Streamer Debut (1)
"Did you guys see the announcement?"
It was evening stream time.
Before queuing up for solo queue, Yu Dahye spoke up.
"Yeah, something like that happened."
Dahye had posted the news of Park Jimin's upcoming stream in her channel announcements.
"I wasn't exactly a tiny streamer to begin with, but after duoing with Jimin the channel blew up for a bit, right? So some of you are probably wondering why he hasn't been around. But if I keep dragging him on forever it starts feeling like I'm just leeching off him."
"That kid seemed interested in streaming too, so I told him he should give it a shot. He's insanely good, and after talking to him he turned out to be a really sweet guy. Anyway, if you miss him, just go watch him yourselves."
"If he keeps at it consistently, maybe?"
Dahye said it like it was no big deal.
"Alright, cut the weird talk. Let's go see what kind of demons we run into in the Rift today."
Just like always, Dahye started her solo queue.
Oh, jungle's coming.
Mannered Gamer
8,738 viewers
"Ah, I clicked it!"
So close.
Up in top lane, Jayce had died to a gank. One more skill shot and he could have taken the enemy top with him.
Before his own streaming gear was even set up, Jimin had been watching streams on Jijik.
He'd gotten all sorts of advice from Dahye already, but studying properly before his real debut was only natural.
"……"
Dahye had told him to study the popular SOL streams. Aside from hers he hadn't cared much about other channels, but for research he forced himself to watch—and before he knew it he was getting surprisingly invested.
"Ah, if I'd just played a little better…"
The streamer muttered with frustration.
"I need to see more of this fight."
Weird.
The game atmosphere was already rotten, and the chat was vicious.
Even so, the streamer kept playing hard.
He'd tried his best, but a fed enemy Jinx with Lulu support was simply too much to handle.
"Ah, damn. That was on me."
The game ended in a loss. The streamer who'd picked top Jayce had still made some solid plays on the side lanes late, but it wasn't enough to stop the team from going down.
"……"
Dahye's chat could be mischievous too, but never quite like this.
This felt like people had tuned in specifically to flame. The way they needled him with that slow, sarcastic edge made Jimin wonder if the streamer got hurt watching it.
"Next game."
Yet just like Dahye always did, this guy queued up again without missing a beat.
It's not easy, is it.
Little by little, Jimin was learning just how brutal internet streaming could be.
Did you have to just sit there and take that kind of abuse if you wanted to be a real pro streamer?
"……"
He closed the stream and posted a question on the internet community.
The biggest problem was that Jimin still couldn't figure out why that massively popular SOL streamer had so many fans.
Master tier meant he was skilled, sure, but it wasn't some mythical rank you never saw on this platform.
On top of that he used some animal-shaped avatar that just moved around while only his voice came through—nowhere near as fun as watching a pretty girl on cam like Dahye.
"Huh?"
They called it the biggest community on the Jijik platform, and sure enough comments flooded in almost instantly.
Still don't really get it.
Jimin, who didn't particularly crave stimulation to begin with, couldn't quite connect with words like "plain" or "easygoing."
"……"
Of course he didn't mention it there, but from the perspective of someone about to start his own SOL stream, asking how to make people actually like you as a streamer felt like peak overthinking no matter how he looked at it.
"What? For real?"
"Yeah."
Jimin took a bite of pizza and endured the awkwardness of his friends' stunned reactions.
"Your mom actually said yes?"
"She told me to give it a try."
Jimin answered with quiet confidence.
An eighteen-year-old with parental support carried a different kind of depth to his self-assurance.
"That's crazy."
"Whoa, internet streaming…"
"I'd be way too nervous to do that."
Lee Jonghyun, Yoon Sangcheol, Go Yuseok, Jeon Jaeyeong.
All of that day's PC bang crew were looking at him.
"Hell, just go for it and do well."
"Thanks."
Even Jonghyun, who'd been a little worried, took one look at his friend's steady eyes and realized encouragement was the only option left.
"Sangcheol, what happened with that thing last time?"
"What thing?"
"You know, the SCK finals or whatever you were talking about."
"Finals—oh wait, last time we met it was still the finals qualifier. But the finals already finished."
"Really?"
For the past few days Jimin had been completely absorbed in SOL, the way a full-time stock trader studies the economy.
He watched SOL on YouTube, watched SOL on streams, and now even streamer tournaments had started catching his interest.
But pro matches were hard to follow just by looking them up online. Jimin had never been much of a sports guy. Sure, he occasionally overheard terms and names here and there.
If that was the case, learning through his friends would be way better.
"Maehwa won Summer this year."
"Are they the best team in the country?"
"Right now yeah, but the finals against Gen.G was a brawl, and at Worlds who knows."
"Ah……"
Maehwa Life Esports. Gen.G Esports. Those two names came up constantly in conversations with his friends.
"Eh, I only care about the regional qualifiers."
"Same. SCK finals have just been those same two teams going back and forth since last year."
The bottom duo and hardcore P1 fans, Yuseok and Jaeyeong, chimed in.
"Regional qualifiers?"
"Yeah. Four SCK teams go to Worlds, and the remaining two spots get decided in that tournament. Maehwa and Gen.G already locked two of them."
"Ah……"
Jimin roughly understood the stature of Worlds. For years teachers had been telling kids not to stay up all night watching it.
"I'd rather just watch the SPL finals."
"These guys are scared P1 won't make Worlds again this year."
"If they have any shame they'll make it this time."
"If P1 brings in Luca for mid, who knows?"
"Swapping one mid laner doesn't fix everything."
"Luca was on the shortlist when Maker retired—how many years has it been? At this point he's an honorary P1 player."
"……"
As much as Maehwa Life and Gen.G, or even more so, the pro organization his friends wouldn't shut up about was P1.
He'd been the one to start the topic, yet within seconds his friends had taken over and were arguing loudly among themselves.
Jimin was realizing all over again just how massive the pro scene's status was inside SOL.
This game that had somehow rewritten his entire life. The world he'd stumbled into by chance was deeper and wider than he could measure.
"Hoo…… I'm nervous."
A sweltering afternoon.
Following the advice to stream during the day until he got used to it, he sat down in the chair while the sun was still high.
Two computers and monitors.
A microphone that felt a little intimidatingly large.
A chair that had gotten far more comfortable than he'd even hoped for.
A keyboard and mouse that seemed several times better than anything at the PC bang.
In this room that had changed so much, Jimin had to take his first step into a brand-new world.
Beside him sat a single sweet canned coffee.
His mom had handed them out to the people who'd come to set everything up, and he'd claimed one for himself.
He prepared the stream slowly and carefully.
First he launched SOL, then started a live broadcast on the account he'd already made.
"……"
Of course, there were zero viewers.
He'd briefly considered posting a promo on the Jijik community he'd been lurking on for fun, but apparently that was banned.
"Oh right."
It was his first stream—why was he sitting around waiting for viewers?
What he needed to do was crystal clear.
Jimin queued for solo rank immediately.
Champion…
He'd taken advice from all sorts of places and looked things up online.
He wasn't the kind of streamer people would watch just for existing. He had to give them a reason to stick around.
His strength was simple: he played SOL well.
Honestly, he wasn't confident about anything else.
Champions people like to watch.
His position had more or less settled as top laner.
He picked powerful champions.
He'd researched the fun ones quite a bit, and luckily a lot of them were already champions he enjoyed playing.
During the prep period he'd also tried learning popular picks like Gwen, Irelia, and Akali.
"Hoo……"
There was nobody watching, yet just having the stream on while he played made Jimin tense.
Master tier games where you absolutely never got looked down on.
The first champion of his streaming career was Jayce.
He went for a bold trade, and the enemy top Aatrox, thrown off by Jimin's movement, collapsed less than five minutes into the game.
"Huh?"
Jimin, who had been completely locked into the game instead of the viewer count, glanced at the broadcast monitor.
Rookie Streamer Master Tier Solo Queue
37 viewers
A decent number of people had already gathered.
"Thank you for the 1,000 won!"
He'd image-trained exactly what he'd do if he ever got a donation.
He expressed his gratitude politely but as cleanly and simply as possible, just like he'd practiced.
Ah, right.
Just having appeared on Dahye's stream had already been massive free promotion.
Second solo kill.
"Thank you, everyone. I'll try to make it fun."
By his own standards the viewer count had gotten pretty high and it made him genuinely nervous, but he offered a shy little greeting and focused back on the game.