Is It Wrong to Chase a Calamity on a Monthly Collab? (You Shouldn't)
"Suzuhai~! I'm Koga Suzuha, the angel who wants to be praised by everyone!"
"Konzumi…. I'm the atmosphere maker, Ka, Kaino Izumi."
"It's finally starting—our once-a-month regular collab!"
"Y-yeah…."
So the day I had been dreading had arrived after all.
The monthly collab we had promised at the last offline one. It was supposed to begin last month, but for one reason and another, we had decided to start this month instead.
…It wasn't entirely my fault. Most of the cause was mine, I'll admit, but Koga-san had said she was busy last month too….
"Just so everyone knows, we'll probably be doing this on the third Sunday of every month, so please keep that in mind."
"First we'll settle on a collab unit name, read some Mycarong, and then move into chatting, don't you think?"
Koga-san watched the chat and slipped into hosting with practiced ease.
This was a collab, though. I couldn't just sit there and do nothing.
"Yes. We're on my channel right now, but next month it'll be on Izumi's."
"R-right…."
Whew. Two whole lines already, not counting the greeting.
At this rate, don't I count as having tried hard?
"…."
The chat smashed that little happiness circuit of mine in a single blow.
So everyone really did think something was off.
"Huh? What are you talking about? Us, fight? If we had, we wouldn't be collabing, hehe."
Koga-san broke into a giggle at the chat's speculation.
"Th-that's right. We didn't fight…."
Right. We hadn't fought.
I was simply so awkward, all on my own, that the words wouldn't come. But think about it. After Nacchan's first-anniversary live, when Koga-san came to see me, she cried—and I cried an absurd amount too. With a memory that humiliating between us, how was I supposed to hold an ordinary conversation?
"This won't do. We'll have to do another offline collab sometime, won't we, Izumi?"
"Uehhh…."
"That reaction is way too much!"
I wasn't the strange one.
Koga-san, laughing as if nothing at all were wrong, was the communication monster.
"Then let's start by deciding the collab unit name."
"O-okay…."
Honestly, I thought Suzuizu was perfectly fine, but for some reason Koga-san was against it. If we were going to hold a regular collab, she wanted a proper unit name.
"Everyone, what kind of name do you think would be good?"
"That feels too half-hearted…. This is the first time we're forming an official unit, so please think of something cool!"
"Th-then, Koga-san, did you already have something in mind…?"
If she was rejecting the name Suzuizu this hard, didn't that mean there was something she wanted? That was the thought behind the question.
"Well, not especially…. We're asking because it's hard for the two of us to come up with one on our own."
That was the answer I got.
…Then Suzuizu would have been fine, wouldn't it?
Say that out loud and Koga-san would scold me half to death once the stream ended. Better to keep quiet.
A chat like that caught my eye.
Shiroki no Umi. A pure white sea. White was the color an angel like Koga-san stood for, and I was the avatar who governed water, so it seemed like a fitting enough name….
"Shiroki no Umi…. It's certainly nice, but it feels like something's a little missing."
Koga-san must have seen the same chat. That was her impression, and she was right—it really did feel about two percent short.
"White. Color. Sea. Water…. Sky. Su-kai."
Ah.
"Th-then how about 'Blue Sky'?"
The other way around. Take the blue that symbolized Kaino Izumi, and the sky, together with Koga-san's setting as an angel descended from heaven, and say it in English.
"W-well, saying it in English just looks c-cooler…."
A ring to it. The feeling of being moved by the sound itself. A man's little romance. Even if I explained, Koga-san would never understand.
"Blue Sky. Blue, Sky…. Yeah. I think it's good. It rolls right off the tongue."
The chat was full of potshots like that, but if Koga-san said it was fine, then there was no problem.
"Th-then the collab unit name is Blue Sky…."
I had come up with it myself, and I thought it was a good name.
Maybe I have a little talent for naming.
"…You just took the viewers' suggestion, flipped it around, and wrote it in English. That's the whole of it."
Please don't read my thoughts whenever you please….
In the end, we settled on Shiroki no Umi—the Pure White Sea, the very name that had first sparked something in me when I saw it in chat—as our collab unit name.
I had meant to go with Blue Sky, but Koga-san's last remark stung my pride, so I took it back. The truth was, I had no talent for names at all.
…Shiroki no Umi. It had felt a little lacking the first time I heard it, but the longer I listened, the more it resembled Black Star, and I found I liked it.
Maybe because it was a collab, the Mycarong were full of questions about each other. In my case, for instance, they asked how it felt to watch Koga-san pretending to be the big sister….
Of course, if I answered with the truth—I think she's cute—she would obviously get angry, so I wrapped it carefully and said that Koga-san was a truly reliable, wonderful older sister.
Even then, for some reason, her reaction was bad. Lately I had started to wonder whether she really could read every thought in my head, and it was genuinely frightening….
"Hmm. A cute genmate, I suppose? Well, that includes the others too, but since I'm the biggest sister, I figure I have to lead from the front."
"Heheh…. If you o-only look at her height, sh-she's the cutest one…."
…Ah.
"Hah?! So you want to fight, Izumi?!"
"I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
I left the Misscode call in a panic.
I hadn't imagined the thought would slip out of my mouth on its own.
…What do I do now?
"I-I'm back…."
In the end, I connected to the Misscode call again.
"Izumi…. Didn't I already say something about this last time?"
We were in the middle of a broadcast, and she still scolded me for a solid hour.
"Come to think of it, you've been starting your streams a little late lately, haven't you? Given the timing, is it the culture festival?"
"Yes. I ended up h-helping make the decorations…."
The stream was over, but Koga-san and I simply kept talking on the call. The embarrassment from before had been watered down quite a lot, thanks to her scolding me so thoroughly just now.
…Was I really allowed to call that a relief?
"But if it's culture-festival prep, don't you usually stay at school a little longer?"
"I was p-put in charge of making the flyers at home, so I only make some simple decorations and h-head back first."
A week had passed, and I had drafted about four designs, but every one of them felt a little lacking. They were flyers. They needed a charm that would catch people's eyes for certain.
"I see. So when is the culture festival at your school? Next week?"
"Ah, y-yes…. It r-runs for two days, next Thursday and Friday."
Fortunately, our class's cosplay-café preparations were coming along smoothly. I had taken a peek. The costumes were astonishingly well made, and I had tried one of the brownies we would be selling—it was genuinely delicious. We would probably be popular enough on the day itself.
Of course, for that to happen, my flyers had to be extremely important. The moment I thought so, the pressure became enormous….
"Next Thursday and Friday, huh…. Don't you have something to say to me?"
"Ah, y-yes?"
Something to say?
Hmm. Was she trying to offer some kind of help? Well, Koga-san had already been through a high school culture festival three times. She was experienced. There were bound to be parts of the work where I could use a hand.
Unfortunately, everything I had been given was something I could finish alone. At most, once the flyer design was done, I might ask her to look it over. That seemed to be as far as it went.
"Um. I th-think I'm all right for now…."
"…All right. Then shall we leave the call here for today?"
"Ah, g-good work today."
"Yeah. I'll contact you again tomorrow."
With a little chime, Koga-san dropped out of the Misscode call.
…What was that? Toward the end, it had seemed like she was a little angry. I was worrying over nothing, wasn't I? After all, I hadn't done a single thing wrong….
What was this. I could have sworn I had just had this exact conversation with Koga-san.
While I sat in that déjà vu, another DM arrived from Akabane-san.
So I had been planning to sort it out once the culture festival was over….
Meeting in person might be a burden on both of us, so a gift card for somewhere expensive instead.
"…Ueh?"
Our school's culture festival did let us invite up to two people besides family, but I had naturally assumed I would never have a reason to use that right. I was just about to ask whether she really meant to change it to that, when another DM came in from Akabane-san.
Already, it seemed, I had no right to refuse.