Who Are You?
After the Round of 32 wrapped up, I opened Lunari’s channel again.
Current Followers: 2,219
“……Whoa.”
Before the Round of 32 even started, she’d been sitting in the four hundreds. One match, and the number had jumped several times over.
The chat had changed, too. Before the tournament, most of the people hanging around had just been gawkers. Now the atmosphere was different. It was still too early to call them fans, but people were hitting follow and settling in for the long haul.
I opened the Link community tab.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. Sure, the odd weird comment still showed up here and there, but by any reasonable measure this was a very healthy reception.
Looking at it all… a feeling settled over me that I didn’t quite know how to name. Was I scared? Proud?
Maybe her nerves were just contagious.
I opened the inbox that had somehow started piling up and typed out a reply.
Hmm.
It was the truth. She’d been more alive on the actual stage than she ever was in practice. The nerves had only densified her voice. People said some performers were built for competition—Lunari seemed to be one of them.
She’d clearly gotten used to it already—she kept calling me Yeong-eo.
If she was going to do that, why had she insisted we come up with a nickname in the first place? She’d gone on and on about how corny it was… was that why…?
Yeong-il. Yeong-il.
It was fine, wasn’t it…?
I felt a little dejected.
I hesitated a moment, then answered honestly.
There was no upgrading anything further at this point anyway. Not the track. Not the vocals. All that was left was to put everything she’d prepared on full display.
I sent her one more cheer.
“……”
How is someone currently on stream replying this fast.
Don’t you have a job?
Before I knew it, the Round of 32 was over.
(with Lirie, Shin Se-young)
With Match 3 of the Round of 16 looming, the Link official broadcast’s viewer count was climbing toward its peak. The meeting of Baeka—who had both popularity and skill—and the unknown powerhouse Lunari had been singled out as the most intriguing matchup of the round.
Some users argued that with a viewer vote in play, Baeka and her forty thousand followers held the advantage. But Lunari’s own stream had already crossed thirteen hundred concurrent viewers, and that momentum was nothing to shrug off. Followers were just followers. Looking at the fact that Baeka’s stream currently sat around three thousand, it was easy enough to guess that fan-driven voting wouldn’t hit quite as hard as people expected.
Chat was scrolling at a blistering pace.
Carrying the weight of everyone’s expectations, Match 3 of the Round of 16 began.
Baeka’s stage came first. Going on the offensive, she chose an indie-leaning acoustic ballad. From the very first phrase, she had the ear locked in. There was no excess. Every breath, every trailing note, was soft. She never forced power into it, and so the melody followed her as if it had always belonged there.
Shin Se-young sat in the judges’ seats with her arms folded and her eyes closed.
As expected.
She’d felt it in the Round of 32 too—Baeka was a finished product. The kind of stability that didn’t rattle no matter what stage you put her on. That rare ability to ride her own ease and deliver emotion through it. Even in the Round of 16, she put on a rock-solid performance.
When the song ended, Baeka’s avatar—somehow faintly melancholy, a style that suited her almost too well—quietly bowed her head, and chat erupted in unstinting praise.
Shin Se-young wrote a short note on her pad.
Top-tier polish. Outstanding emotional delivery. This match won’t be easy.
Then the screen switched over to Lunari’s broadcast.
The first time she’d heard Lunari’s Summer’s Ocean, Shin Se-young had gotten chills. The vocals were clearly excellent—but more than that, the structure of the accompaniment had refused to leave her head. The way it had completely dismantled the original. Whether the vocals had been fitted to the song or the song to the vocals, she couldn’t say, but the harmony between them was unmistakably the real thing. Even among proper professional work, that kind of thing was rare.
Which was why she’d been even more curious about the Round of 16. Same approach—or a different direction entirely?
Carrying that expectation, she fixed her attention on Lunari’s mouth.
After the brief greeting, the accompaniment began—and Shin Se-young’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Piano.
If Summer’s Ocean had opened on acoustic guitar, this one opened on piano. Thin and soft, without any flashy chord work. One note at a time, slowly, as if leaving footprints.
And then Lunari began to sing.
In front of the bridge we used to walk— I stood there a long time—
I held the sight of you— turning away, waving—
She didn’t force the emotion into a cry. She stripped the power out, then stripped more. And somehow, something seemed to fill the empty space she left behind.
Without realizing it, Shin Se-young set her notepad down.
I’m going to miss you— from now on— I hope things go better for you—
These lyrics.
Lyrics she already knew. A song she already knew. And yet it didn’t sound anything like the Graduation she remembered. A bright, youth-soaked song about blessing your friends’ futures now sounded like a far deeper farewell—the bitter resolve of wanting to hold on and not being able to catch them, steeped into every single line.
The arrangement drove it deeper still. The original had been a tropical house track, bright and bursting with energy. What was playing now was a completely different song. The rhythm had been stripped away, the harmony pared down to something simple, the structure opened as wide as possible so Lunari’s voice would have room to enter. It wasn’t the accompaniment supporting the song—it was the song standing alone on top of the accompaniment.
Take care— take care— we’re going to be happy.
The last phrase drifted out. Lunari’s voice set the note down with a soft drop, as if letting it fall to the floor. It sounded like the most honest goodbye possible.
When the song ended, Shin Se-young smiled—interest and admiration both sitting plainly on her face.
Chat surged in waves.
Shin Se-young picked her notepad back up. And then she had no idea what to write. She tried to write about the vocals—and found herself writing about the arrangement. She tried to write about the arrangement—and found herself talking about Lunari’s interpretive ability. The two were stuck too tightly together. There was no separating them.
Just like the Round of 32, it was perfect harmony. And so she became fairly certain.
Ah. She arranged this herself and then sang it.
No one knows a person better than themselves. Most singer-songwriters were like that.
A genius. An absolute genius. Almost a waste of talent, sitting around being a VTuber.
Then the time for admiration ended, and the cruel world of competition returned. Unlike Shin Se-young, who had already made her call at professional speed, Lirie’s deliberation ran deep, and the announcement of the results dragged longer than any stage so far. Lirie had decided to choose wherever her chest resonated—and that was giving her a headache. Baeka’s stage had been so polished, and plenty of people felt she led in technique and stability. Both of them sang dense, emotional material; to an ordinary ear, both had simply been good.
“Uggghhh…! Fine! Decided!”
Lirie’s struggle ended, the viewer vote finished tallying, and the MC’s declaration rang out.
Round of 16 — Match 3 Winner: Lunari!!
Shin Se-young: Lunari
Lirie: Lunari
Viewer Vote: 62% Lunari
Baeka’s stage had gone first, Lunari’s second. You couldn’t claim there’d been no advantage of order. Even so, sweeping all three votes could only mean that Graduation had lodged itself deeper in people’s hearts.
Once the Round of 16 had fully concluded, the winner’s interview began. MC Kim Hyun-dong connected by video into Lunari’s stream.
"Congratulations, Lunari! You’ve fought through two matches all the way to the Round of 16—how are you feeling?"
"Thank you…… I was so nervous! Especially after watching Baeka’s stage—she was so good I genuinely wondered if I’d be okay!"
"Oh come on, you were incredible! Se-young over here had stars in her eyes. If you have a question, go ahead! Hahaha."
The MC smoothly passed the mic to Shin Se-young.
In Shin Se-young’s mind, she’d already more or less confirmed that Lunari had arranged every song she sang herself—so the question about the intention behind the arrangements came out naturally.
And Lunari, stumbling over her words, gave an answer Shin Se-young had not seen coming.
"Uh…! I didn’t arrange this one, so… I don’t really know the intention."
"…What?"
Someone else did it? Who?
The industry was smaller than people thought—a few degrees of separation and you knew everyone worth knowing. Especially if they had skill. A composer willing to pour real sincerity into a streaming tournament—an exclusively VTuber tournament, no less? It had to be someone who loved VTubers the way she did.
Shin Se-young’s eyes lit up even brighter.