'm a bit scared. What if fans find out my real self and get disappointed?"
"Nah, that won't happen."
"You think?"
Her voice carried anxiety, but I could reassure her firmly.
Sure, the difference between streaming persona and real self might feel negative sometimes.
Like those celebrities in the news who act nice in public but do shady stuff behind the scenes.
But Hayul wasn't like that.
Demon King Bar-chan was majestic and cool as a VTuber.
Real Hayul was just kind, cute, and a little bashful.
Even if fans learned the truth, none would dislike her.
No, they'd probably like her even more.
That's what gap moe is all about.
"Yeah, so trust this sunbae-nim! No matter what Hayul's like, everyone will love you."
I thumped my chest with bold confidence, and Hayul stared at me with wide eyes.
Then she smiled softly and placed a hand on my head... Huh?
"Thank you, sunbae-nim. Then I'll trust you and do my best."
"Uh, yeah. But Hayul, this hand...?"
Calling me sunbae-nim but treating me like a little sister—I was stunned and pointed at her hand, demanding an explanation.
A brief silence followed.
Hayul alternated between looking at her hand on my head and my face...
"...S-S-S-Sorry! Sunbae-nim was just so cute a second ago, I couldn't help it...!"
"Ah, no, it's fine. It's fine, but... uwu."
She yanked her hand away and apologized frantically.
It didn't really bother me...
But hearing "cute" from a junior stung my pride a little.
I'm the sunbae-nim! I should be the one patting heads!
"H-Hayul! You know I'm the sunbae-nim, right?! Right?!"
"O-Of course! How cool and charismatic a sunbae-nim you are...!"
"Right? Right?!"
Hehe, good thing Hayul knew I was a charismatic sunbae-nim.
I could let it slide then.
It was just a reflexive hand movement.
Ahem, I'm a generous sunbae-nim after all!
We'd gone out briefly in our cosplay outfits, but we quickly headed back inside.
Now it was time to properly explore Comic Land.
"Whoa, Hayul. Look at this. The art's so pretty, right?"
"It's from a super famous illustrator, so yeah."
"Oh, that makes sense..."
We'd originally planned to hit the Blue LUV merch booth first.
But then I realized our voices might give us away.
So we decided to skip it or just peek from afar, and focused on other booths instead.
What I realized wandering around was that there are so many talented people in the world.
There were scrolls, acrylic stands, doujinshi—tons of merch everywhere.
And some were so high-quality, they could pass for official.
I wasn't that interested in anything outside our group's merch, so I just browsed.
Hayul, though, picked up at least one item per booth into her huge eco-bag.
After checking out quite a few, her bag was stuffed full.
"Sunbae-nim, should we check out the Blue LUV merch booth now?"
"Is that okay? What if our voices give us away..."
"Just browsing should be fine. We can just see what they have."
"Yeah, I guess..."
The sellers didn't seem to chat much with buyers anyway.
Mostly just "This one's this price" kind of explanations.
So maybe it wouldn't be bad to check it out.
I was curious too, so following Hayul, we headed to the Blue LUV merch booth.
Blue LUV fan merch had guidelines limiting sales to specific offline events like this, so opportunities like this were rare.
I'd never bought any doujin merch in that world either.
Even official stuff was a stretch financially.
And since it was offline-only, I never had time for events.
In that sense, this was a pretty novel experience for me too.
"Whoa...!"
Arriving at the booth, there was a ton of merch.
Acrylic stands in LD proportions, SD character versions.
Keychains, keycaps, photocards—you name it, it was hard to find what wasn't there.
Wow, and the quality's insane.
Of course, each artist's style differed from official art.
But that uniqueness made it special.
Gasp, there's even second-gen stuff?!
They debuted so recently...!
Meant the artists were seriously into our group, right?
"Hayul, look over there...! There's Bar-chan stuff too."
"S-Sunbae-nim...?!"
I whispered as quietly as possible, pointing at the Bar-chan photocard.
Hayul blushed in embarrassment.
Hehe, I felt the same when I first saw merch of myself.
Good but kinda embarrassing.
Like there was a me I didn't know right there—super surreal.
Ugh, what now?
I planned to just look...
But seeing it all, I really wanna buy stuff.
Especially that 8-member poster— it'd look so pretty on my wall.
Hehe, the keychains are adorable too.
All dangling from trees by their necks, looking all limp—hits the spot.
Alright, can't be helped.
How's a sparrow supposed to pass a mill?
For now, I'll modulate my voice as much as possible...
"Excuse me. Could I get one of everything here?"
"Pardon? Everything?"
I'll keep spending moderate.
Wanna get two or more of each, but others need to buy too.
One each it is. Yeah.
Wonder why they're surprised?