This Lady is Actually...

I hope no one shows up to the store while I’m gone. Not that I think it’s likely with the late hours for someone else to show up in need. My boss might not be happy, but at least he won’t give me a hard time given the reasoning here. This woman is in need and I got to come in to save the day.

Sadly being a hero isn’t all that glamorous as I’m stuck carrying her heavy computer back to her place. As I’ve said before, it’s an older computer and back during the time when they were bigger for no reason other than it caught your eye. If I could give her any recommendations, she should upgrade her entire PC to something smaller and much more efficient.

“Thanks so much.” She says as we walk with me lagging behind due to the weight. “You’re a real lifesaver, uh…” Her eyes widen as the woman comes to a complete halt. If I were walking at a normal pace, then I’d definitely collide with her. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” She turns and bows down. “I never got your name.”

“It’s Yuito Yanagida.” I tell her. Exchanging names didn’t even enter my mind when we were talking before. After all, she’s just some customer I’ve never seen before. Probably only showed up to the shop because we were the only ones open at this time.

“My name’s Sena Minomoto.” She stands back up straight and extends an arm to me. Clearly she wants a handshake for this formal introduction, but simply stare at her and point my head down to what’s keep my hands full. “Oh right, well it’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.” I reply with an obvious distance when it comes to our enthusiasm. Sena might seem like a nice woman, but she’s not particularly someone I’d consider befriending. This definitely sounds rude, but she’s a lot older than me. That’s not even from a dating perspective, just that I’m pretty sure the only people I’m close with over the age of 30 are my parents.

As we walk along this route to her home, it’s feeling oddly familiar to me. Sure, I’ve lived in this town my entire life, so most places come with that feeling for me. However this path is much more intimate as this happens to be the way I take to go to and from work.

“I live right there.” And my suspicions are confirmed as she points right at my apartment building. I’m surprised we live in the same place, seeing as I’ve never seen this woman before. But I guess if she’s working at home, then it’s not like we’d have many chances to run into each other. “I live in room 306.”

“What did you just say?” If I heard her correctly, then that would mean she lives right above my apartment room.

“Room 306.” She says again as she hits the elevator button. I sigh upon getting confirmation of such a fact. So this is the owner of that room that ruins my viewing experience.

“Just wondering.” I say, trying to sound natural as we enter the elevator. “Do you have any kids?”

“Oh.” She gets all bashful from my question. “I’m not that old. I’m not even married yet.” Her responsive doesn’t make any sense to me. I can believe she’s not married, just that if this is the case. Am I really to believe she’s the one making all that racket?

After a short elevator ride, we get to her door in no time. Not a moment too soon either as my arms are really killing me from lugging around this giant computer. “Please forgive me for the mess. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come by my place.” She warns me as she unlocks the door.

“Well, can’t predict the future now, can we?” I get it, but it’s really nothing to be self-conscious about. After all, if she were to suddenly enter my home, then it would be a bit unkempt due to my original plans on lazing about.

However, she definitely undersold the mess as she opened the door. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I watched her step inside. The kitchen sink was stacked with dishes, the trash can nearly overflowed with garbage, and there were layers of dust on most of the things in her living room.

I assumed someone who worked from home would do more to keep it clean. After all, they spent more time here, so it wasn’t like it’d be some challenge to just throw some things out or just do the dishes once in a while. How could someone be this big of a slob?

As I carefully walk through to avoid contracting any deceases, she leads me into her bedroom where she has a desk set up for her computer. Unlike the rest of her place, this area isn’t too bad. Though she really ought to take care of those empty soda cans laying next to her bed.

“This is where I normally put it.” She opens up a little space underneath the desk, which reveals to me why her computer eventually reached a failing point. It’s covered in dust down there, which is a contrast to the desktop which is surprisingly clean.

“Just a small suggestion.” I speak up as I place it in there and begin connecting some wires to the ports. “You might want to invest in a new desk to free that computer. It’s probably getting too hot and wearing out your parts faster than they should.”

“Hmm, that is a good idea.” Fortunately she’s the type of person to listen to someone like me. “Does your store sell desks?”

“You might be better shopping somewhere else for that.” Honestly if I never saw her again, it would be too soon. This kind of woman is strange. I just can’t tell why anyone would live the way she does, and apparently act the way she does too if the noises coming from above when I’m at home are anything to indicate.

As I finished up connecting everything, there’s something that catches my eyes as I get things organized. It would be the fact she has one of those retractable green screens. There were other things I noticed too while setting things up, such as the fancy webcam and the fact that her keyboard and mouse had RGB lighting as I turned on her computer.

All this combined makes me think she’s more of a live streamer rather than someone who handles office work at home. Then again she did say a family member helped her set things up. Perhaps they just used these because it looked nice?

“Are you going to be done soon?” She asks me, sounding much more urgent than before.

“I’m working as fast as I can.” There are multiple reasons motivating me to move quickly, so there should be no worries from her that I might be slacking. “Just need to log in and make sure everything’s stable before I leave.” It’s normal for me to want to do that seeing as I just swapped a piece of hardware. Probably should’ve done it back at the store, but I know our parts are good.

“Wait, before you…” She tries to say something, but it’s too late for her as the computer loads into the desktop. Her wallpaper is certainly something as it’s an image of an anime girl. Actually not just any anime girl, it’s the VTuber Mimie Misumi. “Ah, well, you see.” She immediately gets all flustered upon me seeing it. Can’t say I blame her as I’d be humiliated if someone were to see my PC wallpaper too. Now that I think about it, why are we putting something so embarrassing up like that?

“It’s okay, I’m actually a fan too.” While I wouldn’t call myself a friend to this woman. At least I can assure her that it’s no big deal anyway. Us fans got to stick together, right?

“You are?” She immediately loses what made her bashful. It’s now replaced with excitement to the point where I kind of regret telling her. I’m not looking to be friends with her. “But you’re misunderstanding me here.”

“What do you mean?” I ask as I open up her web browser. It’s just to head on over the popular video streaming site, OurTube, to pull up a random video to test things out on a light scale. When I do this, it automatically restored what she had been doing prior before her computer crash. “Oh sorry, I forgot it’d do...” I say, but my voice trails off as I get a clear look at what loaded up.

It’s what someone would see when they’re logged into their account and working on setting up a livestream. There’s a list of videos that are all familiar to me. How do I know them? It’s because I’ve already watched every single one of them. For they are the thumbnails of videos and livestreams by Mimie Misumi.

In fact, when I look at the account name, it’s her profile picture and her channel name clearly labeled. “W-wait a second…” I say as the thought slowly enters my mind. “You’re Mimie Misumi?”