This Guy's Not Right in the Head, Is He?
Japan's winter break lasts all of two weeks. Truly, absurdly short—short enough that I catch myself thinking they ought to retire the name and call it a cry-break instead.
Or am I wrong? It starts at roughly the same time as it does back in Korea, and the stretch is simply so much shorter that "a winter" might be the more honest word.
And today is December 30th. This winter break of barely two weeks is already on its fifth day.
I wish someone would tell me it was a lie....
While I was busy fleeing reality, Miss Koga's rebuke came flying in.
"Even if you try to look away from reality, it won't work anymore, Izumi."
I want to tell her to stop reading my thoughts as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but at this point, would it even matter?
"...Do I r-really have to?"
"Then of course you do. Were you planning not to?"
"H-honestly, it came on so s-suddenly that it's weighing on me. I k-keep wondering whether I'm even qu-qualified...."
Think as hard as I like about what I've actually done on stream, and isn't it nothing but setting communities on fire? I understand that very thing is what grew a channel you could search in vain for a single real strength—but even so, this is too much....
"You let the 100k celebration stream slide, so the 150k endurance stream and the celebration stream absolutely have to happen!"
"Ugh...."
Right. The subject of this talk between me and Miss Koga was my channel, now staring down 150,000 subscribers.
The current count sat at 140,893. Only a few days ago it had been 110,000, and then clips from the Christmas stream spread until, in a flash, 150,000 was right in front of me. As of yesterday that insane rate of climb had stopped, thankfully.
...Wait. Was that actually something to be thankful for?
And what had been so fun about that stream—the one where all I'd done was embarrass myself on my own—that it turned out like this...?
In any case, an endurance stream: keep broadcasting until the subscribers hit 150,000. And after that, Miss Koga was saying, there absolutely had to be a celebration stream for reaching it.
"B-but subscriber endurance st-streams are usually just chatting, or s-singing, right? I-isn't that too much for me to d-do right away...?"
If I turned the stream on and had to wait until we hit 150,000, it would clearly take a long while. Two hours at the very shortest, wouldn't it?
...Chat with people for two hours?
No matter how positively I tried to look at it, wasn't that impossible? A song stream was out from the start, thanks to the stutter.
"...When you put it like that, you do have a point."
"R-right...?"
It wasn't even 200k. Doing a celebration stream at 150k felt a little off, didn't it?
Of course, as someone with an oshi of my own, I knew the Iztomo wanted an endurance stream and a celebration stream. I used to want Nacchan to go live every time the last digit of her subscriber count landed on a five. But I'm not Nacchan, so I figured it was fine to treat myself differently on this point.
"You know that's a ridiculous thought, right? You can tell from even a glance at the community."
"...Is what I'm th-thinking really that easy to r-read?"
"You're pretty simple, Izumi, so it's incredibly easy."
I see.
Well, I already knew what Miss Koga meant. Open Nater this second and search my name, and—
—that was about the size of the opinions out there.
But at 100k, that had been... a pretty rough stretch, so I couldn't help it. In the end it had finished with a simple thank-you. The Iztomo knew that, which was why they hadn't had much to say about there being no 100k celebration stream. If anything, I knew I ought to be grateful they'd let it pass quietly.
I was grateful. I just never thought they'd take the fact that I'd skipped 100k and hold it hostage.
"...Don't you th-think the Iz-Iztomo are being too much?"
"If I were an Iztomo, I'd think the Izumi trying to quietly skip 150k as well was the one being too much."
Miss Koga was right.
But.
"S-someone like me, the f-first of the second generation to hit 150,000...."
Even Miss Koga, who streamed harder than anyone else in the second generation, was still only in the late 120,000s, from what I'd heard. And Miss Akabane, Miss Aki, and Miss Utsumi all streamed far harder than someone like me....
Of course I didn't mean I wanted to rank us by subscriber count. But a stream's viewer numbers end up acting as an enormous measure, don't they? For someone like me to sit at the very top of that measure was strange. The person qualified for it wasn't me. I didn't want to watch the effort of people who had been running hard all this time get betrayed.
"...'Someone like me'? What's wrong with you, Izumi? I think your streams are incredibly fun. There's a lot I actually learn from watching them."
"B-but I don't even stream for very long.... I c-can't keep RP properly, and I set off a C-Calamity every s-single time...."
"You don't stream long because you're still a student, aren't you? RP falling apart has already settled in as one of the charms of an Izumi stream. And of the things you call Calamities, how many were actually serious and bad?"
Miss Koga, shooting down every word of mine as if each of hers were the correct argument. There was plenty I wanted to say. I just didn't know how to say it.
"E-even so, I still think you, Miss Koga, and everyone else...."
"Izumi. Too much modesty is just a lie. And it's not as if you're about to turn a stream on and say please unsubscribe, right?"
"Th-that's true."
"So put down that weird burden. For the endurance stream, you can just read Mycarongs and pass the time, can't you? You'll burn an hour or two chattering anyway, the moment something you know well comes up."
"...I w-won't make that kind of m-mistake anymore... I won't. ...Probably."
Honestly, I couldn't promise it. Whenever it had happened before, it had never once been because I wanted it to. Before I knew it, I'd simply done it.
"If a chat stream feels that heavy, just doing Dotsumachi would be enough to satisfy everyone. You've never once joined our Dotsumachi, or the seniors'."
Dotsumachi. That wasn't easy....
"With your personality, Dotsumachi might be hard, sure. But it's still not content you can go a whole lifetime without doing. I think this is a fine time to start."
"Okay.... I'll th-think about it."
"Yeah. Then give it your all for tonight's endurance stream and tomorrow's celebration stream! If you're thinking of doing Dotsumachi, contact me."
"Understood...."
Miss Koga dropped the private Misscode call, and when I checked the time, the clock pointed to one in the afternoon. I wanted to hit 150,000 as fast as possible and then rest, so maybe I'd start around five. Which meant I ought to put the notice up on Nater first.
"O-okay, s-so, it's Mycarong time, back after so long, b-but...."
In the corner of the screen, a number was written: 141,001. No need to say it. My current subscriber count.
More viewers than usual, and more red Hyperchats than usual. Honestly, this was an incredible amount of pressure.... But I'd already started the stream. There was no taking it back, was there? Miss Koga had said she was cheering for me, too.
"F-first, if I talk about how I feel right now... a little? No. Really, really d-dazed...."
Did I even have the right to this? That thought rose, too.
"...Even so, everyone keeps ch-cheering for me, so I can tell that I'm here because of that."
"Uwah.... There are so many H-Hyperchats, I'll read them all s-separately later."
There were as many as back when monetization had first been approved. If I tried to answer every one of them, I'd never get to the Mycarongs at all.
"Then I'm going s-straight to the Mycarongs...!"
Hizumi!
Before I knew it, 150k is right in front of us! As an Iztomo who's been watching since the very first livestream, all kinds of thoughts are coming to mind!
Thinking back, Mei-chan said she applied to Stars Flow in order to find someone to talk to, right?
I think that part has been resolved to some extent now. Has a new goal come up?
"You've been watching a st-stream like this from the very beginning. This guy's a w-weirdo, isn't he...?"
No, but it was true, wasn't it? I might have improved a fair amount by now, but that first stream, even looking back on it today, had not been it.... Hadn't it been on the level of applauding a black cat for being amazing? Of course, the fact that someone who had watched me then was still watching me now was nothing but something to be grateful for.
"A goal. A g-goal, huh...."
Just as the Mycarong said, at the start I had applied for no reason but to find someone to talk to. After that, I'd thought I would make a stream I could proudly call a Stars Flow second-generation stream. If someone asked whether I'd actually achieved that second goal... nodding would be difficult. Even so, I did think I was working hard in my own way. Hard enough that it felt all right, little by little, to set a new goal.
"A goal. Yeah. I have one."
I knew it was difficult for now. Better than anyone, I knew that my personality and my habits were what made it hard to reach.
"B-but subscriber endurance st-streams are usually just chatting, or s-singing, right? I-isn't that too much for me to d-do right away...?"
Right. For now, it was hard. But that was absolutely not the same as saying I would give up.
"I w-want to stand on a stage... and try doing a l-live...."
That was the goal I had set for myself—me, who even now could barely manage a song stream, because of the habit of stuttering.