I Was Reincarnated — 2
So, in the end, am I a man or a woman? And should I even call that a pity?
If I were being generous with myself, it felt like seven parts man and three parts woman. Ten years of a little girl's values were never going to win out over twenty-five long years. No—from the very start, even the sense that I had been living as a "little girl" was faint.
"Yeon Mina! Are you up?"
"Yes..."
If there was one real mercy, it was that Mom was Zainichi, a Korean living in Japan, so my speaking Korean wasn't strange in the slightest. In this house we usually spoke Korean to begin with. For some reason, though, I still couldn't manage to speak it fluently.
"Hurry up, get dressed, and come downstairs!"
"Yes..."
My Korean name is Yeon Mina. My Japanese name is Kayano Mina.
Dad died of pancreatic cancer three years ago, and my only older sister lives on her own, so these days it's just Mom and me. The memories of the ten years I had lived were all still intact, and of course the family of this life was precious to me too.
"I don't think I'll make it home today, so you'll have to eat dinner by yourself."
Mom's name is Yeon Seona. Surprisingly enough, she was an executive at a rather well-known company in Japan.
"You'll be all right on your own tomorrow, won't you, Mina?"
"...Yes. I'll be fine."
And starting tomorrow, I become a fifth grader in elementary school. It had been a single day since my past life's memories returned. With my head this scrambled, could I really adapt? I had no confidence. In my past life I'd had exactly one friend, and I'd been a hardcore outsider who froze around strangers.
I let out a breath and glanced at the mirror on the dining table. A pretty little girl sat there with a vacant look on her face. Obviously, it was me. Lustrous brown hair fell past her waist, and her eyes seemed washed with a faint blue. Her skin was smooth, her face dainty and sweet in every line, and her body was slender—well, she was still a child. Anyone could see it. This kid is going to grow up beautiful. That was the kind of face she had.
Hmm. I was a little irritated with the god who had reincarnated me as a Japanese girl. Even so, there was one thing I liked.
"Hehe."
"What's the matter, Mina?"
"Ah, it's nothing."
The me of right now was an incredibly cute little girl. In that school-caste system they talk about in Japan, someone like me could absolutely gun for the top. Was this that famous thing—an S-rank beauty of the whole prefecture? Well. A child this cute. Even if I'd been a shut-in in my past life, adapting probably wouldn't be much of a problem. Up through that moment, I let a perfectly happy fantasy unfurl.
And then five years passed.
And to this day, I don't have a single friend.
Isn't that strange? It's embarrassing to say this about myself, but I'm pretty. No—I'm just absurdly, outrageously pretty. How do you go five years without making a single friend?
No. I know the reason. From the moment my memories came back until school started, I'd been so busy untangling the mess in my head that I forgot, and I forgot the most important thing of all. The first day of fifth grade. It wasn't until self-introduction time that I remembered.
I, I'm, Kaya, Kaya, Kayano...
I was a complete fucking shut-in. Not my past life. I, Kayano Mina, had been a goddamn friendless outcast with a full-blown communication disorder since before those memories ever surfaced. I'd been a shut-in last time, too, but never on this level.
Meet someone's eyes, and I drop my gaze before I even notice. Try to talk to anyone, and stammering is the baseline. Let another person look at me, and my head starts to spin. It wasn't that something had gone wrong in the past. Looking back on those memories, I could say with pride that it had been a happy home. I had never once fought with friends in kindergarten—then again, I hadn't had any friends in kindergarten to begin with. I was simply born shy, a person with a fear of people who avoided them.
And this is the truly pitiful part: even so, life wasn't particularly hard. My past life had been twenty-five years with a single friend, and I knew better than anyone how to get by without them. I never even thought about fixing it. I just let the days roll on—time, do what you will—and before I knew it, I was a high school student.
Of course I know it's my fault. Thinking back, before I remembered my past life, I had hated living with no friends at all, and I did have memories of trying, somehow. But after those memories returned, I—more used to a shut-in life than anyone—adapted perfectly. Once it felt familiar, I didn't particularly feel the need to change. And this is what I became.
"...What even is this."
From elementary school through middle school, every general remark on my student record had some line in it picking at my relationships with my classmates. Who could possibly understand how that feels?
"...I have to change."
Living like this probably wouldn't be any great problem. Mom, in her own way, cherishes me—her darling daughter—more than anyone. Even if I graduate and spend the rest of my life as a jobless shut-in in my room, she would surely keep supporting me. But I can say this flatly: that is absolutely not the right answer, and it is not a life worthy of a person. I've never actually lived that way, so I can't be precise, but I can't do something that would prick my conscience.
"...Right."
A high school debut. The thing that turns up in light novels and manga, from my past life straight through to this one. With that, I would change. To that end, I had enrolled in a private high school quite far from home, with a high deviation score and not a single middle-school classmate of mine in it.
I drew a quiet breath. From now on, I change—from the friendless, utter shut-in loser Kayano Mina I have been until now, into an ordinary Kayano Mina who at least won't be left out of her class, who can get along with people. Beginning with a high school debut, I am born anew...! So I vowed, steadying my breath.
And then it was time for self-introductions.
"I, I'm Ka, Kaya, Kayano, Mi, Mina. My, my hobby is, um, listening to music, and ga, games..."
I died like a dog.
Well, sure. Fifteen years this life. Twenty-five the last. Forty years, all told, lived as a shut-in. The idea that a person like that changes because of one moment's resolve is absurd. Right—at least I tried. Failing after you take the challenge is better than failing without even trying, isn't it? Mm-hmm. I did my best. It's fine. Good job, me.
...Except it isn't...?!
I wasn't even aiming to become some incredible social butterfly. I'd only sworn I would manage something like Ordinary Classmate A! So why had it turned out like this?
"Fuck."
For the first time in a long while I let a curse out, and buried my face in the bed. This body is far too quick to tears. Even when I try to hold them back, they leak.
"Sniff... I want Mom."
I wiped my eyes and slowly raised my head. Starting tomorrow, shut-in life begins all over again. I sighed, got up off the bed, and dropped into the chair. Lying there wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I might as well get on the computer.
Virtual OnTuber. VTuber, for short. It means an individual, or a company, going on the internet under a virtual character and streaming. I'd watched plenty of them in my past life, so of course the hobby carried over into this one.
I died in 2020. The year now is 203X. I looked it up on a wiki, and a great deal had happened in the world of VTubers. For one thing, the Boss who had coined the word itself had gone on an indefinite hiatus. And in 2025, every VTuber agency I had been sure would never fall went bankrupt. The reason, apparently, was that the gap in outlook between the VTubers and the companies had grown too severe—or something like that. In the fallout, independent VTubers with no company rose quite a bit, but the limits of working alone set off problem after problem, and in the end the genre itself slid into a slump.
Time passed, and five months ago the VTuber genre met a new golden age. Starting roughly a year back, several companies had answered the slump by founding new agencies. Among them, one called Stars Flow hit it big. It wasn't quite the momentum of the old days, but for me—someone who had liked VTubers a great deal in my past life—it was a genuine relief. I'd watched all kinds of them across those five years, and set beside my old memories, the gap between an independent and a company was obviously going to be huge. That gap had reached me, the viewer, as a quiet sense of something missing.
I turned on the computer, opened Ontube, and what I put on was—of course—Natchan's livestream.
Natsune Nanase. Nickname, Natchan. True to the name, she belongs to Stars Flow, their long-awaited very first debut. She had gone live about a month earlier than the other 1st Generation members, and so she is called Stars Flow's one and only 0th Generation. Platinum-blonde hair tied back, and mysterious amber eyes—she was the very person credited with ushering in this market's new golden age.
Five months ago, Natchan played a horror game called There Is Absolutely No Ending, escaping a maze with nothing but a keyboard. Partway through, a clip spread across Ontube: her voice, cut together from the moment she wailed that it was too scary. Views on that clip, three and a half million. No need to explain it. An enormous hit. From there, subscribers poured into Natchan's channel, and in the ripple of it the VTuber market itself began, slowly, to revive, until it arrived at the third golden age it was living through now.
Well. I had been keeping up with her since September 24 of last year, the day Natchan first turned a stream on. So I wasn't the same as the crowd that came flooding in off that clip.
"Natchan's cute today, too."
From the first time I saw her, I had thought her looks were completely my type and that she would become my oshi, and the prediction landed without an inch of error. I keep up with nearly every one of Natchan's streams, and I've even joined her membership. A proper Eighth Star. I have never once regretted the choice....
Natchan's high school days.... She must have spent them shining, just as she does now.
Would I, someday, be able to look back on my own school days like that and miss them?
"Not a chance...."
Missing school days that don't hold a single memory. I'd gain more just rewatching Natchan's streams in that time. How beautifully objective a conclusion.
If I have a memory at all, it's Natchan, inside this screen.... Natchan really is cute, after all.
And that evening, Mom came home for the first time in a while and said it.
"Mina. Stars Flow is recruiting a 2nd Generation this time, you know? How about you apply, too?"
...What?