Mimie Misumi Stands Before Me

My body is frozen from pure shock. The only parts of me that can move are my eyes as they scan this woman’s body. I already knew she’d look nothing like her model. Seeing as the fictional girl has pink hair and all. Just that I never would’ve thought someone her age would be into such a character.

“Eheheh.” She laughs nervously from all my staring. “Yep, that’s me alright.” Sena confirms it as if I needed anymore of it. “I’m Mimie Misumi.”

“I can’t believe this.” Finally I’m able to say something as my body control returns. “This is your job?”

“I wouldn’t call it my main job.” She responds. “It’s more like a side thing, but you should already know that. I’ve mentioned on stream that I have a real job too.” I have her say that online, but I would’ve thought she meant she was a part timer as a young girl who’s working on building her online presence.

“I guess I just wasn’t expecting the person behind her to be so…” It’s hard to say in front of her face, but to call her far from expectations would be putting it lightly.

“Heh, I guess I wouldn’t be the kind of person you’d think would be doing this, but it’s not like there’s any rules saying I can’t.” She’s not wrong about that. Judging from her tone, she probably is self aware enough to realize my reaction would be normal considering the circumstances.

“I certainly wouldn’t have guessed from the computer you brought to my store.” He commented. For someone who focused on streaming as a career, he would’ve thought she’d upgrade this thing by now. Sure, it evidently was enough to handle some streaming and gaming at the same time. Though it also explained why she’d suffer a bad frame rate at times.

“It’s no worries, I already said it’s not like my main job or anything.” She waved off his comments on her setup. “Say, you said you were a fan. What’s your username?”

“I should finish up and make sure your computer’s working fine.” I dodge the question, sitting down at her chair and putting myself through my usual testing for stability. It’s not that I don’t want to tell her because I’m worried she won’t recognize me. It’s actually the opposite, if anything.

You see, I wasn’t that honest when I said I probably spend too much in donations for her. I’m actually one of her top donors, definitely in the top 5 last time I checked. It sounds bad and I have a hard time really defending my actions, but it’s not because I’m deluded into thinking we have some special relationship as viewer and entertainer. She just provides me a lot of entertainment, so I figured that it would be a good thing to support someone who gives me joy.

But now that I’m looking around her apartment, there’s now a nagging question at the back of my mind. Where does all that money we give her go? Sure, it’s not like she’s some massive star with millions of subscribers. But we’ll just say I’ve given a decent amount and would’ve thought she’d at least live in a nice house by now. Especially knowing she has another job on top of this.

Eventually I run through my quick sweep and nothing seems to be wrong with her computer anymore. “That should be everything.” I say, closing her browser. “You can get back to what you were doing.”

Saying this, I realize just how off I was in my original perception of this being some woman who worked from home. While that might technically be true given that streaming was a job done at home. Being a VTuber is a far cry from the office style work I had been expecting.

“Thank you so much.” At least she’s a very appreciative person as Sena takes the seat and quickly loads up a game. It’s the game I saw Mimie playing earlier, but seeing a woman like her just seems weird even though they’re the same person. “You’re a real life saver. Are you always working at this time? Because it would be nice to have someone whenever I’m having computer problems.”

“I was just filling in for someone.” I reply. Fortunately this is just going to be a one time deal. Despite being a fan of her avatar, meeting her in person is far from a dream come true for me. Not just because she’s messy, immature for her age, and a bit odd. But now I’ve broken my number one rule for VTubers. That illusion of that cute girl on screen is broken now that I see this plain old woman.

This was my first time meeting her, and it will be the last time I’ll ever see her or Mimie ever again. Dramatic, I know. Yet even looking at her now just underwhelms me. “I also need to get back to running the store. It was nice to meet you though.” I give an empty platitude for common courtesy and turn towards the door.

“Oh my gosh, I almost forgot!” She yells out, making me jump a bit from the sudden excitement. “I got a superchat and was about to respond when my computer broke down.” Right, that makes sense why she was so urgent before. It’s kind of weird to see her so concerned about it, now that I’m looking back. But I guess responding to this stuff is her job, so it is important not to let the fans down.

“I’ll walk myself out.” She seemingly forgets about me as I watch Sena pull up her green screen and turn on her stream once more.

“Hello hello, sorry my stream cut off there.” I hear her say as I walk to the door. It takes longer than normal with how much trash is strewn about on the floor. “My computer broke, but now everything’s all good.” She puts on that cute voice I’m so used to hearing. But it feels so wrong seeing it come from this woman instead of that cute anime girl. “Now before things got cut off, I was about to read this superchat. AverageMimieEnjoyer, I hope you’re still around to hear this.”

I stop with my hand firmly holding the door knob. As what she just said was my online username. It’s very cringe worthy having it spoken by someone I can see in person, regardless of who it is. That’s something I’ll have to change later. “Let’s see, you said ‘Sorry have to miss the rest of the stream. Just got called in to fill in for work’. Ah, so maybe you’re not around anyway.”

I know I should leave right now. After all, that’s what I said I would do. Yet my hand doesn’t move from the handle as I stand still. I guess this is still my superchat after all, so it makes sense I would want to hear what she has to say in response. “I do hope you have fun at work.”

It’s pretty normal, though I don’t know how anyone would have fun at work. And I’d certainly wouldn’t call what I just had to do earlier fun. “And I hope you catch the replay later, because I know you’re someone who’s donated a lot.” A shame to hear that, as I’ve no plans on watching the replay of this stream. “You shouldn’t spend so much money on someone like me.”

Huh, I never would’ve expected her to say that. You’d think someone in this position would want to encourage donations. “People like you who have to work at odd hours, I have a lot of respect for. Just earlier, I was trying so hard to find a place where someone could fix my computer, but because it’s late, most places were closed.”

She’s talking to them about what just happened? I wouldn’t think it mattered so much, but we’re also talking about the same woman who probably ran all over just to eventually find where I worked. “I get why they’re all closed because most people don’t need their computers fixed at such a time. I’m sure maybe the worker there might’ve felt that way seeing as he was the only person working all by himself. But because of that wonderful person, I was able to come back to all of you tonight. So I hope that he knows how much it meant to me that he was there to help. And I’m sure that whatever it is you do, that there are people who greatly appreciate the time you spend to help them.”

“…” I can’t believe what I just heard. It doesn’t seem like it should be real, but something’s stirring inside me from her words of encouragement. She doesn’t know they’re meant for me, but she truly was grateful for some random stranger coming to her rescue and gave them credit immediately. “Hey.” I speak up, revealing to her that I still haven’t left.

“Huh?” She quickly covers the microphone on her headset. “You’re still here?” Sena says as her face grows a light blush. With that reaction, it only confirms she was unaware of my sticking around.

“I take day shifts. So if you need anything for your computer. You can just drop by then.”

“Ah! Thank you.” She claps her hands together and gives me a respectful bow.

“Have a fun stream.” Those are my last words as I step out of her home. It’s strange, just a moment ago I had lost that joy I had for Mimie. But something compelled me to tell her about my work schedule. Just my little bit of gratitude for the kind words she had to say about me. Though I doubt she’ll actually pop up at the store again and that we won’t ever run into each other again.