I Was Just Testing the Waters
I said it like I was throwing down an unavoidable challenge to the boss. “Boss, I think I’m going to quit.”
But it was nothing more than an outburst of pent-up emotion. If I had to label it, it was a slip of the tongue I immediately regretted. In our current situation where we could hang out like friends, why on earth would I quit? Quitting wouldn’t magically give me more time with the boss anyway, so why take the loss? Besides, she’d been swamped for three straight years. The 1.6 million subscribers weren’t some number you could just pull out of thin air, and she proved it every day. She had to sort through all the collab requests and ad offers that came flooding in from everywhere. On top of that, she still had to make time to play with her viewers, and this year Parallel had added its first generation of new members, making her even busier. So of course she had no free time.
…Guess I’ll just have to grind the alt account even harder.
I finally stuffed the words back into my mouth and muttered, “I was joking. I just wanted to see how you’d react if I said I was quitting.”
Skill “Impulsive Outburst” activated.
Immediate regret status: MAX
After Jiah left the boss’s office with that gloomy expression, Cheon Do-hee could only stare blankly at the door for a long while. Then her mind snapped back into focus, and she found herself mentally reciting one of the famous lines from her Night of Legends commentary.
Emergency. Super emergency.
“What… the hell was that? Quitting?”
For two years as her manager and three years of company life, the kid had done everything without a single problem. And now she was suddenly completely fed up. Those disappointed eyes, those drooping corners of her mouth that looked like they’d lost all hope. No matter how you looked at it, she seemed like someone who could no longer find a reason to stay at the company.
But when Do-hee tried to think back on what she might have done wrong, she couldn’t come up with anything. Sure, she sometimes played games with Jiah, but ever since founding the company her time had become so tight that the rule had become to give advance notice like that. In other words, what Do-hee had said wasn’t a rejection—it was a promise that they could do it two months from now. But Jiah, who had only recently joined, didn’t know that.
She would have had to have been friends with Do-hee to understand.
With no other choice, Cheon Do-hee called in the head of the operations team that Jiah belonged to.
Kang Ji-ho, the team leader who had just turned thirty-two this year, walked into the boss’s office and immediately clutched both cheeks, letting out a pained groan.
“Boss… did something happen with Jiah…?”
The way she spoke made her sound exactly like an owner whose cat had suddenly stopped eating its usual food.
“What happened? Jiah’s expression was completely dead.”
“That’s exactly why I called you. I have no idea either.”
“Excuse me? If even you don’t know, how would I?”
“Well… she’s on your team.”
“She may belong to the operations team, but she’s essentially your personal secretary. She only does the work you assign her.”
“Hmm. That’s true.”
I shouldn’t have called her.
Thinking that, Cheon Do-hee tried to send Team Leader Kang away. But the team leader, who would normally have left immediately, dropped a single lethal blow.
“Just to be sure… you didn’t happen to get angry at Jiah, raise your voice, or yell at her, did you…?”
A brief silence. Team Leader Kang, reading the room, fiddled with her glasses and quickly slipped out of the office.
“Doesn’t seem like an internal team issue. So in the end, it really was something I said earlier.”
Do-hee had simply made the same suggestion she always did—let’s schedule something. Could that really have been the problem? Was today a special day or something? Jiah’s birthday? No, that was still two months away. Then her own birthday? That had already passed two months ago.
“…I really don’t get it.”
While Do-hee was still trying to figure it out, Team Leader Kang Ji-ho, who had returned to her seat, appeared again.
Knock knock.
“Boss?”
“Come in.”
She slipped into the office, adjusting her glasses as she spoke. With an anxious expression like someone suffering from anxiety, she kept tapping her toes restlessly.
“It looks like we might need to replace Jiah in the content later. What do you think?”
“…Is it that bad?”
“Yes. I tried talking to her about the content we’re running later, but she just kept going ‘Uh… um…’ and giving half-hearted answers. This is the same girl who’s always been cheerful, hardworking, and polite about everything.”
Do-hee frowned and pressed a hand to her forehead. If Jiah stayed in that dazed state, they’d have to find a substitute for the eight o’clock content.
“I’ll go talk to her. Don’t worry too much.”
“Thank you, Boss…”
“No, it seems like I’m the one who messed up. I should be the one to fix it.”
At least while leaving the boss’s office and heading to the operations team, Do-hee had gained one clear realization: Jiah’s arrival time today had been unusually early. She was supposed to come in by three, but today she had shown up at two. And before that, she had even asked if there was anything needed.
‘This is the first time Jiah is properly doing content with the first-generation members…’
It was originally supposed to be Dora’s role, but she had to miss it for her grandfather’s memorial service, so the part had somehow fallen to Jiah. It was because of her past experience appearing on Do-hee’s streams a few times as a manager. But since she had only ever taken on the role of a silent carry gamer, she had zero experience communicating with people in front of a microphone like this.
‘She must have been so nervous she couldn’t sleep. She came in early because she wanted to ask me something while I had some free time.’
And since she wasn’t the type to express her thoughts well, she had probably hoped someone would understand her feelings even if she did it in such a clumsy way. Asking if anything was needed was code for “I need help.” Asking to play games together was code for “I’ll carry you later, so I really, really need help right now.”
(Or not.)
‘But why did she suddenly bring up quitting?’
Was participating in the content that much of a burden? Do-hee had only given her the role because she thought she could handle anything well. Had it been a mistake?
‘I need to stop her.’
For Do-hee, the one situation she wanted to avoid at all costs was Jiah quitting because of her own mistake. If Jiah left, the first problem would be filling the sudden vacancy. From three in the afternoon until midnight every Monday through Friday, she had to monitor all the company VTubers’ streams like she was in a command center. If things ran late, she had to stay up until Mac’s morning slot. Weekends were supposedly weekends, but in reality she was on standby half the time. She needed to genuinely love VTubers, be able to keep secrets, have enough otaku knowledge to recommend appropriate games or anime when streamers ran out of content ideas, and possess technical knowledge of broadcasting equipment so she could immediately fix issues when they arose…
Honestly, there was no one who could replace her.
When they had first met, Do-hee had thought, “What kind of horrible woman is this?” But after five years, there was no one more passionate about taking care of the VTubers than her.
Jiah had said the quitting comment was just something she’d thrown out there and to forget it, but for Do-hee—who had never once considered the possibility of Jiah leaving the company—this felt like a far more serious crisis than the popup store incident that had happened half a year after the first generation’s debut.
*
“Is participating in the content… maybe too much of a burden for you?”
I was sitting in the office chair, replaying some of the first-generation member Rain’s kirinuki clips that I had saved in my playlist, when the boss suddenly asked me that. I had already given up on playing games together with her as friends and was just doing my work, so I was caught completely off guard.
“Uh… no?”
“If it’s too much, tell me now. I’ll find a substitute.”
“No, no. It’s today—how could I back out now?”
At some point the boss had stolen Team Leader Kang Ji-ho’s chair and came gliding toward me with a smooth shwoong, stopping incredibly close.
“Then why did you bring up quitting earlier?”
“…You don’t need to know.”
The steady gaze that followed felt like it was pressing against my face with an open palm. With no other choice, I spilled my honest feelings.
“I just said it because I wanted to play games together like we used to. As for the quitting part… you rejected me so flatly that my heart went completely dark for a second, and I thought maybe I should just go back to sniping you from home.”
The boss immediately opened her mouth like an idiot, then—
“Pffft—ahahahahahaha!”
She laughed like a crazy person, and eventually started patting my head. I was about to snap at her, asking what she thought she was doing to a grown adult, but the feeling of her pressing down firmly on my head felt so good that I just kept my mouth shut. So this is what it feels like to have Osu pat your head. I had never experienced it before, so I had no idea.
The boss, who had been cackling, let out a short sigh once her breathing calmed down.
“I’ve known you for five years and I still don’t understand you at all.”
“It’d be weird if you did. It’s not like you’re living my life for me.”
“Yeah. I really don’t know a single thing. What am I going to do with you?”
Then she picked up the comb that had been on Team Leader Kang’s desk and started brushing my messy hair. That felt good too. Is this how cats feel when people pet them?
“…Ah.”
No, this wasn’t the time to be spacing out. The boss was in a good mood right now—I had to make the suggestion again. Backing off earlier had just been to build up momentum.
“Can’t we really play just one game? If it can’t be long, then just one hour. No, that’s too short—two hours.”
I don’t know if the desperation showed in my eyes, but the boss spoke in a completely different tone than before. Her long, full lashes curved softly, and the corners of my own mouth twitched upward in response.
“If today’s content goes well, I’ll cut back on sleep and play Battleground with you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Until we hit first place.”
“Uh, you should probably take that statement back.”
“Why? Planning to troll so I can’t get first again?”
“How did you know?”
“Just go easy on me. I might actually die~.”
She said it like we’d be up all night, but I had no intention of doing that. Did she think I didn’t know how busy she was? I’d only take exactly two hours and then let her go. As a fan, that was already hogging quite a lot of her time.
“We’ll see how you do, Boss.”
“By the way, you seem pretty confident today. Did you prepare well for the content?”
In a much better mood, I demonstrated the Rain voice impression I had been practicing all week. The tone was quite different from yesterday, but surprisingly the way I tightened and relaxed my vocal cords wasn’t all that different. Because I had learned Korean in a sloppy way, it naturally gave off that strong foreign accent, and if I could just cleanly pronounce the English bits sprinkled throughout, anyone could become Rain.
“Whoa, sibal. You guys really play like absolute garbage. Is it Rain’s fault? Yep. It’s your face~.”
Both the boss and the team leader stayed silent for a long time, making me feel incredibly embarrassed. I thought I had done pretty well.
It must not have lived up to expectations after all. Just as I was starting to feel a little down, the boss asked with a delayed, surprised expression.
“Why have you been hiding a talent like this until now…?”
“…I wasn’t really hiding it?”
“You’ve never shown it in front of us.”
“Because you never asked me to.”
“……”
For some reason, right after that the boss looked at Team Leader Kang Ji-ho and said,
“If today goes well… we might have a huge hit on our hands…?”