Do You Not Have a Human Heart?
This streamer server had a few advantages.
One of them was the birth of entirely new streamer groups.
Temporary as they might be, streamers who worked together on the server could gather up whenever the server was offline—or whenever they simply felt like playing something other than Digcraft for a change—and jump into a different game.
In effect, the streamer server doubled as a community, a network all its own.
And right now, Yebin and I had found ourselves half-willingly, half-not joining one of those brand-new streamer circles.
"Hello, hello~"
"Hi~"
"Wait, why are you with hyung?"
"Virtual couples sticking together—pretty nice, right?"
Our new neighbors were Marty-hyung and Ggyumyong.
Yeah. Somehow, two virtual-married couples had ended up under the same roof.
And then there was…
"Hello~"
"Whoa…! It's Mei! Hello!"
"Ggyumyong~ Hello~"
Mei, who had already been living next door to Yebin and me.
And finally…
"This is Elia, our junior~"
"Hello! I'm Elia!"
Elia, the leader of Fantasy Live's second-generation Vtubers—the company Mei belonged to.
Just like that, six people had effectively formed a brand-new group.
"Since we're doing this anyway, how about we give ourselves a name?"
"What kind of name?"
"Hmm~ A name~ What about 'We Love Virtual Marriage'~? Everyone here did a virtual marriage, after all~"
Mei was the one who floated the idea—and one question immediately popped into my head.
"Mei, you don't do virtual marriage content, do you? Wouldn't that be risky for you in the first place?"
"I do~ With our Elia~ We're virtually married~"
"…Excuse me?"
Elia was the one who looked blindsided.
"Oh my~ You're not going to do a virtual marriage with unnie~?"
"No, uh, unnie…? Unnie, that, uh…? Uh… uh…?"
It clearly hadn't been agreed on, so I decided to ignore the suggestion and throw out something else.
"Then how about another idea… True Marriage and Virtual Marriage?"
That one came from none other than Ggyumyong.
"Could you explain why that particular name, Ggyumyong?"
"Well, those two are a real couple, right? And we're virtual. And those two over there say they're virtual too. So True Marriage and Virtual Marriage—pretty good, right?"
"No, that is not—"
"I second it, I second it~"
Marty-hyung bulldozed the vote through without a second thought.
"I~ second it too~ Our Elia seconds it as well~"
"Uh… Unnieee… Ugh… Fine, I'll second it too, then."
Mei was in favor, and Elia—being dragged around by Mei—seconded it half of her own free will and half against it.
In the end, with a score of two to four, I was forced to swallow the injustice of democracy and accept the group's name without a fight.
For better or worse, after a little more activity we eventually changed it to Gyeoljagye—and somehow that one was even more unpleasant.
Why? Because "Gyeoljagye" was short for "Marriage Fund Gathering." Come on—name it that and it sounds like we're actually planning to get married.
This whole virtual marriage thing was great for viewership, sure, but it kept chipping away at my dignity. Sometimes I wondered why I'd ever agreed to it.
Regardless of my feelings on the matter, about four hours had passed since the Gyeoljagye had been formed…
"Closing the server~"
At last, day one of the Repu Mountain server had come to an end.
We all moved to wrap up our streams with the shutdown—and then a not-quite-problem presented itself.
Chat was screaming for us to keep streaming. And it wasn't just me.
"Oh my~ Our Meisade, you want to watch more of Mei's stream~?"
"You want me to stream more? Hmm~ If everyone else keeps going, I'll do a little more too!"
Same for Mei and Elia.
"They want more? Saying the collab was fun for the first time in a while? Tsk… Should we keep going?"
"People are asking me to keep going too."
Same for Marty-hyung and Ggyumyong.
"Ugh, why do they keep shipping us as a real couple! If they keep that up I'm just ending the stream!"
And Yebin, like me, was getting hit with the real-couple jokes.
Everyone kept begging us to stream a little longer.
"Looks like we're all in the same boat."
"Yeah…"
"Well then, shall we stream just a little more?"
"Seconded~"
"What game should we play?"
"Good question…"
While everyone was puzzling over what to play, a pretty solid game came to mind.
"Hey everyone—want to play Super Chameleon?"
"Dodo, are you a genius?"
"As expected of Dodo, that's a great idea."
"Smart young man~"
"Love that idea~"
No one put up any real resistance to my suggestion.
And among those voices…
"Our Dodo, so smawt!"
…was Yebin's thoroughly unwelcome baby-talk lisp.
"I suddenly feel terrible. May I turn off my computer?"
"I'm coming over to turn your computer off myself."
"Ah. Sorry."
Poor me, forced to fold under Yebin's threats. So pitiful. Sob sob.
Super Chameleon—a game that had recently gotten popular among internet streamers. You dropped into a map and played hide-and-seek.
The catch was that every player spawned as a crudely shaped white human model, and you could paint over it however you liked.
In other words, you painted yourself to blend into the environment as much as possible—just like a chameleon. The hiders were even called Chameleons.
…One small problem: I wasn't great at drawing. Still, that was fine. This place had plenty of room for a total lack of conscience.
"Let's do one random person as the Hunter~ If we do two, there aren't enough people and everyone gets caught too fast~"
"Okaaay~"
The Hunter was the seeker who caught the hiders. Given that everyone was a beginner at the game, having too many Hunters would end rounds instantly—so we settled on just one.
And so the first game began, and I ended up as a Chameleon for round one.
The moment I became a Chameleon, the first thing I did was ask who the Hunter was.
"So, who's the Hunter~?"
"That's me!"
The first Hunter was Elia.
If it was Elia, I could hide with zero conscience. Was she someone I'd been close with? No? Not particularly close at all?
To begin with, I didn't really know Elia. More precisely, I knew Elia the streamer—but I didn't know Elia the person.
Before the Repu Mountain streams started, I had thoroughly read the wiki pages for every streamer participating and stuffed the information into my head.
That way I could banter without ever touching on anything sensitive, show consideration where it was needed, and figure out where we might create good synergy together.
In Elia's case, she was an exceptionally high-level gamer—a rare breed among female Vtubers. Same category as Aris, who was in the same group and had collabed with me before.
And when your opponent was someone like that, you were allowed to hide a little dirtily. Conscience? Delete that.
I scoured the map until I found a perfect hiding spot, slipped inside, and painted my entire body black.
From outside, you couldn't see me at all. Unless someone was just randomly clicking around and got stupidly lucky, there was no way I'd get caught. I was sure of it.
Thoroughly satisfied with my hiding spot, I checked where the other streamers had gone.
Some of them had found brilliantly creative spots. Others had painted so well their silhouettes practically vanished.
And…
……Yebin had done almost the same thing I had—ducked into a corner and slapped on some half-hearted paint. Yeah. Completely concealed.
"Vini."
"Hm? What?"
To Vini, who sounded thoroughly pleased with herself, I delivered the truth from the bottom of my heart—in a meticulously crafted accent, courtesy of parents from Gyeongsang Province.
"Do you not have a human heart, or what?"
The moment I called her out with that accent, Yebin yanked off her headset. Or at least, that was what it sounded like.
"You little punk! You're really coming at me again!? Fine, come on then! What's taking so long? Didn't I tell you to get over here already!?"
"Ah, I'm not from Gyeongsang myself—my parents are. Yeah."
"Puhahahaha! Wow, Dodo. You've got talents like this too?"
"Whoa, Dodo. What was that dialect?"
"Dodo~ If you ever do Gyeongsang dialect ASMR~ the female viewers would love it~"
"But how do you even do that? Can you teach me later?"
It just came out naturally for me, and whenever I did it, everyone always found it fascinating.
Meanwhile, the other streamers seemed to catch on a little later than I had.
"Wait, did Vini just leave to go after Dodo?"
"We're hearing this in real time. Dodo, good luck."
"Dodo~ Lock that door tight~"
"But she picks locks and walks in anyway, right? You're dead, Dodo."
"Babe, you wouldn't scold me if I acted up like that, would you?"
"Our babe doesn't act up like that~ Though if you did, I'd give you a light scolding?"
And of course the virtual-couple couple was doing virtual-couple bits in the middle of all this. Marty and Ggyumyong. You two can leave.
Anyway, I had a plan of my own. What was it, you ask?
"Gyeong… no—Dodo, you little bastard!!!"
Yebin's voice, packed full of pure rage. At that rage-filled voice, I pulled out the thing I'd prepared in advance and greeted her with it.
"You rotten little s—!"
"Here. A present."
I held out a lollipop to Yebin. Rage still blazing, she stared at the candy and blinked.
"What's this."
"Candy. Found it on the way. Eat this and go."
"What do you mean you found it on the way…"
Yebin looked at the lollipop, unwrapped it, and quietly started eating it.
—Chomp.
Watching her dig in so earnestly, I figured we were past it.
Maybe that was why I ruffled her hair with great satisfaction and teased her just a little…
"Of course. Give a pig something to eat and the anger just melts away."
…which was a catastrophic underestimation of the rabid dog standing in front of me.
—Whoosh!
—THWACK!!
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
Yebin's clean roundhouse kick dropped me straight to my knees.
"You crazy bi—aaaaaagh!"
"I hit your calf, okay~"
She stuck her tongue out at me, mocked me, and bolted.
Seriously. One of these days I was going to thrash that little pipsqueak. For real. I meant it.
As a side note—while Yebin and I were fooling around like that, the game had already started…
"Dodo, you have the least conscience of anyone here. Do you not have a human heart or something?"
…and I got to hear genuine, heartfelt contempt from Elia, whom I had only just met today.
And my answer to that?
"Yeah. Vini took it all."
I sold out Yebin without a second thought. As expected of Yebin—she really came in handy at times like this.