Stream Ended

I'd fled the house on New Year's morning like I was making a break for it, stopped by Jae-min's place to pay my respects to her parents… and after that, about a week went by. She was busy getting ready for her internet stream.

Of course, "busy" just meant she was a little more flustered than usual — not that she looked like work was chasing her down. If anyone was busy, it was me.

I had to draw the character she'd use on stream, and once a design was locked in, ripping it apart and redoing it would be a nightmare, so I agonized over it. Still, the original reference — Yoo Jae-min herself — was already a beautiful girl with a rock-solid image, so nailing the distinctive features wasn't hard.

Dark crimson long hair, a massive chest, a short little frame… yeah.

The outfit gave me more trouble, but for the default I just drew the white T-shirt she always wore. Clothes could always be swapped out later.

I was still turning that over in my head when the monitor switched over and her stream went live. The main screen of the League game came up, and in one corner stood the character illustration — the same deformed SD character art that had been set as her Witchiz streamer profile picture. It suited her image surprisingly well.

…Hello. I'm Gemini, LCL Master.

Same as before: I was in my room, she was streaming from hers. I was the manager, so there was no need to be in the same room.

And that name, Gemini — I'd come up with it. The reason I'd settled on Gemini was… every time you heard it, it sounded like she was cooing "Jae-min" in a cute voice. That was the most important reason of all. She'd refused point-blank, but she hadn't had any good ideas of her own either, so in the end my suggestion got forced through.

Alright, starting ranked.

She glanced at the silent chat, then started the game like it was nothing. Honestly it was pretty bland, but the stream had only just begun. From the times I'd watched over her shoulder before, she was good enough at the game that there was something to watch. Sure, people who wanted that kind of thing would go look up pro player streams… but in this world, being a girl streamer was differentiation enough.

Not long after the stream went up, the viewer count — not counting me — hit three. For a brand-new streamer nobody had ever heard of, that was doing pretty well. The problem was that none of them were typing in chat, just silent lurkers — but silent was still better than toxic. A lot of people who just watched the game didn't chat much anyway.

Going Steel Agent.

A classic blade-type champion, the kind that wall-runs like something out of a comic. Something I'd been noticing lately: her skill had gotten absurdly good. Where the old her had been a typical top-lane tank built around game sense, these days she was mostly playing pure physical-domination style. Looking at her recent match history, she hadn't lost a single laning phase. She'd been scraping by in low Master before, but lately she seemed solidly mid-tier… if she kept grinding on stream, Grandmaster didn't seem impossible.

Looks like the enemy wants to engage first. Jungle's… not coming, I don't think. Do they think they can win a trade? With this matchup it's a control fight.

Just like she said, the enemy champion opened the trade first. They seemed to be trying to dodge Steel Agent's skill with a dash, but she moved like she'd predicted it somehow and shaved off more of their health. Hmm… at this rate, a clean win?

That was when it happened.

Huh? What the hell was this?

Other lanes look fine too. If jungle just does their job we should win.

Jae-min didn't seem to be watching chat at all, but nearly a hundred people had poured in. Had someone dropped coordinates somewhere?

Around the time that thought crossed my mind, chat messages started planting a bad feeling in the back of my skull.

Don't tell me…

……Eh……?

Both of us froze.

The hands that had been controlling the game went completely still.

I shot up from my seat and bolted for her room.

Click.

"……Uh……."

At the sound of the door opening, she turned to look at me with a face gone bright red. Yeah — her eyes had completely checked out. She'd probably put it all together by now.

I waved a hand, gesturing for her to kill the stream. She nodded with a creaking, mechanical motion and dragged the mouse cursor over to the End Stream button. Then she saw the text that came up on screen and froze all over again.

"……Ah……aaaaaaaah!"

Don't tell me… she didn't hit the wrong one, right?

"T-to-today's st-st-stream ends here!"

The Yes button clicked.

Her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes trembled as she stared at that notification window. …Probably the first time she'd ever seen it.

"……W-wha, wha-wha-what do I do?"

"Ugh……."

What was there to do? Things had just turned out this way. Watching her shake — whether from shame or terror — I stepped closer.

"Come here. Don't be like that."

"U-uhhnn?"

"C'mon. I'll hold you."

Comforting her was my job at times like this. When she called back but still couldn't peel her feet off the floor, I wrapped my arms around her from behind.

"It's fine. So what?"

"……Nn."

When you thought about it, was this any different from what happened on New Year's? Getting caught doing that kind of thing was always a possibility. Well — there was one premise that needed to be true first.

"Now that it's come to this, there's a way."

"……W-what way……?"

"We go public about you being a married woman."

"……."

The trembling in my arms stopped.

"Right? This is only your second stream anyway, and you haven't lied to the viewers about anything, so what's the problem? Just say you were a married woman, so yeah, that kind of thing can happen."

"……That's not the problem!"

She shouted at the top of her lungs.

"……I-it's fucking embarrassing……."

"Th…at much I can't really help, yeah."

Like I'd thought earlier — things had already gone this far, so what could you do? …But what the hell had actually happened?

"Hold on a second."

"……Nnngh……."

I pulled out my phone with one hand and searched to see if anything related had hit the communities. Coordinates had clearly been dropped, so digging around should turn something up…

No sooner had the thought formed than the information appeared. A brand-new post, still hot, uploaded just moments ago.

"……."

Uh, hmm……. Was this right? ……Better not show Jae-min this one.

"Jae-min."

"……Yeah?"

"Just forget about it."

"Hik♥!? Wh-what are you doing……!"

"C'mon, over here. Just do the usual and relax."

"……Nnngh……ah, okay……♥"

Her stress-relief method had always been this, so this should work it out. The problems could wait for later. Thinking that, I scooped her up and dove onto the bed.

……And that same night, in the early hours, a single post went up on the comics board.