Me?
A few days later.
I had sent Jia off to the company for her scheduled interview and was cleaning the house alone when it hit me.
"...So Jia got a job too."
She had already been streaming, and she would keep streaming from here on out, so I wasn't sure whether "got a job" was even the right way to put it. Still—she had applied to the company herself, and she had gotten in. Close enough, context-wise.
...Which left me as the only freeloader now.
Even the one who used to stream had landed a proper position, and here I still was. I kept looking, of course, but nothing decent was turning up at the moment. Better than diving headfirst into some random place and suffering for it—but still. Ugh.
"Haaah."
A heavy, hollow feeling rose up from somewhere deep in my gut, and I took it out on the poor vacuum cleaner. Jia had gone out to pull her own weight. So what exactly was I doing here?
It wasn't that I was blaming her. I was the one freeloading—I had no right to complain. It was more like... my future was starting to feel a little shaky. I had only meant to impose for a short while, but the days kept stretching on. I was getting self-conscious. Jia had to be getting uncomfortable by now, right?
Seriously, was there no decent job out there...?
— Beep—beep—beep—
— Ding-a-ling—
Just as I was starting to sink into self-pity, a very familiar rhythm of beeps sounded and the door lock clicked open. A moment later, the figure beyond the doorway was—
"Oh, you're back?"
"Y-yeah."
The homeowner herself, of course.
"How was the company? Everything okay?"
"...Huh? Yeah. I was worried, but everyone's been really nice."
"That's a relief. At least you won't have to stress about fitting in."
Hopefully she wouldn't have to suffer because of the people, at least. Not that it was surprising. The VTuber scene might be small, but Lunabis was still one of the top agencies in the country. A company like that wasn't about to sabotage its own future with its own two hands.
I watched their streams now and then, actually. The CEO herself was a streamer, so she seemed to have a solid sense of what made good content.
"Um... Sihyun?"
I was putting the vacuum away with that half-formed thought when Jia started fidgeting in a way that was completely unlike her.
...What's with her all of a sudden?
"...Why call my name and then go quiet?"
"N-no, it's just..."
"Even if it's nothing big, just spit it out. I'm gonna get mad."
Jia could neither dump everything out at once nor fully hide it. The sight was so frustrating I pushed her, and after a few more seconds of darting her eyes around, she squeezed them shut tight and finally confessed everything.
"O-our CEO said..."
"...?"
"That she wants to meet you too?"
The CEO?
The CEO of the VTuber company Jia was joining?
And that person wanted to see me?
"...Why?"
The next day, on the way to a café near the house.
"If it was a security issue, you should have said so from the start."
"Ehehe..."
She had scared the hell out of me. I hadn't committed a single crime in my life, and suddenly I was being summoned. I was clean, sure, but I still got a little nervous.
How had she even found out about me, though? Had my name come up during the interview? That was possible. "Do you live with anyone?" was the kind of thing they'd check as a matter of course.
...Yeah, that tracks.
And... I kind of understood where she was coming from. The streaming world was crawling with lunatics who could stalk someone successfully off nothing but a bare hand in frame. If those people ever put that talent to good use, they could probably bump South Korea's crime clearance rate by a solid three percent.
So of course, when you'd carefully selected and hired someone, the last thing you wanted was their name or personal details leaking through some "friend."
...Not that I had any intention of leaking anything.
I wasn't even planning on going near her streams. If she got stalked, I wouldn't exactly walk away free either. If I didn't want to get dragged into something ugly, she couldn't get dragged into it first.
...Not that the company would just take my word for it. Which was why they had called me in like this.
Still, what was there to worry about? An NDA? Just sign the thing and be done with it, right?
...I was entertaining those empty little guesses when we finally reached the café.
"Ah, there she is."
"...She's already here?"
The CEO was already waiting, according to Jia.
...Was that even possible? It was nine in the morning. And from what I knew, this woman had been streaming until dawn. How hardworking could one person be? Was she even human...?
"Ah, you've arrived."
...Or maybe not. Up close, I could see the dark circles under her eyes. Running a company and streaming at the same time wasn't exactly something a normal person would do.
"This is... your friend?"
"Ah, yes, CEO."
"...It's nice to meet you. I'm Yu Sihyun."
"Pleasure. Kang Yura."
Setting those impressions aside, the CEO took the lead and we exchanged introductions naturally enough. We ordered drinks, made small talk with Jia carrying most of it—and then, out of nowhere, the CEO steered us into the real subject.
"So then... Sihyun?"
"Yes, CEO."
"I'm quite serious about this, by the way..."
Alright. Here it came. An NDA after all? Hush money? Or maybe just a polite stay the hell away from my talent?
"Would you like to try streaming?"
...
What?
Who?
Me?
...Why?