Something Feels Off About My Agency Coworkers (2)
I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation. My eyelids trembled as I stared at her. A real-life member of the imperial family, someone I was more used to seeing on television than in the hallways at school. An untouchable celebrity who excelled at everything. So why on earth was Lee Se-rin wandering around a place like this?
Had she gotten lost…? No, seriously—who gets lost near a VTuber agency? Besides, she rides a limousine to school every day. Where were her bodyguards? The longer I thought about it, the more questions piled up in my mind, each one more baffling than the last.
Then she slowly lowered her sunglasses. Her eyes, clear as glass beads, locked onto mine.
“You’re Ryu Seolhwa, right?”
“Ugh, how do you know my name…?”
We’d never spoken before. Had I done something to offend her? The sudden tension made the back of my neck stiffen. But compared to how badly I’d panicked, her reason was surprisingly simple.
She gave me the same radiant, sun-like smile I’d seen countless times at school.
“I memorized every classmate’s face and name on the day of the entrance ceremony. It wasn’t particularly difficult.”
“Most people would’ve forgotten after two whole weeks of absence…”
“On the contrary, the empty seat made it easier to remember. Every time I glanced at that vacant spot in the classroom, your face naturally came to mind.”
“Ugh…!”
What the heck? My face naturally coming to mind? I knew she didn’t mean anything by it, but… it sounded way too suggestive. I wished she’d phrased it differently. Still, I roughly understood what she was trying to say. Like how telling someone not to think of an elephant only makes the elephant clearer. It seemed my name had been seared into her memory through some kind of Streisand effect. Not that I was happy about it.
Yeah, if that was all, then there was no real problem. I’d been worried I might have messed up somehow without realizing it, but apparently not.
‘Y-yeah, no way. I can’t handle this. Standing in front of a transcendent beauty like her makes me tense up automatically. I need to get out of here. If I get involved, I’ll definitely get dragged into something troublesome.’
I discreetly wiped my sweaty palms on my clothes and prepared to flee from Se-rin. Inside school was one thing, but outside, the imperial princess was basically an explosive that required extreme caution. I didn’t know the details, but I was sure there were professional paparazzi following her with cameras. For all I knew, a bodyguard with a pistol might be hiding in some unseen alley right now.
Of course, I had zero intention of doing anything weird to someone this important. But what if I accidentally did something that could be misinterpreted? My momentary mistake could be captured in a photo that circulated online forever, attracting thousands of hateful comments. I might even get kidnapped by her self-proclaimed “Imperial Princess Knights” fan club and… subjected to who-knows-what!
I still had to debut as a third-generation Unimori member, for crying out loud. The last thing I wanted was weird rumors circulating about me from my trainee days.
“I-it was nice meeting you. Well then, I’ll be—”
“Wait, hold on!”
“Eek!”
Apparently Se-rin and I were not on the same page. In an instant, she closed the distance and grabbed my wrist with surprising strength. I let out a pathetic yelp and jumped in place from the unexpected physical contact.
But she only tightened her grip on my shoulder, pulling our faces closer. Her eyes burned with such intense emotion that for a second I thought she was about to confess to me. I was about to shout at her to stop when I swallowed hard and froze completely.
“I have one favor to ask.”
“A… favor?”
“Yes. It’s something incredibly important that only you can help me with.”
“Only I can…?”
You… you’ve been doing this on purpose, haven’t you?!
While my head spun from the sweet scent of Se-rin right in front of me, she shouted at my surely bright-red face.
“Could you tell me how to get here?!”
“Here, as in…”
Se-rin pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to me. I looked at it in confusion. It was a map of the surrounding area.
Wait, she really had gotten lost?
A strange sense of disappointment washed over me. With mixed feelings, I lowered my gaze. Sigh. Fine. I’d just help her quickly and make my escape.
But the moment I looked at the paper, a giant question mark popped up in my head. I lifted my gaze back to Se-rin and blinked, utterly bewildered.
“It’s… hard to read, isn’t it? I understand. Even someone as perfect as me couldn’t solve this puzzle. It’s okay. Even if you fail, I won’t blame you.”
“…”
…Was she messing with me right now?
I stared at her intently, but she looked completely sincere, without a trace of mischief. Wait, seriously? She got lost because of this? Why?
My mind filled with confusion at a situation I simply couldn’t accept. I swallowed to calm myself, then pointed behind me.
“If the map is accurate… your destination is right over there.”
“There?”
Se-rin smoothly turned her head. The moment she saw where I was pointing, she froze as if struck by lightning.
The reason was obvious. The destination marked on the map was only a few steps away—literally right in front of her. And the exact location was the Unimori Office I had just left.
I’d assumed she was teasing me, but… judging by her reaction, maybe the imperial princess really couldn’t read maps.
When I held the map out to return it, she finally looked at me again. Her eyes widened, then she smiled naturally.
“Haha… I was just testing you. So you really can read maps. I’m impressed by your abilities.”
“You were literally lost right in front of it. Don’t try to act like none of that happened.”
“Surely not. Do I look like the kind of person who would stop a random passerby for directions when the destination is only a few steps away?”
“You just did exactly that?!”
I shot back at her shameless continuation, completely dumbfounded. She was outright denying the fact that she’d gotten lost. But it seemed Se-rin intended to push through with this act. She flashed a bright smile and walked past me with light steps.
The refreshing scent she left behind made me pause for a second. By then she had already reached the office entrance. She turned back to me and said,
“See you at school, then.”
“Uh, um…”
See you at school… Was that a warning not to carelessly talk about what just happened? Not that I had anyone to talk to about it anyway. Still, it was such a surreal experience. At school, Se-rin always seemed like a flawless, perfect being. But maybe she was actually a very strange person.
I stared blankly at her back as she disappeared into the office, lost in thought.
I must have been really shaken by the unexpected encounter with Se-rin. By the time I came back to my senses, I was already home. I ignored my cheeky little sister when she asked why I hadn’t bought ice cream, then headed straight to the bathroom. The moment the shower water hit me, I finally noticed the sense of wrongness that had been nagging at me.
“Wait a second… Why did Lee Se-rin go to the agency?”
That was it. The sense of unease I’d only realized after the sudden meeting. Her destination had been the Unimori Office. It was hard to dismiss as mere coincidence… The map she’d shown me clearly pointed to the building, and the entire structure was exclusively for Unimori. The chance of it being a mistake was extremely low.
That only made the question grow bigger. A celebrity of her caliber? At a VTuber agency of all places? I usually tried not to overthink things, but this was definitely not normal. If I hadn’t passed the Unimori audition, I could’ve told myself it had nothing to do with me. But now it felt like there was a tiny pebble stuck in my shoe, driving me absolutely insane.
‘What if it turns out Lee Se-rin is actually a member of Unimori… No, that can’t be. There’s no way someone with such a distinctive voice could hide it.’
I quickly finished showering and hurried back to my room. I logged into the streaming platform Nuri and rapidly cycled through every Unimori member’s channel. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t imagine Se-rin among them. Even if she tried to force her voice, the tone itself was completely different. Besides, with all her public activities, where would she even find the time to be a VTuber?
So why had she visited the Unimori Office?
I rolled around on my bed, then suddenly searched for Lee Se-rin on the internet. The top recent news article immediately caught my eye with a shocking headline.
Hmm… The timing is way too convenient…
My suspicion was rapidly turning into certainty. I stared closely at the photo of Se-rin in the article. She was like the sun—always smiling at everyone, radiating energy. As I gazed at her face on the smartphone screen, a terrible thought slipped from my lips.
“Don’t tell me the reason the president said he had business…”
…No, right? It’s just some business talk, right? There’s no way something ridiculous is going to happen right when I’ve decided to become a VTuber, right?!
In the end, I flipped my phone screen-down onto the bed, buried my face in my pillow, and screamed. Just imagining it sent chills racing up my spine all the way to the top of my head.
But as they say, bad premonitions are never wrong.
A few months later, I would come face to face with a horrifying truth I desperately wanted to ignore.
From spring to summer, then summer to autumn. Time flew by in the blink of an eye, and half a year had passed. There were so many things that happened during that time it was hard to count them all on my fingers. But the biggest news was, of course, that my VTuber avatar had finally been completed.
The snow woman avatar, designed with a personal color mix of white and blue, boasted incredible quality. It had a mature, seductive feel overall, yet it didn’t miss any cuteness. It was fascinating how it moved its head according to my movements and expressed subtle facial changes.
There was just one thing I couldn’t fully enjoy about it…
‘I really don’t want to say this about a 2D character, but why does it look so much like me?’
The finished avatar looked eerily similar to my real face. If I put on a pure white wig right now, people would probably think it was cosplay. According to Pipikko, she had simply drawn the snow woman that existed in her head. Somehow, the avatar and my face had ended up looking alike. Was such a coincidence even possible?!
When I looked at Unimori’s social media, I sometimes saw slightly spicy fan art of the virtual avatars. If my avatar ended up like that… Wow, just thinking about it made me want to die of embarrassment.
‘But it feels wrong to ask them to revise an avatar of this quality… I guess I have no choice but to accept it…’
I just hoped my future fans wouldn’t do anything weird with my avatar. And if they did, at least don’t let me see it! Please!
…Anyway, that was how the virtual avatar turned out. There were plenty of other things too. Thanks to the agency’s support, a soundproof booth and a top-spec computer were installed in my room. I did several mock broadcasts in front of the president, pretending I was actually streaming. The hardest part was staying calm when weird things popped up in chat. But after getting scolded by the tiger-like president, my skills improved noticeably. At this rate, I could probably handle an average VTuber stream even if I debuted right now. I wasn’t sure how it would go in real combat, but I had gained some confidence.
‘Of course, my school life is still completely isolated… At this point, I’ve pretty much given up.’
Surprisingly, even after summer vacation and well into the second semester, my social relationships remained at a standstill. Part of that was probably because getting into the VTuber agency had a slight negative effect. As time passed, more people started inviting me to hang out. But since I had to visit the agency often, I ended up turning down most of those invitations.
After all, I was getting paid to live as a trainee. I couldn’t skip scheduled practice just to make friends. That wouldn’t be very professional. Ugh, so in the end, my past self was holding me back… A small wave of regret rose in my chest.
‘And after that day, I haven’t spoken to Lee Se-rin once… Though sometimes I feel like our eyes meet, but that’s probably just my imagination.’
To summarize everything up to now: VTuber activities were going relatively smoothly, while school life was stuck in place. Since debut was only a few months away, all I could do was hope things went well on that front.
Another unexciting day of school life came to an end, and it was time to head home. As I was packing my bag, a fluffy, adorable girl suddenly approached me. It was Cha Yu-na, the angel who still held a special place in my heart even after half a year.
“Seolhwa, are you free this Saturday?”
“Huh? Probably… yeah.”
“Really? Then… would you like to hang out with me? Just the two of us.”
“What…”
What?!
Her unexpected invitation made me freeze mid-motion. Popular Yu-na was asking me to hang out on the weekend first? Was I dreaming?! For someone as starved for warmth as me, there was absolutely no reason to refuse. I had something incredibly, incredibly, incredibly important on Sunday, so I couldn’t make time then. But Saturday was fine! I was so happy she invited me. I was touched…
But once the joy of the world growing a little brighter settled, doubt followed. I was completely in favor, but why was she suddenly asking me to hang out? Someone like her could probably fill a three-meter-long receipt with people who’d want to spend the weekend with her…
So I kept packing my bag like it was no big deal and casually asked, trying to gauge her intentions.
“What’s the occasion? You’re so popular, I’m sure lots of people ask you out.”
“What? It’s not like that. Everyone just enjoys spending time with me… I’m not sure about being popular?”
If you weren’t popular, how did you get unanimously elected class president?! And the fact that even that part of her isn’t annoying is amazing. Angels really are humble!
When I sneaked a glance at her expression, it didn’t seem like she was forcing herself to hang out with me. Maybe she really did have some free time and wanted to spend it with me, since I always looked available. If that was the case, I had no problem with it. I really was free most of the time except for agency work, so she could ask me anytime!
‘I should ask my sister to help me pick out some clothes. If I’m hanging out with Yu-na, I’ll need to put in more effort than usual.’
I was already looking forward to the weekend! I smiled brightly in my heart and was about to accept Yu-na’s invitation.
That was when I felt a small vibration from the smartphone in my pocket.
Huh? The only place that would contact me at this hour is the agency…
I told Yu-na to wait a moment and took out my phone. There, I found an incredibly cruel message from the president.
‘Presidenttttttttt!’
Why does it have to be Saturday?! There are so many other days! Hngh.
I shed invisible tears of sorrow inside while looking at Yu-na, who was waiting for my answer. In my heart, I wanted to pretend I hadn’t seen the message and choose to hang out with her instead! But I couldn’t abandon agency work before I’d even debuted…
Feeling like my insides were being torn apart, I spoke with deep regret.
“Sorry, something suddenly came up… This weekend looks difficult.”
“Ah, I see… I’m sorry for bothering you…”
“No, I’m the one who should apologize. You asked first.”
In truth, I wanted to grab her legs and sob, not just apologize! Somehow holding back my emotions, I watched Yu-na’s retreating figure and let my shoulders slump weakly.
…President. I even turned down a precious invitation. It had better not be something trivial. I’ll remember this grudge and repay it someday.
I secretly vowed revenge. However, the day I would get to settle this petty grudge never came.
Around noon on Saturday, I arrived at the office earlier than the appointed time. That was when I ran into someone I truly never expected to see there.
Even though her face was partially hidden by glasses, there was no mistaking her—the strongest beautiful girl on earth. Lee Se-rin was sitting casually in the conference room. When she saw me, she greeted me as if she had been expecting this.
“As I thought. So you were one of the third-generation trainees the president mentioned, Seolhwa. I see. That encounter that day wasn’t a coincidence after all. If I were to give a name to this reunion… it would be nice to call it fate.”
“W-why are you…”
“Hehe, well, that’s because I’m also a third-generation trainee like you. Though it would be more accurate to say I’m still a trainee for now… Does that answer your question?”
“Y-you’re a third-generation trainee?!”
It seemed she was going to debut on the same day as me… a fellow VTuber coworker. It was such shocking news that I felt like my brain’s information processing capacity was about to explode.