Just Go to Sleep
Once the pizza arrived, Yebin and I paused the game and dug in.
Munch munch munch munch.
While Yebin was busy chewing away, I held up the box for the viewers.
"This is Mama Jones pizza — it's really good. We've been getting it since… high school, I think? Around when the place opened?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Yeah. Ever since it opened back when we were in high school, it's pretty much the only pizza we order."
Yebin swallowed everything in her mouth and jumped in with more detail.
"They do a lot of buy-one-get-one deals, and it's close to home, so we went all the time. If we bought one, we could just hand the other off to the neighbors next door — or if we ate both ourselves, we'd freeze the leftovers."
"These days we don't even bother waiting for the BOGO, though. We just order."
While we were talking, the chat had already seized on it and was running full speed toward the "real couple" narrative.
Why were these people suddenly taking the real-couple bit so seriously?
"We're not actually a couple, okay? Please cool it with the real-couple jokes~"
These people were just looking for any excuse to mess with us.
Meanwhile, Yebin had polished off her first slice with impressive focus and was already starting on her second.
"Hey, is it that good?"
"Yeah."
"Drink something with it."
"Mmh."
"Hold on a sec."
Leaving Yebin to her continuous munching, I ducked into the kitchen, filled a cup with ice, and brought it back. Naturally, I poured cola over the ice — and Yebin beamed up at me, all smiles.
She wanted the cola, obviously.
Not a chance.
I brought the cup to my own mouth and downed the whole thing in one go.
Yebin cursed me out with her eyes. The chat, which had been bracing for a sweet moment, reeled from the backstab.
I delivered a simple, universal truth to both of them.
"If you want some, get it yourself."
How long was I supposed to keep feeding her? Was I a mother bird?
So anything and everything had to be twisted into real-couple material for these people to feel satisfied, huh.
Having grasped that truth, I sat back down and said casually to Yebin,
"You know where the ice is, right?"
"I know. But I'm not drinking it unless you bring it to me."
"Cool. Then don't drink it."
I poured myself another cup of cola and chugged it with deliberate satisfaction.
Apparently my open provocation was the last straw, because Yebin immediately started cussing me out.
"You cheap bastard."
"What's cheap about it?"
"You're a seriously cheap bastard."
"What exactly did I do that's so cheap~"
"You're the worst."
With that, Yebin got up and marched straight into our kitchen. A moment later she came back with a cup of ice.
"That's your cup, right?"
"Obviously I brought my own cup. Why would I bring yours?"
"Good."
A perfectly ordinary exchange.
But our resident real-couple-obsessed chat seemed to have taken it a little differently.
They were making a whole thing out of a dedicated cup? Truly, everything looked like couple behavior to these people.
"Guys, wouldn't it be weirder if I just handed her a random cup from my house? That's basically a guest cup."
"Of course she has her own toothbrush. I'd rather share a cup than a toothbrush."
I genuinely had no idea what had these people so fixated.
She'd been coming over since we were kids, so of course she had a designated guest cup, and of course she kept a toothbrush at my place. Wasn't that normal?
I had my own toothbrush at her place too, for the record.
As for cups over there, her family just said "just drink from whatever" so I used whatever was around — but if I ever got the chance, I'd probably bring one of my own over and leave it with a little "this one's mine."
Wasn't that just basic manners? Was I living on a different planet?
While I was sitting there baffled, Yebin finished her second slice and started on a third.
"Hey, pig. Eat a little slower. Nobody's stealing it from you."
"I'm gonna steal yours too."
"That's why you're gaining weight."
"I am not!"
Obviously, we each got four slices. Nobody ate more, nobody ate less. That was the rule.
But this girl, who had clearly thrown all manners out the window, didn't seem to know that — not with the way she was demolishing her pizza.
"Ugh… is it really that good?"
"We've only ever gotten this place since it opened?"
"Okay, fair."
I nodded, looking down at the pizza loaded with potato and bacon.
It really was good.
Nodding to myself, I took another slice, and a satisfyingly chewy flavor filled my mouth.
And just like that, the two of us polished off the whole pizza.
Naturally, I handed one of my slices over to Yebin. Four was a lot for me anyway, and she looked pretty hungry.
We finished the pizza and got back to streaming, but that didn't last long.
Why not?
"D… Dodo…"
"At this rate you're gonna start calling me by my real name. What."
"I'm sooo sleeeepy…"
A sleep declaration. Yebin had just declared she was sleepy.
Barely two hours after eating, and that one line from her had me heaving a long sigh.
If she was sleepy… well. Tsk. What now.
"Chat, I'm gonna put her to bed first and then we can keep playing."
The sleep timer was three hours per person. Any more than that and you weren't allowed to sleep.
Even that was generous, honestly, considering this was a twenty-four-hour all-nighter stream.
Knowing that, I thanked the viewers and turned to Yebin.
"Hey. What time is it."
"Mmm… twelve."
"Right, midnight. You're sleeping till three, got it?"
"Got it…"
Yebin stood up — and she stood up so abruptly that the laws of physics on Earth treated the viewers to a highly hazardous visual.
I was the one sitting right next to her who got the full front-row experience, but the important thing was that it was definitely a stimulating moment for the chat.
"Ten times taxes my ass. Hey, go to sleep."
"Why taxes all of a sudden…?"
"Don't worry about it. Just go sleep."
"Mmh…"
Yebin shuffled off and flopped straight onto my bed.
"Excuse me, Miss Vini?"
"Mmmmh…"
"Uh. That is. Why are you in my bed…? Go sleep in the other room."
"Too faaar… gonna sleep…"
And with that, Yebin was out cold, snoring away. I pushed past the throbbing headache and just decided to let her sleep.
"…Chat. So she ended up sleeping there."
"My little sister's room is next door — I was gonna put her in my sister's bed. But she just crashed right there."
I answered the chat's interrogation short and blunt.
"No. Absolutely not."
After that, I saved the game and closed it.
"Come on, I'm not going anywhere. I closed it because…"
I switched games — to the one we'd planned on originally, Battle of Legends.
"I'm gonna run some solo queue. If I keep progressing that other game alone, she won't be able to catch up."
"'Sweet,' my ass, you guys."
I grumbled once and settled into the game.
Then, around two hours later — somewhere near three o'clock.
"……Chat. I should wake her up, right?"
"Hold on."
I walked over to Yebin.
Snooore. She was dead to the world.
Looking at her like that… I kind of didn't want to wake her.
I went back to my seat and decided to cut a deal with the chat.
"Chat. I've come to make a deal."
These idiots were already drinking the kimchi soup — and unfortunately for me, this time they were right.
"I'm pulling an all-nighter, so let's just let her sleep till six."
They were going on about Sweet Dodo this and that, and honestly, it didn't feel all that bad.
This time it wasn't annoying so much as… yeah, fine. This once, they could tease me all they wanted. I'd take it.
She wouldn't even know I was looking out for her like this.
"……Chat, one sec."
I got up again, pulled the blanket back over Yebin where she'd kicked it off in her sleep, and came back.
She was right under the AC. She'd catch a cold like that.