Chapter 1 : GIRL

Chapter 1

Hirojimi was confused as to why the application went through. However, he came nevertheless. The building was a house that was refurbished into an office type. It was small, like a startup company. Hirojimi was not fussy about being on the small office. He has applied to numerous startup companies too in the pass and the result was a two months of them ghosting his message after the interview.

As he came inside, the workers all wore casual clothes. Some even use loungewear which is bizarre to him. However, several others such as the receptionist wore a suit. Hirojimi tilted his head as to the work culture here. Some seemed like a diligent type while some looked like a sloth as they only looked at their phone while lazing on their cubicle.

“Excuse me, are you Hirojimi?” The receptionist greeted him as he was lost in thought.

“Ah, yes. I am.”

“Please come in. Mister David has been waiting for you.”  The receptionist led Hirojimi to a room. And within that room, a handsome man wearing full suit sat with a beautiful teenager girl that could not  be more than 17 years old.

“Is she his daughter?” Hirojimi thought in his mind. Even if she was the CEO’s daughter, hiring a teenager girl was pushing it. Moreover, while his father dressed in a suit, the girl dressed in casual clothes. Both of them smiled to Hiro as he came inside. A chair was reserved for him in front of the table.  As he came in, he gave them the big brown envelope consisted of his resume and job application, copied from his previous interview. Unlike his first interview, and even the last interview, he didn’t have any hope at all for this company.

“Greetings, my name is Hirojimi Tanaka.”

“Hello, My name is David, I branch director here at Vee Idol  branch studio. This is Marienne, an employee of our studio. Are you an expat? Your name seemed to be japanese.” he asked after hearing Hiro’s name. His was Japanese, but I was born in USA. The name was just given to me from my parents who went into naturalization here. And he didn’t learn a single lick of Japanese either.

“No, it was my parent’s who went a naturalization here.”

“So, you have applied here even when you said in your application form that you could not sing, and even lacked Japanese. May I ask why that is?” He asked as he smiled. Hirjomi wondered why they even passed his resume for interview knowing that. He has nothing to lose so he answered nonchalantly.

“It was written that it was optional. And while I do not know if my voice was satisfactory. I believe you could judge it yourself. The form asked for my voice sample.” Hirojimi sarcastically answered while trying to maintain polite demeanor. However, to his surprise, the interviewer didn’t seemed angry and smiled instead. The girl was frowning though.

“I thought you would be more like a feminine boy from the voice. Is it truly your voice?” The girl spoke. Unlike Hiro, she has a beautiful voice and pretty looks. He would believe it if she was in an idol industry. What a waste that her pretty looks were wasted being a virtual idol.

“yes. It is my voice recorded from my phone.”

“I see. Alright, let’s put this aside for now.” David said, moving my resume into his drawers, unwilling to read the many bullshit that were put into it.

“Did you know what we were working on?”

“Yes. I followed some of your company’s profile on the internet. You were hosting some kind of virtual idol agency, right?”

“Yes. Did you know what vtuber is?”

“Umm… it was a 3D anime character that can move real time.” Hiro answered. Being a Summa Cum Laude nerd he is, he knew almost everything anime related.  However, vtuber itself left a little impression on him. He only knew Silly, the cute idiot Vtuber. Being the most popular Vtuber, Silly only had twenty thousand subscriber.

“Yes. So, I will jump right into matter. Will you become a vtuber?” David said.

“Yes.” Hiro answered. At this moment, he will just answered yes to everything to get a job.

“Good! Well, then. See you at Monday. We will get you through the training.” David answered. It was so sudden that Hiro didn’t know how to answer.

“Huh? Wait? I got accepted?”

“Yes. Well. That depends on your performance during training. If you feel you don’t want to be a vtuber, you could always backed out. But, if you do, I shall welcome you in our company.” He smiled.

Hiro was taken aback as he was guided out of the building. He wondered if all of this is a dream. But, when he looked back at the dilapidated building on the outside but neat on the inside, he knew it wasn’t a dream.  He clenched his fist and yelled.

“YES!! Finally my first job!!” his shout drew some glance from the bystander. With an embarrassed gesture, he bowed and left the premise. But he can’t help but skipped his steps toward the station with a grin plastered all over his face from top to bottom.

When he got home, his annoying mother asked him about the interview during dinner. Hiro reminiscenced every word David has said to him.

“They told me to come back at Monday for training. That means I am accepted right?”

“Well, if they said training, that means you got accepted. No employers would bother training others to reject them.” his mother nodded while smiling.

“Okay! Whatever they threw at me. I will crush it!” Hiro said as he smiled. His attitude was greeted with a smile from his mother as if their yesterday sour relationship was a lie.

Meanwhile at the VeeIdol Branch Company. David was questioned by Marie. Marie was another Vtuber hired by VeeIdol, and not David’s daughter, a fact that will be known by Hiro soon. Little did he know that David was still a bachelor even when his office was surrounded by beautiful teenagers.

“Why did you hire him?” Marie sulked a little.

“Hm? Maybe because he was interesting?”

“What can he even present to the viewers? He said it himself he couldn’t sing, and has no talent.”

“Well, you could always taught him, right?”

“Even I was scraping by. My talent is only singing and dancing.”

“Well. Vtubers are not known in this side of the world. Even in their home japan, it only amounted to several tens of thousand subscriber. So, our recruitment pool is surprisingly small.” David said as he reviewed the resumes he got. Even when he lowered the bar to almost nothing, only 10 job application reached him.

“Yeah. Nobody knew us yet.” Marie only sighed.

“So, let’s get rid of these seven whom when emailed didn’t respond or didn’t come. There were three that came. An ex idol cum actress, another teenager looking for a side job, and him.”

“The teenager….”

“Taken. We have too many teenagers already.” david said. He didn’t want his agency to be filled with only underage children. Moreover, they tend to have problems due to their schools or their parents. Moreover, complications could arose if the children did something unimaginably against the law. Which fortunately hasn’t happened in his office.

“Then the ex actress….” Marie whispered.

“Tell me, which one is more interesting. A fat male otaku trying to become anime waifu, or experienced actress playing a role of female vtuber?” David whispered. Like a whisper of a devil, Marie gulped. However, despite things getting interesting, she resisted his capability of becoming a female character. Both of them has heard the sound recording which Hiro submitted to them before the interview.

Being popular was like winning a ticket lottery. Sometimes it was related to their skills, or sometimes it was due to pure luck. People in the entertainment industry has tried to research various methods on how to become popular. However, they only came up with a simple answer. As they refused that becoming a popular idol was unrelated to skills and beauty, they referred it as hidden talent.

The star is a hidden talent where an idol could shine. Marie, the beautiful teenager was aware of this. She has worked for this company for almost a year now. She has piled up efforts and finally managed to breakthrough three thousand subscriber. Her subscriber has afforded her a sustainable life though with limited luxuries.

“Do you think the star. The talent where every popular idol has. Do you think he has it? I mean, looking from the sound recordings…” Marie look at him. Her look was apprehensive as she breathed in, trying to quell her dissatisfaction.

“Do you believe that people are born with the star?”

“Well, I have seen idol climbed through the ranks like it was nothing. What else could it be but people are born with the star?”

“I see. We shall see. Whether he failed or he succeed. We shall see. After all….” david said as he raise up his hand. “We only seek Female Character Waifu! Their 3D form in this world is irrelevant! As long as they have waifu in their heart, we should welcome them! VeeIdol will exhibit Waifu soul from their heart. Anime is Justice!”

There was a fine line between genius and insanity. Whether David fall to the first or to the latter will be decided latter. Marie could only sighed as she continued on the paperwork while glancing at his resume.

“We need to introduce him to the other members….” Her whisper was heard by nobody. She facepalmed with stress as she re-listen his meowing sound again “How will we even trained him?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-mcvszd0yM