“Thank you for tuning in again today, everyone. Let’s meet again when the light snow falls!”
: Ty
: another fun stream!
: You've been streaming every day, though. How much light snow are we gonna get?
: We get light snowfall EVERY day! Figure it out, dude
: Light snow every day, the most gentle weather anomaly ever
Once the flow of comments tapered off, I ended the stream.
“Hm?” It seemed like my PC was frozen. Something must be wrong, I thought. “Come on...” I clicked away at my mouse, but there was no response. I wasn’t great with computers, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to do in this kind of situation.
“Oh?” Though I still had no clue what was going on, it looked like the stream window had closed, at least. Good, good.
With a sigh, I stood up and walked across my apartment, where I lived alone, to the refrigerator. As I did, my mind made the complete changeover from the VTuber named Awayuki Kokorone to the twenty-year-old, unemployed woman named Yuki Tanaka.
Yes, unemployed. I’m not a uni student, nor do I even have a part-time job, so I’m a genuine NEET.
...Please don’t look at me so coldly. I have a good reason for it.
Right out of high school, I’d gone to work for a company that had turned out to be one of those totally exploitative ones you hear about occasionally. Day in, day out, they’d run me ragged. That job had been my first taste of adulthood, and it had already drained all the life from my eyes. The only mental support I’d had through it all had been the gorgeous VTubers of Live-On, now one of the leading VTuber management companies in Japan.
In the chaotic realm of VTubers, every streamer developed their own beautifully vivid world; one look at that realm, and I’d been hooked. I’d started using my already-limited free time to keep tuning in every day. Gradually, I’d become so absorbed that it had turned into my only reason for living.
Still, though I’d managed to hang on with my paltry income, life had been whittling me down. In the thrall of overwork, the light in my eyes had faded until they’d essentially become black holes—when what should have graced me but a piece of news to brighten them right up?
Live-On: Now Recruiting Members for the Third Generation!
Frankly, I’d figured it was impossible. I’d been so nervous when I’d gone for the interview that I still didn’t remember what I’d said to them.
But in yet another bout of divine trickery, perhaps, I’d somehow actually gotten the part.
I was given a new alter ego: Awayuki Kokorone. A poetic name; the first is written with the characters for “light snow” and the last is a combination of the characters for “heart” and “music note.” My avatar was tall for a girl, with straight, waist-length, black hair; pale white skin; and attention-grabbing light purple eyes, suggesting that something more lay just beneath the surface. And—to really make those beautiful, mysterious visuals pop—she wore a noble-style dress whose whites and blues seamlessly harmonized with one another. My manager had told me the illustrator had used me as a model when creating her. I certainly don’t think I’m anywhere near as pretty...
Anyway, after getting into the third generation, I’d immediately quit my job. I was sure a lot of people would say that had been a pretty hasty decision, but VTubers are busy people. Not much choice there, eh?
...That was a lie. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t work in such an exploitative environment for any longer—my shitty mentality just wasn’t strong enough to hack it.
But I’ll do so many streams as a VTuber and I’ll get a ton of fans and bask in the glorious monetization, woohoo! That had, at least, been what I’d thought back then—back when I’d still believed I could make that obviously ambitious dream a reality.
To be perfectly blunt, I hadn’t gotten popular. Seriously, I hadn’t. I’d have to solve that problem before worrying about getting monetized. It had already been three months since my debut, but I had only half the channel subscribers and livestream audience compared to the other streamers who’d debuted alongside me. In fact, the more time went by, the more my numbers dwindled.
I called myself a NEET earlier, and I know some people might wonder how a corporate VTuber could qualify for that title. However! In Live-On, while you, the streamer, receive a large share of the superchats, that doesn’t mean your income is anywhere close to stable. And given my current popularity, the superchat option wasn’t even available to me to begin with. I’d been managing to keep myself afloat with all the money that my penny-pinching tendencies had forced me to save during my days working in my old office job.
“Maybe I just don’t have enough oomph...” My manager was always telling me to be myself a little more, but what did she even want from me? And what does she mean, be yourself? How do you know who I really am? Did I do something crazy during that interview? I got a headache whenever I thought about it all. The impending doom of my savings was mentally taxing enough already.
Actually, I had a second weapon for soothing my aches and pains other than VTubers—and it was hidden right here in this refrigerator.
“I can’t live without it anymore...”
A monstrous beverage, it had been created for the sole purpose of getting you drunk. It would wipe away all your exhaustion in the blink of an eye.
That’s right! Strong Z**o!
I walked back to the desk I’d been using to stream and sent the nice, chilled, fruity chuhai washing through my body. “Phew!” Ahh, I don’t even know if this stuff tastes good anymore, but I’m at a point where I can’t end my day without having one...
And I’d never held my booze that well, so I got drunk right away. It’s super cheap and gets you slammed—StroZero is the best!
Ah, that’s good. Now I’m feeling better. It’s like my inner power is being released, and I love it.
“I freaking love it. I’d do anything for a can of this stuff—even work for an underground empire for unreasonable pay. Kaiji drank beer, but what about StroZero?” I started talking to myself like I had an IQ of precisely three. Awayuki always spoke in a very prim and proper way, fitting for a young gentlewoman, but all traces of her were completely gone now.
I carried on with my nonstop drinking and emptied the 350-milliliter can in the blink of an eye. But my body was too far gone. This wasn’t enough to satisfy it. I already had a hand on the second can I’d brought with me from the fridge. And...
“Whew, that’s the good stuff! God, I love the sound of cracking open a tall one!”
That’s right. In my thirst for booze, I’d grabbed the most devilish of all inventions—a tall can.