I Will Make Your Name Great (2)

"Um... since we're already on this sort of story, I might as well say it. The truth is, I'll be moving next week."

It was a members-only broadcast, open solely to viewers who had paid for a membership, and partway through Mary brought the matter up as if it had only just occurred to her.

An ordinary chat stream, with no particular theme. If one had to name the mood, it was closer to radio: she read the viewers' stories and talked them over. The stories ran thin against the length of the broadcast, though, and so Mary's own life had a way of filling the quiet.

Surely some of them wanted to tell their troubles and be comforted. There were always a few. But most, in the end, had come to see Mary rather than to hear the stories themselves.

A viewer's tale had surfaced at just the right moment—some mishap or other had forced a move—and Ninomae did not let the opening slip. She set her own plans on the table.

"So I don't think I'll be streaming next weekend. I'll put up a separate notice later, of course."

In truth, there was no need to go so far as sharing something this personal.

Someone out on the internet would surely stitch together the odds and ends from her streams and work out that she was moving. Ninomae herself, at least, was under no obligation to be the one who said it. She had said it anyway, and the reason was, surprisingly, a practical one.

Viewers ought to be treated equally. Sometimes, however, certain viewers needed to be a little more "equal" than the rest. It was one of the things the president had told Mary—told Ninomae—back when she first joined the company.

Buy a product called a membership, and you were owed something in return. Whether they wanted to feel closer to the streamer, or to see a side of her the usual broadcast never showed, or simply to watch more of her, the reasons varied. What did not vary was the wanting: something the ordinary streams never quite satisfied.

Filling that want was the bare minimum of decent business. So the president maintained, and Ninomae agreed, at least in part. That was why she let a little real life slip, now and then, on the members-only streams—enough that the viewers who craved something special might come to believe Mary thought of them as just a bit closer than the rest.

This time was no different. The move would come out eventually. This was not a matter of cyberstalkers raking through every trivial scrap to strip a streamer of her privacy. It was the sort of thing that, so long as she kept broadcasting, would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reveal itself even to perfectly ordinary viewers, one way or another. If that was inevitable, then spending the news early as a card for the members was hardly a bad play. Mary's remark had sprung from exactly that calculation.

"Sudden? Well, I suppose it is, in a way. It really was decided out of nowhere."

Mary's character followed it at once with a mischievous smile.

"The reason...? Care to guess?"

At Mary's words the chat sped up all at once. One viewer, sensing the moment, fired off a Super Chat.

"A problem with the house? No. Nothing like that. And I'm afraid the family guess is a wrong answer too."

She read a few of the messages and struck them down one after another.

The chat about a man, of course, she did not read at all. For a young woman who streamed, the subject of men was sensitive enough on its own; for a VTuber under Anathema Production whose whole brand ran on yuri, it was doubly so. Even on a members-only stream people had paid to enter, there was always, somehow, a viewer ready to poke at that. Most of them were not operating on ordinary values, so the wisest course was neither to deny it nor to engage. Ignore it.

The message vanished before long. The chat moderator's doing, no doubt.

She gave them a moment. When no answer came, Mary smiled and laid the correct one out.

"The truth is... I've got a roommate!"

The chat, naturally, fell into confusion. Fair enough. The answer had come from so far out of left field that it would have been stranger if anyone had landed on it in so little time.

"I've got a roommate" was ordinarily a process, or a result—not a cause. If she had needed to move in a hurry, gone hunting for a room, and happened into a share along the way, that would have been one thing. It was not, in itself, a reason one would have to move on short notice.

"It gets long if I explain it properly... Things just sort of drifted into us living together, after a friend suggested we should?"

"No—I haven't said it's Sister yet, you know?!"

"Excuse me?! At some point, would you please acknowledge, even a little, the possibility that I might have a friend who isn't Sister...?!"

All that came back was playful jeering.

To be fair, she had chosen the word "friend" precisely because she expected the viewers to skip the wild theories and simply realize it was Sister...

"I-I'd thank you to say I prefer my relationships narrow and deep."

"Nngh..."

It was true that she preferred her relationships narrow and deep, and Ninomae genuinely felt she had no particular need of friends beyond Sister and her fellow VTubers. And yet the moment it came phrased as lol, you don't have friends, something in a person couldn't help but bristle. That was simply how people were. Mary puffed her cheeks, just a little, and muttered.

"...It is Sister, though."

How sorry a thing, to have to concede the point again. Protest all she liked that she didn't make friends rather than couldn't—without evidence, it was nothing but a loser's bluster. Still better, she supposed, than conspiracy theories that she had said "friend" and was in fact moving in with a man. Ninomae took what small comfort she could in that, and sighed.

"Mar—! Th-that is not what this is?!"

Marriage. What on earth was that supposed to mean? Color flooded Mary's face. Behind the avatar, Ninomae's cheeks did the same.

"...Come to think of it, I hear they're opening an Anathema Prasava server before long."

A painfully blatant change of subject. Most of the viewers seemed to find this bait interesting in its own right, though, and the current of chat swung that way. Perhaps they had also decided that gnawing on the same topic forever wasn't all that entertaining.

"No. Honestly, I've never played it. Should I at least study up a little before the server opens?"

"Ah—and I ought to see the ending of The Bell That Does Not Ring before then, too."

She tacked it on under her breath.

"Looking forward to... hmm. Being with the senpais, I suppose? Us genmates hang out all the time, but chances to actually gather with the Gen 1 senpais are pretty rare."

At best she streamed with one or two of them now and then. Nearly the whole group together almost never happened. So if there was something to look forward to, it was that. The game itself she didn't know well enough to be in any position to talk about anticipating.

"A server with all nine of us gathered. Surely my servants are looking forward to it as well?"

A string of chats followed, all to the effect of obviously. An event the streamer looked forward to tended, as a rule, to be an event the viewers looked forward to as well.

"The senpai I most want to meet in Prasava? Hmm, it's hard to pick just one."

Mary let a thoughtful hum slip out, as if she were truly weighing it, and then went on.

"If I absolutely had to choose... Rokumondera-senpai, I suppose? I saw Tama-senpai recently, and Rin-senpai only just took part in the Divine-Demon War, so..."

Rokumondera Aki. One of the first generation. Her concept was a shrine maiden—more precisely, an itako, a spirit-medium of the old northern tradition.

A senpai who was terribly timid, but kind at heart. That, by and large, was Mary's assessment of her. Ninomae liked her as a senpai in her own right, and as the character of Queen Mary she could hardly help liking a Rokumondera whose manner of speech was always so respectful.

...If only she could do something about that perverted streak that slipped out now and then, she'd be genuinely perfect.

A timid nature might divide opinion, but Mary, at least, found that side of her cute. The truly troublesome part lay elsewhere. Not that she had any business picking apart someone else's tastes. There was nothing to be done about it.

"I wonder if we'll manage an offline collab someday."

Even so, the scales tipped toward "a good person" in the end, which was why she had murmured it at all.

In truth, aside from Tama, Mary had yet to do an offline collab with any of the Gen 1 senpais. It was only just coming up on half a year since her debut—not such a long stretch, and nothing strange about it. All the more so because, in their first month on air, the company had handed down guidance that they were to refrain not merely from meeting in person, but from collabs altogether, lest anyone's individual color be encroached upon. After that, her own generation's genmates had naturally taken priority.

Quite apart from all of that, an offline collab with Rokumondera Aki—and the severe fear of people that came with her—was, just as the viewers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said, no simple matter. Even the Gen 1 senpais, she'd heard, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had only managed to meet her once more than a year had passed since debut.

Well. If she simply kept on living as a VTuber, an opportunity was bound to come someday. Mary believed that.

"Pushing in too hard to get close probably wouldn't be good, either. I used to be scared of dealing with people myself, once, so I understand. A little."

With someone like that, all you could do was talk—very slowly, but without stopping—and hope that time would see it through. Stride right up to her, and it would only backfire.

"Anyway. Shall we move on to the next story?"

And with that, Mary Tepes spoke up, sunny and bright, as if to clear the air.

There was still time left on the stream. She couldn't let the energy drop here. She gathered herself on that thought, and went on.