It Hath Nothing to Do with Me (2)
"Yes. And thus it has been decided — today shall be a fanart tour!"
"'Is there any R-18?' ...No. By any common sense, there wouldn't be, would there?"
Mary Tepes swept the nonsense in chat aside and let out a sigh. They knew perfectly well it wasn't allowed, so why ask? Or had they done it on purpose from the start, just to earn a scolding? She had been another VTuber's viewer herself, once upon a time, and still Ninomae found viewers to be creatures one could never quite understand.
"A-ny-way! Enough of that strange talk. Behold my magnificent self."
"Haaaah? Are you lot perhaps slighting me, my dear viewers?"
At those reactions Mary put on a face of outrage, then immediately set to clicking. A window from a famous art-upload site rose on the broadcast.
"I'll have you know I have magnificent looks of my own. Just watch. Tag, hashtag Mary Tepes... R-18 off... sort by popularity..."
The keys clattered. The search terms, hammered out at speed, were of course her own name. After a brief load, a list of dozens of illustrations appeared — and before the previews had even finished rendering, she clicked the first one.
"Ack."
It was a drawing of a somehow pathetic chibi Mary, waddling along with a greatsword as big as she was, while a boss monster reminiscent of Cthulhu held an attacking stance. Most likely an illustration of the boss-fight section from the game she'd played the other day.
"Wh-why is the art style this pathetic?!"
"Be quiet! Something is clearly wrong here. There's no way this is number one... Yes. Right. On to the next illustration."
Heaping complaints upon the picture, Mary clicked the arrow that would carry her to the next.
"Huh?"
The second most popular piece was by the same artist. And if one measured by Mary's patheticness, it outdid the last. A round little chibi Charlotte was sprinting on all fours with a leash about her neck, and Mary, clinging to that leash, was being dragged along face-down, scraping across the ground in a frantic skid.
"Whaaat? Stop talking nonsense! As if I would ever like an artist who draws this vampire queen all distorted!"
The chat telling her she could simply go back and prove she hadn't liked it, she ignored — how dare they give her orders. Well. She had, in fact, pressed it. This time, Mary made certain to hit like where the broadcast could not see, and only then turned the page.
"Ooh, yes. This is what I wanted!"
"Hmph. Servants who don't know how to admit when they're wrong."
Only with the third piece did Mary finally meet an illustration one could call cool. Wallpaper-sized, stretched a little wide: at the far right of a background that seemed to look in from the side of an old castle's audience hall, a single throne stood. Mary sat upon it, light flashing in her crimson eyes as she looked down upon her visitor — a holy knight in armor so filthy that every hardship of the road was written plainly across it.
"Why must you people always think of it that way?!"
True, if one judged by the composition alone, she was the one giving off boss-monster energy...! Mary puffed her cheeks, just a little, and leveled her dissatisfaction at the viewers.
"Fine. Say whatever you like — for a while, I'm using this as my wallpaper!"
She saved the illustration and turned the page again, this time after proudly hitting like in front of everyone.
"Now, the next... Huh? Haaaaaah?!"
She cried out at once, aghast. The viewers were granted a chance to confirm, firsthand, the upper limit of how wide the eyes on Mary's model could go.
"Th-th-this is... blasphemy— no, indecency..."
Color flooded Mary's face. Her voice shook.
Two figures occupied the picture. One, of course, was Mary Tepes. The other — a woman with silver hair and red eyes — was, in all likelihood, Sister. She wasn't the one streaming, so she had no official character; even so, she was drawn often enough as a bonus beside Mary that a certain image of her had settled into place. The surest way to tell would have been whether she wore a nun's habit... and the reason that couldn't be checked was the very reason Mary was panicking.
Sister wasn't wearing a stitch. Neither was Mary. Naked in each other's arms, Sister had seized a handful of Mary's hair and pulled her into a rough embrace, their tongues tangled together. Worse, a knee was driven against Mary's sex. The angle was probably meant to hide what ought not be shown, but in an atmosphere like this it could only read as an act performed for stimulation. The Mary in the picture had her eyes squeezed shut, and yet she hardly looked as if she were resisting. Her arms were wound about the other's neck. She was only receiving her.
R-18 had been filtered from the search, yes — but how many anime, packed wall to wall with fanservice, still wore a rating of fifteen and up? Draw it lewd enough to slip the censors, and you could get away with quite a lot. Mary stared at the illustration in profound dismay, and then—
—thud!
"...Huh?"
She realized the door had opened, and turned her head. Aside from Mary, only one other person was in this house.
"Nin— Mary-san?"
"A-ah, it's nothing, Sister-san! This is, I mean...!"
The chat had collapsed into chaos, and none of it reached her eyes. Mary shrieked under Han Seoyeon's gaze as it flicked between her and the monitor, then snatched the mouse and began hammering through pages, as if she had realized this was not the moment. Even that refused to obey.
An illustration of Mary magically trussed in a turtle-shell bondage tie by Serena; a Charmea piece of the two half-undressed, clutching each other and biting at each other's necks; a body-pillow concept of Mary, likewise half-bare — they came one after another.
"Hyaak... huee..."
Only when she finally landed on a picture of round, pathetic-style chibi Mary rolling over and over and toppling bowling pins in a clatter could Mary let out a sigh of relief. Or rather, the gasp that comes after a dead sprint.
"So that was... your taste?"
"I'm telling you it's not!!"
Even in a moment like this, a menace remained a menace.
"Yes... ahem. Hello. For those meeting me for the first time, it's a pleasure. I am Sister — Chouxie's friend, Chouxie's servant, and a Sister currently employed as a Sister."
She had no avatar to speak of, and yet Han Seoyeon made a point of bowing her head toward the monitor.
"I-it wasn't a lewd pic! ...Nn. That it was a somewhat erotic illustration, I won't deny."
"Weeell... it was a little startling, yes. But if it's Chouxie's taste, I respect it."
"I keep telling you I wasn't looking because it's my taste!!"
Mary shouted, her face dyed red.
This peculiar collab had begun with a visit from Sister — Han Seoyeon — who had come, as usual, to bring a simple late-night snack. Slipping in and out without ever being caught on stream had become a habit, and today too she had entered without knocking. This time, that very habit had been the spark.
Even so, with things already this far gone, fleeing on the excuse of bad timing would have felt strange. It must have been an unavoidable choice, if only to keep the stream's mood from falling apart.
...Or perhaps she simply hadn't missed her chance to be wicked.
"Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, there's no way Sister-san wasn't watching my stream. You timed this on purpose, didn't you?"
"Surprisingly, I was not."
"Eh...? Ehhh..."
"This is what I went to buy."
"This is... ah, cream puffs from that shop..."
Mary's eyes went round as she looked inside the bag Sister had brought for tonight's snack.
"Ah, no. Nothing like that. It's just the shop in front of the house. Only... well, it was near where I used to live, that's all."
"You know I moved last month, don't you?"
She only murmured it, and a smile came over her before she noticed.
They were from a shop she had liked quite a lot. More than the pastries themselves, though, what delighted her was the care in it — Han Seoyeon going all that way, at an hour like this.
"Well... I thought I ought to apologize for what happened today."
"......"
Remembering the day's events, Ninomae flushed red — and then, a beat late, laughed an ehehe.
What pleased her even more was the fact itself: that Han Seoyeon had set aside even watching the stream, and gone out solely to soothe Ninomae's heart.
That she had put Ninomae before Chouxie — nothing, more than that, made her glad.
Being jealous of myself is a ridiculous thing. But I can't help it, can I.
"An apology for what, you ask? Mm, that's a personal matter, so..."
"Wha—?! Hold on?! You were going to lick them?!"
"Mm. If you hadn't pushed me away back then — probably."
"Ehhh..."
In contrast to the shock washing over Mary's face, the chat had grown considerably loud.
"Ugh, this topic is forbidden! Anything further is forbidden!"
Mary waved her hands and hastily turned the conversation aside.
"Mm! Yes, shall I set that illustration I just downloaded as my wallpaper?"
"Aren't you changing the subject a bit too obviously? That sort of Chouxie is cute, though."
"Kh— be quiet!"
Click. She moved the mouse and opened the folder where her downloads lived. And selected the file...
"...Ah."
"Um... this is."
Mary had not downloaded an image file in quite some time. And the picture waiting in the automatically assigned save location — a relatively recent download — was...
"AAAAAAH!"
She slammed the folder shut, but even she knew it was already too late.
"So... it really was your taste...?"
"It's not...!"
"No, but you've kept something you received so long ago, all this time..."
"I-it's not, I said! Anyway, it's not...!"