Nia Day

When you set your worries aside for a moment, of course you feel far more at ease than usual.

Nia was still a fledgling independent streamer — barely two months into her career, a sprout only just beginning to push through the soil.

Granted, if you measured her by sheer scale, she was already closer to a towering tree growing at an absurd rate than any ordinary newcomer…

But by classification alone, she was still much nearer to a rising star just starting to crest the horizon.

Set aside her steadily expanding influence and her future potential for a moment, and the simple physical fact remained: she had only been showing her face for a very short time.

In any case, her live streams felt less like those of a newcomer and more like those of a prodigy — less a rookie, more a master already in the making. And those streams…

If you had to draw a comparison, they were less like a snack you grabbed for a light mood and far closer to a carefully plated multi-course meal at a refined restaurant.

Nia always announced the content of her streams at least two days in advance, stoking her viewers' interest well ahead of time.

And those carefully prepared broadcasts, once they began, were packed tight and delivered in a short window — three hours at the longest.

The structure was closer to a television show than an internet stream, really…

But she worked hard to fold in the free accessibility and intimate back-and-forth unique to the online world, and that effort was enough to keep her firmly inside the category of independent internet broadcasting.

That said, it wasn't exactly the type of stream that suited an internet culture whose audiences largely preferred a lighter atmosphere.

As some famous O-Tuber had once put it: an internet stream should never feel awkward or burdensome no matter when you drop in.

Rather than a broadcast where the fun was guaranteed but missing even a single beat left you lost, the style preferred by far more viewers was the one that might be a little dull — but never felt heavy no matter when you tuned in.

Perhaps that was why. Among the fans who loved Nia, some of the viewers already accustomed to conventional internet streaming would occasionally voice those kinds of complaints.

Just once — just once — they wanted to watch a light stream where she simply chatted about nothing in particular, rather than the usual weighty, content-driven broadcasts.

That wish had been quietly piling up in their hearts without them quite realizing it.

But after two consecutive days off, a third day of cancelled programming had been unceremoniously tacked on. Nia's devoted viewers, who had spent ages sighing over that devastating news, found themselves equal parts delighted and thoroughly bewildered by a stream that had simply… turned on, with no announcement whatsoever.

They had grown somewhat used to Nia streaming whatever came to hand — Ooparts or otherwise — without a single consistent theme…

But even she had one ironclad rule that never changed.

Namely… there were absolutely no unannounced streams. No so-called guerrilla broadcasts. Ever.

The somewhat excessive reactions from Nia's fans — the Parang-dan — weren't strange at all.

The hardcore Parang-dan who never missed a single stream and rewatched the same VODs two or three times over had long since ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠realized that Nia disliked unplanned broadcasts.

…You want a guerrilla stream? Hmm…. Would that even be fun? I'm the type who doesn't feel secure without content…. I'll think about it, okay!

The girl who was always introducing her viewers to new worlds would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deflect those requests as if guerrilla streaming were some forbidden territory she simply wasn't allowed to enter.

A great many of her regulars had even floated theories — that some mysterious salvager company she'd mentioned early on was forcing her to do content-focused streams, or that some anti faction was pressuring her with nasty emails.

Of course, contrary to all that suspicion, the reality was simply that Nia herself lacked confidence.

Enough digression. Anyway — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back to the point. Going live without a single word about the content was an extremely unusual event.

Perhaps that was why. Compared to a normal day, when nearly four thousand people would pack the waiting room within five minutes, the viewer count was climbing at a noticeably slower pace today.

Most of the diligent viewers who usually checked the schedule down to the minute and got ready to take their seats had assumed she was off and gone elsewhere…

But to Nia, staring blankly at the stream settings screen with her usual waiting-room graphic up, that fact brought a small measure of relief.

Slurp.

Beyond the waiting-room graphic of a cute chibi Nia bouncing across a meadow under a blue sky, the sound of someone sipping something came through.

The culprit was, of course, Nia — and for a girl who never put so much as water to her lips on stream unless it was a cooking broadcast, it was a remarkably rare bit of everyday noise.

So when the viewers who quickly figured out the source of the sound asked what she was drinking, Nia let out a brief, vacant ah — as if she'd momentarily forgotten her mic was on — and then confessed to her thoroughly curious audience that she was drinking something warm for her stomach.

The moment she finished speaking, chat flooded with messages of concern — enough to somewhat overwhelm the curious reactions.

Apparently, going live with no announcement at all had concentrated the density of hardcore fans to a considerable degree.

Blinking at a chat window several times more favorably disposed toward her than usual, Nia couldn't help but wonder whether she really ought to turn the camera on.

They were reacting like this just to a brief mention of an upset stomach. If she showed them how she looked right now on camera… she was already feeling a little dizzy imagining what kind of response that would draw.

But perhaps because she'd phrased it a little vaguely, a very small-scale scuffle broke out in the thinner-than-usual chat.

It was a spark flicked by one of Nia's anti-fans — a group so diminished by now you practically had to call them a handful — but some of the viewers, already unsettled by the news that someone they loved was hurt, had reacted with raw sensitivity.

Of course, the somewhat free-floating tension of a stream that had drifted away from Nia's usual crisp, point-by-point everyday broadcast atmosphere probably contributed as well.

But instead of stepping in to stop them from fully tearing into each other, Nia quietly clicked her mouse and adjusted a setting.

She knew there was a far simpler method than going to the trouble of policing people who were souring the stream's mood and kicking them out.

Nia switched the waiting-room graphic of a bright-eyed chibi Nia frolicking across a meadow over to the high-performance cam fixed above her monitor.

And there, filling the stream, appeared the studio apartment her viewers knew so well — and Nia herself.

The figure that rose onto the screen was more than enough to stun thousands of people.

Instead of her usual pristine white outfit, Nia was wearing a loose, comfortable-looking hoodie and training pants that reached her ankles.

But her face, her neck, and her hands were plastered with bandages and gauze as if she'd tumbled down a flight of stairs.

It was a pitiful, heart-wrenching sight that practically begged for the word patient.

And yet that sorry-looking Nia flashed a grin at her thoroughly shocked viewers as if to say these wounds were nothing, then lifted something from under the desk and declared with full confidence:

What she'd lifted was a clean, pure-white handheld microphone.

And right on its heels, a lively musical beat came rolling in, throwing the still-stunned viewers into even deeper confusion.

Nia gazed into the camera with a mischievous face, as if declaring that if they just sat there frozen she'd leave them behind.

It was the expression of someone who had, for a moment, set down whatever she'd been carrying on her shoulders — light, unburdened, free…

And then a bright, driving bass line began to pound against their hearts.