What We Have Seen and Heard (2)
A short walk from the elevator brought them straight to the studio — a stage built for real-time motion capture. The moment they stepped inside, a woman came into view, a song playing from her phone as she worked through light, easy steps.
Akaba Akane. In the virtual world, she was the person behind Yugure Tama, who role-played a cat yokai.
She must have noticed the door open. She stopped dead in the middle of her dance and turned her head.
The look that came flying their way was nearly a glare, but Hitomi knew perfectly well there was neither malice nor displeasure in it. She had only creased her brow a little from concentrating.
"Ninomae."
The brows that had shot up sagged back down the instant she placed her visitor. Even so, she was a woman with a considerably fierce air about her. To Hitomi, of course, the sight hardly registered as a threat.
Her face and her manner of speech were rough in the extreme, but inside Anathema Production there was no one who looked after others better. A kind soul tucked behind a frightening exterior — the same could be said of Han Seoyeon, and if one insisted on comparing them, Seoyeon was the more extreme of the two. Hitomi had no reason to be afraid of her.
"Were you practicing?"
"Yeah. Just for a bit, before rehearsal starts…"
For all that she said a bit, she was sweating a great deal. Summer or not, the room itself was cool enough thanks to the air conditioning, and while moving around would make anyone sweat, that much of it suggested she had been at it for quite a long time.
The characters Anathema Production built often shared their owners' atmosphere, and Akane's Yugure Tama was no exception — a fairly sharp impression, just like the original. Because of that, her stage called for what people liked to call a girl crush air.
If it were an in-house affair, a live concert attended only by Anapro fans, she could throw on something pink and sing a cute song and they would still cheer it as gap moe. This time, though, there were outsiders. More than that: there would be more people meeting the VTuber called Yugure Tama for the very first time than not, and they had no choice but to arrive carrying expectations that matched the image of that first impression.
Thanks to that, Tama's stage this time sat, if one had to put a name to the feeling, close to certain Korean girl groups. Taking into account that her own physique was more than capable, the choreography she had been handed was quietly demanding — which was why she was practicing so hard. For her, and for Anathema Production, this was effectively their first stage in front of the outside world.
Between her own personality and her character as a VTuber, she was not the type to let that effort show, so some viewers would simply think she danced well and let it pass. The real Akaba Akane, however, was very much the hardworking sort. Hitomi decided that when she went live later, it would be better to talk about what she had seen today. As already noted, people like Akane never properly got across how hard they worked unless someone else told the story in their place.
"Ninomae-chan."
"Ah, Guroyuki-san. You were already here."
The one who came over next was another first-generation talent taking part in the festival: Guroyuki Sui.
She was dressed in a tracksuit. It looked as though it might be too warm for the weather, and yet, with the air conditioning in mind, it also suggested that having a layer to throw on was the wiser choice. Guroyuki regarded them with her usual blank face and gave a light wave, and Hitomi met her with a bright smile.
"I was waiting."
"Uh — did they maybe give me a time that was way too late?"
She had still arrived well ahead of the scheduled hour, so Hitomi tilted her head.
For Ninomae Hitomi, setting out far earlier than the appointed time, even accounting for trouble she had not foreseen, was simply how she lived. Showing up twenty or thirty minutes early and waiting was, for all practical purposes, a foregone conclusion. Because of that, the VTuber colleagues who knew her well would sometimes, when announcing a meeting time, give Hitomi a separate time of her own — and even then she occasionally still arrived earlier than everyone else, to general astonishment.
Since that sort of thing happened often enough, the thought crossed her mind. Did they tell me a later time again, and now I've shown up far too late…?
"No. You got here early, same as always. The waiting was because of them over there."
Guroyuki shook her head at the worry and shifted her gaze elsewhere. Following it, Hitomi turned as well, and there stood several women with faces she had never seen. Most likely the other VTubers taking part in this music festival.
There were four of them in all, two pressed right up against each other, which made it easy to guess they belonged to the same company. For the record, the VTubers outside Anathema Production were slated as one independent, plus two from one company and three from another. But the headcount was not what mattered just now. What drew the eye was that they had bunched together in a corner of the studio and were standing there looking extremely tense.
"We were waiting for Ninomae-chan or Bansei-chan to get here already."
"Ah, um……."
Only then did Hitomi seem to grasp what she was getting at.
Aside from Hitomi and Bansei Marin, Anathema's people were already assembled. Running through that lineup, Hitomi had no choice but to concede the point.
Akaba Akane, fierce enough to look ready to spit something vicious at any moment. Guroyuki Sui, expressionless, without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow. And then, simply, Hyakurenno. Her retainer, Momomomo Chisa, was dead drunk, with no telling what sort of disaster she might set off, and even the one present as staff — Ryuumai Fuu — had a prosthetic eye, a prosthetic leg, and scars besides.
Frightening enough to someone who lived in the surface world. Several times more so to anyone who knew the hidden world well.
"I wouldn't really be much help either, would I…?"
So they had been waiting for the innocent-looking Hitomi to arrive. She scratched her cheek, awkward, and the glance she quietly slid aside was aimed at Han Seoyeon.
With someone standing right there whose very existence might as well have been cut in the shape of a life being claimed, Hitomi showing up would come out to zero at best — and if one insisted on weighing it, the minus would be larger. Seoyeon, as if she understood exactly what that look meant, offered a faint, wry smile.
"…Ah — no, I — I'm sorry. Shion."
Only after seeing that expression did Hitomi look as though she had caught herself. It was merely that Han Seoyeon was used to gazes like this, and so she hardly showed a reaction no matter what anyone said. Objectively, though, it was a remark more than capable of wounding someone.
"Eep—?!"
Not that Seoyeon was going to be hurt by any such thing at this point, and she knew better than anyone that Hitomi would never say anything unkind to her. So rather than correct her or forgive her, Han Seoyeon simply drew her in. A hand settled lightly at the nape of her neck, and a brief kiss touched her lips.
Whether Hitomi chose to read it as reassurance that everything was all right, or as a penalty for not watching her tongue, was hers to decide — though Seoyeon was quietly certain that she, of all people, would see what was actually meant. When Hitomi tipped her chin up a moment later and met her eyes with a faintly put-out look, that certainty only deepened.
"It didn't matter either way. You just wanted to kiss me, didn't you?"
"As expected of you, Hitomi."
She was right. The real answer was that Seoyeon had never been hurt in the first place, so neither forgiveness nor reproach quite applied, and she had simply elected to do what she wanted on the spot. By way of a prize for the correct answer, she kissed Hitomi on the mouth again. Had the answer been wrong, the penalty would have been the very same thing.
And then, this time for no reason at all, she went in for yet another kiss — only for the third to be stopped short by Hitomi's palm.
"Not now. There are other people here."
"Wasn't that intervention a little late?"
Seoyeon asked it back of what Hitomi had done. The first one aside, she could certainly have stopped the second.
"…But, well. Up to twice, I did want it too."
"…And even after showing me a face like that, you would have me hold back?"
"Th-then let's do it when we get home. If we keep going past this, we'll actually catch fire……."
Hitomi flushed and whipped her head away. The VTubers from the other companies, still standing awkwardly in the corner, came into view — only, somehow, the atmosphere was quite different from a moment before.
"Ch-Chii-chan. Those people…"
"Good lord. If this is a company whose president has flat-out declared they deal in yuri, does that mean they have to go this far even offline?"
"Whoa. Whoaaa……."
Realizing the cause was their own display of affection, Hitomi's face went redder still.
"See? I told you. Once Ninomae-chan showed up, that whole atmosphere of everyone being scared of Anapro would sort itself out."
"…No. However I look at it, they're scared of us in a completely different sense now."
