Realization
With the appointment barreling toward her whether she liked it or not, Kurogami Yui grew more restless by the minute.
She was not exactly confident in her acting skills.
Facing Yu Nari and pretending nothing was wrong felt impossible.
Right. Let's just postpone the collab!
As for the excuse…
Her throat hurt.
Her stomach hurt.
A sudden call from Japan.
Her cat was sick.
Ah—she didn't have a cat.
Scratch the last one.
Saying it out loud would give her away, so she chose texting over a phone call.
The reply came so fast it was like she'd been sitting there waiting for it.
"Phew."
While the two of them sorted out their tangled knot on their own, she could just stay out of the way for a bit.
The moment Yui let herself relax—
Bzzzzzt—
The sick part is a lie, so that would be a little awkward…
Yui's body gave a little flinch.
How could she be this nice?
Guilt sprouted and shot up like a weed.
Yui was certain Nari still didn't know about the featuring situation. There was no other way she could be this calm. Last time, the anxiety had been written all over her face. Yu Nari was not the type who could hide her feelings well.
Torn and fretting, she finally decided to just meet her and was about to reply when—
Messages poured in like a rainstorm, and Yui scrambled to type.
She really doesn't know… right?
Yui shot up from her seat and started tidying the room in a hurry.
One hour later.
The doorbell rang. Yui took a deep breath and opened the door.
"Unnie! I'm here!"
"Oh—come in."
Bright. Cheerful. As expected, she still knew nothing.
Yui breathed a quiet sigh of relief behind Nari's back and welcomed her again.
As if the claim that she rarely visited other people's homes was true, Nari kicked off her shoes and came inside while her eyes swept the place in quick little glances.
"Wow, unnie's room is so…"
"Hm?"
"…Cozy? Fluffy?"
"What does that even mean?"
Nari's gaze drifted slowly around the room again—soft pink curtains, animal-shaped cushions, potted plants, candles.
"Mm. Super girly. It's cute."
"I-it's just normal. Not cute."
"Pffft—you get called cute all the time on stream."
"Yeah, but that's not about my real appearance."
I should've put the plushies away. I was so used to them I forgot.
Watching Yui's face start to turn red, Nari slowly tugged one corner of her mouth upward. At that smile, loaded with mischief, Yui made a small, flustered excuse.
"Want one of those? It's not like I keep them because I like them. They're my merch. Kuro—the wolf plush."
"Hmm, okay! It looks like unnie, so it's cute."
"Aaaugh, stop calling me cute."
Why is she being so sticky today?
Yui pouted, but she didn't put up much of a fight. A thorn of conscience was lodged deep in her chest.
Let's just start the stream already.
Once the stream was on, she could seize the initiative again. She would pin Nari down with the dignity of a senior streamer.
With that thought, Yui rushed to get the broadcast ready.
Kurogami Yui — Real-Life Collab Stream (w. Lunari)
The live stream kicked off on the host Kurogami Yui's channel, and viewers flooded in.
"Hellooo~! Lunari came over to play today!!"
"Hi everyone~ I'm Lunari! And this time I'm right next to Yui unnie!"
The dual-streamer setup she'd configured ages ago, just in case she ever invited a colleague over, was finally paying off. Both virtual avatars supported facial tracking, so they only needed upper-body tracking suits—and both of them moved naturally as they bantered with the chat.
"Everyone's curious about Yui unnie's place, right!"
"Na—Nari, what are you about to—"
"Every single cushion is ridiculously adorable, hehehe. Unnie, you hug these when you sleep, don't you?"
"I do not! That is pure slander-imnida! It's just leftover Kuro merch! You know my goods, right? Huh?"
"Aww, she's embarrassed, hehe."
"Urgh."
Unlike the previous online collab, having Lunari right next to her meant Yui was getting completely overrun on sheer presence. With that alluring little smile, Nari kept poking and prodding, and Yui reeled with every jab.
"Unnie, try saying this. Ganjang gongjang gongjangjang."
"Ganjaang gongjaang gongjaang…"
"Final consonants are half-price. I'm Nihonjin, you know."
Pouting, Yui suddenly shot to her feet with a flash of inspiration.
"Then Nari! You try Japanese! Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da!"
"Tonarinokyakuwayokukakikuu… what?"
"See! You can't do it either!!"
"Hey, I don't know any Japanese at all."
She managed to land a few hits of her own on Nari. Of course, for every punch she threw, she felt like she took five back.
My dignity as a senior streamer…
Something weighed on her conscience, so she couldn't put up a real fight against Nari—and she took the beating helplessly.
At the viewer's question, both of them went hmm— at the same time and rolled their eyes around.
"I wanted to give her a big hug?"
"Like a school senpai?"
The answers came out at almost the exact same moment.
Looking only at the virtual avatars, Kurogami Yui appeared far more mature and adult, while Lunari looked warm and delicate. The difference in avatar bust size and height made it even more obvious.
But in reality—
"Ahaa~ so that's how unnie saw me~ A senpai, huh~"
"Wanted to hug me… what garbage… ugh. Okay, anyone saying weird stuff is getting banned."
While Yui purged the borderline-NSFW chat, Nari stretched an arm out to the side. With the VR tracking suit on, her avatar mirrored the motion perfectly.
"Come here. Let your senpai give you a hug."
"Eek—w-wait, get away! Ah!"
Lunari's arm slid around and wrapped Yui up tight.
"Ehehehe, I've always wanted to hug you once. C'mere!"
"Don't pet me! Don't peeeet meee!"
In real life, Yui was trapped in a back-hug, mercilessly getting her head stroked—but to the viewers, it was just a tiny cat cooing and clinging to the back of a big wolf demi-human.
"Heheheh. I've always wanted to try this."
"Uuuuugh—kuso. I'm the unnie here."
Having been cute-attacked to the absolute limit, real-life Yui collapsed in defeat.
Even after that, the two of them kept bickering and delivered peak chemistry to the viewers. The viewer count never dropped—it climbed and climbed, breaking past nine thousand by the end of the stream.
Completely against their usual virtual images, the two earned the nicknames Teto-Nari and Aegen-Yui before they finally signed off.
"Huuuuh—"
After ending a stream, silence usually settled in. Today, with someone right beside her, there was no room to feel empty. In exchange, the exhaustion hit twice as hard.
Streaming with someone next to you is harder than I thought.
Yui, whose soul had been thoroughly wrung out, finally collected herself once the broadcast was over. She'd fretted the entire stream about making mistakes, but in the end it had been genuinely fun.
"Unnie, today was seriously so much fun. And the chat was going wild."
"I had fun with you too, Nari… even if it was also kind of annoying."
"Aww~ are you sulking? Well, whose fault is it for being so shy and flustered that I just wanted to tease you!"
"…What is this victim-blaming. Nari, you sound like those creeps who harass people and then blame their short skirts."
With the tension gone and both of them relaxed, the chatter they couldn't have on stream spilled out. The live had been a success, and delicious snacks sat right in front of them.
"Ehehe."
It had been so long since she'd brought a friend home that she completely let her guard down.
She really shouldn't have.
"Our MCN's way of handling things is so weird. If they'd just pass things along as-is it'd be fine, but they always interpret it all vague and fuzzy."
"Really? I've never been under a proper MCN, so I don't know much about it. Was it that frustrating?"
"Auuugh, don't even start. This time during recording, they didn't even tell me about the featuring in advance and I nearly had a heart attack."
"Why?"
Yui picked up a snack and opened her mouth completely naturally.
"They never said they were using the guide vocalist as the official featuring—if I'd known, I would've practiced hard—"
Ah?
Three seconds after the words left her mouth, Yui's hand and lips both froze.
What did I just…
"…The guide vocalist is doing the featuring?"
"Ah! No no no, I mean, similar tone, kind of. Uh uh uh uh."
Nari watched the flustered Yui steadily, then smiled.
"Pfft. What's wrong with you."
"H-huh? No, nothing."
"If it's nothing, why are you sweating."
"Is it hot? Yeah, it always gets warm after a stream."
Did she buy it? She carefully lifted her head—and met Nari's eyes, narrowed to sharp slits.
"Unnie."
"Yeah?"
"Do you know who A-il is?"
"Ehk!"
She desperately averted her gaze.
"Hmm. Looking away. Not much talent for lying, huh?"
"…I-I don't know."
Nari smiled faintly. That smile was different from the one she'd worn on stream—quiet, composed.
"A-il is Yeong-il, right? And A-il is doing the featuring."
Silence answered the question for her.
"I see."
"Na—Nari! I only found out when I went to the recording today, I swear. I didn't know either. I wasn't trying to hide it from you—"
The excuses poured out of pure indignation. She had never, not even for a second, wanted to get between the two of them.
Watching that performance, Nari's shoulders started to shake lightly.
"Pff—unnie."
"Huh?"
"I already knew. I found out late, but So-yeong told me this morning."
"Ah?!"
Yui's eyes went wider and wider.
Then…
All that bullying throughout the stream.
All that meekly putting up with it because she felt guilty.
She'd known the whole time?
"Narii!!"
"Unnie? You didn't even do anything wrong—pffhehehe, you're just so cute, I knew it."
"Th-that's—! Argh, seriously!"
Yui stamped her feet in pure injustice. There was nothing she could say. Feeling guilty had been real, after all.
After a long stretch of venting her grievances until she finally ran out of steam and quieted down, Nari's expression had changed. The playful energy she'd shown all stream was gone—replaced by quiet, clear eyes.
"Unnie."
"…Yeah?"
"Thanks to you, I realized something."
"What?"
The answer didn't come right away. Nari's lips moved soundlessly, and a faint flush spread across her face.
"When I heard Do-yoon was going to sing with someone else, my heart just… dropped."
"……"
"I told myself it was because we were friends. That it couldn't be anything else."
The red had already climbed to her ears.
"I don't think so. Not just friends."
Yui had already been sure of it deep down—but she hadn't expected to hear it out loud.
"Nari, you… don't tell me…?"
"Yeah. Probably."
She didn't say the word like directly. But that was enough. Admitting she felt this way about someone she had never even met in person was genuinely hard for Yu Nari. She had never once dreamed of—or experienced—any pink-tinted romance in her life, so it could still be a misunderstanding. But once she accepted the feeling, she was surprised to find a quiet calm settle over her.
"I should thank you for it, unnie. You helped me realize, so I wanted to come tell you today. Because you got suspicious last time, I figured it out even faster."
"Uh… uh…"
"Once I understood why I was so determined to keep you in check, it was so childish I got embarrassed all over again."
Faced with that shyly offered honesty, Yui started to feel a little worried. From the way he directed in the studio, he didn't seem like a bad person—but that alone didn't tell you much. Was it even possible to fall for someone based on personality alone?
"E-even so. Don't go confessing out of nowhere, okay? Slow and stea— yeah. You have to meet him at least once before you decide, alright?"
"Yeah. I can't approach him right now anyway. He's a careful person."
"Good. Promise."
Unlike Nari, Yui remembered the composer side of him as rather detached. If he'd been conscious of Nari romantically, wouldn't he have just told her everything right away?
"I'll take it one step at a time. Holding back will be hard, but."
Watching a girl's first love begin to bloom was a truly delightful thing. Still… wasn't she getting a little too into this?
"A-and if you ever get disappointed, just… assume the absolute worst about his looks, okay??"
Reality was not a drama.
"Looks aren't everything! It's the heart that matters!"
"I know, I know. Do you want him to be ugly?"
"No! No!"
It was advice overflowing with goodwill. For Yui, who ranked face as the most important trait in an ideal type, this was simply the greatest concern she could offer.
Hanging out at home with a friend late into the night is so much fun.
Everything that had been making her feel so uneasy had been washed clean, and she felt refreshed.
"Ah! Then why did you bully me so much!! I just took it like an idiot!"
"That was partly just because unnie is cute…"
"Huh?"
"And partly because I was jealous you stole the first duet with Do-yoon…"
"And it kind of got on my nerves."
"And I was envious that you two get to work together."
"Uuuhh?"
Nari's gaze took on a clingy, sticky look again, and Yui instinctively took a step back. But then, with a smiling eye-crinkle, that aura vanished.
"Just kidding."
Yui could tell, just for a moment, that the words were sincere. The subtle, wary look that had once been aimed at her was gone. In its place was something else—a quiet heat, fixed steadily on somewhere far away.