Living With the Current - 1
Wednesday morning.
Baek Su-cheol was greeting the day at home for the first time in a long while. Lately he had been spending every night at the office, and this was the first time he had finally come home, slept, and woken up under his own roof.
Humming cheerfully, he stared at the computer screen in his room, an orange juice glass in hand.
“Nilliliya~”
There was a reason he was in such a good mood.
ABCD’s subscriber growth had become almost vertical. On a domestic platform, they were practically climbing into the top tier.
1. [RD.2_Herin Subscribers: 294,000]
2. [RD.2_Danhwi Subscribers: 271,000]
3. [ABCD_DoDa Subscribers: 221,000]
4. [RD.2_Yulhwa Subscribers: 208,000]
5. [RD.2_OIRAM Subscribers: 191,000]
6. [RD_Limia Subscribers: 173,000]
7. [RD_Dash Subscribers: 150,000]
8. [ABCD_Berry Subscribers: 141,000]
9. [Ganaeun Subscribers: 135,000]
10. [ABCD_Aki Subscribers: 134,000]
11. [ABCD_Clara Subscribers: 117,000]
…
…
…
DoDa, the most-subscribed of them all, was fighting a lonely battle in a league of her own. The other members, too, were now holding their own against rookie agencies and even big-name solo streamers.
When I thought about how they had only been pulling in sixty or seventy thousand subscribers at the start of the year, the rise felt almost like the earth and sea had traded places.
If anyone called them “small fry” now, they’d probably be mocked for corporate hypocrisy.
Baek Su-cheol swallowed hard.
Ever since DoDa’s arcade stream took off, and the Big Plan capital laid the foundation for everything else, the numbers just started exploding. The HighTube shorts and the clipped channel both picked up around then, too….
But even so.
Breaking through the 200,000-subscriber wall in just one month had been, above all else, thanks to the D/FENCE tournament. It had turned into a true festival, with prizes flying everywhere and everyone swept up in the same excitement.
Who would’ve thought even pro gamers would crash the party…?
To be honest, even Baek Su-cheol hadn’t expected things to blow up that far. Because of it, he’d been buried under inquiries from gaming journalists and companies wanting collaborations, with not a second to spare.
Of course, Executive Director Seonwoo Taek had said he could help, not just offer advice.
— If you ever need help, please contact me anytime.
But Baek Su-cheol had turned that offer down.
He knew better than anyone how capable and decisive Seonwoo Taek was. Still, Aurora Prism Entertainment and the staff under it were ultimately his responsibility.
No matter how much the executive director from Big Plan, that terrifying investment firm, helps with the money and logistics… if I’m not the one making the final calls, everyone will end up confused.
That was the best an incompetent CEO of a failing company could do.
Anyway.
This was all a happy kind of trouble.
Thinking that, he gulped down the orange juice.
It was all thanks to…
…Mr. Bigman, the angel of money, for dropping Executive Director Seonwoo Taek down from the heavens. A capitalist who hides his identity and just sends money around? Damn, that’s cool.
In his mind was the Bigman trophy lovingly enshrined inside the D/FENCE arena. In his chest, a sincere prayer to the angel investor.
He worshipped.
In the name of the nouveau riche,
of the conglomerate,
of the wealthy—
Bigman─
Throat condition: not good.
Recovery period: a few more days.
In the meantime, she planned to stay out overnight.
He organized the gist of the message in his head.
…Right. The game tournament probably did a number on her, shouting for six straight days. There’s no way she’ll be able to take part in A-yeong’s planning session this week.
Still.
As long as DoDa got better safely, that was enough.
He almost added, Go home to your hometown for a few days if you need to… and then froze.
He had almost used the same line he normally used when sending employees off on vacation. Only after writing it did he remember DoDa’s situation, and a cold sweat broke out across his back.
Ah.
I can’t mention hometown stuff to DoDa.
So he hurriedly revised the message.
“...?”
Baek Su-cheol replied with a simple “It’s fine,” but he couldn’t shake a faint sense of wrongness.
…Why did the girl who always talks like a keyboard gremlin suddenly sound so polite?
Something felt off.
Something….
He tilted his head. But just as he was putting on the jacket of his suit coat hanging behind the chair, he brushed the feeling aside. Then he opened the door and started to head out for work.
Until his older sister called out from the side.
“Su-cheol, going to work?”
“!”
Baek Su-cheol turned around.
There, crouched in the kitchen in a T-shirt and dolphin shorts, was Baek Hyang, shelling peanuts. The look was so unlike her age that if someone saw her from afar, they might think she was some married man’s affair partner.
She does look a little gloomy today….
He said,
“Yeah. I’m heading to the company.”
“All right. Have a good day.”
Baek Hyang waved without even turning her head. Peanut shells fluttered from her small, delicate hand. The nutty smell drifted all the way over to him.
Suddenly, Baek Su-cheol’s mouth watered.
“Sis, can I have a few of those?”
“No.”
“...”
“These are for the ancestral rite. If you eat food that’s been prepared as an offering to heaven, jealous spirits might latch onto you.”
“Ancestral rite? Sis, who did you come here to exorcise?”
“...”
Baek Hyang shook her head. Then she looked at him with a somber face and answered,
“No, it’s just that the person I’m looking for….”
“?”
She was about to answer.
“!”
Baek Hyang’s eyes widened. The sleepy lids that were usually half-closed now flashed like a lake catching sunlight. It was the first time he’d seen that look since back when she’d said she wanted to be an actress.
She never says things like that anymore after what happened, but….
She said,
“S-Su-cheol….”
“Yeah?”
“You….”
“What?”
“Why are you so lucky? Did you start worshipping some weird good-fortune spirit or something…? Or did you go and pray to a mountain god?”
“...”
Baek Su-cheol scratched his head.
What is this, some new form of proselytizing?
He respected his sister’s religion, of course.
But that sounded suspiciously close to a cult pitch.
I arrived in front of DoDa’s arcade.
The entrance to D-GAMERS was sealed shut, and a sign hung on the door saying it was closed for the day. Seeing that, I checked my phone again.
...
That was probably supposed to be DoDa’s own greeting line.
“Tap-tap, tap. Logged in with my heart. Gamer DoDa.”
Remembering the always-composed blue-haired girl on screen, I knocked on the arcade shutter.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Almost immediately, I got my answer.
Not in words, but in motion.
The tightly shut shutter rolled up at once.
Rrrrk!
Beneath the rising metal door, DoDa stood in a tracksuit, smiling.
“Yo, long time no see.”
“!”
Her voice is splitting apart. Her throat is clearly still in bad shape.
Thinking that, I greeted her.
“Hello.”
“Mm.”
DoDa gave a faint laugh and nodded. But because her throat hurt, she didn’t follow it up with any weird antics or offbeat jokes.
She merely gestured and said,
“Come in. Inside, there’s all kinds of thi—kek! Kekh….”
“Understood. If your throat hurts, you don’t need to keep talking.”
“...”
DoDa waved me off.
Then she quietly led me up to the second floor. Beyond rows of game cabinets, I could see the manager’s room, which was normally separated off by a partition wall and a lock. The door was wide open.
A room of barely five pyeong.
Blankets were spread out all over the floor.
A gaming laptop sat on top of a low table, as if she’d been playing just a moment ago. Beneath it, cup noodles and tissues were strewn about.
It was an uncomfortably lived-in scene.
DoDa pointed toward the corner of the room and waved one small hand, as if to say, Make yourself at home.
I nodded. Then I took off my shoes, stepped inside, folded the blanket on the floor into a cushion, and sat down on it.
It’s not exactly a facility meant for living in, but I suppose staying here in such a shabby way isn’t too much of a problem… even if it doesn’t seem very good for her health in the long run.
As soon as I went in, DoDa followed.
She dragged the low table over and sat down beside it. Maybe because the room was so narrow, the smell of ramen clinging to her tracksuit hit me all at once. Her bobbed hair looked a little greasy, too.
...
...
It didn’t bother me.
That was just the sort of person DoDa was.
Even so, she was important to me.
…Still, she seems awfully quiet today.
In any case, the two of us stayed silent like that for a while.
...
...
After a bit, DoDa opened the notepad on her laptop. She increased the font size and began typing away, her fingers clacking briskly. Black letters appeared across the white screen.
“Not at all. Please don’t worry about it.”
“About the game event? He said the results were excellent.”
“Yes. He said it was impressive.”
...
“Yes?”
...
DoDa couldn’t type the next line. After hesitating for a moment, she tapped her cheap low table with one finger.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then she went back to typing. The speed made it obvious that her long, notorious history as a keyboard warrior was still alive and well.
“It isn’t strange.”
“Because it could be that way.”
“Yes. You might have wanted to call me over all of a sudden. And if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. I don’t mind.”
...
DoDa chewed on that for a moment, then let out a breath. Her finger nudged the keyboard once.
“?”
She erased the single character at once. Then, after a brief pause, she typed the next line, one character at a time.
“A-yeong’s….”
...
DoDa suddenly shook her head hard.
She reached out with a small hand and caught my arm. I could feel the thin warmth of her wrist. It was warm, and yet somehow it felt chilled to the bone.
In that state, with a voice gone rough from strain, she said,
“Sorry. Pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
DoDa went back to typing.
“...?”
“I see.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
A little silence passed.
And then I heard DoDa’s voice.
“What am I supposed to do with my life now?”
“...”