Something Feels Off About Dating the Imperial Princess (1)
The first collab stream of my VTuber career. It had already been two days since that day I’d rather not think about. Surprisingly, the stream became a huge topic. My channel, which hadn’t even gone live, gained thousands of followers. Serin’s channel shot up like it had been injected with growth hormones. Of course, it had been doing so poorly before that it was still lagging behind our peers, but I hoped the aftermath of this collab would act as the perfect springboard for future growth.
And if there was one other thing that kept coming to mind… it was probably the barrage of noisy messages Airi sent the moment the stream ended.
What exactly was lewd about it? The whole thing had been nothing but embarrassing aegyo. A mischievous impulse rose up, so I asked if she knew that Serin and I were minors. Airi freaked out, insisting that was absolutely not what she meant. She didn’t stop there—she sent a wall of text apologizing until the chat log was completely full. In the end I had to comfort her by saying I really didn’t mind.
And Airi wasn’t the only one who messaged me. The boss, who must have been quietly watching without typing a single comment, sent me this late at night.
Even after the stream, those weren’t the only messages. The edited clip of me and Serin bickering ranked second on the real-time VTuber popular clips chart. The aegyo video I uploaded to Outstar as punishment even got a reaction video from senior Unimori. Why on earth do they go that far? The situation was enough to make the words slip out on their own.
It was just one collab stream, but they’re blowing it way out of proportion…
Honestly, I never expected Serin’s collab to draw this much attention. My solo streams were less about dopamine hits and more about punching-bag-style banter with the audience. Serin’s streams, where she hid her real personality, were like plain Pyongyang cold noodles—extremely plain with zero seasoning. It was such a questionable combination that I’d even set aside my own streaming ambitions and spent the time wondering how best to torment her.
Yet the result was this. It was so far beyond anything I’d expected that it actually felt burdensome. At this point I roughly understood why Serin wanted to keep doing yuri business with me. So that’s why she went as far as using a wish ticket to tie down someone who clearly didn’t want to. She must have predicted the impact ahead of time. What a calculating girl.
“Keep doing yuri business with me.”
“…Ah, seriously! I don’t get it!”
The voice that refused to leave my head made me clutch my skull. I flopped face-first onto the bed. Then, sliding sideways like a caterpillar, I tapped my phone and opened Cloud. A flood of algorithm-recommended videos poured down the screen.
Oh, for reference, Cloud was the video-sharing platform that had taken YouTube’s place in this world. The biggest difference was that its live-streaming feature maintained genuinely high quality. People who streamed live were usually called “livers,” so people like me were called virtual livers—VTubers for short. It felt like a strange coincidence that the abbreviation was exactly the same as in my previous life.
Anyway, while I was scrolling through Cloud, my hand suddenly froze on one particular thumbnail. It was an illustration of my virtual avatar blushing while staring at Serin.
“Are you kidding me?! Who the hell made this?!”
There was way too much personal bias! This guy was definitely one of my antis. He had to hate me enough to want me dead!
I clicked the thumbnail to leave a comment, and immediately a disgustingly cutesy voice spilled out of the video.
“Aaaaaaaaagh! Nooooooo!”
Thud! I slammed my head against the wall, then rolled around on the bed like a lunatic. I had finally managed to bury this memory and now it was being dragged back up! The urge to throw myself into the ocean or a lake tormented me. The fact that both my agency coworkers and the boss had witnessed this disgrace was brutally cruel. If there were a drug that erased memories, I would have taken it no matter the side effects…!
While I lay on the bed groaning in agony, the door suddenly burst open and my little sister shouted in irritation.
“Unnie! You’re so loud! If you’re going to yell, do it inside a soundproof booth or whatever that thing is!”
“H-Hayeon! Perfect timing! Quick, quick—choke me with all your strength!”
“Eh? Uhh…? What are you even…”
“A nightmare from the past is swallowing me whole! Please, make my memories disappear for at least three days!”
With nothing left in my field of vision, I sprang up and rushed at Hayeon, grabbing both her hands and pressing them to my neck. Because she trained seriously, the calluses on her fingertips brushing my throat felt strangely ticklish. Hayeon stared at me blankly for a second before her face twisted. She yanked her hands away and brought the edge of her palm down hard on the crown of my head.
“Ugek!”
“What kind of nonsense is that?! You actually scared me!”
“Ugh… V-violence is wrong…”
This kid… she really hit me with everything she had…! Tears pricked my eyes from the pain as I crouched on the floor clutching my head. From above came my sister’s genuinely angry voice—something I rarely heard.
“I already know you’re an idiot, Unnie… but can you please not drag me into your stupid stunts? Choking someone? If I actually did that I’d have nightmares.”
“S-Sorry… No, I was wrong…”
When I thought about it calmly, this was entirely my fault. No matter how mentally tormented I was, asking my own sister to choke me was crossing a line. There were things you could say to family and things you absolutely couldn’t. Like last time when I asked her to cut my hair with office scissors. Or when I suggested yuri business to Serin just because I was annoyed. Why did I keep having these absurd outbursts…?
Completely deflated, I knelt on the floor and hung my head in shame. Maybe my remorse got through to her. Hayeon let out a deep sigh and spoke in a fed-up tone.
“…As long as you understand. So why are you suddenly causing a scene? This used to happen every couple of days in middle school, but I haven’t seen it since you started high school.”
“Ugh, that’s…”
The truth is I’ve been streaming as a VTuber lately and I created a horrible piece of dark history…!
…How exactly was I supposed to explain that? I had zero intention of ever revealing I was a VTuber in the first place.
So there I was, sweating nervously and avoiding her eyes. Hayeon crouched down to meet my gaze, her expression somewhere between concern and suspicion.
“Unnie… you’re not being bullied, are you?”
“Huh?”
“The weird requests, staying up late… You’ve been acting a little strange lately.”
“Strange? It’s not really like that…”
“If something like that is happening, don’t hide it. I’m on your side, Unnie.”
“Th-that’s not it! Hayeon, you’ve got the wrong idea!”
Oh no. It looked like a serious misunderstanding had formed…!
Realizing how the conversation was going, I jumped up and shook my head frantically. Bullied? No matter how I thought about it, what she was imagining was clearly off-base. If I gave a half-hearted excuse now, the misunderstanding might solidify. So I grabbed my sister’s shoulders firmly and explained the situation directly.
“I can’t give you the details, but the reason I screamed is completely different… My situation isn’t bad enough to worry about. These days I’ve even made someone I can call a friend!”
“Hmm… Yet you still haven’t made any friends at school. Every time I ask to meet them you pretend you didn’t hear and run away.”
“Ugh…”
That’s because they’re not school friends—they’re agency coworkers…
I somehow swallowed the words that had risen to my throat. Anxious, I watched Hayeon stand up. Just as I was about to say something else, she turned her back with her usual indifferent expression.
“Whatever. I’ll find out what your school life is really like soon enough. If you want to hide it that badly right now, I’ll let it slide this once.”
“It’s not that I want to hide it, it’s the truth…”
“Just keep it down so it doesn’t go through the walls. You’re not the only person living here.”
“Y-yeah… I’ll be careful…”
She stepped into the hallway and quietly closed the door. Suddenly the room felt empty. It was like a storm had passed through; the strength drained from my shoulders.
Come to think of it, starting this year I’ll be commuting with Hayeon… I’m doomed. I begged her for help so much during winter break last year. If she sees that I went an entire year without making a single friend, she’ll be completely disillusioned…
Ugh, it’s not my fault. The flu attacked me on entrance ceremony day…
Self-loathing sucked the last of my energy away. I collapsed onto the floor, then crawled pathetically back to my bed, my one true sanctuary. The smartphone my sister had hurriedly covered was still lying there. I picked it up and typed every curse word I could think of into the comments of the edited video that had caused all of this.
“This is all your fault… Die die die.”
Of course, out of respect for the editor’s hard work I still pressed the like button… But no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t leave any nice words. I hope you bite your tongue while eating. Sigh… I still had to stream later. How was I supposed to do that in this mood?
Already drained, I hurled my phone aside and collapsed onto the bed.
I’m so tired…
I don’t know how long I lay there with my eyes slowly closing. From the edge of my fading consciousness came the soft ping of a message notification. I had nearly fallen asleep. Groggily I picked up the phone and checked it. The sender was none other than Serin.
…A date?
The shocking contents of the message froze me in place, phone still in hand. To someone who had never experienced a single date across decades of life in both worlds, the word felt impossibly foreign.
In the ultra-luxury apartment complex Yeoul, there existed a hidden private penthouse that even the wealthiest could not enter without proper qualifications. From its windows one could look down upon the entire city. In the bathroom of that extravagant space, a black-haired beauty was leisurely soaking in the tub. Her name was Lee Se-rin.
Every strand of hair and every toenail was maintained to perfection. As the Imperial Princess of Korea, born with a special bloodline, she was an existence that had to serve as a model for all people. Yet right now that same girl was staring at her waterproof-cased smartphone with an innocent smile. It was a face she had never shown anyone—the true expression that belonged only to her when she was completely alone.
“A date…”
Whatever she was looking at, it made her smile with pure joy. Serin suddenly murmured to herself. She set the phone aside, shifted her posture, and submerged her shoulders deeper into the warm water. When even her lips dipped below the surface, she quietly whispered someone’s name. But the sound never fully formed. It rose to the surface and burst with a small, hollow pop.
Becoming fond of someone… doesn’t seem so bad.
That small, shy wish she kept hidden from the world quietly vanished among the bubbles.