In a dimly lit, cramped, and messy indekost room, a boy is sitting in front of his laptop. He is skinny, yet his body is full of fat. His eyes show signs of a lack of sleep for days. And his hair is as messy as his state of mind. His name is Yudha, a student at a prestigious university in Bandung, enrolling in Computer Science. He has cooked instant ramen for himself and stirred the bowl to mix the soup base, so the taste is bearable, albeit it’ll be bland since he put in too much water. As he stirs it, he stares at the screen, emitting blue light that burns his retina, as it shows a countdown of a livestream that is about to commence.
The sorry excuse of his living arrangement is filled with a bed with a lining that is oozing the absorbed body odour of his, begging for a change, a blanket that is stained with his vain pleasure, and a rubbish bin, overflowing with tissues, cans of energy drink, and an enormous amount of instant ramen packets, reeking the smell of concoction of wasted human seed, taurin spillage, and days old ramen seasoning. It was also littered with piles of textbooks and erotic doujinshi comics scattered in a corner of his room.
In a cleared-out space in a niche of his room, a stark contrast from the rest of his room, there is a Minifigure representing a Virtual Tuber–VTuber for short. Her name is Camellia Cerulea. In her established kayfabe, she is the princess of the Kingdom of Cerulea. Surrounding the figure are various merchandise featuring her and her only as if it is a shrine established to worship her.
The countdown is ever dwindling, nearing the scheduled commencing of the live stream. As the countdown reaches zero, a text replaces the timer. “Starting Soon,” as it is written. Yudha is giggling to himself like a fanatic he is. “Oh, yeah… It’s on…” he talked to himself, barely containing his excitement.
The screen then goes blank before it is replaced with a bumper, accompanied by an ethereal and cheerful jingle, marking the start of the stream. Then, the idol herself appears on the screen after the bumper. “YA-HOO~!” The Princess of Cerulea has arrived, entertaining her ‘Cerizen’ for hours to come. “I, Camellia Cerulea, have arrived to cheer your days and make you feel matters~”
The avatar that represented the VTuber is a youthful girl with short, white hair with blue accent, has radiant, light blue eyes, clad with a graceful dress, fit for kayfabe royalty, albeit showing a bit of her cleavage from her moderate chest, and wields a staff, decorated with intricate ornaments and a floating crystal on the end, with smaller crystals orbiting it.
Besides the avatar of the princess idol is a section of the live chat, scrapped from the streaming platform and hardcoded into the stream, immortalizing the moment. The chat scrolls at breakneck speed, greeting her with generic greetings, the ones that are only understandable within the fandom, and various emojis, both that are freely available to the platform by default and the custom-made ones, exclusively for her fandom, which can be seen by others, but only used by her exclusive members of the chat. If chat were a solid object, It’d certainly reach hypersonic speed, if not sub-luminal.
The “movie magic” that captures the stream in real-time utilizes the movement of the person behind the scene–mainly their facial expression and is translated with the expression shown on the stream, including the sway of their body.
Yudha, of course, is mesmerized by her as he eats his bland ramen, which immediately ruins his moment, frowning silently as he chews the noodles. “Should’ve used less water,” he grumped.
Today’s stream is a zatsudan, a “Small talk” sort of stream that occasionally stretches for hours. Besides the ever-flowing chats, an occasional donation slips through. The amount ranges from a humble, single-digit dollar, to hundreds of dollars, which for most Indonesians, is more than enough to live on for months. There are also a few messages from new members who signed up for the exclusive membership, granting them access to limited access streams and the right to use the exclusive emojis.
Camellia talks about anything since it's a zatsudan. Ranging from catching up with her fans, the latest trend in the gaming landscape–especially since the latest edition of the Video Game Award, talking about her favourite seasonal anime, which admittedly is disappointing as of late since the direction is unclear, and about an upcoming anime convention event, which she’ll be a standee to sell her merch and having a meetup with event-goers. Yudha, of course, is excited as he puts the fork aside on the bowl as frantically types his excitement in the chat with a considerable amount of donation, increasing the chance for his message to be read during the “Message Reading” session at the end of zatsudan. “I WILL BE THERE, YOUR HIGHNESS!!!” Yudha exclaimed, putting an IDR 50.000 (USD 3.12 as of writing) worth of donation.
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Of course, he’ll be there. Who would deny the chance of meeting his idol in person, even though she'll certainly be behind the screen during the event? It’ll be the best day of his life, he thought. “Ye—s…” he squeals out of happiness. “I’ll meet her… I can’t believe it…!” He punches the air to show his happiness to himself before eating his bland, lukewarm ramen again until what is left is just the broth.
The zatsudan continues for another hour and it goes right into the “donation reading” segment as she runs out of topic. She reads the donations one by one. Initially, it’s the ones that she catches up with from the last stream before reading up on the latest ones. The message ranges from just straight-up donations without any messages whatsoever, the messages that were relevant to a topic from earlier, to heartfelt messages, which she melts from happiness. The unread messages start to dwindle as she responds until the stream comes to a close.
“Welp…” she exclaimed. “It seems that it is time for us to depart.” She takes a breath before delivering a closing message. “But worry not! We will meet again the day after tomorrow as I need to finish the Chronicles of Cernesta campaign. For I, Camellia Cerulea will be the beacon of your heart~!”
“Wha—” Yudha stammered. Apparently, his donation message among the mountain of unreads is left out for the next stream. “Come on! It’s not too far off!” he exclaimed disappointingly.
“OTSULEA~! MATA NE~!”
Camellia wiggled around happily as she signed off from the stream, showing the week’s schedule. Yudha immediately closes the stream's tab and shuts his laptop down with a slightly bitter note. He then goes to bed and unlocks his phone to delve into the dark corner of his mind. He opens the gallery and immediately taps the folder filled with erotic depictions of Princess Idol, ranging from shily undressing her regal dress to bound helplessly. He then undone his trousers and applied a lotion to his hand before venting his disappointment.
-=+=-
A girl pushes aside her microphone, hangs her headphones, and sighs after she clicks [STOP STREAM]. She then kicks back and relaxes as she reclines from her seat. She then opens her phone to check the performance insight on her latest stream. She cracks a small smile as the performance is consistent with her past streams. 15 thousand CCV, USD 1845 worth of Donations and Exclusive Memberships, and 90/10 like/dislike ratio, which is more than enough to be set for another 3 to 4 months living in the city that is dubbed as “Paris van Java.”
Then, a phone call interrupts her scrolling, making her rise from her recline and pick up the phone.
“Moshi-moshi~”
“Hey, CC! Otsukare for today’s stream!”
“Hiya, Danil! Otsukare! Thanks for keeping the chat conducive.”
“Oh, don’t mention it, CC,” he replied sheepishly. “It’s my job as your manager, after all.”
It’s Danil, the manager that “Camellia” has hired to keep track of the bookkeeping, scheduling, brokering potential collaboration, and translating the legalese to her.
“By the way, the Cerizens have fully booked the upcoming meet-and-greet at Braga next fortnight.”
“That’s good to hear, Dan. Any potential hiccups?”
“As usual, CC. Should I ask the organizer for stricter security?” He asked.
“That’d be appreciated. Can’t be too safe, right?”
“That’s CC I know.” From the sound of it, he is relieved by the answer. “Also, one more thing before I sign off.”
“Yeah, what is it?” CC raised her eyebrow, curious by Danil’s inquiry.
“Something's heating up among the fandom after the sekuhara drama involving Raya,” Danil informed with a hint of concern in his voice.
“Yikes,” CC replied. “Is Agus playing the victim card and throwing the blame on her?”
“Yeah… That’s in character with him…” Danil disappointingly confirmed. “With that, keep an eye on the other Agus potential, yeah? I’ll comb the past DM of yours with him to find a nail to seal that perv’s casket.”
“Ah. No need.” CC immediately interjects. “I screenshotted some damning evidence and zipped it, so I can send it later.”
“Nice. That’s one less paperwork.” Danil, sighing out of relief, replied with a giggle from CC.
“I guess I have no reason to hold you back any longer. Once again, Otsukare~!”
“Otsukare~! See you next week, Danil!”
With that, CC hits the bright red button and hangs the call up before reclining again for a while, where she slowly drifts asleep.