The Pressure Tactic Known As Souvenirs

There was a round table in front of me, but right now it had been completely taken over by an absurd amount of cake and sweets.

Hmm… that’s a lot.

Even I, a girl in my mid-teens who should theoretically have been able to eat sweets endlessly, found the sheer volume intimidating enough to give me a faint sense of heartburn.

Beside that mountain of sweets stood one person facing me with her hands pressed together and her eyes shut.

She wasn’t exactly worshipping me and going, “Blessed be~.”

Then again, she had created this mountain of sweets and was practically praying to me because she wanted me to grant her request, so maybe it was basically the same thing in a way…?

Yeah, I had a feeling I shouldn’t think too deeply about this.

“—Please, Rinne-chan! You’re the only one I can rely on now!”

“Umm, Yuzu-neesan. This is about that collab you sent me on 『Connect』, right?”

“Yes!”

Apparently, that was indeed what this was about.

Yesterday, after Yuzu-neesan messaged me to say my 『OFA』 stream was going viral, she followed it up with the completely out-of-nowhere proposal that I enter a certain tournament in collaboration with Ephir-san.

It had come so suddenly that I replied saying I wanted to hear the details first, and that had somehow led to the current situation.

This mountain of offerings practically screamed that she had nowhere left to turn, the end result of a brute-force tactic meant to convince both Yuzu-neesan’s wallet and my conscience that there was no going back now.

Wow, so souvenirs could inflict an additional pressure debuff too.

Not that my stomach was made of anything less than orichalcum, so I didn’t feel even the slightest bit pressured.

Hmm, I really wished she’d brought all this over when Mom was home, at least.

There was absolutely no way I could finish it all by myself, and Mom had the ultimate sweet tooth.

For her, sweets didn’t go into a separate stomach so much as a separate dimension.

Ah, maybe she figured that since this tactic worked on Mom, it would work on me too because I was her daughter?

“Hmm, collab, collab… there it is. 『OFA VtuberCUP』. Wow, it’s full of people from agencies whose names I recognize.”

“…Exactly.”

“Ahh, yeah, Gem Pro can’t really turn this down, can it…? It’s already spreading around Monology too, and ‘Gem Pro participating’ is trending. Even the suggestions for the final member are bringing up all kinds of people’s names.”

“…………Exactly.”

“And you’re trying to put me, an unknown with a high risk of causing controversy, into a tournament getting this much attention? Yuzu-neesan, want something sweet? Are you tired?”

“………………..I do.”

Oh, that sounded like she’d regressed into a little kid. Kind of cute.

Yuzu-neesan usually had the air of a highly capable career woman, so seeing her tearfully pick up a matcha cream puff and eat it like this was pretty rare. I took a picture to send to Mom. Sent immediately.

Yuzu-neesan didn’t even seem to notice I’d taken it.

She really was cornered….

“Hmm, I don’t mind participating.”

“…………….Huh?”

“Little-girl Yuzu-neesan is cute. I mean, I said I don’t mind participating.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. But I’ve only barely started practicing 『OFA』, so I still haven’t properly learned it… though, yeah, I think I can get reasonably up to speed in one night….”

So far, I’d only taken walks through each map, tested which places I could climb, experimented with movement methods, and checked how to secure sightlines, so even I had to admit I probably didn’t know the game inside and out yet.

If I wanted to use that skill, I’d need to really drill all of it into myself first.

Even so, Yuzu-neesan was the person who had given me that push forward.

If I could repay her somehow—or rather, help her when she was in trouble in a way that only I could—then I wanted to do at least that much for her.

After all, the reason I was even a Vtuber was because Yuzu-neesan had been there for me, encouraged me, and listened to all my concerns despite how busy she was.

Just as I was thinking that, Yuzu-neesan suddenly grabbed my hand tightly.

“Th-th-thank yooooooouuu!”

“Whoa, Yuzu-neesan, calm down? There’s cream-puff powder all over my hand now. Your emotions are basically a dam that’s completely burst, you know?”

She was crying her eyes out. Just how cornered had my esteemed aunt been?

Actually, for Yuzu-neesan to end up like this, was this really that serious of a problem?

For the moment, we took an intermission while she washed her hands and face, fixed herself up, and got drinks ready before starting over.

After drinking some tea and returning to her usual composed expression, Yuzu-neesan’s cheeks were faintly red.

She was probably embarrassed.

The dam had burst, after all. Couldn’t be helped.

I couldn’t exactly tease Yuzu-neesan while she was like that, so I obediently listened.

After hearing Yuzu-neesan explain Gem Pro’s situation with 『OFA』, my first thought could basically be summed up as, “My condolences.”

“…Yeah, if that’s how things are, it’d definitely be hard to drag another Gem Pro girl into it.”

If someone other than the usual trio of Ephir-san, Rion-san, and Snow-san joined the team, then for better or worse, people’s judgments would probably become disproportionately focused on the one person occupying the guest slot.

If they got good results, it would be because the three regulars had supported her well.

If they got bad results, it would become, “If only the guest had been a little better.”

“I don’t think the viewers mean any harm, but their evaluations inevitably drift in that direction. That’s why the three of them will sometimes deliberately mess up and say things like, ‘We lost more than we won this time because of me,’ trying to cover for the guest. But instead of pretending not to notice, viewers start saying things like, ‘It’s so kind of you to do that on purpose,’ and apparently that just makes the person they were trying to protect feel even more miserable….”

“Yikes….”

I didn’t know whether those people just wanted to show off that they’d noticed what was happening, or whether they genuinely thought they were helping… but yeah, that was definitely the wrong move.

Having someone’s consideration spoiled like that sounded painful for both the person giving it and the person receiving it.

Enough to make you cry.

“…Maybe I’m really glad I never joined an agency.”

“D-don’t say that…. There are plenty of good things about being in an agency too, like supporting each other and becoming close like friends, you know? Really?”

“Ahaha… yeah, I figured it probably had its pros and cons.”

It wasn’t like I had anything against people who belonged to agencies; I just thought that, in my case, being on my own suited me better.

I definitely wasn’t saying that because seeing how much trouble Yuzu-neesan was going through this time had completely scared me off.

“So, Yuzu-neesan, what kind of skill level—or rather, what kind of results—are you expecting from me?”

“Huh?”

“Hmm?”

Hm? Wait.

Did I say something strange?

“What kind of role do you want me to play, Yuzu-neesan? Do you want me to hold the team back and draw everyone’s hate? Or do you want me to show enough skill to contribute to a victory? That’s what I meant.”

When I rephrased my question in simpler terms, Yuzu-neesan stared at me with a blank expression.

Thinking that I was getting to see an awful lot of Yuzu-neesan’s unguarded expressions today, I popped the strawberry from my slice of strawberry shortcake into my mouth.