Those Poses Are Definitely Lewd!
The chat I sent in a fit of panic was still glowing on my screen.
When I poured out my feelings, Harum immediately replied with a request to switch to a voice call. Honestly, I wanted to refuse… but since I was the one who made the unreasonable demand, I couldn’t exactly say no.
HP - Harum is calling…
The call came through instantly. My heart fluttered with pointless anxiety as I took a deep breath and accepted it.
“Hello, Lady Lene.”
“Ah, hello…”
“So… um. You asked me to re-edit the entire video, and you said the reason was that you felt embarrassed…”
“…Yes.”
“Could you tell me exactly which parts feel embarrassing to you?”
Harum asked as if she genuinely couldn’t understand. Just having to say it out loud was already mortifying for me. Did she really not get it? Of course, I had sent that frantic message in a burst of emotion, so this was my own fault… but embarrassment was still embarrassment.
“Ah, first of all… you don’t actually have to edit the whole thing…”
“Really? That’s a relief…”
“It’s just… I’d prefer if certain exercises didn’t appear in the video. I sent that message in the heat of the moment earlier…”
“So there’s no issue with the edits to your appearance or hair?”
“Right… I think those parts are personally perfect…”
“That’s really good to hear… When I first saw your request to re-edit everything, I was worried something had gone wrong with those parts. That kind of editing isn’t easy at all. …So, which specific poses are you asking us to remove because they embarrass you?”
“The… the ones called Swan… and the Jackknife pose…”
When I listed every pose I wanted removed from the video, Harum’s voice faltered slightly, sounding flustered.
“U-um… Lady Lene? Could you tell me why you want those particular poses removed? I can’t tell the difference between the ones that are fine and the ones that aren’t…”
She couldn’t tell the difference? I had known the moment I saw them.
“They’re lewd.”
“…Pardon?”
“The poses are lewd!”
To Harum, Lene’s words painted her mind completely white.
Is she serious?
Of course, depending on how you interpreted it, there was some truth to what Lene had just said. Pilates and yoga did contain poses that could look attractive in all sorts of ways. But to claim they were so lewd that she felt too embarrassed to show them…
That’s such a middle-school way of thinking…
It was enough to make Harum’s head throb. The same person who had casually brushed off all the suggestive comments during the actual filming with a breezy “I don’t really mind them” was now acting like this. It was only natural that Harum couldn’t understand.
“Especially that Jackknife pose… it shows your stomach and…”
“…Ah.”
Only then did Harum finally understand Lene’s words completely. During the filming, Lene had worn a white shirt she brought from home. Since it was an all-female setting and they hadn’t planned to release the footage, they had let her wear whatever she was comfortable in. But after Lene changed her mind and decided to upload it as a VTuber video, problems arose. The shirt wasn’t made of exercise material, so it didn’t cling to her body. Whenever she did poses like the Jackknife, the fabric naturally flipped up toward her chest. There had been quite a few such moments in the video, so for someone as shy as Lene, this reaction made perfect sense.
I guess if it were me, I’d feel embarrassed too.
Still, that was just her personal opinion. Objectively speaking, the story was different. While she could admit it was a little embarrassing, if you asked whether they truly qualified as lewd poses, Harum would shake her head.
“The Swan poses emphasize your chest too much and…”
In Harum’s eyes, those poses didn’t look lewd at all. They beautifully showcased Lene’s healthy physique and charm. They were some of the best parts of the video. Especially the Jackknife pose Lene had mentioned—those perfectly straight abs had even drawn a gasp of admiration from Harum.
In other words, she understood what Lene was trying to say, but she also thought the girl was overreacting. And that thought led Harum to one particular hypothesis.
…No way.
She still clearly remembered the first time she met Lene. A face like that wasn’t easy to forget. Thinking back on it made her doubt her own theory, yet—
The more she saw Lene react this way, the more questions arose. Finally, Harum couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer.
“Um, Lady Lene. This might be rude, but… could I ask you just one thing?”
“Yes?”
“Have you… um, never mind. Do you have zero dating experience by any chance?”
“Absolutely not.”
My perfectly logical argument left Harum speechless. Well, of course. How could anyone refute reasoning this sound?
…When I was watching Harum demonstrate the moves and when I was doing them myself, I hadn’t felt anything. But after watching the edited video, I realized that in several poses my chest was overly emphasized, and in others the shirt flipped up to reveal my stomach. The moment I noticed, my face burned so hot I immediately messaged her asking to edit everything.
“Um, Lady Lene. This might be rude, but… could I ask you just one thing?”
“Yes?”
“Have you… um, never mind. Do you have zero dating experience by any chance?”
The question turned my mind completely blank in an instant.
“Th-that… um, is that really important right now…?”
“It’s not that important… You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to…”
Harum’s awkward laughter echoed in my ear. Why? What? It’s perfectly possible for someone to have never dated before. Why was she reacting like that? Besides, I had never once been in a situation where dating was even an option. In my previous life I had no time, no money, and no one to meet. In that other world, my memories from Earth messed with my sense of identity, and after I became an Inquisitor… well. It wasn’t like I had much desire for that sort of thing anyway… but that’s not a bad thing, is it? More importantly, what does my dating experience have to do with this situation?
“H-Harum. Are you saying that because I have no dating experience, I’m seeing those poses as lewd…?”
“No, it’s not exactly that…”
Her tone practically screamed that it was exactly that. The thought that this was unfair began to consume me. I wasn’t the weird one here. No matter how you looked at it, those poses emphasized my chest and the shirt flipped up to show my stomach.
“Honestly, they are lewd…”
As a proper priestess of the Iia Church, I simply could not allow such things.
“…Alright, let’s go with that. Pfft…! A-anyway, to summarize what you’re saying, Lady Lene, you want the Swan poses and any scenes where the shirt flips up to be edited out, correct?”
“…Yes.”
I didn’t particularly like her reaction, but I obediently agreed.
“Lady Lene. Honestly, we can edit the Jackknife and the final pose without any problem. The issue is that if we remove all the Swan poses as well, the video length becomes a problem. It would be so short it would barely be worth uploading.”
“…Ah.”
It was true that the video I received was quite short compared to other VTuber exercise videos. If we cut out all the poses I mentioned… there would definitely be an issue.
“As you know, if you feel uncomfortable and ultimately decide not to allow the upload, there’s nothing we can do. If the person who was filmed doesn’t give permission, we have no choice but to give up on the VTuber content.”
I knew that. Harum had explained it to me once before.
“But our staff really poured their hearts into this video. We wanted to make you even a little more comfortable, so we went all out from editing to post-recording… The editor in charge of your hair even pulled three all-nighters.”
Harum continued, her voice softening.
“It might still be a little embarrassing, but could you please do us this one favor? Of course, we’ll edit out any scenes you feel are truly unacceptable.”
…I had nothing to say. When she put it like that, how could I refuse?
“I understand… Please just edit out the exercises where the shirt flips up…”
“Understood! Thank you so much! …But is there really no way to keep those parts too? After hearing you explain it, I can see how they might seem a little suggestive, but they’re also the parts that fans secretly love…”
“N-no lewd stuff allowed!”
“I figured you’d say that~?”
With Harum’s laughing voice as the last thing I heard, our call ended.
“Haa…”
My face was burning up again. I really hope I didn’t just get completely played…