I Couldn't Even Tell How Mad She Was
My light. My god. My salvation.
He was back.
"Ah... so he's returned."
It had been a truly long time. Someone out there would swear it was only a week, but to me that week was no week at all — a year crammed into seven days. Nonsense, of course. I turned the screen on at once and sank straight into his broadcast.
And yet what greeted me was the Choe siblings on Knight of Fury together, a strangely perfect picture. As far as I knew, these days they almost never queued as a pair unless they happened to brush past each other in whatever game was trending.
"So it really was a coincidence?" Choe Seohyeon asked.
"That's what I'm telling you. What would I even get out of sniping my own brother? Do I look like that person to you?"
So it hadn't been a planned collab. One glance was enough: they'd both been sitting in queue and bumped into each other by accident, and the whole thing had simply dressed itself up as a collab stream.
"Anyway. What are you playing?"
"Creep Knight."
"Mid, huh. Nothing crazy, then."
"What about you, oppa?"
"Elven."
"I genuinely do not understand why this damn Elven Knight never eats a nerf."
Choe Haeun's reaction made a certain kind of sense. Elven Knight was a champion from the game's earliest days, and to this day it had never once been touched by a nerf — an immovable Tier 1. How bad was it? There was a running joke that the stock market could collapse and Elven Knight still wouldn't.
"Anyway, since it turned out like this, let's actually play it well."
"Yeah."
The game began, and I had to decide whose play to watch. Choe Seohyeon would be fine on his own. The face was the face, sure, but he was a man who had climbed, on mechanics alone, all the way to undisputed number one among internet broadcasters. Which meant...
"...It's been a while. Maybe I'll watch Choe Haeun."
Normally I watched Choe Seohyeon's stream. I hardly ever bothered with Choe Haeun's Knight of Fury. But today, of all days, I needed something with a kick. Of course I did. For the past week I hadn't been able to watch him at all, and if I'd been tuning in on my usual schedule, the withdrawal never would have hit this hard. So I slipped, naturally, into Ppulppulpiri's broadcast, chasing a hit of dopamine sharp enough to feel.
Where had it all gone wrong?
I'd only meant to come back after a week and stream something light. So why...
Another donation message came flying in. I wanted to say something. I couldn't say a word, because my screen had washed gray all over again.
I had nothing to say to the chat, either. Just now, things had played out exactly the way TSGoDie predicted. There was simply no climbing out of his backseat coaching.
That was when it happened.
His coaching came flying in again.
"..."
My mental was starting to crack. No — it was already cracking. The composure I'd been clinging to by my fingernails was shaking apart over a single malignant viewer.
"Haa... hoo..."
My blood pressure was climbing. And it wasn't just anyone. It was TSGoDie, my mortal enemy, backseating me, and the fury that rose at that coaching was something else entirely. If this kept up, it would be just like that time — the incident they'd gone and named the Ppulppulpiri Roar — and I'd be shrieking my head off all over again.
The viewers had noticed something was off, too.
"...Hey. You okay?" Oppa called, careful.
I barely steadied myself and opened my mouth.
"...Oppa."
"Yeah."
"Why is this person even... here?"
"..."
"You're streaming too. I know you are."
The more I thought about it, the stranger it was. Whenever my brother and I both went live, this was a person who ran to his stream nine times out of ten. So why... why on earth...?!
"...Why——!! Why are you pulling this shit on my stream today of all days——!!"
Chat exploded. They had all been waiting for exactly that shout. And right on cue, that bastard timed his donation to the second.
Farm one more CS, he said, instead of screaming.
At that ice-cold, brutally logical little jab, every single viewer abandoned language and left nothing but laughter. I couldn't even answer. They say that when a shock lands hard enough, the words just stop coming. This was exactly that moment.
"Uk— ik— eeeeeeek—————!!!"
Irritation boiled straight up my throat. Jaw locked, I poured the rage into the mouse, mashing left click like I'd lost my mind. The game, truly, had become an afterthought.
Whether I was furious or not, the viewers seemed to be having a wonderful time watching me suffer. Right. Not a single person here was on my side.
Not even—
"...Haeun."
"Hhh— haa... what, why——!"
"...If you keep screaming like that, you're gonna make yourself sick."
"...Hey!!!"
Even oppa wasn't on my side. My brother, Choe Seohyeon, seemed to have decided that comforting me was less fun than messing with me.
"He's not the type to say that stuff for no reason, yeah?"
"No..."
"So how about you actually take the advice seriously?"
Hopeless. Every one of them was too busy teasing me. Around then, I looked back. Where had it all gone wrong...? When Seoa unnie and oppa first suggested I try streaming, just once? Or when TSGoDie first barged into my broadcast and started his Bungtang routine? I couldn't tell. Why did I have to stand here like a sandbag and just take the hits?
That was when another donation came flying in from him. From TSGoDie.
"..."
I refused, on purpose, to answer. He seemed to have accounted for the silence, too.
If you're gonna die, he said, at least take one more CS with you. And at that, I—
"...I'll handle it myself, so mind your own business——!!!"
I screamed it straight at him.
Of course, every time I screamed, the viewers loved it.
It was a sad thing.
Fortunately, the game went to the Choe siblings.
"Well. Her fundamentals are good, I'll give her that."
I'd shredded her mental with one bit of backseating after another, and she was still a woman of the Choe house. True to a female streamer who could actually play, Choe Haeun clawed her KDA back at once and carried the game.
"You see that?! This is my skill——!!!"
Mental restored, she got her confidence back the instant the enemy castle fell. And the moment the game ended she pulled up the damage graph and bragged to chat about just how absurdly hard she had worked.
Chat took it well. They were people who came to the stream because they liked her, after all. Tease her when it was time to tease, praise her when it was time to praise.
Of course.
Honestly, Haeun had played well — but a mid laner with a shattered mental doesn't rebuild a KDA on her own. A lot of the credit belonged to Choe Seohyeon, dancing circles around the enemy down in bot. He'd ground his lane opponent into paste, hard-carried the teamfights, and bought her the time to scale. That was why they'd won. Still, I had to admit she'd been flying around like a maniac from the late game on. Even I thought that part looked cool.
"Well, then."
I left one last donation.
Same as always: a scratch, right down to the last second.
Chat papered itself in laughter in an instant. For a second Choe Haeun lost hold of her face — but maybe because she'd bitten into the sweet fruit of a win, she only laughed.
"...Thank you for the advice, TSGoDie. Anyway, thank you for watching my stream today, and now you can get lo— ...no. I hope you enjoyed the broadcast."
Choe Haeun closed the game on that last line. She probably meant to fill whatever time was left with just talking.
"Hm."
Right after, I carefully read the room. Because...
"...Hm."
Everyone was painfully aware of me. I'd made far too much noise on Ppulppulpiri's stream, thrown my presence around that hard — and now I was going to do it again over here? Even I had the sense to feel a little shy about that. So I said nothing, and quietly watched his broadcast.
Thankfully, once Choe Seohyeon saw that I wasn't doing anything, he carried on as usual.
"Ah, I'm thinking three or four more games like this. I've been focusing on other games lately, so my feel might've slipped a little..."
"Right? So today, I'm..."
That was when it happened.
"...Huh?"
It was a single instant. The name Piros. On Frolik, exactly one person used that nickname.
SPT Piros. Without question, a current Knight of Fury pro — the man called the greatest mid laner in the decade-long history of the game — and at his appearance, the chat began to climb like it had lost its mind.
SPT Piros. His real name was Lee Jiwon.
"...Hyung, what are you doing here."
This was the first time hyung had reached out to me like this, out of nowhere. Really — the first time. And not even by phone. A donation message on stream, of all things, which made it stranger still. I'd asked because I was startled, and hyung, it turned out, had his reasons.
"Ah..."
So it had been my fault. I scratched my head and apologized.
"Sorry, hyung. I didn't even realize my phone was off..."
"If it's something I can answer."
By then I was curious, too. What could possibly be worth reaching me by donation message? I asked, and hyung...
"...Pardon?"
He'd thrown a question I never saw coming.