But My Partner Meant It
After a long stretch of streaming together, the time had finally come to end the broadcast.
"Well then, I’ll wrap things up here."
"Then what am I supposed to do? It’s too late."
"You’re the ones who kept begging me into doing a real-life collab today!"
"I’m sorry, but we really are ending it here. We’ve been on stream for an awfully long time today."
Only after Sia spoke up did the chat finally quiet down a little. Well, the messages were still flying by at the same speed, but the ratio of people actually typing dropped off dramatically.
Did my viewers think I was easy to push around? When I said something, they wouldn’t stop, but the second Sia spoke, they all shut up.
"All right then, we’ll end today’s broadcast here."
"Thank you, everyone! Have a good night!"
I hit end stream, but the chatroom was still exploding like crazy. It only calmed down a little after I set the chat restriction to one hour.
"Wow. Every time we do a real-life collab, it turns into this. I’m going insane."
"You understand why, though. You were the one who got the most intensely invested whenever you watched other people’s WGM Content."
"If you put it like that, I don’t really have anything to say..."
I leaned back in my chair. After streaming for so long, my whole body felt stiff and sore. Maybe I should move around a little. Even as the thought crossed my mind, I was too tired to do anything but keep slouching in my seat.
"The next collab is the last one, huh."
The calendar beside my desk had the final collab day marked in it. It was both the day of our real-life collab and the last day of our WGM Content together.
"How do you feel?"
"Kind of... relieved and disappointed at the same time."
"Why, because it feels like you’re really breaking up?"
"Well, something like that."
I guess it just felt a little empty.
While we were doing WGM Content, I’d often felt like something inside me was being filled up. Probably because there was someone there cheering me on from beside me.
The thought that something like that, even if it was only a concept, would vanish all at once like smoke made me feel a little hollow.
"Then don’t end it."
After she said that, a brief silence settled over us. Don’t end it? I straightened up in my chair and looked toward her.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said. No, let me make it even clearer."
Her outstretched hand touched mine on the armrest. I started to pull away in surprise, but she was faster, slipping her fingers between mine and interlacing them.
With our fingers locked together, she gave my hand a sharp tug, and my body followed helplessly. Now we were seated in our chairs, facing each other, and Sia said,
"I like you."
Let’s end our WGM Content and make this a real relationship.