Hae-myo's Tips
"You two calmed down a little? Both of you?"
"Yeah... Sorry, Ian."
Even after more than ten minutes of bickering, there was no end in sight, so I forced my way into the middle of it. Only after I stepped in did the fight finally wind down, closing out with apologies on both sides.
No wonder she vanished after picking a fight with Se-a. She lit the fuse and then ran for it.
"Uh, yeah, pretty much. Thinking about it now, though, even if I had collabed, I don't think I would've gotten roasted as hard as you, Hae-myo."
One donation and the chat was tearing into her from every direction. I was starting to wonder if a thick skin was a mandatory qualification for female streamers. Watching her take that kind of beating and still look completely fine, I figured I probably wasn't wrong.
"Ian, why don't you just hop on a call with this Hae-myo person? Are you going to keep talking while she throws money at you?"
Maybe getting into a fight and airing everything out had loosened something in her. Se-a's voice was a whole shade softer as she made the suggestion.
"W-well, yeah, but... would Hae-myo even want to keep talking?"
She had her own stream to run. Why would she bother chatting with me? Sure, collabing with a guy pulled viewers whether you got flamed or not—but this wasn't even a collab. She probably had content lined up, and I already had an impromptu guest of my own. She'd turn me down, right?
"Uh... wow. Thanks for the million-won tip, Hae-myo? I'll jump in as soon as I get the link."
I played along with the funnier chat messages while I waited for word from my manager. Ten seconds. Thirty. A full minute. No matter how long I waited, the invite never came. It wasn't like she had to copy the address out by hand, right?
"N-no! My manager just isn't sending the link!"
I hurriedly messaged her on Discord—and instead of an invite, a short line came back.
"...Huh? Deleted?"
I could understand how Hae-myo felt. I was just as thrown as she was. How do you even delete something like that?
When I went quiet for a second, my manager said it was a joke and sent over a link.
"Ah, what? It was a joke?"
Right—there was no way my manager would actually do something like that... except the two of them seemed close enough that she absolutely might have.
I typed in the address she'd sent, and an invite to Hae-myo's room popped open.
I accepted, and a blue cat icon appeared.
"Hae-myo? You there? Can you hear me?"
"Huh? I-Ian!? How—my manager said she deleted it... ah, it was a joke?"
I gave a wry smile as she answered her own question.
"Hae-myo, is it okay if I talk now?"
"Y-yeah! It's fine!"
She jumped, startled out of her muttering.
"So... what do we even talk about?"
"Right? I honestly never thought we'd actually end up on a call..."
It had happened so suddenly that I had no idea what to say. I wasn't much of a talker to begin with, and I never knew what to chat about with someone I'd just met. On top of that, thousands of people were watching every word—so mindless small talk was off the table.
"How about getting some advice from a senior, then?"
While Hae-myo and I were still floundering, Se-a offered a solid idea from beside me.
"Advice? I'd love that, but... would Hae-myo be okay with it? Dropping a million won just to give me tips feels a little..."
Wasn't I the only one coming out ahead here? I was the one getting the advice, and I was taking her money on top of it. And this wasn't some random person—this was advice from a streamer who'd already hit ten million subscribers. Could I really take free tips from a senior in the same line of work, someone who'd made it big as a woman in the Reversed World?
"Sure. For a cute junior like you, what wouldn't I do?"
I found out later that one of the schoolgirl fantasies a lot of women quietly held onto was being called "sunbae" by a younger guy. Guys, apparently, didn't care about seniority at all. Looking at how the original owner of this body had refused to even go to school, that almost seemed generous.
"You've never even seen my face and you're calling me cute. In person I'm like this—ridiculously cute."
Se-a still wouldn't take her hands off my cheeks. At this rate I was half-afraid they'd stretch like rubber bands.
"Unnie, let go of my face."
"No. Soft and squishy—I'm already addicted."
"I'm so jealous..."
Hae-myo's voice drifted through, barely loud enough to catch. If I let her touch my cheeks, maybe in exchange I could get my hands on those—
I've given up fighting it at this point.
I was tired of holding myself back. This was just who I was. What was left to deny?
"Okay, so what do you do when a viewer drops a boring bit?"
"Ignore them."
The Discord call was winding down. I'd picked up a few tips along the way, but every last one of them was completely unhinged. The kind of advice that would end you if you took it seriously. Stuff only Hae-myo could get away with—nothing another streamer should ever try.
"That enough? We're pretty much out of time."
"Thanks, Hae-myo. That was... helpful? Was it?"
Normally I'd at least throw out an empty compliment to someone's face, but I just couldn't manage it this time.
"...It was that bad?"
Hae-myo asked in a dejected little voice. Mid-call, Yandere had asked me to pull up Hae-myo's stream too, so I had it open on the side. When streamers were doing content together, they apparently didn't raid each other—raiding meaning watching another streamer's broadcast on your own.
"I'm sorry... acting like a sunbae and then giving you advice that doesn't even help... I'm really sorry..."
Her brows were drawn into a deep V, and she kept apologizing in that crushed little way. I wanted to watch it a little longer, but we were live, so I hurried to cheer her up.
"N-no! I got a real sense of the bond you've built with your viewers as a big streamer! I felt the dignity of a true senior!"
Honestly, I'd never met anyone who cried as easily as Hae-myo. How many times had she teared up in a ten-minute call? It wasn't the loud, wailing kind either—more like sniffly little sobs with a hint of age regression, and it was weirdly fascinating. You know the type. The kind of person you just want to make cry for no reason. Hae-myo was exactly that type.
"R-really? Hehe. I am pretty amazing, huh?"
See? A little soothing and her mood bounced right back. Definitely age regression, if you asked me.
"Ah, Hae-myo! Can I ask one last thing?"
"Of course! Ask as many as you want! And I told you to call me unnie already?"
"I'll try."
The reason I didn't call her unnie was simple. If I refused when she asked like that, she'd get all gloomy again. And that hit... hard. I didn't know what it was, exactly, but it hit me right in the chest.
Maybe coming to this world woke up a sadistic streak in me?
Even thinking that, I doubted it was real sadism. Looking at Hae-myo made me want to make her cry, but I never felt that way with Se-a. So this was Hae-myo's fault. Who told her to act in a way that made people want to mess with her and make her cry?
"So what did you want to know?"
"Just Chatting is my main content, right?"
"Yeah? I watched you play games yesterday—figured Just Chat would end up being your main thing."
That one hit a nerve out of nowhere. I actually cared about my games, you know. Just wait. Once we got closer, I was going to make her cry her eyes out.
"You know me pretty well, huh? Anyway, I was wondering if there was any content I could do besides games. You've been streaming forever, so you must know all kinds of stuff."
Come on. Even if games were her main thing, with that much experience she had to know—or have tried—plenty of other content.
"Besides games..."
Hae-myo hummed, thinking hard.
"Games..."
What was she trying so hard to recommend that she needed this much time?
"Hmm... something other than games..."
...
"Hae-myo. Do you not have anything?"
"N-no! I do!"
No, she really didn't.
"It's fine. Asking another streamer for content ideas isn't exactly great manners anyway. I should've been more considerate."
Truthfully, unless it was content a streamer had invented from scratch, it didn't really matter. How many overlapping formats were out there already? Was anyone going to police every single one? I'd only said it to mess with her.
"I really do have something! Okay! A World Cup! How about a World Cup?"
"A World Cup? What's that?"
The only World Cup I knew was soccer.
"You don't know Ideal Type World Cup? You pick a theme and run a tournament bracket until you crown a final winner."
"Ah! I know that one!"
I'd seen it on NewTube every now and then. But that kind of content needed a strong talker. In a tournament format, the higher you went, the more you were rehashing things you'd already explained and seen. Keeping it fresh without boring people was the whole skill.
"Would it work? I'm not exactly great with words..."
"So what? A guy's the one doing it."
"Yandere's reacting well too. Why not just do it?"
Se-a, who'd been reading chat behind me, piled on. It was solid content, and if Yandere was on board, there was no reason not to.
"Alright. I'll do it. Thanks for the good idea, Hae-myo."
"Ehehe. It's nothing. For a sunbae, it's only natural, right?"
The way she put extra stress on "sunbae" made it pretty clear how much she liked hearing it.
"Thanks for coming on today. Talk again sometime? Don't you dare pretend you don't know me."
"M-me, later? For real!? I'm bad at reading the room so I'm actually gonna message you!?"
What would happen if she messaged me and I just didn't answer?
"You're not... answering? Am I not... supposed to message you?"
"No. Go ahead and message me. It's fine."
Right. How could I mess with someone like this? No matter how cute she was, that was too much.
"Hehe. I thought I was the only one being serious for a second. You scared me."
Correction. How could I not mess with someone like this?
I wanted to make her cry and cry until she wore herself out and fell asleep.