Chapter 15

“Let’s go over everything one more time, okay?”

“We’ve done this like four times now, Ju. Just how much don’t you trust me?!”

“A lot.”

“How mean!”

Aaaand she punched me!

“Ouch! I’m serious! My career is on the line here, you know. I can’t have you go off the rails like usual,” I said.

Aaaand she punched me again!

“I’m not that bad… right?”

“I elect to remain silent on that one.”

This time, Mana shot me a glare, but thankfully the physical assault wasn’t forthcoming.

It had been a few days since we decided to do the livestream to prove Mana is real—or, at least, prove she’s actually a real woman and not some AI creation. I had to prepare by buying a mic, getting used to the streaming program, and getting some sort of avatar to represent her. Case in point—

“I really like this avatar for me! It’s so cute!” She said, casually leaning over my shoulder.

“You think? It’s just something I put together in like a day. It’s not that great.”

It was indeed just a PNGtuber artwork with like three animations. Nothing remotely like those complex models with tons of layers and movement. For the purposes of the stream, however, this would be more than enough.

“There you go again with your impostor syndrome. It’s great, I tell ya! It being a bit scuffed is part of the charm!”

“So it is scuffed…”

“I meant compared to your normal drawings…! Now forget about that, and let’s just go live, okay?”

“You’re being particularly gung-ho about this…”

“I mean, it’s exciting to talk to people who like your stuff, right? And besides,” she said, her tone noticeably changing, “I want to prove I’m really here.”

“Right,” I said, avoiding touching on that sensitive subject again. “Well, let’s just do it, I guess.”

The plan was simple—I’d be drawing as usual, and Mana would be entertaining and chatting with the viewers, trying her best to prevent people from figuring out there were two people here and not just the one. This plan could all collapse if Mana ever made a single mistake, but sitting here twiddling my thumbs wouldn’t solve anything. So I decided to just plunge right in, start the stream, and let everyone know Nitrochilla was streaming that day on Fwitter.

On the streaming site, all you could see at the start was a blank page and Mana’s smiling avatar. At first, there were zero viewers, but they slowly began trickling in.

“Look, Ju! 8 viewers already!” Mana said excitedly.

“Don’t forget not to talk to me when the mic is live,” I said, my heart starting to beat just a tiny bit faster.

We’ll be okay… right?

“Of course not! And you can’t talk, either!”

“Naturally.”

“Well, I’m going.” Mana took a deep breath in and turned the mic using its physical switch. “Hi! Hello! Can you guys hear me?!”

Immediately, the chat came to life, saying things like “Nitro’s finally live!”, “Guess she’s really a girl, huh?” and “Probably a voice changer.”

Mana immediately shot back. “Nuh, no voice changer here! I’m an actual, living woman!” She said as the avatar, even though it did react to her voice, really didn’t follow her enthusiasm.

“Oh, what am I doing today?” Mana said after reading that question in chat. Today I’m going to draw… what are we drawing again?” She asked, turning to me.

I started panicking and quickly scribbled down the plan.

“Right, that’s it! We’re drawing m— I mean, Mana! It’s been a while since I drew her! Yeah!”

We will be alright… right?

“Didn’t expect Nitro to be such a scatterbrain…” “So Mana is actually supposed to represent you? You look so much like her IRL.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Mana said, reciting the line we had agreed on beforehand—though her tone was quite a bit less enthusiastic than before. “She’s based on IRL me, 100%.”

But Mana bounced right back from that, and continued happily chatting with viewers. To her credit, she was a natural yapper, and kept expanding on topics no matter how thin they were.

Meanwhile, I focused on my work, sketching out a relatively simple drawing of Mana. I thought that by doing this sort of division of labor, I could just focus on drawing—but I quickly realized that half my brain was dedicated to making sure Mana didn’t slip or say something she shouldn’t, and the other half was paying attention to chat. In the end, I was actually about as distracted as I would have been had I been doing the stream all on my own.

And it was because of this focus on chat that I began noticing that there was a particular viewer—“R-sensei”—who kept sending the same types of questions over and over.

“What program and tablet do you use to draw?” “What kind of brushes do you use?” “How did you learn how to draw?”

Basically, all they asked were questions about my process—questions Mana had obviously no idea how to answer.

Shoot, I didn’t think about this…

In my mind, I’d just be drawing and Mana would be chatting. But obviously, people were watching Nitro draw, so such questions were natural. In my defense, I never watched other artists’ streams, so I had no idea viewers were at all interested in those technical details.

For her part, Mana had noticed those questions, too. She was nifty ignoring him so far, pretending not to have read the questions, but even other chatters were starting to pick up on it and asking similar questions.

“What are we gonna do about this chatter, Ju?” She asked when the mic was cut off during a “bathroom break”. “I can’t keep ignoring their questions…”

“Yeah… I’ll just have to write the answers down for you to repeat. There’s no other way.”

And so, while Mana was actually in the bathroom and drinking some water, I jotted down answers for R-sensei’s questions.

“You think you can read these?”

“Hmm…” She said when she came back, giving the paper I gave her a cursory glance. “Yeah, I think I’m fine!”

“A-alright… Then let’s get back into it.”

Mana flipped the mic back on. “Hi, I’m back! Phew, that was a long pee, I tell ya!”

Goddammit Mana…

“But I wasn’t just taking a break. I was thinking about R-sensei’s questions, so I’ll answer them now,” she said. “I use an X… Exion… 14 inch…? Tablet. Yeah, that’s it! It has a huge screen, so I can really see the entire drawing at once! It’s great! The software is… huh… DrawStudio… Pro 4? No, 4 Pro, that’s the one. And I just use the default brushes… Oh, and I began drawing when I was in high school because I wanted to make a manga. Yeah, that’s it. That’s all!”

Even I could tell how terrible of a performance that was.

That was awful!

And well, Chat agreed with me.

“What was that?” “Completely different tone.” “Was she reading from a script or something?”

“Juuuuu…. what did I dooooo?” Mana asked after cutting off the mic.

“That one’s on me. I should have made sure you knew how the technical names were read…”

Now what do we do?

The chat was getting a bit suspicious, as would be expected—but not because they saw through the two streamer ruse. No, they just thought Mana was some AI voice changer that was having trouble with processing those technical words.

“She’s not a girl after all!” “Nitro’s getting exposed!”

“I’m telling y’all, I’m real!” Mana cried out into the mic, almost desperately. “I’m… right here…” She said, her voice devolving into a whisper.

Not everyone was suspicious. Many people were supportive of the “Nitro is a girl” angle, saying that no voice changer could be that adorably mistaken. But even more people were on the fence, not sure what to believe.

That’s when I realized that this stream had been a big mistake. I was goaded into doing it because I saw a comment saying it would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Mana was real, but instead of proving Nitrochilla and Mana were the same person, it just made people even more suspicious.

The stream was completely falling apart.

But then, the worst thing that could have happened happened.

R-sensei sent a message to chat—a public message.

“I’m Aru-chan. Clearly this stream is just raising more questions than answers.”

“Wait, Aru-chan?!” Mana cried out, entirely ignoring any pretense of neutrality.

So R-sensei was a side account?!

But the message didn’t stop there.

“The only way to prove you’re who you say you are is to meet up for real,” R-sensei—or Aru-chan—said. “You’re from Luhou, right? Are you attending Comikei?”

When I saw those words, I reached over to the mic and cut it off before Mana could talk.

“Darn it, Aru-chan. You’ve really done it now.”

“Ju? What’s that face for? What ‘Comikei’?”

“It’s an annual convention here in Luhou. It’s probably the biggest anime convention in the city. The next edition is coming up in around two weeks.”

“Huh? Really?! Why haven’t you said anything about it?! I want to go!”

I bit my lip. “Because I wasn’t planning to go.”

“No…? But like, aren’t these conventions a good place for artists to sell their work and stuff? Wouldn’t it be great to—”

“I… I can’t attend a con like that.”

Just the thought of having so many people there judging my work and invariably coming home disappointed was too much to deal with.

I looked at Mana, and through her glasses I could tell that she had understood my thoughts perfectly.

“Oh, I see. So what should I say?”

“That I didn’t apply to have a booth and that I wasn’t planning on going as an attendee since I have so much work to do. It’s already too late to get a booth, anyway. That should shut her up.”

“Gotcha.”

Mana turned on the mic just as the chat was reaching a fever pitch.

“Sorry about that. I was thinking about… what Aru-chan said. Sadly, I didn’t apply to have a booth at the con, and I wasn’t planning on going as an attendee, either, since I don’t have the time.”

That should have been enough, but I underestimated the tenacity of Aru-chan.

“I know the organizers. I can get you a slot if you apply today. That should be fine, right?”

What the hell is her deal?!

She was so doggedly insisting on this, it was starting to get a bit ridiculous.

Really, what’s her beef with me?

I barely knew Aru-chan. We basically didn’t interact before this incident. We were just Fwitter mutuals, and that was about as worthless as ice in Scandinavia. What did she care about Nitrochilla being a girl or not?!

“Why don’t we attend, Ju?” Mana said after cutting off the mic. “I can just pretend to be Nitro at the con too, right? That would make me real, right?”

Wait, is she…

Mana was being extremely pushy with this too.

And the way she phrased...

“You know what?” Fine.”

“Ju…?”

“I don’t get her deal,” I said, the rage seeping through my voice. “But if we turned her down now, I just know she’s gonna be a pain in the ass in the future. Mana?”

“Y-yes?”

“Are you in?”

“Of course!” She said with a little fist pump. “Let’s get her ass!”

I turned on the mic and nodded, letting Mana speak freely.

“Aru-chan… I don’t know why you’re being so insistent about this… but I, Nitrochilla, accept your challenge,” she said, thumping her chest. “Bring it on!”