A Ten Out of Ten for Delivery Food
Park Hye-jin, Yu Nari’s college classmate, slipped in her earphones, stretched out on her bed, and lifted her phone.
“Oh, it’s starting.”
Quarterfinals of the 1st Virtual Voice Fight! The formidable contestants are waiting in the wings!!
Park Hye-jin knew nothing about internet broadcasting.
She had installed the app and made an account for the first time in her life, and she was already certain she would never log in again after today.
She was not here to cheer on a classmate from the applied music department.
Yu Nari had kept her streaming life under strict wraps, so Hye-jin had no idea her friend would even appear.
The real reason Park Hye-jin was watching Virtual Voice Fight tonight was far simpler.
“Kyaaa, unnie’s so pretty. Isn’t unnie going to sing?”
She was a member of Shin Se-young’s fan club, the Sirens.
A few days earlier, several photos had been posted on the fan community ‘Siren Gallery.’ They were candid screenshots of Shin Se-young sitting in the judges’ seats during the Round of 32 and Round of 16.
Se-young had always maintained that sharp, rational expression.
But the Se-young in those captures was different.
Her eyes went round, her mouth parted slightly; she wore the thrilling look of someone who had just taken a massive shock—or discovered buried treasure.
Hye-jin never missed that tiny but unmistakable ripple of emotion.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the MC was whipping up the quarterfinal heat against a dazzling 3D stage backdrop.
What even is this? Some kind of online doll play?
What on earth was a VTuber supposed to be?
Hye-jin stood at the complete opposite pole of subculture.
Only a few hours earlier she had seriously debated whether this was worth skipping golden Friday-night drinking plans.
“Amane Ruka? Is this person Japanese? Oh? Her Korean’s crazy good. Overseas Korean, maybe? Cute accessories.”
Anyone could tell the pronunciation was pure native Korean, but Hye-jin was not the prejudiced type, so she simply filed it under “Japanese, I guess” and moved on.
Being an applied music major, she at least had an interest in listening to singing.
And after only the first match she already felt the contestants’ skill levels were no joke.
Anyone this good was clearly aiming to be a singer or, like herself, an applied music student.
Ah, so that’s why our Se-young unnie is judging.
The more the tournament progressed, the more that made sense. Then the third match began.
Next up, Match 3: Kim Gi-won versus Lunari! This one looks seriously promising. As for Lunari, she was the contestant Se-young-nim said left the deepest impression, right?
Ah, yes, exactly. That radical rearrangement still sticks with me. And her tone color was just too good.
“Oh?”
A talent even Shin Se-young had praised.
Park Hye-jin decided to pour every bit of her attention into Match 3.
The opponent was the only male VTuber who had reached the quarterfinals.
His fandom wasn’t massive, but with his naturally beautiful voice and the rarity of a man in a scene dominated by women, he had been expected to go deep into the brackets.
In this shining today—you and me
Lonely in this place—stay with me
Where Lunari had previously reimagined original tracks with radical rearrangements, Kim Gi-won delivered pitch-perfect fidelity that felt like a straight copy-paste, pushing the original flavor to its absolute limit.
Wow, the professors would love this.
A textbook structure faithful to the fundamentals.
Orthodox vocal production.
Even to Hye-jin’s trained applied-music ear, Gi-won’s singing had zero fluff.
When the song ended, the chat flooded with praise: “Our Gi-won is so cool T_T,” “This is what classic technique looks like,” “Transcended the original.”
The further the matches went, the stronger the contestants seemed to get; Hye-jin couldn’t help swallowing hard.
And next is the one Se-young unnie raved about?
This was not going to be easy.
Amid everyone’s quiet worry, Lunari’s figure filled the screen.
The pink-haired girl who usually flicked her cat ears had shown up today in a wolf-pajama hoodie.
She looked exactly like a baby kitten pretending to be a wolf, and the gap made fond little smiles tug at the corners of people’s mouths.
That warm smile flipped into worry the moment Lunari greeted the audience.
Bewilderment and worry.
Hye-jin herself let out a short laugh. Pairing the song Kim Gi-won had just sung with something titled “Delivery Food”?
She had heard a lot of music in her life, but a title like that was a first.
“Did she write it herself? Planning to do one song and bounce?”
If that was the case, it might not be a terrible move.
Current viewership sat at 48,330.
As free advertising it was an unbeatable opportunity.
But bringing a mediocre original to a competition didn’t look great to viewers who had come expecting a real fight.
It reeked of someone who lacked the confidence to win and was just trying to grab some personal gain on the way out.
Park Hye-jin crossed her arms and watched Lunari’s intro with open dissatisfaction.
Tak, tak, ping—
A light snap Do-yoon had recorded himself and the weeping cry of an acoustic guitar seized every ear at once.
Over that ticklish, delicate guitar, Lunari’s vocal settled as soft as a feather.
Refresh, even if I drag the screen down—
The estimated arrival is still forty minutes
“……Holy—”
A dazed little gasp slipped from Hye-jin’s lips.
When a motorcycle rumbles past the window
I know it’s not mine, yet my ears still prick up—
The lyrics were painfully ordinary, nothing special at all.
They painted the exact lazy image of someone lying in bed hammering the refresh button on a delivery app.
Something anyone could have lived, so common it was almost boring.
Yet that calm, self-assured vocal and the ridiculously sophisticated sense of rhythm were tickling Hye-jin’s eardrums.
Why does this feel so rich?
Her head started bobbing with the beat as she waited for the second verse.
(Ding-dong—)
A bright doorbell sound kicked off the second verse.
The heavy plastic bag waiting at the door—hurried fingers yanking at the knot—
Tear the packaging, tear it open—
A warm smell filling the gray room.
A tiny smile was mixed into Lunari’s voice.
It was the microscopic tremor of someone meeting the single happiest moment of an ordinary day, and that feeling soaked straight into the song.
A tone color so charming it felt like it could hand that happiness out to anyone listening.
For a second Hye-jin thought she heard an echo of the old Yu Nari voice that used to hide in the corners of campus, but the confident delivery here was so different that all she could do was marvel, Wow, what a blessed tone—.
Tak—
The cheerful crack of wooden chopsticks snapping cleanly in half split the space.
Drrrrr— bam!
The minimal accompaniment flipped on a dime; the tempo yanked forward and a dazzling 16-bit bass line poured down like an airstrike.
It felt as if the song itself was shuddering in ecstasy at the long-awaited taste of delivery food.
Sweet-and-salty hitting the tip of my tongue! Lightning through my skull—!
A festival opening inside my quiet room—!
The lyrics stayed simple and cute—“This is seriously good,” “sweet-and-salty”—yet the track underneath kept swelling until it turned grand.
That vicious imbalance.
Lightweight words married to a rhythm that seduced every listener and detonated pure adrenaline.
By the time the song finished and voting opened, Hye-jin had completely blacked out Kim Gi-won’s textbook performance.
It had definitely been excellent, yet after a little time all she could recall was that he had basically sung the original as-is.
What still hammered her heart was Lunari’s “Delivery Food.”
On the bottom of the screen Shin Se-young let out a small, disbelieving laugh and then started clapping.
When the mic was shoved at her and she froze with a string of “Uh… uh…”s, Ririe—quick on the uptake—jumped in first.
Shin Se-young took the mic back.
The chat immediately flooded with “lmao” in total agreement.
Praise from a top-tier singer.
The sincerity in that evaluation made everyone sense the result already.
No—results no longer even mattered.
Hye-jin herself typed as if hypnotized and fired off a chat:
—all without ever realizing that the person who had just sung was her own college classmate.
Meanwhile, Yu Nari, who had just finished the stage, was gripping her focus so she wouldn’t drown in the heat pouring over her.
As expected, Do-yoon’s songs are incredible.
His arranging ability had already been anything but ordinary.
Asking whether he had any original compositions of his own had turned out to be a divine move.
Of course she had never imagined he could write songs this good.
No matter how you looked at it, assuming some random guy who wandered into a VTuber stream with one viewer would turn out to be this kind of monster was pure drama.
Yet when she asked him to show her some tracks he casually sent thirteen of them.
Every single one was so good that just choosing took over ten hours.
Do-yoon is not someone who should stay buried like this.
She refused to let that happen, and she didn’t want to leave him that way either.
Do-yoon had clearly sold her the song—or rather, given it to her.
Even without a formal contract she could have introduced it as Lunari’s original, but every single time she introduced the track she deliberately added the credit: “an original composition by composer Yeong-il.”
Given Do-yoon’s usual ultra-cautious, cat-like behavior she sometimes worried she might be overstepping, yet the determination that this brilliant talent must not rot away here burned stronger.
See? It’s amazing. Look at this.
The explosive viewer reactions and the judges’ raves only hardened Yu Nari’s conviction.
With the songs Do-yoon had given her, she could do this.
That confidence strapped wings to her back.
Yu Nari’s voice reclaimed the one-of-a-kind tone color from the days when she simply enjoyed music, singing without any pressure.
One more step.
If she just cleared the semis she would reach the final.
There was a song she desperately wanted to perform in front of a huge crowd—a song she wanted to sing for someone.
Yu Nari quietly closed her eyes and steadied her breathing for the next round.
In the meantime the fourth quarterfinal match finished and the semifinal bracket was set.
Lunari’s next opponent was Kurogami Yui.
A VTuber famous for her free-spirited rock vocals and delicious takes on J-pop had become her opponent.
And unlike the pure-blooded Korean VTuber with a Japanese name whom Park Hye-jin had earlier mistaken for Japanese, this one was the real deal—an actual Japanese woman.