Märchen X
The broadcast has ended.
It happened while I was buried in practice, drilling the art of putting feeling into a song.
Somewhere along the way I had run across the line that a song is an excellent method of communication. At the time I was obsessed with loading emotion into my singing, so I let it pass with a vague yeah, that tracks. There were lyrics, after all. Of course it could work that way.
Which is why, the moment the question of what a song actually is rose in my head, that phrase I had once shrugged off came back with it. And the thought did not stop there. Once it hit the gas, it showed no interest in the brake.
A song is a method of communication that uses a human voice, the same way speech does. And speech carries the person who is speaking. Not just the voice. Use the standard language or a dialect, and someone can guess where you live. Talk fast or take your time, and they start sketching your personality. The words you reach for most can even hint at your job. Bring up something you love and your pitch climbs; slog through a subject you do not care about and it drops.
…So then. Could a song, just like speech, lay bare who I am? Wouldn't that actually be the natural thing? Both of them use language. Both of them use a human voice.
For a second it felt like lightning had struck the inside of my skull. Certainty arrived all at once, as if this and nothing else were the perfect answer. This is it. This is right. This is the answer.
In that instant I shouted before I even knew I was shouting—that I wanted to record it all over again, from the very top.
I had to forget the sample completely. Even if I couldn't, I had to forget it anyway. If a song was a method of communication the way speech is, then copying the sample Loe had sung would be no different from doing an impression of her voice.
Every person has the years they have lived. Habits stacked until now. Their own relationships, their own likes and dislikes. So the way they communicate must not match. It cannot match. That is the most obvious thing in the world, because people are all different.
See myself objectively. If I wanted the song to carry my traits, I had to know myself exactly, and find a way to express the Lee Hari I knew. Right. The thing I needed to follow was not the sample. The thing I needed to follow was the self I already knew.
Speech and song are the same kind of tool, but they are not identical. Unlike speech, a song comes with fixed lyrics. The lyrics do not change. Which meant the elements that give a person away might be different, too. So I would find those elements.
I had the knowledge for it. Over the past five weeks of vocal lessons I had picked up plenty of theory along the way, and I had gone through the notebook those theories lived in more times than I could count. It felt as if some blocked channel in me had finally been torn open. My head spun past anything I could rein in, and ideas gushed like hot-spring water. What if I did it like this? What if I sang it this way?
Trial and error, again and again. The same phrase, over and over. And at last—
"…That's it!!!"
Something clicked into place. A perfect, locking fit.
"Thank you for your hard work…."
The recording was over. Finally, actually over. Of course, I was in no position to say that—not after declaring a full rollback when we were already eighty percent done, and then, as if that weren't enough, hammering the first phrase again and again. The one small mercy was that Loe, who had been directing with a light hand, suddenly switched to hands-on direction and stretched the session even further. If I had been the only culprit dragging it out, I genuinely would not have been able to lift my head once it ended.
Which is absolutely not to say my body was stiff.
"I am so sorry for springing such an unreasonable demand on you out of nowhere…!"
I was simply putting my waist to very diligent use in place of my head.
"Not at all. If anything, it was a rare experience."
…So this is what a real adult looks like. I snuck a look of pure respect toward the engineer, a genuine adult who had carried out the job in silence and never let a single complaint past their lips. All right. I had bowed thoroughly to everyone forced into overtime by my tyranny and Loe's. Time to finish what was left.
I walked up to my teacher and opened my mouth.
"…How was it?"
Loe almost certainly already knew the rest of that question. Did I, in fact, deserve those three autographs? For the record, if she said no, I was fully prepared to unleash every glittering syllable in a pro streamer's arsenal. I am a true boss who does her utmost for Medongbu's welfare.
"Here."
Fortunately, I did not need to bare a pro streamer's true heart. Loe held out the tote bag without a moment's hesitation. Inside were the coaster she had signed last time, and three autographed sheets.
"You reached even the part that can't be explained. The territory I can't teach. And you reached it beautifully. So yes—you've more than earned them."
With that, Loe bent at the waist.
Her face was hidden behind the mask, so I couldn't be sure. Even so, the thought arrived on its own: wasn't she smiling when she said it?
…I had not expected praise to go this far. I had figured the best I could hope for was a simple you did well. A bow had never even crossed my mind. I had been griping to myself that geniuses must just be stingy as hell with compliments, and then, all at once, I felt awful about it. By way of apology, I had the petit Märchen in my heart throw a grand jeté at Loe in my place—and then, still in that pose, follow it with a headspin.
And so the recording came to a successful close.
Which left only—
The moment Thursday tipped over into Friday, a single photo went up on Märchen's YouTube community. Black background. White letters. Nothing on it but the words Märchen X. No caption. No explanation.
At the same time, the fan cafe received a photo that matched the community post down to the last pixel. Same trick there, too: the picture dropped in the middle of the board, and not a single word to go with it.
Viewers who saw it came to a perfectly reasonable conclusion. Märchen was back after a day off, which meant she was about to stream under yet another unhinged concept.
"Today I'm thinking I'll play a little Raider, nice and easy, and then lock in for a proper Friday-night anime watch."
Their prediction missed by a mile. Normal. Painfully, aggressively normal.
Not a single person believed Märchen would actually stream like a normal human being. She was pretending to be ordinary so she could drift into a concept stream halfway through. A twist. A setup. Nearly every viewer landed on the same theory, and honestly, who could blame them? There was the Märchen they had been shown across every stream until now. There was the karma she had stacked. She does something abnormal before the broadcast and then streams like a regular person? Who would believe that?
So almost everyone watching settled in to wait for the usual madness.
"Today's homework: done!"
Märchen played Raider. Normally. …Was she actually streaming like a regular person? Then why dump that photo on the YouTube community and the fan cafe with nothing attached? In the end, someone stepped up and took the donation bullet.
"That? It's nothing. …Oh, the chicken's here! Chicken's arrived, so we'll leave Raider here and watch some anime with chicken and drinks!"
She said it and stepped out of the streaming booth for a moment to grab the delivery. The way she forced the subject aside—there was something here. The anime segment was camouflage. She was absolutely planning something. A good number of the people watching were sure of it.
And Märchen ate chicken and watched anime right up until the stream was ready to end.
"Shall we start wrapping up?"
…Was there really nothing? Then what was that photo on the YouTube community and the fan cafe? Was it honestly nothing? Not buildup for a concept stream, but a hint that she was joining that social network which had recently renamed itself to a single letter? Or had she predicted that viewers would predict a concept stream, and fished them in reverse? The only person who could have answered any of it did not answer a single thing.
"Then I'll see you all tomorrow!"
All she left was the sign-off. The screen drowned in black. Not a sound. Stream over. For one instant, every single person believed it.
But the broadcast still had not cut. White letters began to write themselves across the black screen.
The broadcast and the photo from the YouTube community and the fan cafe matched perfectly. That did not last long. New letters started appearing beside Märchen X.
The broadcast has ended.
And the broadcast cut. At the same time, the chat began to climb like it had lost its mind.
Of course, none of that was going to turn the stream back on.