RE.Femboy:Reborn as a VTuber

I sat among the golem’s broken pieces, proudly examining its body on the floor.

The gash in its chest was still right in front of me. One of its shattered hands lay near my foot. A little while ago, as those hands came down on me, all I had wanted was to avoid being knocked down again.

Now they weren’t moving at all.

The corners of my lips curled upward.

"That’s what happens when you defy the Great Noctis..."

I let out a breath without finishing the sentence. I was still tired. My legs trembled slightly, and after a while, even keeping my back straight began to feel like an effort.

Still, I was in a good mood.

I had extinguished the flames and gathered Umbrella around my wrist again. I wanted to try out my discovery right away, but resting for a few more minutes would be better.

After getting my phone, I sat back down on the floor and opened my messages.

As my finger moved through the conversations, I found the name I was looking for.

Angel.

My smile faded a little.

I opened our conversation. The message saying I would be busy for a few days was still there. When I scrolled up, I saw her older messages.

The short questions she sent in the mornings.

Asking whether I was awake.

The messages about where we would meet.

My thumb went still as I stared at the screen.

What am I going to say to her?

I thought of one way to start, then another. Both sounded terrible.

Tilting my head back, I sighed. I had managed to do something about the golem’s hands coming down on me. Now I was running away from saying a few words.

I couldn’t keep doing this.

Instead of hiding like a coward, I needed to face what I had done.

I pressed the call button.

The moment I brought the phone to my ear, my heart began to beat a little faster. At the first ring, I thought about what I would say again.

At the second, I cleared my throat.

At the third, I lowered my eyes to the pieces on the floor.

But she didn’t answer.

When the call ended, I stared at the screen for a few seconds.

Then I typed a message.

[Can we meet?]

After sending it, I rested the phone on my knee.

She was definitely angry with me.

What had I expected? She had learned that the person she had been running with every morning, talking to, and going to so much trouble to find was different from who she had thought they were.

And she hadn’t even heard it from me.

She might even think I was a liar and a pervert.

I frowned.

But I had never actually lied to her about who I was.

I had barely told her anything about myself at all.

That thought made me feel better for a few seconds. Then I remembered all the chances I had put off telling her.

I looked away from my phone.

She might not see much of a difference.

Just as I was about to sigh again, my phone vibrated.

I flinched.

In my rush to pick it up, it slipped between my fingers. I tried to catch it in midair, but it struck the edge of my palm and bounced farther away.

"Oii—"

Umbrella unraveled from my left wrist and stretched toward the floor.

A small hand rose from the black surface, catching the phone just before it hit the ground. Its fingers closed around the device, then the arm extended toward me.

I took the phone.

As the black hand turned liquid again and returned to my wrist, I turned on the screen.

The message was from Angel.

Just one message.

[Let’s meet at Mielle Patisserie at 3:00 p.m. Aster Avenue, across from Linden Square.]

I tilted my head slightly.

Then I read it again.

A pastry shop.

"A date?"

Hearing my own voice, I frowned.

No, I shouldn’t jump to that conclusion yet.

But would a normal person invite someone to a pastry shop to argue with them and unleash all their hatred on them?

Maybe they would.

She might be planning to insult me while eating cake.

Or this could be a trap.

My fingers tightened around the edges of the screen. Then I realized where my thoughts were going and shook my head.

This was Angel we were talking about.

I still hadn’t figured out how her mind worked. Beneath that angelic face was Caramel, the person who had humiliated me for six matches straight.

She could go to the trouble of tracking down my apartment through security cameras, then fall asleep in my room.

When she was angry with her father, even standing beside her could make someone nervous.

Choosing a pastry shop didn’t tell me much about what she was thinking.

Still, she wanted to meet me.

That had to be a good thing.

At least she still cared about me.

Well... I hoped so.

Because if she decided to beat me up when we met, I wasn’t sure I could stop her.

I looked at the broken golem hand beside my foot.

My recent victory suddenly felt a little less impressive.

---

When I arrived at Mielle Patisserie, it was still ten minutes to three.

I had showered and put on a plain black shirt with black pants. I might have spent longer than necessary in front of the mirror while getting ready.

That was only because I wanted to look presentable.

Of course.

I sat at a table by the window. Small fruit tarts and slices of cake coated in chocolate filled the display case. The scent of coffee mingled with warm pastry and sugar.

Normally, I would have liked a place like this.

Now, though, I looked up every time the little bell above the door rang.

After ordering lemon tea from the waiter, I checked my reflection in the window.

My shirt collar was straight. My hair wasn’t plastered to my face like it had been after training, either. I adjusted a strand with my fingers and pulled my shoulders back slightly.

I didn’t look bad.

Everything was fine.

But...

What was with all these stares?

Behind my reflection, I noticed two girls looking at me. One whispered something to her friend. The other seemed to be comparing my face to a picture on her phone.

When I turned my head, they looked away.

A man sitting at a table across from me was watching too. When our eyes met, he lifted his glass and began to drink.

Someone passing outside slowed down in front of the window.

My shoulders tensed.

’Stop staring at me, damn it.’

I had gotten used to people looking at me in the competition hall. I had been in costume there. I was playing a character, and I more or less knew how to act when someone wanted a photo.

Here, I was just sitting.

And everyone was looking at me as if they expected something to happen.

Was this what being famous felt like?

I set my phone on the table and took a sip of tea. As I lowered the glass, I looked toward the door again.

Angel hadn’t arrived yet.

Maybe I could think through what to say one last time.

I could start with an apology. Then explain why I hadn’t told her sooner—

A shadow fell across the table.

I looked up.

A blond, blue-eyed man stood in front of me. He looked to be in his twenties. He wore a neatly tailored dark jacket over a light-colored shirt, and a watch gleamed beneath his cuff.

He was handsome.

The smile on his face made it clear that he knew it too.

Without waiting for me to say anything, he pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down.

My brows drew together.

"You’re Noctis Evernight, aren’t you?"

He glanced at my phone, then at my face.

"The cute lady who won the cosplay competition."

I rolled my eyes.

Who was this dickhead?

Then the word he had used echoed in my mind.

Lady.

My fingers tightened around the glass. I looked at him, suppressing the urge to punch him in the face.

"Oii, you son of a bitch. I’m a man."

My voice came out quite cold.

The man paused for a few seconds.

Then he laughed.

"You’re even cuter when you’re angry."

My eye twitched.

"You don’t have to pretend to be a man," he continued. "I know those rumors online aren’t true."

He smiled as though he had said something reassuring.

For a moment, I had no idea how to respond.

Had he not heard me insult him either?

"I’m waiting for someone," I said. "Get up."

His eyes moved to the empty space on the table.

"But you’re alone right now."

"Because the person I’m waiting for hasn’t arrived yet."

"We can chat until they get here."

He settled more comfortably into his chair.

I gritted my teeth.

I wanted to get up and move to another table. Then I considered the possibility of him following me and stayed where I was.

The man glanced at my tea before looking back at my face.

"Actually, we could go to the movies instead of waiting here. There’s a good film showing nearby."

"I don’t want to."

"You haven’t even given it a chance—"

The last scrap of my patience was about to disappear.

I straightened in my chair. As I placed my hand on the edge of the table, the black bracelet around my left wrist caught my attention.

I was just about to open my mouth when another shadow fell across the table.

It covered both of us.

Then the air changed.

The hairs on my arms stood on end. The cold brushing against my skin made my shoulders tense involuntarily, even though I had been sitting comfortably a moment ago.

A faint sound came from the glass.

I lowered my eyes.

White lines were spreading across the surface of my lemon tea. Starting at the edge of the glass, ice covered the entire surface within seconds. A thin layer of frost formed on the outside.

My lips parted.

The breath I let out turned to mist before my eyes.

Slowly, I turned my head.

Blonde hair hung loose over her shoulders. Her blue eyes were slightly narrowed.

Angel stood beside us.

But the sweet smile I was used to wasn’t on her face.

Her gaze was fixed directly on the man across from me. Without looking at me even once, she spoke in an icy voice.

"Get lost."