Masumi danced as he finished the last preparations for his stream. To say they were true preparations was incorrect, because he’d done most of that right after dinner. He was dancing in front of his mirror, clad in the bright yellow and pink outfit he’d chosen to cheer himself up. The music in his ears kept him buoyant, while his moves did the same for his skirt. He kept having to tug it down, lest it ride too high and reveal the frilly underwear he’d opted to put on with it.
“Stupid...” Masumi tugged it down as best he could, after a particularly rapid twirl had sent it flying up around his hips. He was just about to consider asking his dance club members about how they keep their skirts down, when he was distracted by the ring of his phone. He tiptoed over to it, took off his headphones, and peered at the name. He grinned broadly as he answered. “Yui! Hi! Hello! It’s me!”
“I know, I rang you.” Yui replied with the kind of tone that Masumi knew was always associated with a knowing smirk. “I’m doing that janitorial job at the hospital, so I won’t be as active tonight. I just wanted to let you know.”
“That’s okay! I’m playing horror today, so, um, don’t be surprised if you hear me scream!” He giggled, as he sat in his chair and spun it around with a kick of his foot.
“I’ll be right there to keep you safe.” Yui promised. “Or to calm you down during the scary parts. Are you doing one of the classics again?”
“Not quite! It’s about those Alien movies, I know you haven’t seen them, but, um, I haven’t played it yet. It’s meant to be really tense and I’ve wanted to play it before, but, um, I was worried about it being too much...just, a little bit scared, y’know?”
“Aww. Are you sure you don’t want to save it for when I’m there? You can cuddle right up to me.”
Masumi blushed, and was all too thankful for the distance between them in that moment. “That would, um, that would be nice...but, I’ve got this! Low-Life is gonna stand up to the alien, no matter what!”
“You’ve got this.” Yui chuckled.
“I mean, um, technically I read that you can’t fight it, so I can’t actually stand up to it, but I’m going to run away from it and hide and not just shut the game down! Yeah!” There was a whooping noise from the opposite end of the phone. “Wh-What was that?”
“That was a cheering noise.”
“Oh, um, okay! Thank you!” Masumi laughed.
“You’re welcome. Now, I’ve got a corridor to clean and it’s coming up on stream time. I’ll talk to you later if I can find the time, okay?”
“Okay! Bye, Yui!”
“Goodbye, Masumi.” There was a click from the other end of the phone and Masumi set it down. He cracked his knuckles, winced, then started up his stream.
“Welcome to the Low-Life!” Masumi introduced himself with his regular enthusiasm and got stuck into the game as best he could. The slow start, padding around the ships and onto the space station, set him slightly on edge. It gave his head time to reflect on the day so far, his anxieties, and running his mouth only did so much to distract him. If anything, the tension in the game was enhanced by his real-life worries. And vice versa, as every little creak in the background set his hairs on end.
He’d just had the fright of his life when the little boop of a viewer joining came to his ears. His character rested in a locker and he rested back in his chair as the familiar name of Jellybeaner popped onto the screen.
Jellybeaner
You look shook.
“Um, yeah!” Masumi tittered nervously. “It’s, um, it’s really scary… How are you doing?”
Jellybeaner
I’m curious about something.
Masumi bit his bottom lip. He always hated it when people started with leading statements. Not that it was actually wrong, but it gave him all the fuel in the world to get nervous about.
Jellybeaner
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
I came on here to get to the stream and I saw the archives. It says that there isn’t anything for the last few months.
“That’s, uh,”
Jellybeaner
And it’s worrying. But I wanted to give you a chance to explain.
“It’s, um, it’s, there’s just this...” Masumi stared off-screen for a few moments, then looked back into the camera. It felt all too much like Yui’s eyes. “Th-There were people talking about me, and, I didn’t like that, so, there’s, I wanted to get rid of it...”
Jellybeaner
I don’t understand. What people were talking about you, and how? What does that have to do with your stream archives? Why are only the ones where I’m here gone?
“I, people were talking about you, too!” Masumi felt the urge to defend himself, but couldn’t grab all of the words to do it. “And, it’s, if there was no way for that to stop, then, stopping it first was good. Y-You don’t have to worry about it…”
Jellybeaner
Nobody is talking about me. I have a lot to worry about when you delete records of all of the things we’ve done together, including the stream.
“There are people, there are people who’re talking about you and me and it’s not, like, I can-” Masumi paused as he heard a couple of boops in his ear, the view counter go up by two. He froze in his chair. “Um, bye guys! Stream is over for now, sorry!” He said, as he slammed every button that would turn his computer off and clutched at his heart, while his breaths became heavier and heavier. He scrunched his eyes shut and attempted to wrestle some kind of control over his own thoughts, but all he could think of was Yui’s surely growing hatred of him.
He put his headphones aside and his trembling fingers chose Yui’s number. It rang until it got to her voicemail, and made his gut tug at itself. “Um, this is Masumi, please, please ring me, I can explain. I want to. Please.” He left the message, then curled his legs up on his chair and stared at little device resting in his lap. It was the totem of all his anxieties and his inability to shut them out. They wouldn’t have gotten so bad if he hadn’t given into them before, if he didn’t act on his silly impul-
The phone rang and Masumi snapped it up. “Hello? Yui? Is that Yui?”
“This is Yui.” Her voice brought enough comfort for Masumi’s shoulders to stop tensing, but his heart still raced. What made it worse was that it lacked the calm he’d come to associate with her. There was a breathy quality that set his nerves on edge. “I don’t have much time. But explain yourself if you want to.”
“Okay.” Masumi paused and decided to find his words before he let them tumble out. “It’s...there have been people watching the streams. I noticed it on the stream we did together, and it upset me, because they’re, like, for us, and, at least, initially.” He breathed in. “Not, but, they felt like it, and people were watching, and it would have been okay, but it’s, then they looked at other ones, older ones, and it’s, somebody’s reading our things...”
“You’re saying that somebody in the world might have seen us talking to each other, and that was a good enough reason to delete all of our memories. That is what you did, isn’t it?”
“...yes.” Masumi bit his lip. “It’s, I can’t just set them to private, I don’t think, and I just...I panicked and I wanted it to stop and it’s not just ‘cause it was some person somewhere, it might’ve been people who know me and us!”
“I don’t think that would be a problem. It hasn’t affected anything so far. And you left all of your old streams up, so it can’t be because of protecting your identity.”
“That’s...that’s true, but, haven’t you heard, um, there are people at school talking about us and they’re looking at me, and, um, everyone looks at you anyway, but they were doing it to me, and whispering, and people keep coming up to me and asking about you, and I don’t want that...”
“I’m your friend, Masumi. Why would that be something to be ashamed of?”
“It’s, I don’t know how to answer them properly! I think and I think and I practice how to reply, but then they talk about other things and they might not believe me, and then they make things up, and I’ll have rumors made about me, and I just want to go to school a-and not have to deal with people being like that all the time and being nervous...” Masumi’s words hung there for long enough that he couldn’t even hear Yui’s breathing. “Yui? Are you still there?”
“I’m sorry. Akira has just walked into the hospital.” Came Yui’s voice, in a hushed whisper.
“Akira?” Masumi frowned. “What is Akira doing there?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to find out.” Yui said.
“Yui, wai-” Masumi’s objection was halted by the sound of the call ending. He stared at his phone and pushed it to the side. He wasn’t going to get any more answers out of it tonight. He buried his head against his knees and did everything he could to stop himself from crying. Still, tears formed in the corners of his eyes and he peeled himself out of his chair. His movements were unsteady, and he stood with just enough strength to keep himself up.
“No games...” Masumi muttered, as he took in the sight of the trio of black screens. He didn’t know what it was like to play games without an audience any more, and he couldn’t just start his stream back up like nothing had happened. It wasn’t about disappointing an audience that didn’t exist, or that other people might see him. He just didn’t have it in him to present any kind of persona that wasn’t how he was in that moment. Low-Life couldn’t help.
He plodded over to the mirror and stared at himself. From his perfectly styled hair to the makeup that filled him with so much joy, it didn’t help with how he felt in that moment. He was pretty, but he wasn’t happy. He couldn’t tell the future, but he knew that it wouldn’t be happy. He couldn’t even come up with the words to defend himself from himself, let alone the girl who never got upset, yet he’d stll managed to.
“Look at you...” Masumi whispered, as he leaned up against the full-length mirror with all of his weight. His nose was almost touching that of his reflection. “You can’t stream right. You can’t look right. You can’t make any friends. You’re trying to ruin things with the only one you have. You suck.” He lifted his palm and pressed it against his reflection’s. “You’re the only one who’s ever going to like you for who you are. You can be a good boy for your parents, you can be a cute thing for Yui to look at, but nobody wants Sanada Masumi.”
He stared into his own eyes and found that he was starting to believe himself. There was a clock in the corner that told him it was still a few more hours until he’d get ready for bed. Until his parents would get home, and he could paint a picture of himself that wasn’t the mess he knew he was. There was time. He could just sit down and wallow in himself for a few hours. That would be a way of accepting himself, at least. Maybe he’d be happier, if he could accept he was never meant to be.
Masumi sunk to his knees and cried.