When the Conversation Stalls, Do This
My collab with Kurokami-senpai was set for three days later, September 16.
I had been training with Koga since the week before so I wouldn't slip once we were actually on together, which left nothing to do but wait. Koga was still fretting that she was anxious, of course, but yours truly is the type who gets stronger when it's real. In this collab, I was certain, not a single letter of the word Calamity was going to appear.
"You all probably saw today's notice, so you kn-know, but the collab with Kurokami-senpai is three days away."
I could tell myself that all I liked. Getting anxious is simply what the creature called a human does. Which meant I had to keep practicing, right to the end, so I wouldn't make a mistake.
"Honestly? I-I'm not okay.... I want to r-run away so badly...."
Of all the six senpai I had, it had to be Kurokami-senpai.
I watched her streams more than anyone's except Nan-chan's, but that was strictly from a viewer's seat, not a VTuber's. If I was ever going to collab with the senpai, I had wanted to save Kurokami-senpai for the very last of the last. Not because she was difficult to be around. Chatting with her lately had shown me just how kind a person she was. What felt awkward was a collab with Kurokami-senpai.
And for good reason....
"Everyone says Kurokami-senpai and I are s-similar, but we're actually complete opposites...."
Me, whose personality couldn't carry the RP, and Kurokami-senpai, whose circumstances couldn't carry hers. To anyone else, both RPs probably looked equally sloppy. There was a crucial difference.
That was exactly it.
Most VTubers these days took the avatar's role as a foundation and made their own personality the weapon of the stream. Put simply, the avatar's concept was only the spark that got a broadcast started, so even if the RP began to crack a little past a certain point, viewers almost never left.
Kurokami-senpai's situation simply failed to support it, but she was utterly devoted to the role of a girl dreaming of being a villainess. Someone who had debuted last October still hadn't broken that RP once, eleven months later. Her speech was always a young lady's speech, and no matter what happened in the content, she tried to act as the villain.
It felt less like watching the VTubers of now, who armed themselves with personality and built everything around live play, and much more like the earliest VTubers, the ones who uploaded videos and put the character's concept and RP above all else. A lot of Kurokami-senpai's viewers, people said, were fans who had loved those early VTubers.
...And the thought that people who had been watching VTubers since back then were still watching was a little frightening.
Thanks to that chat, people seemed to have caught what I meant.
"Yeah. That's right...."
In other words, even when I didn't mean to, there were plenty of times my streams brushed RP aside, which put them at complete odds with Kurokami-senpai's, where the RP was kept airtight.
"That's why I turned the stream on — to practice c-communication!"
My avatar, Kaino Izumi, was a Water Avatar who had taken an interest in human civilization and was now enrolled at a Japanese high school as a lively schoolgirl. The important part wasn't the Water Avatar. It was the high school girl. More precisely, a high school girl who was an ultra-inssa, a super social butterfly, and the one who made the atmosphere.
"...Because if I actually become a c-communication expert and an ultra-i-inssa, everything gets solved."
Expecting a senpai who had held her RP together for nearly a year to match me would have been shameless. So of course I was the one who had to match her.
...Probably not.
In game terms, it felt like a stage that had been designed from the start to be unbeatable. Still, I couldn't just sit there and do nothing. The me of now could probably dodge a Calamity somehow, but that didn't mean the collab would succeed. A collab the viewers found boring was a failure.
If this one came back with the verdict boring, the greater risk was clearly on Kurokami-senpai's side. And a collab turned out boring, as a rule, when two people's directions clashed and dragged the fun into the negative. So our directions had to line up, at least to some degree.
I didn't have to aim all the way for ultra-inssa. Quarter-inssa ought to be enough, shouldn't it?
Aim for it. Quarter-inssa...!
"Hmm. First I'll show you the list of things to watch for that K-Koga wrote down for me."
I copied the DM Koga had sent me and pasted it into a notepad.
One. If you have nothing to say, do not bring up the weather for no reason.
Two. Do not sink into your own thoughts and break the flow of the conversation.
Three. Do not tell stories only you would know.
Four. If senpai brings up a topic, listen, and answer clearly.
Five. If the content is a game you play together, pick something you both know, or something neither of you knows at all.
Six. If a topic makes you think "should I even say this?", just don't.
Seven. When reading Mycarong, skip any question that might put a burden on senpai.
Eight. When you're going back and forth, it's better to just give and take clearly.
…
Thirty. A collab should be fun for both of you!
The forbidden list Koga had sent ran to a full thirty items. Well, the last one was only a cheer meant to encourage me, so in practice it was twenty-nine.
"I-I actually called Koga Mom after she sent me this, and I g-got scolded...."
She had told me that if I had time for nonsense, I ought to memorize one more line. Thinking that looking after me this thoroughly had to be maternal instinct — that had been my mistake.
"But isn't this too much? Even if I'm an o-outsider with a communication disorder, so much of this is basic. As if I'd bring up the w-weather...."
I wasn't the protagonist of some old gag manga. There was no way I would say something like that.
"Don't underestimate me!"
"Hmm."
A difficult question. If that situation really did arrive, what was I supposed to do?
Ah.
"L-like, ask about her ideal type?"
"Ghk."
True enough. I already had a record of asking Koga her ideal type and making the mood go awkward. Was quarter-inssa really this hard a goal?
"Th-then what am I even supposed to bring up?"
"You guys are so strict...."
...Wasn't being an outsider far more comfortable for getting through life than being an inssa?
Conversation took skill, but if you never had a conversation in the first place, you didn't need the skill. Then I wouldn't need help from Koga or the Iztomo either. Wasn't being social actually an enormous pain...?
"Then I'll just live as an outsider...."
"You made me like this."
"That's true...."
Then I would just be satisfied with memorizing the list Koga had sent. Right. Quarter-inssa might have been too grand a goal for someone like me....
"...Let's just t-talk about the weather!"
"Well then, bye, everyone. See you next time...."
Today was September 15.
Which meant tomorrow was the day of the collab stream with Kurokami-senpai. And today was the day we decided what the collab would actually be.
Before my reply — that chat would be fine — could even send, a call request from Kurokami-senpai rose on my Misscode screen.
...I shouldn't press decline, should I?
In the end I squeezed my eyes shut and hit accept, and with a soft chime the call connected.
"Ah, hello...."
"Yes, hello. First of all, I'm counting on you tomorrow, Izumi."
"I-I'm counting on you, too...."
Kurokami-senpai's voice was a little different from the one I heard on her streams — soft and gentle, the kind that tickled the ear.
"What I wanted to say is simple. When we do the collab tomorrow, it's all right if you do it in whatever way is comfortable for you."
"...Huh?"
I couldn't make sense of it, and my head tilted before I noticed.
"I mean it exactly as I said. You don't have to match my RP. Just do it the way that's easy for you."
"Uh, um...."
What she was saying was the very thing I had been turning over for three days.
"B-but if we both k-keep the RP s-strictly and m-match our d-direction...."
My head was spinning. Of course it was. She was telling me that the thing I had been agonizing over all this time was fine. Anyone could see it was one-sided consideration from a senpai. I was glad, and so terribly sorry....
"Um, th-that's... I'm s-sorry. Um, uh...."
Slowly, my mind washed pure white.
"I know why you're worrying. I watched yesterday's members-only stream."
"...Eh?"
Kurokami-senpai had watched my members stream?
Heat rushed all at once into the mind that had gone blank. Had I said anything strange? I tried to recall the members-only stream from two days ago.
...Huh. Why is the only thing I can remember the conclusion that we should talk about the weather?
"One side is a stream that tries to keep the RP strictly. The other uses RP as only one element. A problem could come from that difference in direction. I do think that could happen."
But, Kurokami-senpai went on.
"That doesn't mean you have to change your own streaming style. Think of it the other way. Two people who are completely at odds, streaming together — mightn't that be more fun?"
....
"...Uh, Mom?"
"...So Suzuha was telling the truth. You don't only blurt out strange things on stream. You do it in conversation, too."