Why the Tears
"Hello, Unknown."
"Hic! Ah, hellooo~"
Unknown's voice spilled through the headset. They had talked enough times by now that it no longer sounded strange. If anything, it had started to feel familiar.
So why did her words seem to drag more than usual today?
Then again, "enough times" was still only a handful of conversations. Of course there was more he didn't know about her than he did. All he really had was a name. The idea that he understood Unknown at all was almost funny.
Honestly, the sudden collab request had thrown Jump. He'd heard her first stream had gone off without a hitch, but how much time had even passed before she was asking for something like this?
It didn't help that he still couldn't get a read on Lee Harin. Everything he'd seen of her so far was a person with no filter at all — whatever crossed her mind came straight out of her mouth. She could look like she was running a perfectly calm broadcast, and then some completely unhinged nonsense would drop and he wouldn't have the faintest idea how to answer it.
If he had to guess, she was not the type who enjoyed hanging around other people.
He had never expected a polite greeting to turn into a collab. He could have refused easily enough, but with the viewers' reaction in mind, it was a hard offer to turn down.
That didn't mean it was all upside.
Jump had always believed the real charm of a collab lived in the back-and-forth between streamers — tossing conversation around, letting each person's appeal land with the other person's audience. The problem was he had absolutely no idea what Unknown was thinking, which made even starting a conversation an ordeal. What on earth went on in that head of hers? If he could, he would have liked to crack it open and take a look.
Even as he thought that, he started cleaning up the wreckage in chat. The sudden collab had plastered the window with screams that might have been shrieks or cheers; it took him about ten minutes to get it under control.
"Did you go live, Unknown?"
"Khh... yeees... I just turned it ooon."
...Khh?
What was she doing over there that would produce a sound like that — the kind of grunt that belonged in a satisfied sigh? He shoved the question aside. He had a stream to run. A glance at the viewer count showed it had dropped off sharply. Obviously they had stampeded over the moment they heard Unknown was live.
On a normal day he might have felt betrayed. Right now, it wasn't that much of a problem. After streaming this long, his stamina was already starting to give out, and wrangling thousands of viewers on top of that was mentally exhausting. He was almost grateful the audience had split off to her channel.
"You said you wanted a collab. Are you hopping into Last of Quantum right away?"
"Ah, yes. Just a second~"
A clattering came through the headset. Then the sound of someone gulping down liquid, and Unknown's satisfied groan burst out of her.
"Khhh... Ready... hic! I'm all set~ Logging in now."
Jump knew, immediately, that Unknown was not in a normal state. She never looked entirely normal, but today it was especially bad. The way her words went slack and trailing at the ends — she sounded drunk.
"Unknown, just checking — you're not drinking on stream, are you?"
Silence.
She wasn't actually drinking on stream, was she?
This was not a situation he had planned for. For the first time in his life, Jump was grateful he didn't use a cam. He had no confidence he could manage his face right now. He dragged his hands slowly down his dry cheeks, then went on.
"If you have been drinking, maybe we save the collab for another day and you go to bed?"
Strictly speaking, a drinking stream wasn't illegal. There was no law that said you couldn't drink and broadcast, and it wasn't drunk driving — nobody was going to die. You could even find streamers who used drinking streams to pull viewers, and not rarely.
Jump still didn't look kindly on them. Viewers would have fun just watching a side they didn't normally get to see, courtesy of the alcohol. But being an internet streamer was a job where one small mistake could send you straight to Narak. There were people who got drunk on the street and caused every kind of public nuisance. Nothing said a streamer wouldn't do the same. They could wander off broadcast standards, or drop a remark that turned into a controversy. Even the viewers would tell you to turn the stream off and go to sleep if you looked too far gone.
More than anything, the whole appeal of a drinking stream was showing a different face than usual. Unknown had only just done her first broadcast. What image did she even have? If this went wrong, viewers who didn't know her might assume this was how she always was.
That was why, even with chat plastered in Narak, he had tried to put her to bed.
"Nooo, I'm fiiine. Just log into the gaaame~"
I'm the one who's not fine, you idiot!
The words rose all the way to his throat. Jump recited the character for endurance in his head, then opened his mouth again.
"You seem pretty drunk. Go inside and sleep. You can't even play like that."
"Whaat are you talking about. I'm not drunk. The gaaame's no problem..."
He understood what she was trying to say. That wasn't the problem...
No. This was all experience. It wouldn't hurt to go through it in advance. Looking back on today's stream and regretting it would be her problem.
"Alright. I'll send an invite when you log in."
He wanted to just abandon her like this and walk away. As a senior streamer, he couldn't. He owed her, too — he couldn't coldly dump her. At least that was what Jump's conscience told him.
Even if I can't force her to turn the stream off, I can at least stop her from saying anything that would actually cause a problem.
He was glad, in a moment like this, that they were playing a virtual-reality game. If it had been a PC title, there would have been no way to physically intervene.
Jump logged into Last of Quantum at once and sent an invite to Unknown, who was already in.
A match has been found.
Why was matching so fast today?
Any hope that she might sober up if they just waited a little was wasted. The queue popped the instant they hit the button. After a brief load, Unknown's character appeared looking exactly as she always did.
That was only natural. This was virtual reality; the body had no constraints in-game. Given a system that always rendered a perfect physique, there was no way drunkenness would show on the outside.
It would come through unfiltered in her play, though.
Jump intended to stay as close to Unknown as he could, just in case. She might forget she was live and say something unspeakable. He was volunteering as her suppressor. He had even swapped his traits so he could trail her properly — and then he felt a gaze and lifted his head.
"Why are you staring?"
Unknown had been boring a hole through him for a while now. Looking at her again, he couldn't help thinking she was genuinely beautiful. A face anyone would notice was locked straight onto Jump, so of course chat was going to explode.
He had only looked because she was staring, wondering if she had something to say. Why so much hate? Anyone watching would think he was some toxic streamer relentlessly harassing Unknown.
"Jump..."
"Yes."
"Looking at you now, you're reeeally ugly."
These damn chatters, seriously.
Unknown's bombshell of a remark plastered the window in mockery. He was handsome enough, thank you — what standard were they even using? And strictly speaking, his Last of Quantum character was not his real face. It was based on his appearance, sure, but if you compared them closely there were definitely differences.
So that comment was not aimed at him. It was aimed at the character.
So why were there tears?