Living on My Own?
“Neluna sent you an email asking for a collab?!”
Lee Hana’s voice flared with disbelief over Discord.
I’d mentioned that I saw the email on my way home from taking my exam.
“Yeah. She said she wanted to talk about the story.”
“Wait, really? Now it’s finally hitting me that you’re actually a streamer.”
“Is it that big of a deal?”
“It just feels completely different when you’re appearing on a stream I actually watch. Whoa… You really did become a hot topic, huh?”
According to her, it had been the single biggest streaming-related drama in Neo Chronicle in recent memory. And since it hadn’t ended on a purely negative note, it made sense that she would reach out for a collaboration.
“The incident before that was just messy,” Hana explained. “Some guy went hard defending the game company, got shredded by backlash, and had a massive brawl with his chat. I think around two thousand people were watching back then? They swore they’d settle it with a character-deletion deathmatch, but neither of them ended up deleting their character, so it just fizzled out into nothing.”
I’d heard that every single character in Neo Chronicle demanded an absurd investment of both time and money. I supposed any properly built RPG character was like that. To stake something like that on a grudge match… I couldn’t even fathom how heated emotions must have been.
“Anyway! Since it’s Neluna, do your absolute best. It’ll be a massive boost, trust me.”
“I was actually planning to ask her a few things after we stream.”
Things like what it felt like to be a full-time streamer, or where you ended up if you kept streaming an RPG.
“Right, right. She started streaming when she was twenty and she’s turning twenty-nine soon, so she definitely knows her stuff. But that’s not what I meant.” Hana rattled off the sheer scale of Neluna’s viewership. “Her baseline for variety gaming is five hundred. When she plays subculture otaku games, it jumps to a thousand. On her cam-streamer days, two thousand people tune in. Besides, your buzz was only good for a single day, wasn’t it? Make sure you knock it out of the park this time.”
“It was two days, actually.”
Still, it was sound advice, so I took it to heart. I heard plenty of streaming talk from her on regular days anyway. Whenever she tuned in, she would usually send over a wall of text offering detailed feedback. Then, Hana lowered her voice, opening with a grave, deliberate tone.
“Lastly… be careful when dealing with Neluna.”
“Why? Is she weird?”
“I don’t think she’s weird, but her simps are the real deal.”
“Simps? What’s… Ah. The guys obsessed with female streamers?”
“People who just casually like someone aren’t called simps. Hers are genuine.”
“Don’t simps usually latch onto cam streamers, though?”
“Exactly! She quit being a cam streamer four years ago, and they’re still like that—which is why they’re the real, terrifying deal!!”
Neluna had been streaming for years, shifting concepts repeatedly along the way. First, she was a VTuber. Then a half-cam streamer. After roughly two years as a full cam streamer, she transitioned into Neo Chronicle. Now, she had moved on to variety gaming.
“That’s. What. I’m. Saying! People have stuck around even after she flipped concepts like that! You should see how her defense turrets react whenever she does a cam-streamer day! Keep your head on straight. Got it?”
After assuring her I understood, I asked, “By the way, what’s a defense turret?”
“A blackened simp.”
I thought that would be the end of it. Turns out, she wasn’t done.
“And—and Neluna… how should I put it? Does she have great stream sense? Whenever things get dull or donations dry up, she starts casually tossing out risky banter. Dodge that stuff cleanly. She can tap-dance through a minefield and come out alive, but I don’t think you have the chops for that.”
I repeatedly told her I’d engraved her golden words of wisdom into my heart. Did people just naturally love backseat driving? My viewers certainly did, and—wait. Come to think of it, Hana was a viewer who happened to be my friend.
Ah, that explains it.
Armed with that fresh realization, I disconnected from Discord.
The morning after taking the exam, I washed up and was heading back to my room when my mother, who was home for the weekend, called out to me.
“Son.”
“Yes?”
Having completely bombed the test, I flinched slightly as I turned around. Mom’s face, however, remained as impassive as ever.
“You’ve been awfully loud at night lately.”
“Ah…”
“Please try to keep it down a bit.”
“I will.”
Knowing I was in the wrong, I reflexively answered in polite honorifics. I thought that was the end of the conversation, but she called out once more.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re playing games. May I ask what you’ve been doing?”
It hit me then that I hadn’t offered a single word of explanation to my family.
“I’ve been trying out internet streaming lately. Do you know what that is?”
“Hmm… I’ve seen people walking around holding their phones and talking to themselves. Is it like that?”
To our parents’ generation, that might be exactly what it looked like. The slight, barely perceptible furrow in her brow seemed to convey her feelings about that sort of person.
“It’s similar, but different. Those people do it outside, right? I do it from home, showing people me studying or playing games.” First, I made sure to emphasize that I wasn’t making a racket in public.
“I see. Still, the way of working doesn’t sound all that different. You deal with people and get donations? Right? That kind of work?”
“…Yes, pretty much. Do you not like the idea of me doing that?”
“As long as it’s not illegal, earning a living is fine. But do people really come to watch you? My son looks handsome only in my eyes, surely.”
“Ah, Mom! Anywhere I go, people tell me I’m good-looking! And it’s not like only handsome people get viewers anyway.”
“It seemed like a celebrity kind of thing, but average is fine too?… Well, work hard at it.”
“Wait, you don’t believe me? I’m telling the truth!”
“Mom’s going to watch TV now, so go on inside.”
Even when I clung to her side insisting it wasn’t like that, she didn’t listen to a single word. Besides, I was on the decent-looking side. I’d never once been told 'you look like you study hard' or had someone point at me and tease 'hey, there goes your boyfriend.' Feeling wronged, I badgered her a little longer before giving up.
Returning to my room, I realized I had a real problem on my hands.
“Was I really that loud?”
Study streams from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Followed by Neo Chronicle from 7:00 PM until 11:00 PM or 2:00 AM. My parents went to sleep around 11:00 PM, so it made sense they found it noisy.
“What should I do, then?”
Three possible solutions immediately came to mind: stream quietly, shift the gaming stream to daytime, or install soundproofing.
Streaming quietly seemed out of the question. My voice would naturally rise without me realizing it, and there was a constant pressure to give big reactions. Things that would only warrant a slight grimace if I were playing alone became full-throated exclamations on stream. Naturally, it was bound to be loud.
Moving the gaming stream to daytime… that required some thought. In business terms, it was like changing your store’s operating hours, so of course it called for careful deliberation.
As for installing soundproofing, I wiped that from my mind. If I was going to do that, I might as well get a studio apartment and install it there…
“Wait.”
A studio apartment. Living on my own.
Suddenly, a very alluring phrase crossed my mind. I had originally planned to get my own place after my military discharge anyway. Back in freshman year, wasting two hours every single day on the round-trip commute had felt like such a waste of time. I could just do it a little earlier! If I installed a soundproof booth in my own studio apartment, all my problems would be solved!
I fired up the stream and floated the idea.
lmao this punk finally looks his age
Stay a kangaroo kid, being a kangaroo is king
Living alone drains your wallet just breathing lol
The romance of moving out lmao
As if that’s a bright idea lol
Bullshit lol
He eats warm meals at his parents’ place, so his head is full of flower fields lmao
I was met with an immediate barrage of criticism.
“No, guys. My parents literally told me I was too loud at night, okay?”
Want us to send you some bubble wrap?
Put up cardboard at least
“It’s my parents’ house, how can I just do whatever I want to it? No matter how I look at it, moving out seems like the best call.”
“I did bomb the test, yeah. But my family isn’t the type to get mad over stuff like that, so it’s fine.”
I denied it, but a fleeting suspicion crossed my mind. Deciding to move out did feel like leaning harder into streaming than studying. Still, it seemed a shocking number of people harbored deep grudges against living alone.
The One-Thousand Won Punches hammered in relentlessly. Nonstop, to the point where I couldn’t even find an opening to speak. They really, desperately wanted to stop me from moving out.
Though this is free money.
Balancing both thoughts in my head, I got down to business.
“This punk sneaks in an insult every single time. Go sit in time-out for a bit. Anyway, I hear you loud and clear, guys. I’ll mull it over and handle it myself.”
If you were gonna handle it yourself, why’d you bring it up?
Big words coming from a guy who can’t do a single thing right
“Guys, I’m a rookie streamer. That’s why I’ve been stumbling, but once I learn something, I pick it up fast, don’t I?”
Being a rookie means we gotta let everything slide?
He thinks his sprout badge is a badge of authority
Layering the topic of moving out onto our usual WWE banter, I kicked off the stream, all while my hands worked through my daily Neo Chronicle homework. Multitasking—an essential skill for any streamer. Feeling like I was gradually getting used to doing multiple things at once, I let out a chuckle, which immediately drew more flak.
Must’ve checked his Cheese revenue
Texting a girlfriend?
“Cut it out, please. I don’t have a girlfriend. I discharged from the military, played games all day, and jumped straight into streaming—how could I possibly have one?”
Nah, he’s busted, it’s inevitable
How tall are you?
(link) <<< A crime of passion just broke out lmao
“I’m around 183 centimeters. A crime of passion? Really?”
It turned into just another ordinary Neo Chronicle stream. I’d decided to skip the study portion until my exam results came out. Though I started in the afternoon, not much changed—aside from a slight dip in viewer count. Even that picked up toward the evening, drawing slightly more viewers than usual. Timing really was everything in streaming.
11:00 PM. Remembering my mother’s scolding just as I was about to keep going into the early hours, I shut down early. The room, buzzing with activity moments ago, suddenly felt quiet.
After resting for a bit, I browsed streams on OnAiri and Live Cast, from massive broadcasts boasting tens of thousands of viewers to ones around my size or smaller. I was curious about what kind of content others produced and how they carried their streams. It was something I’d done occasionally since starting gaming streams, but tonight I looked with a more serious eye.
As I browsed, an email that had arrived mid-stream came to mind, and I opened it.
“…I naturally assumed we’d do it over Discord.”
Since it wasn’t gaming together but a talk stream, was she asking if we should meet in person? People said online collabs were standard on OnAiri, though. Shrugging, I sent a reply saying either way was fine with me.
And the very next day.
Seeing those messages, I replied that I would head right over.
The collaboration schedule was locked in swiftly.
This coming Friday.