“Can you hear me, everyone?”
I press the START button and kick things off with my usual question for the listeners. When I talk with a mask on, it rubs against my cheeks and chin, which is a little uncomfortable. Also, if I leave it on for too long, it starts to hurt my ears—but when I started using ones with cloth straps instead of rubber, it got a lot better.
I hold my phone up high to make my face look smaller, so the image on my phone is mostly floor, with me wearing a mask and looking up. The screen’s shaky because I’m walking while streaming this, but this is a brand-new phone my dad just bought me, and it has some kind of stabilizer thing which helps eliminate screen shake.
At the bottom of the screen, listener comments are scrolling from the bottom to the top. The number of comments is…well, actually pretty impressive. I’ve only just started, but it’s over a hundred.
I can hear you perfectly!
Wooooo!
Of course!
Your voice is so cute, Smile! ☆
A parade of comments pours in, one after the other. I’ve been using Curiolive since I was little, so I’m pretty good at following the comments with my eyes.
You have a mask on again, huh?
Do you have a cold? I’m worried.
Maybe one of those pollen things?
Everyone’s concerned about the mask today, too, I see… I know they’re just worried about me, but it’s still kind of annoying. I’m not gonna tell the listeners, but I’m not wearing this mask because I have a cold or hay fever. It’s to hide these not-so-cute braces.
Around half an hour ago, I was at the Tama Dental Clinic on the second floor of the mall, opening and closing my mouth as instructed by the dentist.
“All right, now I’d like you to say ‘eeeeee,’ please.”
“Eeeeee…”
The light shining from above blinded me.
“Open wide… Aahhhh… Close… Eeeeee…”
Can this just end already?
“Okay, you can relax now.”
The moment he said it, I stretched my upper lip down as far as I could to cover my front teeth. The area under my nose felt so stretched out that I must have looked funny.
“Do you feel uncomfortable at all?”
“…Nhooo.”
Hiding my front teeth as I talked made me sound weird.
“All right, that’s all for today. I know brushing is going to be a little tough for you, but don’t forget that you can gargle with mouthwash when you need to, all right?”
“…Awrr raiii.”
I couldn’t even say “all right” correctly.
“Okay, see you at the next checkup.”
Once payment was dealt with, I didn’t bother waiting for the receptionist to finish saying, “Have a good day,” before fleeing from the office.
The Tama Dental Clinic is in kind of a secluded area, deeper inside the building instead of along the main section. This area houses the Nouvelle Hall event space, a travel agency—stuff like that—and not many people frequent it. Right next to Nouvelle Hall is a dead end, just some benches along the wall, and that was even more deserted. I quickly ran for it, checking the area again to make sure no one saw me, like I did when I came here.
…Okay, all clear.
I took out a rectangular packet from my favorite day bag (the grape-green color is so cute). SUPER COMFORT! WON’T HURT YOUR EARS! it read. Just as I was about to unseal it, I heard a tinkling sound. My hand stopped for a moment, but I regained my composure and pulled the white mask out from the packet. From this point on, my mask handling was superfast. I opened the mask, put it over my ears, and secured it over my mouth. I’d been doing this every day for about six months now, so I was used to it.
There’s nothing left in the mask packet anymore. This was the last one. I’ll have to stop by the pharmacy on the way home and get some more.
I took my phone out of the pocket of my shorts (it’s a pain to fish for it in my bag). I bought a new case to go with my new phone, a two-tone mint-and-vanilla notebook case. It’s actually a limited-edition design. Normally, the mint part is just a plain mint color, but the one I bought has a slightly darker ☆ printed on it, and it’s really cute! Just a casual little ☆, nothing flashy or ostentatious—it looks stylish. It’s also kind of a nod to my last name, Hoshino, which literally means “star field.”
I opened the case and launched the camera, going into selfie mode so I could see myself on the screen. I checked to see if the mask was on properly. No problems there. It wasn’t exactly flattering, but at least it hid what I needed hidden.
“Okay,” I said out loud, brightening my mood. I felt like my normal self now, except for the mask.
“Can you hear me, everyone?”
I come out into the mall corridor along the stairwell, launch the Curiolive app, and start broadcasting. The number of comments, which was around a hundred earlier, has increased to around two hundred. I have around three hundred likes as well. Curiolive is designed so that when a viewer presses the LIKE button, a funky little ♡ floats up from the bottom of the screen, and I see a lot of ♡s flying around me right now. Right. Let’s get started.
“All right! Are you smiling every day? I’m Smile from Orange Sunshine—Smile For Me! …Wow! So many likes! We’re already over a thousand! We’re going wild today, huh, guys? Thank you so much for all the likes. I can’t even see myself anymore because of all the hearts. Hey, I can’t read the comments when they go that fast! Calm down, everyone! But thanks again! Today’s visitor count is…6,589 people! Oh, 6,710… It’s going up too much to really know. Anyway, I’m going to introduce you to some of the cute stuff I found today, okay? If you think something’s really cute, please like or comment on it. So yeah, I’m at the local mall today. I just switched cameras, but can you guys see this okay? This is, um, let’s see…the second floor! Right where the atrium is. Oh, the corridor? The second floor is where all the clothing stores are. There might be more people than usual since summer vacation starts today. I’ll have to be careful not to bump into anyone. Um, the camera… Can you see me now, guys? All right, let’s all go in on this… Smile all the way!”
Curiolive is so much fun! Everyone knows all about me. Isn’t that just totally amazing? All these people from across Japan—maybe even the world—on the other side of my phone, and I’m hanging with all of them right now. All the viewers are joining in with comments like “smile for me” and “smile all the way.” Like, it’s just text, but it really feels like I can hear them, sorta. You’d never see this kind of thing in real life.
I want to share all the “cute” that I find with everyone. And with Curiolive, it’s just so easy! And fun!
“Oh, look at this! A tiny vending machine. Cute!”
There’s a vending machine along the third-floor walkway, maybe meant for kids? I have to kind of half kneel to get to its height. I guess malls have lots of families visit them, after all.
“Here’s a Hikarun cutout. Isn’t Hikarun super cute?”
I like Toy Box a lot. I bought my phone case there, in fact.
Then when I come to Southern Court on the first floor, I see this huge collection of daruma figures! There’s this open plaza next to the escalator where they sell local specialties from all over the world, but today they are selling daruma. It’s a local specialty here in Oda. My hometown! Odamaru looks like a daruma if you squint hard enough, doesn’t he?
There are all kinds of daruma on display, from big ones to small ones, even pink and white daruma!
“Daruma… So cute!”
…Huh?
Cute…?
Cute! (ha-ha)
Pretty funky…
It falls into the cute category?
Hey! Commenters!
“No, really, these daruma are super cute!”
I’m not sure if my sense of cute is off or not. But I’m sticking to my guns! Daruma figures are cute!
Speaking of which, there’s one display that I’m curious about. It looks like some kind of big machine, really. It’s so large that I can’t even reach from one end to the other with my arms outstretched, and the whole thing is made of some kind of steel plating painted green. There are things like drills and discs attached to it, and if you go around to the back, you find buttons and monitors over there. Plus, this kiosk (which I really can’t call a kiosk) is covered in daruma.
“What is this thing?” I ask the viewers.
?
Some kind of machine?
Looks like a robot!
And so on. But well, it sure isn’t cute, so whatever. So in search of more cute, I take the nearby escalator back to the second floor.
“This is the information sign. Looks like an app icon, doesn’t it?”
There is an information booth in the middle of the mall, the sign displaying a stylized, cute “!” so you can easily spot it. I like it a lot.
“Look at that! A cart train!”
There’s a row of colorful children’s carts with Odamaru dolls on them at the cart drop-off next to Kato Books. It’s like an amusement park or something. Odamaru’s kind of got a “so ugly it’s cute” design, but the little carts absolutely kill me! Now I kind of want to ride in one.
Suddenly, I hear a lot of what sounds like laughter and cheers from the atrium. That’s the amusement space, isn’t it? It’s on the first floor, just opposite the Central Court. I didn’t notice the noise until now.
So I run to the stairwell and head for the area. The cheers are getting louder and louder. Putting my hands on the lattice fence attached to the round stairwell, I look down at the first floor. Wow! A huge crowd! There must be an event going on.
There, I see babies crawling, lying down, crying, and laughing in the middle of the hall. The crowd around me seems to be gleefully screaming at the sight of them.
“A crawling race! That’s so cute!”
I decide to check it out.
When I get off the escalator and arrive…
“Wow! So many people!”