Blame It on the Alcohol
I'd gotten her home, at least. So... what was I supposed to do first?
Bringing someone into my place was already unfamiliar territory, so nothing useful was coming to mind.
I figured I should play host. That was why I pulled a couple of beer cans from the fridge that had been rolling around in there.
I'd bought them to sip quietly on my own, but there was no reason I couldn't share them with Ririyang. It was New Year's, after all, and alcohol was always better with company.
There was still plenty of time until the sunrise she'd wanted to watch together. Nothing beat a cold beer for warming up a chilled body fast.
"Coffee peanuts...?"
"I tried them last time and they were decent. You don't have any nut allergies or anything, do you? I should've grabbed some snacks on the way in. Or I could run down to the convenience store real quick—"
"No! I like peanuts too. Let's just have these."
Thankfully, Ririyang didn't refuse. Back when I'd been drinking on stream and causing incidents, she'd quietly tried to rein me in — but enough time had passed that none of that was left now.
I'd been holding back since then myself, but... well. Today was a good day. It was New Year's. New Year's made it okay. If you weren't going to drink on a day like this, when would you?
"Alright. Cheers."
"Cheers..."
We clinked the cold beer cans together. One sip of that crisp beer and a sigh of satisfaction slipped out on its own. Temperature really was everything.
At the same time, I glanced sideways at Ririyang — she was holding her can and looking a little hesitant.
From her perspective, it made sense to hesitate. The person who'd dragged her into their own home was suddenly handing her alcohol. If the genders had been reversed... she'd probably have been in handcuffs by now. Of course, if that had been the case, I never would have brought her home in the first place, and we might never have gotten close at all — so the whole hypothetical was pointless.
But speaking as the one who'd offered the drinks, I could say with confidence: nothing beat drinking for killing time together.
It wasn't a group hangout — just the two of us. Even if I gave her a house tour, there wasn't much to show. Living room and an attached bedroom, that was it. Parading around a space that small would just be awkward for the host.
I only had one computer, so gaming together wasn't an option either. And like a lot of young people these days, I didn't even have a TV. News and everything else I could check online just fine.
So in a situation like this, the only thing left was to drink and shoot the breeze.
The benefits of drinking were countless, but the most classic one had to be icebreaking — breaking the awkward atmosphere and loosening tongues so conversation came easier.
Right now, things had gotten noticeably more awkward than before — all because of Ririyang's attitude as the guest. Outside she'd been chattering nonstop, but from the moment I'd brought her home her words had gradually dried up.
Now she was just fidgeting with her fingers, and it was making me uncomfortable. I was never great with words to begin with, so when I was with Ririyang I usually relied on her to fill the silence with this and that — it made things easy.
As if she'd read my mind, Ririyang lifted her beer can with a determined look on her face.
Then she downed the whole thing in one go, no snacks or anything. It was such a bold one-shot that even watching it felt refreshing.
And then, face flushed red for anyone to see, she set the can down with a solid thunk and opened her mouth.
What came out was pretty startling for someone who'd been keeping her lips sealed.
"Want to drop the formal speech...?"
I'd been hoping she'd say something, but this was a little too forward, wasn't it?
She sat there holding the empty beer can, waiting for my answer.
I brought a peanut to my lips, chewed it slowly, and replied.
"Sure, Da-hee."
No reason to refuse.
From Ririyang — Da-hee's — perspective, today's meeting had been nothing short of dramatic.
For one thing, she hadn't expected the meetup to happen at all, which made it even more so. But even though the whole thing had been thrown together on short notice, things had progressed so fast that before she knew it, she'd crossed into Kayak's personal territory.
After all that careful line-drawing, the fact that Kayak had let her into her home made Da-hee think Kayak must have finally opened her heart to her.
For Da-hee, that was something to be overjoyed about — a historic day, even.
So the fact that she'd overpaced herself and gotten drunk faster than usual was, in a way, only natural.
"So I started streaming while I was still in college..."
"And living alone?"
"Living alone... ever since I came up to Seoul for university... But why am I the only one talking?"
Kayak just smirked without a word. There she went again. Da-hee chewed her peanuts with a sulky look.
"Ka... I mean, Muna — what were you doing before you started streaming?"
"What do you mean, what was I doing? Just playing Abyss and sleeping, like I said. And you can just call me Kayak. My real name feels kinda weird too."
"What's weird about it? It's pretty. Muna. Muna. Muna..."
Honestly, it was a little awkward. Maybe because the name itself was unusual. When she'd first heard it, she'd asked several times just to confirm — partly because of the alcohol.
But now... it felt like a name that suited Kayak. The name itself was distinctive, wasn't it? The kind of name where if you searched the whole country for people who shared it, you'd probably find fewer than ten. To Da-hee, it just screamed of course it's Kayak.
As a guest, her curiosity about the host was only going to grow. Especially given the setting.
Even the furniture in the house could become conversation topics. Why was the computer over there? Were the cute little blanket and pillow her personal taste? Did she usually use that rocking chair when she relaxed?
The host answered every one of Da-hee's questions diligently, but there were also parts she seemed to dodge. Like she was talking around certain facts to keep them hidden.
People always had a few secrets between them. Even the closest friends and family kept some things to themselves.
But somehow that fact left Da-hee feeling a little hurt, and she found herself pouting as she gulped down more beer. It was a vague disappointment she couldn't even pin down herself. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking.
"Fine. I won't ask about your past anymore. Let's talk about something else. Something else... what is there... right, so..."
One can, two cans. Empty beer cans kept piling up on the table. Da-hee, who'd wanted to watch the sunrise, seemed to have completely forgotten about it by now.
Even as the host, Muna hadn't seen this coming. She hadn't expected Da-hee to get this proactive either. She'd kept cracking open cans until she'd gotten swept up in Da-hee's pace.
Which meant: the alcohol she'd stocked up had run out.
The coffee peanuts they'd been snacking on had been gone for a while. The buzz made them forget the awkwardness, so the two of them kept drinking with nothing but conversation for a side dish.
At that point, Muna couldn't hold out without getting drunk either. Just as a flush had risen on Da-hee's cheeks, a red tint had climbed onto hers as well. Against her pale skin, her cheeks looked even redder than Da-hee's.
She seemed fine on the surface, but her slightly unfocused eyes proved she was drunk. And Da-hee, staring into those eyes, failed to notice that her own were even more glazed over.
When both people are drunk, things can get dangerous. There's no one left to hit the brakes.
"Want to mix beer and soju? Snacks can just be chips... Muna, you're not picky, right?"
"People are asking me to turn on the stream..."
"Huh?"
That was when Kayak held out her phone. They were at the convenience store downstairs picking up more alcohol.
On Muna's phone was a screen Da-hee recognized well. The Abyss Gallery. A community where Da-hee herself had once searched her own name more than a few times — familiar, but one she hadn't visited recently.
Even on New Year's, the lost souls wandering that place were still crying out desperately for Kayak. Through the phone Kayak handed her, Da-hee could see plenty of those posts.
And finally, around the time they got back to Kayak's place, she brought it up with a meaningful look.
"Want to stream while we drink?"
If this had been the usual Ririyang, she would have refused immediately. She never even did drinking streams for fear of something going wrong. There was a reason she was a streamer with a solid career and zero controversies.
But the person sitting here right now was closer to the human Lee Da-hee than the streamer Ririyang.
She was closer to her true nature, more honest, and in a state where she was just going for things.
"Sounds good. We can stream and watch the sunrise together!"
She went one step further than Kayak.
3 a.m. That was how Kayak's stream suddenly went live.