Siblings by Choice
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Without even pausing for breath, Kang Yura kept bowing over and over as she rattled off apologies.
“I was drunk and not thinking straight. I didn’t mean anything by it, I just thought it was weird that I could actually touch a man.”
Seeing Kang Yura mutter that with dead, shame-stricken eyes, Lee Harang gave an awkward laugh.
“I’m fine, so calm down. I was just messing around anyway... actually, I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Lee Harang had never expected one stupid joke to turn into something like this, and he scratched his cheek, looking thoroughly at a loss.
At that, Kang Yura let out a long breath.
“Let’s just pretend nothing happened.”
She decided to cleanly erase this black mark from her life before it could kill her of embarrassment.
Strictly speaking, nothing had actually happened.
He had just fallen asleep hugging a doll in place of a teddy bear. That was all.
...Now that I’ve said it out loud, that’s a massive incident.
Her insides burned.
No matter how feminine he looked, he was still a man.
A female streamer slept with a man?
And it was caught on camera?
And not in an edited broadcast, but live?
That was a disaster.
Kang Yura, who had never even run a so-called pseudo-dating stream, couldn’t help worrying that this might drive viewers away in a pretty serious way.
Almost on reflex, she reached for her smartphone to monitor the audience’s reaction.
She was afraid to see how people would react to her drunkenly using Lee Harang as a teddy bear and going to sleep, but she had to look.
Only then could she figure out how to handle it.
└?? What, are you a feeder? Please don’t go dark and start gatekeeping Sangnangja.
└└A guy...? Oh, right, Sangnangja was a man, wasn’t he? I’d totally forgotten. Hmm... does it really matter?
└└└If it were any other guy, I think I’d have gone dark too, but for some reason Sangnangja doesn’t bother me at all. Sangnangja x YuraYura... isn’t that kind of okay?
└ lol, seriously. He’s small enough to fit right in your arms, so if you held him while sleeping, you’d probably knock out like a baby.
└ No, I actually think Sangnangja is a bit wasted on her too.
After checking the reactions on the fan café, Yura’s worries felt completely pointless. The viewers were actually thrilled.
And seeing that response, Kang Yura felt personally irritated.
What? Sangnangja is too good for me? Sangnangja is too good to be with me?
Who did these people think they were cheering for—.
She drew a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
Okay, calm down, calm... why can’t I calm down? The more I think about it, the angrier I get.
It wasn’t easy.
Kang Yura had always prided herself on being a streamer who competed on skill alone, unlike ordinary female cam girls. That was one thing.
But this was something else entirely.
Now that this moment had actually come, her pride as a woman was boiling over.
Shouldn’t I be jealous of Lee Harang and think, How nice would it be if he were the one sleeping in my arms? How can these perverts, who call themselves gentlemen, be jealous of me? I’m the woman here!
The fact that she was even jealous and conscious of something like this involving a man like Lee Harang was absurd, and yet she couldn’t help it.
From the next stream on, I should... dress a little more femininely and broadcast like that.
My channel isn’t that kind of channel. If you want that, go to another room.
Up until now, aside from the occasional fan-service here and there, she had relied on her gaming skill as the core of her stream, but now she felt it was time to change strategy.
It was bizarre that she was now thinking of changing strategies—something she hadn’t done even when a powerful rival female streamer appeared—just because of a man.
Thinking that Twinkle had gone completely insane, Kang Yura once again apologized properly to Lee Harang.
Lee Harang said he didn’t mind, but Kang Yura still seemed unable to let it go.
“Um, then... in exchange...”
Seeing Lee Harang trail off, Kang Yura briefly worried he might be about to make some strange request, but then—
“Can you talk to me casually, like I’m your real older sister?”
At that unexpectedly cute request from Lee Harang’s mouth, she couldn’t help snorting with laughter.
“Honestly, I’ve always kind of admired siblings...”
What reason was there to refuse?
“Okay, then let’s be sworn siblings.”
Of all people, Kang Yura was going to become sworn siblings with a man?
The same Kang Yura who found even skin contact with her actual father so unbearable that she had once sought psychiatric treatment?
Something she never could have imagined had happened—something she wouldn’t have believed possible even a few hours ago, before meeting Lee Harang.
Thinking it might be nice if this helped her slowly overcome her male avoidance, Kang Yura shook Lee Harang’s hand.
“Take care of me from now on, little brother.”
Honestly, if her instincts had their way, she would’ve liked to lift Lee Harang up like a doll and celebrate the pact, but that would probably be rude.
So she settled for a handshake.
“Yeah, take care of me too, Yura noona.”
C-cute...
Watching Lee Harang nod with a smile, Kang Yura found herself wondering if this was what the viewers called moe.
He looked like a murderous level of adorable, nowhere near what you’d expect from a twenty-two-year-old adult.
Clearing her throat to keep herself composed, and to suppress the urge to hug him and dote on him senselessly, Kang Yura decided it was time to leave the sleeping room.
The response wasn’t bad, but just in case, she needed to step back in front of the camera and prove to her viewers that she’d only been drunk and rambling, and that nothing had happened.
She wasn’t exactly the kind of female streamer who sold pseudo-dating fantasies, but as a woman streamer, this sort of explanation was unavoidable.
More than anything,
I’d hate it if our room’s gatekeepers ended up causing trouble for my little brother for no reason.
For Lee Harang’s sake, since they’d agreed to become sworn siblings, it was necessary.
Deciding it would prevent trouble later if she declared the sworn-sibling relationship in front of the viewers and asked them to think well of it, Kang Yura immediately took Lee Harang’s hand and went out to the filming room.
“You woke up pretty fast, huh? Good news—I solo queued, came in first, and got a leave voucher on the roulette wheel!”
Kim Junsoo said this proudly to Lee Harang and Kang Yura, who had appeared after about an hour.
It was honestly something worth bragging about.
Drinking, solo queueing with a stranger, placing first, and then landing a voucher to leave work early—what a feat.
Still, considering it was already almost dawn, it was hard not to think it was too late for that to matter, but a good result was a good result.
After clapping to praise Kim Junsoo’s hard work, Kang Yura boasted to the viewers that she had taken Lee Harang in as her younger brother.
“Harang is my little brother from today on, so take good care of him, everyone.”
Sworn sisters? No way! They’re sworn brothers and sisters!
The sudden news of an unexpected sibling pact—no, an unexpected sworn-sibling pact—sent the weakly burning chat into an uproar.
And Kim Junsoo was just as shocked.
He’d known Kang Yura for quite a while now, but today he was being hit with one astonishing experience after another.
Kang Yura actually making a sworn-sibling pact with a man?
He thought life was long enough that you really did see everything eventually, and then he congratulated the two of them on their bond.
Lee Harang had his pain, and Kang Yura had hers.
Thinking it would be good if the two of them licked each other’s wounds and healed together, Kim Junsoo started singing a congratulatory song.
“Congratulations~ congratulations~ congratulations on your pact~.”
If a popular female streamer got tangled up with a male streamer in any way, the so-called feeders wouldn’t stay quiet. But Lee Harang was such a strange case that it was different.
Rather than the feeders being jealous and throwing a fit over Lee Harang, there were more viewers envying Yura, and Kang Yura found that feeling strangely weird.
Well, whatever. As long as this passes without major backlash, that’s good.
She praised herself for handling an issue that could have caused serious problems in her female-gamer life with such skill.
“It’s already late anyway, so I’m just going to sleep here at the studio tonight.”
“You want to? I was about to call you a taxi.”
“Yeah. I’ll sober up and head out tomorrow morning, I guess.”
Apparently, once she thought she’d safely gotten over the mountain without incident, her tension slipped away, and the fatigue and sleepiness she’d forgotten about came crashing down all at once.
She had slept for about an hour and sobered up a bit, but she was still drunk, so she decided to just sleep quietly and leave it at that.
It wasn’t even the first time she’d slept at the studio.
Just as Kang Yura was saying she’d head back to the women’s sleeping room first because she was sleepy—
At that donation from a loyal viewer, delivered the moment she was about to lift her foot, Kang Yura froze in place.
Oh, so that was it.
She realized it a beat too late.
The reason the viewers hadn’t suspected anything naughty had happened between Lee Harang and Kang Yura wasn’t just because of Lee Harang’s looks.
The snoring had been loud enough to punch right through the sleeping room.
That was the proof sound that nothing had happened, so of course they hadn’t doubted it.
“N-no, that was me snoring. It wasn’t Yura noona.”
Lee Harang hurriedly tried to cover for her, but it was too late.
Red as a ripe tomato or apple, Kang Yura stomped off to the sleeping room with a gait like a rusty robot falling apart at the joints.
If only I could turn back time...!
She buried her face in her pillow and thrashed around.
It was all because Lee Harang was so perfectly optimized for sleeping in someone’s arms.
With that, Kang Yura drowned herself in self-deception and fell asleep in humiliation.
And so the night she wanted to forget passed, and whether Kang Yura was dead from embarrassment or not, the sun still rose.
When Kang Yura opened her eyes late in the morning, she had barely managed to wash up and was about to head home when she left the sleeping room...
“You’re up, noona? The hangover soup’s ready, so wash up and come out.”
There, she came face to face with a lunch table prepared by Lee Harang, a man so suited to an apron that it wouldn’t have been strange if he’d been officially selected as the best apron model in the world.