Something Feels Off About Doing Yuri Business With Her (1)
Doing yuri business with her feels off somehow. (1)
Internet broadcasting—personal streams in particular—feels like endlessly muttering to yourself. If I had to compare it to something, it’s like talking to a wall that never answers back. Cruelly enough, the moment you stop speaking, the broadcast’s life force begins to drain away. That’s why keeping the words flowing is absolutely vital if you want the stream to run smoothly. It’s a lot like pedaling a bicycle hard so it doesn’t tip over. Maybe that’s why most people who start streaming for the first time end up collapsing during that long monologue marathon. Small viewer counts, limited topics, and the tension of actually being on air all conspire to create silence.
Thinking about it that way, I guess I’m pretty lucky. From the very start I had a flood of viewers, plenty of material thanks to the VTuber roleplay and setting, and I’d already practiced handling all kinds of situations back during my trainee days. Somehow I managed to keep the energy up and run a pretty successful broadcast.
“…So originally I never exercised and just holed up in the snowy mountains. But the president said stamina was really important for streaming, so I started working out seriously after that.”
“Ugh, I really do have two left feet…. What kind of exercise? I usually just run. Even on debut day I was so nervous that I ran until my clothes were completely soaked even though it was winter, you know?”
“Seriously! We agreed we weren’t going to bring up that slip-up again! And that pink emoji—stop using it, it looks perverted!”
Snow’s debut stream had safely wrapped up, and it had already been a week since I started doing regular broadcasts. The atmosphere in my chat was pretty much like this. Whenever I said something, the comments that scrolled up felt like elementary-school boys teasing me. Some of them were so transparently thirsty that it was hard to know how to respond. If I had to compare it to a classic RPG class, I was basically the tank taking all the hits up front. At this point I was more like a punching bag. I was seriously going to burst at the seams if they kept this up—ease up a little!
‘…I didn’t plan on this kind of vibe.’
According to my VTuber setting I was supposed to be a snow maiden, and my appearance was obviously the cool noona type. I’d wanted to stream like the quiet, attentive beauty who lived next door. Maybe it was because I kept accidentally showing gaps during the broadcast. Now I’d ended up in the position where viewers just hammered me with chat the moment I opened my mouth. There were definitely more people being gentle with me during the debut stream and the one right after, right? How did things turn out like this after only a week?
Worried about the direction the stream atmosphere was heading, I asked the president for advice. She answered without a shred of hesitation, completely merciless.
“Well, you’re just incompetent. Lasting three days is already pretty long, if you ask me.”
“What?! How am I incompetent?!”
Where else would you find someone as careful and considerate as me! I denied it, but all I got back over the phone was mocking laughter.
‘Well… it’s not like it actually hurts my feelings or anything…’
Still, seeing the chat scroll up so actively gave me a sense of satisfaction. If it had been nothing but empty praise and positivity, it probably would’ve been harder. I didn’t have that kind of cute-girl energy inside me like the other members did. Maybe this rough, friend-like back-and-forth suited me better. Besides, when I looked at their reactions, I could tell they were teasing me because they liked me. Even when they got a little mean, I could just laugh it off.
Huh, am I actually built to be a punching bag?
“Alright, that’s it for today’s stream! It’s already past midnight—thanks for watching again today! Bye-bye.”
Realizing it was already past midnight, I quickly wrapped up the stream. The chat filled with reluctant but understanding goodbyes. My streaming hours ran from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m. at the latest. Since I was still a student, Mom had put her foot down about late-night streams. Even without mentioning my age, the fact that I always ended things once it passed midnight seemed to have made the viewers get used to my pace already. They could’ve tried to keep me a little longer, though.
After confirming the “broadcast ended” message on the monitor, I stretched my arms high while still sitting in the chair, loosening up my stiff body from the long stream.
“Ughhh…. Did my best today too. Alright, time for feedback…”
> Snow, do you have a moment?
“Ah, I was just waiting for you!”
As much as I wanted to flop straight into bed, I couldn’t yet. Today was still feedback day with my manager. Even though I’d worked hard during my trainee period, I was still a complete rookie who’d only done a week of actual streaming. There was bound to be a gap between how I experienced things and how they looked from the outside. That’s why the company had an employee monitor and give feedback on my streams for the first month after debut. Honestly, I didn’t have the confidence to rewatch my own VODs, so I was really grateful.
> Overall your streams are going well on their own, so there isn’t much to point out. But when chat crosses the line, it would be good to moderate those messages. It’s fine to aim for a free atmosphere, but remember that chat isn’t just for you—other viewers are reading it too. It could end up being an unpleasant experience for them.
“Ah, got it! I’ll keep that in mind!”
After carefully writing down all the helpful feedback on a piece of paper, I finally finished for the day and threw myself onto the soft bed. I’d been sitting in front of the computer since 7 p.m., so the fatigue that had been suppressed by dopamine during the stream hit me all at once, making my body feel heavy and sluggish.
‘Ugh, I want to just sleep like this…. But I still haven’t posted my daily update…’
Almost nodding off, I lightly slapped my cheeks and reached for the smartphone on my bedside table. Still half-asleep, I opened Outstar, the SNS I’d only recently started using. A huge number of notifications and posts came pouring down at once. Yeah, all of these were posts the algorithm had decided to show me. Even just scrolling a little brought up all kinds of supportive messages and fan art, and a smile naturally formed on my lips. Streaming could be exhausting, but when I received this kind of encouragement, I couldn’t help but feel motivated. The drowsiness fading a bit, I sat up properly and uploaded a post.
The moment I posted it, hundreds of likes started pouring in at an incredible speed. If I hadn’t turned off notifications, I wouldn’t have known what hit me. I was basically being treated like a celebrity. The president had threatened to strangle me if I checked the viewer numbers, so I usually tried not to think about it, but the fact that I’d just been streaming in front of thousands of people wasn’t a dream after all. I had a bad habit of getting carried away when I was in a good mood, so I really wished people wouldn’t poke at my pathetic need for validation. Or maybe it was already too late…
Ah, by the way, “Snowflakes” was what I called my fans. Since my race was a snow maiden and my name was Snow, I’d chosen the cute-sounding “Snowflakes” as my fan name. On the other hand, the nickname viewers used for me was “Noon-na.” Because my name was Snow, plus “noona” since I looked mature—Snow-noona. It was a very straightforward nickname.
‘Haa, still, SNS is hard. I never used it in my past life either, so I don’t really know what to write.’
You might wonder why I suddenly had an SNS account, but surprisingly, this was also part of the job. There was an official fan café for communicating with fans, but apparently the lighter feel of SNS made it feel closer. Plus, it was good for illustrators to upload fan art or share daily life. So the agency had ordered me to post at least one thing every day, and I usually uploaded one in the morning after waking up and one before going to sleep, like a routine.
“There’s so much fan art…”
Even though I’d started Outstar purely as work, just looking through the posts made me realize UniMori’s influence all over again. In the time it took to scroll a little, fan art I’d never seen before came flooding down. It was even more surprising that some of it was from famous illustrators. Thankfully, quite a few of them were fan art of my VTuber avatar, Snow. Maybe because the character looked like me, seeing her in suggestive poses made me feel strangely flustered. I was really grateful they drew her, but… couldn’t they make it a little more wholesome?
With a wry smile, I liked each piece of fan art I saw and left an appropriate emoji. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ll greet everyone with this fan art…’
But maybe I’d reached my limit without realizing it. While saving the fan art, I closed my eyes and fell asleep right there.
And how much time had passed? When I came to, I woke up in a twisted position. Probably because I had bad sleeping habits, I’d somehow ended up in the corner of the bed.
“Ugh, what time is it…?”
With bleary eyes I crawled around on the bed looking for my phone and soon realized it was still 4 a.m.—the sun hadn’t even risen yet.
…My sleep schedule is completely wrecked.
Thinking that, I dragged myself out of bed. When I tried to lie back down and sleep, I suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom. By the time I finished, I was wide awake, so I just washed my face and returned to my room.
“Might as well watch some streams…”
Scratching my butt, I slipped under the blanket and opened Cloud on my phone. Surprisingly, two of my fellow members were streaming at this late hour. One was Chen, a first-generation senior who was popular for her persistent gamer persona. The other was… my fellow trainee, Priya—Serin.
Chen’s thumbnail showed her doing one of her usual long challenge runs. Serin’s stream… I couldn’t really tell what she was doing just from the screen. It looked like a game, though. After a moment of hesitation, I clicked into Serin’s stream. She wouldn’t know I was there unless I chatted anyway, so I planned to just quietly watch.
> I’ll use this card here. It removes the enemy’s annoying debuff, so it makes sense to play it first.
Serin was in the middle of playing a roguelike game that used cards. Looking at the stream time… she’d probably started after I fell asleep. She must’ve been careful not to let anyone find out she was actually a princess, because her voice had dropped from its usual noble tone into a neutral, pretty-boy voice. Listening to it while lying in bed at this hour made me feel like I was about to fall asleep myself.
‘Even people who know Serin probably wouldn’t notice with this voice…’
As expected of the princess who was good at everything. She was even good at changing her voice. Her gameplay, commentary, and pacing were all flawless, but… as I stared blankly at the screen, a worried feeling rose up inside me. It felt like none of her usual charm was coming through. She seemed more like the version of her I saw at school rather than the real her. Streaming at this late hour was one thing, but what really bothered me was that she still hadn’t sung even once since her debut stream—her specialty.
“…Is this kid going to be okay?”
As I muttered to myself, memories from a week ago surfaced in my mind. On debut day, her voice suddenly disappeared and she had to abruptly end the stream—a whole commotion that felt like lightning striking right above her head. Audio interfaces failing and needing to be swapped wasn’t that uncommon, but for that exact misfortune to hit during her debut stream was just ridiculously bad luck. In the end they couldn’t fix the audio issue that day, so the debut was postponed. Since the original debut day was a Saturday, they moved it to Monday to fit the relay debut schedule. Thankfully they managed to fix the broken equipment in time and she debuted safely, but…
She’d always been overflowing with confidence and full of mischief. After that day, Serin seemed to have lost some of that confidence.
‘She used to message me all the time to bother me, but after that day she suddenly went quiet.’
…Wait, saying it like that makes it sound like I’m upset we haven’t talked. That’s not it. I’m just worried about her strange state. We’re just agency colleagues. Besides, most of the messages Serin sent me were just silly jokes anyway. Maybe she just didn’t have the energy for casual conversation in this situation. No, that had to be the only reason!
“Even if I don’t do anything, she’ll probably be fine on her own…”
Was it really okay to just leave her alone, thinking she’d manage? As I looked at Priya on the screen, my chest started to ache for some reason.
Alright, let’s just check the schedule real quick. Thinking that, I went over to the computer and opened the calendar. Right there I saw that I had to visit the agency the day after tomorrow—Tuesday. Serin would be coming to the agency that day too…
I stared at the screen with a complicated feeling in my head. Some indescribable emotion seemed to be peeking its head out.