The Broadcast Explodes!
"Hoit, hoit...."
I rode a unicycle while beating a tin drum. The thud-thud-thud of it drew attention like bait thrown into water. People passing through the university district turned to look at me on instinct.
-What is that?
-A clown?
-Is there some kind of performance going on?
-A unicycle? That's kind of cool.
Maybe because it was an area where street performances were common, curiosity outweighed caution by a mile.
I told them with practiced indifference, "There's a free snack event from the food trucks up ahead. All you have to do is share a simple SNS hashtag. Everything's on the house, so come join in."
!
Men and women, young and old alike.
They glanced at each other, giggled, and moved.
-What's this? Who's running an event?
-Smells good. Let's go eat.
-Wow, it feels like a festival.
-There's some kind of stage too?
As expected.
Nothing moves people quite like free stuff. Before long, they were naturally lining up in front of the food trucks. Then they sat wherever they could and started peering at the display truck.
-What is this? Internet broadcast?
-Huh? Isn't that a Pazijik screen...?
-Kind of nerdy, but sort of interesting.
-ABCD...? What's that, some idol group?
Draw their eyes.
Seat them down.
I had naturally solved the two hardest steps in marketing. There really wasn't a greater marketing tool than food.
I’m glad I booked two hundred servings per truck in advance and had them called over. Food-truck snacks are the kind of thing people hesitate to buy for themselves, so they must be reacting even more because of that.
The prep had been surprisingly easy.
Once the May event ended and the trucks slid into their off-season lull, they were everywhere. As for the screen truck, once I offered two or even three times the usual rate, they came for a one-day job without hesitation.
I was a little thrown off after seeing the show case announcement the day before, but... once you've got money, there really isn't much an event can't do.
Never underestimate a regressor.
There's not much that surprises me anymore.
....
In an instant, a festival broke out all over the university district.
They didn't know it, but this was the birth ceremony of a virtual idol.
A circus run by a rich clown all alone.
One hired for ten thousand won....
And when I had that thought.
A little kid with ketchup smeared around his mouth said from beside me, "Mister."
"What is it?"
"Did you buy this?"
!
The man and woman standing beside him, who looked like his parents, gave wry smiles. Their faces said, As if that could be true.
....
Childhood innocence can be frighteningly sharp sometimes.
That's why pure feelings are fun.
I snorted and said, "Yeah. Eat as much as you want. And congratulate them too."
"For what?"
"For the people who worked so hard to prepare today."
"You, mister?"
"No, I didn't work that hard. I just had to pay for it."
"?"
The child tilted his head, then bowed politely and returned to his parents. I figured that was his own way of saying thank you.
....
I started drumming the tin can again to announce the festival.
Thud-thud-thud—
"...Free snack event from the food trucks. Just share a simple SNS hashtag and everything's yours. Come join in."
-Food trucks? Free? The expensive stuff?
-Hey, let's go do that too.
-Wow... there's a ridiculous number of people.
-Huh?
-Something's showing on the screen?
!
I glanced over.
Their stage had begun.
The display screen lit up.
And a shadow fell dimly over the spot where I stood.
....
As promised, I watched her.
*
The stage glowed in backlight.
Even if it was only a virtual graphic, it was still a dazzling stage of glass and lasers. It was a place where someone ordinary climbed up in order to shine.
That place came into view.
Yellow
Pink
Silver-blue
Vermilion
Four colors of laser carved shadows out of the dark.
The silhouettes of four figures slowly formed in the faint light.
The four who stood within that soft radiance moved.
[Running toward the light--!]
The four colors merged.
Blinding white light swept the darkness away.
It was the light they had once promised to show.
[We are ABCD--!]
Paah--!
There they were.
Four girls stood on the stage.
They were wearing idol outfits mixed with white and their own personal colors. At last, they were wearing the clothes I had wanted to show the world a year ago.
Aki
Berry
Clara
Doda
....
....
....
....
Breaking through the flat screen,
they had finally come alive.
They simply stood there.
Aki, standing at the center, took a deep breath.
"Hoo...!"
Even that tiny breath, even the tremble in her hands, was laid bare in front of the microphone and camera.
....
What they had to shout now was no excuse for the years behind them. What they had to say, standing here as idols, was a song.
For this one line.
They had endured a year.
They had stayed awake through hundreds of nights.
They had shed tears thousands of times.
At last, Aki said those words.
"We begin... Stage Error!"
The stage lit up in four colors.
The members walked toward the center around Aki.
Frozen within that instant,
they drew with their own hands and feet the choreography they had thought they had forgotten.
Trembling,
messing up,
awkward....
Even so, they still wanted to be idols.
*
...
...
...
Live Viewer Count: 5238
*
After the group performance ended, each member changed into her original outfit one by one.
Berry spun around in a frilly dress. Her half-collapsed composure had somehow recovered by then.
"Hello there--! Ready to roll? I'm the chatterbox Berry, here to have fun with you!"
When the outfit they knew so well from 2D finally appeared, the fans cheered. It was only a fandom of a few hundred people, but they threw themselves into the long-awaited 3D showcase with all they had.
They blessed the ones who had finally stepped out into the bright world.
-Berryyyyy!!
-Brrrrrr!!
-Wow, pink is pretty lol
-I've been waiting a year to see this... sob
Berry waved both hands wildly and ran back and forth across the stage. She put funny lines and pictures up on the screen and did little skits.
"And then! Right there, deeam--!"
It was very much American-flavored, so it wasn't exactly a riot, but everyone simply enjoyed the moment.
-lol, peak not funny
-This is insanely boring, but cute lol
-What even is this lol
-Berry, do whatever you want!
Then the members each took turns showing off their personal talents. When I had first heard that each one got ten minutes, I thought it would drag on forever, but the time felt shorter than expected.
"Ah...! I want to do a few more rounds...!"
"Everyone! Thank you for coming to watch us--!"
The last one was Aki-chan.
Aki sang alone.
She hadn't been able to get permission for the original track, so she could only sing a cappella, but even so, she sang until the quiet stage itself seemed to ring.
"--!"
A plain song.
The kind she had heard when she was little.
A Korean song playing in a clothing store.
All the layers of feeling that had built up over time,
she poured them entirely into the lyrics and sang.
We made it this far.
We're only at the starting line now....
But at last, we can run.
On the chat window beside her, the screen was full of yellow fanlight emojis. There wasn't a single spoken word on the screen, and yet to Aki it looked like the most dazzling concert hall in the world.
All those donations looked less like money and more like fireworks bursting in celebration of a birth.
....
"!"
Only a little tear slipped from Aki's eye. A tear no one outside the screen could see... a tear that belonged to her alone.
Thank you.
She sang with that feeling in her heart.
*
....
I put my phone away.
So the showcase ended up with about ten thousand viewers after all. Each of their subscriber counts is around thirty thousand. Pretty good for rookies, but... they've still got a long way to go.
My heart was hot, but the stage was rough around the edges, and the road ahead was still far too long.
....
The surrounding display screens went dark, and after the showcase ended, silence remained.
The people who had been eating the snacks left one after another.
-It was kind of nerdy, but it got me a little emotional.
-That's because you....
-I should look them up at least once.
-What's a VTuber, anyway.
....
I got off the unicycle and carried it in one hand. Then I picked up the tin drum and shuffled back toward the convenience store.
It was a first step taken too late.
For me,
and for her.
....
Just then, my phone chimed with a notification.
Ding!
"!"
I looked at it again.
The coin settlement money had come in.
Balance: 10.6 billion won
....hmm.
The start of June.
The awkward declaration of war was over, and a blade had finally come into my hand.