A Glamorous? Debut

I don't have a single thought in my head.

Which is because I don't have a single thought in my head.

"..."

I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling, and the cute little stickers I stuck up as a child—back when I used to play at home by myself—come into view.

"..."

My first Golden Week of high school is drawing to a close. It goes without saying that I spent the whole of it inside the house. For me, a day off is time alone at home, letting the fatigue I've piled up come undone. Then again, I'm always alone, holiday or not.

I watch Ontube until it's late, fall asleep, wake up around lunch, and eat something simple. After that it's manga, anime, and light novels, a little gaming, and then drawing while I watch Nacchan and the other VTubers stream deep into the night, and only then do I sleep. I wish every day could be a day off.

But even this Golden Week ends today. Starting tomorrow, am I supposed to go back to being the little sheep wedged in among the popular kids, the one who has to get shaken loose? Honestly, that's terrifying.

I ought to settle my heart ahead of time. Maybe I'll watch a few clips before Nacchan's livestream starts. Offering myself that excuse, I sit down at the computer on this last day of Golden Week and log into Ontube.

Four-fifty in the afternoon. A golden standby screen floats on the monitor. Same as always, I draw a long breath and quiet the thump in my chest, so I can watch her.

Time creeps. Fifty-five. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Ding!

"What."

What is this notification, cutting in when I was about to type Konhoshi faster than anyone alive? I want to ignore it, but sometimes Mom sends something important, so I can't.

I'll still get my greeting in before I go, of course. Saying hello to Nacchan is the single most important thing I do all day.

And the text waiting on my phone turns out to be very important indeed.

This is actually happening?

I couldn't very well say, in the paperwork or the motivation video, that my mother had recommended me, so I thought hard and sent it off with as much passion as I could muster. Even so, it's a little absurd.

And today, of all days, is the last Sunday of Golden Week. A document-screening pass, arriving today. Stars Flow—you really are a terrible company, aren't you?

I believe in fate. A little.

No—I have no choice but to believe. I've experienced a past life in this very body. After that, what is there left that I couldn't believe?

Which is to say: the moment Mom first brought it up, wasn't I already fated to become a VTuber?

"Mom. I passed. Stars Flow, 2nd Generation."

She sounds half unconvinced, and she's the one who recommended me. Well. I don't quite believe it either, right now. Who would ever think that someone who froze at the interview after the document screening, and failed to answer a single thing properly, would actually pass? I don't have any streaming experience, and I'm hardly gifted at being social. Why on earth did they pick me? It's the mystery of the century.

"Yes. The debut's in two months, they said. July. And they said they'd contact you separately, too..."

"Okay. Hang in there."

I tap the end-call button, drop into the chair, and look at the monitor.

"Wow, you guys are really good."

On the screen, Nacchan is playing a racing game with her viewers. She said at the start of the stream that it was her first time, and that seems to have been the truth: the veteran viewers are toying with her without a moment's rest. Even that is cute....

"Last again. How many races is this?"

"Come on. Still, if we're all doing this together, we ought to fill at least two hours."

I want to focus on Nacchan's stream the way I always do. I can't.

"I'm really going to be a VTuber under Stars Flow. The same agency as Nacchan."

It doesn't feel real. Even so, this joy rising in my chest is real.

"Hehe."

I could never show a feeling like this to anyone, and yet a laugh slips out of me all on its own. I don't have a friend to tell, in the first place. Someday I'll get to collab with Nacchan, won't I? I'm looking forward to it. The fact that I have to stream is a little scary. No—very scary. Well, the me of that future will just have to handle it! Future-me is going to be an incredible social butterfly, twice as strong as I am now. She'll obviously be good at streaming, too. Hang in there, future me.

All right. Then, for now, I'll send Nacchan a Hyperchat and pass this happiness along.

Without hesitating, I pay five thousand yen and send it.

Nacchan, of course, answers with a bright smile and all her usual kindness.

"Kayamina, congratulations! I'll be praying that happy things keep coming your way!"

Nacchan really is an angel. I should clip this and save it, and watch it every single day.

"Are you really sure this is all right?"

"It'll probably be fine."

Two women sat at one table. One of them wore a faintly woeful look. The other was smiling gently.

"I can certainly tell that Miss Kayano likes VTubers—Miss Nanase in particular. But I don't think she has any talent for streaming."

The woman with the woeful look—Katsuki Noa, a mid-level manager at Stars Flow—said it in a level voice. Thinking of Kayano Mina, she gave a small shake of her head.

Up through the first time she watched the documents and the video that carried the girl's reason for applying, Noa had felt warmly toward Kayano.

Sixteen: an age more than old enough for a dream and a passion. Passion like that, Noa had thought, was exactly what Stars Flow needed. She might have no track record for now, but someday she would become another popular VTuber, one to follow Natsune Nanase. That was what Noa had believed.

But on the day of the interview, the illusion she had been holding was smashed to pieces.

The girl struggled just to meet someone's eyes. She couldn't answer the questions properly. Right to the end, she couldn't hold a real conversation. Noa almost wanted to ask how she had even made it as far as the company.

This wasn't going to work.

With that judgment, Noa moved to fail Mina.

But the woman smiling in front of her now had passed the girl in the end: Aikawa Renka, representative and general producer of Stars Flow, who had conducted Kayano Mina's interview alongside her.

"No matter how I think about it, it's impossible. If a child like that works as a VTuber, the company will have problems—and she herself clearly won't be able to endure it, will she?"

"Well, helping with that sort of thing is our role, isn't it?"

Noa could not read Renka's thoughts at all. Not that she doubted Renka's ability.

When Nanase had first applied to Stars Flow, everyone at the company had opposed it. A young lady who knew nothing of the world, they said, could never survive in a VTuber industry that was already in a slump. Exactly two people had disagreed. Yeon Seona and Renka insisted that Nanase had potential, and they forced her through. And in the end, hadn't Nanase brought the whole industry a new golden age? After that, Noa had no choice but to acknowledge Renka's eye.

Even so.

"Even so, this child..."

Anyone looking at her would have had to shake their head.

For a moment Noa wondered whether they meant to hire her because of her mother—because she was the daughter of Yeon Seona, a director at Stars Flow's parent company and Renka's old friend. The thought vanished from her mind as quickly as it came. Noa knew how serious Renka was about VTubers, and a suspicion like that would have been no different from insulting Renka, who had worked without a single pause all this time.

"Don't you find it strange, Noa? A child that cute, and yet getting even a single word out in front of people is too much for her."

At Renka's words, Noa called Mina's face back to mind.

Brown hair falling past her waist, so well kept that the gloss was obvious at a glance. Mysterious blue eyes, the sort that made you think, at first, that she might be mixed with Western blood. Smooth skin without a single blemish, and a delicate, finely drawn face. She was short, but her proportions were remarkable. And when she kept her mouth shut and stayed quiet, there was a calm about her, like looking at a doll. Of course, the moment she opened her mouth, the spell shattered completely. Even so, speaking of looks alone, she was an extraordinarily cute girl.

"...That is certainly true."

A girl that pretty, and a case of communication disorder that broke the whole illusion the instant she spoke. It was, truly, a story Noa couldn't understand.

"I did wonder if something had happened to her. But I asked Seona, and she said that wasn't it. So the personality is innate. And with a personality like that, she still applied for the 2nd Generation. I find that rather amusing."

"I'll grant that if you use that personality well, it could become an enormous charm point. But no matter how I think about it, isn't this too much of a gamble?"

"As I said a moment ago, helping her with that is our role."

Noa tried, one last time, to persuade Renka. In the end, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she had to give up.

"Hoo."

My heart is pounding.

"Today, this body's broadcast ends here!"

On the screen, the avatar of Akabane Yukari—a fellow member of the Stars Flow 2nd Generation—wears a cocky smile. I watched her yesterday, too. A cocky little chuunibyou with red hair. The voice included, it suits her absurdly well.

"The next broadcast, that one is finally coming! I said it earlier as well—that one is, in name and in truth, the strongest among us!"

Miss Akabane, please don't do that. I'm begging you. I really don't have the confidence....

"Then—farewell!"

With that, Miss Akabane's stream ends, and the ending video begins to roll.

The time now is 8:50. And in forty minutes, at 9:30, my debut stream finally starts.

My stomach is starting to turn.

"...I want to give up, even now."

Of course I can't. My age is twenty-five years of a past life plus sixteen of this one: forty-one in all. A proper working adult's age. I can't run away over something like this.

I quietly open a window and read, once again, the profile of my character—the one I've already gone over so many times.

I look at the avatar up on the screen.

Black hair falling past her shoulders, a hat tipped back on her head, one hand flashing a V. A school uniform worn loose, a cardigan knotted at her waist, and at her throat a choker set with a silver gem. A wide, bright smile, a little snaggletooth, and striking red eyes. The very picture of a social butterfly among social butterflies—anyone would nod along.

"...Even so, this is impossible!"

They saw exactly what kind of person I am at the interview. Why did they give me a character like this? Stars Flow, you really were a terrible company after all.

One of the important things about being a VTuber is what's called RP. Role-playing. A VTuber is, in the end, performing a fictional character, which means you have to keep at least a minimum of concept. And no matter how I look at this, it is not a character I can pull off.

Of course, RP is only one element in the end. You don't have to embody the character perfectly. If you run a stream in a flow that fits you, and fold the concept in where it fits, that's enough. But this concept is far too much the opposite of me.

"I really do want to give up!"

Before I know it, the time is 9:28. Two minutes until the stream begins. I'm so nervous I feel like I might cry. Cold sweat is already running down my back. The standby screen is up on the monitor.

The manager's text might as well be telling me that, this time, I truly cannot run.

"Hoo. Hoo."

I steady my breath and slowly put the headphones on.

"Why did I have to be last...?"

Three of my peers debuted ahead of me yesterday. And today, the last act of the Stars Flow 2nd Generation debut falls to me. I'd rather take the beating early and get it over with.

Together with the manager's text, the alarm announcing 9:30 begins to sound.

"Hnnn..."

I shut the alarm off and draw one last breath.

Right. Whatever else is true, this is something I chose. Now I really do have to start.

I pull myself together and switch from the standby screen to the one with my self-introduction written on it. And I unmute the microphone.

"H-hello, everyone. M-my name is Kaino Izumi."

Huh?

I definitely just said it. In the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chat, they're saying the picture changed and no voice is coming through. Weird.

"H-hello, everyone. My name is Kaino Izumi."

Oh. Is the music too loud? I pause it for a moment, then open my mouth again.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Kaino Izumi."

Ah. This is a bust.

I know it at once. A VTuber's concept breaking, to some extent, happens all the time. Keeping up a character for a whole stream isn't easy to begin with. But on the first stream, at least, it is an unspoken rule that you do not break that concept in any major way. And right now, I seem to have broken the rule spectacularly, from the very start.

"...Haha."

My gut, trained by a long life in the VTuber community, renders its verdict.

A Calamity. From the opening second.

Fuck.