104. Izumi Sagiri

After finishing his chat with Kotori Minami, Jiang Yu arrived home right on time. Of course, because he had been typing rather than speaking, he was a little later than usual.

He took out his key and unlocked the door. Seeing shoes and clothes strewn about by the entrance, Jiang Yu sighed and shook his head as he tidied them away, guessing that perhaps Ebina Nana had not come to play with Umaru Doma today.

Hmm... Thinking of that, Jiang Yu suddenly had a strange idea: might that girl have an older sister named Hina Ebina?

He gave his head a shake, tossing away all his nonsense thoughts, and carried Umaru’s clothes toward the bathroom. Passing through the living room, he saw Umaru in her usual spot, playing games as naturally as ever. Aside from the look of helpless indulgence on her face, she made no other move.

...

After his shower, Jiang Yu returned to his room. With nothing else to do, he suddenly remembered the several videos he had uploaded to the video site yesterday and wondered whether they had passed review.

At the thought of it, he turned on his computer, logged in to the site, went straight to his profile, and immediately saw a site message confirming approval.

Well then, it was time to get to business.

Jiang Yu noted down the IDs of the three videos, then went to the site’s popularity rankings and, with a rather odd expression, looked at the video about himself, which had climbed two more places.

Exhaling softly, Jiang Yu sent a private message to the uploader, explaining that he was the original creator and had already uploaded lossless audio, and asking the other party to take the video down. Naturally, at the end, he attached the IDs of the three videos he himself had uploaded.

He hoped the other person would see it soon... Jiang Yu thought to himself. But not every uploader made a habit of checking private messages, so he could only hope this one was different.

He shut down the computer, bent over his desk, and continued drawing materials for The Witch’s House. Come to think of it, maybe it was time to borrow a scanner? Or should he simply buy one? Though it looked like he did not have enough money for that, either.

...

On the other side, Takao had just finished the homework from his cram school and was staring blankly at the ceiling. He was probably caught in that state of mingled satisfaction and emptiness that comes after finishing one’s work alone—what people jokingly call “sage mode.”

Recovering himself, Takao stretched long and lazily, wiped away the tears brought on by a yawn, and turned on the computer in front of him, preparing to log in to the video site and check on the state of his account.

Although he was a famous music-section uploader on the site, Takao was still, at heart, a high school student. Because of his parents’ strict rules, he was only allowed to use the computer after finishing both his schoolwork and his cram-school assignments.

Entering his profile, Takao immediately saw more than ninety-nine private messages. He clicked them open and skimmed through them at random. Most were questions from fans, while a smaller number were requests for advertising—more precisely, paid requests for him to make some chat-style videos.

But Takao had always ignored messages like those. As an uploader in the music section who never took ads, he had quite a reputation.

Still, who could understand the hardship of being an underage person without his own bank card? Takao could only smile on the outside while inwardly...

Looking at the video that had risen two more places since yesterday, Takao was also somewhat surprised. He had never seen a music-section video with such staying power before.

After casually clicking through a few videos, Takao was about to close the page and go to sleep. Before that, however, he returned to his profile and checked his private messages again, just to make sure he had not overlooked anything important.

Then a message with a video ID attached caught his attention.

After reading the message that came before it, Takao could not help but snort. He clearly did not quite believe any of it. Still, there was no harm in taking a look.

With that in mind, he clicked the first video ID attached by the other party. When he pressed play, a melody he knew all too well began to sound.

The sneer that had not yet fully left Takao’s face froze. He stared wide-eyed at the obviously hastily made video—just a single image—while the familiar tune reached his ears, and a thought flashed through his mind:

Could he really be the original creator?

When the video ended, Takao played the other two videos linked by the remaining IDs in turn. He felt sadness at the soft, whispering strain of Butter-Fly, and then smiled at the lively rhythm of another Canon variation.

After watching all the videos, the familiar melodies and the skill shown by the other party convinced Takao beyond doubt that he was indeed the original creator. Thinking of the boy he had seen that day, one who seemed about his own age, Takao let out a helpless sigh and wondered whether this was simply the gap between one person and another.

Then he scrolled through the comments beneath the video and found only one or two remarks such as “strangely familiar?” and “Is the uploader the original composer?”

After thinking for a moment, Takao wrote, “I bow before the original creator!” and attached a link to his own video. Then he returned to his own upload and, using his administrator privileges, pinned a message at the top.

“Friends, the original creator has uploaded a high-quality version. Please go listen there. I will delete this video in a few days, and I hope you will forgive the inconvenience. A link to the original is attached below.”

When he had finished all this, Takao shut down the computer and went to bed contentedly.

...

After completing the work she had been commissioned to do for the day, Izumi Sagiri logged in to the video site and opened one of the videos in her favorites.

As an illustrator, she also had livestreaming duties and light-novel illustration work on hand, so she usually did not go out of her way to watch newly uploaded videos. She merely picked a few from the popularity rankings to take a look at.

What? School? Sorry, not going to school really does mean having free rein.

As a full-fledged shut-in, if anyone else was present in the house, she absolutely would not step out of her room. Izumi Sagiri had that much confidence in herself.

A few days earlier, she had discovered a video with a melody that was especially relaxing, and lately she had scarcely bothered to check the popularity rankings at all. Every day after finishing work, she would come up, listen to the tune a few times, and then get ready for bed.

Softly humming along with the melody, Izumi Sagiri rolled her mouse wheel and prepared to look at the comments section, only to spot a pinned remark from the uploader at a glance.

“Hm?” Izumi Sagiri could not help but exclaim in surprise. She clicked the link in the comment and played the video the uploader had called the “original creator’s.”

As expected, the sound quality was much better. Unfortunately, the video was just a single image and did not, like the earlier one, record the performance itself.

Still, Izumi Sagiri did not much care about that. For her, the only things that could truly draw her interest were amusing light novels and cute girls.

Softly humming along with the melody, Izumi Sagiri used her video-site account to leave a comment below:

“Wonderful song. Highly recommended~”