I Had a Really Bad Idea
Maru-nim, I had a really bad idea.
At first, I was so disappointed. It had been such good material… and I’d only gotten a taste of it. If we’d played it right, it could’ve been an incredibly dramatic scene. I couldn’t help myself. I walked over to the two of them. This was something I just couldn’t let slide. Actively participating in the stream like this… I’d grown so much. The fact that I was thinking this way without even realizing it was amazing!! I had to say something.
“Um… we should stage this.”
“W-what do you mean?”
Maru-nim stared at me steadily. Uh… I needed to organize my thoughts. What I wanted to say was… I had to put it together coherently… Hmm… So… I scratched my head and mumbled.
“I mean… we turn the stream back on and cry again… Like, Maru-nim waits outside, then makes a surprise entrance during the broadcast… and Pyeongjipja-nim goes ‘sob, sob.’ It’d be such an amazing bit… tears rolling down… You get the vibe, right?”
Maru-nim ran a big company, so she’d understand what I was saying right away, wouldn’t she? I looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to catch on. Come on, organize it for me!!
“Uh… Hmm… I don’t really get it~”
“No way… I mean a surprise entrance!! Dun-dun-dun. Gasp gasp gasp. Whoa!! How do you not get this?”
I was a little disappointed. She really didn’t understand? She had to! Stop joking around and just organize it already. I wasn’t being pushy. I was just offering a suggestion. Seriously!!
Moddeok-nim came over and said, “Why go that far? We’ve got plenty to do already.”
“No way!! Crying gets you tons of money! You’re really not taking it?”
Moddeok-nim suddenly lowered her head. Was she crying too? Why was she crying?
“Why are you crying? Why all of a sudden, Moddeok-nim? Huh?”
“Hah-haha. Sob sob sob. Give me money.”
“W-why me?”
“You said crying gets money. I cried.”
“No, not me—the viewers give it… If we split it three ways, they’d throw money like crazy.”
“Have you ever gotten it? Do they really give it? I want to try too.”
What an awkward question. Now that I thought about it, I’d never actually received any. Or had I? I couldn’t remember. Anyway, one of the established facts in this industry was that crying on a three-way split was the only job where you made money like that. I’d always been so jealous!!
“I… I haven’t yet.”
“Then Seon-a-nim should cry and get some?”
“I’m not crying. It’s not sad, so how would I cry?”
I wasn’t going to force tears just for money. Pyeongjipja-nim was genuinely crying right now, wasn’t she? If only we’d captured that on stream… Sigh… What a waste. Such a waste. It wasn’t like I was trying to take Pyeongjipja-nim’s tears for myself. I’d give it all to her. Every last bit. Minus the fee, of course. I really would’ve given it all. It was such a shame. Money doesn’t just grow on trees! This was exactly the kind of moment you were supposed to cash in on!!
“Kuh-heh-heh-heh… Seriously.”
“What a waste… Such a waste.”
I was genuinely disappointed, but since neither of them seemed interested, I gave up cleanly.
“It really is a shame.”
I’d given up completely. Still, the regret lingered. I’d just been holding it in, and in five minutes the whole situation was over. Everyone was busy getting ready for the stream. The longer time passed, the more I regretted it. It had been such good material. If we’d mixed it right, it could’ve made for a really fun scene. Without even realizing it, I’d become someone who thought about content nonstop. I was different from before…!!
-Ring ring ring.
“Huh…? Mom, why are you calling?”
“Seon-a, I’ll be about thirty minutes late. Don’t wait for me, just go ahead and start without me. Aigoo, old people really are something. So many demands, even while I’m on the phone.”
“Ah, got it!! We’re still setting up too, so take your time!”
“Alright. Understood. Do you need anything?”
“Nope, we’re all set. Just don’t forget to eat!!”
“Okay~”
“Yes… Be careful on your way!!”
From Mom’s voice, I could tell exactly what was happening. Dad had gotten fixated on something and was insisting they had to do it. Our family had always been stubborn as bulls. No one could talk us out of anything. If we decided we had to do something, we did it. Me, Mom, Dad, my little sibling… It was just a family trait.
After hanging up, I flopped onto the sofa. Not because I was trying to sleep—just lying down.
“Hmm… What a waste. Seriously. Hmm. It was such good material. Even now… Hmm. No, focus.”
“What are you mumbling about? What’s wrong?”
Maru-nim was slowly walking over. I looked up at her and said, “I’m just really disappointed.”
“About what? What’s disappointing you? Those rolling tears? You’re already thinking like a pro streamer!!”
Maru-nim’s voice was as gentle as ever, but I couldn’t agree with what she was saying.
“I’m still not good enough. If I had to rank it, I’m a D-minus hunter who just got promoted from F. I need to grow way, way more.”
I was still an inadequate streamer.
“Did you see my YouTube comments, Maru-nim? Do you know what people are saying? ‘Wow, solo streams are brutal. How do people even watch Solbang?’ That comment got a hundred likes. There’s more too. ‘Watching the edited version is fine, but the solo stream kills all the humor. Kekeke.’ Comments like that are everywhere.”
I’d checked after people pointed it out. They were right. It was a fact. I’d analyzed the Minecraft grinding stream I did just a week ago—the most shocking day of all. The chat had been so dead that messages only came once every three minutes instead of every minute. The more I analyzed it, the more shocked I felt. In one hour, I’d only said eight lines. I hadn’t been streaming; I’d just been playing a game. And not even well. “No trees here. Where am I…” Just nonsense like that. I’d been devastated, but I kept going with Minecraft anyway. So I tried even harder to talk. I kept reminding myself, over and over. Of course I talked more than before, but it was empty. I’d grown to a hundred lines per hour, but I was still just parroting “no trees here” ten more times like a broken record.
Then… I discovered something shocking. On YouTube, if you hover over the bottom of the video, a graph appears. There were spikes—parts where the viewer count jumped. Those moments were always when I was talking to someone. That’s right. When there was someone next to me, the words just flowed out, wabababa. After that day, I was completely consumed by curiosity. Why? I thought about it for a long time. I thought and thought, but I never found the answer.
“And!! Last time I only said eight lines in an hour, so chat messages came once every three minutes!!”
I could tell Maru-nim anything. She’d told me to ask about whatever I wanted. I asked so often now that it felt comfortable!!
“Kuh-heh-heh-heh. Why? Seon-a-nim is so fun, why don’t they chat?”
“No!! I told you!!”
I shot up and planted my hands on my hips. Seriously!! I said it!!
“I only said eight lines!! I was like, ‘Uh… where are the trees…’ and didn’t talk for ten minutes, then ‘Time to mine some stone…’ and didn’t talk for five minutes… ‘Gotta throw out the trash…’ Like that!! I don’t know how to fix it!! I tried so hard to talk more, but it didn’t work!! I want to talk as much as you do, Maru-nim!! Please tell me the secret!!”
“You just have to talk a lot.”
“B-but I can’t!! I’m really trying, but the ‘a lot’ part won’t happen! Why?”
“You’re doing fine right now, though.”
“Oh… Yeah. A hundred points.”
As expected of the Maru-nim I respected—such insight. That was exactly what I’d been wondering. Why could I talk so well when someone was next to me?
“The comments too… They only say that about solo streams. It’s been proven. See? That’s what they say!! Why? I get curious and watch the collab streams, and then I think, ‘Did I really say that?’ There are moments like that. I even surprise myself sometimes. No way!! I said something like that? Who am I? Mwahahaha. That’s how it goes, you know?”
There really were moments like that. Sometimes I even impressed myself. If I could do that on solo streams too… That regret kept coming back. How could I talk like that even when I was alone? I’d researched it so much, but the results were terrible compared to the effort. So I gave up on researching. I tried writing scripts, practiced talking to myself before bed—everything failed. It was really hard.
“But I tried so hard, and it still doesn’t work on solo streams!! Why?”
Maru-nim wore a clear, gentle smile. Had she really been listening? I leaned in closer.
“Did you hear me?”
“I’m listening. I heard everything.”
“Then why?”
“That’s…”
“That’s…”
She kept trailing off, so I found myself repeating after her. She kept saying “thaaat…” over and over, and my patience—already thin—started to crack. In the end, I lost.
“Tell me!! What is it?”
“You have to figure it out yourself. Seon-a-nim, you need to discover it on your own.”
“Ehh. That’s an answer I could’ve given myself… 95 points.”
The advice itself was zero points, but the Maru-nim respect bonus made it a hundred. Still, if I gave it a full hundred, it would count as good advice, so I reluctantly deducted five points while holding back tears.
“Hah-haha. You really do have to figure it out yourself. No one else can tell you. Everyone has their own style, after all. You have to do it in a way that fits you.”
I wanted to be like Maru-nim. Style didn’t matter. I just wanted to be as good as her. Just like Maru-nim…
“Maru-nim, I had a really bad idea…!!”
“What kind of idea?”
“I just want to copy you!! I don’t need my own style—I just want to be good like you!! That sounded like a really bad idea just now, right?”
“Hah-haha-haha. It really did sound like a bad idea. A very bad idea.”
“Right? So what do I do?”
“What do you mean, what do you do? You just have to do your best. Hmm… There’s no perfect method I can teach you right now. Sigh… Then how about I try it as content later? We could do it on stream?”
“Whoa!! A… hundred points!!”
That was huge. She was going to turn it into content? I was impressed. Seriously. I just wanted to copy Maru-nim!!