Festival Date (2)
“Uh… Welcome…!”
A girl who’d been reading a novel shot up from her seat in surprise. Judging by the color of her name tag, she was a first-year, and she gave off a vibe that was the complete opposite of Lua’s. She looked incredibly energetic, the kind of person who would act without any formalities—exactly the opposite of Im Lua.
Still, a girl in a place like this… Don’t tell me…
I turned to check the other club members and felt myself relax. Including the girl who’d greeted us, there were only two girls; the other four were all guys.
“Hello…!”
“Welcome~”
“Come on in.”
“Whoa, seniors.”
“Welcome…!”
The rest of them scrambled to greet us as well, and Lua and I began looking around the room. The reason we started browsing right away was simple: there was an absolute mountain of merch. It wasn’t just VTuber goods, either. Anime, light novel, and game merch filled the space in impressive quantity. It was everything a real subculture club should have.
“…There’s so much.”
“Yes! We brought almost everything we own…!”
“Whoa…”
“Wow…”
Even Lua and I let out quiet sounds of admiration at the sheer volume. So that was why.
“What kind of activities can we do here?”
“Um… you can just look around, and there’s a quiz show sort of thing you can try…!”
“A quiz show, huh… Lua, want to give it a shot?”
“H-huh? Me??”
Lua looked at me in a panic, then immediately shook her head.
“Why not?”
“I mean… I… I’m pretty sure I’d get everything wrong… You do it…!”
“Me?”
She nodded with desperate sincerity. I casually ignored that pleading look and decided we’d just browse instead.
“Would it be okay if we just looked at the merch and headed out?”
“Ah… Yes! Of course! But…”
“We won’t touch anything with our hands. We know better than that.”
“Ah… Thank you…”
The girl bowed her head and then started trailing after us like a little duckling. I glanced at her once before turning my eyes to the merch—more precisely, to the Lulu merch.
Lua must have sensed something in my gaze, because she was already glaring daggers at me, but…
…What exactly are you going to do about it, Lua-Lua?
I smiled brightly and asked the underclassmen a question.
“…Anyone here watch VTubers?”
Four of the six raised their hands. That included the girl who’d been trying to guide us around.
I looked straight at her and asked again.
“Who brought this Lulu merch?”
She kept her hand raised while everyone else lowered theirs.
Found her. A fellow Lulu fan.
Honestly, I’d known from the start. She’d been completely normal when I looked at the other merch, but the moment my eyes landed on the Lulu stuff, she’d gotten just a little wary.
“I like Lulu too.”
“…For real?”
“Yeah, I like her a ton~ I even bought her album this time, you know?”
“Me too, me too…!”
I nodded along as the girl launched into an excited conversation. At the same time, my eyes weren’t on her or the Lulu merch—they were on Lua.
And of course, Lua was…
…glaring at me with incredible intensity.
Lua-Lua…
Glaring at me isn’t going to change a thing, you know?
Just accept it quietly. You’re a world-class talent.
“Did you see the stream she did last Chuseok?”
“Oh, the one where she introduced Elia?”
“Yes…! Lulu was so cute then, right?”
“Super cute. Especially when the new girl was bullying her—that was just too adorable.”
“Right, right! She was way too cute…!”
Classic VTuber fan trait: meet someone who watches the same streamer and the words just won’t stop. I was using that trait to feed my own fandom and devotion while casually tormenting Lua at the same time.
Her face was getting redder by the second. I kept chatting with the underclassman about Lulu while enjoying the view.
“By the way, how’d you get all this merch? Some of it I’ve never even seen before.”
“I drew the illustrations myself and had them made into acrylic stands…!”
“…Doujin merch, huh. They’re really well made. You’re not selling them to people, right?”
“Of course not!”
I gave the slightly nervous underclassman a small smile and a nod.
“As long as you haven’t sold them to anyone, it’s fine. The problem is usually making them and then selling them.”
For the record, Sweet Mare was extremely generous about fan works. They allowed pretty much everything except making money off secondary creations, and if you got permission, even sales were possible—though I heard they took royalties in those cases. Videos and clips were the exception. As long as you linked the original stream and helped promote, they let you monetize without taking royalties. That policy had become one of the engines driving Sweet Mare’s growth. The freer secondary creation got, the more people made it, and the more people made it, the more people discovered Sweet Mare. It was calculated marketing.
“You really like Lulu a lot, don’t you, sunbae…!”
“Yeah, I love her. Most in the world.”
“Eep…!”
Lua’s whole body gave a big shudder, and she started glaring at me again. I wasn’t so dense that I couldn’t read the fury in those eyes, so I deliberately looked away from her and spoke to my fellow Lulu fan instead.
“Well… I should get going. We’ve got other places to check out.”
“Ah… Yes! Um…”
“Um?”
“Could I… get your number…?”
“Huh!?”
Lua, who hadn’t said a single word since we walked in and had just been standing there embarrassed, let out a startled shout. I left her behind and exchanged numbers with the underclassman.
“Your name is…”
“Jieun Shin…! And you are…”
“Seo Jinwoo.”
“Wow, our names are kinda similar…!”
“Maybe that’s why we both like Lulu so much?”
Jieun giggled at my joke, and just like that, the number exchange was done. She bowed politely to both of us.
“Please take care on your way…!”
“Yep.”
“…Yeah.”
We were about to leave after that exchange when—
“Ah, and also, you two look really good together…!”
—those words floated after us. I wanted to say, “We’re not like that!” but we were already outside the door, and it felt too awkward to go back and correct her, so I just walked out with Lua.
The second we were outside, I had no choice but to start reading her mood. When you tease someone, even if it’s fun in the moment, you have to check in afterward. That’s the bare minimum apology the teaser can offer—the price you pay for enjoying a one-sided joke.
An awkward silence settled between us. Surprisingly, Lua was the one who broke it.
“…I’ve got more fans than I thought.”
“Of course you do. Among VTubers who debuted this year, you’re the biggest. Even if you look at every Korean VTuber out there, unless they’re from a massive company, you’re probably the most popular.”
“I know that, but… actually feeling it is different.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
…Wait, shouldn’t you have felt it already?
“…Hey, remember when we went to buy snacks together before? The way they got cleaned out in seconds should’ve given you a rough idea, right?”
“That was… well, that supermarket is the only one around here, so if everyone just happened to flock there, it still kind of made sense.”
“But this doesn’t make sense?”
“Uuuugh… Still, it really hit me this time…”
Lua puffed her cheeks lightly, then fixed me with a glare.
“So, how does it feel getting a first-year girl’s number?”
“……Happy I made another Lulu-fan friend?”
At my answer, the glare melted away. She let out a short snort of laughter and rose up onto her tiptoes. By now I knew exactly what those tiptoes meant.
I focused on my ear and waited for Lulu’s reward.
And then—
“Our Jinwoo likes Lulu way too much, doesn’t he? Lulu’s so happy.”
The moment that incredible Lulu-tone reward hit my ears, my whole body shivered.
Whoa. This is the real deal. If this isn’t it, then what is?
I was still reeling from that both embarrassing and delightful reward when another one came flying in.
“But… could you pay a little attention to me sometimes too?”
A reward was still a reward. But that voice wasn’t Lulu’s tone. It was Lua’s.
“Huh…?”
I turned to her in confusion. Lua was staring straight at me, her face flushed red.
“What did you just—”
“I don’t know, you idiot. Pervert. Jerk.”
She insulted me thoroughly, then turned her head and walked off ahead. I hurried after her, and the two of us started walking through the school grounds again together.
The only difference from before was that we didn’t really talk about anything in particular. Just walking through this lively, joyful school side by side was more than enough to leave us deeply satisfied.
The ticklish feeling in my chest was just a bonus.