The Female Viewer Miracle
Strange Streamer and Her Viewers (3)
Prejudice against viewers almost disappeared, only to resurface again. It nearly vanished once more, then came right back. An endless loop. There were plenty of cool viewers, but just as many weird ones. Why do people keep bringing over boring concepts? I just wanted to quit. “Haa… seriously.”
Another weird concept had just shown up. The person mumbled for a while before leaving. The chat was slowly heating up too. That was the real problem. I had to soothe the chat while raising the energy… This was exhausting. This was seriously the last time. If this stream flopped too, I was done for good.
“Hello.”
“Y-yes… hello, unnie.”
“Huh? Koja…”
It was the real Koja voice. A genuine female voice. Whoa. Was she actually a girl? Had a female angel finally entered my stream? No… I still couldn’t be sure. She might be using a voice changer. “Are you really Koja?”
“Heeheehee…”
She really sounded like a Koja viewer. Her laugh set off every alarm in my head. To think an actual Koja was in my chat… I was overwhelmed. A female fan among my viewers…!! Of course Pyeongjipja was a woman, and so were the other streamers I knew. But they were all people tied to me by work or mutual benefit. This was the first time I had a real fan who just liked me for me.
“Whoa!”
I wasn’t some creep obsessed with women—shortened to “girl-crazy guy.” Absolutely not. I really wasn’t. It was just an inferiority complex. I didn’t like women in a romantic way. It was more like… back in school, the popular kids always had girls around them. Now I was hearing a girl’s laugh right next to me, and it felt like I’d become one of them. When else would I ever get to experience that?
“Uh… what the heck!! Ma’am, ma’am. What cup size are you? Tell me. If you’re a girl…!! How big are they??”
Ah…!! Crap! I messed up. I got too excited and blurted it out without thinking.
“Ack…!! No, I should’ve asked about makeup first… I screwed up. It’s just that this is the first time a Koja’s been in my stream…”
Whoa! I went straight to the worst possible question. I did have a proper process for figuring out if someone was a girl. First, casually ask what makeup they used… then whether they had a boyfriend… then if they were pretty… then their body measurements… That was the correct order, but I’d completely ignored the entire process the moment a real girl appeared. I had nothing to say for myself. This was entirely my fault.
“I’m sorry.”
“Ah… no, it’s okay.”
She was okay with it? She forgave me? Really? Wait, no—that wasn’t the point! I’d almost caused a huge disaster. I barely managed to hold myself back. “Thank you! You’re really Koja, right?”
“Um… I’m embarrassed.”
Embarrassed? Even her reply sounded like a girl. She was radiating pure feminine energy. If she wasn’t actually a girl, the world had turned upside down.
“O-ohhh!!”
I almost let out another crude comment. I wasn’t crude by nature—it was just the bad influence of copying the chat’s tone. I was truly innocent. Anyway, there was actually a girl in my stream. This was huge. Insanely huge. All my prejudice against viewers was about to disappear. Who said viewers were bad… The moment a girl showed up, they all started looking good. Everything suddenly smelled like sunshine.
I stayed calm… calm. I’d grown, after all. But… a real girl showing up really did make everything smell like sunshine. My stream suddenly felt like a successful broadcast.
“When did you start watching my stream?”
“I saw it in November.”
“How did you find me?”
“I saw a clip.”
“Do you like that game?”
“Um… yeah.”
“Why? Was it your ex-boyfriend’s game?”
I’d blurted out something rude again. But… it was usually true, wasn’t it? Most girls who got into male-targeted content started because their boyfriend was watching and they joined in. If that wasn’t the case, then what?
“Huh? No, no. I was just watching YouTube and it looked fun, so I started.”
“Ah… I see?”
Hmm… really? That could happen. I was just full of prejudice. Yeah. That was it.
Looking at the chat, I knew for sure. I’d messed up. One hundred percent.
“So how long have you been watching my stream?”
“Um… quite a bit.”
“Got it. So do you watch other VTubers?”
“Ah, I don’t watch VTubers.”
“But I’m a VTuber.”
“Oh. I mean I don’t watch other VTubers.”
Ehehe! That was kind of exciting. So she only watched me? No!! It wasn’t just “kind of” exciting. It was straight-up exciting. That meant she only watched me, right? Ha… seriously. Come here!! I was going to flip the script and make her watch my stream exclusively from now on…
“Ehehe. Nice. I like that. So… what did you think when you first saw me?”
“You were funny.”
“How funny?”
“Um… very?”
“Which part?”
Ah, this wasn’t an interrogation. I was just curious. I was the one getting nervous for no reason… Stop.
“Ah! Ah! This isn’t an interrogation. I’m just talking because I’m curious. You get it, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Which part?”
I asked again.
“Um… well… it was just fun.”
“Got it.”
“Just” was such a convenient word. It worked for everything. Just. Just. Such a nice word. For the person hearing it, though, it was exhausting. What the heck did “just” even mean!! So when I asked for details, the answer was always “just.” There was no way to win against it.
“So what kind of food do you like?”
“I… like malatang.”
“Malatang? That… that thing?”
What was it again? Had I tried it? Yeah, that one. “Uh… I don’t know what you’re thinking, but yeah, that’s right.”
“Ah, that one. Right?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
Yeah, the one with mushrooms, meat, and that bright red broth. That dish. It came up as a topic in my stream sometimes. People either loved or hated it. Had I eaten it before? I couldn’t remember. I was curious anyway. “Is it good?”
“Yeah… I like it.”
“Why?”
“Um… just? Try it later.”
Again with the invincible answer. I really couldn’t beat “just.”
“Got it.”
After that, we talked for over twenty minutes. I was genuinely moved by the fact that I had a female viewer. I’d done a great stream today. The reason I was fixated on having a female viewer wasn’t because I liked girls. It was just that my chat was full of guys, so I missed having a girl around. If the situation were reversed, I would’ve been looking for a male viewer instead. Humans always want what they don’t have. My stream had no female viewers. So of course I wanted one.
YouTube was also 99% male viewers and 1% female viewers—if you even counted the mom accounts… Hmm. Anyway, today was fun. The middle part had been really tough. The weird criticism villain, the “unban me” villain, the “give me soup” villain, the unfunny joke villain… It had been exhausting, but they all left at once. I’d proven something again today. What exactly? Uh… I don’t know. Anyway, I’d proven it.
＊＊＊
When I woke up, something big had happened. The message from Pyeongjipja was big enough to be called a real incident. I’d gotten an ad offer after a long time. And it was for a game I actually liked. Lara 2 was holding an official streamer tournament and wanted to know if I could commentate. Of course I said yes. It was an excellent choice. I was still diligently growing while spinning my bonsai every day. Leaving this to me was a stroke of genius. Only an expert like me could handle it properly… Good job, me.
I immediately replied that I’d do it. “Ehehe.”
I figured they were probably running ads alongside the new real-time battle mode. Just like the previous tournament… Was this the new trend these days? Doing stuff like this instead of TV or banner ads? Either way, it was good for me. Not only was it an ad, but it also gave me future content to work with. I could stream and practice talking at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
That said, I had no plans to do it today. There was something I needed to take care of first. I really hated Korean-style vague promises. The classic example: “Let’s grab a meal sometime.” You could wait forever and the meal would never happen. If we’d agreed to do something, I hated when people just let it slide like it never mattered. We made a promise. So we should keep it. Why wouldn’t we? I really hated that.
That’s why I was going to get Maem to actually schedule the collab game we’d promised to do together.
I sent the message and waited about five minutes, but no reply came. So I went outside. I wanted to get some fresh air for the first time in a while. More accurately… I wanted to try malatang. Of course I could’ve just ordered it through an app. But… the day had finally come when I started worrying about calories… I had to burn off whatever I ate. Otherwise I’d turn into a pig. I was still fine for now. Thanks to my height, I was managing. But a creeping anxiety was rising in me. What if I suddenly gained a ton of weight? I’d never been fat before, so I didn’t even know how to lose it. I used to be skinny my whole life. Now that I was slowly gaining one or two kilos, it felt both fascinating and terrifying.
Anyway, if I didn’t want to become a pig, I had to at least go for walks. I put on proper clothes and headed out, treating it as exercise too.
“It’s cold.”
I shouldn’t have come out. It was freezing. Way too cold.
“Ugh…”
Should I take a taxi? I was such an idiot!! If I took a taxi, I could’ve just ordered delivery. Why did I even come out?! Should I just go back home?
“It’s really cold.”
I wandered around my studio apartment… then set off to eat malatang. Yeah, it was the food my female viewer had recommended. I had to go try it at least once. Let’s go. Let’s go.
“Charge!!”
My grand journey began—or whatever. It was so cold that I just ate at home. It was an unavoidable force of nature. I had no choice. Getting a cold would’ve been even more annoying. I made the best decision for myself. So give me a round of applause.
“Clap clap clap.”