The Broadcast, and YouTube!

“Nya, nya-nya-nya! Nyaa!”

The nya-nyaing went on and on until my head went blank.

The viewers who had been waiting, smug and gleeful, fully intending to make a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fool of me, promptly fell into confusion. If they knew my usual broadcast style at all, this was an opening they never could have seen coming.

And I wasn’t done.

“Hello-nya! This is BJ Hani, who keeps her promises-nya!”

The corners of my mouth twitched like crazy. I held it in. The mask, at least, was doing a fine job of hiding it. Feigning perfect composure, I stepped into the center of the cam.

The image my regulars had of me was a little masculine, wasn’t it? Easygoing. The girl who’s basically one of the guys. Truth was, the looks, the voice, the whole package were the only reason I came off that way. Strip out every feminine piece and what was left was just a man.

So the viewers must have had a picture ready. Me, grinding my teeth, grudging every second of it, tacking a dying little nya onto the end of every sentence. They would have been delighted, watching me thrash around in self-loathing.

I am not the type to take that lying down.

If I was going to die of embarrassment, I was taking them with me.

“Come on in, everyone-nyaong. Hani’s been waiting ages-nya!”

I curled my right hand into a little paw, pressed it to my cheek, and gave it a wiggle.

A voice inside me spoke up.

You’re really going to take it this far?

Have you forgotten who you are?

You’re a man.

A grown man, playing at aegyo in some floaty little outfit and cat ears?

Hmph. I already made my peace with it.

Look at the viewers. Their toes had to be curling. Their stomachs had to be turning. They had to be desperate to flee.

……That was what I had thought.

Oh no.

I had miscalculated. Badly. There was still a gulf between the face of Lee Kangjun—the one I still thought of as me—and the face of Lee Hani. I froze on the spot.

I was completely screwed. My mind had fried itself so thoroughly that I was genuinely confused about whether the filthy little word for it was about to blink out of existence, and whether I’d have to swap its first letter just to write down the wreckage.

My current face and the cat ears suited each other far too well. So did everything I had just done. I wanted to cry over a mistake that had sunk straight into the bone.

But the train had already left the station, and there was no calling it back. In the end I abandoned the original plan and decided to go feral.

“You like it when I nya-nya at you, huh? You damn otaku! Nya.”

A promise was a promise, so I stuck the nya on the end and raised my middle finger at the camera.

“God, you people are actually disgusting-nya! Is this really that great-nya?”

I tipped my head ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just enough to make the cat ears on it wobble.

“You perverts!”

“……”

Was this how it ended? Not just my pride—my sanity, too, crumbling away with nothing I could do to hold either one?

“Hah! CatLover just donated 2,500 Water Balloons. Nya!”

Even after the platform took its cut, that was still more than a hundred and fifty dollars. Pride? My ass.

Whether it was the novelty of a nya-nya reaction so unlike my usual self, the Water Balloons started bursting one after another. Fine. This body was already a lost cause (?). Give up, and just rake in Water Balloons and points!

I worked. I really, truly worked.

I sang that song that had blown up in China and crossed all the way over here, the one where you meow along to the melody. I followed the cat-ear headband with a tail, and I performed Kara’s famous hip-shaking dance from “Mister.”

It was humiliation on a historic scale. I nearly died of shame from the mere fact that I had done those reactions at all—but honestly, the anger was even bigger.

They watched me and put their whole hearts into the mockery. “She’s a wooden stick.” “No! A rod doesn’t cover ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it. She’s bamboo-grade—so straight she won’t even bend.” It was infuriating. So a person can be a little stiff. Did they really have to ride me that hard for it?

I’d hauled in a mountain of Water Balloons, cleared the mission, and the results were good. Even so, this would remain a black mark I could never erase. Today’s broadcast would pass through the villain-viewers’ exaggerated edits and spread far and wide.

It was horrifying.

I wanted to kill the stream that very second, crawl into bed, and kick the blankets out of pure secondhand shame—but I couldn’t lose sight of why I had gone live in the first place. I told the viewers the YouTube channel existed.

“The first video should go up around lunchtime tomorrow.”

“I said one minute ago that today’s broadcast was over. This is announcement time.”

“……”

Every part of me wanted to fire back on the spot. Turn on notifications after you subscribe and you get the upload the second it lands—so what kind of bullshit is “searching every time is less trouble,” you braindead idiot? That was what I wanted to say. But with a goal of a hundred thousand subscribers, even a single person mattered, so I forced a smile into place.

“I-if you subscribe and turn on notifications, you can see the video the instant it uploads-nya!”

“……”

If this were a comic, a thick vein—or a tendon—would have been throbbing across my forehead right about now. These viewers were actual demons.

In the end, after a long push and pull, I promised that if we hit a thousand subscribers by tomorrow and ten thousand views on the first video up, I would run another Penalty Broadcast just like today’s.

Peak viewers are seven hundred. Like that’s possible in a day. Idiots.

Still, thinking I’d played them clean at the finish took the edge off the fury that had piled up over the broadcast.

Ah. YouTube really had to work out.

It all happened at dawn on the day Hani’s YouTube channel opened.