I Shall Not Eat of It Again (4)
"Yes... barely, for the moment."
At the words of her first-generation senior, Yugure Tama, Mary answered with a small nod. The chat was still an unholy mess, but if they simply kept the broadcast moving, it would catch up somehow.
"Tama-chan. The year has already turned, so it isn't this year. It's last year."
For the record, Tama was sitting in on this in her capacity as Charlotte's childhood friend. The idea had been to bring the closest person among the acquaintances who knew the broadcast was happening, and there was hardly a more suitable candidate than her.
"Well, as for that part... let's just say the fault lies with Anathema, for booking nothing but guests with far too much personality."
"More to the point, if this is how it's going, won't the ones who can't figure it out be the weird ones? Don't pile so much pressure on the people coming after us!"
"But still... no matter how I listen, that was Tama-chan's way of talking..."
From anyone else's position, rough speech alone would have made it difficult to be certain. From Charlotte's, a far deeper inference was possible, drawn around the shape of her own relationships.
"Hmm. Not very interesting. As an instance of Char-nee's gap moe, it might be passable enough."
"From the side that got exposed, it's embarrassing enough..."
Set beside what had come before, though, the contents of the exposé were rather plain. Every night she slept hugging a teddy bear the size of her own body, one she had happened to win as a prize at a summer festival, and when something was troubling her she even seemed, now and then, to talk to it. Against the usual image of Charlotte—of Tsunashi Tenka—it was unexpected, certainly. The trouble was that the impact of the previous revelations had simply been too great.
The turn that followed belonged to Serena Razania.
"This blasphemous voice out of the abyss, the one not even voice modulation can hide... D-chan?"
"No. The viewers' SAN points are important."
Serena saw through the person beyond the modulated voice as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
"...The president?"
"Lord Nakabashi Gyokichi?"
"Serena-chan... are you, by any chance, close with the president?"
The identity that had come to light was so far from anything expected that every one of them ended up showing their bewilderment.
Nakabashi Gyokichi. A Deep One—or, with affection folded into the name, D-chan. By another title, the president of Anathema Production.
He was a comparatively approachable man, and the VTubers of Anathema had met him and spoken with him any number of times. Even so, not one of them could have predicted he would appear in the seat of an acquaintance brought on to do the exposing.
"...Go gentle on me, please."
Set the weight of the speaker's name aside, and the contents themselves were as harmless as they had been for Charlotte.
Last, with no need to so much as spin the roulette, came Komori Sae.
"So this anonymous thing really is meaningless, huh?"
"Ah. It's been a while, Rin-senpai."
Tachibana Rin. A senior of the first generation.
"Hold on. Why is my guest the only weird snake bastard?"
"Even so, having that one show up is..."
"Kaff—?! Say that and it's war, you old hag...!"
At Rin's words, Sae broke into a fit of coughing, as if something had gone down the wrong way.
"Was that maybe a story from when the stream wasn't on?"
"Mm. I see..."
Hearing that, Mary nodded.
"So on Christmas Eve, you went over to Sae-chan's house and had a lovely time. You two are close—."
"W-wait a minute. Mary-onee, that conclusion is weird!"
"Um... but Block Barracks doesn't have an online multiplayer function, does it? Not unless someone went over to someone's house... right?"
"But the one who decided on that penalty just now was Rin-senpai, wasn't it? Could it be you simply wanted to see Sae-chan acting cute..."
"Oh my. The call dropped."
"Unable to refute Lady Mary, they fled in the end."
The girls murmured it once they noticed the noise on the line had vanished. At this rate, it was hard to tell which of the two had actually been exposed.
"So you really are close, right?"
"I—I am not! Don't talk nonsense, you idiot!"
"You two are very close—."
"I'm not!"
"Mm... obangal?"
"...What does that mean?"
She had only asked for an assessment of the broadcast, and a foreign word had come tumbling out of nowhere. Ninomae tilted her head. Korean? Or was it Latin?
"Obangal. 'Today's stream was a full one.' In Korean, it means the broadcast was substantial. Streaming jargon, of course."
"O... obe, bang... al?"
"Yes. That's right."
The pronunciation left a great deal to be desired, and she herself was perfectly aware of it, but Han Seoyeon nodded all the same, a faint smile on her lips. She must have been in a rather fine mood. At present she had entered a mode of unconditional affirmation toward Ninomae.
"Anyway, you liked today's stream. That's what you're saying?"
"So it would seem."
After Han Seoyeon and several of the other guests had barged in, kicked up a commotion, and departed, the broadcast had gone on through a second part and come away with quite a result. Asking Seoyeon for her evaluation of it had been only a moment ago, and yet.
"...Now that I think about it, I'm asking someone who says it's good no matter what, the instant I so much as turn a stream on. There's no way that serves as a reference."
"Well. Shutang has value in her existence alone."
"That is exactly my point."
It was not, at the very least, an opinion one could adopt as a metric. Ninomae sighed and shook her head.
"That aside... you said you'd give me a ride, and then that there was no need to call you. So this is why. I never imagined you'd show up as a guest."
"I'm sorry for keeping it from you. It was planned as a surprise, though, and the company asked that it absolutely stay a secret."
"Even without a request like that, there's a certain peace of mind in knowing Shion-san is quietly the tormenting type. You would have hidden somewhere around here just to startle me."
"That is... mm. Difficult to deny."
As Han Seoyeon, toward Ninomae, perhaps not. But as Sister, toward Shutang—then yes, it would likely have gone just that way. Han Seoyeon herself found the thought reasonably convincing.
"About what you said, that you had something to do with the military today."
"I've finished, and come. As I already told you, today was nothing more than stopping by for a very brief look."
"I came straight to the office once it was over, and the timing happened to line up," Seoyeon added.
"In the first place, a collaboration of the entire second generation is a truly rare thing, is it not? Would I have arranged my schedule so as to miss a live broadcast like that?"
"That is a rather persuasive argument."
Even on ordinary days, she was someone who adjusted her plans so they would not overlap with Mary's streams. There was no chance she would miss an event as uncommon as a group collab. It was fair to treat her as almost always free in the hours around a broadcast.
"With all of the second generation present, in particular, one might even hope for some Charmea."
"I feel it every time, but you are seriously devoted to Charmea, aren't you, Shion-san. You interfered with the roulette, too, didn't you?"
"I did not guide it consciously. But I wished for it with a rather desperate heart, so it would be difficult to claim there was no influence."
When the right to a kiss was settled by roulette, the result had pointed to Charlotte's name as though it were only natural. This time, she could say it with certainty. This had been a Charmea event that Han Seoyeon had seized with her own hands.
Ninomae turned that fact over for a moment, and then she spoke.
"Shion-san."
The voice was exceedingly careful. Even a foreigner with no knowledge of Japanese would have known, from the sound alone, that what followed was serious.
"You weren't... jealous, were you?"
Jealousy, as she meant it, did not refer to the carnal alone. Even on the side of friendship, there could exist such feelings—childish, admittedly, but real enough—of having been there first.
Han Seoyeon was, of course, the type for whom Ninomae and Mary were kept rigorously apart. She was not a person who would grow jealous, in real life, of a pairing between characters. She was not—and yet. If the situation had been reversed, Ninomae knew she herself would certainly have been jealous, and once that thought had hold of her, she could not leave the question unasked.
The look she received in answer said, plain as anything, Jealous? Of what, exactly? She had no choice but to sigh on the spot.
"...Yes, well. Shion-san was that sort of person."
"Even if Mary had kissed Charlotte— no. Even if Ninomae had kissed Tsunashi Tenka, it would be the same for you. Wouldn't it?"
"If that were something you did of your own will, Ninomae-san, then it would hardly be my place to say anything, would it?"
"Mmm..."
Possessiveness grown so excessive that it crossed into obsession was, of course, a problem. But an affection in which possessiveness did not exist at all could hardly be called ordinary, either.
She had no intention of advancing anything so absurd as the claim that Han Seoyeon was indifferent to Ninomae. Even so, it was plain that the vector of that affection sat rather far askew of the ordinary case. If a thing could only be called better for Ninomae, then Seoyeon would yield the place beside her to anyone at all, and should it become necessary, she would leave Ninomae without any great hesitation. That was the shape of Han Seoyeon's feelings. That was the sort of person she was.
There was no chance she would be jealous. There was no chance she even could.
"Hnnn..."
An awfully complicated feeling. So Ninomae murmured, inwardly.
Had she stood where Han Seoyeon stood, she would certainly have been jealous. Her own affection was the ordinary kind—the kind from which possessiveness had not been ruled out.
She tried picturing Han Seoyeon pressing a kiss to another woman's cheek. She did not think so far as that such a thing must never be allowed to happen. She had no wish to make the double-standard claim of I may, but Shion-san may not! If the person were truly close to Han Seoyeon, then it was entirely possible. And so long as Ninomae defined her own feelings as friendship, so long as she held to the position that a kiss upon the cheek was hardly beyond what friends might do, this was a conclusion she could not escape.
She had no complaint with that fact. With the fact itself, that is.
"If it were me, I might be jealous. No—I probably would be. I'm a greedy person."
She did not fixate on being the first, nor the only. To speak her true heart, she wanted those as well, but to demand even that far would be an outrage.
"Even so, I wouldn't say it was absolutely forbidden. Telling you to cut ties with every person you're close to... that, I still couldn't say."
But failing to be the most—that alone was difficult to smile and let pass.
"Which is why. If there were ever contact, past a certain point, with a friend other than me... then you would give the same to me, for every time it happened."
This, too, was surely a demand verging on excessive greed. And yet for Ninomae Hitomi, it was also a line she could not give up.
"What I mean is, I am requesting most-favored-nation treatment in the matter of skinship! ...If I may put it that way. Ehehe."
Would it be no good? She tossed the words out half in play and laughed, sheepish at herself, only to regret it a beat too late. That had been far too strange a way to put it, hadn't it?
"If it is what you wish, Ninomae-san, then as much as you like."
So saying, Han Seoyeon took the pause while the car was held at a light and pressed her lips to the nape of Ninomae's neck. Whether the shy little smile that bloomed on Ninomae's face came of satisfaction or of being tickled, Seoyeon could not tell.
And so neither could she tell whether the kiss returned at once upon her own cheek had been a recompense, or a reprisal.