Is Unnie a NEET?
"Is Unnie a NEET?"
The question came out of nowhere.
Sitting alone on a swing in an empty playground, staring blankly up at the sky, I found the sudden inquiry more than a little out of place.
Who was she even talking to? There was no one else here.
That was what I thought—until it dawned on me that the "Unnie" in that voice might be referring to me. I turned my head toward the sound.
It was a little girl.
She had to be the one who had asked. A cute face that matched the voice perfectly. At most she looked like she might be in the lower grades of elementary school. Judging by her small stature, maybe ten or eleven.
Though I couldn't be sure. Kids these days grew so much faster and taller than they had in my day. For all I knew she was still in kindergarten. I met her eyes with that thought in mind.
"Where did your mother go?"
My voice came out gentle and soft.
Even I was startled by how tender it sounded; my body gave a little involuntary shiver. Come to think of it, I had always been especially weak around children. In front of them I used to clear my throat on purpose and carefully keep my voice from dropping into anything too deep or scary.
Now I no longer needed to. Whether that was something to laugh or cry about, I still hadn't decided.
Before I could settle the question, the girl standing in front of me answered with a bright, sunny smile.
"I don't have a mom!"
Ah. Crap.
Looks like I stepped on a landmine.
"Uh, um… right. Yeah…"
I had never been particularly gifted at talking to people. If anything I was below average. Anyone who tried holding a conversation with me would notice how the words kept breaking off in awkward little chunks.
Online, through the internet, I had managed to claw my way up to a level where communication was at least possible. Face-to-face, though, my conversation skills remained hopelessly tragic.
Accidentally dropping a parental insult like that was a situation I had never encountered before, so of course no clever recovery came to mind. My tongue felt locked. What was I supposed to say?
Staring into the child's pure black eyes, I squeezed my own shut without meaning to.
Fine. No choice. Dive in headfirst and think later—
"It's okay, though. I don't have a mom, but I have Grandma and Uncle. Si-hyeon only needs Grandma and Uncle!"
The girl was more mature than I had expected. She must have noticed my fluster, because she immediately offered reassurance. Her thoughtfulness toward others was touching—and at the same time it made me a little sad that she had grown up so early.
All I could manage was an awkward smile. Even so, she kept beaming right back at me.
"…Your name is Si-hyeon?"
"Yep. Han Si-hyeon. That's my name."
She had a pretty smile. Not a single dark shadow of the kind you might expect on a child without parents showed on her face.
I had never managed that kind of composure. For years after, I had barely remembered how to smile and spent most of my time crying instead.
While I was briefly lost in that contrast, Si-hyeon puffed out her cheeks as if something bothered her.
"What? What's wrong?"
"What about Unnie?"
"Huh?"
When I asked in genuine confusion, she stopped puffing her cheeks and spoke.
"Unnie's name. I told you mine first, so now you have to tell me yours!"
"Ah, right. Yeah. Sorry, Unnie forgot for a second."
She already understood the rules of introductions. Mature for her age, and sharp on top of it.
"Unnie's name is Mun-a. Family name Mun, given name A."
"? Your name is only one syllable?"
Apparently she had never met a single-character name before. I explained to the tilting-headed Si-hyeon that one-syllable names existed in the world.
"So do I have to call you A-unnie? That feels weird."
"You can put the family name on it if you want."
Honestly it felt just as strange to me. Not only the name itself, but being called "Unnie" at all was a first.
Still, it was something I would have to get used to eventually. I just hadn't expected the first person to practice on would be a little kid I met at the playground.
Think of it as a rehearsal. Better than collapsing in shock the next time someone called me that.
Having finished our introductions, Si-hyeon fired off another question.
"Is Mun-a Unnie a NEET?"
Back to square one.
Why on earth was she so curious about this?
"Do I look like a NEET?"
"Yes."
"Why do you think that?"
She answered as if she had been waiting for the question.
"You've been at this playground at this same time for a while now. Everyone else is at school or work then. Grandma says people like that are all NEETs."
Lately I had been trying to live a little healthier, so I had gotten into the habit of stepping outside for a short walk whenever I woke up in the morning. This playground was part of the route.
Unless something special came up, I usually rose somewhere between ten and eleven a.m.… If Si-hyeon had seen me often enough, calling me a NEET was fair enough.
"…"
Still, it wasn't exactly a misunderstanding I could correct.
After all, I had only started streaming less than a month ago. The numbers were climbing, but the work was far from stable and the income was anything but reliable.
More than that, my actual daily life before and after starting the stream hadn't changed much. The only difference was whether I turned the broadcast on or off while playing Abyss. Everything else was pure NEET lifestyle.
So I couldn't proudly declare, "Unnie is not a NEET." I wasn't even a proper streamer yet.
On the other hand, admitting I was a NEET would make all the quiet effort I had been putting in feel pointless—forcing myself to talk more for the viewers, digging up trending internet jokes, that sort of thing. I didn't want to call myself a NEET either.
So the answer I settled on was this:
"Unnie is… a freelancer."
"A freelancer?"
"Mm, meaning someone who works freely? Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and they do it whenever they want."
I wasn't sure if that was the correct definition, but that was what "freelancer" meant inside my head.
Turning the stream on and off whenever I felt like it fit the description, so it wasn't entirely wrong.
"Really? So you're not a NEET?"
"More importantly, do you even know what a NEET is?"
"Yes. My uncle is one."
"Ah…"
From what Si-hyeon told me, my daily rhythm and her uncle's weren't all that different. Both of us were always wandering around outside at this hour, so she had simply assumed I was a NEET like him.
"That freelancer thing. What kind of work is it? My uncle needs a job too. Grandma always sighs when she looks at him."
What kind of work, what kind of work…
I thought for a moment, then picked out the core of streaming and answered.
"There are lots of different fields, but Unnie's job is making people happy. Meeting lots of people, talking about things we all like, chatting and playing around… yeah. That kind of work."
"Making people happy…"
Si-hyeon looked at my face for a second, lost in thought, then said quietly,
"It suits you, Unnie."
"Huh?"
"You're pretty, so when people see you they feel good."
This kid… what was she even saying right now.
Her words carried the pure, unfiltered honesty of a child. Her eyes never wavered, and her tone was as matter-of-fact as if she were stating the obvious.
Ridiculously enough, I was left completely speechless. I half-turned my face away from her. My earlobes burned hot as a bonus.
"Si-hyeon! Time to come in!"
A deep male voice called from far away.
The moment she heard it, Si-hyeon's ears perked up like a rabbit's. She grabbed my hand and started swinging it up and down.
"Ah, Unnie! That's my uncle calling. I have to go home now. You're still going to come to the playground a lot, right?"
"Y-yeah…"
The hand holding mine was warm.
It had been a while since I felt another person's heat. A child's body temperature, soft and gentle, seeped into my palm.
"See you next time then! Bye!"
In that way she was still very much a little kid—abrupt and scatterbrained.
In the blink of an eye Si-hyeon had vanished.
I stayed where she had been for several more minutes, feeling the leftover warmth in my hand and turning her words over in my mind.
"It suits me…"
That making people feel good was a job that suited me—Si-hyeon's words.
And so, after that strange morning encounter, I found myself turning on the stream the moment I got home, almost without thinking.
Along with the sudden desire to see people—my viewers—today of all days.
Would people really feel happier looking at me, watching my stream, the way Si-hyeon had said?
Would my broadcast give comfort to someone who had been having a hard day?
With those thoughts I went live, and viewers poured in at once.
Through the chat they began greeting me.
The viewers' reactions didn't match exactly what I had imagined.
But just like Si-hyeon had said, I could feel that people were happy to see me, glad I was here.
For the first time in a while I looked at the chat window without getting dizzy and instead smiled brightly.
"Hello, everyone. Good morning."