How Does Mom Even Know About VTubers?

"Mina. Stars Flow is recruiting for the second generation this time, you know? Why don't you apply too?"

For a moment, my thoughts stopped cold.

"...What?"

Why had the name Stars Flow come out of Mom's mouth? The only Stars Flow I knew was a single VTuber agency. And no matter how I turned it over, I could not picture Mom knowing the first thing about VTubers.

I took a careful sip of water and studied her. Neat jet-black hair, brown eyes. Put her in a suit and that cool, aloof air only grew stronger — an office lady, through and through. There was no way a mother who looked as if subculture had never once crossed her path would know Stars Flow. I must have misheard.

The comforting delusion — that Stars Flow is planning to recruit their second generation had only been in my head — did not survive contact with reality.

"It... is?"

"Mm. So how about applying this time? I've already prepared the paperwork, so all you have to do is submit it."

Mom pointed to the document envelope sitting in the corner of the table. So that thing I'd been wondering about was a Stars Flow application packet?

"H-how does Mom even know about VTubers?"

At a question packed with every doubt I had, Mom tilted her head just slightly and looked at me. At a first glance the face was blank enough to steal your breath, the impression a little sharp. But I had lived with her for fifteen years. I knew. She wasn't angry. She simply wasn't thinking about anything at all.

"Hmm. Is it strange for a mother to know her daughter's hobbies?"

"Th-that's not it. This just feels a little different from knowing a hobby, doesn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

Mom stared at me with a vacant face. To think someone this faintly airheaded was competent enough to have been on television. The gap was unreal.

"Simply knowing your daughter's hobby, and knowing internal news like a recruitment announcement, aren't the same thing..."

"Oh, you didn't know? Stars Flow is a subsidiary of Mom's company."

"...Eh?"

"From the moment I realized your hobby was watching VTuber streams, I studied up. And once I did, it was obvious. The VTuber industry really had fallen into a slump, but it was still a market with plenty of potential."

Stars Flow was a subsidiary of Mom's company? I knew the place she worked was an entertainment firm with its hands in all sorts of things — games, anime, manga, dramas. But they had pushed into the VTuber industry too?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"So I proposed to the company that we try entering the business. Stars Flow is what came of that."

Wait. That meant—

"Mom."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever actually talked to Nacchan?"

"Nacchan — you mean Miss Nanase?"

"Yes!"

"Miss Nanase was someone I recommended myself, in the first place. She was a cute girl."

I was jealous. Jealous enough to grit my teeth. The person who had debuted my oshi was my own mother. Did that make Mom my benefactor? No — even setting that aside, she already was.

"Anyway. So how about applying to Stars Flow's second generation?"

Right. That was what this conversation had been about at the start.

"But why are you telling me to apply?"

"VTubers are your hobby, aren't they?"

"They are."

"And your dream for the future?"

"...What? What do you mean by that?"

"Hm?"

Mom wore the look of someone who couldn't quite follow what I was saying. My face was probably doing the same.

"Sometimes, when you fall asleep with the computer still on, you're looking up the history of VTubers, the price of equipment, things like that, aren't you?"

I had only looked because I was curious.

"So I thought you wanted to become a VTuber. The market itself had value, so I proposed it to the company — because I wanted to be able to help you like this, later on."

An astonishing fact, brought to light today. Stars Flow, the agency Nacchan belonged to, was a company a certain mother had founded in order to support her daughter's dream(?).

"I just like watching VTubers. I've never once thought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about becoming one."

"...Is that so?"

At my answer, Mom lowered her gaze and drank her tea. Her face said it was nothing, but fifteen years of Mom-expression-reading skill told me otherwise. Right now she was devastated. The proof was her mouth, pushed out just a fraction — so slightly you'd miss it if you weren't looking closely.

"Mom must have been mistaken."

She had been. That much was true.

"I thought you would like it."

What was this feeling.

"That's a shame."

Somehow I felt as if I had done something terribly wrong.

"If it was my misunderstanding, I won't force you. But Mina, could you think about it just once?"

"Think about what?"

"Applying to Stars Flow's second generation."

Saying it, Mom was wearing what was unmistakably a gentle smile.

"A VTuber doesn't stream with their own face, do they? They stream according to a character's concept."

"Right."

"Then I think it's something you could do even if you're shy around people. And if you kept streaming, I think that problem would get a lot better too."

My school records were, of course, full of remarks that amounted to notes on my personality and my friendships, and Mom knew every one of them.

"You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said once before that you wanted to fix a personality like that, didn't you?"

"Yes..."

"Then I think it would be all right to try, at least once. That's what Mom thinks."

There were plenty of people who insisted they were loners and streamed in order to fix their personalities. Watching them, I always thought the same thing: where exactly was a loner like that? A loner who could lay out all that content in front of people whose faces they didn't even know — where? If a black cat somewhere was making that claim, I would ask them straight out. You wouldn't happen to have a talent for being popular, would you?

So, to put it honestly, I had no confidence. No confidence I could run a VTuber stream with a personality like this. And even if I did, I couldn't believe this personality was something I would be able to fix.

"So just think about it once, all right?"

But.

"...Okay."

There was no way I could refuse when Mom had gone this far. I nodded and quietly took the document envelope she held out.

"But if it's a subsidiary of your company, then calling it an application is just a word, isn't it? Isn't this basically nepotism?"

"Don't worry. Stars Flow is a gathering of people who are serious about VTubers. They don't care about a title like mine. Prepare halfheartedly, and you might even fail."

"Urk."

"It's true. Even when we picked Miss Nanase, opinions were split something fierce. And from that paperwork alone, almost no one would realize you're my daughter. At most, only the president would know."

Well, if Mom was willing to state it that flatly, then that was probably how it was. Still — opinions had been divided over picking Nacchan? Stars Flow. Maybe it was actually a bad company....

Manga and novels come in every kind of genre. Among them, the school love comedy: you attend school, meet all sorts of characters, incidents break out, and relationships move forward. Do you know what defines the protagonists of those love comedies?

The protagonist's seat. The very back seat on the window side of the classroom. The only person allowed to sit there is, without question, the hero of a youth-soaked school life. And I had something other people didn't — memories of a past life. A complete protagonist flag, wasn't it? In other words, a seat I was more than qualified to claim...! There had been a time I thought that.

"Thank you for today!"

"Right. Get home safe, all of you."

Of course, the me of now had already woken up to reality, perfectly. My current seat was toward the back of the room, off to the right of center. A seat an Extra A might occupy — and, for a loner of my own somewhat voluntary making, the seat that suited me best.

"What are you doing for clubs later?"

"I want to try the cooking club."

"I'm going to think about it a little more."

Terrifying, the popular kids. They had met only yesterday, and already they talked as if it were nothing. That nerve. Then again, I had dreamed of that once too.

Clubs? I, of course, went straight home. The going-home club. I had to get back as fast as possible for Ontube, the anime I was behind on, and my light novels. What — escape the loner life? There was no way I could manage that, not after crashing and burning so spectacularly on day one of my high school debut. I was too embarrassed. Absolutely not.

"Um, Kayano?"

Just as I finished packing and was about to leave the classroom, someone called my name from behind.

"...Yes?"

I steadied my hammering heart and turned. A girl from my class was looking at me with a slightly stiff expression. She had definitely been sitting at the very back — the top of the school caste... what was her name again.

"Um, we're all getting together today, for class bonding. What do you think? We meant to do it yesterday, but you'd already left before anyone could ask you."

Class bonding? Of course I wanted to go. But if a loner like me showed up, wouldn't I just kill the mood, and that would be the end of it? St-still, refusing an invitation like this wouldn't be right, would it?

"I— I have, um, plans today..."

I was about to say I didn't, that it was fine—

"Oh, if you have plans, it can't be helped. Then let's say you're sitting this one out."

Classmate A stepped back with a word about what a shame it was, slipped in among the gathered kids, and — face flushed — started squealing away.

"Figures. She has plans..."

"She left in a hurry yesterday too, so..."

"I mean, someone like that..."

"I heard from a friend who went to the same middle school as Kayano..."

It didn't feel like a shame at all. She hadn't even let me finish. So it really had been a formality, hadn't it? It always had.

This is not a lie: I really am a beautiful girl. Beautiful enough that I still catch myself admiring the mirror now and then. Even so, I had wondered more than a few times whether the standard of beauty had shifted somewhere in the ten years since I was reborn. No matter how garbage my social skills were, I had believed that with a face like this I would make friends of a sort.

And yet, looking back over all fifteen years of this life, there wasn't really anyone I could call a friend. So the worry had crept in that tastes had changed completely, and this appearance I had thought beautiful was actually an ugly one. Of course, a single look at the celebrities and actors on television cleared that up. The reason I was a friendless loner, an outsider, was simply that my communication skills were garbage — impressively so.

...Well, a few of the boys had approached me, but their intentions were obvious, so I was the one who turned them down. In the five years since I had remembered my past life, the pattern, when I thought about it, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had always been the same. New classmates spoke to me on the first day, or the second.

"We're getting together to bond. Want to come?"

And while I was still hesitating—

"Oh, it isn't mandatory, so it's fine if you can't."

They retreated with an answer like that. Or, like today, when I tried to say I didn't have plans—

"If you have plans, it can't be helped."

They cut me off and pulled back. And from the next day on, no one spoke to me first. No matter how badly I had botched the self-introductions, the last chance to escape lonerdom — the one this ridiculous looks buff ought to have bought me — vanished just like that.

In other words, sadly, I had been fooled again today, like an idiot. But even knowing that, expecting something is a habit of people who are alone.

"Haa."

Maybe I gave off a loner aura so strong that even my looks couldn't hide it, and everyone noticed and fled at once. ...I would go home, cry a little, and watch Nacchan clips until today's stream started.

Three weeks passed before I knew it. And in that time, I...

"Nacchan's cute today, too."

...had not changed in the slightest, of course. Go to school. Open my mouth for nothing except the occasional answer to a teacher. Spend the hours alone, come home, and watch VTuber streams, or manga and anime. That was the routine.

"Haa."

A sigh of sadness had barely left me when Nacchan's voice reached me. Everyone watching the stream was a friend...

"...Should I apply?"

Right. Now that I thought about it, there was that saying, wasn't there? I do have friends — internet friends. Applying might not be so bad. If they couldn't see my face, there were probably things I could actually bring myself to say. And more than anything, the people watching a VTuber live were all loner otakus like me, weren't they? Then we would have even more to talk about. In a world this wide, there was no way I was the only person like me. And more than anything, Mom seemed to want it too....

"Haa."

It wasn't because I wanted to.... I was satisfied with my life as it was.... I wasn't like that black cat.... It was all because Mom wanted it...!

I let out a sigh and took down the Stars Flow application papers I had stuck on the bookshelf the other day.