Dead on Air

Kaho Yoshino is an ordinary office worker. She lives a perfectly normal weekend life — the occasional low-mountain hike, nothing more. The one who invited Kaho to the mountains was Aoi Kirishima. A popular streamer on the video-sharing platform LivePulse. 30,000 subscribers. She streams delicious camp cooking recipes made on portable stoves out in the wild. Joining them are Aoi's boyfriend Shin Kobayashi, and Ryu Kuroki — a guy Kaho had only just met at a mixer. Following Aoi's suggestion to "practice map reading," the four of them push off-trail into uncharted terrain. What they find on the other side is something they were never meant to see. A man — killed by yakuza, being buried. Live and in person. "Run! We have to run!" Four people fleeing. Yakuza in pursuit. To defend themselves and call for help, Aoi keeps the livestream going. Within moments, the comment section erupts into screams. With the camera still rolling, a real fight breaks out right before their eyes. #SomeonePleaseCallThePolice　#TheStreamerIsDead This work ranked #1 in the weekly Mystery rankings on Kakuyomu, a major Japanese fiction platform. The author is Japanese and a non-native English speaker. This work was translated with the assistance of AI.