Please Grow Up Healthy (3)

Dora polished off both steaks in the blink of an eye, then shoved the salad and vegetables that came with them straight into the fridge without a second glance. Only then did the peppermint tea I’d bought earlier emerge from the freezer to soothe her throat.

“Haa. It’s perfectly cold. I’m full, refreshed, and it feels so good~”

I pushed the pizza topped with bright, appetizing fruit slices toward her.

“You really aren’t eating even one piece?”

“I eat food, not weird stuff. Hehe.”

“But it tastes good.”

While I busily chewed through my second pizza, Dora seemed to be waiting for me to finish. She waddled over to the ultra-comfy cushion in the corner of the living room and flopped down onto it.

“Jia-nim, look at this. My tummy feels like it’s going to burst.”

She patted her pale, bloated belly like a drum. Sprawled out without a care in the world, she looked every bit like a full and happy idiot. But she was 171 centimeters tall. Compared to my current 140 centimeters, she had more than a full head on me. Even though she was smiling like a fool with her stomach hanging out, she was a dangerous predator—just like the red dragon she played on stream.

The reason the boss had placed our highly paid team leader in the monitoring room instead of me? Because if Dora ever grabbed me, I’d never escape.

“Don’t lie down for too long. You’ll fall asleep. We need to start getting ready for the stream soon.”

Dora sprang up and sat across from me, grinning.

“After you finish eating, Jia-nim.”

“Are you trying to make us late again?”

“We won’t be late. There’s still thirty whole minutes until the stream starts, you know?”

“We should prepare in advance so the equipment doesn’t break.”

“Ughhhhh. It’s not like the equipment breaks because I don’t prepare!”

She was puffing her cheeks in annoyance, but the way she kept licking her lips made it obvious she had something she wanted to say.

“If you have something to say, just say it. Tell me if there’s anything I can help with. I’ll help with anything after I finish eating.”

At that, Dora immediately leaned her chest and elbows ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the table, pushing her face close to mine.

“The horror game… Could you maybe sit next to me and play with me…?”

The sly expression she’d worn moments ago had completely vanished, replaced by a pitiful one. It looked like she would burst into tears the moment I refused. Still, unlike Komari, she didn’t suggest putting me on her lap. She didn’t suddenly pull me into a hug out of fear either. Even though she treated me warmly, it seemed she was still keeping a little distance.

But Dora was famous even among the first-generation members as the hugging demon. Small Komari was one thing, but even Maru and Rain couldn’t escape her enthusiastic hugs whenever they met. She seemed to be a bit more mindful of others’ gazes in public, but according to the stories the first-gen members had shared, she apparently stuck to someone like glue whenever she visited a fellow member’s house.

So if she truly saw me as one of her peers, she would have silently hugged me and dragged me straight into the soundproof booth. But this remaining distance? It wasn’t bad. After all, I was here to work, not to make friends.

“I can stay with you. I probably won’t be much help on the actual stream, though.”

“That’s more than enough….”

I mentally praised the boss’s foresight in assigning my duties to the team leader and nodded.

“Alright. Let’s go together after I finish eating.”

“Yay!”

Dora’s head bobbed up and down rapidly, her face having been on the verge of turning blue. Color flooded back into her cheeks as if she had come back from the dead.

“B-but… Are you okay with it, Jia-nim? Komari was fine because she’s fearless… But this is a horror game, so….”

The Pandemic Village we were playing today was a survival horror FPS that gave players weapons to fight enemies. In other words, while monsters popped out to scare you, they were creatures you could ultimately beat down. That was why I—who enjoyed FPS games—didn’t consider survival horror scary. I have a gun? I just need to kill the enemies? …If I can just shoot everything I see, what’s there to be afraid of?

“I’m fine.”

A short while later, I borrowed a guest chair and sat beside Dora. Watching her prepare for the stream was quite impressive. She calmly adjusted the broadcast settings with her avatar positioned at five o’clock on the screen. I watched her streams every day, but this was my first time observing the preparation process up close. She often had equipment issues, but the moment the stream started, she became completely professional. That surprised me.

Interestingly, there was an extra piece of equipment today—a drawing tablet that looked like a monitor. Normally it was mounted on an arm and tucked behind the left side of the main monitor. It was a used model she had owned since before her debut because she loved drawing.

A little while after the stream began, the intro music ended and the microphone activated. What greeted the viewers was the white canvas of the drawing program, Comic Pro.

Everyone was confused by the sudden blank white canvas.

Then Dora appeared in the bottom right with a giggle. As she moved her pen, black lines quickly grew across the white screen.

The lines intersected, colors filled in, and various effects were added at considerable speed and quality. Before long, a cute baby dragon with red skin and black horns appeared—Dora’s fan character, a hatchling. But this one was a little different. It had long black hair that it shouldn’t have, and it was wearing an employee ID card around its neck. As a bonus, its head looked bigger than usual.

Viewers who realized who the drawing represented began to laugh.

About half the viewers still hadn’t caught on, leading to plenty of speculation about whether it was a female viewer represented as a girl hatchling or who exactly it was supposed to be.

Dora cut out the drawing and placed it next to her avatar at the five o’clock position. Immediately, a donation flew in.

“Hehe. Who could this beee~”

Dora winked at me as she spoke. It was time for the self-introduction we had agreed on beforehand. I cleared my throat lightly and introduced myself.

“Hello. I’m Staff D. I’m not actually a guest. Dora tends to have equipment issues whenever she plays horror games, so I came early today to wait on standby. Since she’s scared, I’m here to act like a totem pole beside her. Please don’t mind me and just enjoy the stream.”

The reactions from those who had expected me and those who hadn’t were starkly different.

Those who had predicted it felt satisfied as their guesses turned into certainty. Those who hadn’t felt like they’d received a surprise gift and were riding high. Most importantly, the fact that a staff member was on standby received nothing but praise from the viewers. It seemed the company’s reliability had shot up sharply upon realizing they weren’t ignoring the recurring issues and were instead sending staff in advance to minimize problems.

Perhaps because of that, the cheers directed at the company naturally turned into interest directed at me. They wanted to praise the company for this thoughtful idea, and it just so happened that the person from the company was currently on stream.

Dora turned her head to stare at me. I had expected her to start describing my appearance, but she seemed to be asking for my opinion instead. I gestured with both palms open, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠signaling that it was up to her. After all, I was nothing more than the lighting hanging from the ceiling or the speaker on the side of the stage for this broadcast. It didn’t matter how she used me.

Dora hummed in thought, then spoke into the mic in a teasing tone.

“That? Should I keep it a secret only I know? Puhi hi.”

“You say cute anyway? You don’t know that. You don’t know how cute your big sister Rain is, do you?”

Dora was definitely an idiot. When talking to her, she made spelling mistakes nonstop, and she often showed such childish behavior that it was hard to believe she was over twenty. However, the moment she turned on her stream, she became a total professional. Even just now, instead of telling the truth, she had deliberately twisted things and dragged the viewers onto the wrestling stage. This was one of those rare glimpses of genius that Dora occasionally showed. That was why she became as solid as a rock the moment the stream started, even though her usual behavior suggested she would make endless verbal slip-ups.

“Yep~ Even if you say that, I absolutely won’t show her to you~. She’s precious, so I’m going to keep her all to myself~ Hehe.”

The words coming out of her mouth were all for the stream. If she truly cherished me, she wouldn’t have created this situation in the first place. Still, no matter what Dora said, the viewers seemed to have reached the natural conclusion that I was a cute girl in their imaginations.

It was a good attempt to scratch at me in a way no Korean could possibly resist. However, even if Pandemic Village had guns and therefore wasn’t scary to me… one hour later, I came face to face with true horror.

“Hwaaaaaang, what do I do with this? Hwaaang…. Die! Diiiieeee.”

I had never seen anyone play a horror game like this while still alive. It really was a rare spectacle that could only be witnessed from the seat right next to Dora. I had simply assumed she was knocking things over from surprise and that was causing the equipment issues. But the biggest problem was that she wasn’t looking ahead and was just flailing her hands around. On stream it probably looked like her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠aim was shaking wildly from fear. This person wasn’t even looking at the screen at all when she got scared.

Whenever a monster appeared, she would immediately turn her gaze away. Then, without knowing where anything was, she would swing her aim all over the place while firing wildly. The hand holding the mouse was especially dangerous. It kept traveling unnecessarily far, passing dangerously close to where all the streaming equipment was gathered. Wait, if it goes there—the audio interface—uh oh?