The Day I Became a Fan

I knew what a VTuber was even back in my previous life. A broadcaster who plays a fictional character instead of appearing as their real self—short for Virtual Liver, or VTuber. But I’d never been particularly interested in internet streams. And in this life, with even less time for subculture stuff, it felt like a world that had nothing to do with me.

Still, if even someone as uninterested as me had heard the name in passing, it must have meant they were that popular. In that case, maybe they could at least kill some of this boring time. With that lukewarm mindset, I clicked on my very first VTuber stream… and was immediately disappointed.

Maybe I’d picked a bad time. Instead of interacting with viewers, the streamer seemed completely preoccupied with preparations. Curious about what was going on, I listened to the chatter. Apparently they were holding a concert inside an online game server packed with other broadcasters. A concert with the mic on inside a game… so they were going to sing in front of people?

I couldn’t see the point, so I didn’t feel much interest. “This is boring… I came because there were so many viewers, but the prep is taking forever…”

It wasn’t that fun, and I was about to leave, but I felt stubborn about not wasting the wait. I’d at least listen to one song before going. Just don’t suck… Even thinking that, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. The VTuber on the other side of the screen looked like she was about to die from nerves.

If you’re that nervous, why even do a concert? Wondering if there was some special reason, I stared at the scrolling chat. It seemed there had been an unexpected mic issue, causing a delay from the scheduled time.

This… didn’t look like it was going to go well. Her voice was already shaking like crazy. This was definitely doomed. I’m weak to situations that trigger secondhand embarrassment. Should I just turn off the stream?

While I was debating that, the VTuber eventually stepped onto the stage. Oh no, there’s no turning back now! If you’re going to do it, at least don’t cause a disaster… Slightly invested despite myself, I stared at my smartphone screen with a suffocating feeling in my chest.

But then, of all things, another announcement came that there was a problem with the prepared MR track and it would be delayed. Judging by the panicked look on the VTuber’s face, it was closer to a tragic accident.

“Ugh, seriously…! Why is everything going so wrong?!”

It was already running late, and now a delay the moment she got on stage. Starting with the chat, even the other users who had come to watch the concert began voicing quiet complaints. After stealing this much of everyone’s time, there was nothing the VTuber could say in her defense. It was clearly her mistake.

Of course, I was just an outsider who had stumbled onto the stream today. I was one of the victims who had waited pointlessly long, so I should have been angry… but instead, I accidentally dropped the smartphone I was holding.

In that instant, a memory I wanted to forget flashed through my mind. …Don’t ever talk to me again. Seeing someone fail must have triggered a moment I never wanted to remember. The face of a girl staring at me with utter disgust in a sunset-lit classroom after school floated up in my mind.

I unconsciously bit my lip hard. Looking down at the floor, I thought quietly. This is annoying. I’m never watching anything like a VTuber again. Just disappear from my life.

The moment I picked up the fallen phone, determined to turn off the stream right then—

A woman’s clear voice broke through the murmurs of the crowd.

They say a song that moves people grabs hold of you from the very first line. I had never heard these lyrics before in my life, but the extraordinary voice that pierced straight into my eardrums made me unconsciously catch my breath.

Wait, more than that… no accompaniment? The MR had a problem so she was just going to sing a cappella? My eyes widened at the unexpected situation. I completely forgot about turning off the stream. I collapsed onto the floor and froze, as if I had been sucked into the screen.

The VTuber—no, her singing was incredibly skilled. Saying the long boring wait had been completely worth it might be a bit of an exaggeration. But it was as if she took even the anxious tightness in my chest and used it as fuel. The song that flowed cleanly with nothing but her voice had the power to clutch at your heart.

Where had the person who looked like she was going to die of nerves before stepping on stage gone? Her voice soared high and clear without a single tremor, showing just how sincerely she loved singing.

It felt like a whisper delivered to everyone listening. And as if chasing after the woman who had rushed ahead, the drums and guitar belatedly joined her. Now she was no longer a lonely soul walking alone through the darkness. With sounds walking beside her, she built a perfect song.

“Th-that’s amazing…”

In a way, it wasn’t anything special. Just people turning on their mics inside an online game and singing. It wasn’t going to become a career, nor was it a moment that would go down in history. It was simply one ordinary moment in an everyday internet broadcast. There was no grand meaning to it.

But maybe it was because I had watched her overcome the fear of possible failure and fly freely. For some reason, I felt something hot welling up behind my eyes. What should I call this emotion?

As I watched the woman singing with a happy face, I finally gave it a name.

Ah, what do I do. I… I think I might have become a fan of this person.

There was no way I couldn’t like this. It was the moment I first felt the charm of what a VTuber could be. And it was a meeting that made me, without a doubt, a captive of the woman named Mari.

*

Loving something is enough to change a single person. In the winter of my third year of middle school, I realized that fact more clearly than anyone.

I didn’t want to stay slumped over like this, crying helplessly. Even if to some people, liking VTubers was something pathetic to be looked down on. I decided to use this burning hot feeling in my chest as fuel to change myself.

There was still a long life ahead, so I could start with the high school life that would come soon. For that… I should probably do something about the shaggy hair I had neglected for several months.

“Sis, have you seen my laptop…? Huh? What are you doing? Why are you holding scissors?”

“Ah, p-perfect timing. H-Hayeon, can you help me?”

“Ehh. My sister who’s usually like a dried-up slug that never interacts with anyone is suddenly asking for a favor…”

“Who are you calling a dried-up slug! Never mind, just forget that and…”

I hesitantly spoke to my younger sister who had finally come into my room. Maybe because I had kept my mouth shut for almost a year and a half, just trying to speak first made my head spin like I was dizzy. Maybe that day in middle school had left me with trauma regarding human relationships.

I fidgeted with the scissors for a moment before I barely managed to get the words out.

“I-I… I’m thinking of doing a high school debut this time…”

“…What’s a high school debut?”

“Y-you don’t know? It’s from Japanese manga and stuff… like when you enter high school, you change your vibe to be more popular…”

“I don’t really read Japanese manga so I don’t know, but… I roughly get what you want to do.”

This normie! Get some culture!

When I protested inwardly, my sister stepped closer. Maybe because Hayeon was about a handspan taller than me, it naturally became a situation where I was looking up at her. I used to be the bigger one, but somehow the difference had grown like this.

My sister looked at my slightly intimidated self with indifferent eyes, then frowned slightly and asked.

“Sis, so you’re planning to graduate from being a shut-in?”

“Y-yeah… I think so…”

“Hmm. Okay. I’ll help. If you stay like that forever, Mom will worry too.”

“She probably won’t worry that much…”

“Then first we should do something about that messy hair. Want me to cut it to shoulder length like mine?”

Oh, that doesn’t sound bad. I handed her the scissors I was holding and said with a relieved feeling.

“Y-yeah, you cut it for me… Hehe, going to a hair salon feels too intimidating…”

“…What?”

“Self-cuts are trending these days too… Just enough so my eyebrows show should be fine, right…”

“Y-you… you idiot?!”

“Huh?”

“If you want to cut your hair, go to a hair ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠salon! Who cuts their hair with office scissors at home! No wonder you were standing in front of the mirror with scissors!”

Stop saying weird things and give me those!

My sister exploded in anger and snatched the scissors from my hand. She seemed utterly dumbfounded that I had even tried a self-cut. Well, I had said I would change, but going to a hair salon felt like too high a difficulty level. Since I had only just made up my mind, my inner thoughts weren’t that different from a few days ago…

But before I could make any excuses, my sister grabbed my wrist firmly and dragged me outside. According to her common sense, cutting your hair without going to a salon was an act that should not exist.

W-well, maybe it was a bit much…

Long years of being a loner really can destroy a person’s common sense. Dragged to the hair salon by my sister, I sat there absentmindedly thinking that while entrusting my hair to the stylist.

But after that, things weren’t particularly difficult. Maybe she realized the current me was completely hopeless. My sister didn’t ask for my opinion at all and began remodeling me however she wanted.

First she fixed my messy hair into a straight perm that reached down to my waist. Then she made me memorize recently trending clothes and cosmetics like I was studying for an exam, injecting me with the common sense of a female high school student.

Maybe because I had spent my female-puberty middle school years in darkness, every piece of knowledge she gave me was a completely unfamiliar concept that made my head go blank.

“When Sis keeps her mouth shut, you give off this apathetic, cool vibe. The important thing here is posture.”

“Posture?”

“If you’re always hunching your back and shoulders like a coward, you can’t use that atmosphere as an advantage. So for the next three months, every time I see you with bad posture…”

“B-bad posture…?”

Smack! Hayeon’s hand slapped my awkwardly positioned butt with full force. The pain was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I straightened my back and let out a pathetic scream.

I looked up at my sister like a betrayed cat, asking what I had done wrong. But she simply raised one hand with an emotionless, indifferent face and said,

“I’ll slap your butt.”

“I-I’m your older sister!”

“You asked for help, didn’t you? You’re lazy, Sis, so if I don’t do at least this much, you won’t change.”

“Ugh…”

…I couldn’t refute that at all. If I could have changed by myself in the first place, I wouldn’t have spent over a year as a loner. Still, if my sister was willing to go this far, I had no choice but to seize this opportunity!

That’s how I finally corrected my gaze from pointing at the floor to meeting people’s eyes. And I was dragged to a karaoke room to sing at the top of my lungs, fixing my habit of stuttering when I spoke. I used the cat plushie rolling around the house as an audience for presentation practice to improve my speaking ability!

Changing habits engraved in the body was by no means easy. But every time, I watched Mari’s streams and renewed the determination in my heart.

In the last winter break of middle school, I was able to be completely reborn through harsh training. When my sister saw the completed New Neo Ryu Seolhwa, she nodded with a rather satisfied face and said,

“Whew… If we talk in detail, your pathetic true nature will be obvious right away. But at least on the outside you look fine, so everyone should be fooled. Ah, turning a pebble into gold. Maybe I’m an alchemist who descended in the modern era?”

“…Hayeon, you seem to be picking up my way of talking lately.”

“What?”

“Ah, n-nothing! Never mind!”

I-I’m the older sister! For some reason I felt wronged by this situation where a younger sister by one year had established a hierarchy over me. But that dissatisfaction quickly sank when I turned my gaze to the mirror.

There stood a cool beautiful girl with a good figure, her hair tied up on one side. A beautifully maintained face so perfect that anyone would believe she was a popular high school girl. If she were a game character, she’d probably suit an elemental mage. It was like taking Hayeon’s delinquent middle school girl attack power and lowering ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it while raising her defense.

What kind of analogy is that? Anyway. This was good enough.

I would forget the memories from middle school and start fresh in high school. I stared quietly at my completely changed eyes in the mirror and made a silent vow.

Mari, I’ll do my best too.

People can change if they find the courage. Having learned that, I had no intention of failing this time.

“Hetchu!”

A sneeze suddenly burst out of me as I nodded with that firm determination. When I noticed, my body was shivering and my head felt fuzzy… I must have overdone it lately. Well, I had been going to the hair salon, buying clothes, getting cosmetics matched. I had been running a tough marathon course recently. It was inevitable that my condition would worsen. Especially since early spring was still as chilly as winter. I must have let my self-care slip a little.

“Sis, did you catch a cold?”

“Huuu, yeah… I think so… And tomorrow is the entrance ceremony…”

“Take medicine and sleep early. It should be better after one night.”

Of all the times to catch a cold, it had to be the day before the entrance ceremony. I sniffled, drank cold medicine mixed with warm honey water, and went to bed early. I prayed to the god in the sky that I would recover cleanly by tomorrow morning.

“Egh, kegh, ughhh…”

“S-Seolhwa? Are you okay?! W-we’re going to the hospital right now!”

But even the next morning, the burning fever and cold symptoms refused to go down. If anything, they had gotten worse. Even with my eyes closed, everything was flashing. It was almost scary. This… didn’t seem like an ordinary cold.

In a feverish, exhausted daze, I went to the hospital with my mother who had seen my condition. And there, the doctor delivered a cruel verdict that shattered my bright future into pieces.

“Eh.”

What I thought was a simple cold turned out to be the highly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠contagious flu that was trending. After getting a shot and staggering home, I had no choice but to suffer in bed for an entire week. Naturally, my planned high school debut flew off into the distant sky with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a cheerful goodbye.

My younger sister, who stayed by my side for those few days, remained perfectly healthy without even a cough, which made it even more unfair. No matter how much courage you muster, if the heavens abandon you, there’s nothing you can do.

Sniffle, sniffle. On the bed where no one could see, I secretly wiped away my tears.