Something Feels Off About the Lunar New Year Special Broadcast (4)
From the Three Kingdoms era, when the Korean peninsula was divided into three states, through Goryeo and Joseon, all the way to the present Korean Empire, the first day of the first lunar month—Lunar New Year’s Day—had always been treated as special. It was an ancient tradition that had continued unbroken. As a result, Lunar New Year wasn’t just another holiday; together with Chuseok it formed one of the two great national festivals of the year. Around this time every field of industry would roll out events aimed at people whose wallets suddenly grew loose.
Naturally, Unimori—the nation’s top VTuber agency—couldn’t sit this one out. Viewers who knew an event was coming waited with fluttering hearts for the news to drop. And on the evening of February 9th, the day before Lunar New Year, Unimori’s official cafe finally uploaded the announcement.
However, the reaction across internet communities related to Unimori was rather lukewarm. If they had announced a full five-person third-gen group collab—something that had never happened since their debut—people would have lost their minds. But a simple relay where each member streamed for an hour and left felt like nothing more than an extension of regular solo broadcasts. On top of that, the far more popular first- and second-generation members had just declared a long group hiatus for concert preparations. People would watch if they had nothing better to do, but the general consensus was that it wasn’t exactly something to get excited about.
Yet a small spark soon arrived that would set the entire community ablaze.
The sudden appearance of first- and second-generation members as guests in a relay that everyone assumed would only feature the third generation caused an explosion of interest. Since the third-gens had been under a strict no-senior-collab rule until now, the news sent anticipation for the Lunar New Year special skyrocketing. Communities quickly filled with serious debates about which pairings would be the most entertaining. By far the most discussed combination was Snow and Marie.
Snow was a hardcore Marie fan who couldn’t hide her obsession even during her regular solo streams. She thought about Marie so much that the senior even appeared in her dreams. From the viewers’ perspective, the expected chemical reaction between the two was something to look forward to with bated breath.
Anyway, the hype kept building without cooling off. All attention converged on Unimori’s Lunar New Year content. Finally, at 3 p.m. on the day itself, the first batter—Airi—kicked off the relay with a news program no one had seen coming.
She was wearing a comically crude suit that looked like it had been drawn directly in Paint. Rather than playing it straight, she treated the entire news format as pure comedy skit material. The two second-generation guests appearing as field reporter and interview subject were both extroverted types, so the conversation flowed so naturally and cheerfully that it was hard to believe this was their first time meeting.
Once Airi had completely filled her hour with the news segment, she activated the Train feature—a site function that transferred her entire audience to the next channel. Tens of thousands of viewers flowed into Priya’s stream, where she boldly declared from the very start, as if issuing a challenge:
What she had prepared was a fighting-game betting stream with prizes on the line. It might have sounded boring on paper, but the important part was that the three of them were among the highest-skilled gamers in the entire agency. In one hour they played nine matches and lost only once. Considering most viewer participants were also quite confident in their own skill, the audience was treated to a masterclass in high-level play.
After Priya’s stream ended, the Train moved once again. The next host was Karen. She had collected stories in advance from people who couldn’t return to their hometowns for various reasons. Once she confirmed the storytellers were in chat, she spoke in her usual indifferent tone.
She turned out to be a navigation maniac capable of touring the entire country using nothing but Road View. No matter where she was dropped, she would instantly determine her location from the shape of the surrounding mountain ranges, then race along the roads without a single wrong turn. The process was so fast and accurate that even the second-generation guests who had watched the rehearsal were shocked, asking if it had been scripted.
In just one hour Karen located more than ten storytellers’ hometowns. She then sent her viewers through the Train to the next host—Snow.
Airi’s news segment had been an unbroken chain of skits and ad-libs. Priya’s team had been literal game monsters who crushed even veteran players with pure skill and sense. Karen’s bizarre talent made people wonder if she had chosen the wrong career. So what on earth would Snow do?
Viewers entered her channel full of anticipation… and were immediately greeted by a camera showing a real-life location.
A spotless white table, every imaginable cooking ingredient, knives, tongs, and other utensils. Anyone with half a brain could guess what was about to happen. As Snow’s virtual avatar slowly peeked into the bottom-right corner, a real hand slipped into frame from below and waved at the viewers.
The moment Snow revealed her Lunar New Year handcam cooking stream, chat exploded. No one had expected something like this even for the holiday. Handcam cooking was a time-honored tradition in the VTuber world—an event that perfectly pierced the boundary between virtual and reality. There was the realism of watching your favorite VTuber cook in real time, plus the special thrill of glimpsing a part of their body they rarely showed. Those elements turned the stream into something unforgettable.
Especially since Sepia, the agency’s president, was famous for demanding strict privacy, the sudden handcam caught everyone off guard. Snow’s fans—the Snowflakes—were practically losing their minds.
As soon as word spread that Snow was doing a handcam cooking stream for the Lunar New Year special, the viewer count shot up noticeably. The reason was simple: her virtual avatar had a generously proportioned figure that accurately reflected her real body. Unimori’s policy was to match avatars to real proportions whenever possible. The honest desire of “maybe we’ll see…” was impossible to suppress.
Of course, Snow had zero intention of showing anything besides her hands today. Even if she wanted to, the office would never allow it. If she tried anything on purpose she would face something far worse than death from the president.
‘Besides… my hands are pretty enough that it’s fine.’
Although she always described herself as a beautiful girl who scored minus one out of a perfect ten, Snow—Seolhwa in real life—was an undeniable beauty with no visible flaws. Her hands were so flawless they could have belonged to a hand model. When those snow-white wrists peeked out from beneath tight black nitrile gloves, viewers felt an undeniable sense of eros in the occasional glimpses.
The guests who arrived for Snow’s stream were first-generation Reine and second-generation Scarlet. Both were the energetic idiot type rather than calm and intelligent, so anyone familiar with Unimori could already sense that Snow was in for a rough time.
Today’s content was “Lunar New Year dishes made with randomly chosen ingredients.” With three full menus—tteokguk, donggrangttaeng, and japchae—viewers wondered if she could finish everything in just one hour. Snow calmly answered that there was no problem at all, then placed three sets of ingredients labeled A, B, and C on the table.
Five random ingredients per dish. Since time was tight they chose quickly without dragging it out. After fifteen total picks, the final menu was…
Two definite monstrosities and one normal dish. Somehow the seniors had managed to pick only the worst possible ingredients. Snow’s hands trembled as she stared at the table. Even though she wasn’t the one eating, she couldn’t help feeling guilty. Even the usually confident Reine spoke to her apologetically.
The ingredients themselves weren’t spoiled. There was no way she would die from eating them, right? Having convinced herself, Snow put on a determined face and began prepping at top speed. Thanks to the work she had done in advance for anything time-consuming, her movements—honed by special training for today—were perfectly optimized. She finished all three dishes in the blink of an eye.
Even though she had created something absurd, throwing food away would be disrespectful. With an expression that looked like she was about to cry, Snow steeled herself and picked up the monstrous dishes.
After an agonizing period that tested the limits of human endurance, Snow placed the empty bowls on the table and continued in an exhausted voice.
Ingredient selection, cooking and talking, then eating the finished dishes as the finale—Snow had rapidly completed all the core elements of a cooking stream. She sent her remaining viewers through the Train to Shura’s channel.
The final segment of the long Lunar New Year special was… a singing stream. Not just any singing stream, but a duet with Marie—the member considered to have the best voice in all of Unimori!
Sometimes trading lines, sometimes singing together, the two of them kept the music going without pause. And so the Unimori Lunar New Year relay broadcast that had begun at 3 p.m. concluded successfully.
Yet no one realized that a tiny crack had formed in that moment—one that would soon erupt into an unimaginable uproar.