What Do I Do?
When my fever finally broke and I sat up in bed, the first thought that hit me was this:
"I'm so screwed...."
Yeah. I was really, truly screwed.
The fever itself was gone. It had been over 38 degrees Celsius when I got home, but now it was down to 36.8, and the coughing had almost completely stopped.
The much bigger problem was...
"Im Lua, you absolute psychoaaaaaa...."
I had shown Jinwoo this room.
When Jinwoo came over, I should have just stayed quiet and behaved myself.
Instead of behaving, I grabbed him when he was about to leave and dragged him straight into my room.
My room. The one I had sworn I would never, ever let him see because it was way too embarrassing.
I must have completely lost my mind. Why the hell did I do that?
I knew. I knew perfectly well that Jinwoo liked me—liked Kuroa Lulu—that he was part of the Lulu-dan.
How could I not know? From the very beginning of the semester, every time the guys got together, Jinwoo would always end up talking about Lulu... talking about me.
Honestly, it made me so happy.
The fact that the childhood friend I had always thought of as my closest... the one I wanted to get close to again... was looking at me like that made me happier than I could say.
Which was exactly why I had tried even harder to hide my room. Because I wanted to keep the fact that I was Kuroa Lulu a secret.
And yet I had invited Jinwoo right in. And shown him everything, completely bare.
My room, packed with Kuroa Lulu merch.
"What do I do...? Should I just play dumb...?"
Playing dumb was an option, but it would never work.
Because sitting in my room was a limited acrylic stand of Kuroa Lulu from the album specials—one that had never been shown to anyone and only existed as a setting shot.
Jinwoo had definitely bought the album. Our album—though it feels weird saying so myself—was solid value and packed with good stuff.
So he would have seen that setting shot for sure. And if he saw the matching acrylic stand sitting right there in the room...
"He knows. He definitely knows...."
Jinwoo must have figured out that I was Kuroa Lulu.
...... No. Jinwoo had always been dense, so maybe he still didn't know. Yeah. That had to be it. It absolutely had to be.
I spun my hope circuit as hard as I could, but even for a dense idiot like Jinwoo, there was no way he hadn't figured this one out.
"Shiiiit... What the hell am I supposed to do..."
Getting found out by Jinwoo was definitely a disaster. But the real direction of my panic was a little different.
Would Jinwoo go blabbing about me to other people? No. Jinwoo would never do something like that.
So what was the actual problem?
"How am I supposed to face himmmmm..."
That was it. Now that Jinwoo knew Kuroa Lulu's red pill was Im Lua, I would have to see his face every single day at school starting next Monday.
What do I do? What the hell do I do?
I felt so anxious, so scared, and so sorry all at once.
Countless emotions crashed together in one place, and everything just kept getting more hopeless.
What should I do? How was I supposed to make a choice that would actually be okay?
I fretted over it again and again and again.
And then...
Creeeak
Mom walked into my room.
"What are you doing, sweetie?"
"...... Mom, what do I do?"
"About what? Jinwoo finding out?"
When I nodded, Mom immediately sat down right beside me.
"Jinwoo won't go talking about it somewhere else. He's not that kind of kid."
Mom was one of the very few people in the world who knew I was Kuroa Lulu. She was the one who had introduced me to this work in the first place, and she had signed on as my guardian when I made the contract.
So she offered me perfectly reasonable comfort—that he wouldn't spread it around.
But that wasn't what I was worried about.
"I know that, but..."
"Then what's the problem?"
"...... How am I supposed to look him in the face now."
Yeah. That was the real issue. How to treat Jinwoo when I saw him again on weekdays. How to face him. That was the problem.
Mom blinked at me with an expression that clearly said, Why is that even a problem?
Sometimes Mom was way too T. Seriously, pathologically T. She just couldn't empathize with my feelings.
"It's embarrassing... and I feel bad too..."
"What's embarrassing and what do you feel bad about?"
"Mom, you don't know how I stream, do you?"
"Of course I don't. When would Mom have time to watch that~"
"Wow, isn't that a little shameless? It has something to do with you too, you know."
"Just kidding. I watch sometimes."
Mom giggled and ruffled my hair.
"Isn't it actually fine, though?"
"... What is."
"What do you mean what. A guy who likes how cute our daughter is found out?"
"W-w-who likes me!?"
I whipped my head around to stare at her in pure shock, and Mom only laughed harder, like my reaction was the cutest thing she had ever seen.
"If Mom were Jinwoo~ I'd actually be happy~ Thinking 'A cutie like this is my childhood friend?'~"
Mom's teasing brand of comfort did not help me one bit.
"That's not the important part..."
"Then what is the problem?"
"It's so embarrassing that I was acting all cute and cutesy in front of my friend. And besides..."
"Besides?"
"...... I grew apart from Jinwoo because I started doing this."
The moment she heard that, Mom lightly smacked my forehead.
Smack!
"Ow!"
"Snap out of it, sweetie. You didn't grow apart just because of that."
"But still..."
"But still nothing. You were working hard for your dream. Getting distant because you got busy in the process was inevitable, and frankly, Jinwoo was at fault too, right?"
"Jinwoo didn't do anything wrong..."
"No, he did. You were struggling going to academy, and he never helped even a little, never tried to find out or understand?"
That was true. I had grown distant because of academy, and Jinwoo had never once asked if I was busy.
That had hurt a little...
"I was the one who caused it."
"As I see it, you both were wrong. You for never explaining properly, and Jinwoo for jumping to conclusions on his own."
Mom said it firmly and pinched my cheek.
"And if our daughter does well, Mom gets to feel proud too, you know? I wish you'd appreciate how much effort Mom put in for you~"
"Uweeeeh..."
She stretched my cheek out long, then finally let go and pulled me into a hug.
"So for Mom's sake and for our viewers' sake, rest up properly now. We can worry about Jinwoo together later."
"... Okay. Thanks, Mom."
I hugged her back tightly. After she left and closed the door, I lay down on the bed again, waved goodbye, and stared up at the ceiling.
Yeah. Recovering my body came first right now.
I was still really worried about Jinwoo, but that was something Monday-me would just have to handle somehow.
For tomorrow's stream, it was better to rest well now. Yeah. That was definitely the right call.
With that mindset I rested thoroughly, and thankfully by the next day I had completely recovered.
After that I studied a little, streamed, and spent some genuinely fun time...
And then it was Monday.
The moment Monday arrived the tension came flooding back, but I headed to school telling myself it would work out somehow.
And when I got there...
"Hey Lua, morning."
Jinwoo, who had somehow arrived early for once, was waiting to greet me.
"Uh, uh... hey...."
I returned the awkward greeting, sat down, and started organizing my bags. Then Jinwoo suddenly shoved a notebook at me.
What notebook was this? Why was he shoving it at me all of a sudden?
Questions kept spinning through my head when Jinwoo explained what the notebook meant.
"You couldn't take the afternoon classes on Friday, right? Notes from the afternoon lectures."
"Notes...?"
I took the notebook he held out and flipped through it. Sure enough, the afternoon classes were written down.
Though calling it "notes" was generous. It was more like a raw dump of information.
"Pfft... hehehe..."
"... What? Why are you laughing."
"No, no. Pffft hehehehe."
Somehow, it was incredibly cute.
Jinwoo was not the type who studied super hard. He never had been. If anything, he hated studying with a passion.
Imagining that same Jinwoo diligently scribbling notes just so he could show them to me was so cute I could not hold back my laughter.
"... If it's that funny, give it back."
"No way~. I'm copying every last bit."
"Then at least stop laughing...!"
"Don't wanna~"
Bickering childishly with Jinwoo, I suddenly became completely sure of one thing.
The question of how I was supposed to treat Jinwoo had been a stupid question all along.
Jinwoo was just Jinwoo.
Whether I was Im Lua or Kuroa Lulu didn't matter.
I was Jinwoo's childhood friend Im Lua, and I was the VTuber Kuroa Lulu that Jinwoo loved.
It had been the same before, and it was still the same now.
So I just needed to act normal. Like always.
Tease him like always, fight like always, just be together like always.
...... Of course, I didn't actually want to just stay like always.
Because the feelings I was holding now were ones that could never be satisfied by staying the same as always.