Zibeon's Donkey (2)
A thin slurp through the straw — and Ninomae Hitomi, the juice still unfinished, lifted her eyes to the person seated across from her.
Straight hair, black and white, grown long to the waist. Jet-black horn-rimmed glasses, a khaki knit sweater. Every piece of it was perfectly chosen to suggest calm, and yet a languid, bewitching air rose off her all the same. The beauty mark at the corner of her left eye, like a tear caught there, only deepened the impression.
Senjoji Chiyo. Younger sister of Senjoji Chihaya — supervising professor to both Ninomae and Han Seoyeon — and the one who would be accompanying them on this field survey. She was also Serena Lasagna, the ghost-concept VTuber charged with Gen 2's sex appeal.
Looking into that face, Ninomae murmured to herself.
This is the person who got in the way of a trip that was supposed to be just me and Shion. This is the person who has been traveling with Shion all along, calling it a field survey. A trip for two — the kind even I have never been on...
"......"
"What's wrong, Hitomi?"
"...Nothing."
The moment their eyes met, though, all the heat went out of her. She tried to work up a proper venom, but the simple gladness of seeing a familiar face after so long won out. Ninomae Hitomi was not a woman capable of hating someone she was close to — and if the feeling sprang from petty jealousy, even less so.
In the end she let out a long sigh — bubbles rose and popped in the grape juice — and followed where her heart led, breaking into a bright smile.
"To think the professor's younger sister would turn out to be you, Chiyo... I never imagined it."
"And I never dreamed my sister was the one teaching you, Hitomi."
Senjoji Chiyo said it with her eyes curved in a smile.
The surnames matched, and Senjoji was hardly a common one — but Hitomi had only ever assumed they were distant relatives.
"Then Shion really is Sister?"
"Yes. That is how it stands, for the time being."
Han Seoyeon, seated beside Ninomae, gave a small nod.
"So, what should we do about the schedule?"
The three of them had gathered in a quiet café to coordinate the field survey Professor Senjoji had requested.
"The days I can spare are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Three days. Anything beyond that would be difficult, with university classes."
"Friday's all right?"
"I only have a morning class, and it's our supervising professor's lecture."
Attendance, at least, was nothing they needed to worry about. At that, Senjoji Chiyo nodded, adding that she was a freelancer herself and, with no work coming in, had time to spare just now.
"Even so, one night and two days would be best, wouldn't it? We'll have to pause our streams while we're away."
"Well, the lodging voucher my sister secured only covers a single night, so it's a problem that comes before the streams."
Nothing stopped them from pressing to stretch the schedule further... but wringing a stay at an inn of this caliber out of a field-survey excuse was already extravagance enough.
Chiyo ran a finger once along her coffee cup, then went on.
"When did you come into contact with the other side, Hitomi?"
"Ah — extremely recently. Things just happened, and I found out Shion is a Holy Knight."
"Is that so."
Her gaze slid toward Shion. Toward Han Seoyeon.
"She happened to discover a gun I had kept hidden."
"Honestly... You're careless in the strangest places, Shion."
A soft chuckle escaped her, and Han Seoyeon smiled wryly in turn. Ninomae, by contrast, had gone faintly sullen. That air of knowing Han Seoyeon so well — she couldn't say she entirely enjoyed it.
"Ufufu. Sorry. Did I make you jealous?"
As if she had noticed, Chiyo turned her head back toward Ninomae.
"Ah, um, that's... I'm sorry."
"I was only poking at you, and it was actually true? Still, it isn't anything you need to apologize for."
Jealousy isn't an entirely bad thing, she added with a smile.
"It's proof you treasure that person, isn't it? In a healthy relationship, jealousy is only natural."
"Is... that so?"
"Envying a friend for getting close to someone else is the cute degree of it. Me, though — I prefer my jealousy a little more clinging. A little damper, and less wholesome."
Ninomae watched Chiyo shrug.
"Ah, of course I'm not saying you aren't my type. Would you marry me?"
"Um... I'm sorry, but same-sex marriage is prohibited under Japanese law."
"Aah. Rejected again."
She had never thrown the line out expecting it to be accepted, so Chiyo was still smiling. Even so, Ninomae knew it had not been purely a joke. The world's verdict on the VTuber Serena Lasagna — and on the woman inside her, Senjoji Chiyo — was, quite literally, that she was a genuine lesbian. If it were only possible, this woman sincerely wanted a romantic relationship with a beauty like Ninomae. She had simply concluded, on her own, that it was impossible.
"Then, Shion-ch—"
"Same-sex marriage is not permitted under canon law."
The second attempt foundered before it could leave the harbor. Chiyo collapsed face-down across the table as if heartbroken. The performance was so plainly exaggerated that it inspired no worry at all.
"Well... as you well know, Miss Ninomae, she is always like this."
"Ahaha... I'm sorry about our Chiyo."
Han Seoyeon sighed at the sight.
"It seems the two of you have been on a few trips together. She didn't try anything strange with you, did she, Shion?"
"She is someone who keeps to a line. Nothing in particular happened."
"Obviously. What do you take me for, Hitomi? In real life, I belong to the school of thought that no copulation ought to exist except the consensual kind."
Chiyo, resurrected as if she had never gone down, declared it with perfect pride. Ninomae had been about to tell her not to use words like that in a café, and then gave up.
"Anyway, how about the weekend after next for the schedule?"
She steered the talk back to the matter at hand instead. They were streamers, after all; they could hardly slap up a sudden hiatus notice and leave tomorrow. VTubers under Anathema Production, in particular, were required by company policy to announce that week's streaming schedule to their viewers in advance. Leaving roughly two weeks of leeway was more convenient for everyone involved.
"While we're at it, it would be good to start dropping hints about the hiatus now. That we're going on a trip."
"Ah, about that, Hitomi."
Chiyo lifted a hand and stopped her.
"Is there an option where we don't go on hiatus?"
"Huh? But the trip... hmm. Do you mean we should stream from there?"
"Yep. Exactly that."
Snap. Chiyo's finger shot out and pointed at her as if she had just hit the correct answer.
"I want to do a hot spring stream, at the very least. The response would be enormous. No question."
"That's... hmm..."
At those words, Ninomae turned her eyes to Han Seoyeon beside her, the look of someone asking for an opinion.
"A hot spring stream... Shuttang and Serena's..."
Whether she had caught Ninomae's meaning or not, Seoyeon sank at once into a flight of imagination. Then she drew something from her bag.
A wallet.
"...What is this?"
"A Red Superchat."
"No, seriously, what is it?!"
With a motion as smooth as running water, Han Seoyeon held out a ten-thousand-yen bill to Ninomae and nodded.
"...Ah. This wasn't a live stream. It was only imagination."
"...Lately, Shion, you frighten me sometimes."
Seoyeon tucked the bill away again with an embarrassed smile.
"Well, you know the viewers would lose their minds even if all they got was the sound of water splashing, right?"
"Yes. Painfully so. Or rather — you didn't even give me the sound just now."
"If the reaction is obviously going to be good, is there a reason not to?"
"The company's permission... yes, they'd give it. They aren't the sort of company that would say no to something at this level."
Erotic ASMR, art streams teetering on the edge of R-18, let's-plays of eroge complete with game-over sex scenes... Among the projects the company had already approved, there were plenty far worse.
Now that I think about it, hasn't someone already done a bathing stream once before?
It hadn't been a hot spring, granted, but there was no reason this shouldn't be allowed. The only real obstacle was her own willingness, and Ninomae didn't think the idea was a bad one. Chiyo, after all, had proposed it in the first place.
"What about you, Shion?"
"Is there any reason it would not be acceptable? It is not even video. We would only be transmitting audio."
They had the permission of the only person among them who was not a streamer. At that point, there was truly nothing left to object to.
"Then let's go with that. I'll contact the company..."
"I'll take care of it."
That day, the hot spring trip of Mary Tepes and Serena Lasagna was born.
But plans have a way of turning out different from how they began.
"A hot spring trip... it isn't bad."
"Wouldn't it be fine if we just attached one staff member, in case something unexpected comes up?"
"And who exactly is going?"
"You are. Gen 2's dedicated manager."
"...That inn is insanely expensive."
"I'll handle the expenses. If you pay out of your own pocket, you're basically working unpaid through next month, you know?"
And so someone abruptly acquired a business trip—
"Oh? This looks fun. Manager, would it be all right if I tagged along too?"
"Hyakurenno?"
"No, wait. What if we bought out the entire inn and made it a Gen 2 group trip...?"
"Hyakurenno...?!"
"It's fine! I'll cover every expense."
—or a dinosaur of capitalism, wealthy to a suspicious degree and a VTuber only as a hobby, caught the scent and threw the whole proposal into upheaval—
"Akane. That hot spring trip I mentioned before — want to come?"
"Wasn't that a Gen 2 collab?"
"Bansei... I mean, Komori Sae can't go anymore, so a spot opened up."
"We leave the day after tomorrow. How did that happen?"
"Word is she got carted off after eating spicy food on a penalty."
"...So that was foreshadowing?"
—or a replacement was found for the one who had dropped out for an absurd reason. In the end, a group trip began in a combination no one had seen coming.