Chapter 1: The Idea

It has been five days since Sora's two month hiatus and it was quite eventful. Me and my secretary, Hayatori Rei, reached out to Sony Japan about their proposal for a collaboration project for their upcoming game. We were greeted with the staff members and the game director that will be working on the game. We discussed this for around 3 hours until we agreed upon a collaboration. Cover Corp. will assist with Sony Japan involving 3D Models of characters, as well as the technical stuff within the mechanics of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in order for the consumers to have a smooth experience with the game. The project would take at least ten months for it to be completed and a bit more for polishing and optimizing.

During those five days, I did quite a bit of research on Moona's affiliations within the Virtual scene, leading me to two VTubers within Southeast Asia, Lyrica and Liliana Vampaia. In Liliana or "Lili's" case, she is considered to be an adopted daughter of the first gen Hololive Indonesia talents. Sadly, she is a part of a "MyHolo TV", which means that it is unlikely for Moona to come up with such a proposal from her. On the other hand, the idea is likely to stem from Lyrica as she is fondly close with the first gen Indonesia talents, especially with Moona.

I decided to check into Lyrica and oddly enough she's in Canada, a border away from where half of the Hololive English talents are. It wasn't too long until I came across a specific stream that sheds light into Moona's proposal. It seems that Moona wanted Lyrica to apply in Hololive Indonesia but she wanted to apply as her own blood, a Filipino. I genuinely can't let Lyrica in the Indonesia branch because unlike Moona, Lyrica has little to no affiliation to the country the agency branched in. But if I allow Moona's proposal, my already diminished dream will cease to exist even further as not only I'll get Lyrica to apply, I'll also get another Filipino indie talent that is Kaheru, who is definitely one of the antithesis of my dream despite having idol potential.

In the end, it only took 3 days of researching but I will probably need more time before I actually decide on the verdict, much like Coco's pending "Holohouse" proposal.

Today, I am enlightened as there's little paperwork for me to do and I can roam around the building whenever I want!

I check the time to see that I am very much free for the entire afternoon unless either A-chan, Daidou-san, or Ms. Hayatori decides to approach me and hand me stacks of papers.

Daidou Shinove is the head manager that represents the spinoff-branch named Holostars. Holostars is a type of agency that functions similarly to Hololive but with the difference that it's full of male talents and is geared towards the female audience. . . Except that it also attracts a good amount male audience thanks to Holostars second generation talent Yukoku Roberu and his rising popularity.

I happily traverse my way outside the building to eat lunch at the nearby McDonalds branch as I didn't prepare a packed lunch earlier this morning. Going inside, I immediately go to the counter as there's barely any waiting lines present.

"Good noon sir, welcome to McDonalds! May I take your order?" inquires a female cashier. I study the menu that they have to see if they have any seasonal meals or special deals and they do. The Idol Burger, a limited edition burger that is suited for me.

"One Idol Burger with a Mega Potato miss." I respond as I stare at the image of the limited edition Idol Burger meal. The Idol Burger is a product of a collaboration between McDonalds Japan and the ever famous idol group, AKB48. They once collaborated for a commercial but this, this feels like it's a burger made for me.

"What about drinks sir? " she asks.

"A regular-sized Qoo drink please" I answer while whipping out my wallet and searching through my budget as she fumbles with the cash register machine.

"That'll be 920 Yen sir." she says. I glean an exact amount of money that I need and hand it over to her by placing the said 920 Yen to the counter. She softly snatches it and places it in the bottom compartment of the cash register machine where money is stored.

"Thank you sir! Your order may come in shortly, please take a seat in the meantime." she states. I nod at her and start to look for a seat.

"Motoaki-san?" asks a voice that sounds similar to A-chan. I turn my gaze towards the direction of the voice just to see A-chan on a table with a white-haired fox girl who is minding her own business as she noms on a Teriyaki Burger.

I notice that there's two vacant seats on the table they are sitting on so I sat on one that is beside the white-haired fox girl that is Shirakami Fubuki and across A-chan.

"Didn't expect to meet you two here." I speak, announcing my arrival.

"Likewise." she responds. I look at my side to see Fubuki not noticing my presence as she is preoccupied from her burger. I slightly smile at the sight of her but it is short lived as A-chan tries to get my attention

"Motoaki-san, we heard that you ordered an Idol Burger." she claims.

"Hehe. . . AKBurger-48." Fubuki comments with a little snort before continuing on nomming the burger.

"Yeah, What of it A-chan?" I ask, slightly irked by Fubuki's comment.

"Me and Fubuki had a little talk before you came here." she states. I am confused as to why she mentioned their discussion to me? Are they planning something or does something involve me?

"And?" I ask, slightly curious about the bluette's direction to this topic.

"We have an idea for you to possibly restore your dream." she answers. My dream? My dream is already dead. But it got me curious, but I realize that maybe they'll just tell me to recruit a new batch which I won't do.

"If hosting an audition for a new generational talent is your idea, it's too early for that as we already have a bulk of talents hiding within an illustration or a 3D model of themselves." I respond in a clear manner as I have no intentions of doing so.

"That's not our idea. The idea of ours is for YOU to become one of them." she claims. What what?

"ME!?" I exclaim whilst slamming my palms to the table in response to the absurdity of their idea. I can't be an idol because I can't do it!

I feel my collar being tugged so I turn my gaze to where my collar is being tugged just to see Fubuki being the one to tug my collar. She seems to be in a slightly panicked state as she places the index finger of her free hand to her mouth, gesturing that I should be silent. I am confused as to why she did that until I realize that we're in McDonalds and that the people probably heard me slam my hands. I stand up, facing the disturbed people to apologize for my inettiquete actions and then I sit back down, slightly embarrassed from my sudden outburst.

"Anyways, why me? I can't be an idol you know." I complain, which sounds more like me, a grown man, whining at a young female adult.

"Well, your company specializes in VR and AR and you have two VTuber agencies right? I don't see that being the problem at all." A-chan comments. I swallow my saliva that is within my mouth and think, why does she seem so insistent about this? I have never seen A-chan be so forceful about this. I mean, I want to prove them wrong by having my naïve expectation be realized but I really don't think that I can fulfill it.

"But I can't be an idol—" I try to find my way out of this by making up an excuse but A-chan cuts me off.

"Did you forget that idols apply to both male and female?," she knows that I'm making excuses but that's not my planned excuse!

"But I don't know how to—" I try again but to no avail, I am cut off once more by A-chan.

"Being an idol depends on your approach. You made virtual idols a thing, which gives you more freedom than any idols that aren't virtual. Not only that, you have a lot of overseas fans waiting for your debut." I know but let me finish for a second A-chan!

I briefly grit my teeth before taking a deep breath. The atmosphere is tense around the table we are sitting on as me and A-chan are in a staredown. If I were to appro—

"Here's your order sir." I flinch at the voice of a random person. I look to my left to see a female McDonalds worker holding a tray with a Burger with larger than large fries and a medium-sized drink.

"Thank you." I show my appreciation to the McDonalds worker while she places my order onto the table facing towards me. After she does her job in delivering my order, she walks away. There is brief silence that lasts a few seconds. I use this opportunity to put my mind off for a bit and eat my Idol Burger.

"Yagoo-sama~." Fubuki utters, catching my attention. I turn to make eye contact with the silverette fox girl, responding with, "Yes Fubuki?"

Fubuki seems to be smiling. Somehow, it sends shivers down my spine and I don't know why. While smiling, she reveals a burger in her hands, one that has no bite marks on it. I am certain that she didn't have an extra burger when I went to their table and I'm pretty sure she didn't go out of her seat during my tense conversation with A-chan and only one burger came which is mine. . . Oh no.

"Agree, or I'll eat your burger." Fubuki threatens.

This is not good— this is not good at all. My body stiffens from her threat but even then I check my tableside to see that she actually got my Idol Burger. I look back at her to see her smile, her menacing smile. I need to-

"Thanks for the fo—"

"Ok, ok! I'm sold with your idea of whatever it is!" I reluctantly agree as I don't want to have my first Idol Burger taken from the hands of the mischievous white fox.

"Thank you for your cooperation Motoaki-san. We'll wait for you to finish your lunch." A-chan happily says while munching on some of my Fries. I sigh at her change in nature while snatching the burger from Fubuki's grasp and eat it.

I just don't get A-chan's odd behavior when it comes to her having ideas, but her ideas are beneficial, though questionable at times, to the Hololive Agency.

After the not so great lunch, I went back to my office.

In the office, I am sitting in my rightful place with no burden to do physically. On the other hand, my mind is in stress because of A-chan and Fubuki's idea. I'm the CEO, not a puppet. The dream is dead, but hope is right there. . . I should've just bought another Idol Burger instead.

"President! I heard that you came back in a conflicting mood. Can you tell me what happened?" a familiar voice yells as they loudly barge into my office. I look up to see my secretary, Hayatori Rei, coming towards me.

"Oh Ms. Hayatori, It's rude to just barge in like that." I comment before taking a sigh and sitting upright.

"Excuse me for my rudeness but can you tell me what happened? You seem like you have a bad mood." she asks in a worried tone. I look at her for a few seconds, whether to tell her or not before ultimately telling her the truth as lying would lead to more problems. But I can't just spoon feed her the info now as it would be better to do it with people who are more or less involved in this.

"It's quite complicated. . . I'll explain it in a special meeting. Can you please Inform, Fubuki, and the head managers of each of the VTuber Agency Branches to be present tomorrow 9 in the morning? No one else except for you, me, and them." I request. Ms. Hayatori glances at me before nodding and responds with, "Affirmative, I'll let them know. Just relax as there will be no paperwork for the remainder of today."

"Thank you, Ms. Hayatori," I thank her. She reveals her phone and starts fumbling with it whilst walking out of my office. Once the door is closed, I take a deep sigh and hit my head on my desk. At Least you have the remainder of the day to yourself Yagoo, a day of relaxation and planning since you can't refuse it now or else you'll be ripping A-chan off.

With a sudden spark of an idea, I check my YouTube Account and check my past videos. Well, they are stream archives of past tests on a product that makes a 360° stream possible but I stopped testing because of the poor video quality in frames and in resolution.

"Maybe a video could lighten my day." I say to myself. I close the app for a moment and open the cameras. I change the mode of the camera to video mode and make sure that the quality is at around 1k resolution when I record myself. It is a very short video of me smiling but it's enough to make me satisfied.

I close the camera app and open YouTube once more to upload the video. I name the video "Smile" as it's just me smiling. The people who may not know Japanese might not know what the title is but they'll probably understand it just by watching it.

I hit the upload button and wait for the video to successfully upload. Once it gets uploaded to the public, I plan to turn off the app but I am surprised that there are already comments and views on its first few minutes. I check the video to see a bunch of likes flooding it. I check the comments to see some jokes but never I have thought of them actually waiting for me to upload.

"Best Girl? I'm not a woman you idiots." I respond to myself about their comments, not caring that I am smiling at their comments. Maybe A-chan's idea could work. Seeing people actually waiting for me relieves my stress and anxiety from worrying over the bizarre idea.

2482 Words

Hayatori Rei is an Original Character (OC). The Idol Burger is not real and the AKBurger-48 was suggested by OrerionAki as the name for the burger (I like it but I ended up keeping it as Idol Burger).