Hobbyist VTuber-Chapter 272
For Ha-eun, the collab stream with Lucid was her final schedule in Japan.
At the same time, it was the one she was most looking forward to.
“Let’s do this right to the end.”
Just like Ji Hye-min had said before, today’s stream was an incredible opportunity for Diah.
A golden opportunity in every sense.
The fact that Lucid herself had sent the first love call was practically a miracle.
She hadn’t yet heard the reason Lucid became interested in Diah,
but whatever the reason, Ha-eun knew this was a chance she absolutely couldn’t waste.
Everything—from taking Japanese lessons from Gong Hye-yeon,
to flying to Japan a week earlier than planned just to prepare—
had been for this moment.
“You’ve got 5 minutes left. Please get ready.”
“Okay.”
She had to give it her all—her absolute best.
Today’s collab would definitely become a hot topic all across the internet.
If everything went well from start to finish, it would be a huge boost for Diah’s channel.
That’s why she began immersing herself even deeper into the role of Diah.
She had to leave an impression—show both Korean and Japanese viewers exactly who Diah was.
“Hoo...”
She took a breath.
She emptied herself—of her aura, her emotions, her presence.
She slowly erased everything from herself:
Lee Ha-eun the actress.
Lee Ha-eun the singer.
Lee Ha-eun the celebrity.
And in that fleeting moment, an expressionless doll appeared.
Wiping clean the canvas that was once named Lee Ha-eun.
In other words, her final preparation to become Diah.
“Her vibe...”
“...completely changed.”
“So this is what it means to be an actress.”
Even without a hint of emotion, everyone around her suddenly turned to look.
Aqua and Lucid, who’d been chatting about the stream order, both paused mid-sentence.
Then, blink.
And again—blink.
“......☆.”
Each slow, empty blink filled with a new emotion.
The sharp, feline-like eyes from just moments ago slowly rounded and softened.
A playful smile curled at lips that had always held a calm, straight line.
“☆~.”
A soft hum—maybe a tune, maybe just a whimsy—escaped her lips.
She was like a completely different person.
The atmosphere around her had changed entirely.
There she was, a bright, cheerful girl swinging her feet on a folding chair, innocence radiating from her.
❮...Whoa.❯
❮She’s kinda scary now...❯
“Acting and singing are just hobbies.”
“VTubing is her real job.”
What had once sounded like a joke now felt very real all over again.
A little more time passed.
And finally, the stream began.
“Hellooo─☆”
The moment Diah’s stream went live, a voice that clearly wasn’t Ha-eun’s rang out.
Ah. That’s why.
That’s why no one had figured out who she was.
“Why am I using a 3D avatar? Hmm, who knooows~☆”
You’d never guess from the voice alone.
Even seeing it with your own eyes was hard to believe—so imagine those who only knew her through her virtual avatar.
❮Hi everyone~! Have you all been waiting?❯
Lucid’s stream also went live, and she greeted her familiar viewers.
But even then, all eyes were still fixed on Ha-eun beyond the screen.
Knowing her real identity only made her transformation all the more astonishing.
—Lucid!!
—Waaah!
—hello
—So cute~
❮As you all probably know, today’s stream is a special one! A very special friend from Korea has come to visit~.❯
Even while chatting casually with her viewers,
even while giving a brief intro about Diah as today’s guest,
Lucid’s gaze kept returning to Ha-eun.
And then, at last—
“Alright then...! Come on out, sunbae!”
The moment of Diah’s appearance arrived.
Lucid met eyes with Ha-eun—and fell silent, just for a moment.
That effortless playfulness no adult could ever imitate.
That untainted innocence.
That bright, expressive smile.
“...Ohayo~! Annyeong haseyo~.”
“Hajimemashite, Lucid-senpai~.”
Everything about her was unrecognizable from the person Lucid had seen on TV just days ago.
It was only natural that Lucid, in her rough Korean greeting, looked genuinely awestruck.
***
At last, the Diah x Lucid collab stream kicked off and ran smoothly.
The greetings, the friendly banter—it all flowed without a hitch.
Aqua joined shortly after, disguised as a fictional translator called “Employee A.”
❮I’m Employee A, today’s interpreter~.❯
Instead of her usual streaming avatar, Aqua used a cute teddy bear avatar.
Her signature voice gave her away instantly, of course.
But she kept calling herself Employee A and boldly continued with the interpretation.
Then came the RP intros.
“Diah-san, where are you from?”
“I come from the Spirit Forest! One day, I met a cute wizard and—”
—Let’s not say it’s a 3X spinster wizard, that’s mean (User has been banned)
—Wait, Aqua’s Korean is really good??
—Lucid’s taller than Diah lol
—She’s like an answering machine
—Diah is too cute
—Energy’s super high today
A full-screen graphic introduced Diah’s character and background.
A far cry from her debut stream, where she’d drawn her RP with MS Paint.
This time, it was bilingual in Korean and Japanese—so Lucid’s viewers could follow along too.
Lucid’s own RP slide followed, also in both languages.
However, when it came to interpreting Lucid’s answers—
Aqua started... tweaking things a bit.
❮I’m 20 years old. That makes me 19 years older than Diah.❯
“Oh, so she’s like Diah-san’s mom! Lucid-san says you can call her Mama now—”
“M-Mama?!”
❮Wait, sunbae! Don’t say weird stuff!!❯
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Diah and Lucid’s panicked voices echoed through the stream.
And, of course, the chat exploded.
—LOLOLOLOL
—Lucid Mama! Lucid Mama! Lucid Mama! Lucid Mama!
—She might become the mother of my children or something
—Right, they’re 19 years apart LOL
—Aqua’s just making stuff up now
And Aqua kept it going.
Ha-eun understood enough Japanese to know it was nonsense, so no misunderstandings occurred.
But she couldn’t help noticing Lucid’s ears turning redder by the minute.
That was because Aqua twisted everything Lucid said into teasing mistranslations.
No matter what Lucid said, Aqua spun it into something ridiculous.
❮Kick her out. Someone please kick this person out.❯
“Oh, she said she wants to ride an ostrich. Diah-san, what do you think—”
“No ostrich!! Red card! Employee A, OUT!”
“Ahahah~.”
—OUT LOLOL
—Aqua is chaos incarnate
—Diah is dying of laughter
—She’s just sitting back enjoying the show
—The way she says ‘out’ is so clean lol
Thankfully, the main event—the dice game—went off without a hitch.
Since the game board itself had both Korean and Japanese, Aqua couldn’t fudge anything.
—Whoosh!
—Clatter clatter...
“Oh, a 3. Number 3 is... make a cute face!”
“Diah go first? Or me go... first?”
“Senpai! You go first~!” freeweɓnøvel~com
“Okay. I go first.”
Lucid tilted her head, closed one eye, and smiled—
a rare expression that lit up the screen and set both her chat and Diah’s chat on fire.
—Oh
—LMAO
—Hnnnng
—JP VTubers hit different
—Diah can’t lose to this!
“Well, I [N O V E L I G H T] mean... I’m already cute just sitting here.”
—?
—??
—???
—No fakes allowed
—???
—bruh...
“What’s with the claw hand! Put the claw down!”
—!
—!!!
—Only time she listens instantly lol
—!
—!!!!
—Order restored by the Great Diah
—!!!
The chat, now noisy for an entirely different reason than before, made Diah nod in satisfaction.
Still, of course, she had no intention of letting it end with just a blank expression—so she started crafting her own version of a “cute face.”
The camera angle shifted slightly downward.
Now looking up at Diah from below, she tilted her head slightly to the side, then gently forward.
Then, lifting one hand, she covered her mouth at just the right angle.
—Uh
—????
—Wow LOL
—😺👅😺👅😺👅😺👅😺👅😺👅😺👅
—What is this? What is this? What is this? x10
—Who are you who are you who are you who are you
—Kyaaaaaaaa
Was it just because it was a rare expression no one had seen on Diah before?
Or maybe it was Ha-eun’s experience with photoshoots kicking in unconsciously?
“Did I nail it?”
“F-foul! That’s cheating, hey! You used your hands!”
“There’s no such thing as cheating when you’re being cute~.”
Ha-eun’s real face and Diah’s 3D avatar both looked genuinely pretty.
So it wasn’t surprising when the chat began spamming messages declaring Diah the winner.
The dice game continued after that.
Diah and Lucid kept rolling until one of them reached the goal.
And somewhere along the way, Aqua—who was supposed to be the interpreter—had fully assumed the role of MC.
❮Next up is: mimic the pose the other is most confident in! Whoever fails gets a punishment~! Okay, rock-paper-scissors!❯
❮Oh.❯
“Ah, I won! Alright then, Lucid-senpai, your turn to try copying me!”
With a swoosh—
Ha-eun went into a handstand right on the spot, making Diah’s 3D avatar mirror the move.
Then came Lucid’s surrender.
❮Come on, Lucid-san, your turn!❯
❮Impossible, impossible. How could I do that?!❯
—Diah wins! Diah wins! Diah wins!
—Dominance established
—Let’s gooo let’s gooo let’s gooo x8
Securing her victory in an instant, Diah handed out the punishment: two squats for Lucid.
Her sharp eyes closely monitored Lucid’s form to make sure it was perfect.
“Okay, senpai. You need to go lower. Mooore down.”
“E-Eh? Even lower than this?”
“Yep. Right there.”
Only once Lucid’s form was flawless did she start counting.
A move straight out of the playbook of the countless trainers Ha-eun had seen at the gym.
“Okay—streeetch! Ichi! Ni!”
❮U-uuuugh...!❯
—Gasp
—Ohoooo
—Whoa that moan was wild (User has been banned)
—🦕🦕🦕🦕
—Hehehe
—This is... Prism Live??
—Insane
She didn’t really mind that the chat was speeding up.
In fact, she had a pretty good guess why it was.
Anyway, once Lucid’s squat punishment wrapped up,
Diah rolled the dice again and the content continued.
Time passed, and eventually, it came time for the very last segment—final goodbyes.
“H-Hug... May I have a hug, please.”
With her arms held slightly open to the sides, Diah requested a final hug.
Lucid’s 3D avatar stepped in and embraced her without hesitation.
Their final closing lines went out over the stream.
“This has been Diah.”
❮And Lucid~.❯
“Buh-bye~!”
And with that—beep.
A staff member in the control room ended the broadcast.
Only once the stream was fully confirmed to be over did Ha-eun collapse into a heap on the floor.
“Haaah...”
It had been a long time since a stream had left her this exhausted.
She let out a faint, weary moan and slumped into a heap.
At the same time, Lucid’s voice chimed in, and Aqua called for applause.
“You did well. Ha-eun-san.”
❮Alright, everyone~. Big round of applause~.❯
As the staff burst into applause for both Ha-eun and Lucid,
Ha-eun could only manage an awkward smile.
She didn’t even have the energy left to feel happy.
“Here, Ha-eun-san. A present.”
Later on, when Ha-eun had finally finished packing up to leave Prism Live’s studio,
Lucid approached and handed her a fairly large shopping bag.
“These are collab items. There’s food and collectibles. Two of each.”
“Ah, thank you.”
The gift was something the studio staff had promised Ha-eun before.
At the same time—
“This one’s from when we were in Sapporo. You wanted this, remember?”
Something Ha-eun had picked up and set back down at a convenience store.
Lucid went on to say she’d known Ha-eun was Diah for a while,
and this was the real reason she’d reached out.
“I really wanted to meet you. For real. I wanted to know if you were actually Diah.”
“Ah...”
The surprise news that the person Ha-eun had briefly crossed paths with in that Sapporo convenience store had been Lucid all along.
To say she wasn’t thrown off would’ve been a lie.
“You said it was a battle. That Diah was coming, and Prism Live should wait.”
Lucid extended a hand for a handshake.
And something about her voice made Ha-eun feel strange.
“I won’t wait. You’re scary, Ha-eun-san. I’m going to run away really fast. So...”
After shaking Lucid’s hand, Ha-eun could only stare.
She’d never expected to hear something like this from Lucid of all people.
“Hurry up and catch up. Diah, too.”
“...Okay.”
It was a strange emotion.
Something she had never experienced before in her life.
“.............”
And in this very moment, Ha-eun was sure of one thing—
This was a feeling she couldn’t possibly act.
This wasn’t something she, as an actress, could fabricate.
“Man, this is like a shounen manga~. So heartwarming, so wholesome.”
“...Employee A, OUT! Get out!”
“Did you just tell your senpai to get out? Are you for real?”
“Wow... Look at that attitude. Power tripping much?”
—Pffft.
“Ahaha, where’d you even learn to say stuff like that?”
“This is the right situation to use it, isn’t it, Ha-eun-san?”
“Well... I guess you’re not wrong.”
