After the Stream

After the position swap stream ended, I shut down my computer and found myself wrestling with my phone.

“What kind of answer is this? I asked for specific methods.”

The reply the AI had given me earlier flashed through my mind, and fresh irritation surged up. They said the age of humanity was over? Yeah, right. We’re nowhere near it. Nowhere near.

The AI’s answers had been exactly this:

What the hell is this? Seriously.

Of course there had been a few more detailed explanations below, but they were all useless. The kind of advice that might as well say, “To diet, just don’t eat. And exercise a lot. Because eating too much makes you gain weight.” Exactly that level of explanation. Ugh.

Anyone could say something like that. I wanted concrete steps on how to actually do it. There was a rumor that real people answered these things instead of AI. This was the moment I started seriously doubting it.

Maybe I should just call my sister again… But I really didn’t want to interrupt her happy time with her boyfriend.

“I guess the straightforward approach is the only answer…”

But maybe I had known the correct answer all along. The fact that someone like me—a total beginner at dating—would have a hard time approaching in some sly, roundabout way. If I tried something like that, Woohyuk would probably see right through it. It would feel like a Bronze player trying to pull off a Shaco clone control. So awkward that anyone watching would immediately think, Yeah, that’s obviously a clone.

Kang Woohyuk

I opened our private messenger chat. The last message was still the one I had sent suggesting we meet in front of the school. The chat window was completely silent after that. Looking at it now, I couldn’t help but wonder again if he actually liked me. Didn’t normal guys usually reach out first in a situation like this?

“No, no. Oppa might be different.”

He was a high-level player fully armed with push-and-pull tactics and every kind of fox-like trick. For all I knew, he was deliberately keeping his distance right now just to make me anxious. Ah, my head hurts. Thinking this hard isn’t my specialty at all.

Even in games, I was much closer to a physical player than a brain player. My game knowledge wasn’t terrible, but since I mainly played ADC, I usually won through mechanics anyway.

“Alright. Let’s just do it.”

Execution power. I decided to trust the same drive that had brought me this far. Life is like drinking games, right? If you have no experience and your brain’s not working, you just have to power through with your body. Let’s stop thinking weird things. Just do it. I could only pray that tonight wouldn’t become a dark chapter in my history.

Oppa, are you free this weekend by any chance—

I deleted the unsent message with another tap.

“Ah… this doesn’t feel right.”

What if he hates it? What if he thinks I’m some weird girl? …Or what if he turns me down?

All kinds of ridiculous delusions filled my head.

Oppa, are you available? I was thinking—

I deleted it again.

“What should I even send… Sis… help meee…”

I felt like screaming an SOS into the sky. Maybe one of my ancestors who was good at dating could drop some inspiration on me.

I kept writing and deleting messages over and over.

“At this rate I’m going to stay up all night… for real.”

This wasn’t working. I might not send a single character even if the sun came up. I steeled my resolve.

That’s right, Lee Yuna. You already got drunk and acted like a total mess. What’s there to be embarrassed about at this point? If I had cared about looking pathetic, I wouldn’t have been able to face Oppa’s face all this time. When it comes to moments like this, you just have to be shameless.

“It’s not like Oppa hates me, right?”

He already has feelings for me. There’s no need to be this scared. Just send it! Hit the button already!

With trembling fingers, I finally pressed send. The message flew off in an instant. I squeezed my eyes shut because I couldn’t bear to look at the screen. Every moment of hesitation until now had become meaningless.

Oppa. What are you doing?

And the moment it was sent, regret came crashing in.

It was already late at night since my stream had just ended. I wasn’t sure if Oppa was nocturnal or not, but wasn’t this about the time normal people went to sleep? Wasn’t asking what he was doing right now a little weird? Should I delete the message and send something else?

The second I was lost in that thought, the little yellow number 1 on our chat window disappeared.

Ah. Today’s stream was satisfying too.

I closed Twitch with a content heart now that Uni’s broadcast was over. Having her voice dub a visual novel… how should I put it? It felt like I’d gone to heaven. Of course all the female characters had voice actresses, so I only dubbed the male ones. And as I kept going, even Uni started enjoying it, saying the girls were so cute. As expected, Uni had strong otaku tendencies.

Wait, how does falling like that even work? Is that actually possible?

So, do you hate it? No, I actually like watching it. Should we appreciate it together?

Her reactions whenever an event scene with an absurd plot came up. Yeah. That’s just how those games are. Nobody watches morning dramas to understand the plot. It’s the same thing.

After the stream ended, it was time to wander around in my phone’s little world. Right in the middle of enjoying that happy time—

Oppa. What are you doing?

—a message from Yuna popped up on my screen.

“…Why is she texting me at this hour?”

My first thought was group project stuff. But the topic had already been decided today, so there shouldn’t be any issues. Or maybe I had made some kind of mistake today?

When I thought back on the day, the incident on the bus ride home came to mind again. That was less of a mistake and more of an accident. Just remembering it made my heart race all over again. The sensation from that moment came back so vividly that my pulse quickened.

I hesitated for a long time over what to reply. Aaaah, I don’t know. Let’s just get it over with quickly. If I waited too long to reply, it would only get harder. She might be waiting for my answer too. It felt stupid to overthink something that might be nothing, so I just sent a casual reply.

Seeing her trying to end the conversation out of consideration for me, I hurriedly typed back.

It’s nothing much. What do you usually do on weekends, Oppa?

Weekends, huh. On weekends I mostly watch your streams, and when there’s no live I watch the VODs. Other than that I game? That was pretty much it.

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Why is she asking me this? I could feel the otaku delusions and happiness circuits in my brain kicking into full gear. Could it be that Yuna wants to hang out with me on the weekend…? No way. There’s no chance. Get a grip.

I lightly slapped my own cheek at the embarrassing thought. What kind of nonsense was I thinking…

If you have time this weekend… do you want to hang out with me?

But then it actually happened.

I tried hard to calm my heart that was now pounding even harder than before. Why was she suddenly saying this? I started getting curious about Yuna’s intentions. Was it really the kind of intention I was imagining? Was it okay for me to think so arrogantly?

With hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, I barely managed to reply.

Sunday was the one day of the week Uni took a break. I knew that well, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so I suggested it to her.

…Is this what I think it is?

It didn’t feel real, so I shook my head back and forth. I closed my eyes and opened them again, rolled around on the bed. No matter how many times I looked, the messages in the chat window didn’t disappear. Which meant this wasn’t a dream.

This was… a date invitation, right?

It was the first time I’d ever received a date invitation in my life, and I was pure excitement.

Along with a ZZZ speech bubble, she sent a sleeping cat emoji. I didn’t know the exact reason, but even I could understand a signal this clear. This was a green light, right? It had to be. Maybe she enjoyed the time we spent together. Or was it my face? No, probably not my face. I wasn’t ugly, but I wasn’t the kind of guy girls liked just by looking at him either.

“Well, whatever. Let’s just enjoy it for now.”

If it had been any other time, I would have overthought it a lot, but right now I didn’t want to complicate things. I just wanted to enjoy this situation. The situation where I was going on a PC room date with my favorite streamer.

“Looks like I’m not sleeping tonight.”

I already knew my sleep for the night was over. The delusion circuits in my brain had already started running at full speed; there was no way I could fall asleep.

But now that I thought about it, Uni and I had the same main position. If we were going by the conversations we’d had, there was a high chance we’d end up playing League of Legends at the PC room. The problem was that my main was also ADC. That meant one of us would have to play a different lane.

Telling Uni not to play ADC would be a crime. A very serious one at that.

I jumped up from the bed and sat down in front of the computer again.

“I’m screwed. Starting tonight, I’m going into support boot camp.”

From now on, my main position is support. That night, I spammed solo queue as support until the sun came up.