There's No Way I Could Do a Collab—No Way, No Way! (※It Wasn't Impossible?!) — 2
Koga Suzuha, a VTuber of Stars Flow's second generation, had confidence in herself. She was someone who had already come through the countless hardships of her days as an underground idol.
Even her short stature, which to some people had become a standing joke, she had remade into a new kind of charm, wielding that lively personality of hers and a wickedly sharp gift of gab. And a VTuber stream was internet broadcasting where you didn't even have to put weaknesses like that on display, so Suzuha overflowed with confidence.
My streams are going to be fun no matter what. I can definitely make it.
That was the shape of it. Nor was it empty bravado. On the solo channel she had briefly thrown herself into after retiring from underground idol work, she had hit a hundred and fifty thousand subscribers in only four months.
As if to answer that confidence, Suzuha's channel grew at a startling pace. Ninety-three thousand subscribers. Among Stars Flow's second generation, it was far and away the best record.
Yukari and Ayaka had spun the Ayakari pairing into being a mere week after debut, but the nature of that unit meant they more or less shared a subscriber base, so they grew more slowly than Suzuha. Nekoto gave off such a strong otherworldly, four-dimensional air that she felt like a small and devoted elite. Izumi, for her part, had certainly landed an enormous impact at debut, only to go straight into a two-week self-imposed hiatus, so of course her channel's growth was plainly slower.
Not that Suzuha was the sort to assign people ranks by subscriber count. They were colleagues and peers at Stars Flow, people she would keep standing beside from here on, and the moment she actually saw them she had sincerely wanted to grow close to every one of them. Because of that, she talked with the other debut-mates over DMs for twenty or thirty minutes almost every day.
The only one she had never managed a real conversation with was Izumi.
Whenever she opened with a bright Hello, Miss Izumi!, back came Hello. And that was the end. Afterward she tried, again and again, to draw the thread out from her side. Every attempt failed. What Suzuha learned from it was this: Izumi was so hopeless at talking to other people that calling it fatal would not have been too strong.
The near-silence the first time they had met face to face hadn't been because she saw her peers as rivals. She simply could not hold a conversation with another person. It would have been a lie to say Suzuha felt no curiosity about why a girl that genuinely, doll-like cute—no exaggeration—was living with a fear of people. For the moment, though, the wish to get even a little closer outweighed the question.
Izumi's voice, halting, came back to her. "Ah, it's not that I don't talk at all? K-Koga, or U-Utsumi, and Akabane, and Aki, th-they message me on Misscode sometimes?"
"No. From where I'm standing, that's no different from not talking..."
So the sigh that had slipped out of her yesterday, watching Izumi's stream, had been inevitable.
Anyway, that was also why she had accepted, without a moment's hesitation, the collab stream with Izumi that their manager had proposed. She wanted to know more about what kind of person Izumi was, and to grow closer to her as a peer, a colleague, and the younger sister she had come to know. She wanted to teach all sorts of things to this complete broadcasting newbie. With her own ability, Suzuha was sure she could do it well enough.
But.
"Miss Izumi. This is our first collab. Isn't there anything you're curious about me?"
Through the call, the answer arrived in pieces. "Uh, um. S-so. Wh-what's your type, M-Miss Koga?"
"Eh?"
That sky-high confidence of Suzuha's was, at this very moment, beginning to bend.
After the clumsy self-introductions were over, the one who spoke first was Miss Koga.
Thank goodness. A shut-in loser is the ultimate life-form: the moment one of us brings up a topic first, the mood goes strange...
Her voice came through, bright and careful. "Miss Izumi. This is our first collab. Isn't there anything you're curious about me?"
Under ordinary circumstances, that question might have been a little NG. It was the kind of question that made me the one who had to pick the topic. But who was I? Kaino Izumi, who had sworn she would become a VTuber who grows. I was not about to get flustered over something like this.
"Uh, um, s-so. Wh-what's your type, M-Miss Koga?"
"Eh?"
For some reason, Miss Koga sounded thrown by my question. Why? It was a question I'd gotten on stream yesterday myself, and not a particularly hard one to answer. Holding that doubt, I looked at the chat...
Ah.
Right. Now that I thought about it, yesterday I had gone and made a yuri declaration...
"Th-that's not what I meant! I asked because I was p-purely curious, for real!"
If I had to pick a lover or an ideal type, it would be a girl. That did not mean I liked girls!
"I-it's true! When girls get together, they n-normally talk about love, don't they?! Th-that's what I was taught!"
Have a conversation and you squeal kyaa, kyaa! about each other's ideal types. That is what the creature known as a girl does, right? I definitely learned it from manga and light novels, okay?
...Why did it feel like not a single person was listening to me?
"M-Miss Koga? I-it really is a question with absolutely no personal feelings in it?!"
"Ah, yes. I know, so it's all right."
Miss Koga said it was fine, but she couldn't hide the faint tremor in her voice. I wished someone would clear my name.
"Um... I think I'd like someone I could rely on. Someone I could build that kind of relationship with."
"You little shits—!!"
Of course it was true that Miss Koga was exactly my type, looks-wise, and that I had thought she was cute. That did not mean I had been having those kinds of daydreams! A debut-mate I would keep working with from here on—could an outsider like me even think something that arrogant?!
I actually had. I was sorry....
B-but imagination is free, isn't it?! A scrub like me only imagines it, that's all! There hadn't been a shred of ulterior motive in the question!
"Ugh...!"
"...Hahahaha!"
While I was locked in a war of nerves with the chat and couldn't get a single word out, Miss Koga suddenly burst out laughing. Excuse me—I was pretty sure she shared some of the blame for the situation turning out like this. Instead of laughing and spectating, couldn't she help me a little?
"Ah. So this is your style, Miss Izumi?"
"...Yes?"
An uneasy premonition crawled up my spine. This was that sensation I only ever felt standing in front of the ultra-social crowd...
"U-um, M-Miss Koga? D-did I do something wrong?"
"Ah, it's nothing. I just feel like I understand what kind of person you are..."
As if the chill from a moment ago had been a dream, her voice was full of gentleness.
...Had it been a misunderstanding?
"We can't just stay like this, so shall we move on to the next topic? I'd meant to loosen us up by asking things we were curious about, but for you, Miss Izumi, we'd better run it mainly off the questions that came in through Mycarong, the way we planned at the start."
"Ah, okay! I'm counting on you, Miss Koga!"
Shut up, you little shits.
"Haa. Finally over."
The stream had ended, and so had the call with Izumi. Suzuha let out a breath and leaned back in her chair.
"...Pfft."
The collab had pulled a viewer count she could proudly call a success. What kept circling in her head, though, wasn't the numbers. It was Izumi.
"M-Miss Koga? I-it really is a question with absolutely no personal feelings in it?!"
"I-I'm right. You guys are wrong. Th-there, proof complete. In technical terms, it's Q.E.D.!"
Suzuha was very small, and cute, and so her school friends and her coworkers often treated her like a doll or a toy. It wasn't that she disliked it. She knew they did it because they liked her. Still, now and then she had wondered what on earth was so fun about it. Today, for the first time, she thought she could understand their feelings, if only a little.
"Huh? You and I are the s-same kind of otaku, you know?!"
"Eek! I-I'm sorry! I-I was wrong! P-please don't unsubscribe!!"
Hopeless, absolutely hopeless at talking to people—and yet the moment she got even slightly ahead, she puffed up as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and the instant that caused a problem she teared up and apologized. The more Suzuha pictured it, the more she felt something rising inside her. The thought welled up that she wanted to see Izumi's teary face again.
"M-Miss Koga, today was fun, and f-from here on, p-please take care of me too."
She remembered the request she had heard from Izumi after the stream, just before the call ended.
"I think I'm the one who wants to make that request..."
Murmuring it in a faintly ominous tone, Suzuha quietly set her fingers to the keyboard.
Ding!
"Hm?"
The DM had come from Miss Koga, the same Miss Koga I had just finished a collab with. And the moment I saw it, I sent a reply without even thinking.
...Could Miss Koga actually be an angel?