I Wanted to Be a VTuber

I wanted to be a VTuber. The joy of life. My second world. Banished from the gallery, I made up my mind to stream.

"I can do anything! Kyaaak!"

And so I went hunting for a VTuber model. A cheap one.

"A four-dollar model? Is our slime buddy doing charity work?"

A cat-eared beastkin model filled the screen. The quality was honestly decent, and the price was absurd. The downside was that pretty much only the mouth moved, but whatever.

"And where exactly would I get the money?"

This much would do, wouldn't it?

"All right, let's gooo~"

You're probably wondering why, of all things, a VTuber. I did think about just being a regular camgirl, you know? I was pretty confident, I'll have you know. But here's the thing.

"This stream is lawsuit bait as it is..."

Better to head off the backlash as hard as I could. If my face got out, I was finished. Hence, the advantages of VTubing. First: it's great for hiding who you are. We live in an age where they can dig up your real name from the shape of a finger. And if my identity got pinned down?

"The only sheets of printer paper I'll be seeing from now on will be lawsuits, won't they?"

The model would cover me. There was another reason I'd specifically chosen this route.

"These days, if you don't at least have a model, you can't even pull aggro."

Second: the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠aggro itself. Succeed at streaming with no voice? In a market this saturated, basically impossible. And me? I had the voice of a frail, sickly little pretty-girl. Sure, it was a side effect of running out of breath from smoking too much—but a side effect doesn't mean a bad effect. It means an extra one. In short:

"I can hide my identity and still pull aggro with a model and a sickly-girl voice?"

The best option there was. With a brain like this, I should have studied for the college entrance exam. But I still needed more prep.

"A VTuber red pill is taboo, you know? Voice actors excepted."

When the real person behind a VTuber comes out, they call it a red pill. It's a sore subject for viewers and VTubers alike, because it shatters the fantasy. And in my case, absolutely not. No matter what kind of accident happened, my identity could not be identified. So.

"I'll need to wear gloves, too."

I needed gear to protect me from the perverts who track people down by the shape of their hands.

"Might as well just wear a mask while I'm at it?"

The model's mouth moved off voice input anyway. It didn't matter if my face never showed. This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was contingency, in case the camera glitched. A red pill, I figured, could be prevented well enough with this much.

"What's left is the content."

VTubers mostly did gaming streams, singing, and just chatting. I meant to take a different road. The games I played were gacha games, and I wasn't exactly gifted with words, so for now I'd just do what I'd been doing. Exposing how scammers actually operate... no. Stating the facts. The way a platform refuses to pass judgment on a plagiarism scam, I would pass no judgment either. I'd go in with the mindset of posting only what was true. Anything to shrink the lawsuit risk.

Anyway, what day was it? Oh. Chuseok break—the harvest holiday. I was only just noticing.

...Life.

"Good companies let you off early the day before a holiday, you know."

So that was why Baek Seoyeon had come by yesterday. At any rate, there's a scam that always makes the rounds in Chuseok season.

"Namely, smishing!"

Smishing. A mashup of SMS and fishing. In other words, hooking people with a text and scamming them. And why does it blow up around Chuseok?

"These days everybody goes traveling for the holiday, right?"

Times had changed. Chuseok was no longer a seat at the table tearing into songpyeon rice cakes with family and relatives. Why sit there uncomfortable with relatives you don't even care about? Just go on a trip. So these days, whether as a family or on your own, a lot of people travel for Chuseok. And that's exactly when it happens.

"Plenty of people still feel bad enough to fire off a holiday gift set."

They treat it like a grand occasion and ship the present by courier, and delivery-smishing texts run wild off the back of it.

Feels like a relative sent it, doesn't it? So you tap the link, and just like that some app from god-knows-where installs itself and your personal information becomes public property. How do I know this so well?

"A Chuseok event said they were giving away free gacha-game gifts..."

...

We live in an age when the big accounts sell personal data for about a dollar anyway. You could say it's nothing. Even so.

"It's content, so spreading the word about this kind of thing should be fine, right?"

It did not seem fine. At that rate my content would be no different from a government anti-smishing text. I'd much rather trace them back and clean them out, but...

"You'd have to be on Baek Seoyeon's level for that."

Unless I booted up genius-hacker mode, it was absolutely impossible. Suspicious texts got reported to the cyber investigation unit. No exceptions. Instead I dug through the news and picked something else.

"Hm? They're passing off bottom-grade fruit as holiday premium?"

Chuseok means pears and apples. Sold as premium fruit, no less? From a shopper's seat, that reads as pretty high-grade. But shoppers have a hard time judging the actual condition of fruit.

"They hide the rotten parts with the wrapping, and with so much of it delivered, it's hard to check in the first place."

As someone who loves fruit, I could not forgive it.

"You? Yeah. You're busted."

And so I started compiling the name of every company where the problem had blown up. With one condition. Drop a company's real name, and I might eat a countersuit myself.

"Mosaic it. Always!"

Just enough that you could almost tell.

The buck-passing went round and round. Dodging responsibility is a scammer's specialty. Even so, you can't go hurting people who haven't done anything wrong.

"The chain of cause and effect has to be clear."

I checked the string of news stories, the sales reviews, even the owner comments. The distributor's history and their other products. The seller's other listings. Where the farms were offloading their goods. I dug through all of it. The method was simple.

"They post it like a brag on Instagram or the storefront anyway."

Not every case would line up the same. There were conscientious people out there too, I was sure. But according to what I'd found, the actual problem was right—

"I'll reveal it on stream."

The hint had to do with business registration numbers. I'd save that for the broadcast.

"Ugh. Time for a cigarette."

I sat in the living room and lit up. Outside, it was already the dead of night. My own room could stay dark, but the living room had always been bright, because Doona had been there. Tonight the only light that reached it was the red glow of a church's cross.

"God, this is what I hate about houses."

I had a right to live in the dark too. When were those crosses planning to go out?

"Blah. Tastes awful."

I ground the cigarette out in the ashtray, got up, and stretched. I hadn't even eaten dinner. Maybe the leftover canned tuna. On the way to the kitchen, I saw Doona's room, still quiet.

"Right. The luggage would be better in Doona's room."

There were the bags Baek Seoyeon had brought—hers. I was borrowing the laptop, but the rest belonged in there. I opened the door carefully, stepped inside, and turned on the light.

"She really kept it tidy."

In the orderly space, only dust had piled up.

"Come on. What's the point of getting any sadder."

The muttering multiplied. I shook my head hard, went in, and set the luggage in a corner. I straightened my stiff ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back, then happened to glance to the right.

"Huh?"

There was a computer. Far better than mine. The side of the tower was even glass, the kind of gaming rig you only see in ads.

"Uh..."

And hanging on the monitor was a bizarre headset with pink cat ears.

"Doona, Doona, were you a furry?"

I snorted and picked the headset up. I'd have to wear one while streaming anyway, and it was lucky one was already here.

"Big sis can borrow this, right?"

Silence is consent. And there was one more upside.

"Huh? This is a webcam."

I'd been planning to use the laptop camera, and here was a better one. Had Doona used it for remote consultations with clients? Maybe video meetings.

"Hmm. Should I just stream from Doona's room?"

This wasn't even a regular cam show. It was a VTuber cam show. I had to run Live2D and push a broadcast at the same time, which meant the computer had to hold up. I'd done all the prep on the laptop, but doing it on this machine looked like fewer problems. I revised the plan fast, sat down, and turned Doona's PC on. There was a password.

"It's our front-door code, right?"

Sure enough, it really was. So she'd had a sloppy side too. The desktop itself, though, was far too clean. Nothing but work documents and websites.

"So only the hardware was flashy."

Then I'd better get ready quickly. Before the buzz about me died.

"Setup's done... body's covered... good. Perfect."

Stream setup was finished. As expected, the guides from the NewTube teachers were the best.

"For now I'm Hananyan, and since it's 2026 I'm an '10 baby... seventeen..."

I even confirmed that babies born in 2010 were Year of the Tiger. No problems now. I'd prepared for a red pill, just in case: gloves on, body hidden under a cardigan, and a mask on top of that. Where did the mask come from, you ask?

"It was in Doona's room."

Some grinning man's mask. I didn't really know the name. Anyway, even if a broadcast accident hit later, it shouldn't be a big problem.

"All right, then!"

I'd slapped a NewTube account together.

"I should start with a streaming site..."

I went into Pazizik. This was where I meant to start. Streaming on NewTube really isn't easy in Korea.

"Please... let there be lots of Novel Gallery people in this world."

I prayed to a god I don't believe in, and started the stream.

"Yep. Novel Gallery really was just a handful. Sob."

I started streaming under the name Hananyan. Of course I hadn't revealed the model or anything yet. Pre-debut, nothing up but a loading screen, waiting for someone to take an interest.

"Screw it—do I turn on a VPN, sneak into the gallery, and promo on a burner?"

The delusion made my brain feel like it was melting. If I failed like this... what about clearing a debt of nearly four hundred thousand dollars? The content I'd prepared? Who was going to compensate me for that? Seoul Station... ending up on the street there was the one thing I could not do.

"Time to change the room title."

I changed it. Pride? As if I cared. I was dying for money. This was life or death. And still the viewer count didn't budge from zero.

"Sob... Doona. Forgive your big sister!"

I'm a failure. Sob.

"Was this too impulsive from the start?"

My melted brain firmed back up like pudding. Bit by bit, I started getting my reason back.

"I should have just lived an honest life. This is my fault for not doing that."

Self-blame sank into a swamp. The menhera spiral was—

Uh... Why?

I looked at the viewer count. Five whole people. Infinitely more than zero. And the chat was lively. I really was a genius of aggro. The pudding went back in the microwave and melted all over again. My brain melted again.

"Ahem."

Calm down.

"H... hel... lo."

Oh. The mic was off. Guests had arrived, so it was time to open for business. Click. I took the mic off mute, then went to flip the scene in the broadcast software—straight to the one with my aggro cat-ear beastkin model.

"H... hel... lo..."

I got the first words out. I was shaking harder than I had for the college entrance exam. (I never took it.)

Do I get to step into the sunlight now? Can I become Pazizik's greatest VTuber?

The "are you a girl" reactions, I understood. Women who lurk the galleries aren't common. But what was this about the output being wrong?

"Oh."

In that moment, I remembered.

"Oh..."

That I'd only practiced on the laptop.

"Mm."

I alt-tabbed and checked the broadcast screen. Astonishingly, there I was, sitting in the mask, going out exactly like that.

"I see."

Pfft.

The viewer count climbed fast. I had wanted to be a VTuber. I'd even had a Chuseok special exposé ready. I had only one thing to say.

"Goodbye."

I left a polite farewell, then kicked the tower's power button with my foot.

Piapia had closed for the holiday too. On the surface, at least. Two people had signed up for the weekend shift: Assistant Manager Kim Seunghyun and his junior colleague. They were diligently monitoring adult-rated covers.

"Assistant Manager Kim, I don't know if it's an impersonator, but... Hananyan just bounced?"

"I'm watching too, you punk. Could just be some aggro faker, though."

The junior, who watched VTubers as a matter of habit, had a tiny VTuber window open on his work screen.

"You know this counts as work too, right? Chat that politely and you look like some old guy going heh heh."

"...Haa. What am I even doing on a holiday."

The two operators at Piapia were on that fixed nick—the one banned from Novel Gallery.

"Still, you never know. Maybe she'll turn the stream back on."

"Looked like a high school girl messing around. The face shape kinda seems like she'd be pretty, though... hehe."

"Want me to ask HR to move you to another department?"

"You know how much I love you, right, Assistant Manager?"

They had become Hananyan's very first viewers.