Ember
18th (▲1) Blackout Cat — Lunari.
19th (▼2) Sunset Drive — Prism Tree.
23rd (▲1) Delivery Food — Lunari.
The toxic side of Prism Tree’s fandom started seething that very evening.
An unexpected spark had caught fire.
Up until now the only recordings I’d done were with Yu Nari and myself. Both of us had finished relatively early, so I’d figured that was just how long recording usually took.
With Yui it felt like it took almost twice as long.
I’d watched her streams so often that her voice itself was familiar, but actually trying to talk to her made me a little nervous. Part of me still had that fan feeling of Whoa, it sounds exactly like it does on stream. In the end it was still a conversation with a stranger, and that was hard.
I wasn’t exactly at my best either, and toward the later takes I could feel Yui’s focus starting to slip. Whenever I asked for another take she’d snap out of it with an “Ah! Okay!” but it lacked the meticulousness of the early ones. Still, the final result wasn’t bad, so that was something. The clear-yet-husky high notes of hers that Nari and I had been looking forward to crowned the climax perfectly.
And now I was doing what I always did—chipping away at that recording file in my usual work program.
“Working on it at home just feels lacking…”
After mixing once in a real studio, the difference from what I could get at home was night and day. Should I ask to borrow it? Just imagining the trip all the way to the company made me sigh. I felt guilty asking them to pick me up again—I wasn’t a manager, and making one of the company’s composers chauffeur me around for my own sake sat wrong. Better to just walk there on my own two feet. Or call a taxi. I’d seen online that if you put earphones in, drivers didn’t even try to talk to you.
Go or don’t. Go or don’t. I was stuck in the loop when—
“Oh.”
Yu Nari called. Her voice was brighter than usual, somehow excited.
"I’m home! Did you watch today’s stream?"
“Yeah, it was fun.”
About two hours earlier there had been an IRL collab between Lunari and Kurogami Yui. Lunari had pushed Yui around with such a mischievous grin that I actually wondered if she’d always been this good at streaming.
"Hehe, really? Which part?"
“The part where you tormented Yui-nim? You looked like a little devil.”
"Unnie’s just so cute I wanted to tease her. Maybe it was worse because she was right next to me?"
Nari giggled.
"So did you like it? From Do-yoon’s point of view."
“It was fun. Almost disappointing how short it was.”
"So, you liked it?"
“Huh? Yeah.”
I already said it was fun. Why?
Nari asked again like that wasn’t the answer she wanted.
"Sss. You. Liked. It?"
“Yeah, I said I liked it.”
"Huff, okay. If Do-yoon says he liked it then I’m satisfied too."
What was that about. Kind of anticlimactic.
She must have been really happy with today’s collab—she was being unusually persistent.
"Oh, and Do-yoon-ah."
“What?”
"Why didn’t you tell me you were going to sing?"
“Ah… I didn’t mention it, did I?”
When Yui had asked whether Nari knew about the feature, I’d been uncertain enough that I’d meant to check myself—but then they’d gone straight into the collab and I never got the chance.
"Yeah, I’m hurt~ I was the only one who didn’t know."
“Huh? Sorry, I thought you already knew.”
"No wonder you’ve been so busy lately. You were prepping the song. You recorded at the company, right? Was getting there okay?"
“The company took care of everything so it wasn’t that hard.”
"Nice! Good job."
I carefully checked her reaction, half expecting her to actually be upset, but Nari seemed fine. If anything she felt even more affectionate?
"Was that also why you went to the convenience store alone before?"
“I remembered when you and I were at that after-party and you told me to go buy alcohol. I figured I’d at least try walking to the one near my place.”
"Don’t tell me you named yourself A-il because you were going to buy beer? I teased you that the name sounded like a beer brand."
“That was part of it, yeah.”
A soft, giddy laugh came through the phone.
"Huff-heh, the fact that you remembered… Do-yoon really wanted to drink with nuna! You were so disappointed at the after-party~ Next time we definitely drink together!"
“That’s not—wait. Have you been drinking?”
"No I haven’t~ Huff"
Today her voice was just dripping with joy.
"You’re going to keep going outside little by little from now on, right?"
“If I have somewhere to be…?”
"If Do-yoon wants to go outside, I’ll help. I’ve gotten so much help from you, after all."
“……”
Outside.
I’d already gone out twice in one week. If things kept going like this, maybe I really could return to a normal life. Just a few minutes ago I’d been agonizing over whether to visit the studio again—compared to a year ago that was almost absurd growth.
"Mm, if you want to keep expanding the range of places you go! I think starting slow with familiar things would be good. Making a reason to go out."
“……Slowly? A reason?”
"There’s a convenience store near your place, right? The one you went to this time."
“Yeah.”
"Convenience stores get new lunch boxes and snacks all the time, you know?"
“They do? I thought it was always the same stuff.”
"No no! There’s tons of wild stuff. So how about we each buy the new food at our local convenience stores and share reviews? I love that kind of thing."
“Hmm.”
It didn’t seem that hard. Last time I’d almost made it to buying beer.
"How about it, sound good?"
“Yeah, okay. Could be fun.”
"If you like it! Don’t say ‘okay,’ say you like it."
“I like it.”
"Huff-heh heh-"
No matter how I looked at it she sounded drunk. Given she hadn’t left Kurogami Yui’s place right away, the odds were high. Her energy really was a little elevated today.
"Oh right, Do-yoon-ah. You know that delivery app commercial?"
“Ah, was it ‘Yogi Delivery’?”
"It’s a YouTube ad. They’re going for an animated feel."
“That’s why a VTuber works, then.”
"Yeah, but the client wants me to take the cat ears off. Said they want to lower the barrier for regular people or something."
Take the ears off? Why bother? It’s animation anyway, what does it matter.
“By that logic isn’t a VTuber itself a barrier to entry?”
"A VTuber appearing is fine because it’s animation, but since it’s a modern setting animal ears feel weird, apparently."
“Hmm.”
Was that really a thing? I’d been a total normie myself until a few months ago. Stuck at home the whole time, sure.
"I’m not exactly thrilled either."
Nari paused.
"The ad money is……"
“……How much?”
She told me the amount.
“You have to do it.”
It was too much money to turn down.
"Right? And they want to use ‘Delivery Food’ as the CM song. That part I need to talk with you as the composer, so I was going to ask."
“So I get paid too?”
"Pff, duh of course. What are you talking about. CM songs pay a ton, you know?"
Ooooh, maybe I should buy a new guitar? In the past I’d only ever haunted secondhand markets, but this time I could go brand new. I was already tracing the elegant curves of a gleaming high-end guitar in my mind when Nari’s voice came through again.
"Do-yoon-ah."
“Yeah?”
"Did you eat dinner?"
“……”
Out of nowhere.
"You didn’t again, did you?"
“I forgot.”
Losing track of meals when I sank into track work was common enough, but this was the first time Nari had asked about it first.
“Why the sudden question?”
"What? I’m not allowed to ask?"
“No, it’s not that you’re not allowed.”
"I just wondered. Whether you’d eaten. You’re going to eat, right?"
“……I will.”
"Okay. Eat."
A brief silence settled.
"……Do-yoon-ah."
“Yeah.”
"The weather was nice today. Did you open a window?"
“……?”
"You didn’t pull the blackout curtains, did you?"
“I did, though.”
"Open just one layer."
It was odd, but I pulled one layer of curtain aside the way she said. A single strip of moonlight slipped into the dim room.
"Did you open it?"
“Yeah.”
"How is it?"
“……Not bad.”
"Look outside every now and then too. You’ll get used to it. Of course don’t force it. Slowly."
A small laugh came through.
It was strange, but not unpleasant. I just filed it under Nari nuna being a little different today and moved on.
After the call ended, I stared for a long time at the light coming through the curtains.
It was an extremely refreshing morning.
Yu Nari stretched with deep satisfaction and looked back on yesterday. Talking with Do-yoon on the phone had always been as natural as breathing, but the first call after confirming the temperature of her own heart had been completely different.
I said I liked it.
Do-yoon’s dry little sentence—and it hadn’t even been directed at her. Even so, something had welled up from a corner of her chest at the word “liked” and filled her heart to the brim.
From now on I’ll make him answer with “liked it” instead of “okay” every time.
They couldn’t meet, and she couldn’t show her affection, so she was allowed to be at least this greedy, right? Little by little, step by step, she’d help him grow until the day she could catch—no, until the day they could meet.
Nari’s face flushed and paled by turns as she spun one fantasy after another, and time flowed until it was stream time.
She had afternoon schedules today, so it was a rare lunch stream. Nari was chatting with viewers while looking back at yesterday’s IRL collab recaps and clips.
The community reaction had been good and the viewers were calling it legendary, so the recap storytelling was riding peak vibes.
Roughly an hour had passed when—
Unfamiliar IDs poured in like a wave. Regular viewers fought back and the chat was turning into a warzone when Nari quietly opened the chat settings.
Follower chat mode.
(Only viewers who have followed for 7+ days can chat.)
The flood of hate that had been raging a second ago evaporated, leaving only the regular fans, and the chat boiled over.
Nari redirected the chat’s attention and continued the stream as normal. What was that? I’ll look into it after the stream. Lunari’s mental armor had thickened another layer; it didn’t shake easily.
Topics that couldn’t be handled on stream started flowing back into the streaming community instead.
Link Gallery.
Lunari, who had woken up early, had gone live at lunchtime—the dead hours when the big corporate streams weren’t on—so she concentrated the attention of the bored Link community users. People asking “what’s going on?” started pouring in by the dozens.
And that attention spilled past the streaming community back onto SNS.
Then into music communities, humor communities, and YouTube.
The rumor spread from place to place, and—
16th (▲3) Blackout Cat — Lunari.
An upward trend that no one had intended began to take shape.