Hideout (2)
Pyeong-nim's arrival got us out of the café.
"Pyeong-nim, you're here!!"
"Uh… what exactly is going on?"
"Want me to explain? Ah!! Pyeong-nim, look at me."
I spun a full circle right where I stood. I wanted to show off. The long skirt flared out like a blooming flower as I turned.
The breeze rushing up underneath felt incredibly weird, but I'd worked up the courage to wear it, so I had to show it off!!
"How do I look?"
"Oh…!! You dressed up really pretty…?"
"Right? Right? Uhahaha. I was brave today."
"Oh!! That's amazing!!"
Pyeong-nim gave me a timid little round of applause. Getting clap for this felt really good. He actually clapped for this? Fine. I'll show him. Time for some reaction service.
I put my feet together and started hopping in place.
"Boing… boing…"
I bounced around Pyeong-nim like a zombie on the run. No applause this time. Kind of sad. I'd really put my heart into those hops, and nothing.
"Hmm… seems like you're not satisfied."
"What? No, that was good."
"Nope. That was mid. I'll do the reaction myself."
I thought for a second, then tilted my head and sang it out like a little jingle.
"Chipi? Chipi? Meow. Chipi? Nya. Chipi? Nya. Chipi chipi chapa chapa… dubi dubi… boom boom. Chipi chipi chapa chapa. Yay-o?"
"What are you doing?"
You don't know this? Maru… do you not watch YouTube? This thing is all over Shorts.
The one where a cat nods along going chipi chipi when it breaks the bricks, and goes meow! meow! when it fails? You don't know that Shorts? There's also the ball-bouncing one where they score goals, and the car that goes flying into a spinning hammer.
Those things are weirdly addictive. Once they pop up, you end up watching the whole thing.
"You know the one? The cat that goes chipi chipi chapa chapa dubi dubi boom boom?"
"I've never heard of it."
"It's super famous. Wait… you don't watch YouTube? You need to watch more YouTube. Maru… let me tell you something. Stop streaming and, uh… go watch YouTube!!"
"Uhahahaha. Got it~ I'll check it out later. Shall we head out now?"
"Mmm… yep!!"
Maru, Pyeong-nim, and I wandered all over Seoul.
The shocking part: Maru can drive. That genuinely blew my mind.
When I asked why she never drove whenever we met, she said Seoul traffic is a nightmare, there are a ton of rude drivers, parking is scarce, and taking a taxi is just way more convenient… I was honestly stunned.
"Whoa… you have a car…"
"Is that surprising?"
"You always show up in taxis… I feel betrayed."
"Uhahahaha. Do you?"
Maru was driving an expensive foreign car.
Truly shocking. And there was another betrayal waiting for me. I'd tried to hop into the passenger seat, and Maru told me to sit in the back. Ugh!!
"Yeah. Whoa… an actual car. That's crazy. Should I drive a car too?"
"Oof… don't even joke about that."
"Huh? Why not? I can just get my license."
"Just stick to taxis. Taxis are better."
"Urgh… if I learn to drive, I can do it too."
"Cars are expensive."
Maru was ice-cold. She hit the weak spot with perfect accuracy. Fair. Cars are insanely expensive, and even if you buy one, the problems start.
I'd looked into it before, so I knew. Insurance, maintenance, all of it adds up until owning one becomes its own headache.
"Yeah…"
I had no choice but to admit it.
More importantly… I couldn't sit still. Maru's car, of all things… maybe I should look around? I shoved my hands into every single pocket, checking what was inside. I even seriously judged the car smell.
After over ten minutes of fidgeting, it was just… a car.
After that, we drove around for more than three hours.
If I said, "Nice?", the price or the location was the problem.
If I said, "Close, but…", the price was good, but something important was missing.
And so.
After more than two days of hunting for an office… we found a place we liked.
Somewhere not far from Maru's apartment. While they handled the contract for that office… I just sat there quietly.
Maru took care of everything.
I'd heard that contracting and renovating would take a long time, but I was too impatient to wait. I grabbed only the streaming essentials from my studio apartment and headed back home.
The rest would be handled by Maru, Pyeong-nim, and my parents… no, they said they'd handle it!!
Me!! I'm focusing on streaming!!
After three days off, I returned to stream.
Since I was streaming from home, the setup was a mess. So I didn't turn on the panttegi, and I wasn't even sure if the mic was working properly.
On top of that, there was no soundproof booth, so I had to speak quietly.
"Aaa… aaa… can you hear me?"
"I, uh, I'm at my parents' place, so I have to talk quietly…!! There's no sound booth."
Knock knock.
"Huh? Yeees."
"Seona, did you eat the strawberries?"
"Strawberries? I haven't!!"
"Want me to bring you some?"
"Oh!! Yes please!!"
Coming home had its perks. Mom restocked my favorite fruit whenever she had a free moment.
But there were downsides too.
The food didn't taste like it used to. Back then I used to just eat and enjoy it, but after getting spoiled by delivery for so long, Mom's cooking felt a little… lacking.
"I'll go grab the strawberries!!"
I dashed out and came back with strawberries and a fork. It had been a while since I'd eaten fruit.
I'm a deeply lazy person, so if nobody hands it to me, I never eat it. I only eat things other people prepare for me.
"Ooooh."
I ate strawberries while watching the chat.
"Ah, we signed the office contract. We're getting renovations done too. So we can run a 3D… 3D panttegi. And since it's in Seoul, I can invite Maru, Pyeong-nim… Motteok, Raming, all of them. Ah… and now Pyeong-nim has his own editing room in the office."
"Half-cam? Ah!! Half-cam is… but half-cam… I'm a VTuber, you know!!"
I couldn't deny that half-cam was an absolutely broken content format for pumping viewers — basically a cheat code for absorbing a ton of casual traffic.
From what I'd researched, even plain half-cam hit hard, but cosplay half-cam was pure nuke-the-lobby power.
I'd been shocked when a VTuber with maybe a hundred viewers put on a maid outfit for half-cam and suddenly had two thousand people watching.
But the bigger shock came the next day, when that same VTuber was right back down to a hundred and ten.
All that traffic turned into a mirage and vanished.
So… I wasn't really interested in traffic-bait content.
Build the regulars solid…!! That was Motteok's advice too.
I might not be good at everything, but I listen to advice ridiculously well. I'm a hard worker, after all. Uhihit.
"I'm sticking with VTubing all the way. I'll make the 3D."
I was eating strawberries and watching chat when someone started spamming the exact same message over and over, not a single character different.
I almost banned them, then actually read it.
"What even is a piano YouTuber? Why do you keep spamming? Why, why are you doing this?"
I scratched my nose and stared at the chat.
"Hmm…"
Curiosity got the better of me, so I opened the café. There was a post titled "The Evolution of Piano YouTubers," and I clicked it.
It was only a few photos and a handful of lines, but the more I read, the wider my eyes got without me even realizing it.
"A million subscribers in just a few months? How? Whoa… what did they even do?"
I studied the photos carefully. After studying, I checked whether I'd understood correctly.
"They cosplayed and played piano, and a million people subscribed? Cosplay is that strong? What, what is this? Ah wait a second."
I was genuinely shocked, but I'm a streamer who's grown a lot.
After studying YouTube, learning, practicing, and doing all kinds of ridiculous things, I'd figured something out.
Subscribers matter, but view count matters way more.
Bluntly speaking, isn't a 100k YouTuber pulling 50k views per video better than a 1M YouTuber pulling 10k views per video?
I've never been either, so I can't say for sure, but I was pretty sure the former was better.
So to make a proper judgment, I checked the actual channel — and nearly had a heart attack. No, that was way too racy.
"Uh…? That's not a million. That's way more. Wait? Hold on, what's with these thumbnails. Chat, why is there no piano? Is it just cosplay? Did they fully convert into a cosplayer?"
What even is this? Is this the taste of money!? They boldly cut the piano out of the thumbnail,
and if you clicked the video? Well then… eat piano… shiver… they were seriously impressive.
The subscriber count was one thing, but the views were absurdly good too. Another lesson learned.
"Thanks for the education."
Incredible. But I couldn't do it. Surprisingly enough, I was not a person of steel guts. I was just a regular girl.
"No…"
I have shame too, you know.
Even short skirts were still hard for me. Cosplay was… still beyond my experience points.
"Moving on. Um… what game should we play? I've been thinking it might be nice to have some kind of permanent game, you know?"
"Ah… right. Awal… ah. Right. Yeah."
"Ah… I'd completely forgotten. Ah, for real, yeah."
Right. A cold sweat ran down my spine. I genuinely hadn't thought about it. That game had completely vanished from my memory.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and spoke.
"So… uh. I should. I should play it."
Suddenly it was scorching in here? I hadn't felt heat like this in ages.
If this were the grown Seona, I would have fired up Awal and put on a show. But even with my heart pounding and the heat rising, I had zero desire to open it.
"Later… what game should we play today?"
I just wasn't feeling it. I wanted to do something else. Uh… I was still not enough.
I needed to grow more… I'd gotten cocky.
I'd thought I was someone who could control my stubbornness for the sake of the stream.
But I wasn't.
"What should we do? Ah…!! Right. Yeah."
It hit me all of a sudden. That game console… the one Motteok gave me. I'd abandoned that too. If I looked, it'd be somewhere.
"Uh, one sec. I'll go grab the console."
I tore through the house for over ten minutes and came back with the game console Motteok had given me as a gift.
I still hadn't even opened the box, so a little dust had settled on the top.
I ripped into the box without mercy and announced,
"Oooh!! Today's the day for this."