Apparently, Home Is the Safest Place
I thought I was dead — and then I woke up in the body of my favorite VTuber.
It was a hard sentence to wrap your head around, but nothing else captured my situation quite so perfectly.
How was I supposed to process any of this?
The sheer chaos of it all sent the tower of common sense I’d built up over a lifetime crashing down in a single, spectacular collapse.
“No. No, wait…! Nia is a virtual YouTuber — a 2D image with rigging slapped on top! So this has to be someone else who just happens to look exactly like my oshi and sound exactly like her! There’s no way the person behind the model would actually stream with a face like this… right…?”
A defense mechanism designed to keep me as objective as possible kicked in on pure reflex and started denying reality outright.
But the moment I turned my head and looked in the mirror again…
All that greeted me was a beautiful girl who looked so much like Nia it hurt.
“W-wait a second…!”
Then, out of nowhere, an idea flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning.
It was the one possibility I had refused to entertain until now.
“W-was Nia a real person this whole time?!”
The Nia who streamed as a VTuber had actually existed in the flesh, only pretending to be virtual — and somehow, after dying, I had possessed her!
Unbelievable…. I’d always thought the whole “virtual is real” thing was just a shared fiction between streamer and audience.
To think it had been the literal truth all along.
This was the kind of discovery you submitted to academic journals. I needed to write a paper on Nia and virtual existence right this second and claim my Nobel Peace Prize…!
“…Yeah, no. Even I know that’s not happening. Enough with the escapism. The most important thing right now is figuring out exactly what kind of mess I’m in.”
I scrambled to catch my mind before it rolled any farther downhill and forced myself to calm down.
Fine. I’d admit it. My head was a complete mess.
Dying, waking up in a completely different body, and landing somewhere I didn’t recognize — of course I was going to freak out.
But if you fell into the ocean and just let the waves carry you, you’d only drift farther from any chance of escape.
What I needed now was a steady, deliberate effort to keep making the best choices available.
Effort, huh. Not a word that suits me. Still better than doing nothing, I guess.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
I used a simple breathing technique to wrestle my spiraling emotions under control, then calmly looked into the mirror again… and rested a hand on the chest that was making its presence known through the loose T-shirt.
“…Yeah. It’s not just the face. The whole body’s female. And these aren’t fake, either… they’re not… augh! Touching them while looking in the mirror is just making it worse!”
The beautiful girl in the mirror flushed red all the way to her ears.
Of course it was embarrassing. I’d never once had a dirty or lecherous thought while watching Nia’s streams, and now here I was touching the body itself. The sight reflected back at me felt obscenely transgressive.
Sure, it’s my body now… but doing this while staring at the mirror feels wrong. Like I’m committing some kind of crime….
Guilt tightened around my throat. The soft give under my fingers only made it worse.
…In my defense, I hadn’t done it for any perverted reason.
It was purely to confirm that this really was my body now. Nothing more, nothing less. Please don’t get the wrong idea.
“Down there… I’ll check later. If I look at that right now, my brain is going to melt….”
I muttered the promise to myself, stared at the mirror with exhausted eyes for a moment longer, then quietly slipped out of the bathroom.
God, this was mentally exhausting.
Before I died I’d been pretty skinny — I’d never even had muscle on my chest, let alone… this.
So… the sensation was weird, to put it mildly.
Oh, and for the record, I hadn’t felt anything sexual.
If anything, the hand doing the touching had felt better than the part being touched.
So this was what a woman’s body was like. I felt a weird little pang of disappointment.
“O-okay. Whether this is reincarnation or possession, I’ll accept that I’ve become Nia. Next step… figure out where the hell I am.”
I muttered to myself as I took a good look around.
The place I was standing in was spotless from floor to ceiling — the kind of brand-new apartment that looked like it had just finished construction.
Inside, it was a studio of about twelve pyeong. With almost no furniture, though, it didn’t feel particularly cramped.
“Is this a model home? No wardrobe, no fridge, no washing machine. But there’s a computer. What’s the concept here?”
Thinking about it, of course the space felt big when there was barely any furniture in it.
So why did it still feel so strangely oppressive?
Still turning that over in my head, I walked over to the bed and pressed down on the mattress with my hand.
The super-single sank softly under my palm, soft enough to remind me of a high-end hotel bed.
“Water works fine. Computer…? It turns on. So there’s power, too…. Hmm? What even is this room?”
It felt real and unreal at the same time.
Things that should have been there weren’t, and yet everything that was there worked perfectly.
I couldn’t begin to understand what the owner of this place had been thinking when they arranged the furniture like this.
…No idea. I can’t even guess at the purpose. Easier to just decide there isn’t one.
No matter how hard I fretted over it, the questions in my head showed no sign of answering themselves.
Fine. I’d put it on hold for now. I was the type who dropped unsolvable problems and moved on quickly.
“So that leaves me with two options.”
I stood in the middle of the empty room, glancing back and forth between the two choices as I muttered to myself.
Two options: the computer, and the front door.
More precisely — gathering information through the computer, or stepping outside to look around.
Which one was right? I had no idea. But if you asked me which one carried less risk…
Obviously the computer. I could sit still, click a mouse and tap a keyboard, and pile up all the information I needed.
“But I’m the kind of person who saves the strawberries for last.”
I was the type who left the best things for the end.
The tastiest side dish got eaten last. The most comfortable, enjoyable task got postponed until everything else was done.
So after a brief moment of thought, I started walking toward the front door.
If you asked which one was the strawberry, it had to be the computer.
“…But is it really okay to just walk out? What if it’s dangerous out there?”
A little flower of anxiety bloomed in the back of my mind.
The thought that opening the door might put me in harm’s way.
What if a nuke had gone off outside and the air was full of radiation? What if there was some poison that killed you the second you breathed it in?
Or what if a knife-wielding robber was waiting right on the other side of the door?
“…Okay, that might be a little paranoid. Still, being careful never hurt anyone.”
I lightly crushed the anxiety underfoot and gave the room another quick once-over.
No need to curl up in a ball, but tapping the stones before you crossed the bridge almost never cost you anything.
Huh. Now that I think about it… there isn’t a single window in this place.
While I was worrying about what it might be like outside, I finally noticed that the apartment had no windows at all.
That was probably why the space had felt so strangely stifling.
Wait. No windows meant… the “external crisis” theory suddenly had a lot more weight. There had to be a reason there were no windows….
“Ugh…! Forget it! I’m going out! I’m already dead once — what’s a second time going to do?!”
Anxiety had a habit of breeding more of itself, one after another.
Sometimes you just had to cut the chain with a little recklessness.
Better to see it with my own two eyes before the fear grew big enough to swallow my will entirely.
Be brave. I whispered it to myself like a pep talk, then grabbed the doorknob with resolve.
I gave it a light twist. It didn’t seem to be locked.
Okay. Open it. If there’s a monster on the other side, slam it shut immediately. Got it?
I gritted my teeth against the heart-stopping tension and shoved the door open hard.
And the instant my eyes properly registered the world beyond the threshold—
Goosebumps raced over every inch of my skin.
“This is…. What….”
Outside the door was a landscape that looked exactly like outer space with every star snuffed out.
There was only darkness. Darkness.
And more darkness.
I couldn’t even take a step forward. Nothing continued past the entrance.
It felt like this single apartment was floating alone in the void.
The moment my brain understood that, my gut whispered a single, clear truth.
This isn’t reality.
“Hhh— hhh— ngh!”
Bang!
I slammed the door shut with a face that looked like I was about to cry.
Then I pressed my back against it as if begging it not to open again, and gasped for air in ragged, violent bursts.
I understood. I had no choice but to understand.
Outside was not the world I knew. Step out unprepared and I could die for nothing in a place that dangerous.
So what, exactly, counted as preparation?
I collapsed against the entrance like my legs had given out, and stayed curled there in silence until the trembling finally stopped.