A Knock at the Door

Yu Nari had already confirmed that A-il was being talked about in celebrity communities — not even streaming ones. The numbers weren't huge, so she had figured there was no way they would actually go sniffing around a VTuber broadcast.

And yet, driven by curiosity about A-il, they had tracked their way all the way to Yui's live.

Yui's current viewer count sat at five thousand. Nari knew that, of those, the people who had come purely for A-il couldn't have numbered more than a few hundred at most.

Nari's brow twitched at the flood of distinctly feminine chat messages — a tone that clashed wildly with the male-dominated streaming scene. Kurogami Yui's broadcasts had a firmly male-skewed audience, which made these messages stand out even more. The sheer sense of wrongness made it easy to guess they had poured in from somewhere else.

So the things I like listening to, other people like too.

It was obvious, and it still annoyed her.

Oppa? What oppa. Did they even know how old he was?

The chat fluttered over how cute it was that a nervous Do-yoon was stumbling over his words, and for a second Nari's eyes went soft and she almost started grinning before she snapped back to herself.

C-cute, sure, but stop! Stop radiating charm!

She hated other people eyeing him up — and yet watching this new side of Do-yoon was still a pleasure. The Do-yoon who talked to her so casually was nowhere to be found. What she saw instead was a Do-yoon who trembled, shrank into himself, and still forced his mouth open. Watching that process unfold in real time sent a warm heat blooming through her chest.

After the Q&A came the Spotlight stage. When their voices blended, jealousy rose even as the sound itself felt like magic. Having Do-yoon in the director's seat somehow lifted the whole track another level. The only real regret was that the stage belonged to Yui and not to her.

But still.

The deeper duet was still mine. Not in front of an audience — just the two of us.

Last night rose up in her mind; color flooded her cheeks and her lips kept working restlessly. This was only a feature, not a true duet. There were more solo parts than shared ones, and Do-yoon's share wasn't even that large. It was a different dimension from what Nari had gotten to enjoy.

Every night while Do-yoon prepared for the live, under the excuse of training their chemistry as partners, they had gone through every duet song imaginable. Every track Nari brought was a couple song. Do-yoon sang them without a shred of suspicion. When it came to music, the man had no prejudices — which made hiding her ulterior motives absurdly easy. With a massive challenge sitting right in front of him, his focus stayed locked entirely on the singing. On the last day she had even casually brought something a little more intense.

Nngh…

She knew it was only lyrics, and her heart still raced. Under the pretense of checking whether he was nervous, she had even managed to get a recording. Do-yoon had gone and recorded her snoring first without permission, so they were even — or so she justified it to herself. A recording of him singing her a love song. What better bargain was there in the world?

She almost went to replay the file, then dragged her gaze back to the stream. On screen, Spotlight had ended and Yui was wrapping things up.

Do-yoon's voice cut in.

One more song? Do-yoon? Voluntarily?

After so many phone calls, she could hear it. A faint thrill and pleasure threaded through Do-yoon's voice. Nari closed her eyes tightly. The memory of the first time he had recorded a guide for her rose clear and vivid. She had been so stunned back then. Now thousands of people would be sharing something like that same feeling.

Do-yoon's Broken Clock was completely different from Lunari's. Where Nari's version had coiled upward in a husky wrap, his clear, transparent tone melted into the melody and came out silky and seductive.

"Nice."

Everyone really liked it. As Do-yoon's first fan, she felt good — and a little dry-mouthed at the same time.

After that, Do-yoon left the same way he had arrived, with a shy goodbye. Once the song ended he went blank and dazed again, which was somehow still adorable. Yui was wrapping up with something or other, but none of it registered. Nari snatched up her phone at once.

Send.

Then she opened another browser window. He had shown off his charm in front of so many people — that kind of attention might keep coming. Whether Do-yoon would want to stay active was another question, but still.

A fan cafe.

She would make it herself. Stake the claim first. Who knew what weird people might end up running one otherwise? And if Do-yoon ever wanted to keep singing, it might actually help.

With her experience running fan cafes, putting one together wasn't hard. As for the name…

"Hmm."

This would do.

A-il First. Shortened: A1st.

Outwardly it meant A-il is the best, A-il number one — that kind of thing. The real meaning was: I knew first. I was the first one to know about A-il. No matter what anyone said, A-il — Do-yoon's number-one fan — was her. That one fact, Nari had no intention of yielding to anyone.

Of course there must have been fans from Do-yoon's streamer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠days in the past, but there was no way for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Nari to know about them.

She quickly laid out the cafe's skeleton. She was setting up board after board when her hand stopped over the song-clip section.

Ah. I have to upload what he sang today, don't I.

His first official stage clip happening to be a feature with Yui, of all things. Annoyed, Nari uploaded the solo track Broken Clock first and put Spotlight second. Petty jealousy.

Hmph. He sang both of them today, so the order doesn't really matter.

Her eyes drifted back to the stream. On screen, Yui was finishing up fan chat. Do-yoon finding his courage was one thing. What was she supposed to do about this tiny unnie, though.

What if Do-yoon got hurt because of this. Jumping in like that.

And she had even taken his first stage opportunity… Granted, last night Nari had enjoyed a little — no, a whole lot — of spoiling because of it… but that was that, and this was this.

Just wait.

The corner of Nari's mouth curved into a wickedly smug arc.

"Heh."

She opened a new document.

Every single item was something she could use to legally torment Yui. Ah — and the snacks would all be mint-flavored, of course. The viewer numbers would be solid, so she would wrap it up pretty and dote on her generously enough that she couldn't slip away.

Bzzzz—

"Oh, Do-yoon replied!"

Nari flung the planning document aside.

My body went slack and limp, and still—

I didn't overdo it, right?

The moment the stream ended, every kind of worry started drifting through my head. What if someone who used to watch my old broadcasts recognized my voice?

Coldly speaking, I knew that was unlikely. My voice had shifted a little through puberty, even if not dramatically. Six years had passed. There was even less chance those people were still watching internet broadcasts — let alone VTuber ones.

But you never know. Back then I never expected them to show up at my house out of nowhere either.

Ugh. Goosebumps.

Stop with the negative thoughts! I wasn't even streaming, so there was no channel for people to reach me. Nobody was going to knock on my door looking for me. Six years of shutting myself away had proven that beyond any doubt.

The phone in my right hand vibrated. A reply.

Uh… did it?

More than special training, it had been a chance to learn what the vibe was like when you went karaoke with a friend. And the song we sang yesterday had been especially embarrassing. God, so mortifying. Love and confessions were fine, but then it went into kissing and all that.

Kyaaaah.

I knew it was just a song and my face still burned with shame. Nari sang it so casually that I had to work hard at pretending I was fine too. What kind of girl delivered lines like that so matter-of-factly. We were only a year apart and she was already that shameless. Was it different if you entered society first? Was a six-year blank really that fatal?

I didn't think I could write a song like that. Even knowing it was just a song, I still flinched.

I waved my hands through the air, shaking the thoughts off, and stared blankly at Spotlight's skyrocketing rank. Yui had been pushing streaming during the song. She had explained that to put a track high on the charts you had to leave the music app running around the clock, and that there were all these rules you had to follow so the abnormal looping wouldn't get flagged. She said the detailed method was up on the fan cafe; I was curious enough to look, then gave up because it was too hard.

Sorry for being a useless composer. Sorry for not getting along with machines. My sincere apologies to my own song. The viewers streamed it for me, so we'd let it slide.

Spotlight, which had opened at ninety-six after release, was already at thirty-eight before the collab stream with Yui even started. After it ended, it hit a full twenty-second place. It had overtaken thirty-first-place This Is All I Am and was closing hard on nineteenth-place Broken Clock.

Normally Broken Clock should have been pulled down too, but for some strange reason both tracks rose together and ran in parallel. Was it because I sang it on stream?

Nobody was watching, so I shrugged and indulged in a little self-important moment.

Man, I was tired. This had been one of the most fulfilling days I'd had in a long time. Had people enjoyed it? It was a tiny, tiny gift — nowhere near enough to clear the weight of a seventy-three-million-won debt — but I had gotten to pass on what I felt, and that was enough to let me fall asleep content.

.

.

.

BANG BANG BANG—

"Uuh?"

I cracked my eyes open at the noise. Did I mishear that?

I blinked a few times and my lids were just starting to sink again when—

BANG BANG BANG—!

"Hup—?!"

What?

That was unmistakably someone hammering on my door. I went full alert mode, pressed myself flat against the wall, rolled the blanket into a ball, and stared the door down.

"Oppa—!"

"Huh?"

My little sister? What was going on? In all the time I'd been shut in this room, she had never once come to talk to me first.

Ahem. I cleared my throat a little and answered.

"Wha— ahem."

Ah. Voice crack. I'd just woken up.

"Oppa, something came for you?"

"What?"

What? Had Nari already sent a phone? No way.

"It's from someone named Jeong Min-ji at Story Lab. It looks super fancy. What is this? Can I open it?"

"Huh?"

A dumb sound fell out of me on its own. Story Lab? That was the place I'd made the OST for.

"If you're not coming out, I'm opening it?"

"Uh… w-wait a second!"

Don't tell me my composer name or something was written on it. Absolutely not.

I scrambled up and headed for the door.