Even Her Sleeping Face Is Cute

I started playing Flight of the Bumblebee.

It's an extremely difficult piece unless you've got a certain level of skill — but with the sheet music displayed right there on the monitor, constantly shifting to make it easier to follow, it was surprisingly comfortable to play. If regular pianos showed music like this, they'd probably fly off the shelves. Every time I hit a note, I could see at a glance exactly how accurate I was, and I loved that.

Flight of the Bumblebee gets performed on all kinds of instruments besides piano. I made it through without a hitch, and once again, I hit 100%.

"We've got a lot of dummies in here. Too lazy to search it up, huh?"

"Five seconds of searching and it'd pop right up. You dummies."

"Is that so? Thanks for watching, everyone — that was a lot of fun. I'll wrap up the piano here."

Thanks to Shinye, I'd gotten to enjoy the Pianote. It was a stretch to call it a game, exactly, but it sure looked and felt like one, and it had been a blast.

"Alright, we're going offline."

"See you all later."

"Shinye unnie, today was so much fun."

"I had fun too. Thanks for coming over."

"Thanks for having us, unnie. You did great too, Jiyoung."

The collab with Shinye had wrapped up without a hitch. I could rest now, right? I hadn't gotten much of a nap earlier, and I was so tired a yawn slipped out.

"Jiyoung, if you're sleepy, you want to go lie down?"

"Huh?"

"If you're sleepy, go crash in the room. I'll wake you when it's dinnertime."

"Okay, Shinye unnie."

I decided to take her up on that and close my eyes for a bit. I followed Shinye into the room and dove straight onto the bed. I found a pillow on that cloud-soft mattress, lay down, and was out within seconds.

"Even the way she sleeps is ridiculously cute."

"Right? Jiyoung's always cute."

Shinye unnie gazed fondly at Jiyoung, curled up so adorably on the bed. How could anyone not love a girl that cute and that kind?

Today's stream had peaked at nearly thirty thousand viewers, and the response had been excellent.

"You two have been friends since you were little, right? You really do seem close."

"Our parents were friends first, and it carried down to us."

They'd always been together as next-door neighbors, and they had never once gotten into a fight. Anyone who picked a fight with a Jiyoung this sweet was clearly the one in the wrong.

"Want to check out the community?"

"Sure. I'm curious how people reacted."

"We'll probably collab again, so I hope the response is good."

"Yeah, unnie."

Shinye unnie started hunting down every post that mentioned her and Jiyoung. With thirty thousand people watching, there was bound to be a mountain of them.

Apparently we had more young viewers than I'd expected. Anyone asking for a Melona bar was probably still eating school lunch.

Maybe I should plan a gift voucher giveaway for the younger viewers sometime.

This viewer sure had a filthy mouth.

Most arcades had gone under by now, so there weren't many places still willing to keep an expensive cabinet that could barely recoup its cost. These days most arcades ran on coin karaoke, fighting games, and rhythm games, with everything else just there to fill floor space. Seoul arcades still got a lot of foot traffic, though — they were among the few that were actually still doing well.

"Jiyoung's looks are basically a cheat code for streaming."

"They really are. That's her unique weapon."

"How can every single thing about her be this cute? Just watching her sleep makes me smile."

"She really is. That's why I wanted so many people to know about her."

"If she ever laid on the cute act, it'd be chaos, wouldn't it?"

"Jiyoung doesn't really like doing aegyo, though."

"Shame. Then again, she's already cute just sitting there — if she added aegyo on top of that, it'd be insane."

The reason I'd recommended internet streaming to Jiyoung was that I wanted as many people as possible to watch her and feel a little healed. I got to see her every single day and recharge off that, but I wanted to give people grinding through stressful days even a small something to unwind with.

And more than that, I wanted Jiyoung to be loved by everyone.

"I'm grateful to you, Mina. If you hadn't told her to start streaming, we never would have met."

"Even if Jiyoung hadn't started streaming, you two probably would have run into each other a few times, right?"

"Still, I couldn't just act like I knew a complete stranger."

"Random people have caused us trouble before."

"There really are a lot of shameless people in the world. That was all before she started streaming, right?"

"Yeah, before. And I have a feeling it'll only get worse now that she's streaming."

"Do you regret having her start?"

"No. I always figured she'd become famous someday. It just happened a little sooner."

Jiyoung was a cute girl who was always going to end up famous one way or another. The goal was to build that fame through streaming first, and to gather as many fans ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who adored her as possible. As for the bad people — I'd just stay by her side and keep her safe.

"Want to stay for dinner? Anything you like?"

"I'd feel a bit bad about that. I'll help you cook."

"No, no. Let's just order a ton of delivery this time. Can you tell me what Jiyoung likes?"

"Sure."

I told Shinye unnie about the delivery foods Jiyoung liked. Jiyoung liked a lot of things, but she didn't eat much, so we couldn't order too much — I picked out the delivery dishes she especially loved.

Jiyoung tended to prefer things she could eat easily. Even inconvenient foods were fine if you made them easy for her.

"Hmm, if we order too much we won't finish it, so maybe about five places?"

"Even four is a lot."

"It's fine. Doesn't matter if we can't finish. The important thing is letting her try a bunch of different things."

"Okay, unnie."