Chapter 18 — Membership-Only Streams Are Dangerous

"Hehe."

A voice as clear as a gentle current along a riverbank flowed past my ear. How many times was this? I had been playing it ever since yesterday's collab ended, and I was fairly sure I had already heard it well over a hundred times.

Was it really all right for someone like me—no skill to speak of, nothing but trouble for everyone around me, a complete nobody—to receive praise like this from Nacchan? I was so happy I could die.

"Heeheehee."

I rolled over and looked up at the ceiling, where the stickers I had plastered there as a child were glittering. Among them, I thrust a hand with all my strength toward the star-shaped one. Of course, my fingers closed on nothing. Stars were never meant to be touched in the first place.

"Heheheheh."

But for me, the simple fact that I could reach was enough. That I couldn't touch it only stirred the feeling swelling in my chest all the more.

"Mmm."

A bright little tan-tan-tan spilled from my phone, announcing four-thirty. Maybe it was time I got ready to stream. Today's broadcast mattered, so I had to prepare properly.

...L-last time. Just three more listens.

Separate from channel subscriptions, Ontube has a feature called membership. Put simply, a viewer becomes a member by sponsoring a set amount to a given channel every month. You could dismiss it as throwing money away, but joining an Ontuber's membership does come with a fair number of perks on the viewer's side: member-only community posts, for one, or a badge proving you belong to that channel.

And the most important of those perks was the broadcast I was about to do, limited to membership members. Men-gen, for short. A stream that, literally, only people who had joined could watch. On a men-gen you usually said the things that were hard to say on an ordinary broadcast, or showed whatever you happened to be practicing. Nacchan's members-only chat stream on February 23, for instance, had been legendary.... Well. The point was, you did all sorts of things.

And what I was going to do on today's members-only stream was—

"Ko-Konzumi~. Affiliated with Stars Flow, the atmosphere maker who dreams of a wo-world where everyone can smile.... I'm Kaino Izumi...."

It was just a chat stream.

"Th-thanks for the red hyperchat, Accel. I'm g-glad you had fun. It's because my genmates helped a lot, though."

"Oh..."

A rhyme that sharp, cutting straight in. It felt like it was putting a little tension back into a VTuber scene that had gone slack.

"W-well, as you can see, I was thinking I'd s-start with just a ch-chat."

There was quite a lot I could have done if I'd wanted. I could have prepared a game to play with the Iztomo. But I had chosen a chat stream, the hardest thing of all for me, for a reason.

"I really f-felt it during yesterday's co-collab. I need to l-learn how to hold a conversation a little better."

It was for all the VTuber work still ahead of me. More than anything, I wanted to fix this personality. Making friends might be too much to hope for, but if I could at least do something about the stutter, or the way I dodged people's eyes, that would be enough.

While I was at it, I also wanted them to know what kind of person I actually was. The people on this stream had joined the membership of someone like me, so it ought to be all right to be honest up to a point. The fact that I was neither some ultimate social butterfly nor an atmosphere maker, for example.... I was curious just how shocked the Iztomo would be to hear it.

Well. They'd already seen through every bit of it, hadn't they—the shut-in loser, right down to the gloomy communication disorder...?

...Why had my streams ended up like this? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like Stars Flow was the one in the wrong.

"A-anyway, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it's a chat stream I didn't really prepare anything for, so if there's something you w-want to ask, feel free."

I had said they could ask anything, but of course—if it was going to be obvious, it was obvious—the chat was packed with yesterday's collab.

"Th-there was once. While I was laying low for two weeks, Na-Natsune-senpai sent me a DM telling me to hang in there. It's my heirloom for life. J-jealous?"

I had been drowning in self-loathing through that whole stretch, but I made it through thanks to Nacchan's DM.

"Eh? Me, a co-collab with Na-Natsune-senpai? Impossible. I'd seriously die. Someone like me, daring to collab with Na-Natsune-senpai..."

There was no way I could do something that outrageously presumptuous. For someone like me, even getting to talk to Nacchan was more than I deserved. Unless Nacchan herself was the one to suggest it, absolutely not. Not that such a thing would ever happen in the first place.

"I'm not being negative. The world is what's wrong."

"Sh-shut up!"

Let me make one thing clear. What matters to a girl is empathy. Empathy! This was the moment to empathize, not to shove cruel reality in my face. If I hadn't been a reincarnated man whose ages added up to his forties, I couldn't have taken it this well.

...Was I actually an angel? Here I was, smiling and indulging even viewers like these. Oh, right. Speaking of angels, that reminded me.

"B-but yesterday, in the middle of the collab... didn't you f-feel something scary from Miss Koga...?"

The more I thought about it, the stranger it was. I was sure I had heard Miss Koga mutter, Well, shall we let it slide for now, when I talked about my first impression. But when I rewatched yesterday's collab alone, her line wasn't there at all. I couldn't write it off as a mishearing. The atmosphere I had felt in that moment didn't feel like a lie. It had been genuinely terrifying, all right?

"...Oh. Th-then we'll say I was in the wrong."

"That's too mean!"

So empathy really was this hard to come by....

Before I knew it, more than an hour had passed since the chat men-gen began. Surely I had banked a decent amount of communication experience by now.

"Mmm, then I should start wrapping..."

"Ah, th-thanks for the red hyperchat, Uncle. ...There w-wouldn't be anyone around me who'd s-say something like that in the first place, right?"

I had no communication skill because I had no friends, and here they were asking something ridiculous. Of all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the questions, why did this have to be the last one?

"Huh?"

And yet, for some reason, the mood in chat had gone strange. What? I had only answered the way I always did. When I scanned the messages, it seemed they thought I had sounded like I was about to cry. I had simply run out of communication stamina....

...Well. I could leave it at that!