HelloBocchi

After I ended the stream, it hit me just how careless I'd been. Today I'd slipped past suspicion by a single fraying thread.

Late as it was, I sat down and tried to work out a solution on my own — and then a conversation I'd had with Haruka floated back up.

The whole pitch had been I've been watching VTubers lately, you should too~ — salesmanship, basically. She'd made me sit through a stream against my will, and the only thing that had actually stuck with me was…

…that ridiculously, stupidly, unbearably cute way of talking.

"……."

Wait.

The speech style?

"That's it!"

Think about it. If I talked completely differently from idol Lee Jimin from now on, there'd be nothing left to suspect, would there?

Holy shit. Am I a genius?

"Heheheheheh."

And so, after studying a whole spread of VTuber streams, the big day arrived. Bocchi v2, prepared with ambition and zero shame, made her debut.

"HelloBocchi~ You worked hard today too, bocchi~"

"……."

For some reason, I was getting absolutely dogwalked.

What was everyone's problem? It was just cute.

"…What's wrong, bocchi? Do you guys not like this speech style, bocchi?"

"Please shut up? Ooh, that's got a nice punch to it, bocchi? ShutUpBocchi. Heh."

The punch-line bit set the chat on fire. Hey you piece of shit. You trying to die. You wanna get punched for real… and so on. If you looked at it a certain way, this might have been the most bloodthirsty my chat had ever been.

Was it that bad? Granted, even I was a little embarrassed using Bocchi-speak, but… ahem.

This is going way too far, you know~

"Don't use such strong language, bocchi. It makes you look weak, bocchi."

"Pffftuhu… this isn't a power struggle."

Bocchi-speak: temporarily OFF.

I still owed them an explanation. From the viewers' side, this was more than enough to be confusing.

"So I've been watching some VTuber streams lately, right? And their speech styles are actually really fun."

That part was true. The first time Haruka had shown me a VTuber video, the thing that hooked me hardest was the way they talked.

VTubers used an incredible variety of speech patterns. The most common trick was taking their own name and tacking it onto the end of every sentence.

"So I decided to take my name and add ~bocchi to the end of mine. What do you think? Honestly rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?"

"…Don't? I'm gonna, though? I'm gonna, bocchi? Heh."

The second I flipped Bocchi-speak back on, chat lost their minds all over again.

I'd seen this reaction coming, honestly. I just hadn't expected it to taste this good.

"You don't have to be a VTuber to use it. Narrow-mindedness is forbidden, bocchi."

Hmm. They were just going anyway, no~ on principle at this point.

"Alright, fine. If being a VTuber just takes a model, that's easy enough, right?"

I decided to play along.

I opened Paint, dragged the mouse around, and scribbled something out. Pink long hair, roughly. A sweet-potato-colored tracksuit. A pathetic little guitar slapped on the back, and — done.

I saved the file, resized it to something reasonable, and parked it in the bottom-right corner of my stream overlay.

"Wow~ I'm a VTuber now too. Pffftuhuhuhu…."

"Ahemhmmhuhmmhuhuhu…."

Even I had to admit it was unhinged. Embarrassing, too.

But it couldn't be helped. All of this was a sacrifice I was making for the Bocchi-dan. A humiliating little song and dance so I could keep streaming for a long, long time.

And they didn't even know that. They were just sitting there cursing me out.

So this is the life of a Dark Knight.

Aigoo.

Anyway. I was sighing on the inside when—

"…Thrown together? Take that back, bocchi."

The sloppy-script comment actually got under my skin. God damn it. I hadn't wanted to show this.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I actually made a whole document for this concept, you know?"

"Hold on."

Who did they think I was?

In HYPE I was… you know. That whole long title. On top of that I had a knack for composing, so every now and then I'd take a track on the album and handle the concept and the lyrics myself. I'd even put together PowerPoints to present them. After enough of that, my document game had gotten pretty sharp.

I opened the file and threw it up on stream.

Click.

"Everyone seeing this? This is how much I prepared."

Inside the document were all the speech-style samples I'd come up with. Things like: Sound Bocchi makes when she's depressed? — Bocchiiiiii… (in a depressed tone). That kind of energy.

"Ah, the laugh?"

The perfect question, right on cue. I'd put a lot of work into the laugh in particular. It went something like…

"Bohanghanghanghang~ Pffthuhuhuhu…."

"Pffthuhuhu… sorry? The sound she makes when she's happy?"

I'd put a lot of work into this one too.

The sound Bocchi makes when she's happy. The key was that you had to deliver it like a Popomon cry from Popomonster.

Something like…

"Bocchi~ Bocchi~"

I even swayed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my head to the rhythm.

"This one's a little cute, right? Heh."

"It's cute? Bocchi~ Bocchi~"

The happy Bocchi sound set chat off all over again. A whole chorus of GRAAAAAAH, the works.

But the flavor of it was a little different from a minute ago. Cute comments were trickling in here and there, which meant… yeah. They'd taken a liking to it. Then again — how were they supposed to resist aegyo served up by a working idol?

"Bocchi~ Bocchi~ Shall we hop into some Lel, everyone?"

"Shitty speech style? Even better? Okaaay~ I'll try using it in Lel too then… pffthuhuhu."

Didn't they know that telling me not to do something just made me want to do it more?

I queued up, and it wasn't long before a game popped.

The second I loaded into champ select, I typed into team chat.

"HelloBocchi, teammates~!"

"…Hold on. Nobody's typing back?"

Right. High-elo players were a taciturn breed. Everyone was just silently working through bans and picks, not giving me a single glance.

Hmm….

"Bocchiiiiii…."

"Mmhmhmmhuhuhuhu."

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

What was I supposed to do. The reactions were so delicious I was going to burst. This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a serious case of streamer addiction. Bohanghang.

Anyway. I was sitting there snickering to myself when—

"……."

My face went scarlet.

The long-awaited reunion with my idol could not possibly have gone worse.