The V-tuber Who Became Obsessed With Me

Chapter 97: How she became raina part 3

( this Chapter is told from raina’s pov . Also please send golden tickets and gift to support my work and thanks to all who has made it so far )

When I returned to the estate that evening, the servants fell silent.

Several of them doing a double take before quickly lowering their heads, and one nearly called me by name before catching himself mid-syllable.

"Miss Hi—"

He stopped.

"Ojou-sama."

I offered him a small smile and continued inside, where Ojiisan was sitting in the lounge overlooking the gardens with the evening newspaper open in front of him and a cup of tea beside him.

Without looking up he said,

"You’re late."

"I know."

I walked into the room and stopped in front of him.

Only then did he lower the newspaper.

His eyes settled on my hair.

One second.

Two.

Three.

"I preferred the black," he said finally.

"I didn’t ask."

A faint crease appeared between his brows.

"You’ll attract attention."

"Good."

"You represent the Arashigumi family."

"No," I said, holding his gaze.

"I represent myself."

The room held itself still for long enough that I wondered if I had finally crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.

He looked at me with the same unreadable calm he had always carried.

For the briefest moment, I thought I saw something move behind his eyes.

Something that might have been disappointment.

Or might have been something almost resembling respect.

It disappeared before I could be certain which one it was.

He unfolded his newspaper again.

"Very well."

Nothing else.

No lecture.

No punishment.

No further argument.

Somehow that quiet acceptance unsettled me more than anger ever would have.

From that day onward, people slowly stopped calling me Himari.

At first accidentally.

The salon entering my new name into their appointment records.

A staff member overhearing it.

Another repeating it.

Until even the servants began catching themselves mid-sentence and correcting to,

"Miss Raina."

Eventually nobody corrected them anymore.

Not even Ojiisan.

The name moved through the estate quietly until Himari Ishigami became someone I only encountered in official documents.

The strange part was I had never asked anyone to make the change.

It had simply happened.

Every time I heard the new name, it settled a little more comfortably into the space it occupied.

Until one day...

I realised it felt like home.

Months later, Lumi♡Live was born.

It started as nothing more than curiosity.

A cheap microphone.

A simple webcam.

A second-hand computer.

Online tutorials teaching me how to animate an avatar.

The first stream had twelve viewers.

Half of them left before I finished introducing myself.

I laughed anyway.

Because for those few hours nobody knew who I really was.

Nobody knew the Arashigumi name.

Nobody knew Himari Ishigami.

Nobody expected anything from me.

I could laugh.

Make mistakes.

Play games.

Sing badly.

Talk for hours.

Every person watching only knew one thing about me.

The name I had chosen.

It was the first place in my life where I was not performing a version of myself that someone else had required.

Ironically...

An animated avatar made me feel more real than my own face ever had.

Ojiisan hated it.

Calling it a childish distraction.

A waste of time.

Telling me I would attract unnecessary attention.

That one day I would regret exposing myself to the world.

I told him maybe.

But at least it would be my mistake.

He sighed.

Then walked away.

Eventually even he understood there were parts of me that existed outside his reach.

Streaming became more than my escape.

It became proof.

Proof that I still belonged to myself...

Even if only for a few hours every night.

Then the memory shattered.

I blinked.

The ocean was outside my bedroom window again.

Moonlight crossed the surface of the water in long broken lines.

I looked down at my phone.

Call Failed.

I hadn’t even realised I’d tried calling Ethan again without registering that I’d done it.

So I tried once more.

Deliberately this time.

The phone rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then disconnected into a recorded voice telling me the number was unavailable.

I lowered the phone.

This time...

I didn’t call again.

If he wasn’t answering...

It was either because he couldn’t.

Or because he didn’t want to.

Neither possibility hurt any less than the other.

I curled my knees against my chest and rested my forehead on them.

The sound of the waves filled the room.

The silence inside it felt like something with physical weight.

I thought about everything I had built.

Everything that had begun unravelling in a single evening inside a warehouse with cameras pointed at the chair I’d been tied to.

I thought about Ethan’s face.

The moment he understood.

Please...

Just be okay.

Morning arrived far too quickly.

Soft light spilled through the glass walls.

The ocean kept moving the way it always had.

Unconcerned by the weight people carried.

I reached for my phone before I was fully awake.

No messages.

No missed calls.

Nothing.

I stared at the screen.

Its silence hurt more than bad news would have.

Because bad news...

Was still information.

Then...

The phone vibrated.

Unknown Number.

My heart reacted before my mind could.

It had to be Ethan.

It had to be.

He must have borrowed someone else’s phone.

I answered before the second ring.

"Ethan?"

Static.

Then a voice I recognised.

Quieter than I had ever heard it before.

Stripped of every layer of performance.

Like a room after all the furniture had been removed.

"Raina "

Every muscle in my body went still.

"Kuro?" I said, unable to hide the disbelief in my voice.

"We need to talk."

His voice was lower than I remembered. Strained. Every few seconds I could hear heavy breathing on the other end, and somewhere in the distance dogs barked furiously.

I tightened my grip on the phone.

"Talk?"

A bitter laugh escaped me.

"No."

"The last time you said we needed to talk, you kidnapped me."

"So no."

There was a brief silence.

Then he sighed.

"Fine."

"But listen."

"You can’t trust your grandfather