She Looks Exactly Like This
Close to forty thousand viewers had piled into the virtual stream, and the screen held five VTubers at once.
What caught the eye was that every avatar wore a different pair of animal ears — all five of them drawn from some creature or other. The chat was burning even now.
The window was papered over with howling laughter. The deer herself, though — Sikarin — did not look pleased in the slightest, and from where she stood that was only natural. A quiz mission with three million won riding on it, and Sikarin had failed.
"Uuugh, guessing actors' names! This is harder than it looks!"
That was about when Sikarin opened her mouth. She hit a hotkey she'd set in advance, and the antlered avatar began to whimper.
"You rotten little brats! Is this situation really that funny?"
Sikarin — the girl with the deer antlers. Having just failed the Guess the Actor quiz in spectacular fashion, she was the single biggest draw on NeoLive, and a character who was a deer made human was cute to begin with. Her voice, above all, was good. And there was one more reason on top of that. Nothing other than...
"Now, now! Quiet! That topic is banned!"
...the simple fact that trading blows felt so good.
Among a sea of VTubers past counting, this was why Sikarin had been able to climb all the way to the top. They could laugh at each other, and tease each other, like actual friends.
"Haaah?"
That was when Sikarin set her hands on her hips. She wasn't truly angry, of course.
The deer — Ko Eunbi — Sikarin was simply a little too sharp. She was the sort of VTuber who knew by instinct that if she acted like this, in a moment like this, the viewers would eat it up. A genius of the broadcast. The incarnation of WWE, if you liked. The incarnation of tiki-taka.
Failing a mission worth three million won didn't sting in the slightest, either. The clip had come out perfectly, hadn't it? Chop it up, recycle it for parts, push a few videos out, and she'd make more than that anyway. But Ko Eunbi kept her mind on the job. Right now, after all, she was Sikarin the VTuber, born to the role.
"Are you guys stupid? You think this Sikarin got it wrong because she genuinely didn't know? What do you take Sikarin for!"
Act like Sua, then pretend to be angry. That, in fact, was the broadcast concept Ko Eunbi — Sikarin — had locked in, though even she hadn't expected at the start that it would catch fire like this. What the hell. So even you come in handy sometimes, Lee Sua?
Then, at a certain moment, she deftly blew a single chat up large and threw it onto the screen.
"Haaah?"
Sikarin's eyes narrowed until the whites showed.
"All of you. Sikarin is going to say exactly one thing."
A serious face made its entrance. Dun-dun.
"If Sikarin showed you how much she actually knows, you guys would feel bad, right? So she got them wrong on purpose, one by one. Pretending to be a hikikomori with zero cultural life is hard. It's hard."
"And the ones who ought to reflect are you people who know the answers! If you've got time to watch dramas and movies, watch this Sikarin!"
Sikarin cleared her throat, a beat too late.
"Ahem, ahem. Watching them with Sikarin is fine...."
Even a slip like that was intentional, of course. The instant she let a flicker of fluster show, the momentum swung back to the viewers, and a baptism of chat came screaming up the screen.
"...Quit streaming? That's too harsh! Weren't we best friends? We were supposed to be together for life!"
Sikarin playacted anger for a moment, then drew a long breath.
"Hooo.... This won't do. This time, for real, Sikarin's going to show you what she can actually do. Rematch!"
And this time she launched a different version of Guess the Actor. That was how a broadcast went when Sikarin was leading it — everyone messing around together, riding the fun.
"Sikarin! You've got this one!"
"We'll help you out hard from right beside you!"
"Cheering energy, piles and piles of it!"
This was exactly why the NeoLive unnies at her side couldn't help but like her. Every collab was the same. When Sikarin took the lead, all they had to do was sit next to her and burst out laughing.
First question.
"Oh?"
Sikarin reacted at once.
"Sikarin knows this one. That's Kim Seonil."
"Why, why, why? You guys turned out at least this good-looking! Isn't that why you're always making fun of my face?"
And so, the next question.
"Hey hey hey hey hey hey!"
Sikarin barked, then whipped her own avatar across the frame and covered the actress's profile completely.
And what happened then?
"Ugh, ugh, you perverts! You trash!"
The NeoLive unnies were spellbound by Sikarin's WWE technique. Sikarin herself, meanwhile, put her head to work on actually solving the question — and wouldn't you know it. She had no idea at all.
"Hmm.... I don't know who this is...?"
"No. Sikarin said it because she really doesn't know this person."
Inwardly, she thought it over.
Seo Yeon-ju? The face is a face, sure, but that popularity is ridiculous.
"So if you don't know this actress, you're a spy? She's that famous?"
The last chat was banned, of course. Click.
Around then, a whisper came in from her manager.
Sikarin took it in at once.
"Ugh. The second an actress shows up you completely lose your minds. You people are such perverts. This righteous Sikarin cannot bear it. The quiz is getting shut off. Let's all just watch a movie."
And so the quiz ended, smooth as running water. A discreet glance at the clock put the time at about 9:25 in the morning. The screening of Sword was set to begin in five minutes, and five minutes was plenty to fill with chatter.
What should she talk about for those five minutes? Then, all at once, Sua came to mind.
"Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Sikarin's precious friends!"
"The truth is, Sikarin has one precious friend."
"No, no, it's a girl! A girl, I said! Anyway, that friend of mine up and declared that her dream is to be an actress. To get up to the level of that Seo Yeon-ju you all just recognized — that'd be really hard, right?"
Somewhere along the way Sikarin had slipped into talking about Sua in earnest, and the viewers' answer was, of course, that it would be hard. Kim Seonil and Seo Yeon-ju were the measuring stick, and set beside either of them, anyone was bound to look shabby.
"Her face? Her face, well — not on my level, but she's got something...."
Right then.
The title of Sword hung on the screen, and with the desolate rush of wind an actress's figure was caught in the frame.
"Ah, right! She looks exactly like this."
Seeing Wi Ji-hye, Sikarin reacted before she could stop herself.
"Even the sharp eyes are the same. Just like this.... Huh...?"
But a moment later her mouth fell shut, and it was not for the sake of viewing etiquette. It only felt as if someone had struck her in the head with a hammer.
...Lee Sua?
It was Lee Sua. She was certain. The face the screen had caught was, without any doubt, Lee Sua.
Donations began bursting like mad. The chat climbed just as madly.
"..."
Sikarin herself, from that moment on, had nothing to say.
Perhaps it was because Sua's face had shown on the broadcast thumbnail. In that short while, viewers had come flooding in.
"..."
But Sikarin still said nothing at all. She didn't move, either. As if she had died on her feet.
That night, around the time every screening had ended.
"Wh—what?!"
KWAANG—!
The CEO of CT Entertainment, the agency Yang Ha-rin belonged to, slammed his hand down on the desk.
Night. Gwangalli Beach, in Busan.
Whoooosh—
The members of Sua's group chat stood in the sea wind.
"...Where's Lee Sua."
The question came from the deer — Ko Eunbi — standing on the sand. Instead of answering, the others checked the time. Only five minutes remained until Sua arrived.