Chapter 2: A Request from a Popular VTuber
“So while I was telling scary stories, the lights in my room suddenly went out.”
“And then I felt this really awful presence, so I hid inside my closet.”
“I tried using my phone to call for help, but another streamer’s page was already open on it, and I couldn’t leave that page.”
“And then it turned out that streamer was some kind of psychic or something…”
Everything matched perfectly with what had happened yesterday.
There was even information in her story that only Haikawa and the person he spoke to on the phone would know.
At this point, he was ninety-nine percent certain she was the same person.
However, Mitsuhashi Eris’s viewers were suspicious.
[Wasn’t that just a stalker?]
[Sounds like that psychic staged the whole thing.]
[That guy talked to Eris-chan!? Execute him!]
The sheer number of comments was terrifying.
Messages appeared and disappeared one after another.
The chat flowed like a raging river.
The difference between a superstar streamer and himself was most visible in the comment section.
Haikawa had started streaming partly because he wanted easy money and internet fame.
But seeing a gap this enormous was depressing.
Mitsuhashi Eris was a hugely popular streamer affiliated with a major agency.
Even if their status was completely different, watching money and comments fly around so freely inevitably made him jealous.
“Anyway, enough scary stories!”
“Let’s play some games today too!”
After that, the stream returned to its usual gaming content.
The chat remained incredibly active as always.
The Super Chat donations poured in as viewers showered her with money.
Partway through, Haikawa stopped watching her stream.
There was no point.
Their connection had ended.
There was no reason for them to cross paths again.
“Ah, damn it!”
“If I’d realized it yesterday, maybe she could’ve sent some viewers my way!”
“Damn it all!”
This wasn’t like accidentally passing a celebrity on the street.
Something like yesterday’s incident might happen only once in a lifetime.
“Must be nice for her.”
“She tells that story and gets showered with donations.”
“If I told the same story, nobody would listen.”
“And if they did, they’d just call me a liar.”
The world wasn’t fair.
When celebrities spoke, people treated their words like treasure.
When ordinary people spoke, nobody cared.
At best, they were called liars.
Psychic powers were the perfect example.
Haikawa possessed abilities like that.
Yet he never went out of his way to tell people.
Nothing good had ever come from doing so.
“Whatever.”
“People visit my streams occasionally.”
“I’ll just forget about yesterday.”
There was no point bragging about it if nobody believed him.
Especially when the topic involved ghosts and supernatural phenomena.
He continued playing while keeping an eye out for viewers.
He felt irritated for some reason.
But he wasn’t the kind of adult who openly displayed those emotions.
“Alright, that’s it for today’s stream!”
“Thanks everyone!”
“I had a lot of fun!”
He hadn’t been actively watching Mitsuhashi Eris’s stream, but it was still open on his phone.
Part of him still found yesterday hard to believe.
But he’d finally sorted out his feelings.
He decided to treat the entire thing as a dream.
Thinking that way seemed to calm his strange irritation.
“Ah, damn it!”
“I’m not sleeping until I get first place!”
He suddenly shouted at the screen.
It was already eleven at night, but for Haikawa, the night was only beginning.
Just as he was about to lose himself in gaming again, a notification sound rang from his stream.
A comment had appeared.
[Good evening, Haikawa-san!]
[Thank you for yesterday!]
“Hm?”
“This is…”
The username was “Gyudon-chan.”
“You’re not Mitsuhashi-san, are you…?”
[Please don’t use that name here!]
[Thank you for helping me yesterday.]
He looked at the Mitsuhashi Eris stream that was still open on his phone.
The broadcast had already ended.
Viewers rarely visited his streams.
Comments were even rarer.
Only one possibility came to mind.
“Wait a second…”
Yesterday’s phone number was still saved on his phone.
He tried calling it.
“Good evening!”
“It’s Gyudon-chan!”
“…!?”
“W-Wait…”
“You’re really the actual Mitsuhashi Eris-chan?”
“I watched a little of your stream earlier…”
“Of course I’m the real one.”
“You’re awfully suspicious, Haikawa-san.”
Up until yesterday, she had been someone he never imagined meeting.
Someone completely beyond his reach.
The fact that he was now talking to her directly left him stunned.
Still, he tried to keep his composure and speak normally.
After asking several questions and confirming various details, he concluded that she was most likely genuine.
“Mitsuhashi-san…?”
“So, what exactly do you want from me…?”
Haikawa was nervous.
To him, Mitsuhashi Eris was someone who lived above the clouds.
A famous virtual streamer from a major agency.
Popular across multiple streaming platforms.
Just today, she’d gathered tens of thousands of viewers for a gaming stream.
She was on the verge of reaching one million subscribers.
Her avatar was adorable.
Her streams were entertaining.
Her conversation skills were excellent.
She was reasonably good at games.
Her popularity, fame, and influence were all on a completely different level.
They weren’t even the same species.
She was a professional streamer.
A modern alchemist who earned enormous sums from a single stream or video.
Someone whose talent could compete on a global stage.
“Please stop being nervous, Haikawa-san!”
“You talked to me normally yesterday and even encouraged me!”
“Yeah, but…”
“Aren’t famous streamers the kind who send their fans to raid people they don’t like?”
“And dox them?”
“And put their addresses online?”
“I don’t do that!”
“At all!”
“What kind of person do you think I am!?”
“A professional pretending to be a high school girl… maybe?”
“That’s what you think of me!?”
“I really am a high scho—”
“Actually, never mind that.”
“Thank you so much for yesterday.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine, Lady Mitsuhashi.”
“As a humble peasant, serving a member of the upper class like yourself is my greatest joy.”
“You’re becoming more pathetic by the second, Haikawa-san!”
“That’s creepy!”
“Please just talk normally!”
“And you can call me Eris!”
Gradually, Haikawa managed to speak to her the same way he had yesterday.
Eventually, their conversation started flowing naturally.
“You don’t need to worry about yesterday, Eris-chan.”
“Honestly, it’s better if someone as amazing as you doesn’t associate with someone as low-level as me.”
“You’re a superstar.”
“You’re still being weirdly self-deprecating…”
“By the way, Haikawa-san, do you really have psychic powers?”
“Even if I said yes, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Don’t you secretly think yesterday was all in your imagination?”
“…!”
“W-Well…”
Psychic powers.
The word itself was practically synonymous with lying.
More people disbelieved than believed.
And even among believers, few knew how much they actually believed.
The occult was something many people outright hated.
Even fans of supernatural stories often didn’t take them seriously.
Claiming to see ghosts was on the same level as claiming you’d met aliens.
Very few people genuinely accepted such stories.
“See?”
“Just write yesterday off as your imagination and forget about it.”
“I’m not trying to make you owe me anything.”
“Though if possible, I’d love it if you shared about ten thousand viewers with me.”
“I can’t exactly share my audience…”
“But I can’t forget yesterday.”
“And since I really am Mitsuhashi Eris, that means something like yesterday could happen again because of other people’s jealousy, right?”
“Even if that’s true, the method I taught you yesterday should work.”
“And what happened yesterday is extremely rare.”
“The odds of it happening again are very low.”
“Really!?”
“That’s a relief!”
“Most creepy or unlucky things can be solved with simple measures.”
“Yesterday’s incident was one of those.”
“It was the kind of thing that disappeared just by easing negative emotions.”
As he explained further, the anxiety finally left her voice.
Her usual cheerful tone returned.
Haikawa assumed the conversation was over.
It wasn’t.
“So, do you really have psychic powers?”
“You’re persistent, Eris-chan…”
He’d been trying to dodge the question, but she refused to let it go.
“Let’s say I do.”
“Then what?”
“There’s nothing more I can do about yesterday.”
“That thing isn’t around you anymore.”
The ghostly phenomenon in Mitsuhashi Eris’s apartment had been resolved.
There was nothing left to do.
If she wanted protection from future incidents, he’d already advised her to buy charms from a shrine or temple.
“Actually, there’s something I want to ask of you.”
“Could you at least hear me out?”
“If that’s the case, you should consult a proper expert.”
“Not some guy you only talked to for a little while yesterday.”
“What proper expert?”
“Most people don’t know where to go for this kind of thing.”
She had a point.
Even if you searched online, there was no way to know who was legitimate.
Famous experts could still be frauds.
Even if they listed prices, they might demand outrageous sums afterward.
“That’s true…”
“But you still don’t know why your phone connected to my stream yesterday, right?”
“From your perspective, shouldn’t I still be some mysterious suspicious stranger?”
“Oh, enough already!”
“Just listen to me!”
Interrupting him forcefully, Eris began explaining.
One of her close streamer friends had been unreachable for the last three days.
She wanted his help figuring out what was wrong.
“Couldn’t they just be sick or something?”
“You can’t connect everything to the supernatural.”
“That’s not it!”
“Just listen, Haikawa-san!”
She sounded genuinely desperate.
Reluctantly, he agreed.
The person she was talking about was a classmate who had started streaming around the same time she had.
“Wait.”
“How old are you, Eris-chan?”
“I thought you were around thirty.”
“That’s incredibly rude!”
“Forget that and listen!”
About a month ago, her friend had started feeling unwell.
Around the same time, objects in her room began moving on their own.
At first she assumed it was her imagination.
But as her condition worsened, the incidents became increasingly unsettling.
Eventually she confided in Mitsuhashi Eris.
“So we’re talking about a poltergeist.”
“Though it’s hard to say based on that alone.”
“So help us, Haikawa-san!”
“No way!”
“We don’t even know what each other look like.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“I can’t judge anything under those circumstances.”
“Then let’s meet tomorrow!”
“I don’t have any streams scheduled tomorrow!”
“Hold on!”
“Why would I want to meet someone who’s suspicious as hell!?”
Even if he met Mitsuhashi Eris tomorrow, there was no way to verify she was really her.
She was a virtual streamer.
There was still no proof this wasn’t some elaborate scam.
“Don’t you think I’m suspicious?”
“Seriously.”
“Isn’t all of this weird?”
“You still don’t know why your phone connected to my stream yesterday.”
“What if I’m some dangerous stalker?”
“I don’t think that at all!”
“That’s why I want you to meet me!”
“I’m serious!”
“My friend is genuinely suffering!”
Why doesn’t she doubt me?
Why does she trust me?
Countless thoughts crossed his mind.
Was she trying to deceive him?
Was this some cult?
Every possible suspicion surfaced.
Haikawa possessed psychic powers.
He could sense things ordinary people couldn’t.
He could deal with them.
He could offer advice.
But in modern society, the ability was practically useless.
Making a living from it required extraordinary effort.
And the moment he claimed to have psychic powers, people labeled him a liar.
Far from being useful, it mostly caused trouble.
It couldn’t earn him qualifications.
Most of the time, it had no practical value whatsoever.
In fact, the ability had become a burden.
As a child, he’d often been called a liar because of it.
Over time, he’d become excessively suspicious.
Even when people trusted him, he found himself wondering why.
His mind constantly chased answers to questions that either had no answer or only self-serving ones.
“I still don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Meeting someone I don’t even know is way too ri—”
“Can you get to Harajuku or Shibuya, Haikawa-san?”
“You can, right!?”
“H-Hey, wait—”
“Tomorrow at 4:30 PM!”
“I’ll be waiting at the station-side Starbucks!”
“You have to come!”
“Hey!”
Before he could object, Eris hung up.
The conversation ended entirely on her terms.
“What is this?”
“Am I having a bad dream or something?”
“This has to be a scam.”
“Everything’s just too convenient…”
Ever since yesterday, he’d been getting dragged around by circumstances.
It was exhausting.
Still, he was unemployed.
If he wanted to go, he could.
“…Sigh.”
“But then again…”
“The world isn’t kind enough to reward people who never take risks.”
This was also an opportunity.
He still didn’t fully believe she was genuine.
But if the person on the phone truly was Mitsuhashi Eris, then this might be the chance of a lifetime for someone hoping to make it big in the streaming world.
“I guess I’ll go.”
“If things look dangerous, I can always run.”
She had chosen a crowded location.
Escaping would be easy.
“A poltergeist, huh…”
“I should at least prepare.”
“What a pain…”
Dragging his sluggish body out of its lazy routine, Haikawa began making preparations for tomorrow.