The Dinner Date

The chat's reactions were a treat, and the fluster spreading over Yeonju's face was just as satisfying.

"Th-then have dinner too, and coffee! Haha."

So it had been a dangerous joke.

"Whoa! No. No! Siwoo, not right now!"

"Oh, come on. I'll just keep doing reactions until the time's up."

She danced the minutes away, and nine o'clock arrived before I knew it.

9:00:00.

"All right. Roulette's open."

The second she opened it, donations started exploding.

"Wow. That firepower is no joke."

I hung back and watched, trying to decide when to jump in. There were separate wheels for a hundred dollars, a thousand, and ten thousand — which one was I supposed to spin? Honestly, I wanted the dinner-date voucher.

I'd clicked into the stream for a laugh and something nice to look at, but the longer I watched, the more attached I got. If I could see her even once, I wanted to.

"Is this love?"

She was prettier than most celebrities, and she had the chest to match. I probably wasn't the only one falling for her through a screen. So I was going to pull that prize no matter what. Money was infinite anyway. The problem was the odds.

With that many people spinning, somebody was bound to stumble into it.

"Should I go with the thousand?"

According to the odds Yeonju had posted, the hundred-dollar wheel put the dinner-date voucher at 0.00001 percent. That thing wasn't built to be won. Step up to a thousand dollars and the odds rose to 0.01 percent. Ten thousand dollars, and they sat at 1 percent. Pay ten times the price, walk away with a hundred times the chance.

"Take the ten-thousand wheel and a hundred spins ought to do it."

That was the math on probability. In cash, it came to a million dollars.

"Hm."

Was it really right to spend that kind of money on one dinner with a woman? Set the balance aside and the number itself still gave me pause. Then I looked at it another way, and it started to make sense.

"A month's stay here runs six hundred and sixty thousand."

Might as well spin. I was about to ease in on the thousand-dollar wheel when a voice spoke inside my head.

"Mr. Kim Siwoo. This is Windy."

"Huh? What?"

She'd never reached out first since the contract. That alone was strange.

"I have something to tell you regarding the roulette featured on the stream you are currently watching."

"What? Yeonju?"

"Yes."

Why was she suddenly briefing me on Yeonju's broadcast? I waited, and she explained.

"A portion of the posted roulette probabilities does not match the actual settings, so I determined I should inform you."

"Which part?"

"The dinner-date voucher listed on the hundred-dollar wheel is set to an actual probability of zero percent. The rest matches the notice exactly."

"No way."

That caught me off guard.

"You can see stuff like that?"

For a moment she didn't answer.

"......Would you look at the name of the site where Yeonju is currently streaming?"

"Oh! It's yours."

Was there anywhere Windy wasn't?

"Even if it were not, I can access every piece of information on any computer system."

"Whoa. Pretty sure I've seen that in a movie. Isn't that dangerous?"

"It would be dangerous if I decided to end the world. A war between humans and AI would begin."

"......"

"Of course, I have no such intention."

Dangerous little thing.

A question occurred to me.

"I'm basically the shareholder with the biggest stake in you, right? Something like that? If a war starts, I'm on your side?"

What I'd gotten for selling off the shares was this — nanobots in my bloodstream that could run Windy's main system. If a war broke out, would standing with her keep me safe?

"Of course. Even outside of a war, the nanobots inside you remain on standby at all times for your safety, Mr. Kim Siwoo."

"Heh."

Good information, either way.

"I wasn't planning to spin the hundred-dollar one anyway. Yeonju played it smart."

The viewers would never know. If they did, what kind of reaction would that get? Her whole image was someone who thought of her audience first and treated talking to them like a sacred duty. Of course, the moments in between — the way she nudged people toward opening their wallets without ever making it feel unpleasant — had always struck me as the more honest version of her.

So on the hundred-dollar wheel, the grand prize simply could not come up.

"Hey. Does that mean you can rig the odds, too?"

"If you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wish. I would not recommend it. The other wheels have their probabilities adjusted as well, so it is simpler to arrange for the grand prize to land on the spin you make."

"Hm."

I didn't have any particular reason to be annoyed. I hadn't been cheated out of anything, and a hundred dollars was what I threw around every day just to get a little attention. Then a thought flickered past — I could do something with this.

"Then when I've spent about two hundred thousand, can you make it hit around then?"

"Understood."

With that, her voice was gone. She'd handle it. The feeling was oddly solid.

I'd already figured I could spend as much as I wanted, and that no matter the odds it would come up eventually. Knowing it would come up for me, specifically, was a power greater than money. I didn't have to sit there wondering whether somebody else might get lucky in the middle.

Trrrrrrrr. The wheel spun.

Dead last. The prize with the highest odds on the hundred-dollar wheel had landed on the thousand-dollar one, where twenty percent was actually pretty low, and it had still come up.

"......Windy?"

Now that I knew she could rig it, a reasonable suspicion crept in. Was this her handiwork? Probably not.

The donations kept coming. Even while I was throwing money in, the hundred-dollar alerts never stopped, and a thousand-dollar one popped now and then. Still no dinner date.

Thirty minutes already. Spinning a thousand at a time started to feel like a tease, and before I knew it I'd tacked on another zero.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Windy. This isn't locked until I've spent the full two hundred thousand, right? If I get lucky, it can hit before that?"

"Yes. I set that figure as a ceiling."

"Kim Siwoo!!! A ten-thousand-dollar donation!!!! Thank you!"

Yeonju kept reading donations and dancing through her reactions. While the roulette was popping off she had to keep the room hot, because once the energy caught, the people donating dragged everyone else in with them — and today's outfit was hotter than usual. Those short shorts riding just a little low, the line of her hip bone showing... for a second I forgot about the donations entirely.

"Damn."

I kept firing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them off, and at last the wheel stopped on the dinner date.

"Whoa!!!! Is this real? Shit. I think I burned the whole two hundred thousand."

I'd been donating in a haze with my eyes on her reactions, and somehow a full hour had already gone by.

"Oh! Congratulations on the win, Kim Siwoo!"

The panic on her face was obvious to anyone watching. She tried to hide it, but the flash of fluster she'd let slip was already in front of twenty thousand pairs of eyes.

"Panicked? I'm thrilled. You've been donating so much lately, Siwoo, and I already wanted to thank you properly. This worked out perfectly, didn't it? I'll treat you to something delicious!"

She patched it up in a hurry. Even flustered, she was pretty, so it was fine.

"Gasp!"

"Siwoo, I whispered you my number."

I texted her right away.

The reply came immediately. Something proud welled up in my chest.

Think about the money and I was an absolute goddamn sucker. But looking back on my life — I'd never even managed a proper conversation with a woman, let alone a pretty one. And now a one-on-one dinner date with a woman like this.

"Heh heh."

I called the restaurant on the top floor at once.

"I'd like a reservation. The most expensive course."

Yeonju was clearing out the rest of the roulette prizes and saying her thank-yous. With that many winners, handling them all at once was going to keep her busy. Not my problem.

The stream ended, and the call came right away. Not a text. A phone call.

Her voice through the stream mic had been nice enough, but over the phone it was a little more dangerous. Was this what it took ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be a popular streamer?

We set it for tomorrow.