As Expected, I'll Never Understand the Social Ones…
"Hey, Izumi."
"...Huh? K-Koga?"
"Yeah."
Koga dropped onto the cushion beside the kotatsu as if she had done it a hundred times. It was nearly ten at night. How had she turned up at an hour like this?
"Yuika-nee. Coffee's fine, right?"
"Mm."
Izumi was too flustered to get a grip on the situation. Utsumi, perfectly at ease, brought Koga a coffee, and Koga drank it with the same ease, working the TV remote like someone who already knew where everything was.
"Ren. Any snacks in the house?"
"We'd have to go buy some. Want to come?"
"If there aren't any, forget it. We've got mandarins. I'll just eat these."
Koga started peeling a mandarin in comfortable silence while Utsumi came back with her own coffee and slipped under the kotatsu. Izumi turned it over for a moment, then carefully opened her mouth.
"Um, so... Koga, how did you get all the way here at this hour...?"
"...Hm? What's this, Ren. You didn't tell her?"
"We were already planning to meet tomorrow. I was going to tell her then."
"Ahh... so she wouldn't have known."
"Wh-what do you mean...?"
Her flustered reaction must have been terribly entertaining. Koga and Utsumi both covered their mouths and snickered.
"Izumi. This place—where Ren lives—it's an apartment building, right?"
"Y-yes..."
And not just any apartment. A newly built 1LDK. The first time she saw it, she had been quietly amazed that anyone got to live alone somewhere this nice.
"If it's an apartment building, then obviously somebody lives next door, too."
"...I, I guess so?"
"That's me."
"...What?"
"I'm the one living next door to Ren."
Mm. So if she tried to line up what Koga and Utsumi were telling her...
"Koga and Utsumi are... childhood friends?"
"Yeah. Our parents were close, so we've known each other since we were little."
Looking back, there had been plenty of signs. Koga had teased her during that first group collab. The two of them had shown up together for the first shrine visit of the year. And off stream, whenever it was just the group talking, Utsumi always called Koga by her real name. Izumi had chalked all of that up to Utsumi's terrifying talent for being everyone's friend.
"I was already living here. Ren said she wanted to try living on her own, so she followed me."
"What are you talking about? Yuika-nee was the one who said this place was fine and told me to come!"
"You kept waffling, so I made the decision for you."
They raised their voices at each other a little, but neither of them looked truly angry. It was the kind of talk you could only have when you were close. The kind of talk I never managed to have with that person. Not even at the end.
"Well, we live right next to each other, so when one of us gets bored we drop by. Like today."
"Most of the time I'm the one going over to Yuika-nee's, though."
"I used to come to your house plenty back then. It's your turn to visit."
Living next door because they were childhood friends was one thing. Joining Stars Flow together was something else entirely. That was genuinely astonishing.
"Then... did the two of you apply to Stars Flow separately?"
"Hm? Oh, not exactly. When I was working a regular job, it was brutal. Streaming as a hobby wasn't going anywhere either. That's when Yuika-nee told me Stars Flow was recruiting for the 2nd Generation, so I applied too."
"I already knew how far you could get as an indie. If I was going to try being a VTuber again, I wanted to do it under an agency. Then Stars Flow put out a call, and I thought if we were going to do it, doing it together might be fun. We were both already streaming on our own anyway."
"Ahh..."
Come to think of it, unlike her, both of them had past-life accounts. Koga's had been a chat stream where she talked about her days as an underground idol. Utsumi's, as far as she remembered, had been ASMR.
"But the two of you don't really get paired together, do you...?"
Koga was constantly paired with her. Utsumi was constantly paired with Akabane or Aki. If they were childhood friends, wouldn't pairing them have helped more?
"I already see her every day. I didn't particularly want to be stuck with Ren on stream, too."
"Pretty much the same for me."
That made sense. If you saw someone every day, you could let it show that you were close, but dragging that onto a broadcast wasn't necessarily a good idea. VTubing—internet streaming, more precisely—meant you always had to show people something new. Once you were already used to each other, that part might actually be harder.
"Then today, too... did you come to see Utsumi, the way you usually do?"
"...Something like that."
"Liar! You came to see Izumi!"
"Haah?!"
...Huh?
"I wanted to talk with Izumi today, just the two of us, for ages! You already said we'd hang out tomorrow!"
"If we're hanging out tomorrow anyway, what's wrong with talking now? And how does that turn into me coming because I wanted to see Izumi?"
"Yuika-nee never comes to my place. If you showed up today, that's the only reason there is!"
"I-I just came, okay? You're always the one visiting me, so I felt bad..."
"Since when do you think about things like that?"
Somehow she felt as if she had personally opened a battlefield.
...Forget it. I'm going to sleep.
She was tired anyway. With the kotatsu pouring heat into her, she could be out this very second.
"Izumi's asleep."
"Yeah. She'll catch a cold if she sleeps in the kotatsu..."
"Lay out a futon in the room. I'll wake her and take her in."
"Okay."
Ayaka got up at once, went to the room, and spread the futon. Suzuha woke Izumi with a light shake of her shoulder.
"Izumi. There's a futon ready in the room, so go sleep in there. You'll catch a cold if you stay here."
"Mmm... too much work... I'll just sleep here..."
"Now."
"Okay..."
Between the two of them they propped up a sleep-swaying Izumi, laid her down in the room, and came back to the kotatsu.
"Izumi's out, so how about a can of beer, Yuika-nee?"
"Sure."
It was already past ten, but that hardly mattered to either of them. Staying up late with a drink was an ordinary part of their lives.
"Haa..."
"So why did you actually come today? At first you said you'd just come tomorrow."
"...I told you earlier. I got bored, so I came over."
"Really? I thought you showed up in full Izumi is not allowed to hang out with anyone but me mode."
"What kind of nonsense is that."
At Ayaka's words, Suzuha let out a short, scoffing laugh.
"I just... came because I was worried about something."
"Worried? She's with me. What's there to worry about?"
"I don't know."
Even under Ayaka's interrogation, Suzuha only shook her head. She didn't answer. She couldn't. Ayaka was the younger one she had known for more than twenty years. Make something up here, and Ayaka would see through it immediately. And just as Suzuha was quick to notice things, Ayaka—who had been beside her since they were small—was no slouch either.
"Well, you did come because Izumi was on your mind, right?"
"...I can't say she wasn't."
"You've been like that since we were kids."
"Guess so..."
"But Yuika-nee, you never really liked people who tease you about your height. Izumi ribs you about it more than she lets on, so it's a little surprising you'd care this much."
"Well, it's a kid cuter than me doing it. Doesn't really bother me."
"She's taller than you, though."
"Hey."
Suzuha gave her a light smack on the shoulder, and Ayaka burst out laughing. It was a joke they could make, and a reaction they could have, only because they were easy with each other.
"When other people say something about my height, I can feel it. Like there's malice in it. With Izumi, there isn't any of that. She just feels... incredibly pure."
"So you like her?"
"Yeah."
"Izumi's in trouble, then. It's rough when you get possessive~."
"Haah? Say that where people can hear and they'll think I actually am!"
Suzuha knew it herself, of course. She did get a little possessive of the people around her. But it never reached the point of being hard on anyone. That was what she believed, anyway.
"I'm really glad we joined Stars Flow. Everyone's a good person."
"...Yeah. I hope all of us can keep going for a long time."
"Haaah..."
She got up in the morning, ate with Koga and Utsumi, wandered around outside until three in the afternoon, and came home to a body that was screaming at her. Thank goodness she had moved her dance lesson off yesterday. If she had gone in like this, she would have fainted halfway through. How were the two of them, both older than her, able to walk around that much? As expected, she would never understand the social ones.
That aside—Koga and Utsumi, childhood friends. She had heard plenty of stories about close friends working together, but realizing the people right beside her were one of those stories felt strange. If she'd had the chance, would there have been a future where she worked with that person, too?
...Well. It was a meaningless question now.