The Fitness Stream I Never Wanted
I kept staring at Harum today…
“Ah, yes. If Miss Lene doesn’t feel uncomfortable, that’s fine. Then please go change in the women’s locker room over there. Oh, and since the purpose today is exercise, you’ll need to remove your cap and sunglasses…”
The words “no” crawled all the way up my throat. The way she flinched when she looked into my eyes. The way she stepped back to keep distance whenever I moved closer. The way she turned her head because she didn’t want to meet my gaze. Even though I hadn’t seen it, I could already picture it all.
But it was too late to back out now. Running away was impossible. In the end, I was the one who had accepted the offer, and they were doing their best to accommodate me. I hadn’t come here for personal reasons. I was here on official business. Doing whatever I felt like based on my mood was out of the question, and the moment I tried, the trust they had in me would hit rock bottom.
I hated it. I really, truly hated it. But right now, I had to show them who I was.
“…Yes.”
I grabbed my slightly trembling arm and forced myself to walk. The locker rooms were all individual stalls, just like I’d heard last time. They said it was designed that way from the start because so many streamers and OnTubers visited. Anyway, I stepped into one of those stalls and changed into the clothes I’d brought for today.
And then… finally.
I took off my cap and sunglasses and placed them inside the locker. The mirror hanging inside reflected my figure back at me. Just that was enough to send a surge of negative emotions flooding through me, and my heart began to pound. The arm that had only been trembling a little was now shaking violently. For no reason at all, I felt like I might cry.
“Huu…”
I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. I haven’t done anything wrong. Ia said so. She told me I was right. Yeah. It’s okay. Bora told me too. I’m not weird. Don’t be scared.
“Haa…”
I took a deep breath and forced my wildly beating heart to settle. I reined in my emotions. Then, quietly, I opened my eyes.
Of course the negative feelings were still surging, and my arm was still shaking just as much. But thankfully, it didn’t look like I would cry anymore. I opened the locker room door and stepped outside, moving incredibly slowly.
“Whoa…”
What greeted me was Harum’s stunned expression.
…Of course. I hated that look in her eyes. It felt like it was denying my very existence. Like it was mocking me. What did I even do wrong…?
“Um, are you really Miss Lene?”
Then who else would be standing here right now?
“Whoa…”
Please don’t react like that when you see someone. Do you have any idea how much that hurts the other person?
Those words flashed through my mind, but my mouth stayed shut. And then Harum said,
“L-let’s get ready for filming right away, everyone!”
She turned her gaze toward me as she spoke. Nothing had changed after all. I just wanted to go home as fast as possible.
You too can become like this. The show commonly known as “YouTooCan” was a segment where Harum introduced exercises suited to her guests. Put another way, it meant the guest learned exercises from Harum. In other words, it was only natural that footage of the guest working out would be recorded.
When I heard about the concept, I had set exactly one condition with Harum.
“Please make sure my face doesn’t appear in the video.”
I knew it was unreasonable. This whole situation had started because of my own mistakes, after all. Even so, I could not compromise on this one point. Fortunately, the Health Project team accepted my selfish request.
“As MissCode mentioned beforehand, this episode of ‘YouTooCan’ will be filmed a little differently.”
Normally “YouTooCan” was recorded, edited, and uploaded to OnTube, but this time they changed it to a live-streaming format. And when the footage shot today was later uploaded to OnTube, it would go under a different Health Project series called “Just 15 Minutes!” instead. My parts would all be edited out, and even the audio would be recorded separately.
To be honest, when I first heard the plan I thought, Isn’t this way too much of a hassle for them…? But when I asked, they replied that it was their apology for spamming my inbox with emails, and told me not to worry about it.
Anyway, the conclusion was that neither today’s live stream nor the edited video that would be uploaded later would show my face.
[Lene]
[Filming with the OnTube channel Health Project]
Before filming began, I started my own broadcast on my phone. It wasn’t a matter of whether Health Project allowed it or not. The condition was that today’s donations would be split, so we had decided the stream would run on my channel.
As soon as I turned on the stream, the Lene stans flooded in. How should I put it… Seeing their chat messages made the anxiety in my chest melt away in an instant.
“Have you started your broadcast, Miss Lene?”
“…Yes.”
“Ah, then please connect it!”
“Hello everyone! I’m Harum from Health Project! Please take care of me today!”
Harum waved at the camera that an employee was holding beside me, not at my phone. I wasn’t exactly sure, but apparently that camera was linked to my phone, so anything filmed with it would be broadcast on stream. Of course I wasn’t being shown. Just in case, I had completely covered my phone’s camera with a piece of paper.
“Today, as I mentioned last time, I’m filming with Harum from Health Project…”
“I’m not appearing…”
“I-I really hate being on camera so…”
“Yes. Everyone, please enjoy lots of Harum today…”
Thankfully the Lene stans understood me, so nothing serious happened.
“Can we start the segment now, Miss Lene?”
“Yes…”
“It’s really nice to greet you all like this! This is the first time we’re filming ‘You Too Can Become Like This’ as a live stream. As you’d expect, today’s guest is none other than Miss Lene!”
“Umm…. I know what part of this is making you all sad, but we decided from the very first discussion that we would do it this way…”
“That’s right. There’s nothing we can do about it…”
“Still, I’ll be watching Miss Lene closely to make sure she doesn’t slack off while exercising, so please rest easy!”
Anyway, the broadcast that started like that went smoothly. Harum explained what kind of OnTube channel Health Project was for those who didn’t know, and what kind of content “You Too Can Become Like This” was.
“Miss Lene. Could you try moving like this?”
“Yes…”
“Put your back here, like this.”
“Yes…”
“Now please bend here.”
“Yes…”
“…Then, could you try lifting this at the end?”
“Yes…”
After that, they did a simple test and decided that I would do Pilates.
“Wow…. You got it exactly right. Actually, Pilates is a much harder workout than people think. It uses pretty much every muscle in the body, and core strength is especially important. So if your basic stamina or muscle strength isn’t there, it’s hard to even follow the postures. And even if you manage to follow them, maintaining the form is almost impossible. That’s why we don’t usually do Pilates on YouTooCan…”
…So if I summarize what she just said.
“You’re saying I’m amazing…?”
“Yes. I’m not joking, you really are incredible. Honestly, at first I heard that Miss Lene stays at home most of the time, so I thought we’d have to start with basic fitness. Well, the moment I actually saw you I did think we might go straight to Pilates.”
“Pffft…”
“Everyone, I’m amazing, right…?”
“Hehe…”
“Then shall we start right away?”
“…Yes.”
To be honest, I still wanted to go home as fast as possible. That reaction from earlier wasn’t something I could easily forget. But. Thanks to them, I felt a little better and ended up smiling.