Come into My House and Abide (2)
"You're sure it's really all right for us to go…?"
Bansei Marin looked worried the whole time they were on the move. It was hard to blame her. She was tagging along after someone heading back because something had blown up at the company.
"We can go, right? Really?"
Ninomae Hitomi repeated a question much like it, several times over. …Though the way her eyes kept sparkling suggested that, on her end, it meant something rather different.
"Setting that aside—are we going dressed like this?"
"Shion-san, embarrassed by the hanbok?"
"No, that isn't what I meant. The other passengers are staring rather a lot, however……."
In the midst of it all, a holy knight had raised a question of her own, only to be lightly brushed aside.
"It's fine. Our company is, well… it has a similar feel to Anathema."
"Oh. Then that's fine."
With Yu Hyena's explanation, everyone accepted it, and their nerves settled.
Sorry as it was to say of President Gyokichi, if an organization could be summed up as "just like Anapro," nothing it did would seem strange. A few of its people would abruptly push through things that looked impulsive at a glance, and the rest would sigh and follow along anyway—and yet, perhaps thanks to everyone's ridiculous physical stats, the place somehow kept trundling along well enough all the same.
For the VTubers of Anathema Production, that picture drew itself in perfect detail, and they came around at once. A company like that wouldn't find it odd, even in a mess like this, not only to invite people it was meeting for the first time, but to cut straight to a livestream advertisement on the spot.
They had piled onto the bus in a hurry and were bound for the company when—
"Huh?"
Out of nowhere, Hitomi's phone rang. That much was ordinary enough, but the moment she saw the caller, her expression turned peculiar—the look of someone who could not begin to imagine why this person would be calling.
"Who's calling, for you to make a face like that?"
"It's… my manager."
The name on the screen belonged to Hatsuna Miho, general manager of the second generation.
One might wonder what was so strange about a manager placing a call. For a broadcaster signed to an agency, wasn't that the most ordinary thing in the world? But Manager Hatsuna contacting Hitomi was, surprisingly, very rare.
At its root, Anathema Production held to a principle that, put kindly, left operations to the VTubers' own autonomy—and, put unkindly, amounted to a hands-off neglect that looked almost irresponsible. How far that went was easy enough to guess from Amairo Tsubasa alone, who tried to stream calligraphy whenever the smallest gap opened up. In a company like that, intervention from the management side by way of its managers was exceedingly rare as well.
Anapro's management was weighted toward keeping VTubers from causing strange accidents and, should an accident have already detonated, toward cleaning up the wreckage. Which was to say that Mary, who carried on streaming at a thoroughly exemplary standard, had almost nothing about her that called for a hand. Receiving viewership trends and the like at the monthly feedback meetings was the whole of it. She was someone who would do perfectly well without pointless correction, and so her points of contact with her manager had never been many.
There had been a time, back when Han Seoyeon still didn't know Mary's true identity, when the manager saw her fairly often—driving her to the company, and so on… but now even that had fallen to Seoyeon. And now that Seoyeon had gone so far as to join Anapro herself, she had become, in all but name, Mary's dedicated manager. There was that much less left for Hatsuna Miho to involve herself in.
Even so—and even though she surely knew Hitomi was abroad on a trip—she had reached out. Short of something considerably urgent, it was difficult to imagine.
"Hello? Manager?"
"Ah, Ninomae-san. Are you busy at the moment?"
"No. I'm on a bus right now. …Did something happen at the company?"
A problem at the company was the first thing to come to mind. Perhaps hearing, only moments ago, that trouble had broken out at Yu Hyena's company as well had primed her to leap straight to that association.
"Something has happened, if you can call it that… but it isn't our company."
"Then what is it?"
"That game you said you liked, Ninomae-san. An incident has broken out at the studio."
"……?"
That was something she already knew. She had heard it, after all, from the project director's own mouth.
"It seems there's been trouble involving a man-hating group. I understand this sort of thing comes up often in the Korean game industry, but……."
"No, no, wait a moment…? Why on earth are you telling me this……?"
If they were the sort who talked often, or if Hatsuna herself played the game, it would have made sense. A person might pass along a hey, I heard something happened with that game you play. But neither was the case. And still, had she really needed to contact someone in the middle of a trip overseas, just to spread the word?
"Well, naturally, I called to tell you not to go posting anything careless about the incident on Twitter and the like. If the sparks happen to jump your way, it would be a serious matter."
"What? No. That's just obvious, isn't it…?"
A broadcaster could hardly be called nothing more than an ordinary gamer. Even if, as a private person, something arose that you wanted to rage over, or to defend, being careful with your words and conduct was simple common sense. Wasn't it?
"Pardon? But isn't it a game you love enough to call the game of your life?"
"No. But I'm a VTuber, aren't I? I shouldn't be writing posts that show a particular leaning, or recklessly taking one side, right?"
"……."
Silence drifted from the other end of the line. In that silence, Hitomi understood exactly why the call had come in such a rush, and she pressed a hand to her brow.
"…I understand very well how much our colleagues put you through, Manager."
"……No. It's work I draw a salary to do."
Just how many disasters had they caused, for a reflex this immediate? She could picture it all too clearly: even Mary, the closest thing Anapro had to a clean zone, losing her mind over an incident at her favorite game the way the other members would—and the manager scrambling to call before it happened.
"But it's all right. One ought to keep work and private life separate."
"…I'm sorry for calling out of nowhere. And you on a rare trip."
"No, no. That's a manager's job. I don't mind at all."
Hitomi smiled as she answered the apologetic manager. Only then did a small laugh of relief escape from the far end of the line.
"How is the trip to Korea? It's only the first day, I know."
"So far, I'm definitely satisfied. We even ate Korean food…"
"No—that wasn't Korean food, all right? The country was Korea, sure, but that was absolutely not food, Ninomae-chan?"
"Pardon? What did you just say?"
"It's nothing. Kuroyuki-san was just grumbling a little. The lunch menu didn't seem to agree with her."
Kuroyuki, shuddering as she recalled the texture of a clot of blood—or the taste, or perhaps both. Hitomi let the image pass and carried on with a suitably vague account.
"And we wore hanbok and toured a palace, too."
"That must have been lovely. …You said you were on a bus. Are you heading somewhere else now?"
"Ah, yes. That's right."
Hitomi nodded, even though it wasn't a video call. She was the sort of person whose whole body leaned whenever she played a racing game, so perhaps that much couldn't be helped.
"We're on our way to the Barbara Knight developer you mentioned a moment ago."
The words that followed, however, were plainly not the sort of thing that "couldn't be helped." Of that there was no doubt.
The other end of the line went still for a moment.
"You really are keeping work and private life separate, right?! The incident breaks and you're already charging straight into the company!!"
"Ah—no?! That isn't what I meant?!"
And all at once, the manager's panic began. No matter how she turned it over, the situation could look like nothing other than Hitomi storming the company to demand an accounting of the controversy. Only then did Hitomi grasp how her own words must have landed. She went pale and launched into an explanation. It did not, of course, go easily.
The internet friend of the lover she had come traveling with happened to be the project director of the game she loved most, and had ended up as their guide; then something had come up at the company, and the woman had found herself having to head back; and because, of all people, her favorite happened to be in the party, she had—perhaps mixing up work and private feeling—invited them to the company, and now they were going together. Setting aside whether explaining any of that would even get her believed, just condensing it into something brief enough to say had been an ordeal in itself.
In the end, Hitomi had to spend a long while calming her down, and by the time the manager had finally, barely, taken in the whole story, it was already time to get off the bus.
"Uuuugh……."
Utterly drained, she climbed down all but hanging from one of Han Seoyeon's arms.
"……Oh. Ohh?"
But that lifeless look soon began, little by little, to turn itself inside out. It was a building she had only ever seen in news articles online, and once they stepped inside, there it was beside the floor directory: the name of a game studio's offices, impossible to mistake. As a fan, she couldn't help the interest stirring. To think she had come to the developer of a game she truly loved—and by invitation, no less.
She boarded the elevator, and with every floor that climbed, the anticipation only swelled.
"Hweh?!"
……And the instant the elevator doors opened, the very first thing Hitomi heard was a shibal with a soul behind it—the genuine article, straight from the motherland, and entirely uncut.