Uryat! Uryat! Work, Work! - 1
The weekend was over.
It was a despairing piece of news.
But the ABCD community was still chattering away, reliving the memories of last weekend. They were talking about the arcade event Doda had hosted.
It had been a surprise event that started with no warning, but it had soared far beyond the quality anyone expected from a typical mid-sized VTuber event. So the Doda fans were left basking in a pleasant afterglow.
Of course, since it had been a sudden event, there were a few disappointing parts. Because the arcade, D-GAMERS, was located in front of Hongdae, the Doda fans living outside the capital couldn’t take part.
Regret.
Envy.
Expectation.
And so on.
This event left a wide range of emotions behind for ABCD, especially the Doda fans, the Doda-ri. Across countless communities, people posted all kinds of reactions to the surprise event put on by a mid-sized VTuber group.
And the event even affected other VTuber fandoms.
“Ahahah! Hic...! Ha! Hic! Keek!”
She was laughing so hard she couldn’t even continue the broadcast.
That was when the viewers started teasing her.
“!”
Rollphi flinched at the flow of chat.
Oh no. I’m going to get stuck with another weird meme.
Her fandom was already fond of teasing her.
If another bizarre meme attached itself to her, it would last for more than a year.
Rollphi hurriedly stopped laughing and clicked the next community post. It was about one event that had been mentioned in multiple communities over the weekend.
Click—!
A photo that had become a hot topic in VTuber communities.
Inside a blue arcade, people were laughing and talking. In the center, there was a monitor, and on it was Doda, the VTuber from the corporate-backed group ABCD.
Rollphi stared at the photo collection and let out a genuine sigh of admiration.
“Wow.... Doda, was it? They really put in a lot of work. Even the arcade’s colors are a perfect fit. So this is where they held a fighting game tournament?”
“Ah, so like a group competition? Kind of feels like a sports day.”
Rollphi pointed with her mouse cursor and analyzed the event details scattered throughout the photos. She was mostly talking about the parts of an event that ended up costing far more money than expected.
“Things like this, and this. Facilities that make people feel clean and comfortable aren’t easy to pull off. Usually people try to save money in places like these, and then the event quality drops sharply. The fact that they didn’t skimp and spent boldly gets them plus ten points from me. It’s truly excellent. The fundamentals of the event are absolutely top-tier.”
“You said it was Doda, right? Corporate VTubers really are different. Paying attention to even the tiniest things like this is the foundation of professionalism.”
“Come on, if that were enough, then no major company event would ever fail. Lining up the theme, the venue, and the traffic flow that neatly and then opening it to the public isn’t easy. In that sense, that person really put in the effort.”
Talk, talk.
Talk, talk.
Rollphi kept praising all the things Doda must have paid attention to while preparing the event. And she was equally generous in her praise of the money that had been pulled in to cover it all.
“It must have been hard to put the proposal together.... From the outside it looks like a surprise show for the fans, but they probably suffered like crazy for months beforehand.”
Of course, unlike Rollphi imagined, Doda hadn’t wrestled with any paperwork at all.
Even so, the praise just kept going.
It was almost like people were talking about a friend who had succeeded.
But there was no jealousy in it.
In their story, Bigman never appeared on the surface. So the parts someone else had achieved on their own stood out all the more.
In one word, it was kinship.
And there was a reason for that kinship.
“All those little documents and every single one of them... huh?”
Rollphi opened her mouth as wide as she could and cheered.
“...Ah! Waaaah—!? B-Bigman! Bigman! Thank you so much, Bigman! I dedicate this one-million-won donation to the world tree hidden in the desert! I’ll work hard!”
The chat window exploded into noise.
They were talking about the person who had come to be regarded like a natural disaster. He always appeared suddenly like this, scattered a million won, and disappeared again. A money-flinging force of nature.
...
...
...
VTuber.
Bigman.
Before long, people had stopped finding this strange coexistence strange. Rather, they had started hoping it would keep going like this.
*
At a convenience store in the middle of the day.
Even after her volunteer work was over, Dodam kept coming to see me every day around lunchtime. And she kept talking about Bigman. It was a time that carefully avoided the evening hours when Ah-young showed her face.
“...”
Is it really that embarrassing to talk about Bigman in front of the others?
The girl with the short hair was smiling brightly as she sat at the outdoor table beside me.
“So, anyway. My theory about Bigman’s childhood is...”
“...”
I listened while working on a unicycle beside her. Dodam’s guesses about Bigman were all built on exaggerated sentimentality, but they still carried a strange tenderness.
“...”
“...When he went to England, it was a period when the factories in the northern region were struggling economically. That’s when he first opened his eyes to the plight of the weak and started thinking about what capital actually is...”
But by then the information was starting to pile up to the point of exhaustion.
“Dodam.”
“So... huh? What?”
“Would you like some ice cream?”
“Yeah!”
I went to the ice cream freezer and took out the most expensive ice cream in it. It was the kind you eat with a spoon. I handed it to Dodam.
Dodam giggled, squinting one eye. Then she quickly started scooping up the ice cream with the spoon I’d handed her.
Nom nom....
And then.
Sure enough.
She grabbed her head and winced.
As a bonus, she dropped the spoon she’d been holding.
“Krrgh...! Damage! Headshot!”
“...”
I went inside and got her a new spoon.
By then, the headache had already faded, and Dodam laughed.
“Hehe, thanks. Boss, aren’t you eating?”
“I’m fine. My hands got dirty from fixing the bicycle.”
“You can eat ice cream with dirty hands...!”
“...”
That sounded like...
a joke, maybe.
I answered, “I’d like to eat with you too, but in my current state it doesn’t seem hygienic. I’ll accept the thought.”
“Then...”
Dodam dug the spoon deep into the ice cream. Then she held it out to me.
She said, “Ah.”
“...”
“Aah.”
“...”
“Ah?”
“...”
“Ah....”
Waving it around.
Until I ate it.
Her determination was clear: she was not moving her arm an inch.
In the end, I took it and ate.
“...”
Chocolate flavor lingered around my lips.
Dodam watched me for a moment, then immediately scooped up more ice cream and ate it herself.
“Life tip. If your hands are dirty, just have someone feed you.”
“Thank you.”
“It still feels kind of sketchy, so make Aki do it too.”
“That...”
At that moment.
A woman’s voice came from far away.
“Wow! There was a convenience store here? I’ve always passed by too quickly to notice...”
“!”
“!”
Dodam and I both looked over.
A bright-faced woman was walking toward us.
A woman with her long hair tied back in one thick braid.
She was the office worker whose hobby was cycling, Jang Se-yeon.
“Se-yeon.”
I’d met her when I helped her after she fell off her bike while she was riding back with Dodam last weekend. I’d carried her to the convenience store entrance and sent her off in a taxi, thinking our connection ended there...
But Se-yeon had come back with a basket of fruit in one hand.
So she came to return the favor.
I said to her, “Welcome.”
“Ah! It’s the owner and his girlfriend. Thank you for helping me that time.”
Se-yeon gave me a polite bow.
The moment she finished speaking, Dodam shook her head furiously.
“Not me.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not the boss’s girlfriend.”
“The one who went ‘ahh~’ with the ice cream?”
“...Not me.”
Se-yeon tilted her head, then spoke again a moment later, smiling so brightly it seemed like her face was shining.
“Whatever! Utya!”
“?”
“?”
Seriously.
What a bewildering person.
*
The next day.
Jeong Yu-ri, the team leader of Investment Strategy Team 2 at Arc Network, trembled as she stared at her computer. On the screen were stock information feeds that had suddenly surged upward.
20%
30%
40%
They boasted returns so dazzling they were the kind of thing ordinary people could only dream about.
Just as written in the mysterious “list” sent by an anonymous someone in an equally mysterious email.
“...”
It was so confident it couldn’t just be a stock-market rumor, so I even printed it out. I never imagined the part written under Monday would all turn out to be right...
Jeong Yu-ri swallowed hard.
Then she looked at the printed list.
This round’s gains were actually on the smaller side even within the list.
The next short-term surge began at at least 40 percent.
“...”
Just a little.
Just a little...
Should I... take the shot?
Such a foolish thought crossed her mind.